TGIF 6/3/22

Hip hip hooray - it's Friday, and time for our weekly list making. I'm going to change things up a little, and do every story from the 'good week' side of the ledger, no matter what. Ready to dive in?

This first one's an easy 'good week' entry: goats are clearing brush, weeds, grass, and more in West Sacramento, CA, and it's helping lessen the damage from wildfires. According to the city's public information officer, "About 400 goats can clear two acres a day and get in places mowers can't reach," and they've already protected a housing complex by creating a firebreak. You can watch the goats being herded across a street here. Pretty cool, and much more interesting than brooms and rakes. 

Speaking of brooms, it seems finally the DOJ is cleaning up a desk or something. Former Trump Administration trade guru Peter Navarro, was indicted and charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to comply a request from the House January 6th committee to have a chat and turn over relevant documents. 

Navarro, who wrote a book on overturning the 2020 election, thinks he has executive privilege or something. He's wrong, and it could cost him two years in prison and $200K in fines if he's convicted. Should that happen, he'll probably face a much less significant penalty, but it's nice to dream...

Speaking of dreams, a boat made by New Hampshire middle-schoolers washed ashore in Norway, over 460 days after it was launched. The boat was badly damaged during its 8,000-mile journey, "losing its hull, mast and keel." Sheila Adams, the kids' science teacher, said

This project tapped into so much more than the science curriculum. The students needed to use their writing skills to inform others about their miniboat project, describe our school and town to people of other languages, just in case, and write requests to get the boat deployed."

All that, and I'd say some pretty powerful dreams to help keep their little boat together long enough to make it across the ocean.

Keeping both oars in the water, there's a non-profit that's turning mining pollution into pigments that are used in paint. Rural Action, based in Ohio, works "to create environmental change in rural Appalachian communities." Contaminated water is collected, then a base and oxygen are added, creating pigments that are being used to make paint. You can see some of the artwork created with the paints here. This isn't 'new' news, but it's new to me and it's pretty cool.

This one is new news, and it comes from Lake Tahoe. 

A scuba dive team has completed an extraordinary clean-up of Lake Tahoe after a full year of work, pulling up more than 12 tons of submerged trash. 

Organized by the nonprofit Clean Up The Lake, the team restored every inch of 72 miles of the crystal blue lake’s shoreline and sub-shore, collecting 24,797 pieces of litter weighing a total of 25,281 pounds.

Among the things they team found? Wallets and engagement rings. Which is a really good thing for the people who lost them, who probably never dreamed they'd see their belongings again.

TGIF, everyone.

TGIF 4/8/22

Who had a week, and what kind of week was had? 

The House of Representatives referred two more Trump flunkies - Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino - to the DOJ for criminal prosecution for contempt of Congress. A bad week for them is a good week for us.

And let's throw another bad week into the mix: Will Smith, who resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences a week ago, has been banned from attending the Oscars or any other Academy event for ten years. The ban includes both in-person and virtual appearances. 

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will become Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson - a good week for her, and for the rest of us. All 50 Senate Democrats and three reasonable Republicans voted for her elevation to the Supreme Court. Jackson, speaking to a Rose Garden gathering, said in part

In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Sens. Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, and Rand Paul had a bad week. Paul, for not being on time to vote against Jackson; everyone had to wait a reported 25 minutes for him to drag himself to the cloakroom, open the door, and toss a thumb's down before slinking away. The cloakroom vote was necessary because he couldn't trouble himself to put on a tie. Neither could Graham, according to reports, although he was wearing on earlier in the day. As for Cotton, he suggested that Jackson might have defended Nazis at Nuremberg, a comment so nasty that even John Roberts of Fox News challenged it. Cotton's a jerk, with or without a tie. 

Tiger Woods is having a good week; he's playing competitive golf again. Against almost all odds, Woods made the cut in the Masters, a tournament he's won five times. A mere mortal might have been killed in a similar accident, or ended up losing their leg. But Tiger Woods is no mere mortal, is he? 

Russia had a bad week; the Senate voted unanimously to strip the most-favored-nation (MFN) trade status from the country, and to ban imports of Russian oil products. The House also passed both bills, although not unanimously. Voting against the MFN removal? Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, and Matt Gaetz. Let's give them a heartfelt bad week round of applause.

The jury in the trial of four men accused of plotting to kidnap and murder Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had an interesting week, which caused a bad week for the government and a good week for the four defendants. Two were acquitted; the jury failed to reach a verdict on charges against the others. It sounds like the jury believed the defense theory that the FBI went off the rails on this one; or, maybe the defendants truly had a jury of their peers?

