A Video

America still has friends - and they want us to get this fuckin' thing done.

Boris Hiestand (@BorisHiestand):

Thank you to everyone out there helping us keep the faith - whether it's by holding our hands as we fret - or our heads as we puke - or by poking us with a stick to make sure we stay awake and moving.

We're workin' on it, guys. I promise.

COVID-19 Update

USA

• New Cases:   60,558  (⬆︎ 0.77%)
• New Deaths:       910  (⬆︎ 0.42%)

And here comes the bad news because of a 2nd wave.

NYT:

Europe’s Economic Recovery Is a Summer Memory

As the coronavirus resumes spreading rapidly across the continent, hopes for an economic revival have given way to diminished expectations.

LONDON — What faint hopes remained that Europe was recovering from the economic catastrophe delivered by the pandemic have disappeared as the lethal virus has resumed spreading rapidly across much of the continent.

After sharply expanding in the early part of the summer, Britain’s economy grew far less than anticipated in August — just 2.1 percent compared with July, the government reported on Friday, adding to worries that further weakness lies ahead.

Earlier in the week, France, Europe’s second-largest economy, downgraded its forecast for the pace of expansion for the last three months of the year from an already minimal 1 percent to zero. Over all, the national statistics agency predicted the economy would contract by 9 percent this year.

The diminished expectations are a direct outgrowth of alarm over the revival of the virus. France reported nearly 19,000 new cases on Wednesday — a one-day record, and almost double the number the day before. The surge prompted President Emmanuel Macron to announce new restrictions, including a two-month shutdown of cafes and bars in Paris and surrounding areas.

In Spain, the central bank governor warned this week that the accelerating spread of the virus could force the government to impose restrictions that would produce an economic contraction of as much as 12.6 percent this year.

The European Central Bank’s chief economist cautioned on Tuesday that the 19 countries that share the euro currency might not recover from the disaster until 2022, with those that are dependent on tourism especially vulnerable.

Summer increasingly feels like a long time ago.

The piece goes on glumly counting the ways Europe is looking forward to more economic trouble, which bodes ill for us as we bungle our way thru this mess as well.

But there's a kind of left-handed good news here. Because the pandemic has forced us into creating an artificial downturn (kinda like putting a COVID patient into an induced coma), there's a built-in (and potentially explosive) recovery waiting for us on the other side.

Today's Today

I managed to miss my own blogaversary last month, so Happy Blogaversary To Me.

I may feel more like celebrating some time down the road, but a kind of grim determination has set in, and for the most part, I expect to remain in semi-permanent Fuck-Those-Fucking-Fascist-Republican-Fucks Mode for a while.

So anyway, thanks for dropping by - I hope you're all well - and I have to believe that if we all just keep chopping wood and carrying water, we'll get thru this OK.

09-10-2009

SHIT CAN'T LAST FOREVER THOUGH, RIGHT?

RIGHT?

The Church Of Randy

PennLive via Tribune News Service (NY Daily News):

Priest had threesome on Louisiana church altar, police say

What vow of celibacy?

A Louisiana priest had sex with two women on the altar of his church, police said.

The Rev. Travis Clark, 37, was removed from the priesthood last week, but the New Orleans Archdiocese left out the details of his “obscenity of women,” local CBS affiliate WWL reported. Police, however, had no such reservations.

Cops said a passerby filmed Clark half-naked with two women and several sex toys on the altar of Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church on Sept. 30, according to WWL. The passerby sent the video to police, who arrived and arrested Clark along with two women, Melissa Cheng, 23, and Mindy Dixon, 41.

Investigators said the church sex was being recorded on a mobile phone, NOLA.com reported. Dixon is reportedly an adult film star who works for hire as a dominatrix. She wrote on social media about heading to New Orleans to “defile a house of God.”

Police did not say if the three had left room for Jesus.

Clark, Cheng and Dixon were charged with having sex in a public place — namely the altar, according to WWL. They’ve all posted bail and are no longer detained.

In Roman Catholic tradition, the altar is among the most sacred of church spaces. According to church law, known as canon law, when sacred places are violated they must be “repaired by penitential rite” before they can be used again in the Mass.

Days after Clark’s arrest, Archbishop Gregory Aymond went to Sts. Peter and Paul and performed a ritual to restore the altar’s sanctity, the Times-Picayune reported.

Clark was ordained in 2013 and became the priest at Sts. Peter and Paul in Pearl River, La., across Lake Pontchartrain from downtown New Orleans, in 2019, WWL reported.

He had recently taken over as chaplain at a local high school after the previous chaplain was accused of sexually abusing a minor.

This brings to mind one of the main reasons you can't trust Christians.

Let's assume the offending priest is to be held to account. Who's to judge him, other than god?

Assuming he can and does demonstrate his contrition, which fallible humans get to determine that he's contrite enough to warrant forgiveness according to church canon?

I'm pretty sure the church hierarchy is supposed to be able to deal with this shit, but when I look at the problems they've had with pederasty, how do I not see a system with a giant gaping loophole that let's anybody off the hook as long as his act is convincing?

As pious as some of these guys may well be, they can't know for sure, because they can't see into this guy's heart, because they ain't god for fuck sake.

COVID-19 Update

USA

• New Cases:   56,652  (⬆︎ 0.7%)
• New Deaths:       957  (⬆︎ 0.4%)

WaPo:

A week into a White House outbreak, CDC still playing only a limited role

President Trump and at least 34 White House staff members and other contacts have tested positive for the virus

A week after a cluster of coronavirus cases emerged following a White House event, the Trump administration is now working on a limited basis with the federal government’s elite cadre of disease detectives to control further spread.

Two epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are assisting the White House in tracking down people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus, CDC spokesman Jason McDonald said Thursday. One epidemiologist has been detailed to the White House since March and the second arrived recently.

President Trump and at least 34 White House staff members and other contacts have tested positive for the virus, according to Wednesday’s senior leadership brief on the covid-19 response prepared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some of those people are suspected of having become infected at White House and Republican National Committee events.

The White House by Tuesday completed contact tracing related to the president’s infection and cases involving several other people, a senior White House official said, raising concerns among infectious-disease experts about whether a thorough investigation could be completed so quickly. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said anyone meeting the CDC’s definition of “close contact” with someone who tested positive had been notified and given health recommendations.

It remains unclear when the White House began contact tracing. If the effort did not begin right away, or go far back enough, infections may have been missed, experts said.

If the White House had started immediately, “then early control could have held back numbers of infections and further need for ongoing tracking,” said Jeanne Marrazzo, an infectious-diseases expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Several White House staffers and administration officials expressed anger and bewilderment that the White House had not undertaken a more robust contact-tracing effort sooner. They said many people — including White House residence staff who do not have the stature of a lawmaker or a top political aide — had not been contacted despite possible exposures, putting them and others at risk in a still-growing outbreak. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The CDC began offering help last Friday, after President Trump announced he had tested positive, only to be repeatedly spurned, according to a CDC official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. On Wednesday, an arrangement was made for “some limited CDC involvement,” the official said.

White House officials rejected the assertion they have turned down help, pointing to the CDC epidemiologist already detailed to the White House Medical Unit. That epidemiologist is leading the White House investigation and has been in communication with agency officials, according to a senior White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

White House officials said they have completed their investigation of the Rose Garden event celebrating the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett that was attended by nearly 200 people, based on photos.

The White House Medical Unit, with a staff of more than 50, has been in touch with the D.C. Department of Health and mayor’s office to report confirmed cases, the official added.

“Any positive case is taken very seriously, which is why the White House Medical Unit leads a robust contact-tracing program with CDC personnel and guidance to stop ongoing transmission,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said.

White House officials said their investigation is unlikely to find the outbreak’s source.

“There were a number of guests who have been at the White House who maybe tested negative, but then later tested positive,” White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern told reporters Wednesday. “So, it’s sort of an unknowable question as to where it entered the environment. But where do we go from here is trying to mitigate further transmission.”

Public health experts said the White House’s characterization of an “unknowable” outbreak source shows a flawed understanding of disease detection.

“Saying it’s unknowable is like saying about a murder, we won’t investigate because we might not crack the case,” said Tom Frieden, CDC director during the Obama administration. “Of course, it’s possible to figure out where and how virus spreads, especially with genetic analyses.”

Proper contact tracing is labor-intensive. Detectives must track down anyone who interacted with a confirmed case and ensure they are rapidly tested, and that anyone who is infected or exposed can safely isolate or quarantine.

Investigators would draw up a list of all known positive cases and determine when they were infectious, generally 48 hours before their first symptoms. Then they track their movements, including where they went for lunch and any hallway encounters.

“If you’re person A working in the White House, and now a dozen people who walked into the White House have become infected, did you come into contact with any of them?” the CDC official said.

Then everyone who works there has to be interviewed. If they were within six feet and had contact for more than 15 minutes with someone who tested positive, CDC recommends quarantining for 14 days.

“This is a gigantic contact investigation,” the official said. “We are talking about dozens and dozens of people, given all the events, and all the places.”

Without significant CDC involvement, public health experts said it is unlikely all those who may have become infected will be identified, putting more people at risk and making it more difficult to stem transmission.

“What’s complicated here is there was flagrant flouting of basic public health and medical guidance,” Marrazzo said, referring to the lack of mask-wearing and social distancing at the Sept. 26 Rose Garden event.

“This involves the highest levels of government,” Marrazzo said. “If you were in charge, wouldn’t you want to go back and figure out what really happened?”

The investigation of the White House outbreak could offer important lessons, said Richard Besser, president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and acting CDC director during the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

“This could be the moment that turns the pandemic around,” Besser said.

The CDC intervenes only if requested by a federal agency or state.

“The idea that we would tell the White House ‘we’re investigating you’ is just not in the cards,” Frieden, the former CDC chief, said.

The agency offered assistance to eight health departments conducting contact tracing in connection with White House or Republican National Committee events. Some still do not have all the information they need. New Jersey requested help, and the CDC has completed technical assistance. Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, the District and New York City declined help.

On Thursday, the D.C. Department of Health released a letter — signed by nine other local health departments — urging testing for anyone who worked in the White House in the past two weeks, attended the Rose Garden event or had contact with those people.

“Given the growing numbers of positive COVID cases reported from staff working in and near the White House, people who attended the event hosted by the White House on Saturday, September 26, 2020, and our preliminary understanding that there has been limited contact tracing performed to date, there may be other staff and residents at risk for exposure to COVID positive individuals,” the letter states.

The RNC gave New Jersey officials a list of 206 people who attended a Trump fundraiser at the president’s Bedminster golf club last week but included only email addresses, worrying officials who feared that might not be sufficient to undertake a proper contact-tracing effort.

The state health department has done initial outreach to those who attended the fundraiser, New Jersey Department of Health spokeswoman Donna Leusner said. The Somerset County Health Department is focusing on the club’s staff, Leusner said.

In Minnesota, state health officials have not received a list of people who attended a private Trump fundraiser. But health department spokesman Doug Schultz said people who attended and came into contact with someone testing positive are aware of that because of media reports.

The administration’s hesitance to accept CDC’s offer comes partially from Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who does not trust the agency, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly.

“They think the leadership of the agency is a failure and that they’ll try to embarrass the president and his aides,” the official said Wednesday.

White House officials have not determined when — or how — the virus entered the building. They believe it could have come through a Trump International Hotel fundraiser, the Rose Garden event or a party inside the White House after the outdoor ceremony. There have been several meetings of White House staffers with differing opinions and inconclusive results, officials say.

Some who became infected, including former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R) and former senior adviser to the president Kellyanne Conway, helped Trump prepare for last week’s debate and attended the Rose Garden event and a reception inside the White House, according to people close to them.

Some of those who had been at the White House and tested positive said they were not contacted by outbreak investigators.

Several White House staffers and other administration officials involved in the response have been furious that the White House contact-tracing effort is not more robust as the number of infections has grown, according to several current and former senior administration officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

“How can they let the virus so easily get into the West Wing? This was avoidable,” one former senior administration official said.

On Monday, the White House Management Office emailed senior staff who regularly interact with Trump. The memo, obtained by The Washington Post, encourages staffers to “limit foot traffic on the First Floor of the West Wing as well as in the Residence,” adding that “staff should only go to the Oval Office or the Second Floor Residence when they are requested and expected.”

Chris Christie started his 7th day in the hospital in Morristown today - no word yet on 45* making the same strongly beautiful and powerfully awesome treatment he got at Walter Reed available for his "friend" in New Jersey.

Today's Tweet

Brilliant

Bravo! Fantastic!
pic.twitter.com/Mg5Oz8Jk0x

— Mark Stern (@mfstern) October 9, 2020

Curiouser

Lots of weirder-than-usual shit goin' on and goin' down today.

Pelosi mentioned yesterday at a press gaggle that there would be a meeting today where they'd be talking about the 25th amendment.

The White House canceled a trip to Indiana that Mike Pence had planned.

After a public statement that he wouldn't be quarantining, Bill Barr announced he's doing exactly that.

The FBI busted 13 militia assholes in Michigan who were plotting to kidnap and murder the governor, hoping that would spark a civil war.

Trump has been cooped up in the White House residence, occasionally wandering into the west wing, or out onto the lawn to do these really odd videos for his fans.

He also retweeted a defense of A25 - prob'ly thinking he was retweeting the part from wingnut congress critter Mark Green.

The Hill:

President Trump on Thursday retweeted a reporter who said invoking the 25th Amendment is not equivalent to a "coup," raised eyebrows from many on social media.

The president retweeted comments from White House reporter Andrew Feinberg, who was explaining aspects of the amendment regarding presidential succession after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Democrats will discuss the 25th Amendment on Friday amid concerns over President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis.

“Tomorrow, by the way, tomorrow, come here tomorrow. We're going to be talking about the 25th Amendment. But not to take attention away from the subject we have now,” Pelosi said in response to a reporter's question regarding coronavirus relief legislation.

House Democrats later said they plan to unveil a bill Friday that would create a commission to determine whether a president is fit for office.

So yeah - everything's pretty wild and crazy as long as the circus is in town.

No Honor - No Respect

WaPo:

Covid-19 survivors see callousness, not compassion, in Trump’s bout with the virus

Ken Holmes, a retired maintenance worker in Wisconsin, never had much in common with Donald Trump, or much affection for him.

But when the president caught a potentially lethal virus that had nearly killed Holmes this year, the 64-year-old saw a rare opportunity for connection. Trump, Holmes thought, might finally understand what he had come to learn through painful experience: The novel coronavirus is a monster that commands respect.

“He can still make this right,” Holmes thought.

But then Trump stood on the White House balcony Monday night, theatrically ripped off his mask while gasping for breath, and proclaimed the virus was nothing to fear.

Watching at home in Green Bay, Holmes cringed. Then he got mad.

The coronavirus is, in some respects, a great equalizer: Anyone, even the president, can get it.

But rather than bond Trump to the millions of Americans who have suffered from the virus or watched a loved one go through it, Trump’s experience with the virus has only deepened the sense of distance that some voters say they feel from a president who has consistently downplayed its severity.

In interviews, Americans whose lives have been upended by the virus said they felt disappointed that the president missed an opportunity to model responsible behavior. They expressed anger that Trump has continued to minimize the virus’s threat after receiving deluxe care that the vast majority of people can only dream of at a time when testing and treatments are running low. And they voiced fear that Trump’s words and actions would lead to more reckless behavior among his supporters.

“I wish he would just be square with the American people. But he can’t do that,” said Holmes, who spent three weeks in intensive care without access to the advanced therapies that Trump’s doctors deployed. “He says, ‘Don’t be afraid of covid. It’s not that bad.’ Well, he should see what it’s like in the real world.”

