Watched part of the debate tonight. It was boring, to be honest. The only interesting part, which I missed, was that Biden committed to name a woman running mate. I don't think the debate changed anything and unless something happens dramatically in Ohio or Illinois on Tuesday, I think Biden is going to be the nominee. So the talk will turn to who his running mate will be.
Obviously Warren, Harris and Klobuchar will be considered. I don't see any of them helping Biden in the general election. Klobuchar may solidify Minnesota but that was in the Democratic column anyway. Stacey Abrams may help with the black vote and maybe put Georgia in play but is doubtful. A pundit mentioned Tammy Baldwin, senator from Wisconsin. I don't know anything about her. According to the internet she is in her second term as senator and did win reelection in 2018 by a big margin. She is gay. So the question is, can she flip Wisconsin. If she can, then all Biden has to do is flip Michigan and Pennsylvania, which he has a good chance of doing. It is an interesting choice if Biden makes it.
Another day and worsening of the pandemic in Europe and the U.S. as China stabilizes. As experts say things will get worse before getting better, Trump announces that we have tremendous control over the virus. How can anyone believe his lies? He is happy that the Fed decreased interest rate to practically 0. He thinks that will bring back the stock market and the economy. His administration's response to the pandemic is still incoherent, like his speech last week. You would think we should be be more prepared after learning from China, Italy and South Korea. But we are not!
Sunday, March 15, 2020
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Well, I think there was a lot of arrogance that the virus would not spread as quickly here by a lot of people. You can probably count me in as one of those people who didn't think things could get this bad. But you know things are bad when they are shutting down restaurants before St. Patrick's Day and shutting down sports and entertainment.
ReplyDeleteI've always said that money runs the world, but these closures show that this is serious stuff. I still plan on trying to support local businesses by getting some carryouts, which I don't do that often. I do feel bad for these small businesses. I could not imagine owning a restaurant right now and having to lose most of your business.
I forgot about the debate last night, but caught some of the clips from the news. I heard that Sanders doesn't show that he's stopping anytime soon. We will see what happens after Tuesday to see if any of that changes. Pretty hard to gather support by doing online fireside chats.
It'll be interesting to see who Biden picks. I'm sure he already has someone in mind or that person has been approached. I am hoping that it's not the governor of Michigan, but it wouldn't surprise me. I don't know if she could help him carry the state as she's not super popular.
-LBOAYM
I admit that I also was one of those who didn't think things could get out of hand this bad. I thought that after the Swine flu epidemic, the Obama administration had strengthened the pandemic response team. It had worked well during the Ebola crisis. Given that we were given a heads up from China about COVID 19 and even had the genome of the virus given to us, I would have thought that we had plenty of time to prepare and run tests. When the cases were low in the U.S. in comparison with other countries, I thought we had things under control and there was no reason to panic. But Trump had got rid of the pandemic team and were doing practically no testing. Talking about China being nontransparent! Now there is revelation that some deaths from this virus was listed as flu deaths. When did we know about that? It is still not revealed.
ReplyDeleteIf the right information is not given to healthcare workers, the advice to the general public is going to be flawed. Leaders of some countries have downplayed this pandemic which hurt them. Italy is the prime example. If we didn't learn from China, we should have learned from Italy. Today, Trump finally admits that things are bad. Still he gives himself a 10 for his response!
Trump was still gleeful yesterday when he learned of the Fed cutting the interest rate. Not so today, when the Dow lost 3,000 points. I was watching his news conference today on CNBC where the Dow numbers were on the screen next to video of the conference. It seems every time Trump opened his mouth, the Dow dropped. But not so when others talk. It maybe a coincidence, but do you trust Trump or say Dr. Fauci?
Romney had come out and suggest that we should give every adult one thousand dollars to jump start the economy. Where did I hear this before? Has Romney became a member of the Yang Gang?
They are postponing the Ohio primary tomorrow. Given the crisis we have, I guess not many people will pay attention to the primary anyway. But it may give Sanders a break. I don't think Biden will pick the governor of Michigan. If he can't win Pennsylvania and Michigan on his own, he will not win anyway.