In another high-profile case, a Minneapolis police officer who killed Amir Locke in February won't face charges. Body cam video released this week shows Locke, who was not a subject of the no-knock warrant being executed at his cousin's apartment, holding his legal gun in a manner that led to the officer to shoot him three times, within ten seconds of entering the apartment. To me, this deserves a horrible week mention - there are no winners here, that I can see.

Let's end on a good week note, OK? How about dogs being reunited through pet DNA testing? A Texas woman had adopted one of the pups; an Oregon woman adopted the other. The women had the DNA tests don on their dog and a match was made. The women via social media, and a play date was arranged. There's video - and who doesn't like cute pet videos?

TGIF, everyone. 

Wondering on Wednesday 1/5/22

Ready... Set.. Wonder!

Welcome to the first Wondering Wednesday of the New Year! Let's dive right in.

Does former Trump assistant Peter Navarro believe what he's saying, I wonder? All his talk about the Green Bay Sweep and the 100 Congressmen and Sen. Rafael Cruz (R-Cancun) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R- Even My Family Thinks I'm a Traitor) and the rest of the activities on 1/6/2021? And does he have any idea how damaging this stuff is to his former boss?

Speaking of the former president, it seems he's cancelled a planned press conference at Mar-a-Lago tomorrow, the anniversary of the insurrection at the Capitol. Apparently, he's going to wait and let the news of Sean Hannity's texts die down a bit, and instead speak at a rally in Arizona in ten days. I can't help wondering if that rally will happen as planned.

After all, the Supreme Court is gathering documents in advance of their fast-tracked review of Trump's claim of executive privilege over information requested by the House January 6th committee. Lower courts have held that the privilege no longer applies to him; here are some thoughts on what the Supremes, three of whom are Trump appointees, might do. If they refuse to get involved, or if they decide that privilege is no longer Trump's, might that Arizona rally  go poof like the one in Tulsa?

Also going poof? A candlelight program which Cobb County, GA Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) had planned for tomorrow, which was to include streaming of Trump's remarks and "a prayer vigil for the jailed rioters still awaiting trial."  Yee hah, or something. I wonder what pushed them to cancel - complaints from real Republicans (the people Trumpers refer to as RINOs), or the fact that their fearless leader really isn't fearless? 

Others in the 'not fearless' bucket? The corporations and trade groups that have donated over $18M to members of the 'Sedition Caucus,' senators and representatives who supported the Big Lie, and to the national Republican re-election committees. I wonder if they remember the statements issued in the days after the insurrection, and how they justify the donations they've made in the year since?

What else is on the wondering docket? Well, there's a judge who just decided that members of the military can ignore a direct order, at least if they claim the order violates their religious freedom or free speech rights. I can only wonder what the hell the judge was thinking; does he really want Navy SEALs to do whatever they heck they feel like whenever they feel like it? And does he really think the Supremes are going to allow this ruling to stand? Never mind that last question; the judge clearly doesn't give a hoot about that.

There's more, of course - there's always more. But I'll leave you wondering with me about this: Melania Trump is selling a hat, a watercolor, and a "digital artwork NFT with motion" in her latest online auction. 

The starting bid? $250,000. Or, some 1415 rays of SOL digital currency.

What are you wondering about these days?

Sunday School 9/13/20: Extra Credit

For yesterday's Sunday School, I hung out in the MTP classroom. For your Extra Credit, I spent time with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday for his discussion with Steve Cortes, a senior advisor for the Trump campaign. If you have the stomach for it, you can check out Jake Tapper's discussion with Peter Navarro on CNN's State of the Union yourself. It's a doozy, as it usually is whenever Navarro walks into a classroom.

Wallace began his conversation with Cortes by talking about Joe Biden's lead over the president on key issues including the coronavirus, race, and even law and order, while the president leads on the economy, and he said that Trump "hasn't broken through." Cortes said the economy is the most important, and that "the ultimate driver of the electoral decision" for most of us is "who can create prosperity for me, for my family, and for this country going forward." We're going to see a Trump boom 2.0, he said. 

Cortes also said, referencing the coronavirus,

I think - here's the reality: I think unfortunately corporate media has been relatively successful at pushing out a myth that the president mishandled the virus. And I actually when I look at for instance these revelations from Woodward, I think if you look at them in the context of the totality of actions taken by this president, it actually reveals an exemplary record of crisis management.

He said what he means is that "it's very clear that the president, early on during the fog of biological war" (and I can't stop seeing an image of a guy with orange hair fighting off a fog of Agent Orange, or worse, a fog of sexually transmitted diseases - his own personal Vietnam, you'll recall), Trump decided to "reassure the American people. That he was going to be the kind of leader who convinces people that we can persevere through this epidemiological Pearl Harbor" and that meant he had to lie to us. (Cortes didn't actually say that last part, I did.) All of that added up to what he called "a record of superb management actually of the virus."

