Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

And don't forget to rake your lungs!

At this point, I would also like to see Republikooks start spreading the fake news amongst themselves that joining a snake handler church cult is the way to go, but, with a twist: Tell them that rattlesnake venom kills the virus. Tell them to put a little extra faith in their god and let those rattlers bite them. Or, how 'bout they just baptize themselves in a river full of 20-foot anacondas? You want sarcasm, Trumpie? Now, that's sarcasm.

I look forward to turning on FOX "News" some night soon and watching Sean and Rudy covering themselves with thousands of black widow spiders.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.
- Donnie Psycho, President Of The United States Of America, April 23, 2020

by Noah

Tell ya what, Mr. President; why don't you and your whole asshole family go down to the White House basement with a bunch of different disinfectants and some needles and go play Fuhrerbunker. You and the plastic wifey can emulate your heroes Adolf and Eva. You can poison your kids like Goebbels did. Hey, the anniversary of that is coming up later this week. "What have you got to lose?"

It's been clear since the 2016 campaign that Trump is mentally ill but the severity has progressed. What we're witnessing with Trumpanzee's briefings is a daily rolling mental breakdown of a total psychopath, nothing less. It's quite a shit show. Unfortunately, we the audience are a captive audience and forced to live in this shit show. We're stuck in our seats and the exit doors are closed, locked shut by the rest of Washington and a Republican Party that has fully embraced its Death Cult status. And no one in authority is even remotely inclined to do say or do anything about it. No one in authority wants to call a spade a spade. No one wants to act! Certainly, it doesn't appear that the likes of Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, or anyone in the media will tell it like it is. Bernie? Not a word. The silence is deafening. The Trump cabinet? They may be as mentally incapacitated as he is. I mean just look at Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, Wilbur Ross, Catatonic Mike Pence, and the rest. Moscow Mitch McTraitor? Surely, you jest. He loves Trump just as do all of his Republican Death Cult troopers. He follows his orders and the $enate majority votes his way and/or lays down. Mitch will never say a word. The bags of rubles left on the Capitol steps are way too bigly.

So here we have it. Whether it's destroying environmental safeguards, killing Americans by "re-opening," (Next, he'll be forbidding seat belts) or him and FOX "News" convincing people to kill themselves with injections of Chloroquine, in Trump's mind, Americans can't die fast enough. He's a true psychopathic Manchurian Prez. Pick your poison: Lysol? Clorox? What's it gonna be? How about straight Lye, no chaser? How long before Trump is trying to have everyone inject RoundUp or the complete line of Raid and Ortho pesticide products? This guy Trump is a real Jim Jones. I also note his suggestion of putting light, "tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light" in our bodies." Don't our hospital ERs have enough on their hands without having to deal with an increase of people showing up with lightbulbs jammed up their asses? I can see it now. He'll be selling lightbulbs with Make America Great Again printed on them, with instructions in the box and a foreword testimonial from Lindsey Graham.

I Doubt Biden Has What It Takes To Defeat Trump, But I'm Certain Trump's Response To The Pandemic Will Defeat Him

A few days ago, Washington Post reporters Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Lena Sun wrote an essay about how Trump punishes scientists for contradicting his dangerous, crackpot rantings and ravings about COVID-19. Since then, one scientist working on a vaccine, now former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, Rick Bright, who was removed from his job for pushing back against Trump's promotion of hydroxychloroquine, say he's filing a complaint over Trump's illegal retaliation with the HHS inspector general.

The Washington Post team reported that Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued a candid warning Tuesday in a Washington Post interview: A simultaneous flu and coronavirus outbreak next fall and winter 'will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,' adding that calls and protests to 'liberate' states from stay-at-home orders-- as President Trump has tweeted-- were 'not helpful.' The next morning, Trump cracked down with a Twitter edict: Redfield had been totally misquoted in a cable news story summarizing the interview, he claimed, and would be putting out a statement shortly. By Wednesday evening, Redfield appeared at the daily White House briefing-- saying he had been accurately quoted after all, while also trying to soften his words as the president glowered next to him. 'I didn’t say that this was going to be worse,' Redfield said. 'I said it was going to be more difficult and potentially complicated because we’ll have flu and coronavirus circulating at the same time.'"

The remarkable spectacle provided another illustration of the president’s tenuous relationship with his own administration’s scientific and public health experts, where the unofficial message from the Oval Office is an unmistakable warning: Those who challenge the president’s erratic and often inaccurate coronavirus views will be punished-- or made to atone.

...The result is a culture in which public health officials find themselves scrambling to appease and placate Trump, a mercurial boss who is focused as much on political and economic considerations as scientific ones.

