Tag Archives: pandemic

national news

Waiting for Trump’s day of reckoning

I have been waiting for as long as Donald Trump has been a politician for a day of reckoning, the moment when this carnival barker masquerading as the president of the United States commits the act that finally spells an end to the nightmare through which we are living.

Trump’s political life began the day he rode down the escalator with his wife to declare he would run for the presidency.

It has been all downhill ever since.

Yep, even with that once-soaring stock market and those formerly glowing job-growth numbers. The man has been, to borrow one of his favorite terms, a disaster as POTUS.

The litany of boorish antics, idiotic statements, the endless lies, the hideous denigration of noble people and institutions is too lengthy to chronicle here.

I am left to wonder: Is Trump’s coronavirus pandemic response — or shameful lack of response — the deal breaker, the one thing that finally awakens his cadre of base voters to a realization that, by God, we have made a monumental mistake?

I am not in the mood to predict that it will. I mean, I thought Trump’s slur of the late Sen. John McCain’s war record was enough to do it. Then I thought his mocking of the New York Times reporter’s physical ailment would do it. Oh, and then there was the hideous disparagement of the Gold Star couple at the Democratic National Convention. Or the “grab ’em by the pu***” statement. Or his dissing of our intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia attacked our electoral system in 2016. We had an impeachment and a Senate trial.

Arrgghhh …

It never ends. Yet the Buffoon in Chief has survived.

Now we have this. The coronavirus pandemic has produced a record full of Trump statements that resulted in a tragic delay of a federal government all-out response to the outbreak. He has mangled medical experts’ assessments of the crisis; he contradicts statements made by the brilliant scientists on whom he is supposed to rely for advice; and he keeps lying.

This takes me back to my original question. When is this clown going to be held accountable for the disaster he has created in the only public office he has ever sought?

International news

What a difference a head of state can make

I could not help but draw the immediate comparison to another head of state when I heard Queen Elizabeth II speaking Sunday to her subjects about the coronavirus pandemic.

You know how it goes, my fellow Americans, when we hear constantly from our head of state, Donald Trump, who has the capacity to say so little with so much useless verbiage.

Then in the United Kingdom, Her Majesty the Queen addressed her subjects for only the fourth time in the more than 60 years of her rule.

The queen was, shall we say, majestic. She spoke for only a few moments. She said with absolute calm that the UK will get through the pandemic. The UK will emerge strong and she implored Brits, Welsh, Scots and Irish to pull together as one family.

She spoke of the horror she endured during World War II as a youngster living through the Battle of Britain, as Nazi warplanes bombed and strafed the cities. She said our current war is every bit as deadly as that earlier conflict.

Then she ended it.

National Public Radio reported this morning that the Queen’s remarks were so profound, so rare and so well-aimed that she moved many of her listeners to tears.

Imagine, if you can, that kind of reaction on this side of The Pond to the sound of our own head of state. You can stop laughing now.

Here is Her Majesty’s speech:

You will not hear a single, solitary self-serving boast from this magnificent monarch.

Wow.

local news, media news

Time of My Life, Part 48: Still able to keep up with fast-paced story

I have returned to the game of print journalism, even if it isn’t daily print journalism.

Still, writing for a weekly newspaper presents a whole new set of challenges … such as trying to keep pace with a story that is changing damn near hourly.

Forgive the boast, but I am happy to report that I still am able to remain nimble enough to hit a fast-moving target.

The target is the coronavirus, aka COVID-19. They’ve declared it a worldwide pandemic. It is killing thousands of people daily.

How does that affect my freelance gig? The Farmersville Times covers a lovely community in Collin County, Texas, about seven miles east of where my wife and I live in Princeton; I write for the Times. I have spent the past few days keeping pace with the outbreak of COVID-19 in Farmersville.

I was assigned a story to write for the Times that looked at how the community’s first responders — namely firefighters and police officers — are coping with the pandemic. My initial story said there had been no reported infection in Farmersville.

Then it changed. Rapidly.

The publisher, my boss, notified me that Collin County Public Health officials reported several cases in Farmersville. I had to make contact with the police and fire chiefs for updated information. I was able to do so quickly. They provided the information I was seeking.

However, the story likely continues to move even as I write this brief blog post.

Indeed, I have no idea how many — if there are any to report — new cases of coronavirus have been reported in Farmersville just since I filed my amended version of the original story.

By all means, we are experiencing a crisis that tests us all. I just have to stay nimble.

religious news

Don’t heed the calls of wacky preachers

The reports are coming out around the country about wacky preachers deciding to forgo the warnings about the coronavirus pandemic.

