Politics

FOCUS: Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=54178">Amanda Mull, The Atlantic</a>

Thursday, 30 April 2020 11:22

Mull writes: "Georgia's brash reopening puts much of the state�s working class in an impossible bind: risk death at work, or risk ruining yourself financially at home."

Georgia's Republican governor ended many of the states lockdown restrictions. (photo: Dustin Chambers/Getty)

Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice

By Amanda Mull, The Atlantic

30 April 20

The state is about to find out how many people need to lose their lives to shore up the economy.

t first, Derek Canavaggio thought he would be able to ride out the coronavirus pandemic at home until things were safe. As a bar manager at the Globe in Athens, Georgia, Canavaggio hasn�t been allowed to work for weeks. Local officials in Athens issued Georgia�s first local shelter-in-place order on March 19, canceling the events that usually make spring a busy time for Athens bars and effectively eliminating the city�s rowdy downtown party district built around the University of Georgia. The state�s governor, Brian Kemp, followed in early April with a statewide shutdown.

But then the governor sent Canavaggio into what he calls �spreadsheet hell.� In an announcement last week, Kemp abruptly reversed course on the shutdown, ending many of his own restrictions on businesses and overruling those put in place by mayors throughout the state. On Friday, gyms, churches, hair and nail salons, and tattoo parlors were allowed to reopen, if the owners were willing. Yesterday, restaurants and movie theaters came back. The U-turn has left Georgians scrambling. Canavaggio has spent days crunching the numbers to figure out whether reopening his bar is worth the safety risk, or even feasible in the first place, given how persistent safety concerns could crater demand for a leisurely indoor happy hour. �We can�t figure out a way to make the numbers work to sustain business and pay rent and pay everybody to go back and risk their lives,� he told me. �If we tried to open on Monday, we�d be closed in two weeks, probably for good and with more debt on our hands.�

Kemp�s order shocked people across the country. For weeks, Americans have watched the coronavirus sweep from city to city, overwhelming hospitals, traumatizing health-care workers, and leaving tens of thousands of bodies in makeshift morgues. Georgia has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, and the state�s testing efforts have provided an incomplete look at how far the virus continues to spread. That testing capacity�which public-health leaders consider necessary for safely ending lockdowns�has lagged behind the nation�s for much of the past two months. Kemp�s move to reopen was condemned by scientists, high-ranking Republicans from his own state, and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms; it even drew a public rebuke from President Donald Trump, who had reportedly approved the measures before distancing himself from the governor amid the backlash.

Public-health officials broadly agree that reopening businesses�especially those that require close physical contact�in places where the virus has already spread will kill people. Even so, many other states are quietly considering similar moves to Georgia�s. Most are taking a more measured approach�waiting a bit longer to reopen, setting testing or infection benchmarks that must first be met�but some, such as Oklahoma and Colorado, have already put similar plans in motion. By acting with particular haste in what he calls a crucial move to restore economic stability, Kemp has positioned Georgia at the center of a national fight over whether to stay the course with social distancing or try to return to some semblance of normalcy. But it�s easy to misunderstand which Americans stand on each side. Many Georgians have no delusions about the risks of reopening, even if they need to return to work for financial reasons. Among the dozen local leaders, business owners, and workers I spoke with for this article, all said they know some people who disagreed with the lockdown but were complying nonetheless. No one reported serious acrimony in their communities.

Instead, their stories depict a struggle between a state government and ordinary people. Georgia�s brash reopening puts much of the state�s working class in an impossible bind: risk death at work, or risk ruining yourself financially at home. In the grips of a pandemic, the approach is a morbid experiment in just how far states can push their people. Georgians are now the largely unwilling canaries in an invisible coal mine, sent to find out just how many individuals need to lose their job or their life for a state to work through a plague.

Estimates vary as to how many businesses might actually reopen now, but none of the Georgians I talked with knew many people who intended to voluntarily head right back to work. That was true in Athens, which has long been one of the Deep South�s most progressive cities, as well as in Blackshear, a small town in the rural southeastern part of the state that tends toward conservatism. Kelly Girtz, the mayor of Athens, estimated that about 90 percent of the local business owners he had spoken with in the past week had no intention of reopening immediately. �Georgia�s plan simply is not that well designed,� Girtz says. �To call it a �plan� might be overstating the case.�

Several of Georgia�s Republican mayors did not return requests for comment, but some have publicly supported Kemp�s decision. In Watkinsville, which is near Athens, Mayor Bob Smith released a statement on Sunday encouraging the town�s residents to return to religious services and their jobs.

Certainly, demand for these businesses� services still exists. For many hair stylists, the response to Kemp�s reopening announcement was swift. Zach Lee, a salon owner in Blackshear who closed his business well in advance of the state�s shutdown, told me he heard from clients within 15 minutes of Kemp�s press conference. Lee had to tell them he wouldn�t be reopening yet because he didn�t think doing so was safe. �I want to work. I�m a workaholic. I can�t wait to get back behind the chair and do hair,� he said. �But now is not the time. I really don�t feel like being the guinea pig in this situation, and I don�t want my clients being guinea pigs either.�

Lee has been without an income for six weeks. He�s heard that at least another six will pass before he�s able to access any of the federal relief funds that have been promised for small businesses like his. Many of his clients have bought gift cards or mailed him checks to help with his expenses while he stays at home.

In the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, another salon owner, Sabra Dupree, has decided to give reopening a shot. She has run a place called Kids Kuts for more than 20 years. When the governor shut down businesses like hers, she began preparing to eventually reopen. �We gutted the whole salon,� she told me. �We sanitized it. We cleaned it. We repainted the stations. We took the porous countertops off and put granite countertops on.� Only three of the salon�s five staff members want to work right now. During their shifts, they�ll be fully outfitted in the protective gear�masks, face shields, gowns, and gloves�now required by the state�s board of cosmetology. �If I�m doing it wrong, shame on me, but I�m trying,� Dupree said. �It would be different if I were sitting here in a mansion and I could give every single person $10,000 to be closed and stay home, but that�s not an option for us.�

Extensive protective gear is required in most types of reopened businesses, which was a sticking point for every Georgian I spoke with who was contemplating a return to work. They said the state is providing neither the gear itself nor guidance on how to get it, so they�re in the same market as everyone else, competing with medical workers and high-risk people who need masks to safely go to the grocery store. Lee said he doesn�t �feel comfortable buying up that stuff right now when there�s hospitals that are needing it and they can�t get it.� Dupree said that to secure the gear she needed to reopen, she had to ask clients and friends to volunteer their extras.

Many workers and business owners have to factor in competition. �The trouble with [Kemp�s] ad hoc orders is that they sort of gin up a generalized interest in commercial or business activity,� said Girtz, who spent much of his career as a local public-school teacher before becoming the mayor of Athens last year. When people hear on the news that businesses are open, many will assume that it�s safe to patronize them, and may miss more nuanced information about ongoing safety concerns. And when only some businesses open, they�re able to capitalize on this interest and swipe business from still-closed competitors.

For hair stylists, barbers, and nail technicians, whose livelihoods are especially reliant on loyal customers, losing business to others is worrisome. �I want to keep my clients and I don�t want them to see anybody else,� Jillian Yeskel, a stylist in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, told me. Yeskel has asthma, which might worsen cases of COVID-19, so she�s decided to hold off on returning to work for at least another two weeks. During the shutdown order, she didn�t have to pay rent for her salon station like she normally does, but now that the order has been lifted, she�ll have to start paying again.

For restaurants, the decision to open up can be even more complicated. Profit margins in the food-service industry are already notoriously slim, and Georgia�s restaurants have been instructed to reduce their capacity by half to ensure distance between customers. Places like the Globe that rely on alcohol sales for most of their profits can�t meaningfully offset the loss with limited in-house service and takeout and delivery. �Our rent isn�t changing, but our capacity for our building is greatly reduced,� Canavaggio said. �Unless we start selling $400 beers, what do we have?� The Globe, he decided, will remain closed indefinitely.

While Georgians attempt to parse what Kemp�s abrupt move means on a practical level, they�re also trying to understand why he chose to reopen now. The state�s testing capacity is expanding, but none of its testing and infection data meets even the modest standards the Trump administration has set for reopening. Kemp�s plan specifies neither the mechanisms by which statewide safety measures will be meaningfully expanded nor the extent of liability that business owners will bear if they open up and people get sick. Multiple people told me that some hair stylists have decided to require clients to sign legal releases before letting anyone sit in their chairs.

Kemp�s office did not respond to a request for an interview. In the past week, he has said that he believes reopening businesses will alleviate Georgians� economic suffering; on Monday, he said he thought statistical models that predicted increased deaths in the state post-opening painted too grim a picture of the possibilities, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Some residents think pressure from the state�s most influential business owners�people who would be shielded from the dangers their employees would face�was a likely factor in the decision to reopen. Others have speculated that the move is intended to bolster the state�s budget, possibly by making thousands of people ineligible for unemployment benefits if their employers reopen. �Every indication thus far is that you as an employee can�t stay home and continue to collect unemployment simply because you fear infection,� Mayor Girtz told me. �You of your own volition have made that decision, in terms of how the system views you.�

Harry Heiman, a public-health professor at Georgia State University, in Atlanta, told me the decision to reopen demonstrates how the state�s government has treated its citizens for years, well before Kemp�s 2018 election: �They�ve long prioritized policies that they believe support businesses, even though those same policies might not be good for workers or for the communities that those workers come from.� These policies have largely accomplished their desired goals: In the span of a generation, the population in the Atlanta metro area has doubled. Corporations including Mercedes-Benz USA, Newell Brands, and Norfolk Southern Railway have moved their headquarters to the state. But many of the programs to attract those employers, Heiman said, have weakened the state�s social safety net and labor protections.

That effect has burdened some populations more than others. �We�re opening up businesses that are not only high-touch and requiring proximity, but we�re also choosing industries where racial- and ethnic-minority communities are disproportionately represented,� Heiman noted. He said that choosing to restart these industries is likely to deepen the crisis for communities of color in the South. �They�re going back to a job that places them at increased risk for exposure to coronavirus, and they don�t have access to Medicaid, because we haven�t expanded it,� he explained. Across America, black and Latino people have died from COVID-19 at rates far outpacing that of white people. In Georgia, one of the country�s worst outbreaks has struck the rural, poor city of Albany, whose population is more than 70 percent black. In addition to the lack of Medicaid expansion, high incidences of medical problems such as hypertension and diabetes in the southeastern United States could make the coronavirus, which seems to prey on people with preexisting health issues, particularly deadly there.

Georgia�s health infrastructure makes Kemp�s choice particularly dangerous. Girtz worries about the state�s hospitals. His county has two, but because of rural hospital closures, he says they�re expected to provide services not just for residents of Athens-Clarke County, but for the entire 17-county region around them, home to some 700,000 people. �A town like Elberton, 35 miles from us, or Commerce, just 25 miles up the road�those were places where, a generation ago, you could have a baby,� he said. �That�s no longer true, and it�s also true they don�t have the ICU beds there.�

Few people in Georgia are eager to be a case study in pandemic exceptionalism, but many won�t have a choice. Jillian Yeskel, the stylist in Roswell, whose Trump-supporting parents voted for Kemp, said she�d had conversations with them in the past week that she couldn�t have dreamed of a few months ago. �I�d assumed they�d support anything Kemp had to say,� she told me. �I talk to my mom every day, and we�re both just so upset with him.� There�s no polling available on how Georgians feel about social-distancing measures in general, but Yeskel�s experience with her parents follows national trends: A poll conducted in mid-April by Morning Consult and Politico found that even most respondents who said they view Trump very favorably or voted for Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections wanted to continue social distancing for as long as necessary.

All Georgians can do now is try to protect themselves as best they can. If social distancing decreases because lots of businesses reopen, another deluge of COVID-19 cases could be inevitable. Because of how infections tend to progress, it may be two or three weeks before hospitals see a new wave of people whose lungs look like they�re studded with ground glass in X-rays. By then, there�s no telling how many more people could be carrying the disease into nail salons or tattoo parlors, going about their daily lives because they were told they could do so safely.

In the meantime, local leaders whose municipal shutdowns have been overruled by state law are relying on other methods to keep their communities safe: disseminating information about testing, finding funds for food banks, creating grant programs to get a little bit of money to local businesses in need. For some, that includes duties both official and unofficial. On his walk home from city hall last week, Girtz said, he encountered his neighbors, a group of student roommates, enjoying the warm spring day. He�s lived in Athens a long time, and was worried that in a town known for revelry, a few people partying outside could turn into a lot of people partying outside. �They were drinking beer on the curb,� he recalled. �I just had to say, �Y�all, enjoy your time to the degree that you can, but at least go up on the damn porch.��

21 comments

Bernie Sanders: No One Asked New York to Cancel the Election

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=54176">Team Bernie, Bernie Sanders for President</a>

Thursday, 30 April 2020 08:31

Excerpt: "On Monday, the New York State Board of Elections made the disgraceful and undemocratic decision to cancel their state's presidential primary later this year."

Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Getty)

Bernie Sanders: No One Asked New York to Cancel the Election

By Team Bernie, Bernie Sanders for President

30 April 20

n Monday, the New York State Board of Elections made the disgraceful and undemocratic decision to cancel their state�s presidential primary later this year.

This means that our campaign will receive no delegates from New York, weakening our ability to fight for a progressive platform and progressive rules at the Democratic Convention. It also means our voters are less likely to turn out, which will hurt progressive New York candidates who are still facing primaries.

This is an outrage, an assault on democracy and must not be allowed to stand.

While we did not have the votes to win the Democratic nomination, our campaign was suspended, not ended, because we believe that people in every state should have the right to express their preference.

Let's be clear. New York will still be holding a primary election on June 23. Voters will cast ballots for congressional candidates and other down-ballot offices but, because of the heavy-handed decision of two members of the State Board of Elections, they will not have the opportunity to vote in the presidential primary.

No one asked New York to cancel the election.

The DNC did not request it. The Biden campaign did not request it. And our campaign communicated, very strongly, that we wanted to remain on the ballot.

Given that the primary is months away, the proper response should be to make the election safe � such as moving entirely to vote by mail � rather than eliminating people�s right to vote completely.

The truth is that the New York State Democratic Party has never taken a particularly progressive approach toward democratic participation. In fact, quite the opposite. They have a very checkered pattern of voter disenfranchisement. For many years, New York has had one of the lowest rates of voter turnout in the country.

In addition to being a blow to American democracy, New York state's action is also a clear violation of the approved delegate selection plan of the Democratic National Committee.

At a time when all of us, including Joe Biden, are deeply concerned about Donald Trump�s attacks on our democracy, we must fight back against this action in New York state.

If states violate the DNC party rules regarding delegate selection, they can lose their ability to send delegates to the convention. And this is exactly what must be done.

If this outrage is not remedied, the Democratic National Committee must strip New York of all its delegates at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. New York, and every other state in this country, must understand they cannot violate the rules of the DNC with impunity.

While the New York State Democratic Party is trying to take away progressive voices in this election, we are asking you to make yours heard:

Sign our petition: tell DNC Chairman Tom Perez to strip New York state of its convention delegates unless they reinstate the Democratic presidential primary slated to take place later this year.

Thank you for standing up for democracy and thank you for making your voice heard on this important issue.

All our best,

Team Bernie

11 comments

Conspiracies, Dysfunction, and Arrogance: How the Trump Administration Set Back the US Coronavirus Response by Weeks

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=46416">Gabriel Sherman, Vanity Fair</a>

Thursday, 30 April 2020 08:31

Sherman writes: "On the afternoon of Thursday, March 19, Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office obsessing over the beaches in Florida. CNN footage of shirtless spring breakers packed onto the sand while the coronavirus pandemic raged sparked national outrage-and pressure on Trump to act."

Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a close Trump ally in a crucial swing state, wanted to keep beaches open-and Trump bowed to pressure. (photo: Steve Nesius/Reuters)

Conspiracies, Dysfunction, and Arrogance: How the Trump Administration Set Back the US Coronavirus Response by Weeks

By Gabriel Sherman, Vanity Fair

30 April 20

Obsessed with impeachment and their enemies and worried about the stock market, the president and his son-in-law scapegoated HHS Secretary Alex Azar, and treated the coronavirus as mostly a political problem as it moved through the country.

n the afternoon of Thursday, March 19, Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office obsessing over the beaches in Florida. CNN footage of shirtless spring breakers packed onto the sand while the coronavirus pandemic raged sparked national outrage�and pressure on Trump to act. The next morning, New York governor Andrew Cuomo would announce strict stay-at-home orders for residents, but Florida�s Republican governor Ron DeSantis refused to close his state�s beaches, a position even Florida�s Republican senator Rick Scott called reckless. �Lots of people were telling Trump to lean on Ron,� a Trump adviser said.

Trump�s view of the situation was complicated, though. For weeks, his top medical advisers, Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, had been hectoring him about the seriousness of the crisis and the necessity of swift action, testing, lockdowns. �We knew from the beginning...we were going to get cases in the United States,� Fauci told me.

�We knew we were in for a very serious problem.�

Sometimes, Trump listened. The disease was coming closer to his own circle�chief of staff Mark Meadows and communications director Stephanie Grisham were self-quarantining�and the number of cases in New York City had reached 4,000. But the substrate of his thinking hadn�t evolved, and it kept reappearing. He worried about the economy, which was crucial to his reelection. He vented to friends that the doctors were alarmist, and that the crisis was something Democrats and the media were doing to him. �Trump was obsessed with Pelosi, Schiff, the media, just obsessed. He would say, �They�re using it against me!� recalled a Republican in frequent contact with the White House. �It was unhinged.�

Florida was a test case of his magical thinking about the novel coronavirus: That it was temporary, that warm weather would make it disappear. But eight Florida residents had already died from COVID-19 and more than 400 had been diagnosed. �Given the elderly population, if that took off, it would be a nightmare,� a person close to Trump told me. At an adviser�s urging, Trump called DeSantis to tell him to shut down the beaches.

�Ron, what are you doing down there?� Trump said, according to a person briefed on the call.

�I can�t ban people from going on the beach,� DeSantis snapped, surprising Trump.

�These pictures look really bad to the rest of the country,� Trump said.

�Listen, we�re doing it the right way,� DeSantis said.

DeSantis�s intransigence backed Trump into a corner. The 41-year-old governor was a Trump prot�g� and a crucial ally in a must-win state. �Trump is worried about Florida, electorally,� said a Republican who spoke with Trump around this time. Trump did something he rarely does: He caved. He told DeSantis the beaches could stay open.

�I understand what you�re saying,� Trump said, and hung up.

It was inevitable that Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar would become the West Wing COVID-19 scapegoat. An avuncular Yale educated lawyer with owlish glasses and a beard, Azar was not, as Trump liked to say, out of central casting. Equally bad, Azar was a �Bushie,� as Trump called Republicans who served in George W. Bush�s administration. Azar was briefed on a new and dangerous coronavirus sweeping the Chinese city of Wuhan by CDC director Robert Redfield on January 3�but he struggled to communicate this knowledge to the president. At the time of the outbreak, Trump had soured on Azar, whom he blamed for his weak health care polling numbers. �Trump thought Azar was a disaster. He is definitely on the gangplank,� a person close to Trump told me. Azar wasn�t able to speak to Trump about the virus for two weeks, even though Trump called him during this period to scream that the White House�s ban on e-cigarettes, a response to a health crisis that he believed could help him politically, had become a drag on his poll numbers. �I never should have done this fucking vaping thing!� Trump told Azar on January 17, a person familiar with the call told me.

When Azar finally told Trump about the outbreak on the phone at Mar-a-Lago, on the night of Saturday, January 18, Trump cut him off and launched into another e-cigarette rant. �Trump jumped his shit about vaping,� a person briefed on the phone call told me.

Jared Kushner, Trump�s son-in-law, shared Trump�s view that the media and Democrats were hyping the crisis for political purposes. And for both of them, the biggest worry was how the response to the coronavirus might impact the health of the economy. According to sources, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, a fierce China hawk, and deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, a former China-based Wall Street Journal reporter who�d covered the 2003 SARS pandemic, argued to officials in mid-January that the White House needed to shut down incoming flights from China.

Kushner pushed back. �Jared kept saying the stock market would go down, and Trump wouldn�t get reelected,� a Republican briefed on the internal debates said (a person close to Kushner denies this). Kushner�s position was supported by Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council chief Larry Kudlow. Trump sided with them. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump minimized the threat in his first public comments. �It�s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control,� he told CNBC. (The White House and Treasury Department deny Mnuchin and Kudlow were against closing flights.)

When the coronavirus exploded out of China, Kushner was the second most powerful person in the West Wing, exerting influence over virtually every significant decision, from negotiating trade deals to 2020 campaign strategy to overseeing Trump�s impeachment defense. �Jared is running everything. He�s the de facto president of the United States,� a former White House official told me. The previous chief of staff John Kelly, who�d marginalized Kushner, was long gone, and Mick Mulvaney, a virtual lame duck by that point, let Kushner run free. �Jared treats Mick like the help,� a prominent Republican said.

Kushner�s princely arrogance had been a fixture in the West Wing since Trump�s inauguration. �The family has a degree of trust and protection that no one else enjoys,� the former West Wing official said. Kushner can appear mild-mannered, but, like his father-in-law, he seemed to relish the power he derived from crushing adversaries. After Trump�s acquittal, Kushner helped orchestrate a purge of national security officials that testified against the president. According to a source, Kushner provided the White House�s 29-year-old personnel director, John McEntee, with a list of names to be fired. ("In no way shape or form did Jared provide a list to Johnny McEntee on people to be fired," a source familiar with the matter said).

During his time in the West Wing, Kushner had become hardened to a degree that was sometimes shocking. The days of selling the notion that he and Ivanka were moderating forces were long gone�combat was everything. A New York business executive recalled a meeting with Kushner at the White House last fall. �I told Jared that if Trump won a second term, he wouldn�t have to worry about running again and you can really help people. Jared just looked at me and said, �I don�t care about any of that.�� The executive came away shaken. �I wanted to tell Jared you don�t say that part out loud, even in private,� he later said. (A source close to Kushner says he has no recollection of making the comment.)

Kushner had an enemies list as long as Trump�s, and at times it played into his response to the crisis. He scoffed when his old nemesis, Steve Bannon, launched a podcast called War Room: Pandemic in January. �Steve�s a dead man. Last he was seen, he was standing on the side of the FDR Drive with the squeegee guys,� Kushner told a Republican around this time.

Kushner also had a famously unshakable belief in his own judgment. According to sources, Trump�s former Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert told Kushner in early March that the White House needed to step up its coronavirus response. �Tom tried sounding the alarm with Jared,� said a person who spoke to Bossert at the time. (Bossert denies this.) Kushner, according to the person, dismissed Bossert�s concerns. Bossert later published his advice in a Washington Post op-ed. �Tom was hammering him: �You have to get on this.� No one listened, so he wrote the op-ed,� a former West Wing official said. Bossert later told people that Kushner icily told him the op-ed was a mistake. (Bossert denies this.)

Navarro and Pottinger finally convinced Trump to stop the flights when they showed him that more than 400,000 people had entered the U.S. from China since early January. �Trump was stunned by the sheer scale,� a Republican briefed on the meeting told me. �Navarro banged on the table enough to get the flights stopped.� On January 31, Trump barred travel from China. Even then, it was a half measure: the ban only applied to non-Americans who had traveled to China in the previous 14 days. American citizens could come and go.

Trump saw this as the end of the story�he�d taken strong public action, built his China Wall. Now, he looked forward to hitting the campaign trail and trumpeting the booming stock market. �He just wanted to hold rallies and watch television,� a former West Wing official said. �We pretty much shut it down coming in from China,� Trump told Sean Hannity during a pre�Super Bowl interview on February 2. He held a half dozen rallies over the next month.

But it was just the beginning.

On February 5, the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted Trump without hearing from a single witness. He was gleeful, and immediately turned his attention to his enemies. �Trump�s playbook is simple,� said a former White House official. �Go after people who crossed him during impeachment.� Forty-eight hours after the verdict, Trump launched his purge of career officials who testified in the House, including Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a decorated Iraq War veteran and, for good measure, his twin brother, who also worked in the government.

Focused on his purge and his reelection, Trump mostly told himself a happy story about the virus, cherry-picking the most optimistic projections. He assured friends at Mar-a-Lago that Chinese president Xi Jinping promised him the outbreak would die out in warmer weather. �He said Xi told him it would all be over in April,� a Republican who spoke with Trump told me. At a rally in New Hampshire on February 10, Trump declared: �We only have 11 cases and they are all getting better.�

They weren�t. On February 23, the CDC documented the first case of person-to-person transmission in California. �Once you had community spread, we realized all bets are off,� Fauci later told me. Trump tweeted on February 24: �The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA�.Stock Market starting to look very good to me!� The market plunged nearly 900 points the next day. Trump called Azar and screamed that the CDC was alarming people. �It�s a little bit like the flu,� Trump assured reporters at the White House.

The same day, Trump finally pushed Azar aside and put vice president Mike Pence in charge of the White House�s coronavirus task force. According to a source, Trump had considered other candidates�former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Birx, and former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb�but he told people that bringing in a credentialed outsider would signal a larger concern about the virus. �It�s going to make the issue bigger than it needs to be,� he said to an adviser. He also knew that Pence could be controlled. �Trump trusts Pence almost more than anyone,� a former White House official said. In the West Wing, Trump often belittles Pence in front of others. �Pence lives in mortal fear of being booted off the ticket. Trump constantly reminds Mike that he almost didn�t choose him,� a Republican that heard Trump make the comments told me.

Trump viewed the media as the force most toxic to his administration, and he sometimes took this belief to paranoid lengths. In early March, Trump told aides that journalists hated him so much they would try to contract coronavirus on purpose to give it to him on Air Force One, a person close to the administration told me. �This is full-blown, pathological, paranoid-level delusion,� a former West Wing official said. Trump claimed CNN and MSNBC were trying to drive down the stock market. �I want to get Comcast!� he told a prominent Republican. �He wants Justice to open investigations of the media for market manipulation,� the person close to the administration told me.

Trump�s role as crisis pitchman became paramount, and any glitches sent him over the edge. A source said Trump was furious about his appearance during a Fox News town hall on March 5. �Trump said afterwards that the lighting was bad and he had a brown spot on his face,� a source briefed on the conversation said. �He said, �I look terrible! We need Bill Shine back in here. Bill would never allow this.��

His press conference at the CDC on March 6 was his first full-scale attempt at media ownership of the crisis, and it will be remembered as a Trumpian classic, heavy on braggadocio, an infomercial with himself as the product. �I like this stuff. I really get it,� Trump told reporters, his face partly hidden under a red �Keep America Great� hat. �People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors say, �How do you know so much about this?� Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should�ve done that instead of running for president.�

When reviews, understandably, were not good, he complained that White House officials weren�t defending him. �He was very frustrated he doesn�t have a good team around him,� a former White House official said. Trump vented to aides about Mnuchin, whom he blamed for encouraging him to pick Jerome Powell, a frequent Trump target, as chairman of the Federal Reserve. �Steve picked Powell and Powell is trying to screw me!� Trump said, according to a Republican who overheard the comments. Sources said Trump fumed over Larry Kudlow�s refusal to hold an on-camera press briefing to talk up the markets. �Larry didn�t want to have to take questions about coronavirus,� a person close to Kudlow told me. �Larry�s not a doctor. How can he answer questions about something he doesn�t know?�

Fox News, as always, was Trump�s safe place. The network�s hosts had been following his cues, aggressively amplifying claims that COVID-19 posed little danger. �It�s actually the safest time to fly,� Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt told viewers in early March, a clip that came to symbolize the network�s cavalier approach to the pandemic. Some inside Fox feared this denialism could get viewers killed and expose the network to massive legal liability. �If you want to get on the air, you had to say crazy shit about the virus,� one Fox staffer told me. Tucker Carlson was an important exception. Partly for ideological reasons�China bashing is a running story line on his show�Carlson covered the epidemic early. �Every day now brings thousands of new cases and dozens of new deaths in China.... We should be vigilant as well. We have infections already in this country,� he warned viewers on February 4.

