April 20, 2020: Trump Claims He Hasn't Left White House for Months!

 

4/20/20: The Marion Correctional Institute in Ohio is a volcanic hotspot for COVID-19. After testing the entire inmate population, officials discovered that 73%, 1,828 prisoners, were infected. Throw in 109 guards and staff members. Across the state, 2,400 inmates are sick and 244 staff. Those numbers represent more than a fifth of all infections in Ohio (12,919). 

The economic and social costs, let alone the cost in lives, continues to cut in all directions. The $15 billion youth sports industry in this country has been snuffed. Softball players are no longer chasing long flyballs. Lacrosse goalies have no shots to stop. Elite soccer players are reduced to playing “Go Fish” at home. Thumb wrestling with yourself has replaced wrestling on mats. More than 113 youth sports organizations have signed on to a plea to Congress, asking for $8.5 billion in recovery funds.

The "prison" where Trump has been held!

 

At his press briefing on Monday, of course, the president is feeling sorry for himself. Here he is, stuck in the White House doing his job, and he hasn’t left the premises, he says, “in months.” 

White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, from NPR, begs to differ, in part because she knows how calendars work. 

When Alcindor reminds the president, “You held rallies in February and in March and there are some Americans...” he seems confused. 

“Oh, I don’t know about rallies. I really don’t know about rallies,” Trump replies. “I know one thing. I haven’t left the White House in months except for a brief moment to give a wonderful ship, the Comfort.” 

“You held a rally in March,” Alcindor reminds him. “March 2,” to be exact. 

“I don’t know. Did I hold a rally? I’m sorry. I hold a rally. Did I hold a rally?” the president says. “Let me tell you, in January, when I did this, we had virtually no cases and no deaths.”  So, as for holding rallies in January, the president explained, “How could I not?”

 

That was fine; but Alcindor was asking about February and March. By that time, the virus was exploding, and Trump was still likening it to flu. 

Plus, he spent the weekend of March 6-9 at his private resort in Mar-a-Lago, and even managed to get in more golf. 

So, Mr. President, before complaining about how hard you’ve had to work, try talking to a few nurses or doctors who have been putting in sixteen-hour shifts, and risking their lives every day, and doing it for weeks.

November 16-18, 2021: Biden Travels to Delaware: Right-Wingers Outraged

11/16-18/21: Once again, right-wing news is all over a story about Joe Biden, going to his homes in Delaware on weekends, and sometimes even during the week. So far, he has cost aggrieved taxpayers something in the range of $3 million for Secret Service protection and other costs. 

That bastard! 

I go checking. To be fair, Fox News did report, way back when, that Donald J. Trump’s first two trips to Mar-a-Lago, cost taxpayers $1.2 million. 

Then Fox noted that Trump’s first four trips to Mar-a-Lago actually cost “We the People” $13.6 million, if you included costs of flying Air Force One. And those trips all came in February and March 2017. 

And, during the pandemic, Fox reported in September 2020, that Trump’s Bedminster golf club charged taxpayers $1.1 million for Secret Service protection – even while closed. 

For comparative purposes, then, we’re getting off really cheaply, with “Sleepy Joe” in the White House. 

(And he doesn’t tweet out hate for large segments of the people he was elected to serve every day, either, as did Donald J.)

 

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AT LAST, some really big voter fraud news! My conservative friends keep sending me grumpy messages on Facebook, insisting that 

1.     Donald J. Trump really won the 2020 election.

2.     Vaccinations will kill us all, and Big Bird is in on the plot.

3.     They heard there was massive proof of voter fraud, and they believe it.

4.     I am a commie, because I ask for evidence.

 

So, I keep looking, as time and interest allow. Sometimes I google general categories, like, “Arizona man arrested for voter fraud.” I don’t turn up stories of massive fraud. I turn up stories like this – where two more individuals voted illegally, this time persons already convicted of felonies. The story mentions two others arrested for the same reason, but does not indicate for whom the felons voted. 

Four illegal votes – not exactly the kind of proof Donald J. Trump keeps insisting is out there, waiting to be revealed.

 

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RIGHT-WING TYPES still don’t get it and if they can bash Biden over rising gas prices they will do so with glee. 

Meanwhile, the reality of climate change causes growing concern in circles where logic, not political calculations, prevails. Exxon Mobile has announced it will be carbon-neutral by 2050. 

The company has already created a plan, listing 150 modifications to make to begin reducing carbon emissions from its gas and oil fields and plants. 

Shell Oil also plans to be carbon-neutral by 2050. 

Amazon has plans to purchase an additional 100,000 electric vans and promises by 2030 that at least half its deliveries will be carbon-neutral.

 

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POINTING OUT THE FLAWS in the way capitalism works today does not a communist make. 

Consider this. You run a fracking company named MDC Energy in Texas. A tank at one of your facilities is leaking methane badly (methane can be as much as 86 times as potent in contributing to climate change, compared to C0₂.) 

By one estimate, it would take $40 million to clean up MDC wells; but the company has filed for bankruptcy. 

In the months before filing for bankruptcy, however, MDC Energy thought it would be a fine idea to pay its chief executive $8.5 million in consulting fees.