Mar 26 2020

Remdesivir is NOT an Orphan Drug

For one thing, it’s a widely used and generally accepted treatment for Ebola (remember that?) as well as Junin, Lassa Fever, MERS, and SARS.

Medically oriented NGOs were livid and they get most of their money from very rich and powerful people (despite the late night TV begging) with whom they have a close relationship. I can’t imagine any of their sponsors putting the screws to Gilead because that would be tin foil hat conspiracy theory stuff.

Which is explicitly allowed here mind you, I just don’t want to get the reputation for it.

Public Pressure Works: Gilead Asks FDA To Rescind Orphan Drugs Designation For Possible COVID-19 Treatment
by Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
Wed, Mar 25th 2020

Earlier this week, we wrote about the sham orphan drug designation that the FDA gave to Gilead Sciences for remdesivir. As we explained, remdesivir was developed with mostly public funds, and Gilead Sciences already held three patents on it, with a fourth one pending. Orphan drugs designations are supposed to be extra incentives for drug makers to target rare diseases. The issue here was that part of the definition of a rare disease under the Orphan Drugs Act is that it has to affect fewer than 200,000 people in the United States. Ridiculously, the law does not take into account the rate at which the disease spreads — just how many people have it at the time a drug maker requests the designation. Even worse, the law explicitly says that the FDA cannot remove the designation if the affected group later grows to over 200,000.

Over the last few days, anger continued to grow at Gilead and the FDA — including with the news that the FDA won’t even say when Gilead applied for Orphan Drug status, because that’s apparently “a commercial secret.” Either way, this morning a ton of public interest groups, organized by Public Citizen, sent a letter to Gilead asking it to renounce its claim for orphan drug status.
…
And here’s the crazy thing. It worked!

Almost immediately after that letter was sent, Gilead announced that it has asked the FDA to rescind the designation.

Well, that’s a bit optimistic though I don’t think the Public disapproval and activism hurt, even if it only made the immorality of this clear.

And to be fair Gilead did offer this defense:

Among the benefits of orphan drug designation, this status results in a waiver of the requirement to provide a pediatric study plan prior to the submission of a New Drug Application – a process that can to take up to 210 days to review.

Gilead recognizes the urgent public health needs posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company is working to advance the development of remdesivir as quickly as possible.

This is not a new drug. It was developed by the United States Government. It is approved for a wide variety of treatments and has been for years. I don’t know for a fact (not a Doctor) but I would imagine there’s some study somewhere that meets that “Pediatric Plan” thing. They already give it to kids (or don’t, not a Doctor) based on that. You need another 210 Days? Rings a little hollow dudes.

In any event I don’t think Gilead had a sudden attack of altruism.

Gilead Sciences Backs Off Monopoly Claim for Promising Coronavirus Drug
by Sharon Lerner, The Intercept
March 25, 2020

Gilead Sciences on Wednesday announced that it has submitted a request to the Food and Drug Administration to rescind the exclusive marketing rights it had secured for remdesivir, an antiviral drug that shows promise in treating Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. As The Intercept reported on Monday, the FDA had awarded Gilead seven years of exclusive marketing rights to the drug through the Orphan Drug Act, even though the statute was designed to induce pharmaceutical companies to make treatments for rare diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the United States.

Although the new coronavirus will almost certainly infect that many people, Gilead had exploited a loophole that grants orphan drug status if a company files for it before the official number of cases hits 200,000. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were more than 438,000 confirmed cases worldwide, with more than 59,000 in the United States.
…
Still, public health experts remain concerned about the potential for Gilead and other pharmaceutical companies to engage in price gouging during the global pandemic. And while pharmaceutical companies are testing dozens of drugs as potential vaccines and treatments for the new coronavirus, some legal scholars have pointed to an obscure statute to help ensure that companies won’t price critical drugs out of reach.

The law, known as Section 1498, gives the government the right to override a patent at any time as long as the company receives “reasonable compensation.” Essentially functioning as a kind of eminent domain for patented products, the provision breaks the monopoly and permits low-cost competition. And if drugs such as Gilead’s antiviral remdesivir and other potential treatments and vaccines for the coronavirus are priced out of reach, it could give the government critical leverage to negotiate lower prices. Through the Defense Production Act, the government could even start producing lifesaving treatments itself.
…
The federal government regularly used Section 1498 in the 1960s and 1970s to purchase generic drugs when the patented versions were far more expensive. But pharmaceutical companies railed against the provision and while it has been used for other inventions it has rarely been used for drugs since. In 2001, during the anthrax scare, just the threat of using 1498 proved effective when the government was trying to secure access to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, which could be used to treat people who were exposed to anthrax. After then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson raised the possibility of using the provision, Bayer cut the price of ciprofloxacin in half.

In 2017, a group of academics at Yale Law School made the case for the government’s use of Section 1498 to procure a lifesaving treatment for hepatitis C called Sofosbuvir, also manufactured by Gilead, which is too expensive for many people who need it. Sofosbuvir costs $48,000 for a 24-week course, or about $1,000 a pill. Because of the exorbitant price, insurers have refused to cover it for all of the roughly 5 million people infected with hepatitis C, instead making the drug available to only the sickest patients.

Gilead, which is valued at more than $100 billion, has repeatedly come under fire for its pricing. Although its preventative HIV drug Truvada costs only $6 to manufacture, it costs almost $2,000 a month in the U.S — out of reach for many people who could use it to avoid infection.

“Gilead is notorious for price gouging,” said Rizvi. “Gilead holds the key to bringing down and ending both HIV and hep C epidemics, and in both cases, prices have played a real factor in our inability to stop both epidemics. And that’s terrifying.”

Joseph Grogan, who has led the Trump administration’s efforts on drug pricing in addition to serving on the White House coronavirus task force, served as head of federal affairs for Gilead from 2011 to 2017, while it was setting prices for both drugs.

Oh, straight up Graft. What else?

Mar 26 2020

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Karen Tumulty: A troublemaker with a gavel

Nancy Pelosi is still often the lone woman at the table. But she has paved the way for many others.

A few dozen people gathered one early March evening at the National Museum of American History to celebrate the opening of a new exhibition marking the centennial of women’s suffrage.

Collected in the glass cases are the artifacts of a long, arduous road to political empowerment:

A red silk shawl worn by Susan B. Anthony as she plied the hallways of the Capitol arguing for the right to vote.

A palm-sized campaign card from the 1916 campaign of Montana’s Jeannette Rankin, who became the first woman elected to Congress.

The brown felt hat that Bella Abzug wore at the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston, where some 2,000 delegates declared: “We demand as a human right a full voice and role for women in determining the destiny of our world, our national, our families and our individual lives.”

The speaker who wielded that gavel on that day was, for the first time, a woman. Though Nancy Pelosi does not lack for self-confidence, she rarely indulges in public self-reflection. On that night at the Smithsonian, however, she gave a nod to those who had paved the way for her.

“The women who did all of this — oh my gosh — we revere them. We hold them up as icons. But what we hear people say is, ‘Yes, they were icons. You are troublemakers.’ They were considered troublemakers in their time, so maybe there is a future for all of us,” Pelosi said with a laugh. “But I can just tell you, a troublemaker with a gavel — that’s the real difference.”

Dahlia Lithwick: Republicans Seem to Think They Can Decide Who Dies

They are not appreciating the random menace this virus poses—against their own or anyone else.

Republicans who once decried the Affordable Care Act as a harbinger of “death panels” are now toying with cutting out the middleman and sentencing the country’s oldest to death without bothering with any panels at all. Yes, the same Republicans who once soberly asserted things like “there is a provision in [Obamacare] that anyone over the age of 74 has to go before what is effectively a death panel” are now cheerfully suggesting that a few dead elderly people would be a small price to pay to protect the U.S. economy in the coming weeks.

The poster boy of such stupidity is currently Dan Patrick, Texas’ Republican lieutenant governor, who told Tucker Carlson on Monday night that he and America’s other grandparents would be willing to risk their own lives if it meant America getting “back to work” before the pandemic was contained adequately. [..]

Patrick is of course wrong about virtually everything in this statement. He seems incapable of understanding that we can’t conclude anything about the virus without widespread testing, which remains unavailable. The U.S. numbers we do have certainly indicate that it’s not just the elderly who fall ill and die from the coronavirus—Americans between the ages of 20 and 54 represent almost 40 percent of the people who have been hospitalized in this country. They are taking beds, ventilators, and other resources away from young people in Porsche accidents just as much as the elderly are. Doctors and nurses, working with inadequate protective gear, are also becoming infected while treating patients, which means that someday Patrick’s capitalism-loving grandchildren won’t have any physicians when they injure themselves counting their stacks of money. And unless Patrick is saying that he and his other 70-year-old human sacrifices all plan to die painfully alone at home, they would all still be in hospitals infecting other budding young capitalists on their slow honorable death march to that great big stock exchange in the sky.

Michael McFaul: It’s imperative for the U.S. and China to work together on the coronavirus pandemic

The novel coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated already tense relations between the United States and China. Even before the coronavirus came along, many experts were already describing the relationship between the two countries as a “new Cold War” or “Cold War 2.0.” But now, the virus has added a new accelerant to the confrontation — with both sides now blaming each other for creating and spreading the disease.

