Dear Commons Community,

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 was divided, one half awarded to Roger Penrose (University of Oxford, UK) “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity”, the other half jointly to Reinhard Genzel (University of California, Berkeley, USA)and Andrea Ghez (UCLA, USA) “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy.”

The three Laureates were given their awards for their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole. Roger Penrose showed that the general theory of relativity leads to the formation of black holes. Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez discovered that an invisible and extremely heavy object governs the orbits of stars at the centre of our galaxy. A supermassive black hole is the only currently known explanation.

Roger Penrose used ingenious mathematical methods in his proof that black holes are a direct consequence of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Einstein did not himself believe that black holes really exist, these super-heavyweight monsters that capture everything that enters them. Nothing can escape, not even light.

In January 1965, ten years after Einstein’s death, Roger Penrose proved that black holes really can form and described them in detail; at their heart, black holes hide a singularity in which all the known laws of nature cease. His groundbreaking article is still regarded as the most important contribution to the general theory of relativity since Einstein.

Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez each lead a group of astronomers that, since the early 1990s, has focused on a region called Sagittarius A* at the centre of our galaxy. The orbits of the brightest stars closest to the middle of the Milky Way have been mapped with increasing precision. The measurements of these two groups agree, with both finding an extremely heavy, invisible object that pulls on the jumble of stars, causing them to rush around at dizzying speeds. Around four million solar masses are packed together in a region no larger than our solar system.

Using the world’s largest telescopes, Genzel and Ghez developed methods to see through the huge clouds of interstellar gas and dust to the centre of the Milky Way. Stretching the limits of technology, they refined new techniques to compensate for distortions caused by the Earth’s atmosphere, building unique instruments and committing themselves to long-term research. Their pioneering work has given us the most convincing evidence yet of a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.

“The discoveries of this year’s Laureates have broken new ground in the study of compact and supermassive objects. But these exotic objects still pose many questions that beg for answers and motivate future research. Not only questions about their inner structure, but also questions about how to test our theory of gravity under the extreme conditions in the immediate vicinity of a black hole”, says David Haviland, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

 Congratulations to the winners!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

President Donald Trump’s decided to use his return home (see video above) from the hospital to the White House as a photo-op of him removing his mask. His continued illness is putting new focus on the people around him who could be further exposed if he doesn’t abide by strict isolation protocols.

Throughout the pandemic, White House custodians, ushers, kitchen staff and members of the U.S. Secret Service have continued to show up for work in what is now a coronavirus hot spot, with more than a dozen known cases this week alone.

Trump, still contagious, has made clear that he has little intention of abiding by best containment practices.

As he arrived back at the White House on Monday evening, the president defiantly removed his face mask and stopped to pose on a balcony within feet of a White House photographer. He was seen inside moments later, surrounded by numerous people as he taped a video message urging Americans not to fear a virus that has killed more than 210,000 in the U.S. and 1 million worldwide.  As reported by The Associated Press.

“White House spokesman Judd Deere said the White House was “taking every precaution necessary” to protect not just the first family but “every staff member working on the complex” consistent with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and best practices. He added that physical access to the president would be significantly limited and appropriate protective gear worn by those near him.

Nonetheless, the mood within the White House remains somber, with staff fearful they may have been exposed to the virus. As they confront a new reality — a worksite that once seemed like a bubble of safety is anything but — they also have been engaged in finger-pointing over conflicting reports released about the president’s health as well as a lack of information provided internally.

Many have learned about positive tests from media reports and several were exposed, without their knowledge, to people the White House already knew could be contagious.

Indeed, it took until late Sunday night, nearly three full days after Trump’s diagnosis, for the White House to send a staff-wide note in response. Even then, it did not acknowledge the outbreak.

“As a reminder,” read the letter from the White House Management Office, “if you are experiencing any symptoms … please stay home and do not come to work.” Staff who develop symptoms were advised to “go home immediately” and contact their doctors rather than the White House Medical Unit.

Even when Trump was at the hospital, his staff was not immune to risk.

Trump had aides there recording videos and taking photographs of him. On Sunday evening, he took a surprise drive around the hospital to wave to supporters from the window of an SUV. The Secret Service agents in the car with him were dressed in personal protective equipment.

“Appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of this movement to protect the president and all those supporting it, including PPE,” Deere said.

Trump campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley dismissed media concern about the agents’ safety as “absolutely stupid and foolish.”

“How do they think he’s going to leave? Is someone gonna toss him the keys to a Buick and let him drive home by himself? They’re always around him because that’s their job,” Gidley said on Fox News.

But agents told a very different story.

Several who spoke with The Associated Press expressed concern over the cavalier attitude the White House has taken when it comes to masks and distancing. Colleagues, they said, are angry, but feel there’s little they can do.

One, speaking after White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tested positive on Monday, said it felt like he and some of his colleagues had been spared only by a measure of good luck.

Others noted the difference between facing outside threats they have trained for — a gun, a bomb or a biohazard — and being put at additional risk because of behavior they characterized as reckless at times. The agents spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing their jobs.

The Secret Service has refused to disclose how many of its employees have tested positive or have had to quarantine, citing privacy and security. But in the midst of the election, thousands of agents are on duty and anyone who tests positive can easily be subbed out, officials have said.

Secret Service spokeswoman Julia McMurray said the agency takes “every precaution to keep our protectees, employees and families, and the general public, safe and healthy.”

Trump has joined first lady Melania Trump, who also tested positive, in the residential area of the White House. It is typically served by a staff of roughly 100 people, including housekeepers, cooks, florists, groundskeepers and five or six butlers — who interact most closely with the president, said Kate Andersen Brower, who wrote the “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House.”

During the pandemic, that staff has been reduced to a skeleton crew, with mask-wearing much more prevalent than in the West Wing, where few have worn them regularly.

Brower said she recently spoke with three former employees who expressed concern about the health of current workers, but were too afraid to speak publicly.

“The butlers always feel protective of the first family, but there’s just a concern about whether or not the staff would get sick,” Brower said. Most are older, she said, “because they work from one generation to the next. They are people who have been on the job for 20 to 30 years. They want to work to get their full pensions.”

For months now, cleaning staff have also privately voiced concerns about their safety, including lack of access to testing and inadequate protective gear.

Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokeswoman, said that “all precautions are being taken to ensure the health and safety of the residence staff,” but she declined to be specific.

While the White House has refused to implement new safety procedures — such as making masks mandatory — the building was noticeably emptier Monday, with more staffers now staying home on days when they are not needed on site.

Yesterday morning, there was just a single staff member in the ground floor press office, where two medical staff members administered COVID-19 tests, surrounded by empty desks.”

Trump could have used his coronavirus experience as a wake-up call to the American people to take precautions to avoid contracting this deadly disease. But not our president, he does the exact opposite and provides an example of what not to do.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Over the past two months, I have read three books about Donald Trump:  Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough; Bob Woodward’s Rage; and now Michael Cohen’s Disloyal:  The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.  This may sound like a bit too much Trump, but I found them amazingly consistent in their depictions of Trump’s personality – the deviousness, lying, and brutal treatment of people are in each book.  However, the authors present  three different phases of Trump’s life.  Mary Trump’s book is the President’s early years and family.  Cohen covers his business affairs and election.  And Woodward’s is Trump’s presidency.  I have already given my opinion on the Mary Trump and Bob Woodward books on this blog, here are quick comments about Cohen.

Cohen was Trump’s personal lawyer and “fixer” who got himself entangled in numerous Trump messes including business dealings, sexual escapades, and personal financial maneuvers. Cohen  is adept at manipulating people and the legal system for Trump’s benefit but he really comes across as pathetic driven by power and greed. His would not be such a sad tale except for the fact that his wife and children plead with him to get out of the sliminess of Trump’s orbit.  Unfortunately, Cohen cannot and finds himself dumped by “the Boss” shortly after the election and ends up in prison for his Trump shenanigans.

I read Cohen’s book and feel sorry for him and hope he can get his life back together.

As concluded in a book review in the New York Times (see below):

“Mr. Cohen presents himself as a repentant “bad guy” and says that while readers might conclude that they dislike him, they must be acquainted with seedy, venal characters like himself if they want to understand the world occupied by Mr. Trump.”

Tony

New York Times

In Tell-All Foreword, Cohen Promises Sordid Tales Trump ‘Does Not Want You to Read’

In his memoir, “Disloyal,” Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s onetime lawyer and fixer, claims that he had unique access to Mr. Trump, a man with “no true friends.”

By Annie Karni

Aug. 13, 2020

WASHINGTON — Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s onetime lawyer and fixer, released the foreword of his upcoming jailhouse tell-all on Thursday, posting to his website an introduction in which he promised stories involving the president and everything from “golden showers in a sex club in Vegas, to tax fraud, to deals with corrupt officials from the former Soviet Union.”

In the foreword to his memoir, “Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump,” Mr. Cohen claims that he had unique access to Mr. Trump, a man with “no true friends,” who trusted Mr. Cohen so much that his cellphone contacts were synced with his own.

“I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,” Mr. Cohen writes, claiming he has gained from those experiences a singular understanding of the president.

Mr. Cohen does not explain more in the foreword about his experience with Mr. Trump in Las Vegas, but the book will most likely revive questions about the veracity of an infamous claim in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British spy, about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.

In it, Mr. Steele wrote that Mr. Trump had prostitutes urinate on a bed where President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, once slept, and that the Kremlin had recordings. Mr. Trump has denied the story, and it remains unsubstantiated. James B. Comey, who as F.B.I. director briefed the president about the dossier, has said that “it’s possible, but I don’t know.”

On Twitter, Mr. Cohen said he had “waited a long time to share my truth” as he posted a link to order a signed or an unsigned copy. In the foreword, he promises that “this is a book the president of the United States does not want you to read.”

Indeed, the government tried to stop the publication of Mr. Cohen’s book, according to a federal judge. Much of it was written on yellow legal pads by hand from Otisville Federal Prison.

Last month, a federal judge ruled that the decision to return Mr. Cohen to custody from home confinement amounted to retaliation by the government for his plans to publish the unflattering portrait of Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen had been sent home because of the coronavirus pandemic. The judge ordered him to be released back into home confinement.

The book does not yet have a publication date. Mr. Cohen wrote online that it was “coming soon.” He has not said who his publisher is.

A White House spokesman, Brian Morgentern, dismissed the book as “fan fiction,” and said that Mr. Cohen “readily admits to lying routinely but expects people to believe him now so that he can make money from book sales.”

Mr. Cohen writes in his foreword that “Trump had colluded with the Russians, but not in the sophisticated ways imagined by his detractors.” He claims that “Trump had cheated in the election, with Russian connivance, as you will discover in these pages, because doing anything — and I mean anything — to ‘win’ has always been his business model and way of life.”

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Mr. Cohen presents himself as a repentant “bad guy” and says that while readers might conclude that they dislike him, they must be acquainted with seedy, venal characters like himself if they want to understand the world occupied by Mr. Trump.

“I stiffed contractors on his behalf, ripped off his business partners, lied to his wife Melania to hide his sexual infidelities, and bullied and screamed at anyone who threatened Trump’s path to power,” he writes.

Mr. Cohen says that as a presidential candidate, Mr. Trump “attempted to insinuate himself into the world of President Vladimir Putin and his coterie of corrupt billionaire oligarchs.”

“I know because I personally ran that deal and kept Trump and his children closely informed of all updates,” he adds.

Mr. Cohen claims authority on his subject, noting that “for more than a decade, I was Trump’s first call every morning and his last call every night.”

“I was in and out of Trump’s office on the 26th floor of the Trump Tower as many as 50 times a day, tending to his every demand,” he writes. Mr. Cohen claims that for many people trying to reach the former real estate developer, “when I spoke to them, it was as good as if they were talking directly to Trump.”

Mr. Cohen, 53, pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations and other crimes stemming from a scheme to pay hush money to two women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump before he was president. Mr. Trump has denied the accusations.

Mr. Cohen had been serving a three-year sentence at a minimum-security prison camp in Otisville, N.Y., about 75 miles northwest of New York City.

From prison, he writes, he has watched men like Rudolph W. Giuliani, William P. Barr, Jared Kushner and Mike Pompeo act as “Trump’s new wannabe fixers, sycophants willing to distort the truth and break the law in the service of the boss.” But he says none of them have been able to fill the void left where he once stood. “Trump doesn’t want to hear this, and he will certainly deny it, but he’s lost without his original bulldog lawyer Roy Cohn, or his other former pit bull and personal attorney, Michael Cohen.”

Mr. Cohen’s book is one of several tell-alls from former Trump insiders that are being released before Election Day. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and adviser to the first lady, Melania Trump, is set to publish “Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady” on Sept. 1.

Rick Gates, a former high-level aide on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and a star witness in the Russia investigation, is expected to release a memoir, “Wicked Game,” in October.

Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is releasing a self-published book that is sure to paint a more flattering image of the president. He says he wrote the book, “Liberal Privilege,” in quarantine.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Dear Commons Community,

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, says it’s “very hard to trust or believe” Trump’s medical team right now. In an interview with Jake Tapper yesterday,  Gupta said the rosy picture of President Donald Trump’s health painted by his medical team “doesn’t make sense” in light of what’s known about his battle so far with the COVID-19 coronavirus infection. 

Trump was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday as his condition worsened, including a high fever and a drop in oxygen levels that required supplementation. 

Since then, Gupta said, there’s been “a lot of inconsistencies” coming from Trump and his team, including White House physician Dr. Sean Conley. 

Conley on Sunday admitted Trump’s blood oxygen has dropped below normal twice, and that he needed supplemental oxygen at least once. He is also on at two experimental treatments, but his doctors say he could be released back to the White House on Monday.

Gupta, who is CNN’s chief medical correspondent, questioned that timeline, and pointed to “worrisome” signs about the president’s health.

“I’d have to say that they’re hiding things,” he said, pointing to a long history of Trump and his doctors not being transparent about his health. 

Conley, he said, is “clearly… being told what to say and what not to say and how to present things.” That, Gupta said, makes it “very hard to trust or believe” the info coming from Trump’s medical team. 

Then, Gupta went through a list of questions they should answer. 

“We need to know that status of his lungs,” he said. ”It’s unbelievable to me that we’ve asked that question so many times.” 

He said doctors should release the results of chest x-rays and CT scans, if the president has pneumonia, how much inflammation he has, oxygen levels and what the plan is going forward.

“Interestingly, they said his cardiac, liver and kidney function are normal or improving,” he said. “Well, improving from what? Because you said they were normal yesterday as well, so were they not normal at some point?”

He also questioned the whole timeline of Trump’s diagnosis and treatment.

“This whole story still doesn’t make sense,” he said. “He was diagnosed on Thursday night and had such a quick decline? Not likely.”  

Regardless of whether you are for him or against him, the American people deserve to get the facts about the President’s condition.

Tony

The president, heading for Walter Reed medical center.Credit…Damon Winter/The New York Times

Dear Commons Community,

Maureen Dowd has a column today in the New York Times commenting on President Trump’ contracting coronanvirus describing it as a “moment that feels biblical. ”  She examines the human side of the President at a time that the coronavirus has “come to his door.”

Below is the her entire column. 

Excellent read!

Tony

—————————————————————————

Reality bursts the Trumpworld bubble

By Maureen Dowd

Opinion Columnist

Oct. 3, 2020

WASHINGTON — Fate leads the willing, Seneca said, while the unwilling get dragged.

For his entire life, Donald Trump has stayed one step ahead of disaster, plying his gift for holding reality at bay.

He conjured his own threadbare reality, about success, about virility, about imbroglios with women, even about the height of Trump Tower.

As president, he has created a bubble within his bubble, keeping out science and anything that made him look bad. He has played a dangerous game of alchemizing wishes to facts, pretending that he was a strong leader, pretending that the virus will magically disappear and that it “affects virtually nobody,’’ pretending that we don’t have to wear masks, pretending that dicey remedies could work, pretending that the vaccine is right around the corner.

Now, in a moment that feels biblical, the implacable virus has come to his door.

This was the week when many of the president’s pernicious deceptions boomeranged on him. It was redolent of the “Night on Bald Mountain” scene in “Fantasia,’’ when all the bad spirits come out in a dark swarm.

The man whose father told him there are only killers and zeros, the man who cruelly castigated others as losers, the man who was taught to fear losing above all else, has been doing some very public losing of his own.

Upsetting as it is to see the president and first lady facing a mortal threat — and the glee and memes from some on the left were vulgar — it was undeniable that reality was crashing in on the former reality star.