Since Cortes opened the door, Wallace honed in the Woodward tapes, noting Trump told Woodward that the coronavirus was deadly and much worse than the flu. But he told us we'd be down to zero cases and it's not worse than the flu - so "why not level with the American people, Steve?" 

Steve put on his gas mask and went back to "the fog of war, of biological war..." but Wallace wasn't having it, saying "I'm going to interrupt you right there, because it wasn't the fog of war."

In fact, Wallace went on to explain, just days before the Woodward phone call, both the national security advisor (this is the biggest challenge you're going to face in your entire presidency, he said to Trump) and the deputy national security advisor (immediately comparing it to the Spanish flu) had made it clear "this was a deadly pandemic. There was no fog here."

Cortes played his card again, saying there was "tremendous fog," and went on to talk about stuff Dr. Anthony Fauci was saying at the end of February. And to blame the Chinese Communist Party for lying to the world, leaving us "searching largely in the darkness" to figure out what the facts were. 

Shifting into his Captain Obvious role, Wallace said that Cortes was giving a different explanation than the president did. In the Cortes world, the president doesn't know, it was foggy, the science was foggy - but Trump himself said he did know the science, he just didn't want to "jump up and down" and create a panic.  Cortes insisted it was both.

Wallace said that "one of the reasons that there's a question about that is because of the fact that the president plays the panic card all the time, especially when he's talking about Joe Biden." And after playing a clip of Trump saying "if Biden wins, the mob wins. If Biden wins, the rioters, anarchists, arsonists and flag burners win," Wallace asked "Is that a president who is trying to keep the country calm?"

Cortes tried to explain the difference between the two Trumps.

When the president is talking about legitimate fear of what can happen in America if Joe Biden were to win, and if disrespect for the police were to continue to become the norm in this country, he's trying to exhort the American people to action, to say we can stop this, we can back the police, we can restore order, we can insist on the rule of law. That is sensible to recognize that there is a legitimate fear out there in the country.

What is not helpful is to tell the American people that this virus is out of control... The president's job in a time of crisis is partly to be reassuring to the American people, to convince them that we can and will persevere through this epidemiological Pearl Harbor.

Wallace could have said, at that point, that "the president could have tried to exhort the American people to action, to say 'we can stop this,' we can back the scientists, we can wear masks and practice social distancing, we can insist that everyone follow the guidance of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. That is sensible to recognize that there is a legitimate virus out there in the country." But he didn't. 

Instead, he said 

I got it -- I got your point. The argument would be that there's - it's a false choice you're making. He either plays the rosy scenario or he sets his hair on fire. There is something in the middle, which is just being honest with the American people. And there's a question, Steve, as to whether or not the president is still being honest with the American people...

Pointing to Trump's and Fauci's different messages on how long the virus will be sticking around: we're rounding the turn, per Trump, vs. the end of 2021, from Fauci. Cortes said that Trump has a "far more optimist view right now" than Fauci, and then he dragged in some other doctors who disagree with Fauci. And, Cortes thinks,

The president is now making I think very properly a really optimistic case that we are nearing the end of this, that the trends are going aggressively towards health...

And he added more comments from Fauci saying (on Fox, anyway) that there aren't any discrepancies between Trump and him. To which Wallace pointed out first that Fauci said something different on a different network, and second,

I find it interesting that sometimes you're citing him (Fauci) as an authority and sometimes you're saying he's wrong.

Which was a good call-out, because that's exactly what these folks do, for sure. And if you already knew that, which you should have, you can give yourself a couple of bonus points on top of your extra credit. 

Protect yourself - and others - from the fog of war. Wear a mask and practice social distancing, and I'll see you around the virtual campus.

TGIF 9/4/20

Because of the Blue and Red conventions, the schedule here at veritable pastiche has been a little off, but I'm doing what I can to get us back on track. Let's dive into this week's roundup of random good and bad weeks.

Right off the bat, let's update on the primaries I mentioned in Tuesday's Knock Knock post. Remarkably, a Kennedy lost a state-wide race in Massachusetts for the first time ever.  Joe Kennedy III gave up his congressional seat to run for the Senate against Sen. Ed Markey, but fell short. In the other race, which was the focus of the post, incumbent Rep. Richard Neal, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee fended off his opponent, Alex Morse.

So, did the results tell us anything about the fickle Dems, that they kept a 70-something progressive in the Senate and kept a 70-something traditional Dem in the House?  Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. But we do know that the professor who apologized 'in case he made anyone feel uncomfortable' will not be going to Washington, and in the end that's probably a good thing. 