The world’s two superpowers, the United States and China will remain competitors in many realms for decades to come. In parallel to confrontation, however, Chinese and American leaders also must realize that they share some interests that require cooperation. Addressing a global pandemic is one of them.

Unfortunately, both leaders in both countries have lately succumbed to some of their worst impulses. The Chinese government has been conducting a propaganda campaign — including even the expulsion of American journalists from China — to rewrite the origins of the virus and to blame the United States for its spread. The Trump administration has taken to referring to the coronavirus as a “Chinese virus.” Some U.S. officials have promised retribution for China’s role in spreading the virus internationally.

This blame game serves neither the long-term interests of the United States nor China. It needs to stop.

Ronald A. Klain: We must plan now for how to get back to business later

“Lock it down vs. let it open” is a flawed debate. It fails to recognize how much economic activity continues now, even in our current condition; it also fails to appreciate the nuanced alternatives to “going back to the way it was” when it is time to move toward normalization. Public health advocates need to do a better job of messaging their side of the coronavirus argument if they want to keep the American people as safe as possible. And all of us need a new way of thinking about risk management when it comes time to restore currently constrained parts of economic life.

At present, even in “lockdown” mode, wide swaths of economic activity continue. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s thoughtful executive order restricting economic activity — tough as it is — exempts 59 specific occupations from its scope. Not just doctors, nurses, health-care workers and first responders, but also, utility workers, hotel staff, parking garage attendants, farmers and food producers, warehouse and distribution workers, employees at laundromats and dry cleaners, those who manufacture paper products, hardware store employees, auto mechanics, payroll processors, electricians, janitors, and more than 40 other endeavors. If you are at home reading this, it is because someone is providing power and water and food and supplies and deliveries — and this newspaper — to you, by being at their workplace.

What are we doing to keep those people safe? I have seen no formal estimate, but it is no small share of the workforce. When some of us have completed our weeks in isolation, what about all of them? What about the doctors and nurses who will get sick by treating the ill without adequate protective gear? Let’s be clear: The virus will still be very much among us 14 days from now. We cannot wish it away.

Erik Wemple: NPR member station wisely bails on live coronavirus briefings

Dear Fox News, CNN, MSNBC: Read and learn.

Seattle NPR member station KUOW has issued a statement to explain its editorial decision to refrain from broadcasting live daily briefings hosted by President Trump and including members of the White House coronavirus task force. “After airing the White House briefings live for two weeks, a pattern of false information and exaggeration increasingly had many at KUOW questioning whether these briefings were in the best service of our mission — to create and serve a more informed public,” notes the statement, posted Wednesday afternoon. “Of even greater concern was the potential impact of false information on the health and safety of our community.”

KUOW provided three examples of bogus information stemming from the briefings. All of them — surprise — came from President Trump. [..]

KUOW could have gone on, of course, given the number of baseless and just plain bonkers statements coming from the president. These sessions long ago bifurcated into important proclamations and analysis from wise and informed government officials interrupted by clownish commentary from the president. The contrast of his patent incompetence with the professionalism of the task force members, in fact, is perhaps the best argument for airing them unfiltered.

That’s just too dangerous, however.

KUOW notes that the decision is not motivated by politics and that it will be reviewed each day. Good plan, though as long as the president takes the lectern, those daily decisions should be pretty easy.

Mar 26 2020

Nothing to laugh at here.

No News, and All the News at Once.

Cody Johnston

Frankly, he’s getting too mainstream.

Mar 26 2020

Cartnoon

The Other Custer

It’s hard to argue George Armstrong is the most overrated General on the U.S. side because there are so many choices, “Peach Orchard” Sickles for example.

Mar 26 2020

The Breakfast Club (Vacuum)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Israel and Egypt sign a peace treaty; Bodies of Heaven’s Gate cult members are found in Calif.; The first U.S. team to win hockey’s Stanley Cup; ‘Funny Girl’ opens on Broadway; Singer Diana Ross born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.

Tennessee Williams

Continue reading

Mar 25 2020

Two Tragic Fires That Sparked Major Changes

Today we mark the anniversary of two tragic fires that occurred in New York City. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire claimed 146 lives. On the same date 79 years later in the Bronx borough of New York City, the Happy Land fire killed 87 people, the most deadly fire in the city since 1911.

The Triangle Factory fire lead to major changes in fire safety and building codes. In New York State alone there were sixty laws passed. Those laws mandated better building access and egress, fireproofing requirements, the availability of fire extinguishers, the installation of alarm systems and automatic sprinklers, better eating and toilet facilities for workers, and limited the number of hours that women and children could work. The fire also gave rise to two important organizations the American Society of Safety Engineers and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU).

