Tag Archives: pandemic

medical news

This conspiracy is laughable, but not funny

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You know how I feel about conspiracies. If not, I will tell you simply that I despise them. More to the point, I despise the rumor-mongering that accompanies the so-called “theories.”

There is now a conspiracy bubbling up out there among The Trump Toadies who defend Donald Trump whenever they find a cause celebre to run into the ditch.

Some of ’em have latched on to some sort of goofy conspiracy involving Dr. Anthony Fauci, the world-renowned infectious disease expert who’s been a voice of reason and studied analysis among the members of the White House coronavirus pandemic task force.

He has at times contradicted Trump’s assertions about the future of the pandemic and whether there is sufficient testing, or when we might have a vaccine available for general use.

Now some of Trump’s cult followers suggest Fauci needs to be fired. They cite bogus reports of other doctors contradicting Fauci’s expert analysis. They accuse Fauci, and this is rich, of being in the hip pocket of “Big Pharma,” those pharmaceutical companies working feverishly to develop a vaccine to prevent the killer virus from taking more lives.

These nimrods, dipsh***, know-nothings need to get a grip. They also need to keep their yappers shut.

Dr. Fauci has served every president going back to Ronald Reagan. He is a brilliant physician and researcher. He needs to be heard. Fauci does not need to be vilified by idiots.

national news

Trump’s empathy is MIA

I keep looking — foolishly, I’ll acknowledge — for some signal that Donald Trump actually feels the pain of those who are stricken by the COVID-19 virus.

I cannot find it. It’s nowhere. It’s missing in action.

The other morning I turned on “Good Morning America” and watched Trump being interviewed by ABC News anchor David Muir. Trump got the question from Muir: What do you want to say to the millions of Americans who are suffering from the pandemic?

Trump said, “I love you.” He said “no one feels worse” than he does about the suffering. Trump said he has lost sleep over it.

Then he pivoted rapidly to reopening the country. He wants to get the country’s economy restarted. He said, “By the same token,” he wants business to get cranked up, boasting to Muir about how the nation was enjoying the greatest economy in human history when the pandemic struck.

Thus, Trump cannot speak with any semblance of sincere empathy to the suffering that his own administration exacerbated by its initial non-response to the growing pandemic.

Instead, he speaks of jobs lost. Don’t misunderstand me: That is a huge deal, too. Then again, he appears incapable of speaking with compassion and empathy to those who have lost their income, who are struggling to pay the mortgage, the rent, the auto loan, student loan, to buy food and medicine. The Carnival Barker in Chief speaks only to the national economy, couching it in terms that play to his re-election chances.

I am acutely aware that no demonstration of empathy would fix matters; it won’t produce a cure for what ails us. All I want from any president in a time of crisis is an example that he cares about all of us, that he understands the misery that has been unleashed. If you’ll pardon the cliché, that he “feels our pain.”

This clown feels nothing. He needs to leave the White House.

medical news

Hoping we never lose our love for heroic responders

The world has been paying appropriate tribute of late to the heroes among us who save lives every day.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought our appreciation for those heroes to new levels. I want that appreciation to remain as intense as it is at this moment.

The media are full of stories of nurses, doctors, truck drivers, firefighters, neighbors, grocery store clerks, restaurant wait staffers — you name ’em — performing acts of kindness. Many of them are performing heroic acts in the face of exposure to a killer viral infection.

Moreover, the rest of us have found our voices of appreciation for all that we are getting. Those of us who found it awkward to offer a simple “thank you” no longer hide behind our shyness. We are speaking out. We are demonstrating our gratitude.

All of this, in my view, is one of the positive impacts of the pandemic. We are expressing ourselves in meaningful ways to those who serve us diligently even when we are not battling a silent but ruthless killer virus.

This crisis will end eventually. We’ll get back to what we hope will be a “normal life.” I happen to be one American who hopes the “new normal” will include our intense desire to express thanks to those who thrust themselves into harm’s way to protect the rest of us from harm.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 181: On the road again … finally!

LAKE MURRAY STATE PARK, Okla. — It took far longer than we wanted, but we finally pulled our fifth wheel out of storage.

We awoke the vehicle we nicknamed “Sally” from her winter of hibernation and arrived at a wonderful state park near Ardmore. We flushed the anti-freeze out of the plumbing and have enjoyed a brief respite from the housebound life in this era of the coronavirus pandemic.

To be sure, we are keeping our distance from our campsite neighbors. We holler at ’em from some distance, extend greetings and good wishes. We discovered that two of our neighbors right next door, a husband and wife, hail from Frisco, a mere chip shot away from us in Princeton.

Indeed, a key discovery I’ve made during our visit to this marvelous place is the enormous number of Texas license plates on the back of the RVs through the park. The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department remains closed to overnight campers, while opening only for day use. I reckon those other Texans skedaddled across the Red River to a state that hasn’t shut down its park system.

The Oklahoma state park system isn’t exactly wide open, though. If you travel into Oklahoma from a state such as, oh, New York or New Jersey — which have huge numbers of COVID-19 infection — then you will be quarantined for two weeks. Fortunately, we ventured just a little way and near as I can tell we’ll be able to hook up and head for the house in the morning.

