Trump Rejects New York’s Plea For Ventilators: ‘I Don’t Believe You Need’ That Many--My Comment: Unstable stupid

Trump's 'back-to-work' plan and his refusal to supply the New York epicenter of Carona virus with more ventilators it so desperately needs is murderous.  It will make things worse, experts say.   If president Unstable Stupid issues back to work orders even for just specific areas of the nation that have low viral numbers he will be responsible for the murder of thousands more because the virus does not care about state or county boundaries.  It will invade by eminent domain any human it can thereby in Darwinian fashion increasing its numbers no matter which state is back to work.  Those back to work will infect others.  Those states with low viral load will not stay that way if a back to work order is manifested.  Isolation and limiting human to human contact is still the best method that is now available to the nation and the world to lower the curve as China and S. Korea can attest.  Otherwise, the numbers of sick and dying will rise exponentially and then what?  He will ensure more will die who need not die and be responsible for untold suffering that's what. The unfit-for-the-presidency Trump needs to be removed from office and fast before he annihilates the nation with his unbridled narcissism allowing for the stupidest of his sociopathic murderous policies to prevail.  He cares about one thing -- his own survival -- while damning the nation to untold suffering and attendant death. It is ironic that a back to work order will, I surely hope, ensure his November electoral defeat.  The nation must not take any chances though.  He could unthinkably win another term.  This gargoyle must be stopped now by any legal means necessary before he condemns true Trump death panels to so many who need not die!  VOTE BLUE IN NOVEMBER AND REMOVE THIS PATHOLOGICAL SOCIOPATH AND ALL THOSE WHO ENABLE HIM FROM OFFICE. CONDEMN HIM TO THE SAME ASH BIN OF HISTORY TO WHICH THE AXIS POWERS OF WWII WERE SENT! https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/24/trump-coronavirus-economy-america-business https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coronavirus-ventilators-new-york-state_n_5e7d651cc5b6256a7a27c911

WHAT MAKES CORONA VIRUS SO DANGEROUS

A fellow blogger sent this to me.  It is an FYI.
"This is the best description of the danger of virus mutation that I have seen lately and why this virus is so dangerous.
“Feeling confused as to why Coronavirus is a bigger deal than Seasonal flu?
Here it is in a nutshell. I hope this helps. Feel free to share this with others who don’t understand ... It has to do with RNA sequencing ... i.e. genetics."
Seasonal flu is an “all human virus”. The DNA/RNA chains that make up the virus are recognized by the human immune system. This means that your body has some immunity to it before it comes around each year. You get immunity two ways = through exposure to a virus or by getting a flu shot.
Novel viruses come from animals ... the W.H.O. tracks novel viruses in animals, (sometimes for years watching for mutations). Usually, these viruses only transfer from animal to animal (pigs in the case of H1N1 and birds in the case of the Spanish flu). But once one of these animal viruses mutates and starts to transfer from animals to humans, then it’s a problem. Why? Because we have no natural or acquired immunity … the RNA sequencing of the genes inside the virus isn’t human and the human immune system doesn’t recognize it, so we can’t fight it off.
Now ... sometimes the mutation only allows transfer from animal to human. For years it’s the only transmission -- from an infected animal to a human -- before it finally mutates so that it can now transfer human to human. Once that happens we have a new contagion phase. And depending on the fashion of this new mutation, that’s what decides how contagious or how deadly it’s gonna be. H1N1 was deadly but it did not mutate in a way that was as deadly as the Spanish flu. Its RNA was slower to mutate and it attacked its host differently, too. Fast forward …
Now, here comes this Corona virus ... it existed in animals only for nobody knows how long.
But one day at an animal market in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, it mutated and made the jump from animal to people. At first, only animals could give it to a person. But here is the scary part ... in just TWO WEEKS it mutated again and gained the ability to jump from human to human. Scientists call this quick ability “slippery”. This Coronavirus, not being in any form a “human” virus (whereas we would all have some natural or acquired immunity), took off like a rocket. And this was because Humans have no known immunity ... doctors have no known medicines for it.

And it just so happens that this particular mutated animal virus changed itself in such a way that it causes great damage to human lungs. That’s why Coronavirus is different from seasonal flu, or H1N1, or any other type of influenza ... this one is slippery as hell. And it’s a lung eater. And, it’s already mutated AGAIN, so that we now have two strains to deal with, strain S and strain L ... which makes it twice as hard to develop a vaccine.

We really have no tools in our shed with this. History has shown that fast and immediate closings of public places have helped in the past pandemics. Philadelphia and Baltimore were reluctant to close events in 1918 and they were the hardest hit in the US during the Spanish Flu.