Since he got sick, Trump and his advisers have sought to portray his bout with the virus as an asset. The White House produced a dramatic video recounting his return from a weekend at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, fundraising emails touted his triumph over the disease, and Trump himself seemed to suggest his infection had been a personal sacrifice in the name of good governance.

“Nobody that’s a leader would not do what I did,” Trump said in his balcony address before reentering the White House, maskless and infectious.

Trump’s illness has only made him a better president, said Doris Cortese, 81, a fervent supporter who said she has had friends and acquaintances who have contracted the coronavirus — but who has escaped infection herself, despite wearing a mask “only when forced to do so.”

“If you’ve been there and done it, you understand better the people who are going through it,” said Cortese, who leads the Trump Republican Club of Lee County, Fla. “He has always done whatever he could to try to keep Americans safe. Now he has even more empathy.”

But that message does not appear to be resonating beyond his base. Even before Trump’s illness, polls showed strong disapproval of his handling of the pandemic, which has claimed at least 210,000 American lives. His numbers have only worsened in the days since last week’s diagnosis, with surveys showing significant majorities of Americans mistrusting the White House’s messaging — both on Trump’s health and the nation’s.

To doctors treating coronavirus patients, the president’s insistence that Americans should not be “afraid” of the virus or let it “dominate” their lives threatens to make the country’s struggle with covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, even more costly.

“It’s inaccurate, insensitive and because of the fact that he’s the president, it’s dangerous,” said Farshad Fani Marvasti, director of public health at the University of Arizona. “It’s very easy for him to give the impression that this is nothing to worry about. But he’s different. He has access to the highest level of care in the world. Most people don’t have a doctor on call at home 24 hours a day.”

Holmes certainly didn’t. He struggled through the symptoms of covid-19 this spring, with his wife — who still works — caring for him from home. But after a month, his health suddenly turned.

“I couldn’t breathe. My wife said, ‘You’re going to the hospital,’ ” he recounted. “We got to the emergency room, and that’s the last thing I remember.”

For three weeks, he struggled to catch his breath while alarms sounded and his oxygen level repeatedly climbed then plummeted. He was terrified but, ultimately, lucky: The doctors and nurses at HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital in Green Bay were “angels, not just heroes,” he said, and thanks to them, he survived.

But he emerged chastened and weak. Covid-19 was nothing like a cold or the flu, as the president has said. It was an entirely differently level — as he believes Trump knows, even if he won’t admit it.

“I think Trump was real scared. He should have been. He still should be,” Holmes said of the president, who also experienced falling oxygen levels and a need for supplemental help.

“We have nearly 1,000 people a day dying of covid. If you had three jetliners going down every day, would you get on an airplane? I don’t think many people would. But they sure don’t want to wear a mask,” Holmes said.

Trump’s decision to unmask on the White House balcony Monday night, while in full view of photographers, was in keeping with the president’s long-standing aversion to face coverings. That’s despite a nearly unanimous view among public health experts, including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, who has deemed masks “the most important, powerful public health tool we have.”

Health experts say Trump’s cavalier behavior — including mask-free rallies and other large-scale events — has led directly to a White House coronavirus cluster that has sickened more than 20 people, including advisers, senators, journalists and military officers. Nonetheless, his dismissive views continue to be embraced by many supporters, who surveys show are far more reluctant than other Americans to wear masks.

In the southwestern Missouri city of Joplin, a bastion of Trump support, mask use has been spotty even as infection rates remain high and testing kits run low. That has been a source of deep concern for people like Stephanie Lea, whose father-in-law nearly died of covid-19 this spring.

“I don’t think we should live in fear,” said Lea, who works as an administrator at Freeman Hospital, where the coronavirus unit has routinely been full since summer. “That said, we need to be very cautious and do what we can to help others by wearing our masks. There’s a difference between living in fear and living cautiously.”

Johnetta Warlick had been trying to do the latter. Working for the Missouri Department of Corrections, she knew she was at risk, so she was careful to wear a mask. The coronavirus found her anyway.

