Tag Archives: pandemic

national news

Why don’t they like you? Let me explain

Hey, Mr. President, I am sure you heard from your second- or third-grade teacher that “there’s no such thing as a dumb question.”

I think, though, that you’ve asked one. It’s the question wondering why Dr. Anthony Fauci is held in such high esteem while the rest of the country “doesn’t like” you.

I’m going to take a stab at that one for you. My answer is simple. It’s because you act like an a**hole. In fact, many of us think you are an a**hole.

Good grief. Your response to the pandemic has been pitiful to the max. Yet you blame everyone on Earth except yourself. You said once that “I, alone” can solve the nation’s problems. Then we get hit with a doozy in that pandemic. Your response was that you don’t take “any responsibility” for the failure of the administration.

You chide the nation’s governors — the Democrats, of course — for not doing enough, then you say that as president you call the shots. Medical experts say we should wear masks to protect ourselves and others from the virus but you decline to wear one; then you change your mind and wear a mask in certain locations.

You hire “the best people” and when they don’t do what you demand you fire them and toss epithets at them as they clear our their offices.

Mr. POTUS, that’s the behavior of a certifiable a**hole. Pure and simple. Full stop.

So, cease asking dumb questions.

medical news, national news

Oh, Louie … how did the mask avoidance work out?

I am no fan of Louie Gohmert.

In fact, I am embarrassed that he is a member of the Texas congressional delegation. Gohmert, a Republican from Tyler, happens to have been an obnoxious opponent of mask-wearing in light of the coronavirus pandemic. That is just one of the things that angers me about this guy’s presence in Congress.

Well, this just came in: Gohmert, who represents the Loony Bin Wing of the GOP, has tested positive for COVID-19.

Karma is a bitch, man … you know?

Now, I do not wish him ill. I do not want him to suffer the kind of agony that has befallen hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans, about 150,000 of whom have died from the virus. However, just maybe this startling news about this outspoken critic of a known effective measure that helps stem the tide of infection will awaken this clown to the obvious need to do what the doctors keep telling us.

It is that we should wear masks; we should practice “social distancing”; we should wash our hands frequently.

Gohmert took part in a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing this week in which he yelled and bellowed his support for Attorney General William Barr. He obviously ignored warnings about how infection spores spread more rapidly when we raise our voices. And, of course, he did all this without wearing a mask.

Get well, Louie. When you do and when you are to return to work, then shut your skeptical-sounding pie hole and follow the doctors’ orders. While you’re at it, you should advise your fellow GOP lunatics to do the same.

national news

Stop lying about mail-in voting, Mr. POTUS

Donald Trump wants to suppress the vote in the November presidential election.

To do so he is lying about mail-in voting. He says it is too fraught with voting fraud. It’s corrupt. He insists people get ballots who shouldn’t have them.

The Liar in Chief is filling me with rage. He doesn’t want to lose his fight for re-election, so he’s doing whatever he can to sow seeds of fear and doubt in an all-mail election.

Flash to The Donald: We’ve got a pandemic out there that’s infecting and killing Americans. I prefer to cast my vote in person on Election Day, but if I can vote by mail and prevent potential exposure to a killer virus, I am more than willing to do precisely that.

Joe Biden is leading Trump in every public opinion poll out there. The range goes from about 7 percent to 15 percent. More ballots being cast reportedly bodes well for Biden. That is why Trump is seeking to suppress that vote.

The fraudulent voting canard is a made up issue. It’s as phony as Trump University.

Trump keeps yammering about the lie. He cannot be allowed to get away with peddling “fake news.”

medical news

Shut … up, Mr. POTUS!

I cannot stand the sound of Donald J. Trump’s voice, or the sight of his face on my TV, which I know is no big flash to readers of this blog.

I especially cannot stand the sound and sight of him when he discusses things about which he knows nothing. Hmm. By my figuring, that’s just about anything under the sun.

So, when Donald Trump strides to the podium in the White House briefing room and declares that the coronavirus pandemic isn’t quite as serious as docs keep saying, or when he declares that wearing face masks is an overrated measure to fight the infection rate, I tend to want to pull my hair out by the roots.

Trump was in his usual bloviating form today when he dismissed mask-wearing and talked — yet again — about the benefits of that anti-malaria drug he keeps touting as a potential cure for the killer virus. You know, the drug that doctors and researchers say could kill you if ingest it.

My version of a perfect pandemic world would be for Donald Trump to stand down, to leave the communication solely to the doctors he enlisted ostensibly to conduct the federal government’s response to the pandemic. Then he steps all over their message, seeking to downplay the grim news they deliver, which is that we’re still not even halfway through the first round of infections.

What does it take to shut this guy up, to keep him off our TV screens, or to push him to the sidelines, leaving the real analysis of this crisis up to the experts who have all those MDs behind their name?

Oh, wait! I know! We have an election coming up in November! That’ll do it! Right?

medical news

Waiting on the vaccine

I have concluded something about this pandemic and to be honest it doesn’t make me feel all too comfy.

It is that I now believe that the only “end” to this crisis will arrive when a vaccine becomes available to every human being on Earth. Prior to that, we had all better get used to wearing masks, to keeping our “social distance” from friends and even loved ones, to a decided lack of recreational activities such as arena sports with fans jammed shoulder to shoulder, and with our children studying “virtually” at home.

Why the wait? Two reasons: a lack of discipline among billions of us who don’t follow the rules and a lack of leadership from the highest levels of government in the United States of America.

I am dismayed at the sight of all those morons who cannot or will not keep their distance from others. Or those who refuse to wear a mask because, they contend stupidly, that they infringe on their civil liberties. Those dipsh**s are taking their cue from — dare I say it — the White House or from right-wing media that continue to insist that the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax, a conspiracy cooked up by people with some sort of nefarious political agenda.

Sinclair Corp., a right-wing media company that owns a chain of TV stations around the country, is fomenting that hoax with a fake “documentary” that accuses Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, of being at the center of that conspiracy. What’s shocking is that so many Americans believe that BS.

So I am going to wait on big pharma researchers’ work on their fast-track search for a vaccine. It’s going to take time to ascertain its effectiveness; then it will take more time to get it certified by drug regulators and then kick into massive production.

I am willing to wait.

national news

Susan Rice for VP? Sure!

I love the conjecture about Susan Rice that is emerging as Joe Biden prepares to announce his selection as a running mate for the 2020 presidential campaign.

Some pundits are wondering whether Rice is “qualified,” given that she’s never run for elective office.

I laugh out loud. I guffaw. I roar my amusement! Why?

Look at who Americans elected as president in 2016! Yep, we elected a phony, fraudulent business tycoon who became known to millions of Americans as the host of a reality TV show. Donald Trump had never run for public office, either.

But … by golly, the dude won enough Electoral College votes to squeak by an eminently more qualified opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Now we might get to see whether Susan Rice has the chops to run for the vice presidency. She most certainly does!

She served in two posts in the Barack Obama administration: as United Nations ambassador and then as national security adviser. Let there be no doubt that Susan Rice brings credibility as a foreign policy expert.

So what, then, if she hasn’t sought elective public office? She has served the pubic in high-powered, highly sensitive positions.

As for the selection process that is under way, I am going to place my trust in the former vice president’s wisdom in finding the right person to run with him.

Biden has been through the vetting process already, with President Obama’s team looking high and low for the correct individual to work with the new president who had to cope with a financial collapse that was second in recent times in severity only to what is occurring at this time on Donald Trump’s watch.

Biden, who would be the oldest man ever elected president, has said publicly that he wants someone who can succeed him after a single term if he determines he is unable to seek re-election in 2024. He also is looking for someone who is “simpatico” with the presidential nominee, a trait that proved invaluable during the eight years Biden served as vice president in the Obama administration.

Does that individual happen to be Susan Rice? Or one of the other dozen or so women being considered by Biden?

The presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee knows what he’s doing. I will keep the faith that he selects someone with whom he can campaign successfully against Donald Trump.

medical news

This is winning the COVID war?

The rate of infection in the United States from the coronavirus pandemic is increasing.

Yep. We’re getting sick at a faster rate now than we were at the beginning of the pandemic. Consider this tidbit from U.S. News and World Report:

The United States took 98 days to reach one million confirmed cases of COVID-19 but just 16 days to increase from 3 million to 4 million, the tally showed. The total suggests at least one in 82 Americans have been infected at some point in the pandemic.

The average number of new cases is now rising by more than 2,600 per hour nationwide, the highest rate in the world.

Roll that around for a moment. It took more than three months to record 1 million COVID-19 cases, but just 16 days to log another million to reach the 4 million mark.

Is that how you define “success” in the fight against this killer virus? Donald Trump says he is doing a great job. His team is doing a fantastic job of fighting the virus. He tells us that our testing program is the best in the world; I do not quarrel with that final point.

But wait! How can we declare we are winning this fight when the infection rate is accelerating? Meanwhile, other parts of the world, in Europe and in Asia, are reporting virtually zero new infections from the virus.

How is it that the world’s most advanced nation, with the world’s most skilled medical and scientific researchers is still logging more infections from this virus than the rest of the entire planet?

