Monthly Archives: March 2020

medical news

C’mon, Mr. POTUS, show us the proof of what you’re implying

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For crying out loud, Mr. President, what in the world are you trying to do?

You consider yourself a wartime president, that you’re the commander in chief of a nation at war with an “invisible enemy,” the coronavirus pandemic that is sweeping the globe.

When you are going to start acting like a wartime president? Ever?

You’re implication today that New York hospitals are peddling hospital masks “out the door” is despicable. You made that statement without an ounce, a scintilla, a shred of evidence. It’s yet another disgraceful bit of rumor-mongering for which you are becoming infamous.

I want to remind you of what you said: “How do you go from 10 to 20 to 300,000? 10 to 20,000 masks to 300,000. Even though this is different. Something’s going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? So somebody should probably look into that.”

What do you mean “something’s going on”?

Wartime presidents don’t hurl accusations at first responders, at health care providers, at politicians from opposing parties. They open their arms and tell all Americans that it’s time to join the battle together, to fight the enemy on a united front.

Your remarkable accusation — and that’s how many of us are reading it, as an accusation — flies directly in the face of the things that a wartime president must do.

What’s more, this implication that someone is stealing the masks demands that you provide some sort of evidence of its veracity. Oh, and your suggestion that hospitals are “hoarding” ventilators? That is equally despicable. Good grief, man!

I’d say “Shame on you,” Mr. President … except that you have no shame.

I’ll say it once again. You, sir, make me sick.

national news

There goes the Easter timeline for returning to ‘normal’

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Donald Trump said this, among other things, at a White House briefing today on the coronavirus pandemic:

The modeling estimates that the peak in death rates is likely to hit in two weeks. I will say it again. The peak, the highest point of death rates, remember this, is likely to hit in two weeks … Therefore, we will be extending our guidelines to April 30, to slow the spread.

Are we clear? Here’s what it means to me. The Easter timeline that Trump had laid out for a possible return to “normal” economic behavior is a goner. Easter arrives on April 12.

The president today said that the Easter recommendation was an “aspirational” date. He “aspired” to return to normal activity by that date. Trump denied ever suggesting it would be a firm date. Whatever it was, the Easter suggestion received plenty of push back from medical professionals who interpreted it as more than “aspirational” and said it was unrealistic to expect any sort of relaxing by the time of the holy holiday.

What now?

I’m going to heed Dr. Anthony Fauci’s pearl of wisdom about timelines. He said that the coronavirus doesn’t heed human estimates on when things would occur; the virus sets its own timeline. Fauci, the nation’s premier infectious disease expert, knows his business, which means that we need to heed all the estimates that come forth with a serious dose of skepticism.

As for any talk of the pandemic lessening, subsiding, dissipating … it ain’t happening, at least not in the immediate future.

I fear we have a lot more pain ahead of us. As for when we know when the end of the pandemic is at hand, well … none of us ever has lived through anything like this. I just hope we will know it when it gets here.

national news

GOP seeks fast-track confirmation of a fraud for DNI

John Ratcliffe was revealed to be a fraud when Donald Trump nominated him the first time to become the Director of National Intelligence.

The Northeast Texas congressman then pulled his name out of the running. Then the president, who still needed someone to fill the DNI post permanently, resubmitted Ratcliffe’s name.

He’s still as fraudulent a pick now as he was then, but now Senate Republicans want him confirmed as quickly as possible.

What a joke!

Ratcliffe’s only “qualification” to serve as the nation’s top spook is that he is an avid, fervent, fanatical Donald Trump loyalist, which is the president’s seeming top criterion for anyone seeking to become a member of the Cabinet. Actual qualifications be damned!

Trump has told us many times about how qualified individuals are lining up to work in the White House. Well, that’s a lie, too. How do I know that? Look at who he has nominated — for the second time! — to be DNI.

John Ratcliffe inflated his resume when he sought the job the first time. He has virtually none of the international intelligence experience he said he had. GOP senators got cold feet when Ratcliffe got the call to succeed former DNI Dan Coats.

For the ever-lovin’ life of me I don’t know what’s changed now. I cannot fathom what commends Ratcliffe now for this most important task.

Amazing.

national news

Welcome home, Vietnam War vets

I want to direct these next few words to some individuals who understand what it means to hear “Welcome home.”

