Hydroxy What?

Daily Rally:  Trump went with his usual lies, exaggerations and halve truths during yesterday self-congratulatory virus rally.  He once again bragged about all those virus and antibody tests that aren’t really being done throughout the country, asserting that the US is the world’s leading tester, he threw in another claim that we are now the world’s biggest producer of ventilators and asserted that the end of the virus pandemic is near, dismissing concerns that it could be back with a vengeance during the upcoming flu season.  He also proudly stated that twenty states are on the verge of opening up and though he feigned ignorance when he was asked if he thought that it was wise for Georgia’s Governor Kemp to open up massage, tattoo, hair and manicure venues  even he looked a bit concerned about the idea.  He said that he would be talking to that really awesome governor to learn more about those plans after the rally.  As to Governor Kemp’s decision, when asked about it Dr Deborah Birx proved once again why she rather than virus guru Dr Fauci is Trump’s preferred medical mouthpiece.  Though she was clearly horrified by Kemp’s deadly decision, she didn’t say so, instead she engaged in twisted verbal gymnastics saying something along the lines of it should be fine to open those types of facilities as long as proper social distancing is maintained, as if anyone other than Edward Scissorhands could do so while cutting hair and painting nails. Getting back to Trump, he addressed his tete a tete with NY’s Governor Cuomo saying that he and “Andrew” had discussed New York’s unique needs, that he was planning to snatch back the Navy hospital docked outside NYC and that he had kind of agreed to help NY obtain swabs, reagents and collection vials, those scarce resources needed to conduct virus and antibody testing.  Not surprisingly, the wily “Andrew” had already boxed him in on that, he went live with his own summary of their meeting, beating Trump to the punch.  Curiously Cuomo’s spin on the floating hospital was a little different than Trump’s, he said that he told Trump that he was welcome to take the ship back as NY no longer needed the back-up hospital capacity.  On the testing front, Cuomo said that he told Trump that he could manage testing and tracing, he just needed federal help locating and financing the hard to obtain testing paraphernalia. It will be interesting to see if Trump sticks with his promise to “Andrew” or if he reneges.  It will also be interesting to see if Trump sticks by his other promise, to support future legislation to provide states and localities hardest hit by COVID 19 with additional funding to fill the huge holes in their budgets brought on by the pandemic.  Aside from some funding for testing and some additional money for hospitals the newest $480 billion emergency funding package agreed to yesterday still leaves the states out in the cold.  As to the “small” business loan fund that the newest legislation supplements, it appears that quite a few large companies and institutions have figured out how to become unintended beneficiaries.  One of them, Shake Shack, has already said that it will return the $10 million that it managed to obtain, but another Harvard University which has a $40 billion endowment hasn’t yet agreed to return the $8.6 million that it obtained though Trump is doing his best to shame them into doing so.   

Immigration Follies: It turns out that Trump surprised everyone, including his policy staff, with his late Monday night immigration ban tweet when he said "In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!"  That immigration announcement which has little to do with the virus but does have a lot to do with his sinking poll numbers and a desire to reenergize his base, was just another premature eruption.  White House policy denizens spent yesterday hashing out details, trying to craft an order that satisfied Trump but also provided some wiggle room to corporate America.  By the end of the day, it was announced that Trump’s executive order will block most people in the immigration hopper from receiving green cards for 60 days but will still allow the processing of visas for hundreds of thousands of temporary employees, including farm workers, landscapers and crab pickers, the largest source of immigration. The order is also expected to carve out additional exemptions for so-called essential employees, including much needed health care workers.  Just a little more smoke and mirrors from the king of deception, enough to satisfy his base while doing little to disrupt his big donors.  As to the rest, many of those who are on the verge of getting their permanent residency cards were already in limbo due to virus related shutdowns and staffing cutbacks and will now have to wait to see if Trump let’s up in sixty days or uses his power to further destroy what’s left of legal immigration.

Et Cetera:  Have you noticed that Trump and his echo chamber at Fox have gone dark on hydroxychloroquine?  That’s because reports out of the trenches indicate that the hydroxy-C/zithromax combination isn’t the magic potion they claimed it was.  In fact, early study results indicate that it’s hurting rather than helping.  Not that you’ll hear any of them admit it. As to all those anti-stay at home demonstrations, Trump insists that they’re okay because it’s a free country and people can demonstrate if they want to and anyway as far as he can tell all those demonstrators are social distancing even though they’re not, besides those demonstrations are being spurred on by one of his good friends Stephen Moore, the guy who was deemed too incompetent to be confirmed to the Federal Reserve Board but who is serving as one of Trump’s “reopen the economy advisors.”  As to inadequate social distancing, a number of those Wisconsin voters and poll workers who participated in that state’s primary election are now testing positive for COVID 19.  None of that seems to be of concern to Attorney General Barr, he is now talking about suing states for some of their “aggressive” shutdown tactics.  That may be his way of diverting attention from the Senate Intelligence committee’s most recent  bipartisan report, just released it confirms the US intelligence agencies’ conclusions that the Russians interfered in the 2016 on behalf of Trump.