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

The Roving Ambassador To European Fascism Is An Iowa Congressman, Popular With His Ignorant Constituents

American fascist scum

Are there any full-on, real-life fascists in the House? Iowa just reelected one 61.4-38.6%. The biggest and least densely populated district in the state, IA-04 (Sioux City, Mason City, Ames and lots of farmland in between) gave Trump 60.9% of it's vote to Trump. They were even more enthusiastic about their longtime congressman-- since 2002-- Steve King, widely considered the most outspoken hate monger and bigot in Congress. In 2010, we asked our readers to pick the worst member of Congress. Unsurprisingly, Steve King was one of the finalists. King has been an icon of everything that's gone wrong with the Republican Party and it's slide into neo-fascist, ignornace-based dogma. His career-long ProgressivePunch score is 2.49 (out of 100); that's a shocking record of voting against the interests of the people who have voted him into office and against working families across America. So far this year, his crucial vote score is zero.

But he's been doing more than just voting badly. He's Congress' and the Republican Party's unofficial ambassador-at-large to the European fascist parties, cultivating relationships with the neo-Nazi parties all over Die alte Welt-- espaecially Islamophobes.

The Congressman --  who is infamous for accusing child asylum seekers of smuggling drugs into the U.S., keeping a confederate flag at his desk, and asking what contributions nonwhite people have made to society — has been openly forming political partnerships and personal friendships with a wide array of leaders on Europe’s xenophobic and populist right. Among his stated acquaintances are members of populist and nativist parties from Austria, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

King’s collusion with fringe right wingers, including many holding anti-Muslim beliefs, should come as little surprise. This is the same man who once said that Islam is incompatible with American values and called for the government to spy on American mosques.

King was recently seen palling around with the leaders of Austria’s Freedom Party. The Freedom Party, founded by a former SS officer in 1956, ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Austrian presidency last month. King tweeted out his condolences to Norbert Hofer, the Freedom Party’s candidate, at the time.

“The cause of freedom and our friendship remain,” he wrote. “Onward!”

But Hofer is just one of King’s many friends on the European far right.

The Iowa congressman also hosted noted Islamophobic Dutch politician Geert Wilders in Washington, D.C. in April 2015. Wilders, leader of the Netherlands’ Freedom Party (sensing a theme here?), is riding the international populist wave and could grasp victory in his country’s elections this March. Wilders has frequently and openly expressed a willingness to stem immigration--  particularly Muslim immigration--  to the Netherlands; among his myriad anti-Muslim statements are gems like, “the right to religious freedom should not apply to Islam.”

At a rally in 2014, Wilders asked a crowd: “In the Netherlands, do you want more or fewer Moroccans?”

“Fewer! Fewer! Fewer!” the crowd in the Dutch city of The Hague replied.

“Then I’ll arrange it,” Wilders said at the time. He was later tried and found guilty for discrimination and inciting hatred.

King was recently spotted meeting with Wilders alongside another far right-wing politician, Frauke Petry. Petry leads the Alternative for Germany party (AfD)--  an anti-immigrant party that reminds some in the country of the Nazi party. The New Yorker described the AfD as Germany’s “most successful nationalist phenomenon since the Second World War.”

In October, King met with Marine Le Pen--  a far right party leader in France who has had a surge in popularity in recent weeks and is considered a real contender in the French presidential election, set to take place in May. Le Pen is running on a platform opposing immigration and has repeatedly stoked fear of Islam to bolster support for her campaign.

King was the first elected American official to publicly meet with Le Pen, and the two are set to meet again, this time in Washington, D.C. in January.

Le Pen tweeted in October that she had an “interesting exchange” with King on France, the U.S., and international affairs.

Although King’s outreach to the European far right is exceptional, he’s not the only American politician currently trying to establish ties with leaders such as Hofer and Le Pen. Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the Austrian Freedom Party, said in December that he had met with President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. At the time, Trump’s transition team described the report as “fake news.”

And top Trump adviser Steve Bannon, now a member of the president’s National Security Council, turned Breitbart Media into a platform for boosting the European far right when he was the publication’s chief executive.

In December, Iowa Farmer Today published a shocking story about how King's constituents are committing suicide at the highest rate in history.

We tend to think of the 1980s as the most prominent mental health emergency in rural communities, marked by high rates of suicide and violence.

The events of the farm crisis were serious enough to mobilize statewide and national resources. For example, the Rural Concern Hotline, now the Iowa Concern Hotline (1-800-447-1985), was started as a direct response to help farm families experiencing economic and mental health challenges during this period.

The National Farm Medicine Center in Marshfield, Wis., tracked farm suicides during the 1980s in the Upper Midwest, the region most affected by the farm crisis, to try to better understand the relationships between the farm economy and suicide.

They found that 913 male farmers in the region committed suicide during that decade, with rates peaking in 1982 at 58 suicides for every 100,000 male farmers and ranchers.

Rates among the general population were around 31 suicides per 100,000 white males over the age of 20 during that same time period.

Compare that with this year’s CDC report, which found that current national suicide rates for people working in agriculture are 84.5 per 100,000 overall, and 90.5 per 100,000 among males. This means that suicide rates among male farmers are now more than 50 percent higher than they were in 1982, at the peak of the farm crisis.

