The One Percent Fallacy

The conventional wisdom about Donald Trump is that he's always lying, like when he told a crowd at an Independence Day speech in Washington that 99 percent of COVID-19 cases are "harmless."  At the same time, Dr. Anthony Fauci says we're in a place that is "really not good" when it comes to the virus, with Trump, a self-professed "stable genius," countering that Dr. Fauci is providing a "false narrative."

"I think we are going to be in very good shape," Trump said, a sentiment echoed by Mike Pence yesterday.

Pure fiction, all of it, but Trump's comment about the virus being 99 percent harmless isn't technically a lie. It is a statement based on a gross misunderstanding of a fact offered up back in March by, ironically, Dr. Fauci himself.

Here's the deal.  Back in March, Dr. Fauci projected that the death rate among people who contract COVID-19 cases would likely be about one (1) percent.  That may have been so, but Trump has obviously taken this to mean that 99 percent of Americans who get COVID-19 would recover and be fine after that, just like most people recover from the flu - which, like COVID-19, is caused by a coronavirus.  But the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is far more deadly, as Dr Fauci noted that the death rate from the flu is 0.1 percent, meaning that COVID-19 kills ten times as many people as the flu.  And, truth be told (but not by Trump), those who do recover from COVID-19 can and likely will have health problems later on as a result of having had the disease.  

Oh yeah, Dr. Fauci's estimated mortality rate for this pandemic may end up being too optimistic. As of yesterday, July 8, 2020, about 3,038,800 Americans have contracted COVID-19, with a death toll of about 131,700.  Based on those figures, the mortality rate is actually 4.3 percent.  Though, to be fair, it was actually higher at the beginning of the pandemic.

And amidst all this, Trump is officially taking the United States out of the World Health Organization and trying to force localities all over America to reopen their schools for live and in person instruction.

The presidential election can't come soon enough.

Remdesivir

Remdesivir.  You've heard about it.  The drug that can fight coronavirus.  Yes, it sounds like a breakthrough.  But it's a breakthrough in the sense that the Beatles' second album was a breakthrough.  It's a positive step, but it's not the climax.  It's not a Sgt. Pepper-style moment; that would be the vaccine, which probably won't happen until some time next year (though it could happen earlier - we'll see). 

So what does Remdesivir do?  It lowers the mortality rate among COVID-19 patients - from 11 percent to 8 percent - and it also helps patients leave the hospital sooner after eleven days rather than fifteen.  Those numbers are encouraging but they could be better.  That's why Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that this is only a first step.  But it shows that there is a drug that works to some extent against this damn virus, and it could lead to effective therapeutics on the way to a vaccine.

Oh yeah, whatever progress we make between now and November, Trump should get no credit for it.  His asinine "leadership" is what got us off to a rocky start from far behind in the first place. 

I Want Normalcy

As in 1920, Americans in 2020 want a return to normalcy after the coronavirus pandemic, assuming it ever ends.  A lot of people have a problem with that attitude, because, in their view, normalcy means income inequality, health care inequities, pollution, and overdevelopment.

Well, that's not my idea of normalcy, and that's not the idea of normalcy among people who are quite vocal about wanting to return to it.  For us, normalcy is simply being able to go to a supermarket without looking like a bank robber or a ninja warrior.  It means when, you do go in to a bank, you can walk into the lobby and not have to use the uncivilized drive-in window.  It means going once again to art museums and libraries, which have been closed for being "non-essential" enterprises.  It means going to a party and being able to mingle freely with your fellow guests.  It pains me to know that my model friend Nancy Donahue and my hairdresser friend Harry King won't be able to have their fashion reunion party any time soon because of this damn virus because their parties have a lot of what I activities that social distancing and personal protection apparel render impossible - lots of hugging, lots of kissing, lots of beautiful faces, and, for me anyway, having a diet soft drink at the bar without having to worry about catching a disease.  What's so bad about that sort of normalcy?

You know, when Warren G. Harding promised a return to normalcy, he wasn't necessarily saying we should go back to horse-and-buggy transportation or manually gaslit streetlights or anything like that.  Harding was in fact fascinated with the new technology coming out of the post-World-War-I era, such as radio and motion pictures, and he even went on a camping trip with captains of industry to show how safe automobiles were.  He simply wanted a return to Americans living their lives in the relative peace and safety that preceded the war.  He wanted to get the economy up and running again and he wanted economic activity to absorb new technology with ease, which is why he appointed bureaucratic wizard Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce.  Perhaps Harding's greatest contribution to the United States was that he helped create a new norm that Americans would come to enjoy, a norm that included road trips, movie dates, and Louis Armstrong.  As for the charge against Harding that "normalcy" meant isolationism and wanting nothing to do with the outside world, even that is misplaced. The U.S., despite its failure to join the League of Nations, hosted an international naval disarmament conference in 1921.  President Calvin Coolidge, Harding's successor, continued American responsibility as a global leader with aid to victims of the 1923 earthquake in Japan and later promoted the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a 1928 treaty negotiated by Frank Kellogg, Coolidge's Secretary of State, and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, to (unsuccessfully, of course) try to prevent another global war.  (One effort at promoting normalcy in the 1920s - Prohibition - was in fact an abnormal condition, and also a resounding failure.) 

What would be wrong with a "normalcy" that would allow Americans to breathe freely - literally? And what's wrong with a "normalcy" that does not include Donald J. Trump?

Americans in 2020 just want to return to the simple pleasures of life that existed before this damn virus struck.  To quote the title character from the 1980 movie Private Benjamin, "I want to wear my sandals, I want to go out to lunch, I want to be normal again."

Trumping the Post Office

So, eh, what does Trump have against giving the Postal Service a nice big grant in the middle of a deadly pandemic, especially when it's the pandemic that has been the source of the Postal Service's most recent troubles?

Well, he explained from the Oval Office that the Postal Service has been needlessly losing money by charging ridiculously low rates to send packages to addresses, allowing Amazon - whose CEO, Jeff Bezos, also owns the anti-Trump Washington Post - to make an equally ridiculous profit at the Postal Service's expense.  He instructed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to go ahead in negotiating a loan with the Postal Service contingent on promises of postal reform, but under no circumstances is Mnuchin allowed to give the Postal Service a grant with no strings attached.

Gosh, Trump's idea sounds so capitalistic, so business-friendly, so perfect for . . . a private company!  I am not an economist, but if the Postal Service were to raise its package rates - if it were to quadruple them, as Trump suggested - Amazon and other mail-order companies would have to spend more money to ship things and ultimately pass the costs onto . . . us?  You think Bezos is going to take one for America by sending things out without raising shipping fees for the customers?  And while the Postal Service, a self-sufficient government agency since 1971, may have to pay its own way, it is still a public entity that is required, as it should be, to deliver mail to everyone, and it is thus a nonprofit enterprise.  If the Postal Service were to make a profit, you'd have to privatize it - which is what Trump wants - but to become profitable, it would have to stop delivering mail to smaller communities on money-losing routs - which, again is what Trump wants!  Because otherwise,voting by mail - which Trump doesn't want (except for himself) would be way too easy!

We could be in a serious situation by September, when the Postal Service - which is also known for sending out life-saving prescription drugs - is expected to run of out of money.  Truth be told, companies like Amazon are actually keep the Postal Service going by using it.  But if the Postal Service does run out of money and goes down, voting by mail will be an irrelevant issue, because we won't be able to do anything else by mail either.

There is a bright side.  People are suddenly buying stamps in enormous quantities, especially stamp collectors.  And when people buy more stamps than they need or buy stamps they don't intend to use, that provides a lot of extra revenue for the Postal Service.

The solution to keeping the Postal Service going while Trump is in office and/or at least until the coronavirus pandemic is over is quite simple, really.   If you save stamps, stamps will save you!

Happy collecting.

Disinjectant?

If Joe Biden is elected President this November, history books will record that Trump lost the election the day - April 23 - he made the following suggestion.

Noting the use of disinfectants in killing the coronavirus on surfaces, Trump suggested that perhaps liquid disinfectant formulas like Lysol could be injected into the body of a person with COVID-19 to kill it.

Only one thing wrong with that - disinfectant can not only kill the virus, it can kill the patient!

When Trump suggested this idea, he turned to Dr. Deborah Birx to get a seconding of his proposal, but la Mademoiselle Docteur Birx - she of the cool scarves - just sat there and said more with the horrified expression on her face than mere words could.

I'm only glad she wasn't wearing her scarf as a mask.  

Oh yeah, Trump also suggested finding a way to get ultraviolet light  - another way to kill the virus on surfaces - inside infected human bodies as a cure.

How come no one has invoked the Twenty-Fifth Amendment yet? 

Needless to say, Democrats, news media personalities and the company that makes Lysol disinfectant all came out and made it clear that no one should deliberately swallow disinfectant at all, to make sure that people wouldn't do something crazy that Trump suggested.  However, people could still do something else crazy at Trump's urging - they could vote for him again.  And if the economy recovers enough by November, enough voters - some of whom probably sniff glue for fun - could do just that and end up giving him a second term.

America has a consumer economy, so every patriotic American should refrain from buying too much stuff between now and Election Day, November 3, so that the economy stays soft enough to hurt Trump.  We should only buy things we need.

Like disinfectant.

But don't drink it.     

COVID Tea Party

I have an English ladyfriend who lives in France, and she once told me that she thinks the majority of Americans are ignorant and stupid.  The news of the past few days regarding the coronavirus only confirms her observation.