It is good to get out of the house. It is good to come to a quiet place. It is good to relax and to prepare for the next stint of homebound living. A return to “normal” isn’t in the cards for us just yet, although this brief outing has been quite therapeutic.

national news, national security

DNI pick one of the ‘best people’? C’mon, man!

I cannot help but circle back to one of the many idiotic promises Donald Trump made while he campaigned for the presidency.

He kept telling us he would surround himself with the “best people” to help him protect us against our enemies and enact all manner of public policy.

The nominee to be our next director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, is so far from the “best people” category, it is laughable on its face. Still, he is likely to be confirmed by the Republican-led U.S. Senate.

Ratcliffe got the call to be the DNI in 2019. Then we learned he had fudged on his background. The East Texas congressman had little of the requisite national security experience on his record. He had instead a reputation of being a loyal Donald Trump sycophant, which he demonstrated amply during the impeachment hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives. That qualifies him for the job as the nation’s top spook. Ridiculous! Then he backed out of that earlier battle.

The previous DNI, Dan Coats, left office after disagreeing with Trump over, um, national security issues. Coats was one of the few grownups Trump picked at the beginning of his presidential term. He said the Russians attacked our electoral system in 2016, while Trump defended the Russians. Coats didn’t do what Trump demanded, so he was out.

Now comes Ratcliffe — again! Oh, brother!

Added to all of this are questions about whether Trump ignored the obvious national security threat posed by the coronavirus that has killed more than 70,000 Americans. He got the briefing that the virus posed an imminent threat in January. He looked the other way.

Would a DNI Ratcliffe have insisted Trump listen to the advice of the medical experts? Would a DNI Ratcliffe pitch a fit if Trump didn’t act more proactively earlier? Based on what I watched as Ratcliffe — along with other Republican lackeys on the House intelligence and judiciary committees — did to defend Trump against obvious high crimes, well, I doubt it … seriously!

Donald Trump’s version of the “best people” is going to get the sternest test imaginable if John Ratcliffe gets confirmed to become the next director of national intelligence.

We all should say a prayer for the nation.

medical news

Now the task force is back on … until when, Mr. POTUS?

Mr. President, your constant mind-changing, course reversals and indecision is trying me more than a bit batty.

You said you were going to disband that coronavirus pandemic response task force at the end of May. Now you say it’s back on, that it’s going to stay active until … um, whenever.

What gives with you?

You shouldn’t have blurted out the pending end of the task force in the beginning if you weren’t settled on the decision you had announced. Oh, what the hell? Why am I wasting my effort telling you something you already should know? I can’t help myself, I reckon.

Look, you did bring on board some deep thinkers, experts on infectious disease. I join others in this country who depend more on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s knowledgeable rhetoric than the blather that others such as you and Mike Pence deliver. I also want to interject that as much as I admire Dr. Deborah Birx’s work on HIV/AIDS, she needs to stop making excuses for your incessant, know-nothing rhetoric. Yes, I saw that video of her fighting like hell to resist jumping out of her skin when you talked openly about Americans ingesting “disinfectants” to fight the killer virus.

I understand the task force will focus now on how to reopen the country safely. Fine. That’s not a bad call. However, I feel the need to remind you that we need more testing out here in Flyover Country.

What’s more, we need to stem the infection rate. We’re still getting sick out here in Texas, Mr. President. Your pal, Gov. Greg Abbott, opened up the state and we’re now receiving the grim dividend of what I believe was a premature return to some semblance of “normal” activity in Texas.

Back to my point. You keep changing your mind. Stop messing with us, Mr. Goofball. The task force can do some valuable work in coordinating research, in talking directly to us and in providing a glimmer of hope even as they tell us the truth about the challenges we will face.

Let ’em talk to us … and stay the hell out of their way.

medical news

It’s official: I will ignore the return to ‘business as usual’

I am in dire need of a haircut. I miss cutting into a medium-rare steak at a nice restaurant. I want to return to the gym and to my daily workout regimen.

All of that is going to wait for the foreseeable future, no matter what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declares as he seeks to reopen the state for business.

He said hair salons are back in business. Gyms will reopen in a few days. Restaurants have been open for a few days now, although the governor ordered ’em to operate at 25 percent of capacity.

Fine. Go for it, y’all. I am staying away. I do not like seeing the news about infection and death rates continuing to climb in Texas, and in North Texas, where I live along with some members of my family. The picture isn’t any prettier in the Panhandle, where the rest of my family and many of our friends reside.

I haven’t checked in on the Golden Triangle, where my wife and I still have many dear friends.

From what I have read, polling suggests most Texans and other Americans believe as I do, that governors are acting too hastily to reopen their states. They are putting too much emphasis on the economy and not enough of it on the health of the people they represent.

Gov. Abbott has moved too quickly to suit my sensibilities. I am glad he had the good sense to close Texas public school classrooms for the rest of the academic year.

