April 25, 2020: "Disinfectant Donald" Has Brilliant New Plan to Defeat COVID!

 

4/25/20: At some point in the Trump presidency, I expect my jaw to drop so far, so suddenly, it dislocates, and I end up in the hospital for a week. 

Once again, “Disinfectant Don” has been revealed for what he is: an egocentric, ill-informed liar.

 

____________________ 

You’d never know anyone was suffering except him.

____________________

  

First, however, a look at Sunday’s stark numbers. A check, a little before one p.m., shows that the U.S. has 943,865 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. A total of 54,480 Americans is dead.

 

 

Given these brutal figures, you might assume it would be easy for President Trump to go before the American people in his daily press conferences and offer up comfort and compassion. If you have been watching, you know he can’t. He might read a few formulaic sentences off a sheet provided by aides. There’s never a glimmer of genuine empathy. The president reads in a monotone, citing cold, hard statistics to show how much help his administration is passing on to states, his voice rising only when he turns defensive. He never mentions individual suffering. He never talks about painful loss. If you watched all of Trump’s press conference, all the way through, you’d never know anyone was suffering except him. 

Trump’s troubles exploded again on Thursday when he suggested people with COVID-19 could be cured by injecting them with disinfectant. That comment sounded so stupid that I had a hard time believing the president made it. Anyone who follows my blog knows I don’t like Trump. I can hardly bear to listen to him talk and had not seen the press conference. That meant I needed to see what he said in context.

 

I had to know. Could a U.S. president really say something so profoundly clueless and dumb? It turns out he did. 

Even worse, when it was revealed how clueless and dumb Trump sounded, he tried to lie about what he meant. He said he wasn’t seriously suggesting injecting disinfectant. He was being “sarcastic.” He was directing his comments toward reporters, who we all know he hates. 

By the way, if you’re keeping track, that makes Trump: a) clueless; b) dumb; c) a liar; and d) a threat to the free press. 

 

Still a loyal member of the Windmill Party. 

If you’re still a loyal member of the Windmill Party (that is: you believe everything the Orange Moron says), you can see the president’s comments in context, if you watch the briefing, start to end. You can watch it through a fixed White House camera, which focuses on the person at the podium. Since you doubtless have better ways to spend your time, such as picking lint from between your toes, start around the 25:00 minute mark. The pertinent comments last about two minutes. 

When Trump turns to pose his question to some person or persons off camera, you can’t see who it might be. It could be a reporter or reporters – as Trump will later claim. It could be the First Lady, stopping by to listen to her main squeeze. For all we know, from this angle, it could be a porn queen. 

For proper perspective, you have to view Trump’s comments from another angle, which C-Span2 provides. At the 6:37 mark of their tape, the president suggests that we “hit the body” of a patient suffering from the coronavirus with a powerful dose of ultra-violet light. Maybe internally! He has a hunch this might knock out the virus. He turns to his right and clearly directs his words to Dr. Deborah Birx, seated in a chair along the briefing room wall. “And I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it,” he says. He’s obviously directing his comments to her. “And then I see the disinfectant, which knocks it out, in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?” He even waves his hand in a circular motion, as if cleaning an Oval Office window. 

“Because you see it gets in the lungs, and does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So that you’re going to have to use medical doctors. But it sounds interesting to me [emphasis added].” 

Trump ends with a shrug.

 

If that’s sarcasm directed at reporters, I’m the Princess of York. You can see where Trump is looking (screenshot at 7:02). It’s clear to Dr. Birx who he’s talking to, as well, because she answers his questions.  

If you still have your doubts about the veracity of this blogger, you can go to a third tape and watch Dr. Birx respond. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: I mentioned the president’s lack of empathy at the start of today’s post. To my knowledge, I have never heard him use the word in any speech, although I have trouble listening to him for long. 

I do know, if you check the archive for his Twitter feed, that you can search by word. You have, for starters, nearly 48,000 tweets. Punch in “losers” and you find Trump has called his foes “losers” hundreds of times. He has called those he doesn’t like “psychos” and “sick” and “lowlifes” too. 

I had never searched to see how often the word “empathy” is used. It turned up in two tweets. That included Trump retweeting Dan Bongino, of Fox News, who had this to say: “I don’t feel an ounce of empathy for all of the imbeciles who bought into the Russian collusion hoax now that it’s been entirely debunked.” 

