Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 20, 2020: Come because you love Trump. Leave with the Trump virus. Wrongo isnât a futurist, but as this is written on Saturday, thereâs reason to be concerned that there may be an increase in COVID-19 infections in Tulsa:
âSix of President Trumpâs staffers, who were part of the campaignâs advance team for the presidentâs Saturday rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have been quarantined after testing positive for the novel coronavirus…â
Wrongo has a bad feeling about the aftermath:
People are coming from several states, some with rapidly-rising hospitalizations
It’s indoors, with no way to effectively distance
There will be cheering, singing, and chanting
Some attendees will have spent hours, possibly days interacting with each other outside the venue, and will spend an hour or two in line just to get in
These arenât people who have a belief in masking and distancing
Is âDefund the Policeâ a gift, or a curse for the GOP?
Irony is lost on the police:
The fight continues:
Wrongo is somewhat conflicted about the statues. OTOH, the Confederacy only lasted for five years. It isnât Ireland where families lived and died fighting for their freedom from England for centuries. The band Nirvana lasted two years longer than the Confederacy. People who say theyâre proud of five years of an ancestorâs life really are just white supremacists. They should stop pretending there’s something else they like.
There have been many kinds of protests by athletes about race, gender, and unequal use of power in American sports history. With the killing of George Floyd, many athletes have decided to use their voices and iconic positions in our society to speak out, hoping to change our society.
Here are a few examples from the past that seem heroic today.
1967: Jim Brown, Bill Russell, and Lew Alcindor meet to show support for Muhammad Ali, who had refused induction into the US Army as a conscientious objector. Two weeks later, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison and stripped of his heavyweight title.
1968: Itâs an iconic image, two American athletes raise their fists on the podium in Mexicoâs Olympic stadium during the playing of âThe Star Spangled Bannerâ. African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos used the black power salute, and were asked to leave the US Olympic team.
1996: Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf decided to stop standing for the national anthem. NBA commissioner David Stern suspended Abdul-Rauf for his protest. They later came to an agreement: Abdul-Rauf could close his eyes and look downward during the anthem, but had to stand.
2012: To protest the death of Trayvon Martin, members of the Miami Heat, including Dwayne Wade and LeBron James, donned hooded sweatshirts before their game on March 24, 2012.
2014: Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose came onto the court for warmups wearing an âI Canât Breatheâ T-shirt, supporting Eric Garner, who died when a white police officer used a choke hold to arrest him. Garnerâs death was ruled a homicide, but a grand jury declined to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo.
2016: San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem before his preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. When asked to justify his actions, he told the media that he couldnât show pride in a flag for a country that oppressed black people and other people of color.
In 2020, people are finally coming around to Kaepernickâs position. We see many examples of police and protesters kneeling together as a sign of solidarity and de-escalation of possible conflict on Americaâs streets. Michael Jordan, long an apolitical athlete, just announced he will donate $100 million over the next 10 years to “organizations dedicated to ensuring racial equality, social justice and greater access to education.”
Also in 2020: While Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser isnât an athlete, she renamed 16th Street âBlack Lives Matter Plazaâ and had âBlack Lives Matterâ painted in large yellow letters on the street which leads straight to the White House. Bowser said:
âWe want to call attention today to making sure our nation is more fair and more just and that black lives and that black humanity matter in our nation.â
Trump responded by complaining that the mayor keeps asking âusâ for âhandouts.â Apparently, Trump doesnât realize that itâs the federal governmentâs job to partially fund the district.
Last Monday night in Minneapolis, 46-year old George Floyd was arrested. Police officer Derek Chauvin handcuffed him and pinned him to the ground, crushing his throat. Floyd died an hour later.
What happened next has played out time and time again in American cities after high-profile cases of police brutality. Vigils and protests were organized in Minneapolis and around the US to demand police accountability. Google the name of any large city in the US along with “police brutality” and your search will return many pages of results.
Wrongo canât claim to understand race issues in America, but he thinks that we should take a minute to re-read Dr. Kingâs âLetter from a Birmingham Jailâ. In his letter, MLK identified âthe great stumbling block in the stride toward freedomâ not as the KKK, or the Southâs White Citizens Councils. He said it was white moderates, people who:
Are more devoted to order than justice
Prefer the absence of tension to the presence of justice
Say they agree with your goals, but not your methods for achieving them
Constantly urge patience in the struggle, saying you should wait for a more convenient time
If you have watched the news for the past 40 years, you know that the Moderate is one stumbling block to universal justice. The Moderateâs tools are things like Non-Disclosure Agreements, loyalty to the team, and to the power of the hierarchy. Moderates may not be at the top of the power pyramid, but as long as Moderates can kiss up and kick down, theyâll hang in there, waiting for a better time to think about bringing justice to all Americans.
