suffering

Take This Personally


Immigration, kids in cages, refugee camps, asylum seekers – these are some of the terms that are at last being taken seriously. We’re finally looking into what is and has been driving so many people to our southern border. We’re actively looking to see what we can do to make life better in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where most of these hopefuls come from, so that more of their people will want to stay home. That’s all good and right, but we Americans aren’t monolithic in our views toward immigrants. Not surprisingly, I have my own views.

Last year I wrote about this issue and since this is a time of renewal, at least horticulturally, and for some spiritually and religIously, I’m offering another look at that. Please take this personally.

Have We Forgotten?

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If you scratch at the story of nearly any American you won’t have to go very deep – usually no more than 4 or 5 generations back – to find immigrants. And those immigrants not so many years back were not royalty. They weren’t the moneyed elite. They weren’t the connected and the powerful.

Elizabeth Warren was right when she said that our business leaders, our entrepreneurs, didn’t build it by themselves. They got their education because we all funded it. They’re able to find skilled new employees today for the same reason. Their supplies and their goods go to and from their shops on roads we all paid for and their toilets flush because we all got together and decided to build sanitation facilities. The list of the facets of infrastructure, education, incentives and opportunities no one person built is very long. The point is that we support one another and none of us makes it solely on his/her own.

Back to your ancestors. They didn’t make it on their own, either. They didn’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps alone; someone gave them a job. Or someone gave them credit to buy a pushcart and fill it with apples. Let that stand as a metaphor for however the story of your far-better circumstances began.

At the Passover Seder a message near the end of the service reminds us that the longing and search for freedom is never-ending and that it is the responsibility of each of us to do our part to bring about freedom for all.

Here’s another take on that same theme. Jesus said “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). The imperative across religions is remarkably consistent: It is our duty to help others, especially the poor and the stranger.

We are in this world and this life together and irrespective of anyone’s sense of rugged individualism, we are interdependent. We are all called upon to care for one another – we are, indeed, our brother’s keeper.

The next time you hear someone denigrating “those others” as though they are somehow different from and less than “us,” like the immigrants some fear; or when you hear about keeping refugee mothers and babies and bedraggled girls and boys and men from our shores or in cages; or you learn of those who are refused refuge from violence; or you hear the voices rise to block anything that might mitigate the voicelessness of the disenfranchised; when any of that happens, remember that the victims are mostly poor people, like your ancestors. They’re like those who fled serfdom or rape and murder or a potato famine or pogroms or despots of any stripe. Couple that with the imperatives that come to us through the millennia.

We are cautioned at the Passover Seder: “Remember, you were slaves in the land of Egypt.” That isn’t some metaphorical or impersonal “you;” it means you. It’s where you and your people came from, exactly as it is for the poor and the strangers among us now. Have we forgotten who we are and where we came from?

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YouTube

We have social media challenges and they aren’t the simple questions we wish they were. They are complex and our decisions on how to deal with them may have unintended consequences that are dire. Some things, though, are simple enough.

Quoting Common Cause,

“Ahead of the 2020 election, YouTube implemented a policy forbidding videos that mislead voters or encourage interference in our democratic process. But Trump posted video after video with baseless — and as we saw on January 6th, dangerous — lies about the election, all while YouTube looked the other way.

“After the horrific attack at our Capitol, YouTube did finally suspend Trump’s account — but all of his old videos are still up for people to watch and share. Plus, CEO Susan Wojcicki has said that Trump’s suspension will be lifted once “the risk of violence has decreased.

“Sign the Petition: Trump has proven to be an ever-present danger to the American people and our democracy. YouTube must permanently ban him from its platform.“

Please click and sign. It’s really easy. And it’s really important.

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

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  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

E Pluribus Unum


Perhaps you heard that in the face of the Texas winter nightmare Republican Governor Greg Abbott blamed the breakdowns and suffering on the Green New Deal. Of course, the GND is only an idea; nothing has been done to create its physical reality, so Abbott’s pronouncements were most perplexing. Besides, the wind and solar renewables that have been in Texas for years kept working as the fossil fuel plants shut down. His gubernatorial leadership seemed rather QAnon-ish and unhelpful.

Former Republican Texas Governor and former head of the Department of Energy Rick Perry said that “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.” He also said that the current disaster shows that we have to double down on burning natural gas.

Perry made these claims even as climate scientists explained that the jet stream was altered by global warming and that the resulting redirection drove the frigid air that far south, all the way to Texas and northern Mexico. It’s incontrovertible that burning more gas won’t prevent the next arctic blast and it’s unlikely Texans want to experience yet more days without power. Like Governor Abbott, former Governor Perry’s comments were detached from reality and notably unhelpful at a time when help was needed.

“Don’t mess with Texas” is an attitude of fierce independence and pride in the Lone Star state and those politicians have used that attitude as their political tool. But the experts have made it clear that this stand-alone bravado and a mania for deregulation are key drivers of the Texas lack of preparedness for cold weather and the suffering it spawned this month.

In the face of our obvious interdependence, neither Texas nor, indeed, any part our country can go it alone in facing our deepest, most difficult challenges. It’s time to get over our self-puffing swagger, our self-serving pronouncements and leave the failed policies and attitudes behind.

We cannot “burn natural gas” our way out of our power and climate messes. We cannot “deny medical care” our way to health. We cannot “austerity” ourselves out of poverty. We cannot bootstrap ourselves out of natural disasters. We cannot suppress our way to security. We cannot hate our way into patriotism. It’s time – really, long past time – to deal with reality.

One reality is that everyone likes the idea of small government and low taxes. The companion reality is that we like that first reality only until the moment when disaster hits and we have to pull together. It’s called government. The Commons. It’s how we band together to do the things we cannot do alone. It’s why impoverishing government ultimately doesn’t work for us.

Philosopher and heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” That’s when the old plan shows its weaknesses and we realize that we are in a fight for our lives and that we’re in it together. That’s when we drop the pretenses and get about doing what we should have been doing all along.

Like aggressively fighting Covid-19.
Like rebuilding our infrastructure before everything falls apart.
Like admitting that we really need some things to be regulated.
Like standing up to bullies.
Like ending our ongoing un-civil war.
Like educating all of our young.
Like preparing for a tomorrow that is going to look very different from our yesterday.
Like acknowledging that not everything is a zero-sum game.
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That means that we must be an E Pluribus Unum, because without it we are self-defeating. Just ask anyone on our Gulf Coast who has dealt with frequent and ever-more powerful hurricanes, or any former homeowner in the burned out wreckage of California, or survivors of the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007 or most any Texan right now,

Our being composed of such large numbers of people today make the E Pluribus Unum part difficult, because we humans are more comfortable in small numbers. But we’ve solved that puzzle before, once at our beginning and at other times since then, and we can do it again.

All we have to do is to deal with reality like an E Pluribus Unum.

From ES:

We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box. – Robert Fulghum.

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American Idolatry at CPAC

Click me

People are bowing before a golden image of Trump at CPAC. It is the ultimate graven image of our time, today’s Biblical-political tale of debauchery and willful human debasement. That kind of idol worship over the last 4 years got us January 6. And now these people have their real Golden Calf to worship. The irony for Evangelicals is just too crazy.

This time for sure!

Said Mark Twain, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.” Here it is again in perfect verse.

I don’t anticipate divine intervention to halt the CPAC worship perversion, but there was that one time at the foot of Mt. Sinai  .  .  .

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To the attendees at CPAC

You booed the woman calling for wearing face masks and shouted “Freedom!” in protest of her outrageous proposal to suppress virus transmission. What was she thinking?

Hold tight to your liberty to refuse to wear a mask. Breathe, cough and sneeze to the point of hypoxia in your asymptomatic self-certainty. Exercise your freedom by sharing your disease with your family and friends.

Just keep your cooties the hell away from me and everyone else who knows they have the freedom to not be infected by you. Freedom!

And no, I won’t visit you in the hospital when that respirator is shoved down your throat. Neither will anyone else. You’ll have the freedom to die alone.

Random Fact of the Week

Barbie Doll’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Now you have all you need for a fulfilling and meaningful life.

Many thanks to grandson JG and his Fact of the Day calendar for that.

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Pop Quiz For Republican Senators


Answers are required for all questions.

Hints for conservatives are provided. Easy questions come first.

Impeachment – Second Chance to Get This Right

Since the beginning of his candidacy in 2015 the disgraced former president stoked violence against those who opposed him, including a continuation of his cavorting in the swamp of racism. He urged violence on protesters at his rallies, even guaranteeing legal fees for those who violently attacked protesters.

He began dog whistles to mob violence long before the November 3 election by claiming the only way he could lose is if the “election is rigged.” He went on to whine about fraud in nearly every public statement for months, but it was fraud that did not and does not exist. That was made abundantly clear by the judicial rejection of the over 60 lawsuits he brought.

He warned ominously that if he didn’t win he and his followers would be cheated. He fired off flare after flare of victimization of his followers to ignite their rage. He threatened them with loss of “their country” if they didn’t act forcefully. He told his followers there would be a big protest in DC on January 6, to be there, that “It will be wild” because “something” was going to happen. It was an only slightly vague message of “We’re going to show our muscle and take over the country.”

Of course, he didn’t explicitly say that last. Recall that Michael Cohen testified before Congress that Trump speaks in code like a Mafia don. So, he didn’t tell his rabid followers to go to the Capitol Building, trash it and find legislators, especially Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, and kill them. Instead, he called them to DC, promising a big event. He wailed about fraud and how his followers had been cheated for so long. He told them to march to the Capitol Building and “fight like hell or you won’t have a country any more.”

After months of inciting rage, he set his angry mob loose, directing them to the Capitol Building to fight like hell. And they did.

When such a thing is done in a Central American or Eastern European country it’s called an attempted coup.

Everyone knows all of that, including the Republican Senators and Representatives who could have been killed if Trump’s mob had found them. That leads to the next questions for Republican Senators who are yet to vote on the charge identified as House Resolution 232-197, Impeachment of Donald John Trump for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Incitement of Insurrection:

What is your resistance to convicting this traitor on the charge of inciting a murderous riot and insurrection – sedition? Recall that you witnessed it, so there’s no question about guilt. (Hint: There is nothing conservative in allowing someone to get away with sedition.)

Seven people are dead due to Trump’s treachery and hundreds are injured. Do you not care because it wasn’t you who got beaten by the weaponized staffs of American flags?

Is this all about you and your political career, such that the “preserve, protect and defend” part of your oath of office is secondary to the demands of your radical base and your selfish prospects for re-election?*

Republican Senator, maybe you’re a believer in an afterlife. Based on many of your past actions you just might be concerned about significant heat following your demise. You still have a little time to do what is right before the very worst thing happens. It’s worth considering. All that’s at stake for you is eternity.

So,

In this impeachment trial, what will you do? (Hint: There is nothing conservative about letting traitors get away with it.**)

Last question:

Do you smell something burning? Perhaps a sulfurous smell? It might be very close to you.

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Quotes of the Week

From motivational speaker Les Brown:

“You have to know what you stand for, or you’ll fall for anything.”

From Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and author of “On Tyranny”:

“If tyrants feel no consequences for their actions  .  .  .  nothing will change.”

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History Lesson of the Week

2017, Charlottesville, VA

White supremacists and neo-Nazis amassed in a rally of hate, where counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed – run over by an automobile driven by one of those white supremacists. The President of the United States told us there were “very fine people on both sides” and expressed nothing for Heather Heyer. He faced no consequences for coddling hate groups.

January 6, 2021, Washington, DC

White supremacists and neo-Nazis amassed in a rally of hate at the Capitol Building, where seven people died. The President of the United States told us that the insurrectionists were patriots. These are the very same people who vandalized the Capitol Building, symbol of our country, and threatened to kill congresspeople and the Vice President. They killed one cop and injured 140 more. Trump expressed nothing for the dead and injured cops. He said he is proud of the rioters and that they are very special. He has been impeached, but the Republicans in the Senate are threatening to refuse to convict him for his obvious crime.

Refusing to hold wrongdoers accountable inevitably leads to far worse behavior and ever-more dangerous outcomes. History is replete with examples of this and if we fail in our duty now there will be a worse megalomaniac in our future and we will not be able to prevent the death of our democracy at the hands of an enraged mob, incited by one who hates what we say we hold dear. We ignore the lesson of history at our inevitable peril.

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*To decide whether this is a sound course, be sure to read Ira Leavitt’s “Can Republicans Still Hit the Curve Ball?“

**Just wondering if you remember the good old days, when Republicans were unbending in protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States. They were fierce in their loyalty to country. So,

Do you remember?

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Proper Names


Trump has abandoned nearly all presidential duties since November 3. What’s missing from this list?

Reading time – 3:29  .  .  .

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name. – Confucius

The Crash occurred in October of 1929 during Herbert Hoover’s first year as President. He had been successful in business and had held several high level government posts where he produced good results. He beat Al Smith in the 1928 presidential election, was sworn in and proceeded to bungle his presidency because of his grossly inadequate response to the Great Depression.

Hoover opposed efforts to provide federal relief measures for the millions of suffering Americans, which was quite odd. He had led the American Relief Administration to help European countries following WW I and also led the federal response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 to provide emergency relief. But he refused to do the things that were needed to help struggling Americans and to dig this country out of the depression.

Seattle Hooverville

One of the outcomes of Hoover’s intransigence was an enormous amount of homelessness. People were evicted for nonpayment of rent, but they didn’t just vanish. The had to go somewhere, so they found what materials they could and built ramshackle shelters. These hovels joined with others to create slums and there were hundreds of these miserable villages of homeless people all across the country. In a derisive gesture at the insufficient actions of the president they were called “Hoovervilles”.

Hoover wasn’t responsible for the crash, just as Trump isn’t responsible for the virus. Each of them, though, is accountable for their response to an American catastrophe that confronted them and each failed miserably. Hoover refused to do what was necessary. Trump blatantly said, “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Click me

Trump proceeded to make a lot of noise about Covid-19, promising wildly impossible things (“It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”), recommending treatments that are ineffective (hydroxychloroquine) or even toxic (Lysol and Clorox) and doing effectively nothing to protect the people. We’re nearly a year into the pandemic and we are still woefully short of PPE, Covid tests, contact tracing to create safety quarantines, and leadership to encourage the simple preventive measures that can minimize our suffering and deaths. There are vaccines, but Trump has refused to see the job through, making it impossible to get vaccines into American arms rapidly. Instead of helping the people, he’s still doing his “don’t blame me” dance. Trump’s refusal to take responsibility means that he put Harry Truman’s “The buck stops here” sign into locked storage and abandoned his post.

The old saying is that Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but of course that isn’t literally true. The violin wasn’t invented until 1500 years after his death. But, “His infamous reign is usually associated with tyranny, extravagance” and ruthlessness. He killed his own mother. Perhaps oddly, Nero was a populist, having captured the fancy of many commoners. Nevertheless, Nero was a cruel sociopath.

Most of those descriptors of Nero sound painfully familiar today. Instead of his fiddling, we can accurately say that Trump golfed while hundreds of thousands died. It’s projected that 700,000 Americans will be dead from this disease by the time 75% of us are vaccinated some time late this year. At 2,000 – 3,000 deaths per day over the winter, the math is pretty simple. If the vaccine distribution problem isn’t fixed quickly, the mortality numbers will be far worse.

Roughly 75% of all of the deaths from this pandemic would not have occurred with proper presidential leadership from the start (see this).  The number of excess deaths caused by Trump’s ineptitude and intransigence are staggering. Biden’s plan should help, but the momentum is baked in for producing a terrible total.

Vaccines stuck in warehouses or on hospital shelves don’t help a bit.

It’s crucial that we apply the proper name to Trump’s well-earned responsibility for our massive, preventable suffering and death. What shall we call that? Trump Fever? Death by Sociopath? Leadership Abandonment Syndrome?

And what is the proper name for the slums of today that are populated by people displaced by this pandemic? Trumpvilles? MAGA Motels? Trump Tower Slums?

History will record the craziness of these years and the great harm brought to our country by a madman. There will be headlined paragraphs in history textbooks with the proper names for these times. One will be American Supplication to Russia. Another will be The Massive Assault on Democracy. Still another will be When America Abandoned Reality. But the biggest, boldest headline of all will be Massive Death and Suffering By Presidential Abandonment.

Here’s hoping that we learn the painful lessons* before us and make 2021 the year we restarted America’s great march to form a more perfect union.

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  • * Try this on for a painful lesson we need to learn.
  • From a recent commentary: “the casualties to date are shocking and far in excess of what was expected  .  .  .” But are we really shocked?
  • Front line healthcare workers have been shocked. Families of the dead were shocked. The unemployed and food insecure are shocked. But a huge percentage of Americans – tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of us – go on with only minor changes to our lives, which doesn’t result in shock – only minor inconvenience. Worse, the numbers of the infected, hospitalized and dead are so large as to be mere statistics without an apparent connection to human beings and their suffering. It seems that there is no shock unless people are impacted directly. Perhaps we have a national empathy outage.
  • What shall we do with this lesson?
  • And millions of Americans oddly refuse to believe that Covid-19 is real. With the reality of suffering and death all around, they steadfastly hold to their claim that it’s a hoax and respond to calls for simple public health measures with refusal and scorn. Of course, that spreads the disease quite efficiently, which means far more people get sick.
  • What is the lesson begging for understanding in that?

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Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Food Insecure


Reading time – 2:37; Viewing time – 3:30  .  .  .

I’ve been a dad for a long time and for some time my children have been adults for years with children of their own. I’ve been so very fortunate to never have had serious worries about providing for my family.

But I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve become semi-numb to statistics. 200,000 new cases and 2,800 dead every day – these are statistics. It became a little easier to understand the meaning of those numbers when I heard someone say that we are having a 9/11 every day.

I can still see those awful pictures in my head, the airliner crashing into and through the second tower and exploding in a huge orange fireball, people jumping out of the towers to their death, the collapse of the buildings, the smothering fallout of dust and debris and the disoriented, confused New Yorkers wandering in the streets, and the shuffling, stunned, silent foot parade across the Brooklyn Bridge. You have those same pictures in your head, too. I know you do.

That’s when I finally got it. That we’re doing that every day. Our friends and family are dying every day in numbers as large as the 2,977 who died on 9/11. We were right when we called it a tragedy then. What do we call it when this happens every day?

They talk about Americans who are food insecure and just after seeing those images in my head is when I finally got what that means, too. I projected back years ago to when my kids were little ones and I imagined the horror of not having food for them. My babies could go to bed hungry and go to school hungry. That’s what “food insecure” means.

We’re on our way to 50 million Americans, including 17 million children – 1 in every 6 kids – who are hungry. That means there are 33 million moms and dads who aren’t able to feed their kids. Moms and dads who, just like you and I, want to protect their kids and who surely are horrified that their kids are hungry. Just like you would be. Just like I would be.

You have to see that in your mind’s eye: children; toddlers; 10-year-olds; teens who are growing fast and have voracious appetites – all now food insecure. Hungry. And those moms and dads are frustrated and humiliated because things were okay just a few months ago, but they cannot properly care for their kids now. That’s not how it was supposed to be.

The big picture talk about the pandemic, the economy and unemployment statistics isn’t about the numbers we’re shown. It’s about real people like you and me, with real kids like yours and mine and for whom hunger long ago passed the point of being just a concept. It’s an every day reality for them. So is the threat of homelessness. So is the threat of death by pandemic.

The president has gone totally AWOL and Congress has gone demonically stingy and glacially slow. But, no worries. None of them will be going without a  meal. 50 million others will.

Contact your local food bank. Today. Ask them for at least 3 ways you can help.

Hurry. Our kids are hungry.

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Forehead Slapping


Reading time – 3:14  .  .  .

We’ve known the basics of this since at least February 2020. Now the Institute for New Economic Thinking has published a clear, well researched and most accessible paper (this is required reading) giving us the roadmap out of our pandemic and economic quagmires:

To Save the Economy, Save People First

This is a statement of what has been forehead slappingly obvious from the start. Consider their first recommendation:

Recommendation #1: Save the Economy by Saving Lives First

Limiting economic damage caused by the pandemic starts and ends with controlling the spread of the virus. Dozens of experiments conducted in different countries across the world definitively show that no country can prevent the economic damage without first addressing the pandemic that causes it. The countries that swiftly focused first on pandemic abatement measures are now reopening in stages and growing their economies. Most of the countries that prioritized bolstering their economies and resisted, limited, or prematurely curtailed interventions to control the pandemic are now facing runaway rates of infection and imminent state and national lockdowns.

We’ve known  this, so how is it that this is news?

Our national politics have focused on the economy and largely ignored the suffering and death that is driving our economic disaster. As much as we have been harmed by Trump’s flip-flopping, disingenuous and stupid healthcare recommendations (injecting Clorox and Lysol, treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine, etc.) and his refusal to lead, our disaster isn’t solely about the lack of proper leadership from Trump.

Click me for the story

South Dakota has the third highest rate of death from COVID-19 in the world. Nevertheless, the governor of that state recently bragged about refusing to mandate mask wearing. That kind of political posturing, denial and healthcare myopia has made things exponentially worse in every way. And she’s not alone in her denial.

We Americans demand instant gratification, which is great for popcorn at the movie theater. It isn’t so great for dealing with pandemic disease or national economic issues or even your own personal economic issues. But we don’t have solutions for any of these vexing problems that don’t require both sacrifice and patience.

Further, we Americans don’t like to hear unpleasant news, but that makes us weenies when we need to be courageous. So, it comes down to this: we must buckle up and do what needs to be done. It will be bad, but not nearly as bad as all the other options.

As I wrote in a recent post, “The problem won’t go away without taking the cure. Even if the cure is painful, at least it’s temporary. Without taking the cure, the pandemic is permanent.” That will still be true for a long time, even after vaccines become available. And the economy will remain hobbled unless we save lives first.

