Deliverance captured.

It will be ugly.

        ^ I do NOT blame President Trump for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. I also do NOT blame him for the crashed economy. Both would have happened regardless of who was in the White House or Congress. I do blame him and them for how he and they handled dealing with the virus and how they handled the economic fallout. I also blame them for how they are botching the next wave that is coming our way. AND it is coming one way or another.  AND it will be ugly.

Success story.

        ^ Whether people like it or not (and in fact, whether he likes it or not) the President is responsible when something like this happens on their watch, especially when it is on a global level. This pandemic isn’t a state’s rights or personal liberty issue. It’s about survival. The President is to be blamed just as any other President in his expensive shoes would be blamed if they:

Ω Ignored the warnings.

Ω Lied about the threat.

Ω Lied about treatments.

Ω Lied about testing.

Ω Just lied and lied and lied and then lied some more.

Ω Abdicated responsibility.

        ^ But the most egregious lie that he told is when he called it a hoax and millions of his cult of following fawning supporters believed him. Millions. And by the thousands they have died and will die. They spread the virus because of ignorance and believing in false prophets. The prophets died as well. The followers of prophets died. SARS-CoV-2 does not care about any affiliation.

        ^ Nobody deserves that for believing in someone even if that someone was always nothing but a con artist. It isn’t right or even just. Incompetent buffoons should never be in positions where they can kill so easily. Yet it happens time and time again in history. It’s happening right now.

        ^ I’ve often wondered how people deal with causing the death of an innocent. It’s hard because I know people that have done it. How does a person deal with causing the death of thousands?

Graphing loss.

        ^ When you look at graphs or hear that the daily total of new cases is going up, that will be going on for quite some time. It’s new cases being admitted into hospitals. The graph of the numbers of people being tested will also continue to go up as more people are being tested every day. Testing was and is the key to managing the virus. And we aren’t even close to where we need to be.

        ^ There is a difference between confirmed deaths and estimated deaths. The CDC provides estimated deaths. The graphs and projections will be changing within the next week or so as new totals and new estimates start coming in. Republicans are now trying to undercut reporting to lower the daily totals. That isn’t going to stop people from dying.

        ^ In the 2018-19 flu season there were just over 7,000 deaths attributed to the flu. The CDC took these deaths and provided an estimate of 26,000+ to 52,000+ deaths for that same flu season. The flu season technically lasts for 7 months. They give estimates because the number of deaths from the flu aren’t reported because all deaths aren’t tested for the flu. This country will reach 70,000 actual confirmed deaths from COVID-19 within a couple of days. Actual. Confirmed. Deaths. It only took 2 months to get there. 10 times worse in two months.

        ^ At the new higher actual rates 100,000 deaths can now be anticipated happening by the first of June. The upper limit of 250,000 deaths may be readjusted. The graphs should follow a few days decline followed by a few days up upticks. Graphs. Graphs of life and death.

Deliverance.

        ^ Had President Trump actually delivered on his promise of everyone being able to get tested early on, the history of how this virus spread and the number of people that died would be entirely different. But he didn’t. Just as he didn’t deliver on his promise of better health insurance for everyone and that was a major promise of his that he talked about continuously throughout his campaign. He talked about that on par with Mexico paying for the wall. (They didn’t.) Had he delivered on health care that would also have made the current situation better, well, at least for all the working poor that have ended up being considered essential workers. But he didn’t. He’s just the quintessential-politician-telling-people-what-they-want-to-hear-self-aggrandizing-opportunist that he has always been. None of how he has acted is new or different. He’s the same punched-his-music-teacher-person that he has always been. (The story that he denies happening came right from the book he wrote.)

        ^ Congress is going to demonstrate what all of us could have had in order to get the nation back to life. Adequate testing. Testing and results within minutes. Yes, the millionaires of Congress will have that. They’ll just slip off quietly and get tested. The President has that. He has testing in spades. Fifteen minutes and results! All those surrounding him have that. The elite of the country either has that kind of testing or will have it shortly.

        ^ Your life just isn’t all that important to them. You need to get back to work. The lives of your loved ones and friends hasn’t been and isn’t that important to them. The lives of those living in poverty and the aged are at the bottom of the concern list when it comes to saving lives.

Where’s the love?

        ^ What did they say? Oh yes, they love old people. It’s a tough to say goodbye kind of love. It’s ‘a what have you done for me lately’ kind of love. It’s a ‘sad to see you go but you’ve had your run’ kind of love. 

        ^ It’s an ‘I didn’t want to but you made me hurt you’ kind of love.

Pandemic Porkers

(5.7 minute read) 3/30/2020, 2 pages

NOTE:  I lifted some of the technical information below from historian Heather Cox Richardson. I also did, as I usually do, research on my own. BTW the bills are available online for anyone to see. There is no mystery about what has taken place just lies that are being messaged. It happened right out in the open.

