On this point I agree as long as there are no current COVID19 cases in the prison I see no reason to start letting them out early.
Prison should be locked down with no in person visitors for the time being as a safety precaution.
Take extra precaution with guards so the guards don’t bring it in.
But the individual prisons are already an isolated population. So unless they do see the infection get in then social distancing measures within the prison should not be necessary.
But when there IS the infection within the prison …
I don’t think we’re over reacting entirely. There are bits of over reaction and inexcusible bits of piss poor under reaction. But we can disagree on that.
Yes sooner or later the “better safe than sorry” won’t last. Then people will lift restrictions… then we’ll see what happens.
Lets all hope the problem passes quickly and everyone can pointlessly debate whether or not we over reacted or not without the potential consequence being dead grandpas.
It’s no different than cruise ships. Cruise ships are categorically called “death traps”, except for the fact that being on a ship in the middle of the ocean is probably the safest place on the planet right now. As long as everyone boarded “clean”.
Which is to say, the focus should be on the comings and goings from prisons, not on the existing population. Simply test incoming prisoners. Guards changing shifts would present more of a challenge, but should be workable with some minor adaptations. And no, it’d never be perfectly foolproof. But nothing ever will be.
After this stimulus we’ll be around 100% debt to GDP. Historically, we’ve gotten out of this kind of hole before. It was right after WWII but the caveat is that back then, we were conscious about keeping the budget balanced and slowly worked our way to a much smaller debt-to-GDP level (25% in the 80s).
But short of a dramatic change in political landscape, we won’t be able to this time. Neither side has shown any inclination to curb spending and balance the budget, let alone run budget surplus.
On the right, it’s needless tax cuts after another to placate investors and large companies and same spending. The same old excuse that tax cuts pay for themselves… How did we do with the last ones? Artificial growth entirely due to fiscal policy then return to normal.
On the left, it’s runaway spending on social programs and no extra revenues. Campaign proposal leading to unrealistic entitlement we already have too much of. Unbelievable.
Either way, it’s one large budget deficit before an even larger one from the next administration. Regardless of who controls one or both chambers of Congress. Investment in infrastructure are minimal. Instead of planning for rainy days, we govern with laissez-faire when things go well until a crisis inevitably occurs (like they’ve always have in history) when we just add to the debt to help get out of. Government equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck in ordinary times, and borrowing heavily during crisis.
Once the world shifts away from oil - or instead pegs oil prices on the euro or a basket of currencies -, I’m not very optimistic about the outlook for the value of the full faith and credit of the US government if we don’t revert this trend quickly.
"Some physical checks may arrive a few days later than they could have because the Treasury Department has ordered Donald Trump’s name printed on them before they can go out.
This is the first time a president’s name will appear on an IRS disbursement. Normally, it has the name of a civil servant to avoid the appearance of partisan politics.
However, “the president is not an authorized signer for legal disbursements by the U.S. Treasury,” … which has lead to a perfect turn of events:
The checks will instead bear Trump’s name in the memo line, below a line that reads, “Economic Impact Payment,” the administration officials said.
In his push to make the public believe these relief checks are from him, the president has, in putting his name in the “memo” field, made it clear that he’s really just making this about him.
This is not Trump’s money. This money is the property of the American public. It does not belong to or come from the people we hired on a temporary basis to manage the Executive Branch.
I’m not sure this is accurate. Monica Crowley of the Treasury Department actually stated that adding Trump’s name in the memo line would not cause any delays. So let’s hope she’s correct and it was only the WAPO inserting their usual narrative. However, if it turns out that she was incorrect and it did delay some checks to some people, then it would really be inexcusable. It may be hard to prove either way though.
Regardless, this definitely feels a bit classless considering Congress was actually the one who did most of the work to pass this compromise bill and it’s not like all this money comes out of his pocket either. Just looks like a cheap campaign stunt to me.
The whole thing is rather stupid. Both doing it, and criticizing it. It’s comes off as a cheap campaign stunt, but so do many of the responses (once again, the bait has been taken ). Just print the damn checks.
Political antics aside, kudos to everyone involved in getting those checks sent relatively quickly. Some estimates were for late April or even early May. Tons of people desperately need them yesterday so I’m sure they cannot get to them fast enough. Hopefully these are the last ones that need to be sent.
“This provides evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not apparently treat patients with Covid 19,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Even worse, there were side effects caused by the drug – heart toxicities that required it be discontinued.”
“I think it’s going to be great,” Trump said at a White House briefing on March 19.
“What do you have to lose? Take it,” he said on April 4.
In the study, eight patients who took the drug developed abnormal heart rhythms and had to stop taking it.
In the new study, among the 84 patients who took hydroxychloroquine, 20.2% were admitted to the ICU or died within seven days of taking the drug. Among the 97 patients who did not take the drug, 22.1% went to the ICU or died. The difference was not determined to be statistically different
If I was expecting a check, then I would be outraged. But I’m not so it’s a mere LOL. All of the details are in the link, which you are all expected to click and read.
Back then adults sacrificed in hope their descendents would have a better life than the one available to them. Today’s adults have an entirely different approach borne of an outsized sense of personal entitlement. Today’s adults steal with abandon from future generations of Americans. This is unvarnished intergenerational theft. It is an effort to lighten burdens imposed by today’s poor fortune, e.g. by the pandemic, at the expense of future generations of Americans for whom it is impossible to have any say whatsoever in the decision.
So true. But it has not always been this way. I can remember when the Republican Party at least was responsible. Today both political parties are wildly spendthrift. Obama was a disaster. Trump might be even worse!! Very few politicians on either side are calling for fiscal restraint. Most of those who do are voted out of office.
Any such optimism would be indication of foolishness, if not stupidity. We are on the way to becoming Argentina.
Remember New York City’s desperate need for ventilators because their hospitals are so overwhelmed? Days later, they’re now sending ventilators to Michigan because they arent needed.
Trump repeats virtually daily, at his pressers, his mantra about how China is paying us hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs. He is justifiably proud of finally having put an end to their ripoff of the USA.
What Trump fails to mention, and might not even realize, is the extent to which China has retaliated. They have unleashed a coronavirus which has cost America TRILLIONS of dollars and has come close to shutting us down. And that is to say nothing of the even more important thousands of American deaths!
Perhaps Trump should moderate his braggadocio. The next virus China sends our way could easily be the end for us . . . . . all of us.
The sources believe the initial transmission of the virus was bat-to-human, and that “patient zero” worked at the laboratory, then went into the population in Wuhan.
Documents detail early efforts by doctors at the lab and early efforts at containment. The Wuhan wet market initially identified as a possible point of origin never sold bats, and the sources tell Fox News that blaming the wet market was an effort by China to deflect blame from the laboratory, along with the country’s propaganda efforts targeting the U.S. and Italy.
There were doctors and journalists who were “disappeared” warning of the spread of the virus and its contagious nature and human to human transmission. China moved quickly to shut down travel domestically from Wuhan to the rest of China, but did not stop international flights from Wuhan.
). Just print the damn checks.