Why do guys like Trump and Pence refuse to wear masks?

Perhaps because they see them as emasculating:

Why the reluctance to model safe behavior? My research with Jennifer Berdahl and others suggest one critical reason, which is that appearing to play it safe contradicts a core principle of masculinity: show no weakness. In short, wearing a mask emasculates.

There’s an irony here, which is that Trump shows his weakness whenever he talks, and he talks constantly and endlessly. He clearly thinks he comes across as a macho guy, but…no.

Leaders who are more concerned with preserving a macho public image put our lives at risk as they prove their manhood by showing resistance to experts’ opinions, hypersensitivity

In South Dakota news:

Gov. Kristi Noem sent letters Friday to the leaders of both the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe demanding that checkpoints designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus on tribal land be removed, the governor’s office said in a statement.

“We are strongest when we work together; this includes our battle against Covid-19,” Noem said. “I request that the tribes immediately cease interfering with or regulating traffic on US and State Highways and remove all travel checkpoints.”

“We are strongest when we work together therefore I am telling the tribes to stop protecting themselves from the virus.” I guess the virus if it doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?

In response, Cheyenne

An item from Friday:

U.S. President Donald Trump said he had spoken to a number of world leaders in recent days, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and “they all view us as the world leader” when it comes to fighting coronavirus, “and they’re following us.”

Nope. No they don’t, no they aren’t, no they haven’t, no they won’t. Not even a little tiny bit.

Trump was speaking to Republican members of the U.S. Congress on Friday. Citing calls with Merkel, Japan’s Shinzō Abe and other, unnamed leaders, he said “so many of them, almost all of them, I would say all of them” believe the U.S. is leading the way when it comes to tackling the virus.

That progression … Read the rest

They are getting nervous.

The Trump administration is racing to contain an outbreak of Covid-19 inside the White House, as some senior officials believe that the disease is already spreading rapidly through the warren of cramped offices that make up the three floors of the West Wing.

…

The discovery of the two infected employees has prompted the White House to ramp up its procedures to combat the coronavirus, including daily tests for some senior staff, increased usage of masks and more rigorous screening of people entering the complex.

The concern about an outbreak of the virus at the White House — and the swift testing and contact tracing being done to contain it — underscores the broader challenge

Robert Reich presents some blunt truths:

With 4.25% of the world population, America has the tragic distinction of accounting for about 30% of pandemic deaths so far.

And it is the only advanced nation where the death rate is still climbing. Three thousand deaths per day are anticipated by 1 June.

No other nation has loosened lockdowns and other social-distancing measures while deaths are increasing, as the US is now doing.

Much of this is because we’re not really an advanced nation, not in all senses. Technologically we’re hot shit, but socially and politically we’re a disaster.

We now know Donald Trump and his administration were told by public health experts in mid-January that immediate action was required to

It turns out Obama has not been hugely impressed with Trump’s recent work. He

delivered a blistering critique of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis, describing it as “an absolute chaotic disaster” during a private call Friday night with people who worked for him in the White House and across his administration.

…

In a 30-minute conversation with members of the Obama Alumni Association, the former president said the response to the coronavirus outbreak served as a critical reminder for why strong government leadership is needed during a global crisis. The call was intended to encourage former Obama staffers to become more engaged in Biden’s presidential campaign.

“This election that’s coming up — on every level

Well now there’s an essential industry.

Community spread of the coronavirus in California began in a nail salon, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday, as other states allow their manicurists to reopen.

Why allow nail salons of all places to open during a pandemic? Are women unable to function without long painted fingernails?

State health directors have put some “red flags” on nail salons as a high-risk business, Newsom added, likening them to gyms and hair salons. He announced Monday that the state will allow some low-risk businesses, including bookstores, warehouses, florists and more, to begin reopening with modifications and offering curbside pick up as soon as Friday.

One salon owner was shocked to hear it.

Saunders James said she

Remind you of anything?

It reminds me of all those cartoons and advertisements featuring cute animals, in which the one female animal is shown to be such by…a hair bow.… Read the rest

Poor Don. He was this close to getting away with it.

A day after breaking his White House self-isolation for a cross-country trip meant to signal the country’s readiness to restart, Trump received word that one of his Oval Office valets tested positive for the virus.

Two days later, Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary also tested positive, setting off another round of tests, delaying the vice president’s trip to Iowa and causing more hand-wringing inside the White House about who might be infected.

Which didn’t prevent Wee Donnie from going out to say howdy to some WW2 veterans without a mask.

Even the nightly deep cleanings, regular testing and a lot of wishful thinking couldn’t prevent the virus

Oh goody, a new stupid word to show off with.

Not to be confused with the cishet greeting: “Allo cishet!”… Read the rest

Oops.

Meanwhile, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany sought to reassure the news media that the White House testing procedures are sound. I wanted to draw attention to this quote from McEnany:

“We have put in place the guidelines that our experts have put forward to keep this building safe, which means contact tracing,” McEnany told reporters during Friday’s news briefing. “All of the recommended guidelines we have for businesses that have essential workers, we are now putting them in place here in the White House. So as America reopens safely, the White House is continuing to operate safely.”

Oh contact tracing. That’s important, is it? Then…

Greg Sargent underlines it:

The careful reader will note a jarring juxtaposition here.

Is anyone explaining this to him? https://t.co/poCNSRFdYd

— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) May 8, 2020

She tested positive, out of the blue – this is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great. The tests are perfect, but something can happen between a test where it’s good and then something happens [gesture of hand up and over and then down on the table] and all of a sudden. She was tested very recently and tested negative, and then today I guess for some reason she tested positive.

Well…yes…that would be how it works. Things happen over time. One day you don’t have the virus, and the next day you do. One day the test is negative, and the next day … Read the rest

Trump and his goons really do want to kill us. AP has more details on how top officials buried the CDC report:

The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press.

The files also show that after the AP reported Thursday that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval.

“They’re onto us, quick, get some of it out there so that we can say oh no we didn’t.”

The trove of emails show the nation’s top public

Pence’s spokesperson, who is also Stephen Miller’s marriageperson, has tested positive for the virus.

Katie Miller, a spokesperson for Vice President Mike Pence, has tested positive for coronavirus, according to two people with knowledge of Miller’s diagnosis.

Miller’s positive diagnosis for Covid-19 puts the potential threat of the infection squarely into the president’s inner circle. Miller serves as the vice president’s top spokesperson, traveling with him frequently and attending meetings by his side. She is also married to another top White House aide and senior adviser, Stephen Miller, who writes the majority of Trump’s speeches and spends copious amounts of time around the president, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

Do we dare to hope that the princess and prince … Read the rest

Aaron Rupar watched the Fox News segment where they talked to Trump on the phone so that we won’t have to.

Americans on Friday awoke to the worst jobs report in recorded history, one that showed the unemployment rate surging up to 14.7 percent. The main driver of that, of course, is the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in more than 2,500 Americans dying in a 24-hour period ending late Thursday, pushing the death toll above 76,000, with no end in sight.

2500. Normal is 8000 so yes, that’s massive for a single new disease.

Those are huge, interrelated problems that are causing people a lot of pain and anxiety. But President Donald Trump’s nearly hour-long call into Fox &

Zing

Trumpism, explained in one 3-second video clip pic.twitter.com/kin2I6mTbC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 8, 2020

… Read the rest

More on the Georgia lynching: from the Guardian Wednesday:

According to a police report obtained by the New York Times, Gregory McMichael, a former police officer and district attorney’s investigator, told investigators the incident began when he spotted Arbery from his front yard “hauling ass” down the street.

I.e. running, aka jogging. Running is a thing that people do. It’s a popular form of exercise. Furthermore, it seems to me, that kind of running looks quite different from running to escape a threat or the cops. Exercise running is systematic in a way that fleeing danger is not. You’d think it would be recognizable as such even to a former DA’s investigator.

But then it’s widely known that there’s … Read the rest

ABC reports:

Two men have been arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault for the February shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, were arrested on Thursday and will be booked into the Glynn County Jail.

Cellphone video showing the moment Arbery was killed has prompted national outrage since surfacing online this week, but his mother said she can’t bring herself to watch it.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be in a mental state where I can actually watch the video. I had others that watched it that shared what they saw and that just was enough,” Wanda Cooper-Jones told ABC News in an

Updating to add: the two white men have been arrested.

Then there’s the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.

Georgia prosecutor has called for a grand jury investigation into the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was killed after being chased by two white men in February while out running in a residential neighborhood outside Brunswick, a city on the state’s southeast coast.

It’s unclear why those two white men have not been arrested to this point, unless it’s just as simple as “Well they are white men you see.”

Advocates have likewise expressed alarm over the way the shooting has been handled by police, and the lack of criminal charges thus far brought against his

A dark day.

Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his illicit Russian contacts.

His lies do not now become truths.

This dismissal does not exonerate him.

But it does incriminate Bill Barr.

In the worst politicization of the Justice Department in its history.

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) May 7, 2020

So Trump doesn’t need to pardon Flynn; Barr dropped the charge to which Flynn had pled guilty. This is a foretaste of what a second Trump term would be like—the entire executive branch weaponized to help Trump’s friends, punish his enemies, and undermine the rule of law.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) May 7, 2020

So, he's colluding again. https://t.co/S6cWptGcpq

— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) May 7, 2020