Mar 31 2020

The Breakfast Club (Should’ve Known Better)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

President Lyndon Johnson announces that he isn’t running for re-election; Flag first unfurled on top of Eiffel Tower; Terry Schiavo dies; Oklahoma debuts on Broadway.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

The American public is sick and tired of being lied to.

Patrick Leahy

Continue reading

Mar 30 2020

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Covid-19 Brings Out All the Usual Zombies

Why virus denial resembles climate denial.

Let me summarize the Trump administration/right-wing media view on the coronavirus: It’s a hoax, or anyway no big deal. Besides, trying to do anything about it would destroy the economy. And it’s China’s fault, which is why we should call it the “Chinese virus.”

Oh, and epidemiologists who have been modeling the virus’s future spread have come under sustained attack, accused of being part of a “deep state” plot against Donald Trump, or maybe free markets.

Does all this give you a sense of déjà vu? It should. After all, it’s very similar to the Trump/right-wing line on climate change. Here’s what Trump tweeted back in 2012: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” It’s all there: it’s a hoax, doing anything about it will destroy the economy, and let’s blame China.

And epidemiologists startled to find their best scientific efforts denounced as politically motivated fraud should have known what was coming. After all, exactly the same thing happened to climate scientists, who have faced constant harassment for decades.

So the right-wing response to Covid-19 has been almost identical to the right-wing response to climate change, albeit on a vastly accelerated time scale. But what lies behind this kind of denialism?

Charles M. Blow: The Politics of a Pandemic

Trump wants us to see him as defeating a foreign enemy.

The coronavirus pandemic is first and foremost a global public health crisis. But here in the United States — as is likely true in other countries — the response to it is heavily overlaid with political calculations. It is both obvious and inevitable. The crisis is unfolding in the lead-up to the election.

Viewed strictly in a political light, the consequences and rewards of responses to this virus — good responses as well as bad ones — suggest a new political dynamic that has few predecessors.

There was an election in the midst of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, but that was a midterm election year, not a presidential one.

I would submit that in general, a national crisis benefits the incumbent, if the nation is perceived to be at war against an outside actor. In such cases, there is a predictable nationalistic rallying. Fear becomes an adhesive; heroism becomes an antidepressant. And the president’s bully pulpit is amplified, as networks carry his news conferences and announcements live and the American public tunes in.

People need reassurance, stability and leadership, and changing the person in command in the middle of the process might not appeal to many.

Jennifer Senior: The Psychological Trauma That Awaits Our Doctors and Nurses

Don’t underestimate the moral anguish of deciding who gets a ventilator.

This is the moment to pray for the psychological welfare of our health care professionals. In the months ahead, many will witness unimaginable scenes of suffering and death, modern Pietàs without Marys, in which victims are escorted into hospitals by their loved ones and left to die alone.

I fear these doctors and nurses and other first responders will burn out. I fear they will suffer from post-traumatic stress. And with the prospect of triage on the horizon, I fear they will soon be handed a devil’s kit of choices no healer should ever have to make. It’s a recipe for moral injury.

Succinctly put, moral injury is the trauma of violating your own conscience. It is an experience known to many combat veterans — the term was in fact popularized by Jonathan Shay, a longtime psychiatrist at a Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in Boston, in his book “Achilles in Vietnam.”

That this violation may be in the service of a larger, more defensible objective doesn’t matter — or rather, it does little to mitigate the guilt, self-reproach or spiritual crisis activated by making choices that feel so very wrong.

Rebecca Solnit: Who Will Win the Fight for a Post-Coronavirus America?

Every disaster shakes loose the old order. What replaces it is up to us.

The scramble has already begun. The possibilities for change, for the better or the worse, for a more egalitarian or more authoritarian society, burst out of the gate like racehorses at times like these.

Progressive and conservative politicians are pitching proposals to radically alter American society, to redistribute wealth, to change the rules, to redefine priorities. The pandemic has given the Trump administration an excuse to try to shut down borders and, reportedly, a pretext to try to secure the unconstitutional capacity to detain people indefinitely. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, among others, has made the case for reducing the prison population, whose crowding in poor conditions constitutes a health risk — for freeing people, rather than the opposite, in response to the crisis. Other progressives have sought to expand workers’ rights, sick leave and implement other policies that would improve lives even in ordinary times. Social programs long said to be impossible may well come to pass; so could authoritarian measures.

Every disaster shakes loose the old order: The sudden catastrophe changes the rules and demands new and different responses, but what those will be are the subject of a battle. These disruptions shift people’s sense of who they and their society are, what matters and what’s possible, and lead, often, to deeper and more lasting change, sometimes to regime change. Many disasters unfold like revolutions; the past gives us many examples of calamities that led to lasting national change.

Robert Reich: Coronavirus crisis is an opportunity to overcome oligarchy

The coronavirus has starkly revealed what most of us already knew: The concentration of wealth in America has created a a health care system in which the wealthy can buy care others can’t.

It’s also created an education system in which the super-rich can buy admission to college for their children, a political system in which they can buy Congress and the presidency, and a justice system in which they can buy their way out of jail.

Almost everyone else has been hurled into a dystopia of bureaucratic arbitrariness, corporate indifference, and the legal and financial sinkholes that have become hallmarks of modern American life.

The system is rigged. But we can fix it.

Today, the great divide in American politics isn’t between right and left. The underlying contest is between a small minority who have gained power over the system, and the vast majority who have little or none.

Forget politics as you’ve come to see it — as contests between Democrats and Republicans. The real divide is between democracy and oligarchy.

The market has been organized to serve the wealthy. Since 1980, the percentage of the nation’s wealth owned by the richest four hundred Americans has quadrupled (from less than 1 percent to 3.5 percent) while the share owned by the entire bottom half of America has dropped to 1.3 percent.

The three wealthiest Americans own as much as the entire bottom half of the population. Big corporations, CEOs, and a handful of extremely rich people have vastly more influence on public policy than the average American. Wealth and power have become one and the same.

Mar 30 2020

A Blank White Void Full Of Sad Facts

Where else did you think I lived?

I’m like Janet that way.

Mar 30 2020

Cartnoon

10,000 Years of Cats

Seriously, that’s how long we’ve been domesticated.

Mar 30 2020

The Breakfast Club (Ever The Same)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

President Ronald Reagan is wounded in an assassination attempt; The U.S. reaches a deal with Russia to buy Alaska Territory; Actor James Cagney dies; Musician Eric Clapton born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

It’s my rule never to lose me temper till it would be detrimental to keep it.

Sean O’Casey

Continue reading

Mar 29 2020

Not a Rant

Now this, this is a knife.

This is a rant.

I saw your adverts in the paper and I’ve been on package tours several times you see, and I decided that this was for me.

Ah, good.

Yes I quite agree. I mean what’s the point of being treated like sheep. What’s the point of going abroad if you’re just another tourist carted around in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Coventry in their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their Sunday Mirrors, complaining about the tea – “Oh they don’t make it properly here, do they, not like at home” – and stopping at Majorcan bodegas selling fish and chips and Watney’s Red Barrel and calamari’s and two veg and sitting in their cotton frocks squirting Timothy White’s sun cream all over their puffy raw swollen purulent flesh ‘cos they “overdid it on the first day.”

And being herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellvueses and Continentales with their modern international luxury roomettes and draught Red Barrel and swimming pools full of fat German businessmen pretending they’re acrobats forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging into queues and if you’re not at your table spot on seven you miss the bowl of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, the first item on the menu of International Cuisine, and every Thursday night the hotel has a bloody cabaret in the bar, featuring a tiny emaciated dago with nine-inch hips and some bloated fat tart with her hair brylcreemed down and a big arse presenting Flamenco for Foreigners.

And then some adenoidal typists from Birmingham with flabby white legs and diarrhea trying to pick up hairy bandy-legged wop waiters called Manuel and once a week there’s an excursion to the local Roman Remains to buy cherryade and melted ice cream and bleeding Watney’s Red Barrel and one evening you visit the so called typical restaurant with local color and atmosphere and you sit next to a party from Rhyl who keep singing “Torremolinos, torremolinos” and complaining about the food – “It’s so greasy isn’t it?” – and you get cornered by some drunken greengrocer from Luton with an Instamatic camera and Dr. Scholl sandals and last Tuesday’s Daily Express and he drones on and on about how Mr. Smith should be running this country and how many languages Enoch Powell can speak and then he throws up over the Cuba Libres.

And sending tinted postcards of places they don’t realize they haven’t even visited to “All at number 22, weather wonderful, our room is marked with an ‘X’. Food very greasy but we’ve found a charming little local place hidden away in the back streets where they serve Watney’s Red Barrel and cheese and onion crisps and the accordionist plays ‘Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner’.” And spending four days on the tarmac at Luton airport on a five-day package tour with nothing to eat but dried BEA-type sandwiches and you can’t even get a drink of Watney’s Red Barrel because you’re still in England and the bloody bar closes every time you’re thirsty and there’s nowhere to sleep and the kids are crying and vomiting and breaking the plastic ash-trays and they keep telling you it’ll only be another hour although your plane is still in Iceland and has to take some Swedes to Yugoslavia before it can load you up at 3 a.m. in the bloody morning and you sit on the tarmac till six because of “unforeseen difficulties”, i.e. the permanent strike of Air Traffic Control in Paris – and nobody can go to the lavatory until you take off at 8, and when you get to Malaga airport everybody’s swallowing “enterovioform” and queuing for the toilets and queuing for the armed customs officers, and queuing for the bloody bus that isn’t there to take you to the hotel that hasn’t yet been finished. And when you finally get to the half-built Algerian ruin called the Hotel del Sol by paying half your holiday money to a licensed bandit in a taxi you find there’s no water in the pool, there’s no water in the taps, there’s no water in the bog and there’s only a bleeding lizard in the bidet. And half the rooms are double booked and you can’t sleep anyway because of the permanent twenty-four-hour drilling of the foundations of the hotel next door – and you’re plagued by appalling apprentice chemists from Ealing pretending to be hippies, and middle-class stockbrokers’ wives busily buying identical holiday villas in suburban development plots just like Esher, in case the Labour government gets in again, and fat American matrons with sloppy-buttocks and Hawaiian-patterned ski pants looking for any mulatto male who can keep it up long enough when they finally let it all flop out. And the Spanish Tourist Board promises you that the raging cholera epidemic is merely a case of mild Spanish tummy, like the previous outbreak of Spanish tummy in 1660 which killed half London and decimated Europe – and meanwhile the bloody Guardia are busy arresting sixteen-year-olds for kissing in the streets and shooting anyone under nineteen who doesn’t like Franco. And then on the last day in the airport lounge everyone’s comparing sunburns, drinking Nasty Spumante, buying cartons of duty free “cigarillos” and using up their last pesetas on horrid dolls in Spanish National costume and awful straw donkeys and bullfight posters with your name on “Ordoney, El Cordobes and Brian Pules of Norwich” and 3-D pictures of the Pope and Kennedy and Franco, and everybody’s talking about coming again next year and you swear you never will although there you are tumbling bleary-eyed out of a tourist-tight antique Iberian airplane.

Ersatz

Rick and Beth

Duckman

“How does it feel to live in a World full of Morons?” An actual quote from my Briggs Meyers analysis.

Mar 29 2020

No Sports?

Welcome to the World Handball Championship between Norway and Denmark. It’s the 2019 Match from about 11 months ago but I expect we’ll be getting way older and more obscure.

In the United States most people think of “Handball” as a Jai Lai like game between two players bouncing a Ball off a Wall trying to make the opponent miss, as in Tennis, and using your hand like a Racquet to Strike/Throw the Ball. Everyplace else “Handball” is like Football only you play it with, you know, your hands.

And by Football I mean “Soccer” because we’re exceptionally contrarian idiots.

It reminds me most of Water Polo but I spent thousands of hours watching the Team practice. My Sister would visit me at work, supposedly to drop off lunch from the Sandwich Shop she worked at but mostly to oogle their butts. They wear like 3 Speedos you know, in case they get ripped off in the Scrum.

Mar 29 2020

House

More the lonely island.

Spring Break Anthem

Hugs featuring Pharrell

Spell It Out

When Will The Bass Drop?

Mar 29 2020

The Breakfast Club (house arrest)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

AP’s Today in History for March 29th

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg convicted of Cold War espionage; Lt. William Calley, Jr. convicted in the Vietnam War’s My Lai massacre; U.S. troops leave South Vietnam; Attorney Johnnie Cochran dies.

Breakfast Tune Kashmir – Led Zeppelin – Banjo Cover

Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below

 
Why Did Joe Biden Disappear Right as the Coronavirus Pandemic Exploded?
BRANKO MARCETIC, JACOBIN

Joe Biden just abdicated national leadership by disappearing for a week in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. According to mainstream media, it’s no big deal.

