I haven’t posted since the pandemic began here in the United States. To be honest, I had my own crap to deal with. On the other hand, I didn’t want to comment when the entire thing was rolling over us. Basically, I wanted to see how things would shake out.
Perhaps I’m an optimist, or maybe I just retain hope in the United States government, but I really hoped President Trump and his administration would see what was going on and step up to make things right. You’re all laughing now, aren’t you?
Yes. I was foolish to hope. The biggest threat to the United States, not to mention the world, since the 1918 Spanish Flu, has been horribly bungled. I don’t have access to government files, but I’m hearing that the Intelligence agencies reported to the government back in November about this virus. However, the President doesn’t believe our Intelligence agencies. His own staff reported on this in January — right when the news was reporting the eye-popping numbers if ill and dying out of China. The President has in the last couple of days claimed he just now saw the memo.
He spent January, February, and March golfing and holding election rallies, then has tried to claim that the impeachment distracted him. Sigh.
He has said he’s not responsible. To be honest, he’s not responsible for the virus but he is the Commander in Chief. He has put both Vice President Pence and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in charge of the response teams. I’m not sure what Pence is doing besides gaslighting us about the President’s lack of concern. Kushner, on the other hand, has assembled a team of cronies and as far as I can tell, is buying up all of the Personal Protective Equipment and ventilators he can get his hands on, out-bidding or in recent reports, downright stealing the PPE and ventilators from the states doing their best to protect their medical workers. While hospital workers are getting sick and dying from lack of PPE and patients die waiting for a ventilator to become available, Kushner says the National stockpile isn’t for the states. Well then, who is it for? I’ve read that Kushner and his pals own or have interest in several hospitals. Are they selling to them, at a mark-up? Money flowing into their pockets, it seems to me.
Trump also is pushing a malaria drug as a cure for the virus. I have seen doctors on both sides of the efficacy argument. I just don’t know. I’m not a doctor or even a medical person. I’m not wedded to the idea that a drug meant for one thing can’t be used for some other medical issue, but a doc is supposed to do no harm. What bothers me isn’t whether the drug will help or not, what bothers me is that Trump and others have a financial stake in the company that makes the drug. What is also interesting is that the drug is generic. Seems kind of interesting that the President, now poised to up the use of the drug exponentially, is pushing this so hard. With it in short supply, the price goes up. How much do we want to bet it never comes back down? Again, lining the pockets of the Trump mafia.
The President has said outright that he delayed notifying the American public and downplayed the news because he’s a “cheerleader”. He didn’t want to alarm anyone. More like he didn’t want to impact the economy. To be honest, no president wants to negatively impact the economy. On the other hand, while he was cheering, more and more people were spreading the virus. My own state may not reach its virus spreading peak until late April or even late May, depending on the forecasts you look at. The death toll numbers peak two to three weeks after that. Even so, the President is already talking about opening the country back up with a bang.
Everything to this man is about winning the next election. It’s all about him, and it’s all about lining his and his family’s pockets. Everything he’s done since his election has been to make money off of his office. “That’s just good business,” I’ve heard my Republican friends say. It may be good business, but it’s against the Constitution. His hijacking of U.S. Air Force cargo runs to overnight at his resorts, the weekly golf trips that cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars per trip. (Don’t tell me he pays for it. He doesn’t. He flies on Air Force One, other aircraft are required to haul his limo, and all of the staff and security, and the cost of all of them staying at his over-priced resorts are all paid for on the taxpayer’s dime.) His blacklist of career government employees that he has and is targeting to fire is certainly against the Constitution. All of that is a burden to us. The American citizen. His continuous ranting and attacks on the other branches of government, the press, minorities, and other countries is a disgrace and a destruction of everything we’re supposed to stand for in this country.
The President is a threat. He’s well on his way to creating a dictatorship. I’m going to keep speaking up about it.
I’m still staying at home. I hope all of you do too. Stay well, people. Stay well.
