THE LIE OF THE YEAR (or maybe of the century)

This should be repeated and repeated and repeated, ad infinitum, lest anyone ever forget exactly who's responsible for just how very deadly this pandemic became in the U.S.:


https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/16/politics/donald-trump-politifact-lie-of-the-year/index.html

NEWS FLASH: it's a virus... it doesn't care who the POTUS is.

What exactly do you think could've been done by a dem? More authoritarian social controls?

There are no states more draconian with those edicts, penalties, threats... etc than CA or NY. How are they doing?

Results matter.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/nyc-mayor-signals-shutdown-coming-covid-19-cases/story%3fid=74721084

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ktla.com/news/california/california-covid-19-cases-explode-to-single-day-record-with-more-than-34000-new-infections/amp/

Remember when hambone, PkrBum would pretend he had no use for Trumpsky? Didn't take long for him to drop that pretense now that his hero has been hobbled by the truth.

Pkr is a damned fool who never reads anything except the right wing talking point drivel that supports his ignorant positions.

He's also a blind anti-"authoritarian" who probably also rails against having to wear seat belts to protect his own sorry ass.  (IF he even wears them, that is.)  

Hell, speeding drunk drivers don't care who's POTUS either, but seat belt laws put in place by wise and caring lawmakers save lives regardless.

(Silly me for thinking Pkr is capable of drawing such a simple parallel.)

Complete and utter fool.

Even I am amazed at what the right-wing are able to fool themselves into believing now. I've obviously never had a lot of respect for their intellect, but I had at least thought there were limits. I was wrong. They'll believe anything they're told.

The new thing going around, via Candace Owens and other such grifter propagandists, is that the virus is "99.9% survivable," and "isn't as bad as the flu." Usually rather than outright lie, right-wingers love to find some weird way of massaging data so that it's technically right. So, I dunno where they're getting this "99.9%" thing, but's probably "among Olympic-caliber athletes between the ages of four and nine, it's 99.9% survivable." For everybody else, it's a whole lot less. I mean, I personally know three (possibly four by now) people who've died of this... and I'm antisocial as hell.

And, again, "survivable" isn't always a good thing. Getting your arms and legs shredded in a thresher has a high "survivability" rate, but you're mangled for life. Few people walk away from COVID without some bad condition they didn't have before -- brain fog, lung scarring, cardiac troubles, etc. It's not something you wanna fuck-around-and-find-out about just because you may "survive" it. Also, you can spread it to loved ones who might not survive it as well as you. So, yeah, it's not something to be screwed around with.

Why does Trump get blamed for it? Well, let's see.

Right out of the gate, Captain HappyFunPresident destroyed the pandemic task force and discarded the plan that was set up to help the nation prepare for such emergencies. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-disbanded-nsc-pandemic-unit-experts-praised-69594177 This is like "Why is it dad's fault that our computer crashed? All he did was disable the anti-virus programs and then look at a bunch of porn sites! It's not his fault, it's YouPorn's fault!" Sheesh. Obama left Trump a program that could have given us MONTHS of extra time to get ahead of this thing, but Trump, as in the standard Way Of Trump, fucked it up, just out of spite.

So defending fun-boy for "what more could he do?" kinda shits the bed right out of the gate there. The more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war, all that. Trump just stood there with his pants down, all to show off to his base how great he was at "undoing everything Obama did." Even the good and helpful stuff. Out of sheer dumbass-pleasing spite.

Then the rest of it. He never took the thing seriously. He laughed it off and said it'd "disappear." He mocked the use of masks. He turned it into a political issue so his supporters would refuse to take basic precautions just to "own the libs." Their propaganda networks filled them with all sorts of "it's not really dangerous!" hogwash and "wearing a mask is the first step in how they turn you into a Communist!" horseshit. They forced things to open back up before they'd built up hospitals and supplies in order to deal with the crisis. Trump, ironically and spitefully and stupidly, wasted the shutdown that hurt the economy. We could have at least gotten something out of it, but he did nothing. He had the shutdown... in conjunction with filling his cult's heads full of "the virus ain't real and masks are tyrrany!" crap. It was tactically stupid.

Then, what little preparedness he did attempt came in the form of "you states are all on your own, we don't wanna help you coordinate, why don't you have bidding wars over needed supplies?" THAT was sure helpful, wasn't it?

Then he held super-spreader rallies. And encouraged other Republican governors, like that oozing sack-of-crap Kristi Noem, to have other super-spreader events. And they ridiculed anyone who did exercise precautions. Honestly, Trump might as well have been yelling "Nice mask, faggot!" for all the rallying-the-public-to-fight-this that he did. He was not only no help, he was doubled-down hindrance.

Democrats, for all their faults, would not have made this into a politicized thing. They'd have taken it seriously and wouldn't have tried to "wish" it away. I don't think anyone, with any honesty in them at all, really thinks that this would be as bad as it is now if a Democrat had been in charge of dealing with it. I get it that it's a virus, it's gonna spread and it's hard to control. But Democrats would have at least exercised some leadership, encouraged the public to help each other out by taking it seriously and wearing masks and not gathering. And they would have worked harder to make sure our front-line health care workers had what they needed to fight this.

Every other country, except Brazil who has a Trump of their own, did a better job handling this thing. And we're the United States of America -- we have the best resources and the best minds and we should have been the ones the most on top of this thing.

But we didn't have a leader. We had a self-obsessed clown who thinks the country exists just to be a party that celebrates him.

AND he was backed by a party of idiots who let everybody down. Let's not forget that, and let's not underestimate that, because, flat-out, no bullshit and straight up no chaser, TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE SCUM. That's it. I'm not saying every conservative, I'm not saying every Republican, I'm not even saying every person who voted for Trump. People can make mistakes. But at this point, I'm saying anybody still supporting this guy, anybody still defending him... scum-fucking-BAG, baby. No exceptions. You don't like "P.C.", well, there it is, non-P.C., enjoy, facts don't care about your feelings, etc. People who continue to support and defend Trump after what he did killed 300,000 plus and has debilitated god knows how many more than that, they ain't "patriots," they're an idiot cult who let themselves be led into letting America down when she needed 'em.

And they just don't seem capable of learning. I mean, here's today's news:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jared-kushner-reportedly-helped-create-191639862.html

There ya go. Robbin' 'em frickin' blind, but are they gonna do anything to hold Trump's family accountable for it? Nope. They're gonna blubber some "buh-buh-Hunter's laptop-muh-muh-muh!" fairytale pixiedust bullshit and completely ignore the pissy carpet their nose is getting rubbed in.

You can't wise up a cultist. They'll let their oppressor keep stomping them down just to spite you by not admitting you're right. They'll let Trump try to pull off a coup and trample all over every American law and every American ideal and they'll still claim they're a "Libertarian." Yeah-heah-right.

Trump did this because he knew he could. And it's a shame he got away with it... but he only got away with it because he was enabled to get away with it. His base made themselves available to be suckers. And even when it's proven that they're suckers, they'd rather keep being suckers than ever have to say "okay, the libtards were right."

Ya can't help 'em, ya can't wise 'em up, you can only do everything you can to keep them out of power and work around them. And that's what America needs to start doing.

Once again a Democratic administration is left a huge mess to fix by a Republican administration. It's an old pattern. And the other old pattern is that Republicans will claim that Democrats aren't fixing the Republican mess fast enough.

They'll never learn and ya just can't help 'em. I don't even try anymore, I just mock 'em and hope the rage eats 'em up so they get dealt out quicker. It's all you can do.

As usual, zsomething is so spot on it almost hurts. Also as usual, his discourse is wasted on this tiny forum -- it truly deserves a national stage, even though he won't get it.

PkrBum wrote:NEWS FLASH: it's a virus... it doesn't care who the POTUS is.

What exactly do you think could've been done by a dem?  More authoritarian social controls?

There are no states more draconian with those edicts, penalties, threats... etc than CA or NY. How are they doing?

Results matter.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/nyc-mayor-signals-shutdown-coming-covid-19-cases/story%3fid=74721084

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ktla.com/news/california/california-covid-19-cases-explode-to-single-day-record-with-more-than-34000-new-infections/amp/

From the article:

"President Donald J. Trump fueled confusion and conspiracies from the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic. He embraced theories that COVID-19 accounted for only a small fraction of the thousands upon thousands of deaths. He undermined public health guidance for wearing masks and cast Dr. Anthony Fauci as an unreliable flip-flopper....
"...It was a symphony of counter narrative, and Trump was the conductor, if not the composer. The message: The threat to your health was overhyped to hurt the political fortunes of the president."
From the very start of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump insisted it was not going to be a big problem.
"We have it totally under control," he said on January 22. "It's one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It's going to be just fine."
Then this on February 2: "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."
And this on February 26: "This is a flu. This is like a flu. ... It's a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for. And we'll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner."
And this on March 27: "You call it germ, you can call it a flu. You can call it a virus. You can call it many different names. I'm not sure anybody knows what it is.
There's more. Lots and lots more. But you get the idea..."

*************

He disbanded the federal pandemic response team.

He shipped 17.8 tons of PPE to China in January.

He repeatedly attacked Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx when they disagreed with his public stance.

He held multiple rallies and other events in DC and across the country, further spreading the coronavirus.

He ridiculed people for wearing masks and using social distancing.

etc. etc. ad nauseum

None of which has anything to do with the natural course of a virus.

In fact... he had no executive authority to act as you wish and you'd be screaming bloody murder if he had.

This is just a political football you're humping like a good useful idiot.

RealLindaL wrote:As usual, zsomething is so spot on it almost hurts.  Also as usual, his discourse is wasted on this tiny forum -- it truly deserves a national stage, even though he won't get it.

Thank ya kindly! I'm way too one-note for a national stage, though... I'd end up writing the same 3-4 columns over and over.

