The World Has Gone Mad

Yes, the world has gone mad.

And it keeps going madder and madder.

First this:

'Moronic But Consistent': Outrage Over Trump Admin Giving PPE to Private Companies, Not States

Then this:

Competition among state, local governments creates bidding war for medical equipment

And actually, on this last one, I understand it's even worse than this. I've seen where state and local government are bidding against each other, sure, but that they're also having to bid against our own Federal Government, too, driving prices up even more.

Not done there, then this:

Trump removes inspector general overseeing $2 trillion coronavirus relief package 

days after he was appointed

Swamp?   Drain the swamp?  What's that you say?

And then this, now, today.  Because that's just not enough insanity and stupidity for one day.

Trump threatens World Health Organization funding

He's attacking the World Health Organization. I assume they weren't toady enough for him.

During the worst international pandemic in the last 100 years, let's cut funding to one of the organizations out there in the world who can help fight it. Brilliant. As the British say, bloody brilliant. No pun intended.

Next up, this:

White House Press Secretary, Who Never Gave a News Conference, Replaced

"Stephanie Grisham is being replaced as White House press secretary after a rocky nine-month tenure that did not include a single on-the-record appearance in the White House briefing room."

She was this President's third Press Secretary.

Finally, there is this, lest anyone think I believe all insanity is singularly attributable to this President.

Conspiracy theorists claim 5G to blame for Coronavirus

Not bad enough there, some think they have to take action on it.

5G coronavirus conspiracists burning cell phone towers

Keep in mind, too. The above is just a short list. These are things that are happening today. I'm not going back the last, say, 3 months to post more insanity from this President and his administration. I'm taking it easy on you, on us all. Heck, I'm sparing myself.

I never, ever thought it would be possible to actually miss Richard Milhouse "Tricky Dick" Nixon.

This administration makes my head spin. I can't keep up.

Thanks, Republicans!

Link to yet more insanity:

Germany confirms that Trump tried to buy firm working on coronavirus vaccine

If We Could All Do Better After This Pandemic

Wouldn't it be incredible if all nations, the world over, took this event, this coronavirus pandemic as well as global warming and climate change, as a moment to give up war and all work together for the betterment of all people, all nations?

A guy can dream.

Be well. Be safe out there.

And stay at home.

Bad News For Missouri and Our Peak Deaths Date In This Pandemic

A friend sent me the following link and chart with information of when, exactly, the doctors and scientific community is projecting each state will peak in deaths from this novel coronavirus pandemic.

Here's when the coronavirus will peak in your state

The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has developed a new model that predicts peak coronavirus in each US state

Missouri is, coincidentally, unfortunately, a worst case scenario, of all the states.

This table was last updated April 2:

State	PEAK USE OF RESOURCES	PEAK DAILY DEATHS	TOTAL ESTIMATED DEATHS (BY AUG 4)
USA	April 15	April 16	93,531
Alabama	April 17	April 19	5,516
Alaska	April 15	April 14	148
Arizona	April 27	April 26	1,387
Arkansas	April 26	April 26	619
California	April 26	April 26	5068
Colorado	April 17	April 18	2154
Connecticut	April 15	April 15	1144
Delaware	April 11	April 11	166
Florida	May 3	May 4	6897
Georgia	April 24	April 25	3232
Hawaii	May 3	May 1	372
Idaho	April 26	April 26	397
Illinois	April 20	April 20	3386
Indiana	April 19	April 20	1160
Iowa	May 1	May 1	1488
Kansas	April 28	April 26	640
Kentucky	May 16	May 13	821
Louisiana	April 9	April 10	1834
Maine	April 17	April 15	364
Maryland	April 29	April 28	1766
Massachusetts	April 16	April 17	2381
Michigan	April 9	April 11	3169
Minnesota	April 22	April 21	932
Mississippi	April 21	April 20	918
Missouri	May 21	May 18	1290
Montana	April 26	April 25	266
Nebraska	April 23	April 23	447
Nevada	April 20	April 18	799
New Hampshire	April 17	April 15	331
New Jersey	April 8	April 9	2117
New Mexico	April 24	April 22	525
New York	April 9	April 10	16261
North Carolina	April 26	April 27	1534
North Dakota	April 21	April 20	169
Ohio	April 19	April 19	1898
Oklahoma	April 23	April 23	1419
Oregon	May 5	May 2	558
Pennsylvania	April 18	April 19	2023
Rhode Island	April 20	April 16	259
South Carolina	April 28	April 28	1095
South Dakota	May 4	April 29	204
Tennessee	April 19	April 20	3422
Texas	May 6	May 6	6392
Utah	April 23	April 23	580
Vermont	April 9	April 2	58
Virginia	May 20	May 20	3152
Washington	April 11	April 9	978
West Virginia	May 4	May 1	487
Wisconsin	April 27	April 28	951
Wyoming	May 4	April 28	140

Tough luck there, Missouri, Missourians. Better luck.

STAY. AT. HOME.

This President Deservedly Taking Big HIts Presently

Yes sir and ma'am, this (Republican Party) President Donald Trump is, deservedly, taking big, big hits presently in national and international media, given his handling of this coronaviurs pandemic. Following are just some of them, if also some of the toughest.

First, there is all this information---and ammunition.

US ‘wasted’ months before preparing for coronavirus pandemic

Just some of the details.

WASHINGTON (AP) — After the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment.

A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers....

...As early as mid-January, U.S. officials could see that hospitals in China’s Hubei province were overwhelmed with infected patients, with many left dependent on ventilator machines to breathe. Italy soon followed, with hospitals scrambling for doctors, beds and equipment.

HHS did not respond to questions about why federal officials waited to order medical supplies until stocks were running critically low. But President Donald Trump has asserted that the federal government should take a back seat to states when it comes to dealing with the pandemic.

Not to belabor this point but here's more:

How the WH mishandled first 70 days of coronavirus crisis

Added to all that is this:

President Trump Is Unfit for This Crisis. Period.

Only a portion of this article by Jennifer Senior.

...On Saturday, The Associated Press reported that Trump overruled his own health officials, who wanted to warn older Americans and the fragile against flying on commercial airlines. Our storied C.D.C., now annexed by politicians, continues to insist that only the most floridly symptomatic patients be tested for the virus. Even that remains a challenge: Last week, it refused to test an ailing nurse in Northern California who’d treated a positive patient, prompting the head of National Nurses United to read her story aloud at a news conference.

At a Friday news conference at the C.D.C., Trump told reporters that tests for the coronavirus were now available to anyone who needed one. Yet just afterward, we heard from governor after governor and doctor after doctor that this is categorically untrue, with states in dire need of more tests. “We have no local testing available,” Dr. Walter Mills, president of the California Academy of Family Physicians, told The San Jose Mercury News.

And of course, it was at that same news conference that Trump infamously said, “I like the numbers being where they are,” in explaining why he was reluctant to let passengers, some of whom have tested positive for the virus, off the Grand Princess cruise ship floating off California (it has since been given permission to dock in Oakland).

That news conference was, to me, the most frightening moment of the Trump presidency. His preening narcissism, his compulsive lying, his vindictiveness, his terror of germs and his terrifying inability to grasp basic science — all of it eclipsed his primary responsibilities to us as Americans, which was to provide urgent care, namely in the form of leadership.

It’s preposterous for Trump to resist determining how widespread this epidemic is. Yet right now, the United States isn’t reporting how many people have been tested; the C.D.C. pulled the number from its website. Late last week, an extraordinarily detailed article by The Atlantic, counting state by state, put that number at only 1,895. In South Korea, the number was more than 140,000. (Which Trump dismissed as “sampling.” It was not. It was testing, straight and simple.)
Because we’re testing only the sickest of the sick, the American fatality rate from the coronavirus is roughly 4 percent. It’s a frightening and highly deceptive number, even higher than China’s. (Most experts predict it’s likely to wind up at 0.5 percent, which is five times more deadly than the typical flu, and it could be as high as 1 percent.) But Trump has made the dangerous calculation that he’d prefer to keep the number of cases low than convey the full magnitude of contagion...

...We’re reckoning with a silent, invisible and potentially devastating public health crisis, and the government is refusing to tell us the facts, or what next steps to take, because it’s too concerned with optics to own up to its initial mishandling of the situation. On Friday morning, Trump crowed, “I think we’re in great shape.”...

...When it comes to Trump, truth, decency and self-possession have been in quarantine from the start.

Not done there, this President's had to fire a top leader in his/our intelligence community recently. It's not enough he has failed and is failing and so badly at our nation's response to a pandemic, he has to do this, too.