Moving on to national stuff, no surprise that the president's trip to Kenosha caused some stir, right?  It seems that our fearless leader wanted the owner of a burned-out business to appear on TV with him, and so he found one. Trouble is, the guy who appeared with Trump was the former owner of the business, according to the man who bought it from him several years ago. There might be a semantics issue here - property owner vs. business owner - but honestly, did anyone not expect something like this to happen?

Trump's visit was followed by Joe Biden's, which was described by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, as being "worlds apart - in substance and style - from" the president's.

Biden wore a mask when he spoke. Trump did not.  Biden spoke by phone with Jacob Blake, the Black man who was shot seven times by a white Kenosha police officer, and met with Blake's family. Trump did not. Law enforcement was a central presence and theme of Trump's visit, but not Biden's. Trump spent a lot of time decrying violent unrest and rioting and looting. Biden spent a lot of time discussing inequality and racism and poverty and heard impassioned pleas from Black residents about the way African Americans are treated by the criminal justice system.

Worlds apart, indeed. In polling done after the end of the RNC, Biden held onto his lead in Wisconsin; we'll have to see if anything changes after these two visits. 

Speaking of Biden and Trump, I've got a question for you:  How long did you live in your childhood home? And if your family moved from your childhood home, did you have any input in that decision?  I'm asking because I actually crack up every time Trump tries to sell the tale that Biden "abandoned Scranton" for Delaware. It's comical, it really is. And ridiculous, as this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer points out. Here's an example of Trump's 'abandonment' claim, from remarks he made in Old Forge, PA.

He keeps talking about, ‘I was born in Scranton. I lived in Scranton.’ Yeah, for a few years, and then he left for another state. You know the state. But this Scranton stuff. That’s why I figured I’d come here and explain to you one thing. But I think you people know it better than I do. He left! He abandoned Pennsylvania. He abandoned Scranton.

The claim is insane - Biden's family moved to Delaware, and they took 10-year-old Joe with them when they moved. Should he have stayed behind? Fended for himself like a feral cat on the streets?  And that the comment is coming from the man who actually just abandoned New York to move to Florida, giving (perhaps not-quite-legally) Mar-a-Lago as his permanent residence. Seriously, is there anything Trump won't say, won't lie about?

Well, here's one that we're kind of thinking might be totally made up: the rioters and looter and vandals dressed in black on a plane that is either leaving DC heading out to the great city of Wherever, or it's coming to DC for the convention. I'm not sure which direction the plane was flying, because he's told the story with it going in both directions., And, of course,  I can't determine how fast the train was going in the opposite direction after leaving he station some moments later than the plane took off, because of course we don't even think the plane existed. Well, it probably did because "a person" as on board and it's all being investigated (by Scully and Mulder? By Snitty Snitty Bill Bar? Who actually knows?)

What else? Oh -- 

• Nancy Pelosi's hair appointment. 
• A congressman being shut up by Facebook for purposefully misinterpreting CDC data on coronavirus deaths.
• Peter Navarro's lousy coronavirus deals.
• More concerns about the census - from inside the Census Bureau.

Hope that's enough for you. There was more, of course - there's always more.

TGIF, everyone.

Wondering on Wednesday (v216)

Ready... Set... Wonder!

I don't have a theme for tonight, so let's just meander, shall we?

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III will not be headed back to the United States Senate, having lost his primary to former football coach Tommy Tuberville. And he lost in spectacular fashion, getting not even 40% of the vote.  One could be forgiven for wondering whether Sessions might have thought about recusing himself from this race...

Peter Navarro, the president's Director of Trade and Manufacturing policy, might find himself manufacturing some sort of public mea culpa he can trade for a private pat on the back from his boss. Navarro, almost certainly doing his level best to do whatever he needs to for the team, wrote a nastygram whining about Dr. Anthony Fauci, and that got him in hot water with some folks. 

Even the president said Navarro was speaking for himself and shouldn't have written it, but I can't help wondering if Trump didn't let out a little squeal of glee when he heard about it.  Unless, of course, Navarro (a master of military language) was only following an actual directive of his commander-in-chief...

We had our first federal execution since 2003 this week, even though relatives of the three victims in the case had petitioned to not have the execution during the coronavirus pandemic, because they did not feel safe travelling to witness the execution. AG Snitty Snitty Bill Barr had said that it was the duty of the DOJ to carry out the death penalty sentences, in part to give closure to the families of victims and people in the communities where the capital crimes were committed. 

What's interesting, though, is that the family members did not want to see Daniel Lee executed; rather, they wanted to see him spend his life in prison, the same sentence given to the other person convicted in the crimes. So, I wonder: would there have been such a push to execute him, outside the presence of the victims' families, had they been supportive of the execution?  

And finally, we learned today that the 2012 Rose Bowl Parade has been cancelled because of the coronavirus.  Here's an excerpt from a statement making the announcement.

While the parade itself is more than five months from now, the preparation for such a large event typically begins in February. “In addition to the advance planning required by our band and equestrian units, the construction of our floats takes many months and typically requires thousands of volunteers to gather in ways that aren’t in compliance with safety recommendations and won’t be safe in the coming months,” said David Eads, Executive Director/CEO. “While we are extremely disappointed that we are unable to host the parade, we believe that not doing so will prevent the spread of COVID-19, as well as protect the legacy of the Rose Parade for generations to come.”

Now, what's got me wondering here?  Simply this: if it's not safe for adults to build floats and decorate them with flowers and other materials, how can it possibly be safe to send children to school?

Wondering on Wednesday (v207)

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Let's dive in, shall we, to the wondering?

How long did you think it would take for the obligatory 'young black man interacting with authorities' videos to surface in the Ahmaud Arbery case? There was no wondering, at all, whether or not there would be one - there's always at least one right? And, of course, in the other cases, just as in this case, there is zero relevance - ZERO - between whatever happened in the video (in this case, more than two years ago) and what happened this past February when an alleged attempted citizen's arrest went so horribly wrong and Arbery ended up dead, with pictures of his lifeless body shared on social media by a family member of the men accused of Arbery's murder.  Do we even have to wonder if there are more pictures and videos that have been shared? 

The new video is interesting, in one aspect: how quickly the second police officer on the scene pulled, aimed and fired his Taser at Arbery; it didn't work, for some reason. And I have to wonder, if we had a young white man in exactly the same situation, would the Taser have been reached for so quickly? Would the police even gone to investigate, performed a 'I'm not searching, I'm just looking' check of the young man's body? I know how I'd answer that question, and probably the only way I'll be convinced otherwise is if the police release videos demonstrating their actions are consistent. 

Let's see, what else do we have tonight? 

I wonder if there's anyone who would be even remotely surprised to learn that Asian-American health care workers (and others) are facing rising hostility during in the age of coronavirus? According to a report in the Washington Post

Across the country, Asian American health-care workers have reported a rise in bigoted incidents. The racial hostility has left Asian Americans, who represent 6 percent of the U.S. population but 18 percent of the country’s physicians and 10 percent of its nurse practitioners, in a painful position on the front lines of the response to the coronavirus pandemic. Some covid-19 patients refuse to be treated by them. And when doctors and nurses leave the hospital, they face increasing harassment in their daily lives, too.

Asian Americans have experienced a sharp increase in racist verbal abuse and physical attacks during the pandemic, with the FBI warning of a potential surge in hate crimes against Asians as the coronavirus death toll mounts and stay-at-home orders are lifted.

In case you're wondering where this might be coming from, here are some possibilities:

• the president's rhetoric, including his insistence on referring to the Chinese virus;
• a White House official referring to "the Kung Flu" when talking with a Chinese-American reporter;
• Peter Navarro saying that China 'seeded' the virus around the world, even as he pretended he wasn't saying they did anything deliberate, and
• Senator Ben Sasse, (R-KS) referring to thugs in China in a bizarre on-line commencement address.

Yep. That's us - Making America Great Again, right?

Actually, we are making America great - the generic but universal kind of making our country great, not the political capitalized letter way, and we show that in so many ways. Here are just a few.

• The PBS Newshour had a story a while back that I've been meaning to share. Tucker Nichols, an artist in San Rafael, CA, paints flowers for people who are sick, and sends the paintings to them. He also paints flowers for all kinds of people collectively, which you can find here. I was reminded of the wonder of art, how it moves the artist and the viewer, and helps both, even if they didn't realize they needed any help at all.
• And then there's this New Hampshire family, and I have to tell you this one brought me to tears, so consider yourself warned. Unable to visit their patriarch, who was hospitalized with COVID-19, members of the family showed up each day, and from outside, showed their love.  Nurses started taping notes on the window for the family, eventually having to leave the note that no one wanted to see: "He's at peace." What happened after that is the kind of thing that makes us great in the most wonderful way.

Finally, I'll end on a personal note, I broke my local social distancing rules this week. My husband and I have been following them religiously, since March: staying home for the most part, only going out on our designated days, and covering our faces when we're out in public once that became a rule. 

During March and April, we delivered groceries to my mom, we'd pick up her mail if needed, and the whole time, we kept our distance. In May, I released her from 'house arrest' once she had masks of her own, and now she can make quick trips to the grocery story herself. But even on Mother's Day, we stopped by, dropped off a plant, and left after less than a half hour of six-feet-apart conversation. 

This past Sunday, we went out to take care of her lawn. Masks on, social distancing in place, and then, I saw my moment. I told her to look the other way, and I leaned in and gave her a quick sideways hug - the first one she'd had in two months. 

