Karma's a bitch and she wishes you a "speedy" recovery

Rand Paul tests Positive for COVID-19. Karma's a bitch and she wishes you a "speedy" recovery.

Dan Rather says, "pay less attention to Trump until he starts telling the truth."

The masks and tests he keeps touting don't exist. Those emergency powers he say's he's invoked he hasn't, that Google website doesn't exist, those medical ships he proposed don't have medical staffs and the ones that do haven't been called in, that Malaria drug has NOTHING to do with COVID-19, there is no cure on the horizon, the DID know this could happen as the previous administration warned them it could, and Peter Alexander is an excellent reporter.

Michael Moated, running as the Republican in the race for the Congressional TX-26 seat, is a creeper on underage girls on social media.

Bill Barr, the most recent "adult in the room" in the Trump administration, has petitioned Trump to suspend the Constitution. Remember, this is the head of the Department of Justice.

Finally, if you do the long math and the election in November is suspended, Nancy Pelosi doesn't become President. Patrick Leahy does. The terms of members of the House expire January 3rd, so there will be no Speaker of the house. The terms of the President and Vice President expire on the 20th. 33 Senators will have their terms expire on the 3rd. That leave 67 Senators with a clear Democratic Party Majority. Patrick Leahey, whose terms doesn't expire thanks to the staggered terms of Senators becomes Majority Leader, as he is Minority Leader now. He becomes President.

Unless the Senate elects a NEW Minority Leader, Like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or Cory Booker or Kamala Harris or some other Democrat who isn't running for re-election this year.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have one of those rare jobs that I can do from home, and I have been since before the shelter in place orders were given. But lots of people can't and I notice that many of them still working do so for minimum wage. Help THEM, you congressional motherfuckers. The bill the Senate is discussing today is welfare for corporations. The corporations have stayed home and we're mostly fine. If the minimum wage workers go home the country collapses in a week.

Tip your delivery person healthily. They deserve it. Tip the guy working the counter at 7-11 too.

And because I love you, the Late Kenny Rodgers

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Screw the new normal

If there is one phrase I'm coming to really despise it's the phrase "The New Normal". Every time something happens that forces us to adjust our current thinking, no matter how temporarily, becomes "the new normal". we've done it so much with the good stuff that we do with with equal regularity with the bad stuff. It's got to stop.

You never really heard the phrase before 9/11. But then the powers that be decided that in order to get their agenda passed we needed to be scared all the time. Being terrorized became the new normal.

Having soldiers fighting wars somewhere in the world became the new normal.

We have long running television shows about soldiers overseas, how they are supported at home to help us adjust to the new normal. The fact that a couple of them are actually quite good propels the new normal.

And we relaxed. We got a decent president after Bush II, and we got complacent while people who crave power put together new plans for the next new normal.

Then Trump arrived on the scene, taking everyone by surprise - if you look back at what Republicans were saying about him before he started slurping up delegates you'd see that they hated the guy. But this is the guy they got, so they adjusted to this new normal, to get their agenda across. Who cares if he's an Adderall-addicted, Racist, Misogynistic, Philandering, Spray Tan-wearing bully with a 6th grade vocabulary and a 2nd grade temper? This is the new normal!

And now?

Dismantling the infrastructure? New Normal!

No ambassadors and foreign service? New Normal!

Fire the disaster response teams? New Normal!

The man who calls himself President using every resource he can find to line his own pockets? New Normal!

The acceptance that the leader of our country lies so much that we just laugh it off? New Normal!

He appoints his son-in-law, a failed real estate developer, to broker Middle East peace, Oil deals, and now solve the health crisis? New Normal!

A President that can't get his appointees approved so he ignores the law and appoints people in an "acting capacity"? New Normal!

The fact that we now have to shelter in place to avoid one of the deadliest disease outbreaks to hit the U.S. in the Digital Age? New Normal!

FUCK THAT

I am sick and tired of people, news media, and just about anyone acting as if any of this horseshit is anywhere close to normal. We live in amazing, extraordinary, frightening, and quite frankly surreal times. For the first time the U.S. is run by an obvious liar, a bully, a creep, and a man with no experience who shouldn't be put in charge of the beauty contest he used to own, let alone the largest economy and government in the history of the planet. He is a man who has demonstrated over and over again that he has no interest in actually doing the job he was elected to do, and neither do any of the people he has appointed to positions of power.

And he is being enabled by people who are getting their way because they know how to kiss his ass and flatter him, even when they were calling him a lying son of a bitch just a couple of years ago, because they are getting what they want - and what they want is to destroy the government and run things their way - which bears little resemblance to the Constitution of the U.S., no matter who often they claim otherwise. We shouldn't put people who hate government in charge of it, because we absolutely need it - but this is also the New Normal.

We need to acknowledge that this all isn't normal. That this is strange, bizarre, and terrifying. We won't heal until we do so, and boy oh boy do we need to recover from some pretty serious damage done to us.

Before Recovery mode becomes the new normal.

Cheap Shots: Your'e supposed to drink beer today but fuck it. Drink what you want.

Do you suppose that Trump put The Jared in charge of the COVID-19 response because his family is getting rich off of it, and will be supplying the tests?

Please people, let's not kill an entire generation of comedy legends.

Social Distance Voting.

He calls for meetings in groups no greater than 10 people, while among a group of 16 people. The picture keeps changing, so you may have to hunt it down.

Nobody could have predicted this? You fucking liars.

Socialists! (Seriously, did Yang join the White House?)

Really? Really? Really?

Packing the courts.

Pokemon don't go.

Maybe he had a Come to Jesus moment.

These people are monsters.

How to play that chord.

And because I love you, the reaction of a man hearing Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" for the first time:

Spectrums

I read a fascinating article a few days back about how we should treat disability as a Spectrum, and not a plus/minus condition. Some people are partially disabled, some (like me) have occasional disabilities, and some people are very or not very disabled at all. Like the sexual spectrum, there are so many places that a person can line up.

So I’ve been thinking about it, and I have come to realize that nothing in my life, save for my computer, in binary. Life is a spectrum. Everything in it. Let me give you some examples, using my own life:

• I am a straight male. Mostly. Once in my life and only once I was attracted to a man.
• I am white. Mostly. There are bits and pieces of Africa in me as well. They’re small, but they’re there.
• I walk with a cane sometimes, due to an occasional and recurring health condition. I don’t consider myself disabled but I sure as hell feel it when I need the cane.
• I like mushrooms, but not on Pizza.
• I like tomato sauce, but not tomatoes.
• I am tall, at 6 feet. But I am the shortest adult male in my family.
• I am a liberal, and actually fairly close to being a socialist. But I’d sure as hell like to be rich.
• I am a true Star Wars fan, and have no problem with the prequels (even the cringe-worthy dialogue in the 2^nd one) and think that The Last Jedi was the best of all 9 movies.
• I didn’t vote for either Biden or Bernie, but I’ll vote for either one of them if they’re the nominee.
• Compared to many, I am financially stable and well-off. But I’m always broke.
• I have been personally financially impacted by music piracy, but I have pirated music. I don’t do that anymore.
• I abhor violence in any form, but I sometimes wish active debilitating harm on Donald Trump and many of his enablers.

That’s just a small piece of the different spectrums I am on. It’s not just sex or disability, but everything. Life is a Spectrum. We’re all on it.

That means there really isn’t any reason do be a dick to anyone else. So don’t you start shit with me.

Cheap Shots (Wednesdays are for RUM!):

23 fucking years. I wonder if he’ll be allowed a potted plant in his cell.

Fucking snowflake.

And to think, I used to believe that Lamar Alexander was reasonable.

Maybe Eric should look into the oranges of this.

Security sickness?

About time someone besides me noticed that this is a test of his “5^th Avenue” theory.

That’s Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!

And because I love you , a truly unique Toto track:

New Knowledge

Things I know now that I didn’t last time I posted here:

1. There is such a thing as “Corona Virus Hoaxers”. They were at CPAC. They have been quarantined. No joke.
2. Voter suppression of blacks is so real that the mayor of Kansas City, MO couldn’t vote today because he had been purged from the rolls.
3. The biggest dive EVER in the stock market has happened on Trump’s watch. By any measure.
4. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has no idea how many Americans have been tested for COVID-19
5. One of the Epicenters of the spread of the Virus in the U.S. was a meeting of a Biotech company in Boston, attended by Italians who didn’t know they were infected as well as 175 managers from around the globe.
6. Not having Universal Healthcare might just be more expensive than having it.
7. There are still old-fashioned honest real Republicans out there. Ask the Mayor of Sterling Heights, MI.
8. Apparently Trump, who hasn’t been tested, won’t get the virus because he doesn’t sleep – and despite having shook hands with at least a dozen people who have been exposed.
9. That Rand Paul has no interest in exposing Patient Zero at CPAC.
10. COVID-19 can be spread through toilet paper. No kidding.
11. That not only is there a “Disney’s Jungle Cruise” movie coming this summer, it actually looks like good mindless fun.
12. Immigration courts are not allowed to have posters up talking about the Corona Virus.
13. Kimberly Guilfoyle is looking more and more like Melania every day.
14. Joe Biden can still swear

And because I love you, Little River Band, from an album you can't get in the U.S. anymore.

Coronavirus vs. Ebola. Just some stats.

Trumpies (including Trump) keep wanting to compare COVID-19 to The Ebola outbreak of 2014. Okay, LET'S DO THIS. All figures come from the CDC website itself, or the World Health Organization.

Total cases treated in the US
Ebola: 11 (7 of which caught it while over-seas and were brought back to the US for treatment)
COVID-19 (so far): 66, with 472 suspected and awaiting test results

Deaths in the U.S.:
Ebola: 1
COVID-19 (so far): 1

Total Number of cases world-wide:
Ebola: 28,652
COVID-19 (so far): 87,137

Deaths world-wide:
Ebola: 11,325
COVID-19 (so far): 2,977

Number of countries with Outbreaks:
Ebola: 10
COVID-19 (so far): 60

Travel bans to the U.S.
Ebola: 0.
COVID-19 (so far): 2

Enhanced warnings/screenings for travelers overseas:
Ebola: 4
COVID-19 (so far): 6

Workers trained overseas by the CDC to help with the pandemic
Ebola: 31,955
COVID-19 (so far): 0

Yes, Ebola is nastier than COVID-19 - although it doesn't make you disintegrate. It's not a phaser blast. But look at the responses and statistics above. You cannot be allowed to have your own set of facts just because they make you feel better or support your worldview more efficiently.

The truth is that we reacted to Ebola MUCH BETTER than we have so far to COVID-19. And yes, that means Obama did it better than Trump.

If you believe otherwise you're a goddamned fool.

But because I love you, here is Puddles Pity Party: