It doesn't have to be this stupid

     The federal government's Covid 19 guidelines, including physical distancing are set to expire at midnight tonight.   I have a feeling most people will continue to wear masks and stay 6 feet apart.  I know I will.  Meanwhile, the citizens of Georgia are set to participate in a public health experiment as their governor lifts most restrictions on economic activity.
      Neither individual states or the federal government had to react to the pandemic in such pathetically inadequate ways.   Public health experts in government and out have the expertise to guide the rest of us through this crisis, but in many cases their counsel has been ignored by officials, whether in Atlanta or D.C.   It didn't have to be this way.
      Our intelligence agencies warned the president* in January that the disease was coming.  Instead of preparing the nation for this emergency by stockpiling PPE and viral tests, he produced a steady stream of  happy talk about how everything was under control.   60,000 deaths later his son-in-law tells us the government's response to Covid 19 is a rousing success! \
     Now we are being told that there is an adequate supply of body bags, so we should get back out there and become good little consumers so the .01% can continue to enjoy a lifestyle most of us can't even imagine.   Even some "liberal" commentators point to the experience of Sweden, which has mostly ignored the pandemic and seems to have done better than Italy as far as deaths/thousand is concerned.   Maybe, but Sweden's economy is forecast to contract by 7% this year while the US is only supposed to shrink by 6%.  Movie theaters may be open there, but not many people are catching the latest flicks along with the virus.
     There is still no national  plan to test and contact trace on the scale necessary to convince us it is safe to come out.  No amount of persuasion will lure people to sit in a restaurant, knowing they could be gasping out their last breath in an isolated hospital bed separated from their family.  Government will use its power to deny people economic security to try and force them to choose between the aforementioned lonely death and starvation, but it doesn't have to be that way.  The nation's people deserve better leadership.

Garden update

    I don't usually get too excited about the garden this early in the season, but this year has been exceptionally hard to enthuse about.   It has been unrelentingly cold and dry here in the North Country as well as miserable to work outdoors and even the weeds have been slow to germinate.   So, when i checked several plantings yesterday, I was gratified to find some beet seed was germinating. 
     The spinach which survived last winter is starting to green up and even a few spears of asparagus are showing above the soil.  With more rain and slightly warmer weather expected during the latter part of this week, it's time to start getting excited about gardening again!

Starting now

      The headline of my local paper of record, the Plattsburgh Press-Republican, reported my county was furloughing up to 150 workers.   Assuming revenue picks up later in the summer, the county supervisor said all 150 would be back on  the payroll.  The next county over was contemplating straight layoffs with no plans to rehire.   This scenario will play out all across New York and the rest of the US as the pandemic depresses economic activity and the revenue it generates to fund state and local governments.
      Meanwhile, in Washington, deficit vultures such as Moscow Mitch McConnell are gathering around stricken state governments and plotting to use this crisis as a means of reducing government spending on pandemic relief.   The vulture term is courtesy of Paul Krugman of the NYT who uses that term as well as "deficit Peacock" to illustrate how broken the republican party has become.  Instead of using government to ease the pain of the Covid 19 crisis, the vultures will use it to increase that pain, while the peacocks justify the suffering as necessary in the face of multi trillion dollar deficits.
     As Krugman points out, the government can now borrow at negative interest rates and while the figures look daunting, most economists agree we are not burdening future generations with debt, because we will never pay off that debt.   As Krugman has pointed out in the past, the US government is not like the average family that must live on a budget.  As a sovereign nation, we can issue debt to pay for pandemic relief or in the case of republicans, a 1.7 trillion dollar tax cut last year.   The only time republicans seem to worry about debt is when democrats occupy the White House.
    The federal government needs to deliver relief to state and local governments so they can keep their employees on the payroll.   If state and county employees are laid off, the recovery hill gets that much harder to climb and the economic pain will last longer than it has to.   The only thing we have to fear from deficits is fear of deficits. 

