On Your Own Governor!

The governor of Maryland, Republican Larry Hogan, obtained 500,000 coronavirus test kits from South Korea. Nothing surprising about that in this era of Trump. Trump has told the states that they are responsible for getting their own coronavirus stuff - tests (even though Trump lied when he said that anyone who wanted a test could get one), ventilators, personal protective equipment, and one imagines even toilet paper. Because, as the unelected Jared Kushner explained earlier in the thousand day month of April, the Federal Stockpile is not for the states but for “us.”  The “us” being the feds? Which is all of us, right? Or did he mean “us” as in just true believers of Trump?  

Well, in light of that comment, states started ignoring the Federal government and just went out and ordered their own stuff. Except, that wasn’t cool. The Feds didn’t like that so they started confiscating the stuff ordered by the states.  Wonderful. That’s why Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, my home state, had to get Robert Kraft to fly his own plane to China to get masks. Earlier, Baker had ordered a shit ton of masks but instead of getting those for his citizens, the masks were seized by the Feds. Noone really knows who, but many are guessing FEMA. Like the many people Trump is always referring to in support of one lie or another. Nobody really knows where those masks are now because there is no transparency with this administration despite the constant comments from Trump that his administration is the most transparent ever. I think he doesn’t know what transparent means. My guess is that FEMA took all the stuff and sent it to some red state instead of to Massachusetts, a blue state. 

Massachusetts and other blue states are kinda like Ukraine after all. If you want stuff from the Feds you gotta play nice with Trumpelstilzchen, who made this perfectly clear in a news conference yesterday. He told reporters that he would consider funding “Democrat states,” “if we do that we’re going to have to get something for it.” Now we know what President Zelensky had to deal with and Trump just reinforced the deep down truth that the Republicans refused to acknowledge in the impeachment hearings.  Thanks Susan Collins. 

Heck, we can’t say anyone didn’t warn us, can we Susan?  Stanford Law Professor Pamela Karlan did. 

“To see why, imagine living in a part of Louisiana or Texas that’s prone to devastating hurricanes and flooding,” Karlan said. “What would you think if, when your governor asked the federal government for the disaster assistance that Congress has provided, the President responded, ‘I would like you to do us a favor. I’ll meet with you and send the disaster relief once you brand my opponent a criminal?’”

So, with this in mind, back to Governor Hogan. At his press conference, he said it had taken about three weeks to get all his ducks in a row to get these masks, including having is wife, a Korean immigrant, play a key role in getting the tests. Tellingly, he said that instead of flying the first 5,000 of those test kits into Dulles International Airport, he had them flown into BWI Airport.  Never before had a South Korean passenger airliner landed at BWI.  Why? Because he didn’t want the Feds to confiscate the kits. When the passenger plane arrived at BWI, the Maryland National Guard and Maryland State Troopers were there to greet it and protect those test kits from Federal seizure. Later, Trump called Hogan stupid for spending 9 million dollars to get test kits when all he had to do was call Mike Pence.

Ha, that’s funny. Call Mike Pence? Nah, I think I’ll pass.

It's a Jungle Out There

“Here was a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers; under such circumstances immorality was exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it was under the system of chattel slavery. Things” 

― Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

At first, President* Trump (I like that Charlie Pierce uses the * after President every time he refers to the poser in the White House) refused to use his powers under the Defense Production Act.  Finally, after much cajoling by Democratic lawmakers, in late March he invoked the Act to force General Motors, General Electric, Hilll-Rom, Medtronic, ResMed, Royal Phillips, Vyaire Medical, and 3M to ramp up production of protective gear needed by health professionals. It took him way too long. But, finally, he did something to help. From all the talk about the Act, you’d have thought, though, that he didn’t really like using that power. You’d have thought wrong. He actually has used it a lot. 

