Tag Archives: Covid 19

military news

Capt. Crozier gets slapped again … dang!

Man, I was hoping for a different outcome to this story.

U.S. Navy Capt. Brett Crozier got relieved of his command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier because he sent out warnings to the Navy brass that his crew was being threatened by the COVID-19 virus.

The Navy Department said he acted beyond the normal chain of command so it sent Capt. Crozier packing … much to the chagrin of the men and women he commanded.

Now the Navy says he won’t get reinstated, which had been considered. I was among those who thought the Navy shafted the stellar sailor whose only “sin” was to care for the health of his crew.

I had hoped the Navy would return him to his command.

Alas, it won’t.

It’s not all bad news. Crozier will keep his rank. He will be reassigned to another duty post, provided he chooses to stay in the Navy.

Given that the Navy stiffed him, then teased him with the prospect of being reinstated as commanding officer of the Theodore Roosevelt, and then said “no, you won’t,” I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Capt. Crozier will call it a career.

Thank you for your service to the nation and to the men and women you commanded, skipper.

national news

Does he really care about those who adore him? Umm, no!

Donald J. Trump is proceeding full throttle to stage that rally in Tulsa.

He intends to pack 19,000 adherents into an arena Saturday to hear him rant and roar about Democrats, the media, John Bolton … and God knows who or what else.

Let me pose this question: Do you think Donald Trump gives a rat’s a** about those who will flock to Tulsa to hear his incoherent riff?

I say “no!” Here’s why.

Trump is going to ask folks to sign a waiver that says if they get sick from COVID-19 that they can’t sue him. The Tulsa mayor says, moreover, that any rational person would stay away from an indoor rally while infection from COVID-19 is spiking throughout Oklahoma. Despite all of that, Donald Trump is intent on staging this rally.

Why? Because he wants to produce the photo op that will be broadcast around the country to advance his re-election effort.

Does he give a crap about the health and well-being of those who will cheer him on? No … way! Good luck to you all. Just remember that Donald John Trump cares far less about you than you care about him.

State news

Gov. Abbott hands out blame, fails to own this crisis

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I have some advice for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

You need to stop dishing out blame to others and start taking ownership of the role you have played in the spike in COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and death in the state you were elected to govern.

Abbott decided this week to blame 20-something Texans for refusing to practice social distancing, for failing to wear face masks in public and for being too cavalier about the threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic that has swept around the globe.

Here’s a thought for the governor to ponder, although he likely won’t: Greg Abbott has the authority to issue a mandate that requires Texans to wear masks. Yet he doesn’t do that. He chooses to follow the lead of others — namely Donald Trump — who decline to accept fully the gravity of the health crisis at hand.

Having said that I’ll accept that we all deserve to be slapped across the face about this COVID-19. We need to ensure we all take it seriously. I get it. However, I found the tone of Gov. Abbott’s remarks to be disconcerting because they fail to address the role he and other political leaders can play in reducing the threat of this killer virus to Texans.

Isn’t there a saying making the rounds that declares that “We’re all in this together”? If were “in it together,” then we need to share the responsibility in looking for ways to get through this crisis. Assessing blame to just some of us won’t do the job.

medical news, military news

‘Cause for celebration’? Really?

(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

Vice President Mike Pence is proud to wear the dunce cap that designates him as Donald Trump’s No. 1 sycophant.

Take, for instance, what he wrote in the Wall Street Journal, where he declared that “under … Trump’s leadership” the rate of infection by COVID-19 in the United States should be a “cause for celebration.”

Huh? Is the VPOTUS out of his mind? Well, yes. He is!

If he’s going to cite national causes for celebration, he needs to hold up France, Italy and Spain. Those countries have actually “flattened the curve” and are seeing serious declines in the infection and death rates from the pandemic.

How about Greece and Taiwan, which took seriously proactive measures at the onset of the pandemic and have experienced hardly any of the heartache that has occurred in the United States?

Oh, no! The VP has swilled Trump’s pandemic Kool-Aid and declared we should be “celebrating.” Earth to Mikey: We’re getting sicker here; many states are seeing serious increases in infection and hospitalization.

Pence wrote: “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and the courage and compassion of the American people, our public health system is far stronger than it was four months ago, and we are winning the fight against the invisible enemy.”

No. We are not “winning the fight.”

medical news

Flabbergasted at POTUS’s declaration of ‘victory’ against COVID-19

I cannot wrap my arms — let alone my noggin — around the notion that Donald Trump keeps harping on that declares some form of “victory” against the COVID-19 killer virus.