tRump has no plan

     Contrary to Elizabeth Warren and her ubiquitous "I have a plan for that" rhetoric, the administration of Donald J.. Trump has nothing resembling a concrete plan for how we are to navigate the coronavirus pandemic and resume something approaching normal life.
     tRump and his facilitators in the right wing media first denied the existence of Covid 19, then slow walked any response to it until the body bags started to pile up.  Now they want to "reopen the economy" with no clear guidance on how to do so in a safe and effective manner.  Instead of a nationwide plan, taking into account the relative safety of some places, there is emerging several regional pacts among governors which may or may not be effective.
    The chaos of the national response is nowhere more evident than the dearth of testing for the virus.  We have been bombarded by calls for ramping up testing from the 150,000 now being conducted weekly, mostly for those already exhibiting  symptoms of the disease.   Experts say we should be conducting upwards of a million tests per day to establish a baseline of where the disease is and where it moving in the country.  Instead, Cheetolini is telling the individual governors they are in charge of testing.   No national compilation of results will be forthcoming if this is the way the program evolves.   We need a federally coordinated program.
     It seems tRump has decided to cut back his appearances on the dog and pony show daily briefings and that is all to the good.  Now, if only he will allow someone with expertise to formulate a credible response to the challenge we face, we may start heading in the right direction.

Hurtful stupidity

     I don't know if the pandemic is accelerating the stupidity in the nation's capital or merely exposing what was already in place.  From medical advice from the president* including injecting disinfectants like bleach into Covid 19 patients to somehow getting ultraviolet light into their bodies, to the Senate majority leader labeling federal aid to the states as "blue state bailouts", the stupidity on display is mind boggling.
     Most of the mainstream media chose not to publicize tRump's advocacy of disinfectants injection into patient's bodies, probably because many editors were afraid people  would start guzzling bleach or sticking UV lights into various bodily orifices.   Some trumpanzees may indeed experiment with these suggestions, but as Faux news motto states, " We report, you decide".  In this case, it may be a heavy dose of Darwinism.
     Meanwhile, in an excess of candor, Mitch McConnell labelled aid for states reeling from the economic fallout resulting from shelter in place orders as "blue state bailouts".  McConnell further suggested states be allowed to declare bankruptcy to escape some of the economic carnage.   He was excoriated by NY governor Andrew Cuomo and will probably have to walk back his words by later today.  However, he did offer an insight into GOP thinking about how to turn this crisis into an opportunity to gut spending in large democratic leaning states such as California and NY. 
     As some pundits have pointed out, the economic consequences of state level bankruptcy would have national and international ramifications as bond markets would spiral out of control, interest rates would climb and depression would grip the country for years.   Republicans would no doubt lose control of the senate and the presidency.    I'm sure someone is whispering these insights into the majority leader's ear, but it seems he would rather follow the script of the old Aesop's fable of the horse and the scorpion.

The end of American exceptionalism

       Personally, I have never believed in American exceptionalism.   Every country in the world claims to be the best in the world at something.  Only in America is this seemingly harmless bit of patriotism raised to a fever pitch.  Certainly, the rise of America in the late 1800's after the Civil War is noteworthy as is our intervention in WW 2 leading to the defeat of the Axis powers.  In the aftermath of the war, with the only undamaged economy on the planet we became the world's first superpower.  We organized the world to our specifications and spawned a world wide empire and a Pax Americana supported by a military-industrial complex which allowed most of our industry to outsource its production to the rest of the world, reserving the production of guns and bombs to itself. 
      The Covid 19 pandemic has laid bare this devastation of our industrial capability.   Most production of PPE and medicine has been outsourced to China.  While our doctors, nurses and first responders lack crucial equipment, we can only collectively wring our hands and hope China will be generous in its allocation.    We simply don't have the capacity in the short term to manufacture these items.
     A globally interdependent system makes sense if it is led by a knowledgeable, benevolent entity.   Unfortunately, we are presently led by an ignorant, racist fool who happily shreds the global fabric his predecessors wove together and alienates the nations we need to help us overcome the present pandemic. The very fact we elected Donald J Trump to lead this nation forfeits any claim we may have had to American exceptionalism.  We may emerge from this crisis still claiming to be the richest, most powerful nation on earth, but we have abdicated any claim to moral leadership.

