Graig Graziosi writes: "While the video is mostly mindless - Vice President Mike Pence stands in for Mister Miyagi and Joe Biden is inexplicably the leader of Cobra Kai, suggesting he is both the master of China and the coronavirus - it reflects the Trump administration’s broader policy stance that the coronavirus is the fault of the Chinese and that the US is a victim."

The mayors of New York City and Los Angeles have issued grim predictions about the coming weeks as their cities face rising numbers of residents infected with the coronavirus.

New York Mayor Mike De Blasio appeared on Good Morning America on Friday morning, suggesting the city would be shut down until the end of May and nearly half of its denizens will become infected with coronavirus. 

“I think we need to be ready for that,” Mr De Blasio said. “Unfortunately we think it’s going to go through April and in to May. It’s just a blunt reality.”

He went on to say that more than “half the people in this city will ultimately be infected.”

Father of Louisiana 17-year-old disputes claim his son died of Covid-19

Grieving parent Kevin Moran is in dispute with the state's governor, John Bel Edwards, over the precise cause of his son's death.

Gino Spocchia has this report.
 

Trump administration plans drastic reduction of aid to Yemen

The war-torn Middle Eastern state faces a crippling coronavirus outbreak of its own, of course.
 

Trump and John Kerry agree Thomas Massie is a 'Masshole'

Nice to see a spirit of bipartisan brotherhood blossoming in DC during this blighted spring.

Trump very angry indeed today

My my my, he's clearly feeling the pressure:

I wonder how long it took him to come up with that bright little witticism?

Aaand we're back to New York withholding ventilators.

"There were no red flags," laments city elder LaToya Cantrell in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, as New Orleans reports 997 of Louisiana's 2,300 cases.

“Leaders on the ground, we rely on the facts to make decisions for the people that we serve,” she said, adding: “In hindsight, if we were given clear direction, we would not have had Mardi Gras, and I would have been the leader to cancel it.”

Gino Spocchia has more here.
 

 

Ha! He follows that up by attempting to clarify what the hell he was talking about:

Here's Clark Mindock to clean up this hot mess.
 

Don Jr posts racist 'Kung Flu' meme on Instagram

As the US overtook China and Italy to become the worst hit country in the world by coronavirus, the president's eldest son was busy posting racist memes on social media because what else is new?

You can see it via the tweet below, if you feel you must:

Don Jr also badly undermined his old man's attempt to reset relations with China last night in a separate but equally dumb and unwelcome tweet:

Fifty eight per cent of Americans say Trump 'too slow to act' on coronavirus but majority approve of response

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Friday reports that 51 per cent of Americans take a favourable view of the president's response to the coronavirus disaster.

Evidentally more people need to watch this:
However, 58 per cent of respondents to the survey said he was initially "too slow to take action to address the problem", which is an understatement, I'd say.

The big man is pleased though and has been crowing abour it on Twitter just now:

DC insiders are worried Trump might have a coronavirus quid pro quo up his sleeve

Here's Andrew Feinberg with the word from Capitol Hill.

“It’s worse than 9/11, it’s worse than Pearl Harbor," one official told him. "[Trump] had the information and he ignored it because he saw the measures they were recommending at the time [when] Singapore and South Korea got the virus… and he didn’t want to do that because it was going to hurt the economy. But by waiting he hurt the economy more and made more people from this disease.”

 

Trump hits out at 'third rate Grandstander' over opposition to rescue bill and says it is 'HELL dealing with the Dems'

As we touched on earlier, GOP congressman Thomas Massie has said he is considering voting against the stimulus package in the House today on idealogical grounds.

Trump does not like that, and uses his first tweets of the day to label him "a third rate Grandstander", repeating a new favourite insult also served up to AOC yesterday.

Oh look, there's more.

Here's Oliver O'Connell with a full report on Massie.

 

Mexicans call for crackdown on Americans crossing border as US cases soar

If you're a fan of blackly comic irony in times of crisis, this one's for you.
 

Mike Huckabee rebuked for joking about wearing Incredible Hulk mask for Fox interview

The former Arkansas governor - and father to Trump's former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders - is under fire for this staggeringly idiotic and insensitive tweet.

Media Matters's Andrew Lawrence said it best with three words: