Let's Say Mitch Is Right. Let's Go There.

For the sake of argument, let's say Mitch McConnell is right. Let's say the hubbub over impeachment prevented 45 from recognizing the dangers of coronavirus back in January, when he should have.

That means that somehow, the impeachment proceedings prevented 45 from thinking clearly about the coronavirus because his attention was diverted by something unnecessary. Mitch McConnell never said that, but I'm quite sure he wouldn't argue since that gives him exactly what he wants--a scapegoat which takes responsibility away from the president--as if he needs it, since he said he didn't take responsibility anyhow.

It also means that he would have risen to meet the crisis far before now. That's ridiculous, as he has already demonstrated. He admits that the knew the situation was going to be this serious back in January. He could have used it to prove his competence, and dissolve much of the momentum that impeachment created. That would have been an effective use of politics, but he doesn't understand that, either.

His philosophy, to let the states get the resources themselves and serve as a backup, is not only wrong but irresponsible. But that's his gambit--to be less than responsible.

Then, as November approaches, no matter how many have died by then--and nobody knows how many; his estimate of 100,00-240,000 is a guesstimate, considering that the statistics behind them aren't being revealed--he will somehow pivot and blame everything on the Democrats. He has the convenient excuse ready; see above.

But it also means that the Republican Party will also be to blame. It had the chance to get rid of this incompetent, maladjusted fool back in January, when the impeachment vote loomed. It could have allowed additional witnesses to take the stand and reveal his crimes. But they didn't, and left him in charge of commandeering this complete mess.

Would Mike Pence have taken charge of the situation? We'll never know. 45's removal might have resulted in some actually competent people being named to positions where government might have taken place in the same silent way that it usually does. That he was named as the front man to the current effort is practically meaningless, since 45 himself takes control of every briefing, to get himself maximum exposure while he provides evasive non-answers.

And let's not forget Trish Regan, recently fired by Fox for claiming that criticism of 45 for his foot-dragging was just another way of trying to incite impeachment charges again. That's a separate issue, but she might be right in that impeachment may be re-considered after all this is finished.

The New York Times, in a long article last Sunday, said that the Food and Drug Administration greatly dropped the ball when it came to arranging for effective testing; the focus should be on them. But an effective president would have known that beforehand, too, and done what he had to do to loosen the FDA's often draconian grip on regulations--which, prior to this, might have been necessary. But scientists throughout the nation found their hands tied and valuable time was lost.

I'll provide for you the conclusion of the editorial written by the Boston Globe just a few days ago. Nobody could have said it better:

....The months the administration wasted with prevarication about the threat and its subsequent missteps will amount to exponentially more COVID-19 cases than were necessary, In other words, the president has blood on his hands. 

It's not too much for Americans to ask of their leaders that they be competent and informed when responding to a crisis of historic proportions. Instead, they have a White House marred by corruption and incompetence, whose mixed message roil then markets and rock their sense of security. Instead of compassion and clarity, the president, in his near-daily addresses to the nation, embodies callousness, self-concern, and a lack of compass. Dangling unverified cures and possible quarantines in front of the public like reality TV cliffhangers, he unsettles rather than reassures. The pandemic reveals that the worst features of this presidency are not merely late-night comedy fodder; they come at the cost of lives, livelihoods, and our collective psyche.

Many pivotal decision points in this crisis are past us, but more are still to come. For our own sake, every American should be hoping for a miraculous turnaround--and that the too-little, too-late strategy of the White House task force will henceforth at least prevent contagion and economic ruin of the grandest scale. But come November, there must be a reckoning for the lives lost, and for the vast, avoidable suffering about to ensue under the president's watch.

No impeachment could have gotten in the way of that. Indeed. he should be impeached and removed now. I hope there's at least a discussion of it when and where it matters.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark

Bernie Sanders: An Epitaph

Before I begin: Bernie Sanders is a good man. And he's obviously been a good, if quirky, Senator for Vermont.

But he can't be president because he won't relinquish any ground on his signature position: Medicare for All. The American people are too incremental for that. There are too many of us, feeling too many things at once. It's herding cats, and the cats are grumpy.

Medicare for All is scary, even though it's not a bad idea. The cost of it, spread out over the years, really isn't that bad. But that doesn't matter. Americans are too wary of those who "have everything figured out," even though that may be exactly what's needed.

