medical news

Trump allies undercut POTUS’s positive COVID spin

For the life of me I do not know how you can possibly put a positive spin on more than 136,000 deaths from a worldwide pandemic in this country alone … but Donald John Trump is seeking to do precisely that.

It’s not working. Indeed, he now is getting pushback from his most loyal political allies, such as some of the Republican governors who opened their states up too quickly and now are paying a terrible political price for their rush to reopening.

You hear now from GOP Govs. Ron DeSantis in Florida, Greg Abbott here in Texas, even from Doug Ducey in Arizona. They are sounding downright alarmed at what’s happening in their states. Surgeon General Jerome Adams is pleading with Americans to “please, please, please” wear face masks while in public. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina acknowledges a “testing shortage” in his state.

Then comes word that some senior GOP politicians are forgoing attendance at the Republican National Convention. Why? They don’t want to get sick. And yet Donald Trump insists that it’s OK to stage an event — now planned for Jacksonville, Fla. — that includes jam-packed arena space full of partisans yelling in favor of the guy they intend to nominate for a second term as president.

Were I in the GOP pols’ shoes, I’d stay away, too. As for Trump, he continues to claim stupidly the notion that the COVID-19 virus is “under control” and that more testing necessarily means more positive cases.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have set some guidelines down for reopening of schools. Trump wants to ignore the CDC. Yet former CDC heads now proclaim that no president in history has politicized a pandemic the way Trump has done.

I am going to circle back to a point I made some time ago. I no longer am going to listen to, let alone heed, a single word that flies out of Trump’s mouth. His political ambition is standing directly in the way of anything resembling wisdom on how to respond to this crisis.

I am going to rely on the medical experts. If they tell me I should worry … I am going to worry. Now it appears that other politicians are listening to them as well and are turning away from the Bloviator in Chief.

local news

Election volunteers step up in time of crisis

It’s time to acknowledge some folks who get damn little recognition during the good times, but they certainly deserve it these days while the nation is struggling in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

I refer to polling-place volunteers, the election judges and assorted volunteer staffers who herd voters to the proper places, making us all adhere to safety measures designed to keep us healthy, not to mention alive.

My wife and I voted today in the Texas runoff election. We went to First Baptist Church in Princeton. My wife, one of the most socially conscious people on Earth, brought our masks, our sanitizer and said she was ready to deploy some sanitary wipes if need be.

We donned the masks and entered the room where the voting booths are arrayed.

Everyone was masked. The floors were marked to show us where to stand. I took a step or two too many while waiting for my wife to process through to cast her vote and the lady behind the plastic screen politely asked me to step back; I did what I was told.

They were efficient in the extreme. We received our sheet of scanner paper we inserted into the machine and were given a cotton swab — aka a Q-Tip — to mark the spot on the screen next to the candidate of our choice. Is that sanitary … or what?

Everyone in the room complied with the rules. I didn’t hear a single word of complaint about the masks, about keeping our distance, about the extra precautions we were asked to take while we cast our ballots.

My wife took a moment to thank one of the volunteers for the time they are spending on this sweltering summer day in North Texas to make sure everyone stays healthy.

So I will offer a word of thanks as well to all the election volunteers all over the state. These are trying and difficult times. These good folks have stepped up and answered the call.

business news, economic news

Tax returns! Let’s see ’em!

OK, it’s time for an admission.

I am fixated by Donald John Trump’s tax returns, his financial record/history and whether he is as crooked as I fear.

Where did I obtain this fixation? From Donald Trump his own self, that’s where!

For as long as I’ve been aware of Trump’s existence — which goes back a good while — this fellow has been bragging his brains out about how rich he is. I’ll say that I detest braggarts. No one who is as rich as Trump says he is has to tell the world about it; nor does anyone as smart as he says he is have to brag about his or her smarts. Yet this clown has been doing so ever since Daddy Trump staked him to his business and got the boy started.

So then he announced the start of his political career. He did so with panache. Along the way to his winning the White House, Trump kept telling us about his immense wealth, his “self-made” success … and he pledged to release his full financial records as soon as the Tax Man completed a “routine audit.”

I’m going to presume that (a) the audit is now done or (b) Trump lied about the audit, given that he never provided a shred of evidence that it was being done.

So, where are the tax returns? He now is fighting like hell to keep them from us.

He is the nation’s highest elected public official. His personal records, by association, become our business. Trump helps set tax policy, he asks Congress to spend our tax money, he is commander in chief of our armed forces, he is our employee.

Trump has fought so hard to keep those records from us that he went to the Supreme Court. Hah! The high court showed him he ain’t the boss, declaring that presidents aren’t immune from prosecution, that even Donald Trump isn’t above the law.

All of this adds up to my fixation with the tax records and Donald Trump’s financial history. I want to know whether he is as rich as he claims to be, whether he has business dealings that might compromise our national security and whether he is a crook.

That’s not too much to ask. Is it?

medical news, national news

Open warfare over pandemic response?

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I can’t believe what I see unfolding before us.

It looks as though some members of Donald Trump’s administrative team are declaring open warfare against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert over the tone of Fauci’s remarks describing the state of the battle under way against the COVID-19 pandemic.

They dislike Fauci’s brutal tone, which contrasts the happy talk that Trump is delivering. So, they want to sideline Fauci. They are keeping him away from the Oval Office, away from Donald Trump.

The president keeps insisting that public schools need to reopen fully this fall, despite the spiraling infection rate from the pandemic. Medical experts join Fauci in trying to tell Trump that school classrooms pose a serious threat to the health of students, their teachers and the family members of them all. Donald Trump is ignoring them, listening instead to the “sage advice” offered by talk show gasbags like Sean Hannity and game show hosts like Chuck Woolery, who proclaims that the COVID scare is a “lie.”

Meanwhile, the Trumpkin Corps is putting out opposition research on Anthony Fauci, the Ivy League-educated physician who has served six presidents of both political parties. Indeed, it was on President George W. Bush’s watch that Fauci led the effort to deliver HIV/AIDS research to Third World countries afflicted by that disease.

Now he’s being vilified as one who “makes mistakes”? He is not to be trusted? Dr. Fauci doesn’t “know what he’s talking about,” according to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick?

Give me a break!

This internecine battle is one more startling example of the incompetence being demonstrated by Donald Trump’s administration as it wages what looks to many of us like a losing fight against a killer disease.

And … Trump wants to get rid of the nation’s leading expert on how to win that fight? Incredible!

political news, State news

Texas becomes battleground?

The national political media continue feed my heebie-jeebies.

They talk about Joe Biden’s national polling lead over Donald Trump. They suggest there might be a Democratic “tsunami” about to sweep Trump and many of his Republican congressional sycophants out of office in Washington.

Why, many commentators are looking at a recent Dallas Morning News/University of Texas-Tyler poll that puts the former vice president up by 5 percentage points over Trump. They use that poll result as evidence that Texas is about to cast its electoral votes for the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Whoa, now! Let’s hold on. Let’s catch our breath.

I am not yet ready to toss Texas into the Democrats’ sack of political goodies. This is among the reddest Republican states in the country. Every statewide elected official here is a Republican. It’s been an all-R state since 1998. The state’s transition from overwhelming Democrat to Republican has been stunning in the speed with which it occurred.

Is Joe Biden the Democratic presidential candidate to carry Texas across a new threshold? Hmm. I have trouble believing it, although my heart wishes it would happen.

As the Dallas Morning News reported: “I really do think that Biden could win Texas, and I didn’t think that as recently as even a month ago. But the landscape has shifted so much,” said Nancy Beck Young, chair of the University of Houston history department and a scholar of Texas politics.

The Morning News poll does suggest that since Texas is being stricken so cruelly by the COVID crisis that Texans at this moment are enraged by Trump’s feckless and reckless response to the emergency. That well might be reflected in the polling results.

I think it’s fair to suggest, though, that if Biden somehow manages to win more votes than Trump in Texas then we are looking at an epic political landslide that will bury Trump. Moreover, if Biden falls short by just a little bit — say, 2 or 3 percentage points — then that, too, might portend a significant political defeat for Donald Trump nationally.

Still, the media keep fueling my nervousness. I get that’s the media’s job. It is to report the news and polling statistics that suggest a staggering defeat of the self-proclaimed “smartest man in human history” — or words to that effect — most certainly should get our attention.

education news, medical news, national news

Trump shows his ignorance yet again

Donald John “Ignoramus in Chief” Trump threatens to pull federal funds from public schools if they don’t reopen this fall, per his edict.

Sigh …

No, he is not going to do that. He has no authority to do anything of the sort. Donald Trump once again is showing us what he doesn’t know about the job to which he was elected … and from which I hope he gets booted out in about 120 days.

Fox News’ Chris Wallace challenged an assertion delivered by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Sunday. DeVos repeated Trump’s threat, to which Wallace told her that Congress appropriates federal funds for public schools. Wallace asked “Under what authority are you and the president going to unilaterally cut off funding, funding that’s been approved from Congress and most of the money goes to disadvantaged students or students with disabilities?” “You can’t do that,” he continued.

That means that Trump is out of the game.

DeVos didn’t answer the question directly. She couldn’t answer. Because she is as ignorant about government as Donald Trump. She did say, “Look, American investment in education is a promise to students and their families. If schools aren’t going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn’t get the funds, and give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise.”

Americans are getting sick from the COVID-19 pandemic in increasing numbers. That poses threats to students, teachers and their loved ones. Donald Trump’s demand that schools reopen this fall runs directly counter to the medical advice he is getting from the infectious disease experts with whom he has surrounded himself.

Oh, wait! He knows more than they do. Isn’t that what he has inferred … about anything?

legal news, State news

All-GOP Texas Supreme Court follows the law!

A ruling by the Texas Supreme Court denying a Republican Party appeal over the cancellation of its state convention is a really big deal.

Here’s why.

The state’s highest civil appeals court, unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, comprises partisan politicians who run for election to the office on partisan ballots. That means they might be subject to intense political pressure to favor one party over the other.

The Texas Supreme Court, in a 7-1 ruling, said “no” to the Texas Republican Party’s appeal seeking to stage its convention in Houston.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner had canceled the convention, citing extreme risk caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The GOP wanted to meet in the George Brown Convention Center. Turner said that’s a non-starter, so he invoked his power as mayor to keep Texans safe from the killer virus.

The case went immediately to the Supreme Court of Texas, which has put the kibosh on the GOP’s appeal.

The state Supreme Court is made up entirely of Republican judges, which makes this decision damn near spectacular.

It goes to show that on occasion even partisan judges can do the right thing, which is what occurred with the Texas Supreme Court’s decision stiffing the Republican Party’s desire to expose thousands of convention attendees to a potentially deadly virus.

Sports news

Redskins’ name is gone

I want to make a couple of quick points about a pending announcement of a name change for Washington’s National Football League team.

First, I’ve never really gotten all that fired up about team nicknames depicting Native Americans … except for the Redskins.

Indians, Braves, Warriors, Chiefs, Black Hawks, Aztecs, Seminoles. They don’t bother me. Then again, I am of Southeast European heritage so I don’t have a particular dog in that fight, if you get my drift. About the closest name I can come up with that depicts my own heritage might be the Spartans, which is what they call teams associated with Michigan State University and San Jose State University. It doesn’t bother me in the least. OK, I digress.

The name Redskins, though, has annoyed me. I find the term to be one of those weird throwback terms you heard in 1940s Western films, when some toothless gunslinger would refer to “them redskins over yonder.” 

Then again, the Native Americans depicted in those films would mention doing battle with “pale faces,” or “white eyes” or whoever.

The name will change. As I write these words, I do not yet know what the NFL team will call itself. I’m glad Washington’s pro football franchise is moving on from that name.

As for the rest of those team nicknames, well, to be brutally candid, they don’t bother me.

medical news

White House going after Fauci

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It appears that the White House operatives have unsheathed the long knives and are sharpening them as they prepare to plunge them into Dr. Anthony Fauci’s back.

Think of this for just a moment.

The nation was struck by a global pandemic. The White House formed a response task force. It selected Dr. Fauci, one of the world’s premier infectious disease experts to be a leading source of research for the task force. Donald Trump chose Mike Pence to lead the task force. Trump and Pence then began a series of happy-talk riffs about the “fantastic” job they were doing to fight the pandemic. Fauci didn’t buy into it.

Fauci is concerned about the outbreak that is not subsiding. He has said so publicly and with considerable emphasis.

The White House is having none of it.

Admiral Brett Giroir, a physician and a member of the pandemic task force, appeared today on “Meet the Press” and said Fauci has been wrong in his assessment. He is the latest White House official to pile onto Fauci.

Excuse me for chiming in, but I am far more wiling to accept Dr. Fauci’s brutal honesty than listen to the politically driven propaganda being spouted by the White House.

Anthony Fauci is the expert in the room. The politicians who run the task force need to put the long knives away and let the good doctor continue to tell us the truth.

education news

Betsy DeVos is no ‘educator’

As I watched Betsy DeVos evade, bob and weave and avoid answering questions today about how she intends to make public school classrooms safe for children and their teachers, I am struck by a brutal reality.

It is that the secretary of education is as unqualified for her job as the man who selected her to guide public education policy, Donald Trump, is unqualified for his job.

CNN’s Dana Bash sought to get DeVos to commit to a strategy for how she intends to advise local school leaders struggling to make classrooms safe for human habitation after they closed them because of the global coronavirus pandemic.

DeVos couldn’t answer. Or she wouldn’t answer. Couldn’t, wouldn’t. It makes no never mind to me. I sense she doesn’t have a clue.

She was selected by Trump to lead a massive education agency even though she has no experience with public education. She was educated in private schools; she sent her children to private schools; DeVos is known to be a huge advocate for voucher programs that take money from public school districts to pay for private schools.

There’s all of that, plus there’s this: Betsy DeVos doesn’t have an ounce of political cache that she can spend. When the U.S. Senate got around to voting on her confirmation, it ended with a tie, leaving the decision up to the Senate’s presiding officer, Vice President Mike Pence to cast the tie-breaking vote. It was the first such vote in U.S. Senate confirmation history.

To my way of thinking, Betsy DeVos has no business setting public education policy for millions of American children, their parents and the educators who teach them. She continues to demonstrate her ignorance or disinterest in public education.

I suppose Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump deserve each other … and the public deserves better.

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