Trump May Have A Perfectly Valid Point About His Followers Drinking Bleach

CoronusCzar by Nancy Ohanian

Pence was on the air with Geraldo Rivera on Thursday, lying the the listeners. When Geraldo started whining about when he could be back on his yacht Pence said, "Honestly," always a giveaway about what's coming next from a Republican, "you look at the trends today, I think by Memorial Day Weekend we will largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us." The trends? The only trends that would indicate that are the frequency of lies coming out of the Trump Regime. With the Financial Times explaining that the coronavirus deaths could be 60% higher than what governments are reporting, the trends are actually very, very scary. Let's take the U.S., which never really shut down sufficiently to flatten the curve and where the Trumpists are pressuring states to start opening up again. The U.S. was reporting 55,094 deaths yesterday afternoon-- and a crossing of the million case line. But if the Financial Times is correct, tonight's cumulative death toll, already the highest in the world, will be over 88,000.

And the day isn't over

On Saturday I looked at the cases per million people in 8 hard-hit states:

• New York- 13,690 cases per million
• New Jersey- 11,262 cases per million
• Massachusetts- 6,738 cases per million
• Connecticut- 6,450 cases per million
• Rhode Island- 5,921 cases per million
• Louisiana- 5,519 cases per million
• Michigan- 3,544 cases per million
• Delaware- 3,484 cases per million

I liked at the same metric in the same 8 states yesterday, one day later:

• New York- 14,953 cases per million
• New Jersey- 12,277 cases per million
• Massachusetts- 7,811 cases per million
• Connecticut- 6,864 cases per million
• Rhode Island- 7,040 cases per million
• Louisiana- 5,741 cases per million
• Michigan- 3,794 cases per million
• Delaware- 4,249 cases per million

And here they are this afternoon:

• New York- 15,150 cases per million
• New Jersey- 12,519 cases per million
• Massachusetts- 8,267 cases per million
• Connecticut- 7,055 cases per million
• Rhode Island- 7,295 cases per million
• Louisiana- 5.804 cases per million
• Michigan- 3,837 cases per million
• Delaware- 4,383 cases per million

Notice the trend isn't what you might expect from what Pence told Geraldo's listeners. Every state is going up, up, up. And by the way, this is building in anti-distancing red states as well. Here are the numbers from 8 Trump states yesterday:

• South Dakota- 2,559 cases per million
• Georgia- 2,272 cases per million
• Indiana- 2,262 cases per million
• Mississippi- 1,978 cases per million
• Iowa- 1,748 cases per million
• Tennessee- 1,453 cases per million
• Nebraska- 1,434 cases per million
• Utah- 1,352 cases per million

And, here are the same 8 red states' numbers this evening:

• South Dakota- 2,598 cases per million
• Georgia- 2,322 cases per million
• Indiana- 2,405 cases per million
• Mississippi- 2,039 cases per million
• Iowa- 1,873 cases per million
• Tennessee-1,491 cases per million
• Nebraska- 1,590 cases per million
• Utah- 1,390 cases per million

We've discussed Louisiana crackpot Tony Spell a few times before. He's been arrested a couple of times, encouraging his disciples to break social distancing rules (and also for attempted murder). But, of course, no one is serious about it-- not even the attempted murder-- so all he got was house arrest, which he ignored. Yesterday, The Advocate reported that he was peaching again, this time with an ankle bracelet, telling his congregation it's a "dirty rotten shame when you're hiding in America." Its members sang and waved signs reading "I stand with Pastor Spell."

One condition of Spell's release is that he "refrain from any and all criminal conduct, including but not limited to strictly abiding by the all emergency orders issued by the Governor of the State of Louisiana."

...The pastor has said the state's stay-at-home and social distancing orders, both aimed at limiting the novel coronavirus, violate his and his congregants' First Amendment rights to assemble and practice their faith.

At least one church member had died after contracting COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new virus, and a lawyer tapped to represent the church's fight to hold services was hospitalized.

It isn't known where the men contracted the virus.

Spell has told congregants who've attended services to refrain from touching each other and to stay home if they're sick.

"God gave you an immune system to kill the virus," Spell told his flock Sunday morning. "I'm not going to bind the virus."

Along with the recent aggravated assault and improper backing infractions, Spell has also been cited on  six misdemeanor counts of violating the governor's stay-at-home order.

The house arrest order and condition he remain on his property about 50 yards from the church and refrain from criminal activity-- including violating the state's ban on large gatherings-- stem from the assault charge.

Parish officials have noted other houses of worship have streamed their services in place of in-person gatherings.

Aside from the parishioner who attended services at the church and died, Spell's lawyer, Jeff Wittenbrink, is now in the hospital with COVID-19. Spell has asked his followers to send their $1,200 bailout checks to the church.

Two responses to this kind of story might be:

1- Let them all get sick and die; the country would be way better off without them and their genes.

2- They have the freedom to practice their religion and it's unconstitutional to try to stop them.

I tend to agree with #1-- except for one factor. The religionist nuts who contract the disease might be asymptomatic and could go to the grocery store and spread the contagion to normal people. It's an abstract contention that's a tad difficult for most low-IQ Trump supporters to grapple with and understand. And that's, basically, the same reason why #2 doesn't work. They certainly do have the freedom to practice their religion-- unless doing so is harming other people. That's why I think practicing their religion by injecting Lysol and drinking bleach-- the blood of Trump-- instead of consecrated wine is the perfect answer. Suicide doesn't hurt anyone else and society is rid of them and their gene pools and they're happy enough to martyr themselves. Win-Win!

Snake-Oil by Chip Proser