Trump rolls back Obama standards which affect the climate

Terrible. The Trump cult doesn’t believe in science or facts.

We've seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic. We can't afford any more consequences of climate denial. All of us, especially young people, have to demand better of our government at every level and vote this fall. https://t.co/K8Ucu7iVDK
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 31, 2020

Meanwhile… https://t.co/dYiei9kBeJ
— Manuel Roig-Franzia (@RoigFranzia) March 31, 2020

It’s official — the Trump administration has tossed out auto emissions standards and gutted one of the U.S.’s biggest efforts to fight climate change.https://t.co/aYrp6I1VaQ
— KQED (@KQED) March 31, 2020

Friends, I want to write about Trump's new fuel-economy standards, but I face a strange difficulty. I'm very familiar w/ the many reasons they are Bad, but I'm having a hell of a time finding anyone who will claim they are good or necessary. Even the admin's own rulemaking…
— David Roberts (@drvox) March 31, 2020

Trump is rolling back Obama-era clean car rules, so his "environmentally friendly cars" line represents an especially brazen attempt to gaslight people https://t.co/x86SJPDjJS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 31, 2020

Kurosawa films on TCM on 4/1

TCM is running a series of films directed by Akira Kurosawa tomorrow starting with Drunken Angel. The star, Toshiro Mifune, would have been 100 years old this year. I recommend all of them but my favorites are:

Yojimbo and its sequel Sanjuro

High and Low

Today is Toshiro Mifune’s 100th birthday and @tcm is celebrating by programming 24 hours of his films. You may know the samurai movies but my fave is “High and Low” where he plays a shoe salesman caught up in a kidnapping gone wrong pic.twitter.com/Gyvg6D2eZ6
— Larry Karaszewski (@Karaszewski) April 1, 2020

Special love for “The Lower Depths,” which Donald Richie called his greatest performance. #Mifune100 pic.twitter.com/nPGafoecBb
— El Chorro 🍶 (@El__Chorro) April 1, 2020

I wrote a dream essay about toshiro mifune and his glorious (s)ass and artistry for @Criterion, happy belated 100th my king: https://t.co/5JCANwTCxU
— Moeko Fujii (@moekofujii) April 3, 2020

Trump lies about coronavirus tests

Trump claims nobody is saying there aren’t enough tests. Just another lie.

Amazing story in @nytimes: the President had a conversation with Governors about the crisis in which he lied to them, and then the White House lied about the call, even though the Times had a recording. Great work by @maggieNYT, @jmartNYT and Mike Bakerhttps://t.co/kgJwfhgHgz
— Peter Sagal (@petersagal) March 31, 2020

President @realDonaldTrump says testing isn't a problem. In the last 10 days I visited 15 states – testing was a problem in every single one of them. He lies – again – and people die. https://t.co/WncToTpZIM
— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) March 31, 2020

Trump telling governors “I haven’t heard about testing being a problem” tells you everything you need to know about his command of this situation
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) March 31, 2020

Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan said there remains a shortage of tests, personal protective equipment, and ventilators in every state. “No state has enough tests.”

Trump’s lies and self-congrats are dangerous.
— Touré (@Toure) March 31, 2020

Republican governors are disputing the president’s statement in a call with them yesterday. He said he hasn’t heard about testing issues in weeks and it’s the best testing in the world. https://t.co/nJxSM6FWEk
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 31, 2020

Yesterday Trump said he "hasn't heard about testing for a week."

It's just shocking how gleefully disconnected from this crisis he is.

