Tag Archives: pandemic

national news

Trump Derangement Syndrome? Hah!

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ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

Critics of this blog have accused me over the past three or four years of suffering from what they call Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Why, they just cannot grasp why I am so dedicated to the removal from office of Donald J. Trump, the winner of the biggest electoral fluke in U.S. political history.

Well, I now will throw that TDS accusation back at them.

Whatever affliction from which I suffer pales in comparison to the Obama Derangement Syndrome that has befallen Donald J. Trump.

Allow me this blinding example …

Donald Trump is caught in the middle of a worldwide pandemic that is killing thousands of Americans every single day; more than 85,000 of us have died at last count. That casualty count is mounting at a frightening pace.

Trump’s early response was despicable in the extreme. He has failed at every level imaginable to show leadership.

So, what does he do while he should be formulating a national strategy to fight this killer viral infection? He accuses former President Obama of committing a crime. He says the Senate needs to summon Obama to testify before the Justice Committee to answer questions about why he “unmasked” former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was talking to Russian officials while the Russians were attacking our electoral system.

Donald Trump is seeking to deflect attention from his miserable failure to lead the country in the midst of a medical and economic crisis.

This president is doing something that not even Richard Nixon — the only president to resign from office — thought of doing. To be sure, President Nixon compiled his enemies list and abused the power of his office. Donald Trump has accused Barack Obama has committed an illegal act and has in effect called for him to be jailed.

That is what I call Obama Derangement Syndrome. It’s serious and dangerous. If what I suffer from is Trump Derangement Syndrome — and it compels me to keep speaking out against this demented, deranged president — then I am all in!

medical news

Listen up, Dr. Fauci: Trump is fighting you

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Dr. Anthony Fauci testified this week before a Senate committee on the fight to quell the coronavirus pandemic that has killed 85,000 Americans.

Then came a series of questions from one of Donald Trump’s toadies on the panel, rookie Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler from Georgia, who wanted to know if Fauci felt tension between himself and the president. Fauci said “no,” that he doesn’t believe he and Trump are at odds.

Then something else happened later in the day. Donald Trump contradicted something Fauci had said about the wisdom of letting children back into school classrooms this fall.

So … yes, Trump and Fauci are at odds. Got that? I want to stand with the nation’s premier infectious disease expert over the bloviations of a cheap huckster who masquerades as president of the United States.

Senators asked Fauci whether children should be allowed back into classrooms this fall. He balked at the suggestion, saying it would be premature to open classrooms to students if the virus isn’t contained.

What did the Carnival Barker in Chief say about Fauci’s response? He was “surprised.” He said Fauci seeks to play to all audiences. He said Fauci’s answer to the Senate panel was “not acceptable.”

Where I come from, that looks and sounds like a dispute between two principals involved ostensibly in a fight against a common enemy.

Where does Fauci go from here? Does he quit? Does he walk away from the president’s pandemic response task force? No. He shouldn’t.

Fauci is nearly 80 years of age. He has worked for every president of both political parties dating back to 1984, when he was hired by President Reagan to take the lead on HIV/AIDS research. His credentials are beyond reproach. Fauci is an expert on infectious disease and the pandemic response team needs his reasoned, rational, scientific approach.

Indeed, this man’s wisdom stands in the starkest contrast possible to the bloviating bullsh** that flies incessantly out of Donald Trump’s pie hole.

I am one American who wants Fauci to remain on the job looking out for us. What’s more, I am as certain as I am sitting here that he knows beyond a doubt that he is working for a moron.

It’s just too damn bad he cannot say it out loud.

Sports news

Will there be a fan-less baseball season? Well … probably

At the risk of being called a Dickey Downer, or a Negative Ned, I need to suggest what is looking patently obvious to this baseball fan.

If the Major Leagues suit up for the 2020 season while we are fighting a deadly worldwide viral pandemic, the athletes will play in front of themselves and each other. No fans in the stands. No cheering from behind the dugout. No curtain calls after dramatic home runs.

MLB is considering an 82-game schedule to begin around the Fourth of July. I understand that the team owners have signed off on it, but need approval by the players union to close the deal.

Yes, we have all these beautiful baseball venues around the country that will be devoid of fans. Why? The answer is obvious: Social distancing requirements — which are essential to stemming the infection rate — will not allow fans to be crammed into the stadiums next to each other.

Am I OK with that, with playing these games before tens of thousands of empty seats? Absolutely. I want to see baseball return.

Now … I want to speak briefly to my friends in Amarillo, who have been awaiting the start of the Texas League AA season featuring their beloved Amarillo Sod Poodles. The last time I commented on the team’s immediate future, a sorehead among the Sod Poodles fan club accused me of being Mr. Negativity.

I hate to say this, but Hodgetown — the shiny new ballpark built along Buchanan Street in downtown Amarillo — should remain empty, too, even if the Sod Poodles take the field for some hardball.

Yes, this pains me terribly. The ballpark came into being with considerable fanfare and much-deserved hype. It’s a first-class venue. The Sod Poodles’ fans packed the place for virtually every home game in 2019.

For the sake of community health — which at this moment appears to be teetering with a rash of outbreaks — the Sod Poodles should play their games before no one.

Baseball fans all across this great country are going to suffer the same withdrawal. If that’s what must happen, well, there’s always next season … or we can hope.

national news

Trump launches scorched-Earth retreat

I never thought Donald Trump could out-do himself while he was being impeached by the House of Representatives.

He made big news daily with his idiotic pronouncements and allegations against House Democrats, special counsel Robert Mueller and the media.

However, by golly, the Dipsh** in Chief has done it. He has buried us under an avalanche of even weirder statements.

He has accused President Barack Obama of committing an illegal act. He wants the former president to testify before Congress about allegations that Trump hasn’t specified.

The president’s former pandemic guru has testified that Trump sought to promote an unproven drug as a “miracle” cure. Trump said he has never met Dr. Richard Bright and doesn’t “want to meet him.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, told Congress that it would be unwise to rush to reopen schools; Trump said Fauci gave an “unacceptable answer” to that matter.

Trump continues to slander his opponents daily. For example, he has accused MSNBC commentator Joe Scarborough — a former Republican congressman who’s turned into a Trump critic — of committing murder.

I cannot keep up with this madness. Donald Trump continues to dig himself more deeply into a hole he began digging the moment he announced his presidential campaign in the summer of 2015.

Sigh …

My pandemic fatigue is reaching, dare I say it, epidemic proportion

medical news

Are we moving too quickly to reopen?

Social distancing is the weapon of necessity in this fight we are waging against the coronavirus pandemic.

Get a load of this bit of news out of Amarillo: Hundreds of meatpacking plant employees aren’t showing any symptoms of the COVID-19 virus — but are testing positive anyway for the viral infection.

Which makes social distancing and the wearing of masks so very imperative, according to Amarillo Mayor Ginger Nelson.

“We are encountering people who are asymptomatic,” said Mayor Nelson in remarks to KAMR/KCIT-TV in Amarillo. “They don’t know they’re sick, but they have the virus and they’re at the grocery store, you’re encountering them, and that’s why it’s so important to wear a mask. You could be that person.”

And yet we keep hearing from fools such as, oh, the president of the United States who tell us how vital it is to reopen the country, to get the economy jump started. Donald Trump cares less about the health of Americans than he does about the state of the economy and whether its current crisis bodes ill for his re-election chances.

Moreover, he is enlisting many of his gubernatorial allies — such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — in pushing forward possibly too quickly.

The Tyson Foods plant in Amarillo is a huge employer. More than 3,500 employees got tested for the virus, many of whom tested positive. I am forced to ask: Is it worth exposing those employees to serious illness or even death? I would say with emphasis: Hell no!

national news

Just resign, Mr. POTUS … and go far away!

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(Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Donald J. Trump is incorrigible. He is a political reprobate.

If the hideous event occurs in November and he is somehow re-elected president of the United States, I want him to do the only thing he should do. I want Trump to resign from office. I want him to vanish from the public stage. I want him out of my sight. I no longer want to hear his voice.

This isn’t an original thought. I merely have reached my limit with this individual.

It wouldn’t hurt my feelings one tiny bit were he to quit prior to the election, even though handing the presidency to Mike Pence well might ensure Pence’s election were he to seek a full term.

Donald Trump cannot lead the nation. He doesn’t know how to govern. Trump cannot work with the entire Congress. He has alienated the legislative branch from the executive branch. Trump already has been impeached by the House of Representatives; he survived conviction in the Senate by coercing his GOP allies to hang with him, depriving the nation the opportunity to restore its faith in government.

The coronavirus response has been the deal breaker. Donald Trump’s early refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of the pandemic has brought us to the brink of collapse. When given the opportunity to lead the nation, to pull us together, to speak from the heart even to those of us who voted against him in 2016, Trump has failed miserably.

He has squandered the last bit of faith any of us might have held that he could pull it together, that he could find a way to exhibit the kind of leadership he bragged had been the hallmark of his building a business empire.

My ever-lovin’ God in heaven! He has continued to fail every single step along the way. His presence in office puts more Americans in jeopardy.

Were he win re-election against Joe Biden — and the thought sends chills up my back — he would become unleashed, unhinged, unencumbered. He doesn’t know a single thing about the limits of his office. He will seek to extend his political reach far beyond his grasp.

I know that Trump won’t quit. He will defame Biden all the way to the end of the campaign … and likely beyond. Trump won’t seek to unify the nation as he seeks to win re-election. He will drive wedge after wedge between voters of disparate ideologies.

Donald Trump had no business being elected in 2016. His response to the deadly worldwide pandemic ratifies what I have thought all along … that this individual is unfit for public office.

He needs to quit.

national news

What happens if the unthinkable happens?

