Sen. Richard Burr, suspected of insider trading based on coronavirus briefings he got as head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had his cell phone seized today:

Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, turned over his phone to agents after they served a search warrant on the lawmaker at his residence in the Washington area, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a law enforcement action.

….To obtain a search warrant, federal agents and prosecutors must persuade a judge they have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. The law enforcement official said the Justice Department is examining Burr’s communications with his broker. Such a warrant being served on a sitting U.S. senator would require approval from the highest ranks of the Justice Department and is a step that would not be taken lightly.

It is a sign of the times that this has prompted a surprising amount of suspicion:

A lot more is needed to develop the record, but I do think this is a moment to be seriously on guard for DOJ being used to carry out political retribution. Serving a warrant on a senator is a very significant and rapid escalation and Trump has long had an axe to grind with Burr. https://t.co/mGravZJyoq

— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) May 14, 2020

Stay tuned.

This is a valley lupine—or at least, that’s what we call it around here. There are lots of kinds of lupines, and I gather that they have different common names in different places. They’re also a little hard to distinguish for an amateur like me. But I’m pretty sure that if you’re in Southern California, a valley lupine is indeed what this is.

Via the New York Times, here is yet another map based on cell phone data that shows where people are still sheltering in place and where they aren’t:

Unsurprisingly, Michigan is ground zero for the “go to hell” crowd, with the Mountain West not too far behind. The Pacific Coast and the Southwest are continuing to take COVID-19 seriously, as is an unusual block of states from Kentucky to South Carolina.

Will the darker areas see a resurgence of COVID-19 more quickly than other areas? Maybe, though I’m not sure things will map out quite that cleanly. In the meantime, stay safe no matter where you live.

Here’s the coronavirus death toll through May 12.

So is the “Swedish model” working? If the numbers from their Public Health Agency are accurate, it seems like it is. It’s true that they peaked at a fairly high death rate, but no higher than a lot of other countries. And now they seem to be dropping like a stone. If they keep this up, they’ll be close to zero new deaths within a week or two.

The real test, of course, is how they do over the next few months. Can their “light touch lockdown” be kept in place for the long term, thus preventing any huge new outbreaks? Do they have test-and-trace ready to go once the daily death toll is low enough to make it feasible? Come back in September or so and I’ll let you know.

The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here. The Public Health Agency of Sweden is here.

Stefani Reynolds/CNP via ZUMA

The Fed chairman says we need to keep spending money. Lots of money:

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Congress and the White House will need to spend more money to make sure policy makers’ quick initial response to the coronavirus-induced economic contraction isn’t wasted amid evidence that any recovery will take longer than first thought.

….Congress has spent nearly $2.9 trillion so far to support households, businesses, health-care providers and state and local governments, or around 14% of national economic output, the “fastest and largest response for any postwar downturn,” said Mr. Powell. But he said despite the appropriate size and speed, “it may not be the final chapter, given that the path ahead is both highly uncertain and subject to significant downside risks.”

“Additional fiscal support could be costly but worth it if it helps avoid long-term economic damage and leaves us with a stronger recovery,” said Mr. Powell.

There’s only so much that monetary policy can do to address a recession, and the Fed itself is probably out of ammunition. What’s left is fiscal policy. The $2.9 trillion already allocated might have been enough if our response to the coronavirus had been strong, but it was just the opposite. We are about to go through a second outbreak, and the price for that is—at least—another $3 trillion.

This is something Republicans brought on themselves and now it’s time to pay up instead of whining about deficits.

Oliver Contreras/CNP via ZUMA

From the Washington Post:

Since writing “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY” at 8:10 a.m. on Sunday, Trump has used his Twitter account to make or elevate allegations of criminal conduct against no less than 20 individuals and organizations….The list of purported culprits Trump has charged include two television news hosts, a comedian, at least five former officials from the FBI and Justice Department, the state of California, a broadcast television station and at least five top national security officials from President Barack Obama’s administration.

….Since taking office, Trump has casually accused multiple people of treason, ranging from former FBI director James B. Comey to the American media. He has regularly accused people of perjury or mishandling classified information, usually without evidence. He has said former secretary of state John F. Kerry “should be prosecuted” for an alleged violation of the Logan Act, a rarely invoked law preventing private citizens from conducting diplomacy on behalf of the U.S. government, due to his interactions with Iranian officials. Kerry has called Trump’s allegation “another presidential lie.”

….Trump has tweeted that top officials in the Obama administration perpetuated the “the biggest political crime in American history, by far!” He has retweeted posts calling for a wide range of people to be “handcuffed and prosecuted,” “indited,” put “in prison” and left “sitting in a cell.”

This man is the leader of the Republican Party. That’s a choice the party has made, not an inevitable fact of life. They could do something about this if they had the guts to do it. But they don’t.

