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(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To The Last Post Of The Week From The Blogs Favourite Living Canadian)

The White House Task Force on the coronavirus pandemic re-emerged from its hyperbaric chamber and met the press again on Friday morning. If you watched the whole thing, you might have noticed that none of them were adhering to CDC guidelines, including wearing masks, and that HHS Secretary Alex Azar tried a little of the old okey-doke involving the Ebola outbreak in the Congo, and that Dr. Anthony Fauci now sounds like a man who has been hauling a barge through the Erie Canal. But all you really needed to see was the last question and the last answer.

Paula Reid of CBS asked this question of the Poser-in-Chief regarding the superspreader events in which his re-election campaign is now engaged.

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You could see Pence visibly reach the absolute frontier limits of his intellect in trying to craft an answer that was not admitting that Reid was absolutely right, and that also would keep Pence from offending the angry toddler for whom he works. What emerged from that frontier was a rhetorical critter unfamiliar to most political taxonomists. Neither fish nor fowl, nor really English, either.

Note how quickly Pence, dancing as fast as he can, runs through his stock of conservative Republican cliches. He apparently is unaware that one can speak, laugh, cheer, chant Lock her up! and Build the wall! and USA!, and otherwise exercise ones First Amendment rights through a mask. You can talk through a mask. (Ask Batman.) Also, you can peaceably assemble while standing six feet apart. You can model behavior for your fellow citizens. You at least can say the word, mask. Pence asked us repeatedly to pray, but refused to ask us to wear masks when we do. God will not understand this at all.

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The House passage of a bill making the District of Columbia a state is a fine statement and thats all it is. The Senate wont even take it up and it would lose there if they did. It rocks the comfort zone of far too many people. Allowing it would put into stark relief the institutional failure of the Senate as a vehicle for self-government. Particularly piquant are the Republican complaints that this is merely a vehicle for two cold-lock Democratic seats. Leave aside the fact that a Republican desire for more Senate seats is the reason we have two Dakotas. By making this argument, the Republicans admit that they have no intention of doing anything for African-American citizens now or in the future. Its just...too...hard. All of this, of course, makes DC statehood a very good idea.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: Im Goin In The Valley (Silas Hogan): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Here are some young British women playing baseball in 1930. Looks like theyre pretty good, despite the weird headgear and the severe lack of basepaths. History is so cool.

Holy hell. This is amazing. From The New York Times:

Pretty clearly, somebody in the intelligence community wants the administration* to get off the dime here and is using the NYT to raise the heat.

The dime remains under the presidential* keister.

Is it a good day for dinosaur news, New York Times? Its always a good day for dinosaur news!

The phrase rocket-size marine reptiles was enough for me. Ill read any story about rocket-size marine reptileseven if the story is about the stock market, because rocket-sized marine reptiles lived then to make us happy now.

Ill be back on Monday, socially distant though I am. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line, and wear the damn mask.

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You Can See Mike Pence Reach the Absolute Frontier Limits of His Intellect in This Exchange - Esquire