May 25, 2020
Messaging about masks has been inconsistent and contradictory. This confusion is leading to angry altercations with strangersA man shot a cook at a Waffle House in Colorado, after the customer was told he must have a face mask to enter the restaurant. When his childish attempt to re-enter holding the mask in his hand was rebuffed – I literally have a face mask, what is your problem – he created an altercation that ended in a non-fatal shooting.A church was burned down in Mississippi, after the pastor tried to sue the city because of its interference with its services. The pastor was still gathering people for worship, despite the stay-at-home order and the spread of the coronavirus. After the church burned, someone found graffiti that read: “Bet you stay home now you hypokrits [sic].”A man was arrested in Missouri after he licked a bunch of items at the Walmart while yelling: “Who’s scared of coronavirus?” A woman was arrested in California for licking groceries. A woman coughed on some produce in Pennsylvania as a “prank”. A cop “jokingly” coughed on residents in Baltimore.So people are not really managing their anxiety about the Coronavirus very well. The threat is real, people are dying, and even some early Covid-19 deniers have been brought around by witnessing sickness and death. But the messaging about what to do about it has been inconsistent and contradictory, with rules changing from city to city, state to state. To cut through the confusion, the simplest thing should be immediately required in every public setting: masks should be made mandatory.> The jerks and trolls will always be with us, but if everyone else is wearing a mask at least they’ll be easier to spotI know that making a nationwide order to wear masks in public is not going to prevent all Waffle House shootings – no law yet created has been able to stop such an inevitability. But during times of uncertainty, we look to our leaders to tell us what we should do. And where are all of our agents of authority? Our president says to wear a mask, but he’s not wearing a mask. He says we should keep our distance, then he shakes everyone’s hand at the press conference. Mike Pence doesn’t wear a mask during a visit to the Mayo Clinic, but later says he regrets it. Cops are walking the streets all the time without masks. The people we usually look to for guidance are either being deliberately confusing or at best cavalier and reckless.People are having to rethink every aspect of their lives right now. How do I make my six-year-old watch this video about math while also attending a Zoom call while also constantly refreshing Instacart to see if a delivery window has opened up for groceries? How do I navigate the unemployment benefits registration system when millions of others are all calling at the same time? How do I get from one place to another when even the thought of getting on a subway causes nervous collapse? We should help people out by establishing one certainty: when you go outside, you put on a mask.Please do not talk to me about science right now. I’ve read the science. It is contradictory, and official announcements about the science are constantly changing. Plus, when you are outside on your one daily reminder that the sun still shines and flowers are in bloom and you are holding the hand of your child whose mask is always somehow sticky and slipping, and a jogger is coming at you and not getting off the sidewalk and sweating and puffing all over you as he passes without a shirt on, is that really the time to start Googling “coronavirus transmission risk from joggers”, read five or six different sources, and determine what the chances are that maybe you just got infected? Joggers: you are freaking people out. Wear a mask.And I am tired of reading the science, I just want to take some things for granted, so I can use my brain for other things. Like wondering about whether or not my cat knows he is a cat. Or, how are his feet are so small. These are the important things of life.People are clearly anxious about reopening. And one of the easiest ways to ease that anxiety is to require everyone to wear a mask. (And pay everyone a monthly stimulus, and create Medicare for All to help everyone who just lost benefits when they were furloughed or laid off, and organize workplaces to reduce hours and provide adequate protective gear and avoid physical contact with people or potentially infected surfaces.)People love their “freedom” in this country, by which of course I mean the freedom to freak people out by wearing a gun in public, or trolling people with death threats just for the giggles, and they will want to argue about the order to wear a mask. “Debate me, bro,” they’ll all shout, as they trot out the one piece of “scientific” information they misread in passing on Social Media between a video of a parrot dancing to a Nicki Minaj song and a stranger’s tearful and heartfelt defense of some multimillionaire celebrity whose feelings were recently hurt by mean comments.But no, actually, I don’t want to debate you about whether masks protect you or the people around you, in the same way as I don’t want to debate about whether the Earth is round or flat or whether vaccines cause autism. Can’t you just feel smug about being right deep down in your heart? You can even talk about it, if you want, as long as the sound of your voice is being muffled by layers of fabric featuring your favorite Disney character. The jerks and trolls will always be with us, but if everyone else is wearing a mask at least they’ll be easier to spot.Mandatory orders need to be enforced, and that creates its own issues in contemporary American society. As the cops tackling mostly black men and Women in the name of “enforcing social distancing” and throwing people into crowded cells without soap or hand sanitizer shows, we cannot rely on our traditional means of maintaining order to make people wear those masks. We cannot rely on a president who freely tells the nation to drink bleach to establish moral authority. So we have to do it ourselves, even when grumbling, even with a “Well, actually” stuck in our throats. You are freaking people out. Wear a mask.
