I haven’t watched the evening news or cable news in weeks. I don’t know how other people can do it! I need some space from what’s happening, which is why I just read the NY Times, Washington Post and Politico and that’s it. It’s gotten especially bad because Donald Trump, ever the narcissist, has been doing briefings every evening on the coronavirus, and he just seems to be using them to fulfill his need for Nazi rallies. At last night’s briefing, Trump announced something which has been long-rumored: he’s cutting off American funding to the World Health Organization because, he says, “We have not been treated properly.” He said that WHO is, like, responsible for the pandemic? Everyone knows that Trump is Hector Projector and he’s doing the most to deflect the blame for his own unhinged laziness. No one even knows if Trump can unilaterally cut off funding to WHO – America pays a big chunk of WHO’s budget, but WHO is funded by many countries.

Meanwhile, did you know that our “stimulus checks” finally arrive, they’re going to be branded with the Trump name??

The Treasury Department has ordered President Trump’s name be printed on stimulus checks the Internal Revenue Service is rushing to send to tens of millions of Americans, a process that could slow their delivery by a few days, senior IRS officials said. The unprecedented decision, finalized late Monday, means that when recipients open the $1,200 paper checks the IRS is scheduled to begin sending to 70 million Americans in coming days, “President Donald J. Trump” will appear on the left side of the payment.

It will be the first time a president’s name appears on an IRS disbursement, whether a routine refund or one of the handful of checks the government has issued to taxpayers in recent decades either to stimulate a down economy or share the dividends of a strong one. Treasury officials disputed that the checks would be delayed. While some people receiving the checks — the centerpiece of the U.S. government’s economic relief package to stave of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic — may not care, or observe, whose name appears on them, the decision is another sign of Trump’s effort to cast his response to the pandemic in political terms.

Trump had privately suggested to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversees the IRS, to allow the president to formally sign the checks, according to three administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But the president is not an authorized signer for legal disbursements by the U.S. Treasury. It is standard practice for a civil servant to sign checks issued by the Treasury Department to ensure that government payments are nonpartisan.

The checks will instead bear Trump’s name in the memo line, below a line that reads, “Economic Impact Payment,” the administration officials said.

[From WaPo]

I just… Jesus Christ, this is next-level bonkers. This is diametrically opposed to how Treasury works or how any of this is supposed to work. And politically, wouldn’t it have been better for the Trump administration to simply issue larger checks FASTER? Most of us have been in lockdown for a month or longer. Many European countries issued larger checks faster. But not America – we get our piddling $1200 checks DELAYED because Trump wanted to “take credit” for the checks.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.