Michael1942's Blog

Apparently the administration is still self serving to our detriment MA

By JASON DEAREN, Associated Press

7 hrs ago

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press.

The files also show that after the AP reported Thursday that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval.

The trove of emails show the nation’s top public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spending weeks working on guidance to help the country deal with a public health emergency, only to see their work quashed by political appointees with little explanation.

The document, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen. It included detailed “decision trees,” or flow charts aimed at helping local leaders navigate the difficult decision of whether to reopen or remain closed.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that the documents had not been approved by CDC Director Robert Redfield. The new emails, however, show that Redfield cleared the guidance.

This new CDC guidance — a mix of advice already released along with newer information — had been approved and promoted by the highest levels of its leadership, including Redfield. Despite this, the administration shelved it on April 30.

As early as April 10, Redfield, who is also a member of the White House coronavirus task force, shared via email the guidance and decision trees with President Donald Trump’s inner circle, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, top adviser Kellyanne Conway and Joseph Grogan, assistant to the president for domestic policy. Also included were Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other task force members.

Three days later, CDC’s upper management sent the more than 60-page report with attached flow charts to the White House Office of Management and Budget, a step usually taken only when agencies are seeking final White House approval for documents they have already cleared.

The 17-page version later released by The AP and other news outlets was only part of the actual document submitted by the CDC, and targeted specific facilities like bars and restaurants. The AP obtained a copy Friday of the full document. That version is a more universal series of phased guidelines, “Steps for All Americans in Every Community,” geared to advise communities as a whole on testing, contact tracing and other fundamental infection control measures.

On April 24, Redfield again emailed the guidance documents to Birx and Grogan, according to a copy viewed by The AP. Redfield asked Birx and Grogan for their review so that the CDC could post the guidance publicly. Attached to Redfield’s email were the guidance documents and the corresponding decision trees — including one for meat packing plants.

“We plan to post these to CDC’s website once approved. Peace, God bless r3,” the director wrote. (Redfield’s initials are R.R.R.)

Redfield’s emailed comments contradict the White House assertion Thursday that it had not yet approved the guidelines because the CDC’s own leadership had not yet given them the green light.

Two days later, on April 26, the CDC still had not received any word from the administration, according to the internal communications. Robert McGowan, the CDC chief of staff who was shepherding the guidance through the OMB, sent an email seeking an update. “We need them as soon as possible so that we can get them posted,” he wrote to Nancy Beck, an OMB staffer.

Beck said she was awaiting review by the White House Principals Committee, a group of top White House officials. “They need to be approved before they can move forward. WH principals are in touch with the task force so the task force should be aware of the status,” Beck wrote to McGowan.

The next day, April 27, Satya Thallam of the OMB sent the CDC a similar response: “The re-opening guidance and decision tree documents went to a West Wing principals committee on Sunday. We have not received word on specific timing for their considerations.

“However, I am passing along their message: they have given strict and explicit direction that these documents are not yet cleared and cannot go out as of right now — this includes related press statements or other communications that may preview content or timing of guidances.”

OMB spokeswoman Rachel Semmel said the office has reviewed hundreds of pages of pandemic-related documents.

“The initial submission to OMB is the start of the deliberative process, not the end, and everyone knows that,” Semmel said in an email.

According to the documents, CDC continued inquiring for days about the guidance that officials had hoped to post by Friday, May 1, the day Trump had targeted for reopening some businesses, according to a source who was granted anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the press.

On April 30 the CDC’s documents were killed for good.

The agency had not heard any specific critiques from either the White House Principals Committee or the coronavirus task force in days, so officials asked for an update.

“The guidance should be more cross-cutting and say when they should reopen and how to keep people safe. Fundamentally, the Task Force cleared this for further development, but not for release,” wrote Quinn Hirsch, a staffer in the White House’s office of regulatory affairs (OIRA), in an email to the CDC’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.

CDC staff working on the guidance decided to try again.

The administration had already released its Opening Up America Again Plan, and the clock was ticking. Staff at CDC thought if they could get their reopening advice out there, it would help communities do so with detailed expert help.

But hours later on April 30, CDC’s Chief of Staff McGowan told CDC staff that neither the guidance documents nor the decision trees “would ever see the light of day,” according to three officials who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

The next day, May 1, the emails showed, a staffer at CDC was told “we would not even be allowed to post the decision trees. We had the team (exhausted as they are) stand down.”

The CDC’s guidance was shelved. Until May 7.

That morning The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration had buried the guidance, even as many states had started allowing businesses to reopen.

After the story ran, the White House called the CDC and ordered them to refile all of the decision trees, except one that targeted churches. An email obtained by the AP confirmed the agency resent the documents late Thursday, hours after news broke.