When it comes to violence in our cities, as Elie Mystal says in The Nation, itâs hard to name a city in America where the police arenât working for white people. The police know it. And deep down, white people know exactly whom the police are supposed to protect and serve, and they know itâs not black and brown people.
Disagree? Go to any white suburb in America. Cops arenât wandering the streets, people arenât being arrested and neighbors arenât being sent to prison. Itâs easy for most of us to think that the George Floyd’s of America are simply a tragic cost of doing business, that a looted Target is evidence of the need for more policing.
We can hold more than one thought in our heads. People should be free to demonstrate, and that sometimes leads to rioting. Both are forms of protest. Wrongo doesnât condone looting. But itâs also a form of protest. If you argue itâs not, then refresh your memory about the Boston Tea Party, when white protesters dressed up as minorities and looted to make a point about taxes.
If you are upset about protests, and were also pissed off at Colin Kaepernick taking a knee, you are probably a Moderate. People first need to be able to identify racism when they see it before they can understand the racial issues underpinning what happened in Minneapolis this weekend.
If you woke up today angry, confused, or frustrated about the direction our country is heading: VOTE!
Wrongo has looked hard for fun cartoons, without success. Hereâs the best of the week. Sadly, her hope can only be aspirational:
How times have changed:
From 2016. All you need to know about demonstrating in America:
For Sunday, we include a rarely heard protest song written in 1966 by Malvina Reynolds (1900-1977). She wrote âLittle Boxesâ and many other songs. She wrote âIt Isnât Niceâ as an answer to those who value order above justice. Here, âIt Isn’t Niceâ is sung by Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers:
Sample lyric:
It isnât nice to block the doorway,
It isnât nice to go to jail,
There are nicer ways to do it,
But the nice ways always fail.
It isnât nice, it isnât nice,
You told us once, you told us twice,
But if that is Freedomâs price,
We donât mind.
It isn’t nice to carry banners
Or to sit in on the floor,
Or to shout our cry of Freedom
At the hotel and the store.
It isn’t nice, it isn’t nice,
You told us once, you told us twice,
But if that is Freedom’s price,
We don’t mind.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
From the Atlanticâs article, How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?: (brackets and emphasis by Wrongo)
âThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic.
The agency confirmed to The Atlantic…that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons. This is not merely a technical error.
States have set quantitative guidelines for reopening their economies based on these flawed data pointsâŚ.Viral tests, taken by nose swab or saliva sample, look for direct evidence of a [current] coronavirus infection.âŚAntibody tests, by contrast, use blood samples to look for biological signals that a person has been exposed to the virus in the past.
A negative test result means something different for each test. If somebody tests negative on a viral test, a doctor can be relatively confident that they are not sick right now; if somebody tests negative on an antibody test, they have probably never been infected with or exposed to the coronavirus….The problem is that the CDC is clumping negative results from both tests together in its public reporting.â
The CDC stopped publishing a complete database of daily test results on February 29. When it resumed publishing test data, the website explaining its new COVID Data Tracker said that only viral tests were included in its figures:
âThese data represent only viral tests. Antibody tests are not currently captured in these data,â
On May 19, that language was changed. All reference to disaggregating the two different types of tests disappeared.
The change has made the CDCâs testing data look more favorable. Last Monday, a page on the agencyâs website reported that 10.2 million viral tests had been conducted nationwide since the pandemic began, with 15% coming back positive. But on Wednesday, after the CDC changed its terms, the same page said that 10.8 million tests of any type had been conducted nationwide, and the rate of positive tests had dropped by one percent.
Blending viral and antibody tests will drive down the rate of positive tests dramatically. It makes it look safer to reopen the economy. On to cartoons.
Reopen the economy. What could go wrong?
America needs a better role model:
Social cohesion used to be a thing:
Trump demands churches reopen. Where will he be on Sunday?
After WFH ends, will there be regrets?
Bidenâs doing great by doing nothing:
We shouldnât get cocky. Remember that Trump “won” in 2016 when just 25.5% of eligible American voters voted for him.
Wrongo was unaware, but some Catholics are praying to the 2nd century St. Corona (d. C. 170) thinking sheâs the patron saint of plagues and epidemics. She, along with St. Victor, a soldier, were tortured and killed around 170 at the order of a Roman judge, according to an account written in the 4th century.
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has an interesting new report showing that New York Cityâs subway system was a major disseminator of COVID-19 during the coronavirusâ initial infection of the city during March 2020.
