Enough With the Song and Dance

Blame it on Impeachment: Another day, another rally/press conference.  Yesterday’s was more sober than most largely because despite Trump's attempts it’s hard sound upbeat about projections that 100,000 to 200,000 of us will join the departed before the virus leaves, or, more likely goes on a seasonal hiatus. Of course, Trump still managed to put a self-serving spin on those dire projections saying things could be worse as he could have continued to listen to the “many” people who thought that he should have let the virus run its natural course without any intervention or he could have allowed all those travelers from  China to keep coming instead of jeopardizing his brilliant trade strategy the one with all those tariffs that he still insists China, rather than we, are paying. And remember when he said that the virus was no worse than, maybe even way less serious than the flu, forget about that, he didn’t really say that, right?  Trump’s vanity got a bit tested yesterday when one reporter asked him if the reason that he’d been late to respond to the impending virus onslaught was because of the devious Democrats and their impeachment distraction, an excuse now being promulgated by that charmer Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.  Moscow Mitch’s attempt to shift responsibility to the Democrats, while despicable, isn’t all that surprising given that he’s always devious, however even he should have known that Trump would have a hard time admitting that he couldn’t multi-task.  Trump gave himself an A plus for the way he handled the whole impeachment “hoax,” and on a few levels he’s not wrong, it rarely interfered with his tweeting, golfing, weekend visits to Mar a Lago, and political rallies.  It’s not like he ever governs anyway, and listening to scientists about an impending pandemic, not something he would have done when anything else was an option.  

Confidence Intervals: Getting back to the daily press conference, Dr Birx, a statistician at heart, appeared almost gleeful while displaying her colorful comparative virus growth rate graphs while discussing things like confidence intervals, the stuff that you learned back in your college days but hoped never to hear about again.  The bottom line, the overall US growth rate is still speeding ahead and will only drop back or smooth out, if everyone sticks with the stay at home plan, a plan many are adhering to but apparently is still being resisted in large, mostly red swaths of the country.  One of those large swaths includes Florida. Trump refused to criticize Governor Ron DeSantis, his favorite “mini-me,” for failing to put the whole state on lockdown saying that it’s his decision but had no problem slamming New York for being slow to make virus curtailing decisions a particularly despicable remark from the leader of the country who ignored the impending crisis despite having received many early warning briefings. For his part DeSantis said that no one  on the federal level has told him to shut down his whole state and he’s waiting for some direction from them, circular reasoning that’s not going to play well in hindsight.  And then of course there are all those virus tests, the millions that aren’t being done but that Trump and VP Pence continue to insist are widely available and would be conducted if only those state officials could get their acts together, assertions that infuriate a number of state governors who continue to say that they aren’t testing due to a lack of tests.  They’re also furious about the supplies they aren’t getting that the Trump/Pence duo insist they are or will be when they really need them.  As to those supplies and tests, their availability and the distribution process remains chaotic. Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said his state  was “flying blind” because officials did not have enough tests and, virus hero Andrew Cuomo described trying to buy ventilators “like being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator.” Cuomo said that while also delivering a virtual and very emotional hug to his CNN anchor brother Chris who, having tested positive for COVID 19, is now quarantined in his basement.  At least one of Trump’s diehard supporters appears to have jumped the ship, sports radio maven Mike Francesca, an early Trump supporter exploded “So don't give me the MyPillow guy doing a song-and-dance up here on a Monday afternoon when people are dying in Queens. Get the stuff made, get the stuff where it needs to go and get the boots on the ground! Treat this like the crisis it is!"

Et Cetera:  Although there had been reports that the federal government was considering reopening the Obamacare exchanges to allow more people to sign up for insurance coverage, Trump dismissed that notion yesterday.   That ought to play well in November, assuming that we ever get there and that the elections are still on.  As to those elections, during an appearance on  Fox and Friends Trump admitted that the reason he opposed including vote by mail provisions in the virus stimulus bill is because “what the Democrats had in there, like provisions facilitating voting by mail were crazy…..they had things–levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”  For his part, Biden who clearly wants lots of Democrats to have access to the polls, said that he doesn’t expect the Democratic convention to go off on schedule, it’s currently supposed to start on July 13, but that with the Olympics off the calendar there’s time to reconsider the schedule. As to running mates, when asked if he is now also considering Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer as a running mate, he said that she’s always been on his list, which probably explains why Trump been targeting her for such special treatment.