Hello neighbors near and far

DYSTOPIA has arrived……in a neighborhood near you.

Or as Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention sang in 1966, “Trouble comin’ everyday.”

I am forwarding an email from a neighbor in the Outer Richmond District of San Francisco. It’s self-explanatory.

April 10, 2020

Hello,

I was on a morning walk/grocery run this morning and there were broken glass, police, and black and whites all over Balboa between 33rd and 38th Ave.

Last week 3 establishments were broken in to. Last night they hit 4 more.

The Balboa Theater and Simple Pleasures Coffee Shop were OK. No one was physically hurt, but these small businesses are just holding on the way it is.

Will a curfew during the shelter in place be needed to keep these people in business ?
Stay safe,

One of the positive side effects of the Shelter in Place is the drastic reduction in vehicular emissions. Auto traffic, by one estimate, is down 70 percent.  A recent survey said that San Francisco air quality is amongst the best on the planet.

When the Shelter in Place ends hopefully gas guzzling, air polluting cars will no longer rule the planet.  That’s a dream but it’s always good to dream of a better world.

San Francisco Examiner 4.9.2020

San Francisco’s Great Highway was devoid of cars Wednesday as workers once again cleared sand from the roadway.

And one city supervisor wants to keep it that way until the coronavirus crisis is over, opening up space for bicyclists and pedestrians in the Outer Sunset.

“Keeping Upper Great Highway closed to cars and open for people for safe, socially distant exercise makes sense to me,” said Supervisor Gordon Mar, who represents the Sunset District.

“!! Yes,” the Bicycle Coalition exclaimed three times on Twitter when the supervisor floated the idea.

The proposal is supported by Walk San Francisco and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, according to Mar’s office.

“If it also makes sense to our public health officials, I’d love to see Upper Great Highway stay closed to cars for the duration of shelter-in-place,” Mar said.

He also noted that the heavily used bicycle and pedestrian path along Ocean Beach “isn’t wide enough for safe social distancing.”

He asked Jeffrey Tumlin, the head of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, to make the temporary change last Friday.

“He updated me this morning that he’s currently in discussion about my request with other city departments about my request,” Mar said. “I think it’s important that my request be properly vetted by our health and emergency operations officials.”

Public Works also has a say over when to clear sand from the eroding beach off the roadway, Mar said.

An SFMTA spokesperson directed the San Francisco Examiner to Public Works for comment on Wednesday, while a spokesperson for Public Works did not immediately have information on the possible closure.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/sunset-supervisor-wants-to-keep-great-highway-car-free-during-crisis/

I ususally gravitate to the sports page to check the standings.  For some reason I miss not even for a second looking to see what is happening in the athletic world.  Ultimately it’s not really important.

My daily run is sufficient.

The Nation 4.7.2020

We don’t need distractions, we don’t need Mortal Kombat. We need to grow the hell up and wait this out.

In Stephen King’s The Running Man, the masses in a near-future dystopia are entertained by a hellish live-action death match where alleged “criminals” have to escape a gauntlet of “good guys,” or be killed in the process. It’s the most popular show in a broken world defined by rampant decay.

We have not reached Running Man levels yet in the post-coronavirus sports world, but it seems like various sports commissioners want to give it their best shot. The Trump-encouraged plans to start play would create an apocalyptic funhouse where athletes (workers) risk their lives as diversion for the subjects of a flailing empire. The specific ideas being bandied about are as cruel as they are bizarre, with no concern for either public health or the well-being of those running these virus-infused gauntlets.

Take Ultimate Fighting. UFC’s war chief Dana White has a plan to use an unnamed private island as a site for family-friendly combat. He also, according to The New York Times, has an almost unthinkable planned venue for a fight on April 18—a Native American reservation in California. By staging this match there, White is able to skirt California’s statewide shelter-in-place laws. He said:

I’m ready to get back. You keep people in their houses for too long without entertainment, people are going to start losing their minds.

Dana White is a dear friend of Donald Trump, who is also thirsting for the diversion that sports provide. Anything to take the focus from his disastrous handling of this pandemic.