In the beginning.

Now, for those that might not know funding bills have to come from the House NOT the Senate. So a “shell bill” was created by the House to serve as the original bill. This bill was replaced by the Senate bill that was written by Republicans. And yes it was loaded with PORK. Pork for porkers. Pork for Fat Cats. Pork for FOT and FOR. Pork for corporations. Pork for the always suffering rich.

Do you CARE?

I’m seeing a lot of misinformation about the stimulus bill that recently passed. It’s called Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020 (CARES) H.R. 748. It is actually the 3^rd relief bill to pass. The first one was H.R. 6074. The 2^nd H.R. 6201. The first two CARE bills were bi-partisan. Not the 3^rd.

There’s a lot of junk circulating about Democrat “pork” in the 3^rd bill. NOT factual at all. The Senate Republicans wrote the 3^rd 2.2 trillion dollar bill WITHOUT input from the Senate Democrats. The pork is and was Republican pork. The bill passed the Senate 96 to 0 and went ‘back’ to the house. All the Democrats voted for the bill in order to keep it moving and back to the conference committee.

FOPs

Now when Democrats saw the Senate bill they objected to the lack of money for average Americans and that there was not enough oversight for the $500 billion being provided for corporations. Now, I think, that this next part is important, it wasn’t that the Democrats didn’t want to serve pork to corporations they wanted more oversight on the slush fund. They also didn’t want the Friends of President Trump(FOTs) and the President to get any of the money. If you remember President Trump would NOT commit to not having his businesses benefit from the money.

Also if you remember the news at the time, corroborated by el Presidenté Trump when he was talking about the House Dems not passing the CARE bill, the House Democrats and Republican Senate were at an impasse. This is when the House Democrats produced a 1400 page wish list bill in contrast to what to what the Senate Republicans had produced. House Republicans did not participate in this bill. No need really. They had seen what their comrades in the Senate had delivered up. This is when Senate Republicans realized that they needed to start compromising with the Democrats. No action at all was taken on the 1400 page House bill.

Tilting windmills

The House intended to pass the 3^rd CARE bill with a voice vote BUT yet another Republican held up that simple vote until enough members of the House returned, voted him down and passed the bill. In the Senate there were 4 Republicans that spoke out against giving more money to average Americans than what they deserved. Republicans always are suspicious about poor people taking advantage of them. They just have a low opinion of those that aren’t them.

The bill then went to President, who signed the bill.

But wait!

The President also included a signing statement. He said that there were things in the bill that he would disregard. Gasp! You’ll never guess what he objected to. Oversight of the slush fund and the portions that said he and his companies wouldn’t take any money. He has added some things since signing the bill like wanting his name on all the checks going to Americans.

Classic

And of course President Trump is lying about the bill already and his Republican jesters are spinning his message. There were no windmills in the bill that the Republicans wrote. There was no “Green New Deal” in the bill that the Republicans wrote. Seriously people. Republicans.

And now the President’s base is accusing Democrats of doing what Republicans in point of fact did and telling people to be sure and remember at election time. Thanks Obama.

Pork lite

There was some pork or rather pork lite added by both parties. Nothing draws Democrats and Republicans together like a little pork. It’s what they do. There were actually some good things in there too.

I’m going to single one out because the conservative Republican messaging is already going after the money that went to the Kennedy Center. I have to admit that even I wondered about that one. (BTW the center is part of the government.) Melania Trump is a trustee of the center if that helps any. President Trump along with other Republicans and Democrats supported giving them funding as well. Republicans proposed giving them money in the original bill that they put together.

There were some other appropriations in the bill. You can read them for yourself if you want. Its 335 pages long. At least the PDF that I downloaded is that long. But why bother with actually reading when it’s so much fun just making stuff up and passing lies around to support Glorious Leader?

I often make what I call an LT15 check. That means usually I can find out if something is true in less than 15 seconds on average. Granted some stuff takes a little more digging. There isn’t anything that I’ve had to look up relevant to this page that took me longer than 30 seconds.

Down towards the bottom of the bill at like around 200 pages in is where the other stuff starts popping up. The Kennedy Center shows up at page 272. You can read all about it! Yes, I went through all 335 pages. The amounts of money are just dizzying! It’s a $2.2 trillion dollars bill! Kind of breath-taking really. It’s there for you to read it. If there’s a government agency, program or building that’s been missed it’s an accident and probably something in the bill covers that.

No windmills though. Sorry to disappoint. Just say that you’ve read the bill and make up whatever you need to believe. You’re in austere company.

Check please.

It’s quite possible that the President doesn’t know what is in the bill that he signed either. Three hundred thirty five pages are waaaay past his attention span. Reading things gets in the way of his tweet time. He just wants to make sure that his name is on the checks. He likes it when people are grateful to him. He rewards his jesters except for when he punishes them.

 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22H.R.+748%22%5D%7D&s=1&r=1