Was it worth it, breaking the rules?  I didn't wonder for a minute - it surely was. 

Sunday School 5/17/20

Two Administration types -- Peter Navarro, the president's director of trade and manufacturing policy, and the oft-missing-in-action HHS Secretary Alex Azar - each made two classroom appearances today. I'll take one of each, and throw in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, too. 

Let's start with Margaret Brennan and her talks with Azar and the Speaker on Face the Nation (CBS). She dove right in with Azar, asking about Operation Warp Speed ("that means big and that means fast," as the president explained), and asked him "is the pledge that all 328 million Americans will be able to get a shot in the arm (a coronavirus vaccine) by the end of the year?" 

Azar said "It's a goal of what we're going to mobilize the entire US government and private sector to achieve." And he said the traditional approach is to do phase one, two, and three trials in sequence and then you go to manufacturing. 

... what we're doing is wringing the inefficiency out of the development process to make the development side faster to get to safe and effective vaccines. And at the same time, we're going to scale up commercial-sized manufacturing and produce hundreds of millions of doses at risk. They may not pan out. They might not prove to be safe and effective. But we'll have it so we can begin administration right away.

Brennan honed in on Azar's 'hundreds of millions of doses" and said that's not the same as saying hundreds of millions of vaccines ready to be administered, and reminded him he had sad "the entire American population could receive vaccines by January" and asked him to clarify. 

...We have hundreds of millions of people. So three hundred million is the goal, and by January that we would set, whether by one or multiple vaccine candidates to be able to have. Let's - let's focus our energies on actually getting those vaccines developed at this point.

Azar said that there were 100 vaccine candidates to start with, and now that's down to 14, and 

...we're going to keep narrowing that down to maybe four or five, six, that we really place the big financial bets behind and drive on. And we might actually have multiple vaccines, some appropriate for different populations and different settings as we see the data get generated here. 

She moved on,wondering what sense Azar has on whether people are getting infected where they've reopened. Azar said that would have to be studied "through our comprehensive surveillance system." And he said the reopening gets framed as an economic vs. health thing, when it's actually health vs healthy. 

We see suicidality. We see reduction in cardiac procedures, cancer screenings, pediatric vaccinations. There is a real - a very real health consequence to these shutdowns that must be balanced against as we - as we try to reopen this economy and move forward.

We'll leave it there, after duly noting the twist of trying to take the focus off human sacrifices in the name of the economy and future generations, and move on to the Speaker, who was primarily there to talk about the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act. And can I say, as an acronym maker from way back, I wish I could get the gig helping name House and Senate bills.

Pelosi said the HEROES Act is a plan to test, to diagnosis and treat and decrease the number of people dying from this. Noting that almost 90,000 Americans have died, she said

We, whatever our differences, have to join together to fight this enemy to the lives and livelihood of the American people. 90,000 people, we send our condolences and our prayers to their families. We will always carry them in our hearts. 

Brennan noted the Republicans want to wait and see how things go before dropping another package. Pelosi said that the House Dems passed their bill, just as the Rs did on past bills, and then everyone comes together to get it done - that's what she anticipates will happen here. She also said that Rs and Ds across the country "all want this bill to happen" because of the aid to state, municipal and tribal governments and provisions for testing in the bill. And she added

... setting aside how we got here, we cannot take a pause... people are hungry across America. Hunger doesn't take a pause. People are jobless across America. That doesn't take a pause. People don't know how they're going to pay their rent across the country. We have - we have to address this with humanity...

Brennan wondered if the Rs had reached out on possible negotiations; Pelosi noted the bill was just passed, but she "has confidence" that they'll come together at some point. And, she pointed out,

...I think it's important to note that everything sounds like a big number, but everything that we have in the state and local column is less than the Republicans put in their tax scam to give 83% of the benefits to the top 1%.

She also said, they "have no red lines" in terms of what they're willing to consider, including corporate liability protections. 

Let's close out today's lesson with George and Peter Navarro, who like others in the administration, sings the president's praises in practically every sentence.  Asked about President Obama's comments to graduates, Navarro was harsh.

Well, I'm glad Mr. Obama has a new job as Joe Biden's press secretary... His new normal was a flat line in terms of wage growth. And I'm happy to report that this president, Donald J. Trump, in 3 1/2 years built the most beautiful economy in modern history. And the Chinese did take that down in about 30 days.

But we are in the process right now of rebuilding that. And this president, Donald J. Trump, is the one who has the skills to do so, because you know what, George? What we're going to do is, we're going to go back to the future here, buy American, deregulate and innovate.  

Stephanopoulos asked if Navarro was saying that China "deliberately unleashed" the virus on the US, and if he had any evidence of that. Navarro said he didn't say it was deliberate but said "let's go over the facts here. Correct me if I'm wrong."

