Twitter Distraction

Posted on by Thor

Twitter has had to add fact checking links to President Donald Trump‘s tweets about voting by mail. As the country has to come to terms with the loss of now over 100,000 people, the president is focused on just one thing, the upcoming election. He falsely claimed that voting by mail would be “substantially fraudulent.” He himself votes by mail but wants …. …. to stop others from doing the same during a global pandemic. Clicking on the link on Trumps post takes users to a Twitter “Moments” page titled, “Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.”

Trump has claimed he is a war time president and now that Twitter is fact checking him he has something to fight about. He is threatening to regulate or even shut down social media companies he feels are out to get him. The Associated Press pointed out that the president, does not have the power to “unilaterally regulate or close …. …. companies, which would require action by Congress or the Federal Communications Commission.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Tweeted, “There is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this.” He added that Twitter will “continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.” …. ….”This does not make us an “arbiter of truth.” Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions,” Dorsey wrote.

The White House is expected to issue an executive order that will curtail some of the legal protections for social media companies. As of this writing it is still being drafted. It is hard to imagine that the government can regulate a private publishing platform.

This is another Trump distraction. He will have another sheet of paper to wave around. It is more grandstanding instead of substance. Fact checking the lies of this president is a nightmarish situation to step into. The media has to daily fact check the presidents tweets but they have been dubbed “the enemy of the people.” Now Trump has a new…. …. enemy in his favorite social media platform.  As of April 14, 2020 the president has made 18,000 false or misleading claims according to the Washington Post.  I would much prefer that President focused his attention on listening to health experts and scientists during this health crisis, but that might be too much to ask.

While Trump is claiming Twitter is infringing on his freedom of speech, his campaign  organization tried to remove a political cartoon from an online site called Redbubble. The cartoon showed Trump serving his followers bleach from a tub using a ladle.  They claimed trademark infringement since the artist depicted the followers in MAGA hats. The cartoon was re-posted after the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and other free speech organizations got involved. This makes it seem like the Trump campaign has a system in place to trawl online for materiel they find objectionable. Cartoonist Michael de Adder tweeted that the Counterpoint political cartoonist Twitter account was suspended. The account went live again the same day, but their 10,000 or so followers all disappeared.

“The freedom of the Press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Governments.” – Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776

Republican National Convention

Posted on by Thor

Donald Trump has one thing on his mind and that is getting re-elected. He hasn’t been holding his political rallies, which stoke his ego, for months. As the death toll from Covid-19 neared 100,000 he threatened the governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, a Democrat, ahead of the 2020 Republican National Convention, that he might not hold the Republican National Convention in his state because the governor was “unable to guarantee” that the arena can be filled to capacity. The convention is expected to be held August 24 to 27, 2020.

Trump Tweeted, “Unfortunately, Democrat Governor, @RoyCooperNC is still in Shutdown mood and unable to guarantee that by August we will be allowed full attendance in the Arena. In other words, we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space.” The President’s calls for a “guarantee” overlooks the uncertainty surrounding the summertime levels of Covid-19 and the challenges of hosting a political convention in the middle of an ongoing public health crisis.

It is hard to imagine a more convenient super spreading event for the virus that a crowded convention. This politicization of the rush to re-open reminded me that the virus doesn’t care about red or blue. It just wanted to find people to infect. Over Memorial Day weekend pictures showed crowds of people practicing no social distancing as they crowded to beaches pools and parties. A huge stadium of adoring fans is precisely the thing that Trump must miss the most since the start of the pandemic. A nice round of golf is fine but a stadium of cheering fans is Trump’s wet  dream.

Immediately Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he supports moving the Republican National Convention to Florida. He said, The political convention would be great for Florida’s coronavirus-damaged economy as President Donald Trump has suggested moving the planned Republican convention out of North Carolina. Since he is lock step with Trump in the rush to re-open it makes see that he would not mind a huge Convention in the midst of a pandemic. DeSantis said numerous areas in Florida, Miami, Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville, could quickly organize a multi-day showcase. But he wouldn’t promote one area over another. I can not imagine a scenario in which a fully attended Republican National Convention could be done safely. There is no GOP safety plan in place. In response to Trumps threats, North Carolina Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen requested a written COVID-19 safety plan from the CEO of the Republican National Convention Monday. Before the pandemic, the RNC was expected to draw 50,000 or about half the number of people who have died from the virus.

