Poem For Our Time

I found this today as I do so many things this week, online, since we're all at home, isolated. I thought it fantastic and so appropriate.

When this is over

May we never again

Take for granted

A handshake with a stranger

Full shelves at the store

Conversations with the neighbors

A crowded theatre

Friday night out

The taste of communion

A routine checkup

The school rush each morning

Coffee with a friend

The stadium roaring

Each deep breath

A boring Tuesday

Life itself

When this ends

May we find

That we have become

More like the people

We wanted to be

We were called to be

We hoped to be

And may we stay

That way – better

For each other

Because of the worst

– Laura Kelly Fanucci

Be well out there, y'all. Stay safe. Stay home.

Jesus Christ: Not as Good as Trump

You have to see this guy's imitation of our peerless leader.



Be well and stay safe out there, everyone.

What's In Congress' Stimulus Package For This Pandemi

As said, here's what's in Congress' just-approved stimulus package to help the nation deal with this coronavirus pandemic.

Help for families

• The bill would provide direct payments of up to $1,200 for most individuals and $2,400 for most married couples filing jointly with an extra $500 for each child.
• Assistance would start to phase out for individuals earning more than $75,000 and for couples with more than $150,000 in income.
• Unemployment insurance benefits would be expanded, increasing the maximum benefit by $600 a week for up to four months. Benefits would be available to workers who are part-time, self-employed or part of the gig economy. People who are still unemployed after state benefits end could get an additional 13 weeks of help.
• Food assistance programs would get a boost as would programs to help low-income households avoid eviction and a program to improve internet access in rural areas.
• Homeowners with federally-backed mortgages would be protected from foreclosures for as long as 180 days.
• Students with federal loans could suspend payments until October.
• Students receiving Pell grants who have to drop out because of coronavirus would not be penalized. 

Help for small businesses

• The bill would give small businesses access to a nearly $350 billion loan program to cover monthly expenses like payroll, rent and utilities. The loans would not have to be repaid if businesses maintained their workforce.
• The eight weeks of assistance would be retroactive to Feb. 15, 2020 to help bring back workers who have already been laid off.

Help for corporations

• The package includes a financial lifeline to the hardest-hit industries, including passenger and cargo airlines. Another pot of money would be available to help other businesses for a combined $500 billion.
• Companies receiving assistance would be barred from raising the pay of certain executives.
• Any company receiving a government loan would be prohibited from buying back stocks while getting assistance as well for an additional year.
• Businesses controlled by the president, vice president, members of Congress and heads of federal agencies are not eligible for loans.
• Companies that kept on workers despite a significant loss of revenue could get a tax credit.
• The bill provides other tax relief to businesses by deferring tax payments, increasing deductibility for interest expenses and allowing immediate expensing of qualified property improvements, especially for the hospitality industry.

Help for health care providers

• Hospitals and medical centers would get billions to handle surging caseloads.
• Hospitals treating coronavirus patients would also get higher reimbursements form Medicare.
• Hospitals could request accelerated payments from Medicare.
• Across-the-board Medicare cuts that were part of a previous deficit reduction agreement would be temporarily halted.
• Extra funding for the Defense Department includes money to deploy the National Guard and use the Defense Production Act to help fast-track production of needed medical supplies to combat the coronavirus.
• Rules on using and paying for telehealth services would be eased.
• Funding would increase for federal agencies to speed work on therapies and a possible coronavirus vaccine, among other activities.
• When there is a vaccine, Medicare beneficiaries would not have to pay to receive it.

Help for state and local governments

• The package includes $150 billion to help state and local governments, which have had major unanticipated expenses while losing revenue. States would get a minimum amount and other funds would be allocated through a population-based formula.
• Disaster relief funding that state and local governments can access as well as a popular funding program for local governments would also be boosted.
• Child care programs would get a funding boost to help meet emergency staffing needs so health care workers and other critical workers will have child care.
• States, which have been postponing primaries, would get additional funds to make voting safer such as expanding early voting and the ability to vote by mail.
• Public transit agencies, which have lost ridership, would get $25 billion in assistance. Airports and Amtrak would also get billions of dollars of assistance.
• Schools and colleges could access nearly $31 billion to continue to teach students as schools are closed.
• State and local police and fire departments could get help paying for overtime and for medical items like personal protective equipment.
• The deadline for states to meet Real ID requirements for enhanced driver's licenses would be extended a year, to no earlier than October of 2021.

Help for the arts

• Museums, libraries and arts organizations across the country, which have been closing because of the pandemic, could get a boost from grants to state arts and humanities organizations.
• The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which has been closed until May, would get $25 million so it can reopen its doors once the crisis is over.
• The Smithsonian Institution would get $7.5 million to help with teleworking, deep cleaning and overtime for security, medical staff, and zoo keepers.

Contributing: Nicholas Wu and Christal Hayes, USA TODAY.

Be careful, be safe out there, y'all and STAY HOME.

From Local Medical Staff on the Pandemic

The following post is copied and shared from an OBGyn on staff at the North Kansas City Hospital.

“I usually don't do long posts but during this time, I can't stay silent....

This is not just like the flu. When did you last see doctors posting to beg people to stay home or hospitals asking the public for handouts of medical equipment or the CDC having to tell healthcare works if as a last resort use a bandana! The Flu is still something to be taken seriously and kills people each year. (And more should get vaccinated). However, the Flu does not get transmitted as easily or have nearly the fatality rate of COVID19, which could kill millions. Imagine the Flu in hulk mode. It's scary and it can get scarier. You may think "I'm healthy and I'll survive this", but your loved ones may not and what if they would have survived if you just stayed home? Please stay at home and if you go outside, only go outside with those you are already living with, not your neighbors or friends because that's taking 3 steps backwards. And please consider donating blood; that's a trip worthy of leaving the house that can save others.

Doctors in other countries are having to choose between who to save and who to let die. People are dying not just because of the infection but because of lack of resources. It is a physician's nightmare to have to say "I'm sorry but I can't help because you are too old or already have too many illnesses. So we're going to just have to do comfort care so the healthier can live." You don't want that happening to your loved ones.

This isn't going to be over in 2 weeks and will take even longer with even more deaths if social isolation is not taken seriously.”

Be well, be safe out there, campers.

Daily Local Projections On This Pandemic

A classmate of mine from my hometown and so, also from my high school, became a medical doctor. He's been posting his daily observations and predictions on this coronavirus pandemic for at least the last week.

His latest one, today, offers both what seems like sound advice but also dire predictions if we don't take proper precautions and actions.  Herewith:

Rob Schaaf
8 mins ·

(click on picture for easy viewing)

Hospital system overload in MO is now just 24 days away. Today's 354 Missouri cases outpaced the projection and moved that day closer to April 18th. One month from today, we can expect 76,000 cases in Missouri, and over 13 million in the US.

Our leaders are fighting over whether to lock down the country, the only way to prevent hospital system overload, or to send people back to work early, to prevent the economy from failing, another horrible outcome. Here is the solution based upon what was found in Vo Italy. (In Vo they tested EVERYBODY, and found several asymptomatic people who were COVID positive, and after quarantining everyone positive, new cases stopped occurring.)

• First, the entire country needs to be locked down tight. Only necessary workers should be allowed to move about.
• Second, every possible effort should be made to manufacture test kits, masks and protective equipment. The entire focus of the federal government should be ON THIS EFFORT.
• Third, every necessary worker should be tested, and all positives quarantined.
• Fourth, everyone else should be released from lockdown only after they are tested and cleared of the virus in a systematic and thoughtful manner.
• Fifth, as rapidly as possible, the economy should be brought back online as everyone not locked down is cleared of the virus. Re-testing should be done routinely.
• Sixth, everyone in public should wear a mask. Masks are what has separated successful countries from non-successful ones.

This way we can both save lives by locking down the country, and then save the economy as rapidly as possible by putting people back to work without risking reinfection.

This all depends on eliminating all roadblocks to developing, manufacturing and distributing test kits. If we can put people on the moon and send spacecraft all over the solar system, we ought to be able to ramp up the production of these test kits within just a few days.

This no way sounds or reads like any advice our Republican Party President, or what some Republican Party governors and other leaders across the nation are giving in any way, unfortunately.

It's as I wrote on social media yesterday---may logic, common sense, intelligence, good judgment, empathy and science prevail.

Presently, it doesn't seem like enough of all that is.

Precisely How Poor, How Bad This Republican Party President's "Leadership" Is

This is what it's come down to.  This is how bad, how poor the excuses for leadership from this White House, from this President has gotten.

The TV networks break away from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES because he goes counter to his own, our own health experts.

TV networks cut away from the White House coronavirus briefing as Trump contradicted his health experts

• CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, NBC News, and CBS News cut away from President Trump's lengthy coronavirus briefing on Monday night.
• During the briefing, Trump chafed at the idea of continuing the widespread order for people to stay home, saying it was harming the economy. His top infectious-diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, had said social-distancing measures would need to be in place for "several weeks."
• CBS told Insider that it "plans to continue covering briefings whenever possible" but may cut away for other programming. MSNBC told Insider that it "cut away because the information no longer appeared to be valuable to the important ongoing discussion around public health."
• Critics of the president have called for networks to stop airing the briefings. "All of us should stop broadcasting it, honestly," MSNBC's Rachel Maddow said on Friday. "It's going to cost lives."
• On Tuesday, Seattle's NPR station, KUOW, also announced it would not broadcast the briefings live "due to a pattern of false or misleading information."

Thanks, Republicans!

Meanwhile, I just ran across this.

President Trump is as popular as he's ever been right now

It's not saying a great deal because he's never enjoyed traditional support most Presidents get and we are in a national emergency so I get that his supporters are behind him but still.

Additionally, more reason for concern.

60% of Americans approve of Trump's coronavirus response: poll

I don't know what's more frightening--the coronavirus pandemic or Trump's handling of it. Neither are predictable and both could kill.

And then there was this cold, incredibly callous ignorance from, yes, another Republican only yesterday.

Texas' lieutenant governor suggests grandparents are willing to die for US economy

And keep in mind, this is from a man who is 69 years old.

So again, thanks, Republicans! Many thanks.

Additional links:

Trump claims if stopping coronavirus 'were up to the doctors' the world would be shut down 'for a couple of years'

Trump Shakes Everyone’s Hands at Coronavirus Press Conference—Ignoring CDC Guidelines

Trump slams NBC’s Peter Alexander in coronavirus press conference

Fantastic, Evaluative, Maybe Even Important Read On Where We Are Presently

I ran across this article today, this morning, online and found it very good and seemingly complete for where we are now, where we've been since maybe the Great Depression up to today and on our nation, overall. I think people might find it helpful.

Coronavirus: What this crisis reveals about US - 

and its president

It's a pretty all-encompassing, sweeping read so I'll only post a very little bit of it here--what I found to possibly be most important.

"Consequently, America's claim to global pre-eminence looks less convincing by the day. While in previous crises, the world's most powerful superpower might have mobilised a global response, nobody expects that of the United States anymore. The neo-isolationism of three years of America Firstism has created a geopolitical form of social distancing, and this crisis has reminded us of the oceanic divide that has opened up even with Washington's closest allies. Take the European travel ban, which Trump announced during his Oval Office address to the nation without warning the countries affected. The European Union complained, in an unusually robust public statement, the decision was 'taken unilaterally and without consultation.'"

Can't recommend it enough.

Be well out there, everyone.

Great Way to Approach This Pandemic Right Here In Kansas City

I'd love to see more of this, in our city, all across the metropolitan area. Heck, I'd like to join in.

This is from reporter, journalist Steve Kraske's Facebook page this week:

Here's how neighbors on Belinder Court in Westwood got together Wednesday afternoon to socialize a bit while maintaining safe distancing. Courtney Falk drew "Xs" on the street 6 feet from each other to mark safe spots for talking. Love my 'hood. We're doing a segment on "Up to Date" Friday on how Kansas City-area residents are staying engaged with their neighbors. Drop me a note below, or call in at 816-235-2888 beginning at about 9:15 a.m. tomorrow. Yes, I get great show topics from my neighbors! Oh, Kady took the pic.

Be safe out there, y'all.

Quote -- Poem -- of the Day; On Coronavirus, Kindness and All of Us

I can't imagine anything more timely, pertinent and poignant just now, in this situation, than this.

History will remember when the world stopped

And the flights stayed on the ground.

And the cars parked in the street.

And the trains didn’t run.

History will remember when the schools closed

And the children stayed indoors

And the medical staff walked towards the fire

And they didn’t run.

History will remember when the people sang

On their balconies, in isolation

But so very much together

In courage and song.

History will remember when the people fought

For their old and their weak

Protected the vulnerable

By doing nothing at all.

History will remember when the virus left

And the houses opened

And the people came out

And hugged and kissed

And started again

Kinder than before.

--Donna Ashworth

Kansans: The Topeka Statehouse, the Coronavirus and You

From our friend and hard worker Davis Hammet over at Loud Light.



Follow Loud Light here:

Loud Light

And maybe contribute, if you can.

Be safe out there, campers.

And be good to one another.

Quote of the Day -- On a President and His Legacy

From an anonymous commenter over at that Yellow Journalism but also sexist, chauvinist, misogynistic tabloid passing itself off as an important blog for local events and news, Tony's KC:

"History will remember Donald Trump for two things - being impeached and a complete failure during a national crisis."

Ever so slightly edited.

He or she is so right. He will go down for those two, nearly singularly. 

Well, that and his graft and corruption.

I wish I'd said it myself.

With many thanks and kudos to Anonymous.

You can find the comment, along with others, here:

Kansas City Blogger MO RAGE Blames Prez Trump For Coronavirus Pandemic Crisis

Do try to have a good to great day, y'all.

Keep your social distance.

Songs for a Pandemic

Herewith, some rather timely, I think, entertainment. Because we need it.




Be safe out there, campers.  Try to enjoy. Something.

Be good to one another.

Excellent Information on this Coronavirus

My cousin posted a video from this Dr. John Campbell from the UK as he expounds on this COVID19 or coronavirus. I found them to be helpful, calm, rational, information-filled and definitely worth the time. I think you may, too.


Yesterday. Dr. Campbell projects half of the nation's 7.7 billion population will contract this coronavirus.
If true, if that pans out, and the 3.4% figure for deaths holds, that will mean nearly 262 million people across the planet would pass.
Then there's this one, today.

Stay safe out there, everyone. Best to you all.

If This Coronavirus Hasn't Concerned You Yet, To Date, This Could. Maybe Should

Wonder why the Dow and markets keep sinking, crashing, day after day for the last few weeks?

This might be it.

Coronavirus could force the world into an unprecedented depression

A bit from the article:

In its latest repricing of the economy, the market sees the now-expected global recession caused by the coronavirus outbreak morphing into an economic depression unlike any the world has seen in generations.

The big picture: Bankers and traders are looking to sell everything that isn't nailed down to boost cash positions and hunker down for the worst.

What they're saying:

• JPMorgan wrote down its expectations for global GDP to -1.1% in 2020, expecting the world's economic growth will reverse for the full year, including a second quarter contraction of -14% in the U.S. and -22% in the eurozone.
• Deutsche Bank economists foresee a "severe global recession occurring in the first half of 2020 ... quarterly declines in GDP growth we anticipate substantially exceed anything previously recorded going back to at least World War II."
• Both banks noted their forecasts are based on governments putting in place massive, yet-to-be-passed fiscal stimulus programs and fairly swift containment of the outbreak.
• "It is easy to imagine a still worse outcome," DB analysts, led by head of economics research Peter Hooper and seven chief economists, wrote.

The most dire warning came from Pershing Square Capital Management CEO Bill Ackman, who went on CNBC to beg President Trump to shut down the U.S. economy for 30 days and put the country in a nationwide lockdown.

"Until a vaccine is manufactured, distributed and injected we will go through a Depression-era period in the country," Ackman said. "America will end as we know it unless we take this option."

And here I was just anxious about the conornavirus.

Silly me.

Thank goodness we have good, strong leadership coming out of the White House and this Republican Party President and his administration.

Right?

Link:

The coronavirus economic pain in the U.S. has begun

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

David Hammet And His Loud Light Do It Again for Kansas and Kansans

Davis Hammet, once again, gives Kansas and the area, the region, fantastic information on Kansas' state legislation, sure, but also, now, on the Coronavirus, too, and its effects in Kansas.

Kansans--and even Missourians--would do well to follow Mr. Hammet at his organization, shown here below.

Loud Light

You can also follow them on Facebook.

Loud Light - Home | Facebook

Meanwhile, this news broke today in the Star.

Kansas’ 7th coronavirus case confirmed, connected to Johnson County Community College

Notes on a Pandemic

I miss normalcy.

I already hate the term "social distancing."

As soon as I learned art galleries were closing, I immediately wanted to go.

I can't get enough Dr. Anthony Fauci.

I don't know what this is a picture of.

I never thought I'd live during a pandemic.

Or an epidemic, for that matter.

This is unlike anything I've ever experienced in my 60+ years of living.

It seems clear we don't have a good, appropriate leader in the White House with this situation.

 I refuse to isolate myself. Worst that can happen, I die. I'm comfortable with that.

As with most any problem, we need to pull together as people, as nations, all across the world.

To end on a positive note, at least, thank goodness it's Spring

Links:

Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID Director | NIH: National Institute 

Trump Says He Could Demote Fed Chair Powell, Risking More Market Turmoil

8th KS COVID-19 case reported in Franklin County. Officials declare state of disaster

Facts about novel coronavirus and how to prevent COVID-19

Fauci: Possibly a 'few months' until life gets 'back to normal'

Trump's go-to political strategy isn't working for pandemic response

Trump Wants to Slash CDC Funding—Just As Coronavirus Spreads


Returning Americans face long screening lines at airports

The Novel Coronavirus Pandemic In This President's Own Words

The coronavirus in Donald Trump's own words.

January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”

February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

February 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”

February 25: “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”

February 26: “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”

February 26: “We're going very substantially down, not up.”

February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

February 28: “We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”

March 2: “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”

March 2: “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”

March 4: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”

March 5: “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”

March 5: “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!”

March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”

March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”

March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

March 6: “I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.”

March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.”

March 9: “This blindsided the world.”

March 13:  "I don't take responsibility at all."

Thanks, Republiccans!

An Idea and Hope for the New Boondoggle Airport

Okay, so we're getting a new airport, a single terminal airport and it's going to cost us all big time and the tear down and new construction is going on now. We all know that.

I have an idea.

A suggestion.

We're the "City of Fountains", right?  Sure we are.

Simple, straightforward idea.  (You can see where this is going).

On the entrance/exit to this magnificent, unnecessary, expensive, wasteful, fiscally and environmentally irresponsible, again, boondoggle, I'm hoping it's already been brought up and put into the plans to have a huge, beautiful fountain, of course.

It only makes sense.

It would be our way of kind of showing off but also, better yet, putting our local thumbprint on everyone's experiences as they, yes, enter and exit this new structure and our city.

We got everything else wrong about our airport from throwing away the functioning, growing one we had to now buying up this new one.

Let's get this one thing right, anyway.

And not one of those God-awful modern sculptures, drizzling water down like we had at our previous airport.

It should be a large, full-blown, beautiful, spraying fountain not unlike the one across from the entrance to Union Station. But maybe even bigger.

Also maybe not unlike the grand, once more, spraying fountains everyone sees and remembers in Las Vegas. Something like that.

As for the price and cost and paying for it?

How about one--or more--of the area's philanthropic families picking up the tab? They get naming rights and a tax write-off, of course. Maybe the Hallmark Fountain??  Or another Block? Or Kauffman? Or whomever?

So, hattya' say, Kansas City?

Let's do this.

Let's get at least one thing right about our shiny new airport.

Link:

KCI Airport Art Project Moves Ahead Led by Public Art Consultant Community Arts International

This Is How Bad Politics and Government Are In Our United States Today

It looks for all the world as though Joe Biden will be the Democratic Party candidate for the presidency this Fall.

Sure, Bernie Sanders could still pull yet more delegates in the states that have yet to vote but it does look like, between the money and corporations and organizations that are already behind Mr. Biden and that will be behind him, he will likely gain this political nod and position.

So as the title says, this is how bad politics, presidential, federal government is just now in our nation.

Joe Biden would be a HUGE improvement over Donald, "The John", Trump but he is no way a change agent. Not for the environment, heck, not even for the people.

I've written and posted here, in the last 3 years, some of the worst of the current administration in our White House. God knows this President is ignorant of our government and personally arrogant and misogynist and sexist and racist and homophobic and so much more.

So yes, Joe Biden will be an improvement.

Yahoo.

He can keep us from going over any further national and international brinks, so to speak. He and Congress should be able to, at last, get and keep Russians out of our elections and so much more.

But here's Joe Biden.

And as for the environment?  More on Joe.

Greenpeace Gives Joe Biden a D- 

on Climate Change Report Card

And look what happened today to the markets after Joe did so well last evening.

Dow jumps more than 800 points as Biden Super Tuesday victories boost health care stocks

Oh, sure, Joe says he'll go back and fight for an element of Obamacare.

Biden Vows To Reinstate Obamacare’s 

Individual Mandate

One element. That's it.

Forget about much significant change in our health care system.

Or change in much of anything else, for that matter.

No, no. Joe Biden is, hmm, at best, a "decent" man. He means well. In his career in Congress, he's been "Go Along Joe." He famously/infamously voted for the Iraq war and on and on. 

The wealthy and corporate America no way want a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in the White House, know that, fellow Americans. They no way want to allow or make possible true, fundamental change, changes back for the people, the middle-, working- or lower-classes.

All that can be said for him, for or about Joe Biden, is that he's no Donald Trump.  He's an improvement over that.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how desperately bad our national politics and government are presently.

These are dire times indeed.

We are bought and sold.

God help America.

Link: More of the Democrats and Democratic Party stifling true Progressives--

Pelosi Carries Right-Wing Rep. Henry Cuellar Over Finish Line to Defeat Progressive Jessica Cisneros

Man who took 30 years to win one state considered "electable"

The Case Against Joe Biden: Former VP’s Long Career Shows a Recurring Theme of “Appeasing the Right”

A Continuation, Perpetuation of Racism on Kansas City's East Side?

An article in The Pitch today really caught my eye.

Developer eyes Troost for 

immigrant child detention center

A detention center.

For immigrants. 

Minorities. 

In a part of town segregated, by law, by laws, decades ago, for minorities, for African-Americans.
Could they be more time deaf or blind?

And I assume this developer wants to put it there because--hello?--land and property and buildings over on that side of town are less expensive??

Because of that same racism and legalized segregation all those years ago?

Could you be more cruel? Or exploitative?

This very much reminds me of the prisons that were opened and created in the Southern United States that were put on former plantations. Own them first the, when you don't own them any more, trump up charges and throw them in jails and prisons.

And then, if you read the article, which I personally highly recommend, for what it's worth, you'll see how the company that runs these ICE shelters for the government, has been abusive and racist, to say the least and repeatedly, over time.

America, we're supposed to be better than this.

One thing seems sure and true.

Old J.C. Nichols would probably have approved.

Incredible Kansas City History: On this day, February 25, 1870

Kansas City has some incredible history and in lots of ways. Today's date points out one more.

The nation's first African-American Congressman, Senator was from--you guessed it--right here in the Kansas City area.

 

Hiram Rhoades Revels was destined for greatness. Born in the 1820s (historical accounts vary on the exact year) he fought at the Battle of Vicksburg and served as a chaplain for the Union Army. And, reportedly at the request of Fredrick Douglas, helped recruit and organize black soldiers during the Civil War. In Missouri, and two other states, Revels was an educator, and in 1865, founded and led St. Paul A.M.E. Church in nearby Independence, MO. Years later, he also became the first African American U.S. Senator in Mississippi, filling the seat vacated by Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.

So the first African-American member of Congress, Senator, was from right here in our own area.

Incredible.

And so few of us know it.

14 African Americans Who Left their Mark on Kansas City 

Additional links:

Hiram Rhodes Revels - Wikipedia

1 More Civil War Statue for Forgotten Hero

Hiram Revels is first African American US Senator

Hiram R. Revels, first African-American in U.S. Congress

How qre KCPT's "Week In Review" and "Ruckus" Not Racist?

What do you call a news program in a major city of America that only has white people on it, discussing what are supposed to be local issues?

Not one African-American. Not one Hispanic or Latina/Latino. Nothing.

Only white people.

What is that but racist?

On both programs' panels, not one "person of color." "Ruckus" did, this week, have the head of our local Jazz Museum, Rashida Phillips on at the beginning of the program but no minority, save a woman, on the panel.

Only white people can give answers to what our problems are and what the solutions might be?

And how, exactly, can people like Dave Helling and Steve Kraske and Mike Mahoney support and continue to support this and these programs?

Why does the local Hispanic media like Dos Mundos support this group?

KCPT's Lily-White, Bleached-White "Ruckus" and "Week in Review" Save Kansas City Again!

Yessiree. Here we go again. One more week of KCPT and Mike Shanin saving the city, saving us all with four lily, bleached-white Caucasians on the panel of the weekly "news" program "Ruckus."

Not one African-American.

Not one HIspanic or Latino/Latina.

Nada.

Zip.

They show African-Americans and Hispanics in their promotional commercials and requests for funding and get this, they advertise that they're supported by the Hispanic community's Dos Mundos newspaper but actually have a minority person from the area on the program??

FUGGEDABOUDIT.

They did have 2 whole wimmin on the program so at least it wasn't completely all white males. There was at least ONE minority. I guess we have to be thankful for that.

Given that it's PBS and a publicly-funded program, you wouldn't think this would even be an issue. It is really stunning. Not only is it this way but it's been this way since KCPT began.

You'd think this was 1920's or 1940's or even 1960's America.

But it surely isn't.

In Mr. Shanin's and his program's defense, I will say that they TALKED about inviting a black female singer to be on the program. In the future.

Not done there, our PBS station KCPT also ran FOUR VERY WHITE PEOPLE, again, on "Week in Review."

Not one "person of color."

Honestly. It's stunning.

What chutzpah. What an insult.

It insults our intelligence as well as the audience, the entire city.

Come on, KCPT.

You should be FAR better than this.

Links:

Ruckus - KCPT

Kansas City Week in Review - KCPT

Quote of the Day on This President and HIs Impeachment

Democratic Party Senator Brian Schatz, of Hawai'i, seemed to say it right and best Monday, I thought, about this President and his impeachment in the Senate.

Senator Schatz votes guilty on both counts of impeachment

“There are millions of Americans that have formed a basic expectation about how a trial is to function, based on hundreds of years of law and based on their common sense. Make no mistake: what the senate did was an affront to the basic idea of a trial. And for all the crocodile tears of my colleagues, all the fake outrage at the accusation, we must call this what it was. It’s a cover-up.

I don’t know what Mulvaney or Bolton or Pompeo would say, I don’t know what the documents will illuminate, and I believe it is normally very dangerous to ascribe motives to fellow senators when criticizing their vote, but it is impossible for me to escape the conclusion that they don’t want to know, that they wanted to get this over with before the Superbowl, of all things. They are afraid of this house of cards falling all the way down.

As I look at the republican side of the chamber, I know this moment in history has made their particular jobs extraordinarily difficult, requiring uncommon courage. They have to risk the scorn of their voters, their social circle, their colleagues, and their president in order to do the right thing. On one level I knew the likely outcome, but the bitter taste of injustice lingers in my mouth.

On behalf of everyone who couldn’t get away with an unpaid traffic fine, is in jail for stealing groceries so that they could eat that night, who can’t get a job because of medical debt, I say shame on anyone who places this president or any president above the law. The president is not above the law. No one is above the law. The president is guilty on both counts.”

A Friend Makes A Great Point About the Chiefs Parade Tomorrow

A friend wrote today on Facebook about our Kansas City Chiefs parade scheduled for tomorrow. I think he has it right.

Realtor, photographer Bob Travaglione:

DO THE RIGHT THING! Cancel the CHIEF'S Victory Parade on Wednesday! Move it to Saturday! We are on a Collision Course with a Major Ice and Snow Winter Storm on February 5, 2020! We waited 50 Years, why can't we Wait 3 More Days for the Safety of the Team and the Public? As a Photographer, we will have much better Photographs for the History of Kansas City Archives on a Non Snow and Ice Day! Plus that weather can be Deadly! It Ain't Worth Doing It! Don't Blow this One Day! There are NO DO-OVERS!

It makes sense. On Saturday, there isn't a forecast of snow, it's supposed to be warmer and far more could attend, all 3. Someone out there said the NFL requires any celebration like this is required to take place within 3 days of the win. That seems bizarre but I don't know if it's true. I can't imagine why they'd care, have this rule or why it effects them. I would also think they'd make exceptions for weather, as in this case, or other situations.

I don't think it will happen but it's a good thought. The current forecast does, yes, call for snow, but the expectations of total snow inches is about one inch.

Meanwhile, there is this:

Everything you need to know about Wednesday's Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade and rally

Anyway, GO CHIEFS!!!

To All the Blogger/Hater/Non-Believers Out There On Our CHIEFS!!!

SUPER BOWL LIV CHAMPIONS, BABY!!!

Kansas City Chiefs win Super Bowl 2020 in come-from-behind 

Youngest MVP player in a Super Bowl!!

Patrick Mahomes!!

And Coach Andy Reid wins his 222nd victory on 2/2/2020!!

GO CHIEFS!!!