Tag Archives: pandemic

medical news

WHO did what?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have lamented how social media can corrupt our thinking while dictating the course of public debate.

Then again, it provides a laugh … even at issues that aren’t haw-haw funny. Such as this Twitter item that found its way onto my Facebook feed today.

Donald Trump got angry with the World Health Organization because it supposedly gave the COVID/coronavirus pandemic the short shrift. He wants to pull the United States out of the WHO.

But wait! Now we hear from none other than the iconic journalist Bob Woodward that Donald Trump did the very same thing. Wow, man! Who knew?

We have Trump’s voice recorded forever telling Woodward that the president didn’t want to “panic” Americans. So he lied to us. He told us the pandemic was like the flu. He said the nation’s doctors had it all “under control” and that the coronavirus would disappear … like a miracle!

That’s what Trump said. Woodward’s got it on audio recording.

So, does this mean Trump will set aside his anger with WHO, return the nation he governs to the health agency and rejoin the international fight to find a vaccine for the killer virus?

No. It doesn’t mean that at all.  Because Donald Trump doesn’t acknowledge when he’s wrong. He doesn’t admit to being a fallible human being.

The Donald’s only instinct is to lie. Then he expects us to believe the lies he blurts out.

medical news

Trump lives in parallel universe

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump’s existence in a parallel universe simply is something to behold.

Here’s the latest. Trump said the United States has “turned the corner” on the coronavirus pandemic and is hurtling toward something resembling a normal life prior to the pandemic’s arrival.

Not so fast, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and a key member of the White House coronavirus pandemic response team. We haven’t turned anything like a corner, Fauci said. He explained that the infection and death rates continue on their upward trajectory.

“I have to disagree with that,” Fauci said of Trump’s assessment.

This is precisely what many of us have been saying about Trump’s inability to speak the truth about matters that demand only the truth. Accordingly, Trump the politician cannot be trusted to tell us the truth when he is in the midst of a political campaign in which he is fighting desperately to keep his job.

It is no great scoop to realize that Trump thinks first of his political fortunes. The rest of us? Hah! Trump will continue to soft-pedal the consequences of the pandemic for as long as he continues to run for re-election.

Here, though, is the real rub: Trump’s base of supporters will believe the self-serving politician before they trust the learned opinion of a man who has spent his entire adult life waging war against infection diseases. They will forgo masks in large gatherings of fellow Trumpkins. They won’t heed the advice of Dr. Fauci and other medical experts who warn them of what can happen to them if they fail to follow proper preventative measures.

Trump will continue to lie about “turning the corner.” Medical experts such as Dr. Fauci will seek to correct him. Trump won’t care what the experts say. The experts will continue issue warnings.

Parallel universes remain impenetrable. In this instance they also are profoundly dangerous.

Donald Trump

Keeping up with scandals

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I consider myself to be a fairly astute current events follower.

I say that, though, even as Donald Trump’s campaign for re-election keeps flying into the ditch. So help me it’s hard to keep up with the mistakes and scandalous behavior that places Trump’s effort — for my money — in much-need dire peril.

The coronavirus pandemic erupted on Trump’s watch. He downplayed it publicly initially. He likened it to the flu. It has killed nearly 200,000 Americans and is making many more sick. The United States now has about a fourth of the world’s infection and death, which far exceeds our percentage of total population.

Oh, my.

Then he denigrates the service of men and women who are injured or die while fighting for our country. Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in The Atlantic quotes Trump as calling these brave Americans “suckers” and “losers.”

You want more? Then the president decides to suggest that the top men and women in our military command are in it for the money, that they want war because it keeps weapons makers in business. War profiteering? Really? He said that out loud, in public, all by himself.

Let’s arc back to the pandemic. Trump told Bob Woodward, the esteemed reporter and editor, that he downplayed the COVID-19 threat initially because he didn’t want to “panic” Americans. Meanwhile, he dawdles and dithers on our response, allowing thousands of Americans to get sick and die from the killer viral infection. Oh, but let’s not cause panic.

I am having trouble keeping up with all this stuff, man.

Of the recent tempests that have dogged Donald Trump, I guess you can settle on any of them as being potentially fatal to his re-election campaign effort.