CDC Bound and Gagged

Posted on by admin

Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are concerned that the Covid-19 pandemic is being driven by politics rather than the data and science needed to combat it. The decisions made by government officials rather than scientists have made the devastating reach of the pandemic worse. President Donald Trump was quoted as saying that having over 90,000 dead is a badge of honor rather than a horrific national tragedy. Staff inside the CDC have said the White house has stifled the agencies response to the virus. The white house is also limiting the agencies ability to provide health information to the public. A CDC official put it bluntly, “We’ve been muzzled.”

The work the agency is doing is filtered through a political lens. On March 2, 2020 a CDC internal report found that the virus was being spread locally in 29 countries. Two days later the number jumped to 85 countries. On March 5, 2020 three of the countries affected were in Europe. The CDC was preparing to issue a global travel alert to try and keep the virus from spreading to America. The alert would have urged precautions on all international travel. It was to be posted on the evening of March 5, 2020. The alert was delayed for unexplained reasons. When the White house was told about the spread of the virus in Europe they only wanted to focus on China and not anger Europe.

The CDC alert would not post until March 11, 2020 when Trump announced his restrictions on travel from Europe. Those 6 days were critical in bringing Covid-19 exposure to the east coast of the United States as Europeans flew in to New York. While passengers coming from China were checked, those coming from Europe went unchecked spreading the virus freely.

If the CDC had testing in place they could have found that there were likely cases to be found in America as early as January 2020. Had testing been wide spread at the time, they could have caught the infected people flooding in from Europe.

It would be nice if scientists from the CDC could have daily briefings to keep the Americans  informed, but instead we have a president who used the briefings to spew his ideas of injecting light into bodies and taking disinfectants to handle the virus. He has to be corrected at every turn and it would be nice if he just let the experts speak. In the past, the CDC provided important information at briefings to help keep the public safe. During an e coli outbreak in 2018 their investigators got to the root of the problem and offered solid, meaningful and blunt guidance on how to keep it from happening again. However the CDC is not offering the same blunt guidance today in the face of a pandemic.

The virus is spreading like wild fire in retirement homes, veterans hospitals, prisons, and meat packing plants. On May 14, 2020 it was reported that counties with or near meatpacking plants have almost twice the rate of known Covid-19 infections as the national average. Tyson Fresh Meats processing plant in Dakota City, Nebraska had a surge in Covid-19 infections among its 4300 workers. Local mayors were unable to get any answers as to how many cases of the virus are in the meat plant. Workers were not being tested. It was assumed that everyone was infected. Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska never issued stay at home orders.

The CDC did do an investigation at one of the first meat plant outbreaks in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. However the report isn’t as authoritative as past reports. Instead they offered recommendations that are not required or mandated by the organization. There were loose suggestions that the meat plant could implement if they “if they wanted.” Face masks were recommended but not required. The meat packing plant can easy decide that any CDC suggestions are “not feasible.” The president is of course insisting that all meat packing plants should remain open. So it would seem the CDC has softened its stance. As the “suggestions” are ignored, workers will die.

The White House needs to place blame for over 90,000 deaths.  White House trade adviser Peter Navarro publicly blamed the CDC for the testing failures in the United States. Navarro argued that the top health agency, under Dr. Robert Redfield, “let the country down” on testing. President Trump privately threw the CDC under the bus to Republican senators during a lunch on Capitol Hill. He praised his son in law, while blaming the CDC for botched testing. A senior CDC official said, “I would urge the President to understand that to prevent spread we must focus on containment and mitigation. He wants to focus on criticism. We will focus on the science, as we have done from the beginning.”

