Archives for March 2020

Two Corinthians Walk Into A Bar …

March 29, 2020 By John DeProspo 3 Comments

Donald Trump would be nowhere without religion. More precisely, he would not be occupying the White House if not for the near total support of Evangelical Christians.

From declaring the Bible his favorite book (while on the campaign trail) to last week claiming “Easter is a very special day for me,” Trump can do no wrong when it comes to his devoted base of believers.

It didn’t matter that then candidate Trump could not name one verse from his favorite book, as it doesn’t matter now that he doesn’t attend regular Sunday services, instead opting for golf. Evangelicals follow the word of Trump.

It certainly didn’t matter when Trump flubbed a Bible reference while speaking at a campaign event at Liberty University. He was still able to offer the gathered crowd at the Virginia evangelical school what they wanted to hear.

“We’re going to protect Christianity. I can say that. I don’t have to be politically correct,” Trump said. “Two Corinthians, 3:17, that’s the whole ballgame is that the one you like?”

Trump, of course, messed things up as you probably know. The verse, “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” comes from what Christians refer to as “Second Corinthians” – not “Two Corinthians.”

Last week Trump said it would be “beautiful” to see packed churches throughout the country on Easter Sunday, only two weeks away. It’s just his latest suspect offering to the religious group.

While the great majority of churches will be closed on Easter Sunday, some pastors will heed Trump’s call and open for business.

Now, many critics are accusing Trump of wanting so desperately to get the country back to normal that he is willing to sacrifice people’s lives.

Sadly, yet predictably, many Evangelicals don’t see it that way. One can be sure if those large Easter gatherings take place, the coronavirus will spread among the faithful, perhaps condemning some to meeting their maker way before their time.

Is there any doubt left that, if asked, Trump’s devoted religious followers would drink the Kool-Aid? Jim Jones must be laughing somewhere.

Photo | Flickr/christianmessenger.in

Remember Trump’s Vote For Me, “What Do You Have To Lose?”

March 25, 2020 By John DeProspo Leave a Comment

Ah, the good old days when we could laugh at the buffoon running for president!

Such harmless fun, right?

Well, things are not so funny anymore now that the orange clown is sitting in the Oval Office calling the shots. The joke, as it turns out, is on us.

We now know what we had to lose by “electing” Trump. Forget about the rule of law or fidelity to the Constitution; forget about our standing in the world; even forget about the loss of “united,” as in United States of America.

No, we are now in danger of losing our very lives because of the court jester the Electoral College recklessly installed in the White House.

Donald Trump is not responsible for the coronavirus that has turned into a global pandemic. No, he is only responsible for irresponsibly downplaying the threat of the outbreak once it hit our shores and for failing to take the steps necessary to stem its spread.

First it was nothing to see here, just another Democratic hoax to bring him down. Then it was, “It’s bad. It’s bad.”

On March 16, Trump called for social distancing that could last until at least July or August.

But as the markets tanked and businesses of every stripe were facing steep losses, and Trump’s reelection chances were cratering along with the economy, we saw a third Trump pivot. The man that only one week ago declared himself a “wartime president” said it was time for the country to get back to work. The war was over.

Trump is now embracing the trendy new philosophy of the economic right: Death happens, live with it.

In a recent Fox News interview, Trump noted that we would see many deaths from the coronavirus (which he conveniently called the flu) but it was worth it to get the economy back on track. He even implied more people would die, by suicide, if we went into a recession or depression.

“You are going to lose a number of people to the flu, but you are going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression,”Trump said. “You are going to have suicides by the thousands — you are going to have all sorts of things happen. You are going to have instability. You can’t just come in and say let’s close up the United States of America, the biggest, the most successful country in the world by far.”

Strangely enough, many sycophantic Republicans are OK with Trump’s cost-benefit analysis over death and the economy. The new talking point is that the cure is worse than the problem.

Speaking to Fox’s Tucker Carlson, Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick said:

“You know, Tucker, no one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”

As the saying goes, elections have consequences. But the now false choice between saving lives and saving the economy?

Sorry, Mr. Patrick, but the majority of Americans refuse to drink Trump’s Kool-Aid.

Photo |abcnews.go.com

20 Questions to Ponder While You Shelter In Place

March 22, 2020 By John DeProspo 6 Comments

Now that we have been relegated to the confines our homes because of the coronavirus outbreak, it’s as good a time as any to spend time thinking about the great mysteries of our time. Below is a list of the top 20 quandaries you should ponder during this time of forced solitude that will help keep you from developing cabin fever:

Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
Why do “fat chance” and “slim chance” mean the same thing?
How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings?
Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Why is it so hard to remember how to spell ‘mnemonic’?
Why is it that when you transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when you transport something by ship, it’s called cargo?
If pro is the opposite of con, is progress the opposite of congress?
How do you know when it’s time to tune your bagpipes?
Is it true that cannibals don’t eat clowns because they taste funny?
Where is Jimmy Hoffa?
What was the best thing before sliced bread?
Is there another word for thesaurus?
Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”?
How can a cemetery raise its burial cost and blame it on the cost of living?
If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
Is grass really greener on the other side?
If you wear an antennae to a wedding, would the reception be better?
If the cops arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?
If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?
Why do so many working-class people keep voting against their own economic self-interest?

