Pillow Man

Product Placement:  We’ve moved into the White House’s daily virus new conference infomercial phase, not much in the way of facts beyond dire predictions and hopeful drug reports but lots of self-congratulatory corporate promotion.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that corporate America is stepping up to produce personal protective gear for hospital workers, we need all that, however it’s fair to question why a bunch of corporate executives flew to Washington, presumably in self-isolation on expensive corporate jets to stand in a distance guideline violating huddle with Trump to brag about turning diapers, underwear, pillows and other such products into masks and gowns.  The CEO set included executives from Honeywell, Jockey International, Procter & Gamble, United Technologies and that frequent FOX advertiser and Trump rally participant Mike Lindell of MyPillow.  The pillow man, who Trump affectionately introduced while expressing amazement, tinged with some envy, about his “unbelievable” pillow sales, because who doesn’t admire a guy who markets the hell out of an inferior product, finished off his scripted words about converting pillows into face masks by engaging in some idol worship and proselytizing saying “God gave us grace on November 8, 2016, to change the course we were on, God had been taken out of our schools and lives, a nation had turned its back on God. I encourage you to use this time at home to get back in the word, read our Bibles and spend time with our families.”  Makes one wonder how much you have to contribute to Trump’s campaign coffers to get the opportunity to do that?   Getting back to the few “facts” that were shared at the daily news conference, Trump continues to insist that adequate supplies of everything are being provided to state governors, even though many of them report they are only getting, at best, a fraction of what they’ve asked for.  For some inexplicable reason, despite assertions to the contrary by hospital administrators in NY and the state’s virus hero Governor Cuomo, Trump continued to stick to the assertion that NY doesn’t really need the quantity of face masks requested because one of his “friends” says that NY and the hospitals are wildly inflating their needs.  And because it was a Trump press conference we got a little of that hostile back and forth with the press and at least one of those off the wall crazy questions from another one of those fawning OAN “reporters.”  The hostile stuff came in response to questions from two of Trump’s favorite punching bags, PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor and CNN’s Jim Acosta.  To put it mildly, Trump wasn’t pleased with recitations of some of his prior remarks, the ones where he claimed that the coronavirus was a big nothing that was under control and would go away quickly.  Nor was he happy with a question asking why he keeps bragging about all the testing being done in the US when so much more on a per capital basis has been done in Korea.  As an aside, it’s not clear that Trump understands the meaning of the term “per capita,” but that didn’t stop him from asserting that it wasn’t fair to compare Korea to the US because he knows Korea better than anyone and Seoul has a population of 39 million squished together people so of course they had to test a lot.  For the record, he was only off by a multiple of four, Seoul has a population just short of 10 million but who’s counting?  Anyway, Trump called the two “hostiles” out as snarky, said that they should be spending their time congratulating him for all he does before going on to slam CNN for the zillionth time.  As to that OAN reporter, Chanel Rion, she more or less asked why everyone was so concerned about people dying from coronavirus when so many abortions are performed every year, going on to ask Trump whether he agreed with the governors who have been using the current crisis to ban abortions in their states.  Even Trump got a little tongue tied by that out of left field pro-life(?) question.  As to abortion procedures, five states, including Ohio, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma  are trying to ban them right now as unnecessary elective procedures.  So far their strategy doesn’t appear to be working, a few judges have put the restrictions on hold, but it’s far from certain that the anti-abortion crowd won’t win this battle.  Not so coincidentally, many of the Attorneys General from those same “red” states are still trying to get Obamacare overturned, because, really who needs health insurance right now?    

  

Around the World:  Preliminary indications, or at least, hopes indicate that Italy is turning a corner, the UK’s COVID 19 positive Boris Johnson is still under quarantine as is Bibi Netanyahu, who has been exposed and is awaiting a test result, but weirdly enough Prince Charles is now out and about. Hungarian leader Victor Orban, has gotten his parliament to pass a coronavirus bill that essentially suspends democracy, or what was left of it, in Hungary.  He now gets to rule by decree. How very 1930s.  And Moscow is on strict lockdown, notable because until recently Putin denied that his country had any virus infected individuals.  On the domestic front more states are also on lock down including Virginia where people have been told to stay at home.  Unfortunately that order came after Jerry Falwell Jr ordered his students back to Liberty University, the consequences of that order will haunt Virginia for some time.      

And apparently, masks and alternative face covers are a thing.  Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s respected former FDA head has written a “roadmap” to recovery and one of the things he recommends is going the face protection route.  Notably when asked about that yesterday during his infomercial, Trump didn’t dismiss it out of hand.   Cover up and stay safe.

Calling A-Rod?

Life in the Hotspot: For two reasons I wasn’t all that that concerned when Trump teased that he was likely to restrict all travel out of New York City and the surrounding areas.  First, it appeared obvious to me that he was spit balling, if you’ll excuse a woefully inappropriate for the time phrase, and second because where was I going anyway. Still the idea that the leader of the country would say that without thinking through the consequences, consulting experts or giving the relevant state governors a heads up say a lot about him, none of it good.  As to experts, according to a few of the real ones, the concept was discussed in the White House but after they and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin pushed back hard Trump relented instead going with a travel advisory which is kind of where we were before he scared the crap out of the half of the region that was paying attention.  In all likelihood, Trump’s initial idea came from Florida Governor DeSantis who is freaked out about all those virus transmitting Northeast snow birds who’ve fled to his state.  That’s a fair concern but maybe it’s equally fair to assume that DeSantis is flailing, trying to deflect the criticism of his decision to leave Florida’s spring break filled beaches open a bit too long?  Getting back to experts, though we don’t know what he said, one of those that Trump contacted was Alex Rodriguez, because who doesn’t consult a former baseball player when faced with a pandemic. In addition to chatting with steroid half of the A-Rod/J-Low team, Trump is also maintaining his obsession on ratings.  There’s not much new about that, but still yesterday’s pre-virus press conference tweet where he said “Because the “Ratings” of my News Conferences etc. are so high, ‘Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers’ according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 PM!” was over the top nutzoid even for him.  And it isn’t just ratings, he also spent part of the run up to his evening press conference tweeting about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.  Apparently the two have relocated to the Los Angeles area and Trump wanted them and everyone else to know that he has no plans to fund their security.  For the record, they never asked him to and have already made other arrangements and I know that with the coronavirus pandemic raging, you were really worried about that.

No Bunnies:  During yesterday’s daily conference, Trump said what most of us already knew, there’ll be no Easter parade this year, he did that while announcing that the country will remain in social distancing/lockdown mode at least until the end of April.  For portions of the press conference, the parts where he stuck to his prepared remarks, Trump sounded almost presidential but then he went off on a few of his riffs, slimed a few genuine reporters, picked on a few fawning ones and attacked a handful of governors.  In one of those riffs, he asserted that hospital staff in virus hotspots like NYC are stealing hundreds of thousands of surgical masks, querying how the number of masks requested could shoot up from 10,000 to 300,000 overnight.  He actually asked “are they are going out the back door?” Is he really so stupid that he doesn’t get that mask needs are up hugely from normalized years due to the virus, or does he think that there’s a part of his base who’ll find comfort in thinking that those blue state, ethnic New Yorkers are just undeserving mask thieves.  Who knows what goes on in that pea brain?  While bragging about all those ventilators coming on line soon, though sadly not soon enough, he also followed up on an accusation that he had floated earlier, that NY’s Governor Cuomo is sitting on a stash of “hidden” ventilators.  Again, Trump appears not to understand that Cuomo, like some of those other planning ahead governors, are anticipated a coming patient surge and that those ventilator stores are crucial. He also doesn’t appear to appreciate that his lack of action has resulted in bidding wars between the various state governments and the federal government over scarce medical resources, or maybe he does and he likes it that way.  On the governor front, he slapped back at PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor for asking “threatening” questions about his claims that certain governors were asking for equipment that they didn’t need.  He denied he’d said the snarky things he’d previously said about “that woman” Michigan Governor  Gretchen Whitmer and that “failed presidential candidate“ Washington Governor Jay Inslee even though he had.  As to being nasty to Alcindor, its worth noting that she’s a black woman and as such falls into a group that Trump frequently targets with disdain. When Trump refused to answer Alcindor’s customary follow up question, another member of the mainstream media, CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, very classily passed the mic back to her when he was called on, that and his subsequent question about Trump’s earlier statement that he expects more appreciation from governors, especially if they want him to take their calls, resulted in Trump attacking CNN.  As for those governors, sadly they are in a bind, so both Inslee and Whitmer did their best to avoid answering questions about Trump’s disdain for them yesterday, both said that they were getting federal help and were talking with VP Pence but shied away from slamming Trump though you know that they really wanted to. 

Et Cetera:  In early February back when Trump and his minions at Fox were downplaying the virus and it’s likely trajectory, the US government sent 17.8 tons of "masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials" to China, probably a gift that had more to do with easing trade negotiations than genuine Trump generosity. For the record, the virus had already hit our shores at that point and there were plenty in government blowing warning whistles, in fact Health Secretary Azar had already been told by the CDC that the virus was a huge concern, but at that point Trump was still insisting that the virus wouldn’t be a bigly problem.   A lot is now being done to ramp up production of equipment and to source needed supplies, Trump finally invoked the Defense Production Act to get more ventilators out on Friday, and some of the masks we need are coming from Asia but wouldn’t a little more forethought have been useful?   In other non-virus news because there always is some, the Justice Department is now looking into some of those stock dumping trades made by Senators Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler who got the inside skinny on the oncoming virus tsunami.  It appears that Senator Feinstein may be in the clear, her portfolio in a blind trust and the stock sold out of her portfolio was from a pharmaceutical company focused on cancer treatment, not something virus related.  Bernie Sanders is still in the race but if he’s hoping to win New York, those hopes are now on the back burner as Governor Cuomo has pushed off NY’s primary until June.  That however is not stopping Bernie’s surrogates from continuing to question Joe Biden’s abilities because that’s how they roll.

Stay safe!

Tom Brady

American Exceptionalism:  It turns out that we really are a great country, that is great if you think that having more COVID positive people than any place else is a good thing, an accomplishment that’s particularly impressive given how far behind we are in testing who actually has the virus.  Despite our place in the league tables Trump is still determined to get the country open by Easter or thereabouts.  The newest scheme to accomplish that will involve grading counties, with low incidence ones, regardless of their virus trajectory, being good to go sooner while infected locations stay put.   Makes you wonder if the virus respects county borders.  What do you think? I am guessing not so much.  As to quarterbacking all these decisions, Trump who views himself as the Tom Brady of presidents got called out by Washington State Governor Jay Inslee who said something along the lines of maybe it’s time to call in the real Tom Brady to run the virus fight and by Tom Brady, he probably meant someone, anyone up to the task.  Trump, of course interpreted or pretended to interpret that as Inslee comparing him favorably to the GOAT and then went on to criticize a number of Governors, because why not go after those dealing with the virus on the ground.  To that end he dissed Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer as just a woman, new at her job, without much experience, Inslee as a failed presidential candidate and  Virus Idol Cuomo as wildly overstating his need for ventilators.  As to those ventilators, last night Trump told Fox’s Hannity, that he “doesn’t believe that you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators.  You know you go into major hospitals sometimes and they’ll have two ventilators.  Now all of a sudden they’re saying ‘Can we order 30,00O ventilators?’” That reference to two might pertain to veterinary facilities, which by the way are where some desperate hospital administrators are trying to source ventilators but it hardly reflects your typical big hospital. More likely Trump came up with this newest illegitimate statistic upon learning how much retooling auto factories into ventilator production would cost.  Today’s NY Times reports that the administration was on the verge of announcing a deal with General Motors and Ventec Life systems to produce 80,000 or so ventilators but backed off upon learning that doing so would cost about $1 billion.  Is now a good time to remind everyone how much Trump, who apparently is also now the Respiratory Therapist in chief, has spent and wants to continue spending on border wall construction?  And by the way, what’s $1 billion when you’ve just agreed to spend $2.3 trillion plus on getting out of this mess?

Daily Rally/Update: Trump’s daily political rally/virus conference was equally wacky, not good wacky, just bizarrely insane.  He again repeated a lot of those untruths and half-truths that he’s been pushing, that things would be much worse if he hadn’t acted fast to shut down travel from China, that he inherited an obsolete system, that everyone who wants a virus test gets a virus test and my personal favorite, that no one could ever had anticipated a pandemic.  Apparently he still hasn’t read any of those predictive analyses that were handed to him when he took office.  Not shocking, since he doesn’t read, but it might have been nice if someone had converted one or more of them into a pithy power point presentation and force fed him its contents. Trump also slammed Sleepy Joe, because isn’t a daily virus update the right venue for attacking a political rival, while going off on a riff about his America first trade policies, his border policies and how he’s brought steel production home.  Both of Trump’s experts, Drs Birx and Fauci were present at yesterday’s conference.  “Debbie” was a bit upbeat about the long term trajectory of the virus, still cautioning the importance of social distancing but spouting statistics and citing trends about how a lot of the prediction models may be overstating infection rates and serious morbidity.  It would be wonderful if she turns out to be right about that but she ought to be careful about what she shares with “the quarterback” because he hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.  Birx also tried some reassurance saying that NY still hasn’t blown through its supply of ventilators, again nice to hear but hard to believe given Cuomo’s warnings and the concerns coming from the other Governors. Fauci who is now the villain of such rightwing “experts” as Lou Dobbs, was more factual, less willing to say that we’re going to be out of the woods anytime soon but did say that he thought that a vaccine of some sort would be available sooner than was earlier predicted, not soon enough, but sooner.

Legislative News:  Yesterday was Nancy Pelosi’s 80 birthday.  Today, instead of going into hiding with the rest of the country’s octogenarians, she’ll be shepherding the $2.3 trillion emergency package through the House.  She couldn’t promise that one or more members wouldn’t try to throw a wrench into her process, but she did say it would pass regardless of how many people jump up and down and pontificate.  For the record the most likely wrench wielder is Republican Congressman Thomas Massie from where else but Kentucky, the home of Typhoid Mary/Rand Paul and Moscow Mitch. What’s in that Kentucky drinking water? She also noted that more assistance is likely to come down the pike later, that the legislation wasn’t perfect but it was a stunning accomplishment in such a short time.  She’s not happy that Washington DC is being shortchanged, treated like a territory rather than a state, and that states like NY aren’t getting as much as they need but she’s not planning to let any of that get in the way of passage.    

Et Cetera: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro isn’t all that concerned about COVID 19 because “Brazilians never catch anything.”  Want to bet that his assertion doesn’t age well?  Israelis are concerned, and it looks like the need to prioritize fighting the pandemic is providing Bibi Netanyahu with a life line.  It appears that he and his chief rival Benny Gantz are on the verge of establishing a unity government, one that would keep Bibi around for a while longer.  Gantz who previously said he wouldn’t go the unity route now says that "These are not ordinary days and they require extraordinary decisions." Yup.  If only Trump got that, he still insists that there’s no need to employ the Defense Production Act because the powers of the free market are providing all the equipment and tests we need,  most former officials from both sides of the aisle disagree, but then again they're not GOATs.

Stay Safe!

Bored Yet?

Senate Down, House To Go: After a day spent screwing around and pontificating, late last night the Senate passed the $2.3 trillion emergency package by a vote of 96 to 0, with the four missing votes due to the forced absence of the few under quarantine.  Though the outcome of the vote wasn’t in doubt, it took all day because of concerns raised by four Republicans, the South Carolina duo of Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, Nebraska’s Ben Sasse and Florida’s Rick Scott, that some of the bill’s unemployment insurance payments were too generous and would incent people to stay home instead of work.  Apparently the gruesome quartet missed the point that the whole package is about so many people being prohibited from working right now.  After some shenanigans, including a failed vote on an amendment to fix the problem that only the quartet were concerned about and an impassioned speech from presidential candidate forever Bernie Sanders in which he threatened to hold the package up if the four didn’t get onboard, the Senate went ahead with its vote. By the way, Bernie seemed unusually pleased to have the opportunity to show off his public speaking chops.  The legislation now goes on to Speaker Pelosi’s house where it will be up for a vote tomorrow. That whole unanimous consent thing appears to be off the table.  It’s now expected that Pelosi will allow her crowd to air their grievances on the inadequacy of the emergency package, a concern shared by New York Virus Hero/Governor Cuomo who wants more for the state and NYC, but that’s mostly so that they can say that they voiced their concerns as it’s doubtful any changes will be made before the package is put up for a final vote.  Trump is ready to sign off as soon as the bill crosses his desk.  Some of the House crowd including Congresswoman Katie Porter won’t be present for the final vote, the California newbie who has won lots of accolades for her sharp interrogation skills is now among the COVID 19 positive.  Despite the Senate’s action, don’t expect the markets to be up today.  Futures are currently down awaiting unemployment figures, obviously the days of Trump’s much heralded super duper low unemployment are behind us.

Another Day, Another Rally:  Trump took to the podium again for another one of his interminable daily virus updates/campaign rallies.  In case you missed it, no one has reacted to the threat of the virus better than him, under his brilliant guidance the USA has tested more people with higher quality test kits than any other country even South Korea, we have the best medical equipment in the universe, so awesome that those nasty Europeans won’t even allow any of it onto their continent, that if anything his efforts were hindered by the obsolete system handed him by that other president, the black guy from Kenya, and no one could have anticipated that a pandemic could hit our shores. He also went into an America first trade rant, but I’ll save that for another day.  If any of what he said sounds wacky it’s because none of it is true.  We’re still way behind on virus testing although the Trump/Pence team insists that anyone who wants to be tested can be, regardless of the quality of our medical equipment we clearly are short a lot of it and while its great that the auto companies are stepping up to build some breathing apparatus we all know that’s a long term rather than instant solution.  Well, I say we all know, but sadly some in Trump’s fan base and, if recent polls are to be believed, some very hopeful middle of the roaders are hanging on his words too, eating them up and crediting him with his awesome leadership skills.  As to anticipating a pandemic, lots of people in the government did anticipate that one could hit our shores, Politico reports that in 2016 the National Security Council prepared a 69 page playbook with the catchy title: “Early Response for High Consequence Emerging Infection Disease Threats and Biologic Incidences.”  That handbook, that apparently few if any of the remaining members of the Trump in circle ever looked at, details tactics and key policy decisions to be followed to fight pandemics.  Recommendations include that the federal government ‘move swiftly to fully detect potential outbreaks, secure supplemental funding and consider invoking the Defense Production Act — all steps in which the Trump administration lagged behind the timeline laid out”  Sadly their incompetence is not shocking but the consequences of their disdain are.

He Said What? Now for some more priceless Stable Genius comments, when informed that Senator Mitt Romney, one of the guys who got a little too close to Typhoid Mary AKA Senator Rand Paul, had gotten back his coronavirus test results and that he had tested negative, Trump sarcastically tweeted “That is great news, I am so happy that I can barely speak” before adding Romney was a terrible presidential candidate, an even worse Senator and a RINO (a Republican in name only), ironically that term that used to be applied to Ivanka and Jared before we knew better.  You get the distinct feeling that Trump very much wanted Romney to test positive.  And because throwing shade at Romney wasn’t enough for one day, Trump also slammed the mainstream media again, saying that the “lamestream media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed for as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success.” He still wants to open up by Easter because “The real people want to get back to work ASAP.”  No doubt real people everywhere want things to get back to normal, but by real people he probably means those people in his inner circle who, despite some of the aforementioned polls, are concerned about what all this means for his campaign and those people in corporate America who are more concerned about their bottom line than anything else, and to be fair to corporate America, that desire to get back to work too early is not a sentiment shared by many of them.   And remember Tuesday when Trump told us not to malign Chinese people, well apparently that message only goes so far.  Secretary of State Pompeo caused serious agita at a video conference G 7 meeting  of industrialized country ministers yesterday, one that replaced a previously scheduled physical meeting.  He did that by insisting that COVID 19 be referred to as the Wuhan Virus so though the participating ministers agreed on the need for joint efforts to halt its spread  they were unable to issue a planned joint statement.  To quote James Comey, Lordy!

        

Et Cetera:  One of my readers asked me to share a video from a Midwest health professional on how to treat food packages and other items that you bring into your home.  Instead, I’ve decided to share the message.  Clean everything, throw out bags and outer wrappers, then clean the surfaces and counters they may have touched and WASH YOUR HANDS Again and Again!  Now, on a more positive note, The New York Four Seasons is now providing free accommodations for health care workers.  Nice!  Stay safe.

Princes and Canaries

Viral Musings:  Good morning from virus central, or as NY’s Governor Cuomo calls us the canary in the coal mine, an expression I use frequently to describe my exquisite sense of smell but one that I’d rather not have applied to my city of residence.  I am also not surprised that Dr Birx, or Debbie as Trump affectionately calls her while pointedly still referring to immunology superstar Tony by the formal moniker Dr Fauci, told all New Yorkers fleeing the Big Apple that they should self-quarantine themselves for fourteen days upon arriving at their hibernation destination.  Personally while I wouldn’t go so far as to say good riddance, I have no problem with people decamping as it declutters the sidewalks, Central Park and the elevators for us NYC diehards.  Anyway, if Trump has his way most of us will be free of this whole quarantine thing by Easter Sunday, because that’s “a beautiful day” at least that’s what he floated Monday night, previewed during a virtual Fox townhall and then repeated yesterday during his daily virus news conference/campaign rally. Dr Fauci did his best to throw boiling water on that idea, but Trump is generally impervious to science, or the smartest scientist in the room because of that uncle of his who taught at MIT, and is as persistent as a dog with a marrow bone so who knows.  Maybe that cancelled Easter Egg Roll will go back on the schedule, because who doesn’t love an event where everyone leaves with a basket, a few pastel eggs and a hacking cough. Some of Trump’s most ardent Congressional supporters like Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Liz Cheney, the number three House Republican and the only one in leadership with enough gumption to speak out when it suits her purpose, made it clear that a premature end to the “stay at home” order was a bad idea, pointing out that dealing with the virus is far more important than rushing the economy back into gear because what good is a strong economy if there’s no one left to benefit from it. Odds are the Easter release won’t happen, but how much do you want to bet that some of Trump’s more ardent fans have already booked cruises and trips to Disney World because at least one of them has already died from ingesting chloroquine phosphate, a fish tank cleaner, after Trump trumpeted the value of the chloroqouine/zithromycin combination for virus sufferers.  By the way that fish tank cleaner is now sold out!  Yikes.  Back to almost everyone’s virus hero, Governor Cuomo, in addition to comparing the city a small melodic bird, he continued criticizing Trump about his unwillingness to use the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of all those critical pieces of medical equipment and protective gear and though that hasn’t seemed to work, FEMA waffled back and forth about it all day, his slam about them not freeing up more ventilators from the national emergency supply did bear some fruit because by the end of the day the number of machines being sent from the federal supply to NY was increased from a miserly few hundred to a still not enough 4000.  Cuomo has promised to sterilize those machines and send them on to the next hotspot at the point that NY gets over its surge, whenever that may be.       

Be a Hand Nazi:  Getting back to the virus, things are not good but you probably know that already so I’ll leave it at that.  At some point the curve will flatten but that’s not going to happen for a while so in the meantime keep on washing your hands a lot and DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE, especially your nose, mouth and eyes.  A doctor treating patients at Cornell Weill Hospital tweeted out a video with some virus information.  In it he said that despite all the fears that you can get COVID 18 from air droplets, in his now substantial experience, it is largely transmitted by people touching each other and/or surface droplets and then touching their faces.  He says that while wearing an ordinary mask or scarf over your nose wouldn’t be sufficient for a medical professional working with coughing/sneezing patients it is an effective way to get you to keep your hands off your face when outside so go ahead, cover up when you go shopping, etc.  And then Purell, if you are lucky enough to have any, and/or wash your hands as soon as you can. 

Political Relief:  In the middle of the night the Senate finally agreed upon their much anticipated $2 trillion “relief” package after Minority Leader Schumer and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin hammered out final agreements on unemployment benefits, direct payments to individuals and families and the oversight of what Democrats had been calling a slush fund.  The agreement also provides money for hospitals, loans and funds for some combination of small businesses, cities, states and bigger corporations.  The objective is to support companies that have lost all or most of their customers and to help out low and middle income families until we get out of this mess.  Trump is on board and the Senate is expected to pass the package during the day sending it on to the House where Speaker Pelosi will try to get it passed by unanimous consent if possible.  Passage in the House will happen but the unanimous consent thing might not.  The stock gods who engaged in some very significant anticipatory celebration yesterday are a bit apathetic this morning awaiting the details.  Shifting gears to the presidential campaign, Joe Biden spent some time chatting with MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace yesterday, though there’s not much he can do right now for obvious reasons, for what it’s worth he oozed lots of compassion, in direct contrast to you know who.  He also received another labor endorsement, this one from the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, that’s on top of his previous endorsements from the National Education Association, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the American Federation of Teachers.   That said, Bernie Sanders supporters have been tweeting that Biden isn’t sounding “strong” enough, their justification for the Vermont Senator staying in the race and Bernie says he’s preparing for the April debate and the NYS primary, two things that may never happen.

Your Highnesses: And as I was writing this news came across that Prince Charles is COVID 19 positive but only mildly symptomatic or so his handlers say.  On the “positive” front, that other prince in his own mind Senator Rand Paul is a little touchy on the subject, pun intended.  He wrote an op-ed  defending his decision to socialize while he was waiting for his test results because he’s Rand and that’s how he rolls.

Stop the Insanity

Floor Fights: Well things got really testy on the Senate floor yesterday before erupting into sheer lunacy during the White House’s daily Coronavirus news conference, the forum that Trump is now using as a surrogate for his campaign rallies.  First the Senate,  members of that body really went at each other, throwing expletives and cutting into each other’s speechifying all while questioning each side’s motives after Democrats voted against Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s too partisan for them stimulus package.  That the package went down in flames couldn’t have been a surprise to McConnell, with five of his Senators in quarantine, he had to know that he couldn’t get his package passed so it’s fair to assume that putting it up for a vote was just more partisan political shenanigans.  McConnell, who is himself up for reelection this year, further demonstrated that when he took to the podium to blame the Democrats for failing to put differences aside in this dire time making it sound like everything, including the virus itself, was their fault, just another plot to wrest control from Trump and Republicans.   While he was pontificating and pointing fingers at those radical leftists and their partner in socialism Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Schumer, who also got in some speaking time, was actually negotiating changes to the legislation with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin with input from Speaker Pelosi. It may well be that the idea that the three were actually compromising and making progress without him was part of what was so infuriating McConnell.  Anyway, sometime around midnight Schumer and Mnuchin reported that they were very close to resolving their differences, that they had made changes to satisfy Democratic concerns that the stimulus package had been too skewed to large corporations over real people and that they had agreed to impose some restrictions on how a $500 billion discretionary slush fund can be used, making the funds less easilty available to friends of the administration, including the Trump businesses, because to no one’s surprise Trump refuses to rule out tapping into those funds for his resorts. One indication that they’ve come to a resolution, one that Trump reportedly has signed off on, is that stock futures are up this morning, or at least up as I write this.     

The Stable Epidemiologist:  Now to that insanity.  During the daily virus news conference/political rally, Trump made it clear that he was over the whole quarantine, shut down the country thing; that as far as he’s concerned the efforts to smooth the virus infection curve were killing his economy and by that, though he didn’t say it, he means his chances of reelection in November, or whenever the election actually takes place.  Following up on a tweet he made earlier in the day he said he wants to open up in a week or so because “we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem.”  Apparently that is now a view among a growing number of conservatives and red state governors but NO scientists or medical experts which probably explains why everyone except Trump’s favorite immunologist, Dr Fauci, was not one of the presenters.  Yesterday’s doctor in residence was instead Deborah Birx, who reported that the reason she’d been missing in action over the weekend was because she had a case of bad bellyitis and had been running a fever, an announcement that kind of freaked out the room until she reassured everyone that she had a passed a COVID 19 test with flying colors.  As an aside, German Chancellor Angela Merkel passed her test too, but plans to stay in isolation until she passes a second one.  Anyway, the somewhat loopy Birx went on and on about virus hotspots and curves and other such things but never directly contradicted Trump’s “science”, leading many, including me, to believe that she’s eaten some weird Jello.  As to that idea of opening up the country sooner rather than later, Trump appeared to recognize that some places like NY,  California, and Illinois are going to get worse before they get better, but it’s not like anyone in any of those places are going to vote for him anyway.  As to some of those red states, or red until now states, Texas Lieutenant Governor  Dan Patrick pretty much explained Trump’s theory, saying hell lots of older and vulnerable people will die if we don’t stick with the shutdowns, but hell who cares about them anyway.  Patrick went so far as to say that he’d be willing to die to get the economy going for his grandkids.  Does anyway really believe that?  And Florida’s Governor DeSantis who has been taking heat for not imposing adequate restrictions in his state has finally come up with one, he wants anyone flying in from NYC to self-quarantine for 14 days, it’s not clear what concerns him more, their political views or the virus.  Getting back to Trump, he reminded everyone that the country’s Asian-American community ought to be "totally" protected" in light of xenophobic attacks during the coronavirus pandemic saying "They are amazing people, and the spreading of the Virus is NOT their fault in any way, shape, or form."  I wonder where anyone ever got the idea that it was okay to blame Chinese people for the coronavirus?  And because repetition is his thing, Trump also continued to attack that certain prior administration for handing him a woefully obsolete system, he continued to assert that ventilators are currently being produced by the auto makers, who report that they are not yet doing so yet and insisted that medical supplies and virus tests are widely available though they’re still not.  He also weighed in again on potential cures, hyping them despite the absence of scientific data, a bigly problem because some of his fans have started self-medicating with dire consequences.  On the drug front maybe we will have some real data soon as “virus idol” Governor Cuomo reports that New York has been authorized to start using and reporting back on the safety and effectiveness of the  chloroquine/Zithromax combination.  And though its hard to believe Trump about anything, it does appear that some quicker and easier to administer virus test will be coming down the pike soon, as will more supplies, the problem is with quantifying soon.  As to that open the country up next week thing, don’t go all in on using up your toilet paper supplies yet and don't try to buy tons of it for resale either because AG Barr has your number and he promises that he'll be at your door arresting you if you try.

Et Cetera:  Though as of this writing no Democratic Senators have tested virus positive, Amy Klobuchar’s husband, a Washington area university professor, has apparently been sick for a while and is now hospitalized.  Boris Johnson has closed down the UK, Italy might be starting, just starting to turn a corner, Wuhan China is opening up and Bernie Sanders, who missed a few of those Senate votes, is still running for president.        

