~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Have you noticed that the administration is not wearing face masks at the podium? And the wooden-faced in the background are standing too close to one another?
We are told by the CDC to stay home; if we have to go out, keep a six-foot distance from others; wear masks because we’re dealing with what must be an air-borne disease.
In the next breath, THE administrator is telling us to wear a mask if we want; he won’t be, he said. Wear a bandanna. Put on a scarf. Everybody’s got scarves. Lots of scarves.
Watching a White House “press conference” is not something one does to be informed. It is a rally for believers, at taxpayers’ expense: he can no longer hold rallies in big auditoriums because of the plague, so he gets a spot every afternoon on Fox News. Many outlets no longer cover it.
Full of lies, name-calling, dirty words, whining and blaming –the “presser,” as some call a White House press conference now — is not my cuppa tea. If the leader’s ratings are higher than any in the world past and present, as he has bragged, I’d like to see the proof. Even one of my friends who is a Trumper told me she cannot stand to watch him and his mouth; or “try to figure out what he’s saying when he opens it.”
“And you would vote for him?” I asked her.
“Well, of course! Better him than Pelosi!”
Pelosi is running? After a moment, I figured that this “opinion” was informed via Fox News saying that if 45 was impeached and then his Coronavirus Czar/Vice-President was also impeached, we’d wind up with the Speaker of the House as Prez.
My friend is a strong, self-made woman; why would she diss another strong, self-made woman in favor of voting for a dirty old man?
And now, we suddenly have inept Jared assigned another duty. His latest “work” is head of the Strategic National Stockpile.
He’s also in charge of:
1. Peace in the Middle East
2. The opioid epidemic in the U.S.
3. All talks w/ Mexico
4. All talks w/ China
5. “Bettering” the Veterans Administration
6. Ditto the justice system
7. Making the U.S. government run like a corporation
8. Being the chargé d’affaires of the Strategic National Stockpile of medical necessities for the coronavirus pandemic
I question the improbability of his handling these weighty, world-affecting duties when his dress and demeanor suggest he is interested only in his personal valet having just given him a shave and a haircut, picked out a fresh shirt and an expensive-looking tie and made sure his cuffs were shot.
I’m getting so tired of this administration. They’ve already shunted aside Dr. Anthony Fauci, the only non-suck-up in the bunch, and gutted the $2 trillion dollar crisis bill passed last week — they quietly adopted a guideline to exempt small businesses from having to give paid leave during the pandemic.
Why anyone who is not a billionaire votes for the likes of these rich people now in charge of our government and us is a puzzlement.
Why after millennia of men being horrible leaders would anyone be afraid of a female in charge?
Who among us, Christians in particular, doesn’t want to give relief to poor people who have never quite lifted themselves up by their bootstraps to become wealthy?
Who wouldn’t have their taxes go for working humans rather than another round of corporate CEOs? Relief for your neighbor rather than for Goldman Sachs?
Who would deny poor people food and medical care in order to save a bit of tax money by stealthily cutting food stamps and undercutting access for the poor to the Affordable Care Act?
Who has ever liked a bully and his wannabes enforcing harsh rules against the weak, whether on the playground or from the White House lawn?
There were many points of compassion our ruling oligarchy spit on when it came to spending any money on the less-than-wealthy during this health crisis: much of the conversation in the Senate before passage of the $2 trillion bill that already is being whacked at had to do with our wealthy representatives concerned that poor people would waste the $600 a month or a one-time $1200 they might get on top of their unemployment checks. Waste it on what? A yacht? A trip to Mar-A-Lago? Food? The rent?
And when the bill was given to the president, he issued a “signing statement” along with his signature that insured he would not permit any inspection other than his own “presidential supervision” of how the money ($500 billion of the $2 trillion) would be used by the large corporations.
If this isn’t fox in the hen house, what is?
The leader and his minions and the other people in the majority in the Senate disgust me. I am not just weary of them, I am beginning to grieve.