Read the entire INET report. The data is shockingly clear and persuasive. Then slap your forehead over the obvious truth we’ve been refusing to see and how Trump’s continuing refusal to lead this country to health is killing Americans and our economy.

Trump is the kid who lost the Monopoly game and is throwing the tokens, houses, hotels, Chance cards and money across the room, because if he can’t win he wants to make sure nobody else can win, either. This is what happens when a temper tantrum brat gets his hands on power. He may be on his way out, but he’s making sure that he continues to get gobs of attention by booby-trapping all he can. And he hasn’t a care in the world how many people get hurt or how badly compromised he makes our nation. It is ever and always solely about him, and he simply can’t deal with being a loser.

But he is. And people are dying.

For those who have refused to see, that’s a forehead slapper, too.

—————————–
Fun  Contest

Donald Trump is incapable of admitting he’s a loser, so he will not attend the inauguration of Joe Biden or voice any acknowledgement of the reality that he lost. On the other hand, he will have to leave 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and that is the source of our contest.

Check only the circle that most applies:

Ο – Trump will sneak out of the White House when nobody’s looking in order to minimize his humiliation.

Ο – While waiting for the end, Trump will plant loaded mousetraps in the drawers of the Resolute Desk, put Whoopee Cushions under the seats of the sofas in the Oval Office and have his gold plated toilet removed and shipped to New York without replacing it with a new fixture. Then he will attempt to hide the bust of Andrew Jackson under his overcoat to take it as a souvenir. He will allow Secret Service agents to drag him out of the White House by his elbows in front of TV cameras in order to maximize his victimhood and enhance his martyrdom. As he is being led across the South Lawn to Marine 1 he will shout that the election was full of fraud, that it was rigged and that “Everybody knows I won the election.” He will instruct the pilot of Marine 1 to fly over the National Mall in a pattern depicting a human hand with an extended middle finger.

Mail your entry along with a stamped, self-addressed envelope, to:

    • Trump Biggest Loser Contest
    • 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
    • Washington, DC 20500
    • Att’n: Loser in Chief

Entries must be received by 11:59AM on January 20 to be eligible. Winning entries will be announced  at 12:00 noon on that same day. The decision of the voters is final.

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Gloves Are Off


Reading time – 3:55  .  .  .

Heroes

As of this post we have lost – as in: they died – over 2,000 of our frontline healthcare workers – nurses, doctors, techs, EMTs, sanitation staff – all the people who make it so that we can get healthcare when we need it. They work hellishly long hours and risk their lives every day for the rest of us. And that risks transferring infection to their children, significant others, perhaps their parents, too.

They risk their lives for the supermarket clerk who, in spite of gloves, a mask and plastic partitions still gets infected. And they risk their lives for the school children who get sick and the elderly in our nursing homes who might be your mom or dad or grandma or grandpa.

They even risk their lives for the MAGA hat wearers, those who boldly and defiantly attended a Trump rally or the Harley Davidson rally in South Dakota – the people who refuse to wear a mask or socially distance. Same for the gilded set who attended White House functions and who refused to follow the advice of the experts. They were all warned repeatedly, but they called it a hoax and acted as if there were no pandemic at all. That means that our frontline healthcare workers are dying because some refuse to follow some simple instructions.

Nevertheless, to our refusers, the ones for whom a simple mask is a terrible infringement of their freedom and a sign of personal weakness, who take delight in conspiracy theories and for whom science and truth are unimportant concepts, I have good news for you.

When you crawl into the ER, in terrible pain and gasping for breath, feeling like you’re drowning and you’re begging for help, our healthcare heroes will take you in and give their all to save your sorry ass. They will put themselves at risk of getting sick, dying and perhaps infecting their loved ones, all to save your life and your defiant, selfish attitude. They’ll do all that, knowing that you were repeatedly given the choice to be healthy and to stay out of the hospital, but you refused it every time, insisting instead on being contemptuous. Then you came into their world, sick and infectious and threatening them with suffering. Still, they’ll be there for you.

And that is why they are heroes and you are not.

But you could be.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I hope you told everyone that you give thanks for our healthcare heroes, because instead of being with their families yesterday, they showed up for work in case you showed up in their ER. If you didn’t express your gratitude – best done with a call to your local hospital or by mailing a note of appreciation – do it now before one of our heroes has to drug you and shove a ventilator tube down your throat to save your life at the risk of their own.

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75 Years

World War II ended 75 years ago, with Adolph Hitler committing suicide in his bunker in Berlin. The world is still writing about, talking about and detailing those awful years of brutality and suffering, which is an interesting legacy for a monster.

PBS is running a series, The Rise of the Nazis, and it is quite informative, but that isn’t why it’s mentioned here. The point is to recognize the world’s continuing examination – even fascination – with the Nazis and the mindsets and the behaviors of the criminal leaders that produced the world’s greatest hate-fueled brutality.

They detail Hitler’s disinterest in governing, refusal to read and learn, his focus solely on himself, on his powerful skills of lying and manipulating and more, traits that are disturbingly familiar to us today.

One could say that we don’t have concentration camps today, but of course we do; or that certain groups aren’t being discriminated against and marginalized, but of course they are. One could say that there isn’t a flagrant call for violence, but of course there is. One could say that there isn’t a power grab to destroy democracy and control all of government, but of course there is that, too. One could even say that there isn’t a refusal to honor the will of the people, but of course there is.

