Prickly City by Scott Stantis for April 07, 2020

Normal, if it ever existed, ended November 2016.

Define normal.

Also, a Charles Schulz moment, panel 3, above.

There have been NO normal days since The Messiah was inaugurated.

That inauguration was the biggest in history, remember?

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Not to worry though — everyone who is ‘naive and stupid’ enough to have any integrity will be gotten rid of.

Can’t we have a ‘normal’ day, Carmen?

Well, it’s not usually considered “normal” when:

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‘Trump is killing his own supporters’ – even White House insiders know it

A plague is raging and the president is leaving the heartlands and blue-collar voters exposed. This could be the endgame

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In the words of one administration insider, to the Guardian: “The Trump organism is simply collapsing. He’s killing his own supporters.”

Members of the national guard, emergency workers, rank-and-file Americans: all are exposed. Yet Trump appears incapable of emoting anything that comes close to heart-felt concern. Or just providing straight answers.

Rather, he is acting like Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America: repeatedly letting governors know the burden of shoring up their sick, their doctors and their people falls on their shoulders first.

The national government? It’s the world’s greatest backstop.

Remember when the Republican party freaked out about Barack Obama and the US “leading from behind” abroad?

Remember the howls that evoked from GOP leaders? Those days are gone.

Welcome to what Martin O’Malley, a Democratic former governor of Maryland, calls the “Darwinian approach to federalism”.

Trump is telling NFL owners he wants the season to start on time. He is disregarding Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advice on wearing facemasks in public. And he is touting untested coronavirus cures live on national TV.

Think Trump University on steroids, only this time we all stand to be the victims.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/05/trump-is-killing-his-own-supporters-coronavirus-covid-19

Rotten Masks, DIY Equipment, Exhausted Staff: Report Shows Coronavirus’ Impact on Hospitals

A grim look inside hospitals from confirms impressions gathered from medical professionals and state officials in recent weeks: Hospitals are in crisis.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general’s office interviewed administrators from 323 hospitals in the United States, finding shortages across the board—including staff, medical supplies, tests, beds, and personal protective equipment—and anticipating severe ventilator shortages in the weeks to come.

Staffers are stressed. Hospitals are running out of cash. The government is sowing chaos and confusion. And nobody seems to have any good solutions.

One administrator said that the entire industry has only hundreds of tests, when millions are needed.

Lag time for test results, sometimes as long as seven days, is taking up precious time as patients awaiting results take up beds, staffers’ attention, and critical supplies.

One administrator told the office of the inspector general that staffers use “a lot of PPE” on “rule-outs,” adding that “when it’s a negative, we basically used all that PPE for nothing.”

The survey was taken from March 23 to March 27, so the situation now may in fact be even more dire.

https://gizmodo.com/rotten-masks-diy-equipment-exhausted-staff-report-sh-1842710363

Uncle Sam is going to be sending you a check soon. To counter the coronavirus-induced economic meltdown, the Trump administration and Congressional leaders worked out a massive economic stimulus plan that will flood the U.S. economy with cash and provide relief for Americans who are taking a financial hit.

How Many Stimulus Checks Will I Get?

You’ll get just one payment. Earlier proposals called for multiple checks.

One plan put forth by a group of Democratic Senators even required quarterly payments to Americans until the crisis ends. However, the law signed by President Trump only authorizes a single payment.

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(The part that interested me, tho…)

The way the law is written, the checks that will be sent now are actually just advanced payments of a new refundable tax credit for the 2020 tax year.

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Let’s say you wait to file your 2019 return because your stimulus check will be $100 more if the IRS bases your payment on your 2018 return. Will you get to keep that additional $100?

We don’t know yet how the IRS will treat stimulus payments that are more than the 2020 tax credit amount. (If the check is less than the authorized credit, you’ll get the difference when you file your 2020 return.)

On the one hand, the IRS is authorized to issue regulations or guidance “deemed appropriate to avoid allowing multiple credits or rebates to a taxpayer.”

They might use this authority to get the $100 back (e.g., through an additional tax on your 2020 tax return).

On the other hand, there’s nothing in the new law saying the IRS will take back payments that are more than the tax credit amount.

There was no mechanism for giving back any “extra” stimulus check money when similar payments were issued back in 2008, either.

But, then again, all the 2008 stimulus checks were based on the same year’s tax return.

https://www.kiplinger.com/article/spending/T063-C000-S001-stimulus-checks-2020-how-much-when-and-other-faqs.html

Actually, Carmen, this IS a normal day under the current administration’s watch.

Don’t you guys have anything better to do with your lives than hang around here bashing Trump and his supporters? Pathetic.