And let me end by saying right now it’s hitting older folks harder. But this genome is so slippery -- if it mutates again … who is to say what it will do next. Be smart folks ... acting like you’re unafraid is so not sexy right now: #flattenthecurve.

Let's pray that we can develop a vaccine for the S and L strains before the virus mutates again!

Stay home folks and share this with those that just are not catching on.” 

Share as if your life depends upon it because now you can see it truly does and then vote blue up and down the ticket.  The life you save may be your own and/or that of your family!

By Any Constitutional Means Necessary

Our nation is in serious life and death jeopardy dealing with Corona virus containment. Little has been received that Trump said would be sent because he lies, as we know, all the time.  I cannot repeat all the criticism of the Cretan president I have said and printed in opinion over and over and over again. All should be held accountable for leaving this very  sick man in office. We are all at contagion risk and we do not have to be.

He will not put into play the National Defense Authorization Act he allegedly signed allowing him to harness from private enterprise all this nation so desperately needs such as hospital masks, ventilators, gloves and other personal protective equipment to name but a few things needed. Trump says it is because he does not want to nationalize business. In a pandemic he holds us hostage to ideological belief but has time to tell us how rich he is and how the presidency has cost him so much especially in legal fees?   Perhaps if he did not commit so many illegal and unconstitutional acts it would not cost him so much.  It has cost the American people, too, in millions of tax dollars used by Trump to profit off the presidency.

The president is sadly sick and we must have empathy for one who has a mental illness but no one thinks the American people signed up for a suicide pact enduring Trump's insanity which could kill us. No presidency is worth that. Surely the Congress including the Senate must see that their own lives as witnessed by Rand Paul, and three Congressional others either quarantining themselves or testing positive for the virus and it will keep spreading unless the hospitals have enough protective equipment to curtail it.

This president must be removed from office and fast by any Constitutional means necessary!

A Bed of Thorns

Trump and his dastardly minions will never admit fault as his base will gladly accept all the lies he can dish out never questioning the veracity of a thing. That is sad because the fate of all of us, including those like I, who loathe the core of this mendacious man, hangs in the balance.

Taking a cocktail of his "good feeling" drugs like chloroquine, a drug designed for use in malaria and remdesivir, he "feels" are sound even if they can initiate heart attacks and death.  Children or young adults who might take these drugs may suffer an early unpleasant death also when otherwise they may have survived the virus. 

Shame on this unethical, immoral and cruel man who thinks about his own reelection bid and not the fact that there is death all around never asking what the federal government and he can do as the world's most powerful man to ameliorate the condition of the suffering masses.  He hands what should be a unified federal response back to the 50 individual states saying the federal government is not a "shipping clerk."  Really, Trump, really? 

Telling lies about this pandemic whether it be that the duration will be short when it will not, masks are on the way when they are not, Navy medical ships are being groomed into service when they clearly are not or, in the beginning, telling the nation that there is nothing to fear as the virus will run its course and wash over us as soon as the warmer weather ensues when it will last long after is tantamount to murder since many can and will die expecting the bed of roses that Trump dishes out so his polls will go up and while we receive nothing but a bed of thorns.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-center-lessons.html?emc=edit_na_20200321&ref=headline&nl=breaking-news&campaign_id=60&instance_id=0&segment_id=22518&user_id=85a8ac1c6f518c011d82f4864472cc9b&regi_id=75028030

Pets --do NOT dump your pets -- Please read

From the animal shelter:
DO NOT DUMP YOUR PETS!!!!
You cannot, I repeat you CANNOT get Corona virus from your pets. People are dumping their animals at shelters out of ignorance and fear-please please post this on your page or send it to whomever your choose.  

It is staggering to think that some would not know your animals do not get Corona nor pass Corona on.  Then again this whole saga is staggering to think we are not living in the Twilight Zone nor have leadership that knows what it is doing.  

Get your information on this virus from reputable sources and if you watch daily leadership advice be wary of everything you hear from them as dangerous exaggerations and lies are put forth every day.   Check your questions or information out at the National Institute of Health or even a hospital like MGH or other trustworthy medical sites.  Listen to TV stations that offer academic excellence and facts checked out by experts in the field of immunology and science like MSNBC, NBC, CNN, ABC or CBS.  Do NOT NOT NOT listen to Fox!

Post this on your FB page or send it to anyone you like!

God Help Us

What is there to say about this disgusting excuse for a so called "president" as he maligns PBS journalist Yamiche Alcindor's and NBC journalist Peter Alexander both of whom lobbed rational questions for Trump to answer (see links below.)  Alexander asked about the Carona virus what do you say to the American people who are scared. Trump insulted both reporters and he insulted the American people's intelligence to see that the questions of both reporters were perfectly appropriate and he could have, if he had an intellect, answered both of them with finesse and dignity.