As the New York Times set forth here, the Trump Administration knew how to use the Act. It has used it to prioritize defense contracts. What does that mean? Well, the defense department can tell someone “Don’t build that thing you want to build for Client A, build my thing first.” The Department of Defense invoked the Act to obtain rare earth metals needed to build lasers and jet engines and armored vehicles. You know, the things of war. But, when the coronavirus came calling, Trump asked for volunteerism to lead the way. Why? I don’t know, but my guess is if Trump had invoked the Act that would have been recognizing the seriousness of the issue and heaven forbid he do that. Admit he might have screwed up.

Which makes his most recent use of the Act to designate meat-processing plants as critical infrastructure that must maintain operations during the pandemic a thing that is not like the others.  Why?  Well, many meat packing plants were closing because of the virus. Smithfield had closed plants in Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, and South Dakota. Tyson had closed plants down in Washington, Iowa, and Indiana. All these facilities it seems were hotspots for coronavirus. Well, let’s be completely honest, Smithfield only closed its South Dakota plant after Governor Kristi Noem formally requested that they suspend operations. Now, though, such a request from a governor would be illegal, as pointed out by Mother Jones. Trump’s invocation of the Act may limit meat processor liability from future lawsuits.  Maybe. Maybe not. But, the maybe will give the industry something to hang its hat on when a plaintiff comes complaining.

Highlights from the above Mother Jones article: 

“The food supply chain is breaking,” said John Tyson. You know, the Tyson of Tyson Foods. He took out a full page ad in the Times and Washington Post to warn of the impending shortages. Truly, his concern is for the country right, not his bottom line? In fact, when asked what he would do about the food supply concerns, Trump told a Bloomberg reporter that “he will do an executive order to help Tyson Foods with a ‘liability’ problem.” What liability might that be? Maybe the fact that 20 meatpacking workers have died already from the virus and 5,000 more have contracted the virus? One worker filed a lawsuit claiming that management was not sufficiently protecting workers from the virus. Heck, Walmart got sued for wrongful death of an employee who died of the virus.

Which brings me back to The Jungle, written in 1906. You read that right, more than 100 years ago, Upton Sinclair laid bare the horrible conditions in the Chicago meat industry. The book was rejected by five publishers because it was considered too shocking and horrific. You know the book is so old that its copyright expired and you can read it for free here.

I’m pretty confident that Tyson and Smithfield will put worker safety and health first and foremost, aren’t you? Of course not. Here is a quote from a Washington Post article:

On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and OSHA released interim guidance for meatpacking and processing facilities. It outlined procedures for cleaning shared equipment and reconfiguring workstations. It also included information on how companies can use physical barriers to put at least six feet between employees, who typically stand shoulder to shoulder in the plants.

It also called for the use of personal protective equipment and revising attendance policies to ensure employees are not penalized for taking sick leave because of the coronavirus. But like previous CDC and OSHA guidance for workplaces during the pandemic, it is voluntary and not enforceable.

Yeah, I put that last part in bold. Voluntary. Not enforceable. Trump is not invoking the Act to protect workers. He is doing it to protect American corporations. He is telling his corporate donors to keep operating but pretty please put some safety measures in place that I won’t enforce. He is only following up on his previous actions toward meat packing workers. In 2019, the Trump Administration authorized faster “line speeds” for poultry plants. Worker protection, right? Nope. 

Back in 2006, PBS did a story on the meat packing industry. Back then it was the largest industry in the country, employed half a million workers and paid them about 30 percent less than the average manufacturing job. And guess who the industry mainly employed? Immigrant laborers.  But, we knew that right? 

Have things changed in the past 15 years? No. OSHA data from 2015-2017 showed an average of two amputations a week in the industry. Instead of cutting up meat, workers were cutting off their limbs. Immigrant workers were cutting off their limbs, to be precise. In August of 2019, ICE raided seven poultry packing plants in Mississippi. No, I didn’t mean the FBI raided the offices to arrest executives for flaunting immigration laws. I meant ICE. You see, ICE sent 600 agents to arrest 680 undocumented immigrants. Workers, who needs them? Well, it turns out, the meat packing industry and thus all of America needs them to put their limbs at the ready.