As of May 20, 2020 the CDC is reporting that 12,601,143 tests have been done with 1,699,375 positive tests reported. 93,533 Americans have died and the nations top Disease Control agency is being sidelined. As I write this, the World Health Organization reported106,000 new cases worldwide. This is the most cases in a single day since the pandemic began.

Deflagration

Posted on by Thor

Many are letting their guard down now that Donald Trump wants to open up the economy leaving governors the challenge of figuring out how to do that safely. Yet the virus is not slowing down. The number of people dying every day is in the thousands. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, warned senators Tuesday May 12, 2020  that states and cities face serious consequences if they open up too quickly, urging states not to reopen until they know they have the capabilities to handle an inevitable uptick in cases once they relax stay-at-home orders.

I am going to share some musings of Dr. Erin Bromage and link to his article should you want to read more. He is a PhD in Microbiology and makes no claims at being an expert in Covid-19, medicine, or preparedness. Though we may soon be reaching the peak of the curve of death that I check every night before I go to sleep, the downward slope of that curve is predicted to be gradual with deaths persisting for months. Assuming that states stayed in lock down, we would lose another 70,000 people over the next 6 weeks as we come off that peak. As states reopen fuel is added to the virus for it to spread.

In many cases people become infected in the home. One person leaves the home and then returns and the sustained contact with family spreads the infection. Some experts estimate that as few as 1000 SARS-CoV2 infectious viral particles needed to cause an infection.

Sine many will be returning to work the goal is to try to guide you away from situations of high risk. Grocery stores, bike rides, and inconsiderate runners who are not wearing masks are not necessarily areas of primary concern. The reason is that if there are viral particles, you are exposed for a brief period of time. A grocery store worker however could have sustained exposure over time.

Bathrooms are high risk exposure areas with a lot of high touch surfaces, door handles, faucets, stall doors. Of course a cough is high risk. A single cough releases about 3,000 droplets and droplets travels at 50 miles per hour. A single sneeze releases about 30,000 droplets, with droplets traveling at up to 200 miles per hour. Most droplets are small and travel great distances (easily across a room).
A single breath releases 50 – 5000 droplets. Though research has not been done a breath might release about 33 viral particles.
 
To become infected you need to be exposed to the virus over time. Some of the biggest outbreaks of the virus have been at meat packing plants, weddings, funerals, and business networking. A study of an asymptomatic person seated with 9 friends in a restaurant showed that 50% of the people at the table became infected along with 75% of the people at a downwind table. A single air conditioning unit recirculated the air in the room. Even 2 people upwind of the asymptomatic person became infected.
 
A case study of a workplace, had one infected employee come into a crowded call center with 216 employees. Over the period of a week, 94 of those people became infected. Primarily the people on one side off the office became infected while only a few were infected on the other side off the office. Working in an enclosed space, sharing the same air for a prolonged period increases your chances of exposure and infection.
A choir rehearsal in Washington state had 60 people in attendance. Members avoided handshakes and hugs and had their own sheet music. A single asymptomatic carrier infected most of the people in attendance. They sang for 2 1/2 hours, inside an enclosed rehearsal hall which was roughly the size of a volleyball court. Singing aerosolizes respiratory droplets extraordinarily well. I have been watching National Theater productions broadcast for free during the pandemic and the close ups on actors singing shows this spray of particles particularly well in the stage spotlighting. Over a period of 4 days, 45 of the 60 choir members developed symptoms, 2 died.
All these infection events were indoors, with people closely-spaced, with lots of talking, singing, or yelling. The main sources for infection are home, workplace, public transport, social gatherings, and restaurants. This accounts for 90% of all transmission events. Of the countries performing contact tracing properly, only a single outbreak has been reported from an outdoor environment. That means the painting I just posted is more fantasy than fact, but hey, its art. I’m just trying to wake up the complacent.
Know the risks, wash your hands, wear a mask to protect yourself and others and stay safe out there.

