Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with a high of forty-one.  Sunrise is 6:51 AM and sunset 7:10 PM, for 12h 18m 57s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 3.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1854, Eugene Shepard, the creator of the hodag, is born.

Recommended for reading in full —

Adam Serwer writes Donald Trump’s Cult of Personality Did This:

I don’t mean that I disagree with him on policy, although I do. I don’t mean that I abhor the president’s expressed bigotry toward religious and ethnic minorities, although that is also true. I am not referring to Donald Trump’s efforts to corrupt the Justice Department, shield his criminal associates from legal peril, or funnel taxpayer money to his tacky hotels and golf courses, although all of these things are reason enough to oppose the president.

What I am referring to is the fact that, soon after the coronavirus outbreak emerged in China, the rest of the world began to regard it as a threat to public health, while Trump has seen it as a public-relations problem. Trump’s primary method of dealing with public-relations problems is to exert the full force of the authoritarian cult of personality that surrounds him to deny that a problem even exists. This approach has paid political dividends for the Republican Party, in the form of judicial appointments, tax cuts for the wealthy, and a rapid erosion of the rule of law. But applied to the deadly pandemic now sweeping the planet, all it has done is exacerbate the inevitable public-health crisis, while leaving both the federal government and the entire swath of the country that hangs on his every word unprepared for the catastrophe now unfolding in the United States. The cardinal belief of Trumpism is that loyalty to Trump is loyalty to the country, and that equation leaves no room for the public interest.

Margaret Sullivan writes The media must stop live-broadcasting Trump’s dangerous coronavirus briefings:

Self-aggrandizement. When asked how he would grade his response to the crisis, the president said, “I’d rate it a 10.” Absurd on its face, of course, but effective enough as blatant propaganda

Media-bashing. When NBC News’s Peter Alexander lobbed him a softball question in Friday’s briefing — “What do you say to Americans who are scared?” — Trump went on a bizarre attack. “I say, you’re a terrible reporter,” the president said, launching into one of his trademark “fake news” rants bashing Alexander’s employer.

….

Exaggeration and outright lies. Trump has claimed that there are plenty of tests available (there aren’t); that Google is “very quickly” rolling out a nationwide website to help manage coronavirus treatment (the tech giant was blindsided by the premature claim); that the drug chloroquine, approved to treat malaria, is a promising cure for the virus and “we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately.” (It hasn’t been approved for this use, and there is no evidence to demonstrate its effectiveness in fighting the virus.)

France’s Family of Bell Makers:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of thirty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:53 AM and sunset 7:09 PM, for 12h 16m 01s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 7.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1865, the 21st, 22nd, and 25th Wisconsin Infantry regiments are victorious at the Battle of Goldsborough, North Carolina as three Union armies totaling 100,000 men capture the city and its railroad facilities.

Recommended for reading in full —

Manny Fernandez reports Coronavirus and Poverty: A Mother Skips Meals So Her Children Can:

Alton was closed — all the public schools in Brenham, a rural Texas town of 17,000 about 90 miles east of Austin, have shut for the coronavirus — but one vital piece of the school day lived on: free lunch. Ms. Mossbarger rolled down the window of her used, 15-year-old S.U.V. as school employees handed her six Styrofoam containers.

Even as the carnival aroma of mini corn dogs filled the vehicle on the drive back home, and even as the children sat on the porch and ate from their flipped-open containers with the family dogs running around, Ms. Mossbarger ate nothing.

She skipped breakfast and lunch, taking her first bite of food — food-pantry fried chicken — at about 5:30 p.m. All she consumed from the time she awoke that morning until she ate dinner were sips from a cherry Dr Pepper.

Money was tight. Ms. Mossbarger, 33, a disabled Army veteran, does not work. Her husband’s job as a carpenter has slowed in recent days and gotten more unpredictable as people cancel or delay residential construction jobs. She had plenty of worries — paying the $1,000 rent was at the top of the list — but lunch for her children was not one of them.

“If we didn’t have this, I probably would have a mental breakdown with stress,” she said of the free meals at Alton. “I’m not going to let my kids go hungry. If I have to just eat once a day, that’s what I have to do.”

Shane Harris, Greg Miller, Josh Dawsey, and Ellen Nakashima report U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic:

U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting.

The intelligence reports didn’t predict when the virus might land on U.S. shores or recommend particular steps that public health officials should take, issues outside the purview of the intelligence agencies. But they did track the spread of the virus in China, and later in other countries, and warned that Chinese officials appeared to be minimizing the severity of the outbreak.

Taken together, the reports and warnings painted an early picture of a virus that showed the characteristics of a globe-encircling pandemic that could require governments to take swift actions to contain it. But despite that constant flow of reporting, Trump continued publicly and privately to play down the threat the virus posed to Americans.

Wolves Explore Outside a Family’s Cabin Window:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-six.  Sunrise is 6:55 AM and sunset 7:08 PM, for 12h 13m 06s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 13.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1958, an angry mob burns serial killer Ed Gein’s home in Plainfield, WI “in response to rumors that it would be purchased at an auction and reopened for tourism.”

Recommended for reading in full —

Tim Mak reports Intelligence Chairman Raised Virus Alarms Weeks Ago, Secret Recording Shows:

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee warned a small group of well-connected constituents three weeks ago to prepare for dire economic and societal effects of the coronavirus, according to a secret recording obtained by NPR.

The remarks from U.S. Sen. Richard Burr were more stark than any he had delivered in more public forums.

On Feb. 27, when the United States had 15 confirmed cases of COVID-19, President Trump was tamping down fears and suggesting that the virus could be seasonal.

“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle. It will disappear,” the president said then, before adding, “it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens.”

On that same day, Burr attended a luncheon held at a social club called the Capitol Hill Club. And he delivered a much more alarming message.

“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,” he said, according to a secret recording of the remarks obtained by NPR. “It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

Robert Faturechi and Derek Willis report Senator Dumped Up to $1.7 Million of Stock After Reassuring Public About Coronavirus Preparedness (‘Intelligence Chair Richard Burr’s selloff came around the time he was receiving daily briefings on the health threat’):

Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions.

As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story.

A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline and has lost about 30% since.

The luncheon had been organized by the Tar Heel Circle, a nonpartisan group whose membership consists of businesses and organizations in North Carolina, the state Burr represents. Membership to join the Tar Heel Circle costs between $500 and $10,000 and promises that members “enjoy interaction with top leaders and staff from Congress, the administration, and the private sector,” according to the group’s website.

Lachlan Markay, William Bredderman, Sam Brodey report Sen. Kelly Loeffler Dumped Millions in Stock After Coronavirus Briefing:

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on the coronavirus.

Sausage Dog Barks Softly and Carries a Big Stick: 

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of fifty-five.  Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 7:07 PM, for 12h 10m 10s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 20.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1962, Bob Dylan releases his first album, the eponymously titled Bob Dylan.

Recommended for reading in full —

Raquel Rutledge and Mark Johnson report Wisconsin nurses say the shortage of masks, gowns and protective gear puts them at risk during coronavirus outbreak:

Nurses and other health care workers in Wisconsin are grappling with a shortage of masks, gowns and other gear to protect them from COVID-19 and are experiencing other breaches in safety protocol they fear put them at risk.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has heard from nearly a dozen health care workers from hospitals in Milwaukee and Madison who report they have no protective masks or that they have been required to wear a single mask all day.

“This is cause for concern,” said Gina Dennik-Champion, executive director of the Wisconsin Nursing Association, an advocacy group for the state’s roughly 90,000 nurses.

Masks degrade the longer you wear them and can become contaminated when you reuse them.

Mitchell Schmidt reports Tony Evers restricts child care center capacity as state COVID-19 cases top 100:

Adding another layer of antiviral measures — and challenges for parents — Gov. Tony Evers on Wednesday placed restrictions on child-care center capacity as part of a statewide response to the spread of COVID-19, which now tops 100 cases statewide.

Evers also officially requested federal disaster loans, underscoring the devastating impact the order to close schools, restaurants, retail establishments and other businesses is expected to have on owners and employees in an effort to slow the spread of the respiratory disease.

“Social distancing and self-isolation are critical steps in reducing and preventing the spread of this virus in our communities, but it comes at an economic cost to our local businesses,” Evers said in a statement.

Under Evers’ latest order, which takes effect at 8 a.m. Thursday, child-care centers will not be allowed to operate with more than 10 staff members or more than 50 children present at a time. The order remains in effect for the duration of the public health emergency Evers declared last week.

Christopher Weaver, Betsy McKay, and Brianna Abbott report America Needed Coronavirus Tests. The Government Failed. (‘Decisions that limited testing for the pathogen blinded the U.S. to the outbreak’s scale. Here’s how it happened’):

When cases of the new coronavirus began emerging several weeks ago in California, Washington state and other pockets of the country, U.S. public-health officials worried this might be The Big One, emails and interviews show.

The testing program they rolled out to combat it, though, was a small one.

Limited testing has blinded Americans to the scale of the outbreak so far, impeding the nation’s ability to fight the virus through isolating the sick and their contacts, public-health officials say. As of early Wednesday, about 6,500 people in the U.S. had tested positive, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University show, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reported only about 32,000 tests conducted at its facilities and other public-health labs.

Massive Sea Lion Found Blocking the Road in Washington State: