Friday Open Thread

9 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. After witnessing the freak show in MI yesterday…

   The White Privilege to Terrorize

   This violence is a singular privilege afforded to caucasian men in America. 

   People of color aren’t afforded this luxury.
   They can’t even get close to such ugliness.
   Heck, they barely get to breathe.

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2. Trump Hails Kushner’s PPE Airlift, But Details of Sales Are Secret

   A program created by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has airlifted millions of gloves, masks and other coveted coronavirus supplies into the U.S. from overseas — but it isn’t clear who’s getting them and at what price, or how much private-sector partners are earning through the arrangement.

   Kushner’s “Project Airbridge” provides transportation via FedEx Corp. and others for supplies that medical distributors, including McKesson Corp. and Cardinal Health Inc., buy from overseas manufacturers, mainly in China. Once a supplier’s goods arrive in the U.S., the companies must sell half the order in government-designated hotspots. They sell the rest as they see fit.

   The U.S. government provides the air transportation for free, to speed the arrival of the products. The six distributors keep the profits, if any.

   “We are very supportive of Airbridge and other federal programs that can provide PPE to our first-line responders,” said Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat. “But it doesn’t meet our full needs.” (my emphasis)

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3. After days of various “demands” Biden speak for himself about the Tara Reade accusations, he did.   Guardian: Joe Biden denies sexual assault allegation from former staffer Tara Reade

   “I recognize my responsibility to be a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere near finished,” Biden wrote in a Medium post published on Friday morning.

   “So I want to address allegations by a former staffer that I engaged in misconduct 27 years ago. They aren’t true. This never happened.”

   In the statement, Biden said he would ask the National Archives to make public any record of a complaint that his accuser, Tara Reade, says she filed at the time.

   Beyond the written statement, he also went on Morning Joe: “I’m saying unequivocally, it never, never happened,” Biden said in an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

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4. Unsung Heroes: Mexican Laborers Still Working Hard In The Fields, Providing Our Food

   Without them, everything ceases to exist.

   The people who put food on our table don’t get to work from home.

   As the majority of Americans “shelter in place,” farmworkers head out to the fields, rain or shine, for 12 hour days, making sure we can restock our grocery shelves and put food on the table.

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5. Oops…(someone should outlaw #autofill – we've all been there.  Sorry Jerome.  Your turn.)

   Justice Dept. scrutinizes White House-connected doctor linked to disputed coronavirus treatment

   Jerome Corsi, the commentator who narrowly escaped charges in Mueller probe, meant to email Zev Zelenko, a White House-allied doctor, about a hydroxychloroquine project. He instead emailed Aaron Zelinsky, the Mueller prosecutor. A new probe has begun…
    

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   1. Zelinsky right now…

       

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6. Whatever the uncertain future scenario, there’s one guaranteed near certainty . . .

   . . . Trump and his entire chorus of Ineptettes will be there, for nearly another nine months, doing everything they can to make it so much worse than it needed to be:

   Three potential futures for Covid-19: recurring small outbreaks, a monster wave, or a persistent crisis

   As epidemiologists attempt to scope out what Covid-19 has in store for the U.S. this summer and beyond, they see several potential futures, differing by how often and how severely the no-longer-new coronavirus continues to wallop humankind. But while these scenarios diverge on key details — how much transmission will decrease over the summer, for instance, and how many people have already been infected (and possibly acquired immunity) — they almost unanimously foresee a world that, even when the current outbreak temporarily abates, looks and feels nothing like the world of just three months ago.

   It is a world where, even in Western countries, wearing a face mask is no more unusual than carrying a cellphone. A world where even at small social gatherings a friend’s occasional cough feels threatening, where workplaces have the feel of hot zones, and where taking public transit is not as much environmentally correct as personally dangerous.

   “October 2020,” said emerging diseases expert Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, “won’t look nothing like October 2019.”

   And neither will October 2021, according to an analysis released on Thursday by epidemiologist Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota and his colleagues. They envision three possible futures, depicted as seascapes, their waves of different heights and widths approaching the unseen and unsuspecting beachcombers on a placid shore.

   https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/01/three-potential-futures-for-covid-19/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=90fb22963b-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-90fb22963b-152406706

    

    

    

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   1. Also from Statnews today:

      Unimaginable though it may be, that outcome may soon come to pass. In the coming weeks, the Supreme Court will render a decision on Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, a case that will determine whether nearly 700,000 individuals protected by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) will remain in the workforce, protected from deportation.

      If the court strikes down DACA, then every DACA recipient — including 29,000 physicians, nurses, health aides, and technicians — could be forced from the United States within two years. Some could have only weeks.

       

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      1. And Trump's response?

         

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