Posse Incitatus

The Green Eyeshade Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who tried to lard up the $2.2 trillion CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act), now is suddenly concerned about ensuring the relief money is properly spent.

She has proposed forming a bipartisan House committee to investigate the federal response to the Coronavirus pandemic and ensure that congressional funding is spent wisely. The red flags should be popping up like crazy when one considers who she's tapped to chair the committee: Left-wing South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn.

A couple weeks ago, when the relief bill was being drafted, Clyburn told his fellow Democrats, “This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision." That's what set Pelosi off, but fortunately her larded up bill met a swift demise. During these dark days, there isn't much tolerance for brazen political games.

It's instructive to compare the Speaker's response to this relief bill to what happened back in 2009 after Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). That bill frittered away multi-millions of dollars on pie-in-the-sky "green jobs" (see Solyndra and other politically connected companies) and did not deliver on promised "shovel-ready" jobs. Madame Speaker expressed no desire to ensure oversight at that time, but now, with a Republican president in the Oval office -- one she loathes wholeheartedly -- of course she wants to politicize CARES.

News flash: There is already something called the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a group of inspectors general headed by Glenn Fine, the acting inspector general for the Pentagon. Additionally, former General Services Administration IG Brian Miller will oversee the new $500 billion coronavirus relief fund housed in the Treasury Department. He will head up the Congressional Oversight Commission, which was established by CARES.

The Trump administration knows, as would any Republican White House, that the corrupt media will be dying to report misspent money, waste and fraud, and will train an eagle eye on how the CARES money is spent. They will be diligent to the same extent they were lazy and apathetic 11 years ago when the ARRA stimulus bill was enacted.

Clearly, Pelosi is playing raw politics. I suspect this stunt will fail spectacularly just as her Christmas tree caper did two weeks ago. Let's hope so.

Fasten Your Seatbelts

The Coronavirus plague is picking up steam, and the worst is yet to come. As of Wednesday night, April 1, there were about 215,000 Coronavirus infections in the United States, and about 5,100 dead.

There have been numerous accounts of single nursing homes exploding in infections and death, including LifeCare Center in Kirkland, Wash., where 101 residents were infected by the third week of March, and 34 residents died. The nursing home hosted a Mardi Gras party on Feb. 26 (ironically, Ash Wednesday), and health experts believe many employees, residents and visitors became infected at the event.

This piece from the New York Times describes how attendance by hundreds of people at a late February wake in an Albany, Ga., funeral home contributed greatly to a COVID-19 outbreak that has infected 600 people in the southwest Georgia region and killed 24.

Reports are that doctors and nurses are exhausted and hospital facilities overwhelmed on the front lines of COVID-19 -- hot spots such as New York, New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Guard troops and other organizations are racing to set up temporary hospital annexes (in many cases, tents) to provide room for non-Coronavirus patients.

Some finger pointing and recriminations will continue, as usual, but truth be told, I've been pleasantly surprised that the polarization and sniping have tapered off a bit. I guess there's still enough decency out there for people to recognize this is neither the time nor the place for bitter partisanship and vindictiveness.

It has been annoying to hear White House press reporters occasionally ask President Trump if he can "guarantee" that ... (FILL IN THE BLANK) ... usually something like there will be enough ventilators to meet demand, everyone who asks for ventilators will receive them promptly and in the quantity requested, or that the death toll won't exceed a certain amount.

These "guarantee" questions are stupid. It doesn't take a genius to realize that we are still working off of questionable and incomplete data. There are millions of people who have the virus but are asymptomatic. Literally hundreds of millions of Americans have not been tested. And the computer models are wildly in a state of flux -- in large part because the number of people tested so far is way too small a sample size to get an accurate reading of the extent of the problem.

My heart grieves for the suffering and loss; I feel sorry for the healthcare providers putting in hellish, long hours -- sometimes with inadequate personal protective gear. I also have sympathy for the millions of small business people whose livelihoods have been wiped out and may never recover. The restaurant industry alone has been brought to its knees.

Meanwhile, I find myself wondering whether I might be next. I have had some flu-like aches, a runny nose and some sneezing lately. (It might be allergies and/or a regular cold.) At least I haven't had the surefire signs of COVID-19: Fever, dry cough, difficulty breathing, tightness in the chest. Knock on wood!