Seriously, pondering these difficult questions will help you pass the time and guard against your brain turning into mush.

Hey, without a sense of humor, we are lost!

Photo | amcnetworks.com

10 Ways The Coronavirus Outbreak Has Changed The Way We Think About Things

March 21, 2020 By John DeProspo Leave a Comment

Now that the country is in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, our ways of thinking about things is changing. Here are 10 things we never really thought about before:

Snagging that last package of toilet paper off the shelf can feel like hitting the jackpot
Acquiring a whole new appreciation for the shelf-life of canned tuna
Seeing how impossible it is to live without sports on TV
Realizing how much money can be saved not eating out
Understanding money can’t save you from an equal opportunity virus
Learning that checking our 401(k)s on a daily basis is a terrible idea
Finding out how hard it is not to touch your face
Discovering a handshake could be lethal
Reaching a point were paying $200 for a bottle of hand sanitizer doesn’t seem outrageous
Concluding we need to rally together as one American family in order to defeat this deadly threat

Stay home. Keep smiling. Practice good hand hygiene. Take social distancing seriously. And listen to the experts!

Photo | lowes.com

No, God Is Not Punishing Us With Coronavirus Because Of Gay Marriage

March 19, 2020 By John DeProspo 2 Comments

Now that we are in the midst of an alarming pandemic, many are wondering why God would do this to us … why now? We’ve been good, haven’t we?

Yes, there were times in the past when we deserved divine retribution. Floods, plagues and the deaths of our firstborn were ways by which God punished us for our evil ways.

Now, according to some men of the cloth, God is punishing us with the coronavirus because of gay marriage … and abortion rights.

Tennessee preacher Perry Stone suggested that the spread of the coronavirus was a response to the legalization of the “abomination” of equal marriage and abortion.

“So why is there a reckoning? I’m gonna explain it in these simple terms. There’s a reckoning because the courts of the land passed a law to take an infant’s life… and for marriage, that we have known it, to be changed into something we’ve never known,” said Stone.

I am not a preacher nor claim to be a religious scholar, but I’m suggesting God is punishing us with this vicious virus because we had the audacity to elect Donald Trump president.

I think the Lord became doubly upset when 52 Republican senators refused to do their sworn Constitutional duty and remove Trump from office.

Has there ever been a leader, like Trump, who is the walking embodiment of the seven deadly sins … pride, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, and wrath?

God is probably also ticked off that so many of his children are worshipping at the feet of Donald J. Trump. Have they forgotten their Ten Commandments? Specifically, God’s first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me”?

I fear we will not get over this fast-moving pandemic until the false idol, Trump, is removed from office. Until we are back to God’s good graces, I do not see an end to the needless suffering and death.

I must confess I attended religious instruction, religiously, as a youngster. So, I know a thing or two about how vindictive God can be.

Photo | abcnews.go.com

Markets Rise Dramatically Following Trump’s Sudden Resignation

March 18, 2020 By John DeProspo 3 Comments

Reprint from moronmajority.com

The Dow Industrial Average gained a staggering 9,000 points following the unexpected White House announcement Trump has resigned the presidency. Stocks recovered nearly all their recent losses since setting their all-time high of 29,551.42 on February 12, 2020.

In a tweet, Trump indicated he made the move because he felt it to be in the best interests of the country:

I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States. For the good of the country, the office will now be in the capable hands of President Mike Pence and his awesome pardoning powers.

This is indeed an ironic turn following Trump’s often repeated prediction the markets would “crash” if he were ever to be removed from office.

It was only six months ago Trump boasted in a tweet, “Do you think it was luck that got us to the best Stock Market and Economy in our history. It wasn’t.”

My, oh my, how things can turn on a dime!

The soon-to-be-president Pence has yet to comment on the dramatic turn of events. It appears the announcement caught him, as it did all Americans, by surprise.

“I had no forewarning … really, I mean it,” said Pence.

Speculation is already rampant of what a Pence presidency, and Kushner vice presidency, will look like.

Photo | slopes.com/AP-Evan Vucci

Warning – this could be “fake” nooze

Coronavirus Proves Highly Resistant To Political Spin

March 15, 2020 By John DeProspo 2 Comments

Donald Trump knows only one way of handling a vexing problem … to knowingly downplay the situation and offer an alternative, biased interpretation of the “facts” in order to sway public opinion in his direction.

And so it was with the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Trump went from claiming the Democrats were making the coronavirus “their new hoax” to saying “it will go away.”

As the outbreak was worsening, Trump kept downplaying the potential for the virus to spread throughout the U.S., even suggesting without scientific evidence, that the number of cases would soon decrease.