This past week, after Donald Trump set out a series of economic re-opening phases for the states to follow as guides and not the gospel, it readily became apparent that too few if any states would be ready to open soon under the guidelines specified in Phase One (in which Doris gets her oats!).  That didn't stop protesters from filling the streets of various cities, mainly state capitals, demanding an end to the lockdowns and dismissing them as an assault on freedom.  The protests were apparently encouraged by Trump himself, especially in states with Democratic governors to embarrass said governors, one of them being Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer - a female governor who's on Joe Biden's short list for a vice presidential running mate. Of course - rough up a woman being rumored as a candidate for the Vice Presidency!  The Michigan protest - which included militia-type gun-toting guys giving candidate with bare hands to similarly bare-handed children - is shown below. 

Michigan is as divided as the country at large, maybe even more so.  The COVID-19 cases in the state are heavily concentrated in the Detroit metropolitan area, while the rest of the state is largely virus free - and Whitmer's restrictions are meant to keep the rest of the state virus-free while reducing the numbers in the Detroit area.  But with Detroit itself being heavily black and its suburbs being a good mix of non-Hispanic whites and racial/ethic minorities and with the rest of the state being mainly white, the restrictions have also sparked a Tea Party revival, as evidenced in the photo above. I am certain that most of the people in the above photo have phone numbers with a 906 area dove. 906 is the area code for Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  

Trump, of course, is adding fuel to the fire with tweets designed to shame the governors following his own suggested re-opening guidelines: "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" LIBERATE VIRGINIA!" "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" (Minnesota governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, has allowed the resumption of outdoor recreational activities where social distracting is possible, such as golf and boating.)  You don't see a "LIBERATE NEW JERSEY!" tweet against Phil Murphy because Trump knows he can't win New Jersey in November under any circumstances.  And because Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio is a Republican, you don't see a "LIBERATE OHIO!" Tweet either.  It's quite obvious that these protests are in fact Trump rallies without Trump.

But there have been protests in states led by Republican governors, including Ron DeSantis's Florida, where the picture above was taken.

If these women get their way and defeat the lockdown in Florida, the two of them will get both of what their signs are requesting. 

Where Are the TESTS?

This blog entry is a lazy one, not a serious work of writing, but because it in fact addresses Trump's laziness as a leader and the fact that his latest coronavirus initiative is not a serious work of doing anything about the pandemic.

Having failed to get the governors of the fifty states that supposedly make up this Union to do his bidding in reopening the economy, Trump has issued a set of guidelines for how to restart the country's economy to show that he's on the ball and doing something about the pandemic.  And, I suppose, Trump thinks he can get away with looking like he's doing something when Joe Biden is stuck in his basement unable to do anything, and Trump may, alas, be right about that. But the guidelines - go here to see them, because, quite frankly, I can't be bothered to summarize them in my own words - are about as patchwork as the country itself, and the most important states and metropolitan areas on't be able to meet the guidelines any time soon. None of them meet them now, despite Trump's insistence to the country; his insistence is based on three-day data on declines of cases, not fourteen-day data as the guidelines say.  And the guidelines are based on testing people for the virus.  Which begs this obvious question:

Where are they?  The states can't test people for coronavirus on their own, and not even together - the federal government as to step in!  So where are the tests?  No tests, no re-opening of the economy?  Trump, who earlier claimed total authority, devolved the responsibility of fighting the virus to the governors.  These are the things Joe Biden keeps calling Trump on, but nobody cares because he's speaking from a basement studio that (it's been said) looks like a public-access-channel studio set.  But that doesn't change the fact that Trump is supposed to be a leader and has to start acting like one. So, again - WHERE ARE THE TESTS?

I'm giving Trump a test. I'm flunking him.

"WHO The F**k Are YOU?"

Donald Trump announced this past week that the United States is now withholding funds to the World Health Organization (WHO) in the midst of the worst pandemic in over a hundred years.  The only people who approve of this policy are Trump's sycophants, which, I'm sorry to say, include the entire Republican congressional caucus.

Trump's rationale for withhold funds from the WHO is based on is failure to stop the coronavirus from spreading beyond China and taking Chinese assurances of the virus's containment at face value.  Shortly after Trump's announcement, the media started playing clips of Trump from January and February praising the WHO and Chinese President Xi Jinping for their leadership on the virus problem.

It is true that the WHO put too much trust and not enough verification - a spin on Ronald Reagan's favorite Russian proverb, "Trust but verify" - in the Chinese leadership, as Kathy Gilsinan's article in The Atlantic explains.  The WHO was impressed with China's efforts to handle the crisis, even though Chinese coronavirus policy was based largely on wishful thinking and spin.  But the WHO also recognized the severity of the disease and, regardless of how it was going down in China, warned the rest of the world to prepare for a global health emergency.  Trump sort of didn't want to do that.  Now that the United States has the largest umber of coronavirus cases, he's trying to deflect blame to others.  Some government officials overseeing health policy conceded that the WHO made some serious mistakes but caution - their cautions falling of deaf ears, of course - that we should wait until after the pandemic has run its course to assess those mistakes.    

Trump's lack of consistency on many issues - he was once for fighting climate change before he was against it - is annoying even in normal circumstances, but here it's gone beyond the pale.  When he was downplaying the health crisis, he wasn't even consistent with  the WHO while he was praising the organization; he declined the tests it offered to the United States when this disease got serious.  Even if you accept the idea that the WHO let COVID-19 go full tilt boogie, the Chinese still deceived the WHO into making decisions based on unreliable information.  Blaming the WHO for the pandemic is like blaming Eve for the fall of man, even though the serpent in this case is the Chinese Politburo.

A rather loaded analogy, and an ironic one to use a week after Easter, I know, but if the shoe fits . . .

Five Dollars Postage?

Would you pay five dollars for a stamp?

As shown above, the United States Postal Service does issue five-dollar stamps and has issued them for over 120 years, since back when it was the United States Post Office Department (more about that distinction in a moment or two), but they've always been for large postage amounts for things like packages.  Could you imagine using a five-dollar stamp on a standard first-class letter?

Well, you could, if Trump gets his way - and, what the man wants, he usually gets.  Congress attempted to appropriate a $25 billion grant to keep the Postal Service afloat after reports have strongly suggested that it could run out of money in June, in part because of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, Trump personally made sure that the Postal Service would only get a $10 billion loan - a loan, as in, it has to be paid back - instead.  A loan of 40 percent of a proposed grant money doesn't make a ton of sense - especially since that loan has to be paid back with interest -  unless Trump's plan is to . . . privatize the Post Office.

And that's precisely what folks say Trump has exactly in mind.

Until July 1971, a taxpayer-supported Post Office Department existed and relied far less on postal rates to cover its operating costs.  But after the 1970 postal strike - which necessitated in having the Army run the postal system for a time - President Nixon took the initiative to convert the post office into a self-sustaining government agency, funded entirely on revenue from its services, with the Postmaster General to be appointed under a board of governors rather than the President.  But since the 2006 passage of a Republican-supported law requiring the Postal Service to pre-pay retirement funds for its workers, the agency has been under duress, even as increased electronic-mail usage had been gaining at the expense of postal mail.  It should be noted, by the way, that the Postal Service had trouble in its first decade providing service commensurate to price.  In 1971, when the Post Office Department became the Postal Service, the first-class letter rate was six cents; by 1981, after ten years of runaway inflation and increasing energy costs due to two oil crises,  that rate had tripled.   

Even so, 55 cents to mail a letter today - note that it took 38 years for the rate to go up threefold from 18 cents - is still a good bargain, compared to other countries.  Germany, a country the size of Montana with 83 million people, has higher postal rates than the United States, a country of 327 million people in an area a thousand-odd miles wide and three thousand miles long.  The Postal Service is a national treasure.  But without proper funding, it can't do its job. And without the funding it needs from the government, a subsequent shutdown would allow Trump to swoop in and hand it over to private operators who could charge what they want and make people pay more for all of its service - parcel post, certified mail, registered mail,, even first-class mailings.   Five dollars to pay a bill or send a greeting card?  If it makes someone rich, well, yes, er're going to have to pay five bucks to mail the most basic card or letter.  There may not even be universal postal service, because there's no money in that..

And stamp collecting - already an expensive because of the supplies and minimum number of stamps in one issue that you have to buy if you collect them mint - will only get more dear.

And now people are talking about voting by mail?

We can't let the post office go toward full privatization, something Nixon envisioned when the current system was set up nearly fifty years ago as a precursor to that possibility.  We need to make sure the public mails stay public.  I've already written my congressional representatives about the issue.  You should too.

So Please Don't Take My Ship From Me

Captain Brett Crozier of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier may have earned himself a place in a Biden Cabinet, but he earned enmity from the Trump administration when he sent out a letter alerting the presence of the coronavirus on his ship and urged that the infected sailors on his ship be removed to save both their lives and the lives of their fellow crew members.

"We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die," Crozier (above) wrote. "If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset - our sailors."

Acting Navy Secretary - another acting Trump administration official! - Thomas Modly relieved him of command of the Theodore Roosevelt for allowing that letter to be circulated outside, as well as through, the chain of command.  Trump chimed in and concurred rather viciously with Modly's decisions.

Several people are petitioning the Navy to reinstate Crozier's command of the ship, and his plan to remove crew members safely as part of dealing with the coronavirus infection on board was followed through despite his dismissal.  Joe Biden has supported Crozier, and so have many Democrats -and, more importantly, the crew of Theodore Roosevelt.  They chanted his name in approval and celebration as he disembarked from the ship while she was docked in Guam.  

Captain Crozier is a hero.  He shouldn't be forced out for his command by a Vietnam non-veteran who got out of military service over "bone spurs."  And let me make it clear that I am not talking about Modly.

Two other things: Captain Crozier has since tested positive for the coronavirus.  Modly, who said that Captain Crozier was dumb and then apologized, has since resigned.