Why Donald Trump's firing of the Intelligence Community IG is so, so egregious

With all this ammunition, this writer comes to this conclusion a lot of us came to some time ago.

The worst president. Ever.

Writer Max Boot makes very good points. Here's why he's worst President ever.

The situation is so dire, it is hard to wrap your mind around it. The Atlantic notes: “During the Great Recession of 2007–2009, the economy suffered a net loss of approximately 9 million jobs. The pandemic recession has seen nearly 10 million unemployment claims in just two weeks.” The New York Times estimates that the unemployment rate is now about 13 percent, the highest since the Great Depression ended 80 years ago.

Far worse is the human carnage. We already have more confirmed coronavirus cases than any other country. Trump claimed on Feb. 26 that the outbreak would soon be “down to close to zero.” Now he argues that if the death toll is 100,000 to 200,000 — higher than the U.S. fatalities in all of our wars combined since 1945 — it will be proof that he’s done “a very good job.”

No, it will be a sign that he’s a miserable failure, because the coronavirus is the most foreseeable catastrophe in U.S. history. The warnings about the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks were obvious only in retrospect. This time, it didn’t require any top-secret intelligence to see what was coming. The alarm was sounded in January by experts in the media and by leading Democrats including presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Government officials were delivering similar warnings directly to Trump. A team of Post reporters wrote on Saturday: “The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak of the coronavirus in China on Jan. 3. Within days, U.S. spy agencies were signaling the seriousness of the threat to Trump by including a warning about the coronavirus —the first of many—in the President’s Daily Brief.” But Trump wasn’t listening.

The Post article is the most thorough dissection of Trump’s failure to prepare for the gathering storm. Trump was first briefed on the coronavirus by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Jan. 18. But, The Post writes, “Azar told several associates that the president believed he was ‘alarmist’ and Azar struggled to get Trump’s attention to focus on the issue.” When Trump was first asked publicly about the virus, on Jan. 22, he said, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”

In the days and weeks after Azar alerted him about the virus, Trump spoke at eight rallies and golfed six times as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Trump’s failure to focus, The Post notes, “sowed significant public confusion and contradicted the urgent messages of public health experts.”

It also allowed bureaucratic snafus to go unaddressed — including critical failures to roll out enough tests or to stockpile enough protective equipment and ventilators.
Countries as diverse as Taiwan, Singapore, Canada, South Korea, Georgia and Germany have done far better — and will suffer far less. South Korea and the United States discovered their first cases on the same day. South Korea now has 183 dead — or 4 deaths per 1 million people. The U.S. death ratio (25 per 1 million) is six times worse — and rising quickly.

This fiasco is so monumental that it makes our recent failed presidents — George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter — Mount Rushmore material by comparison. Trump’s Friday night announcement that he’s firing the intelligence community inspector general who exposed his attempted extortion of Ukraine shows that he combines the ineptitude of a George W. Bush or a Carter with the corruption of Richard Nixon.

Trump is characteristically working hardest at blaming others — China, the media, governors, President Barack Obama, the Democratic impeachment managers, everyone but his golf caddie — for his blunders. His mantra is: “I don’t take responsibility at all.” It remains to be seen whether voters will buy his excuses. But whatever happens in November, Trump cannot escape the pitiless judgment of history.

To me, there leaves just one thing we have to say.

Thanks, Republicans!

Link, too, to his idiot staff's actions:

Peter Navarro on his qualifications to disagree with Dr. Anthony Fauci on coronavirus treatments: 'I'm a social scientist'

Next, a link to what our nation actually needs:

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Coronavirus Demands a Leader Like FDR

Finally, Prince Harry makes a very fair point, I think.

UK Prince Harry says Trump is one of the 'sick people' running the world

This President is right up there with North Korea's Kim Jong Un and the Philippines' Duterte I and a lot of us think.

Give 'em Hell, Harry.

Quote of the Day -- On, who else? This President

From an article today in The New York Times (see link below).

When we speak about the president, Mr. David marveled, “You know, it’s an amazing thing. The man has not one redeeming quality. You could take some of the worst dictators in history and I’m sure that all of them, you could find one decent quality. Stalin could have had one decent quality, we don’t 

 know!”

You're so very correct, Mr. David.

Spot on.

God help us all.

