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Donald Trump … A RINO?

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What’s going on with Donald Trump?

The man who not that long ago said he was unlikely to get his COVID-19 booster admitted, during an event in Dallas last week, that he indeed got his jab.

This did not sit well with some of the MAGA folks in attendance. In fact, a smattering of boos erupted after he told the event’s co-host, Bill O’Reilly, he got boosted.

Trump would later go on to laud the effectiveness of vaccines during an interview with The Daily Wires Candace Owens.

“Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get (Covid), it’s a very minor form. People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine,” Trump said.

It didn’t take long from some factions of MAGA world to condemn Trump for going against one of the main tenets of hardcore Republicanism … vaccines bad!

Conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, came out strongly against Trump’s new push for the efficacy of vaccines.

“This is an emergency Christmas Day warning to President Trump,” Jones said. “You are either completely ignorant about the so-called vaccine gene therapy that you helped ram through with Operation Warp Speed or you are one of the most evil men who ever lived, to push this toxic poison on the public and to attack your constituents when they simply try to save their lives and the lives of others.”

“Hell, we’re fighting Bill Gates and Fauci and Biden and the New World Order and Psaki and the Davos Group. And now we’ve got Trump on their team!” Jones added.

Some have suggested Trump’s touting the benefits of vaccines is all about helping his reelection bid. While he’s the clear favorite to win the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, he needs to worry about the general election.

Even though Republicans are generally opposed to vaccine mandates, most are, themselves, at least partially vaccinated. A 65% majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents report having received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, according to the most recent CNN polling. 

Still, some have likened Trump’s recent public endorsement of Covid-19 vaccines and boosters to the “random foray of an unpredictable political figure.” (Rick Klein)

Then, of course, there is what some are calling the “Occam’s razor” answer to Trump’s new behavior … COVID-19 has significantly killed, and continues to kill, a disproportionate amount of the Republican base!

Is Trump turning into a Liz Cheney… who many Republicans call a RINO (Republican in name only)?

What’s next? Trump will admit that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden fair and square? Will he condemn the January 6 Capitol mob as insurrectionists?

I don’t know but I do believe there is a Republican governor in Florida who isn’t too unhappy with the new anti-Trump rumblings going on in MAGA world (along with one in Texas, and one in South Dakota.)

Anti-Vaxxers Are Literally Dying To “Own The Libs”

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Is there anything more enjoyable to Republicans than to “own the libs”? Oh, how they love to mock, infuriate or just get under the skin of those snooty liberals with their awesome, uncompromising conservatism!

To “own” someone is to dominate and humiliate them, and the “libs,” as described by Rolling Stone magazine, can loosely be defined as “anyone to the left of Sean Hannity.”

“Owning the libs” became a mantra of conservatism long before Trump came along. But since Trump’s ascension to the White House, to “own the libs” is less an identifiable act or set of policy goals than an ethos … a way of life; a civic religion, if you will.

Unfortunately for those who refuse to get vaccinated (predominantly Republicans of the red state variety), with the arrival of the coronavirus, “owning the libs” has taken a deadly turn.

I’m sure you’ve seen videos of those anti-vaxxers hooked up to respirators proudly claiming they do not regret not getting their vaccine shot. Heck it’s all about personal freedom, isn’t it, they tell you.

So now the “if liberals are for it, I’m against” line of thinking (I use the word loosely) has resulted in some Republicans actually accepting death over ever admitting they were wrong?

God help those poor, lost souls!

Interestingly, Urbandictionary.com defines “owning the libs” as: To inflict significant harm upon oneself, or significantly benefit the libs, out of a misguided attempt at spite. 

Perhaps Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” 

If Emerson were around in today’s Covid-19 world, he might have added, ”and it could kill you.”

Photo| nydailynews.com

Despite Evidence To The Contrary, Ron DeSantis Tries To Assure Floridians “All Is Well”

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Taking a page from a character in National Lampoon’s Animal House, Florida governor Ron DeSantis is attempting convince the good people of his state that the recent spike in Covid-19 cases is nothing to be worried about. 

“It’s a seasonal virus and this is the seasonal pattern it follows in the Sun Belt states,” DeSantis told reporters at a press conference about one week ago. He also said that he expects Covid cases to decline soon. 

He might as well be telling his fellow Floridians to “Remain calm. All is well.”

If you remember, “Remain calm. All is well” are the immortal words uttered by Kevin Bacon during the climax of Animal House, as his character – the Delta Tau Chi antagonist, Chip Diller – helplessly attempts to address a fleeing mob of shrieking parade-goers. 

Today the Florida Hospital Association reported 10,389 Covid-19 hospitalizations, the most statewide during any point in the pandemic. This follows Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting over the weekend that Florida had more than 21,000 new coronavirus infections on Friday. It was the highest one-day total for the state, which now makes up roughly one and five new cases nationally.

As Florida’s coronavirus infections continue to spike, public health officials and local elected leaders have urged DeSantis to take more drastic measures to get the virus under control. DeSantis, however, has stubbornly maintained a strict “no-mandate” approach to the virus, including touting an executive order last week that prohibits districts from requiring masks in schools. He also vowed to fight any city or municipality that tries to institute Covid restrictions, including mask mandates or lockdowns.

DeSantis has been sucking up to Donald Trump, and his loyal base, ever since the start of the pandemic, downplaying the severity of the virus, in hopes of furthering his presidential ambitions.

If cases continue to soar in Florida will people remain accepting of DeSantis, or will this preventable surge, a direct result De Santis’s failed leadership, crush his dreams for 2024?

Things did not work out well for Kevin Bacon.

Photo | Butler Street Consulting

Charles Schwab To Supply Covid Test Kits

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Reprint from moronmajority.com*

Financial executive, Charles Schwab, founder of the Charles Schwab Corporation, has offered to supply the country with 1 million covid-19 test kits.

“There is a severe shortage of swabs,” said Schwab. “I want to help stem the spread of this deadly disease so I am buying 1 million kits and making them available to all … especially to those areas hardest hit by the virus. I know it’s a small step but it’s the least I can do.”

Schwab’s generosity has been met with great gratitude. It has also given birth to the following tongue twister:

Charles Schwab’s swabs are a small step in stemming the spread of the sickness but Schwab’s swabs seriously, and surely, will save souls

Now see if you can say that three times fast!

Photo | businessinsider.com

*moronmajority.com is a satirical site … seriously!

Leader Of Mask-Less Covidiots Finally Dons Mask In Public

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More than three months after health officials from his own government recommended all Americans cover their faces when social distancing was not possible, Donald Trump donned a mask in public.

Trump was pretty much “forced” to wear a mask while visiting wounded soldiers at Maryland’s Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last week. 

As he is the leader of the group many now refer to as the “Mask-Less Covidiots,” Trump made it clear to his followers this was a unique situation, implying we might not see such a common sense effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 coming from him again anytime soon.

“I think when you’re in a hospital, especially in that particular setting where you’re talking to a lot of soldiers and people that in some cases just got off the operating table, I think it’s a great thing to wear a mask,” Trump said. “I’ve never been against masks but I do believe they have a time and a place.”

According to nearly every healthcare professional, the “time and place” to wear masks in public is … always and everywhere! At least for the foreseeable future.

Even as the virus spreads once again out of control across the country, neither Trump nor Pence, who ostensibly heads the U.S. coronavirus  response, feel it’s necessary to issue a federal mandate to wear masks in public. As Pence sees it, while wearing masks is a good idea, the White House wants to “defer to governors” on whether or not to order people to cover their faces in public!

Because of this inexcusable federal inaction, the Mask-Less Covidiots have been making their presence felt throughout the country, the most recent onslaught coming this past weekend at a grilled cheese bar and restaurant in Windemere, Florida.

Florida, the state that reported a record increase of more than 15,000 new cases of COVID-19 in 24-hours this past Sunday.

Of course, Florida, unlike some other states, does not have a statewide mask requirement as its governor, Ron DeSantis, is a loyal foot soldier in Trump’s Mask-Less Covidiots brigade.

Photo | abcnews.com/AP/patrick semansky

Wuhan Virus? Chinese Virus? How About “The Trump Virus?”

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Donald Trump and his toadies love calling the coronavirus the “Wuhan Virus” or the “Chinese Virus.” The sad fact remains that foreign ministers of the G7 countries failed to agree on a joint statement on the pandemic, in part, because the Trump administration insisted on calling it the “Wuhan virus.”

I suggest it’s about time we start calling the coronavirus, or COVID-19, “The Trump Virus.”

Am I being unfair? Too harsh? Is it too early to go there? Should we just leave all this to the history books?

Let’s get one thing straight … Donald Trump is not responsible for the coronavirus. He did not cause it to become a global pandemic.

But Trump’s actions, or inactions, did make the situation in the United States much worse than it needed to be. A Boston Globe editorial even went so far as to say, “Much of the suffering and death coming was predictable. The president has blood on his hands,” 

David Frum recently wrote in The Atlantic:

That the pandemic occurred is not Trump’s fault. The utter unpreparedness of the United States for a pandemic is Trump’s fault. The loss of stockpiled respirators to breakage because the federal government let maintenance contracts lapse in 2018 is Trump’s fault. The failure to store sufficient protective medical gear in the national arsenal is Trump’s fault. That states are bidding against other states for equipment, paying many multiples of the pre-crisis price for ventilators, is Trump’s fault. Air travelers summoned home and forced to stand for hours in dense airport crowds alongside infected people? That was Trump’s fault too. Ten weeks of insisting that the coronavirus is a harmless flu that would miraculously go away on its own? Trump’s fault again. The refusal of red-state governors to act promptly, the failure to close Florida and Gulf Coast beaches until late March? That fault is more widely shared, but again, responsibility rests with Trump: He could have stopped it, and he did not.

Frum did not stop there:

The lying about the coronavirus by hosts on Fox News and conservative talk radio is Trump’s fault: They did it to protect him. The false hope of instant cures and nonexistent vaccines is Trump’s fault, because he told those lies to cover up his failure to act in time. The severity of the economic crisis is Trump’s fault; things would have been less bad if he had acted faster instead of sending out his chief economic adviser and his son Eric to assure Americans that the first stock-market dips were buying opportunities. The firing of a Navy captain for speaking truthfully about the virus’s threat to his crew? Trump’s fault. The fact that so many key government jobs were either empty or filled by mediocrities? Trump’s fault. The insertion of Trump’s arrogant and incompetent son-in-law as commander in chief of the national medical supply chain? Trump’s fault.

Trump needs to forever be linked to what he has wrought … “The Trump Virus.”

In his “fight” against the coronavirus, Trump has likened himself to a “wartime president.” Unfortunately for the United States, and the world, we have been saddled with the worst possible leader at the worst possible time.

To paraphrase an old Donald Rumsfeld quote, “You go to war with the president you have, not the president you might want.” God help us.

November 3, 2020 can’t come soon enough.

Photo | politico.com

Washington Post’s Max Boot … Trump Worst President. Ever.

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On a day when conservative columnist Max Boot makes a persuasive case in the Washington Post for why Donald Trump is the worst president … ever, another writer, Becket Adams, in the Washington Examiner, writes how George W. Bush is gaining a “strange new respect.”

“The man who is held personally responsible for the state and local failures of Hurricane Katrina,” writes Adams, “ is enjoying some positive press this weekend following the publication of a report detailing his efforts as president to prepare the United States for a viral outbreak.” 

Adams notes that, in 2005, Bush uttered, “If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare. And one day many lives could be needlessly lost because we failed to act today.”

If only the current occupant of the White House shared such respect for preparedness.

In the movie Airplane!, Lloyd Bridges plays the stressed-out air traffic controller who laments he picked the wrong week to give up amphetamines.

Unfortunately for the nation, in 2016,  we picked the wrong time to elect the worst president. Ever.

Photo | chron.com

Two Corinthians Walk Into A Bar …

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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?”

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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

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