Remarkable new reporting in The New York Times exposed the hoax of Trump, master businessman. Even as he was beginning to swagger around “The Apprentice” to the tune of “For the Love of Money” by The O’Jays in 2004, he was filing a tax return reporting $89.9 million in net losses. The gilt barely covered the rot.

“The red ink spilled from everywhere, even as American television audiences saw him as a savvy business mogul with the Midas touch,’’ the Times reported, adding: “the show’s big ratings meant that everyone wanted a piece of the Trump brand, and he grabbed at the opportunity to rent it out. There was $500,000 to pitch Double Stuf Oreos, another half-million to sell Domino’s Pizza and $850,000 to push laundry detergent.’’

There were Trump seminars on wealth, and that Midas myth propelled the coarse political neophyte into the White House. But the year Trump won the presidency and his first year as president, he paid only $750 in federal income taxes.

Tuesday’s debate pierced another reality that Trump had been hawking on Fox for months — that his opponent was an addled husk who would need performance drugs to stand at the podium, and that Trump would stride in like a colossus and clobber him in a trice.

Instead, the ugly reality was there for all to see: Trump was truculent, whiny and nasty, and Joe Biden was fine. Trump was indecent, on everything from white supremacists to Hunter Biden’s addiction, and Biden was decent.

And, in the end, the con man in the Oval Office could not con the virus. He was a perverse Pied Piper of contagion, luring crowds to his rallies and events on the White House lawn, even as he mocked the safety measures recommended by his own government, sidelined and undermined Dr. Anthony Fauci, and turned the mask into a symbol of blue-state wimpiness.

“I don’t wear masks like him,’’ Trump sneered about Biden, at the obstreperous Cleveland debate. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask.

“He could be speaking 200 feet away,’’ the president continued, “and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”

Members of the Trump family, sitting in the front row, followed the patriarch’s example. They ditched their masks during the debate, ignoring the requirements that they keep them on.

It seemed inevitable that Trump would get infected, given his insouciance on the issue of protective measures combined with his age, weight and ambitious travel schedule. He seemed oddly intent on tempting fate. Certainly, he put a lot of his fans, especially older ones in the most vulnerable demographic (like Herman Cain, who died of Covid after attending a Trump rally in Tulsa, Okla.), at risk with his dismissiveness about the virus, laxity on testing and tracing, and his insistence on continuing rallies.

Even for Trump, it was an astonishing act of hubris, asking his base to choose between paying homage to him or protecting their own lives.

As Nancy Pelosi told Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC Friday morning, “Going into crowds unmasked and all the rest was sort of a brazen invitation for something like this to happen, sad that it did, but nonetheless, hopeful that it will be a transition to a saner approach to what this virus is all about.”

But now that it has happened, it creates an alarming situation. How will a White House shrouded in secrecy and lies deal with a sick president who specializes in secrecy and lies?

The public never found out what happened that Saturday last year when the president was whisked off to Walter Reed medical center, a visit that was raised again this weekend, as reporters noted that we might not even know all Trump’s underlying conditions.

White House officials tried to be reassuring on Friday, saying that the president’s symptoms were “mild,’’ but it was clear that things could be serious when the White House doctor, Sean Conley, put out a statement in the late afternoon saying that Trump was taking an experimental antibody cocktail.

There was also an eerie silence all day from the president’s usually rambunctious Twitter account. Then, Marine One landed on the South Lawn in the evening to take him to Walter Reed for a few days. At 6:31 p.m., the president tweeted a video saying that Melania was “doing very well” and that he thought he was doing “very well,” but that he was going to hospital to “make sure that things work out.” And at 11:31 p.m., he tweeted: “Going well, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!!”

Democrats tried to be nice. On Friday, the Biden campaign paused their negative ads, and Barack Obama said at a virtual fund-raiser that despite being in a fight “with issues that have a lot at stake,’’ we’re still Americans and “we want to make sure everybody is healthy.” (At the same moment, the Trump campaign issued an attack on “lyin’ Obama.”)

I have long marveled that Donald Trump never seemed to get sick, either during the campaign or in office, and had an extraordinary amount of energy for a man of 74 who binged junk food and skipped the gym. He has been a great advertisement for not smoking and drinking. So it was stunning to see Trump walk out, finally wearing a mask, waving as he took off for Walter Reed, with the election only a month away and the next scheduled presidential debate two weeks from now.

