Lava Level 

Mount Trumpna:  On Wednesday one of the military valets who regularly hangs with Trump, serving his meals and bringing him his daily quotient of Diet Cokes, tested COVID 19 positive, not all that surprising given that the Washington DC area is a coronavirus hot spot.  Notably the infected valet’s results came in shortly after Trump returned from his trip to the Arizona face mask production facility where he wasn’t wearing a mask because he doesn’t like the way he looks in a mask.  Upon learning that his valet was COVID positive, Trump went ballistic, described by White House insiders as lava level mad, lashing out at those around him, most of whom were not wearing masks because Trump doesn’t like masks being worn in his bubble.  There are no reports that he was at all concerned that he or any members of his traveling squad may have shared the virus with anyone he came in contact with in or on his way to Arizona but there were plenty of reports that he was furious that not enough is being done to protect his health.  He and VP Pence who were virus tested on Wednesday and again on Thursday, remain coronavirus negative at least for now or at least that’s what we’re being told. Going forward White House denizens will now be tested daily instead of weekly with those rapid results tests, the ones that remain largely unavailable to the population at large because Trump, despite his repeated insistence that anyone who wants a test can get one and that he’s the king of testing kits, continues to say that they’re not necessary or at least that is they’re not necessary for the rest of us peons.  That’s apparently the view shared by the many of those governors moving forward with their reopening plans despite their states’ failure to meet the requirements specified by Drs Birx and Fauci and in the squelched CDC guidelines booklet, those are the guidelines that the White House now says weren’t released because they weren’t yet finalized in part because they were too stringent and because they unfairly treated religious institutions, Trump’s go to excuse.  Anyway, if your nails are ragged you can head to Georgia for a mani/pedi but caveat emptor, according to California’s Governor Newsom, the first community spread of coronavirus in California originated from a nail salon.  Maybe it’s worth living with those hangnails for a few months longer?  As to all those hotspots springing up in towns with meat processing plants, Health Secretary Azar says that they have nothing to do with the unhealthy, close working conditions at the plants, they’re due to the home and personal lifestyles of those mostly immigrant workers at the plants.  Nothing like a little racism and blame shifting among friends. And that’s not the only thing that Azar is shifting blame about, Axios reports that the clowns at Health and Human Services have screwed up again, this time misdirecting donated vials of the anti-viral drug Remdesivir to the wrong locations.  Nothing to worry about, these are the same guys who will be responsible for getting millions of dosages of a vaccination distributed around the country if an effective one is ever approved that is if the vaccine project, being called Project Warp Speed, isn’t placed completely under the control of Jared Kushner who’s history of success is oh so impressive.

Justice Shenanigans:  Remember when former national security advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak?  Well, forget about all that.  Yesterday, Attorney General Barr’s Justice Department filed papers with Emmet Sullivan, the judge overseeing the Flynn case, requesting that the charges against Flynn be dropped asserting that those lower level Justice Department officials, those members of the Obama led, anti-Trump deep state, Mueller team had acted egregiously in their pursuit of Flynn. Apparently, the move to drop the charges against Flynn is not going over well with the rank and file at Justice, the senior prosecutor who had been responsible for the case, removed himself from the case right before the filing was sent to Judge Sullivan and, atypically, there was only one signature on the package sent to the Judge as no one other than AG Barr’s senior political operatives were willing to support the filing.  That is no one, except Trump and his echo chamber at Fox and in the other even more right wing press.  They’ve all been waging a war of words on behalf of Flynn for some time, one that escalated in recent weeks.  Assuming that Judge Sullivan agrees to the Justice Department request, and he may have little choice but to do so, Flynn will get off scot free and may even be offered another position in the Trump administration or at the very least will be available to join Trump’s traveling circus/campaign tour. For his part Trump once again called those Mueller era prosecutors scum.  Anyway, it’s time to get ready for some more “lock her up cheers” or the equivalent.  By the way if this scenario of bizarrely preferential treatment of Trump cronies sounds familiar, it’s because it is, right before the pandemic, AG Barr’s team lightened up Roger Stone’s sentencing recommendation over the objections of a number of career Justice attorneys.

Et Cetera:  Despite all the saber rattling and blame game antics going on between Trump and China, Trump’s trade teams report, true or not, that progress is being made on a trade agreement.  Tara Reade has not gone away, although she cancelled her plans for an interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace, she held one with Megyn Kelly, who is trying to get back on Fox and guess what Reade believes that Biden should withdraw from the race.  By the way, Kelly says that Reade, who has a new lawyer named Douglas Wigdor, a Trump contributor who is not being paid for his services, reached out to her, not the other way around.  And so it goes.

Stay safe this weekend!