They show that subway ridership correlates directly with new cases, particularly in Queens. The near-shutdown of subway ridership in Manhattan (down by 90%) at the end of March correlates strongly with the reduction in the rate of increase in new cases in Queens thereafter.
They superimposed maps of subway station turnstile entries with zip code-level maps of reported coronavirus incidence. That showed Coronavirus propagation followed a process strongly consistent with subway riding. Moreover, local trains appeared to have a higher propensity to transmit infection than express trains, perhaps because people spent longer on those trains. Bus hubs served as secondary transmission routes out to the periphery of the city.
It never ends. On Fox and Friends, Trump said there is âno questionâ the video of the Ahmaud Arbery shooting is troubling. But, he hinted that further evidence might emerge that could possibly exculpate the shooters:
 âYou know, it could be something that we didnât see on tape. There could be a lot of â you know, if you saw things went off tape and then back on tapeâ
â…as many people as possible wear a nonmedical or homemade mask when leaving their homes.â
This week in Mercer PA, a protest against the Pennsylvania governorâs stay at home restrictions yielded this sign:
If this woman thinks wearing a mask is slavery, then she has no idea what slavery is. She, (along with the rest of us) arenât permitted to drive on the wrong side of the road, either. This isnât the time for people who are asked to stay at home and to wear a mask when outside to sing: âNobody knows the trouble I seeâ.
Speaking of masks and rules, how about Mike Pence:
Why didnât the Mayo Clinic say: “Thank you for visiting us, Mr. Vice President, but I’m afraid you can’t enter the clinic without a mask per our policy.” Mayo may do fantastic work, but they failed utterly by letting Pence go in unmasked.
Will Mitch pass aid to the states?
Where Wrongo lives, the nurses, fire fighters, police, and town workers are preponderantly Republican voters. Have they been screwed enough to realize theyâve been voting AGAINST their own self interests?
Biden canât run from this, no matter how many Dems hope he can:
Even the cows know opening meat processing plants without PPE is wrong:
Weâre entering a different kind of graduation season:
âPresident Trump on Friday threatened to block an emergency loan to shore up the U.S. Postal Service unless it dramatically raised shipping prices on online retailers…âThe Postal Service is a joke,â Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. [In order] To obtain a $10 billion line of credit Congress approved this month, âThe post office should raise the price of a package by approximately four times…â
The USPS is enshrined in the US Constitution. BTW, killing it might accomplish a few things for Trump:
It obstructs any Congressional effort to mandate mail-in voting.
It rewards private sector delivery carriers like FedEx and UPS that compete with the USPS. Many of them have donated both to Trump and Republican candidates.
The USPS is entirely self-funded. If you buy stamps, youâve funded the Post Office. Its operations are profitable. It loses money on paper because of Congressâs unique requirement for the USPS to pre-pay all future pension liabilities, something no other American corporation or institution is required to do. That was imposed by Republicans in 2006 in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.
Heâs trying to make the Postal Service unprofitable. And when itâs a shell of its former self, sell it to UPS or FedEx who would be delighted to have one of their biggest competitors destroyed. On to cartoons.
Our grim future:
MAGA-ites drink the healing Kool aid:
Your lockdown inconveniences my freedumb:
Georgia takes aim at the lockdown:
Nursing homes account for 25% of US COVID-19 deaths. Remember the elderly and infirm:
The oil glut has forced the oil companies into the suburbs:
One week ago, the cumulative US COVID-19 death toll was 15,000. Seven days later, the death toll is now 36,000. That means in a week, about 21,000 Americans have died, a growth rate of 140%. In the past two months, hereâs how US coronavirus deaths have grown:
Feb 17: 0 deaths
March 17: 111 deaths
April 17: 36,997 deaths
Although deaths are a lagging indicator for how successful we are in our efforts to contain the Coronavirus, and despite all the happy talk about flattening the curve, this looks like a rocket ship leaving the launch pad.
However, of those 660 who were positive, 60% have not shown any symptoms associated with the illness. This should cause us to question the true rate of infections in the US. The proportion of people who are asymptomatic carriers worldwide remains unknown, but at 60%, the Theodore Rooseveltâs figure is higher than the 25%-50% range Dr. Fauci laid out in early April.
Taking these two data points together, America should proceed carefully as it leaves the lockdown.
On to cartoons. Another day, another spin of the big blame wheel:
With big business, some things never change:
If not his signature, then certainly his fingerprints:
The rightâs narrative that can kill:
Individual responsibility has consequences:
John Roberts has to live with his Wisconsin voting decision:
