A Chinese state-controlled newspaper has blamed the Trump administration’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic to cause the spread of the virus to go “completely out of control.”
The Global Times warned that the Trump administration’s failure poses a threat to the rest of the world. “Lies are dominating US society’s recognition of the epidemic,” the paper stated.
In a editorial titled, “Rampant US epidemic to hurt the world” (7/3), the Global Times wrote: “The US set another record for novel coronavirus cases on [July 2]. Reuters reported that the country confirmed more than 55,000 new COVID-19 cases that day, which is ‘a new daily global record’ for the pandemic.
“Earlier this week, US epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that the US may soon see as many as 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 a day if the current trajectory of the outbreak is not changed.
“Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner for the US Food and Drug Administration, even suggested the true number of US daily infections is between 400,000 and 500,000, though there is not enough testing to find them all.”
The dramatic spike in the numbers of US COVID-19 infections continued the following weekend, Common Dreams noted. New coronavirus cases in Florida on July 5 exceeded 10,000 in a day for the third time in the past week, after the state posted a record high of 11,458 the previous day. And Texas on July 4 reported 5,815 more coronavirus cases, the state’s sixth straight day above 5,000.
Meanwhile, Trump’s top trade adviser Peter Navarro, pushed several COVID-19 conspiracy theories on MSNBC (7/3). Navarro said China deliberately allowed hundreds of thousands of people infected with coronavirus to leave the country “to seed and spread the virus” abroad.
VOTERS IN COVID HOTSPOTS KNOW WHO TO BLAME. The renewed spread of coronavirus across the US—and, in particular, into battleground states—is not doing Donald Trump any favors, Laura Clawson noted at DailyKos (7/6). That’s appropriate, since Trump’s early refusal to treat the pandemic seriously and his repeated failures since have gotten us to this point. It’s almost like Trump may face a consequence at some point.
We’ve seen the slides in Trump’s battleground state polling, with his handling of coronavirus drawing very poor ratings. But it gets more specific. “Pew surveyed voters in late March and the same people again in late June, and found 17% of those who approved of the president in March now disapprove,” Bloomberg reports. That slip came across demographic groups, “But those who live in counties with a high number of virus cases were 50% more likely to say they no longer approve of Trump.”
In March and April, COVID-19 cases were largely clustered in states Trump doesn’t care about — states that didn’t vote for him in 2016 and weren’t going to vote for him in 2020. So why would Trump, who only cares about himself, care? That’s no longer the case. The most COVID-19 cases are now in states that did vote for Trump, with Arizona and Florida being critical to his chances in 2020.
“Trump should care about every state’s coronavirus levels, of course,” Clawson wrote. “That’s a question of basic human decency as well as doing the job of president. But he doesn’t. What’s striking is that he doesn’t even seem to care about the states that voted for him and that he needs again. Trump’s so locked in on the idea that reopening is the key to everything (i.e. it will benefit him) that he can’t see that competence in slowing the spread of the virus would also benefit him. (Then again, he may not know what competence is.)
“Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic means that Trump’s failures are measured in lives lost. Him losing support and (we hope) losing the election can’t bring those people back. It can only help ensure this won’t be repeated,” Clawson concluded.
TRUMP SANK HIMSELF IN MICHIGAN; BIDEN DIDN’T HAVE TO LIFT A FINGER. The reviews from Michigan are in and they are not looking good for Donald Trump. Not only have the last several polls of the state shown Joe Biden ahead by double digits, but one of those polls captured data showing that Trump likely has no one but himself to blame for surrendering the state, Kerry Eleveld noted at DailyKos (7/4).
The New York Times/Siena poll (6/25) put Biden up by 11 points in the Great Lakes State, but it also tested a question in a half dozen battleground states that revealed Michigan voters were far more likely than voters from other states to believe Trump had treated the state unfairly during the coronavirus response.
