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!