Cooking The Books (UPDATED)

Two Trump- licking governors are desperate to hide the cost of prematurely "re- opening" their states before the coronavirus was under control.  First, the guy Stacey Abrams beat in Georgia: 

Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp needed a way to show that he hadn’t been rash to reopen restaurants, theaters, nail salons and the like in late April.

His administration came up with a creative solution. They doctored the statistics.

Last week, Georgia’s Department of Public Health released a graph showing a dramatic, steady decline in cases, deaths and hospitalizations in the state’s five most affected counties, from a peak on April 28, just before the state’s restrictions were eased, to near zero two weeks later.

But on closer inspection, the dates on the chart showed a curious ordering: April 30 was followed by May 4; May 5 was followed by May 2, which was followed by May 7 — which in turn was followed by April 26. The dates had been re-sorted to create the illusion of a decline. The five counties were likewise re-sorted on each day to enhance the illusion.

Only in Brian Kemp’s Georgia is the first Thursday in May followed immediately by the last Sunday in April. And only in President Trump’s America would we have the producers of such flimflam leading the reopening of our national economy.  (our emphasis)

Kemp's not the only soulless flimflam artist. There's also Florida's Trump knock-off Gov. Ron DeSantis, who's also trying to cook the books to hide any bad news:

The scientist who created Florida's COVID-19 data portal wasn't just removed from her position on May 5, she was fired on Monday by the Department of Health, she said, for refusing to manipulate data.

Rebekah Jones said in an email to the USA TODAY Network that she single-handedly created two applications in two languages, four dashboards, six unique maps with layers of data functionality for 32 variables covering a half a million lines of data. Her objective was to create a way for Floridians and researchers to see what the COVID-19 situation was in real time.

Then, she was dismissed.

After USA TODAY Network first reported Jones' removal from her position in charge of the Florida COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard she created, she confirmed, as reported by CBS-12 in West Palm Beach that she was fired because she was ordered to censor some data, but refused to "manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen."  (our emphasis)

The common denominator for these two rotted- out, "party of life" sociopaths is that they aren't concerned about causing needless deaths in their states as long as those deaths aren't reported and for which they won't be held accountable.  But here's some accountability: this is where coronavirus was spreading over the past 3 weeks, as these two dipshit governors prematurely reopened their states (counties that went for Trump in 2016):

Florida: 15 new Trump counties 
Georgia: 40 new Trump counties

The desire of these two cowards to ingratiate themselves with their dimwitted Dear Leader and his equally dimwitted followers is already having dire consequences in Trumpland.  But don't worry.  No one will ever find out about it, right?!

UPDATE:  Did we mention Arizona Republican dingdong Gov. Doug "Deuce" Ducey?  No?  Well, he doesn't want to miss out on the Trump tongue- bathing, and besides, Arizona has too many geezers in those nursing homes, anyway!

(Photo:  Kemp and DeSantis)