This President and Our Current Situtation

Herewith, ladies and gentlemen, this President's track record on this pandemic called coronavirus.

1. President Trump declined to accept and have us use the World Health Organization’s test for the virus like other nations. Back in January, over a month before the first covid19 case, the Chinese posted a new mysterious virus and within a week, Berlin virologists had produced the first diagnostic test. By the end of February, the WHO had shipped out tests to 60 countries. Just not to us and our government. We declined the test even as a temporary bridge until the CDC could create its own test. The question is why? We don’t know but what to look for is which pharmaceutical company eventually manufactures the test and who owns the stock. Stay tuned.

2 .In 2018 Trump fired Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossart, whose job was to coordinate a response to global pandemics. He was not replaced.

3. In 2018 Dr. Luciana Borio, the NSC director for medical and bio-defense preparedness left the job. Trump did not replace Dr. Borio.

4. In 2019 the NSC’s Senior Director for Global Health Security and bio-defense, Tim Ziemer, left the position and Trump did not replace the Rear Admiral.

5. Trump shut down the entire Global Health Security and Bio-defense agency.

6. Amid the explosive worldwide outbreak of the virus Trump, proposed a 19% cut to the budget of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention plus a 10% cut to Public Health Services as well as a 7% cut to Global Health Services. Those are just the organizations that respond to public health threats in our nation.

7. In 2018, at Trump’s direction, the CDC stopped funding epidemic prevention activities in 39 out of 49 countries including China.

8. Trump didn’t appoint a doctor to oversee the US response to the pandemic. He appointed his Vice President Mike Pence.

9. Trump has on multiple occasions sowed doubt about the severity of the virus even using the word hoax at events and rallies. He actually called it a "Democratic Party hoax." He even did it at an event where the virus was being spread. 

10. President Trump pretended the virus had been contained.

11. Trump left a cruise ship at sea for days, denying them proper hospital care.

A further timeline of Trump's tweets and statements:

• Notable Trump tweet from 2013: “Leadership: Whatever happens, you’re responsible. If it doesn’t happen, you’re responsible.”
• January 30: Trump on Coronavirus, “We have it very well under control, and I think it’s going to have a very good ending. So that I can assure you!”
• February 2: Trump on Coronavirus, “Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China, but we did shut it down.”
• February 10: On Fox News Trump says without evidence that the coronavirus "dies with the hotter weather… You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat.”
• February 24: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
• February 25: Trump falsely claims “You may ask about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. We have very few people with it, and the people that have it are … getting better. They’re all getting better.”
• February 26: Trump wrongly says the coronavirus "is a flu" and that “whatever happens, we’re totally prepared.”
• February 26: Trump baselessly predicts the number of US cases is "going very substantially down" to "close to zero”
• February 26: Trump wrongly says the flu death rate is "much higher" than Dr. Sanjay Gupta said. coronavirus has 10 times the death rate compared to flu. If 60,000 die from flu then 600,000 will die from coronavirus.
• February 27: Trump baselessly said, "It's going to disappear. One day -- it's like a miracle -- it will disappear.”
• February 28: Trump said at a rally, Coronavirus is “the new Democratic hoax.”
• March 2: Trump falsely claims “nobody knew of the number of US flu deaths”.
• March 2: Trump says a vaccine is coming "relatively soon”. Only Trump did not bother to mention that CDC had told him earlier that day that a vaccine was a year to a year and a half away.
• March 4: Trump said he believes people infected with the novel coronavirus may get better "by sitting around and even going to work."
• March 5: Trump wrongly claims the virus only hit the US "three weeks ago”. Trump was informed of a confirmed case on January 21, 6 weeks prior.
• March 5: World Health Organization (WHO), based on data collected around the world, stated the global mortality rate for coronavirus at 3.4%. Trump says: “I think the 3.4 % is really a false number, this is just my hunch.”
• March 6: As the number of cases and deaths in Italy rises, Trump states “I hear the numbers getting much better in Italy.”
• March 6: Trump says publicly, “Anybody who wants a test can get one.” Vice President Pence said the day prior that Americans could not get tested simply because they wanted to get tested. "You may not get a test unless a doctor or public health official prescribes a test."
• March 6: Trump muses that "maybe the coronavirus improved US jobs numbers.”
• March 6: "I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship," Trump said of passengers on the Grand Princess cruise ship off the coast of California.
• March 7: Trump said that doctors he's come across as the administration tries to get a handle on the outbreak have been surprised about how much he knows about COVID-19. "Maybe I have a natural ability," he said. "Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president."
• March 11: Trump’s address from the Oval Office wrongly states insurance companies will pay for patient's coronavirus treatment. The next day, the Insurance Coalition corrected Trump and said they will pay only for co-payments, not treatment.
• March 13: Trump declares a cornoavirus national emergency. “As you know Europe was just designated as the hot spot right now and we closed that border a while ago so that was lucky or through talent or through luck… call it whatever you want.” The actual travel ban had not been yet  implemented. It was scheduled to begin that same night.
• March 13: Asked why his admininstration previously disbanded the national pandemic office which would have significantly prepared the United States, “When you say me, I didn’t do it. We have a group of people… You say we did that, but I don’t know anything about it.” This, after Trump’s presser from Feb. 26 where it was previously brought up and discussed with Trump.
• March 13: Backpedaling about whether or not he should get tested and self-isolate for the coronavirus after being in direct contact with those carrying the virus, “I asked them that same question, and they said, ‘You don’t have any symptoms whatsoever.’” The problem with that is that you don’t have to be showing symptoms to already have the coronavirus.
• March 13: Trump interacted with several top administration officials and business leaders during the address, shaking hands and patting them
• March 13: Asked by a reporter about the federal failures to test for coronavirus, President Trump answered, “No I don’t take responsibility for that at all.” This, after he exclaimed on March 6 that tests were ready and everyone who wanted a test would be able to get a test.

