Crooked Media - What A Day: The king's ransom

President Trump has gone full despot in claiming that he has king-like authority to reopen the economy at will, while denying any responsibility to coordinate a national pandemic response. He’d like to have his cake and hurl fistfuls of it at Democratic governors, too, as the famous saying goes.
 

• Trump’s coronavirus task force briefings reached new propagandistic heights on Monday, as captured in a series of unrestrained CNN chyrons that, alas, didn’t prompt CNN to stop airing the propaganda. Trump showed what amounted to a campaign ad celebrating the administration’s perfect response to the epidemic, then lashed out at reporters who asked about the month-long gap depicted in his own video. He invited Dr. Anthony Fauci to “clarify” his criticisms of the government’s failures, and proclaimed that “When somebody is president of the United States, your authority is total.” That was in response to the news that governors on both coasts have formed regional coalitions to coordinate an eventual easing of restrictions in the absence of a real federal strategy. Today Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) explained the factors that California will rely on to guide its gradual reopening, without promising any timetable. 
   
• A high testing capacity is one of the key elements we’ll need to start easing restrictions, and testing backlogs in some states are getting worse, not better. New Jersey, which has the second-highest coronavirus caseload after New York, is struggling with a shortage of nasal swabs and nurses, as well as overwhelmed labs with limited supplies of chemical reagents. Timely results are as important as the tests themselves, and often just as elusive. As cases began to explode in New Orleans, LA, people tested at drive-through sites often waited over a week for their results, and the administration brushed off local officials when they requested information on how many results had been received, and how many of those tested had been notified. 
   
• Fauci said today that without rapid testing in place, Trump’s goal of restarting the economy by May 1 is “a bit overly optimistic.” The danger is that in their rush to boost the economy back to Republican-electing levels, Trump and his allies won’t care. Republican governors who rescind stay-at-home orders on Trump’s cue could see sudden infection surges like South Dakota’s, where Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) has refused to issue a statewide order at all. On the other end of the spectrum, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) is facing intense backlash from conservative Michiganders after issuing one of the most restrictive orders in an effort to contain one of the country’s worst outbreaks. 

Even while warning that the global economy is on the cusp of the worst recession since the Great Depression, the International Monetary Fund cautioned against reopening too early.
 

• “Necessary measures to reduce contagion and protect lives will take a short-term toll on economic activity but should also be seen as an important investment in long-term human and economic health,” the IMF forecasters wrote, clearing their throats in the direction of the president. The IMF predicted that the global economy will shrink three percent this year, with a contraction almost twice as sharp in the U.S. 
   
• Congress can do more to offset that economic pain when it returns from recess, which will now be no earlier than May 4. Democrats might like to start by dismantling this tax provision Republicans added to the last stimulus package, which will cost taxpayers $90 billion in 2020 alone, and overwhelmingly benefit millionaires.
   

A master of saying the quiet part out loud, Trump told reporters, “If some states refuse to open, I’d like to see that person run for election.” From the early days of the crisis when he wanted to keep the numbers where they were, to his push to reopen the economy ahead of the advice of health experts, Trump has shaped the government’s public health decisions around his own political interests. It is easily the biggest and deadliest political scandal in U.S. history.

The coronavirus pandemic will make voting in-person unsafe for months, if not years, and if we want to make sure Election Day is safe and accessible for every voter in every state, we need to do something NOW. That’s why we’re asking you to call Congress this week. Congress is back in session, and will vote on a fourth coronavirus relief package. We want them to include at least $2 billion in “safe election money” to ensure that no one should have to choose between their right to vote and their health and safety. This will be used to require states to invest in vote by mail and early voting, and make in-person polling locations safer for everyone.

We get that calling anyone, let alone Congress can be daunting, so we launched a new call tool on Vote Save America that will help connect you directly with your reps and give you a script to help you out with what you need to say. Check it out at votesaveamerica.com/call, and please, if this is important to you, make those calls. The future of our democracy could depend on it.

