The White House is holding a press conference today on the coronavirus. If you are online now, you can watch it live here.

Trump begins with what he calls great news and he's very happy, the Federal Reserve has lowered the treasury rate to 0.

He wants to thank Google because they substantiated what he said on Friday (it was fake news that Google denied it.)

This is quite an explanatory multi-media graphic from the South China Post on the beginning and evolution of the Coronavirus. It is updated daily.

Also interesting, again from the South China Post, is an article on the search for "Patient Zero" who authorities now believe contracted the disease on November 17, 2019 (rather than December as previously believed).

According to the government data seen by the Post, a 55 year-old from Hubei province could have been the first person to have contracted Covid-19 on November 17.

...While the government records have not been released to the public, they provide valuable clues about how the disease spread in its early days and the speed of its transmission, as well as how many confirmed cases Beijing has recorded.

Donald Trump says he did not contribute to the coronavirus pandemic by removing the office created to deal with such things that had been established under Obama.

To the suprise of no one, the coronavirus is spreading around the globe. Now that three people Donald Trump shook hands with or was otherwise close to at Mar-a-Lago have tested positive, Trump changed course (yet again) and announced he has been tested. (Update: His results were negative according to his personal White House physician, Sean P. Conley, reports his tests were negative. (This is after yesterday when he said Trump didn't need to get tested.)

Spain and France have announced partial shutdowns. France has ordered all restaurants, bars, and shops closed (except grocery stores). Here is how it has been growing. [More...]

The company that physically hosts TalkLeft's server is in the process of moving its servers a short distance from where they are presently located. Our server was not scheduled to be moved until midnight tonight, but apparently someone pulled the wrong plug somewhere when moving another server last night, and TalkLeft was down for several hours last night and this morning.

Obviously, we are back up now, but we are still on schedule to be moved tonight around midnight, and we should be down for only 90 minutes or so (n a perfect world).

I apologize for any inconvenience to those of you who clicked this morning and got no response -- I only realized it around 9:00 am, by which time Colin, our webmaster, was already on it and we went back up soon after.

This is now an open thread, all topics welcome.

An automatic circuit tripper was triggered this morning when the NYSE opened due to the worst drop in the Dow Jones average since the financial crisis of October, 2008 (and before that, 9/11):

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked 1,247 points — 4.8% — on pace for its worst day since December 2008, while the S&P 500 plunged 4.9%. The massive sell-off triggered a key market circuit breaker minutes after the opening bell. Trading was halted for 15 minutes until reopening at 9:49 a.m. ET. At one point in morning trading, the 30-stock Dow dropped 2,046 points and the S&P 500 cratered 7.4%.

This is the first time the trigger was activated since 1997.

As for why the Dow freaked out, it's fears over the oil trade deal and the coronavirus.[More...]

It's down to a two man race for the Democratic nomination -- Elizabeth Warren has suspended her campaign,

She didn't make an endorsement but said there's no rush to do so.

So after all the hub-bub with a diverse field of 20, we are down to two white almost-octogenarians. What a disappointment.

Super Tuesday results are streaming in. Sanders has Vermont and Utah and Biden has Virginia.

What about Mike? Will his cash seal the deal?

How was the turnout? What do the exit polls show? Most importantly, did those of you in the Super Tuesday states remember to vote?

Will whatever went down today at MSNBC between the network and Chris Matthews, host of Hardball, ever be fully explained? I'm not sure. But I suspect Matthews' sexist comments to a certain female and his inappropriate remarks about Hitler and Sanders, for which he apologized, are merely examples of why the network decided he was so incompatible with the politics of now as to have become obsolete.

Matthews seems to believe that covering politics today is the same as it was 20 years ago and the only changes are the names and faces of both those in front of the camera and those being interviewed. He likely believes his institutional knowledge of politics makes him a hugely valuable asset.

Amy Klobuchar suspended her presidential campaign today, a day after Pete B. and two days after Tom Steyer.

"Faux-Dem" Mike B. is blanketing the airwaves in every Super Tuesday state. I wonder if we will see commercials with Barbra Streisand and Clint Eastood, both of whom are supporting him.

I think Elizabeth will be next to fold. But at 2 pm today MT, she tweeted out a request for funds saying she's in.

The question is, if Elizabeth drops tomorrow or Wednesday and throws her support to Bernie, can they and Bernie's "army of supporters" prevail against Biden and Bloomberg?

One thing to keep in mind: The millions of people who voted early in California. I think Bernie will get most of the early voters as Biden was a dying duck until South Carolina.

I finally decided who to vote for and dropped off my ballot today. I voted for one of the two candidates who most share my political agenda and whom I believe has the ability if elected to move us in a progressive direction.[More...]

I guess we're not done with primary coverage tonight after all. Pete B. has suspended his campaign, saying the math is just not there. He also threw some shade on Bernie Sanders. Bernie on the other hand had nothing but praise for him.

Back in her home state of Minnesota, Amy K. cancelled a rally because Black Lives Matter took over the stage and according to her campaign, wouldn't relinquish it after an hour as the group had promised to do. Polls now show Amy K. may get beaten by Bernie in her home state.

My advice: Instead of freaking out over Bernie, Dems should examine what his supporters believe a Bernie presidency might look like.

While I'm still deciding who to vote for Tuesday, I do believe Bernie best represents the Democratic values I grew up with and that he is trying to bring Dems together, rather than encouraging each minority faction to go its own way. People-powered politics can beat Donald Trump if we pick a candidate who makes the tent big enough to hold all Democrats - young, old, citizen or immigrant, black, brown, latino or white, college student or factory worker, and on and on, rather than favoring one group or issue over the others.

Let's make sure we all realize who the enemy is, and that he's not in here, he's outside this room.

I spent half the afternoon writing the absurdly long media open thread below, and then had two posts in a row on the primaries, so here's an open thread for all other topics, without making you scroll forever to reach the bottom.

Enough today about the Democratic primary. It's not like there's one totally desirable candidate we are all jumping up and down for.

In the TV department, here's what I've watched lately and can recommend:

"The Last Thing He Wanted", a film based on the book by my most favorite author, Joan Didion. It stars Anne Hathaway, William DaFoe, Ben Affleck and Rosie Perez. Hathaway plays a liberal journalist in the mid 1980's whose father, an arms smuggler to Central America (Nicaragua, Salavador, etc) cons her into making a trip on her own. Vague on details, she is supposed to collect $1 million for what he insists will be his last ever "deal".

I had read some reviews that said it was so fast-paced that at times it was hard to keep track of the plot. So before watching, I re-read the first three chapters of the book to remind myself what it was about (While I first read "Play it As it Lays" in 1971 and have probably re-read it every year or two since then and can probably recite large sections of it, this book I barely remembered. The Denver Public library has it instantly available to download as an E-book which I did, and then watched the movie. [More...]