We didn’t hear that greeting too often back in the day, when we were coming home from service during the Vietnam War. We hear it now and speaking only for myself, it rings sweetly in my ears.

Today happens to be National Vietnam War Veterans Day. It’s a day the nation set aside in 2012 to offer a word of thanks to those of us who answered the call to duty, did our job the best we could but then came home to a nation that was either indifferent to what we had experienced or damn angry at us for doing our duty.

I have many friends who served in Vietnam. Many of them saw horrendous combat. Some of my friends are scarred emotionally by what they experienced. One of them has written at least two memoirs about his time as a Marine over there, telling us about the pain of watching his buddies die in his arms.

I was fortunate in this regard: I was not a rifle-packing grunt while serving in the U.S. Army. I maintained and serviced fixed-wing aircraft and then worked as a flight operations specialist. No one hung the “baby killer!” tag on me when I returned home.

However, it took a number of years for many of our fellow Americans to realize how wrong they were to blame the soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines for the policies they were ordered to follow. We simply were doing what our nation called on us to do.

So … now we get a day when the nation offers its thanks. Of course, there won’t be any parades on this National Vietnam War Veterans Day. The health crisis/pandemic has taken care of that.

I will use this forum to offer a simple “Welcome home” to my brothers.

medical news

Fauci: U.S. pandemic death toll could hit 200K

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Dr. Anthony Fauci is speaking — and please pardon my paraphrasing a well-worn cliché — truth to ignorance.

The nation’s top infectious disease doc has declared that the worldwide coronavirus pandemic could kill as many as 200,000 Americans and could infect millions more of us before it is finally brought, um, “under control.”

I fear the doctor is right. I also fear the man for whom he works — Donald Trump — is dead wrong when he keeps up the happy talk about what a “fantastic job” everyone is doing to stem the killer tide.

The U.S. death count has surpassed 2,000. It is climbing rapidly. The worst still hasn’t yet arrived. I am among millions of Americans who are waiting anxiously for the worst to get here. I’ll say to the worst: You may leave now.

It doesn’t matter one little bit to me that a 200,000-person casualty count isn’t the worst such incident to afflict the United States. The Centers for Disease Control said the 1918-19 flu pandemic killed more than 650,000 Americans; what’s more considering that our population then was far smaller than it is today, that death count becomes even more staggering.

Still, we are facing a potentially terrible time of it as the COVID-19 strain of the coronavirus does it filthy work around the world.

I no longer want the president of the United States to boast about what a great job he is doing. I want him to speak the truth.

local news

UFO spotted from backyard!

It’s time for a random thought and time to steer away from pandemic madness.

Here it comes …

I walked into my backyard the other evening. The sky over Princeton was clear. I looked up and saw two blinking lights. I don’t know what they were. It was dark, man! I couldn’t discern the source of the lights.

The random thought? Were they unidentified flying objects? Yes, I submit. They were.

Which brings me to the point of this mindlessness: When are UFOs no longer UFOs? Which brings me to another point: If I see a UFO and I determine that it is a vessel that has flown to Earth from some extraterrestrial location, is that a UFO? Of course not! I will have identified it as a space ship from some other place.

Thus, I fear we have misapplied the term “UFO” to mean something that it shouldn’t mean. UFOs from beyond our solar system aren’t UFOs if we know what they are.

OK, I’m now done with this random thought.

The pandemic craziness remains to occupy my worrying moments.

national news

When will Trump act like a ‘wartime president’?

Donald J. Trump calls himself a “wartime president.” He says he is fighting an “invisible enemy.” As near as I can tell, the fight has just begun.

When, I have to ask, is Donald Trump going to start acting like a “wartime president”? When will the commander in chief cease with the phony happy talk and the hollow boasts about what a “fantastic” job he and his response team are doing in fighting the coronavirus pandemic?

My guess? He won’t stop the false bravado. He won’t in effect declare a state of war against this invisible enemy. Why? Because doing so just might send a signal that he and his team haven’t done quite as good a job as Trump keeps saying they have done.

Moreover, a wartime president doesn’t pit Americans against each other. He doesn’t criticize politicians from the opposing party. A wartime president calls all political leaders — from both parties — into the same room and talks candidly to them about the challenges the nation faces.

A wartime president calls a truce with governors and mayors who are struggling with their own battles. He offers to provide unquestioned, unqualified support in their battles.

A president at war with an invisible enemy damn sure doesn’t condemn the media — print, digital or broadcast — that are doing their job in reporting the progress of the battle to the public.

Are we at war, Mr. President, with a common and deadly enemy? Or are you at war with those who merely question the manner in which you are behaving?

State news

Texas AG: Gun shops are an ‘essential’ business … yikes!

I suppose you can chalk this one up as an “only in Texas” kind of thing.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has determined that gun shops are an “essential business” and therefore can remain open while other businesses are being shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic.

There is something kind of weird about Paxton’s decision, which countermands a statement issued by the mayor of Lubbock, who determined that gun shops in the West Texas city are “non-essential” and should close during this time of crisis.

How do we define essential? The way I define the term, that would include businesses that sell food, medicine, various household cleaning supplies.

But … guns? Seriously? Ken Paxton thinks that guns count as something Texans need to purchase.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hasn’t issued a stay-at-home order for all Texans. He has left that decision up to local governments, some of which have been proactive; others have been, well, not so much.

State Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican, asked Paxton for a ruling after the mayor made his determination. I guess Burrows got what he sought.

I just find Paxton’s decision to be peculiar … although not the least bit surprising. Gotta have them guns at the ready, right? I mean, we just don’t have enough of ’em out there already.

medical news

Dr. Anthony Fauci: cult hero

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Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci might be the nerdiest cult hero in American history.

He has become the de facto voice of reason within the Donald Trump administration, which is led by a pathological liar who also happens to be an ignoramus. Fauci has been the primo truth-teller among the men and women who’ve been briefing us daily about the progress of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the United States.

He will turn 80 years of age next Christmas Eve. Fauci runs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He is a giant among the physicians and scientists who work with the National Institute of Health.

Fauci has been charged with helping craft the nation’s response to the pandemic as it has circled the globe, killing thousands of human beings. It has claimed more than 1,000 Americans and the United States is now the world’s most infected nation, with more than 120,000 Americans infected by the unique coronavirus known as COVID-19.

Dr. Fauci, though, is facing a monumental task while reporting to pandemic task force chairman Vice President Mike Pence, who in turn reports to Donald J. Trump. You see, Pence is the nation’s No. 1 suck-up to Trump and Trump is the nation’s No. 1 purveyor of fake news.

So, when Fauci contradicts the crap that flies out of Trump’s mouth,  he runs the risk of angering the Top Liar, who has demonstrated a propensity for removing those who fail to fall in line with whatever falsehood he is peddling.

Trump tries to persuade us that we’ve got this pandemic “under control.” We don’t have it under control. The cases of infection are increasing daily and they are threatening the economic health — not to mention the physical health — of the nation.

Meanwhile, we have Dr. Fauci trying to tell us the truth. A social media Fauci Fan Club has emerged. I’m grappling with whether I should join. I likely won’t do it, but it surely is tempting.

However, I remain wedded to my belief that the nation needs this wise and learned man more than ever as an antidote to the imbecile to whom he must answer.

medical news

Trump’s push to ‘re-open’ country could bring even more heartache

Donald Trump’s desire to restart the nation’s economy is presenting some truly dangerous potential consequences. If only the Idiot in Chief could understand what’s at stake.

He wants to reopen businesses by Easter. Trump seems to believe that the coronavirus is going to heed his demand and magically disappear, as if his presidential fiat will make it happen.

That ain’t how it works. I believe Dr. Anthony Fauci, the epidemiologist who works on the presidential pandemic response team, laid it out there: Illness and disease do not respect timetables.

That doesn’t matter to Donald Trump.

His fixation with the nation’s economic health has little if anything to do with concern over businessmen and women’s future, or their livelihood. It has everything to do with his re-election chances.

Except that reopening the doors to business around the country could expose millions of Americans to disease, which could inflict far more pain than even this presidential ignoramus can anticipate.

Donald Trump is likely not going to be persuaded by anyone’s expert opinion on matters that do not register in what passes for the president’s brain. He is focused only on himself and what’s good for his political future.

The irony, though, is that a premature reopening of business in America well could doom that future to monumental failure, not to mention doom millions of Americans to an even more grim fate.

As Osita Nwanevu writes in the New Republic: The choice the country now faces isn’t between public health and economic stability. We are choosing which public health and economic catastrophe we would like to see unfold. And one is clearly preferable.

Sickening.