In Case You Missed it (v42)

It was a slow week...my brain fries a little when the humidity and the temperature feel like they're within single digits of each other, which is how most of last week felt.

I do somehow have a dozen posts in my drafts folder, so I can assure you my intentions were good, even if my follow-through stinks.

Here's what you missed if you were socially distancing on a beach, in a park, or just hanging out in your backyard with a cool, wet towel draped over your head and a frosty beverage in your hand. 

The week started with lots of conversations about John Bolton and his book filling the Sunday School classrooms, including the one at This Week with George, with John Karl sitting in. Among his guests? Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who was one of the House impeachment managers.

Karl then asked whether John Bolton was right in his criticism about how the House handled the impeachment, keeping it so narrowly focused. That's a no.

Not at all. John Bolton is a political opportunist and a profiteer. He had the opportunity to step forward and participate in the House impeachment inquiry and share any information he had about wrongdoing by president Trump and other members of his administration, and he declined. 

Bolton said it was because the House messed up the impeachment; I think Jeffries is right. 

In our Extra Credit post, we spent time with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. I've gotta tell you, I give him props when he deserves them, and his conversations with advisors Symone Sanders (Biden campaign) and Mercedes Schlapp (Trump campaign) qualify. Both of the staffers seemed more interested in giving speeches than answering questions, although Schlapp tried to, at least a little, on this one. 

On all of the top officials who are questioning the president's fitness for office, not just John Bolton: 

Look, these are individuals who did -- did not agree with the president's policies when it came to foreign policy in general. And so, at the end of the day, it's not Rex Tillerson or John Kelly or Secretary Mattis who make these decisions. It's President Trump. And (he) is going to listen to his advisors at the end of the day, but he's the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to foreign policy...

The res of the answer was all blah blah blah, which pretty much sums up both interviews.

What was happening for Wondering on Wednesday?  Well, there's concern with the Trump administration's decision to end testing support at the end of the month, including for states like Texas which are in the middle of a COVID-19 outbreak. Trump wanted to end it back in April, but cooler heads prevailed back then.

Both of the Lone Star State's senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, are asking for the support to be continued. Here's what Cornyn said. 

It’s pretty clear to me, and I think it’s clear to all of us, that with the uptick of cases, now is not a time to retreat from our vigilance in testing. I believe that they need to extend that federal support in Texas, at least until we get this most recent uptick in cases addressed. 

And I have to wonder, how does Cornyn not know that if we just stop testing, we'll stop seeing an uptick in cases?

And then it was TGIF time.  Among other things, I had some of those good news stories from the corona files, including a story about a Scots granny who raised a boatload of money for the National Health Service - fun stuff!  And, of course, to balance things out, there was news from the Fed, and from the EU, and about Mike Pence's uncanny ability to not answer questions, there was this. 

Are you a dead person? If so, you might want to look for your stimulus payment - it could be waiting for you!  That's right - around $1.4B was sent to 1.1M people who are no longer with us. We learned this from a GAO report, which said, in part 

Treasury and IRS did not use the death records to stop payments to deceased individuals for the first three batches of payments because of the legal interpretation under which IRS was operating. 

I suspect that'll be fixed before any other direct payments go out to people again.

So, there you go -- all caught up with last week's posts. I'll be back later with Sunday School, and hoping this week to clear out that drafts folder.