Doctor in the House: The whistleblower doctor fired from a federal health preparedness agency testified before a House committee yesterday that lives have been lost because the Trump administration did not react quickly enough to warnings of the coming coronavirus pandemic.

  Dr. Richard Bright said, “We still do not have a standard centralized coordinated plan to take our nation through this response.”

  Bright was fired from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, known as BARDA. He had complained about a lack of pandemic planning and resisted cronyism in the awarding of emergency contracts. He is the first former member of the government to publicly say the Trump administration response to the pandemic has been a disaster.

  Trump’s reaction to yesterday’s testimony was, of course, to issue a personal attack, saying “I watched him, and he looks like an angry, disgruntled employee who, frankly, according to some people, didn’t do a very good job.”

  Bright was anything but angry. He was unnervingly calm. The doctor testified that, “Initially our nation was not as prepared as we should have been. As we could have been. Some scientists raised early warning signals that were overlooked. And pages from our pandemic playbook were ignored by some in leadership.”

  Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar protested to reporters that, “What he talked about was done. He said he talked about the need for respirators. We procured respirators at the president’s direction. He said we need a Manhattan project on a vaccine. We had a Manhattan project.”

  But all of that was done after the pandemic was racing through the US. Bright said, “Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to improve our response now, based on science, I fear the pandemic will get worse and be prolonged.”

Proceed With Caution: The Centers for Disease Control issued new guidelines for re-opening schools, restaurants, businesses, and mass transit.

  Generally they say re-opening should include screening of students and transit passengers while promoting cleanliness and protective measures like wearing a mask. 

  The new guidelines have already been criticized as weak and insufficiently specific. 

The Stat Board: Another 1,770 Americans died of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours. The toll is now 85,906 and climbing. It’s just over two weeks since the release of a White House projection of 74,000 deaths by August.

  New York City had 90 deaths in the past day, actually an encouraging number.

With infections and deaths falling in New York, several of the more rural regions of the state have been given the go to re-open for commerce.

  France, Germany, and Spain have loosened up, although infections are rising again in Germany. In Wuhan, China, where the pandemic originated, authorities have vowed to test all 11 million citizens. 

Conspiracy Theory: Amidst the pandemic and his efforts to re-open the country, President Trump is pushing a conspiracy theory that then President Barack Obama oversaw a spying operation on Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump tweeted, “If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama.”

  Former White House doctor Ronny Jackson, who’s now running for congress, has embraced Trump’s conspiracy theory, tweeting an accusation that Obama is “a Deep State traitor.” 

  Former CIA Director John Brennan tweeted in response that Trump’s “propaganda & disinformation machine, which operates according to a despot’s playbook, … far surpasses even Russia’s ability to trample the truth, harm U.S. security, & undermine America’s reputation worldwide.”

The Bulletin Board: Senator Richard Burr stepped down as chairman of the  Intelligence Committee as the FBI examines his suspicious stock sales in response to the coming pandemic. — President Trump is partially re-opening his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. — Disney is closing its Broadway show “Frozen” because of the pandemic. It wasn’t doing well, anyway. “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” are still expected to re-open when they can.

The Obit Page: S. David Freeman, a prominent figure in the energy business who wore a cowboy hat while running the Tennessee Valley Authority and advising presidents on green power, has died at age 94. He fought the  development of new nuclear power while espousing solar and wind. He once said in an interview, “I’ve been called a lot of bad things. I was called a socialist in the Nixon administration for pushing energy efficiency. I don’t feel like I’m making my case if I don’t have somebody pissed off at me.” 

Close Encounters: In response to Freedom of Information filings, the Defense Department has released several videos shot by fighter planes that appear to show encounters with unidentified flying objects.

  Navy fighter pilots reported encounters with unidentified aircraft vehicles in eight incidents between June 27, 2013 and Feb. 13, 2019. One former pilot described a close encounter off Virginia Beach with what looked like a flying sphere encasing a cube. 

  Cue the Theremin.

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