My PC was treated to one of those automatic updates first thing this morning, and I spent the rest of the morning and a chunk of the afternoon trying to make it work again. It’s back to normal now, and I need a nap.
Dr. Rick Bright testified to the House Health subcommittee today. Bright used to be head of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. He says he was demoted because he criticized the administration’s “response” to the pandemic. Among other things he pointed out that the administration has no plan, as I said yesterday. Trump doesn’t do plans.
Here’s another analysis by Mona Charen that’s worth reading — All He Does Is Fight. Charen writes that Republicans decided to support Trump because he was such a dogged fighter. But it turns out that fight is all he does.
Since January, we have witnessed a vivid lesson in the limits of fighting. There were ample reasons before now to recoil from Trump’s style of combat. It is so consistently cruel, witless, below-the-belt, and unhinged (e.g. his recent tweets implying that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough is guilty of murder), that it tainted by association any reasonable arguments that might be advanced for conservative ideas. But in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve witnessed that even when a dire emergency calls for traits other than bellicosity, fighting is all he knows how to do. This is proving to be a catastrophe for the nation, and also for Trump’s own self-interest.
He honestly doesn’t know how to address a problem to solve it. All he does is react in self-defense.
While the situation cried out for competent coordination and planning, for calm briefings with experts, he looked only for foils. He fought with Democrats, exclaiming on February 28 that “this is their new hoax.” He tangled with insufficiently “grateful” governors who asked for supplies. “I say . . . don’t call the governor of Washington. Don’t call the woman from Michigan.” He disparaged frontline medical professionals, wondering on March 29 whether they were stealing masks (“Are they going out the back door?”). He had a spat with congressional leadership in late February when they proposed an initial coronavirus package more than three times the size of Trump’s request (“Pelosi’s incompetent.” He’s “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer”). He reversed his previous gushing praise and began to blame China for the virus, encouraging the use of nicknames like “Wuhan virus.” He picked a fight with the Postal Service, poured out tweetstorms about his predecessor, whom he accused of dark crimes, and above all, from before dawn till after dark every single day, he battled the press.
In other news — Michigan closed down its capitol building today and canceled a legislative session rather than risk a confrontation with more armed protesters. Seriously, this has got to stop. It’s nothing but terrorism.
At The Atlantic Adam Serwer has a historical retrospective on birtherism that’s fascinating and relevant.
See also Jonathan Last and The Curious Case of the People Who Want to “Reopen” America—But Not Wear Masks. The people opposed to pandemic restrictions harbor a collection of wildly contradictory conspiracy theories.
You might think that these disparate factions would be at war with one another as much as they are against Anthony Fauci. After all, if the coronavirus is a bioweapon that has been unleashed on America by the ChiComs, then some batty old lady claiming that it’s the inevitable consequence of giving kids MMR shots is part of the coverup.
And, conversely, if you’re an anti-vaxxer, then the bioweapon story is also part of a coverup: Anyone who believes it is trying to alibi Big Pharma just as surely as Fauci is.
Yet in vivo, these groups all seem to be holding hands.
Which suggests that not one of these people actually believes what they’re selling.
The one thing they all have in common is that they don’t blame Donald Trump for the mess we’re in. That probably tells you all you need to know.
I haven't read the smug and repugnant Mona Charon in years – she at least has a brain and can see the obvious.
Michigan's Governor "The Woman" is remarkably cool and calm.
It's taken a pandemic, and all the deaths and those to come, and a trashed economy, for the country and the world to see what happens when you let low-lifes like Trump and his band of kooks – including the armed yahoos in Michigan – to see how bad things can get when they run things. I am all for reality, if this is what it takes.
Kudos also to the Governor of my home state, who called out the cowardly Republican for defying the COVID-19 precautions. When has Stupid ever worked?
Well it worked to elect tRump.
tRUMP's MAGAts CAN'T blame HIM, because then, they'll have to blame themselves!
After all, who (besides Putin and Russia) put him in the Oval Office?
No, they're along for the ride down the bloody phlegm-lined road to Hell, with their Fearful Leader.
OT: TRUMP is now trying to conjure up a scandal to gaslight the nation, take their eyes off the sick/death rates on all the non-Fox networks, and what an atrocious job he (hasn't) done!
It's called Obamagate! And even HE can't tell anyone what it is, because when he's asked, he uses the old, "Oh, YOU know what it is! It's the greatest scandal in American history, that's what it is! EVERYONE knows what it is!!!"
And he wants Miss Graham to call Obama to testify in the Senate.
Miss Graham, a sycophant, but no fool, has told TRUMP to be careful what he wishes for!
Obama would make mincemeat out of the Republicans in the Senate! And not even break a sweat! He's not called "No Drama Obama" fer nothin'!!!!!
But I'm afraid I haven't lived enough of a clean or virtuous life for the God's to grant me that spectacle!!!!!
Tomorrow, I'm expecting my first new computer in a long time, thanks to the stimulus check. It's an Asus Zenbook. I hate the name, like I hate any misappropriation of religion for commerce, but it seems to be the model I most want. The first thing I will do is shrink the partition Windows is on to about 50G and format the rest of the half-terabyte for Linux Mint. Windows is so widespread in use, I wouldn't just trash it, but its design philosophy is heavily geared to manipulating the user to give more money to MS. Linux evolved as a volunteer collaboration and current versions are as logical and user-friendly as the MacOS, but free. It's very soothing to work software developed as a mutual gift.
Donald Trump demonstrates how incredibly varied the forms of consciousness can be. Searching for common ground, I keep tripping on the realization that any assumption of mutual interest is mistaken.
A few months ago, when it seemed all too likely he would get reelected, I thought about the possibility of a Black Swan occurrence. A completely unexpected thing might happen to change the course of history. But a plague? Really? Who's writing this script?
Obamagate = Presidenting While Black
No they do not blame Trump. Up against one of the most serious problems this country has faced, they continue to support a truly defective leader. The whistleblowers testimony to the House yesterday was damning, yet Trump just countered with his usual ad hominem attack. What a horrid example to everyone and an attack on a person with obviously serious levels of expertise.
Trump cannot separate ideas from the person expressing those ideas. If the person expresses ideas that do not fit into Trump's distorted reality the person themselves is defective. He never counters idea to idea, except with vague statements such as he thinks virus testing is overrated. He continues to maintain the "ultimate expert" persona in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
This must be way to acceptable to way too many citizens. Trump is a person with obvious serious flaws in judgement and a person of extreme biases. Yes Obama committed the biggest crime ever, he disturbed Trump's personal mental equilibrium. The whistle blower did too, because as anyone could plainly see he was the wrong color of white. He could not see what Trump sees so clearly, which is if you deny the problem the problem will go away. Oh how he and his supporters love that type of magical thinking. So does the coronavirus, as without people to infect, it just goes away. Psycho, deniers will work fine for the coronavirus, it does not discriminate. For the virus any victim is a good victim.