And what in the world is going on with our Texas public universities? They want to return to in-person classwork this fall. I’m OK with that … but Texas A&M, the University of Texas and Texas Tech University systems plan to play football. Are they going to play those games in empty stadiums? Yeah … good luck with that.

You may count me as one Texas resident who wants to see a substantial and recurring decline in the infection and death rates before I make my return to what we used to think of as “normal.”

Hey, maybe I can make a fashionably late entrance.

For now? I am out.

national news

The non-pol sounds like a … pol!

It occurred to me a while ago, but I haven’t said so until right now, but the guy who campaigned for president of the United States as a non-politician is sounding like an actual politician … only he is so bad at playing the role of pol.

Donald Trump cannot resist the temptation to politicize everything, and that includes a pandemic that is infecting and killing thousands of Americans every day.

Now he says that Democratic-run states asking for federal help are doing harm to Republicans because those Democratic states have been “mismanaged for a long time.” Translation: They don’t deserve the help they are seeking from the feds.

What a cheap, petulant, petty and disgraceful point of view!

Donald Trump continues to exhibit his fundamental failure as a leader of a nation in the throes of a serious medical crisis.

The economy has tanked. We are entering Depression-era jobless reports. Businesses are declaring bankruptcy. And, yes, Americans are suffering grievously at almost every level imaginable.

Throughout all of this, Donald Trump speaks in terms of political outcomes and whether his own re-election campaign will rise or fall.

Yep, this is the non-pol who won election to the only public office he ever sought. He tried to sell us on the ruse that he was a self-made man, that he built this gigantic business empire all by his own self and that he would bring that expertise to the White House.

It turns out that was a lie. Imagine that.

He is now turning the blame machine on others. He failed to respond to repeated national security warnings about a pandemic. The dithered and dawdled. He looked the other way. Trump didn’t cause the pandemic and I won’t lay blame there.

However, he damn sure did accelerate the suffering by his non-response early on. Meanwhile, those “Democrat-run states” took proactive measures all on their own. They need the help from the federal government because — and this is the stark reality that Trump doesn’t understand — we’re all part of the same great nation.

Meanwhile, the non-politician plays politics.

Despicable.

economic news

How will POTUS react to the horrific job-loss news that’s coming?

You know by now the way Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump rolls.

He gets good news, he unlimbers his Twitter fingers to declare that only he could produce such joyous information; I can’t think of the last time he did it, but we all know that’s how he reacts.

What about the bad news? He still unlimbers the Twitter digits, but then declares that it’s someone else’s fault; Barack Obama is a favorite foil, given the intense envy he displays over Obama’s sophistication.

This brings me to the news that every economist in the country says is going to bring a huge gas around the world. The U.S. Labor Department will release the job figures for April. Projections tell us that in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, we’re going to experience a job loss of around 20 million. That number will dwarf the 710,000 non-farm jobs that disappeared in March as a result of the killer virus and the shutting down of the national economy.

I now am officially wondering how Trump is going to respond to that bit of hideous news.

This guy wants desperately to be re-elected this November. He had been touting the supposedly “historic” economic success he had enjoyed until the fecal matter hit the fan with the pandemic. What on Earth is he going to say when confronted with a jobless rate that is projected to exceed 15 percent.

I want to be clear. Donald Trump did not cause the pandemic. However, his clearly negligent initial (non)response to its severity has contributed mightily to the health and economic crises that have gripped the country by its throat.

He likely is going to find all manner of ways to blame others for his failure. My belief that he lacks what I call “presidential temperament” leads me to worry that he might go apoplectic.

When the March jobs report came out, we all knew it would get worse. I wasn’t aware at that time that it would plummet to the level we likely are about to witness.

We might need to get ready for a presidential implosion from Donald Trump.

State news

Beachgoers tempt fate

You are looking at a beachful of goobers who ought to know better than to do what they are doing.

They are congregating along the Texas coast, apparently heeding Gov. Greg Abbott’s declaration that it’s OK to venture to the beach without regard to the restrictions he had imposed on Texans since early April.

You can count me out. What in the world is going on here?

Planet Earth is still in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic. It has killed hundreds of thousands of people and nearly 70,000 Americans. Yet some states, such as Texas, are being run by governors who seem to think it’s OK to reopen their economies that had been shut down by the pandemic.

Abbott said he would let “doctors and data” determine how to loosen the restrictions. Did he really have this in mind? If he didn’t, then the goobers on the beach need to know better. If he did, these numbskulls still should pay attention.

Many governors are proclaiming that social distancing is having a profoundly positive effect on the infection and death rates by the COVID-19 virus. I don’t see a whole lot of social distancing in the picture I have attached to this blog post. What I do see is a crowd of nitwits who are endangering themselves or worse, endangering others.

What I wish would happen is that Abbott reimpose the restrictions. Good grief. He needs to tell those who want to go to the beach to follow the rules they have been following already.

Or, he could deputize Texas Parks & Wildlife rangers to work alongside Department of Public Safety troopers to issue citations to those they see clustering like these yahoos.

We are witnessing a rush to potential disaster and it gives my family me all the justification we need to keep doing what we’ve been doing to avoid getting caught by the killer virus.