Republicans eyeing the White House bids are emulating Trump’s confrontational, fact-challenged politics on Covid. DeSantis is taking a page directly from Trump’s playbook — betting that an aggressive campaign against mandatory mask-wearing in schools will make him a GOP star and get him the nod for a run at the Presidency
At a conference in Utah recently, DeSantis said, and I quote; “It is very important that we say unequivocally no to lockdowns, no to school closures, no to restrictions and no to mandates.” He already signed an executive order that school children did not have to wear masks. Fortunately the school districts are, so far, not paying attention to that order!
Greg Abbott, who has just come down with Covid himself said; it is now time to open Texas 100% as he lifted the state’s mask mandate in March and allowed businesses to open at 100% capacity despite warnings from public health officials. This also is a political move, not caring who dies or gets sick, as long as the GOP base is mollified! More than 12,400 people in Texas were hospitalized with the virus as of Wednesday, according to state data, an increase from 10,791 last Wednesday!
Gov. Noem of South Dakota bragged that they had not ordered any businesses to close and enforced no mandates. South Dakota saw the highest Covid-19 case increase per 100,000 residents in the entire nation over the past two weeks!
GOP led states are the lowest in vaccination rates, highest in new cases of Covid, and also do not follow, as a general rule, the mandates of the scientific community on how to stay safe!
This is the insanity of a party who still worships at the feet of Trump. Who are willing to sacrifice lives to keep their agenda and electability alive in a GOP that still follows the rule of, if facts are not to your liking, just change them, then repeat the lie often!
I am a Marine vet, two tours in Nam. First, not a combat Marine, I never left the safety of the airbase in Da Nang! A location affectionately known as Rocket City because of the almost daily rocket rainfall! I got an excellent demonstration within the first half hour I was in country. But no jungle safaris while I was there!
I was a Sgt, which some say is why I am a little lax in my patience quotient. A Sgt in the Marine Corps has a God complex. This is more prevalent in the Corps than in the other services. We are the poor stepchild of the Navy, so money and promotions are a hard target! So a Sgt in the Corps is more rare than in any other service! With more responsibility in most cases and you are basically the last word! Not far enough up the chain to have to deal with a lot of red tape, but with enough power that no one was going to give you any guff unless they outranked you, and Sgts run the Corps. Ask any of us. If it ain’t so, you will find that we thought it was. Every last one of us!
So previous to that, I lived in a small logging and ranching community in Idaho. Well lots of places in Idaho, but from the summer before the 8th to my first year of college, Council was my home. We will not go into the complex and often unbelievable circumstance before that. Still, Council saved my life, gave me purpose, and made me realize my worth. I went from almost no schooling before I was 13, to an (A) average student! I was on the student council, editor of the school paper junior and senior years, captain of an undefeated football team, a starter on the basketball team, and the primary pitcher for the baseball team, both also doing very well. I might have had a swellhead! But what I am trying to say, Council and the wonderful people populating that town were responsible for my good luck. I had no parents; I lived for a while with a school teacher who snagged me from the hell I was living!. When they moved, I lived with the town’s only Doctor and a state assemblyman and his family, whose elder son was my best friend. So, as I said, I owe a lot to people not even related to me for giving me a leg up!
So, back to me being an arse! I love the people of Council; regardless of their beliefs or political aspirations, all of them will give you the shirt off their back if you are an honest resident of their town and in need! But there are some extremes, politically, that is. I am aware that I am at one of those extremes. I am what you would call a liberal who was raised in a primarily conservative stronghold. I never minded, never really paid it much attention until Trump went political!
Now long before Trump became our President, I had a decent hate for the man. I had followed him most of my life, learning of his ominous business dealings and rampant racism! Trump and his father were even sued in federal court by the Justice Dept, Donald twice for this very thing! I noted his attitudes toward women, cheating one wife with the next one in line, and then with porn stars, while the now First Lady was pregnant with their son! I noted how often Trump had been accused of sexual assault, even rape of an underage girl, and how his money and influence made it all go away. But what set me off, what turned me into the arse that I am, was when people I loved excused or even denied this activity! Calling him beloved and chosen by God, that I just went nuts! I could not believe my eyes, my ears, or understand how this could possibly be!
So I started a blog, became a pest on Facebook and, to some extent on Twitter! I started doing my own research to make sure I was not mistaken in my beliefs. I found that I had not even scratched the surface of this man’s evil. He was kicked out of private school for bullying and beating younger students. He was sent to a military school that was not known for academic excellence but for obedience training of wayward teens! He could not get into a good college on his own merit but paid someone to take his SATs. Even then, his grades were not enough to enter into his college of choice; Wharton refused his original application! He had to use family influence to get in. He has since threatened all institutions of learning he attended if they released his grades. You know, being a genius and all!
Since he started his political career, he has lied at least 20,000 times. Currently, he averages 50 a day as his mental stability is suffering under his loss to Biden! But his supporters seem not to notice or do not care! Yes, those figures come from multiple sources, but look at the magnitude. Even if you were to disregard a large portion, you still have the most egregious liar in public office in history!
After the election he gave up even trying to appear concerned about a virus that is raging out of control. We are the number one infected nation on the planet, but from Trump, crickets! Even before the election, it had been months since he attended the weekly updates and discussions on how to deal with it!
Yes, even now he is firing anyone who disagrees with him! Anyone who dares tell the truth about healthcare, or who denies the lies about the election, anyone in the Pentagon that he could fire, he did! Because they did not want to send regular troops into citizen populations! That is, for example, why Mark Esper is gone! He is suing states to try and overturn Biden’s win. The courts all down the line are denying him, and Trump is getting more and more desperate in his lies and accusations! If you are honest, even giving the man the benefit of the doubt because, yes, there are partisan politics always in play, he is not honest, is morally corrupt, and is the prevaricator in chief!
Again, pain in the arse that I am, I ask you to do some honest fact-checking. Now fact-checking means you have to look at actual court cases, existing instances of circumstance you can witness for yourselves about this man’s behavior. Then you have to take into account the vast amounts of evidence provided by dozens of women and former contractors. Yes, his former lawyers, so-called insiders, his family, all laying out a scenario of a vicious bully with an evil character! Even Fox admits in court; they are not a news organization but an entertainment company. According to their lawyers, everyone knows they do not represent facts, so they should not be held liable. So that also means you cannot use them as a fact-checking source, now, can you!
The reason I am pestering you again. Because all these innuendoes and lies have split our country into two camps, those that think Biden won, and those who think it was some nationally co-ordinated conspiracy to steal an election. This will split our country for years. We need to examine how we got here and who is responsible. I mean, when the far right militia is standing by for Trumps order to go to war on innocent civilians, it is time to rethink our stratagems!
From a comment made in the New Yorker by David Remnick April 12, 2020
From the start, the Trump administration has waged war on science and expertise, making a great nation peculiarly vulnerable to the foreseeable public-health calamity of the coronavirus.
The fact that the United States is experiencing tremendous losses—that it has far more COVID-19 cases than any other country in the world—relates to a number of collective risk factors and preëxisting conditions. The most notable one is to be found in the Oval Office!
Kayleigh McEnany, a loud promoter of birtherism and of Trump talking points during the 2016 campaign, cheerfully told the Fox Business audience, “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism come here, and isn’t that refreshing when contrasting it with the awful Presidency of President Obama?” Now McEnany is the President’s press secretary.
Instead of dealing with COVID-19 using all the scientists at his disposal, he points to his brain housing group and says that is all he needs to make decisions. He uses the press conference as a place to make political statements to bolster his bid for re-election! Trump has made it clear that he does not approve of efforts to make voting easier in November. Why should he? He takes a dim view of early voting, voting by mail, and same-day registration. Such reforms, he complains, would produce “levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
I (John Love) think we should all read that last statement again! I still cannot believe that Trump could be so ignorant of what the words he uttered meant, but I really shouldn’t be! Basically, he just said that without cheating, gerrymandering, and voter suppression, Republicans couldn’t get elected! Probably the only true thing Trump has ever said! And one last thought, Trump and budget cutters thought the federal government spent too much on public health. Year after year, they have slashed agencies whose mission was to protect the public from pandemics. You know, after the welfare check he wrote to the rich, Trump cannot afford to fund health initiatives, feed children, or take care of at-risk elderly!
The Love Chronicles 