A friend of my wife just came back from New Zealand today. She said there was no line at Customs and no temperature or any health screening at LAX. The whole thing took 5 minutes. That is good for her as she didn't have to endure hours like it was shown on tv couple days ago. But this is very bad if we are trying to hold back the pandemic. Are we just worry about people coming back from Europe and not those from Asia and Oceania? LAX is one of our biggest international hubs and we are not checking anyone coming through?
ReplyDeleteI saw a church in Louisiana had 300 people for services yesterday. There were also lots of springbreakers in Florida congregating on the beaches. I think there are many people in this country who are not taking things seriously. Didn't they know that South Korea's outbreak was mainly due to a religious group congregating? But in this era of fake news according to Trump, it seems the worst fake news comes from certain conservative media which either downplayed the seriousness of this pandemic or put out absurd conspiracy theories. Many elderly watch or listen to these outlets and are going to be very vulnerable as a result.
As of this writing, the number of cases in the U.S. has surpassed those of South Korea. I will not be surprised that we eventually pass Italy in number of cases. Hopefully we won't pass them in the death counts. But given what I saw in the last couple of days, I think we are going to be in trouble!
That's crazy that there was no screening for your wife's friend. I wonder if they were Asian, that TSA would pull them aside and take their temperature! What concerns me is that Tom Hanks and his wife are in Australia with the virus, so we know it's in the region, so why not exercise caution? I can't imagine there are that many people coming from New Zealand, that it would take that much longer.
ReplyDeleteI saw last night that they are shutting things down more in California. I would think we will see more of these type of things soon elsewhere.
As much as I want to see $1000 in my pocket, the pragmatist in me wonders if I and my fellow Americans will pay for it eventually down the road. Will the rich get away from helping pay for this stimulus through some kind of loophole? I was skeptical when Yang offered the solution as well. It's funny that Republicans are backing this plan, since it's a total socialistic offer.
Did you see that supposedly some congressmen were in a meeting about the virus and dumped a bunch of stock? It seems to me that this is insider trading and if true, these people should be prosecuted.
The other thing I saw this week, which I have not seen confirmation, is that Trump's speech about the virus has Chinese written on it in place of Corona. To me, if this is true, he is purposely causing undo harm to Chinese and Asian people. This reminds me a bit of the 80's when there was backlash to Asian people when the Japanese autos were taking a bite out of the U.S. auto sales.
-LBOAYM
Our friend is Chinese but I would guess the majority in the plane are not Chinese. Although the travel ban is for Europe and Asia, the customs area in LAX was for all international flights. So they are not checking people from Asia and Europe as well. And even though most direct flights from Europe probably land in New York or other hubs in the East, there are direct flights to LAX from Europe, I am sure. So to me that is weird if not dangerous to concentrate on the East coast and ignore things here.
ReplyDeleteI think the restrictions in California and New York should be implemented nationwide, at least in the largest cities. In China when they shut down Wuhan completely, they also restricted Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and others. The genie is out of the bottle here, shutting down just California and New York won't do it.
I am sure I will have a blog about the bailouts once the bill is passed, so I will wait to comment. But when did the Congressmen dumped their stock? If this took place more than 2 weeks ago, then it is very suspicious. If this happened in the last week or so, they are just doing what millions of people are doing.
Yes, Trump's use of the phrase Chinese virus is racist. The Swine flu started in North America but nobody named it American flu. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1919 was not started in Spain. There are arguments about where it started. Many historians believed that it started in Kansas although some argued that it started in China even though the numbers of cases in China were relatively low. There is no argument that the white men brought diseases to the New World and killed many natives. Same with the British who brought diseases to the Aborigines in Australia. Are we going to call these diseases White Men diseases?
Did you see the Fox News guy who called on China to apologize for the COVID-19. He also claimed that China produces diseases because they are backwards and people are starving so that they have to eat bats! With China doing so much better than Western nations at this time and with the rhetoric from our leader who always passes the buck, I think Asians are going suffer for this. I would not be surprised if another Vincent Chin incident occurs soon.