They’re going to open their church sanctuaries wide for worshipers on Easter. They’re nuts. What’s more, so are the parishioners who listen to them and pour into churches, sitting next to their fellow parishioners … and exposing themselves and others to potential exposure to the deadly virus.

Let’s see, it’s killed 9,000-plus Americans, infected nearly a half-million of us. The numbers are climbing steadily. Governors are telling us to stay home, imploring us to employ “social distancing,” seeking all manner of ways to stem the infection that is ravaging the nation.

In spite of all that, we hear now that some preachers are wanting to fill their church pews on Christianity’s holiest day.

How in the name of brotherly love can they do this?

My wife and I are staying home for Easter. I might take a moment that day to say a prayer reaffirming the faith I have followed since I was a little boy. I also might offer a prayer of thanks to our pastor who is employing some Earthly common sense and keeping our church closed to in-person worship on Easter.

To those who might consider endangering themselves or others in this perilous time, think long and hard about the potential danger that awaits you.

national news

Hoping that Gov. Cuomo might one day seek to become POTUS

Don’t accuse me of getting ahead of myself. I mean, politicians do at times mess up a good thing. Do you recall, say, former U.S. Sen. John Edwards? Well, whatever.

Given the way New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has coped publicly with the coronavirus pandemic that is ravaging his state, I want to declare my desire to see this fellow remain front and center on the political stage for as long as the fire burns in his belly … and for as long as the public can cling to his words of encouragement.

Cuomo comes from solid Democratic Party stock. His father, the late Mario Cuomo, held the governorship in New York as well. He once delivered a stirring Democratic Party nominating convention keynote speech, in 1984, that talked about “two Americas” divided between rich and not-so-rich Americans.

Mario Cuomo once was thought to be presidential material. It wasn’t to be. Then again, he never faced an existential crisis in his state that has galvanized the nation the way his son has been forced to face.

Andrew Cuomo has stood tall among political leaders in telling the nation about the trouble that has befallen his state. It is a microcosm of what is happening around the country. Indeed, the pandemic has felled millions of people around the world.

Gov. Cuomo’s eloquence and his passion have been remarkable and stirring. Cuomo’s eloquence is made even starker when we listen to what comes from the president of the United States. The difference in the quality of the briefings we hear daily from these men is utterly stunning.

He has served the federal government already, having served as housing secretary during the Clinton administration. The man has serious governmental executive chops.

I hope with all I have that this fellow remains a vital part of our political landscape well past the time we can declare victory in this war against the coronavirus.

national news

Why the partisan divide over this pandemic?

I am forced to ask: Why in the name of medical prudence does it seem to me that there is a partisan divide between governors’ responses to the coronavirus pandemic?

How is this playing out so far? Most of our 50 states have declared statewide “stay at home” or “shelter in place” mandates. They have been led more or less by Democrats who run those states. The remaining handful of states that haven’t yet issued those declarations all are being governed by Republicans.

What is going on here?

Donald Trump calls for an end to partisanship. He declares his desire to unify the country. Then he does something quite extraordinary.

When the bill that provided $2.2 trillion in economic aid to Americans reached his desk, he didn’t invite a single Democratic member of Congress to witness his bill-signing; the entire congressional delegation gathered in the Oval Office comprised Republicans who, I should add, were not observing “social distancing” practices while watching Trump sign the bill into law.

Here in Texas, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to issue a “stay at home” ruling, although what is happening here is that we are observing a de facto stay at home order. This appears to me to be a function of Republican politicians adhering to the nation’s top GOP politician’s reluctance to be more proactive in his battle against the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, gubernatorial Democrats across the nation are mobilizing their own forces and resources to fight this “war” against an “invisible enemy.” Their reaction appears to be an effort to stick it in Trump’s eye, to enact policies at a statewide level that the president refuses to do at a national level.

A “wartime president” speaks to an entire nation. He unifies us by appealing to our common mission against an enemy of our state. He does not attack politicians from the other party or the media that seek to report on the progress of the government’s mission.

It is my humble view that Donald Trump has overseen an incompetent response to the pandemic. He has delivered messages steeped in confusion and contradiction. He has undermined his own health experts. Trump has denied saying what he entire world heard him say, which is that the pandemic is a “Democrat hoax.”

The nation is full of competent, intelligent and serious Republican governors. Why in the world do they keep standing behind this president, whose categorical incompetence is putting Americans’ lives in danger?

national news

Pandemic response becomes overarching 2020 campaign issue

Should the federal government’s stumble-bum response to the coronavirus pandemic take center stage for the 2020 presidential campaign?

Oh, boy howdy, hoss! Damn straight it should!

This very moment might not be the right time to start campaigning on Donald Trump’s belated call to urgency. However, once we reach our “apex” and we start seeing declines in the infection rate among Americans, then I do believe it would be an appropriate issue to raise in the contest for the White House.

Are you listening, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.? I’m talking to you.

Even though it might be premature for a presidential contender to raise the issue, I consider it fair game for, oh, those of us on the outside, such as bloggers.

Donald Trump has done a terrible job coordinating the federal response. He has politicized the effort all along the way, and that came after he said initially that the pandemic wasn’t that big of a deal.

Nine thousand American deaths later, it most certainly a huge deal. It is so huge that it boggles my mind — and the minds of others — that the Trump administration would disband a pandemic response team assembled as part of the National Security Council during the Obama administration.

Trump’s supporters, of course, are quite willing to accept the president’s non-response as OK. Some of them are readers of this blog and are critics of what I post on this blog; they are likely to respond to this brief post. That’s fine. Let ’em have at it.

I am not going to remain silent, even in this terrible time, over what I see are egregious shortfalls in the president’s response. Donald Trump has been far too slow to get off the proverbial pot.

When the time comes to make this non-response a campaign issue, then my hope is that Trump’s adversaries zero in and remind us of what many Americans already know: Donald Trump is unfit to lead this nation.

medical news

George W. Bush: pandemic visionary

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(Photo by Paul McErlane/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

If we’re candid about our own beliefs, we would acknowledge that we don’t usually think of President George W. Bush as a visionary politician.

Lo and behold, though, comes reporting that in the summer of 2005, while vacationing at his Central Texas ranch, President Bush was reading a book about the 1918 influenza pandemic, aka the Spanish Flu. He returned to Washington and told his top homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, about what he had read.

The book alarmed and alerted the president, who then told the nation that we needed to get and stay prepared to deal with the next pandemic, which he concluded occurs about every 100 years.

Hmm. Well, he was right. He wanted to re-double our efforts to fight a global pandemic.

President Bush left office in January 2009, handing the office over to Barack H. Obama, who would form a pandemic response team within the National Security Council.

Oh, but wait! President Obama turned the officer in January 2017 to Donald J. Trump. What did the new president do? He disbanded the NSC pandemic team.

So now we learn that Trump not only dismissed the efforts of his immediate predecessor but also of the man who preceded President Obama. Yes, it was George W. Bush who sounded the alarm that Donald Trump chose to ignore … until it was too late.

We’re caught now in the latest pandemic. The coronavirus crisis is killing thousands of human beings every day. The worst is still to come. Most of our states are reacting relatively quickly to the emergency. The feds? They are still trying to catch up. Heck, they’re still trying to get their message straight, which is a damn near impossible task, given Donald Trump’s inability to speak coherently, seriously and knowledgeably about the pandemic.

Do you feel safe now with Donald Trump in charge? You’re not alone. Neither do I.

national news

What? POTUS stays off the golf course?

Am I the only American who has noticed that Donald John Trump is staying close to the house, as in the White House, while we fight this coronavirus pandemic?

There have been no trips to Mar-a-Lago or to Bedminster or to anywhere outside of Washington, D.C., for this president.

Not while the rest of us are staying home, away from others — even extended family.

I just have to say that Trump’s outward attentiveness to the crisis at hand has not gone unnoticed.

medical news

Baffled by POTUS’s refusal to follow CDC guideline

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Donald John Trump can do damn near whatever he wants to do … or decline to do the same.

However, the president’s declaration that he won’t follow face-mask guidelines set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention baffles me.

CDC recommends that we all wear face masks when interacting with other human beings while we wage “war” with the invisible enemy, the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a voluntary measure.

Trump, the head of the executive branch of our government, undercut the CDC on Friday by stating he won’t wear the mask. The reason why is laughable, except that it ain’t funny.

He said he cannot meet with foreign dignitaries while sitting behind the “Resolute Desk” in the Oval Office as he wears a mask. The mask, he implied, would be, um, less than dignified. The president of the United States cannot wear a mask, or worse, be seen by the public wearing a mask.

Huh? As if that matters? As if anyone should care whether the POTUS is wearing a mask?

I would applaud Donald Trump for adhering to the CDC guideline. He would send a message to all Americans that the guidelines are to be taken seriously enough that even the president of the United States is following them!

What we’re getting instead from Donald Trump is just another example of a failure of presidential leadership in a time of crisis.