March Madness

Come Back Later:  Everything is closed or closing: Disneyland and World, lots of schools and universities and even the Metropolitan Museum. And forget about sports, there will be no basketball, hockey, and baseball, at least for a while.  There won’t even be an NCAA championship but don’t despair if you’re craving madness hit the supermarket and try to buy some eggs, bread, chicken or whatever, but wear gloves and a hoodie because you’ll be stuck on line for a bit, assuming that your store of choice still has any supplies worth the queue.  Rumors abound that NYC is about to be turned into a bunch of containment areas, something akin to what’s going on in New Rochelle.  As to that Westchester community, late last night Governor Cuomo said that they’re about to get one of those Korean style drive-by Covid 19 test sites, progress because despite Trump’s continued and quite criminal insistence that anyone who should be tested is getting tested that hasn’t been true.  As to testing, things may finally be looking up.  Bloomberg News just reported that Roche Holdings has received emergency FDA approval for a highly automated test that will enable it to perform and quickly report back the results of thousands more tests a day.

The Trump Front:  Trump’s Wednesday night speech, the one that despite its brevity was riddled with misstatements,  went over about as well as expected, leading the markets to continue their downward spiral and leaving a number of overseas US citizens and permanent residents unnecessarily panicked that they wouldn’t be allowed to travel home.  The good news, well good as compared to everything else, is that they are being allowed back in and, at least for the moment,  stock futures are up, in anticipation that the emergency coronavirus response package currently being negotiated by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who Trump refuses to talk to, will be finalized sometime today. As to Trump, maybe it’s because of his superior genes, or his beyond robust immune system, or maybe it’s that “forgetting” that you encountered someone who turned out to be in the early stages of the virus really is an effective shield, somehow or other despite the number of people around him who’ve fallen ill he doesn’t need to be tested or at least that’s what he wants the gullible among us to believe.  It’s not just that virus positive guy who attended the CPAC conference, yesterday we learned that Fabio Wajngarten, an aide to Brazilian President Bolsonaro who appeared in a rather chummy photograph with Trump and VP Pence during the Brazil leader’s weekend Mar a Lago visit is Covid 19 positive.   Apparently Senator Lindsey Graham doesn’t share any of Trump’s superior traits because even though he too has no recollection of hanging with that Fabio fellow, “in an abundance of caution and upon the advice of his doctor” he’s decided to self-quarantine awaiting the results of a Coronavirus test.  Who would have guessed that being one of Trump’s lapdogs has consequences?  It turns out that  Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, wife of Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, and Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson are also lacking Trump’s genes.  All three have tested positive, though thankfully, at least for now, it doesn’t appear that any of their lives are in jeopardy.  Trudeau has no symptoms but is now in quarantine.  As to Trump, word is he’s totally apoplectic about the markets, not because our IRAs and 401Ks have given up their “Trump” gains but because he was counting on those gains greasing the way to his reelection.  He’s also far less than pleased that former VP Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders both took to the airwaves yesterday to talk about how they would be handling the current crisis.  In particular, he appears to be pretty upset about Biden looking so presidential and empathetic while pointing out how Trump defunded and disbanded the pandemic anticipation mechanisms that were established during the Obama administration.  We know that because Trump’s up early this morning, busy tweeting insults at all things Obama, trashing Biden and asserting something about what a good job he, Trump, has been doing cutting all that Obama era “red tape.” 

Et Cetera:  The US military launched airstrikes against Iranian strongholds in Iraq last night in retaliation to their earlier strikes that killed some of our soldiers.   The newest version of the legislation authorizing FISA is likely to expire, or at least expire temporarily until Senate Leader McConnell does some of his black arts behind the scenes magic, because Trump is still upset about that “illegal coup” attempt against him, by coup attempt think the legitimate ”Mueller investigation and the questionable Carter Page surveillance. Senator Ron Johnson is still trying to get support for a Burisma related subpoena, but after getting some pusback is now seeking it from a less “controversial” source, whatever that means.  Special mention goes to California Representative Katie Porter, the newbie Democratic Congresswoman who’s developing quite an impressive reputation for her incisive questioning skills;  she successfully pushed CDC head Dr Redfield  to agree that the government would cover the cost of Coronavirus testing for those who don’t have insurance.  Biden and Sanders are scheduled to debate again on Sunday – in a hermetically sealed Washington DC studio instead of in Arizona.   

Keep on social distancing.  Oy.