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From www.Alternet.org Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed Tuesday that former first lady Michelle Obama’s support for mail-in voting could “destroy” American democracy. “Former first lady Michelle Obama is using this crisis to promote the radical expansion of nationwide voting by mail,” Carlson said. “Citizens could request ballots online and then print them at home. Now, no serious person at the national level has ever suggested doing that before, because of course, it would instantly destroy the public’s faith in election outcomes, and hence, our democracy. But if there was ever a time to sneak something this disruptive past a beleaguered and distracted population, this is it.”

But Melania decided to fly to the New England states this weekend for fun. But that's OK because rules do not apply to Trump or his family.

Oh, would that this were so, but alas. The rich and powerful in the US have had their way for so long and had the support of politicians and media that I would bet that they are not concerned in the least.

Some far-right extremists, from talk show host Glenn Beck to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have been making the argument that if more COVID-19 fatalities are what it takes to get the U.S. economy up and running again, so be it. And this week, Rep. Trey Hollingsworth of Indiana joined the chorus of Republicans and far-right wingnuts who are claiming that letting more Americans die might be necessary to save the economy. During an April 14 appearance on Indiana’s WIBC-FM, Hollingsworth asserted, “The social scientists are telling us about the economic disaster that is going on. Our (gross domestic product) is supposed to be down 20% alone this quarter. It is policymakers’ decision to put on our big boy and big girl pants and say: it is the lesser of these two evils. It is not zero evil, but it is the lesser of these two evils — and we intend to move forward (in) that direction. That is our responsibility, and to abdicate that is to insult the Americans that voted us into office.” Hollingsworth also told WIBC-FM, “There is no zero-harm choice here. We are going to have to look Americans in the eye and say, ‘We are making the best decisions for the most Americans possible’ — and the answer to that to get Americans back to work, to get Americans back to their businesses.”

If anyone does not yet think that America is well and truly screwed so long as Trump is president and for several years thereafter just has to watch the news. To me, it is staggering that so many Americans still support Trump after all this crap. It shows me how dictators can come to power in places like Germany and Italy. and today Steve Mnuchin said today that people can live on $1200 for 10 weeks.

Trump's motivation for wanting to dismantle the USPS is becoming clear- no USPS, no mail in ballots, and only in-person voting would be possible. that would favour the GOP's voter suppression tactics. Now he wants to use a never-before used power to dismiss both the senate and Congress so he can appoint a lot of people without legislative oversight. He is behaving more and more like a dictator and will only get worse as the November elections loom and he realizes that he will lose and lose badly.

You gotta find someone to blame when your administration is flubbling its response to a crisis- that's a page from the Trump playbook.

When you elect a clown, you get the circus.

What do you have against Communist midgets?

As a further proof of Trump's stupidity, if we needed any, is that the 200-person advisory committee that Trump is setting up is meant to be a rubber-stamp for his actions as well as a public image ploy, many of those who he had named as being on there, were totally unaware of it. but Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are. All is well.

The absolute best/cheapest cellphone provider is Zoomer wireless out of Vancouver. The wife and I get new phones and a very nice (for our needs) plan for $50.00 per month. We have been very happy with our service for the past 5 years.

There will always be those who are willing to sell out principles and fellow human beings to benefit themselves. Prior to and during WW2, there were collaborators in every nation in Europe, even to Jews who helped the Nazis round up fellow Jews, and there were many British "nobility" who were Nazi sympathizers, notable a certain King who abdicated abruptly.

A loathsome pair of siblings who created support all manner of right-wing neo-fascist groups. A couple of their brands are Georgia Pacific and Dixie paper products.

The cardinal mistake that the Democrats have made and are making is in their assumption that the rabid, monomaniacal Trump supporters can be won over. There may be a few, but they are too few to expend the disproportionate amount of time, money and effort the Democrats are making. The only way they might be swayed is by the Democrats implementing a assertive progressive agenda like real universal healthcare, ecological reforms, a $15.00 minimum wage and appropriate taxation levels for big corporations while closing as many of the loopholes as can be found. It will probably take more than one presidential term to change any thinking, and some GOP voters will not change their votes even if it means their lives or the lives of those close to them, and it does. Trump's wish to destroy Obamacare will harm his redneck supporters among the worst, but that seems to have no impact on them at all. Pretty insane, if you ask me. The clearest definition of sanity is the ability to act in one's best interest, and that reflects poorly on right-wing supporters.

And if you think Trump followers believe or care about facts and reality, you would be mistaken. They are swaddled in multiple layers of willful ignorance, and that's the way they like it (uhuh uhuh).

In one of my favourite books, "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Universe" there is a navigation device called a "random guidance unit" which does pretty much what it sound like it does. When activated, it sends the traveler off in a random direction and distance, so it must be what Trump tries to copy. So far, CBS, and MSNBC have both begun to challenge Trump's blathering and stupidity, and its about bloody time.

OMG. I was there gassing up around 11:00 AM and the line stretched all the way along the fence past the gas pumps.

None of this exonerates Trump's incompetence.