The times don't demand that kind of a person. Especially now, when we have a president who simply won't obey any established norm of good behavior, who wants everything his way. Amidst that, Bernie Sanders stands astride, kind of in a land of his own.

Policy isn't the point in this election. Some kind of ethics are. We are in such a firestorm of awfulness that we're crying out for just plain normal, just someone who will react and act the way a normal person would. That feels like a lot to ask for, largely because of the cult that has formed around 45. It will die slowly, and hard, but in the meantime, we have an opportunity to just take a breather.

Medicare for All gets in the way of that. It's like the kid who, after winning his flight in a golf tournament, wants to take on the adult champ. Wait a minute, the dad says. Be happy with what you have. You're going to get burned. You may be good, but you're reaching too far. Bernie thinks replacing 45 is getting in the way of his master plan. More of us think the opposite.

Besides, we already have Obamacare, as challenged in the courts and legislatively as it has been. Amazingly--or not so amazingly, in a tribute to the lawyers and legislators who devised it--it has withstood test after test. The sensible thing to do is to go back there and fix the problems--the enormous deductibles, perhaps the allowance of coverage by parents up to age 26, which, though I get it, always struck me as excessive. The white, lower-middle-class has complained about it from the start, and it might be a way to get some of them--enough, say, to eject 45--into the fold.

Joe Biden's in the perfect place to promote that, having been a major player in the Obama Administration. We knew it wasn't perfect, but we thought it was better to get a start on it, he could (and, it says here, should) say. Now we can improve on it.

Tinkering with the machinery that's already been established has struck Americans as being the best thing to do. It's not radical, it approaches the other side with an offer of consensus, and it doesn't bully people, as 45 insists on doing. Depending upon the results of the election, it might just work.

I've written here more than once that Joe Biden isn't the best candidate the Democrats can conjure, and despite the fact that he seems to have emerged from the catfight for the nomination, I haven't changed that view. But he's the guy we've got, and we need to get behind him.

If there was a 'time' for Bernie, it was last time, but the white liberals (including me) thought Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in and a pile-on after getting the first black guy into the White House; you know, as long as he got in, let's get a woman in there, too. Nobody cried loudly enough when the Clintonites manipulated the primary vote, and nobody noticed until it was too late her arrogance and the effect her "deplorables" comment had on hardening support for the irresponsible carnival barker we now have there (which it sure did). She strode around in white instead of getting into jeans and denims and getting with the folks, and got the rug pulled out beneath her. The Russians played their role, but her missteps can't be discounted.

In another time, Bernie Sanders might have pulled off the incredible upset. But it's too late now; the tide has turned and he can't reverse it. He found his ceiling and couldn't get beyond that. He needs to address the young ones that, understandably, got behind him with passionate idealism. We don't want you to lose your spirit, he could say (appearing with Biden), but you've got to keep the big picture in mind. We're here, first and foremost, to correct a terrible mistake. You can see what it is and where we've gone because of it. The future is yours; that was never in doubt. But the point right now is to get back on the rails and be great again. Be sure to vote in November. It's your country that's at stake.

Something like that. It could be his greatest legacy. He has no choice if he really wants to defeat 45. And that's absolutely necessary.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck (counting the days to the peak of this pestilence; Apr. 27, it says elsewhere), I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark

Go Past Him. Ignore Him. The Only Way to Maintain Sanity.

It's clear what 45 wants. He wants dependency.

It's the key to his control, to his power: Dependency. He wants people to rely on him so he can humiliate them in case they don't agree with him and say so. It's how he controls his Cabinet and the people around him; they're afraid, for some reason, of being fired.

He wouldn't say the things he says about governors if it weren't so. And for now, they're trapped.

They have to rely on the federal government for whatever paltry amounts of resources it has--and it's already been proven that they aren't adequate to meet this terrible curse of a virus. That 45 has actually suggested that resources be held from the Michigan governor, Gretchen Widmer, just because she's anxious about stuff that she's already supposed to have is just an example of 45's awfulness.

Bidding for resources is competitive, which is obviously the wrong way to deal with this. The economy of some producers is being made to be a greater concern than the saving of lives. That this ridiculous aspect of this epidemic is made real is evident by 45's refusal to invoke the Defense Production Act on a large scale. He could do it in a moment. He's waiting for Republican-controlled states to need him, instead of helping all Americans right now.