With the West Wing in a panic, and with Republicans feeling the White House and Senate slipping away, the Democrats made moves on two fronts.

Pelosi thought the Republicans might be more amenable to the bigger aid package that she has been pushing, now that Covid had become scarily real to them.

As she pointed out, if the president could get infected — “with all the protection that he has”— think of how vulnerable ordinary people are, “if you’ve lost your job and lost your health care and you’re food insecure and you’re on the verge of eviction.’’ Trump’s diagnosis should be, she said, “a learning experience.”

It also could change the dynamic of Mitch McConnell’s hypocritical push to get Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination crammed through the Senate, because she will have to do more of her meetings with lawmakers virtually. The Democrats now hope to slow down the rush to appoint the conservative judge who, according to news reports this week, signed a newspaper ad in 2006 that called Roe v. Wade “a barbaric legacy” and supported overturning it.

As Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein said in a joint statement, Democrats need to “ensure a full and fair hearing that is not rushed, not truncated and not virtual.”

The pictures from the Rose Garden last Saturday, where President Trump nominated Judge Barrett, scream superspreader. There’s a maskless Trump and maskless Republican lawmakers and a maskless president of the University of Notre Dame and lots of hugs, kisses and handshakes. Mike Lee and Thom Tillis, both Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, were there; on Friday they said they had tested positive for the virus, as did John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, and Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former top aide who was also in the Rose Garden that day. (Judge Barrett, who recovered from the virus this summer, graduated from the law school and became a professor there.) Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager, also tested positive. Three White House reporters have also reported testing positive this past week.

After Britain’s leader, Boris Johnson, had a life-or-death fight with Covid earlier this year, he came out of the hospital a bit more inclined to take scientific advice and more ready to put restrictive measures in place than he had been at the start of the pandemic. He was still torn, though, between his medical advisers and the Tories in his Cabinet, who were deeply opposed to another lockdown because they feared it could shatter the economy.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported that Trump was “spooked” and “alarmed” at having the virus.

It’s impossible to know how — or even whether — this illness will change the president. But hopefully it will change his skeptical followers and make them realize that this vicious microbe really is contagious, that President Trump is not invulnerable and that therefore they are not either, that crowding together at rallies is not smart, that wearing a mask is important, and that it’s not all going to disappear like a miracle.

Chris Christie on September 26th at White House Rose Garden

Dear Commons Community

The latest news indicates that President Trump might have contracted coronavirus at the White House Rose Garden on September 26th when Amy Coney  Barrett, the  nominee for the Supreme Court, was introduced.  Since then, at least eleven members of Trump’s inner circle tested positive this week.  The most recent being former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

And for all of those confirmed cases, countless more may have been infected without willingly putting themselves at risk: people working the events, such as waiters, cleaners, support staff, Secret Service agents, military personnel and others who had little choice in attending. Those people run the risk of affecting their families and communities without the guarantee of medical care that the president, his family and high-ranking lawmakers can expect.

Below are the positive cases among prominent Republicans that are known so far. It can take several days after exposure for a person to test positive for the virus, and some do not show symptoms for up to two weeks. 

Tony

—————————————————

President Donald Trump

Trump is currently receiving treatment for COVID-19 symptoms at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. He tweeted an update on his condition Saturday: “Going welI, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!!”

White House physician Sean Conley said late Friday that Trump has not required supplemental oxygen and is doing well after receiving his first dose of Remdesivir, a drug approved to treat COVID-19 symptoms.

It remains unclear precisely how the president picked up the virus, but he seldom wore a mask before his diagnosis.

He traveled to several cities before and after the Rose Garden event, participated in several events including three rallies and was reportedly in enclosed rooms with other maskless individuals as he prepared for his debate with Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden. (Biden and his wife have tested negative.)

First Lady Melania Trump 

The first lady attended Barrett’s nomination in the Rose Garden, where she was seen sitting near the judge’s family. (Barrett herself had the virus earlier in the year and recovered.)

“Thank you for the love you are sending our way,” she said in a tweet. “I have mild symptoms but overall feeling good. I am looking forward to a speedy recovery.”

