Dispatches from Vilnius

New Yorkers flocked to see the USNS Comfort pull into port despite warnings from the New York police to keep their distance from each other.  It just shows how much emotions govern our instincts, rather than heeding the call to reason.  This is the first high profile sign of federal relief for coronavirus-stricken states, and one can well imagine His Trumpness will milk it for all it is worth in his "highly rated" press briefings . Trump has consistently downplayed the emergency needs of the hardest hit states.  He doesn't seem to think New York needs as many ventilators as Gov. Cuomo has requested, and that Gov. "Half" Whitmer of Michigan has greatly overblown the situation in her state.  He is apparently only willing to work with governors who are nice to him, trying to make relief contingent on highly visible signs of support.  As Yogi Berra might say, it's quid pro quo all over again . Sadly, this is the only way our dear president knows how t...

Just when you thought the level of cynicism couldn't get any worse, Fox "News" lowers the bar once again by essentially asking viewers to " die for the economy ."  Given that the average age of Fox viewers is over 60, the most at risk group to the virus, that's a staggering request. This came as a result of Trump showing his determination to reopen the economy before Easter regardless of the consequences.  He let it be known that he disagrees with the doctors who "want to shut down the world," feeling that it is better to get businesses up and running even if "this is going to be bad," referring to the potential death toll that might arise if everyone goes back to work. His pronouncement flies in the face of health experts' requests around the world, who believe we should maintain as strong as possible a lockdown until more is known about the fatal COVID-19 virus, which is currently ravaging Italy and Spain.  Dr. Fauci has b...

The Donald is doing his best to try to distance himself from blame on this pandemic, which he now calls the Chinese virus .  Many conservative legislators and pundits had already been calling it the  Wuhan virus, to make it clear where this pandemic originated, blaming the media for calling them racist in their intents.  Fact is we don't know where this virus originated, as there is no patient zero.  It's just the first reported outbreak was in the Wuhan province of China.  Funny enough, the artful dodger referred to a conversation he purportedly had with Chinese President Xi earlier this month, claiming this whole thing would be over by April. Now, he is trying to peddle Chloroquine as a cure all for the virus , wrongly claiming that the FDA has approved it.  Dr. Hahn subtly corrected him, saying the testing is ongoing but that the FDA is fast-tracking the process with the hope it actually might work.  Trump is so anxious to get this crisi...

With all sports suspended, the only action appears to be in the NFL where free agency has begun.  Among the surprises, Tom Brady is headed to Tampa Bay.  Carolina has traded Cam Newton for Teddy Bridgewater.  Nick Foles has landed in Chicago, after some talk New England might take a chance on him. The NBA season is over.  There will be no March Madness.  The NHL is finished for the year.  Major League Baseball has suspended spring training and so we won't be seeing the first pitch until well into the summer, if at all. It does feel like wartime, but having Trump call himself a " wartime president " for invoking the Defense Production Act is a bit scary.  The only point of doing this is to produce more respirators and other health care equipment to battle the quickly spreading coronavirus.  But, he offered all the rhetoric of past wartime presidents to assuage his bruised ego. The problem began when Trump didn't take the virus seriously ...

Watching the stock markets over the past few weeks really makes me wonder about the savvy of investors.  For each plunge there is a corresponding buyback.  Some of these buybacks have been impressive.  The Dow soared almost 2000 points on Friday.  It's highest point increase ever. Unfortunately, the corresponding drop was even worse.  On Monday the Dow plunged nearly 3000 points.  Its lowest point drop in history.  That's a net loss of 1000 points over two trading days.  Yet, some traders are making a bundle buying at the dip and selling back at the peak, often during the same day. After yesterday's buyback, you can expect a plunge of 1200 or more today, with the Dow dipping precariously close to 20,000.  It hasn't been that low since Trump took office in January, 2017.  It would erase all these great economic gains the Trump administration has gloated over for the past three years.  Still, Goldman Sachs says the recovery wi...

Leave it to PBS to disrupt a well-choreographed press briefing in the final half hour of stock trading Friday with a nasty question .  Trump had spent his ten minutes trying to dismiss allegations that the White House had been slow to respond to COVID-19 when Yamiche Alcindor had the audacity to ask the president why he shut down the pandemic team in 2018.  Trump wants the public to believe he's in the process of making the CDC and National Security Council more responsive to pandemics given the failures of past administrations, when in fact he's the one who decided to dismiss the White House pandemic team put in place by the Obama administration. Back in December 2016, Ed Yong wrote in The Atlantic what might happen if a pandemic broke out under a Trump administration.  He wasn't far off.  Trump hasn't declared martial law, but he has declared a national emergency, closed off air traffic from Europe, and tried to keep infected cruise ships from docking ...

Probably the guy getting the hardest hit right is the Donald, with the stock markets all over the place.  After all, this was his baby.  He's been boasting ever since Election Night that he owns the Dow.  It went on a massive bull run his first year in office, peaking at 26,600 on January 26, 2018.  We heard his gloating to no end, but here we are more than two years later and the Dow sits at 25,020, thanks to an 1160 point surge yesterday after the big sell off on Monday . Trump isn't gloating anymore.  His finance team is offering a number of quick fixes in an effort to instill confidence in the market.  However, it seems traders are only taking advantage of the volatility by buying low one day and selling off the next.  Futures were down over 500 points last night, which means we will see another big selloff today. You live by the Dow, you die by the Dow.  Economists have long warned not to take the Dow as a measure of economic succes...

It's been a crazy week.  Joe Biden is now officially The Comeback Kid with truly one of the biggest turnarounds in campaign history.  All but forgotten two weeks go, Joe is now the clear frontrunner with Bernie scrambling to stay in the race.  It reminds me a bit of 2004 when John Kerry was able to so quickly consolidate the Democratic vote and send Howard Dean packing.  I just hope the final result isn't the same.  Kerry lost to Bush in the general election. I was never excited about either Joe or Bernie.  I thought both should have sat out this election, but it seems voters want a well-known name and aren't willing to take any chances on newcomers.  Bernie's revolution played out as expected.  His 2016 candidacy was largely predicated on resistance to Hillary's nomination, not a sea change in American politics.  It did help spur the campaigns of young progressive candidates in the 2018 Midterms, so that is very positive, but otherwi...