Let’s look at the state of things for a second. The world is currently grappling with a deadly global pandemic, one that has already led to cities across the world being placed into lockdown, and looks to be leading to an unprecedented economic crisis. Despite bungling the response in a way that could be called criminal, the president has now gotten out in front, holding daily press briefings that have allowed him to feed misinformation directly to the public, and taking steps that, while grossly inadequate for the moment, have already outstripped the Obama administration’s economic response in 2008 — with the result that, for the moment at least, a large majority of Americans now approves of Trump’s handling of the crisis.

Being an election year, there are several things a Democratic challenger should be doing. One is exuding a sense of calm, stability, and competence, to convey “presidentialness” and contrast with Trump’s chaotic behavior. Being the Democratic Party’s prospective leader, they should be helping to set the legislative agenda and drive the party’s ideas about the response to this unprecedented emergency. And they should be communicating with the public as much as possible, providing reassurance and guidance while denying the president a monopoly of the airwaves.

There are two Democratic candidates left in the race. Let’s see what they’ve done.

First there’s Bernie Sanders. Sanders held a press conference on March 12, calling for solidarity in the face of the crisis and laying out a plan that went further than what the Congressional Democratic leadership were pushing for at the time, including an expansion of federal food programs, more generous emergency unemployment insurance that included workers typically left out, and a moratorium on evictions, foreclosures, and utility shutoffs.

In lieu of public gatherings, Sanders, who splits his time between the US Senate and his home in Burlington, remained in the public eye through press conferences and livestreamed events, giving updates on the crisis, suggesting new ideas for dealing with it, and answering questions from members of the public. Between his March 12 presser and now — not including the Sunday debate — Sanders has made at least six public appearances, including a second press conference the day after, a “fireside chat” in his Burlington home the day after that, a “digital rally” with Neil Young and other musicians two days later, and several livestreamed virtual roundtables on the crisis response.

While the Democratic leadership ignored the advice of public health officials and urged in-person voting and turnout in the midst of a pandemic, the Sanders campaign declined to urge voters to endanger themselves, saying going out to vote in these circumstances was “a personal decision.” And rather than continuing to fundraise for the presidential contest, the campaign instead mobilized its staff and volunteers to call and text to raise money for five charities, gathering $2 million in forty-eight hours to be distributed to Meals on Wheels, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and others.

Then there’s former vice president Joe Biden, currently on track to cruise to the Democratic nomination.

Biden, like Sanders, first held a press conference on March 12, the day the crisis first became real for many people, which started half an hour late due to technical difficulties. He then held a virtual town hall the day after, which saw Biden falsely claim credit for the Endangered Species Act before wandering off camera, an event so marred by technical difficulties that the “disjoined effort,” in Biden’s words, had to be ended early. Then came the debate, in which Biden was allowed by the moderators to brazenly lie about almost every aspect of his record, a contrast from debates in the past.

In the lead up to the last Tuesday’s elections — even as the coronavirus death toll climbed, cities went into lockdown, and health and government officials urged people to stay inside at all costs — Biden’s campaign encouraged voters to turn out, falsely assuring them it was safe. The result was a day of chaos and confusion that almost certainly assisted the virus’s continued spread. Biden then gave a brief victory speech that ended in another odd moment that quickly went viral, now par for the course for the campaign.

And until today, that was the last almost anyone saw of the Democratic frontrunner. For almost a whole week, as the crisis has exponentially worsened by day, Biden seemed to have vanished off the face off the earth, surfacing only last Friday in a call with the press. He was “desperately” trying to “be in daily or at least, you know, significant contact with the American people and communicate what I would be doing,” he told reporters, as if regular, successful livestreaming hadn’t already been accomplished by both his opponent and millions of teenagers. To be fair, a source told ABC, Biden’s house in Wilmington had low ceilings, making lighting tough.

The campaign also started emailing and texting supporters, asking them for “an idea for how Joe Biden can connect with voters online.” No one has yet explained how, given these difficulties, Biden advisor Ron Klain managed to MacGyver his way into a video for the campaign explaining how the crisis came to be and what Biden would do about it.

After holding a tele-fundraiser with donors on Sunday, the Biden campaign appears finally to have figured out how to do a livestream, with the candidate delivering a fifteen-minute scripted speech from his home today. This one wasn’t free of difficulty either. Besides what has, since 2019, become a trademark lackluster speaking performance — the candidate slurring and stumbling over words throughout and abruptly cutting off his own thought process mid-sentence several times — the speech saw Biden suddenly trail off midway through, visibly signal for someone behind the camera to lift either the teleprompter or cue cards he was reading off, before losing his train of thought, saying, “Let me go the second thing. I’ve spoken enough on it.”