Donald John Trump is tempting fate … bigly!

The president of the United States continues to forgo donning a mask while key aides are coming down with COVID-19. The coronavirus has invaded the West Wing of the White House, where they make key decisions affecting all manner of U.S. foreign and domestic policy.

So, it’s fair to ask: What happens if Donald Trump tests positive for the virus? Hey, what happens also if Vice President Pence tests positive for it? I mean, his press secretary has come down with it.

Trump, Pence and other key aides are rubbing shoulders in the West Wing. Led by the president who says he would look “ridiculous” wearing a mask, many of them are ignoring guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; they include wearing a mask and keeping an appropriate “social distance” among themselves.

Let me be clear: I do not want the president to get sick. Nor the vice president. I have stated my indifference to Trump’s well-being, but that doesn’t mean I wish him ill.

It’s just that the Egomaniac in Chief has staked out a dangerous position with regard to self-protection during this time of extreme peril. No president, not even this one, should expose himself to the dangers of a potentially fatal disease. In this case, that disease has crept into the White House’s inner sanctum.

If the doctors order Trump to isolate himself, they will be acting to protect the integrity of our democratic republic. Let’s be mindful that Donald Trump is not a young man. I understand that some physicians have declared him, in effect, to be the strongest human being ever elected president. OK, I exaggerate, but you get my drift.

This clown needs to lose the “look ridiculous” argument and start demonstrating that he’s taking this matter as seriously as most of the rest of us.

I am a critic of the president. I won’t ever apologize for that. I also do not want to see my government, the one that gets my money, weakened at the center of its executive power because the chief exec doesn’t take this danger seriously.

Stand by, Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

legal news, Uncategorized

Partisan bickering could cost more lives

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Oh, my goodness. The partisan bickering is filtering from Austin to county courthouses throughout Texas.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is issuing warnings to Democratic mayors and county judges to back off their local coronavirus pandemic mandates because, Paxton says, they do not conform with what Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has declared.

This is rich, man.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, one of those Democrats, has emerged as a champion in my eyes as he seeks to battle the viral infection outbreak in North Texas. Oh, I need to mention that my wife, one of our sons and his family and I reside in next-door Collin County.

Jenkins has ordered that everyone “shall” wear masks when they do business; Abbott’s order doesn’t require the wearing of masks. Thus, Paxton said that Jenkins and other get-tough local officials are overstepping their authority.

C’mon, Mr. AG. The judge is seeking to save Texans’ lives!

It’s all part of what looks like a deepening and widening of the partisan divide in Washington as Democrats and Republicans squabble over how to fight this pandemic. This won’t surprise you, but I do believe Democrats are on the correct side in that D.C. fight, with Donald Trump continuing to muddle his messages and continuing to pick fights with Democratic governors needlessly.

It’s now happening in Austin, where Republican state officials are haggling with Democratic local officials over which of them is taking the correct course. GOP officials want to reopen the economy more rapidly than their Democratic colleagues. Why are Democrats dragging their feet? Let’s see. Oh, they fear that a too-rapid reopening puts Texans’ lives in danger!

Hey, that concern is good enough for me.

So, with that, allow me this rejoinder: Mr. Texas Attorney General … back off!

medical news

Stop declaring ‘victory’ over COVID-19

President George W. Bush had his infamous “Mission Accomplished” moment aboard the aircraft carrier during the Iraq War.

The president landed on the deck of the carrier, climbed out of the jet, changed into his civvies, stood under that big sign hanging off the conning tower and then said he had accomplished our mission after we captured Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Well, it turned out we didn’t accomplish our mission. Many more Americans have died in Iraq.

Fast-forward to this week. Donald Trump stood in front of a banner that says “America Leads the World in Testing.” No. We do not.

At issue is the testing regimen being implemented to fight to coronavirus. It has killed more than 80,000 Americans.

Trump, though, keeps telling lies about our testing program. Yes, we have tested more people than any other country that is fighting the pandemic. However, the total number of tests is irrelevant.

The operative number must be the percentage of population that has been tested for the COVID-19 virus.

Donald Trump’s press briefing Monday was an exercise in deception, deflection and misdirection. He keeps boasting about the testing procedures that the administration has been ramping up. Yes, it is good that we’re getting more Americans tested for the coronavirus. However, we are way behind the curve.

This country comprises 330 million (give or take) individuals. Roughly 2 percent of them have been tested for the viral infection. How does that 2 percent figure stack up against other nations that have suffered from the virus? Not good, man.

Still, Donald Trump continues to foment yet another lie. It’s part of his modus operandi. He cannot tell the truth. It’s either a genetic disposition or a willful act. I’ll go with the latter, because I believe that Trump knows he is lying but he thinks he can get away with it.

So it goes with this idiocy about coronavirus testing.

The raw numbers tell only part of the story. This large, prosperous, powerful nation is — to borrow a phrase — leading from behind on a crisis remedy where we should be lapping the field.

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.