The Continuing Crisis: President Trump signed an emergency relief bill to provide $500 billion in paid sick leave, unemployment checks, free coronavirus testing, and food and medical aid to people affected by the pandemic.

  The Senate vote was 90 to 8. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged diehard conservatives against the bill to “gag and vote for it anyway.” A sympathetic man in hard times.

  The President said that the Department of Housing and Urban Development would suspend all foreclosures and evictions until the end of April.

  In other developments, the US and Canada agreed to close their mutual border to all non-essential traffic while President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act so he can order factories to produce millions of face masks, gowns, gloves, and other medical supplies needed to fight the coronavirus.

  Two military hospital ships have been dispatched to New York City and the West Coast, the government says. The USS Comfort has 1,000 beds, 80 of them for intensive care.

 Trump also said he put the federal emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on Level 1 alert, its highest. 

The Economy, Stupid: While Trump was speaking, the financial markets were taking another nose dive, triggering an automatic trading breather. The Dow Jones has lost almost all the gains it made during the Trump presidency as industry comes to a grinding halt. The big three American automakers say they are stopping production. Marriott Hotels is laying off tens of thousands of people. Danny Meyer’s restaurants are letting go 3,000.

The Numbers: Two members of Congress, Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida and Ben McAdams of Utah, say they have tested positive for the coronavirus. 

  On the cheerier side, China reports that it went a whole day without a new case, an indication that their crisis is nearing its end. Experts say China will have to go without new cases for  14 consecutive days for the outbreak to be considered over.

  This morning, the stats are as follows;

  The US has reported just over 9,415 cases with 150 deaths. That’s nearly a 30 percent increase in deaths in just one day.

  Around the world the number of infections is over 220,000 with 8,966 deaths. Italy, the country hardest hit outside China, reported 475 deaths in just one day.

Denial Ain’t a River: President Trump continues to claim that he and his administration are doing a “fantastic” job of responding to the coronavirus crisis. Early on he denied it was a problem and joined the right wing media in denial.

  He turned down testing kits from the World Health Organization and tests sometimes are still difficult to get for people with symptoms.

  Yesterday Trump said his approval rating is 53 percent — pretty modest for a leader who claims he’s doing great in a time of crisis — but that number is a figment of his imagination. In no poll is his approval at 53 percent … disapproval is 53 percent. 

  Trump in particular has been slow to catch on to the enormity of the pandemic. Here is an abbreviated word trail of Trump’s response:

-Jan. 21 “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” 

-Feb. 2  “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

-Feb. 10  – “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”

-Feb. 26 – “When you have 15 [cases in the United States], and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

-March 9 – “This blindsided the world. And I think we’ve handled it very, very well.”

-March 16 – “We have a problem that a month ago nobody ever thought about.”

-March 17 – “This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

-March 18 –  I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the ‘borders’ from China – against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful & false!”

The Bulletin Board: After a crushing in three Democratic primaries this week, Bernie Sanders is reported to be consulting about the future of his campaign. He’s a little testy about it. Asked about it by a CNN reporter Sanders blurted out, “I’m dealing with a fucking global crisis.” — Sex criminal movie producer Harvey Weinstein has been sent to New York’s Wende prison, east of Buffalo, and if he thinks that’s bad, just wait until winter. 

The Chinese Virus: Trump as recently as yesterday referred to the coronavirus as “the Chinese virus,” labelling it by the country of origin.

  Challenged by a reporter who said there have been some incidents of blaming Chinese Americans, Trump justified the term saying, “Because it comes from China. It’s not racist at all no. It comes from China, that’s why. It comes from China.”

Self Medication: A poster who goes by the name Liquid Faerie reported on Twitter that, “While humans carry out social distancing, a group of 14 elephants broke into a village in Yunan province, looking for corn and other food. They ended up drinking 30kg of corn wine and got so drunk that they fell asleep in a nearby tea garden.”

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