Carlson privately told friends that Trump failed to grasp the scale of the crisis. Normally, when Carlson has advice for the White House, he says it on television. But after Trump�s rambling CDC press conference on March 6, Carlson realized the situation was an emergency and he needed to confront Trump in person.

The following afternoon, Carlson drove from his Florida home to Mar-a-Lago�surprisingly his first visit�and was astonished by what he found. The club that weekend was an alternate reality where coronavirus didn�t seem to exist. Down by the pool, Kimberly Guilfoyle was hosting a cocktail party for a hundred friends to kick off her lavish 51st birthday celebration. The guest list included much of Trumpworld�s elite, including Guilfoyle�s boyfriend Don Jr., Eric and Lara Trump, Lindsey Graham, Rudy Giuliani and Pence�even Tiffany Trump flew in for the weekend. Later that night, Guilfoyle break-danced. The president sang happy birthday after he dined on the patio shoulder-to-shoulder with Ivanka and Kushner and Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro�s delegation.

Carlson met with Trump before Guilfoyle�s party got going. He didn�t expect to get much face time. The conversation lasted two hours. Carlson told Trump that COVID-19 posed an existential threat to the country�and his reelection�unless the White House took aggressive steps to slow the spread. �I said exactly what I�ve said on TV, which is this could be really bad,� Carlson later told Vanity Fair�s Joe Hagan. �My view [was] that we may have missed the point where we can control it.� Carlson�s message seemed to puncture Trump�s bubble. �[Trump] is just now waking up to the fact that this is bad, and he doesn�t know how to respond,� a Republican told me around this time.

What Trump didn�t know then was that coronavirus was spreading unchecked around Mar-a-Lago. Bolsonaro�s press secretary later tested positive and potentially seeded a cluster. He�d shaken hands with Trump and Pence and attended Guilfoyle�s party (more than a dozen members of the Brazilian delegation eventually came down with COVID-19). Guilfoyle�s friend, Republican fundraiser Caroline Wren, developed suspicious symptoms, a source told me. �Kimberly spent all week with Caroline,� the source said. (A spokesperson for the Trump campaign said Wren tested negative.) RNC chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel also came down with symptoms after attending a donor retreat at Mar-a-Lago.

The same weekend, news broke that an attendee of CPAC, the conservative activist conference, tested positive for coronavirus, and that Trump had potentially been exposed. Fauci and other officials wanted Trump to announce social-distancing guidelines and other mitigation strategies. But Trump was still pushing back. He refused to get tested and insisted that he would continue to hold rallies. �He is going to resist until the very last minute,� a former West Wing official told me in early March. �He may take suggestions to stop shaking hands, but in terms of shutting stuff down, his position is: �No, I�m not going to do it.��

On March 11, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus a global pandemic, and Trump agreed to broadcast an Oval Office address to the nation. But even then, Kushner advised Trump to tread lightly. One source briefed on the internal conversations said Kushner told Trump not to declare a national emergency during the address because �it would tank the markets.� The markets cratered anyway, and Trump announced the national emergency later in the week. �They had to clean that up on Friday,� the source said. (A person close to Kushner denies this version of events.)

Even as the crisis was tearing through New York, with emerging problems in Louisiana, Michigan, and Illinois, Trump obsessed over the future, fixating on the fall and his reelection. He took time to call NFL owners and urge them not to preemptively cancel football season. �Trump begged them not to cancel,� said a source briefed on the call.

Increasingly, Kushner was in control of Trump�s response. Looking to keep him close, Pence�s chief of staff Marc Short recruited Kushner to officially join the coronavirus task force on March 12. �Pence people look at Jared apprehensively. Pence treats Jared as a peer,� said Sam Nunberg, the former Trump aide. Kushner quickly assembled a shadow network of coronavirus advisers that became more powerful than Pence�s official team. He even worked on Shabbat, a source who spoke with him on a Saturday said. (A person close to Kushner says working on Shabbat is accepted for Orthodox Jews if it�s �to save someone�s life.�) �On balance, Pence wanted Jared involved because it guarantees Trump is focused,� an executive who Kushner consulted recalled.

Azar was still the necessary scapegoat. Kushner blamed him for the criticism Trump received about the delays in testing, according to a person in frequent touch with the West Wing. �This was a total mess,� Kushner told people when he got involved. Kushner had no medical experience, but that didn�t seem to matter. �To be honest, when I got involved, I was a little intimidated. But I know how to make this government run now,� Kushner said, according to a source. �The arrogance was on full display.�

Kushner advocated for the iconoclastic public-private approach he had used for his Mideast peace plan. He reached out to business leaders like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, according to a source. With bravado only partly grounded in reality, he promised Trump that Google was rolling out a testing website. He also made a point of bypassing normal channels, phoning Wall Street executives and asking for advice on how to help New York, people briefed on the conversation said. A former West Wing official said Kushner�s involvement wrought chaos: business leaders wanting to contribute masks or ventilators didn�t know who in government to call. According to two sources, Kushner told Trump about experimental treatments he�d learned of from executives in Silicon Valley. �Jared is bringing conspiracy theories to Trump about potential treatments,� a Republican briefed on the conversations told me. (A person close to Kushner said he brought COVID testing ideas to Trump.) Trump could be a receptive audience. Another former West Wing official told me: �Trump is like an 11-year-old boy waiting for the fairy godmother to bring him a magic pill.�

Kushner encouraged Trump to push back against Cuomo after the New York governor gave an emotional press conference during which he said New York was short 30,000 ventilators. In a White House meeting, Kushner told people that Cuomo was being an alarmist. �I have all this data about ICU capacity. I�m doing my own projections, and I�ve gotten a lot smarter about this. New York doesn�t need all the ventilators,� Kushner said, according to a person present. Trump later echoed him, telling Sean Hannity in an interview, �I don�t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators.�

By early April, Trump began to realize that he was losing the messaging war. Cuomo�s morning press briefings, which had become appointment television for many, were a particular goad. �He�s said Cuomo looks good,� said a Republican briefed on internal conversations. Trump counterprogrammed with his own evening press conferences. As a former West Wing official put it, �Trump wants to play press secretary.� He prepared each day with Hope Hicks, who returned to the White House after a brief stint working for Fox Corp, nominally working for Jared Kushner. A source said she counseled him on how to look presidential. But the briefings could stretch to Soviet lengths, often over two hours, and they lurched wildly in tone. With the media as a captive audience, Trump often couldn�t resist shifting into rally mode. One day, he lit into NBC News reporter Peter Alexander when Alexander asked what Trump would say to Americans who are scared about the crisis. The confrontation energized Trump, according to a Republican who spoke to him afterward. �He was in the Oval Office feeling positive,� the source said.

Fauci had become a costar and a straight-man foil, something that Trump has never been able to stand. Their relationship was badly strained after Fauci gave a series of candid interviews and appeared to face palm as Trump spoke at a press conference. �I made Fauci a star. The least he could do is give me a little credit,� Trump complained to a friend. Republicans became so worried that Trump would fire Fauci that they looked for any means to prevent it. One Wall Street executive lobbied House minority leader Kevin McCarthy to tell Trump the Dow would implode if he canned Fauci. �The markets follow Fauci,� the executive told me. (�Has it been stressful? Uh, yeah,� Fauci told me when I asked him about working for Trump. �This is a very, very stressful situation for everybody, including me.�)

Inside the West Wing, the blame game kicked into high gear. �This is going to be 9/11 and Pearl Harbor combined. People are going to be covering their asses for years,� a former West Wing official told me. A front page New York Times piece on April 11 was widely seen as an effort by Azar�s camp to push back on Trump and Kushner. After the piece ran, Trump installed Michael Caputo, a loyalist and close Roger Stone friend, to be Health and Human Services spokesman.

Even Kushner wasn�t insulated. Trump was enraged that Kushner had oversold Google�s coronavirus testing website and that he�d gotten slammed in the press for promoting an essentially phantom product. �Jared told Trump that Google was doing an entire website that would be up in 72 hours and had 1,100 people working on it 24/7. That�s just a lie,� the source briefed on the internal conversations told me. (A White House official responded: �This is just another false story focused on rumors about palace intrigue instead of the actual aggressive measures President Trump has implemented to keep the American people safe and healthy.�)

The virus was a threat Trump couldn�t bully, and his record of inaction something he couldn�t erase. Later in April, he tried to change the subject, announcing an immigration ban, with little detail about how it would work. Beaches in Florida, bowling alleys and nail salons in Georgia were reopened�magical thinking had reemerged. But beneath the bluster was a darker reality. �He�s paralyzed,� a former official said. Trump reversed course and criticized Georgia�s move to reopen. �This is not what [Trump] likes to do,� added a former West Wing official. �There�s no boogeyman he can attack.�

Trump clung to hope. �The economy will be back in two months, just wait,� he told a friend. But the fall was still a long way away. �If I have any rallies at all, they won�t be until the convention,� he told another friend in mid-March.

The thought seemed to depress him. �The campaign doesn�t matter anymore,� he recently told the friend. �What I do now will determine if I get reelected.�

7 comments

In Montana, Children File Suit to Protect the State's Wilderness

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=52763">Judy Fahys, Inside Climate News</a>

Thursday, 30 April 2020 08:30

Fahys writes: "To read the 108-page complaint, filed in March, is to understand that they're fighting for what Montanans call 'the last best place.'"

Old lodgepole pines in Montana killed by the mountain pine beetle stand beside young, healthy trees in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)

In Montana, Children File Suit to Protect the State's Wilderness

By Judy Fahys, Inside Climate News

30 April 20

Part of a 50-state strategy, the lawsuit highlights Montana�s love of wild landscapes to force the state to address the climate impacts of fossil fuels.

he's identified only as Kathryn Grace S., one of 16 youths who've sued to keep the state of Montana from promoting the use of fossil fuels, threatening their future.

To read the 108-page complaint, filed in March, is to understand that they're fighting for what Montanans call "the last best place."

Grace, 16, says in the complaint that drought has dried up the Clark Fork River for rafting.

Georgianna F., 17, fears shortened winters have reduced snow she needs to train for Nordic skiing.

Ruby D., 11, of Crow descent, claims frequent wildfires have scarred lodgepole pines needed for the teepees essential for the ceremonies that are part of her identity.

While lawyers for the state responded last week in briefs that the courts aren't the right place to fix the climate crisis, attorneys for the children say they are suing Montana not for failing to act on climate change, but for harming the environment by promoting the use of coal, oil and gas.

The Montana case, led by the non-profit public interest firm, Our Children's Trust, is part of a 50-state campaign to put government policy contributing to climate change before the courts.

A landmark national climate change suit, Juliana v. USA, was thrown out in January by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where judges ruled 2 to 1 that climate change is not an issue for the courts. The plaintiffs, also led by Our Children's Trust, have since petitioned for a rehearing.

The Montana case is one of seven state actions, including lawsuits filed in Alaska, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington.

In Montana, lawyers for the plaintiffs offer vivid examples of how their young clients' lives are being shattered by a warming planet to underscore the state's failed constitutional obligation: guaranteeing all citizens an inalienable right to a healthy environment.

"What we're trying to do is uphold our constitutional rights," said Grace, in an interview. (None of the minor plaintiffs used their last names in the lawsuit).

A sixth-generation Montanan, she spends a lot of time outdoors, playing soccer, rafting nearby rivers and hiking the Rattlesnake Wilderness north of where she lives in Missoula. Perhaps her favorite place is the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park, which is sometimes called the American Serengeti because of its rich wildlife: bison, antelope, elk, trout and a famous wolfpack.

But now she's worried enough about the climate impacts she already sees�the wildfire smoke that nixed soccer practice, the drought that's dried up the rivers�that she wonders whether her own children will have the chance to experience the place she loves so much, and even whether it's ethical for her to have children.

"What we want is for the courts to encourage or institute a climate recovery plan that lowers our fossil fuel rates to the point where we're not harming the environment anymore," she said, "and to uphold our constitutional rights for a clean environment."

Nate Bellinger, one of the childrens' lawyers, acknowledged the storytelling strategy. "A central part of that story is how the youth plaintiffs ... are currently being impacted by climate change," he said, "and how they are expected to be impacted by climate change if it's not addressed."

Two brothers, Lander B., 15, and Badge B., 12, say the changing climate is making it harder to hunt the elk and deer that their family depends on for food and that warm temperatures and low stream waters make it harder to fish for cutthroat, rainbow and bull trout.

Kian T., 14, reports in the complaint that trees on his family's property�birch, spruce, aspen, cottonwood and firs�are dying because warmer winters have led to increased insect activity.

The young plaintiffs' concerns are exactly the sort of complaint you'd expect from Montanans whose shared identity is bound up in the wildness and beauty of the Big Sky state's breathtaking mountains and plains.

In some ways, the lawsuit itself is the latest chapter in the 50-state, coming of age story about the legal fight to combat climate change that began eight years ago. In Utah that year, children were among 20 petitioners who pressed environmental regulators to start accounting for climate change in state regulations.

In Wyoming, a case called Kids v. Global Warming pressed environmental agencies to begin restricting and reducing fossil fuel emissions enough to limit CO2 to 350 ppm by 2100. The petitions were denied in both cases.

An earlier Montana case asked the state Supreme Court to rule that the atmosphere should be held in trust for citizens, but justices declined to take up the case.

"We aren't suing Montana or the other states for their failure to act on climate change," Bellinger said, trying to correct a misperception about the cases. "It's because the state is actively harming the environment it's constitutionally mandated to protect."

It's this constitutional provision that gives the Montana suit its unique strength, Bellinger and other legal experts agreed. The preamble to the state's constitution says: "We the people of Montana grateful to God for the quiet beauty of our state, the grandeur of our mountains, the vastness of our rolling plains, and desiring to improve the quality of life, equality of opportunity and to secure the blessings of liberty for this and future generations do ordain and establish this constitution."

Montana's unique approach to the environment is also part of a learning curve that builds upon the lessons of past setbacks and failures in the youth climate cases, said Richard Frank, a law professor, blogger and director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center.

The Montana case, he noted, focuses on particular injuries being suffered by the 16 plaintiffs rather than simply making sweeping, heady arguments about violated "atmospheric trust litigation" as past legal and administrative actions did. The more recent cases are also stronger because they rely on new sophisticated, scientific conclusions that were not available to lawyers involved in the earlier cases, he said.

"The key point for me is that it's a lot more strategic," Frank said. "It's more tactical, it's more science."

In the Montana lawsuit, the children argue that Montana undermines their birthright in two significant ways: with a state energy policy that explicitly promotes fossil fuels, and a prohibition on accounting for climate change in decision making. As a result, models project annual average daily maximum temperatures in the state will increase by as much as 6.0 degrees Fahrenheit by mid-century, "a temperature increase that would imperil human civilization," and go up by as much as 10 degrees by the end of the century.

"It is as if the Earth has a constant fever," the lawsuit says, "and just as in the human body, even a slight rise in temperature weakens the organism, increases the vulnerability of the organism, and can have dangerous long-term effects on the system."

The lawsuit contends that the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation "has authorized, permitted, licensed, and encouraged fossil fuel exploitation, extraction, and production, and forestry practices and activities that have caused and contributed to dangerous concentrations of atmospheric GHGs and the climate crisis and harmed Youth Plaintiffs."

Allowing refineries to spew millions of tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, permitting the 1,210-mile Keystone XL Pipeline to traverse the state, and approving a 977-acre expansion of the state's largest coal mine are just some of the ways in which Montana has bowed to fossil fuels, the lawsuit says.

Regulators did not examine emissions impacts for the coal mine, nor did they estimate the climate impact of the 90 percent of Montana-mined coal that was burned out of state, the suit says

"Defendants�who manage, operate, and regulate the energy sector by and through the State Energy Policy�have the authority to produce renewable energy sources," the lawsuit says, noting that state agencies authorized almost seven times as much fossil fuel energy as renewables. "Nevertheless, Defendants are manifestly indifferent to Youth Plaintiffs' injuries and continue to authorize energy from fossil fuels as opposed to renewables."

Bellinger, the childrens' attorney, pointed out that as early as 1968, Montana leaders were discussing the implications of growing greenhouse gas emissions. "That's just not really compatible with the future that these youth want to live in Montana and protect the environment," he said.

Even with the more narrowly drawn claims in the Montana lawsuit, some still doubt it will be successful. Sam Kazman, general counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a non-profit libertarian think tank, cited the state's constitutional provision when he said: "I think it does have a slightly better shot than the Juliana case."

But, ultimately, he's not convinced that the Montana case will go any farther than the better-known national case. In an echo of the criticism leveled against the Juliana case, he said developing and implementing an energy policy is not something that courts are well-equipped to do.

"Ultimately, I think it is still trying to get a court to take over what really is a host of legislative functions," Kazman said, echoing arguments made by the state's attorneys.

Montana environmental lawyer Jack Tuholske said the case shines a compelling spotlight on the state constitution's healthy environment provision. The guarantee of environmental health, he said, was added in 1972 because of historic mining pollution in a state where industry had outsized influence on lawmakers.

"This [case] is very much in a context of the history and culture of the state," he said. "It'll be interesting to see how the court approaches this case, based on the Constitution."

1 comment

RSN: CDC Is Under Gag Order - Americans Can Speak Loud and Clear

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=26125">Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News</a>

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 12:06

Simpich writes: "I have spent a month trying to find a public health figure in Washington DC who stood up and took effective action to warn the people of the United States about Covid-19 in January or February of this year. I can't find anybody. Can you?"

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens as Trump speaks at a briefing on March 27. (photo: Yuri Gripas/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

CDC Is Under Gag Order - Americans Can Speak Loud and Clear

By Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News

29 April 20

�ve had it. I give up.

I have spent a month trying to find a public health figure in Washington DC who stood up and took effective action to warn the people of the United States about Covid-19 in January or February of this year.

I can�t find anybody. Can you? Write me. I�ll publish it. If it pans out.�

At this point, we need a full-throttle political campaign to stop a second outbreak. Why didn�t it happen the first time?

I heard that Nancy Messonnier spoke out early � she is the CDC�s chief on immunization and respiratory diseases. That would make sense � her agency�s name, after all, is the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention.

She did stand up at a White House press conference on February 25 and announce that community spread was going to happen. �Disruption to everyday life may be severe � It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when ...��

CDC director Anne Schuchat backed her up, agreeing that it was �not if, but when.� However, Schuchat also maintained the crumbling company line: �Efforts at containment so far have worked.��

On February 26, Trump named Mike Pence to lead the coronavirus response. The leadership was now taken away from the health officials.

The Washington Post reported that the Trumpers had forced Messonnier to shut up, describing her blunt talk as �just too early.�

She said the unsayable. But it was just a peep. She didn�t say it loud and clear.

By February 28, she was back at the White House saying misleading things like:

�This brings the number of person-to-person spread in the United States to 3 (note: the total US cases were 15 at that point, not counting the trapped American passengers on the cruise ship Diamond Princess � Trump kept them from landing in San Francisco to exclude them from the total case count!) � Because there have been such a small number of cases in the United States, CDC has been able to supplement the activities of the state and local health departments, to be very aggressive in our contact tracing, that is true from the first case and it remains true now.��

Very aggressive? Not likely. We were in the middle of a forest fire of unreported cases � and everyone suspected it. The CDC and FDA had spent February floundering in rolling out an effective testing regimen, even after the announcement a public health emergency on January 31 � the first quarantine order in fifty years. You can�t contact-trace if you haven�t tested.

As late as February 13, the CDC was sending out an �URGENT� appeal for assistance as it tried to locate missing paperwork of individuals suspected of being infected. By the time the job postings were listed for investigators who might be able to track down these lost documents, 15 cases were confirmed � it was now February 28.

On March 3, after 60 cases had been announced, Messonnier said: �We will continue to maintain as long as practical an aggressive national posture of containment.� �Posture of containment� is the operational phrase.

By March 10, The New York Times revealed how badly the CDC and FDA had botched the testing regimen. CDC chief Robert Redfield protested the genie could be put back in the bottle, but it was too late. You can�t contain the virus without contact tracing. You can�t contact-trace without testing.

By mid-March, the entire country was in the process of lockdown. At that point, Messonnier, Schuchat, and other CDC top brass were barred from Trump�s soon-to-be daily briefings. CDC chief Robert Redfield�s reputation is that he is an ineffective public speaker. The administration chose Anthony Fauci � the infectious disease chief at NIH � to lead the communication efforts of the coronavirus team. Deborah Birx was picked as the coronavirus coordinator who answered to Pence, who answered to Trump.

Were these public officials in Washington DC willing to stand up at the beginning of the crisis and risk their paycheck?

How about Tony Fauci, seen as the nation�s top expert? Nope. Look, I like Fauci. Famed playwright (best known for The Normal Heart) and ACT UP activist Larry Kramer called him out for years during the AIDS crisis � and yet Fauci sought him out repeatedly for advice. Fauci told The New Yorker, �In American medicine, there are two eras. Before Larry � and after Larry.�

At five foot seven, Fauci was the captain of the Regis High School basketball team in the upper East Side. He knows the importance of positioning oneself. Fauci is a political operative � like all top health officials since 9/11 and the anthrax crisis.

Fauci is a skilled communicator. He knows how to choose his words carefully, and how not to offend the man he calls �the boss.� That ability got him on the coronavirus task force. That ability is also our problem.

Here�s Fauci on January 24: �We don't want the American public to be worried about this because their risk is low.�

January 28? Fauci: �Even if there�s a rare asymptomatic person that might transmit, an epidemic is not driven by asymptomatic carriers.� Yet the evidence shows that it wasn't just sick people who spread this virus.�

February 17? Fauci said the danger to Americans was �just miniscule.� He added that in the USA ��there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear a mask.�

February 25? �You need to do nothing different than you are already doing � (if an outbreak occurs) these are the kinds of things you want to think of.� Hardly a call to arms.�

Deborah Brix, the coronavirus response coordinator under Trump? She is a medical doctor who has patented many vaccines � an important skill set � but her speciality is not in the spread of epidemics. She is from the State Department and focuses on global health diplomacy.

On March 19, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the CDC. The question was very simple: What are the policies on employees� ability to speak with the press and the public?�

The CDC said it would take six months to answer that question.

The Knight Institute sued the CDC, highlighting that as early as 2017 Axios Magazine had reported an 8/31/17 email from CDC public affairs officer Jeffrey Lancashire to the National Center for Health Statistics. Lancashire stated that CDC policy for all CDC staff was that �any and all correspondence with any member of the news media, regardless of the nature of the inquiry, must be cleared through CDC�s Atlanta Communications Office.��

Messonnier was part of this decision-making process, as seen in this 9/13/17 memo she received: �... there would be no written version of this sent from OADC (Office of the Associate Director for Communication) ... for ALL (reactive) media requests ... send up every request to your CDC press officer...

This policy is outrageous. Similar gag orders were imposed on other governmental agencies the week that Trump came into office. It is only the secondary problem.�

The main problem is the cowardice of the people in charge and the media�s failure to report on these gag orders. Why aren�t government officials willing to risk their jobs in the face of the coronavirus pandemic? Why isn�t the media following these outrages after initial reporting? Don�t good reporters care about how they are being spoon-fed? Have we forgotten the operating principle �garbage in � garbage out�?

On the people in charge � Trump and Pence are beneath contempt. Trump is simply an idiot. Pence effectively infected hundreds of Indiana citizens a few years ago by repeatedly refusing to decriminalize needle exchange in the middle of his state's HIV crisis � until his career was at stake. Then he went home and �prayed on it.� The damage was already done.

I know what it takes to flatten the curve. In the late eighties, I organized the San Francisco needle exchange with thirteen health researchers and political activists. We called ourselves Prevention Point. (Two Prevention Point members � Jennifer Lorvick and Alex Kral � helped me research this article.) We knew it was the only way to stop the spiraling spread of HIV infections among the injection drug-using population. We were ready to go to jail � we were quickly joined by researchers and activists in other cities � and some of us were arrested.

You know what we found out? The director of public health, the police chief, and the mayor were all behind us. They weren�t about to go public. But they helped reduce the heat. No small thing in the middle of the AIDS epidemic. But not enough.�

You would think that it ultimately would be a great way to advance one�s career. It certainly helped my legal career. I was able to argue the necessity defense to four different juries � virtually no attorney had been able to use it even once. We got great headlines. Nobody got convicted.�

Our main expert in the needle exchange trials was Peter Lurie, who convinced judges and juries alike that AIDS was an imminent threat to American lives unless we took action with needle exchange immediately. (When Trump appointed Redfield as CDC chief in 2018, Lurie blasted him in a Center for Science in the Public Interest press release as a �sloppy scientist� who quarantined HIV-positive soldiers in the military.)

At the final trial, we chose a homicide cop to be on the jury. He became the foreman. Everyone was acquitted. The district attorney gave up.

We saved a lot of lives. But not enough. We didn�t have the biggest megaphone of all � public office. For years, the public officials remained silent.�

Let�s turn to now. Where do we stand?

Citizens are finally wearing masks � several weeks after the outbreak began. Even as late as March 31, Fauci was saying that although masks for citizens were under �very serious consideration,� he added �we�re not there yet.�

What about testing and contact tracing � the basic tools for containing a second outbreak? The CDC has been promising expanded testing for three months. Experts say we need to expand our testing and contact tracing by an order of magnitude before any serious reopening of the economy.

The Rockefeller Foundation�s opinion is that it will take two months to gear up from one million tests a week to three million tests a week, and six months to get to 30 million tests a week. There�s a Harvard Plan that believes the economy could be fully reopened by August 1 if we could test between 35-140 million a week � but I don�t know anyone who likes the idea of contact tracing by monitoring cellphone calls.

In March, Trump turned away from the Defense Production Act, finally giving in last week for at least the production of swabs. We are at least two months away from having the ability to test and contact-trace sufficiently to avoid a second outbreak. We don�t have the swabs, the PPE, the testing centers, the labs, or the personnel.

Georgia and other areas are opening restaurants this week. Droplets spread twelve feet. That requires a lot of social distancing. Cloth or paper masks will not protect the waiters and waitresses � and the patrons can�t wear masks while they eat. I don�t see anyone jumping up and down. This is basic science.�

This virus turned into a worldwide epidemic � why aren�t we listening to the virologists and the epidemiologists? Trevor Bedford, a Seattle epidemiologist, was sending his data about this pandemic in late January to everyone in the health community who would listen.�

Bedford now has 225,000 Twitter followers and a growing public presence. He may be the best detective out there � take a look at his data set. On contract tracers and testing, Bedford makes it plain: �We need an army.��

During the civil rights era, the people who mattered sat inside restaurants and opened them up. Now we need people in front of these restaurants to shut them down. We need you now � ideally with doctors and scientists on the front line � but don�t wait for them.

We don�t want a second outbreak. The USA has 4% of the world�s population and one-third of the world�s cases. Haven�t we made enough mistakes already?

We can�t count on the scientists. We can�t count on the doctors. This is no time to sit around and mope. We have to galvanize the media. We have to depend on scientific information and each other if we are going to effectively stop this pandemic. We need effective political organizing � on every level.

Bill Simpich is an Oakland attorney who knows that it doesn�t have to be like this. He was part of the legal team chosen by Public Justice as Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2003 for winning a jury verdict of 4.4 million in Judi Bari�s lawsuit against the FBI and the Oakland police.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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