House Passes USPS Legislation: How Will 'Moscow' Mitch Respond?

Pandemic Diary
Day 159

Dear Diary,
______________

UPDATE 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time
House passes legislation to prevent any further changes to USPS and to provide $25 million in funding
_______________

Sounds like relief may be in sight. 

But, I wouldn't bet on it. Under Moscow Mitch, the Senate probably won't even look at the proposed legislation that would go a long way in protecting mail-in votes.

Meanwhile Trump is beating on his fraudulent voting drum without any evidence to back it up. His attempts at voter suppression are getting bolder every day. Still, Republicans are turning their heads the other way, because they fear our wannabe dictator.

This is a pretty shitty position for the world's leading democracy to be in. Frankly, it's our own fault. Americans elected the worst enemy of democracy ever to foul the White House. With Russia's help.

The voters who decided not to vote in 2016 now have a good reason to vote; to protect the nation. 

The challenge is clear to everyone except Trump's demented followers who approve of his dismantling everything America has stood for in 245 years.

Quote for the Day: "Human nature is not a problem that can be fixed by rules and regulations. All solutions to the existing problems must be based on how people behave, not on how we think they should behave." -Kirk Chisholm

A New Cult Rises From Anonymity Thanks To Trump

Pandemic Diary
Day 158

Dear Diary,

Trump made it official yesterday; he likes QAnon because the growing cult likes him.

His tacit approval launched QAnon into the mainstream news. A goal the cult has been trying to achieve for three years now. An endorsement from the president of the United States is a recruiting dream for the group.   

It didn't bother Trump when reminded (the asshole already knew despite claiming otherwise) that QAnon was a cult that claims there's a deep state conspiracy, and that Trump has been sent to fight it. He even mentioning liking the idea about him saving the world.

Devotees babble about satanic liberals, pedophiles, and cannibals who must be hunted down to save democracy. Reason is left at the front door for devoted followers.

QAnon is an extreme conspiracy cooked up by one anonymous moron sharing his batshit ideas on 4Chan, a web platform for crazies. The group is on a FBI list that warns Americans QAnon supporters are domestic terrorists.

It's a good thing there was no internet when Jim Jones and David Koresh were around. It would have catapulted the number of followers aka/victims who would eventually die from mass suicide.

But the internet is here, and we have to learn to live with the good, bad, and ugly. Web platforms are trickling into mainstream news outlets, who seem happy to carry their conspiracy theories. That's the world today.

When Trump is run out of office by a landslide, the cult will continue to thrive with the help of alt right idiots. I wouldn't be surprised to see Trump hook up with QAnon and promote them in his own TV show. And Fox News of course, who'll carry every sentence Trump utters for years to come.

This latest outlandish endorsement comes at a time when Trump is melting down while watching the Democratic National Convention every night.

Somewhere in America right now QAnon advocates are packing in preparation of leaving their caves, sewers, and swamps to soil society.

Quote for the Day: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' -Issac Asimov  

Pandemic Diary Day 157: Today's Tribute to MAGA Morons

Dear Diary,

Memo to Trump and his Minions;

"Congratulations! 

You've managed to turn hats and clothing attire into symbols of hatred and intolerance. Your MAGA hats universally evoke comparisons to Nazi swastikas'. 

You're turning out t-shirts with profanities against minorities, and anyone else you don't like. Your mug with it's bronze make-up on t-shirts and jackets is a sure sign the wearer is an intolerant asshole who doesn't like anyone who doesn't worship you.

Someday MAGA attire will become a regular Halloween costume. For all I know it already is. I quit celebrating Halloween when you were elected Donny... it's been a horror show ever since.

Enjoy it while you can you MAGA morons in Congress, and across the rest across the country. You're all going to just be a bad dream after November 3rd."

Honoring Goodyear Tires

This great American company and industry icon is being attacked from Trump and his cronies because their standing by a corporate policy of banning political messaging.

MAGA morons working at Goodyear are crying foul because they can't wear their favorite symbol of intolerance, the red MAGA hate, or t-shirts with Trump's ugly face and obscene messages.

The typical Trumpian response of calling out to his minions to boycott Goodyear was nothing more than a pissed-off nine-year old acting stupid.

In other words, par for the course for the biggest outright liar and manchild on the planet.

Quote for the Day: "The greatest threat to America is not foreign terrorists, its domestic morons." -John Fugelsang

Pandemic Diary Day 156: On Miracle Cures and the 'Infection' in the White House

Dear Diary,

Pitchman, Mike Lindell (left) MyPillow creator and mega Trump donor, is offering a miracle cure for COVID-19.

