Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

David Von Drehle says "we're on our own, America:"

We are launched on a great experiment. Can this union of states, this republic of shopkeepers, this democratic experiment, this mecca of individual initiative, meet this crisis as one people when our leader is out to lunch?

I’d say the early returns are encouraging. New York has faced a wave of disease and death with courage and aplomb. Cities and hospitals across the country have readied themselves to meet the wave if and when it comes. Scientists have swarmed to their laboratories. Congress has taken difficult votes. Companies have torn up their yearly forecasts and reinvented their workflows. Entertainers have separated from their audiences; athletes have stepped away from their fans — and even surrendered their dreams as their Olympic year passes by. And millions of Americans have tried to understand what we’re up against and do what we can with fortitude and goodwill.

But that’s just the beginning. The coming days, weeks and months will demand more from us. In balancing the need for health and the need for livelihood, people are going to make mistakes. We can minimize those mistakes only by testing widely and responding rapidly to outbreaks of virus and death. This is where Trump’s abdication is most egregious, because the federal government ought to coordinate this crucial project. Instead, states and private industry will have to improvise.

We've been essentially on our own since the shitwaffle took office;  it's just taken a bungling response to a catastrophic pandemic and the attendant historic economic damage for it to hit home for some.

Not only is America on its own, Las Vegas has a libertarian nightmare as mayor who wants the casinos open, but won't lift a finger in providing guidance on how to do it:

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman on Wednesday repeatedly called for the city's businesses to reopen while refusing to provide any social distancing guidelines on how to do so safely.

"I am not a private owner. That's the competition in this country. The free enterprise and to be able to make sure that what you offer the public meets the needs of the public," Goodman, an independent, told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

"Right now, we're in a crisis health-wise, and so for a restaurant to be open or a small boutique to be open, they better figure it out. That's their job. That's not the mayor's job."

Fortunately, Goodman doesn't have the power to open the casinos or any other closed businesses, and is being shut out of discussions about how and when to re- open. (Btw, she's the wife of Oscar Goodman, former mayor and defense attorney for a who's who of Mafia bosses.)

Speaking of nightmares:

President Trump strode to the lectern in the White House briefing room Thursday and, for just over an hour, attacked his rivals, dismissing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as a “sleepy guy in a basement of a house” and lambasting the media as “fake news” and “lamestream.”

He showered praise on himself and his team, repeatedly touting the “great job” they were doing as he spoke of the “tremendous progress” being made toward a vaccine and how “phenomenally” the nation was faring in terms of mortality.

What he did not do was offer any sympathy for the 2,081 Americans who were reported dead from the coronavirus on that day alone — among the now more than 54,000 Americans who have perished since the pandemic began.

The damn narcissistic sociopath.  That, of course, was the same "briefing" where Dr. Trump mused about injecting disinfectant as a possible treatment for coronavirus (Ed. note to any wayward Trumper who might be reading this: Don't do it!)

As the damn narcissistic sociopath continues to say he was being "sarcastic" in musing about injecting disinfectants, as well as his risible (now deleted) rage tweets about journalists getting "Noble (sic) Prizes,"  Ken Jennings has this:

I would like to announce that when I gave wrong answers on Jeopardy, I was being sarcastic.

— Ken Jennings (@KenJennings) April 24, 2020

Pollster Stuart Rothenberg thinks Democrats have a slight edge in picking up the Senate:

Democrats no longer need an “upset or two” to win control of the Senate later this year. In fact, while the fight for Senate control in November is a toss-up, I’d probably put a pinkie on the scale for Democrats right now.

It’s not that Democrats have really widened the playing field, though they have. Those “extra” races on the board, in places like Montana and Georgia, aren’t the greatest of opportunities for them.

It’s simply that the Democrats’ initial top prospects have succeeded in proving their fundraising mettle and have taken advantage of Donald Trump’s GOP.

Others tend to agree.  It's better to be running as a Democrat than as a Republican.  But it's best to work harder, donate more and, above all, vote like your life depended on it.

We end with our recommendation that you check out Infidel 753's link round-up (as well as his blog in general) for his usual excellent array of links to posts covering the waterfront, as we of a certain age might say.  We found the piece on the commerce- over- casualties mayor of Las Vegas.