In Major League Baseball, commissioner Rob Manfred is shepherding a brazenly irresponsible plan to start in early May. The blueprint is to sequester players for four and a half months from friends and family and play all their games in the Spring Training parks of Arizona, which should hit 120 degrees in the shade by July. (I’m sure management will remind them that it’s a dry heat.) As one Mets player said to the New York Post, “It’s the desert. Stuff doesn’t live there, it dies there.”

Their only travel would be to and from the stadiums. The ideas about how to maintain social distancing strain credulity. Meetings on the mound between pitcher and catcher would be forbidden. Players would sit in the stands at a safe distance from one another, instead of the dugout. In addition, umpires would be positioned six feet away from every base, with an electronic strike zone in use to further keep everyone at a good safe space. No word yet if you can tag someone out at a distance of six feet.

And Lord knows what the NFL is brewing in its Park Avenue offices to put the players on the field. A league that has shown it cares little for the health of its players won’t hesitate to put them out there with two Advil and a prayer.

The NBA seems to be the only league with its head on straight. One general manager said to ESPN,

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/ufc-baseball-arizona-coronavirus

[NBA Commissioner] Adam [Silver] was the first to close, and that resonates. We’re not going to be the first to open and have it be a disaster.

 

The Coronavirus pandemic is terrible. The American judicial system has just made it worse for women.  The tangled politics of abortion are moving closer to the US Supreme Court whose five men conservative majority may eviscerate a woman’s right to choose.

Two federal judges have rendered it almost impossible for women in Texas to exercise their freedom of choice.  Citing the Coronavirus “emrgency” the judges ruled the public safety trumps a woman’s right to control her body.

This case is headed for the Supreme Court which could rule on this case and over turn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

Wall Street Journal 4.7.2020

Litigation set to test whether states can use national health emergency to place sweeping restrictions on abortion.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed Texas to suspend most abortions in the state during the coronavirus public-health crisis, a move that could quickly send the issue to the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in a 2-to-1 ruling, lifted a trial judge’s restraining order that prevented the state from curbing abortions on the grounds that it would save medical resources.

In dissent, Judge James Dennis, a Clinton appointee, said the court exposed women “to the risks of continuing an unwanted pregnancy, as well as the risks of traveling to other states in search of time-sensitive medical care.”

“We’ll use every tool at our disposal to fight this harmful order and protect our patients’ health care,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Texas issued a ban on nonessential medical procedures in late March. State Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, warned that the ban applied to abortion, except where terminating a pregnancy was necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother. Failure to comply could bring financial penalties and jail time. The state said its restrictions apply to both surgical abortions and ones performed by taking medication.

A growing number of conservative-led states are attempting similar restrictions, citing public health and the need to preserve scarce protective medical equipment for the treatment of coronavirus patients.

Texas’ approach “ensures that hospital beds remain available for coronavirus patients and personal protective equipment reaches the hardworking medical professionals who need it the most during this crisis,” Mr. Paxton said after Tuesday’s ruling.

Several trial judges have issued initial restraining orders to block states from enforcing coronavirus abortion bans, saying the curbs appear to place an undue burden on a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

The Fifth Circuit’s ruling Tuesday split from a decision Monday by a different U.S. appeals court, which declined for now to let the state of Ohio impose restrictions on certain abortions.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Cincinnati, refused to disturb a ruling by a trial judge who allowed abortions in Ohio to proceed if a health-care provider determined the procedure couldn’t be delayed without jeopardizing a woman’s right to obtain the procedure.

The Sixth Circuit said it had no jurisdiction to intervene because the trial court’s initial ruling was temporary and wouldn’t inflict “irretrievable harms.” More legal proceedings in that case are set for later this month.

In Texas, abortion providers said women have been scrambling to make alternative plans. The Fifth Circuit already had blocked abortions temporarily to give itself about a week to consider the case.

Whole Woman’s Health, which operates clinics in three areas of Texas, said some of its patients have had to leave the state, including two who flew to Virginia last week.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed Texas to suspend most abortions in the state during the coronavirus public-health crisis, a move that could quickly send the issue to the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in a 2-to-1 ruling, lifted a trial judge’s restraining order that prevented the state from curbing abortions on the grounds that it would save medical resources.

