February 27-29, 2020

Feb 27 00:15 Sen. Schumer, Pelosi weaponize Coronavirus for political gain
Feb 27 12:13 Mitch McConnell vs. Crying Chuckie, Coronavirus edition
Feb 27 15:36 The moderate Democrats myth

Feb 28 10:05 Trump shut down flights, borders, Pelosi, Schumer played politics
Feb 28 16:41 It's Bernie's nomination; What's next?

Feb 29 07:14 Getting serious about the coronavirus
Feb 29 17:34 The Bloomberg choke

Prior Months: Jan

Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Sen. Schumer, Pelosi weaponize Coronavirus for political gain

Just once, I'd love to see Democrats put public safety ahead of partisan gain. That won't happen with the Coronavirus, aka Covid-19. Sen. Schumer hasn't been interested in bipartisanship. Based on this article , he's mostly been interested in partisanship.

Schumer said "Trump's move to repurpose funding previously appropriated for the prevention and treatment of Ebola [is] 'indicative of his towering incompetence and further proof that he and his administration aren't taking the coronavirus crisis as seriously as they need to be. We've seen no sign that President Trump has any plan or urgency to deal with the spread of the coronavirus -- we need real leadership and we need it fast.'"

During this afternoon's news conference, President Trump said that the annual average number of deaths from influenza in the United States is "between 26,000 and 69,000." At the time of the news conference, there have been reports of 81,000 cases of coronavirus and fewer than 2,800 deaths worldwide .

Please explain to me why I should panic over a virus that has as many reported cases worldwide than we have deaths from the influenza virus each year in the United States. I'm not saying that we shouldn't take this seriously. We're already doing that. Our medical infrastructure, something Bernie never talks about, has already issued statements on what symptoms to watch out for. They've instructed people to stay home from work if they experience these symptoms. We're told to wash our hands with soap and water frequently.

These mundane-sounding steps don't sound like life-saving advice. When Memorial Weekend rolls around, I wonder if we'll find out that following the CDC's instructions will have prevented the spread of this virus. Something tells me we'll be just fine.

There's 3 important things to implement:

  1. Put in place a management team to monitor conditions on the ground and communicate with state and local levels of government.

  2. Instruct scientists at the CDC and NIH to do the research and experimentation to finding a vaccine that will stop this virus in its tracks.

  3. Instruct the medical manufacturers to manufacture this vaccine.


As I'd expected, the first 2 points are already in place:
[Video no longer available]
President Trump has assigned the responsibility of coordinating with state and local governments to Vice President Pence, formerly known as Gov. Pence. This is right in VP Pence's wheelhouse. I can't think of a better person for this important responsibility.

Dr. Anne Schuchat reported that "As you know, this has been a difficult and challenging time and our hearts go out to the individuals who have been directly affected by the virus and to all those who have been working tirelessly in responding to it. Our aggressive containment strategy here in the United States has been working and is responsible for the low levels of cases that we have so far. However, we do expect more cases and this is a good time to prepare."

There's a management component to this effort. There's a scientific component to the effort, too. The final piece to this puzzle is the manufacturing piece. I'd expect this solution to be well underway within 6 months, perhaps less. No other nation on earth can do that.

This is what putting a solution together looks like. The task force will continue meeting each day until the virus is eliminate. That means finding a timely solution instead of just working on something. In light of these productive steps, Sen. Schumer's statements sound more partisan than productive.

Posted Thursday, February 27, 2020 12:15 AM

Comment 1 by eric z at 28-Feb-20 10:04 AM
If vaccines were easy to create, we'd have more of them. It is flat out dumb to say "Make a vaccine," as if it were a handwaving capability. Look how long we went before Jonas Salk.

Then vax-haters like Michele Bachmann need to be sidetracked too. She's the most prominent anti-vaxer I've noticed, but there are more. Mostly in the GOP, or allied.

If they had a vaccine against stupidity, Republicans would avoid it.

