I'm gonna need some pepto bismol to cure the headache that I have from trying to think about this logic.

Medical experts at the White House have to patiently explain to Trump that his idea of using the flu vaccine to address the coronavirus will not work. pic.twitter.com/acghVStSvK

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) March 2, 2020

The crucial part:

You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that would have an impact or much have an impact on corona?

Speaking of coronavirus and vaccines, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn has claimed that US medical will have performed close to a million coronavirus tests by the end of this week. That's good news! What's not good news is that some test kits have already been contaminated, after the CDC had already sent out hundreds of flawed test kits in the first place. So far, the US has tested has tested about 500 people total; according to the Association of Public Health Laboratories (via Politico), we'd still only be able to run about 10,000 tests per day across the country under ideal conditions. As such, it's not clear how Hahn reached that conclusion of one million test kits. Maybe he was using Trump inauguration math?

FDA chief's claim of 1M coronavirus tests by end of week stirs controversy [David Lim / Politico]

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CNN has the full 4-page organizing resolution for the Trump impeachment trial that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent to the Senate on Monday.

As CNN notes, the impeachment trial for President Bill Clinton gave the defense and the House prosecution committee each 24-hours — spread out over a maximum of 4 days — to make their opening statements. For the Trump trial, however, each side only gets 2 days to make their statements. But on any given day, the hearings don't begin until 1pm, and will thus drag on late into the night.

After the opening statements, the Senate will have a total of 16 hours to question the House Committee or the White House Defense. Only then will the Senate vote on whether or not to subpoena witnesses or other evidence.

The GOP's defense strategy becomes painfully clear in the structure set forward on those pages: make sure no one has a chance to say or reveal anything beyond what's already known by the public, then force a vote as soon as possible. Which is why I'm expecting the White House's opening statement to be a full-on Chewbacca Defense but with Bidens instead of Wookies.

Impeachment resolution shortens trial's opening arguments to two days per side [Lauren Fox, Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb /  CNN]

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A U.S. judge today dismissed a lawsuit by an American journalist who sought to challenge his placement on a drone “kill list” by U.S. authorities in Syria. Read the rest

If you want an example of how big of a problem Chinese espionage is, you needn't look any further than the warnings that Canada and the United States have been throwing at corporations and governmental organizations about the use of gear built by tech companies with ties to the Chinese government.

Apparently, the issue extends beyond the use of smartphones and cellular networking hardware built by Huawei and ZTE: the US Government is thinking about conducting deep background checks on Chinese nationals coming to the United States in pursuit of their education. Spies! They're everywhere!

From IntelNews.Org:

...the Trump administration is reportedly considering the possibility of imposing deeper background checks and additional vetting on all Chinese nationals wishing to study in the US. Citing “a US official and three congressional and university sources”, Reuters said on Thursday that the measures would apply to all Chinese students wishing to register in undergraduate and graduate academic programs in the US. The news agency quoted a “senior US official” as saying that “no Chinese student who’s coming [to the US] is untethered from the state […. They all have] to go through a party and government approval process”. Reuters reported that the proposed plan includes a comprehensive examination of the applicants’ phone records and their presence on social media platforms. The goal would be to verify that the applicants are not connected with Chinese government agencies. As part of the proposed plan, US law enforcement and intelligence agencies would provide counterintelligence training to university officials.