The Treasury Department has given banks the green light to seize individuals’ $1,200 coronavirus stimulus checks to pay off outstanding debts. Congress didn’t exempt the CARES Act direct payments from private debt collections (bad), and the Treasury Department effectively gave banks its blessing to grab the money intended to help people buy food and pay bills during a pandemic (pure evil). The payments will be posted to whatever direct deposit account the IRS has on file, which for many people may be an account they thought was closed, but which can still accept deposits. If that abandoned account has, say, outstanding overdraft charges, the bank can seize the account owner’s stimulus check to pay off the balance. Of the five leading banks, only JP Morgan Chase has said it wouldn’t use the payments to offset negative balances on overdrawn accounts.

• New York City's coronavirus death toll now exceeds 10,000 after the city added 3,700 people who were presumed to be positive.
   
• President Trump announced that the U.S. will halt funding to the World Health Organization. That’ll teach ‘em not to delay action for weeks as the coronavirus spreads through the U.S., while repeatedly comparing it to the flu. Or, wait....
   
• Barack Obama has officially endorsed Joe Biden for president, praising the qualities that make Biden a strong candidate to guide the country through its coronavirus recovery. Let us now turn our full attention to speculating on Biden’s veep pick. 
   
• The Census Bureau has moved to request that Congress allow a delay in some deadlines as the coronavirus crisis hinders field work. Trump has pushed for a longer delay, because while most people should get back to work immediately, the Census-takers, whose work will more fairly allocate representatives and resources, must stay safely at home as long as possible.
   
• The Navajo Nation has reported more confirmed COVID-19 cases per capita than all but two states. The number of confirmed cases surged 367 percent in two weeks, rising to 813 as of Monday.
   
• Arkansas has become the sixth state to try to use a pandemic as cover to ban abortion. The ACLU filed an emergency lawsuit to block the order. In Texas, a federal appeals court ruled that medication abortions will continue to be available, leading abortion rights groups to withdraw their request for the Supreme Court to overturn the state’s ban. (Women more than 11 weeks pregnant still have no abortion access in Texas, and challenges to similar bans are still working through the courts.)
   
• Amazon fired two employees who criticized workplace conditions in the company’s warehouses, and reportedly fired yet another employee involved in labor organizing. 
   
• A federal appeals court upheld Jeffrey Epstein’s absurd 2007 plea deal, which allowed him to avoid federal sex-trafficking charges.
   
• Ticketmaster has changed its refund policy to screw over customers when events are postponed or rescheduled, offering a reassuring taste of normalcy. Our lives have been disrupted in so many ways, but Ticketmaster will forever suck ass.
   
• Chris Cuomo went on a big rant about hating his job because he’s not allowed to tell people to go to hell, then clarified that, actually, he loves his job and will not be quitting. If Andrew Cuomo doesn’t make fun of this, what are we doing here?

The hotel industry wants to change the rules governing aid it receives from the CARES Act to circumvent requirements binding beneficiaries to pay employees. Provisions of the law require that hotel owners rehire their staffs by the end of June, and that 75 percent of proceeds from small-business loans be used for payroll. The industry’s top lobbying group wrote a letter to Congress requesting changes, which workers and unions say large hotel brands will use to prioritize paying shareholders and Wall Street lenders before their workers. Incidentally, four Trump hotels appear to qualify for those bailout funds, but we’re sure they won’t get special consideration when they apply for loans, or feel enabled to use the money however they want.

Major League Baseball employees will participate in a nationwide coronavirus antibody study, which will test up to 10,000 people and give researchers a better sense of the virus’s true infection rate.

Passenger airlines have reached a tentative deal with the government for $25 billion in aid to continue paying salaries and benefits to their employees. (We’ll consider this hopeful until they pull a hotel industry.)

The largest supermarket chains have teamed up with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union to push for grocery workers to be designated first responders.

A New Jersey landlord canceled rent for three months for tenants across his 12 properties, asking only that they “pay it forward” by supporting local businesses.

An anonymous donor sent gift cards worth $150 to every household in Earlham, IA, totaling more than $82,000 in donations.