Mitch McConnell vs. Crying Chuckie, Coronavirus edition

Democrats are trying to play political games with the Coronavirus supplemental appropriations bill. Chuck Schumer has moved the goalposts a couple of times. Nancy Pelosi has been in front of the reporters virtually hourly complaining about President Trump not doing enough and not doing things fast enough.

This morning, as he frequently does, Senate Majority Leader McConnell spoke on the Senate floor on the topic of the Coronavirus supplemental appropriation bill. In his speech , Sen. McConnell called out the Democrats, especially Sen. Schumer. In his speech, Sen. McConnell said "Just days ago, the Democratic Leader signed a letter, quote, 'strongly urging' this kind of funding request. But almost the instant it arrived, he began blasting it as, quote, 'too little too late.' And our colleague continued to move the goalposts."

McConnell continued with this:

His strong views on the necessary amount of funds varied daily. It has been a strange and clumsy effort to override normal, bipartisan appropriations talks before they even happen and replace them with top-down partisan posturing. Everyone from his fellow Democrats to President Trump have seemed perplexed by the Democratic Leader's political game-playing. It's not clear to anyone why he's prioritized fighting with the White House over simply letting the appropriators do their work.

I feel confident that the coronavirus does not care about partisan bickering or political news cycles. This new disease is not going to press "pause" so that members can engage in performative outrage that gets us farther from results, rather than closer.

It's time for Sen. Schumer to stop playing political games with this sensitive situation. I just spoke with a chemist who said that this isn't a crisis in the United States. This chemist said that China's response was too slow, which means that China is experiencing a crisis. What I was told by this chemist is that there are things that are happening that are alarming but still controllable. I was also told that the CDC has done a good job thus far, which is important according to this chemist.

We had a conversation about the importance of maintaining the United States' medical infrastructure. Thus far, I was told, the infrastructure was still in good shape. Personally, I'm most worried about the political infrastructure. I'm most worried about Schumer's and Pelosi's hyperpartisanship. They need to put this nation first instead of trying to gain political advantage. This is a time for statesmanship, not partisanship.
[Video no longer available]

Posted Thursday, February 27, 2020 12:13 PM

Comment 1 by Chad Q at 27-Feb-20 05:05 PM
They are never going to let a crisis go to waste.

The moderate Democrats myth

This article is built on the myth that there's such a thing as a moderate Democrat. That critter hasn't existed since President Obama's inauguration. In 2007, Margaret Anderson-Kelliher, then the Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, insisted that the DFL majority was a fiscally moderate caucus . Less than 2 months later, DFL Rep. Cy Thao told GOP Rep. Steve Gottwalt at a committee hearing that " When you guys win, you get to keep your money. When we win, we take your money. "

That same year, when asked about all the tax hikes hidden in his transportation bill, DFL State Sen. Steve Murphy said " I'm not trying to fool anybody. There's a lot of taxes in this bill. " The DFL of 2007 isn't as nutty as today's DFL.

Democrat superdelegates are planning how to steal the Democrats' presidential nomination from Bernie Sanders. They aren't hiding their plans. They're simply telling reporters what they're planning and why they're motivated to steal the nomination from Sen. Sanders:

From California to the Carolinas, and North Dakota to Ohio, the party leaders say they worry that Mr. Sanders, a democratic socialist with passionate but limited support so far, will lose to President Trump, and drag down moderate House and Senate candidates in swing states with his left-wing agenda of 'Medicare for all' and free four-year public college.

Earlier this week, Newt Gingrich announced that he's writing a book about House Democrats that he calls "the radical 200." Newt then said that "the entire Democratic Party is marching off a left-wing cliff. There's a bill, for example, that would raise the FICA Tax, your Social Security tax, by 19% and they had 206 Democrats signed onto it."
[Video no longer available]
Social Security is the third rail of American politics. Anyone that thinks that these Democrats aren't in huge trouble is kidding themselves. That's political suicide. Ed Morrissey puts it quite succinctly in this post :

The superdelegates and other party officials are warning Pelosi and Schumer that vacillation will cost them their party, one way or the other. It's not just the megadonors who see Sanders as a disaster on a grand enough scale that they're willing to risk utter ruination to stop it. If the party leaders won't lead, these same establishment figures will start looking for replacements who can.

