Crooked Media - What A Day: Look on my Birx, ye mighty

In a CNN interview on Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar suggested that the country’s demographics account for an official coronavirus death toll that now stands at over 90,000, not the Trump administration’s disastrous response. Sure, an incompetent president allowed a deadly virus to sweep across the U.S. undetected, but have minority communities ever thought about not being minorities?
 

• While Azar blames pre-existing health conditions and the World Health Organization for the death toll, other White House officials have joined President Trump in pointing fingers at the CDC. Dr. Deborah Birx in particular has become increasingly critical of the agency, reportedly expressing frustration with the agency’s data-gathering methods in recent task force meetings, and White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro said on Sunday that the CDC “really let the country down” on testing. This all marks the latest step in Trump’s efforts to sideline the agency that should be leading the federal response, after blocking the release of the CDC’s full reopening guidelines and pressuring it to suppress the official national death toll (which already represents an undercount).
   
• Almost all states have now relaxed social-distancing orders to varying degrees, and Azar cheerfully told Jake Tapper that states relaxing restrictions haven’t seen case number surges, which is sort of like releasing a tiger and bragging that it hasn’t mauled you yet. Texas reported its highest single-day increase in cases on Saturday, as it moved ahead with its next phase of reopening. The Washington Post published this bone-chilling account of one wealthy Atlanta suburb that has thrown all caution to the wind, after Georgia used outrageously misleading data models to justify its reopening. It still only takes one infected person to spark a new outbreak: 180 congregants at a Butte County, CA, church were potentially exposed, after a pastor defied public health orders to hold an in-person service on Mother’s Day and an attendee later tested positive.
   
• In the absence of a national testing strategy, states and cities have pursued their own testing initiatives, which has federal regulators playing catch-up. The Seattle and King County public health department had partnered with research groups to roll out a coronavirus testing program in the Seattle area, which sent home tests to both sick and healthy people in an effort to conduct the kind of widespread monitoring necessary to safely lift lockdown orders. The FDA has ordered a halt to the program, pending federal approval. 

Meanwhile, the president has progressed from hawking snake oil to personally consuming it—or at least claiming to. 
 

• Trump announced at a roundtable that he himself has been taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure against the coronavirus, in spite of the FDA’s warnings against using it outside of hospital settings, and the lack of any substantial evidence that the drug prevents infections. 
   
• In another unwelcome throwback, Fox News has begun to circle back its characterization of the coronavirus as a sensationalized “hoax,” with the help of Trump’s large adult sons. On Jeanine Piro’s Saturday night show, Eric Trump accused Democrats of conspiratorially exaggerating the virus, so that his large adult father wouldn’t be able to hold rallies before the election. 
   

Former president Barack Obama delivered two commencement speeches on Sunday, both of which included implicit criticisms of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response: “More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing," he said. "A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.” The curtain has been torn back, but from now until the election, it rests with all of us to make sure that voters understand what they’re seeing behind it. 

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President Trump fired yet another inspector general in the dead of night on Friday, the latest in a string of corrupt purges. Trump abruptly ousted State Department Inspector General Steve Linick on the recommendation of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, replacing him with a trusted ally of Vice President Mike Pence. Democrats in Congress have launched an investigation into Linick’s firing on Saturday, and quickly learned that Linick had been investigating misconduct allegations against Pompeo—specifically, that he had a staffer performing personal errands, like picking up his dry cleaning and walking his dog. Linick’s firing may be even more corrupt than that: House Democrats have also learned that he was nearly finished with an investigation into Pompeo’s approval of billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, when he bypassed Congress with a baseless emergency declaration. Democrats are now also demanding a full account of what that investigation found.

• Attorney General Bill Barr has generously, and without a whiff of fascism, said he doesn’t foresee authorizing criminal investigations of Barack Obama or Joe Biden, in spite of Trump’s frequent and heavily researched “OBAMAGATE!” tweets. Barr has never claimed to be unaffected by Trump’s political urgings and then turned around and demonstrated the opposite, so no reason to bookmark this for future reference.
   
• Acting Director of National Intelligence/Twitter clown Richard Grenell announced on Friday that his office would take over providing election security briefings for political candidates from the FBI, an incredibly shady policy change from a Trump loyalist who hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate.
   
• A new Congressional Oversight Commission (which still doesn’t have a chairman) found that a $500 billion Treasury fund created by the CARES Act has barely loaned any money, though many businesses and local governments have requested immediate help.
   
• Brazil has overtaken Spain and Italy in its number of confirmed coronavirus cases, and now has the fourth-largest outbreak in the world. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro spent the weekend doing push-ups with anti-lockdown protestors, which should help.
   
• The FBI has found links between Al Qaeda and the gunman in last year’s shooting at a Pensacola, FL, military base. The Saudi cadet training with the U.S. military had been regularly in touch with the terrorist group for years. Law enforcement officials accused Apple of slowing down the investigation by refusing to help unlock the gunman’s phone; Apple said it complied with investigators immediately, and that the Justice Department is lying as an excuse to weaken encryption. 
   
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has tapped Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to serve as the acting intelligence committee chairman, after Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) stepped down to spend more time with his insider trading investigation.
   
• Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) has decided against a third-party presidential bid. Let’s get a round of relieved, exhausted applause for Justin Amash.
   
• An explosion in downtown Los Angeles, CA, on Saturday injured 12 firefighters and damaged several buildings.
   
• A Michigan priest has gone viral for blessing his parishioners with a water pistol, in a rare positive story for both priests and guns. 
   
• The entertainment world had two heartbreaking losses on Friday: Legendary comic actor Fred Willard died at 86, and director Lynn Shelton died of an undiagnosed blood disorder. She was 54.

JetBlue’s founder helped fund a coronavirus-antibody study which ultimately backed up his claim that the coronavirus isn’t all that deadly. An anonymous whistleblower complaint filed with Stanford University alleges that the authors of an influential antibody study failed to disclose that it was partially funded by David Neeleman, who has loudly insisted that coronavirus fears are overblown. The study found that, based on the prevalence of antibodies in Silicon Valley residents’ blood samples, the number of COVID-19 infections was up to 85 percent higher than believed, which would make the virus’s infection-fatality rate look closer to that of the flu. The finding made headlines around the world and has been promoted by the right-wing media, even after serious questions about its methods prompted the authors to post a revision. The researchers denied knowing that Neeleman had donated to the study, but Neeleman said they were indeed aware, and had been in contact with him during the study.

Moderna’s potential vaccine seemed to generate an immune response, in a small, early trial.

Sorrento has found promising results in a potential antibody treatment, in preclinical research.

California has begun rolling out its program to offer $500 direct payments to undocumented immigrants, who are excluded from federal relief programs. 

Boston lawyers, some of whom have built their careers on medical-malpractice suits, have formed a non-profit to raise money for frontline medical workers.