Here, There And Everywhere

Food Fight: I am not much into debate watching so I ended up paying far more attention to Rachel Maddow and her all about the coronavirus counterprogramming but those who watched, and probably everyone else paying any attention to the Democratic primary insanity, know that the Democratic presidential candidates were at it again last night.  In a nutshell, during another even more chaotic than usual debate everyone jumped on Bernie but Bloomberg, who did a bit better this time mostly because he couldn’t do any worse, was targeted too.  For what it’s worth the pundits say that Biden had his best night, though I suspect that the real winner was Trump.  For some reason billionaire Tom Steyer is still running and was back on the stage and, largely due to his huge investment in South Carolina and his increasing appeal to the local African American community, may actually impact the outcome of its primary.  In any case we’ll know more about how every really did after the results of Saturday’s South Carolina primary come in.  And far more importantly last night’s debate is the last one before March 3’s Super Tuesday when primaries or caucuses will be held for a total of 1617 delegates in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and American Samoa. Early voting has already begun in some of these states, most notably California where 415 delegates are up for grabs.  Though Bernie and his fans believe, and a few national polls indicate, that he could beat Trump in November, one indicator that others aren’t buying it is that Michigan Republican Congressman Fred Upton announced that he’s decided to seek reelection because he believes that if Sanders is the Democratic candidate, the Republicans stand a good chance of regaining control of the House and he’s willing to stick around to get a chance to chair a committee.  Yikes.  On a more promising front, it’s reported that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was back in Montana trying to convince the outgoing, very popular Governor Bullock, who for a short time was running for president, to run for the state’s Senate position even though the Governor has previously insisted that he’s not interested. Schumer’s visit follows one by former President Obama who is also trying to convince Bullock to run. 

Here, There:  Democratic food fights aside, the Coranovirus continues to dominate the news cycle.  Trump, who remains mostly fearful that the virus will impact his reelection insists that he has the situation under control saying “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus, including the very early closing of our borders to certain areas of the world…”  As to that, apparently his State Department overrode an order from the CDC to keep fourteen people who tested positive off a plane that was supposed to be taking only healthy passengers from one of those stranded cruise ships back to the US. Reminiscent of how he denies and then admits things related to Russia and Ukraine, Trump first insisted that the State Department did that without his knowledge and then contradicted himself saying that he was on board with their decision because it was the right one.  And basically that typifies the combination of misinformation, poor planning and lack of coordination currently dominating the scene.  Yesterday Trump also insisted that a vaccination for COVID 19 is very close.  Spoiler alert, though one may go into phase one testing soon, at best a vaccination is a year away so after Trump made that assertion the White House walked it back saying he meant that an ebola vaccination will be out soon.  Great news, if you’re planning to travel to any ebola infected regions, not so much if you are concerned about the coranovirus.  Adding to the mixed messaging, while the stock markets continued their downward spiral, Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow appeared on CNBC where he said that the the US had “contained” the threat of a domestic coronavirus outbreak.  Unfortunately for him, and the rest of us, at the same time that he was making that fanciful statement Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases soberly said  "Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in this country" adding that Americans should channel their concerns into preparing for its arrival.  To that end she said that she talked to her children about the issue telling them “While I didn’t think they were at risk right now, we as a family ought to be preparing for significant disruption to our lives.” Don’t be surprised if Trump fires her for insubordination shortly. As to preparation, what does that mean?  Stocking up on cans of tuna, pasta and face masks and/or more teleconferencing?

And Everywhere: Chad Wolf, the Acting Head of the Department of Homeland Security, is supposed to be coordinating the response to the Coronavirus threat but yesterday during Senate testimony he couldn’t answer most of the questions thrown at him by quirky but sometimes spot on Louisiana Senator John Kennedy.  Wolf didn’t know the number of infected people who had been repatriated back to the US and when asked about the virus’ mortality rate he said it was about the same as the run of the mill flu.  Data on COVID 19 is still pouring in but it appears to be far more deadly than the flu and if he’s in charge Wolf should know that, though to be fair to him he’s not qualified for his job and it was Trump and his White House advisors, aided by Kennedy’s fellow Republicans, who fired the people and underfunded the agencies that should be running the virus containment effort.  Anyway, the virus may be ebbing in China, but still growing in Europe and though the number of known cases in the US remains low, somewhere around 57 plus one US soldier in South Korea, it’s likely just a matter of time before our turn in the barrel arrives.  And by then hopefully all or at least most of our officials, or at least our state officials, will be up to handling it, or at the very least they’ll do a better job that Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harichi who started sweating profusely during a press conference where he was denying that his country was covering up the scale of the outbreak in Iran. That sweating wasn’t due to fear of public speaking, after leaving his press conference he tested positive for the virus.  

Et Cetera:  Trump’s still hate tweeting judges, again going after Judge Amy Berman Jackson who is far from pleased with him.  Yesterday she cited his attacks and commentary from “conservative” media like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and InfoWars Alex Jones as part of a “campaign of intimidation and harassment of the Roger Stone jurors.  She went on to defend holding yesterday’s hearing on Stone’s request for a retrial behind closed doors saying that making jurors' identities public "would put them at substantial risk of harm.”  Adding that “in a highly publicized political climate ... the risk of harassment and intimidation of any juror who may testify to the court today is extremely high.” And apparently in response to concerns from the various intelligence agencies, the new woefully unqualified except that he’s a Trump toady Acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell has asked Shelby Pierson, the election security czar, to stay on in her role, well at least until he can figure out a way to sideline her quietly .  It was her report to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees about the Russians being at it again that infuriated Trump so much that he fired her boss, the prior DNI Maguire, for letting her speak.  And then there’s that ever wily Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.  He held a vote that he knew he’d lose on two anti-abortion provisions.  McConnell generally refrains from holding votes unless he’s sure he’ll win but he wanted to give Maine’s Susan Collins a chance to show that she’s mostly pro-choice while also letting everyone in Alabama know that at risk Democratic Senator Doug Jones is too.