After walking us through a series of COVID19 turning points over the course of the spring (out of work in the entertainment industry, MAGA protestors, college applications, Zoom school board meetings) in a rural/suburban area on the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties in Southern California TPM Reader AH comes to this turning point this week …
And the reason why is my other May turning point. My graduating senior checked his friend’s Instagram (also a graduating senior) to see what college he picked on decision day. Instead he discovered that this friend’s dad, a PhD teacher/professor in management and planning, has been hospitalized with COVID since mid April and is in a medically induced coma with organ failure.
From TPM Reader ANON …
Your brief write-up is true as far as it goes, but doesn’t even scratch the surface of what a long-term catastrophe this will be for the Justice Department. I’ve been around federal law enforcement for virtually all of my career — as a federal prosecutor, defense lawyer, official at top levels of Main Justice, and judge — and I don’t think the Department has ever suffered a greater self-inflicted wound.
No, this is not like a pardon by other means.
The Barr Justice Department’s corrupt abandonment of the prosecution of Michael Flynn after his guilty plea is a graver threat to the rule of law than the presidential pardon we long expected.
The corrupt, unprecedented abandonment of the prosecution of Mike Flynn by the Barr Justice Department – despite having secured a guilty plea – takes your breath away.
This week President Trump had a new message: he’s bored with the COVID19 epidemic. Or perhaps putting it a bit differently: it stopped being fun. He had already ramped back his daily coronavirus briefings which, for all the ‘ratings’ he crowed about, his aides decided were cratering his poll numbers. He first announced that he would disband the White House coronavirus task force before later saying he might continue it indefinitely because he found it was popular and “appreciated by the public.” He began telling friends and associates he doubted the the COVID19 death toll numbers – claiming they may be inflated to damage his political prospects or pad hospital earnings. He suggested that the price of federal aid to COVID-ravaged states would be a treasure trove of rightwing goodies: full compliance with ICE, defunding Social Security and Medicare and sharp reductions in taxation on investment income.
Putting these different messages together one aim seemed clear: after denying the existence of the epidemic, then fully immersing himself in its messaging and optics President Trump decided to disclaim ownership of it entirely. It’s really something happening in blue states, the fault of governors who didn’t prepare, states that were long fiscally mismanaged and economies shattered by refusing to reopen as quickly as he demanded. More than anything it’s just old news and not his problem. It’s happening somewhere else and, he hopes, not to ‘his’ people.
President Trump plans to participate in the White House’s National Day of Prayer service in the Rose Garden this afternoon. While his focus will likely be different, there’s a slim chance it’ll feel less calculated than his political performance at the National Prayer Breakfast just a few short months ago.
During the Passover, first daughter Ivanka Trump was shredded in the media for traveling to her father’s resort to celebrate, breaking the White House’s own “essential travel” rules.
From TPM Reader MM …
My story is like many others — not dramatic in itself but important to me. In February 2019 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Treatment included surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, physical therapy, and follow-up surgery. I lost count of the medical appointments in 2019, but it was somewhere north of 70. Needless to say, last year didn’t include much fun.
From TPM Reader IS …
Like the professor who first was so wrapped up in his move to France that the reality of the whole situation didn’t hit him right away, our family was so wrapped up with some big changes that initially had no connection at all to COVID 19 that we too didn’t connect it with what would happen just a few weeks later. We are the parents of a 37 year old daughter who has Stage 4 breast cancer.