17 March 20
Not getting any attention to the March fundraiser at all so far.
Your attention - as in “yours” - would be fantastic.
No interest at all in getting dire here.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
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16 March 20
FOCUS: Bess Levin | Great News: Jared Kushner Doesn’t Think the Coronavirus Is a "Health Reality"
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes: "Earlier this week a disturbing new development occurred on the coronavirus front when it was reported that Jared Kushner had paused his efforts solving the opioid crisis, bringing peace to the Middle East, and 'reinventing the entire government' to work on the administration’s response to the crisis."
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes: "Earlier this week a disturbing new development occurred on the coronavirus front when it was reported that Jared Kushner had paused his efforts solving the opioid crisis, bringing peace to the Middle East, and 'reinventing the entire government' to work on the administration’s response to the crisis."
In related news, Ivanka Trump has been exposed to an individual with a confirmed case.
arlier this week a disturbing new development occurred on the coronavirus front when it was reported that Jared Kushner had paused his efforts solving the opioid crisis, bringing peace to the Middle East, and “reinventing the entire government” to work on the administration’s response to the crisis. While you might not know it based on the many top-level assignments Donald Trump has entrusted his son-in-law with, Kushner is not actually a boy genius capable of succeeding where others have failed. He’s neither a public health expert nor a doctor. In fact, some might argue that he’s a barely functioning adult. Still, perhaps we were being too hard on the guy? Maybe he would be the one to finally get it through to Trump that this is an extremely serious issue? And that the government needs to get its act together, and fast? And that we’re literally talking about a matter of life and death here?
Of course, as it turns out, that hasn’t happened at all, and Kushner, if anything, is reportedly making the situation worse by feeding into the president’s impression that this whole thing is much ado about nothing. Here’s the New York Times on how the father-and-son-in-law duo from hell have been approaching the issue:
For weeks [Trump] resisted telling Americans to cancel or stay away from large gatherings, reluctant even on Thursday to call off his own campaign rallies even as he grudgingly acknowledged he would probably have to. Instead it fell to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s most famous scientist, to say publicly what the president would not, leading the nation’s basketball, hockey, soccer, and baseball leagues in just 24 hours to suspend play and call off tournaments. Mayors and county executives, hospital executives, and factory owners received no further direction from the president as he talked about the virus in the Oval Office on Thursday than they did during his prime-time address to the nation the night before. Beyond travel limits and wash-your-hands reminders, Mr. Trump has left it to others to set the course in combating the pandemic and has indicated he was in no rush to take further action.
Among the advisers who share the president’s more jaundiced view is his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who considers the problem more about public psychology than a health reality, according to people who have spoken with him.
According to the Wall Street Journal, despite the fact that Kushner was in charge of Trump’s Wednesday prime-time address to the nation, he hasn’t “attended a single task force meeting,” where he might’ve, y’know, gleaned some insight on the issue. (The task force, you may recall, is waiting for Kushner to finish his own “research” on the virus before making a recommendation to the president re: declaring a national emergency.)
To be fair, Kushner apparently is consulting with experts…via Facebook:
Just before midnight Wednesday, a doctor asked a group of fellow emergency room physicians on Facebook how they would combat the escalating coronavirus outbreak. “I have direct channel to person now in charge at White House,” Kurt Kloss wrote in his post. The next morning, after hundreds of doctors responded, Kloss explained why he sought the suggestions: Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, had asked him for recommendations.
Kloss, whose daughter is married to Kushner’s brother, sent Kushner 12 recommendations Thursday morning. The Facebook crowdsourcing exercise showed how Trump’s team is scrambling for solutions to confront the outbreak after weeks of criticism for the administration’s sluggish response, a shortage of tests, and the president’s own rhetoric downplaying the pandemic. It is now expected to consume the final year of Trump’s first term and threaten his campaign for a second term.
On the one hand, the phrase “Jared Kushner is getting coronavirus advice from Karlie Kloss’s father’s Facebook friends” is surreal and insane. On the other, at least he’s consulting with someone in the medical profession. Meanwhile, it appears that the disease may soon be hitting quite close to home for the Boy Prince of New Jersey:
A top government official from Australia said that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus, just days after he returned from a meeting with Ivanka Trump and a Justice Department event in Washington that was attended by U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr and acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf.
It’s not clear at this time if the first daughter has felt the need to be tested, though if she’s anything like her father, who’s been exposed to at least one person who tested positive for COVID-19, she likely has not.
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