What started as a relentless headache became a fever at or above 102 degrees that wouldn’t break for two weeks.

“It got to the point where I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t walk,” she said. “I thought I was going to die.”

But doctors had no cutting-edge therapeutics to ease her symptoms.

“They told me there was nothing I could do but take Tylenol and let it run its course,” said the 32-year-old resident of St. Louis County whose main caretaker — her husband, Vernnell — also became ill.

“I wouldn’t wish covid on my worst enemy,” said Warlick, who said she still has symptoms months later. “It’s nothing to joke about. The president should be grateful he didn’t get the real covid.”

Mary Root, a 65-year-old retiree, knows intimately what that looks like.

This spring, her 92-year-old mother contracted the virus at an assisted-living facility in South Dakota. A child of the Great Depression, Marjorie Root raised five children and, until last year, mowed her own lawn. She told anyone who would listen that she planned to live to 100.

When she became ill, she was initially hospitalized, then sent home to live with her daughter. But her ordeal was only beginning. The virus had invaded her nervous system, just one of the many insidious ways it attacks the body.

“Mom was so strong. She didn’t cry, ever. Not even when her son died,” Mary Root said. “But in her final days, I saw her wail like a baby. She died a miserable, excruciatingly painful death.”

Root said she had just begun to recover from the July loss of her mom when Trump’s case brought it all back.

“It’s cruel. People don’t need to suffer the way I watched my mom go,” she said. “He’s got blood on his hands. My mother’s blood on his hands.”

Hope For The Fall

When the loudmouth loses his megaphone, and when the guy who won't stop shoving his face in front of us loses his place on camera, there is the sweetest feeling of respite and delicious irony. 

The Big Corkscrew

45* is spiraling in.

The debate commission says they'll do the next one via remote - a Virtual Town Hall venue - and 45* is making noise that he won't do it.

So he's stuck at home (even though he broke quarantine yesterday and wandered down out of the residence and into the west wing), he's hopped up on god-knows-what, and he's losing so badly even his "base" is starting to melt away.

And finally - fucking finally - some heretofore totally gutless Republican Senators who're up for re-election find themselves having to run away from him, even though they all know they too are totally dependent on the feral mob that Hillary accurately designated "deplorables".

AP:

Vulnerable Republicans are increasingly taking careful, but clear, steps to distance themselves from President Donald Trump, one sign of a new wave of GOP anxiety that the president’s crisis-to-crisis reelection bid could bring down Senate candidates across the country.

In key races from Arizona to Texas, Kansas and Maine, Republican senators long afraid of the president’s power to strike back at his critics are starting to break with the president — particularly over his handling of the pandemic — in the final stretch of the election. GOP strategists say the distancing reflects a startling erosion of support over a brutal 10-day stretch for Trump, starting with his seething debate performance when he did not clearly denounce a white supremacist group through his hospitalization with COVID-19 and attempts to downplay the virus’s danger.

Even the somewhat subtle moves away from Trump are notable. For years, Republican lawmakers have been loath to criticize the president — and have gone to great lengths to dodge questions — fearful of angering Trump supporters they need to win. But with control of the Senate in the balance, GOP lawmakers appear to be shifting quickly to do what’s necessary to save their seats.

“The Senate map is looking exceedingly grim,” said one major GOP donor, Dan Eberhart.

Republican prospects for holding its 53-47 majority have been darkening for months. But recent upheaval at the White House has accelerated the trend, according to conversations with a half-dozen GOP strategists and campaign advisers, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose internal deliberations.

The strategists noted the decision to rush to fill the Supreme Court vacancy with conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett has not swung voters toward the GOP as hoped. Several noted internal polls suggested Republican-leaning, undecided voters were particularly turned off by the president’s debate performance and his conduct since being diagnosed with the coronavirus. It wasn’t clear that these voters would cast a ballot for Democrat Joe Biden, but they might stay home out of what one strategist described as a feeling of Trump fatigue.