It took just 24 hours for the acting Navy Secretary to offer his resignation to become ex-acting Navy Secretary.

How long will it take for the Secretary of Defense to accept the resignation???

Did Trump give him a push?

Politico 4.7.2020

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly offered to resign on Tuesday following an uproar over a profanity-laced address to the crew of the coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt on Sunday, according to a senior defense official with knowledge of the matter.

Modly submitted his resignation letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Tuesday after meeting with his boss one-on-one, that official said. Neither Esper nor the White House pressured Modly to resign, the official said, and it is unclear whether Esper will accept it.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/07/thomas-modly-coronavirus-speech-resign-navy-172625

You can’t stifle American freedom of expression whether it be in the military or the civilian population.

Here is the Wall Street Journal perspective on the intercom blast delivered by the acting Navy Secretary in defense of his indefensible sacking of the ship’s Captain Brett Crozier.

Captain Crozier paid the  professinal price for standing by his troops when a number of them tested positive for Covid-19.  The military career of this Northern California native is probably finished.

The Captain will be vindicated and rewarded by the American public for his assertiveness and honesty.

Wall Street Journal

April 6, 2020

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly defended his decision to fire the commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt in remarks Monday to the aircraft carrier’s crew, saying Capt. Brett Crozier erred by writing and distributing a memo about a coronavirus outbreak and urging sailors to “do your jobs.”

Some crew members considered the remarks by the acting secretary, a civilian Navy official, to be inappropriate. “All of our jaws are on the floor right now. He just made the PR situation a billion times worse,” one sailor aboard the Roosevelt messaged to a family member after Mr. Modly’s comments.

Mr. Modly delivered the remarks over the public-address system of the vessel, which is docked in Guam as crew members undergo a quarantine because of the novel coronavirus outbreak. As of Monday, 173 of the approximately 5,000 members of the USS Roosevelt crew have tested positive.

The remarks were tinged with profanity, according to a recording and descriptions by those on board, relatives and others, with Mr. Modly saying that sailors were expected to “keep their shit together and take care of each other.”

At another point, Mr. Modly, addressing fears over the virus, said: “If the ship was in combat and there were hypersonic missiles coming at it, you’d be pretty f—— scared too.”

Mr. Modly also told the crew not to speak to the media, which he said holds a political agenda. He told crew members that former Vice President Joe Biden was wrong Sunday in calling the decision to fire Capt. Crozier “close to criminal.”

Many crew members on the Roosevelt were critical of the Navy’s decision to fire Capt. Crozier, who drew cheers and applause from sailors as he walked off the ship’s gangplank last week for the last time. President Trump has backed the decision to fire the commander.

But Mr. Modly, referring to Capt. Crozier in his remarks Monday, said: “If he didn’t think, in my opinion, that this information wasn’t going to get out into the public, in this information age we live in, then he was either too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this.”

“The alternative is he did this on purpose, which is a serious violation” of military law, he said.

In recordings of Mr. Modly remarks. sailors can be heard in the background jeering and shouting disapproval in response to Mr. Modly’s criticism of Capt. Crozier.

Mr. Modly, explaining the removal of the captain, cited the need to work through the Navy’s chain of command and to guard sensitive information. Capt. Crozier’s letter gave major adversaries like China an insight into a setback in operational readiness and caused unnecessary concern among sailors, he said.

Later Monday, Mr. Modly issued a statement about his remarks aboard the ship, saying he spoke from the heart and that his words were meant for the crew.

“I stand by every word I said, even, regrettably any profanity that may have been used for emphasis,” he said. “Anyone who has served on a Navy ship would understand.”

The Navy said Mr. Modly planned to visit the Roosevelt on Tuesday.

Write to Ben Kesling at benjamin.kesling@wsj.com and Lucy Craymer at Lucy.Craymer@wsj.com

It totally boggles the mind how totally inept and clueless, along with being politically ignorant, is the acting Navy Secretary, Thomas Modly.

To give a speech to  military personnel lambasting someone these people respect and adore is beyond comprehension.  