Some of the most important changes that resulted from the tragic deaths at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire were the reforms to work place health and safety conditions. Modern buildings now must conform to fire safety and occupancy standards. The Asch building loft were 500 women labored at overcrowded worktables did not have a sprinkler system, the exits were inadequate and locked, the passages were narrow and blocked and the fire escapes were unsafe. The fire compelled New York City to create the Bureau of Fire Prevention, which required stairwells, fire alarms, extinguishers and hoses be installed in all buildings and regularly conducts building inspection to insure compliance. The Bureau also determines maximum occupancy. The year after the fire the NY the legislature passed eight bills addressing workplace sanitation, injury on the job, rest periods and child labor. In 1913, the Factory Investigating Commission recommended that 25 new bills be passed mandating fireproof stairways and the safe construction of fire escapes, that doorways be a certain number of feet wide, and that older multi-storied buildings be inspected. In 1916, smoking was also outlawed in factories.

Frances Perkins, who would later become Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s Secretary of Labor, witnessed the women jumping from the windows that day. She would later comment that it was “the day the New Deal began.” In the ’30s, the New Deal included many of these provisions on the federal level. In 1933, Congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act which also protected collective bargaining rights for unions.

These are just a few of the safety rules that resulted from that terrible day:

  1. The law was instituted requiring employers to provide sprinklers for workplaces with more than 50 people.
  2. Regulations require that enough exit stairways to accommodate all building occupants and direct passageways to those exits that are of minimum width. Additionally, all exit doors shall remain unlocked, requiring no special knowledge or tools to open.
  3. Maximum occupancy regulations established occupant loads for building rooms under all probable conditions to prevent dangerous overcrowding.
  4. Regulations for exits and openings created minimum 32in pathways and doors that open in the direction of travel, reducing the bottle neck effect that wasted precious minutes.
  5. Fire drills for offices, apartment buildings, schools and health facilities train workers and occupants regularly for exit procedures, using audible alarms, visible exit signs, and off site gathering spots.
  6. Organizers pushed for, and won, egress regulations for the workplace, creating continuous passageways, aisles and corridors for direct access to every available exit.

Because of these reforms deaths from fires in the work place were drastically reduced. Unions now are focusing on other factors that affect work place safety. Now in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, Republican dominated state legislatures are trying to end workers right to collective bargaining as an excuse to reduce state budgets while giving tax breaks to their corporate masters who financed their elections. Citizens are fighting back in court and at the ballot box with recalls and referendums.

The Happy Land fire was an act of arson that killed 87 people trapped in the unlicensed Happy Land social club at 1959 Southern Boulevard in the West Farms section of the Bronx in New York City on March 25, 1990. Most of the victims were young Hondurans celebrating Carnival, many of them part of the Garifuna American community. Unemployed Cuban refugee Julio González, whose former girlfriend was employed at the club, was arrested soon afterward and ultimately convicted of arson and murder.

Before the blaze, Happy Land was ordered closed for building code violations during November 1988. Violations included lack of fire exits, alarms or sprinkler system. No follow-up by the fire department was documented. [..]

Before the blaze, Happy Land was ordered closed for building code violations in November 1988. Violations included no fire exits, alarms or sprinkler system. No follow-up by the fire department was documented.

The evening of the fire, Gonzalez had argued with his former girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, a coat check girl at the club, urging her to quit. She claimed that she had had enough of him and wanted nothing to do with him anymore. Gonzalez tried to fight back into the club but was ejected by the bouncer. He was heard to scream drunken threats in the process. Gonzalez was enraged, not just because of losing Lydia, but also because he had recently lost his job at a lamp factory, was impoverished, and had virtually no companions. Gonzalez returned to the establishment with a plastic container of gasoline which he found on the ground and had filled at a gas station. He spread the fuel on the only staircase into the club. Two matches were then used to ignite the gasoline.

The fire exits had been blocked to prevent people from entering without paying the cover charge. In the panic that ensued, a few people escaped by breaking a metal gate over one door.

Gonzalez then returned home, took off his gasoline-soaked clothes and fell asleep. He was arrested the following afternoon after authorities interviewed Lydia Feliciano and learned of the previous night’s argument. Once advised of his rights, he admitted to starting the blaze. A psychological examination found him to be not responsible due to mental illness or defect; but the jury, after deliberation, found him to be criminally responsible.

Found guilty on August 19, 1991, of 87 counts of arson and 87 counts of murder, Gonzalez was charged with 174 counts of murder- two for each victim he was sentence maximum of 25 years. It was the most substantial prison term ever imposed in the state of New York. He will be eligible for parole in March 2015.

The building that housed Happy Land club was managed in part by Jay Weiss, at the time the husband of actress Kathleen Turner. The New Yorker quoted Turner saying that “the fire was unfortunate but could have happened at a McDonald’s.” The building’s owner, Alex DiLorenzo, and leaseholders Weiss and Morris Jaffe, were found not criminally responsible, since they had tried to close the club and evict the tenant. [..]

