Tuesday Open Thread

6 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. Nicholas Kristof speaks to that very subject

   While President Donald Trump and his allies in Congress seek to tighten access to food stamps, they are showing compassion for one group: zillionaires. Their economic rescue package quietly allocated $135 billion for the likes of wealthy real estate developers.

   My Times colleague Jesse Drucker notes that Trump himself, along with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, may benefit financially from this provision. The fine print was mysteriously slipped into the March economic relief package, even though it has nothing to do with the coronavirus and offers retroactive tax breaks for periods long before COVID-19 arrived.

   About 82% of the giveaway goes to those earning more than $1 million a year, according to Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation. Of those beneficiaries, the average benefit is $1.6 million.

   As expected, Republicans only worry about the deficit when not enough of the free money goes into their own pockets and those of their cronies and patrons.

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2. Editorial: If the pandemic-preparedness cupboard was bare, it was Trump’s doing

   By Obama’s final year, the nation’s preparedness on all measurements was 98% to 100%. That’s by the Trump administration’s own assessment.

   If the cupboard was bare, it’s because Trump swept it clean.

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3. Trump stinks!

   Great God Almighty.

   Trump stinks!

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4. Paul Krugman once again nails it: 

   In Praise of Fallible Leaders — We need a president who can admit it when he’s wrong.

   In some ways Trump is a pitiful figure — or would be, if his character flaws weren’t leading to so many deaths. Imagine what it must be like to be so insecure, so lacking in self-regard, that you not only feel the need to engage in constant boasting, but have to claim infallibility on every issue.

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5. Greg Sargent rips the facade off the GOP's reason to delay further aid:

    Trump and Republicans have been demanding protections for companies to reopen without fear of lawsuits from sickened workers. This may be a condition for GOP support for the next rescue package.

   In a new piece, political theorist Will Wilkinson gets to the depraved core of this idea: Trump and Republicans are implicitly conceding that returning to work now actually does put workers in great danger — hence the need for protections.

   But they are proceeding anyway. As Wilkinson notes, these protections for companies — when combined with financial aid to people that’s insufficient and puts them in desperate straits — will have the effect of coercing untold numbers to go back to work despite these dangers.

   The GOP-led "Hunger Games" indeed.

    

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   1. Or they could simply let OSHA do its job

      or they could do this:

      Traders Sign Death Waivers As Wall Street Reopens, With A Few Differences

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