How in the name of medical expertise does this clown get away with making such idiotic declarations we have whipped the virus, that it’s all but gone?

Texas is among more than a dozen states that is seeing a dramatic spike, an increase, in the number of infections. Yet our governor, Republican Greg Abbott, says he sees no compelling need to put the brakes on the state reopening. Oh, no. Now he’s throwing out blame at 20-somethings for refusing to use proper social distancing methods and declining to wear masks in public for the increase.

Yumpin’ yiminy, man! We aren’t winning anything as it regards this virus. Medical gurus tell us there might be a second “wave” of infection that will make the first wave look like a Scout outing. Our beaches have been declared open and tourists are flocking to the coast with little or zero regard to social distancing “recommendations.” Is it any surprise that we’d see a spike in infection and hospitalization in Texas?

Still, Donald Trump tells us we’re whipping that Bad Boy. His loyal followers believe him! The basis for his victory declaration? He doesn’t have any. He points to his own vacuous skull and says he just knows these things.

No. Donald Trump doesn’t know whether to sh** or shine his shoes.

I think we’re just going to keep doing what we’ve been doing all along. We’re not going to mingle among crowds. No thanks, Mr. POTUS. You can declare victory to your heartless soul’s content. We cannot believe the words of a pathological liar.

medical news, national news

Texas ought to follow Oregon’s lead

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I have intimate knowledge and familiarity with two of our nation’s 50 states. I was born, came of age and grew up in Oregon; I have lived in Texas for most of my life, 36 out of 70 years on Earth.

Oregon is experiencing a spike in COVID-19 infections and is slamming a halt to its plan to reopen the state’s business community. Texas also is experiencing a spike, setting infection and death records daily, but it is moving ahead with its phased reopening.

Hmm. I believe Oregon has it correct and that Texas is reacting badly. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he sees no real need to scale back, let alone shut down, the state’s reopening. Why? Because the state has no shortage of intensive care unit beds in hospitals, according to Abbott.

Oregon has adopted a go-slow approach to this pandemic. Accordingly, Oregon has experienced a much lower per capita infection and death rate than many states. Texas cannot make that claim.

According to the Texas Tribune: The number of available beds is seen as a key gauge for the state’s ability to handle a potential surge in coronavirus cases, and Abbott has said the hospitalization rate — the proportion of infected Texans who are requiring hospitalization — is a benchmark he’s closely monitoring. That number has trended slowly downward since April and was just over 8% on Friday.

I continue to believe the state is moving too quickly to return to what some Texans hope is “normal” business and recreational activity.

Hey, I want this to end as much as the next guy. I want to return to regular activity. I am tired of wearing a mask when I mingle with others at the grocery store. I am sick of slathering sanitizer on my hands whenever I touch door handles, fuel pumps and shopping carts.

I also do not want my family members exposed to a virus that could do them serious harm. I want the state to take greater care than it is already doing to help ensure that they remain safe.

national news

Are we really ready to repeat this fluke?

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I have written of Donald Trump’s election as president as being the greatest political fluke in U.S. history.

Hardly no one saw it coming in 2016. The pundit class, all the political “experts” believed to their core that Hillary Clinton would be elected. She wasn’t. Instead we got a guy who had never sought public office, let alone ever held one. Many of us predicted he would be a disaster as president of the United States.

I hate saying this — yes, I really do hate it — but he’s proven to be far worse than we thought. The Nitwit in Chief has shredded the presidency. He has destroyed relations between the legislative and executive branches of government. Trump has decimated our international alliances. POTUS has turned us into a worldwide laughingstock.

We have a chance in November to rescue what Trump has damaged. The destruction he has brought to intergovernmental relations can be restored by electing someone who understands how the executive and legislative branches can cooperate and seek common ground. Yes, that would be Joe Biden, the former longtime senator and two-term vice president.

However, the wreckage that Trump has brought will be difficult to clear from the landscape.

Time and time and time again, this president refuses to speak to issues that compel his attention. The issue of race relations has returned to the top of our minds. The death of a black man by a white police officer who choked the life out of him for nearly nine minutes has galvanized a movement. Trump doesn’t speak to that tragedy specifically. Instead he quotes racist cops from more than 50 years ago and drives wedges between Americans, relishing the division he is creating and widening.

Yes, we also have the pandemic. Trump’s initial response was pathetic and rotten to the core. Tens of thousands of Americans have died from COVID-19; there will be tens of thousands more who will die. Trump claims success. For what?

Are we really ready to commit the Greatest Political Fluke 2.0 come November? The polling tells us “no!” Then again, it said the same thing four years ago … and look at what we got.

medical news

This isn’t ‘success’ in COVID fight

Donald Trump keeps yapping about the “fantastic” job he and his administration have done and are doing to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Hmm. I looked at some numbers compiled by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of this very day:

  • The world has logged 7.3 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. The United States reports 2.04 cases. The United States comprises about 5 percent of the world population, but we have reported nearly 30 percent of the world total of infection.
  • Earth reports 413,854 deaths from the killer virus. The U.S. total is 114,452. That’s 27 percent of the world total, again in a country that comprises about 5 percent of the world population.

That’s success? That is a “fantastic” job?

No. Neither is true. What is true is that Donald Trump’s pledge to protect Americans against all our adversaries, even those we cannot see, has gone unfulfilled.

Yet the Imbecile in Chief keeps insisting he is doing so well that we simply must send him back to the presidency for another four years.

Aye, caramba! Perish the thought.

Those numbers all by themselves tell me he is failing the fundamental test of presidential leadership. I will concede there might be a discrepancy in the reporting of illness in some of places on Earth. Indeed, I am willing to argue that even in the United States — the most advanced nation on the planet — infection and death rates likely are underreported, too.

We are failing — not succeeding — in the fight against COVID-19.

medical news

Restrictions fall away, infections keep climbing

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The trend is troublesome … in my humble view, but that isn’t stopping Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from proceeding quickly to reopen the state, which has been crippled by the coronavirus pandemic.

Abbott has announced the next phase of the state’s reopening, all the while Texas is recording an increase in infections from the killer virus. The Texas Tribune reports some troubling numbers, all of which tell my wife and me to keep doing what we’re doing, which is to stay home and venture out only when we absolutely must.

As the Tribune reports: Throughout the state, the number of new cases reported each day has grown from an average of about 1,081 during the week ending May 24 to about 1,527 in the past week. (Public health data varies day to day, so officials use a seven-day rolling average to better capture trends over time.)

The 14-day trend line shows new infections in Texas have risen about 71% in the past two weeks. Although confirmed infections have increased across the state, hot spots like state prisons and meatpacking plants, which have recently been the sites of mass or targeted testing, are responsible for a portion of the increase, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Yikes, man!

I want to stipulate that I am among those who wants the state to reopen, but only as soon as it is prudent and healthy. I do not want to become a casualty in this fight; of course, that’s no flash as no one wants to become sick from COVID-19. I am just troubled by the steepening infection rate in our state, indeed in Collin County.

Meanwhile, we keep getting pressure from on high — namely the White House — to speed up the resumption of “normal” business and recreational activity. Donald Trump is shopping around for a site to stage the Republican Party’s presidential nominating convention. He wants that big crowd to cheer his nomination, exposing every one of the participants in whatever arena opens up to being infected by the virus. Baloney!

This kind of foolishness is playing out in our public parks, in our eating establishments as Texans are increasingly tossing caution aside just because the governor says it’s OK to do so.

It’s ridiculous. And frightening.

national news

The shock is now aimed at his supporters

Donald Trump’s lack of empathy, compassion or sorrow at the suffering of others never has surprised me.

What continues to blow my mind is the acceptance of this individual’s profound character deficiency by those who think he remains the greatest thing to happen to America since they started putting pockets on shirts.

My … goodness. Trump has revealed for all the world how he lacks empathy toward those who have been stricken by COVID-19 or toward their loved ones who are kept away from COVID patients out of fear they, too, would be contaminated by the viral infection.

He has stressed the economic shutdown and his desire to speed up the reopening of the nation’s business community.

Now comes the George Floyd tragedy that has pushed the pandemic off the front pages if only for a brief period. Has the Numbskull in Chief sought answers to the brutal acts that resulted in Floyd’s death after being suffocated by Minneapolis cops? No. He has focused his anger at the rioters who rushed into the streets in an angry response to Floyd’s death … an African-American man who died while being detained by a white police officer.

Trump has vowed to unleash “thousands and thousands of heavily armed” military personnel to put down even peaceful protests.

None of this should surprise anyone who believes — as I do — that Donald Trump is fundamentally unfit for the office of president.

What I cannot fathom nor will I accept is the belief among Americans that Donald Trump is the man we need in this time of grief and angst. Good ever-lovin’ God in heaven, he is the exact opposite of what we need.

Still, the Donald Trump core of supporters still stands with this guy. How in the name of human decency does that happen?

It will remain a mystery to me for as long as I draw breath.