Although the Bronx District Attorney said they were not responsible criminally, the New York City Corporation Counsel filed misdemeanor charges during February 1991 against DiLorenzo, the building owner, and Weiss, the landlord. These charges claimed that the owner and landlord were responsible for the building code violations caused by their tenant. They both pleaded guilty during May 1992, agreeing to perform community service and paying $150,000 towards a community center for Hondurans in the Bronx.

There was also a $5 billion lawsuit filed by the victims and their families against the owner, landlord, city, and some building material manufacturers. That suit was settled during July 1995 for $15.8 million or $163,000 per victim. The lesser amount was due mostly to unrelated financial difficulties of the landlord. [..]

The street outside the former Happy Land social club has been renamed “The Plaza of the Eighty-Seven” in memory of the victims. Five of the victims were students at nearby Theodore Roosevelt High School, which had a memorial service for the victims in April 1990. A memorial was erected directly across the street from the former establishment with the names of all 87 victims inscribed on it.

Only six people escaped from that fire. The building was condemned 24 hours later and eventually torn down.

Gonzalez died in 2016 of a heart attack while still in prison.

Like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the Happy Land fire provoked a similar response awakening New Yorkers to oppressive and dangerous work conditions and fire hazards in many parts of the city. City officials belatedly formed a task force to toughen and enforce the regulations governing social clubs. About a third of the 1,500 places that were inspected were closed, and a year later, about 320 were still shut down. That climate of widespread violations and lax enforcement was noted by the sentencing judge, Justice Burton B. Roberts of State Supreme Court in the Bronx. “There are many to be blamed” for the fire, he said, “not just Julio Gonzalez.”

We must never forget what the 146 victims of Triangle and the 87 victims of Happy Land represent. Ever.

Mar 25 2020

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Heather Digby Parton: Trump’s magical thinking: Snake oil, an Easter resurrection and killing Nana for capitalism

Trump’s in way over his head and his own businesses are failing — and his desperate flailing will kill people

You have to feel sorry for President Trump. He’s under a lot of pressure and he got some very bad news this week. Sure, the coronavirus pandemic is racing through the American population like an out-of-control locomotive. And yes, massive numbers of Americans have abruptly lost their incomes. But this week the crisis came home to Trump himself. He had to face the fact that he personally stands to lose a fortune as his hotels and resorts, here and abroad, are shut down and he and his family are hemorrhaging money.

Normally Americans could feel secure that the president of the United States wasn’t making life or death decisions based upon the financial needs of his family business — the one he continues to own and be involved with even while he is in the White House. But this is Donald Trump and nothing has been normal for years now.

Over the weekend he was asked at one of his daily White House coronavirus campaign rallies about whether or not he would be taking any bailout money, or if he had sold any stock before the market crashed. He answered with a long, meandering disquisition about how hard it is for rich people to run for office:

He’s said that sort of thing before, but his evasion of the question was even more clumsy than usual. He admitted for the first time that he speaks to his sons about the business, which he originally promised not to do. So he was very well aware of all the details outlined in this Washington Post story revealing that the Trump Organization has had to close its properties and it is costing him nearly half a million dollars a day.

This may be the real explanation for his recent abrupt pronouncement that he plans to end all this stay-at-home pandemic folderol and send everyone back to work. He needs the money.

Amanda Marcotte: GOP using pandemic as an excuse to block abortion — which is essential health care

Republicans are using the coronavirus as a reason to deny women abortions — but access is crucial right now

People keep getting sick and the economy is cratering, but for Republicans, hating women is still a major priority. Republican governors in Texas, Ohio and even Maryland are trying to use the coronavirus crisis as an excuse to block women from getting abortions, claiming that ending a pregnancy is a “nonessential” medical procedure that must be rescheduled, as is happening with non-emergency surgeries and other procedures that hospitals are delaying, to prepare for the expected crush of patients infected with COVID-19.

This excuse is farcical on its face, of course. Most abortions are performed not in hospitals, but outpatient clinics. A patient who goes to Planned Parenthood is not taking up space in a hospital because she is not going to the hospital. In order to get around this problem, the misogynists who control the Republican Party are trying to argue that abortion clinics use up needed medical supplies that should go to hospitals instead. This too is a bad-faith argument, especially since Donald Trump is refusing to invoke his presidential powers to compel companies to manufacture those supplies.

We should see these arguments from Republicans as what they are: Excuses for doing what they have wanted to do all along, which is to punish women for having sex by forcing childbirth on them. But abortion is hardly a “nonessential” service, even in a public health crisis. Abortion is essential health care. Having ready access to abortion when it’s needed only becomes more important in a crisis such as this one.