TRUMP ATTACKS ANOTHER DISSENTING VOICE From thedailybeast.com Trump Accuses WHO of Causing Coronavirus Deaths, Says He Ordered Halt to Funding BLAME THEM, NOT ME The president, himself accused of playing down the severity of the pandemic and giving questionable medical advice, blamed the WHO for “severely mismanaging” the crisis. Hunter Woodall A day after turning a coronavirus task force briefing into a tense venting session trumpeting unfounded authority, President Donald Trump on Tuesday used his presidential platform to lambaste the World Health Organization during the health crisis. “Today I'm instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization's role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,” Trump said. He went on to accuse the WHO of allowing the new coronavirus to spread by not taking measures swiftly enough, claiming the group ignored “credible” information on human-to-human transmission in December. “So many deaths have been caused by their mistakes,” he said. “It would have been so easy to be truthful.” Trump had repeatedly threatened to pull the plug on WHO funding in recent days—attacking the group as “China-centric” just last week—but his decision to actually announce a halt to funding came after he triggered harsh criticism even among some of his own allies by declaring that he has the “total authority” to decide when individual states loosen coronavirus-related restrictions. The president has no such authority, and was quickly called out both by experts and elected officials. In the same briefing on Monday, when pressed on what many see as his own delayed response to the pandemic, he lashed out at critics in the media, at one point appearing to try and spread the blame by airing an ad that accused reporters of “minimizing” the threat of the virus. Trump himself has shown an uneven handling of the pandemic back home in the United States. A push to re-open the country on an Easter timeline was abandoned, but not before the president compared the deadly coronavirus to the flu as he fretted about the economic impact of COVID-19. In other cases, the president’s pushing of the drug hydroxychloroquine to help with coronavirus patients has also prompted some warnings from medical professionals as the health community struggles to deal with the toll of COVID-19. The WHO advised against travel restrictions to stop the spread of the virus as recently as late February, arguing that such a move would ultimately be ineffective. Trump called that guidance a “disastrous decision” that he said triggered a “20-fold” increase in cases across the globe. Meanwhile, he touted his own decision to impose travel restrictions on China as a measure that “saved thousands and thousands of lives.” After blasting the WHO for defending the Chinese government and “praising its so-called transparency,” Trump was reminded by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that he himself had thanked Chinese leaders for being transparent about the virus back in January.

FYI A Canadian company in Ottawa has invented a very simple, easy to use COVID19 testing device the size of a Keurig machine that produces results in under an hour for about $15.00. They have been besieged by American companies wanting to either buy the company or all of the production on an exclusive basis. The owner has refused to sell the testers outside of Canada until domestic demand has been satisfied.

FINALLY- SOME SANITY IN AMERICAN POLITICS From: Alternet.org Conservative commentators pour salt on the wounds of the GOP’s ‘historically humiliating’ Written by Alex Henderson April 14, 2020 208 Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” isn’t the only Never Trump conservative who has been pouring salt on the GOP’s wounds over Wisconsin’s April 7 election: Charlie Sykes, co-founder of The Bulwark, is doing so as well this week — and, like Scarborough, is arguing that Republicans subjected themselves to a public relations fiasco over a right-wing candidate who didn’t even win: incumbent Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly. In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers and other Democrats — fearing for the safety of voters during the coronavirus pandemic — called for postponing the election and encouraged mail-in ballots as an alternative to in-person voting. But Republicans in the state legislature resisted that idea, and on Tuesday, April 7, the election went ahead. Those who hadn’t already mailed in absentee ballots had to vote in person — and Wisconsin voters, thanks to Republicans, stood in long lines on Election Day. Scarborough has been slamming the Wisconsin GOP for putting voters at a greater risk of being infected with coronavirus. That day, Wisconsin residents voted in the Democratic presidential primary as well as for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat. Liberal Jill Karofsky was up against Justice Dan Kelly, who has been enthusiastically endorsed by President Donald Trump. Republicans, Sykes notes, believed that discouraging mail-in voting would give Kelly an advantage, but as it turned out, Karofsky won by “more than 10 percentage points — which translates to more than 120,000 votes.” “It was a blowout in a state that has become notorious for its close elections,” Sykes asserts in his Bulwark article. “Despite their efforts to make voting as difficult as possible, Republicans were overwhelmed by a tsunami of mail-in votes…. The scope and nature of Kelly’s defeat was historically humiliating.” Sykes observes that although Wisconsin Republicans were hoping that Karofsky’s supporters would stay home on April 7, all they succeeded in doing was bringing them out in droves — even with the threat of coronavirus.

From propublica.com ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. In recent weeks, residents outside Boston have died at home much more often than usual. In Detroit, authorities are responding to nearly four times the number of reports of dead bodies. And in New York, city officials are recording more than 200 home deaths per day — a nearly sixfold increase from recent years. As of Tuesday afternoon, the United States had logged more than 592,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 24,000 deaths, the most in the world, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. But the official COVID-19 death count may, at least for now, be missing fatalities that are occurring outside of hospitals, data and interviews show. Cities are increasingly showing signs of Americans succumbing to the coronavirus in their own beds. ProPublica requested death data from several major metropolitan areas. Its review provides an early look at the pandemic’s hidden toll. Experts say it’s possible that some of the jump in at-home death stems from people infected by the virus who either didn’t seek treatment or did but were instructed to shelter in place, and that the undercount is exacerbated by lack of comprehensive testing. It’s also possible that the increase in at-home deaths reflects people dying from other ailments like heart attacks because they couldn’t get to a hospital or refused to go, fearful they’d contract COVID-19. Mark Hayward, a sociology professor at the University of Texas-Austin who’s an expert on mortality statistics, said all of those deaths are part of the “overall burden of the pandemic.” He said an uptick in deaths, specifically in ProPublica’s findings for Massachusetts and Detroit, indicates an undercount is occurring. You should think about the official coronavirus death counts, he said, “as just the tip of the iceberg.” The quality of the deaths data will improve as testing expands and fewer people die without getting tested, he added.