Hope for the best, expect the worst
"This week, it's going to get worse," said Surgeon General Jerome Adams yesterday morning. He was right.
Trump now holds his public enlightenment sessions around 6 pm, to pre-empt the network news but mostly to avoid unfavorable comparison with Andrew Cuomo's morning briefings. The governor brought bad news: the curve is not flattening, the cases are increasing and the federal government is doing nothing. HHS is sitting on an emergency stockpile of respirators, unable to see that this is the emergency they are waiting for; the Defense Production law continues to languish while "the market" has a chance to solve the problem; too many New Yorkers are still getting up close, with the youngest being the most careless. (In Atlanta, a girl of twelve is in intensive care, and her cousin says she had no prior health issues.) Cuomo didn't have to be told that "the pandemic is accelerating," but that's what the World Health Organization says.
But Trump is on the case. All the people of India have now been told to stay home, the death toll continues to rise in Europe, and even Boris Johnson has been sobered up by events he is in no way prepared to handle. Trump is indignant about the damage to his beautiful, wonderful economy and wants "the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter," less than three weeks away. He's got Mnuchin trying to get a $500 billion "relief" fund to spend with no oversight, even as he can't stop whining about the hit his hotels are taking. The mean Democrats are holding it up because they still want to impeach him with coronavirus. Also, it has a completely insane defund-Planned-Parenthood provision.
The absence of Dr. Anthony Fauci from White House "briefings" is beginning to cause comment. The last time I saw him, standing between Trump and Bill Barr, I was actually afraid they would crush him between their looming poundage. Whether Dr. Fauci voluntarily removed himself from the daily puppet show or was told to stay away, Trump is even more dangerous without him. He continues to promote unproven drugs he can't pronounce as miraculous cures. The secret word is "chloroquine," an anti-malarial whose dosage has to be carefully regulated. A married couple in Arizona who still believe Trump remembered they had some on the shelf and took it as a preventative. Unfortunately it was chloroquine phosphate, used to disinfect fish tanks. The man is dead, his wife is recovering. Remember those Desert Storm-era bumper stickers that said "WHEN CLINTON LIED, NOBODY DIED"? I wish I had some.
The consensus among Republican office-holders is that the old should just go ahead and die, so their descendants can enjoy the blessings of the free market, fossil fuels, insurance-based health care and a bountiful supply of firearms. Ron Johnson did the math and the governors of Texas and Mississippi have taken up the cry. Let me say at once that I was being sarcastic when I predicted "death panels." Nobody gets me.
One-man death panel Rand Paul got tested and without waiting for the result, scattered his nasties from the Senate floor to the pool where they frolic and play. The people who work in his office are especially grateful for the way he helped them acquire immunity by actually getting the coronavirus. He also attended a fundraiser in a Louisville museum, but it's a big space and nobody was dancing. Who says libertarians only think about themselves? Well, they say doctors make the worst patients. And I say American medical schools need to tighten their admission requirements.
Take comfort, if you can, from the news out of the home office: Russia's coronavirus problem is far worse than originally reported inPravda fair and balanced Russian media. Check out Putin in his yellow hazmat suit. Now they'll all want one.
He's still talking, and Murdoch News is letting him. Apparently it's Cuomo's fault because he didn't buy ventilators in 2015, back when he and Obama were doing everything wrong and creating this disaster that he, Trump, has to deal with. And now he's got good, cod-fearing Americans eating fish tank cleaner. Stupid Cuomo.
A priest in Bergamo, Italy, died after giving his respirator to another patient. But more generally, the religious organizations are being dickheads, like Liberty University, which is open for business. Falwell's outfit seems sane compared to these Shiite Catholics* (PPE recommended).
Students who partied in Florida for spring break have tested positive. I hope it was worth it.
All lives matter, but these COVID-19 deaths are especially hard: Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango (86) and playwright Terrence McNally (81).
"Be strong but be kind. We will be OK." (Jacinda Ardern) I hope you're right, prime minister.
*Borrowed from Jim Gaffigan, but maybe not in this sense.
Trump now holds his public enlightenment sessions around 6 pm, to pre-empt the network news but mostly to avoid unfavorable comparison with Andrew Cuomo's morning briefings. The governor brought bad news: the curve is not flattening, the cases are increasing and the federal government is doing nothing. HHS is sitting on an emergency stockpile of respirators, unable to see that this is the emergency they are waiting for; the Defense Production law continues to languish while "the market" has a chance to solve the problem; too many New Yorkers are still getting up close, with the youngest being the most careless. (In Atlanta, a girl of twelve is in intensive care, and her cousin says she had no prior health issues.) Cuomo didn't have to be told that "the pandemic is accelerating," but that's what the World Health Organization says.
But Trump is on the case. All the people of India have now been told to stay home, the death toll continues to rise in Europe, and even Boris Johnson has been sobered up by events he is in no way prepared to handle. Trump is indignant about the damage to his beautiful, wonderful economy and wants "the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter," less than three weeks away. He's got Mnuchin trying to get a $500 billion "relief" fund to spend with no oversight, even as he can't stop whining about the hit his hotels are taking. The mean Democrats are holding it up because they still want to impeach him with coronavirus. Also, it has a completely insane defund-Planned-Parenthood provision.
The absence of Dr. Anthony Fauci from White House "briefings" is beginning to cause comment. The last time I saw him, standing between Trump and Bill Barr, I was actually afraid they would crush him between their looming poundage. Whether Dr. Fauci voluntarily removed himself from the daily puppet show or was told to stay away, Trump is even more dangerous without him. He continues to promote unproven drugs he can't pronounce as miraculous cures. The secret word is "chloroquine," an anti-malarial whose dosage has to be carefully regulated. A married couple in Arizona who still believe Trump remembered they had some on the shelf and took it as a preventative. Unfortunately it was chloroquine phosphate, used to disinfect fish tanks. The man is dead, his wife is recovering. Remember those Desert Storm-era bumper stickers that said "WHEN CLINTON LIED, NOBODY DIED"? I wish I had some.
The consensus among Republican office-holders is that the old should just go ahead and die, so their descendants can enjoy the blessings of the free market, fossil fuels, insurance-based health care and a bountiful supply of firearms. Ron Johnson did the math and the governors of Texas and Mississippi have taken up the cry. Let me say at once that I was being sarcastic when I predicted "death panels." Nobody gets me.
One-man death panel Rand Paul got tested and without waiting for the result, scattered his nasties from the Senate floor to the pool where they frolic and play. The people who work in his office are especially grateful for the way he helped them acquire immunity by actually getting the coronavirus. He also attended a fundraiser in a Louisville museum, but it's a big space and nobody was dancing. Who says libertarians only think about themselves? Well, they say doctors make the worst patients. And I say American medical schools need to tighten their admission requirements.
Take comfort, if you can, from the news out of the home office: Russia's coronavirus problem is far worse than originally reported in
He's still talking, and Murdoch News is letting him. Apparently it's Cuomo's fault because he didn't buy ventilators in 2015, back when he and Obama were doing everything wrong and creating this disaster that he, Trump, has to deal with. And now he's got good, cod-fearing Americans eating fish tank cleaner. Stupid Cuomo.
A priest in Bergamo, Italy, died after giving his respirator to another patient. But more generally, the religious organizations are being dickheads, like Liberty University, which is open for business. Falwell's outfit seems sane compared to these Shiite Catholics* (PPE recommended).
Students who partied in Florida for spring break have tested positive. I hope it was worth it.
All lives matter, but these COVID-19 deaths are especially hard: Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango (86) and playwright Terrence McNally (81).
"Be strong but be kind. We will be OK." (Jacinda Ardern) I hope you're right, prime minister.
*Borrowed from Jim Gaffigan, but maybe not in this sense.
posted by Buttermilk Sky at 1:59 PM
1 Comments:
From one of the links in your post connecting to a publication of right wing insanity:
"This statement reflects a disastrous sentimentalism. Everything for the sake of physical life? What about justice, beauty, and honor? There are many things more precious than life. "
Ah, those "right to life conservatives!" The author goes on to make a distinction without a difference, to the effect that abortion is killing, while denying respirators to sick people and allowing an epidemic to spread in the interest of keeping the economy going is expressing the "finitude of life." (You can't make this shit up!)
My head reels. But perhaps I am merely expressing the infinitude of rage.
Yours with extreme crankiness,
The New York Crank
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