[ad_1]
• Reports indicate Donald Trump intends to use the Defense Production Act to force closed meat processing plants to reopen after numerous plants shut down due to widespread worker infections. The industry has been reeling from the shuttered plants and public anger.
• Reopening businesses while the pandemic is still active is sure to increase U.S. infections and deaths. The Trump team and Republican lawmakers are now mulling a “liability shield” which would immunize reopened businesses nationwide from legal consequences for exposing workers or customers to the virus.
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is delivering an ultimatum to House Democrats, indicating he may allow state and local bailouts in the next pandemic relief bill if it also contains language granting businesses that immunity.
• House leadership now indicates the House will not return next Monday as originally planned due to the continued risk to members.
• Experts believe the number of tests needed to safely reopen the economy is now reaching staggering levels, due to the late start and slow pace of current testing: As many as 163 million per week could be necessary to achieve a full, nationwide reopening.
• As Trump presses states for a “rapid reopening” and the lifting of shelter-in-place orders, Trump Attorney General Bill Barr is directing federal prosecutors to review social distancing requirements issued by the states in an apparent attempt to identify any that could be plausibly challenged by the administration.
• Still more evidence of government officials attempting desperately to get Trump’s attention during the early months of the pandemic: Intelligence officials gave “dozens of warnings” of the dangers posed by the spreading virus in Trump’s daily intelligence briefings during January and February.
• White House aides are reportedly trying to “refocus” Trump away from his frequently bizarre daily pandemic briefings, hoping to instead convince him to speak in a more limited fashion about economic measures. Trump’s performance yesterday does not bode well for this plan.
• Calls to poison control centers in multiple states rose after Donald Trump’s suggestion last week that household disinfectants, taken internally, might kill the virus. Such poisons will indeed kill the virus—by killing the person hosting it.
• North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, up for reelection, refused to comment on Trump’s suggestion that Americans inject disinfectants. His campaign later issued a statement telling Americans who “think they are sick” to “contact their doctor.”
• Republican demands that Democratic-led states receive no “bailouts” from the federal government despite the pandemic disaster are hitting predictable snags as Republican states, too, begin to announce severe budget shortfalls and Republican lawmakers themselves express displeasure at the proposed federal abandonment.
• A problem with conservative efforts to “open” the economy despite the ongoing pandemic dangers: Business owners won’t be opening if it doesn’t make financial sense.
• About half of U.S. workers stand to make more on unemployment during the pandemic than they did working at their old jobs.
• A fed-up federal judge is now ordering the swift release of children detained in immigration detention facilities, saying that “postponing the release of children in facilities with known COVID-19 exposure is like leaving them in a burning house rather than going in to rescue them.”
• The Trump administration continues to block Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients from receiving student pandemic aid.
• A lawsuit has now been filed challenging the administration’s exclusion of nearly 2 million U.S. citizens and green card holders from relief payments, solely because those Americans are married to immigrants without Social Security numbers.
• Latino leaders are demanding the next relief package include relief for undocumented workers and other immigrants, many of whom are “essential” workers being exposed to the virus at higher rates than non-immigrants.
• Also being shut out of pandemic relief: many small business owners with past criminal records.
• A Republican memo recommending Republican officials avoid defending Trump’s slow response to the pandemic is reportedly angering Trump’s campaign and White House officials.
• Fox News hosts continue to underplay pandemic dangers to their audiences, with Tucker Carlson (falsely) claiming to his viewers that the virus “isn’t nearly as deadly as we thought.”
• A Black New York teacher who attempted three times to be tested for COVID-19 but was turned away died Monday of the disease.
• Polling indicates Trump’s attacks on governors over their COVID-19 orders are backfiring.
• Trump sycophant and pandemic “task force” head Mike Pence is being condemned for refusing to wear a mask while visiting the Mayo Clinic today, ignoring the hospital’s own policies. In his defense, it is because he is a terrible person.
• What began as astroturfed and fringe-right protests against stay-at-home orders issued by Democratic governors is now expanding into protests against Republican governors for similar orders. Funny how that works.
• The chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party recommended anti-shutdown protesters dress like healthcare workers during their protests, saying it is “the ‘message’ that matters.’”
• Free COVID-19 tests are now available for all Detroit residents. No insurance coverage is needed.
