USA: Congress and covid - America’s backwards coronavirus strategy

The Senate`s status as “the world’s greatest deliberative body”, as President James Buchanan allegedly described it, has been exaggerated for a while. Legislation is accomplished not through considered debate, but rushed, secretive crafting of law by senior party leaders on the eve of some cataclysmic deadline. In the past decade this brinkmanship has led to one struggle over “sequestration” (spending caps), two debt-ceiling crises and three shutdowns of the federal government, but little in the way of substantive lawmaking.

The same dynamic will shape the latest gargantuan stimulus package needed to cushion the fallout from the epidemic of covid-19. But this time, the consequences of brinkmanship and delay could be even more severe.

Read more at:
Congress and covid - America’s backwards coronavirus strategy | United States | The Economist

USA: Trump administration sent $1.4bn in stimulus checks to dead people

The Trump administration sent almost $1.4bn in coronavirus stimulus payments to dead people, according to its own watchdog’s report.

In the report released on Thursday, the US Government Accountability Office (USGAO) said almost 1.1 million dead people received payments of about $1,200 each, as of 30 April.

The payments were part of about $3tn in economic relief approved by Congress in March and April.

 Read more at :
Trump administration sent $1.4bn in stimulus checks to dead people | US news | The Guardian

USA: Coronavirus: Trump’s botched response and the lack of testing, explained - by German Lopez

President Donald Trump’s failure to respond to the coronavirus pandemic didn’t begin with the administration’s inability to send out the millions of test kits and the protective medical gear for health care workers that experts say are needed to tackle the crisis. It didn’t start with Trump’s bungled messaging downplaying the crisis even as it’s worsened, nor with his mid-March insistence that social distancing measures could be lifted by Easter (he later backpedaled).

It began in April 2018 — more than a year and a half before the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, sickened enough people in China that authorities realized they were dealing with a new disease. 

The Trump administration, with John Bolton newly at the helm of the White House National Security Council, began dismantling the team in charge of pandemic response, firing its leadership and disbanding the team in spring 2018.

The cuts, coupled with the administration’s repeated calls to cut the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health agencies, made it clear that the Trump administration wasn’t prioritizing the federal government’s ability to respond to disease outbreaks. 

That lack of attention to preparedness, experts say, helps explain why the Trump administration has consistently botched its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Read more at: Coronavirus: Trump’s botched response and the lack of testing, explained - Vox

US - The White House: Trump and his advisers can’t keep quiet — and it’s becoming major problem - by John Wagner and Matt Zapotosk

"Oh! What a tangled web we weave, 
when first we practice to deceive"

In blocking the administration’s second attempt at a travel ban from terror-prone countries, a federal judge in Hawaii laid the blame squarely on President Trump and his advisers, who had suggested the policy was aimed at barring Muslims.

A different politician might have expressed disappointment and moved on. But Trump, taking the stage barely an hour later at a rally Wednesday night in Nashville, let loose on the “terrible ruling” — and doubled down on the sentiments that got the policy into trouble in the first place.

“The order blocked was a ­watered-down version of the first order,” Trump thundered, adding later: “Let me tell you something. I think we ought to go back to the first one and go all the way.”

The episode was just one of numerous examples of Trump and his advisers pushing incendiary language and unfounded claims, even in the face of opposition from federal judges and top lawmakers of both parties.

On Thursday — for the 12th day in a row — the White House defended Trump’s unfounded claim that his predecessor, Barack Obama, ordered wiretaps of Trump’s New York City offices during the presidential campaign, despite a growing chorus of declarations from intelligence officials and members of Congress that nothing of the sort happened.

 President Trump and his aides have made some very clear public statements about his two travel ban orders — and sometimes, those statements are later used against them in federal court cases about the bans. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

“Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016,” the Democratic and Republican chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Thursday in a statement.

“He stands by it,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said of Trump’s original claim.

Trump boosters say his freewheeling rhetoric, in person and on social media, is a large part of his appeal and has kept him in good stead with his political base. But it is also making governing more challenging.

In recent weeks, Trump has pledged that he would provide “insurance for everybody” at a lower cost, setting an impossible standard for congressional Republicans as they seek to craft a bill to scale back Obama’s signature health-care law.

But perhaps nowhere have Trump’s words been as damaging as his attempts to implement the travel ban — which may have been damaged further by Trump’s remarks at his Nashville rally. Trump inflamed controversy during the campaign by calling for a temporary ban on all foreign Muslims from entering the United States, then later shifted to vague pledges to ban people from countries with a history of Islamist terrorism.

Read more: Trump and his advisers can’t keep quiet — and it’s becoming a real problem - The Washington Post

USA Fort Lauderdale, Lone disturbed gun-man kills and causes panic and chaos at Fort Lauderdale airport - by RM

Chaos, Panic and Confusion at Fort Lauderdale airport (photo CNN)

The tragic shooting of innocent passengers today at  the Fort Lauderdale airport by a lone gun-man also exposed  some disturbing facts about the safety and security measures deployed at one of the US's most important airports.

The chaos, panic and disorganization which manifested itself at Fort Lauderdale Airport during and following the shooting was quite  unreal .

People were running all over the place as were the large numbers of police and security forces, who seemed to be falling over each other, running in different direction.

For some reason it did not look as if there was some central control keeping it all together.

Much later many passengers were still pacing the tarmac and the curb of the terminal. By then it had been more than 10 hrs. after the  first shots were fired by the gun-man.

At the time of this writing many planes are  still lined up on the runway, many with passengers still sitting in them.  Several medical emergencies were also reported as some of the passengers sitting in these planes became unwell being in closed quarters for such a long time.

It also has to be brought-up that tragic events like this often are also the result of the very limited restrictions there on buying guns in America.

The NRA which is supported by many Democrats and Republicans alike in Congress can and should also indirectly be blamed for many of the killings in the US, including this one in Fort Lauderdale.

Allowing mentally disturbed people, including the one in Fort Lauderdale who went on a killing spree, to not only freely being able to buy a gun, but also to carry it in his bag on an aircraft is really irresponsible and criminal.

When will the US  Congress  finally show the guts to legislate some serious gun control measures and laws to avoid having these massacres happen over and over again?

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