Trump has already gone on record supporting the dismissal of Capt. Brett Crozier for speaking out in behalf of the men and women he commanded on the USS Roosevelt.

There is only one word to describe Trump.  IDIOT!

The acting Secretary is another example of the incompetent political appointees Trump has put into crucial positions. Modly’s intemperate blast at a distinguished career officer is just another indication of how unfit Trump is to be President.

San Francisco Chronicle 4.6.2020

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly denounced the former commanding officer of the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier Monday, telling crew members in an address in Guam that Capt. Brett Crozier was wrong for bringing public attention to an outbreak of coronavirus on the ship and was either “too naive or too stupid” to helm the ship, according to a recording of the speech obtained by The Chronicle.

Modly’s public affairs office told The Chronicle there was no official transcript of his remarks to the crew. “Those remarks were intended to be private, between the secretary and each member of the crew,” a Navy official said.. The remarks were first reported by CNN.

During the 15-minute speech, delivered over the ship’s intercom system, Modly decried the hero’s send-off the crew gave Crozier after the secretary had relieved him of his command last week. The Navy chief called Crozier a “a martyr CO” and railed on the media for having “an agenda.” Modly said his family has been under attack since his decision to remove Crozier and that the ship’s coronavirus ordeal has become a “big controversy in Washington D.C.”

Crozier, a Santa Rosa native, last week sent a letter to naval command raising alarms about dire conditions on the ship and criticizing the Navy’s response. The Chronicle obtained the letter and published it. Modly has said Crozier’s decision to send the letter to more than 20 people guaranteed the news media would obtain it, undermining national security, and has said that was his reason for relieving Crozier of command of the Roosevelt.

“If he didn’t think … that this information wasn’t going to get out into the public, in this information age that we live in, then he was too naive or too stupid to be commanding officer of a ship like this,” Modly said Monday, to audible gasps heard in the the audio. “The alternative is that he did it on purpose.”

Crozier’s March 30 memo to Navy command pleaded for immediate help to evacuate his carrier in Guam to prevent the spread of the virus through the cramped ship.

“I reached out to your CO through my chief of staff very, very early on in this crisis,” Modly told the crew Monday. “On (March 29), I told him that I wanted to come out to the ship and if it would be OK or if it would be too disruptive. I told him that because I wanted to be able to help, if there was anything else he needed as this massive effort was under way, to get you guys healthy and clean and safe. He waved me off. He said he felt like things were under control.”

Modly said Crozier told him the Navy wasn’t moving quickly enough before, but he decided a visit wasn’t necessary after all.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Navy-chief-blasts-air-carrier-captain-as-too-15181872.php

Life imitates art is a well used phrase and here we go, again.

Bill Clinton loves a mystery, having co-authored the best seller ‘The President is Missing’ in 2018

TPM did some sleuthing and learned that that the National Strategic Stockpile was born from Clinton’s fascination with a work of fiction.

The book is available on Amazon. I just purchased it to have some Shelter in Place Reading.

TMP 4.3.2020

It started when former President Bill Clinton picked up a thriller called The Cobra Event by Richard Preston. In it, a bioterrorist targets the United States with a virus that fused the common cold with smallpox. As the disease tears through New York City, victims succumb to grisly “autocannibalistic” tendencies.  

On Thursday, White House Senior Aide Jared Kushner left quite the impression at his rare press briefing appearance as he insisted that the National Strategic Stockpile was for “our” use, not the states’.

“The state still has a stockpile and the notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile,” Kushner said at a briefing about the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”

“So I would just encourage you, when you have governors saying that the federal government hasn’t given them what they need, I would just urge you to ask them, ‘well have you looked within your state to make sure that you haven’t been able to find the resources?’” he continued.

Richard Preston

Eagle-eyed journalists quickly spotted language being amended on a Health and Human Services webpage to come into line with Kushner’s comments. Still, government websites and old documents pointed to the true intent of the stockpile: to be there in an emergency for state and local officials who lack sufficient supplies.

President Donald Trump addressed Kushner’s comments in a Friday press conference.

“‘Our, our,’” Trump mimicked. “It means the United States of America. And then we take that ‘our’ and we distribute it to the states.”

“The federal government needs it too, not just the states,” he added, yelling at the reporter.

Still, Trump and Kushner’s bizarre twist on the stockpile’s intentions is but a blip in the stockpile’s 22-year history.

Per the New York Times, In 1998 Clinton was spooked enough to ask the FBI if such a thing could actually happen.

“In April 1998, as a result of having read the Richard Preston novel, The Cobra Event, the president held a meeting with a group of scientists and Cabinet members to discuss the threat of bioterrorism,” wrote terrorism studies expert Martha Crenshaw in her essay in “Terrorism: Critical Concepts in Political Science.”

“The briefing impressed Clinton so much that he asked the experts to brief senior officials in DOD and HHS.”

That led to the stockpile’s birth: a line in the October 1998 omnibus emergency appropriations package granting $51 million “for pharmaceutical and vaccine stockpiling activities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” It was known then as the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile.

The stockpile first came to use as the country held its breath for Y2K, an issue with how computers dates were programmed that was expected to wreak havoc as the new millennium rolled over.

“They were afraid that there was going to be an interruption of supplies to hospitals and to the clinics,” said Tom Jackson, then working in the strategic logistics branch for the stockpile, in an HHS video. “So they decided, the U.S. Government decided to put together a cache of material that could be used to supplement those organizations if there was an eruption and supply because of the the Y2K changeover.”

Sue Gorman, science branch chief, added that all they had was “a handful of people to start with and we had a 50 million dollar budget to create a stockpile.”

Since then, the stockpile has come into Americans’ lives in accordance with the country’s greatest disasters, from Hurricane Katrina to 9/11.

Its stores were seriously depleted during the Obama administration. According to a Health Security study, 75 percent of respirators and face masks in its stockpile were used to protect health-care workers during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

Per USA Today, it was never fully restocked.

And that’s where the stockpile stands today, as its stores are called into use once more to help protect Americans against the newest, and very nonfictional, global threat: the coronavirus pandemic.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/national-stockpile-thriller-coronavirus

On last week’s episode of the gripping series Homeland, Max finally met his end.  Gunned down by the Taliban as his friend Carrie Mathison looked on in shock.

This article in the Wall Street Journal was published prior to the opening of the final season of Homeland.  It remains to be seen what fate meets the two remaining lead characters as the eight season drama concludes.

There are four episodes remaining. The next is Sunday evening on Showtime.

Wall Street Journal 2.3.2020

It looked like Max Piotrowski’s luck had finally run out.

The “Homeland” character—a quirky and socially awkward surveillance expert—had dodged death through the Showtime terrorism drama’s first six seasons. When Maury Sterling, the actor who portrays Max, got a rare phone call midway through Season 7 from co-creator and showrunner Alex Gansa, he figured the jig was up.

Survivor

“Max’s run is done. It’s been great. It’s not you, it’s us,” Mr. Sterling said Mr. Gansa told him. “It was the total breakup call.”

Fellow cast members offered their solace. “Homeland” co-star Mandy Patinkin—who has also managed to escape annihilation as CIA lifer Saul Berenson—told Mr. Sterling his final scene would be memorable.

“Mandy told me, ‘It’s a good death: a Russian GRU agent crushes your throat with his boot,’ ” Mr. Sterling recalled. “I was like, ‘That’s a terrible death, what are you talking about?’ It’s awful.”

Show star Claire Danes, who plays the brilliant and bipolar CIA agent Carrie Mathison, was also bummed about Max’s demise. Mr. Sterling said she told him it wasn’t fair, since their two characters hadn’t slept together yet—though she used more colorful language.

“Those are the rules,” Ms. Danes said in an interview, joking about her character’s tendency to get a little too close to the men around her, who then tend to become targets.

As the episode where Max was to get the boot drew closer, a “save Max” campaign began behind the scenes.

“I did start lobbying,” said Lauren White, a producer on “Homeland,” which follows a team of CIA agents and their associates as they battle terrorism around the globe, and the wife of Mr. Gansa. “Max was one of the only straightforward, sympathetic characters the show had.”