The last time I was in close quarters with many other people was when I voted in the primary election on March 10. That was 3 weeks ago, so I don't think I caught the virus then. But I have made numerous trips to the grocery store, and visited Walmart a couple times. My concern is someone carrying the virus may have coughed or sneezed in an aisle, after which I walked by and inhaled the airborne particles. They say the virus can linger in the air for several hours. The CDC says the virus's incubation period is 1-14 days; most typically about five days.

At this point, all I can do is follow the CDC guidelines, eat healthy foods, try to get some exercise, and pray. President Trump said the other day that we're in for a rough couple of weeks, and the apex may be in mid-April. Heaven help us.

The American Spirit

Don't ever, ever sell the United States short!

Just when you think we're down for the count, this nation has always risen to the challenge, usually ending up stronger and wiser than before. That's a tribute to the millions of excellent, hard working and intelligent Americans whose individual and collective efforts and initiative make this country tick.

During World War II, American manufacturers put automobiles and appliances on the back burner in favor of building tanks, army trucks, artillery and aircraft. Today, as COVID-19 ravages the globe, hundreds of U.S. companies are producing the products needed to battle the virus.

Quite a few companies including Ralph Lauren, Eddie Bauer, Gap, Joanne Fabrics, Hanes, MyPillow and mattress maker Eclipse International, have shifted their manufacturing to make masks and hospital gowns, and industrial giants including Ford Motor Co., General Motors and 3M are building ventilators and respirators. This is far from an exhaustive list, but you get the picture.

FEMA, other federal agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and all four branches of the military have teamed up to supply equipment, hospital ships, logistics assistance and many other goods and services. Officials in the public and private sector are working long hours to respond to the crisis. Major kudos and respect go out to our courageous healthcare providers and first responders. They are true heroes, and deserve our prayers.

Additionally, the generosity of so many American companies and individuals has been apparent. Google donated $800 million to support businesses, organizations and healthcare workers involved in the battle against Coronavirus. Facebook is matching donations to the Centers for Disease Control, up to $10 million per donation. 

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged to give $100 million to help "strengthen detection, isolation and treatment efforts; protect at-risk populations; and develop vaccines, treatments and diagnostics." The list of contributing corporations and foundations is lengthy.

Many celebrities in the entertainment business and pro sports have donated to charities providing relief to Coronavirus sufferers and their families. These include Drew Brees, a quarterback with the NFL's New Oreans Saints, who donated $5 million. And the list goes on.

Congress and President Trump managed to approve over $2 trillion of spending to keep the economy going, help individuals whose livelihoods have been devastated by the economic shutdown, and help prevent small businesses from going under. Most people realize that the massive bill contains plenty of pork and unrelated spending, but that's the price we have to pay to implement immediate relief.

I wish that the stimulus checks to be sent out were much larger, targeted toward lower incomes and would not be sent to the tens of millions of Americans who simply don't need the money. It would also be preferable that the added unemployment benefits would not serve as a disincentive to work, but nothing and nobody is perfect. Our nation already had record low unemployment, and employers were having a hard time finding workers. Now, they'll have an even more difficult time filling empty positions because many people won't be motivated to work for less money than they can get through collecting unemployment compensation.

We are probably a couple months away from this plague reaching its apex, and no one really knows how many Americans will be affected. We've ramped up testing, which undoubtedly contributed to our nation taking over the No. 1 spot for most COVID-19 cases in the world. (And let's not forget that China is most likely underreporting its COVID-19 morbidity rate by a country mile.)

There is the potential for the polarization that has made American politics such a crock of bile to get even worse... IF we allow the media jackals to stir the pot and antagonize both sides for the sake of firing up ratings. Don't think for a second they won't do it. But it's also possible that millions of Americans will rise above the petty swamp and demonstrate a magnanimity they never knew they had.

Meanwhile, the TV networks and major websites are enduring a bitter paradox: Their reporters, anchors, content editors and producers are putting in longer hours with the stepped up coverage of this crisis. Normally, this would mean a significant boost in commercial revenues. But the companies that typically purchase that commercial time and those digital ads are in many cases struggling and will be forced to cut advertising and marketing budgets.

Like so many other new realities, this one is largely unprecedented. Also like so much of the calamity befalling us, we'll get through. Because, after all, we're Americans.

Pelosi's Lard-ass Bill Dies a Quick Death

I've said for years that Democrats just can't seem to help overplaying their hand. They take Rahm Emanuel's advice and NEVER let a crisis go to waste. The problem is, they attempt to turn an opportunity to advance their progressive agenda into a drunken spending orgy, and it often comes back to bite them.