When people claim that Sanders' rise is not really that big of a deal and that he's not as extreme as he's being painted, they should read this NYT report carefully. Democrats aren't making these kinds of plans over someone who's just a skosh off their center. They know Sanders better than most, and they're outright scared of putting him within voting range of the White House, enough to burn the party to the ground to stop it. That tells us all we need to know about Sanders.

Bill Clinton's Democrat Party doesn't exist anymore. Barack Obama's Democratic Party exists by its fingertips. By the time the electors assemble in the state capitols, that Democratic Party will be almost as extinct as the Dodo Bird. The so-called moderates sound moderate until they get their election certificates. That's when they turn into AOC supporters.

Democrats would be wise in the long-term if they jettisoned Bernie, AOC, et al. They wouldn't have to sound totally nutty on the environment. Democrats wouldn't have to treat farmers and other blue collar workers like dirt like AOC treats them like dirt. Best of all, Democrats wouldn't have to live in fear of getting primaried.

Posted Thursday, February 27, 2020 3:36 PM

Comment 1 by eric z at 28-Feb-20 09:56 AM
Republican-lite Blue Dogs and New Dems are just regular conservatives serving the 1%. Rockefeller Republicans are, after all, Republicans. Pelose, Hoyer, Schumer, Biden, the Clintons, are all serving the 1%; as is Trump. Of the bunch, Trump is not a Rockefeller Republican - he's a loose canon with his family's brand of Koolaid. He's more profit center than public servant. Why do YOU think the Saudis always stay at Trump hotels? Paying dues, is what it is. How many of you guys will get sucked into buying Newt's book? Bolton's? Why bother?

Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 29-Feb-20 12:10 AM
I hope you're being sarcastic, Eric. Blue Dog Democrats were reasonable people, albeit a bit misguided. This is an entirely different era. Thanks to the TEA Party & the populist movement, there's a legitimate opportunity to shove the corporatist/elitist agenda off a cliff.

Bernie's policy prescriptions don't work. They've been tried many times & they've never worked. Period. Full stop. The US public health care system (CDC, NIH, etc.) is the best in the world. Period.

AOC & Ilhan Omar aren't just nasty people. They're stupid, too. An essential part of leadership is integrity. These ladies don't have any integrity. Neither do Schumer & Pelosi. Their first instinct was to try & gain a political advantage. That's sick. Republicans didn't attempt to gain a political advantage. That isn't because they're super-virtuous people but because they understand that doing the right thing in times of crisis makes for great politicking. This isn't complicated. Do the right thing. Work together & get rewarded.

Pushing socialism & single-payer isn't what the people want. Listen to all the people. You'll be amazed how much easier it is to do what the people want.

Comment 2 by Chad Q at 29-Feb-20 06:33 AM
I wish he was sarcastic but while Eric beats conservatives and democrats down for serving the 1%er's, he's drinking the Kool-Aid out of the Bernie/Warren glass thinking socialism or communism will solve all the problems in the US. Sadly it is really the Kool-Aid of the Jim Jones glass that he is drinking and he along with every other economically illiterate person who believes universal health care and free everything will be great, will die and the political class that created yet another mess will continue to thrive on the stupidity of the ill informed voters.

Trump shut down flights, borders, Pelosi, Schumer played politics

When the first news broke about the Coronavirus, President Trump shut down flights from China and closed our borders . He also quickly put together a Coronavirus task force to monitor the spread of the virus in China and to start contacting local health officials across the country. They've been meeting daily for over 6 weeks now. This week, President Trump held a press conference to tell the nation the substantive steps he's taken thus far. Then he announced that Vice President Pence would be in charge of working as a liaison with Congress and with local officials.