11 Secret Service Infected

Posted on by Thor

Anger raged through the White House when President Donald Trump found out that Cdvid-19 had seeded itself among his staff. He was “lava level mad.” Trump has complained to advisers that the numbers of deaths reported is too high. Apparently he will begin to blame hospitals for the high numbers. Despite his wanting to spin the numbers to benefit himself politically, the virus is hitting closer to home.

Trump relies on the Secret Service to keep him safe when he goes to rally’s and any public function. The Secret Service with 7,600 employees, provides personal protection for the president, vice president and their families, along with visiting heads of state. Now 11 Secret Service officers have tested positive for Covid-19.  60 Secret Service are now in self quarantine. It is as if they are taking the viral bullet for the POTUS. The assignment locations of the sick Secret Service agents were not identified.  For his own part, the POTUS refuses to wear a mask.

Katie Miller Vice President Mike Pence‘s press secretary has tested positive for the virus. She was seen an a photo speaking to reporters not wearing a mask. Mike Pence is maintaining distance from the president. If only we all could do that. White House staff work close together making social distancing impossible. Also when the president announced that the CDC was recommends that people wear face masks, he pointed out that it was voluntary and he would not be wearing a mask. His primary concern is opening up the country and getting the middle class and working class back to work. Being photographed wearing a mask he feels would send the wrong message as he sends people into the work force to face possible infection. He considers Americans expendable warriors in the fight to open up  the economy.

Besides Katie Miller, Trumps valet and Ivanka Trump‘s personal assistant contracted the virus. The valet personally has served the president his diet cokes. White house staff is now tested DAILY and any person who gets close to the president is always tested. Katie had been testing negative and then she tested positive. Trump seemed to think this implied that testing is useless but it takes time for a person to become infected. The virus builds up over time inside a person before it can be detected. The virus is easily spread when the person is still asymptomatic.

Dr. Anthony Fauci will begin a modified quarantine since he came in contact with Katie Miller. Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However the Vice President whom she serves will not be quarantining himself. Most white house staff are now being asked to wear masks. The POTUS and VP do not.

As the Trump administration urges Americans to return to workplaces and Donald Trump touts a “transition to greatness” (read transition to the after life), the White House is struggling to project business as usual even as Covid-19 cases spread through the halls.

At an outdoor press conference, Trump was asked why the White House staff is able to be tested daily when that is still not available for the American people. He balked at the at how the question was asked, and told the reporter that it’s a catch-22 and the White House would face criticism if senior officials weren’t frequently tested. “You know what, if we didn’t get the test, you’d be up complaining why aren’t you getting tests for the White House?” Trump said. “We can’t win.” Trump followed with, “It is shocking, given the number of people who come in and out of the White House every day, how few positive cases there have been. He added: “I’ve felt no vulnerability whatsoever.”

New York City has stopped the virus in it’s tracks, though several hundred still die every day, by isolating the population. NYC plans to re-open carefully while watching the data. If a recurrence in infections happens the valve will be dialed back.

Trumps rush to open up the rest of the county will result in needless deaths. Many states have not even begun to follow CDC guidelines for a safe recovery. He takes no responsibility leaving all the difficult choices to governors. He is ignoring the science to try and save his political career. What he should be trying to save is the American people. At least 43 states are now partially re-opened while the death toll rises. The CDC issued a comprehensive plan for states to re-open safely but the white house shelved that plan.

When asked by CBS reporter Weijia Jiang “Why he sees Coronavirus testing as a global competition, when more than 80,000 Americans are dead, he had a meltdown saying, “Ask China.” This came across an incredible racist since the reporter came to America when she was two years old from China. He abruptly ended the news conference rather than answer the question. The man is clearly unstable and unhinged. This is our “leader” turning his back on Americans in a time of crisis.

As of yesterday, 80,787 have died in America. The number of daily deaths is NOT slowing. We might be at or near the apex of the mountain but the downward slope will result in as many deaths and the hard climb up. By not social distancing the virus will have new fuel to spread.

