{"id":40598,"date":"2020-08-01T08:16:05","date_gmt":"2020-08-01T15:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=40598"},"modified":"2020-08-01T08:16:05","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T15:16:05","slug":"open-thread-8-1-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2020\/08\/01\/open-thread-8-1-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread – 8\/1\/2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a WWWendy day, and I’m in a big rush.  This is my only article today.  JD, would you cover Bill Maher, please?  Have a great day!<\/font><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

Today’s took me 3:52 (average 5:51).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

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Trump* Virus Update<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"0801TrumpVirusMap\"<\/font><\/p>\n

US Cases: 4,709,713
US Deaths: 156,826
World Cases: 17,824,476
World Deaths: 684,197
Trump’s* Share of World Deaths: 22.9%
US Share of World Population: 4.3%<\/font><\/strong> <\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Welcome to the next election battleground: the post office.<\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s yearslong [sic<\/em>] assault on the Postal Service and his increasingly dire warnings about the dangers of voting by mail are colliding as the presidential campaign enters its final months. The result has been to generate new concerns about how he could influence an election conducted during a pandemic in which greater-than-ever numbers of voters will submit their ballots by mail\u2026 <\/p>\n

\u2026But they are warning that a huge wave of ballots could overwhelm mail carriers unless the Postal Service, in financial difficulty for years, receives emergency funding that Republicans are blocking during negotiations over another pandemic relief bill. <\/p>\n

At the same time, the mail system is being undercut in ways set in motion by Mr. Trump. Fueled by animus for Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and surrounded by advisers who have long called for privatizing the post office, Mr. Trump and his appointees have begun taking cost-cutting steps that appear to have led to slower and less reliable delivery. <\/p>\n

For decades Republican SOP has been to intentionally cause crises and to blame Democrats for their effects.  RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font> <\/p>\n

From Vanity Fair<\/a>: <\/font>\u2026Kushner\u2019s team hammered out a detailed plan, which Vanity Fair obtained. It stated, \u201cCurrent challenges that need to be resolved include uneven testing capacity and supplies throughout the US, both between and within regions, significant delays in reporting results (4-11 days), and national supply chain constraints, such as PPE, swabs, and certain testing reagents.\u201d <\/p>\n

The plan called for the federal government to coordinate distribution of test kits, so they could be surged to heavily affected areas, and oversee a national contact-tracing infrastructure. It also proposed lifting contract restrictions on where doctors and hospitals send tests, allowing any laboratory with capacity to test any sample. It proposed a massive scale-up of antibody testing to facilitate a return to work. It called for mandating that all COVID-19 test results from any kind of testing, taken anywhere, be reported to a national repository as well as to state and local health departments. <\/p>\n

And it proposed establishing \u201ca national Sentinel Surveillance System\u201d with \u201creal-time intelligence capabilities to understand leading indicators where hot spots are arising and where the risks are high vs. where people can get back to work.\u201d <\/p>\n

By early April, some who worked on the plan were given the strong impression that it would soon be shared with President Trump and announced by the White House. The plan, though imperfect, was a starting point. Simply working together as a nation on it \u201cwould have put us in a fundamentally different place,\u201d said the participant. <\/p>\n

But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it\u2014efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House\u2019s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically\u2014and erroneously, it would turn out\u2014predicted the virus would soon fade away. <\/p>\n

Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House\u2019s official coronavirus task force. <\/p>\n

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner\u2019s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. \u201cThe political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,\u201d said the expert\u2026. <\/p>\n

Click through to read the entire article.  What do we call this? Is it murder, sedition or both?  RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font> <\/p>\n

From YouTube<\/a> (a blast of protest): <\/font>Pink – Dear MR President OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO <\/p>\n