At a news conference only 10 days ago, Trump said the number of cases “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

“We’re going very substantially down, not up,” Trump added.

Of course, this couldn’t have been further from the truth. The number of confirmed infections, and deaths, only continues to increase.

As one might expect, and surveys bear out, Democrats take the gravity of this pandemic more seriously than do Republicans.

And, according to Jennifer Rubin, Republicans are doing so at their own peril.

Appearing on MSNBC’s “AM Joy”, the Washington Post conservative columnist said the daily drumbeat of misinformation coming from the White House and Fox News that has downplayed the coronavirus pandemic will likely lead to more deaths among Republicans than Democrats.

Taking aim at the Fox News propaganda machine, Rubin offered, “Here is a particular cruelty/irony that it is their core viewers, the Republican older viewers, who are the most at risk. And when you think about it, which party immediately canceled all of their rallies? Which party immediately started having their political figures really portray and use their lies as an example? It was the Democrats.”

Some may cynically wonder if this isn’t just another example of Darwin’s theory of evolution (survival of the fittest).

No matter how much Trump and his sycophants wish otherwise, the coronavirus pandemic is here; it is spreading. And like gravity, it’s a fact that can not be politically spun.

Photo | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

Could Trump Cancel 2020 Elections?

March 12, 2020 By John DeProspo 3 Comments

As the coronavirus outbreak worsens, could the 2020 elections be at risk? Can they be cancelled just like the NCAA today scrubbed its basketball tournament?

What if Trump declares a state of emergency and orders that elections be postponed to a later date?

Not possible you say? Think again.

The truth is we are in uncharted territory.

While it’s nice to think our laws and institutions protect us from a dangerous president and that a lawless chief executive can only do so much without bumping up against the limits set by the Constitution and Congress (and enforced by the courts), that just might not be the case.

Did you know the moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him?

While many of those concessions are geared to reasonable responses to genuine emergencies, some appear dangerously suited to a president eager to amass or retain power.

As Elizabeth Goitein writes in The Atlantic, “This edifice of extraordinary powers has historically rested on the assumption that the president will act in the country’s best interest when using them. With a handful of noteworthy exceptions, this assumption has held up. But what if a president, backed into a corner and facing electoral defeat or impeachment, were to declare an emergency for the sake of holding on to power? In that scenario, our laws and institutions might not save us from a presidential power grab. They might be what takes us down.”

The coronavirus pandemic has the potential of turning into a catastrophe the likes of which our country, and the world, has never seen… and a golden opportunity for Trump to remain in power until he declares the “emergency” over.

I fear the odds of Trump taking such drastic action will only increase as his odds of winning reelection decrease.

If we’ve learned anything by now it’s that Trump … and his Republican enablers … have total disdain for our Constitution and the rule of law.

The scary part is that, historically, the Supreme Court has often upheld declarations of “national emergency” or found ways to avoid reviewing them, at least while the crisis still remained.

Uncharted territory indeed!

Photo | wsj.com

What People Liked Most About Bloomberg Was The Idea Of Bloomberg

March 4, 2020 By John DeProspo 4 Comments

Oh, if only Mike had not found his way onto that February 19 Democratic debate stage!

The former New York mayor’s strategy of saturating the airwaves with his political ads was working like a charm. He was well positioned to be the “moderate” alternative to the “radical” Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden was fast sinking into “afterthought” status.

But in that infamous February 19 debate, Mike Bloomberg proved you can create buzz for a product with countless, well-made ads but you ultimately have to deliver the goods. To say Bloomberg underwhelmed during his first appearance in a Democratic presidential debate would be putting it mildly. He was eviscerated by fellow candidate Elizabeth Warren and his performance was universally panned by political analysts.

Now that Bloomberg has withdrawn from the Democratic presidential race after a disastrous showing in the Super Tuesday primaries, some people are trying to wrap their heads around how someone who looked so formidable … who spent half a billion dollars on a political campaign … could not end up with the brass ring.

It seems clear that what people liked most about Mike Bloomberg was the “idea” of Mike Bloomberg. They liked his ads.

Here was a guy whose stated goal was to do whatever it took to defeat Donald Trump. If that meant spending a cool billion or two of his own money, Mike was the man. People liked the prospect of a real billionaire who could outspend a fake billionaire and his Republican Party.

Democrats thought if supporting a billionaire was the price to pay for kicking Trump out of office, they were willing to set aside their hatred of big money in politics and go with Mike. Some pre-Bloomberg-debate polls even showed he had the best chance to defeating Trump.

Yes, he was a fat cat willing to spend an obscene amount of money but he would also be the one to save the country from another four years of Trump.

But then it came time for Bloomberg to back up his ad blitz with a solid debate performance.

It didn’t happen. Not in his first debate nor in his second.

Say what you will about Bloomberg … that he wasted his money on a vanity campaign. The truth is his hard-hitting ads did real damage to Trump and he succeeded (for better or worse) in steering the Democratic Party back into the arms of the Party establishment by making Joe Biden the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

Photo | floridapolitics.com