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Saturday, October 3, 2020

A DAY TO REMEMBER

Yesterday was the strangest day I have spent in quite some time. It started at 1:30 AM when, during a nocturnal bathroom break, I read on my iPhone that Trump and his wife had tested positive for Covid. The next morning I waited anxiously for the news that Joe and Jill Biden had tested negative. The White House first said that Trump had mild symptoms, then that he had moderate symptoms, then that he had received an infusion of an experimental drug, and then that he would be helicoptered to Walter Reed Medical Center. As the evening wore on, word came out of other persons who had fallen ill, including the president of Notre Dame University. At one point, we learned that my very own Sen., Thom Tillis, had tested positive. I finally went to sleep at 8:30 PM trying to recover some of the sleep I had lost the previous night. The long day ended at 1:30 AM this morning when, once again, on a nocturnal bathroom break I learned that Kellyanne Conway and Trump’s current campaign manager, Bill Stepien, have tested positive.

 

What does it all mean? I have not a clue. People continue to vote early in record numbers but I have not the slightest idea whether this will alter the polls. The speed with which the White House went from “mild symptoms” to “infusion of an experimental drug” and then “transfer to Walter Reed Hospital” makes me wonder just how sick Trump really is. The “several days” may stretch out to weeks. A picture of the Rose Garden ceremony at which Trump introduced his Supreme Court nominee, edited with little red circles around the individuals who have been reported to be positive for the virus, indicates that those five or six people were all sitting quite close to one another in two rows near the very front, which leads me to wonder how many of the other people in those front rows will turn out to be positive for the virus.

 

Is there still a presidential campaign going on? It is rather hard to say. Of one thing I am certain, if I were one of the fatcats invited to the fundraiser where I got up close and personal with Trump after he knew that Hope Hicks had tested positive, I would think twice before I wrote a big check the Republican campaign.

4 comments:

Marc Susselman said...

Another fervent prayer: Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell test positive and need to be quarantined; the Judiciary Committee is unable to proceed with hearings on Judge Barrett’s nomination, and the nomination gets thrown off the rails.

A disappointment: The Michigan Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled 4-3 on Friday that Gov. Whitmer exceeded her powers when she renewed her executive order requiring that Michiganders wear masks in public. It is not clear how binding the decision is, since it was issued as an advisory opinion to a federal court (U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan) and not via an appeal from a state court. Nonetheless, it appears the conservatives in this country are determined to kill as many people as possible.

MS

David Palmeter said...

Your North Carolina Senate race just got more complicated: Cunningham, the Democrat, has admitted sending sexy text messages to a woman other than his wife.

Meanwhile, some good news related to MS's post above: Sen. Johnson of Wisconsin joins Sen. Tillis of NC and Sen. Lee of Utah in maskless the Covid club. One or two more, and they may not be able to confirm Judge Barrett. It would be difficult, but I could contain my grief, if MS's wish for the two to be Graham and McConnell came true.

jeffrey g kessen said...

Utterly predictable that Trump would go about his unmasked sociopathic business even after learning that Hicks, one of his "closest" advisors, had tested positive.

Jerry Fresia said...

There are now 12 White House aides and Republican elites who have been diagnosed in the last few days. Members of Secret Service are complaining that Trump doesn't care about them.

So there are 3 Republican Senators (Lee, Tillis, and Johnson) who have been infected. But word is that the confirmation hearing can be done via Zoom. Really?

It is interesting too that now all the White House people are running around with masks. This fact cannot be lost on Fox viewers. I have no trouble with schadenfreude.