Shutdown advice

      It may be I have not noticed it, but it seems to me the media, electronic and print, is brimming with stories about how people are coping with the Covid 19 shutdown, or advice on how we should be doing it.
      One story in the NYT quotes a survivor of the 4 year siege of Sarajevo who compares the corona virus to Slobodan Milosovec, I guess.   He goes on to tell us we will change in gross and subtle ways the way we interact with others.  He may be right, although a majority of the population is still counting on everything getting back to normal as soon as possible.
     Another columnist has been taken hostage by his 7 and 9 year old children.   As anyone who has or had children of that age knows, they are terrorists at heart and will have no mercy.   Sympathy is in order for this hapless prisoner, but again, his story only makes me pine for a post shutdown return to normalcy.    Yet another, more political scribbler warns against the coming advertising blitz which aims to keep our materialistic worship of conspicuous consumption humming when our enforced isolation ends. 
    A dear friend and business partner related on Facebook how she had to use her backyard for her daughter's wedding due to the ban on large gatherings. Many family members attended via Zoom and tears were shed, both happy and sad over the breakdown of such an intimate tradition of gathering together to celebrate.
      Finally, the local paper has a tear jerking front page photo of cute little tikes communing with their great grandparents through a glass door.   It could be the poster child for all of the above.  We all want to return to the way it was, but we also know deep in our guts it will never be that way again.  No amount of "happy talk" by Cheetolini or advertising by Walmart will persuade us to go back.  It is a different world than the one we woke up to on New Year's Day.

The wizard of Oz and the death of expertise

      At least in the movie, the wizard of Oz repents his scams on Dorothy and her fellow innocents.   It turned out he was a snake oil huckster before winding up in Oz and he couldn't help but scam the inhabitants of the Emerald City.    It seems the real life  Dr. Oz can't help himself either.
      Oz and his fellow "expert", Dr. Phil have been regaling the credulous viewers of Faux News for some time, but their forays into the mechanics of transmission of Covid 19 and the epidemiology of the disease make a case for malpractice.   Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and Dr. Phil, a pop psychologist have zero expertise in pandemics, yet they are presented as experts.  Richard Epstein, a lawyer who confidently predicted no more than 500 fatalities in the US as a result of the pandemic is another non-expert who has outsize influence in the tRump administration.
      As Paul Krugman in the NYT opines, this administration and the conservative movement in general rewards loyalty to the cause above all else.   At first it corrupted those with at least some knowledge of economics.  Art Laffer and Stephen Moore come to mind.   These supposed economists have consistently supported debunked theories such as "supply side economics". 
       Now, however, the pandemic demands real scientific expertise to explain the epidemiology.   No real scientists have sold their souls to the conservative machine, so instead Fox and other right wing news sites use Oz, Phil and other self proclaimed experts to push back against real science.  Unfortunately, this trend will over time discredit the real experts like Anthony Fauci who follow the trail of hard science even when it appears contradictory. 
      When everyone is an expert, no one believes anything they are told.  That is the ultimate aim of republicans and conservatives.   

Monday in the garden

    The abnormally cold and dry spring continues here in the North Country and the Northeast US as well.  I am usually anxious for dry weather in the spring, as much of my garden is a heavy, clay soil which warms and dries only grudgingly.   But as the saying goes, be careful for what you wish for.  My early seedings of carrots, beets, parsley and spinach are waiting for rain and nights consistently above freezing before sprouting.  The cold frame plantings of lettuce seem to be growing normally, but what is normal these days.   One bright note is the possibility of wintered over spinach for the first time in years.  I have been disappointed before when spinach seemed to winter over only to shrivel and die after a late spring freeze.  We'll see...

