The Continuing Crisis: The House last night passed another $3 trillion economic relief bill that has little chance of passing the Senate and would face a veto by the President.

  The bill includes another $1,200 direct payment to taxpayers as well as nearly $1 trillion in aid to deficit-ridden states, cities, and Indian tribes.

  The strategy of the President, and Republican leaders, appears to be getting the economy rolling without another cash injection. Trump seems to think the fourth quarter will be a miracle. 

 The President yesterday predicted the development of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year, but he’s pushing to re-open the economy either way. “It’s very important, vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back,” he said. 

 Trump announced what he described as a “momentous medical initiative” called Operation Warp Speed to beat the virus. “You really could say that nobody’s seen anything like we’re doing, whether it’s ventilators or testing,” Trump said.

  Missing from the network airwaves in recent days have been the administration’s reasonable voices of medical and epidemiological knowledge. The last national television appearance from a doctor on the coronavirus task force, including Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, was a week ago.They have not been encouraging about the development of a vaccine by the end of the year.

Cashed Out: In the midst of the pandemic economic shutdown, retail sales dropped 14.4 percent in March following the 8.3 percent slide in April.

  Retailer JC Penney has joined J. Crew and Nieman Marcus in filing for bankruptcy after the shutdown killed their business. The shutdown is culling the weaklings out of the retail herd. Penney has been in decline for 20 years.

Late Night: State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, who had been investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s use of a government staff member to perform personal tasks. The Trump administration fires people who ask questions.

Blame: President Trump’s new press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has picked up the cudgel and is wielding it like none of her predecessors. She is fully in the Trump mode of degrading the press while praising the President, skipping over his deficiencies, and blaming his predecessor Barack Obama.

  Yesterday McEnany told reporters that in regard to N95 medical masks and other gear needed during the pandemic, Obama “left the stockpile empty” and “left the cupboards bare.” While that may be true, Trump had been President for three years by the time the pandemic hit and he had not replenished the supplies, leaving many medical workers still begging for vital gear five months into the crisis.

 Trump himself keeps pressing his campaign against former President Barack Obama, tweeting, “Thank you to @foxandfriends for covering, supremely, the greatest political scandal in the history of the United States, OBAMAGATE. Fake News.” As the US continues to suffer the most coronavirus deaths in the World, Fox has turned its guns on Obama and Trump’s claim the he’s a criminal.

  Asked yesterday exactly what that crime might be, McEnany rambled on with a list of names and events but did not describe an actual crime. Pressed by a reporter to name the crime, McEnany said, “Perhaps you should look into it and get me some answers?” She went on,  That is after all the job of reporters to answer the very questions that I’ve laid out.”

  No, in a press conference it’s her job to answer the questions.

The Obit Page: Jerzy Glowczewski, a Polish Spitfire pilot during World War II who flew 100 missions with a Polish fighter squadron under the command of the Royal Air Force, died of the coronavirus at age 97 in a Manhattan nursing home.

  After the war he became an architect, helping to design a rebuilt Warsaw.

  On New Year’s Day, 1945, Glowczewski helped blunt the final major offensive on the Western front, shooting down a Focke-Wulf 190 over Belgium. He wrote in his memoirs, “As I looked over my shoulder, the Focke-Wulf was a crumbling crucifix against the bright, morning sky. Another explosion, it tumbled down.” 

The Bulletin Board: Four northeastern states,  New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Delaware have jointly agreed to allow beaches and lakeshores to open next Friday for Memorial Day weekend. — The Washington Post reports that since Donald Trump took office, the federal government has paid the Trump companies at least $970,000 for more than 1,600 nightly room rentals at Trump’s hotels and clubs. The service has contracted to pay $179,000 this summer for golf cart rentals at the President’s golf resort in Bedminster, NJ. — A barber in Kingston, NY who defied state orders about closure, worked out of his home instead and caught the coronavirus. 

Home Rule: The NY Times reports that Japanese men closed in their homes during the pandemic are learning to actually help with the housework.

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