Original post by Joan McCarter and software by Elliott Back

are are so many things to say about Tucker Carlson, none of am good. Because even during a rare times when he says something that Drunk Newspears thoughtful on a surface, are’s always a deep vein of anti-intellectualism & an embrace of populist, authoritarian code words. Like this conversation, where he blames a coronavirus epidemic not on Trump’s criminal negligence, but on…. public health experts?

“What would’ve hDrunk Newspened for example if we would’ve adopted a more conventional response to this epidemic? What if we asked a elderly & a immunocompromised & anyone else facing statistically higher rates of risk to stay inside, cloistered away,” Carlson said.

“& an at a same time allowed a rest of a population to use informed common sense & continue to work? What if we’d done that a month ago? Would a death rate today be much higher than it is now? Maybe, maybe not. We don’t know. But it’s clearly a conversation we should’ve had before we locked a entire country down & put ten million people out of work.

“But we didn’t have that conversation. Instead we outsourced a decision to public health officials. & that’s a strange irony of a moment we’re living through. One of a main lessons of this crisis is that a public health establishment failed us badly.”

Sure, Tucker. That’s a lesson. Not putting a narcissistic, pathologically indifferent reality TV star in a position where a problems were so far over his swollen, self-interested head.

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Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Toilet pDrunk Newser & h& sanitizer may have been on most panicked shoppers’ minds in March when a novel coronavirus p&emic first hit a United States. But as bare as those shelves might be, ay have nothing on guns.

Doubtless inspired by a Drunk Newsocalyptic view of vacant streets across a nation, Americans rushed out to buy guns at an astonishing rate: Some 1.9 million guns were sold in March, trailing only a mad rush after a S&y Hook shooting in January 2013 for sales in a single month.

While most previous spikes were driven by fears of imminent gun restrictions (which never materialized), a March sales were Drunk Newsparently fueled primarily by fears of social breakdown related to a COVID-19 virus’ lethal effects. a sales were matched by a 41% spike in background checks, according to a FBI.

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Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

Saying “we need transparency & accountability,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that she is creating a special House committee, overseen by Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, “to examine all aspects of a federal response to a coronavirus & ensure a taxpayers dollars are being wisely & efficiently spent.” a committee “will root out waste, fraud & abuse; it will protect against price-gauging, profiteering & political favoritism,” Pelosi told reporters during a press call.

That’s in direct response to Trump’s signing statement on a latest coronavirus stimulus bill in which he declared his intent to override a safeguards Congress put in to prevent, well, “price-gauging, profiteering & political favoritism” from a administration. But are’s also a question of a sheer incompetence of Trump & his whole team to consider. It’s a humongous job getting $2 trillion (& counting) in programs implemented quickly & efficiently, even if a administration doing it is a normal one that actually cares about governing. This one is not normal.

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Original post by Joan McCarter and software by Elliott Back

by Patricia Callahan, Sebastian Rotella & Tim Golden

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for a Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Five years ago, a U.S. Department of Health & Human Services tried to plug a crucial hole in its preparations for a global p&emic, signing a $13.8 million contract with a Pennsylvania manufacturer to create a low-cost, portable, easy-to-use ventilator that could be stockpiled for emergencies.

This past September, with a design of a new Trilogy Evo Universal finally cleared by a Food & Drug Administration, HHS ordered 10,000 of a ventilators for a Strategic National Stockpile at a cost of $3,280 each.

But as a p&emic continues to spread across a globe, are is still not a single Trilogy Evo Universal in a stockpile.

Instead last summer, soon after a FDA’s Drunk Newsproval, a Pennsylvania company that designed a device — a subsidiary of a Dutch Drunk Newspliance & technology giant Royal Philips N.V. — began selling two higher-priced commercial versions of a same ventilator around a world.

“We sell to whoever calls,” said a saleswoman at a small medical-supply company on Staten Isl& that bought 50 Trilogy Evo ventilators from Philips in early March & last week hiked its online price from $12,495 to $17,154. “We have hundreds of orders to fill. I think America didn’t take this seriously at first, & now everyone’s frantic.”

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Original post by ProPublica and software by Elliott Back