Y'know it looks to me like

Trump backed down on some major shit this weekend.  One...he dropped that bizarre notion of a tai-state super quarantine, basically it shriveled up & died as soon as NY Governor Cuomo pissed all over it.  And then, the president pushed back the end date of the shelter-in-place until the end of April, having previously tried to gin up an end to restrictions by Easter.
In all a bad weekend for threats, delusion and malignant fantasy.
Meanwhile, The Useless and Malevolent Governor of Florida, whose sole contribution to the current crisis was creating tens of thousands of pathogen vectors by not closing the beaches for Spring Break, has mopped his brow, gritted his teeth and blamed New York for the whole damn thing.
That will be the GOP line this week, that somehow NYC is to blame for all of it, the problem is, the visuals stark, horrific and even sometimes heroic, that are coming out of Manhattan, strongly undercut that message.
So my prediction (and what else is there to do save sit at home and figure out VOD?) is that the GOP and the rest of the Forces of Reaction will be scrambling for a new message by Wednesday.

The Proposed "Tri State Quarantine"

eructed by the President today, in a most offhanded fashion, is really nothing but another ploy by the Regime to find someone or something to pillory instead of making the hard decisions to fight the epidemic.
Mark My Words, if he so much as attempts such a lock down, without the consent and assistance of local authorities, the damn thing will end up being a farce that Trump will try to blame on the democrats.  Just floating the idea alone will back up the Bourne & Sagamore Bridges two miles with Gothamites desperate to reach the imagined safety of their summer McMansions in Wellfleet.
No, this nonsense is simply an attempt to blame local authorities for the epidemic, Trump will announce the quarantine then simply blame Cuomo, DeBlasio & Murphy et al, when it doesn't work.
I urge all these worthies not to fall for it, they need to keep the narrative focused their lack of PPE supplies and ventilators, they've got to keep the lockdown going as long as necessary with or without the help of the Feds.
Quite frankly, we are approaching, in the patois of the US Navy "The Final Extremity", Governors Cuomo, Murphy and even Governor Whitmer of Michigan are entirely within their rights to explore requesting help in the form of supplies either from foreign vendors or the U.N./WHO.
its a dim chance but we are running out of options and "Peak Virus" hasn't hit yet.

We know what happens when a State or States

secede from the Federal Union, we found out in 1861, Civil War Breaks Out.  But what happens when the Federal Government decides, whimsically, to go to war with an individual state on purely partisan grounds?
Because we seem to have reached that point in Michigan, where the White House is seemingly pressuring vendors not to sell PPE to said state because the incumbent regime has a grudge against the Governor.
My recommendation to Governor Whitmer is to outreach to Canadian vendors and see if anything can be procured there.  I'm thinking Canada simply to exploit a short supply line, but other foreign sources should be cultivated if possible. Likely there is nothing much to be found, but it's worth a try anyway.
This "policy" from the White House is politicizing mass murder quite frankly, but it is almost beside the point. The constitutional issue remains what is the corrective when the executive department goes berserk and starts randomly settling scores with individual states?
Per a strict reading of "The Federalist Papers", it was assumed by the founders in the unlikely situation described above that the coequal branches of the US Government would step in to redress the situation.
Well we saw how well that went back in January with the so-called "Senate Trial", the Courts as well, packed as they are with vengeful witch burners seem equally hapless in this crisis.
There is also the 25th Amendment, but that depends on the VP being a better man and better patriot that the groveling toady that is Mike Pence.  Or another Senate Trial...likely an impossibility given the current pathogenic situation, to say nothing of the politics of the idea.
After that whats left?
Mass Civil Disobedience? We aren't yet outside the US Constitution based on the notion of "petitioning for the redress of grievances, but we are getting there all the same.  I don't know what must happen next, I think wise action starts with a self admission that critical leadership personalities have deliberately failed us, and they must be compelled to leave public office, now.  Rights are inalienable no matter what the circumstances, the right to compel a change in leadership most of all.

I'm getting a paltry $1200.00

from the Feds instead a Corona Virus Vaccine.  I think the idea is, that somehow via sheer incantation, Randian Economics will take hold and I'll somehow stumble over a cure all by myself if fortified with some chump change.  Whenever republicans run up on the rocks, and a real crisis is down on us, their first instinct is to make a bonfire of Milton Friedman's books and then ascend the Truman Balcony and rain largesse down on the masses like Gaius Caligula.
So much for "Pay Any Price, Bear Any Burden".
Meanwhile the stimulus bill is merrily bailing out Cruise Lines most of whom are foreign flagged to avoid US taxes, I do not understand why Carnival Corporation cannot appeal to the Government of Panama/The Bahamas/Malta for their bailout...?
Frankly a good hundred of those floating anachronisms could get send to the boneyard sans any effect on the GNP.
My Ghod and we are still three weeks away from "Peak Virus" in the USA....