Bad ideas

    As the national government frantically tries to reopen the economy even without any plans  to ramp up testing for the coronavirus or trace the contacts of any new positively tested individual, Jamaal Bouie of the NYT thinks he knows why.  It's all about bad ideas.
     After 40 years of mostly republican policy to force an upward redistribution of wealth in this country, the pandemic and its economic fallout has forced the government into a defacto  social democratic path, aided for the most part by democrats.   After the initial pathetic offering of a one time payment of $1200.00 which is less than one month's rent for many Americans, the Congress passed a 2.2 trillion dollar bill aimed at small businesses and individuals who had lost their jobs.  In addition to the paltry amount offered by most state unemployment insurance, the feds will be kicking in an additional $600.00/week for at least 14 weeks.
   Republicans hate the fact people may actually be doing better under this program than they would have in many of the jobs lost to the pandemic, especially in the service sector.   When the shutdown ends, these people would possibly demand better wages from employers.  Hence republicans and the 1 percent who fund the GOP are desperate to get the economy going again before bad ideas concerning income inequality become entrenched.
    So we will head pell mell down the path of reopening the economy and new outbreaks of the pandemic will inevitably shut it down again.  People will not patronize bars and restaurants, nor will they travel in close proximity if doing so results in a death sentence.  A second and third reopening and shutdown will do permanent damage to an economy built on cheap labor.  The bad idea of social democracy could become embedded in our thinking going forward.

Purposeless effort vs. effortless purpose

    Cheetolini's supposed rollout of industry "task forces" to help reopen America's economy was yet another example of the administration's pathetic response to the pandemic.   Many of the industry leaders claimed they were not contacted before their names were mentioned by the president*.  It would seem the major purpose of the name dropping was to show tRump was a strong leader.  Meanwhile, no purpose for these groups was stated.  So, more confusion reigns.
     Contrast this with South Korea's response to the coronavirus.  After a brief spike in cases during March, the government's aggressive testing policy has essentially driven the number of new cases to near zero as of April 13.  As soon as S. Korea was hit with the first cases of the disease in late February, the leaders of the nation in consultation with pharmaceutical companies developed a test for the infection and began testing large chunks of the population.   By getting ahead of the coronavirus they have suppressed it without using the draconian policies adopted by China.
    Two countries, two responses.  I report, you decide!

On the rollercoaster

      It is looking more and more like a return to normalcy, economic and social, will likely take a year or more and will probably coincide with the availability of a safe and effective vaccine for the coronavirus.   Despite calls from members of the GOP that we "put on our big boy and girl pants" and get back to work, it remains to be seen if the jobs many people lost are still there for the taking.
      Many companies are closing for good as the pandemic forces changes in the way they will have to do business in the future.  As a participant in the business of getting food to Americans'  tables, I have heard that several businesses my company has traded with over many years have closed.  These are small, family owned companies which employ from 10-100 or more.  Some are owned by older folks whose family is not involved in the business.  With no successor and dwindling capital the temptation is to close the doors and retire.   At the opposite end of the food service spectrum are many small restaurants which offer first time employment to the youth of the country. owned for the most part by youthful entrepeneurs,  these establishments survive like the average family, living week to week.  The extended shutdown will kill many of these places, along with the jobs they provide.
    I think we will find the economy far less resilient than pundits opine.   The culprit in a lot of cases is the systemic income inequality symbolized by the statistic that shows Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet control as much wealth as 150,000,000 workers at the bottom of the economy.  Unfortunately, neither dems or repubs seem able or willing to do anything about it, unless fixing that situation is the only thing that will bring back economic activity.  
     So, we hunker down in our family bunkers and hope the leaders we elected are able to figure a way out  of this mess.  After watching Cheetolini at another one of his marathon blame everyone but himself press conferences, I am not very sanguine about the situation.
 