Today there aren't enough tests to beat this virus. But there could be enough if Trump showed leadership and took control of the supply chain.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 31, 2020

I was looking for data comparing testing Per State, Per capita to see if Red States are under testing in a strategic attempt to keep Trump & GOP numbers low
I couldn't find the info but the raw data's there so I did it myself
The majority of States w/ low testing ARE Red States👇
— Alison Greene (@GrassrootsSpeak) March 31, 2020

In which a Yale epidemiologist criticized the NYT’s both-sidesism on lying about state virus testing and an NYT national political correspondent gets super butthurt about it because, I assume, toilet paper rationing is really taking a toll on him since his head’s in his ass. pic.twitter.com/vZErJHJh4V
— Tyler King (@TylerAKing) March 31, 2020

Trump: There will be drive through testing.
Media: BREAKING – Drive through testing
Reality: No drive thru testing.
Trump: Tests are fine.
Governors: Where are the tests?
Media: BREAKING – Trump and Governors clash over testing!
Reality: #WhereAreTheTests
— David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) March 31, 2020

Went through Trump's comments about the availability of testing since early March and compared it to what was actually being done. https://t.co/2gQJaJagrE
— Philip Bump (@pbump) March 31, 2020

On POTUS/Governor call, @PhilipRucker: "I'm sure WH has done some work in partnership w/ private industry to speed up testing, make it more available from around the country. But-we hear again and again from governors out in the country they don't have access to enough tests."
— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) March 31, 2020

Analysis: Trump’s clueless comment about coronavirus testing problems https://t.co/nKzX94P6kn
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 31, 2020

TESTING – Per Capita Per State

Here's a breakdown of the BOTTOM 25 STATES according to how much they're testing
👉6 are Blue States
👉19 are Red States

But one of the Blue States in the bottom 25 is Michigan & they sure seem to be trying to test😰 pic.twitter.com/2HGD15emKh
— Alison Greene (@GrassrootsSpeak) March 31, 2020

Larry Hogan, Ralph Northam, and Muriel Bowser Asked for a Federal Testing Site … Two Weeks Agohttps://t.co/fXSuoYDywm
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) March 31, 2020

ICYMI: Donald Trump, when asked why he's not meeting the testing numbers he promised, blamed President Obama.

He said he inherited "horrible" coronavirus tests from the previous administration — despite COVID-19 not existing until last year. pic.twitter.com/RLKG7n0WBr
— DNC War Room (@DNCWarRoom) April 2, 2020

He blames it on Obama when the virus didn’t exist during the Obama years. Liar!

Covers: Almost Saturday Night

“Almost Saturday Night” is a John Fogerty song from 1975. The 1981 cover by Dave Edmunds had more success on the charts.

Bad things in the rescue package

A lot of bad things were smuggled into the massive economic rescue package. Here's a good, detailed list, from @paulwaldman1:https://t.co/MxirZdxO2O
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) March 30, 2020

Coronavirus stats sources

This is the problem. The coronavirus stats should be coming from the federal government, not the networks and universities. Since they aren’t federal, that makes it easier for right wing extremists to question them.

Are conronavirus stats reliable?

Tucker Carlson suggested Tuesday that the coronavirus death toll may be inflated, because pneumonia deaths are being wrongly attributed to covid-19.

The data he cited don't support that, though.https://t.co/g7ct4M65fQ
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) April 8, 2020

The battle to prevent Americans from understanding what went down January to April is going to be one of the biggest propaganda and freedom of information fights in modern US history. https://t.co/Ggf3vFZXcC Data erasure and the manufacture of mass confusion have already begun.
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) April 5, 2020

Pro-Trumpers now arguing it's somehow wrong to attribute deaths to COVID if the deceased suffered other health troubles too.

By this logic, we could reduce the tally of gun deaths. Yes, the victim was hit by a bullet. But she might have bled less if not for her hypertension!
— David Frum (@davidfrum) April 8, 2020

A horrific reason Trump may not be eager to get more people tested:

More testing would help us cope with COVID-19 — but at the cost of revealing a higher death toll from the disease Trump did far too little too late to contain and then mitigatehttps://t.co/Naa8sg7NvJ
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) April 5, 2020

We have no idea how many Americans have had coronavirus since the outbreak began. We have no idea how many Americans have coronavirus right now, today, at the moment you read this. And we’re not sure how many Americans the coronavirus has killed so far https://t.co/sEPNqDE8mL
— Mark Berman (@markberman) April 5, 2020