Stir Crazy Yet?

Viral Musings:  A perhaps too candid Dr Anthony Fauci, the now famous immunologist who is doing his best to keep us informed about COVID 19, candidly told an interviewer from Science magazine this weekend that “when things are being said that aren’t true and aren’t factual” there is only so much that he can do because he “can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down.”  And by him, he’s referring to Trump and his lies and exaggerations.   He went on to say that he does his best to correct Trump’s statements “the next time.”  Sometimes that next time occurs moments after Trump speaks, other times later in the day or in a subsequent daily news conference.  As to news conferences, it seems that every time Trump speaks the markets turn down because even when he has something constructive to say, he quickly follows up with a slam or a lie that devalues his prior statement.  On Friday, Trump stuck his foot in his mouth when he attacked NBC’s Peter Alexander calling him out as a “terrible reporter” for asking if he had anything to say to scared Americans.  Trump called the question “nasty” and accused Alexander, NBC and Comcast, which he called Con-cast, of sensationalism.  Later when asked a similar question, VP Pence responded with some reassuring words.  Leave it to Trump to make Pence sound like an empathetic genius.  Over the weekend, in subsequent daily news conferences, Trump continued along a similar line, even when he had good things to say about assistance being provided to the states most hit, he couldn’t help but stray off of his prepared remarks, going after the press, a governor or two and “sleepy Joe,” especially ironic because he started all of those meetings saying how much he was appreciating the current spirit of bipartisanship and how well he was working with the governors that he then went on to slam in the meetings or in subsequent tweets.  The bottom line, more equipment and resources are being made available to severely stressed hospitals, and that’s a good thing, the problem is that there’s been confused messaging, there are pipeline and delivery delays and it’s likely that a lot of what’s on its way will follow the patient surge that is already taking place.  Moreover though he has the power, Trump continues to want to rely on market forces rather than taking control of critical manufacturers, he pretty much tipped the reason for that when he said that he’s heard from some of those companies’ CEOs that they wouldn’t be  happy if he took them over, and he keeps insisting that the automakers will have respirators and ventilators available very soon and they won’t.      

Legislative Front:  Mitch McConnell returned from his beer with Kavanaugh hiatus, to inject some more partisanship into the fraught legislative process.  After a few moments of what appeared to be a “working across the aisle” moment, he went back to his usual “I am in charge of the Senate so we are going to do it my way or else” mode. Has he forgotten about Nancy P? He then presented Democrats with a package that they found too skewed to the corporate sector, left too much discretion about the dispensing of rescue money to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and involved too little in the way of aid to the suffering masses.  As a result the big kahuna stimulus package that was promised wasn’t agreed to over the weekend, that doesn’t mean that a package isn’t forthcoming soon, it’s just not done yet, expect some compromising today.  To say the least, the stock market gods aren’t happy.  We also learned this weekend that no one’s favorite Senator Rand Paul, who says that he has no symptoms, has tested positive for coronavirus.  We won’t even get into how someone with no symptoms, assuming he really has none, got tested while here is NYC, virus central, you only get tested if you are a health worker. member of the police or about to be admitted to a hospital.  Anyway, while Paul was waiting for his results to come in, he hung with a bunch of his colleagues worked out in the still open (WTF!) Senate gym and went swimming in its pool.  A number of those colleagues, including Utah’s Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, have now self-quarantined, making them unavailable for Senate voting, which for some reason still has to be done in person.  And a number of others like Florida’s Marco Rubio who was seen in a dining tete a tete with Paul haven’t but should.  Did I mention that Paul also attended the all hands on deck Republican Senate luncheon this weekend?  When Trump learned about Romney, he positively gloated, in public during a press conference, something that says a lot about him and the veracity of those assertions that he has an extreme narcissistic personality disorder.  By the way, in addition to being 72 years old, Romney’s wife Ann has multiple sclerosis so he’s rightfully more concerned than the average guy about turning up positive.  Not wanting to be outdone, Attorney General Barr who as far as anyone knows is still negative, about everything, is trying to get authorization from Congress to suspend certain civil rights during the crisis.  Of course he is.

Et Cetera:  Trump has reached out to his bestie North Korea’s Kim Jung un, offering him virus assistance because why not? There’s no indication , or at last public indication that he’s done the same for Italy though he has offered a helping hand to Iran and anyway what kind of assistance is he planning to provide because last I checked we weren’t exactly swimming in excess gloves, masks, hospital beds, respirators or ventilators.  Trump continues to blame the crisis on the obsolete system that he inherited from Obama, swatting away questions about his decision to disband the pandemic work force that Obama set up to improve the system.  He also said that he has no need to consult with any past presidents because he’s smarter than them.  Remember when George W Bush enlisted his father and Bill Clinton for moral support and fundraising after 9.11, forget about it.  Germany’s Angela Merkel, having learned that a doctor who just gave her a vaccination for something not COVID 19 has now tested positive and has put herself in self-quarantine. It’s fair to assume that her quarantine space is a bit nicer than the one now occupied by disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, who, like Rand Paul, has tested positive.  At least so far, and hopefully, for a long time to come, NY’s Governor Andrew Cuomo is still healthy and receiving lots of accolades for his in your face, fact driven, daily news conferences and crisis management.  He appears to be navigating these treacherous waters well, serious but with his sense of humor and charisma intact, still sparring with his brother, CNN’S Chris Cuomo, over which one of them is Matilda’s favorite son.  Sweet.

Crimson Contagion

Disinformation:  Well, according to the statistics we are on pace to match Italy, normally being like the country of Da Vinci, Prada and Gucci would be a good thing, now not so much.  But then again if you’d listened to Trump speaking at his virus news conference yesterday you’d believe that things were much better, that key supplies were on their way to hospitals and health care workers everywhere and that both old and new drugs were set to be our salvation.  Sadly, little of that is true. On the supply front, both Trump and Pence asserted that hundreds of thousands of items like hospital quality facemasks, respirators and ventilators were in the mail.  That sounded great, but then Trump said something along the lines of it wasn’t his job to make sure that any of that stuff got to the right destinations and immediately after the conference hospitals everywhere reported that they still are critically short of supplies, Macgyver-ing equipment, and the manufacturers said that they’re mostly still in production mode.  On the drug front, Trump talked a lot about an old anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, making it sound like it was the cure-all for COVID 19.  While the drug is an approved drug it has not been approved for use in the treatment of the Coronavirus so almost immediately the FDA walked back much of what Trump said.  To be clear, the drug might help, but then again it might not.  Studies are necessary because misuse could also make things worse rather than better though on a positive front a French report indicates that the combination of hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic Zithromax did shorten the duration of the virus in a small group of patients, results that warrant further testing and no doubt that testing is taking place right now, or at least I hope it is.  

To cap off the conference, Trump then went into full conspiracy mode, proving that his few days of sober Trump were an aberration.  He did that by selecting Chanel Rion to ask a question.  Rion, is a reporter/plant from One America News (OAN), the same fringe right wing outlet that’s been working with Rudy Giuliani, remember him, on his Biden/Burisma stuff.  She began by asking if Trump considered using the term “Chines food” inappropriate and then after Trump agreed that it wasn’t racist at all, she went totally bonkers asking  “On that note, major left-wing media, even in this room, have teamed up with Chinese communist party narratives, and they are claiming you are racist for making these claims about ‘Chinese virus,’” She then continued “Is it alarming that major media players, just to oppose you, are siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels and they work right here out of the White House with direct access to you and your team?” Shortly before picking on her Trump had joked that it might be time to further reduce the number of reporters allowed into the briefing room, to make for better “social distancing.” Looks like wacky Chanel has a permanent ticket, those left wing media outlets she cited such as the WSJ(!) and the Washington Post not so much.  Later Trump moved on to a meeting with some FEMA folks, I didn’t tune in because how much Trump can anyone take in a day, but pictures from the meeting show him disengaged and bored.  And that’s probably also how he felt after he received word of the Health and Human Services Crimson Contagion simulation, an exercise that the NY Times reports was done last year to anticipate and prepare for situations like the one that we are currently facing.  At least it’s fair to assume he reacted that way, we may never know, all we know is that HHS concluded, accurately, that the US wouldn’t be ready for a similar crisis, that supply chains were a mess and hospital capability was inadequate.  Somewhere, someone yawned and filed that analysis under whatever.

The WTF File:  Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, the Republican Senator who at various times has been lauded for working cooperatively with his Democratic counterpart chaired several meetings where his committee was told that the Coronavirus was closing in on us and that things were way worse than anyone had imagined, or at least worse than we were being told. NPR reports that instead of sharing that information with the public, he “warned a small group of well-connected constituents to prepare for dire economic and societal effects” and they’ve got him on tape doing so.  And of course, because what’s the value of inside information if you can’t act on it, he then went on to sell about $1.7 million of stock in the industries that have been hardest hit by the pandemic after reassuring the public about the adequacy of virus preparedness.  He’s not the only one, apparently newbie very rich Senator Kelly Loeffler, the seat filler who was appointed to the vacated Georgia Senator seat largely because she committed to spending a huge amount of her substantial fortune on her campaign also sold $1 to possibly $3 million dollars of stock after sitting in on the Senate Intel committee meeting but bought some “work from home” related stock during the same time period.  They’re not alone, it appears that Senators Inhofe and Democrat Feinstein did some stock selling too.  Excuses run from the “I had nothing to do with my decisions, a possibility because at least with regard to Feinstein, her portfolio is in a blind trust, to that NPR is just engaging in fake news excuse.  In case you’re wondering its illegal for members of Congress to trade on inside information, but my guess is that most of these Senators will get away with it.

Et Cetera:  The Senate trillion dollar relief plan is still a moving target although Senate Leader McConnell says that no one’s going home until it is done.  As of now it appears that the Republican plan would delay the tax-filing deadline from April 15 to July 15, would include a one-time payment of up to $1,200 to US taxpayers with payments phased out for individuals making more than $75,000, reduced to zero for those making more than $99,000.  The package also includes up to $50 billion in help for the air carriers, $8 billion for cargo companies and $150 billion for other businesses impacted by the virus.  The Democrats also want funds to help hospitals, federal funding for childcare help and low interest loans to businesses as well as funding for seniors and the impoverished and subsidies for public transportation.  Again this isn’t done yet.  In other news, former UN Ambassador/South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who always thinks ahead, resigned from the Boeing board yesterday saying that she opposed the company getting any federal funding.  She figures that position will fly better when she runs for president in 2024.  And because few were paying attention, acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell fired Russel Travers, the acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center but claimed that he wasn’t fired, he just decided now was a good time for a long term, dedicated professional to retire, especially one not on the Trump train. Did I mention that Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is no longer running for president, she announced that while endorsing Joe Biden, and California is now closed?     

War Feet

Viral Musings:  The good news is that the administration appears to really get, finally, that we’re facing a deadly and bigly black swan event, the bad news is that Trump is still in charge.  Yesterday, during the daily coronavirus news conference he once again monopolized the mic, promising and asserting a lot of things that sounded good but that weren’t true, or at the very least weren’t true yet.  He said that two US Navy hospital ships were on their way, one to New York and one to an as yet undisclosed location on the west coast but then the Navy reported that the ships are as yet unstaffed, are undergoing maintenance and will take weeks to deploy.  When they finally arrive, the ships won’t treat virus victims but will take care of other patients, freeing up critical care beds for the virus stricken. Trump and the rest of the team also talked COVID 19 test kits, once again promising more availability than currently exists.  When asked why certain people like really rich basketball players have managed to be tested while many poor slobs in the rest of the country have been left begging, Trump actually said “that’s the story of life.” Well at least in that regard he was telling the truth. On the positive front, Trump invoked the war powers Defense Productions Act, part of an effort to get production of needed hospital protective gear and breathing apparatus ramped up and though nothing is happening yet, yesterday after the major auto companies announced the closing of all their North American factories through March 30 for thorough sanitizing, two of them, GM and Ford, said that they together with the UAW were in discussions with the Trump administration about redeploying their resources to the production of medical equipment like ventilators.  Tesla’s Elon Musk said that he’s also ready to do the same.  On the diplomatic/racist front, Trump and people in his orbit continue to slam China, referring to COVID 19 as that Wuhan or Chinese virus or worse.  When asked if he thought it was okay that someone in the White House was referring to the virus as the Kung Flu, Trump essentially said so what, even when it was pointed out to him that such rhetoric was resulting in often violent scapegoating of Asian Americans.  For her part, Kellyanne Conway dismissed the anti-Asian sentiment by pointing out that no one could consider her racist as her frequently estranged husband, George Conway, is part Filipino, a variation of the “I know a black person” defense.   As to China, it’s not like its government is all that innocent either.  There’s no question that the country’s leadership’s early efforts to hide the virus from the rest of the world has had dire consequences and that the country’s leadership has been engaging in some unwarranted conspiracy theories and finger pointing of their own, as have a lot of Russian bots, but there’s no point in getting into a public pissing match with China right now.  For better or worse, we need their trade and a lot of their products, think facemasks and other protective garb, right about now. We also need facts and accurate reporting and Trump’s public kvetching and finger pointing is giving President Xi the ammunition he needs to “justify” the expelling of US reporters at a time when we need them and their on the ground truth telling more than ever.  We also need the Army Corps of Engineers to start doing what they do, and though Trump keeps saying that he’s going to send them on their way, they’re ready but  still haven’t received marching orders to start building and/or refurbishing facilities to serve as interim hospitals.  Instead of verbally attacking China, Trump ought to take a page from Xi, not with regard to misdirection and press suppression, but with regard to rapid deployment of forces.

Legislative Front:  The Senate passed the House’s Coronavirus Relief legislation yesterday by a vote of 90 to 8.  I haven’t figured out who didn’t vote but the eight naysayers, all Republicans, include Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn, Oklahoma’s Jim Inhofe and James Langford, Utah’s Mike Lee, Kentucky’s Rand Paul, Nebraska’s Ben Sasse, Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson and South Carolina’s Tim Scott.  The naysayers wanted some combination of offsetting budget cuts and/or less “burdensome” requirements for small businesses to provide sick pay to afflicted employees. Clearly, the “concerned but not concerned enough to do anything” eight probably won’t be all that happy with what’s next, because while the relief legislation addressed things like free virus testing and paid emergency leave the really big trillion dollar package now under development is going to focus on way more including those $1000 or more checks to all or some, depending on what actually goes in the bill, and bailouts of essential industries, or industries that Trump deems essential.  By the way many of those businesses spent their really huge tax cuts on stock buybacks instead of building up reserves for rainy days and deluges.  Speaking of deluges and other mother nature eruptions, yesterday Utah experienced a 5.7 magnitude earthquake, the biggest since 1962.  #WTF.  I’d like to blame that on Mike Lee but I suspect some of those fanatical Trumpers are instead blaming it on Utah’s other Senator, Mitt Romney.  And because Congress is no more immune than the rest of us, two representatives are now virus positive, Florida Republican Mario Diaz-Balart and Utah Democrat Ben McAdams, though RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel says she is not.  Lastly, though no refugees are being allowed in at the moment, at least for now the INS is only going after criminals and Trump has ordered HUD to suspend evictions and foreclosures.     

Demo Dance:  Bernie Sanders hasn’t pulled out of the race for president but he’s clearly feeling the pressure.  Yesterday when a CNN reporter asked him what he was thinking, he snapped “I’m dealing with a f---ing global crisis, right now, I'm trying to do my best to make sure that we don't have an economic meltdown and that people don't die. Is that enough for you to keep me busy for today?" Though I am sure that he really is concerned about the virus, who isn’t, that was a strange outburst because it’s not like he’s a driver of legislation under the best of circumstances and aren’t presidential candidates supposed to feign calmness.  Although his campaign manager insists that Sanders is still in the race, he also admitted that internal discussions were ongoing and that Sanders has been reaching out to his supporters for input, and some, though not all have told him it’s time to throw in the towel.  Additionally, on Wednesday, Sanders campaign canceled all digital ads, including online fundraising spots that were launched as recently as Tuesday.  In other election news, Dan Lipinski, the anti-abortion, anti-Obamacare Democratic Congressman from Illinois lost his primary to a Congresswoman AOC supported social democratic candidate who is expected to win in November, assuming that the elections really take place then.      

The Check's in the Mail?

Bye, Bye Bernie?  Yesterday Ohioans stayed home but in three other states primaries went forward and as expected Joe Biden emerged the victor over rival Bernie Sanders in each one of them.  To no one’s surprise Biden trounced Bernie in Florida, winning 61.9% of the vote to Bernie’s  22.8%, most of the rest consisted of early ballots cast for Mike Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg.  Though fewer Sunshine State voters showed up yesterday than in 2016, largely as the result of early voting the total number of Floridians voting was up.  Apparently few in Florida were all that impressed with Bernie’s affinity for Fidel Castro or his disdain for AIPAC.  They also didn’t buy into his many ads claiming that Biden would be bad for Medicare.  In Illinois Biden beat Bernie 59.1% to 36.1% but as a result of “virus suppression, ” turnout was lower than in 2016.  Completing the trifecta, Biden beat Bernie 42.6% to 31.6% in Arizona, especially notable because given his strength among Latinos, Arizona was one of the state’s that Bernie thought he could win.  At this point Biden has somewhere in the neighborhood of  1147 delegates to Bernie’s  861, a differential that experts say is insurmountable. That said Bernie hasn’t dropped out yet and it’s not clear that he will but with more and more state primaries getting postponed and the writing on the wall, he’d be doing all of us a favor if he would.  For his part, Biden has already started shifting into general election campaign mode.  And yesterday, at his request he was provided Secret Service protection, let’s hope that protection includes a germ free bubble.  For the record Biden is keeping Celtic, his old VP code name, as his Secret Service code name.    

Channeling Andrew Yang: Yesterday while asserting that he always knew that COVID 19 was a pandemic, Trump announced that he is seeking a $1 trillion or so stimulus package to battle the economic impact of the virus. To quote him, “it’s going to be big, it’s going to be bold” and everything is “tremendous.”  The package is likely to include $1,000 checks to everyone except maybe millionaires, tax cuts, small business assistance, and airline and other industry relief. Later in the day Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who in addition to serving as Speaker Pelosi point person appears to be driving the Trump administration’s economic strategy, told GOP senators that unemployment could reach 20% if they don’t jump on board the stimulus train.  Though Senate leader Mitch McConnell spent the weekend canoodling with donors and Judge “I like beer” Kavanaugh, he is now back in action. After slamming Pelosi’s House for taking a breather while they wait for him to pass the coronavirus relief package that they passed over the weekend when he was partying, he told his Senate crowd that they’d better get in line and vote for the legislation, not to be confused with the economic stimulus package which is still being finalized.  McConnell’s precise words were “gag and vote for it” whether you like it or not.  Most of them probably will do so, that is most other than gadfly and fellow Kentuckian Ran Paul, who is pulling his usual shtick.  Yesterday, Paul proposed one of his usual stalling amendments, it won’t pass, but it will slow down Senate passage of the House package by a few days.  Getting back to Trump and his assertion that he knew that the coronavirus was a pandemic from day one, that assertion isn’t just wrong it’s stupid and insulting as most remember that just a few weeks ago he said that it was no bigly, that the number of cases would be down to zero, and that it was all a Democratic plot to destroy his presidency, a view a nanosecond ago shared by his son in law, chief of everything Jared Kushner.  For those who don’t remember all the things that Trump previously said, check out the twitterverse which is full of reminders in the form of long tweets detailing all of Trump’s dismissive virus assertions.  Social media doesn’t die, it just haunts forever.

Et Cetera:  New York City is now virus central.  Governor Cuomo, who has been getting accolades for the way he’s handling the burgeoning crisis, insists that the city is not going to be put into quarantine mode, largely because he believes that it would be impossible to enforce but Mayor Di Blasio, who got lots of grief for going to his favorite Brooklyn Y right before all gyms were closed down, says that he is seriously considering going the lockdown route.  In any case, outdoor walking with and without dogs would be allowed during a quarantine and food and drug stores would remain open, and judging by all the trucks unloading at the CVS across the street from me, those stores are getting constantly restocked.  In other news, because yes there still is other news, former California Congressman Duncan Hunter, one of Trump’s earliest supporters, was sentenced yesterday to serve eleven months in jail for campaign violations.  He’s the guy who used some of those funds to fly his giant bunny along on a family vacation but then tried to pin his misdeeds on his wife.  And, yesterday Dale Cabaniss, the head of the government Office of Personnel Management surprised the White House by suddenly resigning.  Apparently Cabaniss, herself a relatively recent addition to the Trump administration was upset about the poor treatment she was getting from John McEntee, the 29 year old who was recently put in charge of the White House Personnel office to root out Trump enemies as well as two of his most recent “senior” level appointees, both of whom are only college seniors. To refresh your memory,  in an earlier chapter of the Trump saga, McEntee was fired from the administration by former Chief of Staff Kelly, something to do with his excessive gambling debts.  This matters because a lot of important positions, many at places like Homeland Security, an entity that should be doing lots of coronavirus work, remain unstaffed because who needs a functioning government in a crisis anyway?  

Distancing and Protector Gear for Today's Voters!

Viral Musings:  Over the weekend Trump denied knowing that he had disbanded most of his pandemic team after taking over the presidency and to be fair he may not remember that he did because, well we all know why.  Yesterday Trump stuck with that theme telling state governors that it was their job, not his, to locate necessary hospital equipment like much needed ventilators. We know he really said that because someone on the call leaked his statement to the press and because NY’s Governor Cuomo raged about it later in the day, calling for Trump to martial the resources of the army corps of engineers to set up temporary hospitals, ala the Chinese, and to put the manufacturing and distribution of other needed equipment on a war footing.  Though Trump finally appears to understand that we are facing a serious crisis so much so that he tempered his words and actually said that the press was doing a good job, he’s still spouting a lot of verbal diarrhea, hogging the microphone from experts like Dr Fauci when he shouldn’t and standing in a too tight cluster with his taskforce.  By the way pandemic expert Fauci  said that if it looks like you are overreacting, you’re probably doing the right thing. Good to know because I for one am in overreacting mode.  Getting back to that disbanding of the pandemic task force thing, former national security advisor John Bolton who did the actual firing, is quite defensive about it, he claims that it was overstaffed and he was just streamlining things to be more efficient. Yeah right.  Also, forget about seeing his book anytime soon, it’s delayed not that any of us care anymore.     

Primary Day:  As I write this it’s still primary day in Arizona, Florida and Illinois, but not in Ohio where Governor Mike DeWine is refusing to open the polls despite a judge’s ruling that he should.  He’s not totally cancelling the election, he’s just trying to find a way to extend voting. If you are voting today, wrap yourself in protective gear, and social distance!  I am all for voting but safety comes first. On the election front, with almost all of the results in from California, Bernie Sanders ended up with 34% of the vote to Joe Biden’s 27.2%; 22% went to late drop outs Warren and Bloomberg.  Bernie’s 34%  is significant because plus or minus a few points it appears to be his ceiling – Arizona polls show him at 31%, Ohio and Illinois polls at 35%, and nationally around 38%.  In Florida, given his affinity for some of Castro’s Cuba policies, Bernie is polling lower, in the mid 20% range. Of course that assumes that the older set actually show up today. Notably with 95% of the vote in from last week’s Washington State primary, Bernie, who won the state’s 2016 caucus getting 72% of the delegates and who pointed to his early lead as one of the justifications for remaining in this race received only 36% of the vote, losing to Biden by more than 20,000 votes.  Note to Bernie – time to pull out, endorse Joe and move on.  And one more thing, assuming he’s the candidate Biden promised during Sunday night’s debate that his running mate would be a woman, not surprising given that his promise is consistent with earlier statements made by South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn, who saved Biden’s candidacy with his endorsement.  By the way, Clyburn wants an African American woman and it’s fair to assume that Clyburn’s preferences carry a lot of weight.       

More:  In other news, it took the House all day to pass some agreed upon corrections to the crisis legislation that they already passed because Texas Republican Louie Gohmert, one of the most despicable members of Congress, tried to hold up the vote. Nothing has happened yet in the Senate largely because Majority Leader McConnell took the weekend off.  He’s back and actually had the nerve to issue a statement saying that passing the legislation was an urgent priority, just not enough of a priority to work over the weekend like Nancy Pelosi and her team.  McConnell also called for Amy McGrath the marine veteran challenging him for his Senate seat to take down her political ads, more or less claiming that it’s unpatriotic right now for her to try to unseat him. The stock markets are the tank, pretty freaked out about a recession as well as Trump’s statement that we may be in hibernation through the summer but you know that already. Trump keeps tweeting that he’s going to pardon former national security advisor Michael Flynn, hoping that given the current mess no one will notice and the Justice Department is going to drop its case against the nefarious players who funded the Russian troll farm that helped disrupt the 2016 election saying that the farm’s lawyers were learning too much about US secret methods from pre-trial disclosure.  It’s not clear if that is the real reason, it could be although the intelligence agencies cooperated with Mueller’s team when the charges were filed.  Anyway, it’s not like any of these guys were going to go to jail but the optics are bad but then again right about now so is everything else.  On the international front, Europe is closed, Canada is restricting visitors and in Israel where extreme measures have been taken to control the virus, Benny Gantz rather than Bibi Netanyahu, has been tapped to form what he’s calling a broad national unity government. At least with regard to Israel’s politics this sounds familiar.

On a more positive front, because we need to hear some positive things, this morning Regeneron announced that is further along with an anti-viral antibody treatment for COVID 19 than previously reported.  The company said that they expect to be ready to start testing on humans in early summer.    

Early Innings

Viral Musings:  No point in me detailing the virus news, it’s rapidly changing and anyway, you are all probably at home listening to the never ending news updates.  So instead I’ll focus on the truly absurd, like the fact that Trump keeps misstating facts when we really need to hear the truth so on Friday he claimed that Google was close to completing a triage website even though at best the website is  in the very early development stage and then because no one wanted to contradict him, the rest of his glam squad continued to dance around the site’s progress over the rest of the weekend. At times VP Pence sounds rational and measured, but then he moves into “praise Trump” mode, essentially vomiting all over any of his saner comments and his coordination with State Governors.  And for some inexplicable reason someone thought it would be a good idea for HUD secretary Ben Carson, to wipe his nose on camera while suggesting that we start praying.  Did you know that Trump made yesterday a national day of prayer?  If only he knew what a lot of people prayed for.  As to Trump’s health, his doctor issued a statement that despite all of his many contacts with infected and feverous individuals and that Mar a Lago is a petri dish of viral germs, he didn’t need a COVID 19 test, but then issued a report that he had been given a test and had passed it with flying colors.  How’s that for weirdly scripted reality TV?  On the who’s got it and who doesn’t front, RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel who’s pretty much attached at the hip to the administration tweeted that she’s exhibiting all the symptoms, is self-quarantining and awaiting her test results but then got called out by someone in the White House for being too forthcoming.  Lord only knows if Ted Cruz is infected or not, he’s not telling, but he did report that he’s extending his self-quarantine another two weeks and Lindsey Graham now says that having passed his virus test, he’s out of self-quarantine.  As far as I know  Senate Majority Leader McConnell is fine, well heath wise, his common sense remains in the toilet with his moral center.  He spent the weekend in Kentucky at a fundraiser with newest Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, don’t even get me started on what Kavanaugh was doing hobnobbing with Republican donors, instead of working with his crowd in the Senate to get the Coronavirus Virus response package legislation that Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin negotiated and Pelosi got passed through the House on a bi-partisan basis, passed in the Senate.  My guess is that though the package is a bit flawed and only a first step, it will pass in the Senate even though some, essentially Republicans, keep grousing about it.  And proving that the virus is non-partisan,  Dan Goldman, the attorney who served as the House’s  Intelligence Committee’s lead counsel for the impeachment process spent the last week detailing his COVID travails, his symptoms and how long it took for him to get tested.  The good news is that he’s almost better, the not so good news is that his wife now has it, and there’s a good chance that a lot of the people who were stuck in crowds at the international arrivals terminals  now do to, as despite promises that they were all being screened and kept at a distance from each other, they largely weren’t and  like a lot of things this day the situation there was understaffed and potentially disastrous.

The Markets:  The administration and the Fed have taken action in an attempt to stabilize the markets.  Over the weekend Fed Chairman Powell, who Trump threatened to demote the chief during some of his weekend press conference musings, lowered the benchmark Fed rate to zero and engaged in some big time quantitative easing, whatever that is.  Though we saw a rally late Friday, despite Powell’s actions futures are way down and the markets will be ugly for a while to come because you can stimulate all you want but there’s little you can do to get people to spend, assuming they have anything to spend, when they’re in hibernation.  This is a good time to take up home yoga, remember to breathe.  And remember Trish Regan, the Fox Business talking head who ranted about the virus being just another Democratic attempt to impeach Trump, she’s been put on hiatus for the indefinite future though that doesn’t mean that Fox has totally given up on irresponsible programing.  Over the weekend Devin Nunes, the Congressman who keeps busy suing cows and mainstream media outlets, appeared with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo to say that people were overreacting to the virus thing, that now is a good time for the young and healthy to go out and party. He said that while the White House’s virus expert, Dr Fauci was impressing upon the country that young, healthy people are likely carriers and that the best thing that they can do is stay far away from crowds.  And again, because Democrats mess up too, Andrew Gillum, the former Mayor of Tallahassee who came close to winning the Florida governorship, is now pulling himself away from politics and entering rehab, his response to getting caught in a Miami hotel room under questionable circumstances and by questionable think with a male escort who was in the process of overdosing on meth.  Yikes. Sometimes it’s a good thing when a Republican wins, all reports are that Florida’s newbie Ron DeSantis is taking the virus seriously.

Demo Dance:  Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders debated again last night standing as far apart as they could spatially and on issues and of course there was no studio audience.  In preparation for the debate, Biden spent some virtual quality time with Elizabeth Warren, so that he could say that he now endorses her bankruptcy plan.  And in a further effort to appeal to Bernie’s hordes, he moved left towards tuition free public college for some.  Sanders wasn’t as bombastic as he could have been but he stayed in his “socialist” lane though he promised that he would support Biden if/when he wins the nomination, well at least support him more than he supported Hillary.  Primaries in Georgia and Louisiana are now postponed to later this Spring but the ones in Florida, Illinois and Ohio are still supposed to go forward tomorrow.  Enough already, it’s time to end this dance,  Bernie are you listening?