Live and Let Die

Posted on by Thor

At a tour of a face mask factory, Donald Trump of course did not wear a face mask although the Honeywell company policy is that all employees must wear a face mask. All the executives who guided Trump on the tour had been tested for Covid-19. An employee of the factory who likely did not have the option to be tested as well, blared the song, Live and Let Die. Trump was oblivious to the irony pointing at the mask like a zombie sycophant. The week prior, Vice President Mike Pence didn’t  wear a face mask at the Mayo Clinic which has a strict policy that anyone in the facility must wear a mask. When asked why he did not wear a mask Pence admitted that he and anyone around him is always tested for Covid-19.

As Trump pushes to send workers back out in the midst of the pandemic, he is secure in the notion that he will remain safe because he is tested often while everyday Americans are not being tested. His new press secretary dismissed the idea of testing for everyone. As she said, “If we tested every single American at this moment, we would have to re-test them an hour later, and an hour later after that, because at any moment you could theoretically contract this virus, so the notion that everyone needs to be tested is simply nonsensical.” So Trump  is tested often as are the people around him while you frankly are shit out of luck.

This week, Trump’s valet and Pence’s Press Secretary tested positive for the virus. The president had a fit that his staff had allowed the virus to get so close to him while he shakes hands with everyone he meets.  The president and Vice president were re-tested and came up negative. Since members of the president’s staff were infected, the entire staff should be quarantining, but the president has decided he is above that mandate. He is traveling the country as usual looking for photo opportunities at things like the Honeywell face mask factory.

Trump has it “all under control.” He will open the economy at any cost and that cost is the deaths of thousands of more Americans. He and his cronies will be isolated and safe while he sends the working class to their deaths. There is no plan to safely open the economy. He wants to live while you die. Trump will cause mass preventable deaths. The only goal of this country should be to beat the virus. His only goal up until now seemed to be to build a wall and he is only able to build a wall of death.

He disbanded the Covid-19 task Force because he lost interest in it, but then decided to keep it since it was so popular. We are on the brink of mass genocide because our president is not able to listen to experts and is only concerned with his ratings. Someone should explain to him that his ratings will drop as people die. As he put it, “The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors.” This coming from a man who dodged the draft. You are expendable as Trump wants to fire up the economy safely from his bunker in the White House.

Other countries like New Zealand, and South Korea, have suppressed their Covid-19 outbreaks acted early, testing aggressively while isolating cases, and tracing their contacts. South Korea had its first case the same day as America. Here over 25,000 new cases are identified each day while there only 10 new cases are found each day. We are living a nightmare fueled by incompetence and indifference. The rich will self isolate to survive while the middle class and poor are cannon fodder for the economy.

Grim Reaper

Posted on by Thor

Lawyer Daniel Uhlfelder has been going to Florida beaches dressed as the grim reaper. As he said, “I think it is premature that we open our beaches. I think the danger of bringing people here to our area and spreading the virus is going to prolong the recovery we have. It is too soon and not appropriate.”  “The grim reaper represents death. This is a deadly virus. It’s a global pandemic,” he said in a televised news broadcast. By visiting Florida beaches he is shaming the behavior of congregating on the beaches. The experience was not entirely pleasant. Uhlfelder says he was heckled on the beach: people took photos of him, called him a jerk and some other, more unpleasant names too. “We aren’t at the point now where we have enough testing, enough data, enough preparation for what’s going to be coming to our state from all over the world from this pandemic,” the lawyer told CNN.

Most people have reacted positively to the stunt and Uhlfelder says he is happy that his dry sense of humor has cut through in landscape when some of the loudest voices have been anti-shutdown protesters carrying guns. He just hopes his protest empowers others to do the same

As a child visiting the beach I used to love digging in the sand and even loved getting buried up to my neck in sand. This love of digging in the sand suddenly reminded me of mass graves being dug in Brazil. Graves diggers are struggling to keep up with the demand to bury bodies while Brazil’s leader Jair Bolsonaro claimed the virus is a “little flu,” much like our own President. At first graves were dug individually. Caskets would arrive every 5 minutes with the caskets lowered in by ropes. Five minutes later another family would enter the area to bury their loved one.

These individual burials had to be changed into on large trench dug by back hoes where the caskets would be stacked and then covered as families stood around the edge of the large trench. This has become “the only option” because it is “humanly impossible” to dig the required number of graves, says Manue Viana, who runs a funeral company and is president of the Syndicate of Funeral Businesses in Amazonas. According to Viana, the city’s daily average of deaths has risen from 30 to more than 100. The mayor’s office confirmed to NPR that there have been 340 burials just in the past three days.

Cemeteries and hospitals have been overwhelmed by a surge in the number of deaths, most of which are not registered in official Covid-19 statistics because of a lack of testing and bureaucratic delays. A Brazilian funeral director said simply, “We are living through a nightmare.”

With states in America being encouraged to open up by President Trump, a new study said that Covid-19 deaths in the United States will rise to more than 3,000 a day by June 1, 2020, with new confirmed cases surging to about 200,000 daily. Trump has called Americans warriors as he sends them out to face the grim reaper.

Return to Slaughter

Posted on by Thor

During the Covid-19 pandemic meat packing plants became hot beds for the spread of the virus. These outbreaks affected dozens of plants, leading to closures of some factories and disruption of others, and posed a significant threat to the meat supply in the United States. As of May 1, nearly 5,000 packing plant workers in 115 facilities, in 19 states had fallen ill, and 20 had died. Meat packing plants are notoriously known for having poor working conditions with everyone working close together on the disassembly line cutting meat.

Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota had an outbreak that had 600 employees who tested positive for the virus. On April 12, 2020 Smithfield Food closed its plants to stop the rampant spread of the virus. Hundreds of federal meat inspectors have also been exposed to Covid-19, as the virus outbreak spread to thousands of workers at processing plants across the country.

On April 28, 2020 President Donald Trump, who loves MacDonald Hamburgers, used the Defense Production Act to insist meatpacking plants to remain open. The order requiring plants to remain open will threaten the health of workers returning to work after the plants closed last week because of the Covid-19 outbreak. The executive order named such plants “critical infrastructure,” but did not include a specific order for them to remain open. Trump’s order also seeks to shield meat companies from legal liability if they are sued by employees who contract COVID-19 while on the job. What s needed is a robust, continuous testing infrastructure for workers and their families, but that has not been put in place. It has been reported that some employers have failed to provide face masks and are not consistently offering personal protective equipment (PPE) to non-management employees. What’s more, many slaughterhouse employees are not guaranteed sick pay for COVID-19-related illness or premium pay for working extra hours in hazardous conditions.

Trump’s production act is considered by some to be a paper-thin proclamation with limited legal effect. At least seven Covid-19 affected meatpacking plants have shut their doors since the April 28th executive order. That’s in line with the average of eight weekly plant closures in the month leading up to the order.

What happens to the animals now that meatpacking plants close?  The hard fact is that they will not live an idyllic life in open fields. The industrial scale farms have no place to send their cows, pigs and chickens so their facilities are becoming overcrowded by the glut of animals. Farmers are choosing to either starve the animals or kill them on mass. Millions of animals are being slaughtered and left to decompose. It is an orgy of waste.

Daybreak Foods used carbon dioxide to kill 61,000 egg laying hens in Minnesota. Others have covered flocks in foam which suffocates them. Another method has been to shut off ventilation and allow the animals to died from the heat build up. Pigs are being killed by gun shots, electrocution and blunt force trauma also known as “thumping” where baby pigs are slammed head first into the ground. By a conservative estimate 2 million animals have been killed.

This then creates another problem. What can be done with all the decomposing carcasses? Rendering plants can turn some animal mass into dog food or fertilizer but these plants are also closing down or working at a limited capacity due to the virus. Disposal in land fills requires leak proof trailers with absorbent liners. Burial requires adherence to state and federal water protection regulations. Open pit burning has health costs due to dangerous particulate matter. These kinds of ultimate solutions have not been used since World War II. This is a nightmare of a situation where life of any kind is considered expendable in the rush to open the economy.

