October 2, 2020: President Trump and First Lady Have COVID

 

10/2/20: Rise and shine, America and ... what the hell ... President Trump and the First Lady have tested positive for the coronavirus. 

At 1:00 a.m., he tweeted out the news: “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” 

Just last night, Trump told a dinner audience that “the end of the pandemic is in sight.” The president and his wife now join 298,000 Americans diagnosed this week. The good news? The Trumps have good health insurance.

 

And Donald can’t be laid off until January. 

 

Toll so far: 7.2 million Americans infected, 206,402 dead. But the president and his fans should have no worries. This virus is no worse than the flu! Ignore any scientists who say it is!

 

In perhaps the cruelest blow of all, the most narcissistic man in America is in an even higher risk category than most: because Donald Trump is not only old. He’s obese.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: We won’t know this till December 2021. At that point, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows will say that Trump first tested positive for COVID on September 26.

 

That was three days before he stepped out on a stage to debate Joe Biden. Trump has no choice other than to accuse Meadows of peddling “Fake News.” He even capitalizes it – a “tell,” in poker terms, that he’s really lying.

 

 

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“A never-ending summer.” 

STRANGE WEATHER PATTERNS in the Southwest hint, once more, at the damage climate change will wreak. The “monsoon season” which brings much needed rain to the region is a dud, for the second year in a row.

 

Flagstaff, Arizona has never had a drier season, down more than 6.5 inches of rain from its normal of 8.31 inches. Las Vegas tied a record set in 1944 for least rain, with just a trace. Las Vegas also shattered a record set in 1959 for consecutive days with no measurable precipitation: 164. 

Phoenix had its hottest monsoon season ever, with an average temperature of 96 degrees. That was one degree above the record set in 2011. So far this year, the city has had 132 days when temperatures topped 100. Albuquerque, New Mexico had less than half the normal rain. As ABC noted, “Residents around the Southwest bemoaned what seemed like a never-ending summer. The heat and scarce rain mean people spend more time indoors, hiking trails are dusty, the risk for wildfires increases, reservoirs are less full and thirsty wildlife go in search of water.” 

Drought sets in.

 

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IN OTHER NEWS, the Proud Boys are selling t-shirts with their logo and Trump’s words: “Stand Down” and “Stand By.”

 

Now I think they should add, “Stand Back, I’m about to Cough.”

 

 

FUN WITH TAXES: Time magazine tracks down Sandra Diaz, a former housekeeper at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort. In 2011, Diaz was paid $26,792.90 for her work, with $413.14 withheld in federal income taxes.

 

This was $413.14 more than the self-confessed billionaire, Donald J. Trump paid the same year.

 

 

FUN WITH RACISM: The president knows he’s not popular with suburban voters. So he figures a dollop or racist talk might improve his chances for reelection. Speaking to a mostly-white crowd in Duluth, Minn., he suggests that certain people want to “ruin the American Dream” for certain other people.

 

He wants voters to know he’s against fair housing rules, which allow low-income families to escape low-income neighborhoods. 

“By the way, just so we can get this straight, 30 percent of the people in the suburbs are low-income people. Thirty percent of the people in the suburbs are minorities. And so we’re ruining this American dream for everybody,” Trump grumbles. 

“They zone you out, they build low-income housing next to your house,” Trump added. “And then I hear I’m not doing well in the suburbs. I’m not doing well in the suburbs – are you people crazy?” 

Not really. This isn’t 1954, or 1968 anymore. And not all suburbanites in 2020 are ugly racists.

 

FUN WITH TRUMP LOVERS: Politico gathers reactions to the news that Mr. Trump has the coronavirus. There was the guy talking about god-tiered genetics, for example: 

“You’ve never seen him sick. You’ve never seen him without energy,” Brenden Dilley, a self-described “MAGA life coach,” told his viewers on his radio show Friday. “[He’s] not walking around with weak-ass, p---- f------ genetics. He ain’t got those liberal genes. These are, like, god-tier genetics; top 1-percentile genetics.”

 

And the other guy, who thought the doughball golfer in the White House really had the physical prowess of someone as young as twenty: 

Wishful thinking abounded, as well: Dr. David Samadi, a urologist and commentator for Fox News and the conservative Newsmax outlet, set the goal posts by pointing out that while Covid-19 patients over the age of 70 had a 94.6 percent recovery rate, patients ages 24 to 49 had a 99.8 percent recovery rate. “I would put POTUS in the 20-49 category due to his strength and stamina,” he tweeted.

 

And, of course, the complete and utter idiot: 

“Does anyone else find it odd that no prominent Democrats have had the virus but the list of Republicans goes on and on?” tweeted DeAnna Lorraine, a former congressional candidate who has backed baseless theories from the QAnon conspiracy movement, going on to blast masks as a Democrat-backed lie and questioning whether China had technically made an “assassination attempt” on the first family.

 

So, let’s help Ms. Lorraine with her query. Is it odd that Democrats who wear masks and stress precautions don’t get infected by a disease that can be spread by coughing and sneezing? 

Nope. 

 

FUN WITH RAND PAUL: Sen. Paul spent time recently attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate committee hearing. He was mad at Dr. Fauci for saying we should wear masks (see above), or socially distance, or shut down schools or businesses, or limit attendance at large events. 

Paul insists that countries that have done little in the way of such safety measures, have done great. He cites Sweden, which tried for “herd immunity.”   

“If you look at the data, the countries that did very little have a lower death rate than the U.S.,” Paul, an ophthalmologist by training, insisted. “It’s important that we the people not simply acquiesce to authoritarian mandates on our behavior without first making the nanny state prove their hypothesis.” 

The senator suggested that in some states, like New York, herd immunity had been achieved. Usually, something like 70% of a population has to have been infected/ vaccinated before herd immunity can be reached.

 

Dr. Fauci responds, “You are not listening to what the director of the CDC said. In New York, it’s 22 percent,” referring to state’s infection rate. “If you believe 22 percent in New York is herd immunity, you are alone in that.” 

Dr. Fauci is an unfailingly polite man, but you know he wants to call Sen. Paul a nincompoop. 

If you really want to understand the question of “herd mentality,” as Trump once called it, and can the U.S. achieve it, a good place to start would be an article in Nature magazine. Most scientists call it a “dangerous fallacy” to believe we can achieve herd immunity without catastrophic loss of life. As for Sweden, authors note that the death rate there from COVID-19 is eleven times higher than in neighboring Norway. (In Sweden: 58.12 deaths per 100,000; in Norway, 5.23.) 

“There’s no magic wand we can use here,” says Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. “We have to face reality — never before have we reached herd immunity via natural infection with a novel virus, and SARS-CoV-2 is unfortunately no different.” 

 

ADDENDUM 

In hindsight, we can still watch Sen. Rand Paul’s rant about the nanny state and the flush toilets that no longer worked. 

That was once his focus in life.

 

Then we might consider the “epic drought” that gripped the western third of the nation this year. A study in Science magazine finds that the region is suffering through the driest 19-year stretch since 1500, and the second driest since 800. 

It might be nice, in other words, if toilets used less water.