In Case You Missed it (v36)

Got your cuppa and a few minutes? Here's your week in review.

In this week's Sunday School classrooms, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sat down with Chris Wallace (Fox News Sunday) to talk about reopening the economy and about the potential for another stimulus bill. Take a look at what Mnuchin said, after Wallace outlined some of the opposition - from both sides - about payroll tax relief, help for the stats, liability reform, and so on.

Well we're absolutely pushing for the payroll tax cut. It's an incentive to get people back to work. It's delivering money to the American public and to business in a very effective way. And that will be one of the components. 

You've heard Mitch McConnell talk about liability. We agree with that completely. The Democrats have been asking for more money for states. We've been very clear that we're not going to do things just to bail out states that were poorly managed, but we're going to look at all these issues.

Before wrapping things up, Mnuchin said no matter what they do, it'll be bipartisan and they'll "make sure we get all these things included."

House Dems passed a $3,000,000,000,000 stimulus package, on Friday (but barely - 208 to 199) - so now the fun begins on how they're going to make sure everything's included. The new phase is on top of what Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow, talking with George Stephanopoulos (This Week with...) said was nearly $9,000,000,000,000 already pumped into pandemic relief in one way or another. As we used to say, "Man, Curtis, that's a LOT of bread!"

In contrast to the more rosy projections from the administration officials, in our Extra Credit entry we heard from Neel Kashkari, head of the Minnesota Federal Reserve Bank. He's got a more measured assessment of things, which he shared with George.

So, I would love to see a robust economy, but that would require a breakthrough in vaccines...in widespread testing...in therapies to give all of us confidence that it's safe to go back. I don't know when we're going to have that confidence. And ultimately, the American people are going to decide how long the shutdown is.

And, he pointed to Congress to invest in the healthcare aspects of things, before noting

... if this goes on for a long period of time...I think Congress is going to need to continue to give assistance to workers who have lost their jobs. I mean, as you said, it's really around 23 percent, 24 percent of people right now who are out of work today. And if this is a gradual recovery the way I think it's going to be, those folks are going to need more help.

Definitely not the same line of thought as the White House is selling on the recovery or the need for more stimulus.

In the first of two Poll Watch entries, I looked at ratings for key players in the pandemic - Trump, of course, and his frenemy Dr. Anthony Fauci. The survey shows that only 42% approve of his handling the coronavirus outbreak, with 55% disapproving, for a -13 net score. And, he's "way underwater, by -26, on whether people trust the information they get from him on the coronavirus outbreak: 62% do not trust what he says, compared to only 36% that do."

Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci has a +47 net score on trust. And while the president has his usual supporters - Republicans, white folks and non-college educated white folks, mostly - Fauci's killing it with all demographic cohorts. 

Gender, age group, race, education level, income level, voter registration - he has a net positive in every single one of them. Not only that, but more than half of Republicans (61%), Independents (61%), conservatives (56%), people who think the worst is behind us (60%), and even those who think the worst is yet to come (74%) trust him.

And then it was time for Wondering on Wednesday, and among other things, I offered this.

I listened to a little bit of the Supreme Court hearing on citizen Donald Trump's taxes. I was happy that there were no random toilet-flushing noises when I was listening - and I still wonder whether the flushing that was heard during one of the earlier virtual sessions was Brett Kavanaugh 'breaking the seal," as it were. I did get to hear Clarence Thomas ask a question, too; I wonder if he likes the cases, or if he likes the format? Thomas, you may know, once went 10 years, three years, and one year without asking any questions from the bench. 

There've been all kinds of stories on how people are spending their time during the quarantine. Some have turned to cooking, or art, or learning a new language (and no, I'm not talking the language of homeschooling, which I've heard is littered with creative cursing) and still others have turned to exploring poetry.

Which is what happened here on Friday, with the 51st OrangeVerse poetry slam, the one in which the president talked about Mother's Day. In response to questions from Ainsley Earhardt, Trump said he was going to spend Mother's Day at Camp David (a place he does not like), where he and the Joint Chiefs were going to " have meetings on different things." And then, he got all versey about - wait for it - military spending. Here's an excerpt.

We had planes

that were 50 years old and more.

Fighter jets, now we have

the best in the world.

The F-35 and the F-18. 

What we have is incredible. 

The equipment and the people

that we have are great but

you know, they

have to have 

equipment.

And we spent $1.5 trillion - 

really, more than that. And

we've totally rebuilt our military

which you have to do.

You know I'm a very

budget-conscious person.

But you have to do.

There was more - there's always more - including, after some prodding, the mention of his own mother, his father, and the mother of his youngest child.

Saturday brought us the second Poll Watch entry, which explored Trump and Biden and November, as well as some info from the minds of folks in Texas, Ohio and California. That part you'll have to read about, but here's a snippet from the overarching Trump/Biden stuff.

... 23% of likely Republican voters think the GOP should find someone else, with 7% undecided and 70% who think he's the right guy.

On the other side of things (from the May 11-12 survey) 28% of Democratic voters think their party should find someone else; 54% disagree, and 18% are not sure. Obviously, with the allegations against Biden in the headlines... there's some reason to at least think that maybe, possibly, in some topsy-turvy universe, there could be enough momentum for a 'draft someone else' type of movement, but that's very unlikely. In fact, it's so unlikely that 92% of Dems think it's likely - and 77% think it's very likely - that Papa Joe will be the nominee.

So, there you have last week's veritable pastiche, at your fingertips. And speaking of having something at your fingertips, look for the Instant Gratification box on the right sidebar, drop your email address in in the box, and get all of the posts (and nothing else, I promise) delivered when they happen.

I'll be back later for today's Sunday School.