Lindell (whose F credit rating in Minnesota after pushing another fraudulent cure and settling out of court for a million bucks), got a boost yesterday from Trump when he announced his new miracle cure for COVID-19.

                            How did this happen?

Ben Carson, the Housing and Urban Development Secretary, and fellow miracle drug advocate

(He was forced by the FDA to quit promoting a wonder drug before being selected by Trump),

 met with fellow pitchman Lindell - and it was love at first sight.

The meeting between the GOP megadonor and Trump ally resulted in sharing an experimental botanical extract with his Nibs (the greatest of all pitchman), who gleefully endorsed it during one of his briefing/mini rallies, yesterday.

Trump who has been desperately searching for an easy way out of the coronavirus crisis since it started, "expressed enthusiasm," for the new miracle extract called Oleandrin, which is made from the deadly oleander plant. A little bit can kill you.

I should point out that the drug has no peer-reviewed articles or tests regarding its efficiency, or safety. Frankly, this trio of pitchman is the perfect example of one of many infections that permeate the West Wing. Trump. Lindell. Carson. All truth deniers.

The only way to disinfect the White House is coming up in 76 days - voting Trump's ass out of office on November 3rd.

Quote for the Day: "The ignorant hope they never get COVID-19 and the wise prepare for a possible future infection." -Steve Magee

Pandemic Diary Day 155: Released Today: 'A Warning' We Should All Heed

Dear Diary,

I'm looking forward to reading a new book that's available  today titled, "2020 election edition of A Warning, by Anonymous.

I'll take a moment here to explain who Anonymous is.

The story is there's an unknown Trump administration official whose been leaking out some really bad insider shit on Donny since he waddled into office.

As a matter of fact, this Anonymous insider has already written one book detailing Trump's depredations against democracy - A Warning by Anonymous - which was a 2019 best seller.

That book came on the heels of a bombshell op-ed published by the New York Times in September 2018 by Anonymous.

The author wrote in the preface of the new edition, "A second term for Trump unbound will mean a nation undone." 

Pretty catchy, especially with 80 days to go before the election.

He continued, "Re-electing Trump will result in a continued downward slide into social acrimony, with the United States fading into the background of a world stager it once commanded, to say nothing of the damage done to our democratic institutions."

Back to the timing of the release of this book

Anonymous said last year that they would reveal their identity to Trump before the election, but the person stays nameless in the latest edition, only saying they plan to unveil themselves in "due course."

Interestingly, Trump told reporters in February that he knew the person's true identity but he couldn't say who it is. In response, Anonymous wrote in the preface, "Those eager for the knowledge should ask Trump why he has kept it to himself for so long."

Good question. I wonder when this Washington insider will suddenly step into the limelight? It sounds like it may be soon.

Here's a thought; what greater platform than during the Democratic National Convention this week as a special speaker?

Quote for the Day: "Sadly, how often did mankind heed a warning? Gadflies are often swatted unmercifully." -E.A. Bucchianeri

Pandemic Diary Day 154: How Crazy? Try Trump Campaign vs Cartoon Character

Dear Diary,

It's no wonder 2020 feels surreal. 

The Trump re-election team is bickering with a cartoon character - Marge Simpson. 
The election is becoming more bizarre by the day. 

I'm almost hesitant to document the ridiculous spat between a top Trump campaign advisor and TV cartoon character, for fear historians will think I'm exaggerating.

However, I feel it's important for future generations to understand how crazy Trump and his minions were. In a nutshell:

The fight began when Trump advisor, Jenna Ellis, sought to mock California senator Kamala Harris after she was picked to become the Democratic party's vice-presidential nominee.

"Kamala sounds like Marge Simpson," Ellis blathered. 

In response, the Simpsons official twitter account stated, "As an ordinary suburban housewife, I'm starting to feel a little disrespected. I teach my children not to name call, Jenna."

You'd think that would end it...but noooooo!

Look at who kept it going... Ellis twitted back, "Marge is probably going to vote democrat...by mail."

Here's the backdrop for the above insanity:

**We have a sociopathic president intent on getting re-elected by whatever means he can contrive. 

**Life during the Trump regime has been an exercise in hanging on to reality and the truth - which have been under assault since Trump slithered into office.

**America is in the middle of a deadly pandemic with no leadership.

**The economy is shot. Millions of unemployed Americans are desperately trying to keep a roof over their head, and find money for food. Great Depression food lines are everywhere.

Congress has gone on vacation, instead of passing a stimulus relief bill for millions of Americans who are suffering right now.