I predict that 75 years from now people will still be writing about Trump and Trumpism in an effort to explain the horror of our home grown megalomaniac, the complete capitulation of our Republican Congress and the anger and threats of violence from the right, each of which seems inexplicable and boundless in its destruction. Call me in the year 2095 to discuss the then-current books on the subject.

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Cabinet Announcements

Click me for the story

On Tuesday President-elect Biden made public several of his cabinet picks for his new administration. Most striking was his naming John Kerry as his Special Envoy on Climate (read this post) and making that a cabinet level position, as well as assigning Kerry to sit on the National Security Council. It will be refreshing for us to take the planet seriously.

In addition, Biden announced the ending of a cabinet department that had been an office created especially for the Trump administration. Biden said that as soon as he finishes taking the oath of office at noon on January 20 the Department Of Obviously Fraudulent Underhanded Stuff (DOOFUS) will close permanently. No successor department will be named and all employees of that office will be instructed to submit their resignations and have their offices cleared of personal items prior to that date and time.

The same directive applies to the outgoing President. Anything left behind will be submitted to the FBI Museum Of Really Obtuse National Swindlers (MORONS) and put on public display as the modern equivalent of putting people in stocks in the public square for shaming and ridicule. Sadly, many in the outgoing administration are not capable of experiencing shame.

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The JaxPolitix Game

This edition of the JaxPolitix Game is inspired by an accident with a Thesaurus.

Read this entry, then answer the question below:

double-cross

verb

he was double-crossing his family behind their backs: BETRAY, CHEAT, defraud, trick, hoodwink, mislead, deceive, swindle, break one’s promise to, be disloyal to, be unfaithful to, break faith with, play false, fail, let down; informal two-time, sell down the river; British informal stitch up, do the dirty on.

QUESTION: Who does this describe?

Enter your answer in the Comments section below. The first 80.6 million entrants with the correct answer will win a new president, complete with a full set of action figures. You must be 18 or older in order to be 18 or older and only those who spend the majority of their time on this planet may enter. Not valid for residents of states beginning with the letter Q.

Bonus Questions!

The Constitution does not prohibit convicted felons from becoming President, even if they’re still incarcerated for money laundering, tax evasion or fraud. How is it that the Founders didn’t consider the possibility of that happening? Oh, right, they thought there were norms – guardrails – for our democracy.

For 25 points each:

  1. Will Trump run in 2024?
  2. Two trains leave their stations heading toward one another on parallel tracks. The stations are 107.9 miles apart. Train A travels at 31.6 mph; train B leaves 41 minutes later than train A and travels at 77 miles per hour. How far from the station from which train A departed would Donald Trump say the trains will pass one another? (Hint: Trump will hire someone to solve this problem for him and will add to his answer baseless accusations of fraud, claiming that the quiz was rigged. And he will stiff the person he hired to help him.)
  3. Who would Donald Trump say is buried in Grant’s tomb and which name would he call him: “loser” or “sucker”?

For 9 points each, answer these critical TP questions:

  1. What are the creative ways you’re hiding your TP from your neighbors?
  2. Other than the standard purposes, what are the other uses you have for all that TP in your house?

  • —————————————-

    Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

    1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
    2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
    2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Judgment


Reading time – 3:31  .  .  .

We all know that there are many people who refuse to wear a mask or social distance or wash their hands frequently. Each of them has his/her reasons, including  seeing these safety and health measures as government overreach, they don’t appreciate the danger, they’re angry about the intrusion on their liberty or they think it’s a hoax, a conspiracy. Here’s some clarity about those conspiracy believers.

From Anne Applebaum’s new book, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (read this book):

“The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth.” (page 45)

I get that there is a sense of power and control in embracing conspiracy theories. So, I offer a “Well done!” to the cable blatherers, the talk radio babblers and the online conspiracy promoters for their excellent job of willfully stoking reality denial and hatred. Their work is powerful and it has an impact far beyond the TV and radio ratings and online Likes: it threatens all the rest of us.

We declare that we honor our front line troops, the nurses, doctors, techs, EMTs, ambulance drivers and the rest of the folks who are fighting this war against pandemic. We’ve seen the hospital scenes, watched the personal videos and get lumpy-throated in empathy for these people. We see that these heroes work absurd hours. They live with death all around, feeling they’ve failed, even as they are powerless to stop it. But I wonder if that honoring of these people is true for all of our mask refusers and deniers, especially the conspiracy types.

Click me for the story from The Onion.

It seems to me that the conspiracy embracers and the rest who refuse to do those 3 simple things to help to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are more than a danger to those nearby. They hasten the spread of infection that horribly affects those same front line people by putting more sick people into their already over-maxed hospitals. It dumps more hard, overly-demanding work on top of already exhausted medical staff. It dishonors them in that way, even as over 1,000 of our front line medical people have died working to save others from this horrible disease.

That’s why I have some judgments about the conspiracy types and even for the rest of the people who knowingly refuse to do the 3 simple things that can help us all:

First, it’s clear that they put themselves and their individual rights above the rest of us.

Second, the harm they do makes circumstances far worse for people who have lost their jobs, whose kids can’t go to school, for our elderly trapped in nursing homes and for everyone who wants their life back. They push national recovery yet farther away into the future.

Third, it dishonors and penalizes the very people they themselves will meet when they show up at a hospital ER barely able to breathe, because our front line medical troops will nevertheless be standing by to serve them.

Click me for the full story.

In an insightful opinion piece in the New York Times last weekend entitled, “How To Actually Talk to Anti-Maskers” author Charlie Warzel makes the how-to of that conversation both clear and obvious. Even better, it has application for your conversations with any who are foolish enough to not agree with you.

