The Stupid and the Scary

So Donald Trump is speaking to the graduating class at West Point. Which means they have to fly in over 1000 cadets, plus necessary others, after everyone had gone home. Good for the cadets, who get to see each other at graduation! But this really amounts to a very expensive excuse for Trump to get out of the White House and onto a stage. It's stupid, but it's also corrupt as hell.

Trump's Sunday night comments:

There’s no risk. They wanted me to speak. The generals asked me to please do it. I didn’t want to speak. It’s my honor to speak. I said I want their families to be there.

The generals asked him??? 

Politco

Then there's Secretary of State Propaganda Mike Pompeo, swearing by all that's holy that "there's enormous evidence" that the coronavirus escaped from a Wuhan lab and not from natural processes in a market. 

It has to be said really loud. This is bullshit. There's a small chance it might be true, as in there's a small chance that Hitler escaped to Argentina, but it's bullshit because there's no "enormous" evidence. Most experts don't think it's true. The New York Times, reporting not opinionizing:

Senior American officials, including those who have looked at intelligence and who favor the lab theory, have said in private that evidence pointing to a lab accident is mainly circumstantial and based on public material. Intelligence officers have told senior administration officials that they probably will not find proof of a lab accident. And among scientists and especially virologists, there is largely agreement that the chances that a lab accident sparked the outbreak are slim, while the probability that the new virus made the leap from an animal to a human in a nonlab setting in southern China is much higher.

And it's dangerous bullshit. It's about China, who is beginning to push back. And it's a distraction from the most important thing: actually doing something to help.

Which is what Trump absolutely isn't interested in.

More distraction. Which is true?

• The virus is all under control? (Trump's first story.) 
• Trump acted very strongly on the pandemic right from the top? (Story #2)
• It's not really Trump's fault he failed to act strongly because the intelligence agencies didn't alert him to the seriousness of the threat. That's the new story.

Here's what Trump tweeted Sunday: The intel reports....

Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the U.S. Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner...

That's one hell of a lie. Trump got his first briefing January 3, and intel agencies were reporting up beginning in November. This has been widely reported by leading news agencies. He's bullshitting, just like Pompeo is bullshitting.

But it's all fog with Trump. What he doesn't want us to see is that, even when he had the information, he routinely minimized the threat until he finally couldn't.

I admit this is a distraction, but one more vignette from the world of Trumpish clownfoolery. Dr. Jerome Corsi almost wound up in prison because of his dalliances with Roger Stone and Wikilinks. Well, Corsi meant to contact a friend about hydrochrloroquine...

--wait, Corsi is a medical doctor?--

he accidentally sent the email to the very Mueller team prosecutor who'd been on his ass a couple of years ago. Now there's a federal investigation of Dr. Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko, hydrochloroquine quack.

Before we sign off, let's get real. Last night Trump revised his US death estimate from zero (wait, that was late February) to 60,000 (wait, that was last month) to 100,000. The thing is, Trump is taking credit for that--saying it's at the low end of the range of possibilities.

Meanwhile, Trump supporters are mocking earlier predictions of 1-2 million US deaths.

Here's the thing. On March 11--before states and municipalities took strong action, here's what Dr. Anthony Fauci said. Before I offer the quote, remember that once he said this, Fauci was rapidly ulled out of the hearing for "another meeting" nobody knew about--and remember, Trump still doesn't want Fauci testifying before Congress.

If we are complacent and don’t do really aggressive containment and mitigation, the number could go way up and be involved in many, many millions. If we contain we could flatten it.

Many, many millions.

As late as March 11, Trump was still trying to control the damage. Even if he didn't hear about the threat until late January, a lie, that still doesn't excuse his conduct.

Trump is playing with American lives, about which he really doesn't give a damn. Last week he said he wouldn't support relief efforts in blue states without getting something in return, and this week he's saying he won't release relief unless sanctuary cities change their policies.

The last thing that would cross his mind? Just saving American lives.