White House Adviser Hope Hicks 

Hicks traveled with the president several times in the days leading up to her diagnosis, including a Wednesday trip aboard Air Force One to Minnesota, where Trump held a campaign rally. Hicks began exhibiting symptoms before the rally, The New York Times reported, and she was then isolated on the return flight and exited out the back of the plane.

She did not attend the Rose Garden event.

Former White House Adviser Kellyanne Conway

Conway reportedly spent hours cooped up with Trump and other staffers in preparation for the debate, without masks. She also attended Barrett’s nomination event. She revealed her diagnosis late Friday.

Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepien

Stepien was diagnosed Friday and is experiencing “mild flu-like symptoms,” according to Politico.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)

Lee attended the Rose Garden event, where he was seen talking to and hugging other attendees without a mask.

He announced his positive diagnosis Friday. Lee said he began feeling symptoms Thursday morning, around the time he attended a 90-minute Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, where he could have infected colleagues. He was seen without a mask at least part of the time.

The Rev. John Jenkins 

Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame ― where Barrett attended law school ― was seen at her Supreme Court nomination event without a mask. He tested positive Friday.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) 

Tillis attended the Rose Garden event and was seen in a mask during the main announcement, although prominent Republicans were seen indoors with Barrett afterward. He tested positive Friday.

GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel

McDaniel received her diagnosis Wednesday and announced Friday that she tested positive. She last saw the president in person on Sept. 25, according to The New York Times.

The chairwoman was tested after “a member of her family” tested positive, a spokesman said in a statement, noting that McDaniel “has been at her home in Michigan” since Saturday, Sept. 26.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.)

Johnson announced his diagnosis Saturday. He quarantined for two weeks after coming into contact with someone earlier in the month who had the virus.

He only returned to Washington on Tuesday, when he was “exposed to an individual who has since tested positive,” his office said. The individual was not named.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie

Christie, a frequent contact of the president’s, announced Saturday that he “just received word” of his positive diagnosis.

White House Aide Nicholas Luna 

Luna, one of the president’s “body men,” has tested positive, according to multiple reports.

Dear Commons Community,

The US economy saw another 661,000 jobs added back in September and a modest improvement in the unemployment rate, as the recovery in the labor market continues at a stagnating rate.

The Labor Department released its September jobs report Friday morning. Here were the main metrics from the release, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

• Change in non-farm payrolls: 661,000 vs. +859,000 expected
• Unemployment rate: 7.9% vs. 8.2% expected
• Average hourly earnings, month over month: 0.1% vs. 0.2% expected
• Average hourly earnings, year over year: 4.7% vs. 4.8% expected
• Labor force participation rate: 61.4% vs. 62.0% expected

The addition in non-farm payrolls marked the fifth straight month of net job gains. Still, the economy remains far from recuperating the jobs lost during the nadir of the pandemic period in March and April. Between those two months, employment fell by more than 22 million. Through August, just 10.6 million jobs were brought back.

Even as the US economy brings back some workers, an increasing number of Americans have found their layoffs to be permanent. Fewer than half of unemployed workers reported being on temporary layoff or furlough in August, representing a major slide from the near-80% in the category in April. The number of permanent job losers in August rose by 534,000 to 3.4 million, with this measure having increased by 2.1 million since February.

Other labor market indicators ahead of Friday’s report offered a similar take on the state of the labor market in September – that jobs are still coming back on net but at a slowing rate, and with an undercurrent of layoffs and job cuts still taking place.

ADP’s monthly report on private payrolls, while an imprecise indicator of the Labor Department’s report, showed 749,000 jobs added back in September, for a print better-than-expected but still a step down from the multi-millions of job gains reported in May and June. New weekly jobless claims in mid-September —around the time that the Labor Department’s monthly non-farm payrolls survey takes place — fell below 1 million in a sharp improvement from the millions of claims added per week in the spring.

But job cuts have still remained elevated. The Challenger Job Report out Thursday showed that job cuts announced by US employers were 186% higher in September this year than last year, and also accelerated slightly from August.

Policymakers have stressed that the slowing labor market recovery suggests more must be done out of Washington to provide support to those impacted by the pandemic and efforts meant to contain it. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in testimony before Congress earlier this month that the path ahead remains “highly uncertain,” and will “depend on keeping the virus under control, and on policy actions taken at all levels of government.”

