Coronavirus News (290)

Stephen Colbert Anxiously Reads the Latest Polls The “Late Show” host tossed some table salt and knocked on wood so as not to jinx Biden, who currently leads the president by 10 points in the polls. ..............  “According to most national polls, Joe Biden is leading President Trump by about 10 points. And based on the last election, that means Biden’s losing by four points.” — JIMMY FALLON ............... “Yep, for Democrats it still feels eerily similar to the 2016 election. It's like ‘Friday the 13th’ when the kids think Jason’s finally dead and you’re like, ‘He’s right behind you!’” — JIMMY FALLON ............  “Trump referred to Fauci and other scientists as ‘idiots’ — then he planned another giant indoor rally in a Covid hot spot.” — JIMMY FALLON “Trump then added, ‘Listening to scientists is the craziest thing in the whole wide flat world.’” — JIMMY FALLON ............  But I don’t know why Donald Trump still thinks he can ignore this virus and it will go away. I mean that strategy — it didn’t work with Don Jr. and Eric and it isn’t going to work here.” — JIMMY KIMMEL 

Trump Is Giving Up Against both the coronavirus and Joe Biden, the president’s strategy increasingly accepts defeat. ......... what we’re watching is an incumbent doing everything in his power to run up his own margin of defeat. ..........  The resulting incoherence just feeds his tendency to return to old grudges and very online grievances, as though he’s running for the presidency of talk radio or his own Twitter feed. Without Steve Bannon to keep him grounded or Clinton to keep him focused, he’s making a closing “argument” that’s indistinguishable from a sales pitch for a TV show or a newsletter — suggesting that even more than four years ago, the president assumes he’ll be in the media business as soon as the election returns come in.............. argues that we’re overtesting, overreacting and probably close to herd immunity anyway.  

Life (and Death) Without God The philosopher Todd May is an atheist who rejects the supernatural, but not the people who believe in it. .......... My particular atheism commits me to thinking that those who believe in the supernatural are mistaken. ......... I have been involved in grass-roots political movements for decades and some of the most courageous people I know act out of their religious conviction. ......... Atheism, in short, is a view — or a set of views — about the supernatural; it is not a view about people who believe in the supernatural. ......... The Soviet Union, for instance, persecuted Jews and other believers in the name of a doctrine that they at least saw as tied to atheism, and today the Chinese government is committing genocidal acts against the Uighurs for related reasons. ..........  I do volunteer teaching in a maximum-security prison, where faith among the incarcerated men often plays an important role in sustaining them psychologically.    

My party may have given up it’s voice on things that matter but I have not. This election is about the course of a nation and the character of her people reflected in the leader they choose. America matters. I’m voting for ⁦@JoeBiden⁩ https://t.co/0sEy7D0bOk

— Michael Steele (@MichaelSteele) October 20, 2020

Why Biden Will Need to Spend Big The economic case for deficit spending is overwhelming. ........ For now, and for at least the next few years, large-scale deficit spending isn’t just OK, it’s the only responsible thing to do. ...........  we won’t be able to have a full economic recovery as long as the pandemic is still raging. ......... another round of large-scale fiscal relief, especially aid to the unemployed and to cash-strapped state and local governments ........... will also help avoid a downward economic spiral, by heading off a potential collapse in consumer and local government spending. ..........  think of what smart businesses do when they face great investment opportunities and have access to cheap capital: they raise a lot of money. ............   there’s a global savings glut — the sums individuals want to save persistently exceed the sums businesses are willing to invest .......... this situation — private savings all dressed up with nowhere to go — translates into extremely low government borrowing costs  

 An Undercover Trip Into the Rageful Worlds of Incels and White Supremacists

Coronavirus News (289)

The winners of the pandemic

 

  

Fauci ‘absolutely not’ surprised Trump contracted coronavirus after ‘superspreader’ event

The pandemic is rewriting the rules of science. But at what cost?

As Washington scrambles for more bailout money, the Fed sits on mountain of untapped funds  Hundreds of billions of dollars from the Cares Act remains uncommitted and may go unspent despite scramble by White House to produce more aid ............... Federal Reserve and Treasury Department officials say there are ways the money could be repurposed to more directly reach businesses and workers but say they cannot do so without congressional approval. ........... Republican lawmakers have expressed openness to pass legislation to immediately repurpose these funds, but Pelosi has rejected that approach in favor of a more comprehensive bill. .......... As financial relief remains idle, cities and states have begun exploring budget cuts to make up for revenue shortfalls, with Chicago and New York City contemplating dramatic cuts to their workforces. .........  One bank told Roth to take out a loan against her house — and then offered to pray for her. ........ Congress should take the untapped money “put to the Fed for a purpose the Fed could not reasonably achieve” and use it instead to fund another round of stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment benefits and infrastructure needs. .............. These programs are square pegs trying to fit a round hole. The Fed cannot design a program to get money into the classroom to build plexiglass to help kids go back into school.” 

Trump’s den of dissent: Inside the White House task force as coronavirus surges As summer faded into autumn and the novel coronavirus continued to ravage the nation unabated, Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist whose commentary on Fox News led President Trump to recruit him to the White House, consolidated his power over the government’s pandemic response. ...........  Atlas also cultivated Trump’s affection with his public assertions that the pandemic is nearly over, despite death and infection counts showing otherwise, and his willingness to tell the public that a vaccine could be developed before the Nov. 3 election, despite clear indications of a slower timetable.  ....... Atlas, whom colleagues said they regard as ill-informed, manipulative and at times dishonest ..........  Birx, whose profile and influence has eroded considerably since Atlas’s arrival, told Pence’s office that she does not trust Atlas ..........  a U.S. response increasingly plagued by distrust, infighting and lethargy, just as experts predict coronavirus cases could surge this winter and deaths could reach 400,000 by year’s end. ......... The doctor’s denial conflicts with his previous public and private statements, including his recent endorsement of the “Great Barrington Declaration,” which effectively promotes a herd immunity strategy. ........ On Saturday, Atlas wrote on Twitter that masks do not work, prompting the social media site to remove the tweet for violating its safety rules for spreading misinformation. Several medical and public health experts flagged the tweet as dangerous misinformation coming from a primary adviser to the president. ......... Trump and many of his advisers have come to believe that the key to a revived economy and a return to normality is a vaccine. “They’ve given up on everything else” ............ “It seems to me this is policy-based evidence-making rather than evidence-based policymaking” ...........   Fauci, Birx, Surgeon General Jerome Adams and other members have confided in others that they are dispirited. ........ Birx and Fauci have advocated dramatically increasing the nation’s testing capacity, especially as experts anticipate a devastating increase in cases this winter. ............. a consensus has formed within the administration that some measures to mitigate the spread of the virus may not be worth the trouble. ............. “This thing can take off. All you need to do is look at what’s happened at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over the last two weeks to see that this thing is way faster than we’re giving it credit for.” .............. In a video taped at the White House on Oct. 5, he vowed, “The vaccines are coming momentarily.”  ......... Trump told supporters, “The vaccines are coming soon, the therapeutics and, frankly, the cure. All I know is I took something, whatever the hell it was. I felt good very quickly . . . I felt like Superman.” ........... Pfizer said it will not be able to seek an emergency use authorization from the FDA until the third week of November, at the earliest ............ Trump’s notion of a vaccine as a cure-all for the pandemic is similarly miraculous ......... “There’s no fairy-tale ending to this pandemic. We’re going to be dealing with it at least through 2021, and it’s likely to have implications for how we do everything from work to school, even with vaccines.” .......... “Remember, we have vaccines against the flu, and we still have flu.” .............  Earlier this fall, Trump called Albert Bourla, the chief executive of Pfizer, and asked whether a vaccine could be ready for distribution by late October, before the election. ............ Trump’s view of the FDA has darkened considerably in recent weeks. The president now believes — despite the absence of any such evidence — that officials there are working against him to slow-walk vaccine approval as “some sort of ‘deep state’ push to keep him from winning reelection” ...................  50 percent of Americans said they would be willing to take a coronavirus vaccine approved by the FDA “right now at no cost.” That is a sharp decline from 61 percent in August and 66 percent in July. .......... “This administration, like it does with everything, is overselling vaccines. They make it sound like a magic dust they’ll distribute over the country and the disease will go away . . . What could happen is people think, great, I just got my vaccine, I can throw away my mask, I can engage in high-risk activity, and then we’d actually take a step back.” ...............  Most controversially, Atlas has pushed a baseless theory inside the task force that the U.S. population is close to herd immunity ... despite a scientific consensus that the United States is nowhere close. ............  about 9 percent of people in the United States had antibodies against the virus. ....... “He’s not an infectious-disease expert,” Guthrie said. “Oh, I don’t know,” Trump replied. “Look, he’s an expert. He’s one of the experts of the world.”