Crooked Media - What A Day: Dial M for murder hornets

The Trump administration privately projects that daily coronavirus deaths will nearly double over the next few weeks, even as President Trump continues to pressure states to relax their public-health restrictions. The White House said the data is just from a bunch of scientists and hasn’t been vetted by the likes of Mike “I should have worn a mask” Pence, which it seems to think will convince you to trust that data...less?
 

• According to CDC modeling in a leaked internal document, U.S. coronavirus cases and deaths will rise steadily through May, with 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, and a daily death toll reaching 3,000 on June 1. That confirms what health experts have warned: The U.S. caseload hasn’t sufficiently declined, and reopening the economy now will cause a deadly infection surge. In a surreal, lie-drenched Sunday town hall at the Lincoln Memorial, Trump both casually raised the potential death toll to 100,000, up 50 percent from what he told Americans a few weeks ago, and insisted that “it’s all working out.” Based on his own administration’s new projections, even 100,000 deaths is an underestimate.
   
• The administration has simultaneously escalated its campaign to blame China for the president’s failings. Over the weekend, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed there’s “enormous evidence” that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab, and that experts think it was man-made. Pompeo did not share what that evidence might be, or explain how that claim squares with the intelligence community’s statement that it “concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified.” A new Department of Homeland Security report states that China covered up the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in an intentional plot to hoard medical supplies, which, again, isn’t reflected in any public evidence, and has no bearing on the fact that Trump praised China, ignored the pandemic risk, and lied about the virus until it was too late. What we do know is that the Trump administration sent 17.8 tons of supplies to China, weeks after the first coronavirus case was reported in the U.S.
   
• The Senate returned to the Capitol today, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is in a screaming rush to provide additional relief to hurting American workers  cram the courts with Trump-nominated judges. Trump has suggested he’s in no hurry to pass another round of coronavirus legislation, and now claims he won’t sign any legislation that doesn’t include a payroll tax cut. 

You’ll be floored to learn that Trump continues to dodge oversight, and retaliate against officials who deliver information he doesn’t like.
 

• The White House has blocked Dr. Anthony Fauci from testifying before a House subcommittee hearing on COVID-19 this week, saying it would be “counter-productive” for officials involved in response efforts to appear at congressional hearings. Oddly enough, Fauci is scheduled to appear before a GOP-led Senate committee next week, and the administration seems to have no problem with that at all.
   
• Trump has moved to replace Christi Grimm, the HHS inspector general who released a report detailing supply shortages and testing delays at hospitals, and whom Trump publicly attacked at a briefing a few weeks ago. You can tell this is all very normal and above-board because the White House waited until Friday night to announce a new nominee for her job.

The U.S. recorded its highest daily death toll just as several states began reopening on Friday, and the CDC’s new projections show that the Americans are about to be dumped right back into the same danger we faced before the lockdown. By staying home, you bought the federal government several weeks to ramp up testing, distribute PPE, and coordinate a national strategy for a safe reopening. The Trump administration wasted that time, and now hopes you’ll just get used to the appalling consequences.

Part two of Hall of Shame’s two part episode on NBA player Ron Artest (aka Metta World Peace) is out today! In part one, they dive into the backstory—his life, his promising career, everything up until the infamous brawl, known as “The Malice at the Palace”—the biggest in sports history. In part two, they look at what came after—the rest of his career, his name change, and everything that follows.

Find both episodes in Hall of Shame’s feed wherever you listen to podcasts → 

The coronavirus pandemic has spawned a mental-health crisis that the U.S. is ill-equipped to handle. Nearly half of Americans report that the coronavirus crisis has harmed their mental health, and a federal emergency hotline for people in emotional distress saw a 1000 percent increase in texts over the same time last year. Frontline workers are at particularly high risk for anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Experts say that in the same way the U.S. took drastic steps to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, it needs to prepare for the coming mental-health crisis by providing widespread mental-health screenings, better access to therapists through telehealth, and a much more significant allocation of federal relief funds.

• Joe Biden denied Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation in a Friday appearance on Morning Joe, and called for the release of any potential records related to the claim, which he said would be housed at the National Archives. Senate officials said today that they can’t legally release those documents.
   
• Kim Jong-un reappeared after a mysterious three-week absence at the opening of a fertilizer plant, as one does.
   
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced a ban on 1,500 kinds of assault weapons in the wake of the country’s deadliest mass shooting in April.
   
• An Amazon vice president has resigned over the firing of employees who protested working conditions in the company’s warehouses. Tim Bray called Amazon “chickenshit” for firing activists, which he said was “designed to create a climate of fear.”
   
• Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) has announced the formation of a seven-state consortium to buy PPE in states’ latest move to reinvent the federal government, because the one we have won’t do its job.
   
• A Trump appointee to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who allegedly manipulated research that led to the weakening of the bureau’s payday lending rule, previously ran a predatory car dealership.
   
• J. Crew has become the first national retailer to file for bankruptcy as a result of pandemic conditions, and several other major retailers are likely to do the same. Unbutton your timeless linen button-down to half-mast.
   
• Carnival Cruise Line plans to get back to cruisin’ starting on August 1, presumably as some kind of secret MIT-funded social experiment. 
   
• The 2020 Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced. Coleson Whitehead is now just the fourth novelist in history to win a second Pulitzer, and This American Life won the first-ever “Audio Reporting” prize.
   
• A Japanese aquarium has asked the public to FaceTime its very shy eels. We all like to speculate about what we would have done at pivotal moments in history, but here you are. History is happening. Will you stand idly by? Or will you answer the call, and FaceTime some eels? 

Murder hornets have arrived in the U.S., because we have had it too easy for too long around here. Asian giant hornets, or “murder hornets” as they are adorably known, can wipe out a honeybee hive in a matter of hours with their mandibles, and have a horrifying stinger–long enough to stab through a bee suit—and potent venom that they use to attack larger targets. In Japan, the hornets kill up to 50 people per year. Now they’re in the U.S. for the first time, and could decimate the country’s bee population if they aren’t eradicated quickly. The first sightings were in Washington state, where scientists are setting traps in a frantic hunt to eliminate them. One researcher who was stung by a murder hornet across the border in Canada described it as “like having red-hot thumbtacks being driven into my flesh,” so, you know, another compelling reason to stay inside in the event you’ve grown a bit stir crazy.

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