The Virus Never Sleeps

Rinse Repeat:  Trump now says facemasks are okay, sometimes, and wants us to know that he looks like that handsome devil the Lone Ranger when he wears his. That’s unbelievable but so is his continued insistence that the virus is going to go away on its own.  On the road in Arizona VP Pence promised to send medical personnel to help Governor Ducey deal with the virus onslaught that’s running rampant throughout his state but stuck with his mantra that the virus is mostly afflicting the younger set these days so it’s not a big problem.  That’s news to hospital administrators in states like Texas, Arizona, and Alabama where beds are in short supply. Parts of California, the state that closed early but then reopened too soon is closing again, especially disturbing since Governor Newsom seemed so on top of things, at least for a while. Though Pence insists that testing is widely available, it’s not, lines are hours long in many of the areas of the country where the virus is spiking and once again swabs and other testing paraphernalia are in short supply. Could that be intentional as more testing means higher virus counts or so Trump says?    As expected, in an effort to learn from California’s missteps, NY Governor Cuomo put indoor dining in NYC restaurants on indefinite hold.  He did that while excoriating Trump for his failure to implement an effective national plan to attack the virus, criticizing a certain New York City Mayor for failing to adequately rein in his partying residents, and warning everyone that continued vigilance is essential because the virus never sleeps and does not respect state borders.  That’s a particularly important message given that yesterday more than 50,000 US residents tested positive for COVID 19, which if experts are to be believed, means that there really are somewhere around 450,000 other newly infected individuals out and about. For comparison, the EU with a total population of 446 million, as compared to the US population of 328 million, had only 3500 new cases yesterday, a pretty good explanation for why we are on their no travel list.  

BountyGate:  $100,000 is the size of the bounty offered by the Russians to the Taliban for the killing of each American and allied soldier.  Those are the bounties that Trump continues to call another hoax perpetrated by those despicable Democrats and deep state leakers out to get him.  Trump is still insisting that he wasn’t brought into the “bounty loop” because the intelligence was so sketchy it wasn’t worth his time.  Besides on the late February day that it was first noted in his daily intelligence report he was otherwise occupied doing far more important things, like meeting with former “superman” Dean Cain and Kristy Swanson, the actors starring in the FBI Lovebirds play that put life to the sexting conversations between former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and agent Peter Strzok and hanging with his faves Diamond and Silk. Others in the administration are now blaming Trump’s daily intelligence briefer for failing to bring the bounty situation to his attention, if that sounds familiar it’s because they’ve gone  with that excuse before.  Unfortunately for Trump a number of the members of the Democrats’ class of 2018 are former CIA agents who know how the briefing process is supposed to work.  That crew includes Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin, and they both say that the offered up excuses are bunk, that in both the Bush and Obama administrations even the whiff of Russian bounties would have inspired a run to the Oval Office.  While the administration wants us to be outraged about the leaks to the NY Times that unearthed this story, the NY Times added to its report yesterday providing the name of and details about the Afghani who served as the intermediary between the Russians and the Taliban bounty hunters. Trump still hasn’t taken any action against the Russians but is focused on some other more dastardly villains and issues: the Black Lives Matter “thugs,” the painting of BLM in front of his Fifth Avenue Trump Tower and the protection of statues.  That’s mostly because he’s convinced that his prospects for reelection depend on the stoking of racial hatred.  Along those lines, his campaign’s new logo, which is emblazoned across t-shirts selling like hotcakes off of his website, appears to be eerily similar to a Nazi eagle symbol.

Et Cetera: Last night a court lifted the restraining order blocking publisher Simon and Shuster from publishing niece Mary Trump’s book.  Though the order still applies to Mary, the court did not rule on whether or not her NDA with her family justified blocking her, the book remains on schedule for an end of July publishing date assuming that S & S doesn’t rush the already printed and distributed book to an earlier release.  Mary’s lawyers are still working on getting the order against her lifted.  And we’re still waiting for the Supreme Court’s ruling on Trump’s financials. 

Happy Fourth of July weekend!  Enjoy your independence while it still lasts.  And stay safe and away from big gatherings, please.