Covidiots and Random Thoughts Thereof

Today, we're getting more reports of protests against stay-at-home orders by those I call "covidiots." We've learned many of these protest groups are sponsored by right-wing groups such as the gun lobby PAC. Also, one can see Confederate flags and other hate symbols among the stupid fools marching like somehow their defiance will protect them against novel coronavirus.

If that was all it was, I'd say, go on, march around like little tin soldiers, give the disease to each other, be happy. But now we're seeing these protestors facing off against healthcare workers at hospitals and other medical places, taunting them and verbally abusing them.

Who the hell do these covidiots think they are? I mean, what planet did they descend from, and more importantly, how can we send them back.

It infuriates me to think that the President of the United States encourages such behavior in his tweets. He's supposed to be the leader of this country and he's acting like the world's biggest troll.

Sometimes, he acts the fool during his daily press briefings, aka his propaganda presentations. Other times, he'll say the "right" things (nominally) and contradict his very word on Twitter! What the hell?

I have a couple of theories about that. First, he has mental problems and his lucid moments are being overshadowed by his demented ones. That is, he's able to hold it together for a while, but then the demons in his head break loose and he becomes a raging lunatic. It's like his id becomes almost possible to control in public, but as soon as he gets on his phone in his private place, the demons are freed.

Why isn't the GOP doing something about this? As I've undoubtedly noted before, Trump will do their bidding and they're getting things done they never would've had a traditional Republican in the White House. They needed the perfect partner--an unhinged, megalomaniacal troglodyte who has no political loyalties and will sell his soul to the highest bidder of the moment.

Some say we were due to have such a horrible Chief Executive given our history of embracing authoritarianism and right-wing dictators throughout the world. The threat of communism so terrified both the left and right that they would do anything--I mean anything--to stop it, including getting into bed with some of the worse humans on the planet.

Trump's even worse. His adoration of despots is profound and unbidden. Putin, Kim Jong Un, Balsanaro, Duerte, Xi Jinping, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and others...Trump's ass-kissing of these self-styled "strongmen" is offensive. And yet, the GOP does not reign him in. No, in fact, they encourage him by their silence.

History will look back at this time and hopefully describe in painstaking detail how horrible this regime is. I know I'll never forget it.

It's Not a Stimulus, Stupid

Yesterday was the day all electronic payments from the IRS were to be transmitted to eligible adults throughout the United States, at least for those who have bank data registered there. That would be, in most cases, for those of us who've e-filed within the last few years and included that data.

As expected, because it was the Trump administration who ran this, it's a total cock-up from the jump. Many people are reporting they didn't get the full amount expected. Others noted that the government website called Get My Payment wasn't either not working right or totally overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, online banking has been a nightmare for many as banks are being inundated with deposits from the IRS and transactions from customers doing something with those funds. Talk about a total screw-up!

Our experience has been the same. We filed jointly every year since we've gotten married, but we only got $1,200 instead of $2,400 for both of us. Of course, we have no idea which one of us received it. When we go to the Get My Payment site, neither one of our social security numbers pulls up information.

The online banking issue is untenable. I can't believe how easy it's been to take down major banks' online systems, now going on two days with a resolution. Are things this fragile? I think we're seeing the answer to this in real-time.

As far as calling this a "stimulus," that's just plain ignorant. It's a relief check and a piss-poor one at that. Other countries (like Canada) approved a regular stipend for all adults for ten weeks. Other countries have done something similar.

Here in the United States, the oligarchs have determined that the masses should be happy with $1,200 per eligible adult for one time only. No matter if two workers are now unemployed and can no longer collect unemployment benefits. "Let 'em starve" seems to the motto of this heartless Administration.

And while we're on the subject of Trump's incompetence, it's beyond the pale that those who will be getting paper checks will have to wait even longer so that Trump's name can appear on the memo line of the payments. Talk about a load of bullsh#t! His ego cannot be contained, even if peoples' lives are at stake.

Yours in terminal frustration,
Michael

Brief Rant About Armchair Epidemiologists

Someone on Twitter wisely noted that they were amazed at how all his constitutional scholar friends are now experts in epidemiology and immunology.

Truly fascinating, right?

Today's brief rant is a side burn toward those among us who speak like they are experts on COVID-19, quoting unnamed sources that taking chloroquine is either (a) safe or (b) effective as either a prophylactic or treatment for novel coronavirus.

Their "expertise" is really based on something they made up, something they heard, or from the nominal President of the United States who lies repeatedly during his daily propaganda tirades.

I've seen these ignoramuses on private message boards and public social media. What they propose is dangerous and should be ignored. Common sense says to favor the advice of the medical professionals.

What's even worse is the doctors who are just throwing a cocktail of azithromycin, an antibiotic, with chloroquine at patients in hopes of preventing COVID-19 or helping those already infected. Here's an article about why that's not a good idea:

https://www.biospace.com/article/hydroxychloroquine-and-z-pak-may-be-effective-treatment-for-covid-19/

There is one report of a doctor administering this cocktail to a nursing home full of elderly and mostly frail residents in hopes of warding off the disease. Instead, it caused such detrimental effects, it had to be discontinued.

Even the CDC is stressing that there is no known treatment for novel coronavirus right now. Believe them, believe the WHO (even though Trump made the asinine decision to cut their funding), believe the medical researchers who are working day and night to solve the riddle of this pandemic--but don't believe morons like the Fox News talking heads and the non-medical personnel in the White House, including the orange-tinged megalomaniacal troglodyte that is currently soiling the Oval Office.

Yours in ranting,

Michael

Easter Sunday & Social Distancing

I was raised a Roman Catholic and managed to live through eight years of parochial school relatively unscathed. I know how important a holiday Easter is in the Church. Unlike what many people believe, Christmas is not the holiest and most sacred day in the Church calendar--Easter is.

With that said, I understand the difficulty all Christians have faced this past Holy Week and today when told they would not be able to celebrate Easter in their respective houses of worship.

It's perfectly natural to grouse and complain about church doors being shuttered right now, I get that. But some of the comments I've read and some of the news I've seen really baffles me.

There are churches who have declared in no uncertain terms they will hold services today. I've read haughty promises by many Christians who promised they could defy stay-at-home orders no matter what.

I figure there are two reasons for such foolhardiness:

• Americans hate being told what to do, even at the risk of harming themselves or others
• Innate stubbornness or a mistaken belief that as long as they are worshipping, the Lord will protect them

Now, I'm going to challenge someone's faith. However, if your faith can directly or indirectly threaten the health of others, you are not behaving in a Christian manner. Do you think Jesus Christ would condone such a wanton act of irresponsibility? 

It's not like you're only harming yourself if you violate the self-isolation directives. If you are infected by the virus, you could unknowingly be spreading COVID-19 everywhere you go, including places the rest of us try to avoid until absolutely necessary.

The arrogance of some, specifically those on the right, to practice their faith in a manner they see fit no matter who they put at risk is criminal, in my opinion. We liberals aren't trying to destroy religion or inject our beliefs (or lack) into your world. We're trying to save people from dying unnecessarily.

It's funny...on Nextdoor.com for our community, a woman proudly posted that she was feeling perfectly fine and she's not going to heed the stay-at-home order, further stating that if anyone had a problem, they could kiss her a** (paraphrased). Of course, she was roundly trounced in the responses, which I took as a good sign.

Another man said he's been self-isolating for a month now (he never got the virus), so he feels it's been long enough, the virus must be long gone and he's obviously immune to it. That engenders even more derisive replies and for good reason--the guy had no idea what he was talking about.

In my less than humble opinion, all this happens when you refuse to put your faith in science in the same measure you put in a being you worship. Religion should never trump (ugh!) either scientific reasoning or common sense when it comes to the real aspects of life and the universe.

Just don't tell a Trumper that or their brains will explode.

Yours on Easter,

Michael

Stopping Voter Suppression - The USPS story

Let me say up front that unlike many people, I am a big fan of the United States Postal Service. Really. These folks work hard, the price to send mail is still relatively cheap, and they are (mostly) pleasant people to work with.

Congress seems to have made it their mission over the last few years to do away with the post office. The laws they've passed have made it unable to compete in the global shipping market. They enacted the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) which "requires the Postal Service, which receives no taxpayer subsidies, to pre-fund its retirees' health benefits up to the year 2056."

This link from 2018 gives a quick overview of the insanity:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-04/congress-not-amazon-messed-up-the-u-s-postal-service

As everyone who pays attention knows, the GOP hates the American voter. Or to be specific, they hate voters who will vote against their party. Instead of trying to woo voters to their way of thinking, Republicans have done whatever they can to suppress Americans' right to vote. For example, they've:

• Instituted gerrymandering to give Republicans more seats in the House
• Blocked every initiative to implement automatic voter registration
• Thwarted any attempts at setting aside a national voting holiday
• Fought to illegally purge voter rolls
• Implemented other tactics to prevent voting or harass voters

Now, Trump comes along, and with the Republicans in the Senate, didn't include funding for the USPS in the first pandemic emergency bill and doesn't plan to in the second. Why? 

Simply put, there's a push by major voter groups to pass a national vote-by-mail initiative. Considering that November is not all that far away, it makes sense to keep people away from the polls if at all possible.

Vote-by-mail is something that currently works in some of the states, including my own (Arizona), and it works well! Vote-by-mail almost ensures more people will vote and the Republicans (and Trump) have admitted that would be bad for their party.

Let me repeat that: the GOP wants fewer people to vote because it would be disadvantageous to them. They realize that if all eligible adults voted, they would be wiped out because the majority of Americans know they're horrible. 

Why else would they want to suppress the vote? There is no legitimate reason I can think of.

Of course, they lie and say voter fraud is more likely, which we know is a lot of garbage because if they carried about that, they would be doing something to prevent Russia from influencing our elections this time around.

They are so desperate to hold power they're willing to lie, cheat, steal, and intimidate to make sure that happens. And Trump, the most corrupt president to be elected in American history, wants to remain in his taxpayer-funded retirement home, complete with multi-million dollar golf outings, free private planes everywhere, and 24/7 security.

This is the America we've become, ladies and gentlemen. This is an embarrassment.

A Thank You Letter to Donald Trump (satire)

A LinkedIn connection of mine messaged me this today. I wish I had written it, but it's too good not to share. With attribution, I give you a thank you letter to Donald Trump (emphasis my own).

Douglas Reynolds writes:

“Thank you, President Trump, for Making America Great Again! First, for the little things, too often overlooked in this age of fake news and alternative facts. You've taught our children to call people derogatory names. You've taught our children to blame others for their own actions. You've taught our children to avoid taking personal responsibility for anything. You've turned demeaning those who don't agree with you into an art form and brought back bullying after all those nambypambys tried to suppress it. You've forced many parents to consider parental filters for televised presidential addresses. But many people don't know that that's not all the greatness you have given us.

You've reversed the small steps that we'd made over many decades in fighting racism and intolerance, exacerbating the worst aspects of our nature as tribal animals. After all, there are good people on the white supremacy side, too. Oh, and you've brought back the nationalism movement of the 1930's and combined it with the McCarthy era paranoia of the 40's and 50's. I love medleys, but that's a very impressive accomplishment!

Furthermore, thank you for reversing forward-thinking environmental rules meant to address the long term health of our planet, in favor of short term gains in the stock market. You certainly improved unemployment! (Until recently) there were far more low-paying second jobs that people could get to supplement their primary low-paying jobs. So they could pay their rent! Or maybe get health insurance. But certainly not both. (Those people are so disrespectful!) And it worked! (Until recently) the stock market was booming, built on the backs of those unappreciative people and the poorer health of the planet for future generations. 

I especially liked the relaxing of ivory import restrictions. Now Junior can shoot some more elephants! (I hope he gave you the tail he cut off with his pocket knife.)
And you kept your promise! You drained the swamp of previous administrations' lobbyists, replacing them with your own lobbyists. Putting an ex-coal lobbyist in charge of the EPA was brilliant! That'll show those people who want clean air. Ungrateful bastards. 

And I especially liked that you drained the swamp of many highly qualified team members, even though you hired them! I'm eagerly anticipating the firing of HHS Inspector General Grimm, who has had a brilliant career since 1999 and was appointed this past January, (that means under your administration, many people don't know that), but who made the mistake of doing her job and compiling a survey of undersupplied hospitals that Jon Karl explained to you at your latest, "react to questions like a third grader," press conference. 

I also gotta admit that you've done a great job of making sure that anyone from your administration that is allowed to speak in public can efficiently recite the words, "Under President Trump's leadership." That's nine syllables! Well done. 

Oh and finally, thank you so much for treating the impending pandemic so lightly as to not alarm your citizens, or more importantly, the stock market. Through your great leadership, we've learned that by merely denying something, it can't actually hurt us! We had the most warning of anyone on the planet. We saw it coming. We watched it spread across the world, getting closer and closer by the day. We watched South Korea react quickly and efficiently. It blindsided the world! But since you assured us that you had it under control, that it would soon go away magically, that we only had 15 cases and would soon go down to 1 or 2, Covid-19 never got here and churches are still full in the South! 

And right now, as Bill Gates warns that we need to be planning and building the factories and capabilities to manufacture billions of doses of vaccine when it is finally synthesized, I'm confident that you are leading the charge to do just that. Because "billions" is a really big number–a lot of zeros. Not many people know that. Because once we DO have a vaccine, we don't want to face a shortage, do we? That would be bad. Really, really bad. 

Thank you, President Trump. Everything you've done has been beautiful. Perfect-it's-perfect beautiful! Better than anyone has ever done. Other countries are calling, saying, "how did you do that?" You've done the most ever in history. And that's a long time. History is. But what do I know? I'm not a doctor. But what do we have to lose? Everyone says that. Many, many people are saying that. 

And finally, thank you for making things so much easier for ME. For my entire life, I've struggled with who to vote for: Carter? Reagan? Bush? Perot? Obama? Romney? I gave them all a check mark. I've expended so much energy over the years wading through the noise, investigating, trying hard to pick out the very best person. And that was the same for state and local elections! It was always a time-consuming effort. But you've eliminated that chore for this one time, right-leaning centrist! Thanks to your strong leadership, (see, I said it!), I'll never have to spend time thinking and researching again. Because I'll never cast a vote for a Republican again. At any level. Period. 

Ain't America Great?"

The Daily Propaganda Show

We are living in an unprecedented moment in our history. The world is seized by a dangerous pandemic, which has caused significant changes in virtually every aspect of our lives. There is a strong possibility that many of these changes will remain permanently embedded in the fabric of our society.

In the past, the primary source for guidance in crises such as the COVID-19 emergency was the federal government. We looked to Washington to provide assurances our country remained in good hands, that there was stable stewardship leading the ship of state through such rough waters.

No more.

Now, we're assaulted verbally, emotionally, and intellectually by the partisan screeds of Donald Trump, which are sometimes alternated with good medical information.

I just can't watch them. I can't stand his voice, I can't stand his lies, I can't stand his snideness. Call it Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) if you will, I don't care. Trump has been a loathsome creature for as long as I can remember (this is going back to the 1980s for ). I despised him then and I despise him now, only more so because somehow he got elected to the highest office in the land.

We, the American people, don't need a daily propaganda sh#tshow being forced upon us. Those of us with working faculties don't want to have to spend the entire pandemic briefing hitting mute whenever the orange-tinged baboon takes the podium.

This whole affair--Trump's mishandling of the warnings from various governmental agencies through the attempt to smear Chinese people for the spread of the disease (leading to Chinese-Americans being threatened) through the constant blaming of Obama (WTAF?)--is an affront on common sense and simple decency.

Every day, the cable news channels are flooded with a new Trump campaign rally. He insults reporters from news agencies he doesn't like, gives validity to those who praise him (some of which are the most wacko of all of them), and generally acts like an uncultured, undignified slob.

Historians will look back on this era and wondered how American fell so far to have elected such a bumbling twit and then didn't have the good sense to get rid of Trump before he did too much damage. That is, IF there are historians after his reign of terror.

Yours in frustration,

Michael

Coronavirus Is a Hoax (and Other Lies)

As you would expect, there have been plenty of lies and gaslighting from Trump and his administration about this coronavirus.

Remember when he said this was a "Democrat [sic] hoax?" Or that everything is under control and the few cases would peter our right away? I mean, the number of lies Trump tells in a single day is staggering, but none as damaging as the plain old bullsh#t he spews at every one of daily briefings.

But he's not the only one. Did you hear that there's a supposed man of the cloth who is blaming coronavirus on gay people? Or someone else claiming that this is God's vengeance on liberals? And then there are all those self-proclaimed stable geniuses who still insist that coronavirus is a hoax perpetrated in order to unthrone the Mango Mussolini.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me clarify something for you. Anyone who lays the responsibility of this virus on a supposedly loving God is, to be frank, unhinged.

Now I'm not so uncharitable to suggest anyone who is religious has a screw loose. I'm a spiritual guy but more importantly, I am first and foremost a man of science. I didn't disconnect my brain through eight years of Catholic school and four years of catechism classes.

There is a problem in this country and it rests on the religious right, the so-called "evangelicals" who all too often spew a message of hate of everyone except good ol' God-fearing, white people.

Give me a break.