Corona rage is boiling over. To ease tensions, masks should be mandatory
* Jessa Crispin is a Guardian US columnist. She is the host of the Public Intellectual podcast
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'Trump tax': MSNBC host Chris Hayes shows how Trump winning would increase costs
Mar 28, 2024
How much would former President Donald Trump's proposed 10 percent tariff plan actually cost the average American household?The wave of tariffs Trump enacted when he was last president caused chaos, but there are many complexities that muddy this somewhat. However, MSNBC's Chris Hayes took an educated and simple guess at just how badly the country would be hit in the pocketbook under Trump's second-term plans."We don't know exactly how much everything would cost," said Hayes, but "just add 10 percent on the back of the napkin. Here's the cost of living under the Trump Tax."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal bills"Start with groceries," he said. "A dozen eggs cost about $3. Once you apply the Trump Tax, that is up to $3.30, with the U.S. importing over 4 million eggs a year, but cost consumers over $1.2 million. If you like oranges, they currently go for about $1.53 per pound. With the Trump Tax, that would be $1.68 per pound, which would cost American consumers almost $71 million for the nearly half a billion pounds of the import. Bananas. We don't really grow them in the U.S., do we? They average about $.63 per pound and going up to $.69 per pound with the Trump Tax, thanks to the U.S. importing more than 10 million pounds per year, that could cost Americans at $609 million and that's a $609 million tax on American consumers. Then there's tomatoes. They go for about $2.13 per pound. Apply the 10 percent Trump Tax. They would be $2.34 per pound, potentially costing Americans $3.5 million thanks to the 6.8 million pounds we import per year. If you are spending $1,200 on groceries, add another $120 to the bill. That's more than the peak of inflation in 2022, which topped off at 9 percent. This is 10 percent."Groceries are just the start, he continued."How about the refrigerator?" said Hayes. "You need to keep the groceries fresh. The average cost of a new fridge is about $1,300. With the Trump Tax, that could go up to $1,430, costing Americans $1.95 billion for the 15 million refrigerators that we import. Again, $1.95 billion of new taxes. What about the car that you need to drive to the grocery store? On average, a new car costs about $48,808 today. With Trump Tax, it costs $53,684, with Americans potentially taking a $66.3 billion hit across the board on the 13 million cars we import. That's not including the 50 percent tariff which would make it another $25,000. Even the smartphone in your pocket cost on average about $940 right now. With Trump Tax, it can go up to $1,034, with Americans potentially paying an extra $13.2 billion for the nearly 141 million smartphones that we import per year.""Everyone hates when you have to pay more for things," he added. "Inflation is one of the biggest liabilities for a sitting president. Yet here is Donald Trump, in the Year of our Lord 2024, running against President Biden, promising to make things more expensive for every American."Watch the video below or click here. Chris Hayes breaks down "Trump Tax" www.youtube.com
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North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson had yet another group of extremist comments unveiled — this time about legendary singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.According to The Root, "During a series of rants spanning multiple years, Robinson —who is Black —insulted Beyoncé’s singing abilities, called her a 'skank,' and said she was teaching 'young women how to be hyper-sexual w----s.'"For example, in 2017, Robinson posted to Facebook, “Person; Beyoncé is a role model!” Me; “The only person that butt shakin’, devil worshipping, skank is a role model to is people who want a fast track to Hell.” This is on top of previous reporting that he referred to her music as sounding like "Satanic chants."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal billsThese revelations come at a moment when Beyoncé herself has found herself at the center of some national controversy, having written a country music inspired album known as Cowboy Carter, and some country radio stations refusing to play singles off of it because of her race.Robinson, who is challenging Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein for the governorship of North Carolina, has been put under the spotlight for a number of bizarre and offensive comments throughout the years.Among other things, he has referred to school shooting survivors as "prosti-tots," pushed QAnon and "lizard people" conspiracy theories, questioned the Holocaust, and suggested American politics was better in the era when women couldn't vote.
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'Some prosecutor should be looking into' Trump's latest legal defense scam: expert
Mar 28, 2024
Former President Donald Trump's sprawling network of ostensibly independent political groups raising money for him, much of it in service of paying legal expenses, seems to walk right up to the line of breaking the law, former prosecutor Kristy Greenberg told MSNBC's Alex Wagner — and may in fact cross it."Kristy, how is this legal?" asked Wagner. "How can he keep saying this one thing and doing another?""Well, I think the big question here will be looking behind all of this as to who is coordinating it," said Greenberg. "If Donald Trump is coordinating between his campaign and these PACs that are supposed to be third parties and independent — the Save America PAC is independent, even though he directs it, independent third-party — if there is sufficient coordination, you could prove that, then maybe you would have something to say these expenditures are not purely personal, these are really campaign contributions. And therefore they should be subject to the limits of $5,000 that campaign contributions are subject to."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal billsWhat it looks like, Greenberg went on, is that Trump and his allies are "just trying to do an end-run around these various regulations, and it seems so transparent.""[Special counsel] Jack Smith ... had served some subpoenas in connection with that nonexistent, as it turns out, election defense fund," Greenberg said. "He served some subpoenas and then he withdrew them and it was unclear why, because that seemed like such a clear-cut fraud. I questioned why that happened. Perhaps it was optics. Perhaps he thought like he had such strong cases, the January 6 case and the national security case, that he didn't want to seem as though he was trying to drain Trump of the ability to legally defend against those cases. Hard to say. But I questioned it at that time because that seemed like such a clear wire fraud case that it seemed like it should be looked into, but maybe they just had limited resources and didn't like the optics of it.""But I agree with you, this raises a lot of questions," she added. "Someone, somewhere, even if not the special counsel's office, because they are pretty busy — some prosecutors should be looking into this."Watch the video below or at the link. Kristy Greenberg on the legality of Trump's PACs www.youtube.com
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