105,746
Apart from having to hide in the bunker this evening, how convenient for you, Bronx Colors user, that the media has been under fire for two days and unable to hold you accountable.
How convenient for you the media and public have changed the subject to this country’s original sin, racism.
So convenient it’s almost as if the distraction was organized.
So convenient the riot gear purchased by the feds earlier this year may have found a good use, depending on how it was distributed when received.*
What a pity personal protection equipment for the entire American health care system hadn’t been ordered at the same time the riot gear was purchased. We’ll chalk that up to another one of your gross failings.
The dust will eventually settle on the streets, the tear gas will drift away, the arrested will pay bail and head home.
And the subject will return to your gross failings because they continue to mount every day. We’ll grant you that much: your malignant neglect of your role as president to protect and defend the Constitution and the people who live within its reach is greater than that of any American president in history and grows apace.
Being a malignant narcissist, though, I’m sure this will only make you feel like a victim.
You’d be better off staying in your bunker, whether below the White House or on one of your goddamned golf courses. It would cost this country fewer lives if you spent the rest of your term at one of your resorts, tooling around in a taxpayer-rented golf cart, chasing a little white ball.
_________
* Links to purchase orders:
Order signed 23-MAR-2020, $25,963.10, for POLICE GEAR,DISPOSABLE CUFFS, GAS MASKS, BALLISTIC HELMETS, RIOT GLOVES
https://beta.sam.gov/awards/89062523%2BAWARD?keywords=%09%2036C26220P0825%20&sort=-relevance&index=&is_active=true&page=1
Order signed 17-MAR-2020, $63,333.96, for POLICE PROTECTION EQUIPMENT FOR WASHINGTON D.C. VA POLICE IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19 OUTBREAK.
https://beta.sam.gov/awards/89176706%2BAWARD?keywords=%09%2036C24520P0413%20&sort=-relevance&index=&is_active=true&page=1
NB: 105,773 — U.S. death toll from COVID-19, June 1, 2020 8:00 a.m. ET via Wikipedia’s COVID-19 pandemic data page.
Number from this site https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
It’s already changed to 105,770 since I started writing this post an hour ago.
If any of you have an app which can capture an entire snapshot of the purchase orders at the links above, please do so. I have a nasty suspicion this stuff will disappear.
I have printed both purchase orders to PDF.
How can I get them to you?
[#DocumentSaved ~Rayne]
Hang on to them for me. I’ll tag your comment so that if we need them I know where to get them. Thanks.
Just throwing this out here for comment. Maybe the narrative should be since police aggression is the issue here, police should stop aggressing and stand down. Say protesters need to be non-violent, respectful of property, etc., but return to barracks for a day or two and let people have their say without armored adversaries pushing them around.
The narrative of this post isn’t about racism and subsequent protests, and how policing is failing to do its job. That was the last post I wrote.
This one is about Trump and his escaping accountability once again. I’d like to keep the pressure on Trump about this particular point because 294 more deaths were recorded between the time I began writing my post and the time I published it.
We’ve lost nearly 6,000 Americans since we passed the 100K benchmark late this past Tuesday/early Wednesday. That’s roughly 2X the death toll on 9/11 inside five days time.
I am sorry if it seemed as if I was trying to steer away from the purpose of your post. I had just wanted to suggest a path to get through the protest process sooner rather than later, and with less violence so that attention will stop being diverted from the on-going tragedy that needs more attention.
Also protest leaders need to tell excitable young white men of unknown origin to go home and give money. I have organized protests, and there are too many people who want to take advantage of the situation to stir up trouble. Not to mention professional provocateurs.
Some of that is the topic of my next post.
Are anarchists and nihilists bein conflated with antifa to serve the needs of right wing nut jobs.
I think it’s a frame job but something really ugly is behind it. Anarchists and nihilists may also be framed and used, eager handmaidens.
This is where the ugly Fifth Circuit ruling in the Deray McKesson case could have horrible repercussions:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/important-first-amendment-principle-now-risk/610348/
The ruling is evil, but at the heart of the explanation Judge Ho for his position is a particularly noxious bit of reasoning. He chooses to look at the specific purpose of the protest to decide McKesson is liable, and the implication is ominous — right wing judges may start picking and choosing which protests deserve protection and which do not based on whether they support or oppose authoritarian rule.
Swear to gods half the jurists in this country would rule against the original Tea Party for chucking tea in Boston’s harbor.
My understanding is the original Tea Partiers repaired the locks and the damage they did to the Beaver, the Dartmouth, and the Eleanor after they dumped the tea in the Harbor. Nice, polite revolutionaries who respected at least some property rights. Not like the riff-raff we have nowadays. /snark
I’m sure income inequality and racism were less of an issue between the ship owners and the anti-tax Partiers than they are between protesters and capitalist-serving police and corporate-owned assets.
Rayne, Exactly as you suggested possible: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/twitter-takes-down-washington-protest-disinformation-bot-behavior-n1221456
“A Twitter account claiming to belong to a national “antifa” organization and pushing violent rhetoric related to ongoing protests has been linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa, according to a Twitter spokesperson.
The spokesperson said the account violated the company’s platform manipulation and spam policy, specifically the creation of fake accounts. Twitter suspended the account after a tweet that incited violence.”
It’s almost as though he got a “back to work” dream come true as well.
Its going to be a hell of a lot harder to hold the line about work and civic safety when the country has been in such dangerous chaos all weekend and so many people risked their health to protest. I can anticipate his ugly jeering that safety calls from liberals are hypocritical at his first opportunity.
Great headline, Rayne. Distraction from the complete failure of our public health system. People left to “divine” their own health safety from weak threads of disparate information these days. Not only is the administration unaccountable, it seems that public health information is less and less reliable, re transmission, vectors, and deaths. We are going to have to create a Peoples Information Depository for reporting on illness and deaths. Third world country now — by design.
Yup. By design. Doing nothing, reporting nothing — both are choices. I am entering the LIHOP zone because it would have been very easy to be a hero and simply pick up the work done by others to halt this pandemic and rebrand it while saving lives. But nope. This administration — all of them and their sycophants in the red states — are intent on doing the wrong thing time and again.
It’s a pattern of behavior and it’s not sinking in.
Agree completely!
It would be one thing if they at least provided complete, transparent, credible information . . . . and then said, “Folks, you’re on your own.”
But it is worse than that: States are lying, hiding and denying the public the vital statistical information that is critical to making an informed decision about one’s healthcare, survival, family survival. To venture out? church? work? grocery store? physician’s office appointment? No standardization or best practices documented ANYWHERE! Each state on its own, and then the states surrender responsibility to the counties!
Meanwhile, the people suffering are referred to as “human capital stock.”
The big problem with treating the American public like mushrooms is that you can’t hide dead bodies the way you can tax records and bank statements. The truth will come out. The past week has made Trump’s inner hollowness and lack of basic humanity even more glaringly apparent. There’s no way he could give any national televised address and sound sincerely caring or empathetic, especially if he speaks in that halting teleprompter manner. Trump is already acting like a lame duck President so if I were Joe Biden I’d hurry up and announce my running mate and then hit the airwaves in Presidential mode. Let it be leaked that the Biden campaign is already booking venues and compiling its list of attendees and celebrity guests to its inauguration events.
Did you not read the EO that deemed each victim to have signed a non-disclosure agreement, indemnifying Mr. Trump against any liability?
In exchange, the government provides one free group burial, winding sheet extra, on a remote island of the government’s choosing. Ground rent varies quarterly, standard terms and conditions apply. All proceeds go toward the Keep Donald Happy Fund, which supplies custom-screened, hand-washed Caribbean sand in which Donald hides his head.
“This administration — all of them and their sycophants in the red states — are intent on doing the wrong thing time and again.”
I agree, there has to be a reason they do the wrong thing time after time. So there is no reason to believe that they will magically do the right thing in the next election.
As someone has pointed out there is a major difference between how demonstrators are being handled in the current crisis, and how armed right wing protestors were handled when they occupied the state house in Michigan. Barr and Trump are attempting without any demonstrable proof to blame it on left wing groups such as Antifa, which is an acronym for anti-fascism, which if the government is going to fight them means fascism must exist in the government. Right wing groups at the moment seem to be getting a pass, at least by Barr and Trump.
It was clearly a mistake to allow armed protestors into the Michigan state house. I think that will lead to armed people at polling stations at least in battle ground states. Every day it becomes clearer, more and more people are getting fed up. To stay in power which is the goal, Republicans have to fix the next election also (to include intimidation at polling stations) with the help of outside interests (Russia China) whose intent is to weaken the US as a power in the world. So you’re right it simply makes no sense to do what they do unless you are preparing to remain in power regardless of any election banalities such as an overarching repudiation of Trump and Republicans in the next election.
Trump’s Presidency is like a land mine, and having put their full weight on it, Republicans can’t move away without blowing up.
There is nothing the Republicans won’t do to stay in power. I expect Election Day to be the beginning of a months long struggle to get our votes honored. I am afraid that only Republicans will be prepared for this.
And yet Trump will not be president in January if it appears Trump has lost, even if he questions it. There’s no mechanism in the Constitution for him to retain office. The public has seen this playbook circa 2000 and the Supreme Court won’t be electing a president this time.
That is a chilling thought… I hadn’t considered armed right wingers hanging out at polling places to intimate voters/cause chaos. It won’t be their polling places they choose to target either.
I can totally see that happening now.
I agree about the malignancy about his attempt to distract, but he is still failing. He’s trapped in a way he has never been before. He’s finding out that the virus isn’t going away, the dead aren’t coming back, and the jobs are going to be missing for a long time.
And meanwhile Haberman and Baker do their usual dim witted attempt to shape the meaning today, largely advancing the idea that a “law and order” platform will help him. But they give a little daylight to the looming reality — Trump has no credibility with swing voters as a law and order candidate.
Baker and Haberman are too simplistic to get the difference between Bull Connor and Nixon and don’t get how Trump is the former and not the latter. They think they are savvy, but they are too thick to pick up the simplest distinctions.
The obvious danger is that he keeps doubling down. It is not clear whether our institutions can hold. But anyone who thinks this works out well for him is wrong.
Trump’s not the only one trapped. I have a suspicion what we are seeing is a conspiracy to burn it all down to prevent anyone related to Team Trump from being held accountable.
I agree that a lot of the GOP infrastructure thinks taking out liberal institutions will somehow let them be magically replaced with conservative alternatives. We are all getting slammed as they find out that’s not how it works.
Yes, I think that is right BobCon. Also, Trump lacks credibility as a “law and order candidate” because it’s clear he only wants to corrupt the police as he hates law and order when the law enforcement agencies are coming for him and his thugs.
Trump’s got a much bigger problem with the law, period. Teri Kanefield spanked Haberman-Baker today with a review of Trump’s greatest scofflaw hits.
Wow…that thread is really something!
https://twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield/status/1267255244200660992
I pray that you are correct, but I remember 1968. I remember how Nixon weaponized the protests of that time. As a child of the segregated South who had seen civil rights marches and rallies from the “wrong” side of the color line, I was appalled that a “mainstream” candidate could cloak the old Wallace/O’Connor line as “law and order”–and then WIN. Everywhere. What this taught me is that racism is a tool which, exploited adroitly but most of all in a moment of unrest, rarely fails. With nothing else to fall back on and no one but his base to turn out, Trump will follow Nixon’s (and Reagan’s, and George H. W. Bush’s) lead. I understand Rayne’s point. Mine is simple: we underestimate its potential for succeeding at our peril. I was too young to vote against Nixon, either time, but plenty old enough that after witnessing his victory speech, I begged to stay home from school the next morning, and when my mother made me go I sobbed all the way through second period social studies. Having seen my heroes, JFK and Malcolm X and Dr. King and RFK, picked off one by one, I had little innocence left to lose. I stowed that experience away, just so I could use it later. Here: beware.
Oh, I don’t discount the possibility Trump could “win.” His first election was illegitimate, why would he be inaugurated for a second one?
We have a long, hard slog from now until Election Day to ensure this doesn’t come to pass. And should we win we’ll still have to deal with a massive smash-and-grab operation until Team Trump is removed from every facility, including whatever they’ve done to inveigle themselves into networks and systems.
Election Day…..the fight continues regardless of election results. The fight will continue always. Evil never takes a vacation. The results of election will be contested regardless. Liars never stop until their drowned out by truth.
Being a California native (and apparently around the same age as you), I remember well Governor Ronald Reagan’s hardcore approach to protestors against the Vietnam war. The National Guard did a lot of “roughing up” of protestors with his overt approval. How he later became the “beloved” (at least to Republicans) president in the ’80s is a mystery to me. The 1980 election results actually scared me at the time.
Separately, a little note about coronavirus: I had the occasion to replace my Roku streaming device the other day and while going through the channel setup process, I noticed a new channel icon: the coronavirus.gov channel, which features mostly short PSAs in slideshow format. Additionally there are short videos featuring Dr. Birx and the Surgeon General giving short talks. One video had a thumbnail image of Dr. Fauci on it, but when I started to watch it, Dr. Birx came up instead. In fact, there’s not a single Fauci video on the whole site. There are, however, several excerpts of the infamous Task Force press conferences, mostly featuring El Presidente bloviating away. So, a pretty worthless channel (and website) all in all…
History, including the coronavirus website, is written by (and for) the “winners.”
“In the Universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.” —William Blake
Thanks Rayne, you have opened the door for accountability.
And we shouldn’t forget the enablers, those who couldn’t set the country above party, but as the article says it’s not too late. I think I will give my best John Wayne here, “not hardly.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republican-senators-its-not-too-late-to-help-save-your-country/2020/05/31/e930f500-a0d6-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html
Another Wayne quote: “To be useful in this ol’ world, that’s what’s important.”
Thomas the Tank Engine had similar aspirations!
Sadly, I don’t think that anything can distract from the coronavirus story for very long, because I don’t think the story is going to get better. I’m in the pessimistic camp that thinks it’s going to get a lot worse. Right now, the story is how we’ve flattened the curve to about 1,000 deaths per day on top of the already 100,000+ dead. As horrific as that is, you can at least spin it as a “we’ve flattened the curve” story, which makes it sound like things are under control. They aren’t, of course, but there’s enough silver lining there for you to read a speech about how we’ve “beaten” coronavirus.
By the time the dust has settled on the big stories of today, I suspect the death rate will be going up again, so Trump isn’t even going to have his “victory lap” that he would’ve had, say, yesterday, when he could have given a speech about how we’ve “beaten” the coronavirus, and an entrepreneur had successfully gotten two American astronauts onto the ISS.
That begs a little math. 155 days until Nov 3 at 1,000 COVID dead per day is 155,000 more.
You can assume a lower daily average of 50% or even 25% and the number will still toll like a giant bell – daily.
The President has also predicted that 2021 will be a great year for the economy, overlooking the fact that for most of next year each day will be the first anniversary of the death of a loved one for thousands of Americans.
Given how desperate the President must be feeling about his re-election prospects, I worry about what the Republican National Convention will be like in terms of his inflammatory rhetoric, possible clashes between MAGA and anti-MAGA demonstrators, and any other measures Trump may feel necessary to whip up his base. Maybe the RNC should be held somewhere in Greenland.
Perfect epitaph for the Trump administration. Since FDR’s passing, the front facade of the White House has always been lit. Now, it lies in darkness.
https://twitter.com/duffgoldman/status/1267320540504584192
“And we who walk here, walk alone.”
Having lived through the FLQ murders in Canada, back when Trudeau 1 was P.M. what we later discovered was the RCMP had infiltrated and advocated violence beyond what the FLQ had planned in many cases. Don’t see why the FBI and others wouldn’t do what the RCMP did back in the 1970s. This of course is all working very well for Trump. No one paid attention to COVID while the protests were going on. The man does like to deflect, deflect, deflect. A race war would work well for him. Then when people pointed out more people of colour died than whites, from COVID, he’d point out if they weren’t “rioting” they wouldn’t have had more cases of COVID, by passing all the deaths up until the protests. He may also swing more voters over to his side, saying he will restore order.
It reminds me of when the Palestinians started hijacking jets. They’d kill a few people, airlines didn’t care much. Then they started blowing up the jets and boy did that get their attention. Property has always mattered more than people and just like with COVID, trump didn’t care how many died as long as he and his continued to make money,
Agree. Trump needs to stay in his bunker. It may get him used to being in jail, without the room service.
Good post.
I am grateful that I live in an area of Michigan where policing and the police have changed in a very dramatic and positive fashion. I recognized bad law enforcement individuals from early on. I saw the silence of those in blue while their brethren chose to violate their Oath. BLUE CODE OF SILENCE is a violation of the oath on STEROIDS.
SILENCE is the same as APPROVAL.
Same standard applies to protestors. Same standard applies universally. See something. say something.
Good cops and good people speak up.
The preliminary autopsy on George Floyd came out a few days ago. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6933246-Derek-Chauvin-Complaint.html It showed “no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.” (It found an undetermined level of “coronary artery” and “hypertensive heart” disease, and mentions the “potential” presence of “intoxicants,” but provides no evidence for it.)
The preliminary description is carefully non-committal, even exculpatory. It also fails to address an obvious possible COD: restricted blood and oxygen flow to the brain. Rayne explored this days ago. I mention it again because the press might get this wrong for months.
Officer Chauvin put his body weight on the side of Mr. Floyd’s neck for nine minutes. Despite Floyd being in acute distress, Chauvin kept his knee there, and left it there for more than two minutes after Floyd stopped responding.
Cutting off blood flow to the brain is the intended consequence of compressing one or both sides of the neck; you learn that in elementary martial arts training. The technique is not designed to obstruct the airway, it works faster than asphyxiation, and leaves the hyoid bone intact. If the victim is otherwise restrained, like Mr. Floyd, it can also leave few marks on the skin or underlying tissue.
It’s not done to restrain a victim who is already prone, cooperating, and weighed down by two other officers. It’s a submission hold that can easily result in death, even when used by expert practitioners, which is why many police forces prohibit it. Officer Chauvin knew what he was doing, who he was doing it to, and what the probable outcome would be. He was so confident he was immune from consequence that he did it on camera.
https://digbysblog.net/2020/06/will-justice-be-served-for-george-floyd/
Floyd family independent autopsy: Knee on neck inhibited blood flow to the brain and weight on his back inhibited breathing. Concluded his death was a “homicide.”
https://twitter.com/honorayork2/status/1267542741954805760
That’s no “independent” autopsy, it is a private and second one, but very far from independent.
Thanks for the correction.
I just saw that television news (NBC) reported the official autopsy says, “homicide” because of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression” versus the “independent” (as stated by CNN in link below, ;-D) autopsy’s listing of “”asphyxiation from sustained pressure” “.
ht tps://www.cnn.com/2020/06/01/us/george-floyd-independent-autopsy/index.html
I noticed in the article that the police officers were quoted as only talking to each other, not Mr. Floyd. If they were really concerned about Mr. Floyd’s behaviour, they would have been talking to him, they would have been looking him in the eye, they would have been calling him by his name and encouraging him to calm down. Those are some of the techniques I was trained to use decades ago when I worked in secure and open detention facilities for young offenders, some of whom could be occasionally aggressive and a danger to themselves and others and sometimes would have to be physically restrained. But the restraint was only used as a temporary intervention until the youth had his/her behaviour back under control; it was not intended to be a form of punishment. Of course, dealing with adults is different from dealing with teens, but the basic principles would be the same.
As far as I have seen from the videos, Mr. Floyd had his hands cuffed behind his back and did not appear to be a threat to the four officers. It also seems apparent that Officer Chauvin’s concern was not the safety of himself, his fellow officers, or Mr. Floyd, but rather to put Mr. Floyd in his place and show him who was boss, with fatal results for Mr. Floyd.
El Presidente seems to be getting anxious about people knowing where he lives. His Attorney General is dredging up Praetorian Guards wherever he can find them. He has called out Bureau of Prisons (under the DoJ) riot teams and is sending them to DC and Miami (which might mean Palm Beach/Mar-a-Lago). Coincidentally, those are the two places most closely associated with Mr. Trump.
Those riot teams are trained to put down riots by hardened, long-term federal prisoners, who have reached such a pitch of anger and frustration that they riot, knowing that the consequences will be brutal. Few on those teams probably know anyone in DC or Miami. The Chinese employ a similar tactic, calling in troops from distant provinces to put down civil unrest, because they are less likely to use restraint on people they don’t know.
Presumably, neither Trump nor Barr liked the Secret Service’s let’s chat with a protester and calm this thing down approach. What could go wrong?
https://twitter.com/PradhanAlka/status/1267513761860026368
Feeling a little under siege, Donald Trump had his SecDef support him on his governors call today. Secretary Esper:
If Jared has any say in the matter, that slogan will be Plank No. 1 on the GOP platform. What I want to know is which governor picked his jaw off the floor, asked what Esper means by “right” normal, and then reminded him what country he’s talking about. Not even Curtis LeMay – the model for Kubrick’s Buck Turgidson – talked about massing forces to dominate domestic “battlespace.” I’m pretty sure Ward and June Cleaver never heard about it either.
The Dems might want to say something about Sec’y Esper’s proposal to subject the Folk and the Homeland to the tactics American troops used in 1899 to suppress Filipinos’ desire for independence rather than continued foreign rule.
https://twitter.com/missy_ryan/status/1267534977165557760
“Civilize them with a Krag!” — wasn’t that the slogan of the Philippine War?
Does Trump not realize how weak and rattled he sounds? He needs a panic room, not a bunker. He’s like the Barney Fife of Presidents; actually, Barney had more guts. And this is the guy who has the nuclear codes!
He needs to up his meds.
Or his doctors should prescribe anti-psychotics for him.
George Will sharing our aspirations in WAPO.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-one-should-want-four-more-years-of-this-taste-of-ashes/2020/06/01/1a80ecf4-a425-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html
There are those who say that violence is a public health issue and have used epidemiology in order to reduce it in city after city. But, as we’ve learned with COVID19, the USA doesn’t do public health.
In addition, a large proportion of police are also members of the Reserves and the National Guard, as are other first responders. For the last two decades, they have been deployed overseas in war zones, some multiple times, and returned from warfare to civilian life without any practical debriefing that would help them transition back into peacetime policing. Add to that the incessant hero worship of first responders, the increased militarization of police tools and practices, and the failure to train on an ongoing basis for de-escalation and violence prevention and you have what we have now: a national police riot.
I posted on Marcy’s latest “Mandamus” that an active duty military police battalion consisting of 200 to 250 military personnel is now in the process of deploying to Washington, DC, according to CNN.
They are now showing pictures of Bill Barr standing in Lafayette Park in the midst of the troops.
This is utterly bizarre.
To incite people to violence, giving his BoP’s riot police a pretext to do their thing? Or is he taking a refreshing break from being in a closed room with Donald Trump?
“Coronavirus is a blood vessel disease, study says — and its mysteries finally make sense” | Salon, 6/1/20
https://www.salon.com/2020/06/01/coronavirus-is-a-blood-vessel-disease-study-says-and-its-mysteries-finally-make-sense/
My late Pa used to say “Stop the world, I want to get off”…
Unfortunately you missed the Dragon to the Space Station
do deceased astronauts get orbituaries?
It is written in the stars
on a good day I am not in the category of the firm ament
It’s an idea that comes round every so often.
the two astronauts, impressed by the vista, simultaneously uttered a perigees
It was almost as if a low cuss became a point of distraction.
In college in the 80’s, it was well known that the best outer space-inducers (bongs) were made by Apogee.
dude.
Lo and behold. It looks like folks have appreciated getting high for a long time now:
“Ancient people in the Kingdom of Judah may have gotten high off weed” | Live Science, 5/29/20
https://www.livescience.com/amp/cannabis-shrine-israel.html
Trump hiding out in the basement of the white house gives me another justification for referring to him as Archie BUNKER. I remember learning that “All in the Family” was a show created to make fun of the Archie Bunkers of the world and that it sort of backfired and people that couldn’t see themselves as ‘not awesome’ just laughed WITH instead of AT the show and it’s knuckle-dragging old fart patriarch.
I can hear Edith’s shrill voice now scolding him. America has that look on our face Edith always got when Archie would say or so nearly anything he said or did. Just sort of ‘beyond words’. What a ShitShow!
Yes, perfect, Stacey! And to honor your observation, I resurrect this poem I wrote two years ago (which I also shared on ew’s site sometime long ago…):
Trumped Up and Stormy
It doesn’t feel like love
and it never will.
You hold your grudge,
A fort on Archie Bunker’s hill.
Disgusting & repulsive
are words you like to use.
Your weapons of destruction
to pulverize our views.
You recklessly forget
Ugly vices of your own.
You’re always so dead set
On throwing one more stone.
“I am not a crook,” said Nixon.
Thou doth protest too much.
You think you’ve got the fix in
With “she’s a such-and-such.”
Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde,
You love to seek revenge.
You’ll screw the other side
And claim it’s self-defense.
In the ancient art of hubris
You’re as skilled as one can be.
You pride yourself on shrewdness.
You repudiate plan B.
You crossed a line
somewhere long ago.
It’s hard to define
But it’s something that we know.
You touched a light that glistened.
You found a faith that glowed.
If only you had listened
to a higher moral code.
The means you take is cruel contempt,
Your path is zero sum.
But others know you are exempt
When the heroes come.
Deny, deny, deny
Is the strategy you take.
You’ll never eat a humble pie.
You lead the world astray.
You fell off your pedestal
and then you fell some more.
You’re regrettable, not credible.
You cut us to the core.
You don’t see humanity,
You see your beliefs,
Slithering with vanity,
Fantasized motifs.
There is a forest
not just trees.
It’s not just you and yours.
It’s all of us, all of us
Thundering in the breeze.
There are reports saying the studies showing hydroxychloroquine was deadly might be bogus?
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/mysterious-company-s-coronavirus-papers-top-medical-journals-may-be-unraveling.
This was on the same site as well older news, but news to me, all things going on in the darkness of Trumpland considered..
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/us-department-energy-rushes-build-advanced-new-nuclear-reactors
Be very careful with that article on hydroxychloroquine. That’s only one study in question. There have been other unrelated studies which were halted because of higher than expected mortality rates among patients treated with HCQ’s precursor or with HCQ BEFORE The Lancet published the Surgisphere’s bioinformatics-based report (ex. the VA’s study which is mentioned and a study from Brazil, as well as one from China which showed no benefit). This article also makes an incredibly bad mistake using a video by Didier Raoult for counterpoint; the study with which Raoult was connected also had an Expression of Concern published. That he was quoted at all sets off my hinky meter.
Please also do us a favor and check your spelling each time you enter your username/URL/email address. You’ve had a higher than usual number of typos this last week and it sets off the moderation system a lot. Thanks.
Sorry, just saw that my auto-fill had the typo so I was probably grabbing the bad one each time. I will make it go away.
I can’t quite get my mind around all of the science involved in the disease (and the medications that could potentially cure it) so my curiosity went more towards why the article appears to be saying that two big name journals didn’t properly vet their sources for data, and the sources turned to be crap.
It’s also intriguing that a science site would put out such a political dangle.
Even odder that team Trump hasn’t bit.
It does appear they have moved on from the pandemic, they have to keep moving, terrible things happen when the truth catches up.