Here's what Vice President Pence told Sean Hannity in an interview that aired last night:

"We continue to prepare for whatever may come, but the reality is that because of the actions that President Trump took : literally, you know, ending travel, closing our borders to people coming in from China, establishing a quarantine process, setting up a task force. I mean, if the president hadn't taken those unprecedented steps we'd be in a very different place today."

By comparison, the first action that Pelosi and Schumer took was to complain that the Trump administration hadn't done enough. This virus wasn't even on their radar when President Trump took action weeks ago . It's instructive, though, that the Democrats' leadership first action was to try to gain a political advantage. The Democrats' first instinct wasn't to fund the NIH or CDC. The Democrats' first instinct wasn't to reach out to the Trump administration and ask what additional funding NIH or CDC might need.


The difference in leadership is frightening. The newspapers are reporting that 2 companies, one in Massachusetts, the other in Israel, think that they might be able to start testing a vaccine in April. These companies think that they've discovered a breakthrough already.

There's still a lot to be worried about. Still, it's encouraging to know that there's a task force that's already checking into what's needed in terms of supplies and is monitoring how many cases there are both inside the US and worldwide. Vice President Pence also named Debbie Birx to the task force "to help lead the Coronavirus response." According to the article, " Debbie Birx is a State Department ambassador-at-large who works on global health diplomacy issues . Vice President Pence said Birx would be detailed to his office." Meanwhile, Sen. Schumer still insists on playing politics. Dagen McDowell criticized the Democrats' tactics in this video:
[Video no longer available]
She quoted this from the Washington Post:

The quiet but proactive effort to obtain more money reflects the White House's response to the Coronavirus.

McDowell then added this personal observation:

They sought to downplay the risks to the public while working behind the scenes to bolster the government's response because you don't want to create panic.

The Democrats' highest priority is criticizing President Trump. It wasn't until after President Trump held his news conference and criticized Schumer and Pelosi that Schumer and Pelosi put something substantive together. They had a month and a half to put something together but didn't lift a finger.

Posted Friday, February 28, 2020 10:10 AM

No comments.

It's Bernie's nomination; What's next?

While Joe Biden will win South Carolina's First-in-the-South Primary, things look bleak for him after that. Things look worse for Mini-Mike and Elizabeth Warren. That's because Berniementum is gaining strength. Bernie leads by a wide margin in California, leads comfortably in Texas and leads narrowly in Elizabeth Warren's home state of Massachusetts.

The key word in that paragraph is leads . If Bernie gets three-fourths of California's 415 delegates, he'll become the odds-on-favorite to win the nomination. If he wins with a solid margin in Texas, that strengthens his position. Defeating Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar in their home states, which seems likely at this point, would virtually eliminate their path to the nomination. Think of it like Hillary after the networks called Wisconsin for President Trump. At that point, pundits started talking about Hillary's path to victory after spending most of the night wondering what Trump's path to victory would look like. Check out this polling from RCP's page:


After Bernie wraps up the nomination, expect President Trump to hit him with a barrage of ads from which Bernie will never recover from. Make no mistake about this. Bernie is a dead man walking. Check this out:

The Nevada Caucus has come and gone, but the debate leading to it had some rather worrisome tidbits if you're a worker in the Rust Belt. The Democrats just hate you. That's all we can gather from their agenda, especially Sen. Bernie Sanders.

If he isn't bellowing about health care, it's climate change. We're less than a decade away from all of us dying from global warming, according to the Vermont senator. So, that means we have to act now. Not tomorrow, not after breakfast - now! We're all going to die: unless we do exactly what the Democrats want on this issue, which is typical. And in doing so, Sanders, like his former rival Hillary Clinton, may have had his own coal miner moment. You might remember from 2016 that the former first lady and two-time presidential loser promised to put a lot of coal miners out of business if elected president.

Bernie must win back Hillary's 'blue firewall' states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan while holding onto the states that Hillary won. Winning back Pennsylvania and Michigan while losing Wisconsin puts Trump right at 270 electoral votes. Killing fracking and mining kills those states' economies, which means Bernie loses those states and his shot at the White House.

