Three things happened in the last three days that have made me so angry that I couldn’t write this post until I calmed down a bit. It is now many hours later, so here they are:
First, two days ago was this headline: “White House abruptly transfers DHS official amid loyalty purge“. This is a top official at DHS, the department that is in charge of protecting homeland security and has taken a leading role in fighting COVID-19. She was moved out of DHS because “the Presidential Personnel Office raised questions about her loyalty to President Donald Trump.”
We are in the midst of a pandemic where tens of thousands of people have died and over half a million are sick, and a record-breaking economic meltdown has led to the largest jump in Americans applying for unemployment insurance in history. And the Trump administration is using that as a distraction so they can quietly get rid of people who don’t kiss Trump’s ass enough.
Like any bully, Trump didn’t hide from people in the DHS that he was removing someone because of lack of loyalty. He wanted to use her as an example, to frighten everyone else there into being loyal.
As terrible as that is, we are no longer surprised when crap like this happens. It is almost a daily occurrence with Trump. Him acting like the king (or mob boss) of what used to be a democracy has sadly become the new normal.
But then yesterday came the following news:
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) suggested Friday that a growing rift with the White House is affecting shipments of medical supplies to Michigan amid exponential growth in confirmed coronavirus cases.
When the federal government told us that we needed to go it ourselves, we started procuring every item we could get our hands on. What I’ve gotten back is that vendors with whom we had contracts are now being told not to send stuff here to Michigan.
Whitmer didn’t say who has told vendors to stop sending medical supplies to the state, but strongly implied the order came from President Trump’s administration.”
Seriously? Someone is blocking Michigan from receiving medical supplies that are urgently needed to save lives? Who could that be? And finally today, we got the horrible answer.
Today (Friday), during his now-daily TV briefing, Trump announced that “he told Pence not to call governors who aren’t ‘appreciative’ of White House coronavirus efforts.
Trump continued, “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call. I think they should be appreciative.” And if there was any doubt, he added “All I want them to do, very simple, I want them to be appreciative. I don’t want them to say things that aren’t true. I want them to be appreciative. We’ve done a great job.”
Trump even mentioned two governors by name:
Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington. You’re wasting your time with him.
Don’t call the woman in Michigan. It doesn’t make any difference what happens.
Is there any doubt that Trump is also preventing Michigan from getting medical supplies? After all, he just said that it doesn’t matter what happens. Think about that, it doesn’t matter if people die, or if they lose their life savings. That doesn’t matter. It only matters to Trump if people kowtow to him.
I’ll end with a wee bit of good news. Of all places, Fox News just released a poll that shows Joe Biden up 49% to 40% over Trump. And in counties where Hillary Clinton and Trump were within 10 points in 2016, Biden leads Trump 57% to 32%, a 25 point advantage.
15 Comments
You did not mention McConnell. One month, Yes, it has just been one month, the articles of Impeachment were voted on. He could have been removed then. Give to McGrath. Get the Traitor to the American people out of office. Flip the senate. Give to Mark kelly. Give to Sara Gideon, give to Harrison in S.C. give them to flip the states. Get the crooked GOP out of Washington. Remove the virus that descended on us on January 21st, 2017, If we flip the senate and hold on to the House, even if Trump plays dirty in the election, house and Senate can have him right back out again. This time into the hands of Leticia James. Notice he said “that woman” in Michigan. He hates hates hates women. He hates hates hates anyone whose skin is darker than his chicken skin yellow.
The American people need to wake up and get rid of the right wing republican senators and congressmen that seem intent on destroying our nation. It’s well on the way to becoming an oligarchy. The republican senators including (no.. especially) the so call moderates had a legitimate chance to get rid of this incompetent asshole by voting for removal. They need to be held accountable and replaced with democrats. Barring much more significant changes to our system of government, this is our only chance we have to turn back from the waterfall we’re barreling into.
Impeach. Again. He MUST be removed as soon as humanly possible. He is plainly and blatantly incompetent and his lies are killing people.
Canada here again. Remember the talk about Death Panels in Canada? How about an article about Death Panels in the US? Today, Canada is reporting some 4,700 active Covid cases. The US? over 100,000.00. The ratio between the two populations is about 10 to 1, so by this logic either Canada should have 10,000 cases or the US 47,000.
Huffington reports a young man dying of Coved in Los Angeles because he didn’t have medical insurance. Death Panels? This could be followed by a photo of Trump and his Cabinet.
Democrats are now focused on electing someone who can “beat Trump.” However, under Joe Biden’s Medicare, this young man still dies. Black cat, white cat. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
Edwin, I was with you until you got to the end. Under Medicare (or more likely Medicaid) the young man would receive treatment for free. Biden (under Obama) helped expand Medicaid dramatically in this country, and he has already declared that he would make treatment for epidemics free to everyone.
And do you have a link to the Huffpost article? I can’t find it.
Oh, and given that hardly anyone is being tested for the coronavirus, the number of reported cases is not a very reliable measure. But you’re right, it is clear that the US is not doing enough to combat this.
I have a good friend who is American, but is currently living in Canada. She normally crosses the border frequently, but now is afraid to go anywhere near the US because she has an underlying condition that would make her particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 (she could easily die), even though she is otherwise very healthy.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/28/17-year-old-dies-of-coronavirus-was-turned-away-for-lacking-insurance/
I couldn’t find the Huffpost, but I googled “17 year old covid death”. It’s not clear what he actually died from, except he got transported across town to the poor people’s hospital and died on the way. Not possible in Canada. We have 6 major hospitals where I live and they specialize in diseases not in ability to pay.
So you’re saying that under Biden we’d have to figure out if an uninsured person was a victim of an epidemic in order to determine whether they get treatment or suffer an hour long ambulance ride to the pauper’s hospital? This is barbaric. It is illegal in the US not to attend school up to a certain age, because an educated citizenry is crucial to the well being of society. Why doesn’t this apply to people’s basic health? Why is the one “socialism” and the other not?
Edwin, you are preaching to the choir. As I’ve probably pointed out too many times, I have lived and worked in Canada, England, and New Zealand, and have experienced single payer health care personally. I’m totally for it.
I would even extend your question. We send children to school because our economy would fail without an educated citizenry. Likewise, our economy will fail without a healthy citizenry. I have spent most of my career building startup companies, and having health insurance generally be the responsibility of where someone works is just insane, and makes it much harder to start a company.
The problem is that the health insurance industry has been able to convince Americans to vote against their own interests (and the best interest of the country). I believe we have to take it one step at a time and get people used to the idea of single payer insurance by offering them a choice. That way, the argument that Americans will “lose” their current insurance will simply become irrelevant.
https://www.neatorama.com/2012/05/07/the-greatest-canadian/
It’s as if Trump is putting up resistance to “The Resistance”.
An update to the Michigan story.
https://www.oann.com/mich-gov-whitmer-announces-state-has-received-more-than-100k-n95-masks/
Apparently, the Supplies were already in route, while, according to the Gov on Friday.
Now it appears the Gov, is all good.
Why did Ds just vote for $2.2 trillion in response to this epidemic, while leaving Trump in charge of any aspect of that response?
Glen, compromise. Now they have to find an inspector general to get control of what Trump tries to spend
Re: health insurance. Company insurance started after World War II to entice workers. It has become a very bad habit in this country. I remember getting a job as charge in a nursing home and having my health insurance paid for me. I was astounded that someone else would pay my insurance. That lasted about four years when I became self employed and was back to paying my own insurance. That lasted until I went on Medicare and now just pay the supplemental. Basically, I’ve always paid my own. My guess is Irony has always paid his own as he seems to do contract work.
Paying my own: I have two huge bills I pay of Long Term Insurance. I started when I was 49. (rates would go up after 50) One is for in-home help. The other is for nursing home. From the time I picked up the policies to age 75 that I am now, I still have not paid enough in to insurance to pay ONE YEAR OF A NURSING HOME. Average $147,000 as of last year. There are guidelines of when you need the insurance. If you have no income, the state will take all you own, and your stay in the nursing home is free. If you are extremely wealthy, you can pay out of pocket. I don’t know what the guidelines are now. I just know I’ve been on a list for years now for the one I want to go in. rated in the tops in New York State. Five Stars. But I was out pounding fence posts this morning, so I’m not quite ready to go with my twelve cats and one dog.
Anonymous (comment 11), I have difficulty trusting anything I read on OANN since they have been caught repeatedly promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories, and they are overwhelmingly pro-Trump. Here’s a better source — https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/28/trump-gretchen-whitmer-war-of-words-152759
But even OANN’s version makes it sound like the Gov was forced to kowtow to Trump in order to get what the state needs.