Bunnies and Fairies

No Testing for You: Remember when Trump said that anyone who wanted a COVID 19 test could get a test, forget about it.  Yesterday, after once again telling us how great he is and what a great job he’s doing managing the country’s pandemic response he braggeed about the US having done 2 million of the best tests ever made, adding that he “sees no need for a nationwide testing system, because with 325 million people that’s not going to happen.” To be fair, that 2 million he cited does put the US at the top of the leaderboard in terms of the volume of tests completed, unfortunately it puts us way down the rankings in terms of per capita testing.  That’s a problem, because without more testing it’s going to be harder and riskier to get people back to work when the time is right.  As for that time, citing model updates that predict that as a result of social distancing “only” 60,000 people are going to fall to the virus rather than 140,000 or more, some people in Trump’s administration and his Fox echo chamber want to get as much of the country as possible back to work sooner than any of the scientists/doctors like Fauci and Birx currently think is feasible, unless of course you count Attorney General Barr as one of those scientists.  The non-doctor’s view, based on nothing more than his substantial gut, is that the coronavirus’s dangers have been overstated and that the cure is far worse than the disease.  Additionally, he views shutting churches down as a real risk to everyone’s souls, not their lives, just their souls.  He said all that while also  justifying Trump’s firing of inspectors general and again attacking the premise for that old Russia investigation.  One thing is for certain about Barr, he’s consistent, consistently despicable.  

Daddy’s Girl: As to getting the economy rolling again, Trump’s numero uno priority, the White House is setting up an economic crisis task force to be headed by former Congressman/new Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who recently hired a birther/coronavirus denier to serve as Press Secretary as his first official action.  In addition to Meadows, among others the team is expected to include Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, economic advisor Larry Kudlow and first daughter Ivanka Trump.  If you are wondering why Ivanka will be a key member of the economic crisis team, you clearly haven’t been paying attention.  According to daddy Trump, Ivanka has created more jobs than anyone in the universe, in fact he repeatedly says that she’s created 15 million jobs since 2016, a neat trick given that only 5 million or so jobs have been created on his watch, or at least were created before they were destroyed by the pandemic.   Getting back to that testing thing, while it remains likely that too few of us will ultimately be tested, add White House correspondents, or at least the group attending Trump’s daily virus rallies, to the group of individuals who will be repeatedly tested. That policy was put in place yesterday after one of them informed the White House staff that he had started showing symptoms of COVID 19.  As to those rallies, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal as well as a number of Trump’s cronies and advisors have told him that they aren’t doing him any good and are having a detrimental impact on his poll numbers. Calling them “Wasted Briefings,” the WSJ “bemoaned that the daily press conferences ostensibly intended to focus on the latest news surrounding the coronavirus had become ‘more about the many feuds of Donald J. Trump.’"   Trump did depart yesterday’s pep rally/conference sooner than usual but that may have had more to do with concerns over the infected correspondent than anything else as his response to the WSJ editorial was a tweet saying “The Wall Street Journal always ‘forgets’ to mention that the ratings for the White House Press Briefins are ‘through the roof’ (Monday Night Football, Bachelor Finale, according to @nytimes & is only way for me to escape the Fake News & get my views across. WSJ is Fake News.”  

Et Cetera: The House and Senate are working on some additional aid, upwards of $250 billion, for small businesses.  Or at least that’s what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to get done yesterday by unanimous consent.  His effort, which involved no input from any Democrats because Mitch sees little value in seeking their views, didn’t go anywhere despite his little speechlet/stunt blaming the Democrats for their inaction.  The Democrats do want more money for small businesses, but they also want some for hospitals and other purposes.  The addition to the aid package is currently being negotiated by Schumer, Pelosi and Mnuchin with something passable expected to emerge next week.  On the campaign front, for what its worth Tom Steyer endorsed Joe Biden yesterday not that he had many options. For his part Biden continues to make nice to Bernie Sanders’ base. Though he’s still not an advocate of Medicare for All, yesterday Biden said that he is supportive of lowing the eligibility age to sixty, he also proposed forgiving all “undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities for debt-holders earning up to $125,000.”  On the international front, lots of members of the Saudi royal family have tested coronavirus positive and are now in quarantine, UK Boris Johnson is still in the hospital but out of ICU and in New Zealand both the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy have been granted essential worker status.  Happy Easter!