Now, today, this was announced.

Japan warns against travel to US

And if an international pandemic isn't enough to concern us all, there is this:

Coronavirus could force the world into an unprecedented depression

The one thing this President had going for him was the economy.

Now he certainly doesn't even have that.

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. This, like it or not, is what passes for leadership from this President and his administration in a very dark, demanding time of need for the nation, for all 335 million of us, as well as the world.

Thanks, Republicans!

Links:

Donald Trump Is Proving Too Stupid to Be President  -- and note this article was written in June, 2017.

Trump struggles to explain why he disbanded his global health team

Gov. Pritzker defends Illinois' stay-at-home order on CNN: ‘We’ve got to save lives. This is the right thing to do.' President fires back: "Fake news"

Trump made 33 false claims about the coronavirus crisis in the first two weeks of March

How Trump Is Worsening the Virus Now

Those Republican Party Tax Cuts?

Check out what none other than Goldman Sachs has to say today about the outlook for the nation given the new, much larger national debt due to the Republicans' tax cuts for the already-wealthy and corporations.

Goldman Sachs: 

The fiscal outlook for the US 'is not good' 

A little from the article:

"The fiscal outlook for the United States 'is not good,' according to Goldman Sachs, and could pose a threat to the country's economic security during the next recession.

According to forecasts from the bank's chief economist, the federal deficit will increase from $825 billion (or 4.1 percent of gross domestic product) to $1.25 trillion (5.5 percent of GDP) by 2021. And by 2028, the bank expects the number to balloon to $2.05 trillion (7 percent of GDP)."

This on top of what was already reported about the effects of these, again, Republican Party tax cuts:

Government set to borrow nearly $1 trillion 

this year, an 84 percent increase over last year

Not done there, there's also this:

Under Trump's watch, 

national debt tops $21 trillion 

for first time ever

All so they could pour more of the nation's wealth on the people who already have a great deal of it all.

Thanks, Republicans! Y'all are terrific!

Trump's and the Republicans' Tax Cuts for the Nation?

Did we learn nothing from the Kansas' Republican Party disaster that was their tax cuts for the already-wealthy and corporations so very recently?

Trump could learn from Kansas' flawed 

tax-reform experiment

Epic fail of Kansas' tax-cut plan offers 

a lesson for us all 

Kansas tax 'experiment' offers lessons to the nation

Eugene Robinson: Kansas' failed tax cuts a lesson

The Kansas Experiment Is Bad News 

For Trump's Tax Cuts

Economist's View: Paul Krugman: Charlatans, 

Cranks and Kansas

Kansas' tax cut failure an economic warning 

to Republicans

Three Dangerous and Nearly Unbelievable Moves By Trump and Company

Bad as Donald Trump has been and shown himself to be during the campaign and even since, he and the Republicans, this week, in the last few days have made some additional really awful moves and statements that, again, portend horribly for the nation and for our foreseeable future.

The first.

Republicans threaten to subpoena ethicsdirector for daring to criticize Trump

To begin, this takes chutzpah, real nerve. The ethics director of the Federal Government merely calls out the President-elect, to say we have to stay within the law and the Republicans attack him? They threaten him? What? They don't want ethics in government? That would seem to be the conclusion to be reached. This is nearly inconceivable.

Two. Another attack, yet another near inconceivability.

'All Talk, No Action,' Says Trump, 

in Twitter Attack on a Civil Rights Icon

Donald Trump not only attacks Rep. John Lewis, in Twitter tweets, no less, but also calls him "all talk, no action."   Clearly, Mr. Trump knows nothing of even Rep. Lewis' work, let alone our own national history.

Fortunately, some good  came of this attack.

Rep. John Lewis's books sell out 

following Donald Trump's attacks

Trump slammed for attacking civil rights icon 

Rep. John Lewis

Lawmakers condemn Trump for attack 

on John Lewis

Unfortunately, however, the President-elect's Vice President-elect, Mr. Pence, doubled-down on this dumb.

Pence defends Trump calling John Lewis 

a failure to black people

I guess if you figure you can blame one person, one man, for the fact that Black people in the United States are still discriminated against and still impoverished, in education and finances and jobs and a lot of other ways, if you can do that, what he says would make sense.

To an ignorant, insensitive, outspoken, filthy-rich, extremely privileged, isolated white man it might make sense.

Then, there was this, just a few days ago.

Trump team to remove commander of D.C.'s National Guard in middle of inauguration

The President-elect is having the Commander of the District of Columbia's National Guard dismissed IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS, THE PRESIDENT-ELECT'S, OWN INAUGURATION.

To start, that makes no sense whatever and then it has to be asked, why is he doing this? Worse, is this the kind of "leadership" we can expect from this guy? It surely seems so, given all he's done and said since winning this election.

For those of us connected to reality and decency and national and world and human history, how are we supposed to anything but dread this coming presidency of Mr. Trump's, especially given what he and his Vice Presidential pick and his supporting political party have said and done recently?

An additional scary, recent move:

Trump attacks China in Twitter outburst

Fortunately, there is this and things like it--people trying to keep him, his Vice President and their political party in line:

Chief Ethics Lawyers: Trump Will Be In Violation Of Constitution When He Takes Oath Of Office

Rather Monumental Question For A Sunday Morning

"Who'd have thought that in our lifetime we'd see the first black president, the first woman president, and the Cubs in the World Series?"

--Linda Tilsen, FB friend, to her husband.

Too. Many. Guns.

Too many guns, America. Way, way too many guns.

Some headlines from the weekend: 

6 injured people at Houstonshopping center shooting

9 killed, 45 wounded in shootings in Chicago over weekend

Fifth Person Dies In Washington Mall Shooting

Police: 3-year-old among 8 people shot in east Baltimore

1 dead, three wounded in University of Illinois shooting

Charges filed in fatal shooting near Millennium Park over weekend

Mother killed, 4-year-old daughter wounded in Joliet shooting

Stray bullet kills 3-year-old girl riding in car 'in the wrong place at wrong time' with her family

Huge Supreme Court News Breaking

US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia 

dead at 79

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia found dead at a West Texas ranch, according to multiple reports.

The news was first reported by My San Antonio. Scalia was 79.

He was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan.

It will be fascinating, now, to see the fight that erupts between President Obama and the Republicans in Congress about and for his replacement. The President no doubt already has a "short list" of people he would have on the Court.  He will no doubt select someone with an impeccable background. Regardless, the Republicans will have to be against him or her. They "let him have", so to speak, a woman already with Justice  Sotomayor. They likely won't let him put up another female.

Rest in peace, Justice Scalia.

Link:  Barack Obama Supreme Court candidates

So Done

I am so done with this election.

Done with candidates.

Done with debates.

Done with the two political parties (though done with one far more than the other, truth be told).

Done with announcements.

Done with campaigns.

Done with announcements, all of it.

And even ignoring we have, still, a little more than half of this month to go, ignoring February, we have 9 more months of this to go until the actual November election date.

Don't get me wrong, however.  I still know how important this election is and I'm still engaged and still decidedly for my candidate for the presidency but holy cow. These things go on and on and on.

We should be better than this.

We should be smarter than this.

And we are.

Or we could be.

I've written about this before. We could fix this and rather simply. Probably not easily but simply.

The Problems With Our Government--and Our Elections

We need to do what the Brits did, years ago, and limit our elections to one or, at most, two months in length, by law. This way, the big campaign money wouldn't be needed.

Too many Americans likely don't know that's what the Brits did or that that's how they run their elections---or that we could.

Could you imagine elections that don't last 2 years? I know I could. How much better, how much improved would that be?

We wouldn't have to waste all this time and all the money we do on the elections. 

Government officeholders wouldn't be perpetually running the next election race, just to get re-reelected.

We wouldn't have to go through this nonsense.

Link:   We could learn a lot from the U.K. election

WWI Memorial in Washington, Too

Seems the Federal government in Washington, DC just can't keep from spending money or creating a second World War I memorial. This broke today.

Chicago architect, 25, wins design contest for World War I memorial in D.C.

It's not a huge surprise. Maybe a bit of a local disappointment, for us, certainly, not that people would come here instead of going to Washington for one of these memorials.

We'll just know ours is better.

Check that. 

Best.

The Problems With Our Government--and Our Elections

The problems with our government are that

a) the elections for our representatives in our governement go on forever

b) we've made "campaign contributions" legal and

c) we've made unlimited spending on these campaigns not just legal but unlimited. That's insanity.

This is true for our national as well as state elections, too.

The fix?

We need to do what the Brits did, years ago, and limit our elections to one or, at most, two months in length, by law. This way, the big campaign money wouldn't be needed.

It's simple. It's badly, wildly needed. It's long overdue. It's simple.

But Americans and especially the wealthy and corporations won't easily go along with this just as so many don't understand the benefits of the Fairness Doctrine in our media we used to have.

We can only hope.

Fight and work for change.

And hope.

Link:  We could learn a lot from the U.K. election

Quote of the day

" I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world."

--Roger Ebert, June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013,  American journalist, film critic and screenwriter. The Chicago Sun-Times said he "was without question the nation’s most prominent and influential film critic,"[10] and Forbes described him as "the most powerful pundit in America".[11] He was both the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, and the first to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Ebert was primarily known for his film review column (in the Chicago Sun-Times beginning in 1967, and later online)[12] and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies, which he co-hosted for 23 years.

May he rightly rest in peace.

Links:

http://www.salon.com/2011/09/15/roger_ebert/

Roger Ebert - Wikipedia

Thoughts from a Sunday morning

--Weekends are the best. But I state the obvious.

--The warning I wrote of a couple of times, about the Supreme Court ruling in favor of corporations and their ability to spend unlimited amounts on political campaigns has just gotten increasingly worse, as if I thought that were possible.

There is an article on page A4 of The Star today, explaining that the one thing that was said to be in the people's favor about this insane ruling was that the corporations would have to announce they were backing--paying for--whatever advertising they put out.

Surprise!

There's apparently a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, giving them the ability to remain anonymous after all.

Get ready, folks.

The elections this Fall will be the ugliest, most advertised, most bitter and divisive and finally, most expensive this country has ever known.

And the Roberts court made sure of it.

--Lightning has struck 3 times. I agree with Right-wing, Conservative Thomas McLanahan's column today for the 3rd time.

The $50 million "given" back to the Kansas City area last week, announced by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Representatives Emanuel Cleaver and Dennis Moore for--sidewalks?--is almost silly.

We need to stop borrowing from the Chinese for this kind of nonsense.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things we need taken care of and paid for for our infrastructure but sidewalks? Are you kidding me?

--Why doesn't some enterprising, admittedly opportunistic Senator or Representative propose a bill making financial "earmarks" to run our country and
come out of Congress illegal?

It would make huge news and a big benefit to the name of the person who did this. They'd likely be popular to all the American voting public
(except contruction company owners and employees), and virtually all people who consider themselves Progressive, Conservatives, Libertarians
especially Libertarians), Republicans, Democrats and, yes, even Liberals (socially liberal), like myself.

Demagoguic?

Yes, absolutely. But in a good way, for once.

--I'm a supporter, mostly, of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi--especially in her fight for us for health care reform--but I have to say one thing and that is, Can you really trust anyone who can keep a huge, frozen, seemingly artificial smile plastered on their face? (I don't think so).

And how in the heck does she do it?

(Her "people" should tell her to stop it).

--Charlie Rangel should step down.

Now.

--The Sunday morning news programs were "lily white" this morning, I believe, and that shouldn't be.

With the exception of Clarence Page of The Chicago Tribune on "The McLaughlin Group" on KCPT/PBS, there wasn't one minority represented on these programs today. (I have to note, I didn't see NBC's "Meet the Press" but the guests did include Marc Moral of the National Urban League and Nancy-Ann DeParle, White House Health Reform Director but these were guests, they weren't moderators and that's my point and issue/beef here).

And Clarence Page's presence doesn't even technically count because this is a rerun of the show, which is always originally done of Fridays, of course.

It's shameful.

ABC needs to get Donna Brazile on the show weekly, along with other minorities--certainly African-Americans but also Latinos, etc.

This country was never "all white" and certainly isn't now.

All the news needs to be covered and it will more likely be so if people of different backgrounds are there, reporting on us.

--Finally, it was so nice to not see or hear Monica Crowley's white, Right-wing, Conservative, Republican whining and ranting today, on "The McLaughlin Group."

It made a sunny, slightly warmer Sunday at the end of February all the more pleasant.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone and have a great week.

In praise of a newspaper

Having just flown from Kansas City to Birmingham, Alabama, via Chicago, I have to say the Chicago Tribune is a good, old-fashioned, well-written, well-researched newspape with lots of traditional, local stories and information.

It's a pleasure to read, even for those of us outsiders like me, someone not from Chicago. It had terrific stories about local people and their problems and issues.