Rampant Republican incompetence is now on full display in Washington, once again taking center stage as multiple deadlines approach and measures meant to provide some sort of safety net during the most dire medical emergency in the past 100 years are running out. What's astonishing is that their very incompetence right now might just guarantee that the GOP loses control of the Senate in November -- the very chamber which cannot now get its legislative act together. In other words, it might be an entirely appropriate consequence.

The timeline is a simple one for voters to understand. Several rounds of coronavirus relief bills passed earlier this year, which staved off the worst of the economic collapse (things got very bad indeed, but they could have been a lot worse). This provided a lifeline for millions of American families. In each of these bills, Democrats were told by Republicans that very important issues (such as ensuring the safety of the upcoming election, for instance) "could wait until the next round" and thus got kicked down the road.

Over two months ago, Nancy Pelosi's House of Representatives passed the most recent of these bills, which both built on the previous bills and contained all the provisions which had been previously punted. It passed, with only a single Republican joining in the majority. Again, this happened over two months ago.

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President Donald Trump just finished giving a press briefing, ostensibly about the coronavirus pandemic, and in the short question period that followed, gave the most pathetic "poor me" performance I've ever seen a president give. Why, Trump mused, is Dr. Anthony Fauci so gosh-darned popular, and why am I not? That sounds like an oversimplification or snarky version of what the president said, but it's really not. If anything, it's an understatement. I don't have the actual transcript yet, so I can't reproduce Trump's actual phrasing. But I will certainly be seeking it out later today, because it truly was the most whiny display of envy ever seen from a presidential podium.

There may be other news from the press conference -- Trump also answered questions about DACA and his upcoming convention speech and other normal issues, but of course he veered off on a couple of others. When asked why the pharmaceutical industry leaders had refused to meet with him today, Trump was mystified that such a meeting had ever been planned, and seemed to think it might happen later in the week. So much for Joe Biden "not being all there" -- this was Trump's one big meeting of the day, and apparently he had already forgotten it was supposed to take place. He also -- once again -- touted hydroxychloroquine as the magical drug that would save everyone, in response to a question as to why he had promoted a social media video by a doctor who has some other (shall we say) strange notions. Such as: we already have a cure for the coronavirus, and nobody needs to wear masks. Trump was directly asked why he was retweeting a woman who also has spoken out about "alien D.N.A.," which may be the clip we seen on the late-night shows (for sheer entertainment value alone).

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In less than 100 days, America will vote. In other words, there is finally a light at the end of this long and dark tunnel we've all been going through. And unless things drastically change for the worse, that light might shine very bright indeed.

Pretty much every poll under the sun now shows Democrats with the upper hand in the campaign. Joe Biden is doing better -- at both the national level and the state level -- than either of Barack Obama's winning years, as well being better positioned than Hillary Clinton was the last time around. In fact, Biden's poll numbers across the Electoral College are now higher than Obama or Clinton ever reached at any point in their respective campaigns. Public opinion of the coronavirus and President Donald Trump's pitifully inadequate reaction to it has hardened like cement. No wonder he's trying a new tactic ("OK, I'll pretend like I care about it for a week, how's that?") and reversing course on his disastrously self-centered plan for his big convention speech. And it's now looking like he won't be able to hold any rallies at all for the foreseeable future, especially when you consider that the hardest-hit areas of the country right now are either solidly Republican or the battleground states Trump's going to need. No rallies means depriving Trump's massive ego of the attention it so desperately craves.

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President Donald Trump does not like being told what to do. To be fair, very few people ever do. But Trump usually goes his own way and blows off those telling him he must do this or mustn't do that, and things have generally worked out for him in the end anyway. This week, however, was markedly different.

Trump is obviously being told -- over and over again -- that he is going to lose the upcoming election to Joe Biden because the public just does not trust him to handle the current coronavirus crisis (or any other crisis, for that matter). Trump's political advisors evidently made that plain to Trump this week, and forced him to chart a radically different course, in the hopes of salvaging his chances in the election.

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That's a fun headline to write, mostly because the flip side of: "Democrats In Disarray" has now become an actual cliché, due to its overuse by the media (especially when the facts don't actually justify its use). But at this point, even just calling what the Grand Old Party is going through "disarray" is being polite. "Meltdown" might come closer to the truth.

This is not an isolated phenomenon, either. It's happening all across the Republican Party. Everywhere you look, there is nothing but dysfunction to see. The White House (obviously) doesn't know what it's doing, the Senate Republicans can't agree among themselves, the Senate and the White House dithered for an entire week and produced no consensus coronavirus relief bill, House Republicans seem to be ready to mount a mutiny against one of their own leaders, and just now President Donald Trump had to sadly admit that the Republican convention was pulling out of Jacksonville, Florida -- where he had moved it in a snit over being told he had to follow rules to keep people safe.

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New York's recent primary election uncovered a problem with mail-in voting that (thankfully) has a very easy fix. Democrats in Congress who are now just beginning negotiations with Senate Republicans and the White House over the next coronavirus relief bill should take note of this problem and proactively fix it -- not just for New York, but for all the states. Thankfully, unlike a lot of voting problems, the fix for this one comes relatively cheap. In a bill whose total cost will likely be between $1 trillion and $3 trillion, fixing this problem is no more than the equivalent of finding some spare change in the couch cushions. So it really shouldn't even be all that hard to achieve.

There's really no blame at all for what happened -- ironically, the problem in New York arose because the state actually proactively did the right thing. Voting rights groups have listed several criteria for how to properly and fairly institute mail-in voting, and one of these is "provide pre-paid postage." In other words, even the cost of a stamp should not be a barrier for voters to have to overcome. The return envelope should already be paid for, so anyone can just easily drop it in the mail. To its credit, New York did so. Many other states have not taken this step yet, putting New York at the forefront of providing easy mail-in voting for its citizens in this regard.

However, an unforeseen problem developed, through nobody's real fault at all. The envelopes were marked as "business reply mail" up in the corner where a stamp usually goes. This is a longstanding method for businesses to provide pre-paid postage, which usually works out just fine for everyone. This time, however, it didn't. The post office normally doesn't bother to postmark such mail (which saves them time and money in the sorting and processing facilities). However, New York -- like many states -- has voting laws which specifically state that a mail-in ballot has to be postmarked by the date of the election. Because thousands of New York ballots were not in fact postmarked, they were not counted.

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It's a bit early for one of my "summer daydream" columns, as I usually wait until the silly season in August when Congress decamps for the entire month (and political pundits are left with some mighty thin gruel to report on), but since Trump took office the silly season has really expanded to 365 days a year, when you think about it. So I'm going to engage in some pure blue-sky speculation today, because this one thought has been bouncing around the back of my brain for a few weeks now.

There is one man who might just be able to guarantee that Joe Biden wins the November election. Because I really think all it would take would be if Dr. Anthony Fauci were either fired or got so fed up with the political smear job the White House has actively been pursuing against him that he handed in his resignation. If Fauci then publicly announced his full-throated endorsement of Joe Biden for president, I think the race would be all but over.

Dr. Fauci has already achieved what can accurately be called "rock-star status" with the public. He was just on the cover of InStyle magazine. He has been openly proposed as People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" for the year. He will almost certainly be a frontrunner for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" award, as well. And he's about to throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals season opener (apparently because he favors wearing a Nats face mask on television). His public polling numbers for approval and trustworthiness are through the roof, and are the envy of every politician everywhere. In short, the people not only trust Dr. Fauci, they love Dr. Fauci. Rarely has any scientist held such widespread esteem with the general public, in fact (at least in modern times).

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Watching President Donald Trump get interviewed by Chris Wallace on yesterday's Fox News Sunday was certainly instructive (and that's being as polite as I possibly can be). Not only did Trump display a staggering ignorance of the basic facts of the coronavirus pandemic crisis currently unfolding right before everyone's eyes, he also exhibited the same staggering level of ignorance on any number of subjects. Amusingly, Wallace fact-checked the president right to his face on several of these, which didn't exactly put Trump in a good light. But the most laughable thing Wallace exposed was Trump's continuing insistence that a mental acuity test he took a few years back was some sort of measure of his great intelligence. Wallace, as politely as he could manage, begged to differ: "It's not the hardest test."

Wallace is right -- it isn't. It is not an I.Q. test, it is not designed to measure intelligence in any way at all. Instead, it tests for major cognitive impairment. The test is a one-page form with several tasks for the patient to perform. One is to draw an analog clock with the hands at 11:10. Another is to identify drawings of various easily-identifiable animals (a camel, or an elephant). There are some basic memory tests as well.

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At this point, one has to wonder: is President Donald Trump intentionally trying to commit political suicide?

This would certainly make a lot of sense, given his recent actions. Perhaps he's tired of attempting to do a job he is so obviously underqualified for, and perhaps he just wants to return to private life. To do so, Joe Biden has to win, meaning Trump has to guarantee this outcome. So he goes about actively destroying any possibility that he'll win re-election.

If Trump actually is interested in beating Biden, he's certainly going about it in the wrong way. Trump had a golden opportunity when the pandemic began, because if he had shown even a modicum of leadership and even a shred of human decency and empathy, the race would right now be a lot closer. If Trump had addressed the nation, admitted the facts, rallied people to fight the pandemic in every way possible, trusted the scientists, urged people to wear masks, developed a national plan to deal with the crisis, and repeatedly helped the nation mourn those we've lost (now at 140,000 and climbing), then Donald Trump would be seen in a radically different light right now. He wouldn't have even had to have been particularly good at any of these efforts -- he could have just mouthed the words off the TelePrompTer, and that likely would have been enough. But he is absolutely incapable of doing so, it seems.

Instead, Trump keeps choosing the worst possible course. He ignored the initial outbreak. He ignored the testing crisis. He ignored the states being crushed under the outbreak. He ignored his own scientists -- or, even worse, contradicted them and actively undermined them. And worst of all, he has almost completely ignored all the suffering and death out there.

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That headline is meant in an ironic way, not a literal one -- since Donald Trump literally "getting schooled" on anything would be impossible, considering his almost-complete lack of the ability to learn new things. Instead, I refer to the president deciding to pick a battle on yet another losing field for him, this time fighting to force school districts to open up in-person classes in a few weeks. Trump would like to get all America's schools back to normal. That's a goal shared by just about everyone, but the problem with Trump's approach is that it comes with a rather large disclaimer at the end: "...whether it is safe to do so or not." This is the bridge that is proving to be too far for America's mothers and fathers.

In any conflict, whether military or political, you've got to pick your battles. You've got to decide what is worth defending to the death and what is not. The problem for Trump is that his campaign (or he himself) has massively misread the issue of school reopenings with the general public.

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