DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: “Students at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts want some of their tuition money back because they say virtual classes aren’t what they paid for — but instead of addressing the situation, the school’s dean sent them a video of herself dancing to REM’s ‘Losing My Religion.’”

WALTER DURANTY, CALL YOUR OFFICE: New York Times Goes Into Full Chinese Propaganda Mode As U.S. Coronavirus Cases Exceed 80,000.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Kevin McCarthy: ‘History Will Not Be Kind’ to Pelosi’s Coronavirus Shenanigans While Millions Lost Jobs.

QUARANTINED JOURNALIST REALLY STARTING TO ANNOY FAMILY BY CALLING THEM RACISTS ALL DAY.

From (where else?) America’s Newspaper of Record.

Earlier: WaPo journalist doxxes Twitter user with 395 followers for doubleunplusgood crimethink.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Political Media Are Failing America: Their ineptitude, bias, childishness, and outright stupidity have become a genuine danger to the health of the republic.

BLUE ON BLUE: Joe Biden’s description of two gay dads is dripping in homophobic tropes.

IF TRUMP SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THIS, IT’S BECAUSE HE HATES PEOPLE AND WANTS THEM TO DIE. But now that Andrew Cuomo’s saying it: Cuomo wonders if coronavirus quarantine may have backfired in some cases.

“We closed everything down. That was our public health strategy,” said Cuomo during an Albany press briefing. “If you re-thought that or had time to analyze that public health strategy, I don’t know that you would say ‘Quarantine everyone.’”

It’s the third day in a row that Cuomo has publicly mused about quarantines and how best to eventually restart the Empire State’s shattered economy.

We’ll be told that this is proof that Cuomo cares about people, and the things the press said about Trump will be memory-holed, at least until Trump says something similar, in which case the Cuomo remarks will be ignored. Because #journalism.

I mean, just watch the reaction to this: Trump Administration to Issue Guidelines for Classifying U.S. Counties by Coronavirus Risk: Criteria designed to help local officials decide whether to increase or relax social-distancing rules.

MAKE ‘EM PAY: University of Michigan officials can be held personally liable for violating accused student’s rights: judge.

BIBI’S BACK: Deal reached for Netanyahu to serve as Prime Minister in new unity government.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY TAKES JOE SCARBOROUGH (AND OTHER ‘JOURNALISTS’) APART: This is like the unstoppable meeting the unmovable (or at least he thought he was until Mollie showed up).

NO, THE ‘DEPLORABLES’ RELIGION IS NOT AT WAR WITH SCIENCE: It’s a common accusation from liberals, secular and otherwise, against conservative evangelicals, especially those in the South, that they “are opposed to science.” It’s not true now and in fact, as historian Michael Keas demonstrates, it wasn’t true at the outset of the Scientific Revolution.

DAVID LAT UPDATE: ‘Mild Improvements’ for David Lat, but Prognosis Still Uncertain. There’s no timeline for expected improvement, because there’s not enough experience yet.

CHINA SYNDROME: China Supplied Faulty Coronavirus Test Kits to Spain, Czech Republic.

In the immortal words of that Hong Kong protester: Don’t trust China, China is asshole.

I’M OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER WHEN HE WAS LITERALLY HITLER: Trump Is an Authoritarian Weakman. “Coronavirus would be the perfect opportunity for an autocrat. Trump isn’t taking it.”

Are you kidding me with this, John F. Harris?

The notion of Trump as authoritarian strongman, however, has been cast in an odd light in this pandemic. Would-be tyrants use crisis to consolidate power. Trump, by contrast, has been pilloried from many quarters, including many liberals, for not asserting authority and responsibility more forcefully to combat Covid-19. Rather than seizing on a genuine emergency, Trump was slow to issue an emergency declaration, moved gingerly in employing the Defense Production Act to help overburdened local health systems, and even now seems eager to emphasize that many subjects—closure of schools and businesses, obtaining sufficient ventilators—are primarily problems for state governors to deal with.

Trump’s apparent personal affinity with Putin, and other dictators, has caused foes to conclude that he has an aesthetic attraction to leaders who don’t let procedural niceties of democracy or law get in their way. But he has shown passivity in what by all rights would be a dream scenario for an authoritarian strongman.

Perhaps the way to think of Trump is as an authoritarian weakman.

I guess the argument here is that we’ve been cursed with a dictator who won’t dictate.

Our chattering class has collectively lost its damn minds.

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POSSIBLY THE FIRST USEFUL THING THE SEIU HAS EVER DONE: Union Locates 39 Million N95 Masks for Healthcare Workers, Local Governments.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Beer Blog Fridays Until the Plague Is Over. “We need a respite from this real problem, and I am glad that I have the skills to provide that.”

JAMES LILEKS: Sick Burn from a Blue Check.

OUCH:

LIFE UNDER BAD LEADERSHIP: Michigan’s doctors fight coronavirus, and governor’s office.

Though here in Tennessee the state health department sent out a rather odd letter to providers, telling them that the hydroxychloroquine/Z-pak treatment was unproven and that they shouldn’t use it, and also that they shouldn’t hoard hydroxychloroquine and Z-paks because they were needed by patients and providers.

THAT’S BECAUSE HE’S DOING A GOOD JOB, AND NO AMOUNT OF MEDIA GASLIGHTING CAN HIDE THE FACT: A lot of Americans like Trump’s handling of crisis.

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