Gloom but not doom

    Several ongoing stories in the news incite both hope and despair.   The Covid 19 story is a case in point.  While the emergency is real in the Northeast and cases continue to escalate in other areas of the country, regional consortiums of governors on the east and west coasts are making tentative plans to reopen the economies in those areas.   Meanwhile, in South Dakota, the governor refuses to issue a shelter in place order even after one of the biggest meat packing plants in the country has been shut down by the virus with over 300 cases.   Instead, the governor is sponsoring a trial of hyroxychlorquine, the president*s fantasy drug of choice to combat the pandemic.  Another study of the drug was shut down amid concerns the side effects of the drug could cause heart problems.
    Wisconsin republicans forced the primary and judicial elections to proceed as normal in the face of the epidemic last week.  They supposed low voter turnout would lead to the reelection of a conservative justice on the State Supreme Court.  Instead, their obstruction of free and fair elections caused liberals to turn out in record numbers to elect the liberal challenger.
     Finally, the NYT came out with a devastating story charting the delay, dithering and inaction of the administration and the president* as the Covid 19 pandemic roared across the country.  With access to 80 pages of emails and conversations with officials it has been established tRump was warned repeatedly in January and February the country was in danger and yet he continued to downplay the situation, referring to the virus as a democratic hoax.   He aired a campaign video last night during his  "pandemic briefing" blaming the media for government inaction.   At the same time, he asserted his power to end the states' shutdown of the economy.   At this point most people consider this presidency a rancid joke which needs to end on the third of November.  I will end on that hopeful note.

Truth is stranger....

     I have been watching Ali Velshi's Saturday and Sunday morning shows on MSNBC during the pandemic.  Velshi is the closest thing the network has to an economics guru and most of what he says makes sense.  However, he has a tendency to fawn on "experts" when he brings them on his show, and Sunday's example was most egregious.
     How he came to book Art Laffer, the huckster responsible for supply side economics.  Laffer's claim to fame is the apocryphal story of how he wrote the math for his theory on the back of a napkin and enchanted Ronald Reagan.  The rest is the sad history of how Laffer's long discredited theory has captured the  GOP and stifled any conservative counter to it.  Velshi's ostensible reason for having Laffer on was a rumor Laffer would head the economic wing of tRump's supposed coronavirus task force.  But instead of taking him on regarding his recommendations concerning policy, Velshi tossed one softball after another in an embarrassing segment.  I hope this was a one and done.

Crisis and character

     Most of us, and especially New Yorkers knew who and what Donald J. Trump was, long before his campaign for the presidency.   From his early apprenticeship with his father, Fred, he learned racism, how to work with the mob, how to stiff contractors working for you and how to navigate the corridors of political power with well timed political contributions.   He added grifting to this panoply of horrifying traits as he branded cheap wines, tough steaks and even an eponymous institution of supposed  learning.
     Some of my friends from Long Island reveled in tRump's candidacy, preferring to see the wholly made up persona of his "Apprentice" tv show.  Here was a tough, brilliant workaholic tycoon they said.  If anyone could bring order to the federal government, The Donald was the chosen one.  The unspoken truth for many on L.I. and across the country was tRump's contrast with the black man who inhabited the oval office for 8 years.  That they could look at the totality of their candidate's record and decide he was superior to Hillary Clinton and her lifetime of service added misogyny to racism.  Even then, it took a jaded press and Vladimir Putin to push tRump to victory via an electoral college farce.
    Now we have an existential crisis, both medical and economic.  Instead of spending his days directing the fight against the coronavirus, he continues his steady diet of Faux News and ends his day spreading disinformation and bullying a press corps which gamely tries to hold him to account.  Yet, his base, including many of the aforementioned Long Islanders, love the DJT show and continue to support him.   C'mon people.  The man has shown he is a stupid, philandering, lying thieving weasal without a shred of empathy.    Wake up!

