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What a difference a week makes. I’m now cartooning while sheltering in place for who knows how long. As infection rates and deaths increase, people in the United States are finally taking the coronavirus pandemic a little more seriously. (Depending on which state you’re in.)
There is nothing to worry about because President Trump is doing a tremendous job, right? Plus, it’s all China’s fault. And if it’s not China’s fault, the Europeans are behind our current virus troubles. After all, it is a “foreign virus.” Paging Stephen Miller!
Of course Trump just installed an inexperienced political hack to run the country’s 17 intelligence agencies. Through the magic of inexperience and cult-like fealty, the president’s purge of intelligence continues.
Richard Grenell, the new acting Director of National Intelligence, has plenty of experience sending nasty tweets and appearing on Fox News. Experience in the world of spies and intelligence gathering? Not so much. I wouldn’t mind his lack of experience so much if he didn’t have all that experience acting as a PR shill for shady foreign entities.
Provided his incessant tweeting doesn’t drive him away, President Trump seems to have found his chief legal defender and investigative arm in Attorney General Bill Barr. Need to downplay the Mueller Report? Get Bill Barr. Want to stall that Ukraine whistleblower complaint to Congress? Bill Barr is on the case. Feel like showing some love to Roger Stone? Get me Bill Barr!
Well, no one can say the Democratic race for the presidency has been boring. Okay, maybe not as exciting as using the formerly-independent U.S. Department of Justice as your own personal fiefdom, but still.
Well, it’s been a tough week for democracy. First, Democrats in Iowa completely screwed up the first major step to picking a nominee who will hopefully replace President Trump. Of course the Iowa caucuses are fundamentally flawed and ridiculous, but using an untested mobile app as a foundation of a nominating process is just plain stupid.
With each new revelation or bit of evidence, Republicans in the Senate (and the House, for that matter), soften their spines a little more. Remember when Lindsey Graham thought withholding an Oval Office meeting wasn’t that big of a deal but withholding military aid, well, that would be just wrong!
We have now seen — in ranting “legal” briefs — how President Trump’s team is planning on defending him in the Senate impeachment trial. In short, they’re going to rant and rave, blame everyone else and wrap the whole package in faux legalese.
As the Trump train wreck hurtles toward an impeachment trial in the Senate, keep your eyes peeled for more military distractions like the assassination of Iran’s General Qassim Suleimani. Trump will no doubt continue to take the Commander-In-Whatever-I-Want-To-Do approach to executive power.
So it is beginning to sound like saving the economy is worth a couple million coronavirus deaths, give or take. President Trump is determined to pull back on social distancing measures and fire up the economy again by Easter.