Tag Archives: COVID

medical news

Fauci is a champ … not a chump

It is my sincere hope that most of us understand the huge chasm that exists between making a misstatement and telling a lie.

Speaking incorrectly about an issue is a mistatement. People in high places do it all the time. They should be given a pass — just once — if they state something incorrectly. A lie is different. Lying about something is a deliberate act, with the liar knowing that he or she says is false, but they say it anyway.

So it is with the struggle Anthony Fauci is facing these days. Republicans are so damn quick to toss he “liar” canard at Dr. Fauci that they forget that the liar in chief, Donald Trump, cannot tell the truth if his life depended on it.

Fauci, one of the world’s foremost infectious disease doctors, sought to tell his GOP Senate questioners that he’s never told a deliberate untruth. He says he hasn’t lied to Congress.

I happen to believe him.

A man of Dr. Fauci’s standing and stature isn’t awarded medals, citations, and declarations if he does shoddy work. Fauci has been far from shoddy in his efforts to protect Americans from the danger of COVID-19.

It is entirely possible that Fauci misspoke during the disease’s run through the populace. If he did, well, he’s a human being. A fallible human being. He also took an oath when he tossed the stethoscope around his neck to “do no harm” and to work to the limits of his ability to keep human being safe.

I believe Anthony Fauci fits the description as a medical champ. His foes on Capitol Hill are nothing but chumps.

medical news

Fauci is a hero, not a zero

How in the name of all that is sane does a man go from receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom to being treated as a run-of-the-mill hoodlum during a Senate committee hearing?

It’s not the individual, but rather it’s the change in the political climate that produces senators who have no sense of honor, decency or decorum.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the man who likely saved the lives of millions of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, was raked over the coals by senators intent on slapping handcuffs on him and tossing him into the slammer. Why? Because the dipshit in chief, Donald Trump, wants them to do it.

Fauci once was honored by another Republican president, George H.W. Bush, with a Medal of Freedom. President Bush cited Fauci’s work as the world’s premier epidemiologist and his work to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. It was that record that Donald Trump brought him on board to lead the right against COVID, except then Fauci began contradicting the statements made by the current POTUS.

So, Trump turned him into a pariah. Now we have Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who this week sought to vilify Dr. Fauci for alleged misstatements he made. He called Fauci a liar. Dr. Fauci pushed back, citing his constitutional right to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid saying something that his accusers could use against him. He said Paul doesn’t know what he’s talking about and declared that “if anyone is lying, senator, it is you!”

I am going to stand with Dr. Anthony Fauci in this dispute. The man’s expertise is beyond dispute. It cannot possibly be challenged, especially by two-bit tinhorns masquerading as know-it-alls.

medical news, national news

Trump adds new ‘wack job’ to lineup

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Wack jobs have found a home in what is shaping up as the weirdest presidential administration in history.

The latest of them also happens to be a scion of one of America’s most revered political families: Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr.

How in the world can I begin evaluating Donald Trump’s selection of RFK Jr. to be health and human services secretary? I’ll start with the obvious. Dude is an anti-vaccine activist who then says he doesn’t oppose vaccines per se, only those used to combat the COVID pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of people around the world.

He also once picked up the carcass of a bear cub and delivered it to a national park and also declared that a worm got into his brain and ate some of the tissue inside his screwed-up noggin.

This is the moron Trump said he would allow to “run wild at HHS” in an effort to protect Americans against disease.

What the … ?

I feel compelled to re-state that RFK Jr.’s father, the late U.S. senator and U.S. attorney general — who I believe would have been elected president in 1968 were it not for the asshole with the pistol in Los Angeles — was my first political hero,

To think that Junior has become such a weirdo only makes me wonder: What would daddy think of his namesake?

national news

RIP, Republican Party

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May a once-great political party rest in peace while those who remain loyal to what it once stood for find the courage to shirk its current incarnation.

Republicans, you have a stern challenge ahead of you … even if hell freezes over and the MAGA warrior in chief actually wins the 2024 presidential election.

I fear the once-Grand Old Party has been hijacked by a huckster disguised as a politician. The men and women who are its stoutest adherents all comprise a group of dimly lit chuckleheads who somehow have managed to be heard above the din in this wildest of presidential election campaigns.

The MAGA cult would have us believe that Democrats caused Hurricanes Helene and Milton to ravage the Southeast. They also seem to believe that immigrants are eating our puppies and kitties. They also continue to insist that the2020 presidential election was stolen from their guy, who actually was indicted by the US House for …. trying to steal the election.

Republicans once called a candidate’s character to be the end-all to determine their fitness for high office.  These days? They embrace the blathering of a boastful Bozo.

More items are revealed daily.  My latest favorite involves reporting by Robert Woodward that the 45th POTUS offered to give COVID test kits to Russian thug Vladimir Putin while they were being rationed to Americans who also were suffering — and dying — from the killer virus.

The Republican Party I knew as a child and as a much younger adult no longer exists.

I am going to miss it as long as it remains captive to the gullible goons who call its cadence.

national news

So much to ponder this election cycle

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This big world is full of issues, talking points and factors that zoom right past my pointy little head.

Here’s another one I want to examine briefly. How does a president as successful as Joseph R. Biden Jr. struggle with polling data that suggest he is going to get his clocked cleaned on Election Day?

I do not get it!

Biden inherited an economy in free fall from the COVID pandemic. Joblessness was through the roof. Hundreds of Americans were dying daily from the killer virus. Our national budget deficit was skyrocketing. His presidential predecessor had sought to undermine the “peaceful transition of power.”

President Biden took office and managed to work with Congress to enact an infrastructure rebuilding bill, approve the Inflation Reduction Act, approve climate change legislation. He issued executive orders that took aim at reducing prescription drug costs.

Joe Biden is in the midst of a successful presidency. Now he’s in deep trouble of being forced out of the re-election campaign because Democratic Party honchos are worried he cannot beat Donald Trump, the GOP nominee.

How in the world does the president wrap his arms around the juxtaposition of those facts. Unemployment is down, the budget deficit is shrinking, our alliances are strong … but he’s trailing in the polls and experts are telling him his chances of winning are shrinking daily.

The MAGA cultists who comprise Trump’s base are energized. Biden’s base is demoralized. Trump has a deeply flawed moral character that he seems to wear like a badge of honor. Biden enjoys deep affection among those who are close to him.

Up is down and down is up. The man who lost the previous election now might be poised to beat the man who defeated him four years ago. What the hell is wrong with this country?

national news

What should his legacy become?

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Suppose for a moment that President Biden’s parsing of the tea leaves tells him he should no longer seek re-election … what shall be the opening paragraph say about his term as leader of the world’s pre-eminent nation?

I hope it doesn’t mention that he ended his re-election effort over questions about whether he was competent to run the nation for a second term. I want it to focus on what he did accomplish.

He took the reins of power as the nation fought like hell to recover from the COVID pandemic. That battle included rescuing an economy that had tanked. Biden wanted to restore our national “soul,” which had been wounded grievously by the chaos that enveloped the presidency of his immediate predecessor.

By almost any measure one can apply, Joe Biden’s presidency has been a success. He signed legislation that aims to improve our infrastructure, seeks to reduce inflation, and seeks to arm Ukraine in its fight for survival against invading forces from Russia.

Biden has taken executive action to eliminate crushing student debt obligations and has acted with dignity and decorum on the world stage.

All of that might get short shrift in the event President Biden decides to pull the plug on his re-election campaign. Instead, the media will focus on whether he has lost too many steps in his losing fight against Father Time.

Joe Biden’s presidency has been a success and no matter when we start writing the history of this man’s time at the pinnacle of power, I want us to remember that fact first.

economic news, national news

Yes, I am better off

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Allow me to make this declaration … as if you can stop me from making it.

Here goes: I am better off by a long shot than I was four years ago.

The question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”, is getting some traction of late. Republicans are saying “no!” They want to tar President Biden with a phony economic crisis, suggesting that the recovery from the COVID pandemic is a figment of our imagination.

It isn’t. Our economy is robust. It is — to borrow the phrase — “rocking along” by producing a record number of new jobs, historically low unemployment, a shrinking national budget deficit, an inflation rate that is stabilizing and shrinking, too.

Yes, the nation is better off than it was when Joe Biden took office as president. I won’t listen to the lies put forth by his immediate presidential predecessor.

Are in perfect condition? Of course not! Perfection is an impossibility.

But we’re damn sure better than we were.

medical news, political news

Why now, RFK Jr.?

Many things get past this old codger, one of them being the Democratic Party presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I’ll stipulate once more that RFK Jr. was given the name of my first political hero, his father. His campaign for the White House, though, is based on conspiracies that, to my mind, do not exist.

Moreover, he expresses deep personal affection for President Biden, who enjoys the overwhelming support of RFK Jr.’s family.

He says the mandated COVID-19 vaccines were an overreach by the government, which he said should never have required us to be vaccinated against a virus that killed about 1 million Americans.

Hmm. Wow! What do you suppose the death toll would have been had the Biden administration not ordered the vaccines? My hunch: a whole lot more than those who perished.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not be elected president. Not this year. Not any year. Never. He sounds like a goofball nut case seeking to make a name for himself. Imagine that if you will … a man with arguably one of the most revered political names of the past century seeking even more attention.

I’m still trying to wrap my arms around this guy’s candidacy.

For now, I am left merely to shake my noggin in astonishment.

national news

RFK Jr. lost me right away

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. carries the name of the man I most admired in American politics … that is as far as it goes.

RFK Jr. is a conspiracist, a nut case, a man with an agenda that bears no resemblance to reality and he says he wants to run for president of the United States.

I am stunned beyond belief at the way this political scion has conducted himself while seeking the Democratic nomination for POTUS. He says he is anti-vaccine, then denies saying it. He says the COVID virus was targeted to strike people of certain races and religions, then denies saying that, too.

If you speak nicely to him, he’s all yours. If you criticize his comments or take his policy pronouncements to task, you become a “censor.” RFK Jr. does not know the meaning of the word.

Hey, it gets worse!

If he fails to win the Democratic Party presidential nomination next summer, he might embark on a third-party campaign. To what end is anyone’s guess.

RFK Jr. also has contended that Sirhan Sirhan, who shot Sen. Robert Kennedy to death on June 5, 1968 and was caught with the gun in his hand in the LA hotel kitchen that horrible night, didn’t do the heinous deed. What the hell?

Remember, too, that this is the fellow who said he voted for President Biden in 2020. He says his family has deep personal affection for Joe Biden and supports the president’s policies, and that he shares their views of the president. Why, then, is he embarking on this fool’s errand?

Oh, I know. It’s because he is a fool!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Where is Fauci Squad?

The congressional Republican hit squad made a grim prediction on the eve of the 2022 midterm election.

They would, if they regained control of the House of Representatives, launch an immediate investigation into all the wrongs committed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the one-time coronavirus guru hired first by Donald Trump and then kept by Joe Biden to lead the nation out of the pandemic crisis.

They accused Fauci of lying, of covering up the cause of the pandemic, of spreading confusion. They were going to get to the bottom of it all right then and there … they said with passion.

What the hell?

Fauci has retired. He’s spending more time with his wife, his children and grandchildren. He is out of the limelight. For my money, the man deserves a medal. Hell, he ought to get several medals for putting up with the ration of horseh** he got for four years during the Trump years and during the time he served the Biden administration.

Oh, wait. I almost forgot. The Republican congressional caucus has been sniffing around Hunter Biden’s laptop, looking for crimes that they say he committed. Then we find out that an informant who reportedly was friendly with the GOP caucus is an arms dealer who worked for China … and who now is on the lam.

As for Fauci, the GOP continues to be distracted by other phony probes to spend any time looking into so-called wrongdoing by a dedicated infectious disease physician.

From my perch in the cheap seats, Anthony Fauci is a hero who saved millions of American lives. The GOP chumps looking for dirt to throw at him continually disgrace the government they have pledged to serve.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com