Public polling shows Trump trailing Biden nationally but typically by smaller numbers in key battleground states.

“I think a lot of Republicans are worried that this is a jailbreak moment, and people who have been sitting on the fence looking for a rationale to stick with the president are instead abandoning the ship,” said Rory Cooper, a Republican strategist and frequent Trump critic.

To be sure, Trump has a history of political resilience. Wednesday marked the four year anniversary of the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump boasted of sexually assaulting women. Republicans quickly abandoned him then, and his poll numbers sunk, but he still won weeks later.

Trump’s behavior this week hasn’t prompted that sort of GOP rebuke. But Republicans expressed clear frustration with Trump’s erratic approach to negotiations on a stimulus bill aimed at mitigating the economic toll of the pandemic. Trump abruptly called off talks, then tried to restart them Wednesday, causing the stock market to plummet and then somewhat recover.

On Monday, as he returned from the hospital, a still-contagious Trump paused for a photo op at the White House, removed his mask and later tweeted that people should not fear the virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans.

“I couldn’t help but think that sent the wrong signal,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, whose tight race is among a handful that could cost Republicans control of the Senate. “I did not think that it set a good example at all.”

Collins began airing an ad this week that urges voters to vote for her “no matter who you’re voting for for president.”

In Arizona, another endangered Republican, Sen. Martha McSally, struggled when asked whether she was proud to serve under the president during her Air Force career.

“I’m proud that I’m fighting for Arizonans on things like cutting your taxes,” McSally replied during a debate against Mark Kelly, one of multiple Democrats who have bested their Republican incumbents in fundraising.

Democrats have long considered Maine and Arizona, along with Colorado and North Carolina, top targets in their effort to gain the four seats they need to win Senate control. (It’s only three if Biden wins the White House.) But the race for Senate majority has been widening into reliably Republican states, now including Iowa, Alaska, Kansas and Montana. In North Carolina, meanwhile, Democrat Cal Cunningham’s recent sexting scandal has complicated his drive against Republican incumbent Thom Tillis.

Even South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, is suddenly scrambling.

Trump won the state by 14 percentage points in 2016. Still, a major Republican political committee aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell began spending nearly $10 million on TV and radio ads this week attacking Graham’s Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison.

Donors have not given up on trying to hold the Senate. As Trump’s fundraising has plateaued in recent months, it has spiked for Republican outside groups that are supporting House and Senate candidates.

The massive influx of new money for House and Senate committee will enable them to flood competitive races with advertising that embraces conventional Republican themes. (The South Carolina TV ad by the Senate Leadership Fund shows pictures of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and says, “Liberal Jaime Harrison is their guy, not ours.”)

The intention is to extend a lifeline to candidates who otherwise would have relied on the president’s political operation for support, according to two Republican strategists with direct knowledge of the House and Senate campaign plans.

Still, there’s little doubt Republican senators’ fortunes are linked to the president and his volatile political instincts. In the highly partisan environment, ticket-splitting — voting for one party for president and another for Senate, say — has become increasingly rare. In 2016, Republican Senate candidates lost in every state Trump lost and won where Trump won.

One GOP adviser said most Republican candidates are not running ahead of Trump in polling their states. And when his support drops, their support usually does, too.

Even in red states, Republicans are starting to make clear they aren’t following Trump when it comes to the pandemic.

Sen. John Cornyn told the Houston Chronicle editorial board on Monday that Trump “let his guard down” and said his diagnosis should be a reminder to “exercise self-discipline.”

In another GOP bastion, Republican Senate nominee Roger Marshall borrowed Trump’s slogan for a “Keep Kansas Great” bus tour on Tuesday, but not his health advice.

“Of course, I think everyone should respect the virus,” said Marshall, a doctor. “I’m really encouraging everyone to wear a mask when they can, to keep their physical distance, wash their hands, all those types of things.”

Marshall was quickly reminded of his party’s competing forces. As he spoke, he was briefly interrupted by a woman who appeared to be an opponent of wearing masks, yelling, “Stop telling people that!”