When that happens--and it will; all signs point to it--he will invent some kind of an excuse or muzzle any question from the press as to why he waited so long. It will be absurd. It won't matter, of course, because the damage will already have been done. If the deaths of many people can't be directly connected to the lack of resources, the blame will be spread wherever he can, but certainly not to himself. He's already said it: "I take no responbility."

The only way to get around this now-you-see-it attitude is to organize by oneself. The governors should consider doing that. They should consider a temporary consortium of non-competitiveness, and bid down the price gougers.

It can happen, and on a bipartisan basis. The cooperation is growing. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker have, together, written an article in the New York Times on the crisis, demanding more resources from the federal government. They're not likely to get it; they've been hung out to dry. They didn't carry for 45 in 2016. (Think that isn't an issue?)

They can, and should, pivot on such neglect and create their own cooperative. Lives are at stake. Economic concepts are silly to consider at this juncture.

Mississippi's governor, Tate Reeves, and Alabama's governor, Kay Ivey, both Republicans in states that overwhelmingly voted for 45 in 2016, can talk big (Oh, is this a time for big talk, huh?) about not wanting to become China or California (I wonder whether Ivey equated the two; foreign as their lands appear to be), but when the onslaught of the virus hits their states--as it will--they're not going to talk big; they're going to need help on the same level as that of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who's getting the lion's share of the attention because the virus is centered there, but only until it moves on. While it's possible that 45 is saving the bulk of his attention to traditionally Republican states, pretty soon, it's going to become obvious that the inadequacy of resources is going to be a shared problem.

I expect Ohio's governor, Mike DeWine, a Republican, to consider this carefully. His state carried easily for 45 in 2016, but it's being overrun by the virus as you read this. He needs help. He's not getting nearly enough.

Either.

But his buying power can be increased sharply by combining with Michigan. So can Wisconsin's. (Note that the gerrymandered Republican legislative leaders have advised Democratic Governor Tony Evers not to seek federal help just yet; what, so their revered leader in Washington need not look quite so bad?) So can Iowa's, which has a Republican governor. So can Minnesota's, which has a Democratic governor. So can Nebraska's, which has a Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, who's on record (with CNN) saying that this isn't a hoax. See? We're pretty far across the nation now.

I think of the prime phrase from the movie "War Games," in which a computer holds the key to saving the world: The only way to win [at nuclear war] is not to play. The governors must conclude first, that partisanship is secondary; second, that they're simply not going to get what the federal government should be doing for them; and third, that together, they can overtake this utter irresponsibility together. Whatever frees them from needing to cooperate with 45 will be the way through.

This may not be nuclear war, but it's survival at its highest level nonetheless. And 45 has no real caring about anybody else's survival but his own, politically. Anyone who needs to pay the greatest price for that, will. They're just in the way.

On CNN just before, Dr. Anthony Fauci, seemingly the only conduit to 45 (for now) to make much sense (I think he was the prime source of thwarting 45's proposed 'quarantine' of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, as ridiculous as that would have been), was quoted as saying as somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans will die from the virus after it has had its way. Nancy Pelosi has already said that 45's dithering, for whatever reason, has been "deadly," and she's correct. Nowhere near the lives that have been lost need to have been lost to this point. And they pile up by the hour.

It's probably risky, to be sure, to try such a thing depending upon the state; the mechanics and politics of such moves are probably complicated. But they can be simplified, too, by the necessity of the moment. I just read something on Facebook, put there by my friend Kathryn Valido, that's worth mentioning, a quote from FDR: "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear."

We are nearing that point for all 50 states. 45 is trying to get away with inadequacy. He might do so politically for the moment, but he can't medically. It's impossible, and he won't take the responsibility of caring for the country's population. Someone has to. That someone is the governors of the states.

First, ignore his request to get them on the phone. That's the vehicle of his control. Ignore him. He isn't respecting them; why should they return anything like it? Then get each other on the phone and float out such a proposal. He'll find out soon enough, and ignore him again. We're busy. We have a population to save if you won't do what you can to do so.

Oh, he'll threaten to cut states off, like he just did to Michigan. So what? Get a consortium going, and you won't need it. That's the idea.

Is this radical? Depends on how you look at it. But the virus will come at us in waves, and something like this must be considered to deal with it. Otherwise, we're completely at its mercy.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark

My Friends Are Surrounded by Idiots

I have friends in Arkansas. They're surrounded by idiots.