Others, including longtime “Homeland” director Lesli Linka Glatter, also felt killing off Max would be a mistake.

Mr. Gansa caved and called Mr. Sterling again.

“He’s like, we can’t do it,” Mr. Sterling said Mr. Gansa told him. “It’s not you. It’s Max. We just can’t kill Max.”

Violent TV shows put everybody on edge—cast members included, whose job security is on the line in every episode. Many in the cast of HBO’s “The Sopranos” said they would tear through scripts the minute they got them to see if they made it to the final scene.

“Homeland,” which started its eighth and final season on Feb. 9, has been unafraid to kill off major characters. In Season 2, Vice President William Walden—a former CIA chief—died from a heart attack when his pacemaker was hacked by terrorists. At a memorial service at CIA headquarters, a bomb wiped out many of the cast.

At the end of Season 3, Nick Brody—an American soldier turned spy played by Damian Lewis and the main antagonist of the early seasons—was hanged from a crane in front of a raucous crowd in an Iranian town square. Three seasons later, another prominent character’s run ended when the SUV of Peter Quinn, played by Rupert Friend, was machine-gunned, Sonny Corleone-style.

“Nobody is safe,” said Mr. Sterling. “That’s part of what makes it good.”

If there was anyone on the show who seemed expendable, it was Max Piotrowski. For the first few seasons he was a milquetoast and Zelig-like character who rarely spoke. Carrie Mathison described him as “creepy” after their first meeting, a line Ms. Danes said was the only one she ever ad-libbed on the show. Peter Quinn calls Max “a mute” in a subsequent episode.

“With the huge graveyard that is ‘Homeland,’ it is amazing that he is one of the last ones standing,” said Ms. Linka Glatter.

The character Nicholas Brody, played by Damian Lewis, faces the end.

PHOTO: DIDIER BAVEREL/SHOWTIME

Mr. Sterling, 48, isn’t a household name, but he has worked consistently for 25 years. When he landed the role of Max, Mr. Sterling wasn’t sure it would last past the pilot. “You wait by the phone,” he said of his early days on the show. “Phone rings or it doesn’t.”

Although it’s never discussed on the show, Max’s awkwardness in interacting with people comes in part because he is on the autism spectrum, something the writers decided when creating the character.

“It’s not overt at all. It’s very convincing,” said Ms. Danes of Mr. Sterling’s portrayal of Max as a person on the spectrum. “The fact that he can’t get too close to anybody works to his advantage, it’s one of the reasons he has survived,” she added.

At times, Max served as comic relief in the tension-filled show.

In Season 6, Max, working undercover, is trying to land a job at a company in the business of peddling misinformation online. Asked during the job interview to explain a yearlong gap in his résumé, Max responds he spent that year “smoking meth and masturbating.”

In another instance in Season 3, Mr. Sterling’s character shows up to a CIA safe house and an angry Peter Quinn asks him what took so long. “Taxi got lost,” Max deadpanned.

“Lord knows we’re desperate for a little bit of funny on our show,” Ms. Danes said. “What Maury did was really remarkable. He made a whole lot of something out of not very much.”

One episode featured a memorial for the vice president—killed by a hacked pacemaker—where a bombing took place that killed off even more characters.

As the Max character rose in stature, the temptation to off him also grew. “He was on the chopping block every year,” said Ms. Linka Glatter.

Mr. Gansa, the co-creator and showrunner, said whenever the writers were challenged with how to end an episode with a dramatic moment, getting rid of Max was often discussed. At the end of Season 4, which took place in Pakistan, Max for a time was going to be killed when the embassy was under fire from terrorists.

Overall, Mr. Gansa said he probably has called Mr. Sterling at least three times during the show’s run to tell him Max was being killed off, only to call him again, “like a governor calling with a stay of execution at 11:59 p.m.”

“I put Maury through the emotional wringer, which I think helped his performance over the years,” Mr. Gansa said. “It kept him on his toes.”

As “Homeland” enters its final season, Mr. Sterling is keeping mum on Max’s fate, but he said the character does have his biggest story line to date.