For my liking, I am leaning toward how Trump is going to explain to us unwashed masses how he justifies lying to Americans about a pandemic he knew would kill thousands of us. How does he justify seeking to pacify a nation with false bravado?

Any one of those events might be enough to fill a nation with rage. Taken altogether? Donald Trump has his hands full.

national news

Is POTUS really this stupid?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Stupidity has reared its elaborately coiffed head in the White House.

I am trying to understand how Donald Trump could tell a reporter — on the record — that the coronavirus pandemic is destined to kill potentially thousands of Americans while telling the rest of us that the virus is “like the flu” and is “under control.”

So now the reporter, the legendary Bob Woodward, is about to publish a book , “Rage,” that chronicles the gloomy forecast Trump gave to him in February while POTUS at the same time is spinning an entirely different message to the American public.

I think some of us would call that a supreme act of “stupidity.” How in the name of candor does Donald Trump think he can get away with deliberately withholding valuable information from Americans while at that moment telling a reporter the actual truth about what he saw coming all along?

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden blames Trump directly for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. Their lives are lost and Trump is responsible, Biden has declared.

Joe Biden is correct. Donald Trump just admitted to telling us a deadly lie. As for whether Woodward should have reported what he learned in real time, that’s another subject for another time.

We have a case here of the president of the United States purposely ignoring the oath he took to protect Americans.

Astonishing!

national news

No ‘fake news’ here

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A Donald Trump campaign staffer laid it on the line.

“Hard to say fake news when there is audio of his comments,” the staffer said.

What we have here are Donald Trump’s own words saying things that have caused yet another eruption on the 2020 presidential election campaign trail.

Donald Trump spoke at length with legendary reporter Bob Woodward, who’s about to release a book, “Rage.” What did Trump say that has caused such an upheaval? Oh, only that he knew in February that the COVID-19 pandemic was a deadly event, but that he deliberately withheld any warning signs of doom because he didn’t want to cause “panic” among Americans.

So, let’s see how we connect a few dots.

Donald Trump vowed to protect Americans when he became president of the United States. Then in the earliest weeks of 2020, a virus was detected overseas. Donald Trump’s initial public reaction was to declare that the coronavirus would disappear, that it would vanish like a “miracle.” No sweat, he said. Nothing to see here, he reminded us.

Except now we hear that he knew early on that we had a relentless killer knocking on our door. And that Donald Trump refused to do a damn thing to protect Americans.

Good ever-lovin’ grief! Is this a “promise kept” or is it a sacred oath violated?

The word now is that the Trump campaign and the White House are “scrambling” to craft — or concoct — a cogent message to respond to Trump’s own words.

There, indeed, can be no “fake news” retort from Team Trump, or from Trump himself. Although, and this point should be made, not a damn thing ever has prevented Trump from invoking that phony excuse even when the evidence has been laid directly at his feet.

national news

Why sit on this news?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I didn’t originate this thought, but I want to forward it to you on this blog?

A good friend of mine wonders why Bob Woodward, the esteemed Washington Post reporter and editor, didn’t tell the world in February what Donald Trump told him in the moment: that he knew the COVID crisis could be deadly, but he kept it from us because he didn’t want to “cause panic.”

Woodward tells us in an upcoming book titled “Rage” that Trump knew all along that the pandemic could kill a lot of folks, but decided to downplay it.

As my friend wonders, that was in February. Now we know what Woodward knew back then. That was 191,000 American deaths ago from the COVID-19 virus.

Hmm. That is a fascinating matter to ponder.

I do hope that when Woodward hits the TV news interview circuit to talk up his book that the talking heads have the good sense to ask him why he sat on that news for as long as he did … and whether he is as complicit in the deaths that have occurred as Donald Trump!

national news

Trump is all the ‘Rage’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Robert Woodward practically needs no introduction.

He is a legendary journalist who, with the equally legendary Carl Bernstein, produced a body of work that resulted in the near impeachment and resignation on an American president.

So now he has sat down with Donald Trump and is about to release a new book called “Rage.” What did Trump tell Woodward … to his face? Oh, just that he knew in February that the coronavirus pandemic was serious and could kill thousands of people but that he kept that information from the public.

Trump told Woodward, “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

OK, there you go. Donald Trump took an oath to protect Americans. He has admitted to Robert Woodward that he welshed on that promise. On purpose!

How in the world is Trump going to defend this once the book is published? Oh, I know. He’ll say Woodward made the quotes up, that he never said it and that the legendary journalist is a practitioner of “fake news.”

To think as well that millions of Americans will buy into the president’s ridiculous denial!

national news

Trump’s America: a dangerous place

By JOHN KANELIS

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

These Twitter messages illustrate rather nicely, in my oh-so-humble view, where Donald Trump’s re-election campaign breaks down.

The top tweet comes from someone quoting Vice President Mike Pence. You can see Pence’s message. Hold that thought.

The message from Ronald Klain offers a damning testimony to the reality of the moment. Klain, I should add, served on Vice President Biden’s staff in the Obama administration … so he has an axe to grind.

Klain does bring to light what should be painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain in their noggin. The coronavirus pandemic has killed nearly 200,000 Americans. The death and illness counts are climbing dramatically. They’re still going up and up. Why?

Well, because the Trump administration refused to act decisively when the pandemic arrived. He has been running a scattershot operation. He contradicts the advice of his handpicked medical experts on measures needed to stem the sickness and death rate.

Oh, and then there’s the civil unrest, the turmoil, the deaths of black Americans at the hands — and knees — of some rogue cops.

Is this a safe America? Is this the kind of nation we need to preserve with the re-election of Donald Trump? Hardly.

And yet the Trumpkin Corps keeps harping about how the United States will head straight to hell if Americans elect Joe Biden as president. Are you kidding me?

media news

What’s next, post-Trump?

By JOHN KANELIS

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Yes, I do think at times of matters that take my brain into outer space.

One of them has popped into my noggin and it has to do, not surprisingly, with Donald John Trump.

I have spent a lot of emotional energy on High Plains Blogger commenting on the foibles of Trump and the presidency he inherited. What will happen to this blog once Donald Trump exits the White House? You probably haven’t thought about it, as you have many other things to occupy your mind. Truth be told, so do I, but I still have time to ponder things such as this.

I am supremely confident that this blog will continue. For all I know it might even flourish.

The world is huge. We have this pandemic that is likely to stay with us well past Trump’s time as president, which I hope ends in January 2021. We have many existential threats facing us: climate change, race relations/civil unrest, war and peace, terror threats.

There also will be plenty of wreckage left behind by Donald Trump that the next president — and I want it badly to be Joe Biden — will have to clean off the deck.

You see, all of this will require my attention. I intend to attend to all of it in due course as we move past the Donald Trump Era of Political Malfeasance.

I also have other matters to ponder, the “life experience” stuff that occasionally gets my attention. I want to continue chronicling the joy of being parents to Toby the Puppy; we have this eternal retirement journey on which we have embarked and I will discuss that as well with you.

Donald Trump may think he’s bigger than the presidency. He isn’t. The office will recover once he is gone. Trump damn sure isn’t bigger than High Plains Blogger. It, too, will go on.

local news

Changing election views

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

This blasted COVID-19 pandemic is forcing yours truly into a significant change in attitude about how to conduct elections.

I mean, I used to stand solidly behind the notion of voting exclusively on Election Day. I still like the idea. I would prefer to vote that way.

Then the pandemic struck. It has filled me with serious concern about getting sick while waiting to cast my ballot. So … I became a fan of voting by mail. It isn’t inherently corrupt, as Donald Trump alleges — with no basis for the allegation of “rampant voter fraud.” 

Given that I live in Texas, a state that isn’t likely to welcome universal mail-in voting, I am now going to endorse the notion of voting early. My wife and I plan to do so on the first day we can vote in Texas.

Why the change of heart? I keep hearing from election experts that early voting is the best way to ensure that our ballot gets counted.

Therein lies the fundamental reason for any concern about Election 2020. It is imperative that our votes count. It is critical to everyone that their voices are heard.

All this yammering about potential U.S. Postal Service screw-ups and how our ballots might not arrive in time, or that they might get tossed for this and/or that reason makes me a bit nervous. I do have faith in our local election officials’ ability to conduct a free, fair and accurate election.

However, just to be sure …

We’re going to vote early. We have some time yet in Texas to cast our ballots.

Were it not for this pandemic, I would be waiting all the way to Election Day. This is a big part of the “new normal” that neither my wife and I anticipated when the pandemic swept across the United States.

We’re ready for it.