COVID-19 Megathread 4: Grandma Got Run Over by the Dow Jones

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Recap time:

Trump’s Entire Coronavirus Response Is Massive Political Corruption

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-checks-name-slush-fund-ventilators.html

Trump has never respected any meaningful distinction between the federal government and the Trump Organization. He expects every federal employee, especially its law-enforcement agents, to advance his personal political agenda. He has functionally mixed its budget with his own by having the government pour money into his properties, and he has treated its official powers as if they are his own personal chits. The authority he has gained through the emergency response to the coronavirus has vastly expanded the potential for corruption, and every sign indicates that Trump is already engaging in systemic abuse.

Some of the corruption is lingering just below the surface. Trump is speaking constantly with corporate leaders, who can position themselves at the front of the line for federal contracts or relief payments. He supports bailouts for industries with a shaky claim to the public purse, like cruise lines, and has staunchly opposed any rescue for the United States Postal Service, which handles essential government communication. Trump of course has been trying to force the post office to raise rates on Amazon, in retaliation for Jeff Bezos’s ownership of the Washington Post. The economic crisis has put the post office on life support, giving Trump the leverage he wants to make it punish a detested rival.

Trump has treated the distribution of the federal government’s supply of emergency medical equipment like he is walking around the neighborhood with a money clip, pulling out bills and patting grateful recipients on the cheek. When New York governor Andrew Cuomo noted that he retains power to reopen public spaces, Trump exploded, “I got it all done for him, and everyone else, and now he seems to want Independence! That won’t happen!” Trump routinely threatens Democratic governors not to complain about his mismanagement if they want help from Washington, conflating the authority of the government with his own authority (“When they disrespect me, they are disrespecting our government”). He has used the precious supply of ventilators as in-kind contributions, allowing endangered Republican allies like Martha McSally and Cory Gardner to hold them up as proof of their clout.

When Congress handed Trump control of half a trillion dollars in spending authority, it insisted on establishing some loose oversight requirements. Trump has diligently trashed them. When he signed the economic rescue bill, he added a statement that he would refuse to follow its express requirement that the inspector general report if the administration is withholding information from Congress. He quickly fired the inspector general who was tasked with overseeing the bailout fund, and replaced him with a member of his impeachment defense team. There is little mystery about Trump’s intention. He blurted it out: “I’ll be the oversight.”

When the next Democrat is sworn in as president, every Republican who said nothing here or waved away Trump's abuses needs to buzz off when it comes to oversight, "fiscal responsibility" or any sort of accountability. Actions here -or lack thereof - won't be forgotten.

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Oh no, time to back off quarantine orders, Republican donors are bankrolling astroturf campai.... - Wait, I mean, legitimate grassroots protests against big gubmint!

https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1250794945805455361

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Gretchen Whitmer banned Michiganders from traveling to their upstate cottages, while permitting residents of other states to do so (if "permitted" to do so by their state). She banned use of motors on boats. She banned selling of lawn care equipment. She banned selling of house paint. Several sheriffs have said that they won't enforce her diktats.

I do agree that some of her restrictions are too strict, unnecessarily so even, such as not allowing a store that is already open anyway to sell certain things just because it's in another department.

That being said, it doesn't change the fact that the protest was just another partisan event organized and bankrolled by Republican donors/operatives. The topic of the protest could just as easily been anything else. So whatever message they were trying to send is cheapened. Why should Whitmer care when these are the same people who would stomp their boots outside the capitol for virtually any other action she takes?

In the end, the goal here is safety. Maybe some governors take it too far, and some don't go far enough, but the intention isn't the conversion to communist authoritarian state or whatever conspiracy theories the right is peddling now.

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https://twitter.com/ChangePolls/status/1250901670206242818

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https://twitter.com/ChangePolls/status/1250901670206242818

Lol, white people privilege

lol libs using a pandemic to further inflame racial tensions

Not really - not myself, anyway. It's just data showing that non-whites are generally less well off and more affected by a crisis like this, while white people are generally better off and more able to sit back and worry about things like the national debt (which, for the record, they've been terrible at managing).

Merely acknowledging this data doesn't mean we're "inflaming" anything.

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Do you remember when I mentioned the case of a certain person, and you instantly knew her name even though AFAIK you live in Florida.

Catherine Engelbrecht has won her long battle with the IRS for tax-exempt status, during which Democrat operatives embedded in the government also sicced OSHA and EPA on her and her husband's business.

The woman from True The Vote, who spends her time envisioning and implementing ways to thin out voter rolls of legitimate voters, intimidate urban voters (re: non-white people), and generally suppress voting of Democrats while feigning outrage over voter fraud, which is about 0.01% as much of a problem as she makes it out to be? Even if her efforts and beliefs are genuine, she is still literally the person who burns down their house to kill a single cockroach.

Sure, I don't support using the government to crush people with investigations from the likes of the IRS or the DoJ - that is for corrupt officials like Brian Kemp and Mike Pence. But this woman is the antithesis of everything I believe in, and I detest her. I could not care less about her IRS troubles. I really just could not. Maybe she shouldn't spend so much time trying to weaponize the government as a vehicle for her partisan voter suppression schemes, then she wouldn't have so many dEeP sTaTe enemies?

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new thread: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=370528.0