Ammon Bundy didn’t waste his opportunity Tuesday: A video began circulating virally that day in far-right circles showing an Idaho mom being arrested at a playground closed under the state’s anti-COVID-19 lockdown orders. By that evening he was leading a cluster of protesters outside the home of the arresting officer. It didn’t matter to either…
Donald Trump was bound to politicize the distribution of critical medical supplies in the midst of a pandemic and he clearly has. While Democratic governors have repeatedly been shorted on critical equipment they need to fight the novel coronavirus in their states, Republican governors appear to have gotten most or even all of what they asked…
New York City’s mayor and the Open Society Foundations have announced a $20 million program that will assist thousands of undocumented workers in the area who have been affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic. The New York City COVID-19 Immigrant Emergency Relief program makes the city, along with California, among the first localities in the nation to offer financial…
Her name was Skylar Herbert, a 5-year-old Black girl from Michigan and the daughter of first responders. She developed a rare type of meningitis and brain swelling after testing positive for COVID-19 and died Sunday in the state’s first confirmed case of a child dying of the virus, according to The Detroit News. In her final days, as…
As small groups of protesters gathered in a handful of states across the country, right-wing economist Stephen Moore compared their actions to none other than civil rights icon Rosa Parks, as reported by The Washington Post. What were these protesters doing in groups that almost certainly don’t fit the guidelines for social distancing during a…
No pandemic is going to stop the Trump administration from pouring billions of dollars into building a needless border wall, apparently. And once you’re blowing through money at the rate of $20 million per mile, why not up it to $30 million per mile and send that money to a construction company owned by big…
Students of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, are suing the school over withholding refunds and credits to students for services not being administered during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lawsuit accuses the school of misleading students and their families into believing that the campus was still fully functioning when they were deciding whether or not to…
As the White House flails in their attempts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump and his top advisers continue to make matters worse. Trump is, according to news reports, fully devoted to “re-opening” American businesses on May 1 regardless of pandemic status, a move which would assuredly kill more Americans and which is…
On Monday, April 13, former Ronald Reagan Cabinet member Bill Bennett went on Fox News to give his expert opinion on COVID-19. Bennett is probably best known as a right-wing moral “crusader,” who, it turns out, was full of shit. But just because you spew mostly methane doesn’t mean you can’t get a place to speak to…
A weekend New York Times report lays out key dates, meetings and documents to prove a devastating case. Donald Trump was indeed warned, repeatedly, of the true dangers of the likely pandemic. Even in January, Trump was warned that without action, a half a million Americans could die in the pandemic. The Times’ evidence appears…
No wonder Donald Trump is all over the place with his coronavirus response. (Everywhere but competence, that is—and that’s just beyond him.) His polling is looking baaaad. But he’s going in the opposite direction from what the poll indicates the public wants. Trump is trying to evade responsibility by putting the responsibility on the states, but…
Though the novel coronavirus has Americans more reliant on package delivery than ever—including for prescription medications—it has put the future of the U.S. Postal Service in danger. Not distant, far-in-the-future danger, but could-stop-operating-in-June danger. And the Trump administration, which wants to bail out foreign-flagged cruise lines, is saying the postal service is on its own. “I spoke…
If California was a country, it would be the fifth largest economy in the world. It is the global hub for both entertainment and technology, while also providing a majority of the nation’s people food (as opposed to corn for cattle)—a third of all vegetables, and two-thirds of all fruits and nuts. Oh, and the wine…
[[waves from a responsible social distance]] Congrats on almost making through another week of … this. You know who also deserves congratulations? Tennessee state Sen. Katrina Robinson, an intensive care nurse who donned her scrubs and traveled to New York City to help treat coronavirus patients. Her home state finally implemented its own stay-at-home order at the…
For months, every time Donald Trump was confronted over his downplaying of COVID-19, his lack of a national policy, his failure to plan for the impact of the disease or to develop any consistent response, Trump had one constant reply: look at the 2009 H1N1 epidemic. In appearance after appearance, Trump declared that then-president Barack Obama had…
The latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll highlights how disruptive the COVID-19 crisis has been to people’s daily lives, and how unhappy the populace is becoming with Donald Trump’s response to it. Writing at Axios, Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF, highlights the disconnect the American public is experiencing: 60% say that the federal government should…
In Wisconsin, statewide elections proceeded after the conservative state Supreme Court blocked an emergency two-month postponement of in-person voting by Gov. Tony Evers. Risking infection, voters were forced to line up “literally around the block” at the few still-open polling places despite social distancing rules—which will likely lead to elevated COVID-19 infections two weeks from…