Bernie does the right thing

      I know among the few who read this  blog  on a regular basis it is an article of faith that Bernie Sanders candidacy was torpedoed in 2016 by the "democratic establishment" and to most of them will say the same thing happened in 2020.   Sorry folks, but that's not how it was or is.
      First, I want to praise Bernie for pulling the plug on his 2020 campaign.  Regardless of the fact he would have limped into the convention with far fewer delegates than Biden, he could have done the same destructive thing as 2016 and denied the eventual nominee the full throated support necessary to win the presidency in  these partisan times.   Joe Biden is not my first, second or even third choice for president, but it seems he will be the nominee and with the looming specter of Cheetolini, we need to mobilize all the support we can for a Biden candidacy.
     The problem with Sanders' candidacy has always been its lack of broad based support among the democratic party's core constituency, namely black voters and in particular black women voters.  For whatever reason, Bernie was unable to connect with these supporters and instead of redoubling his outreach he relied on a base of college educated and young male working class voters to power his campaign.   With up to 25 candidates competing at one time and at least 5 mainstream candidates fighting for the nomination as Super Tuesday approached, Sanders 30% strategy looked good, even as black voters in South Carolina rallied behind Biden.   When Buttigieg and Klobuchar, neither of whom had any path to the nomination dropped out, the rest of the party united behind Biden and that was the end for Bernie.   No, there was no machinations behind the scenes, although both Pete and Amy are in line for jobs in a Biden administration.  It was politics.
     Now, it is up to Bernie to bring along his supporters to at least hold their noses and vote for Biden.  If progressives want 4 more years of tRump, then by all means, vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson.  If, however, liberals want a chance to influence the next democratic administration, the choice is clear.

Ain't no sunshine

     We lost two of the greatest American songwriters this past week to covid 19;  Bill Withers and now, John Prine.   While they had little in common except the ability to touch our hearts and souls, their debut albums both came out in 1971.
      While I was still firmly embedded in what we now refer to as "classic rock",  Withers inimitable voice and evocative lyrics were able to make me pay attention and hum along.  He continued to write through the mid 80s, but quit touring and writing at that time.
      John Prine on the other hand was a roadie for life, touring relentlessly and releasing  a respectable catalog over the years.   For some reason, probably the fact he never got into the Top 40 and/or didn't have Withers' silky voice, I came to appreciate him later in life.  I was weeding my garden in the spring of 1995 and listening to Scott Simon interview Prine on his Saturday morning show on NPR as John was plugging a new album, "Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings".   I was hooked by the lyrics and soon was serenading the family with "lake Marie" among other tunes.   "They was sizzling" has become a touchstone for me and the Divine Mrs. M.
     Prine never had much of a voice and most of his songs are done in a sometimes lilting monotone, but his sharp observations of his fellow citizens made me by turns proud and exasperated to be an American in this time.   We were lucky enough to see him play in Burlington, Vt. at the venerable Flynn Theater.  He was accompanied by Iris Dement and it was a great show, despite the fact he was recovering from surgery which damaged his vocal chords.
      From "Sam Stone" to "Some Humans ain't Human" and "Your Flag Decal won't get You into Heaven Anymore", Prine's commentary on life in our country was almost always spot on.   He was 73 years old.  RIP John and Bill.  Somewhere there's duet being played....

Unreality TV

     As has become a daily ritual, the president* convened his unreality show last night.  Complete with a captive press corps which actually asked concise and timely questions only to be verbally bludgeoned by Cheetolini, who obviously thinks refusing responsibility and  blaming governors and the news media for the nation's problems is a dandy tactic.
     I didn't watch the marathon bloviation, but the capsule summaries and occasional direct quotes played by various shows after the fact were illustrative of how far our political culture has fallen.  If Obama had treated the media the same way, a blizzard of editorials would be calling for his censure or impeachment.   Instead, we are left with slack jawed commentators who vainly search for anything '"presidential" in tRump's demeanor.  Instead we are left with the impression our government is being led by a 10 year old who is being held responsible for failing his latest test and is instead blaming his parents for not waking him up in time so he could buy the cheat sheet for said test.

