Opinion

If you'd asked me even two months ago what the next issue or event to spark acrimonious church-state conflict was likely to be, I doubt global pandemic would have even crossed my mind. And yet, in retrospect, it seems all too predictable. America is a country, after all, in which megachurch leaders make headlines for declaring that a tragically dead two-year-old child will be resurrected. It’s a country in which far too many Christians prefer to address mental health via demonology rather than modern psychology and psychiatry. A country in which I experienced the heartbreak not only of watching a family friend die slowly of cancer, but also of seeing the friend’s family devastated at not receiving the miraculous healing they declared would certainly come. 

Business is booming for only a few industries—video conferencing, hand sanitizer, and…elderberry syrup manufacturers. In Washington, hit early and hard, a pair of siblings now work 70 hour weeks filling orders for their immune-boosting formulation, up four times from February. In Texas, a kombucha shop is selling out of elderberry concentrate and elderberry gummies. Across the United States, panicked consumers have cleaned out major retailers, who also report shortages of other “immune-boosting supplements,” among them Vitamin C, zinc, and Vitamin D.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham says it's wrong to look back at all the mistakes her boss has made in responding to the coronavirus pandemic. She spoke to Fox News' Howard Kurtz on Sunday morning:

Like every other petty con man, from back-alley hustlers to Wall Street fraudsters, Donald Trump is a thief and he'll always be a thief. Now the president is clearly stealing from the George W. Bush playbook in one particularly awful way. Specifically, Trump appears to be desperately envious of Bush's approval polls after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to the point of recently declaring himself to be a war president in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic. And it could absolutely get him re-elected.

Before Mitch McConnell, his Radical Republican Senate conference and Steve Mnuchin hand over billions of dollars to a ragtag collection of corporations—gamblers, bankers, airline executives and whoever else is saddled up at the trough—here’s a suggestion: Make Every CEO take a basic family-finance class.

Synergy is when two or more agents come together to create a reaction greater than any one of them could have achieved on their own. It can be good or bad, depending on the desired outcome.

If there ever was an issue that seemed to defy comedy, it is the new coronavirus. I mean, if we were to make a list of off-limit topics for jokes, certainly a contemporary global pandemic would make the list. There is a huge difference, though, between making fun of the virus and making fun of ridiculous responses to it. The pandemic itself might be deadly serious; but many responses to it deserve a great deal of mockery, and that has been especially true for the those coming from the Trump administration.

As much of the economy melts down amid the coronavirus pandemic, many large corporations are lining up for financial bailouts from the federal government.

As it turns out, American capitalism doesn't hold up all that well under the stresses and strains of a virulent pandemic.

Of all the wild turns 2020 could have taken, I doubt anyone had "Kentucky's new governor becomes a sex symbol during the coronavirus crisis" on their bingo card, but here we are. Or rather, here we were until Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, 42, delivered a loving yet stern call-out during his press briefing Wednesday to defiant bingo halls that weren't closing to enforce social distancing to reduce the spread of COVID-19. These updates, live-streamed daily at 5 p.m. Eastern time, have become must-see and -listen events for Kentuckians thanks to Beshear's combo of trustworthy information, empathy, and uplifting we're all in this together messages. "If you are a bingo parlor in Pike County, you ought to be closed by the end of today," he said, with unmistakable concern in his eyes. "Those parlors cater to an older and more at-risk crowd." Forget being brave enough to face the toilet paper-hoarding supermarket crowds, there's a new benchmark for courage: Andy Beshear's not scared of angering stir-crazy grandmothers in order to protect his people.

The United States of America is a weak country. All the flag-waving, patriotic speeches and obtuse declarations of superiority have long seemed overly conspicuous — and history has no sympathy for the delusional. It continually exposes the vulnerability, fragility and inanity of a nation that has the wealth, resources and human intelligence to cultivate a magnificent civilization, but repeatedly sacrifices the common interest and public good on the altar of avarice.

Many Never Trump conservatives have been delighted over former Vice President Joe Biden’s recent surge in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, from the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to just about anyone who writes for The Bulwark — including the site’s co-founder Bill Kristol, formerly of the now defunct Weekly Standard. Kristol and his colleagues have made it clear that they would much rather see Biden receive the nomination than Sen. Bernie Sanders — and would much rather see Biden in the White House in 2021 than President Donald Trump. Yet Kristol, in a March 19 listicle, offers three reasons why Trump — despite his abysmal handling of the coronavirus pandemic — might win reelection in November.

I know, I know. It sounds absurd, right? The man who only a couple of weeks ago was telling us the coronavirus will be going away "very quickly" is now standing in the White House press room every morning and bragging, "I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic." The number of lies emerging from the White House on a daily basis is so overwhelming, everyone has stopped counting. Even the Washington Post seems to have suspended its Trump lie-o-meter.