Arkansas is one of those states situated so it has several states bordering it. Each of them, except one (so far), has done something incredibly stupid with respect to the coronavirus. Remember that Arkansas is in the middle of the Bible Belt. That should alert you sufficiently. We'll come back to Arkansas in a moment; that state certainly isn't immune to stupidity.

In the meantime: Take Mississippi, for instance. Please take it. Attach it to another country. I don't want to be identified with it.

Its governor, ever wise and ever brave, is not going to shelter its citizens in place. "We're not going to be China," he said, as if being China would be an admission that it had done something well, like shut itself down so its citizens could be safe--which it's done. As if Chinese citizens were so different from the people of Mississippi. As if its government could transmit itself into ours.

No, governor, you won't be China. You're going to be a hell of a lot worse than China, because your citizens will be allowed to pretend that the coronavirus isn't anywhere near your state. But it has to be, because of.....

Louisiana, which has just had its Mardi Gras, which means thousands upon thousands of partiers have gathered together, then gone home to spread the virus absolutely everywhere. Its governor said that the federal government didn't give it any kind of a heads-up that the virus was on its way.

I have news, governor: This federal government isn't going to do anything it feels it doesn't have to do to let anybody know about anything until after it happens. Its trustability had been established at or near zero long before this, though, on any number of topics. Weren't you paying attention?

Paying attention like Texas, whose lieutenant governor has suggested that grandparents were ready to sacrifice themselves by dying for their grandchildren, if need be, so they don't have to go without their just, uh, desserts. My reaction to that is in another, recently written blog. I invite you to partake.

Up the ladder we go to Oklahoma, whose governor took his kids out to show that the coronavirus wasn't a big deal. I want to see him in church on Easter Sunday, like our incredibly brave president suggests we do (wait and see whether he goes). And without masks, besides, so he can take full responsibility (The governor, that is; the president has said he doesn't take any at all. Remember him saying so?) for getting himself and his kids sick. I wonder what the guy's poor wife is thinking, unless she's that stupid, too. She married him. You never know.

In Missouri, which has gone rogue on sound thinking for about ten years now, that governor refuses to issue a shelter-in-place order, too. Another tough guy, warding off the virus just because he thinks it isn't a big deal. What, it's gonna hit the Mississippi River and stop? It already hasn't. Will it respond to a scolding? Does it know it's being naughty?

That leaves Tennessee, where in Cleveland, a pastor named Perry Stone said that the virus was a "reckoning" brought on by the nation's rejection of God and its acceptance of abortion and gay marriage. He thinks the Holy Spirit spoke to him. All that sinnin', you know?

That doesn't explain all the other countries--148 at last count--that have this virus running wild within them, too. Or maybe the Holy Spirit has allowed him to talk crazy about just the U.S. I'll get back to you if he comes clean on the others.

Not that Arkansas doesn't have silly defiance within it, too. In Greers Ferry, about 75 miles north of Little Rock, a congregation met very recently and 34 people got sick. That's the (holy) spirit. Has the guy in Cleveland, Tennessee, been there? Did the virus reach only those who are liberals? Did everybody pray real, real hard? Is that why only 34 of them got sick? Could there have been more?

The virus hasn't really reached those states yet. It'll get there. Then we'll see if the brave governors want to wander out into the illness, what with the lack of respirators that will become painfully evident. I'm guessing not; tough talk doesn't transcend self-preservation. To think that this is the limits of the virus is as absurd as the stances they're taking. But they still have time--time to think of something else to blame. Watch for it.

In the meantime, I have only this for my friends in Arkansas: Duck. Wash your hands often. Get some masks if you can. Stay home, and for heaven's sake, don't travel to any state that surrounds you.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark

Note to Dan Patrick: STFU, Or Go First

Those of you who have grandchildren: Would you take a bullet for them? Would you step out in front of a Mack truck?

I have little doubt that you would. So let's get that straight right off the bat.

The question is why. Of course you would do it because you've lived a full and (relatively) happy life; that you have lived long enough to see your children get married (regardless of the status of that marriage now) and have kids; and you know that your prodigy will be continued.

If it was a matter of you dying rather than them, and you knew it instinctively, you'd do it in your last heartbeat. It's very basic. It's love. It's dignity. It's pride.