Toss the immigrants out! Make the immigrants work! Don’t let them sue! What a world.

Books? Who needs 'em?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” 

First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution passed by Congress September 25, 1789. Ratified December 15, 1791.

At a recent pandemic forced Zoom school board meeting (I’m guessing here that the school board had brains enough not to meet live but that may be giving them too much credit), the Anchorage School District has banned these five “controversial” books: 

• The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

• The Things The Carried by Tim O’Brien

What is wrong with these people? Don’t they know that the best way to get teenagers to do something is to tell them they can’t? 

All five of these books had been used in high school classes in Anchorage.  The school board voted 5-2 to remove the books from the list of materials for English elective courses. Apparently the five school board members who voted to ban these books for their controversial subject matter (they depict scenes of rape, incest, sexual abuse, scenes of violence, profanity and racial slurs say the board members) know more about teaching curriculum than administrators and educators who actually come up with the school curriculum.  One of the school board members, a federal employee, said that “If I were to read this in a professional environment in my office, I would be dragged to the equal opportunity office.” He said this with not a smidge of recognition that an office environment is not a damn thing like a classroom. 

One of the arguments put forth by this group of highly respected intellectuals (aka the school board) is that parents don’t read the books and would never approve of them if they actually did read them.  If parents maybe won’t approve of books that they don’t read and might find some of the topics in those books offensive then some other group of elected officials can step in for them. That’s how things work in Alaska and, my guess is, in many other places.  Wonderful. 

Why these five books I wondered? I’ve read all of them. They are all great. In fact, I used to read The Great Gatsby every year just because I loved it. It was and still is my favorite book. The language is breathtaking. The depiction of the era so parallels our own that it should be required reading.  Heck, that is what many great books do, they shine a light on you and your time. What are these people afraid will happen if their kids or kids in their school district read these books? Turn into anti-war, anti-slavery, anti-poverty, anti-landed gentry radicals?  

I hadn’t even thought this was going on much in our modern world. How naive of me. In fact, I guess it happens enough that the American Library Association keeps a list of all banned and challenged books. It is mind boggling: Catcher in the Rye, Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, Ulysses, Beloved, Lord of the Flies to name just a few, and a mean just a few. The list is endless. The list is chock full of the greatest literature ever. I guess if we ban books then we might not get an educated populace and then we can get a slew of Donald Trumps as our President for like forever. Who knew that the movie Idiocray was actually a documentary?

Does it make you wonder where we are heading in terms of censorship? I do. Trump and McConnell have appointed nearly a quarter of the active Court of Appeals judges. As Justice Sotomayor said, “the court of appeals is where policy is made.” You want to ban books? Go for it, we’ve got your back say the ideologues appointed by Trump.  

Anyway, the First Amendment would make you think you have the right to read and say mostly whatever you want. Except, say, screaming fire in a crowded movie theatre when there is not, actually, a fire. It allows you to take a knee or another knee at a football game, if you so choose. It allows you to wear a flag bikini if that’s your thing. But, let’s make sure we don’t talk about what war is like or the moral fiber of the wealthy in the 1920s or racism and trauma for a young black woman or how racism is an obstacle to achieving a person’s authentic and individual place in the world. But, yeah, let’s make sure we can wear a flag on our asses and boobs. It’s good that the certain chosen get to pick and choose the things we want to defend. That’s freedom, right?

I’m glad I don’t live in Alaska, but sad I live in a world where people think banning books is a good idea and where Donald Trump can become President.

Who could have predicted?

Coronavirus … who on earth might have predicted this? 

A genius? A stable genius? An unstable genius? A dull knife? A village missing its idiot? 

“Nobody could have predicted this,” said Donald Trump on March 30, 2020 during one of his propaganda appearances on Fox News. Of course, he also said on March 17, 2020, that he knew the coronavirus would result in a pandemic “long before it was called a pandemic.”  Only a stable genius can hold two such opposing ideas in his head at once. Or, is that what a stable psychotic does?

The Washington Post reported yesterday that in January and February of 2020, Trump received more than a dozen classified briefings that warned about the coronavirus. What did he do? Jack Squat. Yes, he banned travel from China on January 31, but that ban was illusory. As Ron Klain, the White House Ebola response coordinator under Obama, said “We have a travel Band-Aid right now. First, before it was imposed, 300,000 people came here from China in the previous month. So the horse is out of the barn.” The Trump travel ban was a joke. A complete an utter pile of steaming bullshit that Trump dumped on the White House lawn and said “Look, a beautiful pile of shit I just created! No more coronavirus is possible because I did this!”

Yet, despite all the warnings in January and February, by late February, Trump was downplaying the whole coronavirus thing. I guess he thought his alleged ban of nearly nobody coming from China was enough.  

February 24: Trump Tweet - “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

On this day the White House asked Congress for 1.25 billion to help fund the government’s response to Covid 19 and the stock market plummeted.

February 25: In a trip to New Dehli, India, Trump said that “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away.” He also said, “Now they have it, they have studied it, they know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.” Later the White House said Trump meant the United States was close to a vaccine for Ebola, not coronavirus.  Really? They think we are that stupid? Answer: yes, they do.

February 26: At a press conference in the Briefing Room, Trump said “I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

February 27: At a reception he said “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” At that time, the CDC was warning that Covid 19 would spread across the United States.

You get the sense that Trump knows the thing is bad but just can’t bring himself to tell anyone. He is untouched by this stuff. He lives in his own happy land where he won’t let anyone with any chance of the coronavirus near him. He knows it’s bad but he ignores the truth. People will suffer. That suffering is right in front of him, yet he just doesn’t seem to care, he only cares about himself and reelection and that someone else is to blame.  This self-centered nature may be what actually does him in this time around.

While nothing seems to change Trump’s approval rating - it hovers at all times in the low 40s. There are signs that things may be starting to crack. Republicans are running around sticking their fingers in the dike that is Donald Trump in an attempt to hold back the onslaught of truth and misery that they fear may wash away the Republican majority in the Senate.  This fall there are thirty-five seats up for re-election.  Of these, twenty-three seats are Republicans.  If the Democrats gain four seats, they would control the Senate.

I’d say there are four seats that are in Republican hands that are in serious jeopardy: Susan Collins (ME), Martha McSally (AZ), Cory Gardner (CO), and Thom Tillis (NC). The only Democrat that appears to be truly vulnerable is Doug Jones of Alabama.  But, these Republicans also appear to have a more difficult road than anticipated:  Kelly Loeffler (GA), Joni Ernst (IA), Mitch McConnell (KY), and Steve Daines (MT). 

As Mitch McConnell said just the other day on Fox Propganda News Radio, “It’s going to be a fight to the finish. Sort of like a knife fight in an alley.” 

I hope the Democrats bring a gun to this knife fight. And, surprisingly, the bullet in that gun might just be the way Donald Trump and his administration of misfit toys have handled the response to the virus, by abdicating their duties and giving the burden to state governors. When people like McConnell start telling states to file for bankruptcy, you gotta wonder if when the shit hits the fan a lot harder in states that have ignored science and those states begin to suffer, that they are going to be happy relying on their cheapskate Republican governor’s to save them because they won’t have the resources to make that happen. Will the federal government step in then and play favorites, sending money and medical help based on political affiliation? Probably. The question will be, how do states who are not treated as well, in fact treated unequally, respond. 

The Constitution does not allow Trump to dole out federal monies based on who is a political ally of the President. Trump may have violated the First, Fifth and Tenth Amendments already based on his numerous threats to Democrat governors.  For a more detailed discussion of this topic, read this LawFare post. The question becomes: what to do about Trump’s behavior and his administration’s unequal treatment of states? There won’t be a quick fix. Congress must engage in oversight and states should take legal action. But, in the end, the best answer is to vote Trump out in November and take down as many of his Republican lackey’s as possible.