A weird spring

     Thanks to one of my daughters and her husband, I was finally able to get my asparagus beds cleaned off and get some planting done on a beautiful Saturday during what my youngest describes as "Covid shutdown hell".  We all practices social distancing and it felt good to exercise, although I had to be very careful with my surgically repaired shoulder.  Judging by the after effects on Sunday morning, the shoulder held up better than other parts of my anatomy.
     With the asparagus beds ready to go, I planted some lettuce and kale seed in a cold frame and put in a bed each of carrots and beets.  I have four beds of overwintered spinach which looks like survived the winter and will hopefully be producing  a bumper crop this spring.   At least gardening will get me outside during these lengthening spring days and help keep my mind off the developing crisis our nation faces.   There is little most of us can do except avoid human interaction and hope against hope the ignorant narcissistic idiot entrusted with our ship of state somehow navigates the pandemic now gripping our country without killing too many of us.

The coming chaos

      The president's* son-in-law made his debut at the White House coronavirus briefing yesterday, I am told.   Another legacy son of a NY real estate magnate,Jared Kushner seems to have done 3 things well in his life, according to NYT columnist Michelle Goldberg.  He was born to rich parents, married well and learned how to influence his father in law.  Besides that he has done precious little in a life lived in a luxury bubble.
      Kushner told tRump early on in the crisis that NY didn't need all the ventilators and hospital beds governor Cuomo had requested.  Now, we are about 6 days from testing that theory and if he is wrong, patients will be dying by the hundreds in hospital hallways throughout the city as doctors make life and death triage decisions.
     This is what happens when an ignorant failure who's greatest triumph is a reality tv show is elected to the presidency on a platform of anti-science, immigrant bashing, racism and misogyny.  Most of us knew there would be a stern test of this administration at some point.  Now we are here and I for one am terrified at the prospect.   The human and financial wreckage will take decades to clear away.

Incompetence squared

       I have turned the television off between the hours of 5-7 p.m. each day so as to miss the "press briefing" at the White House.   I can't bear to watch the firehose of lies washing over the coronavirus crisis.  Even less can I bear the relentlessly stupid questions being posed to Cheetolini by a press corps which has lost its collective mind.
     The national press has done some yeoman work reporting on the shortages of personal protective equipment and ventilators plaguing hospitals at the epicenter of the outbreak.  Yesterday we learned that hundreds of millions of facemasks in inventory around the US have been purchased by foreign buyers and are poised to be shipped to other countries!   Did anyone ask tRump about why he has not centralized the supply chain through FEMA and directed the needed supplies to where they will do the most good?
     Our so called "elite" press is far more interested in preserving access to White House sources than pursuing substantive reporting.   I believe most of them with a few notable exceptions are afraid of a tRump tweet naming them anathema, thereby focusing his base's rabid hate on them.  We are so screwed...

Media meltdown

      The president* appeared on his dog and pony show yesterday and announced if we as a nation are both good and lucky we might hold the coronavirus death toll to 150-240,000 citizens.   Some in the news media were ready to applaud this bit of revisionist history because tRump managed to look somber for a few minutes before attacking the media for being so unfair as to report actual facts.
     i don't know about anyone else, but this Charlie Brown and Lucy football act is starting to wear thin.   Cheetolini should be held to account every minute of every "press briefing" by reporters dedicated to the truth.  Instead we get crap from the NYT's Maggie Haberman telling us tRump disagrees with governors who tell him we still have a testing shortage.  Nobody seems to know where the millions of tests Pence promised 2 weeks ago went.  Inquiring minds want to know why the only people getting tested in most places are those exhibiting late stage symptoms such as fever and shortness of breath.   Where is the baseline testing every epidemiologist is saying is necessary to get hold of this disease?
     When Covid 19 is finally brought under control, probably by a vaccine now being developed, we need to hold this administration to account, even if Cheetolini is no longer in office.   He will be responsible for a large proportion of the carnage yet to come.