Crooked Media - What A Day: Bye-droxychloroquine

President Trump announced in a Monday night tweet that he plans to suspend all immingration to the U.S., a transparent effort to boost his falling poll numbers by provoking a political debate that he thinks he can win. We must fight fire with fire, and defeat the “Invisible Enemy” with Transparent Xenophobia.
 

• In justifying his move to seal off a country that has more confirmed coronavirus cases than anywhere else in the world, Trump framed it as a mechanism for protecting American jobs, as if immigrants are flocking to the U.S. right now for all the jobs (they are not). His real intention is very clearly to fire up his base, and redirect the national conversation away from his catastrophic response to the pandemic. The tweet sent administration officials scrambling to figure out logistics and a legal basis for the freeze, and today Trump unveiled an executive order that will block most green-card recipients from moving to the country for 60 days. Temporary workers will still be able to obtain visas.
   
• The Senate approved a $484 billion interim relief bill this afternoon, providing $350 billion to the Payroll Protection Program, $75 billion to hospitals, and $25 billion to expand testing. The House is expected to pass the bill, too, and change its rules to allow remote voting on coronavirus-relief legislation, on Thursday. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would ask for more funding for states and local governments again in the next coronavirus relief package, which is already being negotiated, and for the love of god had better also include safe-voting provisions. 
   
• Four southern states have now announced plans to reopen their economies in the next two weeks, even as confirmed case numbers continue to rise. To be clear, this is as harmful for struggling businesses as it is for public health: Lifting lockdowns will place enormous pressure on businesses to reopen before they have enough customers to offset their costs. Some Georgia mayors have criticized Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) for relaxing restrictions, saying they were not consulted and think Kemp has wet crumb cake for brains (paraphrasing). 

While Trump eggs on protests against strict stay-at-home orders, Attorney General Bill Barr is preparing to challenge those orders in court.
 

• Barr threatened to take legal action against governors whose lockdown orders go “too far,” as determined by some vague metric that definitely isn’t Trump’s personal opinion. The Justice Department could do that by joining lawsuits brought by individuals or businesses against state or local officials. 
   
• In the latest on hydroxychloroquine-gate, Trump has all but quit hyping the antiviral drug over the past week. By what is surely a coincidence, this study at Veterans Health Administration hospitals found that the drug had no benefit in treating severely ill coronavirus patients. It wasn’t a randomized controlled trial, but among 368 patients, more who were treated with hydroxychloroquine died than did those who received standard care. 
   

It’s deeply disappointing that hydroxychloroquine doesn’t appear to be an effective treatment. It’s also deeply alarming that Trump and his Fox News allies flogged it relentlessly for reasons we still don’t know, driving vulnerable people to risk their lives by taking it, and creating a shortage for the non-coronavirus patients who needed it. As with every other aspect of the response he’s mishandled, Trump now hopes to move on, change the subject to immigration, and never speak of it again. Democrats shouldn’t let him get his wish.

People need to be able to vote this November, but there’s no guarantee that it will be safe to vote it in-person for months. That’s why Vote Save America has been telling everyone to Call Congress—we want them to make sure states have the money they need to invest in vote by mail and early voting, and make in-person polling locations safer for everyone.

We want Congress to include this funding in the next coronavirus relief package, and it’s so much more likely that that will happen if we make it clear that we want that now. So we’re doing a little “sprint” tomorrow. We want as many people as possible to go to votesaveamerica.com/call to get connected to their representatives in Congress, and tell them why this is important to them. 

We wrote out a script so you know exactly what to say, and our tool will connect you directly to their offices. votesaveamerica.com/call has everything you need → 

At least seven coronavirus cases have been linked to in-person voting in Wisconsin’s April 7 election. Officials have identified six voters and one poll worker who seem to have contracted COVID-19 as a result of the election-day activities Republicans refused to postpone, and exacerbated by refusing to make it easier to cast absentee ballots. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said around 3,500 people voted in-person at each of the city’s five polling sites, and health officials are still trying to determine whether the confirmed cases were concentrated around one site. While there’s not enough data to attribute a spike in cases to the election yet, a graph of new infections in Wisconsin shows an uptick right around where you’d expect it. It’s too early to say unsafe voting conditions caused a surge, but it’s the exact right time to call your reps, and tell them you’re furious it’s even a question. We'll drop that link here again → 

• At least 25,000 more people worldwide have died from the virus than previously reported, according to a New York Times review of mortality data in 11 countries.
   
• South Korean officials said there’s no indication Kim Jong-un is “gravely ill,” following unconfirmed media reports on Monday night that he was in poor health after surgery. 
   
• The Trump Organization has asked the Trump administration for a break on the lease payments for the Trump International Hotel. If only anyone had raised any objection about a potential conflict of interest at any point in the last three and a half years. 
   
• Trump mega-donor Liz Uihlein sent employees at her company a petition to recall Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) for his decision to extend Wisconsin’s lockdown, and today GOP leaders in the Wisconsin legislature asked the state’s supreme court to block Evers’s order.
   
• Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell brushed off House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff’s demand for an explanation of his effort to fill the intelligence community with Trump loyalists. In typical internet-troll fashion, Grenell pointed out that he’d appointed two women to leadership positions, without addressing why he, a temporary official who wasn’t confirmed by the Senate, is reshaping the agency’s leadership.
   
• Germany’s Oktoberfest has been canceled, as has the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which at least shouldn’t disappoint too many of the same people. 
   
• Maryland purchased 500,000 coronavirus tests from South Korea, with the help of the state’s first lady Yumi Hogan. Then Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) masterfully threw all 500,000 of them in Trump’s face.
   
• A report from the State Department warned that Russia, China, and Iran are spreading matching disinformation that blames the U.S. for the coronavirus. Finally, some global unity in the midst of this crisis.
   
• The Upright Citizens Brigade has permanently closed its New York theater and training center. Be kind to a bearded 20-something in a plaid flannel today, he is having a rough one.

The Senate intelligence committee has released a bipartisan report backing the intelligence community’s finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump. Chairman Richard Burr (who should still resign by the way) said the committee “found no reason to dispute the Intelligence Community's conclusions,” and the report includes new details on how the officials reached its finding. (The Trump administration redacted much of it before it was released). The report undermines Trump’s frequent attacks on the intelligence community, and pushes back against House intelligence committee Republicans who tried to bolster Trump’s false claim of a politically-motivated “hoax.” The committee also warned that Russia is likely to interfere again in 2020, as intelligence officials told lawmakers right before Trump sacked his previous acting director of intelligence, Joseph Maguire. 

The FDA has authorized the first in-home coronavirus test, which will be made available to health-care workers and emergency workers first.

Stripe CEO Patrick Collison and economist Tyler Cowen have launched Fast Grants, which offers scientists working on the coronavirus grants within 48 hours.
 

The Texas Democratic Party announced it plans to send voter-registration applications and postage stamps to every Texan who wants to vote in 2020.

After being forced to scrap a slate of Earth Day marches and performances, the nonprofit Earth Day Live is planning a 72-hour livestream with speakers like Stacey Abrams, Al Gore, and Jane Fonda.