“Attached per the request from earlier today are the decision trees previously submitted to both OIRA and the WH Task Force, minus the communities of faith tree,” read the email. “Please let us know if/when/how we are able to proceed from here.”

__

Associated Press reporter Zeke Miller contributed to this story from Washington.

 

The formula for Postal retirement funding that has the Postal Service “losing” money. What the 2006 Congress was thinking is anybody’s guess. Maybe this was precursor to privatization.MA

Retiree Health Benefits Prefunding

Challenge

Significant financial losses result from a legislative requirement that the Postal Service pre-fund its retiree health benefits.

SOLUTION

Adopting a traditional “pay-as-you-go” method would produce an average of $5.65 billion in additional cash flow per year through 2016.

Unlike any other public or private entity, under a 2006 law, the U.S. Postal Service must pre-fund retiree health benefits. We must pay today for benefits that will not be paid out until some future date. Other federal agencies and most private sector companies use a “pay-as-you-go” system, by which the entity pays premiums as they are billed. Shifting to such a system would equate to an average of $5.65 billion in additional cash flow per year through 2016, and save the Postal Service an estimated $50 billion over the next ten years. With the announcement of our Action Plan in March, we began laying the foundation for change, requesting that Congress restructure this obligation.

The pre-funding requirement, as it currently stands, contributes significantly to postal losses. Under current law, the Postal Service must follow a mandated pre-funding schedule of $5.5 billion to $5.8 billion per year through 2016. In 2009, Congress granted a much needed deferral, allowing us to pay $4.0 billion less than the orignally required $5.4 billion payment. This year, Congress opted not to provide this deferral.

In the absence of legislative relief, the Postal Service was required to make — and made — this year’s $5.5 billion payment to the Retiree Health Benefit Fund. We had sought a deferral of this payment to minimize the risk of defaulting on financial obligations in fiscal year 2011. This risk remains. Even with the careful stewardship of resources we are committed to in the coming year, current forecasts anticipate insufficient cash to enable the similar $5.5 billion payment in September 2011.

Given the severity of our financial situation and the fact that we already have implemented aggressive cost-cutting and productivity-improving measures, we continue to seek approval from Congress to shift away from our unique retiree health benefits pre-funding mandate. We are committed to upholding our obligation to current and former employees but wish to do so in a way that does not constrain cash flow during difficult financial periods of declining volume.

Ensuring that the Postal Service remains a viable business depends upon elimination of legislatively-imposed constraints that impede our efficient and profitable operation. Congressional action, both to restructure our obligation to pre-fund retiree health benefits and to address overpayment to our Civil Service Retirement System pension fund, is still urgently needed.

If we believe TOTUS regarding reopening the Country before this pandemic is contained, we will have fewer voters in November, is it possible that TOTUS understands that the lower voter turnout could benefit him and his party? According to previous analysis of voter turnout during 2016. We must remember TOTUS has no empathy for anyone and is out for himself as he has been all of his life. MA

By Christina Maxouris, CNN

 

2 hrs ago

• With more thanhalf the country now into at least the first stage of reopening, one expert says the US still hasn’t done enough to protect residents from the coronavirus.

“I don’t think you can say, how much suffering are you willing to bear in order to restart the economy until you have done everything possible to ensure that every single person in American can take measures to protect their own health, the health of their families and the health of their communities,” Dr. Richard Besser, the former acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN Tuesday. “That’s just not the case right now.”

 

Governors across the country have allowed residents to return to some semblance of normalcy after weeks of shutdowns to stop the spread of the virus. But the country’s death toll continues to rise and public health experts have warned relaxing restrictions could cost thousands of lives.

And on Tuesday, a senior White House official told CNN the White House coronavirus task force — the most visible part of the federal government’s response to the pandemic — will begin winding down later this month.

But the US is still lagging behind in factors that are key to helping get the virus under control and combating a resurgence, officials have said.

“We don’t have the testing capacity now to know where this disease is,” Besser said. “We have not scaled up the thousands and thousands of contact tracers that we need, we don’t provide safe places for people to isolate or quarantine if they are identified as either having an infection or being in contact.”

“We are saying, if you have money and you are white, you can do well here,” he said. “If you are not, good luck to you.”

African Americans hit harder than any other US group

Although communities across the US have been devastated, a new study suggests more African Americans are dying from the virus in the US than whites or other ethic groups.

Black Americans represent 13.4% of the US population, according to the US Census Bureau, but counties with higher black populations account for more than half of all coronavirus cases and almost 60% of deaths, the study found.

Epidemiologists and clinicians from four universities worked with amfAR, the AIDS research non-profit, and Seattle’s Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access, PATH, and analyzed cases and deaths using county-level comparisons.

They compared counties with a disproportionate number of black residents — those with a population of 13% or more — with those with lower numbers of African American residents. Counties with higher populations of black residents accounted for 52% of coronavirus diagnoses and 58% of Covid-19 deaths nationally, they said.

More states reopening

By May 10, at least 43 states will have completely or partially reopened.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who issued the first stay-at-home order and vowed to abide by science despite mounting pressure from business owners, announced this week that some retail stores — including florists and book shops — will be allowed to reopen Friday.

“I cannot impress upon people more, we’re not going back to normal, we’re going back to a new normal, with adaptations and modifications until we get to immunity until we get to a vaccine. We’ll get there,” Newsom said.

For the first time since the outbreak began, the weekly count of coronavirus deaths in the state has declined, according to data from the state’s health department. The week ending May 3 saw 505 deaths, a slight drop from the prior week’s report of 527 victims.

In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves announced Monday that starting this week, outdoor gatherings of up to 20 people will be allowed and dine-in services at restaurants will also be allowed to resume.

The state saw its largest number of reported deaths in a day, the governor said Tuesday, adding that Mississippi has also seen the largest number of cases reported in two of the last five days.

In Texas, the governor announced wedding venues can reopen. Weddings and wedding receptions held indoors must limit occupancy to 25%. Those limits don’t apply to outdoor wedding receptions, the governor’s office said.

Starting May 8, hair salons, nail salons, tanning salons and pools will also be allowed to reopen in the state as long as long as they maintain certain guidelines.

As they reopen, some states have pushed to build stronger contact tracing frameworks and conduct more antibody tests to get a better understanding of just how far and fast the virus has spread.

But officials are still learning about the virus.

For example, a new genetic analysis of the virus taken from more than 7,600 patients around the world shows it has been circulating in people since late last year, and must have spread extremely quickly after the first infection.

Researchers in Britain looked at mutations in the virus and found evidence of quick spread, but no evidence the virus is becoming more easily transmitted or more likely to cause serious disease.

“The virus is changing, but this in itself does not mean it’s getting worse,” genetics researcher Francois Balloux of the University College London Genetics Institute told CNN.

before it was identified and had by now infected “large proportions of the population,” the researchers wrote.

At most, 10% of the global population has been exposed to the virus, Balloux estimated.

That’s grim news. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the novel coronavirus — which by his estimate has infected between 5% to 15% of the population — will continue to spread until about 60 to 70% are infected.

“Think how much pain, suffering, death and economic disruption we’ve had in getting from 5% to 15% of the population infected and hopefully protected,” Osterholm said. “Wake up, world. Do not believe the rhetoric that says this is going to go away.”

The TOTUS train is heading into an area with no station and a indefinite end.MA

David Jackson

USA TODAY

0:14

0:58

WASHINGTON – Former President George W. Bush released a video this weekend encouraging Americans to stand up to the coronavirus pandemic, and did not mention current President Donald Trump.

It doesn’t sound like that sat too well with Trump.

“He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!” Trump said during a series of Sunday tweets in which he otherwise echoed praise of his performance on the virus and other issues.

Trump’s criticism of Bush dealt with the latter’s silence during the impeachment investigation and trial. But he quoted a Fox News commentator who was talking about the coronavirus video that Bush made.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

 

.@PeteHegseth “Oh bye the way, I appreciate the message from former President Bush, but where was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside.” @foxandfriends He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!

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6:42 AM – May 3, 2020

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59.4K people are talking about this

 

Pete Hegseth of Fox said he appreciated Bush’s video, but wondered why the former president didn’t urge people to put partisanship aside during the impeachment drama.

More:Bush and Trump: The contrast that went unspoken but was impossible to miss at the funeral

In his video, Bush praised health care workers and other Americans who are meeting a historic “shared threat.”

“In the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants,” Bush said. “We are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God. We rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise.”

George W. Bush Presidential Center

✔@TheBushCenter

A Message from President George W. Bush@TheCalltoUnite

Bush’s message of unity won widespread praise and drew comparisons to Trump.

“In the face of a crisis that requires leadership, empathy, and trust in science, Trump has come up short,” tweeted former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. “Bush’s video should remind Republicans that they can do better.”

Other critics noted that Trump wrote “bye the way,” when he meant to say “by the way.”

Trump and Bush have made no secret of their disdain for each other.

Bush said he did not appreciate Trump’s attacks on him, his brother, and his father during the 2016 Republican primaries, as the New York businessman defeated a field of opponents that included former Florida Gov. Jeb. Bush.

After Trump was sworn in as president, the Bush team let it be known that he found the new president’s inaugural address – including a reference to an “American carnage” – to be “some weird s—.”

Trump, meanwhile, claims his predecessors, plural, left him messes that created problems.

Asked recently if he planned to speak with living presidents about how to deal with the pandemic, Trump said no.

“So I don’t want to disturb them, bother them,” Trump said. “I don’t think I’m going to learn much. I guess you could say that there’s probably a natural inclination not to call.”