We are not winning this fight. We are losing it. Hopefully, though, the losing won’t continue forever.

education news, medical news

Cancel the RNC, but send kids to school?

The Stable Genius continues to baffle me.

Donald J. Trump insists that our children must attend school in classrooms. It’s better to put the students in classrooms than to require them to study at home via online instruction.

What, then, shall we do about the scheduled Republican National Convention that will nominate Trump for a second term as president? He cancelled the RNC in Jacksonville, Fla., citing health concerns. “It’s not the right time” to have a convention with delegates crammed into the same arena, he said.

Mixed messaging anyone? Anyone?

This is part of a much larger problem associated with the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. At one level, Trump says one thing. At another level, he says something quite different.

He scoffed at masks. Now he’s all for them … more or less. He called the pandemic a “Democrat hoax.” Now he says the worst of the pandemic is yet to come before it gets better.

Trump ignores advice from medical experts. Then listens to talk show hosts and acts on their “advice.”

Trump says he’s doing a “fantastic” job, but the rate of infection is accelerating, not slowing down.

The latest bit of news involves the GOP nominating convention. Trump is concerned about potential health hazard to politicians and delegates. I applaud his decision to forgo the in-person gathering in Jacksonville.

If only, though, he would express as much concern about the health and safety of our children, their friends and families and the teachers who educate them.

This guy confuses the daylights out of me.

national news

What happened to bounty outrage?

It’s been clear to me for many years that yesterday’s outrage too often becomes today’s afterthought.

Such as it is with the story that got the media’s attention regarding reports that Russian intelligence officials had placed bounties on the heads of American soldiers fighting Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan.

Yep, we were filled with rage over the notion that Vladimir Putin’s goons were paying money for every soldier the Taliban killed. What’s more, we became even more outraged at Donald John Trump’s lack of outward anger at the reports.

Instead, Trump attacked the media outlets that were reporting this stunning news. He called it “fake.” He became angry at whoever it was who leaked the information to the Associated Press, to the New York Times and to CNN. His anger at the Russians? Silence, man!

I happen to be mad as hell — still! — at Donald Trump over this story. Sure, there are plenty of things Trump has done to incur my wrath: the insults, the hideous pandemic response, the incessant lying.

The idea, though, that the president of the United States would ignore briefing material that had landed on his desk that told him of bounties being paid to Taliban fighters who kill Americans is the utmost betrayal of the oath he took to become commander in chief.

However, the outrage that we heard from all across the country seems to have subsided. Granted, it has been overtaken by another huge event, one that has worsened on Donald Trump’s watch as president of the United States.

The coronavirus pandemic demands our national attention. So do the reports of bounties paid by a hostile power to our battlefield enemies who kill the men and women our president sends into harm’s way.

We cannot let up in our demand for accountability at what many of us consider a hideous dereliction of duty by a man who vowed to protect the men and women who serve under his command.

national news

Unwillingness vs. inability?

I keep struggling with how to describe Donald J. Trump’s lack of empathy in time of crisis.

Two words keep tugging at me. One of them is “inability.” The other is “unwillingness.” My struggle occurs as I ponder how to define what we witness in Trump’s demeanor while he speaks publicly about any number of issues that pull and pound our hearts.

Whether it’s race relations, or natural disaster, or medical crises I find myself torn between defining Trump’s lack of empathy and compassion as his “inability” to exhibit it or his “unwillingness” to show it.

The nation has heard in recent days from one of Trump’s nieces, Mary Trump, who writes in a new tell-all about Uncle Donald that he was brought up in a sociopathic household led by a domineering father, Fred Trump Sr.

Grandpa Fred instilled in his children an ethic that required them to be always tough and to not let the world see a softer side of them. Apologizing for mistakes is a sign of weakness, Mary Trump writes.

Did this upbringing create, as Mary Trump’s book title suggests, “the most dangerous man in the world”? I am left to wonder whether Trump is who he is because he just cannot find the empathy and compassion that he lacks or is it because he is unwilling to search for it, to apply it to the job he inherited when he became president of the United States in January 2017.

I’ve known many men and women who have been brought up in trying circumstances. Yet they power through it. They become better human beings because they are able to search for — and eventually find — the trait that instills some sense of kindness in them.

Thus, I am left to rely on the belief that Trump is merely “unwilling” to show us compassion, to demonstrate a semblance of empathy toward those who are hurting. He says the words, as he did Tuesday when he spoke to us about the COVID-19 pandemic. He speaks to us as though he is reading from a statement written under duress. I hear him speak those words as if he is being punished by a schoolteacher who caught him cheating on an exam.

Could this guy ever find a way to exhibit genuine, authentic compassion or empathy? I do not believe he is willing to look deeply enough for it within himself.