April 13th: Unhinged
Headlines:
Upset Victory in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Give Democrats a Lift. A great victory for WI.
San Francisco moves 751 homeless people into local hotels in midst of the virus. This was done for their protection - of the 182 recently tested at a large shelter, 91 were positive for COVID-19.
Census Announces Delay - They will begin reopening its field offices sometime after June 1. Tally now due October 31st. In related news, I won’t be working for the Census anytime soon.
I’m going to start collecting books for people while we’re still in lockdown. More details to come. Book nerds, unite!
Well done, Wisconsin!
Milwaukee, WI. Image by David Mark from Pixabay
I ran to the store and coffee shop this morning- our little neighborhood grocery continues to do a great job. They have marks on the sidewalk to show you where to stand for 6 feet apart, give you plastic gloves on the way in, have signs asking patrons to only have TWO people in the aisles at once (it’s a very small store), marks by the registers for appropriate spacing, and plastic sheets serve as a barrier between patrons and cashiers.
Upon arrival home, got a shout out from Neighbor Brenda downstairs about grocery shopping for her. Another neighbor had already committed to it, but wasn’t able to shop until after 5pm. Miss Brenda wanted her foodstuffs a little earlier. Fair. I agreed and she was going to alert the other shopper. In the end, the other person did it since she has a car and Brenda simply felt too guilty sending me there on the bus. I didn’t mind, but was her call.
She basically told me once she knew my routine and watched my comings and goings. While this sounds creepy, I know it’s harmless and some neighbors can get a little “over-involved.” I also know if I didn’t emerge from my apartment for a concerning amount of time, Brenda would sound the alarm, so that’s better than any of the downsides. Back when I had a job <waaaaah!> she would shout out “Good morning!” to me as I left the apartment every day. Was kind of nice.
I started watching today’s White House press conference and all I can say is “Woah!”
You know how traffic gets backed up because everyone slows down at the site of a car crash? It was kind of like that. For context, Dr. Fauci, the country’s foremost infectious disease expert and holder of the keys to my heart, gave an interview on CNN last night saying ““I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives…”
Trump was not pleased and re-tweeted a comment where the poster had tagged it with #FireFauci. Thus, it became a whole thing. I maintained my saint-like calm when I heard about it last night.
At the beginning of today’s press conference, Fauci basically walked back his comments to soften any indication he might’ve been criticizing the President. After Fauci, they rolled out a quick video, which was a couple minute timeline of the Administration’s handling of the virus and total campaign propaganda. While it was going, CNN cut away to the commentators before going back. It was truly stunning. They made a video overnight. And aired it at a press conference as if it was a campaign rally.
Once Trump came back to the podium, we were off to the races. Reporters asked him about not taking action earlier. Why wasn’t anything done earlier, perhaps in February? Paula Reid of CBS would NOT relent and asked him what he did with the time that he just said “he’d bought.” What did the administration do in February?” His only answer was “A lot. We’ll give you a list.” And then he called her a “fake” and disparaged her network.
My hat’s off to Paula. I know it’s their job to question him, but it can’t be easy to hammer away at the President.
It kind of went downhill from there. It was a barrage of questioning, interruptions, excuses, avoidance, and the most outrageous and frankly entertaining *chyrons that I’ve ever seen. They included:
“Angry Trump Turns Briefing Into Propaganda Session”
“Trump Attacks Media After Series of Reports He Ignored Warnings As Virus Spread”
“Trump Melts Down In Angry Response To Reports He Ignored Virus Warnings”
They are below for your reference. In the midst of watching this, Aunt CeCe called and we both agreed to hang up to watch it more closely. I started texting a few friends to tell them what a train wreck it was, then talked to CeCe again so we could rant for a while.
I know my feelings about the President are well stated, but it was honestly disturbing. Prior to him, I’ve never seen a President berate and argue with the press like this. Suspect much more of this tomorrow.
*Chyron: Defined as “a caption superimposed over usually the lower part of a video image (as during a news broadcast).”
I’d like to thank Aaron Sorkin and “Sports Night” for teaching me this term.
For comparison, the Fox News chyron is at the end. It never wavered.