The M.O. of TOTUs is to remove anyone who tells the truth and worked for the government under Obama even though they were in office under Previous administrations- “stupid is as stupid does: M.A.

 

Peter Baker

1 hr ago

WASHINGTON — President Trump moved on Friday night to replace a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services who angered him with a report last month highlighting supply shortages and testing delays at hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.

© U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Christi A. Grimm, the principal deputy inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, released a report outlining hospital equipment shortages.The White House waited until after business hours to announce the nomination of a new inspector general for the department who, if confirmed, would take over for Christi A. Grimm, the principal deputy inspector general who was publicly assailed by the president at a news briefing three weeks ago.

The nomination was the latest effort by Mr. Trump against watchdog offices around his administration that have defied him. In recent weeks, he fired an inspector general involved in the inquiry that led to the president’s impeachment, nominated a White House aide to another key inspector general post overseeing virus relief spending and moved to block still another inspector general from taking over as chairman of a pandemic spending oversight panel.

Mr. Trump has sought to assert more authority over his administration and clear out officials deemed insufficiently loyal in the three months since his Senate impeachment trial on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress ended in acquittal largely along party lines. While inspectors general are appointed by the president, they are meant to be semiautonomous watchdogs ferreting out waste, fraud and corruption in executive agencies.

The purge has continued unabated even during the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed about 65,000 lives in the United States. Ms. Grimm’s case in effect merged the conflict over Mr. Trump’s response to the outbreak with his determination to sweep out those he perceives to be speaking out against him.

Her report, released last month and based on extensive interviews with hospitals around the country, identified critical shortages of supplies, revealing that hundreds of medical centers were struggling to obtain test kits, protective gear for staff members and ventilators. Mr. Trump was embarrassed by the report at a time he was already under fire for playing down the threat of the virus and not acting quickly enough to ramp up testing and provide equipment to doctors and nurses.

“It’s just wrong,” the president said when asked about the report on April 6. “Did I hear the word ‘inspector general’? Really? It’s wrong. And they’ll talk to you about it. It’s wrong.” He then sought to find out who wrote the report. “Where did he come from, the inspector general? What’s his name? No, what’s his name? What’s his name?”

When the reporter did not know, Mr. Trump insisted. “Well, find me his name,” the president said. “Let me know.” He expressed no interest in the report’s findings except to categorically reject them sight unseen.

After learning that Ms. Grimm had worked during President Barack Obama’s administration, Mr. Trump asserted that the report was politically biased. In fact, Ms. Grimm is not a political appointee but a career official who began working in the inspector general office late in President Bill Clinton’s administration and served under President George W. Bush as well as Mr. Obama. She took over the office in an acting capacity when the previous inspector general stepped down.

Mr. Trump was undaunted and attacked her on Twitter. “Why didn’t the I.G., who spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others in charge, before doing her report,” he wrote, mischaracterizing the government’s generally praised response to the 2009 epidemic that actually killed about 12,000 in the United States. “Another Fake Dossier!”

To take over as inspector general, Mr. Trump on Friday night named Jason C. Weida, an assistant United States attorney in Boston. The White House said in its announcement that he had “overseen numerous complex investigations in health care and other sectors.” He must be confirmed by the Senate before assuming the position.

Among several other nominations announced on Friday was the president’s choice for a new ambassador to Ukraine, filling a position last occupied by Marie L. Yovanovitch.

Ms. Yovanovitch was ousted a year ago because she was seen as an obstacle by the president’s advisers as they tried to pressure the government in Kyiv to incriminate Mr. Trump’s Democratic rivals. That effort to solicit political benefit from Ukraine, while withholding security aid, led to Mr. Trump’s impeachment largely along party lines in December.

Mr. Trump selected Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, a retired 40-year Army officer now serving as the director of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. Mr. Dayton speaks Russian and served as defense attaché in Moscow. More recently, he served as a senior United States defense adviser in Ukraine appointed by Jim Mattis, Mr. Trump’s first defense secretary.

Microsoft may earn an Affiliate Commission if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.

 

 

We need to avoid the madness of TOTUS and remember to vote if you want change.MA

 

24April

by Jon Katz

(Note: The purpose of my pieces on politics are not to hate anyone or boost anyone, but to try to explain to confused and frightened people what is really going on, using my own experience as a former TV news producer (CBS News) and as a political writer and reporter and media critic. I see a lot of argument, but very little honest insight and analysis. People need it, judging from my e-mail. I don’t do left-right parroted dogma, nor do I argue my ideas on social media. If you don’t want to think about things, go somewhere else, thanks.)

The first thing to understand is that President Trump is neither crazy nor stupid.

If he were either of those things, he would not be where he is, and I would not be writing about him, and you would not be reading what I write.