**America's standing with other countries has been degraded to the point that they're laughing at us.

Quote for the Day: "Some are born mad, some achieve madness, and some have madness thrust upon 'em." -Emilie Autumn

Pandemic Diary Day 153: Coronavirus Vignettes

Dear Diary,

In order to give a fuller picture of life during this pandemic, I've chosen a series of vignettes to illustrate the many new realities and challenges Americans faced.

Face Masks/Social Distancing

Three women beat up a 17-year old hostess last week at Chili's Restaurant in Louisiana after she attempted to enforce the business' COVID-19 social distancing policies.

Two angry men attacked Trader Joe's employees in a Manhattan store after the customers refused to wear face masks.

An employee at McDonald's was grabbed and assaulted by a customer after she told him he would have to wear a mask in the drive-thru.

A woman traveling to Las Vegas struck an American Airlines employee after she was denied boarding for not wearing a mask.

Going Back to School

Health experts say children make up more than 7 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the US-while comprising about 22 percent of the country's population.
Infection rates are growing steadily as schools attempt to reopen.

A Georgia school district had to quarantine 900 students and staff members because of possible exposure to the coronavirus. 
The hard hit school had a photo (shown here) of students walking in a hallway without face masks that went viral on the net.

Classes were set to start tomorrow in a school district outside Phoenix, Arizona, but were canceled after teachers staged a "sick out" in protest.

Judge sets hearing in Florida School Reopening Lawsuit. This coming Thursday there'll be a hearing about Education Commissioner's mandate that school reopen campuses.

The Florida Education Association teacher's union is challenging the mandate alleging it violates the State Constitution guarding Floridians right to safe and secure public education.

Top News Article 

The postal service inspector general is reviewing recently appointed Postmaster DeJoy's policy changes and ethics violations. 
Lawmakers from both parties and postal union leaders have been sounding the alarm about the major Trump donor's intention to slow down the postal service prior to the November elections, in a blatant effort to help Trump discredit the mail-in process.

Quote for the Day: "Remember: a story is not a vignette. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It is not merely a snapshot in time." -Chuck Wendig

Pandemic Diary Day 152: Deja vu - A Counter to Birtherism

Dear Diary,

I think I figured out what's going on with Trump's re-election campaign. "Goldie Oldies" are surfacing like snakes from the shadows of the 2016 election.

One of Trump's most disgusting lies was that President Obama wasn't born in America. His launch of the "birtherism" bullshit helped him slink into office on the backs of racists and conspiracy goons who saw him as one of their own.

There's another birtherism controversy going around based upon "what people say," that I'm going to share today:

"Trump was NOT a live birth. He was hatched in a cage in Nigeria and sold to a family of gypsies who migrated to the United States."

There, I said it. 

It could be true. Most people agree that Trump is part reptile based upon what his lizard brain comes up with on a daily basis. He sheds the truth like a snake's second skin. 

I really hate to see this stale replay of birtherism again, but there doesn't seem to be an end to it. The only thing to do is mock the moron-in-chief, and see if I can't get a counter birtherism story to stick somewhere in the hinterlands of undecided voters.

One of my favorite sports personalities, Yogi Bara, once cleverly observed, "It's deja vu all over again." I agree with him one hundred percent when it comes to contrived birtherism stories.

So why not fight fire with fire? If there's that many crazy people out there, it doesn't necessarily mean they're all Trump supporters. Frankly, I don't think Biden or Harris would mind if crazies voted for them too. Their vote still counts, right?

In this time of toxic conspiracies', Q-Anon has melded with the remnants of the Republican Party, forming a mutation led by a malicious narcissist who won't accept reality.

What Trump can't get into his tiny brain is this is 2020... not 2016. 

Quote for the Day: "If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed." -Adolf Hitler

Pandemic Diary Day 151: A Bridge Too Far: Trump's Attack On the Postal Service Has Crossed a Line

Dear Diary,

Watching a malicious narcissist melt down in real time is an ugly sight.

Watching the president of the United States, a liar and malicious narcissist melt down and threaten democracy and American lives with his absolute denial of reality, is damn scary!

Trump is in full berserker mode because he sees his re-election efforts crashing under the thrashing the coronavirus reality is giving him. It's all about him. Science is his enemy.

In one of his more risky gambits to suppress voting, Trump has decided to attack - the U.S. Postal Service. By combining his lies about fraudulent mail-in voting, he's doubling down against established facts and historic evidence to the contrary.

By attacking the messenger Trump thinks he can totally discredit one of the few government agencies that was explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution.

Proof that Trump lives in his own little universe is the fact he's actively, and openly, trying to turn an institution that traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general, into a political football.

