Two Sources Close To Jared And Ivanka

It did diminish, somewhat, but I wonder if any of the journalists who served as their de facto PR agents for a couple of years feel bad.

Haha I keed.

It's Wednesday

I'm writing that cause I honestly didn't know for sure. Had to look at the computer for verification.

Tuesday Evening

Rock on.

They're Just People, Michael, What Could They Cost?

Lol (what else can we do but laugh).

During a private call on Friday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott admitted that “every scientific and medical report shows” state reopenings “ipso facto” lead to an increase in novel coronavirus cases, even as he publicly announced plans that same week to end an executive stay-at-home order in the state.

“How do we know reopening businesses won’t result in faster spread of more cases of COVID-19?” Abbott asked during a Friday afternoon phone call with members of the state legislature and Congress. “Listen, the fact of the matter is pretty much every scientific and medical report shows that whenever you have a reopening—whether you want to call it a reopening of businesses or of just a reopening of society—in the aftermath of something like this, it actually will lead to an increase and spread. It’s almost ipso facto.”

“The more that you have people out there, the greater the possibility is for transmission,” Abbott said on the call, which a spokesperson confirmed was authentic on Tuesday. “The goal never has been to get transmission down to zero.”

On Our Own

Trump staying out of the way and just blaming everybody else for fucking things up is probably better than Trump fucking things up and then blaming everybody for the fact that he fucked everything up.

Afternoon Thread

A lot of economic anxiety out there.

Boys Will Be Boys

All the worst people.

The New York attorney general’s office late last year launched an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment, retaliation and gender discrimination at NBC News, Variety has learned. NBC News chief Andrew Lack and former “Hardball” host Chris Matthews were among multiple high-ranking executives and newsroom talents whose behavior was the subject of questioning, according to multiple sources.

...

Another woman, an NBC employee who worked for Matthews, says she was interviewed by the attorney general’s office, though she spoke to Variety on the condition of anonymity, fearing further retaliation from the network.

“I was interviewed over the phone for sexual harassment and retaliation,” the woman told Variety, explaining that she was sexually harassed by Matthews when she worked for him and was then retaliated against by higher-ups at NBC, after she reported her situation to human resources.

“Everyone in that company knew about it and they knew about it for years and it was a horrible,” this woman says.

At least two women with complaints of sexual harassment against Matthews spoke to the attorney general’s office, three individuals with knowledge of the investigation say.

Afternoon Thread

Chuck Schumer's doing some tweets today. Tweetin's good.

Warriors

Trump before boarding Air Force One: "The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors. Our country has to open."

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) May 5, 2020

In a few more days he'll nuke NYC if someone convinces him that it will make this all go away and let him get back to doing fun racism at rallies.

Trust Us

"Oh, Nancy Pelosi is just being very smart. By not bringing Congress back she ensures that she gets to decide what happens without any input from other members of Congress" is a sort of true thing someone said to me but they said it was a good thing.

There are justifications for emergency legislation being written without much debate when we are at the moment of an emergency. And, you know, we are in a big emergency. Also, too, it's such an emergency that it's been over 7 weeks since the emergency was apparent, and, well...

The Thing About Delco Is

It doesn't even have a health department.

The Pennsylvania counties you see in yellow are due to enter a new phase of reopening on Friday. Officials in Delaware County are trying to find ways to make that happen sooner in Southeastern PA.https://t.co/j1SlGuK2ua pic.twitter.com/ufMlaxdmM4

— Matt O'Donnell (@matt_odonnell) May 5, 2020

Also, too, fuck the olds.

Councilman Madden suggested nursing homes, which make up the bulk of their cases, be counted separately from the rest of the population.

"When you have 70% of the deaths we've had occur in nursing homes, if anything we want to shine a light on is that and to make sure the situation there is not getting conflated with the rest of the community."

But Secretary of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine, did not agree, saying that nursing homes are part of the community with staff going back and forth.

Basically every impulse of "bad governance" has ruled Delco for decades.

Overnight Thread

Continue

Monday Evening

Tomorrow is...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hoyer gives House Democrats no set timetable for return to Washington for votes, in caucus-wide call.

— Billy House (@HouseInSession) May 4, 2020

Going Over The Top

Eventually you do run out of Tommies.

Afternoon Thread

Have a video.

Catastrophe

I'd guess they've decided they've played out the "if we predict a tiny number of deaths that will magically come true" strategy and are now going with the "if we totally overestimate the number then we will look like heroes!!!" strategy.

As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750.

But that doesn't mean their overestimate is, in fact, an overestimate

More importantly, they're pushing states to re-open even as they're predicting a rising death toll because of it. They want to kill you.

Bored Now

The thing is, if Trump thought he could end this and "go back to normal" by snapping his fingers and killing 10 million people over night, he would. No there is no going back to normal with that, of course, but for some reason a lot of nutters think there is. Just let the virus burn. Burn, baby, burn.

Or Maybe A Million

My President is wisely readjusting his very beautiful predictions of the death toll, in that every time they exceed his previous prediction he predicts a higher number.

You can't do that, libs.

Flatten The Curve

To the extent that anyone thinks they're being sensible instead of LOL GONNA KILL OUR POPULATION TO OWN THE LIBS, it seems to be the belief that "flattening the curve" (or close enough, sort of) was the goal. Whether that's actually the goal (as long as it's flat lots of people die but at least they have hospital beds first!) or just stupid people not understanding things, the curve won't remain flat if you re-open the Fuddruckers...