In political terms, he has accomplished the impossible and is now the most formidable force in American politics. It is imperative to understand how this happened and is happening.

The second is a quote from George Orwell: “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your choosing.” We can see that happening every day. That is his power.

Donald Trump has made it quite clear that he knows nothing about curing the coronavirus, or about medications and how they work or if they work. Nor does he care if what he is saying is true or false, or if it might kill people if we took it.

He is a survivor, and he will do what he has to do to survive, at all costs and by any means.

His survival now depends on him being accepted as a true leader during this crisis. If not for the partisanship crippling our politics, he would probably have resigned by now.

As it is, victory remains within reach for him, providing he can establish himself as a powerful and competent leader.

So what is really happening here, when a President of the United States suggests people might inject themselves with disinfectant to fight off a Pandemic? I look at it this way: I’m not interested in joining the chorus of outrage,  but in exploring this extraordinary window – his mind-numbing advice – into who he is and how he uses outrage for gain.

We’re not playing by the old rules, the way America processes things is radically different than what most of us know and accept, or what I grew up with. I take Donald Trump seriously.

This is something we need to understand if we want to know what is happening and how to respond to it.

Last night was another triumph for Trump, it worked for him in every possible way, and I want to try to explain why.

Every morning, we awake to a new and shocking Trump “controversy,” and all of the media oxygen in America is his. He takes up all the space in the media universe, day after day, more than any political figure in American history.

Every morning we – the people from the previous world – wake up in shock, anger, and disbelief. It works for him every time. No one has ever understood how modern media works better than President Trump. His political opposition has no idea what he is doing or why and how and why we are all complicit in his rise.

As a politician, Trump works the dark side, not the bright side. He doesn’t evoke a city on a hill, as Reagan did. He lives and works on the dark side of fear, grievance, and xenophobia. That’s where his political soul resides. That’s where his strength is.

This morning, the outrage of the day was his sly – and yes,  seemingly insane – ruminations about how ultra-violet light and sipping Bleach and disinfectant might cure the coronavirus.

Almost in unison, his many critics fumed and screamed – this is outrageous, irresponsible, dangerous. As they are ethically obliged to do, every responsible physician in America tweeted and sounded the alarm: don’t drink disinfectant, don’t try drinking bleach.

The people who dislike him freaked out, wringing their hands at yet another horror coming from the mouth of this President.

They made this President very happy, yet again. It worked one more time.

For President Trump, being outrageous is like pushing a button and watching Times Square light up at night. He can grab his remote switcher, lie in bed, watch the fireworks,  and see his image everywhere.

He makes Big Brother look like a pretzel vendor on the street.

The elemental truth there is that one can’t understand what he is doing by putting him down as an ignorant lunatic or getting stressed and discouraged.

This completely misses the point of what is happening. Media wise, Trump is pure genius, being outrageous is his core ideology, the reason he is President and might be once more. And in this corporate media climate – ratings and profits are everything, there is no other ethic – it just keeps on working.

To Trump, saying outrageous things is now an art form, he can sit back and watch journalists and millions of educated people jump up and down like hungry puppies. For cable news, it’s now a ritual, broadcast everything he says, and then argue about it. Everyone has bought into it.

What a travesty.

And everyone in the universe this morning has one thing in common: they are talking about one thing: Donald Trump, they are talking about him and thinking about him. There is nothing else; Trump takes precedent over everything,  even the deaths of 50,000 people.

Without this greedy corporate media, Trump would have long ago become a fringe figure. If I were looking for blame, I could go there. What a wide-open door for a demagogue.

That is what real power is—every day. So chalk up another win for the President.

Once again – for perhaps the thousandth time – everyone bit this morning, everyone did what they were supposed to do and what he wanted them to do. He wins by losing.

The so-called “Left” – liberals, progressives, college people, elitists, smarty-pants, etc. were outraged, angry, and lining up to condemn this unquestionably irresponsible, even dangerous idea.

How can he say such things? How does he get away with them?

How can we not know the answer to this question by now?

And when will we finally learn it, and move onto the next chapter in our political lives?

Once again, Fox News rushed to defend him. MSNBC rushed to attack him. CNN rushed to fact-check him, each pretending they are the honest brokers, that they care about the truth and health of people, each pulling in big ratings and billions of dollars. The serious print press – the New York Times, the Washington Post – tracked down various experts to explain to us why gulping down bleach isn’t a good idea.

By being “insane,” Trump is the story again, all day.

Once again, his followers rushed to defend him against the bureaucrats, elitists, and entrenched experts who are again plotting to thwart him and his so-called war against the norm.

Everybody bit, everyone followed his script. If it weren’t so disturbing and fraught, it would be boring.

I should say here that when I was a producer at CBS News, just before the corporate takeovers of TV and TV news, we would never have aired Trump’s press conference live for two hours every night in an election year.

