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?