Mask Paranoia

After repeatedly telling us that we shouldn't wear masks in public in the middle of a pandemic when they're in short supply unless we're already sick with COVID-19 because doctors and nurses need them first, the government is telling us now that, well, perhaps we should wear them in public after all, even if we're not sick.

This is ridiculous.  What am I supposed to do, wear a mask if I even want to go out for a walk?  I don't know where to find masks, I don't know how to buy them, and I don't think it's going to matter.  And all I'd do is deny a supply of masks to the medical personnel fighting this damn virus.  Besides, the idea of  going out and seeing everyone looking like they're about to perform surgery or rob a bank is a little unnerving.  Heck, I get nervous when I see someone wearing any sort of face covering, even clown white.  I can barely look at street mimes!  I don't think I'd want to go to Venice in carnival season, either!  And when I do see anyone wearing a surgical mask, I stay away from them big-time, even if it's for their protection more than for mine.

No, this I will not do.  I am going out with nothing over my face, and I don't have to worry, because since the pandemic was declared, I don't have to go out that often.  And if people start to avoid me when I do go out because I'm not wearing a mask, well, that's fine with me.

Because that means they've finally learned the art of social distancing.     

Death of a Presidency

Last week Donald Trump finally got the message and told everyone to buckle in for a rough few weeks as the coronavirus pandemic is likely to get worse before it gets even worse.  Doctors Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci told him that even if everyone stays at home except for going to out for necessities and stays six feet apart when they do go out, the death toll could be as high as 200,000. We already have over 200,000 active cases, more than another country.)

And so, Trump finally leveled with the American people and told them the truth.  Except for one thing - he absolved himself of all blame again.  He blamed New York and New Jersey for responding to the coronavirus too late (New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy had a task force meeting about the virus as early as February 2), he said that impeachment distracted him from the crisis at the time he was calling it a hoax (and Mitch McConnell concurred with him), and he refused to admit that there weren't enough tests for the virus (I'm so dumbfounded, I can't even think of something to say here in parentheses).

Because Trump dragged his heels for so long on this damn virus - not even listening to his economic adviser Peter Navarro when he told Trump as far back as January that this virus could be serious - he deserves no credit for being so brave and honest at the eleventh hour.  It's too late for that.  That 200,000-death figure could have been a whole lot lower if he'd taken action sooner.  As far as I'm concerned, his Presidency - even if he's re-elected - is already over.

Call it another victim of the virus.

Somewhere in the past thirty-five years, an event being the equivalent of Annie Oakley missing Kaiser Wilhelm when she shot a cigarette out of his mouth during Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show when it played Berlin - allowing World War I to happen - put America on the course to a Trump Presidency.  What was that "Annie Oakley moment"?  Maybe it was Hillary's 2016 presidential candidacy. Maybe it was the Troubled Asset Relief Program that was passed to assuage the 2008 financial crisis, which led to the Tea Party. Maybe it was 9/11, which led to Bush the Younger getting elected to a second term. which led to the financial crisis, or the Lewinsky affair, which helped Bush the Younger get into office due to Clinton fatigue. Or when Al Gore's son got run over and almost killed by a hit-and-run driver in Baltimore in 1991, meaning that Bill Clinton, not Gore, ran for and was elected President in 1992.  Maybe it was the Bimini affair that killed Gary Hart's 1988 presidential campaign and his political career or even the plagiarism scandal that felled Joe Biden's 1988 presidential campaign, both leading to Michael Dukakis' failed presidential campaign against Bush the Elder and beginning a string of accidental Presidents who shouldn't have been there in the first place, leading all the way to . . . Donald J. Trump.  (Well, except for Obama, who would have likely been one of Hart's or Biden's successors in the White House.  He's that good a politician.)    Finally, something has happened that can change the course of American political history and set us on another course that we should have been on all along.

And wouldn't it be funny if that Annie Oakley moment was Joe Biden's plagiarism scandal - but now Uncle Joe comes along to get us back on track?  One can only hope. 

The Rise of Andrew Cuomo

The chief executive of the place with one of the largest concentrations of COVID-19 cases recorded to date is providing steady leadership and competent management with the sort of empathy and compassion you wouldn't expect from someone who grew up in Queens. 

I'm not talking about Trump, of course. I'm talking about New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo's daily press briefings from Albany and from New York City have been nationally televised in light of the fact that New York's homonymously named city is the largest city in the country (though New York State is now fourth in population) and because New York State has the most COVID-19 cases of any U.S. state by a wide margin, with a large number of those cases in the city and neighboring Westchester County.  He has leveled with the people of his state and the rest of the nation in explaining how many cases and how many deaths can be expected and giving a complete rundown of all of the personal protective equipment he needs and how much he actually has.  He's dealt with the frustrations New Yorkers and Americans have over having to be socially distant and being unable to see family members, citing his own Italian background and how much family means to him and his own relatives (including CNN's Chris Cuomo, his younger brother, who now has coronavirus, and their mother Matilda).  He has used unvarnished facts with a dose of caring, calmness, and resoluteness in dealing with COVID-19.  In other words, he's shown real leadership.

People who are sick and tired of Trump's self-congratulatory press briefings about coronavirus are demanding a Democratic rebuttal to Trump's latest reality show, but there already is one - Cuomo's.  Cuomo is now the face of the so-called Democratic "resistance" to Trump, and every time I see him, a pang of rue always cuts right through me when I remember that he wanted to run for President in 2016 and could have won had he been nominated. Instead, he was discouraged with the promise of punishment by Democratic bigwigs who had already anointed Hillary Clinton as the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee back in 2009 (just another example of how Hillary's ego ruined everything).  Ironically, Cuomo is a front runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination despite not having run; Democrats unsure of Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders are speculating if Cuomo would accept a draft nomination.  It's like a repeat of the 1988 presidential campaign, when Democrats unsure of Biden (this was before the plagiarism charges) or Gary Hart (and before Bimini) speculated if Cuomo's father Mario, then governor of New York, would accept a draft presidential nomination after he announced that he wouldn't run (in March 1987).

Don't bet on this Cuomo accepting a presidential draft either.  Not only has the Democratic Party not drafted a presidential nominee since 1952 (Adlai Stevenson, who lost), but Cuomo, like Biden and Sanders, has his own faults.  Not only is known to be ruthless and calculating, he can be brutal as well as brutally honest; he's actually proposed cutting Medicaid in the middle of the pandemic.  But he remains a powerful voice for action at a time when Trump is following more than leading.  Biden can't provide the same sort of constant communication with the country due to his current status as a private citizen, so Cuomo's daily press briefings are required viewing for people who want to see how a Democrat would handle the crisis nationally.  For better or for worse (more better than worse, thankfully), Andrew Cuomo is the leader of the opposition to Trump.     

Virtual Retail Politics

Joe Biden has been making good on his effort to become more visible a at time when Trump is on TV every day and taking credit for handling the coronavirus crisis effectively - and getting away with it.

Biden (above) appeared on CNN last week in a virtual town hall with Anderson Cooper to discuss the health crisis gripping America and the world, and he handled himself well.  He said it was a false choice between the heath of the nation and the strength of the economy, and he told one couple that they should not have to choose between paying rent or paying for food. "You should not have to sacrifice anything," he said.  "Not just because it's the fair thing you be taken care of, your entire family, and every family in your circumstance. But because it's best for the whole country. The entire economy. It's not just doing a favor for any individual."  Biden showed empathy, knowledge, concern, and an ability to level with the American voter.  In other words, he was everything Trump is not.

Unfortunately, Biden is not one thing Trump is - fluently savvy.  Because of his stammer, Biden had trouble putting his words together even as he was able to convey what he meant, and his attempts to number his points recalled characters in a John Hughes movie numbering and lettering points alternatively (1, B, 3 . . .).  At one point Biden, a private citizen, referred to a meeting in his private home with his campaign advisers as being in "the White House," as if he were already President.  

On that last observation, though, when you think about it, Biden, in a sense, is already a President.  He's a shadow President, much like the Leader of the Opposition in the British Parliament is a shadow Prime Minister (although, at this point, I don't think there's much of an opposition left for Labour's Jeremy Corbyn to lead over there), and as a shadow President, Biden is certainly acting like one.  And only Biden's sharpest detractors - also known as Bernie bros - could possibly find fault in his efforts to present himself as ready to lead.     

Biden still has obstacles - plenty of them.  Trump is using the crisis to promote himself.  He hopes to put his illegible signature on relief checks, and he's already putting his name on government mailings with guidelines for handling coronavirus the way he put his name on buildings.  In fact, as with buildings, he's putting his name on something he had nothing to do with.  (I got one of the postcards about coronavirus the government sent out wit h Trump's name on it; I threw it out.) He won't stop his self-promotional daily briefings, and the broadcast media won't stop airing them. The primaries coming up for April have mostly been delayed until June, and the Democratic convention has been postponed until August.  This, alas, gives Bernie Sanders an excuse to stay in a Democratic presidential nomination campaign he knows he cannot win.  And there's the problem Biden has with Bernie bros themselves - they literally hate him.  They may even hate him more than they hate Trump.  Biden is going to have to cultivate more mainstream Democratic voters; persuading Bernie bros to support him is out of the question.

Biden seems to be holding up well for now.  Despite his deficiencies, he led Trump by nine points in the latest Fox News poll, and in that same poll he led by even larger margins in the swing countries that could decide the election.  I would guess that, as John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt's vice original presidential running mate, told presidential candidate Roosevelt in 1932, all he has to do is stay alive until Election Day.     

Turn Off Trump

Enough.

Donald Trump uses these daily press briefings with his coronavirus task force to spin, bloviate, obfuscate, and just plain lie about the job he's doing to combat a pandemic he once said was a hoax.  And as his improved poll numbers indicate, he's been getting away with it!