Mr. Sterling said his character will have a big story line in the coming season, above.

In hindsight, Mr. Sterling feels silly when he thinks about his initial reaction to the role, which he assumed would be short-lived.

“I was like, if I’m not Matt Damon in ‘The Bourne Identity’ then I’m a failure,” he said. “I remember going in for a wardrobe fitting to play Max and they’re dressing me in these gaudy, boxy clothes and I’m thinking, ‘this sucks.’ ”

It was a good lesson, Mr. Sterling said. “Show up, do your work, be professional and you just have no idea of where it will go.”

The wheels of government are grinding slowly as millions of displaced and increasingly desparate workers await the unemployment checks promised in the recently passed Stimulus bill.

The bureaucratic machinations to get the program rolling are a source of frustration for people who need to pay rent, buy groceries and cope with the Coronavirus.

Wall Street Journal 4.4.2020

Funding for Bigger Unemployment Payments Coming Next Week

The Labor Department sent preliminary guidance on implementation of the federal stimulus Thursday evening. The agency plans to send out several more pieces of operational guidance over the next week, the Labor Department official said. This would include guidance specifying to states that workers who quit their jobs voluntarily because they could earn more money on unemployment benefits would be ineligible for jobless benefits, the official added.

Now, workers will have to wait a little longer for increased jobless benefits, a major provision in the coronavirus stimulus plan

Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said earlier in the week that funds from the coronavirus stimulus package would be distributed to states this coming week.

A senior U.S. Labor Department official said Friday that federal funds promised to states, which administer jobless benefits, should be distributed next week.

Workers over the past two weeks have filed for unemployment-insurance benefits in record numbers, and states have been anticipating funding and more specific instructions on how to implement provisions to expand unemployment benefits included in a $2 trillion federal stimulus package signed into law last week.

Last Monday, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said these funds would be distributed to states this week, but the federal government won’t meet that goal.

The senior Labor Department official expects states to have individual accounts at the Treasury Department that they can draw upon next week, the caveat being that states would need to be ready with the proper technology to access and disburse these funds.

Some states would be ready to release the extra $600 weekly payment to individuals within a week or two after tapping federal money. For others, it could take two to four weeks or even longer, the Labor Department official said.

The $600 additional payments are retroactive to last Saturday, when the Labor Department entered into an agreement with states, according to the official. That means, for instance, Americans who don’t receive the extra $600 a week until the end of April would receive the payments all at once.

Many states are refraining from increasing unemployment payments to laid-off Americans by $600 a week—one of the major provisions included in the stimulus plan—until the federal government provides the necessary cash.

Without specific guidance from the U.S. Labor Department, states say they also are unable to accept or fully process claims from individuals, like independent contractors and self-employed people, who are newly eligible for unemployment benefits under the stimulus package.

Ava Dejoie, secretary of Louisiana’s workforce commission, said those who work in the gig economy and at restaurants, among other sectors, are dependent on getting unemployment checks fast.

“The American people need their money right now,” Ms. Dejoie said. “It’s a lifeline. It means food on their table. It means that their children can eat.”

States including Louisiana, Nevada, Alabama, Rhode Island and Oregon, said on Friday they hadn’t received the federal funds to increase jobless payments, which amounts to more than double the existing maximum in some states. Ohio said on Thursday the state hadn’t gotten the federal funding.

State officials say they hope it comes quickly, especially given the huge number of unemployment-benefit applications they are processing.

“The sooner the better obviously because of the volume of claims,” said Rosa Mendez, public information officer at Nevada’s employment department.

Unemployment claims reached a record 6.6 million last week after logging in at 3.3 million a week earlier. Until recently, applications for unemployment benefits had been hovering near 200,000 a week.

States are in need of federal funding to pay the extra benefits because they would have to otherwise draw on their own trust fund money, which derives from employer taxes.

“There is no way that a state could say they could pay $600 in benefits without an infusion in cash,” Ms. Dejoie said. “That money has been promised to the people of Louisiana by our federal government.”

Write to Sarah Chaney at sarah.chaney@wsj.com and Eric Morath at eric.morath@wsj.com