I'm just bewildered at the craziness, honestly. I'm used to having to deal with some very strange, illogical beliefs from conservatives, but they've just rocketed right off the rails and surprised even me. I thought surely there was something that would make them stop and say, "Okay, Trump's crazy, we really should stop backing this guy. Fun's fun and all, but it's gone too far, this is obviously abnormal."

I mean, the dude's now wanting to institute martial law to overthrow an election that there's absolutely zero reason to think is fraudulent... other than the fact that Trump lost it and he doesn't like to believe that he'd lose something. Notice he only wants to re-vote in the states where he lost. The states he won he doesn't have any conspiracy theories about.

Really, if there was any election tampering (beyond the obvious USPS-hamstringing that Trump's appointee DeJoy did... and which we're now really suffering from due to the Xmas rush that's further overwhelmed the system he weakened), I'd think it was in Trump's favor, because it's not hard to believe he lost the election... but it IS kinda hard to believe that it was that close. Given his lousy performance in office, Trump should have drag-assed away from this whuppin' with nothing but maybe dumbass-stubborn Mississippi, idiot-pit Alabama, and most-people-here-think-boogers-are-a-food-group Tennessee in his "win" column. It's pretty depressing to think Republicans picked up ANYTHING this year, but, there it is. Undeserved, but, sadly, legit.

Trump can't handle it, though. He can't take rejection. So he's reacting like a typical supercharged, unrestrained id who's spent a life protected from ever facing the results of his actions or having to be responsible for anything. He's fit-pitchin' like the child he is.

It's a four-year-old's tantrum tactic. It's basically this:


"I want my BIKE! *sob sob sob!*

And who supports this? "Libertarians" and "TEA Partiers" and "III%ers" and "sheepdogs" and all the other supposed-patriotic-protectors-of-freedom, 'cuz they're fakey-flake POSERS who don't really give a hell about "freedom" or the Constitution, not when it means they don't win, and not when it means they don't get to "own the libs." Which, frankly, is all they really understand about government, anyway. Most of 'em don't have a clue about policies and what they do and what they mean... they just know they hate people who don't want 'em saying the n-word or gay slurs or all their other stuff that they don't want to be made to feel bad about being ignorant about. "Political correctness" is destroying their lives... even though "political correctness" really isn't a thing and never has been -- there's only "things you say that'll make people think you're an asshole," and that was in effect whether there was "political correctness" or not. You can still say whatever ya want, but nothing is going to absolve ya from decent people thinking you're a dumb jerk for saying 'em. That's it.

Meanwhile, I'm running into stupider and stupider arguments. Today the big conservative argument, which Trump keeps re-tweeting, is that "Trump won more counties!" Okay, I'm a big meanie who thinks conservatives are steeewww-ew-ew-ew-EWWWPID, but even I am taken aback that they don't understand that land mass is not the same as population. I know they love showing their "big red map" but that map also doubles as a map of "areas in America where nobody lives." There are counties in Texas where there are less than 200 people living. There are counties in California with over TEN MILLION. Basically, Los Angeles County alone would count as many as 50,000 of those Texas counties. And there are only 3,007 counties in all of the United States to begin with, so... yep. The only thing one achieves by saying "Trump won more counties" and showing off the county map is displaying how big of a dumbass one is at intelligent arguments.

It's ridiculous to make those silly arguments, anyway, when the dude's wanting to use the military to overthrow the results of an election. I can't believe how many people are sitting around with their thumbs tucked up their behineys, pretending this is a normal-thing-that-presidents-do-sometimes.

It's only a month but I still think that maybe the 25th amendment should be enacted just on general principal, just because what's it there for if it's not gonna be used for this? The president is a headcase and somebody needs to say it. Trump is scrawling "IM NOT CRAZEY!!!!" on the Oval Office wall in his own feces and his supporters are doing nothing but admiring his penmanship.

PkrBum wrote:None of which has anything to do with the natural course of a virus.

In fact... he had no executive authority to act as you wish and you'd be screaming bloody murder if he had.

This is just a political football you're humping like a good useful idiot.

Shut up, you pathetic loser. If you had a thought in your head, it would die of loneliness.

Anybody else kind of disturbed at how often a certain somebody talks about "humping a football"?  It's an image it seems to really have become preoccupied with.   Probably something from its undoubtedly-warped and tragically-loveless childhood.

Anyway...

zsomething wrote:Anybody else kind of disturbed at how often a certain somebody talks about "humping a football"?  It's an image it seems to really have become preoccupied with.   Probably something from its undoubtedly-warped and tragically-loveless childhood.

Anyway...

Randy Quaid was a great actor before he became all MAGA nutty.

On February 7, after the WHO reported shortages of PPE, Trump sent 17.8 tons of PPE to China.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/02/facebook-posts/yes-us-shipped-donated-personal-protective-equipme/

Then he forced the governors of several states to fend for themselves in obtaining PPE, and in some cases, confiscated their shipments.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-admin-seizing-ppe/

Meanwhile, he continually lied to the public about the severity and contagion of the virus, while telling the opposite to Bob Woodward.

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/09/politics/coronavirus-trump-woodward-timeline/