“We can say that it was marginally better than 2020. Granted, this is not high praise. It’s like saying that somebody is marginally nicer than Hitler. But it’s something.”

“The Capitol is invaded by thousands of people who are fiercely loyal to Trump and determined to ensure that his enduring legacy, as president, will be that he inspired a tragic, futile and utterly stupid riot at the U.S. Capitol.”

“President Biden proposes a fiscal 2022 federal budget of $6 trillion, to be raised by what the White House describes as ‘an exciting new partnership with Herbalife.'”

“The big story in August is the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, a country that, thanks to 20 years of our involvement, has been transformed — at a cost of many lives and more than $2 trillion — from a brutal, primitive undemocratic society into a brutal, primitive undemocratic society with a whole lot of abandoned American military hardware lying around.”

I don’t know whether I really give a crap, but I don’t think Trump ever dresses like this. I think he always golfs in a white shirt and unpatterned pants.

Just a matter of passing interest.

In the era between WW2 and Trump, only two elected presidents have run for a second term and lost the general election:

In 1980, Jimmy Carter ran for a second term. Forty-four million Americans went to the polls to vote for his main oppponent (Reagan). In all, 51 million Americans voted against him.

In 1992, George Bush the Elder tried for a second term. Forty-five million Americans went to the polls to vote for his main oppponent (Clinton). In all, 65 million Americans voted against him.

In 2020, Donald Trump the Elder ran for a second term. Eighty million Americans went to the polls to vote for his main oppponent (Biden). In all, 83 million Americans voted against him.

The comparison is made more significant by the fact that Americans were not universally and specifically rejecting Carter and Bush, two decent men. Many Americans liked those two but nonetheless turned out to vote for charismatic opponents in elections complicated by substantial third-party voting. In the 2020 election … well, nobody thinks of Biden as Joey Charisma. Furthermore, down-ballot Republicans did fairly well. It’s obvious that the vast majority of those eighty million people who voted against Trump were casting votes specifically to reject Donald Trump.

It was the most resounding rejection of a president in modern history, and by a very large margin. Before this, no modern President trying to be re-elected for a second term had ever been replaced by an opponent receiving more than 45 million votes. Trump has been replaced by an opponent receiving 80 million votes.

In fairness, we should also note that no President running for re-election ever received as many votes as Donald Trump.

Voter turnout in the 2020 Presidential election was the highest it has been in 120 years! There were record numbers of votes for the president, and even more impressive record numbers of votes against him. Because Donald Trump is so loved and so hated, he has in a sense re-energized American democracy as much as he has polarized it. His very presence has made people on both sides more aware of the importance of the right to vote, and of the potential cost of not exercising that right. He has raised the stakes.

For these medical professionals, it is difficult to hold back tears:

“From a nurse in South Dakota who spoke on CNN today, the brainwashed are literally dying and fighting with the nurse that it’s a hoax and must be something else:”

“I have a night off from the hospital. As I’m on my couch with my dog I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days. The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is going to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm.

They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that “stuff” because they don’t have COViD because it’s not real. Yes. This really happens. And I can’t stop thinking about it. These people really think this isn’t going to happen to them. And then they stop yelling at you when they get intubated. It’s like a fucking horror movie that never ends. There’s no credits that roll. You just go back and do it all over again.”

Biden, you monster!


Earlier, “President Trump mockingly warned at his rally in Nevada late Sunday that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would ‘listen to the scientists’ if elected.”

Gee, I wonder what happened to countries that did follow the science.

Oh …

“The Chinese economy grew 4.9% between July and September, as China becomes the first major economy to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Only the best people.

Scott Atlas is a radiologist. He has no training in virology, epidemiology, public health management, statistical analysis, or any other field that would be relevant to the COVID crisis. It appears that he knows far less about viral diseases than laymen who have been cramming on the subject. You would be better off listening to a witch doctor. They always wear masks. And at least garlic poultices and incantations can’t do any harm. It is also believed that Atlas is nudging President Trump in the reckless direction of using a herd immunity strategy with no vaccine on the horizon.

As the director of the CDC pointed out bluntly, “Everything he (Scott Atlas) says is false.”

To repeat the math on herd immunity: scientists estimate that successful herd immunity would require about 2/3 of a population to carry antibodies. In the USA that is about 220 million people. At least 1.4% of Americans who contract the virus are expected to die from it (currently about 700 dead per day, and 50,000 infections per day), so the death toll would be three million.

And that’s if it works.

It probably won’t work because the immunity seems to be short-lived, which means that, lacking a vaccine, a population might never get to a point where 2/3 of the people have antibodies, because by the time the last people are infected, the immunity might be wearing off in those infected early. Let’s suppose that the antibodies last only four months. In that case, the only way to achieve herd immunity is to get antibodies into 220 million people almost instantly, and the only realistic way to do that is with a vaccine. Infecting 220 million people through community spread in three months may not even be possible, but if it were, the health care system could not possibly handle the number of hospital patients that would emerge from the strategy.

At this point I don’t know the actual average duration of immunity, nor does anyone else. Top researchers throughout the world are still learning about COVID-19. But if it is truly as short-lived as four months, we will have a decidedly difficult time with the logistics of fighting it – even with a vaccine, let alone by community spread.

“Throughout a pandemic that has now landed squarely in the West Wing, Trump officials — who routinely shunned masks — declined to institute thorough safety protocols to protect the White House press corps, according to interviews with reporters who now face the prospect of a rapidly escalating outbreak in their daily work space.”

I’m not sure this article really has the answers, but their success has been astounding.

Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand have about 250 million people between them and to date they have a total of 244 covid deaths for all five nations added together, despite the fact that three of those countries have borders with China. Laos and Cambodia have no fatalities at all, although Laos borders China.

  • Taken together, those five nations have one death per million population. The USA has 624 deaths per million – and rising.
  • The United States, with 330 million people, has more than 200,000 covid fatalities. If it had the same rate as SE Asia, it would have 320 fatalities in total – an amount that it actually had every seven hours yesterday!

That may not be a fair equivalence, but in more realistic terms we could compare the USA to Canada. If the USA had the same fatality rate as Canada, it would have about 80,000 fatalities rather than 200,000. That’s 120 thousand deaths that could have been avoided.

So far.

Righteous math! As I have noted previously, we have now lost more people to the coronavirus in a few months than the U.S. Army lost fighting Hitler in the full 3 1/2 years of the war in Europe and the Mediterranean.

So by Trump’s logic, Hitler affected virtually nobody in the USA.

The predicted death toll for the virus through the end of this year is almost identical to the number we lost in the entire second world war, including all branches of service in all theaters of operation.

So says their prime minister, Franz “Papa” Smurf, from the tiny stump he lives in.

Personal note: I have lived in both Austria and Wisconsin. They are extremely comparable. Both locations have about 45% of their land forested. Both places have crappy weather and both populations are pretty much always drunk on beer.

The major difference is that Austria is far more densely populated in the non-forested areas, so Wisconsin has a higher ratio of trees to people. Despite that, you may be surprised to learn that Wisconsinites do not live like Keebler elves in forest cities. That would imply that Austrians do not live in forest cities either, given that they are actually more urban than we are in Wisconsin in terms of population density.

You might think that. You would be wrong.

Austrians do live in quaint forest cities, mostly inside of hollow logs, or in hastily constructed tree houses made by clumsily lashing together the rotting wood they sweep up from the floors in their forests. They spend the day getting drunk under rickety wooden bridges where they hope to capture a passing billy goat to eat for dinner. Those are just the irrefutable facts, as pictured in the photo of the Vienna skyline seen below.


Right. A suitable award for the guy who once exchanged belligerent nuclear-implied threats with his future lover and fellow member of the Silly Hair Club For Men, Kim Jong Un.

Well, to be fair, he would actually deserve it more than Obama, who was given the award for his courageous action in not being George Bush.

“This thing is a killer if it gets you. If you’re the wrong person, you don’t have a chance. So this rips you apart. It is the plague.”

Man, what a panicky wuss! This must have been said by some wimp like Chris Hayes or Joe Biden.

Oh, wait. It was Donald J. Trump, April 13, to Bob Woodward

“Four days after his conversation with Woodward, Trump posted his infamous string of tweets urging people to “LIBERATE” Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia — states with Democratic governors who had imposed public health measures to slow the spread of Covid-19 — despite the fact he clearly understood the deadliness of the pandemic.”

Yup, because Churchill always downplayed a crisis – like this:

“We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind…many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.”

— Winston Churchill address to the nation, May 10, 1940

Not comparable, you think? The United Kingdom lost 449,000 military and civilian casualties in six years in WW2. The current forecast for one year of COVID-19 is for 410,000 fatalities in the United States.

And of course Winnie greatly encouraged deceiving the public:

“It was necessary above all to warn the House and the country of the misfortunes which impended upon us. There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves living in a fool’s paradise.”

— Winston Churchill, “The Second World War”

LaPorta is a former Marine.

“Prior to journalism, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a infantry rifleman. From 2006 until 2014, Mr. LaPorta worked in multiple leadership billets, serving as a infantry squad leader, a combat marksmanship instructor and an intelligence cell chief. He deployed multiple times to Afghanistan.”

LaPorta did not believe Goldberg’s story when he read it. Then he started calling his contacts and found it that the story was accurate down the line. There are now six sources confirming the story: four of Goldberg’s, two of LaPorta’s. (They may overlap, so the total may be as low as four, but no lower.)

As I understand it, Gen. Kelly has declined to comment publicly on the story.

Some of those “losers and suckers” simply didn’t have the options afforded to Trump. There was a draft through the Vietnam era. Many of those conscripted in Vietnam, for example, were poor kids who had no money for college, and had no access to a pliable family doctor who could excuse them for bone spurs. They simply had to go, as Trump would have, had he not had a zillionaire father.

It’s also important to understand how such comments by a U.S. President might undermine his own authority. Those “losers and suckers” had many reasons for doing what they did, but the immediate and direct reason for both draftees and volunteers was that they were obeying orders from a line of command that ultimately traces back to the commander-in-chief. Trump is basically arguing that obeying the President is for “losers and suckers.”

In his brilliantly crafted response, Trump lied and said he never called John McCain a loser. (He did – and tweeted about it!)

Full disclosure on personal bias: I never served in the military, only because of a high lottery number. I was thrilled to avoid Vietnam, but I am highly grateful to those who serve on behalf of my country, thus taking risks to make my life safer. In fact, one of my sons is a career military man currently serving as an O-5.

…. and, according to them, that’s why they should not be released.

Based upon this novel legal theory, law enforcement should only be allowed to investigate the totally innocent, since any evidence exposing the guilty would cause them irreparable harm.

Oddly enough, all candidates for the presidency in modern history have released their returns and it caused them no harm of any kind. Gee, I wonder why Trump is so special.