Dark Avatar: One More

US thought about taking down the Hitler poses, because after all is said about Total Douche, his is not genocidal as far as US knows.  But he does personally insult journalists' integrity, lie continually, and disrespect our form of republican government.  His outrageous behavior invites comparison.  So, US decided to let the post stand, and for good measure add one more pair of pictures.  Enjoy!

A Dark Avatar

US Person is not a closet Hitler admirer, but one cannot fairly deny he was an oratorical spellbinder.  Part of his shtick was dramatic hand gestures.  He practiced them in front of a mirror, and asked photographer Heinrich Hoffman to photograph him in action in 1925.  Total Douche is no orator; he speaks in phrases, relies on a few over used adjectives, and sometimes makes up words.  But do you see any modern day similarities here?

Here is my favorite Hitler pose--so wildly grandiose--as if he is commanding the heavens.  Can you find a matching gesture by the Antichrist in Office?

Perhaps this one?

'Toontime: Covfefe

credit: Dave Whamond
 Wackydoodle sez: Covfefe!

Even Senate fan-boy Lindsey Graham says the US has not done enough testing to release possibly infectious millions back into wage slavery.  Although he enabled Total Douche by refusing to assess him with any responsibility, his remarks about testing are a long way from Douche's claim, "the best [testing] of any country in the world."  Here is another inconvenient fact in this chart:

Total Douche does not want comprehensive testing because the results would contradict his propaganda line that it is time for him as absolute monarch to 'open up the country'.  Experts admit that the COVID-19 infection figures are underestimates.  When New York started reporting probable cases, its statistics jumped significantly. A moribund economy is the worst thing that could happen to Bizarro Trumpillini's re-election prospects.  So, he just improvises*, posts inflammatory tweets, or blames international organizations or competitors for his failure in office.  He is worse than disruptive Dennis because he is so malicious.  RECORD ONE DAY DEATHS IN US: 4,591. ESCALATE!

*Total Douche's latest fantasy: SARS CoV-2 began in a Chinese bio lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (this lab was the first to identify SARS CoV-2 in January 2020). Here is what zoologist Dr. Peter Daszak said in an interview on Democracy Now!: "...we don’t really know for sure, but we can trace back the origins by looking at the genetic signal within the virus itself. So we sequence out the gene from the virus, the genome, and then we compare it to others. And when we do that, we see that the viruses in people, the closest relative of those are from bats. This is not unusual. Bats happen to carry a lot of different viral species. There are many different bats around the world that carry their own viruses. We make contact with them. Often we don’t see them. They fly at night, for instance. And we pick up their viruses. SARS coronavirus, the original virus, emerged from bats. Ebola virus is a bat-origin virus. Rabies and many other....We’ve been studying the origin of emerging diseases. About 75% of every new emerging disease — think about Ebola, H1N1 flu, H5N1 flu, you know, these pandemic viruses that emerge— originate in wildlife. Every species of wildlife carries viruses that are a natural part of its biology, a bit like we have the common cold and herpes, cold sores.....And we estimate there are 1.7 million unknown viruses in wildlife, so there’s a lot of diversity out there that could emerge in the future. And really, we need to be looking at that, instead of pointing fingers for political gain at scientists who are working to benefit public health."  

A study in The Lancet by four epidemiologists from Hong Kong show that the lock down of Wuhan in late January prevented the spread of infection outside Hubei Province; the major cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Wenzhou, they write, saw a collapse in numbers of infections within two weeks of the partial lock down. Bizarro's capitalist=inspired reluctance to advocate partial quarantines in the US may result in 60,000 more "covfefe" deaths according to some calculations. China's government put public health paramount over economic considerations from the beginning of its response to the pandemic.  That, dear reader is the difference between a socialist and capitalist society.  

The new normal: after half a century of economic growth, China's economy will contract by 6% as a result of the pandemic. People are sleeping in cardboard boxes in empty Las Vegas casino parking lots. According to the International Monetary Fund, the global economy is expected to shrink by 3% during 2020 in a stunning coronavirus-driven collapse of activity that will mark the steepest downturn since the Great Depression

Pandemics and the Destruction of Nature

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil is one of those "mini-Trump" nationalists who deny the seriousness of the SARS CoV-2 pandemic. He has likened the COVID-19 illness caused by the virus as, “no worse than a mild flu.” Global statistics collected since the outbreak of the disease put a lie to that mis- characterization. His own health minister has advised Brazilians to self-quarantine. The picture shows Bolsonaro engaged in anti-social behavior when he visited a Brasilia neighborhood on April 10th. Brazil has recorded about 2,000 deaths and 35,000 cases of COVID-19.

Brazil may be at the nexus of the next pandemic to strike the globe.  Recent wild fires have devastated large swaths of Amazonia.  Researchers have studied the connection between changes in land use such as deforestation and novel disease outbreaks.  A recent study says that diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and Zika Virus have been linked to landscape changes.  SARS CoV-2 may be the latest virus to be transmitted from animals to humans, called zoonoses.

A group of international experts on zoonotic diseases met in Columbia to discuss the effect of the Amazon devastation by fire.  They warned, “The Amazon region of Brazil, endemic for many communicable or zoonotic diseases can, after a wildfire, trigger a selection for survival, and with it change the habitat and behaviors of some animal species. These can be reservoirs of zoonotic bacteria, viruses, and parasites.”  Huge fires in Indonesia in 1988 caused the emergence of the Nipah virus, which had a morbidity rate between 40 and 70%.  Bats fled their forest homes seeking food in orchards.  Domesticated pigs ate the fruit bats nibbled becoming infected.  The swine transmitted the disease to local humans who began to die from brain hemorrhages.  Malaria mosquitoes do well in forested areas recently cleared. In 2008 a 10% rise in Amazon deforestation rate was correlated to a 3.3% increase in malaria transmission according to Stanford University researchers.

Despite the mounting scientific evidence of a connection between disease outbreaks and loss of biodiversity{30.03.20}, President Bolosarno is calling for full economic steam ahead.  A 2019 provisional measure awaiting legislative approval rewards land grabbers who illegally felled forest on public lands in Amazonia before December 2018 — rectifying their illegal occupation by  purchase of the land at greatly reduced prices, thus increasing the amount of deforestation that will occur.  Large squatters can increase their holdings by using straw transactions (so called laranjas) to evade federal enforcement of size restrictions. Under the measure, squatters can also seize land occupied by indigenous who do not have deeds to their land.

All of this increase disruption of the biosphere in the name of profit will lead to future pandemics as Nature fights to defend herself from the onslaught of human greed. Infection experts were not surprised by the pandemic; they were expecting one for decades.  An insurance executive at the World Economic Forum warned that the last thirty years of over 12,000 disease outbreaks has been a series of near misses ignored by policy makers responsible for controlling such threats to global public health. These people should note that around 50% of modern drugs have been developed from natural products that are threatened by biodiversity loss.

Cupidity in a Time of Plague

It just gets worse.  The incredible blathering idiot at the VWH now wants to take credit for the disaster relief checks by forcing the Treasury to put his signature facsimile on the paper checks yet to be issued!  Of course that 'yuge' piece of narcissistic venality will take more time to accomplish.  Never mind that it was congressional Democrats who forced Moscow Mitch to give a few scraps to ordinary people while shoveling out heaps of money in corporate welfare.

Total Douche only does two things well as far as US Person can determine: deflect blame, and take credit for other people's efforts.  Thus, the Chinese and their accomplices, the WHO, are at fault for misleading the world about the corona virus. NOT!  It was Total Douche who ignored the several warnings from his own regime about a imminent pandemic.  Not enough testing to safely allow a return to work?  Experts who warn about the danger of doing this are secretively attempting to "undermine democracy". About 25% of those persons infected are asymptomatic. Here is another inescapable fact: the worst president in US history is mentally unstable and should be ignored at all costs, otherwise our democracy will be endangered by his irrational media act.

