Sweden never shut down, now its death rate AND its economy are worse than its neighbors

Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden's "keep everything open" approach to the coronavirus, is having second thoughts.

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Thursday May 07, 2020 · 12:40 PM MDT

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Many conservatives are in love with the idea of Sweden’s approach—no lockdown. They don’t take into consideration that half of Swedes live alone, or that they have a top-notch universal healthcare system. They just think “no lockdown” is a better response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

If nothing else, Sweden’s alternative response to the virus was … a good control group. And what we’re learning now is that failing to shut down hasn’t just led to more deaths, but—surprise surprise!—it also didn’t prevent its economy from tanking. In fact, Sweden is poised for more economic pain than its neighbors.

Sweden is quickly rising up the ranks of the world leaders in deaths. Here is the world ranking of deaths per million residents, excluding micro-nations:

	Deaths per million
Belgium	726
Spain	558
Italy	495
UK	451
France	395
Netherlands	309
Sweden	301
Ireland	284
USA	230

Sweden (like the United States) has been quickly moving up this horrid chart and will overtake the Netherlands sometime this weekend for the sixth spot in the world. Meanwhile, its neighbors following more standard shutdown protocols are looking pretty okay:

	Deaths per million
Sweden	301
Denmark	89
Finland	46
Norway	40

It’s not even close. So Sweden is starting to wonder whether this all made sense.

“[Anders] Tegnell, who has been leading the country's COVID-19 response and previously defended the nation's decision not to impose a lockdown, this week admitted he was ‘not convinced’ the unconventional anti-lockdown strategy was the best option to take," reported Newsweek. Tegnell called the death toll, now surpassing 3,000 dead, a “horrifyingly large number.”

But that sacrifice in blood at least saved the country’s economy, right? Well, that’s the funny part. (And not in a “ha ha” funny way.) “Sweden’s economy is expected to contract between 6.9% and 9.7%,” reported CNBC. Meanwhile, this is what the International Monetary Fund expects from other European countries:

	Economic contraction
Sweden	6.9-9.7%
Italy	9.1%
Spain	8%
France	7.2%
UK	7%
Germany	6.5%
Denmark	6.5%

	Finland6% In a sane world, this controlled “experiment” would be reason enough for policymakers in the United States to hold back on reopening their states and the country. Instead, those ignoramuses are hell-bent on making the same obvious mistakes, pretending that returning to “business as usual” will rescue the country from economic calamity.

 And sure, Republicans are stupid enough to go out and get infected, doing the virus’ dirty work for it. But the economy isn’t going anywhere as long as most people, who are sane and smart, refuse to put themselves in danger for a movie or haircut.

Or, to put it another way: It is impossible for the economy to rebound as long as a deadly virus is killing Americans at a clip of several thousand a day. If you don’t believe that, just look at Sweden.

McConnell claims Obama didn't leave Trump a pandemic 'game plan.' Obama very literally did

Mitch McConnell

Laura Clawson

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Tuesday May 12, 2020 · 8:22 AM MDT

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Donald Trump has decided that former President Barack Obama is the big new enemy to rant about all the time, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is falling in line. Trump spent Monday rage-tweeting about something called “Obamagate” and, asked by a reporter what crime he was accusing Obama of, said “You know what the crime. The crime is very obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.” (At no point did Trump name a crime.)

Hours later, McConnell appeared on the Team Trump Livestream with Trump daughter-in-law Lara, and went after Obama on COVID-19. “Clearly the Obama administration did not leave to this administration, any kind of game plan for something like this,” McConnell said. The Obama administration literally left the Trump administration a literal pandemic playbook, complete with warnings about the need for testing and personal protective equipment and instructions for coordinated response. 

That’s not all. The Obama administration also left a pandemic early warning program that Trump canceled last fall. And the Obama administration held a pandemic training exercise during the transition to help prepare the incoming Trump administration.

So when McConnell says “Clearly the Obama administration did not leave to this administration, any kind of game plan for something like this,” that is not subject to interpretation in any way—you simply cannot make a good-faith effort that this statement is even partially true.

McConnell also whined about Obama having called Trump’s coronavirus response ”an absolute chaotic disaster” in a private call with former staff. “I think it's a little bit classless frankly, to critique an administration that comes after you,” McConnell said, because obviously it’s worse to be “a little bit classless” than to cause the deaths of tens of thousands of people through denial, refusal to take action, incompetence, and putting politics over public health.

McConnell cited the two Presidents Bush as models for not publicly criticizing presidential successors—but the difference is that they were succeeded by competent presidents.

At a certain point of incompetence and intentional cruelty you’re just not even talking about the same concept, and Trump is there. Trump has shattered every political norm in sight, with McConnell’s eager participation and even leadership, so to invoke norms of civility is yet another dishonest perversion of U.S. politics.

Flynndication? Not So Fast, Says Judge

Michael Flynn leaves a Washington court in 2018. (photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)

By Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair

13 May 20

Trump and his allies cheered the DOJ’s decision to drop its case against Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. But a federal judge will allow additional arguments from outside experts.

onald Trump was ecstatic last week when his Department of Justice suddenly dropped its case against Michael Flynn, his first national security adviser.

“Yesterday was a BIG day for Justice in the USA,” Trump tweeted. “Congratulations to General Flynn, and many others.” Who were those unnamed “others?” Perhaps William Barr, the attorney general who has served as the “Roy Cohn” that Jeff Sessions never did. Perhaps Trump himself, for whom the case against Flynn had become a major battle in his war against those who executed the Russia investigation that hung over his first two years in office. “I do believe there is MUCH more to come!” he added, perhaps signaling that he would be siccing the DOJ on members of the Obama administration involved in the high-profile case.

But even as Trump obsesses over “Obamagate”—that is, crimes supposedly committed by his predecessor that even he cannot actually define—and Mike Pence opens his arms to welcome Flynn back into the fold, the disgraced retired general is not quite in the clear yet.

Federal Judge Emmet G. Sullivan late Tuesday hit the pause button on the DOJ’s decision not to prosecute Flynn, issuing an order allowing outside groups and legal experts to argue against the stunning decision to let him skate. “Given the current posture of this case, the Court anticipates that individuals and organizations will seek leave of the Court to file amicus curiae briefs,” Sullivan wrote, echoing another judge in a high profile Trump associate case adding: “A criminal proceeding is not a free for all.”

The brief order signaled that Sullivan may be concerned about the unusual dismissal of a Trump friend, who had confessed to lying to investigators in 2017.

“The judge could be concerned this is cronyism,” Nancy Gerner, a former federal judge, told the New York Times. “I would predict that he holds a hearing and has the prosecutors justify the decision they made.”

Flynn served as an adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign and his transition team, and for less than a month held the post of national security adviser; he was forced to resign from the role in February 2017, weeks into Trump’s presidency, amid scrutiny of his 2016 contacts with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and reports that he lied about them to Pence. As federal law enforcement investigated the retired general, Trump lobbied then-FBI director James Comey to drop the case: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go,” the president told Comey, according to a memo he drafted after the meeting.

The episode became a flashpoint in the Russia investigation, and led in part to the firing of Comey and the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Later that year, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts—widely seen as a good deal, considering he and his son could have faced charges of acting as unregistered foreign agents—saying he accepted “full responsibility” for his actions.

But after Barr cleared Trump of wrongdoing in the Mueller probe, despite the sweeping misconduct outlined in the special counsel’s report, Trump and his allies adopted Flynn as something of a symbol of so-called “deep state” overreach, a martyr of the supposed “witch hunt” against the president.

Late last month, Barr’s review of the Russia probe turned up what Flynn and Trump regarded as evidence of his vindication: email exchanges between federal agents and notes that questioned whether, in their 2017 interview with Flynn, they should seek “Truth/Admission” from the retired general or “get him to lie.” “What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!” Trump wrote.

That seemed to suggest Trump would soon move to pardon Flynn, but it turned out he didn’t have to. Last week, Barr’s DOJ announced it would drop the case altogether, in what critics cast as the most glaring example yet of the politicization of the Justice department. “We are not supposed to get special treatment because we are friends with the President or refused to cooperate with federal investigators on his behalf,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler.

But as Cristian Farias pointed out last week, Sullivan has an opportunity to overrule Barr—and a history with Flynn that suggested he wouldn’t be so quick to accept the DOJ’s decision to dismiss. Presiding over the case, Sullivan has had harsh words for Flynn, both about the lies he told to federal investigators and administration officials and about his shady work for foreign governments.