What if it was a matter of wondering whether your grandchildren would end up poorer than you, and you absolutely knew it? That's what Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said the other day. He said you'd walk into a room filled with coronavirus victims, take several good, deep breaths, and lay down for a few days until you died a terrible death from asphyxiation, all to save your prodigy from discomfort.

You see, I guess there's no chance of them ever recovering from the economic disaster that 45 wants to foist upon most of us unless there's a few less of us among whom to spread whatever aid is coming from Congress. I guess they're about as helpless as our parents were in recovering from the Depression of the 1930s.

Wait, you say: We did recover from that. Okay, it took a national effort to reconstruct industry, but World War II provided us with that. Otherwise, it would have taken a lot longer. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't have happened. It doesn't mean that the thing you're only too happy to discuss under normal circumstances, hard work and ingenuity, wouldn't have brought us through.

Good old American know-how and work ethic? I guess that's inadequate. I guess Dan Patrick has concluded that tomorrow really isn't the kind of day we'd look forward to. He's taking the easy way out: Suggesting that grandparents are sufficiently done with their lives, and it's time to die now.

Did that enter the conversation in the 1930s? My study of history didn't suggest that, although there was a time when weeding out the inadequate was in vogue. But the Nazis did that. We fought a war, and a number of us are buried in Europe, to prove that every person has a right to life and liberty, to live as long as they wished in freedom. There are a few left who did that. My dad is one of them.

So Johnny and Susie won't be seeing Nana and Gamps anymore because they've committed suicide--but it's for them, so it's okay. The situation, you see, is unusual. There's this virus amongst us, and we know that some of us won't get past it. So Mr. Tough Guy says it's time to cash in the chips if you have grandkids, that your lives won't last that much longer anyhow, that there's little effect you can have on anybody. I mean, it's a tradeoff, right?

Okay, Mr. Tough Guy: You go first. You give up your life. Go ahead. We'll see, then, if it has the economic effect you said it would. We'll get back to you on the other side--whatever that is, wherever that is.

Oh, wait, you say. We'd have to have a whole bunch of oldsters tanking to have that kind of effect? The mantle of leadership still hasn't changed, dude. You're still the lieutenant governor of one of our largest states. What better example would it be for you to get a whole bunch of us in a room and spray it with coronavirus (I'm sure it could be arranged; there's enough of it out there), and party until we fell? That is, if you joined us? Or would it be a very selective Sodom and Gomorrah, with you obviously in charge of the selection?

Now that you've run your mouth, we'll see if you can back it up. Otherwise, shut the fuck up. I know you won't, since I was once a citizen of your state and while I was there, you didn't say one damn thing that made any sense, anyhow. What you've just said was an example of the virulent nonsense you've been piled upon Texans for several years.

There's another way of accomplishing what you say you want: To pretend that the virus isn't that big of a deal. That's what 45, in his tunnel-visioned, profit-making stupidity, wants when he says that he'd love it if the economy just got back to being normal at Easter time--and if the churches were filled for Easter services.

He wants to use the risen Christ as a metaphor. But he won't, or at least, he'll look pretty stupid if he does (not that that's ever stopped him). The disease will be rushing over all of us just about then. He'll have to fire his medical advisors because they're not going to tell him what he wants to hear--as if the virus will be stopped or diminished just because he wants it to be.

Liberty University is calling its students back to classes. I guess we'll see if all this was a hoax, a politically-manipulated effort to take 45 out of office. Or if he'll just do it himself by getting dullards killed because they followed the pied piper off the cliff, as he watched and then (you can bet) blaming someone else instead of his own disgusting example.

These are sick people. They don't need a virus to prove it. And, God help us, they're in charge.

Be well. For heaven's sake, be careful. With luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark

I Have A Reason To Stay Alive. It's Right in Front of Me.

I could just fold the tent right here, you know. On the surface, there's no reason why not.

I don't have kids. I'm retired, so I'm not working for anyone. I could get in my car, drive to a place where Republicans will always be in control, just hang out for a while, and get the disease. They don't seem to be worried about it. They seem to be in control, without a concern. It will, somehow, avoid them.

I might as well get it over with. The stats are not in my favor. I have a heart condition; my triple by-pass qualifies as one, though I feel okay right now. I could get sick and die within, oh, maybe two weeks. I'm 68 years old, so I qualify for the riskiest.

But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to stay alive, damn it, if I possibly can (and even though I'm observing social distancing, I'm not sure of that). I just figured it out. Sometimes, what's right in front of you doesn't appear to be significant until you think about it a while. And sometimes, something happens that tells you that someone's catching on.

About ten minutes to six last night, I turned on the TV to see our terrible president try to snow everyone again. He was given the line "war president" by someone reporting for Fox News, so that's an easy piece of garbage to throw into his completely bogus self-description. If he really were a war president, he'd be acting much, much differently, much like FDR or Lincoln in expanding his powers to make sure everyone's on the same page. But he isn't, saying that the states should handle this, which is exactly the wrong way to deal with it. He will learn this, too, in the next two or three weeks, when this virus completely overruns us (by Easter, we will be a completely different country). But in the meantime, just being a large person and talking real tough will substitute for having the skills necessary to deal with this crisis.

When he figures it out, it will be too late. We will be in the thick of it, right up to our necks, with no one to help us quick enough. The hospitals will be packed tight. The state governments will be backed up with orders for equipment. People will be getting sick and dying, and doctors will have to make the terrible decision about who they can keep living, if they themselves aren't stricken.

If I'm wrong about this, I'll apologize right here. But we are behind the help curve now, and all the predictors are showing that we will not catch up until thousands die. 45 had a chance to get out ahead of this, but his obsession with making money overtook his obsession about life itself.

In the meantime, someone's starting to catch on. Someone's starting to think that it really doesn't matter much what 45 thinks, because first, he exaggerates; second, he lies; and third, he's exactly the opposite of what we need here--a leader who has a grasp of the situation, which he doesn't.

How do I think this? Because NBC was the only one of the three networks to cover the press conference in its entirety yesterday. CBS did not allow it to get in the way of its regularly scheduled broadcast of "60 Minutes" (note that it always allows itself to delay the broadcast because NFL games go past 6 p.m. CST). And ABC, at least the Milwaukee affiliate, didn't broadcast it at all.

I checked, twice. I came back to all of them after 6 p.m. CST.

And when I turned on NBC, I heard just two things: First, that 45 was complaining that nobody thanked him for giving up his salary, as if that matters to anyone right now; and second, that he "gave up billions of dollars" when he became president (a clear lie, what with his utter brushing away of the emoluments clause of the Constitution). He tried to get people to feel sorry for the rich, who have to give up their riches to run for office.

I stopped listening after that. It's still all about him. He can't help himself. That about 38 percent of the population still seems to care about him and think of him as a leader is pathetic. He will have to lie a lot, and in new ways, to keep hold of that base. The use of religion will be next. Count on it. So will attacks on certain governors, on Obama, maybe even on Hillary Clinton, even though he eliminated the pandemic response team tied to the National Security Council, to cut costs, and tried to say that it was subsumed within the government somewhere else, which is a lie. It's all so predicable, and none of it's believable.

Thousands will die, so he mocked Mitt Romney for self-quarantining in case he could have gotten the virus from the arrogant Rand Paul. That's the spirit. Make sure you trash anyone who's done anything against you.

Sure, you can trash the "liberal media" for its bias. You can think of this as some kind of plot against 45, as if the virus was somehow planted to make him look bad. Or you can conclude, as the networks seem to be doing, that he's mouthing continued nonsense because he doesn't know what else to say and saying something seems to be what is called for now, instead of saying nothing until the facts are determined.

I heard that trash, and I made up my mind right then and there that I would stay alive if I possibly could to usher in a new president, whenever that was possible. This one should have absolutely nothing to do with this. He should be kept as far away as possible. He is probably the most inadequate person alive who should be in the most important position alive to deal with this.

I don't want to die with him in charge. What a terrible way to end it. I really don't deserve this, and I know plenty of people who don't, either. The 38 percent don't realize that they don't, but there's little I can do about that. All I can do is keep writing this, read some books, and minimize my contacts until this awful disease eases its grip.

But that's what I'm gonna do. By God, I won't die with this monster, this incompetent fool, this nasty person who's taking advantage of his position to insult whomever he wants, free to speak for my country, my great country, the one that people around the world once relied on as a moral beacon, the one I taught thousands of kids about. I want to live, and live in a different country than the one he's created and desperately wants to continue.

It won't be easy. It's already been a little depressing. I come close to crying when I think that I have friends in Sturgeon Bay who would like to hear this, but I can't drive up there and read it until further notice. But I'm going to remind myself of what I'm doing and why. At those moments, it'll be a little easier.

