Chicago Style: The Governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, told the president: to "get shit together' amid airport chaos," as travelers returning to the US at Chicago’s O’Hare international
airport waited more than four hours for required medical screenings."
Apparently the customs service, otherwise trained to rummage through your suitcase, is in charge of..." What? taking temperatures? swabbing throats? O'Hare and other airports designated to receive overseas passengers have been overwhelmed by travelers beating the shutdown in Europe and on Monday, the shutdown in the UK and Ireland.
Story thanks to the Guardian.
Trump Style: In the meantime, events last week-end at Mar-a-Lago are recounted in this NYT front page story : Mar-a-Lago has become a petri dish of the corona virus, "a kind of metaphor for the perils of group gatherings in the
age of corona virus, demonstrating how quickly and silently the virus can
spread. No one is necessarily safe from encountering it, not senators
or diplomats or even the most powerful person on the planet seemingly
secure in a veritable fortress surrounded by Secret Service agents."
The hi-jinks of the ruling class are described in detail while the rest of the country seems to be facing a lock down. Even now, is Stephen Miller writing the teleprompter text declaring martial law?
Add this to the charge sheet: Guardian
"Trump offers 'large sums' for exclusive access to corona virus vaccine:
German government tries to fight off aggressive takeover bid by US, say reports"
"Trump offers 'large sums' for exclusive access to corona virus vaccine..." Makes me so proud to be an American. Can he even do that?
ReplyDeleteVote for MAGA, and that is exactly what you should expect. Stupid is as stupid is elected to be.
DeleteAaaaarrrghhh!! Doesn't that twit know how a vaccine works?? The more people around the world who are protected, the more everyone is protected which means him and his useless spawn.
ReplyDeleteMy God in heaven. That's my ration of news for the day.
Katherine - don't you know, our christian leader's mantra is "America First". Who cares what happens to anyone else?
ReplyDeleteThe reality has hit home for our Oz son. He is in the US for business, was supposed to return to Sydney on the 20th. But most of the meetings were cancelled, so he moved his departure to the 17th. Yesterday, the PM announced a ban on all people entering the country except for citizens and residents. He is a resident but not a citizen. Once he gets back he faces a mandatory 14 day self-isolation. But now he's heard a rumor that they might turn away all flights coming from the US. He had moved his departure to Monday - I hope it isn't too late for him to get home to his family.
He also needs to get back - although in his 30s and healthy, if he gets sick here he has no health insurance. He's covered under Australia's system. I just hope he gets back before they slam the door in his face. There was no notice - it was announced yesterday to take effect at midnight.
There seems to be no international travel ban coordination. Yesterday a British flight to Spain had to turn around mid-flight because Spain said no Brits (presuming there were no other nationalities on board). What a mess. To which our dear leader has contributed brainlessly.
ReplyDeleteI checked out the story about the flight to Spain. I have been thinking that if Australia bans flights from the USA, maybe my son could go to Vancouver and fly from there. As long as they didn't turn back flights with an American on board!
ReplyDeleteIt was a discount airline that flies lots of Brits to Spain. The airline itself decided to turn around because of the huge spike in cases in Spain and the lock-down that was ordered. It will continue to send planes there from England without passengers so that they can fly people back to the UK.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/411791/coronavirus-jet2-flights-to-spain-turn-round-in-mid-air-over-virus-fears
Is it possible that we are setting up a situation in which we will have an aviation Flying Dutchman that is really flying but doomed never to land? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Dutchman
DeleteAnn: Thanks for filling in the details.
DeleteTom: unfortunately planes have to land...or crash.
DeleteMargaret: Hypothetically. But we have air-to-air refueling now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqezCR_XzaI
DeletePritzker has been running a very tight public-relations and communications ship during this crisis. More substantively, he's exercising extremely wide-ranging powers. Does he truly have the power to shut down restaurants and bars (which was announced earlier today)?
ReplyDeleteGov. Gretchen is doing the same in Michigan. Take-out and delivery services are still in operation. She isn't getting pushback from the Republican majority leaders in the state house, which is pretty astounding.
DeletePossibly the idiot MSU students, who started St. Patrick's Day celebrations this weekend, pushed her decision. Bars were following rules to restrict gatherings to no more than 250 people, but crowds were gathering outside the bars waiting for insiders to stagger out so they could get in. A lot of them seemed to have open intoxicants as they milled around.
Off-campus students are taking the opportunity to create a general nuisance now that classes are not meeting and the weather is warmer. A nice, sloppy four to six inches of snow about now would help keep the miscreants in.
NYC seems to be closing everything, even the schools. Over the week-end, lots of cars being packed with student gear up at Columbia. Still, there must be lots of students with nowhere else to go (Columbia has a large contingent of Chinese students; they could go home if they wanted to, what with travel bans).
DeleteWhat is striking is the people shopping at the market who behave as if they've never shopped before. Lots of traffic jams in the aisles!!