The virus was spawned in Wuhan province. Patient zero was in November. The Chinese, behind the shield of the WHO, for two months hid the virus from the world and then sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese on aircraft to Milan, New York, and around the world to seed that. They could have kept it in Wuhan. Instead it became a pandemic. So, that's why I say the Chinese did that to the Americans and they are responsible. 

And he talked about the trade deal signed back in January, with its promise that the Chinese wouldn't steal intellectual property, but now the FBI is warning that "the Chinese government is hacking the intellectual property, so that they can steal vaccines for the world."

And what would they do with it? It wouldn't be a benign experience. They would use that vaccine to profiteer and hold the world hostage.

Boy, that's dark stuff right there... They moved on to talking about Joe Biden who spoke out last week about Trump "praising the Chinese government, downplaying the threat...as (Biden) was warning the need to get the people into China to see what was actually going on."  Navarro said

Yeah, well, Joe Biden has got 40 years of sucking up to the Chinese, including the eight years as vice president. And we know about the billion dollars that his son took from the Chinese.

Stephanopoulos said that wasn't factual, but Navarro maintained the money "went into that hedge fund" and added he thinks "this election is going to be a referendum in many ways on China.

What else did they talk about? Rick Bright, the whistleblower who said he worked closely with Navarro. Rick Bright, who Navarro calls "a deserter in the war against the virus." Navarro what happened with Rick Bright is "an American tragedy."

This guy is quite talented, but he was asked to be the field commander over at NIH to storm the testing hill with a billion dollars behind him. Instead of accepting that mission, he deserted. He went into a fox hole, wrote up the complaint. And how he's part of a Capitol Hill partisan circus... And the tragedy, George, is this man has talent. He's a smart man. We could have used him on the battlefield. He's not there now. And it was because of the decisions that he made. And it is a shame, George...

Um, there's a little too much high-falutin salutin' in there for my taste,. They also talked about the economic response, the new House stimulus plan, bringing jobs back from China, rebuilding American manufacturing, the deep state, the bureaucracy... it's all there in the transcript if you want to keep up with him. I'll leave you with Navarro's closing comment, in relation to people who are not loyal to the Trump agenda.

And anybody in this bureaucracy who hates buy American, and bringing our domestic supply chains home, they don't really belong here. And I support whatever this president does in terms of his hiring and firing decisions.

I'm going to go wash my hands, for the requisite 20 seconds, and maybe sing a patriotic song as I do so. Keep doing the social distancing thing, the face-covering thing, and whatever else you can to do flatten the curve and stop the spread of 'the villain from Wuhan.'

See you around the virtual campus.

Sunday School 6/10/18

Oh dear - the classrooms were quite boisterous today!  There was a whole lot of posturing going on, and name calling, and tit-for-tatting and all that kind of stuff.  Let's take a look, shall we?

There were two Trumpeters making the rounds today: Peter Navarro, who's the president's trade advisor, and Larry Kudlow, the director of Trump's National Economic Council.

Navarro was the more over the top of the two, speaking with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday about that backstabbing, traitorous blankety-blank we used to call Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  Wallace led into Navarro's tirade by mentioning Trudeau's statements about going ahead with promised retaliatory tariffs, which are to take effect on July 1st. Trump responded as he usually does (my words, not Wallace's) by calling his opponent names - 'weak' and 'meek and mild' and 'very dishonest'.  And Wallace asked if that was really how we wanted to deal with our 2nd largest trading partner. I recommend fastening your seat belts for the response.

Chris there's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with president Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door. And that's what Bad Faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference. That's what Weak, Dishonest Justin Trudeau did. And that comes right from Air Force One. 

Well, except Navarro admitted those were his special place in hell words, not Trump's.

And I'll tell you this, to my friends in Canada, that was one of the worst political miscalculations of a Canadian leader in modern Canadian history. All Justin Trudeau had to do was take the win... Trump did the courtesy to Justin Trudeau to travel up to Quebec for that summit. He had other things, bigger things on his plate in Singapore... He did him a favor and he was even willing to sign that socialist communique. And what did Trudeau do -- as soon as the plane took off from Canadian airspace, Trudeau stuck our president in the back. That will not stand. 

Whoa.  The United States participating in a G7 summit is a 'courtesy'? What did he have on his plate that is more important than representing our country at a meeting of our closest allies? I mean, it might have been a courtesy if Melania had attended, but I'm not sure at what point the president of the US doing his job should be considered a courtesy, especially since he has nothing else on his plate, by his own admission.

But wait - there's more!

And as far as this retaliation goes, the American press needs to do a much better job of what the Canadians are getting ready to do because it's nothing short of an attack on our political system and it's nothing short of Canada trying to raise it's high protectionist barriers even higher on things like maple syrup and other goods.