...While some may appear to be depressed or uninterested in activities, others may be more irritable and prone to anger or rage or show signs of anxiety.

Suicide rates among farmers are now higher than any other occupation, and even higher than they were at the height of the farm crisis.

That also describes typical Hate Radio listeners, Fox News viewers  Trump voters and supporters of Steve King. It's not a coincidence. By its very nature, fascism is a high anxiety state and drives large numbers of people to despair and suicide. Steve King is the wrong man for Iowa's 4th Congressional District.

Assisted-Suicide Legislation Fails In Britain But Passes In California

There are a lot of routine questions you get asked-- sometimes over and over and over-- by hospital staff. When I first started going to City of Hope to get treated for cancer, one of the questions they asked everyone every time you walked into an office is if you had been to West Africa in the last couple of months. I said "no" every time and so did everyone else. Once I told the sleepy clerk I had been in Mali and he ignored me. (I had been there a couple of years earlier, pre-whatever the disease is they were worried about; funny that I can't even remember now.) 

Another question they would ask, although in a more serious medical way, when they took your vital signs, is if you had thoughts of suicide. I always said no. I never had.

Eventually-- as the chemo, which is cumulative in effect, started taking over-- I did sometimes want to talk with someone, like Roland or Digby or my sister, if it was worth it. Was going through the treatment the right decision? I didn't know it would be so bad, so painful, so debilitating. Would I ever get better? If I did, would my life me so impaired that it wouldn't be worth living? The neuropathy, nerve damage and a side effect of Velcade, one of the chemo drugs, sometimes never goes away. Would it be worth living? Sometimes I wasn't sure-- like when I went blind one day. That was temporary, but I had no way of knowing that at the time. Or when I couldn't walk-- also temporary, but again, who knew? I felt I had had a rich, wonderful, blessed and joyful, full life. Did I need to torture myself with barbaric treatments that could leave me a wreck?

A lot of the time I was on heavy drugs and could barely think straight. And chemo-brain is... very real, real enough so that you don't know what is real and what you imagined. Did Michael come visit me in the hospital, or did I just dream it? How would I know without embarrassing us both by asking him?

I'm glad I didn't go down a path that led to suicide. The treatment was the right thing -- even though the neuropathy is still with me and I have no way of knowing what the future holds. But while I was questioning my decisions, I found out that gigantic numbers of our parents do opt to end it on their own terms. I never knew that my sisters helped our mother escape the torment of terminal cancer. And when I told one of my best friends, he told me that he had done the same thing for his mom, and that it isn't as uncommon as I imagined.

The big news out of Britain yesterday was awesome. Labour had elected Jeremy Corbyn leader-- the furthest of the four candidates from centrist shill Tony Blair. But for many Britons there was much more profound news-- and it was really bad. The House of Commons had voted 330-118 against right-to-die legislation meant to allow some terminally ill adults to end their lives with medical supervision. 74% of MPs voted against this bill, compared with 72% back in 1997.

Under the proposals, people with fewer than six months to live could have been prescribed a lethal dose of drugs, which they had to be able to take themselves. Two doctors and a High Court judge would have needed to approve each case.

Although the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said the bill would mean that suicide was "actively supported" instead of being viewed as a tragedy, one of his predecessors, George Carey, backed assisted dying, saying that there's nothing dignified about experiencing pain at its most awful. And while the Royal College of Nursing is neutral on the issue, the British Medical Association, the doctors' union, opposes all forms of assisted dying. PM David Cameron opposed the bill. Polling, though, shows that as many as 82% of Britons support assisted dying. 

The news on this front was much better from California, where late Friday night the state legislature passed a bill legalizing medically assisted suicide. If Governor Brown signs the bill, physicians will be allowed to prescribe life-ending drugs to Californians diagnosed as having less than six months to live. Co-author Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis): "Californians want us, the Legislature, to act to eliminate the needless pain and prolonged suffering of those who are dying." It passed 23-14, only one Democrat voting with the Republicans against it.

Four states-- Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont-- already allow physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to some patients... Brown has given little indication of his intentions.

The California bill is modeled on the law in Oregon, with several notable changes. The California law would expire after 10 years and have to be reapproved, and doctors would have to consult in private with the patient desiring to die, as part of an effort to ensure that no one would be coerced to end his or her life-- a primary concern for opponents of the law.

Leaders of the “death with dignity” movement said they hoped the passage of the California law could be a turning point.

“It allows for individual liberty and freedom, freedom of choice,” said Mark Leno, a Democrat from San Francisco who compared the issue to gay marriage.

Since Oregon approved the country’s first assisted-suicide law in 1997, supporters have struggled to expand their reach, amid opposition from religious groups, some medical organizations and lawmakers whose skepticism crosses party lines.

“I’m not going to push the old or the weak out of this world,” Senator Ted Gaines, a Republican, said on the floor. “I think that could be the unintended consequence of this legislation.”

...[B]ackers of the bill have discussed bringing the issue to the voters through a ballot measure if Mr. Brown vetoes it. A Gallup poll this year found that nearly 70 percent of Americans support physician-assisted suicide, up 10 percentage points from last year.