Tag Archives: pandemic

medical news, national news

Medics alarmed at Trump taking ‘unpoven drug’

I would be alarmed along with many doctors about Donald Trump taking a drug that hasn’t been proven to perform the miracles he keeps touting.

Except for this little thing: I don’t believe that the Liar in Chief is actually taking hydroxychloroquine, the drug he’s been touting as a potential cure for the COVID-19 virus that has killed more than 90,000 Americans.

He dropped that bomb today during a press availability. The first reaction was shock and amazement that the White House medical staff would give its tacit permission for Trump take the drug.

Then came the skepticism that Trump is actually taking the drug. You can count me as one of them.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that this is just one more gratuitous lie that came from Trump, a publicity stunt, the act of a carnival barker.

The word, though, from many of the docs is that hydroxychloroquine might cause heart problems. Given that Trump is officially “morbidly obese,” well … we might have a serious problem.

But only if he’s telling the truth.

legal news, local news, medical news, State news

She’s no hero; she is a lawbreaker

Shelley Luther is being hailed as a heroic figure, someone who is standing up to what many contend is a form of governmental tyranny.

I consider her to be a lawbreaker, someone who flouted a legally mandated directive to keep her business closed to save lives against a killer virus that has swept across the world in the coronavirus pandemic.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered salons closed. Luther’s business, Salon La Mode in Dallas, remained opened. She was doing customers’ nails and performing other cosmetic procedures even though she was putting herself and, more importantly, her customers at risk of catching COVID-19.

As the Texas Tribune reported: Luther knew she was operating in blatant defiance of emergency orders from the state and county. She had already torn up a cease-and-desist letter from local authorities, winning loud cheers onstage at an Open Texas rally in Frisco.

Ridiculous.

Here’s my favorite part. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Houston decided to get his hair cut at Luther’s salon … in Dallas. The Cruz Missile, who backs Donald Trump’s rush to return reopen the economy that has collapsed in the wake of the pandemic, thought he’d score some cheap political points by standing with Shelley Luther.

Cruz should be ashamed of himself, except that he isn’t.

As for Luther, she had been sent to jail for violating the stay-closed order. Top Texas Republicans sought to work for her release. So she got sprung from the hoosegow. She came out to a hero’s welcome.

Now this business owner is being hailed as a sort of cultural icon because she’s standing her ground against what she believes is government overreach.

She is standing instead for the fruitcakes who have stormed the Michigan state capitol building brandishing assault rifles and waving swastikas and Confederate battle flags; she is standing for other protesters around the nation who flock to beaches and ignore social distancing recommendations.

It’s people like Shelley Luther who make enforcing mandates aimed at protecting our health — and even our lives — more difficult than they need be.

medical news

Trump ups the ante to potentially dangerous level … or has he?

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You know already that I trust Donald John “Liar in Chief” Trump about as far as I can throw his overfed body.

But there he goes, offering what well might be yet another in the nearly 20,000 documented lies he has told since becoming president.

He said he is taking a drug that doctors are warning us about the potentially deadly side effects. Hydroxycloroquine is its name. Trump has been touting its supposed effect in fighting the coronavirus, even though doctors are quite reluctant to avoid prescribing it as a cure for the killer virus.

Trump blurted it out today. He said he has been taking hydroxycloroquine for about two weeks. He said the White House physician effectively told him “Sure, why not?” when Trump asked whether it was OK to take the drug.

I do not believe Donald Trump is taking the drug.

I do believe he lied to us once again.

Why would he lie about this? I haven’t a clue.

It merely is that physicians worth a damn wouldn’t prescribe this drug as an antidote against COVID-19. I do not believe, therefore, that the White House doc gave the green light for the president of the United States to take a drug that is far from a proven remedy for this viral infection.

“What do you have to lose?” Trump keeps asking about hydroxychloroquine. The answer from many doctors has been clear and concise: Your life.

And yet we now have the president making a potentially reckless declaration that well could encourage Americans to follow this nimrod’s lead down a dangerous path. Let us remember that this is moron who said we could ponder whether to ingest “disinfectants” to fight the virus. Now this.

Reprehensible.

medical news

‘We’re back’ … umm, no we aren’t

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Donald John Trump’s state of denial is breathtaking in its scope.

He said this past week that “vaccine or no vaccine … we’re back.” 

Actually, Mr. POTUS, we aren’t back. We are far from “back.” Thousands of Americans are still dying daily. Thousands more of us are getting sick. Take away the decline in death and infection in New York, and the rest of the country is still spiking.

Take a look at Texas — where my family and I live — and we see a surge in infection.

So while the president can bellow, bluster, bloviate all he wants about us being “back,” the reality tells us something quite different.

The death toll has surpassed 90,000 on its way to 100,000 Americans dying. Who knows when it will end? Trump doesn’t know. Neither do the medical experts he has brought aboard to coordinate the pandemic response.

So, Donald Trump needs to do us all a favor … and keep his trap shut!

national news

Trump vs. Obama … ‘er Biden?

Donald Trump has been asking for it. He’s been needling, ridiculing and criticizing his immediate presidential predecessor since the moment he won the 2016 election.

Now he’s getting a portion of what he has dished out. He doesn’t like it. He called former President Barack Obama a “grossly incompetent president.” Indeed, Trump’s response to Obama’s chiding tells me plenty about the fundamental differences between these two individuals.

One of them is urbane, erudite, sophisticated. He speaks with high-minded nobility, such as what we heard Saturday night during his “virtual” commencement remarks to the nation’s high school class of 2020.

The other one is, well, crude, petulant, petty. He resorts to name-calling. He deals in innuendo, defamation of character. We have heard that, too, and we’re going to hear a lot more of it from this fellow.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump just might go at each other’s throats before this election season winds down.

But wait! Only one of these guys is running for public office in 2020. It’s Trump! He’s got an opponent out there and it’s not Barack Obama! It’s the guy who served nobly for two terms as vice president of the United States during the Obama administration.

Joe Biden has been holed up in his Wilmington, Del., basement during the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, the former president has endorsed Biden’s presidential candidacy and has made it abundantly clear he intends to work hard to ensure his election this November.

Biden and Obama, though, have a difficult dance to perform. Biden will emerge in due course — and I hope it’s soon — as the Democratic Party’s titular leader. He slogged and slugged his way through a grueling primary process against a record number of primary opponents. Biden stands alone as Donald Trump’s most pressing immediate political threat.

However, Barack Obama’s standing as the nation’s most engaging political figure threatens to eclipse the former vice president. None of this, of course, doesn’t matter one damn bit to Donald Trump, who’ll continue his insufferable tirades against the former president.

Through it all, we just might be able to take a full measure of the smallness of the individual who wants a second term as president of the United States. If Barack Obama can reveal more of that to us through his measured, dignified commentary on the quality of our current leadership, then so much the better … for Joe Biden.

national news

Imagine — if you can — Donald Trump giving this speech

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OK, I just cannot resist the obvious temptation that I know has crossed the minds of many millions of Americans.

I just watched Barack H. Obama deliver the “virtual” commencement speech to the nation’s graduation high school Class of 2020. It was a marvelous — albeit brief — speech to graduating seniors.

The thought that crossed my mind? I am seeking to imagine the current president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, talking to these young Americans with the wisdom, the love and empathy that we heard from President Obama.

By all rights, given what has transpired in this nation over the course of the past two months, it should have been Donald Trump delivering this virtual commencement speech. It was on his watch that the global coronavirus pandemic shut down traditional commencement ceremonies at high schools all across the land.

But, no! We heard from Barack Obama, who stepped up to deliver a message of hope to our the next generation of leaders who now must make their way into an uncertain world.

Yes, he delivered the goods.

national news

You want major national change? Try this!

Mom and Dad saw the world change in front of them when we went to war against international tyranny. We emerged victorious from that world war and took our place as the world’s colossus … and the world changed forever.

Then came 9/11, when those terrorists flew jetliners into office towers and into the Pentagon. The nation went to war again against the monsters who sponsored those madmen. The nation is still fighting that war … and, yes, the world changed once again forever.

The world went through fundamental change in the 20th and 21st centuries because of senseless acts of violence brought to us.

Now we’re entering another fundamental change brought to the world by an “enemy” no one saw coming until it was too late. The world likely is going to change in ways we cannot even foretell now as we seek to stem the attack brought to us by the coronavirus pandemic.

Our world will change culturally, with no arena sports to cheer from grandstands packed with fans like you and me. Our interpersonal behavior will change. We’ll be far more cognizant of personal hygiene.

Think of this for a just a brief moment. Our government has enacted certain restrictions on our behavior. We must not gather in large crowds. We dare not venture into public places without wearing face masks. We pack sanitized wipes, little bottles of alcohol-based cleanser. We maintain what we now know colloquially as “social distancing” from those we meet.

We shouldn’t shake a stranger’s hand. We shouldn’t even embrace friends we haven’t seen in good while. Oh, sure, we aren’t prohibited by law from doing these things. It just is patently unwise given the nature of the COVID-19 virus that attacks even the heretofore perfectly healthy among us.

Therein lies the change that awaits us as we continue this struggle against the pandemic. My rumbling gut tells me we’re likely going to change forever … yet again.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/12/the-world-changed-75-years-ago/

State news

Time to re-impose restrictions in Texas?

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What the hell?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a reopening strategy for Texas business in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. What, then, is one of the results? A spike in COVID-19 infection throughout the state!

Texas beaches have reopened. Texas business has restarted, with limited capacity mandated by the governor. People are getting haircuts and getting their manicures, pedicures and other cosmetic enhancements.

Texans also are getting more exposed to the viral infection at an alarmingly increasing rate.

A lot of us have expressed concern about this decision to reopen the state. I had some hope that Abbott would make good on his pledge to rely on “data and the doctors” to make decisions relating to this reopening matter. Maybe he has, but the data and the docs might have misjudged the result.

As ABC News reports, the Texas infection spike hasn’t resulted in a total that rivals what has happened in New York, but clearly the infection rate has not yet “flattened out.”

This makes me ask: Should the governor re-impose the restrictions he put out when the pandemic took root in Texas and around the world?

Whatever he decides, know this: Yours truly isn’t changing a thing. We are going to keep sheltering in place.

You also may take this to the bank … if you dare venture out: This trend makes a mockery of Donald Trump’s assertion that we’ve turned the corner on the pandemic.

The disease is still winning this war against humanity.

medical news

What? Mitch says he’s wrong?

I guess hell can freeze over on occasion.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has admitted to speaking incorrectly about an issue involving former President Obama.

McConnell said erroneously that the Obama administration didn’t leave the Donald Trump administration with a pandemic response action plan.

D’oh! Turns out the former president did leave a 69-page playbook for the Trump team to use in case a pandemic were to erupt. “I was wrong,” McConnell said in a Fox News interview.

Now, it turns out that the Trump team didn’t look at it. I guess it had something to do with Barack Obama’s name on it, which I am going to presume made Donald Trump go berserk, given his irrational envy of anything associated with President Obama.

Well, it’s good to know that even the mighty Mitch McConnell can admit to making a mistake. Do not expect anything of the sort coming from Donald John Trump.

local news

City does the right thing for its cops, firefighters

Farmersville Police Chief Michael Sullivan has been protecting and serving the public for 34 years while working for various police agencies throughout North Texas.

He told the City Council this week that he — along with all of his police colleagues — knew when they became cops that they were going to do “dangerous” work. “We didn’t sign on to handle a pandemic,” Sullivan said.

So it was this week when the Farmersville City Council extended its hazardous pay ordinance for the city’s police officers and its two paid firefighting staffers; the Farmersville Fire Department is an all-volunteer force led by Fire Chief Kim Morris and Assistant Fire Chief Kevin Lisman.

The City Council took what I have been led to believe is an unusual step in providing extra pay for police and firefighters during this coronavirus pandemic. The city was able to obtain a portion of grant funds obtained by Collin County, which then distributed about $168,000 to Farmersville that the city will use to pay the cops and firefighters the hazardous duty pay.

The city has stepped up and is standing behind the personnel it asks to stand in harm’s way, which they do no matter whether they are battling the pandemic.

Farmersville, on the far eastern edge of Collin County, has set an interesting example that other cities ought to emulate.

Police officers and firefighters are exposing themselves to potentially deadly infection when they answer calls for help in the community. Sullivan said the police department has plenty of personal protection equipment on hand. He said the cops take each other’s temperatures at the beginning and end of every shift. They seek to protect themselves to the max against the viral infection.

Still, the increased danger exists … even as police and firefighters face potentially imminent danger with every call they answer.

Other communities ought to follow suit.