Well, cheese and crackers, not maple syrup!!!  I don't know where Navarro's been lately, but Canada retaliating against the US in a trade war is not an attack on our political system. That's actually what Russia did, but you know, these pesky details are hard to remember, if you've been living under a rock.

Navarro went on to bash Canada for NAFTA, saying we'd have a great deal on that existing deal, if only the Canadians would deal with Trump instead of trying to deal with Congress, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.

They are just simply not playing fair. Dishonest. Weak.

 Navarro was reminded of his earlier statement that no one would retaliate against our new tariffs, with Wallace pointing out Canada's $13B, and the EU's $3B in tariffs since our announcement. In response, Navarro talked about Germany, where we says we have a $151B annual trade deficit, and not only that - not only that, but

Germany has tariffs on autos four time higher than our tariffs on the equivalent German imports here and they sell us three times as many cars as we sell them.

Because we like German engineering almost as much as the Germans do, maybe?

So on the issues alone, we have allies strategically. But when it comes to these trade disputes, these allies basically are robbing us blind. The president is not going to put up with that.  

Nope -he's going to tweet about it, and send minions out to yell at our allies.

Kudlow, for his part, didn't declare a final resting place for Trudeau; in fact, he made it a point to talk about how directly involved he was with the Prime Minister, as if tooting his own horn would make everything right with the world. Here are some of the high points of his conversation on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.

Regarding why the president called Trudeau weak and dishonest:

Well, to be honest with you, Prime Minister Trudeau - by the way, I respect. I have worked with him in good faith, getting through a good communique on Friday and Saturday. So, he holds a press conference. The president is barely out of there on a plane to North Korea, and he starts insulting us. You know, he starts talking about US is insulting Canada. We are not -- we, Canada, are not going to be pushed around. 

Brennan noted that Trudeau was talking about the trade tariffs.

That's correct, and in general, OK, it was an attack on the president. "We're going to have retaliatory tariffs." Now, these are things that the prime minister said before, basically, but he didn't say them after a successful G7 communique, where president Trump and the others all worked in good faith to put a statement together, which, by the way, almost nobody expected to happen. In fact, reporters were asking me before the trip whether the president was going to show up at all. He did. He negotiated. He directed his team, myself and others. We worked it out. We used good language that was acceptable. 

At which point Brennan noted

And the the president reneged on that G7 statement.

Kudlow:

No, No, I'm sorry.  And then Trudeau decided to attack the president. That is the key point. And yes, you know, if you attack this president, he is going to fight back.  But here is the key point, Margaret. The president is going to negotiate with Kim of North Korea in Singapore. It is a historic negotiation. And there is no way this president is not going to stand strong, number one. He is not going to allow other people to suddenly take potshots at him hours before that summit. And number two, Trudeau should have known better.

On and on it went, and it went on and on on CNN's State of the Union as well.  Let's pick up when Tapper reminds Kudrow that Trump is known for this kind of thing.

JT: But president Trump does that all the time, though, doesn't he?

LK: No, he doesn't.

JT: He doesn't say things for domestic consumption? 

LK: No, the point is, if you are going through a treaty process, a communique, and you have good faith... And those leaders were together. I mean, I was right smack in the middle of it on Friday night and Saturday morning. You don't walk away and start firing bullets. Now, look

JT: I can't believe that an adviser to president Trump is saying that - because president Trump does that all the time.  He does things for - for domestic consumption.

LK: Jake, not in -- not after you pull a treaty or a deal together...

 JT: Why walk away from it just because of something Justin Trudeau said for domestic consumption.

LK: No, not something. Look you -- yes, for domestic political consumption. But it was a global statement. The whole world listened to what he said. Look, you're reporting it here in Washington, as you must.  

 JT: Sure.

LK: I get that. You just don't behave that way, OK? It is a betrayal, OK? He is essentially double-crossing -- not just double-crossing president Trump, but the other members of the G7, who were working together and pulling together this communique. You know, you never get everything you want. There are compromises along the way; president Trump played that process in good faith. 

So I ask you, he gets up in the airplane and leaves. And then Trudeau starts bashing him in a domestic news conference? I'm sorry, that is a betrayal. That is a double-cross. It pains me, because I like Trudeau. I was working with him. We were together putting words on paper.... 

It pains me to keep going, to keep paying attention. It pains me that none of them realize, or admit, that if the president hadn't acted like a two-year old and resorted to name-calling, no one would be paying any attention to the fact that the Canadian Prime Minister reiterated comments he had made previously to everyone, including government officials, media outlets from both countries, and to Kudrow himself. 

It pains me that the president of the United States is a big crybaby, a big bully...  I can go on, but that pains me too.

See you around campus.