It has to do with what Mom told you: be respectful, courteous and listen to others. And as you listen, just seek to understand how they feel and why they believe as they do – not preparing to tell them all the reasons they’re wrong. That’s because the instant you try to persuade them to your superior view, you’ll have nothing but confrontation. The only thing that changes that way is that each is even more entrenched in their bubble, certain that those who disagree are idiots. We remain polarized, perhaps even more so than before. Remember that each of us thinks we’re right and justified in the opinions we hold.

It can be most satisfying to be reactive – believe me, I know about this and sometimes I’m conscious and able to resist my knee-jerk behavior. When I fail,  I get a momentary rush from being “right.” Then not much good happens for anyone.

Finally

We have a very dangerous virus in America. It’s been in the newspapers, on TV and radio and clogging the webisphere since February. Because of that you already know that the U.S. has just 4% of the world’s population but it has spawned about 25% of its coronavirus infections and deaths. That’s happening right here in our first world, advanced medicine country even as we’re proud to be the leader of the free world.

Have you ever wondered how the rest of the world sees us, and specifically how we’re seen as we mishandle this pandemic? The New York Times brought the story of the virus in America to people around the world and video recorded their reactions. You need to see this.

When you go out, wear your mask and social distance. And wash your hands a lot. If you won’t do those things, please stay away from me. And everyone else.

Here’s a behavioral take on this from Paul Krugman.

——————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

“How Are You Doing?”


“When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something, to say something, and not be quiet.” John Lewis, veteran of the march on Bloody Sunday and so many other battles for the rights of people, died Friday at age 80.

Reading time – 3:24  .  .  .

I’m asked that question often, sometimes as a now-standard greeting –  perhaps some of your conversations begin like that, too. My progressively more common answer to friends is that I’m feeling the losses.

I haven’t hugged my kids or grand kids in months. We haven’t sat at a dinner table with friends or family for just as long. Travel to do my leadership keynotes and workshops stopped – everything is virtual now – and I’ve stowed my suitcase in the attic. We love going to the movies, but that fun has been put on hold. In short, all the standard stuff of life has been put into long term storage and I’m feeling the losses. Weirdly, I’m so hungry for ordinary human contact that I’m looking forward to my annual physical exam.

I’m feeling more than that. I’m feeling enormous frustration over the cavalier indifference to human suffering and death demonstrated by those who are supposed to lead us in the best of ways and whose charge is to promote our general welfare. I’m angry at them for being the only ones with all the tools in the toolbox needed to beat this pandemic and their callous refusing to use them. They have abandoned us and that has consequences. See the table below.

Back when the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was being debated and even after its passage, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was a loyal Republican loudly decrying the act. One provision of the act is the requirement for medical insurance coverage for consultations with doctors about end of life considerations. Grassley brayed his criticism, idiotically saying (and I’m not making this up), “They’re gonna pull the plug on Grandma.” The Republicans told us there would be death panels. O’, for the good old days.

Grassley wailed his morbid prediction and now it has come true. Because of the astonishing lying and indifference, the refusal to take preventive actions, the misdirection and the stumbling blocks put before our medical people, all from White House political hacks, they really are pulling the plug on granny, because she’s been on a ventilator for weeks and her lungs are toast.

I’m not doing well at all about granny’s suffering and dying, nor that an estimated 70 – 99% of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. happen because of our incompetent leadership and we’re headed for over 200,000 dead friends and family.

Kayleigh McEnany, WH press secretary, said that “the science should not stand in the way” of reopening schools. Click the pic – it’s even dumber than it seems. Note that her justifications were factually wrong or at least egregiously misleading.

I’m really not okay with political hacks who will only meet via Zoom, but think we should send our kids, teachers and staff back to school for 8 hours a day. Tell you what: let’s send those political hacks to do their jobs together in a school classroom for just one week. Then let’s see how many of them aren’t in an overcrowded hospital 3 weeks later.

I’m sad about the nearly 1,000 front line healthcare workers who have died from this disease while working to save the lives of others. I’m worried about the long term effects on an entire generation of our young ones, as they are taught to stay away from others and to fear so many things. And I’m worried about how our workers will feed their families with their place of employment shut down for the duration and perhaps closed forever.

Dr. Lorna Breen – another casualty of COVID-19. Click the pic for the full story.

I long ago gave up hope that Trump would take the right steps to curb and defeat this pandemic. He is truly incapable of leading us in this war and too insecure to get out of the way and let the right people lead us to do what must be done. Instead, he remains focused on his own welfare and thus, continues to be our biggest obstacle. He truly is Incompetent Individual #1.

What if he had used the Defense Authorization Act to ramp up our testing capabilities and had recruited laid off workers to do contact tracing? What if he had possessed the courage to extend lock downs long enough to trim the infection rate down to nearly zero, as other countries have done? What if he had responded to the pleadings of governors and mayors for help, instead of blowing them off? And it’s even worse than that.

We have some galactically incompetent governors whose states are practically radioactive with the virus. These governors – Republicans all – refuse to listen to the scientists and medical professionals who tell them the steps to take to protect their people and the economy. Some are even hobbling mayors of cities with COVID catastrophes, prohibiting them from mandating the wearing of masks in public places.

So, how I’m doing can be described as not too well. Does that connect at all with the way you’ve been feeling?

How many more of us have to die needlessly before we take the necessary actions to beat this pandemic?

 

Just 13 days ago 1 in every 106 Americans was infected. As of 7/19/20 it’s 1 in every 90. Click the graph for the story.

——————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Nagging COVID Questions


Reading time – 3:21  .  .  .

