Trump’s Pick for Intelligence Chief Tried to Assert His Independence. It Didn’t Always Go Well.
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) defended President Trump fiercely during the impeachment inquiry. Now he is Trump’s nominee to be director of national intelligence.Drew Angerer/Getty For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) might be President Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s intelligence agencies, but that doesn’t…
Newer, More Infectious Strain of Coronavirus Has Taken Over the World
This is a little down in the weeds, but you might not have heard about it before. A new mutation of the coronavirus appeared in Europe back in February and has quickly become the dominant strain nearly everywhere in the world. Here are the official—but incomprehensible—pretty charts from the paper describing the new strain: Wait.…
Coronavirus Growth in Western Countries: May 4 Update
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In Late-Night Tirade, Trump Explodes at New Ad From Anti-Trump Conservatives
Erin Schaff/ZUMA For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.In a Twitter tirade shortly after midnight on Tuesday, Donald Trump lashed out a conservative super PAC that opposes his reelection bid after the group released an ad accusing the president of gravely mishandling the coronavirus crisis. “There’s mourning in…
Lying With Statistics, COVID-19 Edition
For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.After this morning’s leak of the CDC projection of COVID-19 deaths, the White House pushed back and said it would continue to use its own internal modeling: A senior White House official said the document would not change the White House planning…
More About That FEMA/CDC Report
Now that I’ve had some time to breathe, let’s take another look at that FEMA/CDC chart that was leaked earlier today: There are two things that jump out at me: The model (red line) has been consistently conservative. The actual death toll (blue dots) has been 3-4x higher. The red line isn’t merely a trendline…