Case in point: Sunday night, it looked like the U.S. Senate was close to adopting a major relief bill for our shuttered economy. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were pretty much simpatico, and it looked like the bill would pass by Monday.

But soon the virus of radical progressivism, Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi, would fly back to the Washington swamp from the Left Coast, and immediately begin larding up the House's stimulus bill with a grab bag of leftist pipe dreams. She and her fellow travelers pressured Democrat senators to vote against the McConnell-Schumer agreement.

Meanwhile, the Democrats' Christmas tree included more money for abortion mills, Green New Deal spending, tax credits for solar energy and wind energy, and a commitment to federalize elections. Also included were provisions to force employers to give special treatment to Big Labor; new emissions standards for the airlines; a requirement that union representatives sit on corporate boards; and a mandate that companies receiving Coronavirus relief money provide diversity stats, including employees' race, gender and pay, and the diversity of their corporate boards.

This thing was so extreme, that after enduring withering attacks -- some even coming from folks on the left who want the Coronavirus relief to begin ASAP -- the Democrats backed down. Needless to say, their internal polling must have looked horrible.

As I type, the U.S. Senate is within an hour or so of voting on its massive $2 trillion bill. I would expect the House to be more in sync this time around and pass a viable bill by the end of the week -- not because they give a damn about their fellow Americans, but because they want to preserve their majority in the coming elections.

It's not a stretch to say that Democrats are loving the sudden spike in unemployment, decrease in GDP, and any failures that may occur with experimental drug treatments for COVID19 -- e.g., hydroxycloroquine, a synthetic version of anti-malarial drug quinine, which is derived from the bark of the cinchona tree. The Demagogues truly would have no qualms if tens of millions of Americans were to suffer gravely for months, as long as the Dems could retain the House, win the White House and possibly even take the Senate. 

Heaven help us if these charlatans re-take the White House this November.

The Katrina Paradigm

When Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in September 2005, the news media jumped at the chance to demonize then-President George W. Bush and his hapless Director of FEMA, Michael Brown.

But the catastrophe of New Orleans -- more than 1,800 dead and untold suffering and property destruction -- falls much more on the corrupt, inept governments of New Orleans and Louisiana than on the federal government.

It was corrupt and incompetent Mayor Ray Nagin -- now in prison, by the way -- who did not have an evacuation plan in place and whose public transportation buses sat uselessly in flooded parking lots while destitute residents desperately begged to be rescued from their rooftops. And then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco waited way too long to call for an evacuation as the monstrous hurricane bore down on New Orleans.

On top of all that, it's well documented that Louisiana is one of the most corrupt states in the nation. Federal money funneled to local levee boards for maintenance and upgrades of levee walls was often squandered and ended up in the pockets of crooks and cronies who had the right connections and kissed the right butts. Yet the ignorant press trashed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which was not to blame for inadequate levee maintenance. (The disgraceful American media being ignorant and embarrassingly wrong has become the rule, not the exception.)

I've traveled back in time 15 years to illustrate a point that pertains to the current COVID-19 crisis: The federal government is not the be-all/end-all when it comes to nationwide disasters. Emergency management is primarily the responsibility of municipal and county governments, with the states being the next tier. Consequently, states must be ready; their governments must be transparent, accountable and competent.

The federal government definitely is a backstop and a deep well of resources to assist states and localities where needed (the use of U.S. Navy hospital ships to augment health care facilities in major metro areas is an example). But Uncle Sam is not really the conductor of the orchestra. Maybe a better analogy might be a kitchen supervisor during a major dinner (wedding reception, awards ceremony, conference), who has the big-picture perspective and continuously circulates among the different employees to monitor what they're doing, give real-time updates on the demand/consumption variables out in the dining room, and assigns resources as needed.

There are calls for Uncle Sam to nationalize certain aspects of the war against COVID-19, e.g., purchase and distribution of ventilators and surgical masks. I am not certain this makes sense. For one thing, the COVID-19 affliction is not evenly distributed. New York, California and Washington are three states that have a disproportionate number of cases of people testing positive for the virus. Perhaps Washington, D.C. can coordinate with those state governments and the private sector to direct needed equipment and supplies to the most critical areas.

This is a complicated issue -- medically, logistically, economically, politically. But one thing I believe is true is that a one-size-fits-all nationalization (a la Venezuela) against COVID-19 would be ineffective and possibly destructive.

Let's encourage the states to do what we know they're capable of doing -- and support them -- and not turn Uncle Sam into an overbearing and inflexible authoritarian administrator.

Observations on Day Three

Today is actually Day Four of my new arrangement: working from home. But since I started this post on Wednesday, and have no new observations to add since then, I'll leave the headline as it stands. After all, even if I did have observations today, I'm pretty sure they'd be about the same as what I witnessed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

First of all, there's always a silver lining -- or several of them. It's nice not to have to rush off to work each morning. My office is about 14 miles from home, so my commute normally lasts 20-25 minutes each way. I typically leave the house at 7:30 a.m., arriving in the parking lot 7:50-7:55 a.m.

Almost every day, I take a prepared lunch -- a salad, sandwich or leftovers from last night's batch of spaghetti, chicken or meatloaf. Once in a while, I'll spring for a prepared salad at the neighborhood Meijer grocery store, which might set me back $5, but will provide some delicacies I don't normally enjoy, such as black olives, almonds, and sesame ginger dressing.

I don't have a coherent commentary to make on the sudden changes thrust upon our nation, so I guess the bullet point format lends itself well to my insights. Here goes:

• It's incredible how rapidly and dramatically things can change, how radically the changes affect our lifestyles, and how most of us find that adapting to the new realities ain't all that bad, after all. Last Sunday, my wife and I went to lunch at a Mediterranean place, and we were the only customers in the restaurant. A couple more people arrived before we left, but that was it. 
• Monday morning, I had an 8:30 a.m. doctor's appointment in Okemos, about 11 miles east of here. After I left the doctor's office, I decided to stop by a coffee shop and use a gift card I had received at Christmas. The business was "Biggby's" (founded as "Beaners" in East Lansing in 1995 and now with over 200 stores in 10 states -- the original name was ditched because the PC wimps thought it was offensive to Mexicans). I ordered a small coffee, and expected the self-serve paradigm. But I was surprised that they asked me if I wanted cream and sugar. "Oh, I guess you've changed your policy in light of this Coronavirus issue," I said. Then I mentioned that I'd heard on the news the governors of Ohio and Illinois had ordered that all restaurants be closed. "We're probably headed in that direction," one of the employees said. Sure enough, later that day Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered the temporary closing of coffee shops, bars and restaurants. (Restaurants are closed for dine-in, but carryout orders, delivery & drive-thru are still permitted).
• My wife and I are getting a pretty good-sized state tax refund (direct deposit scheduled for Friday morning), and I told her I would like patronize some local mom-n-pop restaurants to help them out during these tough times. She agreed that would be nice. Visions of steak-n-onion sandwiches, egg rolls, cheeseburgers and burritos are dancing in my head.
• I'll be the first to admit: I don't put in a full eight hours of work when I'm at home. I might walk into the kitchen at 11:30 a.m. and start to saute some mushrooms and onions for lunch; maybe I'll decide to walk around the block at 2:30 p.m. to get some fresh air and wake myself up (drowsiness after lunch is a common challenge); or perhaps I'll extend my lunch hour a bit. But overall, I am as productive if not more productive than if I were at the office. It's more quiet; I don't have to worry about loud people around me, or chatterbox employees stopping by my cubicle to talk my ear off.
• At lunchtime, my wife and I have watched several of the Trump Coronavirus Task Force news conferences aired live on Fox News. We are impressed by the high quality personnel who serve on the task force, and by the president's no-nonsense performance in answering questions of an always hostile press. We are disdainful of the airheads who claim that calling this virus a name including "Wuhan," "China" or "Chinese" is somehow racist, and that Asian Americans are being harassed and discriminated against by such stereotyping. I sincerely hope the president's advisors keep drilling into his head that there are hours of video clips available from MSNBC, CNN, PBS and ABC/NBC/CBS on which left-wing reporters used the geographical name to describe the virus. There is also ample precedent going back decades for viruses being named after the region they came from, e.g., the Ebola (River) Virus; the West Nile (Africa) Virus; the Zika Virus (named after a forest in Uganda); Lyme Disease (named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut); Guinea Worm; Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and so on. My plea to the media jackals: PLEASE stop embarrassing yourselves!
• When I look at the unfolding tragedy in Italy (hundreds of people dying daily), I realize that the United States is doing the right thing by shutting down our economy to halt and prevent the spread of COVID-19. It's painful in the short run, but I'm sure the stock market and employment rates will come roaring back in a couple months.

Each day, I try to remember to pray for all who've been diagnosed as COVID-19 positive, the relatives of those who perished from the disease, and our nation as a whole. We're really at a crucial juncture, and the presidential election coming up in 7 1/2 months really raises the stakes.