The second time the word appeared it had nothing to do with Trump thinking about others. All he really did was quote a White House Proclamation on Doctors Day, and provide a link. 

So: I would argue that the word “empathy” has never been a part of Trump’s vocabulary. Nor does he display this quality in daily life.

April 26, 2020: Medical Experts Appalled by President's Call to Inject Bleach

 

4/26/20: It was bad enough to find this week that the President of the United States didn’t understand simple science. Friday, and on into the weekend, it got worse. Most Americans know lying comes naturally to Trump. Fish have to swim. Dogs have to woof.  The president has to lie. 

First, Trump had Kayleigh McEnany, his new press secretary, and an adept liar in her own right, issue a statement. She insisted the boss had been misquoted by the jackals of the free press. “President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterday’s briefing,” the statement read. “Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.” 

Yes! When Trump said injecting disinfectant might cure the disease, go with the positive headlines!

BLEACH SALES THROUGH THE ROOF: U.S. ECONOMY REBOUNDS

 

Blistering criticism from just about everyone with a functioning central nervous system did not abate, in part because almost no one believes what anyone working as Press Secretary for this president says. So, as we’ve already noted, Trump tried to claim that he was being sarcastic all along. 

It was not lost on keen observers, that Trump was now arguing that he hadn’t been misquoted, just misunderstood.

 

____________________ 

It “can cause death and very adverse outcomes.” 

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner

____________________

  

Sadly, no one caught the sarcasm – because there was no sarcasm to be caught. 

The manufacturer of Lysol and other top-selling disinfectants decided it was time to issue stern warning. “As a global leader in health and hygiene products,” the company statement read, “we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).” 

The CDC also decided to tweet:

 

  

The Environmental Protection Agency felt the need to share a similar don’t drink the bleach message: “Never apply the product to yourself or others. Do not ingest disinfectant products.” 

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s own former FDA commissioner, was equally direct. “I think we need to speak very clearly that there’s no circumstance under which you should take a disinfectant or inject a disinfectant for the treatment of anything, and certainly not for the treatment of coronavirus.” For good measure, he added, “There’s absolutely no circumstance under which that’s appropriate, and it can cause death and very adverse outcomes.” 

 

You’d be “better off with coronavirus.” 

Trump’s initial stupidity and subsequent lying were met with justifiable scorn. “These [disinfectant] products have corrosive properties that melt or destroy the lining of our innards,” McGill University thoracic surgeon Dr. Jonathan Spicer warned. Dr. Donna Farber, an immunologist at Columbia University was appalled by Trump’s suggestion that we might use ultraviolet (UV) light to kill the virus. The idea, she said, was “not practical.” UV rays don’t go deep enough. The rays would  never get to the lungs; but you could suffer DNA damage, as a result. 

Dr. Farber was blunt. Any radiation that would penetrate deeply enough “would cause so much damage” that you’d be “better off with coronavirus.” 

The more you looked for reaction – to ensure you were getting the story in full – the more the condemnations piled up. “Inhaling chlorine bleach would be absolutely the worst thing for the lungs,” warned Dr. John Balmes, a San Francisco pulmonologist. “Not even a low dilution of bleach or isopropyl alcohol is safe. It’s a totally ridiculous concept.” 

“This is one of the most dangerous and idiotic suggestions made so far in how one might actually treat COVID-19,” a British expert told U.S. News and World Report. “It is hugely irresponsible because, sadly, there are people around the world who might believe this sort of nonsense and try it out for themselves.”

 

Finally, Dr. Vin Gupta, a global health policy expert, told NBC News: 

This notion of injecting or ingesting any type of cleansing product into the body is irresponsible, and it’s dangerous...It’s a common method that people utilize when they want to kill themselves [emphasis added]...Any amount of bleach or isopropyl alcohol or any kind of common household cleaner is inappropriate for ingestion even in small amounts. Small amounts are deadly.

 

Gupta said he found watching the president’s press conferences “demoralizing.” He was horrified to think Trump’s loyal listeners might trust in what he offered as advice. “It’s exceptionally dangerous,” Dr. Gupta warned.  There were people “who hang on to every word” the president says.

May 7, 2020: Disinfectant Donald Claims Miracle Success Battling COVID

 

5/7/20: It’s time to face hard facts. If you listen to President Trump and believe what he spews, you are suffering permanent brain damage. This week he said he was going to disband his Coronavirus Task Force because … who knows why? The next day he announced he wasn’t going to disband his Task Force because … no one knows. Not even Disinfectant Donald.

 

____________________ 

Disinfectant Donald’s “miracle” is no miracle at all. It’s not water into wine – it’s water into vinegar. Or even arsenic.

____________________

  

Yesterday, to prove he was doing an awesome job, Trump tweeted the following graph. And look, you have probably heard the old line: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Trump combines them all, telling lies and damned lies, buttressed by statistics. 

Sadly, more than 73,000 Trump fans “liked” the graph and more than 22,000 retweeted it, spreading dumbness far and wide. 

Trump even added a little whining to go with his lies: 

For the constant criticism from the Do Nothing Democrats and their Fake News partners, here is the newest chart on our great testing “miracle” compared to other countries. Dems and LameStream Media should be proud of the USA, instead of always ripping us down!

 

So, there, on the face of it, it was. It was a “miracle” what Trump and his administration had done. Look at that graph!!!!

Lies, damned lies, and Trump's statistics.

 

Fortunately, you don’t have to become dumber if you’re an avid Trump fan. You can read this blog! 

 

Japan has one case per 8,292 persons. 

You can also check the president’s math, which is often off by a factor of ten or a hundred. You could go to the same source and create a chart using the same data, adjusting for total tests performed per 1,000 population. 

Then the graph would look…uh…not miraculous at all.

 

 

This blundering blogger was not able to include Japan on this chart without it blurring for some reason. Much here is still clear. Italy, Germany, and Canada have tested higher percentages of their populations. And there is a critical reason which explains why South Korea has “fallen behind.” South Korea began testing as soon as they learned they had their first case of COVID-19. See that difference on March 18, where the graph begins. You can see it starts even earlier if you look at Trump’s own graph. 

South Korea ramped up testing in February, while the U.S. and President Trump diddled. That made all the difference. 

By way of Johns Hopkins University, here are the sad statistics just a little before noon, May 7, 2020: 

The United States has more cases than any other country on the face of the earth: 1,231,992. That would be 1 case for every 266 Americans. Italy, the country hit second hardest, has one 1 per 282. 

Germany has 1 case per 498 persons. With a population one-fourth of ours, they have only 7,322 deaths. The U.S. death toll is 73,573 – a little more than ten times as bad – and not a “miracle” at all. 

Canada has one case for every 581 persons, and they don’t have a border wall to keep themselves safe. 

France has 1 case per 375. 

South Korean leaders didn’t waste weeks talking about how COVID-19 was just the flu, and it would miraculously go away in April. On March 17, four days after Disinfectant Donald finally declared a state of emergency, South Korea already had 8,320 confirmed cases. The U.S. had 4,661. But they had been testing for weeks. As of today, South Korea has 10,810 cases, or 1 per 4,743 people.

 

I couldn’t manage to put Japan on my graph – but I wasn’t trying to fudge statistics to make the president look bad. I used math. Japan has 15,253 confirmed cases of the virus as of today. 

Japan also took the threat seriously from the moment the infection broke. Japan has one case per 8,292 persons. Only 556 Japanese have died as a result of the COVID outbreak. 

If you want to find miracles in the math of this pandemic, don’t go looking in the Trump administration’s fun house mirrors.

 

* 

NOTE TO CANDIDATES: If you are a Republican running for Congress, try not to make racist, anti-Muslim and other shocking social media posts. (Then again: You may be appealing to a large part of the GOP base.) 

Case in point: Ted Howze, running for a seat from California. Howze has called Islam “a death cult.” In another post, he slammed a Palestinian American woman, saying if she was typical of her faith, “I finally understand why so many Muslim men would rather copulate with a goat!” He said Rep. Maxine Walters, an African American lawmaker, was “hitting the crack pipe too hard.” 

Worst of all, he mocked one of the survivors of the Parkland, Florida school shooting. “If you’ve been in a squirt gun fight, you’ve seen more ‘gun violence’ than David Hogg,” Howze said. 

Pretty “funny” when you remember that the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School ended only after 17 students and teachers had been killed. 

Sure. Squirt gun fight.

 

(Howze now says someone else made these posts – even though they were up on his social media accounts for years. They have since been removed, with Howze calling them “disgusting,” “negative” and “ugly.” 

Correct, you bonehead.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: Checking back later, I can report the good news. Howze gets defeated in his run for office. 

And bad news: he gets 45% of the vote.