There's no question whether President Trump will hit Bernie on this issue. In 2016, he told those voters that he considered them the forgotten men but that he'd promise to never forget them while he was president. President Trump has kept that promise.

People wonder what happens if the Coronavirus will hurt President Trump. It might if they don't handle things properly. If the NIH and CDC respond quickly and the various agencies handle things properly, then people will realize that this was just something that was beyond President Trump's ability to control. If President Trump and VP Pence make the right decisions administratively, they'll benefit from those right decisions.

It isn't like people will suddenly say 'I'm abandoning President Trump's policies. He's just too prosperous.'

Posted Friday, February 28, 2020 4:41 PM

Comment 1 by Chad Q at 29-Feb-20 06:21 AM
Bernie will be a disaster for the democrats and they will broker Biden or Bloomberg at the convention. If Trump wanted to be even proactive than he has already been, he'd give people the stats on flu deaths worldwide and say that while we want to take corona seriously, the flu kills 300,000 - 600,000 people worldwide each year and no one bats and eye at those numbers so let's all calm down. Wash your hands, don't fly to Asia, Italy, or Iran and stop eating bats.

Getting serious about the coronavirus

One positive thing that's happened as a result of the outbreak of the coronavirus is that we're seeing the importance of the U.S.'s public health system. We're seeing the roles that the National Institutes of Health, aka the NIH, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, aka the CDC, play in public health, especially when the world is suffering through a health crisis like what's happening now.

Another positive that might happen as a result of this is the use of existing laws to expedite the production of protective garments. Specifically, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said that he'll use the Defense Production Act to "acquire anything we need to acquire."

One thing that's been highlighted is the fact that many medical products are manufactured in China. According to this commentary , "there are a surprising number of medicines, face masks, syringes and other medical supplies which come from China. There are a significant number of American companies who will have their production disrupted because they rely on Chinese parts in the logistics chain." It's time to bring those companies home as quickly as possible.

We the people have a role to play, too. This video isn't dramatic but it highlights what we should do:
[Video no longer available]
Simple practices like this will help prevent the spread of coronavirus. Apparently, getting into a routine of best practices goes a long way towards eliminating exposure to the virus.

If the administration uses the tools that are available to them, they will solve this situation. That will redound to their political benefit, as it should, because they will have made lots of people's lives better. Solving this situation would help the administration say 'We were the adults in the room. You can trust us.'

Posted Saturday, February 29, 2020 7:14 AM

No comments.

The Bloomberg choke

Mini Mike Bloomberg has spent half a billion dollars on the Democrats' presidential primary. Thus far, his results have been spectacularly unspectacular. Mini Mike Bloomberg still hasn't participated in any of the Democrats' primaries or caucuses. That will change this Tuesday, when he'll be on the ballot in the Super Tuesday contests.

The good news is that he'll be on the ballot in the Democrats' presidential primaries. The bad news is that he'll be on the ballot in the Democrats' presidential primaries this Tuesday. For instance, Mini Mike Bloomberg has spent tons of money in California to compete in the Golden State's primary. At this point, if the polls can be trusted, Mini Mike Bloomberg won't win a single delegate from California.

Think about that. A person spends $500,000,000 to be the establishment's candidate and he isn't even competitive in the most delegate-rich state. He's dumping tons of $$$ into California but it won't help. Mini Mike has the personality of a porcupine. He also has this to deal with:

In a last-ditch attempt to remain relevant, Mini Mike is putting out this 3-minute video:
[Video no longer available]
It will run only on CBS and NBC so this should be seen for what it is: the campaign's attempt to remain relevant. If this was a serious attempt to tell America that he's prepared to help this nation through a crisis, the ad would run on all networks. Don't be surprised if Mini Mike doesn't fade out of view after Super Tuesday. He just isn't a compelling candidate. That's why Bloomberg's choke this Tuesday will be so historic.

Posted Saturday, February 29, 2020 5:34 PM

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