That is how much things have changed in the media landscape. Donald Trump has been paying attention all along.

When I was hired at CBS, my boss told me that only one thing could get me fired instantly, and without any discussion or due process, and that was airing something I wasn’t sure was 100 percent true. If you’re not sure, he said, wait until you are.

If it’s inflammatory, or politically expedient, or irresponsible, don’t dare put it on the air.

The networks were hardly angelic then, but they were owned by individual people who had pride in them, and who felt accountable for what they puy on the air. There were four hundred fact-checkers at CBS News when I worked there, there is a handful now.

I don’t mention this to rail about the old days, but to point out the radical change in media ethics that is standard now in almost all of the broadcast media, online and off.  This and social media have transformed our politics.

They created a system that makes Donald Trump inevitable, as well as successful.

Facebook, one of the largest news organizations on the earth, is proud of taking no responsibility for what they publish. It is the kingdom of lies and provocations.

If CNN is concerned about airing President Trump’s calculated lies and misinformation about the coronavirus, they won’t air his press conferences for two hours every single night, so that they can “correct” them.

If MSNBC thinks the President is dishonest and dangerous, why broadcast his daily show and talk about him for hours and hours every single day?

Corporations – including Fox News – are constructed to care about one thing: profits and ratings bring benefits, and President Trump brings ratings and big profits. He doesn’t hate fake news, he loves fake news, and they love him in return.

While Fox News anchors dismissed the virus as a Democratic plot, the corporation was sending workers home to quarantine themselves and stay out of the office.

As for Trump himself, he understands well the lessons of modern media. It doesn’t matter if you are right or wrong, honest, or lying. What matters is that you are out there, that your image is ubiquitous. In media terms, Trump is everything all the time. In politics, air time is more precious than anything.

How often have you seen Joe Biden on TV in recent weeks? This is what it means to be complicit.

There is no one else. Just think of that when you consider the political implications in an election year.

Trump’s genius comes from understanding that the more shocking, outrageous, and irresponsible he is, the more the media and “progressives”  will hate him,  his followers will worship him and accept him and rationalize him. What does he have to lose?

The process is stuck in the wrong place, and Trump knows how to milk this cow for all it’s worth. It’s simple enough to hate him for it, but it’s getting harder and harder to blame him for it.

Trump is like the cheeky schoolkid who dares to get up in front of the teacher and read a book report when it’s obvious he hasn’t read the book. Most of the class loves him for it.

To his followers, he is the rebel, the outlier, the renegade, challenging the system, and its conventional wisdom every single day.  In this sense, they see him as one of them. If every doctor goes on TV to say never inject yourself with disinfectants, he says think about it, study it, don’t let the establishment tell you what to do or think.

And if there’s anything his followers hate more than journalists, it’s rich doctors that they and their children can’t afford to go and see. Why should they listen to them?

It’s an appealing message to the alienated and dispossessed.  Whatever the establishment says, say the opposite. All criticism is a conspiracy.

For President Trump, the essential thing is topping himself almost every day by being outrageous and, to some, offensive. Open up the states (kind of), stop giving money to the WHO (maybe), ban all immigration (mostly), think about sipping Bleach to kill the coronavirus. And this is all in one week.

He knows most people can’t even keep track of all the outrageous feints, promises, and falsehoods. In our country, outrage has a shorter lifespan than milk. TV is never static, up and running 24/7; it is even needier than the Presidents’ Grievance Machine.

What on earth would they do without him?

And what is the common denominator? The so-called “elites” are angry and messed up and outraged. Always. They are offended at the Presidente so often that outrage isn’t even outraged any longer, it’s reflex.

His followers get to admire his courage and daring, the media has a dream story that will earn them lots of money day after day, and they get to pretend to be virtuous,  holier than thou, and full of “truth.”

And yes, our minds are being torn to pieces.

Trump has mastered Orwell’s doublethink more than anyone in the history of modern media.

It is a major reason he is President and the primary reason he needs to be outrageous, each day more than the next.  He has created a monster that is hungry and needs to be fed: every day.

Doublethink, wrote George Orwell, is the power that comes from holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and accepting both of them.

One day the President admits in writing to the quid pro quo, the next day he says it’s a hoax. And nearly half the country believes today that it was a hoax. Call him anything you want, but don’t call him crazy.

If you study the texts of his outrages and outright lies, you can see the calculation and animal instincts in play. He isn’t just running his mouth; he knows precisely what he is doing.

One day he calls the Governor of Georgia to commend him for opening up businesses in his state when every medical expert says it’s too soon.

The next day at his press conference, he cuts the governor’s legs off by saying that he told him opening up was a huge mistake.

This is how doublethink works so well for him  – he can hold two or three different truths at one, tearing human minds to pieces and putting them back together again in new shapes of his choosing.

