In these dark days we daily see evidence of our dependence on great, robust news organizations like The New York Times that uncover myriads facts we do not and otherwise would not know. But the Times remains steadfastly wedded to the bothsidesist mentality that distorts almost all of its coverage that is any way tied to politics or public policy. If a question turns on these topics things that are clearly facts are relegated to questions of opinion. They must be attributed to political opponents or become the plaything of bad faith arguments and lies.
You’ve likely heard that two White House staffers (one a military valet who attends the President and another the Vice President’s press secretary) have recently tested positive for COVID19. You’ve likely also seen the President’s continual denigration and dismissal of the importance and value of testing. (See one example below.) But one thing that is very obvious is that notwithstanding the President’s comments the White House is following a policy of aggressive and near constant testing, coupled with tracing and isolation for those who are infected.
This is exactly what you would want and expect. And populist criticism to the contrary, it should be even more aggressive at the White House since the health of people at the White House – especially the President – is critical to continuity of government.
Whatever the President says, the people running the White House complex are making it pretty clear what they think.
President Trump just unveiled his unofficial new campaign slogan: Transition Into Greatness! Rolls off the tongue, no?
MAGA recedes into memory. TIG limps to the fore. Big shoes to fill.
One of the signatures of the COVID19 crisis in the US is how little critical information came from the US government sources. The canonical source of death tolls in and out of the United States is a project at Johns Hopkins University. The canonical sources of testing and infection data is a volunteer project spearheaded by a data guy and a journalist at The Atlantic. Yet even in the Trump Era the CDC does continue to do some public health research and publish their findings. Here’s a write-up from Josh Kovensky on a new CDC report which looks at excess mortality data to find that more than 24,000 people in New York died between March 11th and May 2nd as a result of the epidemic.
Follow our coverage of the Supreme Court oral arguments this morning in those critical separation of powers cases right here.
It’s been a long time since we had a major case or hearing to focus our coverage around, let alone two in one day.
President Trump has repeatedly conflated limiting air travel from China to avoiding “Chinatowns” in the United States. But recent articles note something perhaps counterintuitive about the experience of New York City. Both historic Chinatown in Lower Manhattan (see here) and at least one other Queens neighborhood (see here) with a high concentration of immigrants from Asia have among the lowest COVID19 infection rates. The reasons are intuitive: these communities were focused on COVID early and they’re part of a cultural space in which the experience of SARS in 2003 is very strong. Mask wearing among Asian-Americans and Asian immigrants started in New York City two or three weeks before the city locked down.
TPM Reader JGi thin draws what I think is the most important lesson we can draw …
We’ll have more coming soon that takes up the points TPM Reader SS raises here about the oral arguments in the Mazars/Deutsche Bank cases:
JoinI found the livestream of the arguments fascinating. I also found, somewhat disturbingly, that none of the commentators/blogs/websites that I follow (all of a liberal bent, so to speak) seemed to speak to what I thought was the main weakness of Congress’ case. (Note: while I’m not a practicing lawyer, I was, at one point, a member of the DC Bar).
The whole conversation about ‘reopening’ continues to presume growing public pressure to do so and to move faster than the country already is. But all the available evidence about public opinion suggests this isn’t the case. The smattering of public polls which have come out over the last month show the states with aggressive containment policies with sky high approval ratings for their governors and much lower ones for states that are moving quickly to end or loosen the lockdowns. Now a new poll from The Washington Post shows the pattern even more systematically and starkly.
Here’s the visual breakdown.
Senator Rand Paul said a short while ago that all the public health interventions New York City ended up taking probably didn’t make any difference in the outcome of the epidemic – a completely ignorant statement that flies in the face of over 150 years of modern public health work more and arguably thousands of years of human history. He harnesses the facts of public health to the shibboleths of his libertarian ideology: “A lot of what happens with the virus is independent of what government does.”
Whenever Paul says nonsensical stuff like this I’m reminded that he either could not or would not get board certified in his area of medical specialty – ophthalmology – and instead created his own mail order professional certification organization to accredit himself. He’s the story, from a decade ago.