Leaving for Arizona yesterday, a reporter asked Trump why he supported reopening even as cases increase.  He said, “”The whole world is excited, watching us, because we’re leading the world.”  Yes, we are leading the world:

Trump’s delusion is complete.  I would think that the only thing the world is excited about is ridding itself of Donald Trump on November 3 (but only if we do our job).

Today, in a leaked audio of a call with Republican representatives, Greg Abbott admitted that opening up the economy will increase the community spread of COVID-19.  At the same time, he offered up his strawman argument that, since we’ll never get to zero spread, we should open up anyway.  Of course, NO ONE has EVER set the standard of zero spread.  The standard is 14 consecutive days of diminishing new cases, which we are most certainly not experiencing.

This is the same argument that Abbott and other Republicans have used to not do immigration reform.  They keep saying that reform can only happen when undocumented immigration is brought to zero.  They KNOW it will never be at zero, so by default immigration reform will never happen.

If you want to get really aggravated, listen to the leaked recording:

We all know that Trump’s incompetent and cruel response to the Coronavirus cost US lives.  Now we’re getting a sense of just how many.  During March and early April, the US recorded 8,128 deaths from COVID-19.  But, and it’s a big but, there were another over 7,000 “excess deaths” during that time not attributed to the disease, but probably were.  Here’s the graph:

“Excess deaths” is defined to be those deaths above the normal curve of mortality in the US.  Were all these deaths attributable to Coronavirus?  We don’t know because testing during that time was unavailable, and continues to be unavailable for millions of Americans.  Only history will be able to tell the story of how many died in this pandemic once this crisis is over, but I think any objective person already knows the answer.

COVID-19 cases are still growing exponentially in the US with now over 800,000 cases and 45,000 deaths.  That’s not bothering the old Basement Bar in Fort Worth, though.  There was quite a flame war going on over on their Facebook page this morning after they announced they were fully opening this weekend to sell their $2 beer in exchange for the public health.  Let’s just say that the majority of the comments we’re not very supportive of such idiocy, and the author of the post, who I assume is the owner, got a little chippy with some of the commenters.  Here’s an example:

After over 3,200 comments, most not very complimentary of the bar opening right now, the post was removed.  What I found amazing, though, were the supportive comments i.e. “This was all exaggerated.” “The government can’t tell us what to do.” “It’s just the flu.” “I don’t know anyone who has it,” etc., etc., so forth and so on.  Fort Worth has become the weird mixture of education, sophistication, forward thinking, entrepreneurial vigor, offset by up with mouth breathing stupidity.

I hope they don’t get a bunch more people killed.

Trump spent the day attacking political opponents and defending convicted felon Michael Flynn.

The Fed slashes rates to near zero, announces purchase of $700 billion of debt.  This is a correct move, IMHO.

Cuomo announces cut by half for NY restaurants and bars.

Italy’s death rate explodes, 368 yesterday.

Harris County working to expand testing.

Trump’s stream of lies from the beginning of the crisis.

France and Spain announce severe restrictions on citizens, close all stores but groceries and pharmacies.

Trump tests negative (supposedly) for the Coronavirus, halts travel from the UK and Ireland.

Italian Coronavirus cases jump by 20%.

The Alley Theatre has cancelled all performances with audiences and events through March 31.  However, they are going to livestream the new production of 1984.  Pretty cool.

The House passed a sweeping relief bill to help Americans cope with the crisis.  Trump careens from ditch to ditch like a drunk on Saturday night demonstrating he doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s doing.