Senator Richard Burr (GOP NC)

the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, apparently unloaded his most vulnerable stocks prior to the Corona Virus outbreak in the USA.  He'd been briefed, that this was gonna be a game changer. While the pathogen was ramping up, he was calling press conferences assuring the press & public the Government had everything well in hand...and dumping his hotel stocks.
So lets see, Burr is a crook trading on inside info to enrich himself, he is a liar and a malevolent one, misleading his fellow citizens in  a time of danger, to protect his own wealth no less...it it axiomatic he should resign and depart public life before he gets us all killed,but alas so should about five hundred other people in Washington DC and list grows longer every day.  Burr is a ghoul and a criminal and with the crisis escalating around us the M-F-er will probably get away with it.

But in a Larger Sense

this is a Crisis Forty Years in the Making, since the High Noon of Saint Ronald of Santa Barbara, prepped with diabolical fury by the Bushes, Father and Son and now, a mere mirthless senile Birthday Party Clown Falls Heir to All of It.
The fact that that crisis is the Novel Corona Virus, is almost beside the fact, the mania for small government, good at waging war, smacking minorities around, ignoring women and self destructively inept at everything else, has brought us all to this pretty pass.  A Government creaky understaffed, underfunded and riddled with sky grifters and Teachables in High Places is on a collision with a outmoded healthcare system that is mostly geared to maximize shareholder.  Dunno who is gonna win, but right now, my money is on the pathogen, quite frankly I don't see how it can lose given how well the ground has been prepared.

Charlie Baker is a Crashing Bore in Extremis

possibly the least inspiring Governor of Massachusetts since the Empire Days of Calvin Coolidge, but at least, he does not live in grievance-land or the Trumpian Republic of Delusion, He listens to the doctors/scientists and tries to act according.
It ain't much, very frankly I can think of ten other people I'd prefer as Governor, but thanks to the Trump Regime the standards of leadership have been so abased that a chronic droner like Charlie can be a Demosthenes.
Meanwhile Our President mused on Twitter of a full pardon for Michael Flynn, ginned up Hillary's emails again before another one of his dementia laced non-press conferences, such is a Typical Sunday in a Prolonged Drought of Leadership.
People will start running out of money soon, whole classes of people will be laid off, thousands will be sick and like to die. Chaos is looming quite frankly. But in all of this we must hold on, to our character as a democratic polity, to our lives of charitable citizen and resolve to survive, revive and endure.

Wow one speech on TV

and Trump drops the market twenty three hundred points and set off a nationwide panic that is emptying grocery stores and causing our economy to grind to a halt even as I write this...one good thing comes of this, the American People are so alarmed they are actually willing to listen to the Doctors and Scientists and try to mitigate this thing into a early plateau that won't crash our already creaky health care system
Trump looked terrible last night, glassy eyed, inarticulate, he looked like he needed a cocktail of stimulants to get thru the gig as he ground thru his usual lies and excuses. He honestly has no idea what to do, there is nothing, no one to eviscerate, he cannot browbeat a virus on social media, hence his remarkably flaccid performance, without some person to hate Trump literally can't think or act.
Well, y'all were warned, I can't really say much more than that.
Our leaders are either grifters or ineptoids or at worst, inept grifters, all they can do is fix blame or steal and hope this thing blows over, nothing more. Thats why there is a shortage of testing kits for the Corona Virus despite three full months of warning something bad was coming.  There is nothing left for us now, the wrong people are making bad decisions and screaming like stuck pigs when they get called out on it, it'll cost lives, its already costing lives.
So if they won't lead, then the American People will have to lead themselves, save themselves, succor themselves, I hope we are equal to the challenge.

Wha Happened?

on Super Tuesday I mean?

***
Senator Warren took out Bloomberg in the Debate, tore out his living guts and used them to grease the treads of her tank.  Thus immunizing the democratic party (for now) from the unappetizing prospect of a faithless plutocrat buying the nomination wholesale. Meanwhile, Senator Sanders, on the eve of the Massachusetts Primary went all out balls to the wall Bernie-Bro and held two "huge" rallies intent on humiliating Elizabeth Warren on her home turf.
And what the hell it worked....she came in third.  And right now I can tell you the balance of PUMAs who still gather about her as acolytes do, are a displeased resentful lot with little love for the Senator from Vermont, he's gonna need to preach a lot of peace and make many many promises to reconcile himself to this crowd.
But I think in a larger sense, all Sanders and Warren did was collectively hold the bridle that Former VP Joe Biden might mount up and ride to Glory.  I think Bernie would have been well served to stay out of the Commonwealth and cede the State to Warren, the better to deny a little momentum to Biden, but no, Sanders went for humiliation and went promptly off a cliff.
Insofar as Massachusetts is concerned, I suspect this was the vibe on Tuesday Night elsewhere as well, a shit ton of democrats went into the voting booths, looked over the field and said to themselves,  I Didn't Sign Up for This...and promptly voted for Joe Biden.
The President (assuming he is paying attention in his allegedly drug addled state), Senator Sanders and many others had best beware that italicized emotion above, the voters clearly want an end to fear, uncertainty, grievance, special privileges for weirdos no one has ever heard of AND the tyranny of the wealthy.  They thought Joe can do that, maybe not so much Bernie or even Elizabeth sad to say.
They aren't asking for much, just for all of this shit to stop.
That is the real takeaway from Super Tuesday,  The Country is Screaming for Decent Sane Constitutional Leadership. They'll even vote for Joe Biden to get it.