...In another instance, Nancy Messonnier, the CDC’s director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, was removed from her post as her agency’s coronavirus response head after sounding early alarms that Americans should begin preparing for “significant disruption” to their lives from a “severe illness.” The CDC held its last daily briefing on March 9-- a forum through which the nation would normally receive critical public health information-- in part out of a desire not to provoke the president.

...“We hope that science and the public health experts are leading the politicians, that their voices are in the foreground, and that the politicians follow their advice,” said Matt Seeger, who has researched crisis and emergency risk communication for the past 35 years at Wayne State University. “But in this case, the political agenda seems to be setting the agenda for the subject matter experts, which is exactly the opposite of the way we would expect to have this happen.”

Seeger, who has watched the daily White House briefings and said he has seen some of the administration’s health professionals speak in other forums, added that “it’s very clear the public health professionals have been self-censoring their statements.” They are, he added, “being very thoughtful and measured and probably adjusting their statements they don’t run the risk of running afoul of the political agenda. That’s very problematic.”

The White House dismissed the idea there was any undue pressure on public health officials from the president.

“Despite the media’s ridiculous efforts to somehow create distance between the president and his top health experts, it is simply fake news,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. “President Trump has relied on and consulted with Dr. Adams, Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Hahn, Dr. Redfield, and many others as he has confronted this unforeseen, unprecedented crisis and put the full power of the federal government to work to slow the spread, save lives, and place this great country on a data-driven path to opening up again.”

...On Wednesday, asked if health professionals are unable to speak freely in Trump’s administration, Fauci dismissed the suggestion, saying, “Here I am.”

Many public health experts, however, say they are frustrated at what they see happening during the daily briefings, with the scientists being sidelined. According to a Post analysis, since the federal guidelines were announced on March 16, Trump has spoken 63 percent of the time, compared with Birx at 10 percent and Fauci at 5 percent.

“For most of us in the field, there’s frustration with the dance that we’re seeing,” said Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. “Most of us in the field are incredibly frustrated that they are being put in that position, but also incredibly grateful that they are willing to do it.”

Trump also regularly tells visitors to the Oval Office that he is in touch with doctors in New York-- including his own-- and many others he knows personally.

Guidelines that were drafted by the CDC and Federal Emergency Management Agency for safely reopening the country were watered down by White House officials before they were published, officials say. A person involved in the White House revision of the guidelines, however, said the goal was simply to make them understandable to the public.

Thursday Congress was back in town, sane ones wearing masks and the Republican Party Death Cult refusing to. One top lunatic, Jim Jordan (R-OH) was seen by a reporter happily coughing at his colleagues. John Bresnahan and Sarah Ferris reported that the decision of whether or not to wear a mask is partisan. "A group of at least a dozen House Republicans," they wrote, "pointedly didn't wear masks during the House vote, even while hundreds of their colleagues-- and all but seemingly one Democrat-- were doing so. Their excuses for abstaining were flimsy. 'I didn’t want to take one from someone who needed it,' or 'I left mine in my office' were offered, if they didn’t run away from the question posed by reporters. The culture war happening throughout the United States over the coronavirus was also playing out on the House floor."

I spoke with Jamie Raskin (D-MD) this morning and he told me that "If Jim Jordan doesn’t want to wear a jacket in public, more power to him. That’s a personal fashion choice. But if he doesn’t wear a mask in public in the middle of this pandemic, that’s a dangerous public health decision he’s imposing on everyone else. And it’s a terrible example to set given that at least 25% of infected people are asymptomatic. Jordan’s decision to defy the recommendation of the Capitol physician is not a sign of personal bravery but of personal irresponsibility. If you want to show how brave and tough you are, go volunteer to work with the nurses and doctors. Go spend a week with the grocery clerks or drive a bus. If you have a mask at your disposal and you don’t wear it around other people, you’re just acting like a jerk and advertising it to the world. We wear masks to protect other people as well as ourselves, and that’s just a challenging concept for some right-wing Republicans who are acting like members of a deranged cult without any commitment to the national community. This little episode about masks is reflective of the general irresponsibility and malice which have infected the GOP’s response to the pandemic from the start. And now America has gone over 50,000 deaths and is rapidly approaching one million cases. And they throw a tantrum because they have to wear a mask in public settings. What a disgrace!"

I also spoke with Long Island Democrat Tom Suozzi, who also wore his mask both during the session and for the rest of the day. That's him pictured above on the LIRR on his way home from Washington. "I wore a mask all day yesterday," he told me, "traveling, walking around and in the chamber, but removed it when I spoke on House floor and was socially distant. I can’t fathom why some of my colleagues are refusing to wear a mask. Maybe they think they are being macho or independent. Maybe they are vain. Whatever the reason, it puts themselves and much more important, others, at risk. Bad call.

Will Trump Drag The House Republicans Down With Him?

A few hours after Dr. Trump's latest quack medical advise on Thursday, Good Morning Britain had a smirking Dr. Hilary on to speak to the scientific theories behind Dr. Trump's unique advise. "I've heard some crazy things in my life but this is probably one of the craziest-- to use a disinfectant and inject it into the human body is not only toxic and highly poisonous but would do no good whatsoever. It would cause inflammation of human tissues, and not touch the virus at all, which actually lives in human cells, not on the surface of them. So he is completely and utterly crazy to even suggest this... This is really worrying because in the States, they are heading for a catastrophe. We know that amongst the highest risks for serious consequences of COVID-19 are obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. And their population is rife with those conditions. They haven't got a proper lockdown; there are people rebelling against even the slightest forms of lockdown. And they're heading fro catastrophe."

Yesterday, the U.S. passed the 50,000 death mark and early next week will pass a million confirmed cases. On average an American state has 2,685 cases per million in the population. But in states were the virus already has a foothold, it is much worse than that:

• 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

And the next states headed right into that catastrophe zone include Pennsylvania, Illinois, Georgia, Maryland and South Dakota.

But speaking of the U.K., they're not doing that great either. Between Thursday and Friday, the U.S. saw 2,949 new cases, while Britain saw 5,386-- and their cases per million, now 2,113, is rapidly approaching the disastrous U.S. levels.

Meanwhile, Trump has some business interests in the British Isles. His company-- which is barred from requesting bailout money from the U.S.-- has requested bailout funds from the U.K. (and from Ireland) for his golf courses in Ayrshire and Aberdeenshire, Scotland and Doonbeg, Ireland.

When the House was back in session yesterday, it voted 212-182 to pass Jim McGovern's resolution establishing a new select committee to investigate how the Trumpist regime is spending the close to $3 trillion Congress has allocated for pandemic relief. Pelosi explained that the committee "will be laser-focused on ensuring that taxpayer money goes to workers paychecks and benefits and it will ensure that the federal response is based on the best possible science and guided by health experts-- and that the money invested is not being exploited by profiteers and price gougers." Every single Republican who showed up voted against it, including the 9 right-wing Republicans who Blue America is targeting this cycle-- Texans Michael McCaul and Roger Williams, Californians Ken Calvert and Doug LaMalfa, as well as Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Donald Bacon (R-NE), Jason Smith (R-MO), Fred Upton (R-MI) and crazy racist Steve King (R-IA).

Both the Texas candidates endorsed by Blue America-- Julie Oliver and Mike Siegel-- were horrified that several Texas Republicans were among the members of Congress refusing to wear masks, thereby endangering their colleagues, and then all voting against accountability for taxpayer money. Mike Siegel noted that "As Trump cronies loot the stimulus fund, McCaul not only looks the other way, he actively opposes oversight. As COVID-19 ravages the Texas 10th-- for example, killing 11 seniors in one nursing home in one tiny rural county-- McCaul won’t lift a finger to reopen rural hospitals or expand Medicaid in Texas. This is a guy who had the audacity to ignore the House Attending Physician and walk through the House without a mask, endangering his colleagues and projecting a terrible example for the nation. He’s a danger to his country and his constituents and must be replaced." That's McCaul yesterday, proudly not wearing a faced mask:

Julie Oliver's district is also partially in Austin, like Mike's, and her opponent, Roger Williams has his own self-serving interests to oppose oversight. "Mom and pop businesses in Texas," Julie told us, "are getting shut out of badly needed economic relief, the rent is due in a week, and people in Texas are hurting-- but Congressional Republicans are enabling the wealthy and the politically connected to make off with hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts. Those stimulus checks should be going straight into Texas families’ bank accounts-- not to big banks, debt collectors, or the donors to Roger Williams' re-election. We need real oversight."

Kathy Ellis is running for a seat in a sprawling, hard-pressed district in southeast Missouri. She told me that "It's clear why Jason Smith voted against this important resolution: He's not interested in accountability. This is how he's governed for years, taking millions from corporations and corporate interests only to spend taxpayer money on biased political mailers that he brands as constituent updates and pointless road trips throughout the District. He isn't interested in helping working people, and he certainly doesn't want us to be able to see clearly where this money is being spent. His corporate donors wouldn't want it this way."

"Once again," said Indiana progressive Jim Harper, "House Republicans are refusing to follow experts’ advice in order to score a cheap political point. Their stunt will not only endanger their colleagues and congressional staff, but it will also encourage their supporters to do the same. We need leadership in Congress, not conspiracy theories or political gamesmanship."