And thanks, Republicans.

Link to the original article:

Larry David, Master of His Quarantine

In Case You Were Wondering What 500 Gs Can Get You In Kansas City

Kansas City hit a two-fer today in the Sunday New York Times. This is the second.

$500,000 Homes in Mississippi, Missouri and New York

A 1916 Tudor Revival in Jackson, a condo in a landmark Kansas City Beaux-Arts building and a log cabin in Pawling.  By Julie Lasky.

It can also tell you how much it cost and what you get in the Sophiia, in case you were wondering.

Kansas City, Mo. | $499,900

A two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in a 40-unit 1922 Beaux-Arts building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  (Face it, most of us didn't know it's a Beaux-Arts building. Or that it's on the National Register of Historic Places).

This third-floor unit in the Sophian Plaza, a luxury building across from Southmoreland Park, is in the heart of Kansas City’s cultural district, less than five minutes on foot from the Nelson-Atkins Museum and Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park, which it overlooks, and the same distance from the Kansas City Art Institute and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The historic Country Club Plaza shopping center is about a half-mile away.

Size: 1,850 square feet

Price per square foot: $270

Indoors: The main entrance to the eight-story brick building with limestone and terra-cotta detail is approached through a columned forecourt. The grand lobby is clad in black-and-white marble and hung with brass chandeliers and wall sconces.

This particular unit, which is on the northeast corner and has been updated in the last decade, opens to a hallway with hardwood floors and charcoal-gray walls with white picture rail molding. (A second, service entrance was blocked to create closet space, but could be reopened.) At the end is a sitting room with the same features and color scheme; it connects through two doorways to a carpeted living room (previously a third bedroom and a sunroom that were combined) with an antique marble fireplace flanked by built-in bookshelves. On the other side is a formal dining room. All of the rooms, except the bedrooms, have plantation shutters on their large windows, and there is a built-in sound system with speakers in every room.

The kitchen has countertops and floor tile of marble, and Bosch appliances. There is also a small, marble-topped breakfast bar.

Turning left from the front entrance takes you into the master bedroom. The marble fireplace here and in the living room are gas powered and have television screens above the mantels that appear as mirrors when not in use. The en suite marble master bathroom has a waterfall shower, heated floors and another mirrored television. There is also a Bosch washer and dryer in the unit, supplementing free laundry facilities in the basement.

The guest bedroom is off the kitchen; it is carpeted and has three closets and dark-painted molding. Its en suite bathroom has Nero Marquina marble tile walls and a combined bath and shower.

Most of the furniture in the unit is for sale.

Outdoor space: A side terrace encircled by a portico offers communal seating. This unit has a deeded parking space and basement storage. (Additional parking spaces rent for $100 a month.)

Taxes: $4,885, plus a $985 monthly homeowner fee covering heat and water (Because paying half a million up front just is no way enough, right?).

And now for the all-important contact information:

Contact: Judy Rea, Brookside Real Estate Company, 816-210-7730; brooksiderealestate.com

Amid a Pandemic, Stories of Inspiration--Even From Right Here In Kansas City

With this pandemic and seemingly if not clearly growing threat, I've found it encouraging to see on TV and read, where I can, in newspapers and online, stories of encouragement from it all. So I saw this in today's New York Times and new I wanted to read it:

Amid a Pandemic: Stories That Warm the Heart

And it is good. All the stories are good. But here's a surprising kicker. One came from right here in Kansas City.

To the Editor:

It was no longer a surprise by the time we rolled in front of the birthday boy’s house. Anyone could hear the honking from blocks away. We were a line of minivans and S.U.V.s with kids’ heads hanging out the windows, colored-marker posters blowing from car windows and shouts of “Happy Birthday!” as we passed by Jack’s house on his 10th birthday.

In Kansas City, Mo., we are under a “stay at home” order, so that means no birthday parties or big celebrations. But for 10 minutes in the middle of the day we created a caravan to bring joy to a classmate. We even smiled and laughed a lot ourselves.

Traci Angel
Kansas City, Mo.

So kudos to you, Ms. Angel (how's that for a fantastic coincidence?). Kudos to you and your friends and family and thanks for writing.

Be well out there, folks. Stay safe. Wear your mask if you have one.

And stay home.

Check Out This Chart From the New York Times Today on this virus

Check out this enclosed chart showing your percentage probability you'll/we'll contract the virus given the known cases already found in a county. Very eye-opening. From today's NYT.

Known cases in a county	Probability of  community transmission
0	9%
1	51%
2	70%
3	79%
4	84%
5	85%
10	95%
20	99%
43 or more	100%

By The New York Times·Source: Emily Javan, Spencer Fox and Lauren Ancel Meyers, the University of Texas at Austin

To better see the chart and for the article from which it comes:

Does My County Have an Epidemic? 

To put the above chart in perspective, Wyandotte County presently reports 137 cases. Johnson County, 183 cases, according to the Kansas City Star. More from the Star:

According to state data at least 135 cases have been confirmed in Jackson County and at least 172 have been confirmed in Kansas City.

Apply those totals from our local counties to this chart above and see what conclusions you come to.

So yes, let's take this stay at home idea and order seriously.  It doesn't last forever. Stay positive. It's Spring.

Be careful out there, y'all. Be safe. Get a mask if you haven't got one already?

And stay home.

Sources:

Missouri reports 178 new cases of coronavirus, at least 24 total deaths statewide

Coronavirus in Kansas City: Confirmed cases of COVID-19 climb in Missouri, Kansas

The Really Odd Thing About Governor Parson's Stay at Home Order

Missouri to be under statewide stay at home order.....beginning next week

Okay, so Governor Mike Parson finally, finally did the right thing here, by putting on the stay at home order to go statewide but.... it takes effect next week?  Monday?

What? So we can get in one last fun weekend?

Really?

Is that so we can all party down, one last time, before ferreting away?

Did anyone notify him there's an international pandemic? That that's what this is about and for?  No one told him time is an issue here?

Bueller?

Timely Entertainment Overnight

Yes, money indeed makes the world go 'round.



The lack of it can stop the world, it seems, as we're finding out.

Be careful and well out there, everyone.  And stay home.

Very pertinent links:

It Pays to Be Rich During a Pandemic

Wealthy flock to private jets as pandemic spreads

Private jets flock to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket

The Rich Are Riding Out The Coronavirus Pandemic Very Differently Than The Rest Of Us

Billionaire David Geffen slammed over ‘tone-deaf’ coronavirus post of him self-isolating on $590m superyacht

The Bizzaroworld Into Which This President and His Political Party Have Taken Us All

Did you see this?


There are 2 things about it.

First, there's VP Bobblehead Mike Pence, making yet more excuses for this President, complete ant total sycophant and toady he is.

 Then, second, there is that one and same idiot President, actually mocking, making fun of, how completely and totally that VP dodged the reporter's question. He isn't even smart enough, again, as we repeatedly see, to keep his mouth closed. He actually hurts himself--further--because he doesn't know when to be silent. 

Adding yet more insanity and irony to all this is that--thank you, God--the question was actually coming from---wait for it---Joe Roberts, a FOX reporter.

Is that not perfect?

He, this President, really is like a 3 year old child.

Honestly, it's as though we've fallen down a rabbit hole, a political, completely inexplicable rabbit hole.

A Republican Party rabbit hole.

Thanks, Mr. President!

Thanks, Republicans!

And may God or the gods or the heavens or universe somehow help us all.

Thank You, Governor Parson!

This, breaking today over at our Kansas City Star.

Of 10 states without stay-at-home orders, Missouri has most confirmed COVID-19 cases

A bit from the article:

Of the 10 states that have yet to enact a statewide stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Missouri has the most confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Numbers collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — and updated as of Thursday morning — showed that Missouri had 1,581 cases, nearly 300 more than South Carolina, the state with the second most. (On Thursday afternoon, updated figures from Missouri showed the number had increased to 1,834).

It goes on:

...Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during CNN’s Thursday night coronavirus town hall that these last remaining states should reconsider and join the other governors who have issued an order.

“I don’t understand why that’s not happening,” Fauci said.

We couldn't agree with you more, Dr. Fauci.

Thanks, Governor!
Thanks, Republicans!

More from the Star--articles and ammunition on this issue, both:

Missouri reports nearly 300 new cases of coronavirus, bringing total to over 2,100

As Parson rejects stay-at-home order for Missouri, more counties issue their own

Amid calls for Missouri order, some say problem is bigger than limited testing shows

Hundreds of new coronavirus cases reported in Missouri, raising total to 1,581