The TV news networks do not have an obligation to carry his briefings just because he occupies the White House.  Fox News can carry his briefings live it it wants to, but CNN, MSNBC, and the broadcast network news divisions should not!  CNN and MSNBC have been showing only part of Trump's briefings now, mostly the parts without Trump. They should go even farther than that and not show them at all.  They're such utter travesties that I can't bear them anymore. I call on all responsible broadcasters, be they radio, television, or Internet, to stop carrying these propaganda exercises immediately! And so do I lot of people I know.  Let's turn off Trump! >:-(   

Coronavirus Playlist

On this April Fool's Day, I offer a very serious suggestion of songs to play during the COVID-19 crisis - another iPod playlist of doom.  These songs, in no particular order, are relevant in one way or another. 

"Don't Stand So Close To Me," the Police (keep a distance of six feet)

"Waiting For the Sun," the Doors (waiting for better days so we can find out what went wrong)

"It Better End Soon," Chicago (a ten-minute anti-war suite)

"It's the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)," R.E.M. (natch!)

"Keep Yourself Alive," Queen (ditto)

"Avant Gardener," Courtney Barnett ("I'm having trouble breathing in")

"School's Out," Alice Cooper ("We might not come back at all . . .")

"Industrial Disease," Dire Straits (and industry wants us to return to work?)

"Ventilator Blues," the Rolling Stones (of course)

"Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," Marvin Gaye (the planet is dying)

"The Last Resort," the Eagles ("seeking a place to stand . . . there is no more New Frontier, and we have got to make it here")

"Eat at Home," Paul McCartney (don't eat out!)

"Shelter From the Storm," Bob Dylan (shelter in place)

"My Hometown," Bruce Springsteen (deserted town)

"Do For the Others," Stephen Stills ("She is gone, there is no tomorrow . . . It is done so now, he must borrow the life of his brothers and living in sorrow, must do for the others")

"Life During Wartime," the Talking Heads (no parties, no discos, no fooling around - groceries to last a couple of days)

"World of Pain," Cream (no time for pity)

"Pure and Easy," the Who ("As people assemble, civilization is trying to find a new way to die . . .")

*

There once was a note - listen!

Pandemic Panic

The United States has the largest number of coronavirus cases of any country.

And the number is over 100,000.

Donald Trump has been fouling up the response to the crisis, yet a majority - yes, a majority - of people surveyed approve of how he's handling it.  This is probably owing more to high marks from people in parts of the country that are less affected by COVID-19 than others, and it's worth noting that his overall approval rating is still below 50 percent.  The small bounce he's getting may be indicative of a desire by Americans to see Trump to a good job, not necessarily a desire to see him get re-elected.  But he dithered when he ordered General Motors to make ventilators, and General Motors was unsure of whether there was a deal or not between the company and the federal government, and he blew off Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York by saying he didn't think the state needed so many ventilators (and also has insulted other governors, including Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and "failed presidential candidate Jay Inslee of Washington).  Other forms of equipment necessary to fight the pandemic are in short supply, and states have to compete with each other and with other countries to buy it.  Trump's order to GM goes a little in the right direction, but not far enough.  People are supporting Trump because he's the only leader we have - except for Andrew Cuomo, of course (more on that later)  - and they want him to get us out of this mess.  But when you think about it, Trump is more infamous for messes he's gotten us into.  He wanted to open the country for business for Easter, but why did he think he could do that when the Indianapolis 500 - which runs every Memorial Day - has been postponed this year until summer? (He's since extended social distancing guidelines through April.)

I could think of more examples, but I don't want to give myself a headache (though that would be preferable to COVID-19).

Congress passed a bipartisan $2 trillion (that's $2,000,000,000,000) relief package to shore up private businesses and help people.  It will help, but it won't be enough.  And don't ask me to break the bill down in detail, but suffice to say that the Democrats improved it and prevented from becoming a full-blown corporate bailout.  So, in the spirit of bipartisanship, let's hope Trump helps get us out of this mess.  But let's not hope he gets re-elected.    

Inside Information

I can't keep up with all of this coronavirus news.  I want to write about everything else going on the world, but there's nothing else going on in the world.

I'm a little late in commenting on this, and I can't add much to it, but here it is: As you already know, U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, privately warned attended of a luncheon in North Carolina about a month ago that the coronavirus outbreak was going to hit America and hit it hard, calling it "probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic," and then proceeded to sell stocks before the market tanked.  Where did he get this information and why didn't he tell anyone else?

Because Burr (above) shared information in private rather than keep it to himself, he doesn't believe that he violated any insider-trading laws, but just to make sure he didn't, he's asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate him.  Wow, what integrity.  No one is buying this.  Consider this reaction from a leading pundit: "He [Burr] must resign from the Senate and face prosecution for insider trading . . ..  He had inside information about what could happen to our country, which is now happening, but he didn't warn the public . . ..  Instead, what did he do? He dumped his shares in hotel stocks so he wouldn’t lose money."  The pundit's name? Tucker Carlson.

You know you screw up badly when you are a Republican and you tick off Tucker Carlson.

Equally appalling is the situation of appointed Republican U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, who also sold stocks before COVID-19 eighty-sixed the Dow and who is - MAXIMUM BIG SURPRISE! - married to Jeffrey Srpecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange! Burr sold only (only?) $628,000 to $1.72 million in stocks, but  Loeffler sold between $1,275,000 and $3,100,000 in stock.  Forbes magazine's Jack Brewster (who, by the way, wrote a very good opinion piece about Joe Biden's stutter for Newsweek) reported that both Burr and Loeffler were downplaying the coronavirus crisis even as they were unloading their portfolios. 

While Burr and Loeffler sold their stocks directly, two other senators had their stock sold by third parties before the market tanked, one Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California and one Republican, James Inhofe of Oklahoma.  I'm willing to give both of them the benefit of the doubt because of their different situation - even the insufferable Inhofe, who was one of the eight senators who voted against an earlier coronavirus relief bill.  But Burr ought to take Tucker Carlson's advice, and Loeffler, running in a special election to complete the remainder of former Senator Johnny Isakson's term, should not be given the opportunity to do so.  

"We Will Get Through This?"

The coronavirus crisis has worsened under Trump's leadership but he's getting higher approval ratings for his handling of it.  While Trump gets to be on TV every day, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders can only hold sporadic streaming events - and Biden is still trying to work the kinks out of his home studio.  More and more people are dying and most of the remaining cases remain active.  A large number of Americans are under lockdown and essential services are under strain - particularity hospitals.  Trump wants to re-open the country in time for Easter despite warnings against that and the Postal Service may shut down completely by June.  There are over a thousand COVID-19 deaths  in America now.  Our spring has pretty much been ruined and the rest of the year doesn't look too great either.   And yet TV news personalities who are isolated in and broadcasting out of their own houses are telling us, "We will get through this!"            

Let the Games Begin Later

The International Olympic Committee has postponed the Tokyo Olympics.  Note that I did not refer to them as the "2020 Tokyo Olympics," as the coronavirus pandemic that necessitated the delay is not expected to subside before the end of this year.  Sports reporters are already saying that the spring of 2021 is the likeliest time the Games will be held.

And since the Olympic flame had already been lit in a solemn ceremony, there might as well be another solemn ceremony in which the flame is quietly put out before it even reaches the stadium.

I never understood why the Olympic organizing committee in Tokyo thought it would be a good idea to hold the Games in  late July and early August in the first place.  East Asian summers are notorious for their volatile weather, which is why the 1964 Tokyo Olympics were held in October and why the canceled 1940 Tokyo Olympics (Japan was too busy conquering the Pacific to stage them) had been scheduled for late September and early October.  Had the Chinese gotten ahead of this virus sooner, as they did with SARS in 2002 and 2003 and H1N1 in 2009, or even if the rest of the world had done so and followed the example of South Korea, which was on the virus crisis in a New York minute, it might have been possible to postpone the Tokyo Olympics until early fall. Now that the virus could hit in a second wave by then, 2021 is thus the target date.  Heck, I'd bet on 2022, because who knows if the virus will be under control by next year?  Speaking of 2022, Beijing is holding the Winter Olympics that year, which seems rather foolish in light of the foul-ups, bleeps and blunders in China's initial handling of the outbreak and already seemed foolish given that Beijing already held the 2008 Games (which wasn't too long ago in the Big Bang scheme of things).  Now is the time to move the Winter Games.

Given the fragility of the environment and the numerous health crises we've had on this planet in the past decade, I would expect to see the Olympics revert to their original state as a low-key sporting event without a lot of pomp and circumstance.  A few of the first Olympiads were in fact held as world's fair sideshows.  The staging of the Games as a grand spectacle actually started with Adolf Hitler's display of nationalism at the 1936 Berlin Games (below), with the 1936 Winter Olympics in the German skiing town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen having offered a sneak preview of the bigger event.  (Nineteen thirty-six was the third - and, understandably, last - time in which the Winter and Summer Games both took place in the same country in the same year.)

So, yes, all of the gaudy opening ceremonies of subsequent Olympiads were the unintended consequence of Berlin 1936.  Heck, the Atlanta Olympic opening ceremony of 1996 was so overblown it seemed like the only thing that could redeem it was if Muhammad Ali were to light the cauldron; thankfully, that's exactly what happened.  And the expensive facilities, the outrageous ticket prices, and the asinine coverage offered by corporate television helped make the Games into a huge, bloated affair, even the once-intimate Winter Olympics.  It just gets more and more costly to stage them; Tokyo got the Games of the XXXII Olympiad by default, because so few cities were interested in bidding for them due to concerns over cost.  It's time to scale them back, bring them back to where they were in the early decades of the Olympic movement, and concentrate on the whole raison d'être for the Games - sport.

And now for something completely different - sport! ;-)