When reporters challenge him, he further delights his followers by calling them names and insulting them, showing them how tough he is, how willing he is to stand up against his conspiratorial detractors and accusers.

The difficult questions do not harm him; they strengthen him, give him some martyrdom. Every night there, he is,  for two hours at a pop, an extraordinary gift of free television for a political candidate. In the moral inversion that Trump has so skillfully created, there is no lying, no penalty for being false.

Every lie is a win. And all of us are enablers.

The befuddled and abused journalists in the White House press room are perfect foils for Donald Trump; they are content to be both abused and used. Why else would he submit to their questions when he fires anyone else who disagrees with him?

Early on in his first campaign, a friendly reporter asked him why he seemed to hate the media so much?

“I don’t hate them at all, he said, I need them. I call them fake so that when I do something wrong, and they report it, no one will believe them.”  Does that sound dumb to you?

The political challenge in 2020 is that Trump understands his followers better than anyone else running for office or hating him understands them. Dismissing them as stupid fools is not understanding them, it is feeding them – and him –  more fuel.

This morning, his followers had yet another reason to hate the media and the doctors and bureaucrats and governors telling them what to do, calling them dumb and irresponsible, taking away their jobs, and threatening their families.

Outside the convenience store this morning, the men in trucks were already on it: he’s just trying to come up with a cure, he didn’t tell people to drink Bleach, he just asked if they were testing the idea,  look at how they jump all over his ass because he’s trying to help people. They’ll do anything to destroy him.

That is the genius of Trump right there if you wish to understand what’s happening.

You take people who have been lied to and left behind for generations now, and come along and say I will take this system and set it on fire. It’s the perfect storm of the Demagogue.

Every outrageous thing he says or does or that shocks or goes against the grain, becomes a part of the revolution they so badly want, and believe is at hand.

Every criticism becomes part of the vast conspiracy to make him fail.

Being outraged with and to one another doesn’t accomplish much but tear us to pieces. People will have to put it somewhere, that means something if it is to matter politically.

The shrinks always talk about accepting death, and they might also suggest accepting Trump, and not turning every stupid thing he says into Watergate. He’s not getting into my head in that way, I promise.

Trump, or somebody in his orbit, is a student of George Orwell, and especially of his landmark book,1984.

In a righteous world, the networks would not cover his press conferences. There is no real news in them, and they are thinly disguised and re-furbished political rallies, the kinds he could go outside for before the coronavirus.

Why should the networks give him so much political rallying time when they admit every day that he is spouting lies and misinformation?

Producers know the only reason they air them at all is so that they can either defend him or attack him the next morning, and make even more money—our political structure as a circus.

It’s like the Weather Channel has a record-breaking blizzard to report on every single day. Their ratings and their revenues would go through the roof.

To understand  Trump, I believe, I must appreciate him as a Media Creature, from beginning to end. He spends most of his time watching TV in his bedroom or office, and projecting and experimenting with his image and surviving one catastrophe after another, including four separate bankruptcies, after which he published a best-selling book about his business genius.

I can’t speak to his business skills, but I can testify to his media genius. Politicians will be studying his methods for generations.

The challenge for the polis – for the body politic is different. I don’t ask whether Donald Trump is right or wrong, or accurate or dishonest, or crazy or sane.

The coronavirus may be too much even for doublethink; what we see and feel might be too powerful for even a genius to manipulate.

Trump has set his outrageous bar so high that it may be impossible for him to maintain it without blowing up the country altogether. If it’s a mistake to glory the common man and woman, it would be a mistake to underestimate them.

I keep thinking of the Greek playwrights – the hero always goes too far and sets himself on fire. Hubris is his real enemy, not the millions of people fussing or fuming over him every day. They are all, to a one, his greatest allies, and enablers.

When I saw the headlines this morning, I reminded myself not to waste a minute of time or peace of mind wondering why he would tell such irresponsible lies yesterday.

The challenge is not to argue that what he says is true, or succumb to hatred,  but to understand why he is saying it and why so many people might believe it.

As Orwell argued, you really can’t fight doublethink with rational argument, but with comprehension and understanding.

Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else.

I’m a betting man, and if I had to bet, that’s what I would bet on. What I won’t be doing is taking his bait every single day. I want to keep the pieces of my mind together, and in one place.

 

 

This is another deflection and a dig at Jeff Bezos of Amazon, as the article shows below, the reason for the USPS cash issues results from a 2006 law requireing pre funding 75 years of pensions. MA 

Grace Panetta

Apr 24, 2020, 12:18 PM

 

• Trump confirmedWashington Post reporting that his administration is considering using a $10 billion emergency loan as leverage to require the cash-strapped US Postal Service to make big changes.
• The CARES Act, the $2 trillion stimulus package passed by Congress last month, includes $10 billion in additional borrowing power subject to approval by the US Treasury Department. 
• Top Trump administration officials are considering requiring the Postal Service to charge higher rates on its package delivery services and weaken the authority of powerful postal service unions.
• On Friday, Trump called the Postal Service “a joke”and suggested that the Postal Service quadruple the rates they charge for shipping packages if they want federal government assistance.