Still, congressional lawmakers continue to struggle to reach a near-term agreement to unleash more fiscal stimulus into the economy. The lapse in enhanced federal unemployment insurance benefits in late July has chipped away at consumers’ spending power, threatening to slow further the economic recovery that began as business activity stirred back to life after closures. Other lapses have had a more direct impact on the labor market: The phase-out this week of federal aid aimed at keeping workers on payrolls has already led airlines to move ahead with tens of thousands of job cuts, based on announcements this week.

For the overall economy, these unemployment numbers are “highly uncertain” at best and troubling at worst.

Tony

President Trump leaving the White House on Friday for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Dear Commons Community,

President Trump was hospitalized last night  experiencing what aides called coughing, congestion and fever due to coronavirus.  His hospitalization throws the nation’s leadership into uncertainty and destabilizes his presidential campaign only 32 days before the election.

As reported by The New York Times, no one could say for sure when the president was infected, but the White House medical unit was focused on his ceremony in the Rose Garden last Saturday where he announced his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court, an event where many officials and guests mingled without masks and without keeping distance.

Several guests and reporters who were present or traveled with the president on Air Force One later that evening tested positive on Friday, including Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both Republicans; the Rev. John I. Jenkins, the president of University of Notre Dame; Kellyanne Conway, the president’s former counselor; and Michael D. Shear, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.

Dr. Sean P. Conley, the president’s physician, said in a statement that Mr. Trump, while still at the White House, received a single 8-gram dose of polyclonal antibody cocktail while also taking zinc, vitamin D, melatonin, aspirin and famotidine, a heartburn medicine. But Walter Reed has equipment that would allow better monitoring of his condition and a quick response if he has trouble breathing or experiences other symptoms.

Hours later, shortly before midnight, Dr. Conley said in a new statement that Mr. Trump was “doing very well” and “not requiring any supplemental oxygen,” but was put on remdesivir, an antiviral drug that has hastened the recovery of some coronavirus patients…

…Dr. David A. Nace, a geriatrics expert and the director of medical affairs at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s network of 35 nursing facilities, said in an interview yesterday that people who do not wear masks are exposed to higher concentrations of the virus, which can worsen the course of the disease.

Dear Commons Community,

The Associated Press reported a little while ago that President Donald Trump will spend a “few days” at a military hospital after contracting COVID-19. Trump “remains fatigued,” his doctor said.

Trump departed the White House by helicopter for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The White House said the visit was precautionary and that he would work from the hospital’s presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to continue his official duties.

“President Trump remains in good spirts, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day,” said press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the president will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days.”

Earlier today the White House said Trump had been injected with an experimental antibody cocktail by the White House physician.

Just a month before the presidential election, Trump’s revelation that he was positive for the virus came by tweet about 1 a.m. after he had returned from an afternoon political fundraiser. He had gone ahead, saying nothing to the crowd though knowing he had been exposed to an aide with the disease that has infected millions in America and killed more than a million people worldwide.

First lady Melania Trump also tested positive, the president said, and several others in the White House have, too, prompting concern that the White House or even Trump himself might have spread the virus further.

Trump has spent much of the year downplaying the threat of the virus, rarely wearing a protective mask and urging states and cities to “reopen” and reduce or eliminate shutdown rules.

The president’s physician said in a memo that Trump received a dose of an experimental antibody cocktail by Regeneron that is in clinical trials. Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley said Trump “remains fatigued but in good spirits” and that a team of experts was evaluating both the president and first lady in regard to next steps.

The first lady, who is 50, has a “mild cough and headache,” Conley reported, and the remainder of the first family, including the Trumps’ son Barron, who lives at the White House, tested negative.

Both Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris have tested negative, their campaign said. Vice President Mike Pence tested negative for the virus Friday morning and “remains in good health,” his spokesman said.

Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was with him and many others on Saturday and has been on Capitol Hill meeting with lawmakers, also tested negative, the White House said.

Trump’s diagnosis was sure to have a destabilizing effect in Washington and around the world, raising questions about how far the virus has spread through the highest levels of the U.S. government. Hours before Trump announced he had contracted the virus, the White House said a top aide who had traveled with him during the week had tested positive.

Tony