On The Hunt

It makes good sense not to put all our eggs into one basket in pursuit of a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19. That’s why we have Operation Warp Speed, wherein we are stimulating the development of vaccines along several different avenues to find one that works and to do it as quickly as possible.

We just awarded $1.6 billion to Novavax to develop enough doses of a vaccine to treat 50 million Americans (2 doses each) by early 2021. If they can do that it will be quite an accomplishment, because the world record for vaccine development for a new virus is 5 years.

In addition, “.  .  .  an international group, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, awarded up to $388 million to Novavax in May to make its coronavirus vaccine available globally.” In addition, “In June, Novavax secured a $60 million contract from the Defense Department to guarantee the delivery of 10 million doses to vaccinate American troops for the coronavirus.”

That’s a lot of money to give to a company that has never brought a product all the way to market. Why would we do that?

The Trump Administration is doing its best to prevent transparency of where our taxpayer money goes in pursuit of a vaccine. What we know is that we have sent $4 billion to a total of 6 companies to produce a vaccine and we haven’t a clue how those companies were chosen, whether they have a track record suggesting they might succeed, if there are penalties for failing to produce a vaccine or where the money is coming from – i.e. which existing programs will become underfunded in order to pay these companies to develop safe and effective vaccines five times faster than such a thing has ever been done.

Because of Trump’s secrecy we also don’t know whether there has been favoritism or any other shady behavior involved in these significant public financial awards to private companies. This may all be on the up-and-up; maybe not. But the secrecy may well become damaging to our future health and the sleight of hand would be a scandal in any other administration. Today, it’s just another day at the White House.

Oh, and by the way, vaccines are only valuable to us if We the People take them, and there is considerable resistance to doing so. Only half of us say we’ll get the vaccine when it’s available; 30% are unsure what they’ll do; and 20% of us will refuse a COVID-19 vaccine. How will we deal with that in the absence of strong scientific, medical, social and moral national leadership?

Our Government and Your Health

The mission statement of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) begins this way:

The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices;

Sounds great. We want them to ensure the safety and efficacy of the medicines we put in our bodies. That’s why they did the slow work to make sure that if you contract malaria that hydroxychloroquine will be both effective against the disease and safe for you to use.

They didn’t do all the same work looking into that drug when used to treat COVID-19. But they did review its use in VA hospitals and found that it was useless against the coronavirus and an all too likely side effect of that malaria drug used against the coronavirus was death.

Now a Henry Ford study is claiming that the FDA review was flawed and – surprise! – Donald Trump is using that claim to once again promote hydroxychloroquine as a preventative and a treatment for COVID-19.

In the absence of a standard FDA approval based on its guidelines and procedures for safety, efficacy and security, why would Trump promote this drug to fight COVID-19? He’s a total know-nothing about medical and pharmacological science and has no authority to prescribe medications. That leaves us wondering about his motivation for his outrageous insistence on using this drug that has the potential to kill Americans. What’s in it for Trump to do that? Who is benefiting? As always, follow the money.

Schools

Click me

Last week Trump told us that he will “put pressure on governors and everyone else” to fully open schools in fall.

  • Nobody knows how to safely open schools in the presence of this pandemic and no nation has ever tried to send kids back to school with a virus raging at the level this one is in America. Said one school nurse in New York, “It feels like we’re playing Russian roulette with our kids and our staff,”

  • Click me

    Shouldn’t we instead consider the CDC’s clearly and consistently outlined dangers from this disease and give strong consideration to its recommendations for “opening” as we make decisions for our kids? And doesn’t our own common sense scream in our ears not to do stupid stuff?

  • Gambling with our kids’ health just isn’t a great idea. And caving in to the unhinged and self-serving demands of Donald Trump is exactly as nuts as it sounds.
Where Do You Get Your Information?

This is for our rugged individuals who refuse direction that impinges on their individual freedom or who simply don’t trust easily.

Karen Hughes

If you were to receive your coronavirus advice from a conservative Republican and if the advice were strong, clear and consistent, would you be willing to set aside your personal desires in order to do your part for the welfare of us all, including you?

Then read this essay by Karen Hughes, counselor to the president and undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs during the George W. Bush administration. Yes, that kind of conservative Republican. Then put on your mask whenever you leave home, because we can defeat this pandemic if at least 95% of us take this simple step.

And send along a link to Hughes’ essay to your friends and family who have found reasons not to wear a mask. Surely, they don’t want to put us all at greater risk, so help them to get the message.

Separate and Timely Issue: Voting By Mail

The president, vice-president and a significant proportion of senators and congressmen vote by mail. So do most of our military personnel, as do citizens who travel. Millions of people routinely vote by mail and there isn’t even a whisper of voter fraud to be heard, except what comes from the fraud-spouting mouths of politicians who are afraid for their jobs should the people make their voices heard and the majority at last rules.

Click me to learn about voting by mail in your state.

Because you don’t want to stand in line for hours with unmasked voters, you need to learn what to do to ensure you can vote by mail. Here’s a link if you live in Illinois and here’s a link if you’re a Wisconsin resident. Every state has its own website and procedures, so check for yours. I recommend doing a search on “vote by mail in ______” replacing the underscore with the name of your state. And don’t include the quotation marks in your search. Or you can click on the logo to the left and they’ll direct you. Pay careful attention to the instructions for your state because you’ll have to apply for a mail-in or absentee ballot within a defined and limited time range. Then VOTE!

Bonus Question

There are 195 countries in the world. For 10 points, list each country that erects statues to and names their military bases for traitors to their country. Submit your answer below.

Special hint (we normally don’t offer hints): This list is very short.

——————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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