Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• Americans Are Dying In The Pandemic At Rates Far Higher Than In Other Countries: During this pandemic, people in the United States are dying at rates unparalleled elsewhere in the world. A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that in the past five months, per capita deaths in the U.S., both from COVID-19 and other causes, have been far greater than in 18 other high-income countries. (NPR)
• How To ‘Weaponize’ Misleading Narratives About Voting: Lessons from Trump-Linked PILF Playbook Using internal emails, sworn testimony, and other documents, Snopes was able to break down exactly how the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) worked to “generate, create, organize and weaponize” misleading narratives. (Snopes)
• Smearing Hunter Biden Failed. Now What? The Trump campaign’s long-planned October Surprise was a dud, and they look out of ideas (Arc)
• The COVID-19 Pandemic and the $16 Trillion Virus: the immense financial loss from COVID-19 suggests a fundamental rethinking of government’s role in pandemic preparation. Currently, the US prioritizes spending on acute treatment, with far less spending on public health services and infrastructure. As the nation struggles to recover from COVID-19, investments that are made in testing, contact tracing, and isolation should be established permanently and not dismantled when the concerns about COVID-19 begin to recede. (JAMA)
• How Team Trump used Fox News as a laundromat for unverified Russian information about top Democrats Trump, with the help of outlets like Fox News, has been pushing a dishonest narrative in touting intelligence documents that his administration declassified last month on the eve of the first presidential debate (CNN)
• Earth’s New Gilded Era The world is getting hotter, and the divide between rich and poor is getting bigger. Scientists and people with good sense around the world recognize the manifold perils of a climate crisis: an onslaught of tropical systems in the Atlantic Ocean, the relentless burn of wildfires in California and Oregon, the hundred-year floods that now encroach annually. (The Atlantic)
• Another casualty of the coronavirus pandemic: Trust in government science Politics has thoroughly contaminated the scientific process. The result has been an epidemic of distrust, which further undermines the nation’s already chaotic and ineffective response to the coronavirus. (Washington Post)
• The Swamp That Trump Built A businessman-president transplanted favor-seeking in Washington to his family’s hotels and resorts — and earned millions as a gatekeeper to his own administration. (New York Times)
• How a Road Trip Through America’s Battlegrounds Revealed a Nation Plagued by Misinformation: How voters are processing Trump’s behavior at this fractured moment may be the most important question of the 2020 election. (Time) see also Sinclair stations set to air Eric Bolling monologue claiming masks and lockdown precautions do not help slow the spread of COVID-19 Sinclair Broadcast Group’s weekly program America This Week continues to be a source of dangerous COVID-19 misinformation thanks to its host Eric Bolling, who dismisses the effectiveness of face mask use and social distancing (MediaMatters)
• ‘What are we so afraid of?’ Tony Green, on dismissing, denying, contracting and spreading the coronavirus: I thought it was an overblown media hoax. I made fun of people for wearing masks. I went all the way down the rabbit hole and fell hard on my own sword, so if you want to hate me or blame me, that’s fine. I’m doing plenty of that myself. (Washington Post)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Lisa Cook, a professor of economics and in international relations at Michigan State University. The Marshall Scholar served as a senior researcher at the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama, and held positions at the National Bureau of Economic Research; the Federal Reserve banks of Minneapolis, New York and Philadelphia; and the World Bank.
Coronavirus has invaded the heartland of America
Source: Wall Street Journal
Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.
