The New Normal

Opening Up Is Hard to Do:  During yesterday’s afternoon virus/pep rally an unusually toned down Trump revealed his plan for opening up the country, one that is geared more towards getting his best ever economy up and running in time for him to win the November election than anything else.  The plan is less a plan than a series of guidelines for how governors should gradually open up their states.  Trump who has ping ponged from insisting that he’s an all-powerful king to saying that he can’t make governors do what they don’t want to do has figured out that leaving opening up decision to the individual governors will allow him to take credit if those decisions pan out while at the same time evading blame if things go bad, as in viral.  Notably, the guidelines, could lead some governors, particularly the red state ones who see little benefit in the short term sacrifice of their economies for greater life expectancy, a view shared by lots of people on Fox including the quacky Dr Mehmet Oz who thinks throwing a few kindergarteners under the bus  would be acceptable, to conclude that they’re ready to open up now.  The Trump plan relies on each of the states being able to implement aggressive testing and tracking to keep ahead of any burgeoning viral hotspots. The testing/tracking concept is a good thing, however to work, the states will need more test capacity than any of them have as well as the ability and willingness to marshal resources to implement tracking infrastructures.  While it’s fair to leave the tracking in the hands of the states, with unemployment through the roof lots of people would take those tracking positions, the problem with this plan is that Trump still doesn’t intend to help the states ramp up their testing capabilities because going to “parking lots in the middle of nowhere” to swab people isn’t his thing.  As to those swabs which appear to be in as short supply as the rest of the testing paraphernalia, he insists that too short, unsterile Q tips should suffice. Further, Trump is standing firm with his assertion that the US is the universe’s testing leader, true in volume, but still not true on a per capita basis. Notably, although New York, the virus hotspot of hotspots except for that South Dakota Pork Plant where cases of COVID 19 continue to grow exponentially, has actually performed more tests than anywhere else, Governor Cuomo remains concerned that far more tests are needed now and that even more will be needed before he can get the state back to a new normal, and by new normal, think social distancing, face masks, which become mandatory in NY tonight, and a gradual ramping up of business activity.  Cuomo continues to call for the federal government to take over marshalling testing resources.  Trump who insists that the US now has excess testing capacity remains reluctant to do so.  That is inexplicable but then again lots of things about him are both inexplicable and intolerable but there is nothing new about that.  One more thing on the governor front, taking a page from their east and west coast cousins, seven Midwestern governors, including Illinois’ Pritzker, Michigan’s Whitmer, Ohio’s DeWine, Wisconsin’s Evers, Minnesota’s Walz, Indiana’s Holcomb and Kentucky Beshear have signed up to a their own mutli-state pact, one that is unlikely to lead to any of their states opening up all that soon. DeWine and Holcomb are Republicans, Trump won’t be happy.    

People Report:  While Trump may have backed off from being king of everything, well backed off a little, Ivanka continues to act like an entitled princess.  Apparently, despite New Jersey Governor Murphy’s request that people avoid traveling to their NJ resort homes, Ivanka, Jared, the kids and their secret service coterie traveled to the Trump Bedminster resort for the Passover holiday.  Apparently, rules don’t apply to her and anyway what’s the fun of hiding the afikomen in your Kalorama Washington mansion when you can hide it somewhere in a golf resort.  Ivanka and Jared aren’t the only ones on the road.  This morning it was reported that one time Trump fixer/lawyer Michael Cohen will be released from prison in fourteen days, as soon as he completes a required pre-release quarantine.  He wasn’t due out until November 2021 but has been granted  early release to home confinement due to the pandemic.  He’s not the only one, earlier this week it was announced that Michael Avenatti has been temporarily released from his jail cell where he was awaiting sentencing for his Nike extortion antics.  Yesterday Roger Stone’s judge, Amy Berman Jackson, denied his request for a retrial but given the plague it’s fair to assume that Stone who has already been sentenced will be allowed to stay out of jail while his inevitable appeals work their way through the system and if that doesn’t work, there’s always that pardon which we all know he’s going to get.  Paul Manafort is also trying for a get out of jail free card, a suspicious type might think that that releasing Cohen early provides the Justice Department with the justification to do the same for Manafort.    

Stay safe!