While fully 37% of Michigan voters said Trump had treated their state worse than most in the pandemic response, the second highest response reflecting that belief came from North Carolina at 14%. Every other battleground state falls below that and a couple—Arizona and Florida—didn’t even break double digits on that question.
It’s little wonder then that Trump’s highest disapproval rating among the battleground states came from Michigan voters at 59%. Apparently, people don’t like it when the president of the United States plays games with people’s lives in the middle of a global pandemic. Go figure.
Trump has made unforced error after unforced error in the state, perhaps most prominently picking a high-profile fight with the state’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, as she tried to secure life-saving supplies for the state with the help of the federal government. He also insulted every female member of the state’s executive leadership team along with the very popular Rep. John Dingell, who died Feb. 7, and his wife, who now represents the state.
Trump’s last trip to Michigan in May was a disaster as he declared one of Ford’s premier sports cars too pricey and praised the “bloodlines” of Henry Ford, a well-known anti-Semite.
An in-state pollster also recently captured data showing that Trump’s approvals dipped following his violent clearing of peaceful protesters in front of the White House to make way for his Bible photo op. Trump lost ground to Biden in the same set of polls after the photo op debacle.
Barring a miraculous turnaround, Michigan is most likely out of reach for Trump at this point. And he has no one to blame but himself.
CONTRACTS SHOW TRUMP LETS BIG PHARMA GOUGE ON TAXPAYER-FUNDED COVID DRUGS. Government contracts obtained by consumer advocacy group Knowledge Ecology International show that the Trump administration is giving pharmaceutical companies a green light to charge exorbitant prices for potential coronavirus treatments developed with taxpayer money by refusing to exercise federal authority to constrain costs, Jake Johnson reported at CommonDreams (7/2).
Through the Freedom of Information Act, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) got ahold of a number of heavily redacted agreements between the Trump administration and major pharmaceutical companies, such as Johnson & Johnson, Regeneron, and Genentech.
Five of the seven documents reviewed by KEI are classified as “other transaction agreements,” which allow federal agencies to loosen regulations designed to protect the public in order to help companies streamline the product development process.
In the case of four contracts for potential COVID-19 treatments or vaccines with Johnson & Johnson, Genentech, Regeneron, and Roche issued by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and the Pentagon, the Trump administration omitted a standard condition requiring that products developed with taxpayer money be made available to the public “on reasonable terms.”
“This means that the government has limited its ability to intervene if the pharmaceutical companies (which are party to the agreements and are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars to conduct the research) charge unreasonable prices for the resulting Covid-19 vaccines or treatments,” KEI noted in a press release.
KEI also found that federal contracts with Genentech and Regeneron for coronavirus treatments contain passages restricting the government’s ability to “have generic manufacturers make and distribute through pharmacies and other commercial outlets an effective diagnostic test, drug, or vaccine for Covid-19.”
The details of the contracts come just days after the Trump administration faced backlash from consumer groups for refusing to require Gilead to charge a reasonable price for its COVID-19 treatment remdesivir. On June 29, as Common Dreams reported, Gilead announced it will charge U.S. hospitals around $3,120 per privately insured patient for a treatment course of remdesivir, which was developed with the help of at least $70.5 million in taxpayer funding.
“Allowing Gilead to set the terms during a pandemic represents a colossal failure of leadership by the Trump administration,” Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Program, said in a statement (6/29). “The US government has authority and a responsibility to steward the technology it helped develop.”
As the Washington Post reported (7/1), “[Johnson & Johnson] has a $456 million contract with BARDA to develop a coronavirus vaccine and a $152 million contract to conduct screening of drug compounds that could be Covid-19 treatments.”
“Regeneron has contracts worth up to $130 million to develop two therapies for the disease,” the Post noted. “Roche’s Genentech subsidiary has contracts worth $47 million to develop a pair of therapies.”
James Love, the director of KEI, told the Post that “the amount of money the government is throwing at companies is unprecedented.”
“Normally when you write bigger checks,” Love said, “you should have more leverage, not less leverage.”
SHOCK DOCTRINE IN ACTION: TRUMP FRIENDS, FORMER STAFF CASH IN ON COVID CRISIS. It’s all grift all the time in Trump world. And very, very swampy, Joan McCarter noted at DailyKos (7/6). A Public Citizen analysis has uncovered 40 Trump-connected lobbyists—including five former administration officials—securing more than $10 billion in coronavirus aid from the federal government and says that former administration officials lobbying violates Trump’s own ethics policy. (I know, right? Trump and ethics in the same sentence.)
The 40 lobbyists were in the administration, on Trumps’ campaign, on the inaugural committee, and on the transition team. Many are major donors and fundraisers for his reelection. They are very prominent, establishment Republicans.
For example, the finance chair for the Republican National Committee, Brian Ballard, was on Trump’s transition team and has raised more than $1 million for Trump. In March he became the lobbyist for Laundrylux, which supplies commercial laundry machines. Laundromats were not included in the Department of Homeland Security’s initial guidance as essential businesses that could remain open. After Ballard’s hiring, presto—they were added to the list. It’s unclear how much Ballard took home for that bit of intervention. Trump adviser Dave Urban has definitely earned $2.3 million this year lobbying for companies like Walgreens during coronavirus.
A former deputy assistant secretary for legislation in the Department of Health and Human Services under Trump, Courtney Lawrence, is now a lobbyist for health insurance giant Cigna. The spouse of former White House counsel Don McGahn, Shannon McGahn, worked for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in 2017-18. Now she’s the top lobbyist for the National Association of Realtors, where she lobbies her former coworkers at Treasury in addition to Congress and other agencies.
Another former Treasury senior staffer, Jordan Stoick, is vice president of government relations at the National Association of Manufacturers. He also lobbies his former coworkers at Treasury. McDonald’s has Geoffrey Burr lobbying for it through the firm Brownstein Hyatt. He worked for Treasury Secretary Elaine Chao, who is married to Mitch McConnell. Who Burr lobbies. One of his colleagues at that lobbying shop is Emily Felder, who used to work for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She’s been lobbying both the White House and Congress on coronavirus issues.
The disclosure for all these people show them lobbying both the administration and Congress, and some of them lobby their own former agencies. The executive order Trump signed in his first weeks in office—the one about the swamp—ostensibly prohibited former officials from lobbying their old agencies for at least five years after leaving the government job, and supposedly prohibits former political appointees from lobbying for the duration of Trump’s term in office. For some reason, enforcing those executive orders hasn’t been a priority for Trump. Go figure.
MINIMUM WAGE RISES IN SOME PLACES, BUT IT’S STILL THE COVID ECONOMY. Unemployment remains sky-high at more than 11.1% (no matter what Donald Trump tries to tell you), and even among those who are still working, four million have had their pay or hours cut due to the pandemic, Laura Clawson noted at DailyKos (7/6). For people who are still on the job, there’s some good news in some cities and states in the form of minimum wage increases that went into effect on July 1.
In Illinois, the minimum wage went from $9.25 an hour to $10. In Oregon, it went from $11.25 to $12. In Nevada, workers with health insurance will have an $8 minimum wage and workers without health coverage will get $9, up from $8.25. The minimum wage in Portland, Ore., went from $12.50 to $13.25. Chicago rose from $13 to $14. More than a dozen other cities—most of them in California—and three counties had increases, too. The problem is that many workers, even those who are still employed, aren’t getting the hours they need to get by.
BIG PHARMA TRADE GROUP BLASTED FOR SUING TO BLOCK MINNESOTA INSULIN AFFORDABILITY LAW. A pharmaceutical trade group is under fire for filing a federal lawsuit (6/30) against Minnesota’s Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act mere hours before it took effect, Jessica Corbett reported at CommonDreams (7/1).
State Sen. Matt Little, a member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), decried the move as “morally bankrupt” and “devoid of humanity.” In a tweet (7/1), Little also vowed: “I will spend my entire life fighting these soulless companies. No one should get sick or die from an inability to afford life-sustaining insulin.”
The law in question is named for an uninsured 26-year-old diabetic who died in 2017 of complications from rationing his insulin because he couldn’t afford the medicine and related supplies after aging off his mother’s health insurance. After state lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the measure, DFL Gov. Tim Walz signed it into law in April.
As Minnesota Public Radio News explained, under the law, people with diabetes who can’t afford the essential medicine will be able to get 30-day supplies with no more than a $35 copay. A separate income-based program is established for those with needs that extend beyond that.
Drug makers are required to participate. If they don’t, they would face a series of escalating fines.
The suit was filed in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). The drug industry group claims the measure is unconstitutional, arguing in the complaint that “a state cannot simply commandeer private property to achieve its public policy goals.”
BREONNA TAYLOR SHOOTING SCANDAL HAS SO MANY STRANDS OF COUNTRY’S WRETCHED HISTORY ON RACE. It was bad enough that Louisville police broke into Breonna Taylor’s apartment by mistake while serving a no-knock warrant and shot her in her bed.
Then the Louisville Courier-Journal reported that lawyers for Taylor’s family allege in court documents filed in Jefferson Circuit Court (7/5) that a police squad — named Place-Based Investigations — had “deliberately misled” narcotics detectives to target a home on Elliott Avenue, leading them to believe they were after some of the city’s largest violent crime and drug rings. The complaint — which amends an earlier lawsuit filed by Taylor’s mother against the three Louisville officers who fired their weapons into Taylor’s home — claims Taylor was caught up in a case that was less about a drug house on Elliott Avenue and more about the city’s multi-million-dollar plans to redevelop the neighborhood in which Taylor lived.
The story by Phillip Bailey and Tessa Duvall expands on what was already known about the raid, including the law-enforcement sleight-of-hand that procured the warrant. (One of the officers seeking the warrant on what was alleged to be the actual drug house said that he’d confirmed a pattern of business with an employee of the US Postal Service. (The Postal Service denied to a local TV station that any such contact occurred.) But it places into a general context the other factors that may have prompted the raid on Taylor’s home.
“Breonna’s home should never have had police there in the first place,” the attorneys wrote in the filing. “When the layers are peeled back, the origin of Breonna’s home being raided by police starts with a political need to clear out a street for a large real estate development project and finishes with a newly formed, rogue police unit violating all levels of policy, protocol and policing standards.
The events began with a special unit of the Louisville PD targeting a man named Jamarcus Glover, claiming he was a local drug kingpin. He and Taylor once dated, and they still lived in the same neighborhood. (It was that dubious warrant mentioned above that brought Taylor’s home into the case.) But, Taylor’s lawyers allege, there were other forces at work besides police misconduct—which, god knows, is bad enough.
The Jefferson County property value administrator’s website shows after police arrested Glover the second time, the city moved to purchase the property on Elliott Avenue. Land records show Metro Government bought the home for around $17,000 in June. In a three-week span earlier this year, eight homes on Elliott Avenue were demolished by the city’s contractor, the complaint alleges. Only nine homes total had been demolished on Elliott Avenue in the past 16 years combined, it says. Fischer’s administration has been promoting “Vision Russell” since 2016 as a plan to stimulate affordable housing and economic growth in the West End and bridge a racial and economic gap that has been Louisville’s defining divide for decades.
Charles P. Pierce noted at Esquire.com (7/6), The city’s mayor and various development officials deny up and down that Taylor’s killing was a byproduct of a big-money real-estate deal. But, if it were, there would be so many strands of this country’s wretched history of race and policing, race and “urban renewal,” and race and city planning that it would take years to untangle them all.”
From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2020
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