Jennifer Senior: Trump to New York: Drop Dead

Untold thousands will likely die, absent federal intervention. And it needs to happen this instant. Why won’t the president help?

So it’s essentially come to this: President Trump is treating each of our 50 states as individual contestants on “The Apprentice” — pitting them against one another for scarce resources, daring them to duke it out — rather than mobilizing a unified national response to a pandemic.

If that’s the case, this is the episode where New York loses. The coronavirus is whipping through the state, especially New York City, at a terrifying rate. We need personnel, ventilators and personal protective equipment, stat.

But Trump’s response has been the same as President Gerald Ford’s in 1975, when our city, faltering on the brink of insolvency, begged Washington for help and was brutally rebuffed, a moment forever enshrined in The Daily News’s headline “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.”

Now Trump is telling us the same. Literally.

Tim Wu: We Need to Protect the ‘Touchless Economy’

In a few weeks, it may be all the economy we’ve got.

he economy is currently on life support — yet as that metaphor suggests, it could actually be worse. Imagine if, next week, we find that coronavirus infection has spread so far through major supply lines as to sicken large numbers of the workers who deliver goods and also begins to threaten their recipients. Or imagine what the economy would look like if broadband internet service were to go down for significant parts of the population.

I raise this point because the current debate about the economy is focused largely on matters of the past and the future: how to help afflicted businesses bridge the crisis, whether industries like the airlines’ or cruise lines’ ought to be bailed out. Yet as important as that debate may be, we may be neglecting a very urgent question: How do we protect the “touchless economy” — the part of the economy that is still working.

To put it differently, we need to realize that the touchless economy (also known as the “distance economy”) may be what stands between us and a full-on economic depression. The touchless economy comprises the economic activities that remain possible without close physical interaction between people: the online meeting, the live-streamed yoga session, the virtual conference, the drop-off delivery of groceries and other physical goods. As it stands, this is pretty much all the economy we’ve got.

Karen Tumulty: How reporters should handle Trump’s press briefings

In the interest of protecting the nation’s health, it is time to socially distance ourselves from the crazy things that President Trump keeps saying.

I’ve been an enthusiastic advocate of bringing back the daily White House briefings, which Trump’s team had basically quit holding some time around the middle of 2018. So I am relieved to see they have resumed and hope they will continue once the coronavirus crisis has passed.

But not the way they are being conducted now, which is as a substitute for the rallies Trump can no longer hold.

As a former White House reporter myself, I respect, in principle, that everything a president says is news. When he speaks, journalists must take note. Those on the social media sidelines who urge that news organizations boycott the briefing room are simply wrong.

The real question is how to report what a president says when it is disconnected from reality.

Mar 25 2020

Profiteering

It doesn’t mean making a profit. It means taking advantage of someone’s urgent needs to steal all their monies.

You know, like Health Insurance Companies, Big Pharma, and the Mega-Medicals do as a Business Model.

In War time (Is the War on Drugs a real War? What about the War on Poverty?) Profiteers are frequently summarily executed, happens in China all the time War or not.

Profiteer? Of course they did.

Something to think about reviewing the Corona Stimulus.

Mar 25 2020

Cartnoon (Daily Late Night)

Steve Martin Plays Banjo In The Woods To Calm The World During Coronavirus Pandemic

DJ D-NICE – CLUB QUARANTINE

Getting to know your neighbors

Trump desperately wishes the virus away

Fast and Furious: Ventilators

Mar 25 2020

The Breakfast Club (Goodnight America)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala. 146 people were killed when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. in New York. Aretha Franklin, Elton John born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.

Elton John

Continue reading

Mar 24 2020

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Joseph E. Stiglitz: The COVID-19 stimulus can’t be a corporate bail-out. We need a new playbook for relief

Our democracy and economy is at great risk if we respond by giving money to the loudest and most powerful voices

Three years ago, in an ugly display of pigs feeding at the trough, there was a rush of special interests to take advantage of a secretive tax bill moving quickly through the Senate, with tens of billions of dollars going to certain industries, like real estate. We saw what happened: a short burst of economic growth that turned out to be remarkably weak, given the size of the deficit that it brought about. This year, growth was expected to decline to anemic levels—lower than 2 percent. While the predicted 1 trillion dollar deficits quickly emerged, the promised increases in investment and wages did not, as corporations paid out almost a trillion dollars in share buybacks.

This is all prelude to the current debate over responding to the COVID-19 crisis. Had big business not treated itself so well, it would have had an ample cushion to weather the storm. Had it lived up to its promises of greater investment and higher wages, Americans would have placed greater trust in it; likewise, if it hadn’t resisted giving workers a measly 10 days of sick leave even limited to the crisis itself. Our democracy and economy is at great risk if we respond to COVID-19 by giving money to the loudest and most powerful corporate voices rather than thinking through where funds are most needed. Our fiscal position is at risk if we don’t work out the best way to provide the money. America is a rich country able to run large deficits, but that doesn’t mean that resources are unlimited. Inevitably more money in corporate largesse means less money for those who need it, and more inequality. The well-being of Americans today is at risk if we don’t think carefully about how best to deliver money to those who need it now.

Paul Krugman: Republicans Add Insult to Illness

Greed, germs and the art of no deal.

If you want a quick summary of the state of play over fiscal stimulus legislation, here it is: Republicans insist that we should fight a plague with trickle-down economics and crony capitalism. Democrats, for some reason, don’t agree, and think we should focus on directly helping Americans in need.

And if legislation is stalled, as it appears to be as I write this (although things change fast when we’re on Covid time), it’s because Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is holding needy Americans hostage in an attempt to blackmail Democrats into giving Donald Trump a $500 billion slush fund. [..]

So what’s in the stimulus bill that McConnell is trying to ram through the Senate? It grudgingly provides some, but only some, of the aid Americans in distress will need. Funny, isn’t it, how helping ordinary Americans is always framed as a “Democratic demand”? And even there the legislation includes poison pills, like a provision that would deny aid to many nonprofit institutions like nursing homes and group homes for the disabled.

But it also includes a $500 billion slush fund for corporations that the Trump administration could allocate at its discretion, with essentially no oversight. This isn’t just terrible policy; it’s an insult to our intelligence.

Amanda Marcotte: Why are people buying guns? That’s about the last thing we need right now

Do people think virus-zombies are coming for their toilet paper stash? Bringing a gun into your home is stupid

Way too many Americans mistake zombie movies for real life: This is what we are learning from the public response to the rapidly spreading coronavirus. While public health officials offer advice like “wash your hands” and “for heaven’s sake, stay home,” huge numbers of Americans are instead stampeding to gun stores to buy up weapons and ammunition. In my South Philly neighborhood, social distancing rules were being ignored as people lined up to grab weapons.

No doubt these folks are aware that COVID-19 is a microscopic virus and therefore is not something you can shoot. No, obviously, the fear is about the economy collapsing (thanks for the negligence, Donald Trump!), leading to a rise in crime and violence, in which people imagine they can use these guns to defend their lives, families and property. Also, decades of NRA propaganda have convinced people to associate guns with safety. Indeed, as the economy craters, the NRA is treating this crisis as another opportunity to sell guns to people. What else would it do?

But the last thing anyone should be doing in this crisis, if they want to stay safe, is to buy a gun. Buying a gun right now will make your family and your home less safe, especially if you, like many panic buyers, are not trained in gun safety and don’t have the proper storage.

Buying a gun significantly raises the chances of someone in your house being injured or killed in an accident, a suicide attempt or interpersonal violence. The hospitals are already buckling down, fearful that coronavirus will fill up ICUs and emergency rooms. Adding avoidable gun injuries to the mix isn’t just foolish. It’s selfish.

Eugene Robinson: Trump, as usual, is just making things worse

he nation is suffering through a terrible crisis. Day by day, tweet by tweet, unhinged briefing by unhinged briefing, President Trump is making it worse. That is a hard conclusion to reach, even for someone like me who has long considered Trump one of the worst presidents in our history.

The covid-19 pandemic is the definition of a moment when everyone should hope and pray for strong, smart, steady presidential leadership. Indeed, the restrictions Trump imposed against travel from China and Europe, where the novel coronavirus was running rampant — whether his motives were scientific or xenophobic — had a good impact. He bought us some time. But then he squandered it.

If you can bear to watch Trump’s performances during the daily White House update briefings, you can only conclude that any effective federal response is happening not because of the commander in chief, but despite him.

Michelle Goldberg: Here Come the Death Panels

Obamacare didn’t lead to rationing. The mismanagement of the coronavirus will.

We were told that if America passed Obamacare, it would result in death panels.

This lie was invented by Sarah Palin in 2009, during the fight for what would become the Affordable Care Act. It was the hysterical version of the common conservative critique that universal health care means government rationing.

“Virtually every European government with ‘universal’ health care restricts access in one way or another to control costs, and it isn’t pretty,” said a Wall Street Journal editorial about the A.C.A. The Journal allowed that our system already rations health care according to people’s ability to pay for it, but argued that that’s how freedom works: “This is true of every good or service in a free economy and a world of finite resources but infinite wants.”

This argument was always specious, but it looks especially absurd in light of the coronavirus tearing through the world. America’s inadequate health care system, far from increasing liberty, is poised to make death panels more likely.

Mar 24 2020

Plague on the Gold Coast

That’s what us Nutmeggers call Fairfield County which is reliably one of the Top Five wealthiest in the United States. As I’ve said before I have a passing familiarity (worked for a long time within a mile of Sandy Hook Elementary).

Unlike what you might think, and despite the statistics, there are many areas that are not so wonderful- Bridgeport for instance, largest City in Connecticut. It has it’s highlights (only Zoo, Barnum Museum, Research AND Circulating Libraries) but from the highway it’s mostly a dump (to be fair it has Tall Buildings so you can practice leaping them in a single bound) of burned out Factories and dilapidated 3 Family Walkups that used to be the Worker’s homes.

It’s not bad, it’s a City. There are places I’ll only go by invitation but I glow in the dark, I’ve never felt unsafe and I worked there for a long time too.

But it ain’t Westport. Just so you know, Westport is not even the swankiest Town/City in Fairfield County, those would be Greenwich and Darien, but Martha Stuart lives there so everyone thinks it’s all that.

I seldom visit. They have a bunch of quirky Shops but none of them are bargains.

Party Zero: How a Soirée in Connecticut Became a ‘Super Spreader’
By Elizabeth Williamson and Kristin Hussey, The New York Times
March 23, 2020

About 50 guests gathered on March 5 at a home in the stately suburb of Westport, Conn., to toast the hostess on her 40th birthday and greet old friends, including one visiting from South Africa. They shared reminiscences, a lavish buffet and, unknown to anyone, the coronavirus.

Then they scattered.

The Westport soirée — Party Zero in southwestern Connecticut and beyond — is a story of how, in the Gilded Age of money, social connectedness and air travel, a pandemic has spread at lightning speed. The partygoers — more than half of whom are now infected — left that evening for Johannesburg, New York City and other parts of Connecticut and the United States, all seeding infections on the way.

Westport, a town of 28,000 on the Long Island Sound, did not have a single known case of the coronavirus on the day of the party. It had 85 on Monday, up more than 40-fold in 11 days.

At a news conference on Monday afternoon, Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut said that 415 people in the state were infected, up from 327 on Sunday night. Ten people have died. Westport, with less than 1 percent of the state’s population, now makes up more than one-fifth of its Covid-19 infections, with 85 cases. Fairfield County, where Westport is, has 270 cases, 65 percent of the state’s total.
…
The visitor from Johannesburg — a 43-year-old businessman, according to a report from South Africa — fell ill on his flight home, spreading the virus not only in the country but possibly to fellow passengers. The party guests attended other gatherings. They went to work at jobs throughout the New York metropolitan area. Their children went to school and day care, soccer games and after-school sports.
…
A South African businessman who had stopped in Westport for a party had fallen ill on the plane home to Johannesburg.

“I thought it was good old man flu,” the businessman told The Sunday Times in South Africa, speaking anonymously in a March 15 article. Unlike in the United States, where tests remain in short supply and results come slowly, the man was tested and received word in a day. He was positive.
…
The number of sick people in Fairfield County then soared. On March 16, Governor Lamont closed restaurants and public buildings statewide. Even in a well-connected, affluent town like Westport, contact tracing quickly overwhelmed health officials. Beyond the 50 attendees, “there were another 120 on our dance list,” some of whom probably were not at the party, Mr. Cooper said. One of the party guests later acknowledged attending an event with 420 other people, he said. The officials gave up.

“They think at least 100 times as many people are infected as what the tests are showing,” Arpad Krizsan, who owns a financial advisory firm in Westport and lives in the community, said on Saturday. “And everybody goes to the same four shops.”

Worry, rumors and recriminations engulfed the town. Political leaders fielded hundreds of emails and phone calls from residents terrified that their children or vulnerable family members had been exposed. Who threw the party, and who attended? They wanted to know. Rumors flew that some residents were telling health officials they had attended the party so they could obtain a scarce test.
…
As the disease spread, many residents kept mum, worried about being ostracized by their neighbors and that their children would be kicked off coveted sports teams or miss school events.

One local woman compared going public with a Covid-19 diagnosis to “having an S.T.D.”

“I don’t think that’s a crazy comparison,” said Will Haskell, the state senator who represents Westport. He has been fielding frantic phone calls from constituents.

Most residents were exercising recommended vigilance, Mr. Haskell said, but one call that stuck out to him was from a woman awaiting test results whose entire family had been exposed to the virus. “She wanted to know whether or not to tell her friends and social network,” he said, because she was worried about “social stigma.”

Mr. Haskell, who has been delivering his grandparents’ medication to their Westport doorstep and leaving it outside, was incredulous. “This is life or death,” he said in an interview. “Westport really is a cautionary tale of what we’re soon to see.”

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