He handed the reporters, instead, a hammer that public opinion and the media they represent would use to make him look like the dull 3 year old that he is. What happened to this man that he finds it so difficult under the easiest circumstances to answer the easiest of questions from the press with clarity and intelligence. This "president" finds it impossible to reflect either. God help us!

The WHO test kits: This is how Trump lies and even his expert gets it wrong!

This is how Trump lies and the bobble heads so called experts try to make Trump look good by nodding and having faulty information.  Dr. Birk said the WHO test kits were not tested and reliable, did not meet the guidelines so Trump rejected them to which Trump concurred. 

FACT: Per MSNBC infectious disease expert: The WHO test kits were reliable but were given free to impoverished nations. The US not being an impoverished nation would have had to pay for them. Trump rejected that but WHO test kits were reliable. The test kits that were NOT reliable and tried at first were the ones from Trump's CDC!!!!!

One must never accept carte blanch anything Trump says.  He lies and he does so all the time.  What is dismaying are his so called expert bobble heads nodding in agreement with him apparently to give him support even when it is an untruth.  Dismaying!  Send this to anyone you choose.

Herd immunity -- my Comment

My comment:  Since the attempt of vaccinating the entire world against polio it has shown that so called "herd immunity" allows those few who have not been vaccinated to not become infected.  I attempted to research just what herd immunity is.  In essence as you can read below it seems to mean that if a large number of people are vaccinated i.e. the majority 60% against the disease in essence simply the virus will peter out and not infect the few who resist vaccination.  Vaccination still remains the gold standard to individual immunity by the body creating antibodies to the disease.  I offer the article below as a definition of herd immunity.

Better analysis of herd immunity:

The Independent
 
What is herd immunity?

When enough people in a community are vaccinated against a disease, this can make it more difficult for the disease to spread to susceptible individuals who have not yet been or cannot be vaccinated. This, the NHS outlines, is called “herd immunity”.

The Vaccine Knowledge Project at Oxford University explains in greater detail, using the analogy of a person being infected by measles.

“If someone with measles is surrounded by people who are vaccinated against measles, the disease cannot easily be passed on to anyone, and it will quickly disappear again,” the organization states.

“This is called ‘herd immunity’, ‘community immunity’ or ‘herd protection’, and it gives protection to vulnerable people such as newborn babies, elderly people and those who are too sick to be vaccinated”.

However, the organization stresses that herd immunity “only works” if the majority of a population have been vaccinated against a condition, adding that it “does not protect against all vaccine-preventable diseases”.

“Unlike vaccination, herd immunity does not give a high level of individual protection, and so it is not a good alternative to getting vaccinated,” the Vaccine Knowledge Project says.
Professor Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, tells The Independent that the concept of herd immunity is “the basis of all vaccination programs”.

However, it can also occur naturally, he explains, stating: “If you’ve been exposed to any infection, enough people have already been exposed to it, have developed antibodies and they’re immune to it, you can have natural herd immunity, and that particular virus will not be able to cause an epidemic in the population.

“It doesn’t mean it won’t be able to spread as there’ll still be some susceptible people, but it won’t take off and cause an epidemic,” he says.

THERE IS NO TEST; the life you save may be your loved one's or your own

Trump tells lies and he tells them all the time.  We know this to be true as sources, reputable ones, keep track of them.  The number of lies he has told since this mendacious man has occupied the sacred spaces of the oval office is probably nearing 10,000 or more.  Trump lied again saying that everyone who wants a test for the Corona virus can get a test.  That is a bold face lie as admitted to by numerous infectious disease experts inside and outside the administration.  If one comes down with Corona symptoms, calls their doctor and says that he/she needs a test the doctor in all probability will not be able to give them one or not even point the way in the direction for them to get tested.  The risk to our hospital system to appropriately deal with virus sufferers and normal illnesses it treats is huge.

THE FAILURE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO DO ANYTHING IS APOCALYPTIC.  There have been no millions of tests distributed.  The question becomes why is the Republican Party so afraid to call out Trump for the lies he has promulgated which are going to mean sickness and death for ultimately millions if it keeps on going the way of Trump rosy picture painting and just plain lying?  There is zero trust in this administration for anything except surety that this malignant liar will fudge numbers and promote untrue analysis in a way that can best suit his re-election campaign and/or the stock market.  This virus is not going to peter out magically, it is not going to evaporate, it is not going to seasonally die out but it is going to infect those of us who are vulnerable to its poison irrespective of whether one is a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent or a Boy Scout.  It matters not to a biological entity who it infects as long as it does to keep itself alive. It is Darwinian survival at its finest.  Humans do not have the immune system response to this virus because no human body has encountered it before in order to develop an immune response to it.

The irony is without a test and a plan based on testing which the administration it seems deliberately has impeded so Trump will not see the higher numbers that infect the electorate making him worry first and foremost about his campaign and stock numbers, he is reinforcing that more numbers ultimately in the millions will come out to vote against him (I pray.)  Meanwhile, every day wasted without a uniform test and plan to respond to the virus throughout the nation will mean millions more ultimately will be infected and many will die who should not.

Send this to anyone you choose because we are in an emergency.  Lives are at stake and more into the millions perhaps could be infected and die especially those at risk but not limited to those at risk.  Then in November, if Trump has not been given the hook by his supporters turning against him (I can hope) VOTE BLUE UP AND DOWN THE TICKET.  The life you save may be your loved one's life or, in fact, your own!

In U.S., Cases of Coronavirus Cross 500, and Deaths Rise

Deny it if you will but science will do what science will do.  China, where the epidemic began, and  as an authoritarian nation, mandated the strictest control shutting down so many public venues and testing everyone by force if necessary has today reported cases going down.  It is the only nation to report that tells us something about effective control.  The US is NOT in that category by a long shot.  Today Republican senator Ted Cruz who attended the uber conservative CPAC Corona denial conference where one came down with the disease, is now in 14 day quarantine. There is one more Republican in the House that attended the same conference now is in quarantine. There will be more of that I am sure.

The thing that makes this different from the ordinary flu is that there is no vaccine.  It takes at least a year or more to develop one.  People here who contract the flu often have not gotten the vaccine. In 1917 the flu outbreak took world wide 100 million deaths and 675, 000 here in the US. My grandmother nearly died of it.  There was no vaccine.

The Corona virus is new so no one has immunity.  Had a discussion with a veterinarian about it.  He said at some point everyone will get it but on a genetic front it is easier to map the virus's DNA now and that is furiously being done so maybe a vaccine can expeditiously happen but we must first know who has it by testing and that here rolled out with big problems due to incompetent leadership such as the unfit for office Trump and his minions who are in denial mode so the stock market can recover and Trump be reelected. So the testing kits had to be recalled.  Now many more are going out but who and how many get tested remains a sticking point.

Best defense now is hand washing and keeping hands away from one's face, eyes, mouth, nose and even ears and stay tuned to those news outlets which do not deny anything.  Richard Engel had a documentary he reported on last night.  You can Google it if you like.  It is excellent. As one who suffered the effects of a virus it is no joke and the vaccine for polio took years to develop.  It first came out with a glitch that gave paralytic polio to people who were experimented on which is why a vaccine is so difficult to create.  It must be thoroughly tested.  Deny this new virus at your and everyone's peril.

A narcissistic imbecile and a vindictive ignoramus -- By Boston Globe Blogger John Pop

Stay away from people who wear these MAGA hats. They are being given misinformation about the coronavirus from their Dear Leader.

They could be spreading more than lies.

1. Denies WHO's coronavirus death rate based on “hunch"
2. Calls coronavirus "corona flu"
3. Suggests it's fine for people w/ Covid-19 to go to work
4. Compares coronavirus to "the regular flu," indicating he doesn't get the difference

This is what happens when you put a narcissistic imbecile in the White House.

Keep in mind that he has been schooled over and over and over again the last couple of weeks about this virus and the danger involved and he just can’t get it. All he cares about is downplaying the danger so it doesn’t affect the stock market and his re-election.
And the result is that he has failed miserably to deal with this crisis and has let it spread unabated despite having weeks of lead time to get prepared.

And he’s still doing it. Because he’s a vindictive ignoramus and will punish anyone who doesn’t lick his boots, everyone in the public health apparatus of the United States government is having to downplay the risk in ways that go beyond simply telling people not to panic. They have to say that everything’s going great and fluff the president for his “great leadership.”

Trump appears to have let the window for containing coronavirus in the U.S. close on purpose, because he thought that might buoy the stock market and thus his re-election odds. I lack the words. From an honoring-the-oath perspective, it’s probably the worst thing he’s done.

If I believed

I am so elated by what happened in the primaries last night. I love this nation. I will especially love it if the low life in chief is electorally crushed. We must as Democrats and all people of humane proclivities rally around that which is possible. Joe Biden is possible.

If I were a believer and thought providence intervened in the history of this nation to rescue those who are in trouble I would say that something divine saw the evil among us that is Donald Trump who has wrought horror and brought shame upon us, has brought the corruptness of his being, has turned his back on the poor, the sick and the dispossessed. I would see a power that came to save us. I would say, if I believed, that divine providence has brought to us this miracle of Joe Biden, a good and decent man who has suffered the harsh vicissitudes of life, losing a wife and a young son, then later losing his pride and joy Beau Biden to brain cancer. All these things have made Joe Biden who he is so that he may help us rid ourselves of the heavy albatross of destruction and hate that is Trump.

Like the GI's who liberated the concentration camps in WWII, I would say if I believed, that the man Joe Biden is here to take this awful burden of Trump off from around our necks. I would say if I believed, that things like that can happen. That is how I feel today. I have hope I did not have before. Joe Biden, make this miracle come true. Crush the evil in our midst that is Trump and make me believe. Make me believe so that we may never hear from the spiritually ugly, corrupt and profane man named Trump or anyone like him ever again.

An ode to mortality - My Comment

My Comment: The statement below is a very clever poem written by a blogger and contains, I think, some truth. It is worth reading.  

It is ironic that a microscopic entity here since life on earth began is now bringing the world to a crawl and forcing the big powerful big brained man and oftentimes ecological bully to his knees.  Will man's big brain allow him/her ultimately in Darwinian fashion to survive?  Time will tell the outcome of this nasty biological entity that holds the fate of man as yet unseen in its hands.

The Poem:

The sideswipe of disaster Was bound to come one day We thought it would be warfare

Or a strike from outer space

Instead the smallest of us Those we cannot see Know that we have done enough To bring Earth to her knees

So they’re rising up to save her (it’s their home too you see) To reassert their power And cull us with disease

They’ve been around since life began While we but late arrived They know the way survival works As we still stumble blind

They’ve decided we’re too many And numbers must reduce Our skill at procreation Must now end our lease

The microscopic creatures For whom we shed no tear Are cutting down our evil ways And reducing us to fear

Suddenly our world is slowed By unseen policing hands Our  destruction of the planet Must cease by their command

Now we dare not touch each other Or follow travel’s tide We cannot strike our enemy Only use a mask to hide

The things that made us wealthy Our ships and aeroplanes Are now being used against us To spread disease’s bane

So our commerce of pollution Must be put on hold For fear the bugs will find us And leave our bodies cold

Raising  ourselves up as gods That never was our due To take their world as property we had no right to do.

Thomas Friedman: Democrats, here’s the sure-fire way to defeat Donald Trump: My Comment: Read, heed and share

By Thomas L. Friedman 

 

If this election turns out to be just between a self-proclaimed socialist and an undiagnosed sociopath, we will be in a terrible, terrible place as a country. How do we prevent that?

That’s all I am thinking about right now. My short answer is that the Democrats have to do something extraordinary — forge a national unity ticket the likes of which they have never forged before. And that’s true even if Democrats nominate someone other than Bernie Sanders.

What would this super ticket look like? Well, I suggest Sanders — and Michael Bloomberg, who seems to be his most viable long-term challenger — lay it out this way:

“I want people to know that if I am the Democratic nominee these will be my Cabinet choices — my team of rivals. I want Amy Klobuchar as my vice president. Her decency, experience and moderation will be greatly appreciated across America and particularly in the Midwest. I want Mike Bloomberg (or Bernie Sanders) as my secretary of the Treasury. Our plans for addressing income inequality are actually not that far apart, and if we can blend them together it will be great for the country and reassure markets. I want Joe Biden as my secretary of state. No one in our party knows the world better or has more credibility with our allies than Joe. I will ask Elizabeth Warren to serve as health and human services secretary. No one could bring more energy and intellect to the task of expanding health care for more Americans than Senator Warren.

“I want Kamala Harris for attorney general. She has the toughness and integrity needed to clean up the corrupt mess Donald Trump has created in our Justice Department. I would like Mayor Pete as homeland security secretary; his intelligence and military background would make him a quick study in that job. I would like Tom Steyer to head a new Cabinet position: secretary of national infrastructure. We’re going to rebuild America, not just build a wall on the border with Mexico. And I am asking Cory Booker, the former mayor of Newark, to become secretary of housing and urban development. Who would bring more passion to the task of revitalizing our inner cities than Cory?

“I am asking Mitt Romney to be my commerce secretary. He is the best person to promote American business and technology abroad — and it is vital that the public understands that my government will be representing all Americans, including Republicans. I would like Andrew Yang to be energy secretary, overseeing our nuclear stockpile and renewable energy innovation. He’d be awesome.
“I am asking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to serve as our U.N. ambassador. Can you imagine how our international standing would improve with youth worldwide with her representing next-gen America? And I want Sen. Michael Bennet, the former superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, to be my secretary of education. No one understands education reform better than he does. Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna would be an ideal secretary of labor, balancing robots and workers to create “new collar” jobs.

“Finally, I am asking William H. McRaven, the retired Navy admiral who commanded the U.S. Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014 and oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, to be my defense secretary. Admiral McRaven, more than any other retired military officer, has had the courage and integrity to speak out against the way President Trump has politicized our intelligence agencies.

Only last week, McRaven wrote an essay in The Washington Post decrying Trump’s firing of Joe Maguire as acting director of national intelligence — the nation’s top intelligence officer — for doing his job when he had an aide brief a bipartisan committee of Congress on Russia’s renewed efforts to tilt our election toward Trump.

“Edmund Burke,” wrote McRaven, “the Irish statesman and philosopher, once said: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’”

If Bernie or Bloomberg or whoever emerges to head the Democratic ticket brings together such a team of rivals, I am confident it will defeat Trump in a landslide. But if progressives think they can win without the moderates — or the moderates without the progressives — they are crazy. And they’d be taking a huge risk with the future of the country by trying.

And I mean a huge risk. Back in May 2018, the former House speaker John Boehner declared: “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”

It’s actually not napping anymore. It’s dead.

And I will tell you the day it died. It was just last week, when Trump sacked Maguire for advancing the truth and replaced him with a loyalist, an incompetent political hack, Richard Grenell. Grenell is the widely disliked U.S. ambassador to Germany, a post for which he is also unfit. Grenell is now purging the intelligence service of Trump critics. How are we going to get unvarnished, nonpolitical intelligence analysis when the message goes out that if your expert conclusions disagree with Trump’s wishes, you’re gone?

I don’t accept, but can vaguely understand, Republicans’ rallying around Trump on impeachment. But when Republicans, the self-proclaimed national security party — folks like Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton — don’t lift a finger to stop Trump’s politicization of our first line of defense — the national intelligence directorate set up after 9/11 — then the Republican Party is not asleep. It’s dead and buried.

And that is why a respected, nonpartisan military intelligence professional like Bill McRaven felt compelled to warn what happens when good people are silent in the face of evil. Our retired generals don’t go public like that very often. But he was practically screaming, “This is a four-alarm fire, a category 5 hurricane.” And the GOP response? Silence.

Veteran political analyst E.J. Dionne, in his valuable new book, “Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country,” got this exactly right: We have no responsible Republican Party anymore. It is a deformed Trump personality cult. If the country is going to be governed responsibly, that leadership can come only from Democrats and disaffected Republicans courageous enough to stand up to Trump. It is crucial, therefore, argues Dionne, that moderate and progressive Democrats find a way to build a governing coalition together.

Neither can defeat the other. Neither can win without the other. Neither can govern without the other.

If they don’t join together — if the Democrats opt for a circular firing squad — you can kiss the America you grew up in goodbye.

When a Pandemic Meets a Personality Cult The Trump team confirms all of our worst fears.

A MUST READ!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/opinion/coronavirus-trump.html

Leading Civil Rights Lawyer Shows 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies

This link was sent to me by a political ally.  The parallels between Hitler's rise to power and Trump's attempt at seizing, keeping and controlling power are too close to be coincidental.  It has been said that Trump kept a copy of Hitler's speeches and modalities on his bedside for nighttime reading.  If nothing else this should persuade you that a Hitlerian template has been used by Trump to ensure his electoral success.   We must by all means necessary stop him from gaining unlimited control and overthrowing all manner of institutional democracy that was once the hallmark of our nation and the envy of the world.  We must ensure the candidate Democrats nominate can win and electorally crush the con man charlatan, evil and cruel beast who currently occupies and besmirches the sanctity of the oval office and our nation.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?compose=jrjtWvNqLtbVgLfPcSdcDRHZRgfWSMBHrZxrphQMnSjPrKqbthmPNHWDWWMRbzfggmgNqRXq

The Fragility of Democracy

When I was young I became aware that in this nation I could say anything I wanted, ask any question I desired and did not have to agree with something if I did not want.  I knew the extent of free speech was nearly unlimited.  I determined the nature of the culture in which I lived as one that would always protect one's right to free speech as well as the right to read anything I chose.  I thought I was lucky to have been born in a nation whose very foundational documents I would learn were enshrined in the Constitution since 1789 by the nation's prescient Founders.

As I matured and attended a university I learned to question everything including all those things which power mandated I must accept as truth.  I became smitten with many of the protest events of the late 60's because they provided me an insight into many of those things I later learned to be untrue.  I first then became acquainted with the history of persons of color in this nation and the so called Jim Crow laws a person of color in the south was required to follow.  I was shocked and revolted when a black professor told us that he fought in World War II only to return unable to sit at a lunch counter with whites or that he was mandated to sit at the back of the bus giving up a seat in the front because only a person of white privilege could sit there.  I became aware of poll taxes, grandfather clauses and literacy tests as a tools whites in the south used to deny persons of color the right to vote.  If one thought in the north those discriminatory practices would not happen one need only look to de facto segregation in the northern cities, or in the many schools which were separate and still unequal. 

My experience told me, too, that in war this nation was always right.  I then, however, read books like J. William Fulbright's "Arrogance of Power" or listened to lectures by Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky only to learn that the US was not always on the side of right but was often on the side of international political self interest denying rights to those who were too weak to resist.  Vietnam, for example, or the removal of the Iranian democratically elected and beloved Mosaddegh replacing him with the US friendly Shah and his brutal repressive police force Savak were examples of US power mandating results it did not have, in my opinion, the right to make.

Maturity dictates, though, once strongly held beliefs need from time to time to be reassessed.  If I have learned nothing from this evil Trumpian time I have learned to value what this nation had before his corrupt rule and how easy it can be to subvert democracy.  Edmund Burke, the 18th century philosopher said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" and so good men in our Republican Senate have snipped at their own balance of power rights bestowed constitutionally on them to allow this corrupt con man, charlatan and malignant narcissist to keep his seat when they could have removed this cancer from our body politic when they had the chance. 

Trump has subverted our democracy, placed in power other men who are loyal only to him and not to the Constitution.  Our Founders would be aghast. He is vicious in act, word and deed locking up children in cages, polluting our once pristine waters, denying climate change and articulating all manner of vicious appellations on many innocent others whose only crime is possessing a brain to think and question all that he does. He has maligned our allies, turned his back on our friends and advocated for our enemies.  He has become a Russian asset in that he has allowed Russian power in Ukraine to go unchecked even conducting a hot war in the Donbas section and annexing Crimea.  He refuses to release his taxes leaving us to question why.  The worst subjugation of democracy, though, comes with his annihilation of the Congressional balance of power by the attorney general declaring in jack boot agreement with Trump that the president can do anything he wants, subvert any principle of a free state because the president has the Article II right to do it.  He is emulating a banana republic by firing all those who do not agree with him and replacing those eliminated with so called "acting" authorities giving him the freedom to remove and replace them at will.  Moreover, he interfered in an ongoing trial to lighten the sentence of his pal Roger Stone found guilty on seven counts of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction. It is the first time a president with the attorney general's blessing has interfered in an ongoing trial.  This is unconscionable.

The latest most egregious action came by his firing of the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, because Maguire did the right thing by briefing Congress about 2020 Russian election meddling on Trump's behalf.  Trump was livid at Maguire for doing the right thing, fired him and placed in that vital-to-national-security position Richard Grenell, a man of zero intelligence experience but a loyal Trump supporter nonetheless.  There are, of course, so many more examples of Trumpian usurpation of powers he does not have.  The founding fathers put in order of importance the legislative branch as Article I and the executive branch as Article II.  The Founders did not want a king but Donald J. Trump does and is using his acquittal of impeachment by the Republican majority Senate as a permission slip to do anything he wants.  Acquittal does not mean innocence and he is, indeed, not innocent.  The House found enough guilt to impeach him for asking a foreign power to investigate his presumed election rival, Joe Biden. 

Donald J. Trump is creating an authoritarian despotic tyranny before our very eyes and God forbid is poised to have the electorate give him four more years.   Benjamin Franklin when a woman asked what form of government the Founders had created said "a Republic if you can keep it" because he feared the fragility of a democracy and man's proclivity to be seduced by power and subvert it.  Donald J. Trump is doing just that!

Unitary all powerful chief executive above the law -- I have a question

I have a question for Bill Barr which no one seems to have asked yet. Barr's legal, judicial and constitutional philosophy is one of a strong all powerful chief executive.  The nation has long debated that ideological question.  For decades it has been the subject in the formulation of our Constitutional republic, through the institution of slavery, to the 20th century's Great Depression and beyond.  I, too, when formulating my political opinions wrestled with the concept of a strong chief executive. I did so because those on the right were decrying, for example, FDR's New Deal and John Kennedy's actions on behalf of civil rights, as well as Lyndon Johnson's advocacy for human rights.  The right wing for years thought it was a breach of the balance of power the Founders created for the president to stray into areas which either belong to other branches of Congress or more properly reside in the states.  Many viewed FDR's New Deal as tyrannical. 

What is the role of the Chief Executive when working to ameliorate the effects of a Great Depression, waging war, or even providing health insurance?  Up until FDR the president thought his powers were limited and that there was nothing more that could be done during the Great Depression by Herbert Hoover except to let the economy adjust on its own.   Meanwhile millions were starving and millions were sick.  Later persons of color who served the nation in war were not let into all white colleges and universities or drink from water fountains labeled "white."  These mammoth injustices which since FDR called out for strong executive power.  I advocated for a strong executive when justice had to prevail or when the existential life of the nation was in question.

Since Trump the trajectory of that power for which I once advocated can be seen through his plethora of executive orders that come down heavy not for the least of these but against those who have the least.  He has relegated those seeking protection from tyranny to mandating a new Trumpian tyranny.  He has relegated children vying for safety in this nation to cages, he has signed Muslim bans, he has cozied up to the worst of world dictators, celebrated with Russian ambassadors over a firing of an FBI director, encroached through eminent domain on private property for his wall to keep desperate immigrants out, imposed economically destructive tariffs, advocated for the attorney general to lower sentencing on a convicted felon in a case where the defendant was his friend.  This has never happened before.  He has nominated judges who do not meet even the standards of the American Bar Association. He has sent federally empowered ICE into states which have sanctuary cities to arrest those who have been given state protection.  He lowered pollution standards in streams and waterways that provide drinking water.  He eliminated standards for fossil fuel drilling and for the extraction of dirty coal.  He cancelled the nuclear proliferation agreement with Iran which was working, and he denies the scientific certainty of climate change while our nation drowns in floods and suffers along with other nations many other catastrophic weather related disasters.  Ask Australians if they believe in climate change.

Much of the power which the president thinks he has and Mr. Barr thinks lives within his presidential right to wield is dedicated to undoing the justice of many decades of injustice.  Trumpian power is inhumane, cruel, vicious and is dedicated to inflate his bank accounts and maintaining power while he existentially destroys our nation.

I therefore ask Bill Barr if he believes in a strong chief executive does he do so if the the president were a Democrat?  Does he think a unitary strong executive should prevail only if the president is Republican advocating for the richest in the nation and above the law our Founders feared?

Bill Barr Must Resign -- By Donald Ayer Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General under George H. W. Bush

The attorney general is working to destroy the integrity and independence of the Justice Department, in order to make Donald Trump a president who can operate above the law.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/donald-ayer-bill-barr-must-resign/606670/

Former Deputy Attorney General Shares Dire Warning If William Barr Does Not Resign--By Josephine Harvey

Donald Ayer, a deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, predicts a grim outcome for America if Barr continues to serve Trump. 

A former deputy attorney general in George H.W. Bush’s administration has warned that the integrity of the Justice Department has been compromised by the current attorney general, William Barr, paving the way for “virtually autocratic” leadership by President Donald Trump.

In an op-ed for The Atlantic published Monday, Donald Ayer, who has known Barr for more than four decades and once worked with him at the Department of Justice, warned of a grim future if his former colleague is not removed from office.

Reflecting on Barr’s first year of service, Ayer concluded that he has “appeared to function much more as the president’s personal advocate than as an attorney general serving the people and government of the United States.”

Any optimism that Barr would stand strong against attempts to inject politics into the department’s work was misplaced, Ayer wrote, highlighting a series of “disturbing” events beginning with his “public whitewashing of Robert Mueller’s report, which included powerful evidence of repeated obstruction of justice by the president,” and ending with the “worst of all”: Barr’s reported intervention in the criminal prosecution of Trump’s friend Roger Stone. 

“For whatever twisted reasons, he believes that the president should be above the law, and he has as his foil in pursuit of that goal a president who, uniquely in our history, actually aspires to that status.”

The fundamental reason that Barr is unfit for office, according to Ayer, is that he does not believe in the central tenet of America’s democracy: that “no person is above the law.” 

“Bill Barr’s America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go,” Ayer concluded.

“It is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen. To prevent that, we need a public uprising demanding that Bill Barr resign immediately, or failing that, be impeached.”

Ayer is just one of more than 2,000 former prosecutors and DOJ officials to call for Barr’s resignation in the wake of the extraordinary events of the past week. Last Tuesday, four career prosecutors withdrew from the Stone case after top Justice Department officials overruled their sentencing recommendation. Seemingly confirming concerns that Barr had intervened on his behalf, the president openly applauded Barr for “taking charge” of the case on Twitter. Later in an interview, Barr said that constant tweets and commentary were complicating his job.

Barr’s push back was faulted widely as an attempt to cover up what critics suggested was a coordinated attempt between him and Trump to defuse the firestorm over the preferential treatment given Trump’s longtime ally.