Paraphrasing @RadioFreeTom’s “The Death of Expertise”: We have reached a point where ignorance is an actual virtue. To reject advice of experts is to assert autonomy. It is a new Declaration of Independence: we hold all truths to be self-evident, even the ones that aren’t true. https://t.co/TYxcGsDOhI
— David Goodman (@DavidAGoodman) April 4, 2020

The Trump infused right wing is now going all in on pandemic trutherism. These people are so fucking vile https://t.co/neXnURZztF
— Daniel Gilmore (@gilmored85) March 30, 2020

Diamond & Silk are speculating coronavirus deaths are being inflated to make Trump look bad pic.twitter.com/hBnB7422UP
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) March 30, 2020

Get ready for an incredibly ghoulish push by Trumpist media to question the number of deaths attributed to coronavirus in order to make the president look good. pic.twitter.com/CLlRgOJYLY
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 31, 2020

This has already started. How do I know? Because Trump surrogates are accusing Trump’s opponents of screwing with the coronavirus fatality numbers, and Trumpers ALWAYS falsely accuse others of whatever misconduct they plan to do THEMSELVES. Always. #projection #COVID19 1/ https://t.co/5fdiIOak5F
— Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 (@jennycohn1) March 31, 2020

Spain, Italy, Germany, Singapore publish daily, data-rich epi updates. In the US, situational awareness is largely courtesy of volunteer projects and 50 state health dept websites. We must modernize our surveillance and reporting infrastructure to be able to respond effectively.
— Caitlin Rivers, PhD (@cmyeaton) April 1, 2020

I’m not sure that counts as “inflated.” If someone with another condition dies because of Coronavirus-caused complications, that should qualify, imo. In other words, if a person dies, who would still be alive if not for Coronavirus, that’s a Coronavirus death. Disagree?
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 1, 2020

Limbaugh theorized “that with this new arrival of COVID-19, that coronavirus is being listed as a cause of death for many people who are not dying because of it.”

“They’re dying because of other things,” he added. “But it’s speculation. It’s fascinating.” https://t.co/dw1OTQfWCQ
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) April 3, 2020

That’s what happens when you don’t have one consistent source of data – people question it.

Dr. Deborah Birx said WH coronavirus task force is missing 50% of the data for coronavirus tests that have been conducted. https://t.co/o5LxAuHc56
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 3, 2020

The stats I’d most like to see for states/countries/whatever are:

(1) Cases per capita
(2) Percentage growth rate

I don’t love trying to eyeball the slope on log charts of raw case counts.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 3, 2020

Florida has emerged as a test case of what happens when officials use guesswork against a highly contagious virus -> https://t.co/5cW4DnHOxf
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 5, 2020

Normally in NYC 20-25 people die at home each day.

We are now at 200-215. Every day.

For sure nearly all the increase is people w/ coronavirus. But not all are being counted that way.

One reason that the official NYC covid death count–already high–is certainly an undercount.
— Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) April 5, 2020

Fwiw, I think we’ll eventually learn that we’re significantly undercounting the deaths right now. https://t.co/Kefb1tzHjr
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) April 8, 2020

Covers: Heartaches by the Number

“Heartaches by the Number” was most popular in the 1959 version by Guy Michell. Modern artists like Dwight Yoakam and Rosanne Cash have kept it alive.

Stop airing Trump’s lies

It is a legitimately tough call for the networks and the cables to not show the President in this time of crisis. But if their reporting matches @nytimes and the President says he's doing it for free TV and ratings,it's time to cover them differently. For him its about him not us
— Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) April 6, 2020

"It’s the opposite of news because the information Trump dispenses is filled with misinformation. Airing it live, knowing Trump’s record for dishonesty, is professionally irresponsible." — St. Louis Post-Dispatch, editorial board. https://t.co/uRQQFHDvgG
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) April 5, 2020

On today's @ReliableSources, @gregggonsalves said live TV coverage of the WH briefings sows confusion by "amplifying misstatements and outright lies."https://t.co/YjdqtaCCw9
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 5, 2020

Former NBC News Senior VP: https://t.co/2sDtpUH1UQ
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) April 1, 2020

Well, good for @MSNBC and @CNN for saying they will “monitor” Trump’s ongoing rally/briefing, but not running it live wall-to-wall and for hours on end.

( Fox and presumably OANN are still with it.)
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) April 1, 2020

CNN's boss, Jeff Zucker, said today his network will continue to carry the briefings live. https://t.co/ddDvnnKK8o He also said he's “probably spent more time on this topic than anything else."
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) March 30, 2020

No. 3 trending topic in America is #BoycottTrumpPressConferences on Twitter.

Do you find @realDonaldTrump’s press conferences about #coronavirus effective or ineffective? Useful info or his new rally?

Should TV networks continue to air these press conferences? #COVID19
— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) March 29, 2020

What’s the justification for cable networks broadcasting Trump’s daily briefings?

These aren’t news briefings. They're full of dangerous lies that put the public's health at risk.

Boycott the propaganda. Listen to public health experts.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) March 30, 2020

Jeff Zucker was asked on a call today about the network's decision to carry the WH press briefings live. He defended CNN's decision to air them live, but also said the network has considered other options, including not airing parts of them. https://t.co/C4xrxJHIaI
— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) March 30, 2020

Interesting point made on #AMJoy just now by Carol Simpson. The trump propaganda-fests @ 5 pm each day are timed to preempt local news. People aren’t hearing how the virus is affecting their communities. Local stations must cease airing trump’s lies.
— Eric Slater (@ericsslater) March 29, 2020

Can we all agree to boycott & not air these “briefings” now please? pic.twitter.com/JATMoT00kg
— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) March 29, 2020

Stop treating his crazy outbursts as serious and start explaining that the real, constructive work is achieved despite him, not because of him. It would help if the media chose not to cover live his news conferences, which are founts of misinformation. https://t.co/7V3O9v8U9a
— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) March 29, 2020

Repeating for the umpteenth time his lies about inheriting a broken system and having no ammunition. In front of millions of people. Unchallenged again. Stop televising these lies! And if you do insist on televising, run the fact check on the screen while he is lying!
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) March 29, 2020

I prefer a combo of 2 alternatives instead of not covering the President's COVID-19 press conferences:
1. Give @JoeBiden equal time to explain what he would do – specifically and
2. Always do immediate fact checking of what 45 says.
— Jill Wine-Banks (@JillWineBanks) March 30, 2020

I have nothing against the Pillow Guy or what he says, but it is evidence once again that the Trump admin is unable to attract actual professionals to do the work of government and that these "press" conferences are just open-mic entertainments that should not be televised live. https://t.co/fCPHXS0Ngc
— Richard Stengel (@stengel) March 31, 2020

They'll keep running Trump's daily campaign rallies unless we stop watching. Let's be part of the solution today.
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) April 1, 2020

To the mainstream media:
The only news Trump makes at these “news briefings” is that his ego trumps the national interest. But this isn’t news. Stop covering them. https://t.co/DTgnXCh8xP
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) April 2, 2020

Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman

The Cameraman was Keaton’s first film for MGM and his last great feature. After that, MGM ruined his career by placing him in bad films. He had much less control than when he made features independently.

This tweet shows film locations:

The Cameraman – Buster Keaton films an elaborate tracking shot drenched by rain sprinklers keeping pace with the car, on the narrow Santa Monica Pier, past buildings standing today. More cool photos – time travel back for a look – https://t.co/n1lVF2DRjX pic.twitter.com/M4rzwfhxae
— John Bengtson (@silentechoes57) March 29, 2020

The Criterion Collection will issue it on Blu-ray in June 2020.

Keaton at an empty Yankee Stadium

Covers: Wall of Death

Richard Thompson’s “Wall of Death” was the last song on Shoot Out the Lights (1982), the last album he recorded with his then wife Linda. He has continued to perform it solo. R.E.M. covered it on a Thompson tribute album in 1994.