But beyond that, Biden’s address suffered from another shortcoming that all of his public addresses have shared. Instead of outlining bold, specific proposals to deal with the crisis — like, for instance his opponent’s calls for $2,000 direct payments to every American, emergency universal Medicare coverage, and an oversight agency to fight price-gouging and self-dealing — Biden prefers to criticize Republicans and issue vague calls for action and results: “We should be doing everything in our power to keep workers on payrolls … help the economy come out on the other side strong. The federal government should provide the resources to make that happen, while still protecting American taxpayers.” Other than promises to mobilize the military, Biden elides specifics, instead instructing Americans to read the nearly 7,000-word plan up on his website.

And that plan is now obsolete. …

 

Joe Biden’s Embarrassing Media Tour Failure

In a return to media interviews after being absent for nearly a week, Joe Biden’s awkward return was embarrassing.

LISTEN TO DOCTORS AND NURSES: BERNIE SPEAKS TO FRONTLINE CRISIS WORKERS

LISTEN TO DOCTORS AND NURSES: In this crisis we must listen to the experts and do everything we can to protect our medical personnel who are on the front lines. Join our livestream with doctors and nurses on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic:


 

Something to think about over coffee prozac

 
What’s In Congress’ Coronavirus Stimulus Bill
The Onion

After days of frenzied negotiations, Congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus package to address economic issues caused by the coronavirus, the largest such aid package in U.S. history. The Onion takes a look at what’s in the stimulus bill.

Direct payments of $1,200 for single Americans, $2,400 for married couples, and $3,000 for those playing the field.

$32 billion to an airline industry that charged you for a blanket on your last flight.

Paywall taken off U.S. Unemployment Office website.

More protections than you’d think necessary to safeguard American people from their president.

Lot of money the government has spent decades telling Americans it didn’t have and couldn’t spend.

Probably something that sounds very good and turns out to be very bad.

Five dollars to Senator Ron Johnson for winning betting pool that Rand Paul would get virus first.

Every family will receive $500 per child, but officials may not come to collect the children until May.

Federal aid for independent contractors, such as Uber drivers and assassins.

A stern reminder that this is a one-time thing.

Mar 29 2020

Borders

Being a Nutmegger makes me a pariah now.

Can’t go to World Headquarters, that’s in NYC. Can’t go to North Lake or By The Sea either, except I can just get in the car and drive and if you’re canny enough to avoid Tolls and DUI Checkpoints or even have a fair to moderate excuse (“My Aunt’s trapped in Florida, I need to rescue her Cat.”), no problems.

They can’t keep out firewood (ok, they do it because there’s some kind of Beetle or Fungus they’re trying to avoid, ask me about invasive water weeds).

But I’m proud to be from the State that gave you Colt Revolvers to stop the rebellions of Race Slaves transported in the bottom of Ships from the Land of Steady Habits feeding a Whitney Cotton Gin for Wage Slaves to make into cloth and clothing stitched together in sweatshops by babies with a Howe Sewing Machine.

That was before we got seriously into Armaments.

And the Insurance part of FIRE and Big Pharma and other reprehensible activities.

We’re persona non grata since we’re close to NYC (4 hours on a good day), “Epicenter” of the contagion and I put it in scare quotes because…

IT’S NEW YORK CITY! IT’S THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE! WHAT MADE YOU THINK THEY DIDN’T NEED ALL THE VENTILATORS?

I mean LA? Preening for vanity’s sake. Check out any Russian Nuclear Targeting Plan.

Gina Raimondo hates us, damn Leafers-

Rhode Island police, troops stopping incoming New Yorkers to force quarantine
By Phil McCausland, NBC
March 28, 2020

Rhode Island’s National Guard and state police are stopping motorists with New York license plates and going door-to-door to find people who may have traveled recently from the state.

The enforcement actions come after Gov. Gina Raimondo ordered that anyone who has moved from New York state to Rhode Island in the past two weeks must self-quarantine for 14 days, part of her state’s effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.

Troops from the National Guard have been posted at train stations and bus depots to inform New Yorkers of the order, and on Saturday they began going door-to-door to tell any recent travelers from New York that they must follow the quarantine to stop the spread of the coronavirus. State police began stopping cars with New York plates on Friday.

“I know this is unusual. I know this is extreme. And I know some people don’t agree with it,” Raimondo said. “It’s absolutely not a decision I make lightly.”

Those who do not comply with the order face a fine of $500 and 90 days in prison.

First they came for the people with New York Plates but I did not have a New York Plate…

You’d be surprised actually. Lots of people register in Florida because the taxes are low. Not me mind you.

Then you could pick up a rental- who knows what kind of plates are on those?

Also, it’s a little unConstitutional-

Her order to stop New Yorkers drew a complaint from the state’s chapter of the state’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter.

“While the governor may have the power to suspend some state laws and regulations to address this medical emergency, she cannot suspend the Constitution,” Steven Brown, head of the ACLU in Rhode Island, said in a statement. “Under the Fourth Amendment, having a New York state license plate simply does not, and cannot, constitute ‘probable cause’ to allow police to stop a car and interrogate the driver, no matter how laudable the goal of the stop may be.”

Raimondo said that she understood the ACLU’s argument, but said that directive follows federal guidance and will be enforced respectfully. The White House had previously called for all people who leave New York to self-quarantine for 14 days.

“This is the law. This is not a suggestion. It’s going to save lives,” Raimondo said.

Raimondo is an idiot, but Rhode Island Governors frequently are (when they’re not being corrupt as Hell) and I’ve met several from both Parties. Frankly losing access to Rhode Island bothers me not a bit, I’ve heard rumors they were the ones who introduced Celery to Lobster Rolls (any Nutmegger knows a proper Lobster Roll has Butter and Lemon, that’s it, Butter and Lemon and Lobster on a toasted Nissen).

How do I know she’s an idiot? Even the Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio has backed off.

See, it was all because of Ron DeSantis of Florida and as it turns out he’s not really all that worried about rich Snowbirds from the Big Apple flying down to Naples, oh no…

It’s those Brown Zombies from Louisiana storming into Tallahassee.

Florida coronavirus cases pass 4000: state border checkpoints begin, vacation rentals halted
by James Call, USA TODAY
March 28, 2020

On Friday, he issued an executive order expanding a previous directive that airline travelers from the New York City area self-quarantine for 14 days to include people from Louisiana who enter the state on Interstate 10.

The order would not apply to commercial transportation.

New Orleans is experiencing a coronavirus surge of more than 1,000 infections linked to the Mardi Gras celebration in February, sending Louisiana’s total number of cases past 3,300 as of Saturday. DeSantis wants to intercept any Louisiana travelers from “seeding” the virus in Florida.

It’s about a three-hour drive from New Orleans to Pensacola, Florida, and panhandle officials had expressed concerns to him about travelers fleeing the Bayou State and carrying the virus into Florida.

“Look, we’re either trying to fight this virus or we are not,” DeSantis said of his plan that includes a checkpoint on Interstate 10 at the Alabama line and National Guard members greeting travelers from the New York City area at airports.

“We’ve done what we could with New York City and we’re also doing the same with the New Orleans hot spot,” DeSantis said.

His executive orders defined the greater New York City area and Louisiana as areas with substantial community spread. Individuals traveling from those regions must “self-declare” they came from a hot spot and agree to quarantine themselves for 14 days upon arrival in Florida. A violation could mean a 60-day jail sentence and fines of up to $500.

Signs were erected along I-10 to direct eastbound drivers to a checkpoint where they were notified about the requirement. DeSantis said he was also looking at establishing one on I-95 to catch New York travelers.

But while the Georgia Public Health Department has called Albany, 88 miles north of Tallahassee, a region with “sustained community spread” of the coronavirus, DeSantis shrugged about establishing a checkpoint on I-75. And his office did not respond to questions about U.S. 319. Both thoroughfares connect north Florida to Albany.

“Having the 10 and 95 (checkpoints) is good and I think that provides the protection,” DeSantis said when asked about other routes into the state.

The governor also called on local airport authorities and airlines to help identify travelers from hotspots. The National Guard and public health officials are stationed at major airports and DeSantis called on local airport authorities to help to screen arrivals at smaller airports like Tallahassee’s for contact with hot zones.

“I think it is in everybody’s interest that we deal with the spread we have now, try to blunt it, flatten the curve, but we don’t allow importing new infections,” DeSantis said.

On Friday, he said the state would suspend vacation rentals for two weeks, telling visitors, “If you’re in one now, finish and go home.”

If you’re bound and determined to get to Florida-

Why?

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