Despite growing evidence that the pandemic is still raging, President Trump and other administration officials said on Tuesday May 5, 2020, that they had made so much progress in bringing it under control that they planned to wind down the Coronavirus Task Force in the coming weeks and focus the White House on restarting the economy.

How much is a life worth?

At the Feet of Lincoln

Posted on by Thor

Donald Trump spoke with several Fox News hosts inside the Lincoln Memorial about the Covid-19 pandemic. The White House had Interior Secretary David Bernhardt relax the rules to allow the interview inside the memorial. The original plan was to have the interview on the steps outside the memorial but Donald wanted to be at the feet of the giant inside. As he said, “I don’t think it’s ever been done, what we’re doing tonight, here, and I think it’s great for the American people to see, this is a great work of art, aside from the fact that that was a great man, this is a great work of art.” It would seem that for Trump, the appearance of things is more important than any facts. He is ever the reality show star. However this setting made it clear that this is a tiny man making desperate attempts to seem presidential.

He clearly staged this interview with this air-headed thought in mind, “They always said Lincoln — nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.” He went on to blame the media, China, Obama, Biden, and State Governors for his short comings. He praised protestors who are spreading the virus.

Trump said, “Look, we’re going to lose anywhere from 75,000, 80,000 to 100,000 people.” He put on his doctors cap to explain, “It — it infects — if you have any problem, heart, diabetes, even a little weak heart, a little diabetes, then, look, this thing is vicious, and it — it can take you out. And it can take you out very strongly.”

Jared Kushner said in an interview that the government rose to the challenge and that this is a great success story. Trump tried to follow that line of reasoning by saying, “That’s one of the — if you call losing 80,000 or 90,000 people successful, but it’s one of the reasons that we’re not at that high end of the plane, as opposed to the low end of the plane.” He pointed out, “We we’re winning bigger than we’ve ever won before.” I guess it is true, in that America has the highest death toll of any country in the world. Maybe that is Trumps idea of winning.

So much of this human suffering could have been mitigated had the president taken the virus seriously. Sadly any time I write down the number of deaths in America it is instantly outdated. To date 72,002 people have died from this virus. Funeral directors can not keep up with the number of bodies. They are stored on ice in rental trucks or they are stored in cardboard boxes marked “Handle with care” each propped up on two chairs and strapped onto a wooden palette with a zip tie. The head is noted much like any “This side up” that you might see on a box. A decorative Greek wreath is also at the head of each box.  each Loved ones are unable to say good by in the hospital. With this virus, you die alone.

Families suddenly out of work, are unable to afford the cost of the funerals. People have to resort to GoFundMe pages to try and raise enough to bury their loved ones. The federal government could pay for burials for those who have died. After past tragedies like hurricanes, the government has stepped in to handle burial costs. However Donald Trump refuses to release federal funds for those who have fallen. In past tragedies the government payed out $2,700 for each families funeral expenses. Where the government to pay families that amount it would cost about 195 million dollars. The administration dolled out 500 billion for big business, tens of billions for the airline industry, tens of billions for a luxury hotel in Atlanta. Helping to bury the dead is a basic core measure of human dignity. For what is supposed to be the greatest country in the world, it is the least we can do. Trump will not do it. He does not need congress to make this happen, he just needs to authorize FEMA to release the money.

Instead the president is rage tweeting in the middle of the night. He thinks he and his administration has done a great job. He feels “Our deaths per million are really very strong.” What is happening in America is a nightmare. While many grieve, the president wants to reopen the country with not enough testing to find out who has the virus. As many states began to reopen their economies a new internal report from the Trump administration predicts that will come at a cost: There could be 200,000 new Covid-19 cases and 3,000 deaths EVERY day by the end of May. This study reflects “changes in mobility and social distancing policies.”

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
― Abraham Lincoln