 

In Friday comments to reporters, President Donald Trump confirmed a Thursday Washington Post report that the administration is considering using a $10 billion emergency loan as leverage to require the cash-strapped US Postal Service to make big changes to its structure and management.

The Postal Service, which doesn’t take taxpayer funding and operates based on the postal fees it charges, has been particularly hard-hit by the decline in mail caused by the coronavirus crisis.

The CARES Act, the $2 trillion stimulus package passed by Congress last month, includes $10 billion in additional borrowing power subject to approval by the US Treasury Department.

Now, Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, want to use the promise of the loan to force the agency to implement long-sought-after changes, multiple sources told the Post. Both Trump and Mnuchin have previously quashed efforts to provide emergency relief to the Postal Service.

In his Friday bill signing of a new $484 billion coronavirus relief package, Trump called the Postal Service “a joke” and confirmed the Post’s reporting, suggesting that the Postal Service quadruple the rates they charge for shipping packages if they want federal government assistance, the Post’s Phil Rucker reported.

But Trump sang a markedly different tune on his Twitter feed later that afternoon, saying he would “never” let the agency “fail.”

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

 

 

I will never let our Post Office fail. It has been mismanaged for years, especially since the advent of the internet and modern-day technology. The people that work there are great, and we’re going to keep them happy, healthy, and well!

The Post reported on Thursday that Trump administration officials are considering requiring the Postal Service to charge higher rates on its package delivery services, exerting greater control of the selection of top postal service officials, and weakening the authority of powerful postal service unions that represent thousands of employees around the country as conditions for approving the loan.

In total, the changes would shift much of the decision-making power over the Postal Service’s management and business operations away from the agency’s Board of Governors and the Postal Regulatory Commission to the Treasury Department.

The Post stressed, however, that none of these concessions are finalized since the Postal Service has not officially asked for the $10 billion loan included in the CARES Act.

Representatives for both the Postal Service and the US Treasury Department confirmed to the Post that while the agencies are in early talks on what the conditions for the loan could look like, officials haven’t formally agreed on any terms.

House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and Rep. Gerry Conolly, who runs the subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service, sounded the alarm a month ago that the agency could run out of funding altogether by June if Congress doesn’t act.

“Based on a number of briefings and warnings this week about a critical fall-off in mail across the country, it has become clear that the Postal Service will not survive the summer without immediate help from Congress and the White House,” the two said in a March 23 joint statement, calling on Congress to appropriate $25 million in emergency funds to the agency.

On April 9, Postmaster General Megan Brennan told lawmakers that the massive expected decline in mail volume is expected to cause losses of up to $13 billion this year. He estimated that the agency wouldn’t be able to continue providing reliable service and pay its over 600,000 person workforce by September without immediate help.

The agency’s Board of Governors is now requesting $25 billion to help the agency deal with the immediate consequences of the pandemic, $25 billion in grant money to help it adapt, and an additional $25 billion in borrowing authority, CBS News reported. 

But Trump, who has vocally criticized the way the USPS is structured and the rates they charge, is actively opposed to any measures to help the Post Office. He refused to sign the CARES Act if it included a bailout for the agency, the Washington Post reported on April 11.

“We told them very clearly that the president was not going to sign the bill if [money for the Postal Service] was in it,” an administration official told the Post. “I don’t know if we used the v-bomb, but the president was not going to sign it, and we told them that.”

The Post reported that while Congress initially intended to give the Postal Service a $13 billion grant, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin stepped in to quash it, telling lawmakers, “you can have a loan, or you can have nothing at all.”

Connolly told the Federal News Network in March that the $10 billion in credit “is, frankly, a meaningless gesture. It’s a slap in the face, and it’s not what they need … they don’t need more debt capacity, they need debt forgiveness.”

Trump has frequently criticized the Postal Service for, in his view, not charging high enough rates to compete with e-commerce giants like Amazon for package delivery, or charging enough in its contracts with private logistics companies like FedEx and UPS to deliver packages to “last mile” areas.

But as the Post noted, USPS raising its package delivery rates could make it more difficult for them to compete with Amazon and other shipping companies like UPS and FedEx, hurting their financial state in the long run.

The significant decline in Americans using the Postal Service during the COVID-19 outbreak is only exacerbating existing financial woes, which were manufactured in part by Congress.

The agency is especially burdened by 2006 legislation that required the agency to pre-fund 75 years’ worth of employee pensions in advance. The service saw its annual losses double to $8.8 billion in 2019, and currently has $11 billion in outstanding debt.