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Letting my masochist flag fly today for the JB/HRC COVID event.

I skipped the usual bourbon and regretted it early on, although a Hunter S. concoction would have better served. The format of this “townhall” was 30 minutes of Joe and Hillary stroking each other (from afar, thankfully), followed by 3 slow-pitch softballs relayed by Michelle Kwan. The high point of watchers was about 9.6k, it had dropped to 7.7k by the end. The like/dislike stats ended at 982/2.4k.

The theme of “Women hardest hit” was exemplified by the usual suspects: no equal pay, no universal healthcare, domestic violence, lack of PPE, Trump and his plutocratic allies wanting to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and SNAP.

Joe introduced Hillary as the one who should be President, he wished the topic today was her re-election. Hillary returned the adulation, he’s been preparing his whole life. She got to watch him when she was SOS bringing people together in cloakrooms, among other places. (Yes, really.)
There was a need for adequate nutritional food for all before the crisis. Obviously, we should increase SNAP by $100/month now, not reduce participation. More school breakfasts, lunches.

The first question was how to better protect women forced to stay in with their abusers. While there is the domestic violence hotline (providing shelter info and police, where needed), we should go beyond shelters. IOW, cash to survivors. FEMA should be building more shelters at this time. Joe has his DV policy on his website, Hillary called it “state of the art.” We must provide more Fed aid to local responders to DV.

The second softball was what Joe’s better pandemic response would have been. Costs for testing and treatment should be free. Laid-off people should have their COBRA paid, if that’s not possible then ACA open enrollment. All reproductive healthcare is essential, delayed is denied. Lower the age of Medicare. We shouldn’t allow this crisis to go to waste.

Joe and Hillary wouldn’t have ignored their intelligence briefings. The President was warned 8 or 9 times early on and did nothing. What he’s doing to the Intelligence Community is a topic for another day.

The third question came from an alleged NJ pharmacist worried she couldn’t do her job safely. Joe would have provided PPE to all essential personnel. He had urged the President to fully invoke the Defense Production Act and to appoint a Supply Commander (Pence must be chopped liver). Front-line workers should get PPE and premium pay. Trump at Davos talked about reducing SS/Medicare. We need to increase both while we reform the system, change the way we fund it. SS recipients should get $1000 more a month for now.

The response to the pandemic has been inadequate and incoherent. The CARES money has been going to the wrong people. There has been no transparency, Trump fired the IG. “That’s a big deal.” Nancy and Chuck (his words) tried to get more $ to state and local levels. We did that in 44’s stimulus. (I had to restrain myself at that point.} State and local governments need to balance their budgets, they can’t go into deficit spending. (I swear I heard Rod Serling in the background.)

“Here’s my point.” People didn’t understand what the lives were like of underprivileged essential workers. We must rebuild an equitable Middle Class. The kind of America we’d like to see. “Trust is the glue that hold democracy together.” “If we can’t believe what the press says, we can’t hold it together.” We are behind the rest of the world in paycheck fairness and paid leave. We must make government work in visible ways.

If I had to distill this alleged townhall into one word, it would be “chutzpah.” But that’s just me. It did have double the views of Joe’s SOUL Saturday, but at less than 10k, what does that say? Is this all they have? No, of course not. It was woodshedding for the main event and an attempt to make basement Joe visible in a controlled setting

Def, I’d advise you to skip it.