I admit to being somewhat surprised by how few Republicans are standing up to this unperilled assault against an institution Americans have counted on for 240 years. 

This latest attempt to hamper the Post Office by putting his crony (and major contributor to his campaign) in charge is thankfully being challenged by Democrats in the House and Senate.

They called on Tammy Whitcomb, the Postal Service inspector general to do an audit on Trump's corrupt appointee, Louis DeJoy, who has conflicting interests owning anywhere from $30 million to $75 million worth of assets in competing delivery and shipment services like J.B. Hunt.

Meanwhile, Trump's threats become more ominous every day. He's gone so far as to linking a stimulus relief program to NOT Giving the Post Office and States what they need to handle the expected historic amount of mail-in votes.

"If we don't make a deal, that means they (The Post Office) don't get the money, that means they can't have universal mail-in voting. They just can't have it," Trump said yesterday.

There you have it. He openly admits to attempting to rig the election in order to win in November. That threat is crystal clear.

While DeJoy does everything he can to slow down mail deliveries, even taking away overtime, crucial days are passing as one of the greatest challenges to freedom is being fought.

Quote for the Day: "Do you know why I like killing the messenger? Because it sends a message." -Damon Salvatore 

Pandemic Diary Day 150: Profiles in Ignorance

Dear Diary,

History will show how Trump's profound ignorance of science and his denial of a deadly virus killed thousands of Americans.

I think it's important to document other professional science deniers who refuse to wear masks and take all the safety recommendations by healthcare professionals. Their contribution to the chaos during the pandemic can not be underestimated.

I'll start off with the most recent example of science deniers putting others at risk. August 10th:

Straight from the infected state of Florida, where record numbers of people are dying daily from COVID-19, we have Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods.

Billy boy ordered his deputies NOT to WEAR MASKS despite 542,000 cases of the novel coronavirus and 8,600 deaths in the state. It's hard to believe, but true. He told reporters he could debate and argue all day why, and why not, to wear masks. 

He went so far as to falsely claim there's as many healthcare experts that believe masks are unnecessary, as one's who say they ARE necessary. That's pure bullshit on a steaming platter of ignorance.

August 12th - Dr. Mark Siegel (Trump's favorite Fox news doctor) insidiously claimed that parents could send their kids back to school because your kid "probably won't die."

The bad doctor's rousing speech in support of sending children off into a COVID-19 petri dish, was in support of Trump's lies about how safe it is to go back to in-person school this fall.

Parents, teachers, and healthcare experts disagree. We're already seeing the ill effects of going back to school too early in New Jersey and Georgia.

Not So Long Ago

In February, a little more than a quarter of U.S. adults believed the coronavirus was being blown out of proportion. (That number has actually risen and now 40 percent believe the virus is a big to-do over nothing.) 

March 9 - Sean Hannity on the Coronavirus: "I think we've got to be very real with the American people. I don't like how we are scaring people. Unnecessarily. And that is that unless you have an immune system that's compromised and you are older and you have other underlying health issues, you are NOT going to DIE, 99 percent, from the virus."

March 16th - Ron Paul claims the coronavirus could be a "Big Hoax" and a way to take rights away.

"It is ironic to see the same Democrats who tried to impeach Trump last month for abuse of power demanding that the administration grab more power and authority in the name of fighting a virus that thus far has killed less than 100 Americans," Paul wrote on his website.

April 28th - Cheryl K. Chumley, reporter for The Washington Times: "The response to the coronavirus is hyped. And in time, this hype will be revealed. In fact, COVID-19 will go down as one of the political world's biggest, most shamefully overblown, overhyped, overly and irrationally inflated and outright deceptively flawed responses to a health matter in American history, one that was carried largely on the lips of medical professionals who have no business running a national economy or government."
(Apparently the writer knows nothing about run-on sentences, but then look at the publication.)

May 27th -  "As the United States neared 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, a majority of Republicans still don't grasp the basic fact about the disease: it is considerably more deadly than the flu." The New York Times

 July 13th - Game Show host Chuck Woolery claimed "everyone was lying" about the coronavirus as a part of a plot to sabotage the economy and hurt Trump's reelection campaign. Of course, Trump re-tweeted the blatant lie.

Just yesterday, a Tennessee trooper (no mask on) ripped a face covering off a witness to a traffic stop in a caught-on-video confrontation that could lead to a lawsuit, according to the local newspaper the Daily News. 

Sadly, I could go on with endless other profiles in ignorance under one of the stupidest presidents in this nation's history.

Quote for the Day: "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere and conscientious stupidity." -Martin Luther King Jr.