Mourning in America

Pro-Life?  Though it’s been slow going the New York coronavirus curve is heading down, unfortunately the rest of the country’s curve continues to climb, not a problem for those states and localities that are moving forward with their openings because getting back to work trump’s life every time, or at least that’s the increasingly open position of folks like former NJ Governor Chris Christie, current Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Trump, all of whom acknowledge either openly or privately that they know that their strategies will result in a jump in the mortality rate. It’s worth noting that these guys are also “pro-lifers.” Go figure.  Trump who visited a Honeywell plant in Phoenix to express appreciation for the company’s efforts to start producing medical grade facemasks, entered the mask-mandatory facility without putting one on even though he said earlier said he would, of course his traveling squad followed his example.  He also met with some local Native Americans to brag about aid he’s providing them, neglecting to mention that he and his party opposed the inclusion of special funding for the hard hit Native American populations and that they haven’t yet received any of that promised money. By the way, Arizona is one of those key swing states, and its current Senator Martha McSally is in deep trouble, facing an uphill challenge for election from former astronaut Mark Kelly which is the real reason that Trump traveled to Arizona.   Later, during another one of his endless interviews, Trump acknowledged that the White House coronavirus task force is being wound down because having failed to stop the virus from rampaging throughout the country, he’s bored and done with that and moving on to getting the economy up and running, and who needs virus experts for that.  Okay, he didn’t say it that way, but that’s what he implied.  As to virus experts, he is letting virus guru Fauci testify in front of the Senate, but only the Senate because the “House is a set-up, the House is a bunch of Trump-haters” and anyway he doesn’t plan to submit to any House oversight going forward.  Earlier the reason Fauci wasn’t being allowed to testify in front of the House was because it would have been “counterproductive to take him away from his work,” but no one believed that anyway. Getting back to Trump, last night during an ABC interview he once again blamed Obama for his failure to develop COVID 19 tests, claimed that anyone who wants a virus test can get a test, backed off his promise that a vaccine would be available in December while saying that the virus will probably go away on its own anyway, and blamed the Russia and Ukraine investigations for his failure to react to those early warnings that he received about the spreading virus.  So basically more lies and deflection.  And if you haven’t seen it yet, check out the newest spot from The Lincoln Project, that’s the anti-Trump group founded by Kellyanne’s husband George Conway. The ad entitled “Mourning in America” is biting, spot on and caused Trump to go on one of his twitter rages, one in which he called out George, who is half Filipino, using an anti-Asian racial slur.   

Whistling:  In other news, Dr Rick Bright, the CDC’s top vaccine expert who was pushed out of his position filed an official whistleblower report yesterday. Bright alleges that his early warnings about the virus were ignored and that his cautions about spending wild amounts of money on unproven treatments, most notably for hydroxychloroquine, the drug that Trump continues to tout, led to him being removed from heading up vaccine development.   He says he was “pressured to let politics and cronyism drive decisions over the opinions of the best scientists” and that he “raised urgent concerns about shortages of critical supplies, including masks, to his superiors in the Trump administration but was met with skepticism.” Among other things he reports that the Trump team was so invested in building up hydroxychloroquine supplies that they wanted to purchase the drug from unapproved manufacturers in places like Pakistan. A health and Human Services spokesman responded to Bright’s accusations by saying that he wasn’t fired but “was transferred to NIH to work on diagnostics testing, critical to combatting COVID 19, where he has been entrusted to spend upwards of $1 billion to advance that effort.” Adding that they “are deeply disappointed that he has not shown up to work on behalf of the American people and lead on this critical endeavor."  Bright, who says that he has been given no details about that new position, is scheduled to testify in front of the House next week.  No doubt by then, the Trump administration which has already spread the word that he was difficult to work with will say that he was fired for cause and that he’s just another one of those life-long Trump haters, and in all likelihood nothing will come of his complaint. Though he hasn’t filed a whistleblower report, one of the guys that son in law Jared Kushner recruited to help with his shadow effort to obtain things needed to fight the virus, reported, anonymously, about how screwed up the inept Kushner team was. The rag tag bunch of consultants had no relevant experience, no contacts with manufacturers, used personal phones and email accounts so manufacturers who had products to sell didn’t believe that they represented the US Government, wasted time following up on tips and recommendations from Trump donors and basically got in the way of others trying to do the job the right way.  So basically Jared doing more of what he usually does.     

Et Cetera:  Time to start praying for Ruth Bader Ginsburg again.  Our notorious heroine was hospitalized yesterday for a gall bladder infection.  She’s still working, calling in to hear oral arguments, but she’s in a hospital, hardly the place for anyone, especially someone her age.  She’s supposed to be released in a few days.  Oy.  Despite his woeful inadequacies, biases and inability to answer questions coherently, especially some of those zingers asked by Senator Kamala Harris, DNI nominee/Congressman John Ratcliffe appears to be sailing towards confirmation because why would we ever need a neutral and competent head of intelligence  with Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo pushing conspiracy theories?  By the way, Ratcliffe refused to say that he believes the conclusions of the Senate Intelligence Committee that the Russian’s weighed in on Trump’s behalf during the last election.  On the intelligence front, apparently Trump and a number of his most diehard Fox pundits have had it with FBI Director Christopher Wray.  Axios reports that there are rumblings afoot that Trump is considering kicking him to the curb, so much for that ten year term. On the Democratic front, responding to a lawsuit filed by one time presidential candidate Andrew Yang, a federal judge has ruled that New York State must reinstate its June presidential primary.  The state hasn’t yet decided if it will appeal.  Apparently, Yang wants to make sure that Bernie Sanders, who has already endorsed Biden, gets a few more electors and more platform power.