Tag Archives: coronavirus

medical news

Stop the ‘reopening’ talk, Mr. POTUS; we’re still getting sick out here!

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Donald Trump’s push to reopen the United States of America is running into the proverbial immovable object.

It happens to be the rate of infection out here in Trump Country.

The White House has issued a report that declares that coronavirus infection rate is showing no signs of slowing in the heartland. That’s where I live, Mr. President, along with my family and a whole lot of our friends. I should add that many of our friends consider Trump to be the bee’s knees, but we still love them and worry about them.

Yet the Re-election Campaigner in Chief wants to push ahead with restarting the economy that has all but cratered in the wake of 80,000 deaths and more than 1.3 million infections from the killer viral infection.

States are reopening. Texas is phasing in a return to some semblance of “normal” life, although I have serious doubts about the wisdom of Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan.

My wife and I have no plans to walk into a restaurant for a meal; we will continue to go sparingly to the grocery store; we’ll run errands only as needed.

Full disclosure time: I did get a haircut this past weekend. I was masked, as was the salon worker who cut my locks. They were making many customers wait in their vehicles, but not all of ’em!

Still, we remain committed to the stay at home policy. We are staying away from our granddaughter, which — truth be told — pains us terribly. However, we are doing what we believe we have to do.

As for Donald Trump’s declaration that we are meeting all of our goals in containing the virus, um … no, we aren’t. Not in the least.

The White House coronavirus pandemic task force report contradicts Trump. Listen to the experts, Mr. President. They know more than you do.

medical news, national news

Trump keeps ratcheting up war against media

Donald John Trump was at his worst yet again today.

He took questions from reporters on the White House lawn after staging another round of happy talk about how fabulously the nation is doing as it fights the coronavirus pandemic.

Then came a question from CBS News White House reporter Weijia Jiang, who wanted to know why Trump keeps using the U.S. testing regimen as a global competition when more than 80,000 Americans have died from the viral infection.

“Maybe that’s a question you should ask China,” Trump said. Jiang was born in China but came to the United States at the age of 2. “Don’t ask me. Ask China that question, OK?” Jiang pushed back after Trump labeled her question “nasty.” She said it wasn’t … and she is correct. The question was a legitimate query.

Jiang also wanted to know from Trump why he would direct that response to her, given that she is, um, of Asian descent. You know?

A moment later, Trump called a halt to the press conference and fled the podium to return to the White House.

This is how the “wartime president” chooses to conduct himself. He chooses to attack the press when he should be focused on the “enemy,” which in this instance is that virus that keeps inflicting grievous suffering on the nation he took an oath to protect.

Disgraceful.

medical news, national news

How’s the ‘wartime president’ doing?

How does a “wartime president” spend his days?

He doesn’t spend them tweeting petty, petulant attacks against his political foes. The way I always have understood the term “wartime president,” he focuses tightly on the task at hand, which is to defeat the “enemy” with which he is at war.

Along the way, the “wartime president” unifies the nation. He speaks to our higher ideals. He puts partisan differences aside and offers words of measured wisdom.

How is Donald John “Tweeter in Chief” Trump doing as a “wartime president”? Not well … at all!

The enemy he once declared was “under control” now has killed 80,000 Americans. The coronavirus pandemic that Donald Trump once dismissed as not a serious threat to Americans has become, um, a deadly threat.

Trump called himself a “wartime president” in the mold, I suppose, of Presidents Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and for good measure, let’s throw in George W. Bush.

That’s where the comparison ends.

Trump has busied himself with Twitter messages that deal with everything but the “war” that has spiraled out of control on his watch. He attacks his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, the media, Democrats in general, even some Republican conservatives. Trump hurls blame at every target imaginable for the pandemic that is showing no sign at all of letting up. He castigates Democratic governors.

Trump’s primary focus is on his re-election.

A “wartime president” by all rights shouldn’t have the amount of time Trump spends bellowing about matters that have nothing to do with the fight. Donald Trump is, as fellow Republican Mitt Romney once described him, a “phony and a fraud.”

medical news, national news

Time to look kindly on W’s words of wisdom

(Photo by Paul McErlane/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

I am not inclined to think of former President George W. Bush as a reasoned, rational statesman, but Donald J. Trump’s daily ration of petty partisan petulance puts the former president in yet another perspective.

Consider this Twitter message that came out May 2 from George W. Bush: “Let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat. In the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants, we are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God. We rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise.”

President Bush sought to rally the nation that continues to be torn asunder by Trump’s blatant partisanship in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 80,000 Americans have died from the killer virus that has infected nearly 2 million of us.

President Bush, of course, is correct to assert that now — given the horrific crisis that has befallen us — is not the time for partisanship.

Oh, and Trump’s response to the 43rd president’s message drove home an unspoken point of his tweet. He whined that Bush didn’t rise to Trump’s defense while the U.S. House of Representatives was impeaching him for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Point made, President Bush.

Our differences are indeed “small,” as the former president notes. This is the time for unity. It is time for the only president we have to step up, to speak to all of us as one nation in distress. It is time for the whining, carping, griping to cease.

None of this will occur while Donald Trump is sitting behind that big desk in the Oval Office.

medical news

Why put the muzzle on these medical experts?

This must be the “chaos” that Barack H. Obama referred to in that leaked phone call to the Obama Alumni Association.

The former president of the United States has categorized Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as “chaotic.” Yep. He said it. I believe it.

So now we have this: Drs. Antony Fauci and Deborah Birx, two of the nation’s leading infectious disease experts, reportedly are being shoved aside while Trump seeks to concentrate on cheerleading the nation back to economic vitality.

It matters not a damn bit to Trump that Fauci and Birx have actual expertise to offer the nation as it seeks answers to the pandemic that has killed 80,000 Americans and is threatening to kill many thousands more of us.

As Politico reports: The broader turn away from the health issues at the core of such a all-encompassing national emergency is just the latest chapter in a communications strategy that’s long confounded and frustrated public health experts.

Trump is more interested in his own political future than in the health of his fellow Americans. That is the major takeaway I am getting from all of this back and forth.

We are dealing first and foremost with a health crisis. Americans are being felled by the thousands each day. Many of those sickened are dying, for crying out loud! Yes, we also have an economic crisis with which to deal. However, Donald Trump must not shun the experts who are supposed to offer clear-headed, objective analysis of the health risks to a nation that needs it far more than it needs cheerleading and exhortations to get back to work.

And it’s the chaos that serves as the common thread that runs through Donald Trump’s mish-mash approach to solving a problem that needs maximum focus … which needs to fix itself on the health of Americans.

medical news, national news

He brings out the worst in me … in us

I am not the least bit proud of what I am about to admit, but … here goes. Donald J. Trump brings out my worst instincts.

Here is the example I want to cite: When word came out this weekend that several members of the White House staff have tested positive for the coronavirus, I was filled with overwhelming indifference over the prospect of the president of the United States becoming infected by the virus.

There you go. I admit to feeling not a twinge of fear for Donald Trump. Why not? I only can point to the indifference he has exhibited toward others who have suffered at the hands of the virus.

This individual is reaping what he has sown in my conscience about him in this time of dire national peril.

Do I want him to become deathly ill and suffer the agony that others have suffered in this country? No. My religious upbringing and my faith instructs me to cast aside such a hideous wish on any human being. It’s just that the indifference toward the elected leader of my beloved country is something I never have felt … until now!

Trump has declared the virus is “under control.” He was slow to mobilize the medical and scientific forces needed to do battle against this “invisible enemy.” Yet he wants to be known as a “wartime president.” He is a bad joke masquerading as a leader.

He now is known to have dismissed wearing a protective mask because it would make him look “ridiculous” and that it would give his political foes ammunition to use against him in negative campaign ads. Seriously? If anything, the sight of the president of the United States wearing a mask while visiting medical workers or patients would be a sign of strength, of caring, of leading by a positive example.

This guy can’t bring himself to do the very thing that millions of the rest of us are doing to protect ourselves while we venture into the great unknown, which I shudder to think happens to be the grocery store around the corner or to a service station to purchase fuel for our motor vehicles.

I take no comfort, either, in believing that I am not alone in this feeling of burning indifference toward Donald Trump. I know others share my view, just as other Americans are deeply concerned for him.

That’s a call we make individually. I have made mine.

national news

How can Trump justify any of this?

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I am running out of ways to explain to myself — let alone to others — how Donald J. Trump continues to bob and weave his way out of political trouble.

On this man’s presidential watch we are witnessing a pandemic that I will acknowledge immediately he did not create. However, his nonresponse early on has led to the deaths that have caused unspeakable tragedy for tens of thousands of American families.

He is focusing mainly on the economic devastation. He says he wants to restart the economy. He is placing his emphasis on that desire. Meanwhile, the jobless rate today was reported to have surpassed 14 percent and non-farm private-sector jobs declined by — gulp! — more than 20 million in just the past month.

He blows it off! It was expected, he said. No worries, Trump said. The economy will bounce back bigger and better than ever. When? He doesn’t know. He cannot possibly know. Yet he pretends to know it’ll happen “soon.”

The Trump cultists buy into this clap trap.

The video and audio record is full of example after example of Trump declaring the pandemic was “under control.” That it would vanish like a “miracle.” My goodness! It has gone in precisely the opposite direction.

Americans are suffering. Business is shattered. In my entire life I’ve never witnessed anything like this. I tend to look toward Washington for some inkling that the president actually cares about me, my family, my friends, all Americans. This guy? He doesn’t give a sh**!

And yet …

He keeps showing signs that he just might wiggle his way back to a second term as president.

How does this clown do this?

The Democratic Party has a presumptive nominee, Joe Biden, who is laying low at the moment. He faces an allegation from a woman who accuses him of a sexual assault. Donald Trump has several such female accusers out there, so it behooves Trump to keep his mouth shut on this particular issue.

My hope is that Biden is able to make the coronavirus pandemic a campaign issue that he can hang around Trump’s neck. My loathing of Trump is well known to readers of this blog. He needs to go. He has disgraced the high office he occupies and continues to bring shame to the nation.

First things first. Joe Biden has to step off the sidelines and get back onto the field of play.

medical news

This conspiracy is laughable, but not funny

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You know how I feel about conspiracies. If not, I will tell you simply that I despise them. More to the point, I despise the rumor-mongering that accompanies the so-called “theories.”

There is now a conspiracy bubbling up out there among The Trump Toadies who defend Donald Trump whenever they find a cause celebre to run into the ditch.

Some of ’em have latched on to some sort of goofy conspiracy involving Dr. Anthony Fauci, the world-renowned infectious disease expert who’s been a voice of reason and studied analysis among the members of the White House coronavirus pandemic task force.

He has at times contradicted Trump’s assertions about the future of the pandemic and whether there is sufficient testing, or when we might have a vaccine available for general use.

Now some of Trump’s cult followers suggest Fauci needs to be fired. They cite bogus reports of other doctors contradicting Fauci’s expert analysis. They accuse Fauci, and this is rich, of being in the hip pocket of “Big Pharma,” those pharmaceutical companies working feverishly to develop a vaccine to prevent the killer virus from taking more lives.

These nimrods, dipsh***, know-nothings need to get a grip. They also need to keep their yappers shut.

Dr. Fauci has served every president going back to Ronald Reagan. He is a brilliant physician and researcher. He needs to be heard. Fauci does not need to be vilified by idiots.

national news

Trump’s empathy is MIA

I keep looking — foolishly, I’ll acknowledge — for some signal that Donald Trump actually feels the pain of those who are stricken by the COVID-19 virus.

I cannot find it. It’s nowhere. It’s missing in action.

The other morning I turned on “Good Morning America” and watched Trump being interviewed by ABC News anchor David Muir. Trump got the question from Muir: What do you want to say to the millions of Americans who are suffering from the pandemic?

Trump said, “I love you.” He said “no one feels worse” than he does about the suffering. Trump said he has lost sleep over it.

Then he pivoted rapidly to reopening the country. He wants to get the country’s economy restarted. He said, “By the same token,” he wants business to get cranked up, boasting to Muir about how the nation was enjoying the greatest economy in human history when the pandemic struck.

Thus, Trump cannot speak with any semblance of sincere empathy to the suffering that his own administration exacerbated by its initial non-response to the growing pandemic.

Instead, he speaks of jobs lost. Don’t misunderstand me: That is a huge deal, too. Then again, he appears incapable of speaking with compassion and empathy to those who have lost their income, who are struggling to pay the mortgage, the rent, the auto loan, student loan, to buy food and medicine. The Carnival Barker in Chief speaks only to the national economy, couching it in terms that play to his re-election chances.

I am acutely aware that no demonstration of empathy would fix matters; it won’t produce a cure for what ails us. All I want from any president in a time of crisis is an example that he cares about all of us, that he understands the misery that has been unleashed. If you’ll pardon the cliché, that he “feels our pain.”

This clown feels nothing. He needs to leave the White House.

medical news

Hoping we never lose our love for heroic responders

The world has been paying appropriate tribute of late to the heroes among us who save lives every day.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought our appreciation for those heroes to new levels. I want that appreciation to remain as intense as it is at this moment.

The media are full of stories of nurses, doctors, truck drivers, firefighters, neighbors, grocery store clerks, restaurant wait staffers — you name ’em — performing acts of kindness. Many of them are performing heroic acts in the face of exposure to a killer viral infection.

Moreover, the rest of us have found our voices of appreciation for all that we are getting. Those of us who found it awkward to offer a simple “thank you” no longer hide behind our shyness. We are speaking out. We are demonstrating our gratitude.

All of this, in my view, is one of the positive impacts of the pandemic. We are expressing ourselves in meaningful ways to those who serve us diligently even when we are not battling a silent but ruthless killer virus.

This crisis will end eventually. We’ll get back to what we hope will be a “normal life.” I happen to be one American who hopes the “new normal” will include our intense desire to express thanks to those who thrust themselves into harm’s way to protect the rest of us from harm.