Wackydoodle sez: What, me worry?

USPS For Sale

With Total Douche living in the VWH at taxpayer expense, everything is political--from saving lives in a pandemic to funding the Post Office.   The venerable Post Office is short $75 billion and will have to shut down if it does not receiving a financing lifeline that Total Douche refused to offer. The service is going broke because it was forced by Congress to fully fund generous retirement benefits it owes to employees, and a dramatic downturn in demand volume for its two money-making services, first-class mail, and marketing (junk) mail. In its most recent quarterly statement, USPS reported a 2.3 percent increase in revenue from parcel delivery and increased revenue per package. The service director told Congress that the pandemic effect will cost $22 million more in net operating loss over the next 18 months.

Why doesn't Total Douche want to fund USPS?  There are two reasons, both political.  Conservatives have been trying to privatize the post office for years as part of their 'government cannot do anything business could do at a profit attitude', and perhaps more importantly, the post office will be responsible for delivering mail-in ballots cast in the next presidential election. Total Douche has already admitted that increased access to the ballot box by disenfranchised (mostly poor minority) voters would result in Repugnants "never being elected again".  The service has gone without federal funding since 2006, relying on generated revenue.  The perverse Trumpists had little problem providing $500 billion in relief to wealthy corporations without meaningful oversight of how the money will be spent, but would only allow a $10 billion loan to USPS.

Besides the self-serving objections to increased voter participation by mail, the USPS is an important part of the public health response to the current crisis. Many rural 'Mericans rely on the postal service to deliver their medications, food, and other necessities of life.  Making them pay more for this vital service is adding salt to their financial wounds*.  Tell Congress to ignore Total Douche and support the USPS in this crisis.

*The regime's predatory instincts were laid bare, again, by the Treasury Department's willingness to allow debt collectors to seize the $1200 relief checks being issued to citizens with direct deposit authorization. The Fiscal Service Bureau told bankers during a pod cast “there’s nothing in the [CARES] law that precludes” financial institutions from seizing a person’s payment and using it to pay off the individual’s private debts. The median gross weekly wage in Trumpistan is only $933.  Think about how you are going to stretch $1200 for ten weeks when you live paycheck to paycheck and sit in a miles long line for food.  Remember: Total Douche is making 'Merica great again; meanwhile, let them eat tweets!  Professor Noam Chomsky calls Total Douche, the "most successful con-man in American history, ever."  And that folks, is saying something!

COTW: What Science Knows About COVID-19

More: As predicted by US Person {07.04.20} Dr Fauci, who has appeared as the voice of reason on "Total" Douche's latest realty-TV program, Brief the Nation, is facing the axe for speaking truth to power. Total Douche spent the Easter weekend asking his deluded followers what to do about the Fauci, who he, "made a star".  His performance on the nation's stage would be laughable, if it was not killing people. (read the 'Red Dawn' email thread between leading health experts)  Dr. Fauci had the temerity to differ with his boss in public over the regime's reluctant, chaotic and disingenuous COVID-19 response.  It is notable that other western countries are getting their COVID-19 updates from medical experts, not a narcissistic politician feeding his narcissistic craving for attention,validation and re-election.

This excellent graphic from VisualCapitalist.com explains what science knows about how the novel SERS CoV-2 virus infects the lungs:

Respiratory difficulties are caused by the virus attacking the aveoli where oxygen exchange takes place in the lungs. If the infection worsens and the body's immune system becomes overwhelmed, aveoli fill with fluid and collapse. The body may go into septic shock, experience multi-organ failure and then death. It is interesting, even astonishing that a particle--it does not have a nucleus, only a bundle of RNA--smaller than a bacteria can wreak havoc with a person's body.  Because it is so small, it can be transmitted by water droplets--sneezing, coughing or just talking--over 13 feet!

Potter's Field: mass grave on Hart Island, New York

Congratulations, 'Merica you are #1!