July 7, 2020: COVID Deaths and Crooks - And PPP Loans to Rich Folks

 

7/7/20: Seven days into July, and what is the president’s focus? He’s mad about polls. He’s mad about Bubba Wallace, the only African American driver on the NASCAR circuit. He wants Wallace to apologize for thinking a noose found in his garage was a racist symbol. He’s mad at NASCAR and wants them to allow the Confederate flag to fly again at races. He’s mad because the Washington Redskins might change their name. He’s mad because he says “anarchists” tore down a statue of Frederick Douglass, the great African American abolitionist. (At least he has finally figured out that Douglass, dead since 1895, is not alive.) Trump says that proves the radical left doesn’t know what it’s doing. But the man responsible for putting up the statue fears it may be “retaliation” by right-wing nut jobs. Police have made no arrests. So, Trump could (in theory) be right. More than likely, he has a ventriloquist butt. 

With the United States set to pass the three million-mark for confirmed cases of the virus, the president has had to start slinging some serious bull. He’s reduced to claiming that the “Mortality Rate for the China Virus in the U.S. is just about the LOWEST IN THE WORLD!” 

Hey, thanks for the PPP loan!

We have said this before. The president dabbles in facts. Here are some mortality rates for other countries. According to Worldometers, as of July 7, 405 Americans per million have died from COVID-19.

 

Deaths per million: 

Argentina:                 36

Austria:                     78

Australia:                    4

Brazil:                     315

Canada:                   231

Costa Rica:                 5

Denmark:                105

Ethiopia:                   51

Finland:                     59

Germany:                 109

Greece:                     29

Haiti:                         10

Iceland:                     29

Ireland:                    353

Israel:                        37

Japan:                          8

Jordan:                        1

Mexico:                   241

Netherlands:           358

New Zealand:             4

Nigeria:                      3

Norway:                   46

Peru:                       332

Poland:                     40

Portugal:                160

Singapore:                    4

South Korea;                6

Switzerland:              227

Thailand:                       1

Ukraine:                      29

 

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NETFLIX has a miniseries out on Jeffrey Epstein, and it might make you ponder a few important questions. First, how did such a sleaze get away with molesting so many young girls?

 

 

F.B.I. agent breaks down in tears.

 

If you think his behavior was terrible, the series makes clear it was worse than you imagine. This blogger already knew Epstein got a sweet deal from a federal prosecutor named Alexander Acosta (last seen serving in President Trump’s cabinet). He did not know that a female F.B.I. agent broke down in tears when an investigation she was helping run was suddenly shut down. Nor had the blogger ever heard of Epstein’s work with Steven Hoffenberg. In the documentary, Hoffenberg describes Epstein as a “criminal mastermind,” and says he helped Hoffenberg devise and run a massive Ponzi scheme. Hoffenberg eventually admitted bilking investors out of $475 million. He spent 18 years in jail and had to pay $463 million in restitution.

 

Epstein managed to skate.

 

(It made this blogger think again about George Floyd, who died because he tried to pass a counterfeit $20.)

 

Then this blogger picked up a newspaper and saw a story about Deutsche Bank. That bank has agreed to pay $150 million in penalties for green-lighting questionable money transfers, initiated by Epstein. According to spokesman Daniel Hunter, the bank is sorry it did a lousy job of keeping tabs on a man with a well-known criminal history.

 

“Our reputation is our most valuable asset and we deeply regret our association with Epstein,” Hunter said Tuesday.

 

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ANYTHING ELSE to worry about? Fires are burning across Siberia, a region where, as National Geographic notes, “landscapes that are typically too cold, wet, and icy to burn” have ignited. 

The problem? Climate change has been thawing layers of permafrost that have been frozen for thousands of years. 

Thus the name: permafrost. 

Till now.

 

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WE ALSO learn that Team Trump can’t get the simplest tasks done right. Paycheck Protection Program loans, intended to save struggling small businesses, went to TB12, a lifestyle-brand company owned by Tom Brady, former star New England Patriots quarterback. Apparently, Brady couldn’t keep workers on without a bailout, because his latest contract, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is worth a piddling $50 million. His wife Gisele Bündchen, the super model, is worth a paltry $400 million.

 

They needed help.

 

A boxing promotion firm run by Floyd Mayweather also snagged a PPP loan. Mr. Mayweather, who earned an estimated $1 billion in prize money in the ring, somehow needed help. The poor gentleman could hardly get by, what with paying a personal chef to prepare every meal, at a cost of $1,000 per, his $1,000 per haircut grooming habits, his penchant for wearing new underwear daily, rather than wash old (a $6,500-per-year habit), his $20,000 gold-painted Bentley golf cart, his $50,000 diamond iPod phone case, his $4.8 million race car, his $18 million watch, and his $25 million dollar mansion.

 

Also receiving PPP loans: rock groups whose tours were canceled, including the Eagles, Guns N’ Roses, and Green Day. According to Forbes, the Eagles took in $100 million in 2019.

 

So, bail those dudes out.

 

That might not be the worst. In a rush to revive a moribund economy, and get those “Economic Impact Payment” checks out (and maybe win more votes for Trump come November), the federal government handed out a total of $1.4 billion to people who were – frankly – dead.

 

 

FUN FACT – RELATIVES: We should note that the president’s niece, Mary Trump, has a new book out.

 

 

“His ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment.”

 

Among her most shocking revelations, she says Uncle Donald paid to have someone else take his SAT test, so he could get into an elite college. She says the president “embraces” cheating “as a way of life.”

 

She describes Fred Trump Sr., the president’s father, and her grandfather, as a “high-functioning sociopath.” Her father, Fred Jr., and her Uncle Donald were “scarred” for life under his hand.

 

Ms. Trump, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology, says that her uncle is more than a garden-variety narcissist. “Donald is not simply weak,” she writes, “his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be.”

 

She also quotes the president’s sister, Maryanne (and has her on tape), assessing her brother’s run for president. “He’s a clown – this will never happen,” her aunt assured her not long after Donald announced his candidacy. Aunt Maryanne was amazed to see evangelical Christians warm to her brother. “The only time Donald went to church was when the cameras were there,” Mary writes, quoting her aunt. “It’s mind boggling. But that’s all about his base. He has no principles. None!”