A free gallon of tar and a bag of feathers

If you filed taxes and at some point gave the IRS a way to direct deposit the money, you may soon (or may have already gotten) the $1,200 rescue money from the last virus relief bill. For those of us who don’t want to tell the feds where our money is, we’ll have to wait for a paper check.

And that wait will have to be a little longer. The nasty guy insisted each check display his name. Which means Department of Treasury programmers are scrambling to to make that happen. Should only take a few days. That prompted Mark Sumner of Daily Kos to write that nobody gets paid until his ego is stroked.

Of course, by the time the checks actually arrive, it may be too late for that rent or food or medicine you had planned for that money. Leaving your family with a real puzzle over how to spend all those Trumpbucks.

That’s why we’re opening a special pop-up store to sell a $1,200 pitchfork and box of torches special. Act quickly to receive a free gallon of tar and a bag of feathers. And believe me, it all has Trump’s name on it.

Now that white-collar workers – salespeople, corporate lawyers, even healthcare accountants – are becoming unemployed due to no customers, perhaps the next rescue package will be a bit more generous. Not only are these people likely to have a higher income, needing more than a solitary $1200 check to see them through the mess, but lawmakers are more likely to know these kinds of people. And, yes, I know that a single $1200 check for restaurant workers is woefully inadequate.



In another post Mark Sumner reports that new studies and new modeling show that if stay at home orders had been issued two weeks earlier – and had been issued by the nasty guy to take effect across the country – then 90% of the projected deaths could have been prevented. He includes a graph that Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding posted from the New York Times. The current projection is about 60,000 deaths. If the shutdown happened two weeks earlier, the projection came to 6,000 deaths.



My friend and debate partner spent his career as a mathematician doing all sorts of modeling. He and I have talked many times about looking at this thing or that in terms of a model. He will find this next bit either highly comical or extremely and annoyingly stupid. Texas Senator John Cornyn tweeted:

After #COVID–19 crisis passes, could we have a good faith discussion about the uses and abuses of "modeling" to predict the future? Everything from public health, to economic to climate predictions. It isn't the scientific method, folks.

The nasty guy is now insisting that the economy should be reopened on May 1. The attempt at opening on Easter went so well. Kerry Eleveld of Kos says this time he seems to be more stubborn. So his staff is working to get lots of people to agree, like business leaders and the US Chamber of Commerce. Eleveld calls this effort Operation Scapegoat. When this effort results in more deaths – and it will, if enacted – then the nasty guy has someone to blame.

Eleveld says the nasty guy chose May 1 because many election strategists say voters base a big part of the decision on the state of the economy and their perception of the economy is based on what was going on at the end of the second quarter, or end of June. So this gives the economy two months to get humming again.

I add: What will influence the decision more: the perhaps functioning economy, or a million dead? Are they going to be influenced more by their empty bank accounts or by grandma, or even dad dead because the nasty guy screwed up?



Speaking of scapegoats… The nasty guy did indeed declare he is halting payment to the World Health Organization. Something about them not doing things they don’t do, like demand UN members gang up on China (another UN member) by stopping all flights to and from there. Nothing like cutting funding to a world wide health organization during a pandemic. Is he not satisfied with the level of killing in America and wants to boost the death count worldwide? Mark Sumner says that the nasty guy is doing this to say the huge number of deaths in America is the fault of the WHO.



California Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of those governors actually working to protect his citizens tweeted:

When it comes to re-opening, SCIENCE -- not politics -- must be California's guide.

CA has developed 6 indicators that will help guide how and when we decide to re-open our economy. This isn’t about an on/off switch. This will be a thoughtful process -- led by public health...

He then lists those six indicators. They include: Ability to monitor and protect our communities through testing, contact tracing, isolating, and supporting those who are positive or exposed. Ability of hospitals and health systems to handle surges.



Sarah Kendzior tweeted about a new episode of her Gaslit Nation podcast. I’ll wait a few days to work from the transcript. Here are a couple of quotes:

There's no official national mourning. There's no recognition of the grief we all feel, no matter who we voted for. The Trump admin won't even lower the flag to half-staff to commemorate the dead, including those who died saving lives.
…
The reason we don't have the flag lowered or a national recognition of mourning is because Trump must make everything revolve around Trump. It's about only him and his emotional state. He takes this moment of vulnerability and turns it into theft.

Jared Yates Sexton, a political analyst from Indiana, tweeted a thread:

I hate to tell you, but as somebody from rural America, there are going to be so many uncounted deaths during this pandemic. Poor Americans are taught not to get medical care, are riddled with preexisting conditions, and local journalism has been absolutely destroyed.

He adds that the media isn’t going to notice, Fox News has told them it’s a political hoax, hospitals are outdated and unprepared, and most don’t have health insurance.

In another tweet he wrote:

I grew up in a small town. My family is sick, riddled with preexisting conditions, have been taught not to get medical help, trained not to trust science or experts, and their town's medical infrastructure is virtually nonexistent.

Tragedy is inevitable.

In the comments to this tweet is this one from N6:

This is what I don't get...
Isn't the Trump-regime basically going to decimate it's own support-base?

Yes, it'll hurt everyone - but nationally; it will hurt Trump voters MORE. They're older. More often male. More likely to LISTEN to that idiot. Less likely to take precautions.

To which Eric Lippert replied:

Rephrase your question as: under what circumstances do you not care that you're killing your own voters? The answer is pretty clear when you phrase it like that.

Robert Klemko tweeted:

Last month was the first March without a school shooting in the United States since 2002.

One person, intent on confusing causation with correlation, replied:

It happened to coincide with record gun sales across the nation. It's almost as if guns aren't the problem, bad people intent on causing harm are.

Klemko set him straight quickly:

Nah. It coincided with schools not being open to students.