As expected, COVID-19 has moved out of Asia, North America, and Europe. The New York Times reports that Latin America is now experiencing a surge of coronavirus deaths similar to the early days of the outbreak in Europe but without the money and infrastructure Europe brought to bear against the virus. Official figures are iffy, but here they are anyway:

Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, and Mexico are high and climbing. All four look to be especially hard hit. The other countries look okay for the moment, but that’s likely to change over time. The Times describes the carnage:

Deaths doubled in Lima, rivaling the worst month of the pandemic in Paris. They tripled in Manaus, a metropolis tucked deep in Brazil’s Amazon — a surge similar to what London and Madrid endured. In Guayaquil, a port city in Ecuador, the sudden spike in fatalities in April was comparable to what New York City experienced during its worst month: more than five times the number of people died than in previous years.

….Brazilian cities are resorting to mass graves to bury rows of stacked coffins. Hundreds of Ecuadoreans are still searching for the bodies of family members who went to hospitals and never returned….Peruvian highways swelled with the biggest wave of internal migration in years as people fled to the countryside when jobs disappeared. Tens of thousands of Venezuelan refugees have been forced to walk back to their destroyed homeland because work in neighboring countries has become so scarce.

….Facing the pandemic in the wake of China, Europe and the United States brought an additional set of challenges. Exhausted local officials in Ecuador, Peru and Brazil pointed to global test shortages and explained they were being outbid by richer nations on scarce medical supplies.

This is a disaster that will likely make Europe and the United States look like pipsqueaks. And thanks to the COVID-19 outbreaks consuming everyone’s attention elsewhere, virtually no aid is flowing in to help out. Just the opposite, in fact.

Here’s another picture in my series of slot canyon photos. As before, this is a picture from Slot Canyon X near Page, Arizona.

Nancy Pelosi wearing one of her many color-coordinated mask/scarf outfits.Michael Brochstein/ZUMA

I get that there are different factions among the progressive movement and some are more progressive than others. That’s obvious. But my Twitter feed for the past couple of days has been full of true-blue progressives convinced that Nancy Pelosi is nothing more than a neoliberal shill who will cave in to Republican wishes this week and introduce only a weak, watered-down stimulus bill. Nancy Pelosi! A neoliberal shill! But then again, the same thing happened to Paul Ryan when he became Speaker of the House. It took only a few seconds for him to go from Mr. Conservative to a sellout.

Anyway, today this happened:

House Democrats unveiled a coronavirus rescue bill Tuesday that would direct more than $3 trillion for state and local governments, health systems, a second round of stimulus checks, and a range of other priorities.

Republicans rejected the legislation even before they saw it, describing it as a liberal wish list that would go nowhere in the Republican-led Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he was at work on crafting liability protections for businesses instead.

The massive new Democratic bill was assembled by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her top lieutenants without input from Republicans or the Trump administration. It’s less an opening bid in a bipartisan negotiation than an expression of House Democrats’ priorities that they hope will resonate with the public as the nation suffers through the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression.

So . . . is $3 trillion enough? I mean, it’s true that Pelosi isn’t demanding Medicare for All and the nationalization of all banks as part of her bill, but $3 trillion is a pretty sizeable chunk of change, even for the federal government. So what would it do?

The 1,800-page legislation, which the House is expected to vote on Friday, would devote nearly $1 trillion to state, local, territorial and tribal governments and establish a $200 billion “Heroes Fund” to extend hazard pay to essential workers. It would also send a second – and larger – round of direct payments to individual Americans, up to $6,000 per household. Other parts of the bill would increase nutrition assistance benefits by 15 percent and provide $175 billion in housing assistance, among other things. A $600 weekly increase in unemployment insurance would be extended through January, and the bill directs another $75 billion for coronavirus testing and contact tracing.

That seems like a lot. But I suppose there’s some kind of means testing somewhere that’s helpful for gaining public support but might make things 2 percent more complicated, and that means that NANCY PELOSI IS A NEOLIBERAL SHILL!

Whenever I suggest that liberals should be less snarky toward conservative-leaning voters—as I did yesterday—I always get at least a few responses along these lines: Are you kidding? Have you seen these lunatics? They aren’t going to change their minds because we ask them nicely.

Sure. But the mistake here is watching TV and assuming that the tiny, lunatic crowds represent ordinary conservative voters. They don’t. They represent some of them, but probably not even a majority. The rest are up for grabs if we don’t lose them out of the gate by endlessly mocking them. Here’s a recent poll that backs this up:

This is solely a survey of people who have been laid off from their jobs, so it includes those who are suffering the most from lockdowns. This is as much Trump’s base as the Democratic base, but even so only about 40 percent approve of Trump’s performance. What’s more, only 13 percent think we should lift lockdown restrictions faster, and only 19 percent say we should open up the economy even if it means more people would get the coronavirus. The lunatics, it turns out, speak for only a very small portion of the country.

As you’d expect, the crosstabs show higher support for Trump among Republicans than Democrats. But even among Republicans, only 31 percent think lockdown restrictions should be lifted more quickly, and only half think we should open up the economy even if it means more people would get the coronavirus. Regardless of their support for Trump, it’s obvious that there’s a big chunk of Republicans who don’t agree with his lackadaisical attitude. And you know what? There are going to be even fewer by the end of the month when the infection numbers start to go up again.

At that point, of course, I imagine that Trump will try to blame it all on state governors. What else does he have left in his bag of tricks? But eventually even his fans are going to stop buying it.