“Arguably, you sold your country out,” he told Flynn in 2018. In his brief order Tuesday, Sullivan didn’t signal any particular feelings about the decision—but it does seem to reflect some suspicion about the highly unusual move by the Justice department. “It is no wonder that a judge would be skeptical, if not downright angry, and come to the conclusion that he had been misled, either at the outset, or now,” former federal prosecutor Matthew J. Jacobs told the Times.

Flynn’s legal team, however, immediately objected to the judge’s delay, accusing Sullivan of attempting to “usurp the role of the government’s counsel.” “This travesty of justice has already consumed three or more years of an innocent man’s life — and that of his entire family,” Flynn attorney Sidney Powell wrote Tuesday. “No further delay should be tolerated or any further expense caused to him and his defense.”

Four Die-Hard Loyalists Are Enabling Trump's Apocalyptic Coronavirus Response

Jared Kushner, Stephen Miller, Mike Pompeo, and William Barr from left to right. (image: Soohee Cho/The Intercept, Getty Images)

By James Risen, The Intercept

10 May 20
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he Four Horsemen of the Pandemic are rampaging through Washington. Their names are Kushner, Miller, Pompeo, and Barr.

They are fulfilling Donald Trump’s darkest desires to twist the Covid-19 pandemic into a culture war, while also looking for ways to exploit the nation’s greatest public health crisis in a century to foment hoaxes and conspiracy theories and punish Trump’s enemies.

Meanwhile, they are ignoring the actual pandemic. Trump and his lackeys have decided to let America burn.

They have wasted the time the American people gave them to come to grips with Covid-19. It was precious time granted by people who, in overwhelming numbers, complied with state-level stay-at-home orders for two months so the government could come up with a serious national strategy to address the health crisis and its economic fallout.

But Trump has betrayed that sacrifice by failing to develop any coherent plan at all. He has surrendered to the virus, even as the American death toll heads rapidly toward 100,000.

He has instead spent his time sitting in the White House watching cable news, braying at his critics on Twitter, and summarily firing anyone in the federal government who tries to actually take action to prevent the pandemic from becoming even worse. The latest victim is Dr. Rick Bright, who filed a whistleblower complaint on Tuesday after he was ousted from his position as director of the government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. 

Bright’s sin? He refused to get on board with the Trump administration’s incoherent response to the virus, notably its dangerous and ill-informed efforts to push hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug, as a Covid-19 treatment just because Trump had called it a miracle cure.

While professionals like Bright are pushed aside, Trump has turned to the usual suspects to do his bidding.

Jared Kushner, his pale, thin-lipped son-in-law, has gone from creating havoc in the Middle East, where he was supposedly in charge of developing Trump’s “policy” for the region, to creating havoc in the federal response to Covid-19, thanks to his role running a backdoor coronavirus task force rife with incompetence and political favoritism. (The Trump White House has a front-door ad-hoc task force, run by Vice President Mike Pence, but Trump shut down the professional pandemic team at the National Security Council in 2018.)

Kushner’s most consequential and deadliest contribution to the government’s response came early in the crisis, when he convinced Trump that the press was overhyping the threat. That appealed to Trump’s natural inclination to call Covid-19 a media-invented hoax, especially as he started facing criticism for failing to address shortages of tests and other urgently needed medical equipment, including protective gear for nurses and doctors. Trump’s failure to take any action during the pandemic’s critical early days allowed the virus to become embedded in the United States.

Naturally, Kushner has now declared victory, even as Covid-19 expands its fatal reach across the nation. “We’re on the other side of the medical aspect of this,” Kushner told Fox News last week. “We’ve achieved all the different milestones that are needed. The federal government rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story.”

Stephen Miller, a young man with an endless forehead who serves as Trump’s master of the dark arts of xenophobia and nationalism, has inserted himself into the Covid-19 crisis as well, convincing the president to sign an executive order severely restricting immigration during the pandemic. Of course, Miller wants the temporary order to lead to the permanent, draconian crackdown on immigration he has long wished for. Miller has pushed through dozens of smaller changes in immigration policies and procedures during the pandemic, which may also lead to permanent changes.

Miller’s long-term anti-immigrant obsession has already had a devastating impact on the nation’s ability to deal with the pandemic. Trump has gutted the budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is supposed to coordinate America’s disaster response, while a growing share of funding for its parent organization, the Department of Homeland Security, has been shifted to immigration and border control.

Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state with a body like a neighborhood bowling league champion, is helping Trump foment conspiracy theories about the origins of Covid-19. Pompeo has been pushing the notion that the virus was manufactured in a Chinese laboratory. By contrast, the consensus among most scientists, public health officials, and intelligence analysts throughout the world is that the virus reached humans naturally through contact in a Chinese wet market.

While the exact origins of the virus don’t matter to most Americans now struggling to deal with Covid-19, Pompeo’s goal in pushing this so-called Wuhan lab theory is to make Trump feel better about his own failed handling of the crisis. It also can be weaponized to convince Trump’s die-hard base that the government’s botched handling of the pandemic is not Trump’s fault.

Over the last few days, Pompeo has offered a series of confused statements about the issue, probably because Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease professional, has repeatedly and publicly pushed back, saying that the scientific evidence shows that the virus is not man-made.

Over the weekend, Pompeo claimed there was strong evidence that the virus originated in a Chinese lab. On Wednesday, he said he wasn’t certain, but added that there is “significant evidence” that the virus came from a Chinese laboratory.

His jumbled statements show that Pompeo is trying to walk a tightrope between the experts and Trump, who has a long-standing addiction to conspiracy theories.

In the process, Pompeo has managed to pointlessly anger China — just one aspect of a broader Trump-Pompeo renunciation of international cooperation on Covid-19. Earlier this week, the Trump administration refused to join a virtual summit of world leaders who pledged to join forces to develop vaccines and treatments.

Attorney General William Barr, Trump’s Tom Hagen, has also joined the president’s Covid-19 show. Barr is now threatening to turn the Justice Department against the state governors who, in the absence of national leadership, have done the most to grapple with the pandemic.

In the process, Barr is aligning himself with the ugliest strain of an emerging American culture war. Trump has repeatedly tweeted his opposition to state stay-at-home orders, while showing support for protests by armed right-wingers at several state capitols, who have demanded that the stay-at-home orders be lifted. In another demonstration of Barr’s political fealty to Trump, the attorney general is now threatening lawsuits against states with strict stay-at-home orders, complaining that they infringe of people’s civil liberties.

But Barr’s claim to be a champion of civil liberties was undermined by his actions just weeks earlier, when the administration tried to empower the attorney general to ask federal judges to freeze court proceedings during a national emergency.

While the Democratic-controlled House will almost certainly not vote for the administration proposal, if it did become law it could mean that anyone arrested could be held without charge until the crisis ends.

For Trump and his flunkies, Covid-19 has been everything but a public health crisis. As if to underline that point, Trump said earlier this week that Pence’s coronavirus task force would soon be winding down. He quickly changed course on that, saying that the task force will remain active but will focus on reopening the economy. In other words, it will be an adjunct to Trump’s reelection campaign.

Top 5 Reasons Trump's West Wing May Be Emerging as a Coronavirus Epicenter

Mike Pence visiting the Mayo Clinic without a mask. (photo: MSNBC)

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment

11 May 20
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ana Winter and Hunter Walker at Yahoo News broke the story that 11 Secret Service agents have tested positive for the coronavirus. Likely some of them served in the West Wing. This week it was revealed at that a US military valet who brought Trump food came down with the virus, sending Trump into a “lava level” rage. Two aides to Vice President Mike Pence have tested positive. Some observers are afraid that the virus is circulating in the West Wing itself.

If so, it would come as no surprise, since the Trump White House has been thumbing its all along nose at best practice mitigating measures.

1. Denialism. Trump spent two months doing absolutely nothing to prepare for fighting the coronavirus, repeatedly denying it would be a problem in the United States, saying there were only 15 cases, that it would fall to zero, that it would magically go away in April. When a scientist at the Centers for Disease Control in late February warned on television of what was coming, the stock market took a dive. Trump had been in India and he fumed all the way home about that public admission. That is, one of Trump’s motives in coronavirus denialism was to protect the value of securities so as to keep his wealthy base happy going into his bid for reelection.

This stance of denialism required that Trump and his circle not be seen to take the coronavirus seriously. But that means that the administration did little to stop the spread of the disease in the White House itself.

2. Shaking hands. Back in the first half of March, Pence defended his and Trump’s insistence on shaking hands. Pence opined, ”As the president has said, in our line of work, you shake hands when someone wants to shake your hand. The president will continue to do it, I’ll continue to do it.”

In contrast, infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci strongly urged that the whole custom of shaking hands be abolished forever. In fact, along with wearing masks, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, all of whom have unexpectedly low numbers of cases and fatalities, share in common a culture where you greet people in some other way than transferring someone’s microbes from their hand to yours.

3. Refusing to wear a mask. When Pence toured the Mayo Clinic, he had apparently rethought shaking hands, but bumped elbows (also advised against because you have to get in fairly close to do it). But he was, like, the only one not wearing a mask.

Trump wouldn’t even wear a mask when he toured an Arizona Honeywell factory that makes masks, and where all the employees were wearing them. They were playing Paul McCartney and the Wings’ 1973 James Bond theme song, “Live and Let Die” in the background during his visit. I kid you not. 

Will Weissert and Jonathan Lemire at AP reported that Trump fears he would look ridiculous in a mask and that the Biden campaign would use footage of him thus attired in attack ads, hurting his reelection chances.

In Hong Kong universal public voluntary adoption of face masks appears to have been one of their secrets of success in containing the coronavirus. Some Americans, in contrast, are so ignorant that they have actually brandished guns rather than wear a mask. (Since they want to be gunmen, why are the so against wearing a mask? Billy the Kid did).

4. Big Meetings. The intrepid Hunter Walker at Yahoo News also reported that big meetings have been held regularly in the White House, including in the relatively cramped Oval Office. Staff routinely meets in large gatherings with no masks and no social distancing.

5. It is almost as though this Republican administration is full of arrogant people who dismiss science. Oh wait.

There was that op-ed Mike Pence wrote denying that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer, and then there was his refusal to provide clean needles during the HIV crisis, harming Indiana public health. Then there is Trump’s own claim that climate change is a Chinese hoax. Gee, there are a lot of Chinese hoaxes around that all seem actually to come true.

Trump’s chief advisor on making America Minderheitenrein (purified of minorities), Stephen Miller, came up through the far right wing Breitbart propaganda mill that denies the science of climate change. Miller’s wife was one of the Pence aides who contracted the coronavirus this week. I wish Ms. Miller a speedy recovery. It is a nasty disease that can leave even young people with serious health conditions, including decreased lung function and damage to the heart, kidneys and other organs.

People who dismiss the prescriptions of science are prospective Darwin Award winners. The danger is that when they own the White House, they may force the rest of us to join them at the podium for the award ceremony.

 

We Cannot Allow the Normalization of Firearms at Protests to Continue

Armed protesters rally outside the New Hampshire State House in Concord, N.H., on May 2. (photo: Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images)

By Michele L. Norris, The Washington Post

09 May 20
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his we know: Black or brown people gathering in the streets or at the statehouse with rifles and body armor would not be tolerated.

They would not be allowed to yell in the face of police officers.

They would not be referred to as “very good people” by a sitting president.

There would be no debate about First or Second Amendment rights.

There would be arrests. Lots of them.

Let’s just admit that.

And let’s admit this, too: We’ve gotten far too accustomed to the image of white protesters carrying paramilitary-level firearms in public spaces. The presence of guns — often really large guns — at protests has become alarmingly normalized. It is time to take stock of what that means.

Accepting and even expecting to see firearms at protest rallies means that we somehow embrace the threat of chaos and violence. While those who carry say they have no intention of using their weapons, the firepower alone creates a wordless threat, and something far more calamitous if even just one person discharges a round.

If someone were to go rogue, it would be difficult for police to identify a shooter while facing a phalanx of protesters who all have rifles strapped to their shoulders.

Distinguishing law enforcement from people dressed as “enforcers” could be tough. During the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, the Virginia National Guard tweeted that its troops were wearing “MP” patches on their uniforms so people could sort the military police from the rifle-wielding paramilitary groups that showed up wearing helmets, camouflage and tactical vests.

Accepting the open display of firearms at protests means we can expect an increased militarization of state and local law enforcement agencies seeking to protect their troops.

Accepting the open display of firearms at rallies means we must also admit this confirms a significant cultural shift that collides with norms and current laws. The protesters that stormed the statehouse in Michigan were within their right to carry guns inside the state Capitol under open-carry laws. But their actions were far outside of the comfort zone for many people who work in that building and who dedicate their lives to finding civil solutions to disagreements.

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey is a Republican and Second Amendment champion who initially supported challenges to the state’s shutdown order. But in a statement last week, he condemned the use of “intimidation and the threat of physical harm to stir up fear and feed rancor.” There are now discussions about reviewing the laws that allow citizens to carry and display guns inside the Michigan statehouse.

Almost every state has legal tools to crack down on armed militias under laws that prevent the formation of private paramilitaries that are not answerable to civil authorities. Such groups cannot falsely assume police or military roles and are not allowed to provide military training to prepare members for civil disorders. But when heavily armed protesters show up in formation at rallies, they certainly flout these laws.

Is this brazen display of force about the right to own firearms or the right to make armed threats for political purposes? Just asking, because the latter is not a “right” that can be equally asserted. The protests are purportedly about reopening America. A parallel goal is realignment — using the Second Amendment to conduct regular and routine shows of force to intimidate elected officials into enacting a political agenda.

Accepting the display of firearms at protests by some and not others means that we must also accept that some are rewarded with a kind of special citizenship that allows them to be seen as patriotic instead of threatening, and aggrieved instead of aggressive.

If we accept this as normal, it means the country collectively is shrugging its shoulders and co-signing a skewed social contract, in which white-nationalist groups grow in size and influence, as threats against politicians and journalists escalate, and as gun violence and mass shootings continue to rise.

Accepting this increasingly brazen display of guns as normal means an armed political movement is flourishing outside the guardrails of our political system.

This didn’t happen overnight. Advocates for open-carry have been carrying handguns and rifles to department stores, Starbucks and state capitols since 2013 in an effort to normalize firearms in public. The movement is coincidentally aligned with an entertainment trend in which paramilitary forces take center stage in popular video games and TV shows such as HBO’s “Watchmen” and Showtime’s “Homeland.”

Polls show that most Americans prefer a go-slow approach to reopening most businesses. The armed protesters in places such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and North Carolina represent a tiny minority. Some surveys put the most insistent open-now crowd at less than 10 percent. But the weapons make their influence seem larger — and they know that. We see protests punctuated by guns almost every day. It has become routine. We have normalized something that should be shocking.

 This grandma doesn't mince words when it comes to guns...even on Mother's Day. 

Yale epidemiologist: Trump's response to COVID-19 'close to genocide by default'

Aldous J Pennyfarthing

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Friday May 08, 2020 · 10:19 AM MDT

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I’ve always suspected Donald Trump would be far more upset if someone screwed up his McDonald’s lunch order than if, say, millions of promised (and necessary) coronavirus tests failed to materialize by a self-imposed deadline.

After all, Trump can lie about the tests, but he can’t pretend he has an invisible McRib and fries in front of him.

So a day after the Trump administration indicated it would wind down its coronavirus task force — and before it suddenly reversed that shit-for-brains policy when millions of lucid human beings heard about it — Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale University epidemiologist, said what many of us have been thinking. What Trump is doing — or, more precisely, not doing — amounts to criminal negligence.

Gregg Gonsalves ✔ @gregggonsalves

How many people will die this summer, before Election Day? What proportion of the deaths will be among African-Americans, Latinos, other people of color? This is getting awfully close to genocide by default. What else do you call mass death by public policy? #COVID19 #coronavirus

Gregg Gonsalves ✔ @gregggonsalves

 · May 6, 2020

So, what does it mean to let thousands die by negligence, omission, failure to act, in a legal sense under international law? #COVID19 #coronavirus

Gregg Gonsalves ✔ @gregggonsalves

And I am being serious here: what is happening in the US is purposeful, considered negligence, omission, failure to act by our leaders. Can they be held responsible under international law?

Yup.

Reopening the economy with no real plan to do it safely — i.e., without testing and contact tracing — is essentially murder.

But Trump knows that he needs a much stronger economy to give him any shot at reelection. America has to be “back” before Election Day or Trump will have nothing to run on but racism, xenophobia, and a bunch of shitty right-wing judges.

So he’s gambling with our lives. If things miraculously work out, he’ll look like a strong leader who guided us through this crisis. If not, well, what’s a few hundred thousand dead Americans to him? This guy had no compunction about tearing innocent children away from their mothers and tossing them in cages. Why the fuck would you ever think he’d care about you?

Trump likes to pretend he’s a wartime president fighting an “invisible enemy.” Well, maybe we can convict him of war crimes. Deliberate mass murder qualifies, right?

The saddest part of this saga is that the Republican Party has exposed itself as pure evil.  They'll do anything to stay in power even if it means drinking Trump's Kool-Aid as Americans die.