Be well. Be careful. With a little luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark

What We Know So Far, and What We Need To Do

The coronavirus attack is at least a month and a half old now, at least in this country. It's a good time to assess what we know so far:

• The 45 Administration didn't want to face up to the problem. It knew, back in January, that this attack was coming and was unstoppable. It did next to nothing.
• The 45 Administration doesn't know how to deal with this. It is stalling for time until something's done by someone else.
• If not for Dr. Fauci, this entire effort would be lost. It may still be. He's doing his best to keep people calm, but he doesn't have the trigger that has to be pulled on the distribution of resources,
• Vice-President Pence doesn't know what to do, either. He sounds better because he's been at the podium as a governor and member of Congress. This is beyond him, too.
• The administration has leaned so hard on the state governments because it doesn't know what to do, even though it was warned ahead of time.
• 45 is manning the podium because he's a control freak, even though it's clear that he doesn't know what to do. Whatever is being done is not being ordered by him. If it were so, he would be telling us exactly that. Six weeks now, and he hasn't ordered anybody to do anything, besides declare New York State to be a disaster area, which we already knew.
• Speaking of that: The only real leadership that's being done is by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He has at least tried to size up the situation and summarize it in terms of resources needed. That's what we need here: A realistic estimate of the size of what we have in front of us and what's needed to ward it off as much as we can. We aren't getting that from the national administration, because every day that goes by, it becomes more inadequate, not less.
• 45 is manning the podium so that when there is an answer to this problem, he will appear to be the one who solved it--even though it's now clear that he can't.
• Remember that 45 has said, "I don't take any responsibility." He said that, and it is up to us to be sure that it comes back to get him. When things are quite obviously out of control, remember who he blames. It will be false. It will be a lie.
• Rely on Axios to give you the best updates. They are saying that tens of thousands, if not a million, will die from coronavirus. The number of dead it reports Saturday are 244. That is a pinprick. Yes: You need to stay inside. Yes: You need to be extremely careful. Ignore all attempts to minimize this.
• We are not remotely close to being overrun by this virus. By Easter, it will happen. Then it will be important to tune into these conferences, because it will be obvious then that this administration is beyond help and must be replaced immediately. It will make excuses for itself. They, too, will be inadequate. But it will be important, especially then, that you do not panic.
• If you want to know exactly what we need, go to the website Medium and click on "The Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance," by Tomas Pueyo (h/t to my friend, Dennis Boom, for lighting me up to that). That will tell you. We need to be tough about this for three months. Then we can adjust better. BUT NOT UNTIL THEN.
• Sophisticated, leading questions like the one Peter Alexander asked 45 are still quite beyond him. If you are not a member of Fox News, he is incapable of seeing anything but the likelihood of a threat implied by any question that doesn't, according to him, make him look terrific.
• The latest press conference had little additional to say beyond what's already been reported. Generalizations are all 45 can come up with because this situation is still beyond him.
• The recession/depression that this will cause will be beyond anything anyone under 75 has seen. Some businesses will simply be unable to recover because people's tastes will change. When we are finished with this, the country will not look nearly the same. We have ridden a tremendous bubble of 75 years, but it has broken.
• There is no national leadership here. Absolutely none. Leadership would have marshaled resources and been far beyond what this band of incompetents have done so far. Leadership would not have lied about getting resources where they were needed. Leadership would not have lied about hospital ships getting to their destinations quickly.
• We will need to be good to each other in the stores. As this epidemic gets closer and the results become clearer and scarier, people will be tempted to hoard all the more. We cannot let our tempers get in the way. We must support each other while we get what we need for ourselves.
• Exhortations like the ones that 45 and Secretary of Housing and Human Services Ben Carson made at the press conference today--we are all in this together, for example, no matter what party you belong to--are good and nice and needed, but not without specific directives, not without a path. Without that, they mean next to nothing. They do not inspire.
• Yes, we will get through this--those of us who are left. But how many thousands more need to die because this administration is still playing catch-up eight weeks after it was warned?

We are about to enter a time that will test all of us. We must do our best to take care of each other. The federal government may, or may not, catch up. It's the lack of knowledge that will doom us if we let it. The best advice is what has already been given informally: Assume you have the disease so you don't give it to someone. If we all think that, we'll have the best chance of surviving. Good luck to all. Do what makes sense. And keep your hands clean.

Be well. Be careful. With luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark