What of Maskless Masses?

The barrell-shaped, bearded guy with a Budweiser beer in his hand, approaches me as I belt sand smooth a deck handrail at a marina in Wildwood, NJ, last Friday. He's not wearing a facial covering, as he boldly insists that "this pandemic thing is overblown." 

The guy stood five or six feet away, but I slipped the bandana that was around my neck, up over my mouth and nose. I remind the guy that nearly 90,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States in a couple months.

"Yeah, more people die from pneumonia every year” he parroted what sounded like a Fox News soundbite.

What do you say to this?  

Then, the guy went on the tiresome lament, that Conservatives, in particular, like to muddy the water with -- "Really, you just don’t know who to believe."

Of course, he went on about how all politicians are crooked and all news stations can't be trusted.

 I suggested that for starters, he cross off Donald Trump and Fox News from the list of even remotely believable sources. "Okay, so you don't like Trump," he retorted, and went on a rant about "those Democrats."

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

It's as if we've lost our common sense, our ability to listen to our gut or think for ourselves. We need a talking head to tell us what to believe or how to feel.

So, amidst the confusion, what the heck? Why not, just party, man?

I thought of that Mark Twain line:

"Never argue with stupid people, they will only drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experience."

A few minutes later, the same guy was gathered with about 5 or 6 other people around a small deck in front of a house overlooking the harbor. They were yukin' it up as if they were in a local bar and the Coronavirus had never happened. Only one person that I could see was wearing a facial mask covering.

On Saturday, hundreds of people swarmed the Wildwood Boardwalk. The Cape May Standard, published on Twitter a picture of the boardwalk crowds; the overwhelming majority were maskless. I could indentify maybe five people, out of about a hundred in the picture, wearing masks.

In the meantime, Governor Phil Murphy is still working out phased reopening plans for New Jersey. It seems to me, we need to more urgently insist that folks mask up and don't get lax about wearing a face covering in public, particularly amidst crowds.

How many individuals could be unknowingly carrying the virus and pass it on?

How many might catch the virus and spread it to wherever they came from after happy time on the boardwalk is over?

In the same way, the Trump administration criminally failed Americans by declaring a national emergency around the Covid-19 pandemic several weeks too late, hence ensuring the deaths of tens of thousands of people, President Trump prematurely, irresponsibly is chomping at the bit, egging on the impatient, to reopen the country.

This precarious moment in time demands wisdom, compassion and finesse -- three qualities in which the President is miserably lacking. Just a couple weeks could mean the difference between life or death for many.

I hope and pray the virus numbers drop steadily. But if New Jersey or surrounding states, like Pennsylvania, New York or Delaware experience any type of jump in Coronavirus cases in the coming weeks, we'll have a pretty good idea why.

So, yeah, if the maskless multitudes observed in Wildwood this past Saturday, is any indication of the senseless citizen behavior that we can expect this Memorial Day weekend re-opening -- we unwittingly could be ringing the dinner bell (to borrow from Jaws) for the "invisible enemy."

Trump: Virus "Numbers" Are "Really, Very, Very Strong"

President Donald Trump is downplaying the Coronavirus all over again. 

As parts of the United States get ready for a phased-in reopening at the President's urging, Trump is tapping out the same disingenuous dance number that led to the nearly 64,000 lives snuffed out in America.

This time, Trump is downplaying the virus's ravages, namely the deaths, fluffing off our lost souls as mere statistics and acting as if the epidemic is already over.

"Our deaths, our numbers, per million people, are really very, very strong," Trump upchucked today. "We're very proud of the job we've done."

Proud? 

It's as if the President's talking about the stock market performance of a corporate Trump sycophant like Walmart -- "Our numbers.. are really, very, very strong." 

Trump's meandering public addresses are increasingly the detached blatherings of a sociopath. And reminder: he's our President.

Those, 64,000 people happened to die because Trump was too focused, for more than two months, on stock market numbers, golfing, holding "Keep America Great" rallies and seeking vengeance against impeachment witnesses.

The President should be charged with manslaughter.

Yet, the imbecilic con man hasn't learned his lesson. He never learns his lesson. He's not interested in learning any lessons. Of course, he feigns concern. But not very well.

"This plague should never have happened," Trump said at last evening's business round table with industry execs who were present to dutifully lick the President's boots and convince America it was time to go back to work. "It could’ve been stopped, but people chose not to stop it."

That was the closest we'll get to an admission of guilt from the President. He's admitting "it could have been stopped, but people chose not to stop it." 

Trump just isn't saying he happens to be the guy who knew death was incubating in the homeland and simply blew it off as little consequence..

But, we knew that already.

The President ignored repeated warnings of the Coronavirus virus threat, detailed in his presidential daily briefings from early January through February.

Trump belatedly declared a national emergency on March 13. It was way too late. Some 1,700 cases of Covid-19 had been confirmed and 40 deaths reported.

The virus was already uncontrollably spreading across the homeland, compromising lives.

Now, the master illusionist President is promising once again the virus "is going to go away" as if this will happen at the snap of Trump's fingers.

In the meantime, the divider-in-chief continues to cast blame everywhere -- President Barack Obama, state governors, the World Health Organization and China. There will be others. 

I'm afraid that the death toll will climb much higher, particularly if citizens don't continue to take social distancing seriously. 

There still aren't enough virus test kits and components or reliable anti-body tests out there to track the contagion and help instruct who can safely return to the work place and when.

And I'm concerned that really deep down, the President -- who no doubt would happily turn a resurgent national emergency into a means of autocratic control come election day this November -- just doesn't give a damn either way.

The "Invisible Enemy" Has A Face: Trump's

The "invisible enemy" now has a foreboding face; it's the one President Donald Trump sees glaring back when he looks in the mirror.

Since the President first dismissed the Coronavirus threat more than three months ago, claiming "it's totally under control," Trump has served more like a facilitating, destructive agent of the Coronavirus, than anything remotely resembling a commander-in-chief. 

Peddling preposterous theory, incessantly inciting and brazenly boasting, the autocrat President has insufferably sown uncertainty across the homeland while the deadly virus morphed into a pandemic that has claimed more than 58,000 lives.

When the American people desperately needed a capable, compassionate leader committed to upholding his oath of office and look out for the common good, Trump consistently has proven himself not only incapable, but uninterested.

"I don’t take responsibility at all,” Trump said way back at his landmark March 13, press conference, when asked to explain his administration’s failure to ensure that Americans had  enough Coronavirus test kits, which are key to tracking and ultimately minimizing the disease’s death toll.

Not only does the President deny any culpability for failing to ensure testing for a beleagued nation,, Trump still is shirkinking responsibility for blowing off the pandemic threat even after it was clearly incubating death in the homeland in February and the first half of March.

President Trump incessantly comes off like the panicked kid who breaks the treasured heirloom antique vase while carelessly tossing the football in the house, and then repeatedly, exhaustively – hence guiltily – denying culpability to his mother.

His younger brother did it. Or, it could have been that tremor that shook the house violently, but nobody else in the neighborhood felt. Maybe it was the wind blowing through the closed window.

As far as Trump is concerned, it seems, what’s broken or lost for good, mind as well just be an inanimate nick-knack with a price tag. Something he can buy off with bluster that bamboozles a strained and fearful citizenry on the brink.

But, Trump is stiff and unconvincing when he occasionally feigns to care about the mounting number of lives lost, largely due to his atrocious failures. He seems to relish the talk of death, mentioning body bags and bodies.

Despite what the President and his cheerleading sycophant Vice President Mike Pence claimed at this evening's Rose Garden press conference, there still aren't enough test kits and test components to go around for the country to safely open back up come Friday, or soon thereafter.

And Trump should have stuck to his crybaby threat to cool off on the virus pressers after taking heat for last Thursday's disastrous display of, what Common Dream's Robert Reich today appropriately described as "quackery."

Anymore, when the President isn't insulting a reporter or stroking his ego about the "great job" his administration has done to keep the death toll down, he sounds like one of Big Pharma's TV ads, pushing a drug that might make you feel better -- if it doesn't kill you, first.

First, it was Hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug unproven to fight Covid-19. Of late, it's household disinfectant and ultraviolet rays he's floating as a Coronavirus cure. If the virus doesn't get you, Trump will.

When asked tonight about why he thinks poison control hotlines lit up from people inquiring whether it's safe to ingest or inject disinfectant, Trump predictably played dumb.

"I can't imagine why," he said. Asked if he took responsibility for the public's confusion, Trump answered "No, I don't," and quickly moved on to another reporter.

Trump may be thinking he can bamboozle his way forward with sleight-of-hand doublespeak to magically make last week's "disinfectant" advice "disappear" like a "miracle" -- as he promised the Coronavirus would two months ago.

But, just as the virus isn't dispelled by distracting bluster or disparaging tweets, Trump's latest snake oil remedy will stick in memories for sometime. 

Unfortunately, as if we all didn't have more urgent matters to address, you just have to wonder what poisonous "elixir" Dr. Don will be recommending next?

Trump Has Joined Forces With The "Invisible Enemy"

President Donald J. Trump has become one with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Even before Trump won the Republican presidential nomination in July of 2016, more than three chaotic, painful years ago, I've warned that Trump was "America's most dangerous home-bred terrorist."

"Trump whose number one goal has always been self-enrichment, is America's most dangerous home-bred terrorist," I wrote in The Hill shortly before the 2016 presidential elections. 

"His weapons are fear and divisiveness planted not-so-subtly in the hearts and minds of the disenchanted subject to explode anytime."

President Trump has done nothing but prove that out every bullying, bamboozling, bungled step of the way since occupying the Oval Office in January 2017.

Under Trump, hate crimes have skyrocketed. The citizenry has split into opposing hardened factions. And Congress, in our lifetimes, has never been more partisan.

Now, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic that has killed more than 40,000 in America and left 22 million unemployed, it's never been more clear that Trump from the get-go was not only the wrong guy for the job -- but the worst.

When the American people have most needed a capable, compassionate leader committed to upholding his oath of office and looking out for the common good, Trump consistently has proven himself incapable.

"I don’t take responsibility at all,” Trump said at one of his dysfunctional press conferences March 13, when asked about the administration’s failure to ensure that Americans had prompt widespread access to Coronavirus test kits – a key to identifying and ultimately minimizing the disease’s death toll.

After two months of criminally downplaying the Coronavirus threat – claiming the virus was “totally under control,” labeling it a “hoax” and saying it will magically “be gone by April"– the master illusionist President has spent more time casting blame on others, picking political fights and promoting what a “perfect” job he is doing – than protecting American lives.

While the Coronavirus reached American shores and incubated in the citizenry during January and February, Trump's focus was on his re-election prospects that hinged on a strong stock market and a bustling economy.

The President who claims he wants to "Keep America Great," while the virus spread in the homeland, was holding campaign rallies, golfing at his properties and seeking vengeance against officials who exposed his malfeasance that led to the President's impeachment.

Now, Trump’s daily, disingenuous, chaotic reality TV press conferences are sickening, bumbling displays of accusation, deflection, braggadocio and most unsettling of all – misinformation.

Trump repeatedly lies about testing availability and still claims he inherited faulty Covid-19 testing from President Barack Obama. Of course, that’s impossible. The Center for Disease Control, under Trump, produced those initial faulty tests this year when the virus hit.

"No one saw this coming," Trump repeatedly says. But, just about everyone saw the epidemic encroaching -- except Trump.

Health and intelligence officials have been sounding the alarm bells about the Coronavirus for months. And many of the same national health officials have been warning for years, during Trump’s presidency, that the United States was woefully unprepared to contend with a global pandemic and that it was just a matter of time before one emerged.

The same day, March 13, Trump declared the Coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, releasing $500 billion in federal funding, he played dumbed when asked why his administration in 2018 eliminated the National Security Council’s global health unit.

"I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said about his administration’s dismantling of the pandemic unit that President Obama formed during the 2014 Ebolpa outbreak to help ensure the United States was prepared for pandemics such as the Coronavirus.

Trump's politicizing of the pandemic, applauding red state governors and criticizing blue state governors, as all of America scrambles to survive and confront this scourge, only abets the disease. His conflicting messages that cheer on unmasked protesters at government buildings pushing to end social distancing prematurely, is insane.

The President's latest target in his blame game is the World Health Organization WHO, which the U.S. gives hundreds of millions of dollars each year to coordinate global responses to epidemics like Covid-19.

In another pathetic case of deflection and projection to obscure his atrocious handling of the Coronavirus, Trump wants to riskily defund WHO, claiming it failed to timely alert world leaders, namely the U.S., about the pandemic.

But if WHO was sluggish in assessing the pandemic threat, Trump was inexplicably dismissive and flat-out mocked the unfolding global crisis for weeks after he was fairly warned of the virus’ lethality for which there was no vaccine.

On Jan. 23, the WHO updated its assessment of the virus threat, confirming “human to human transmission” of the Coronavirus and that the “global risk was high.”

Then, on Jan. 30, the WHO declared the Coronavirus to be a “Public health Emergency of International Concern” and warned countries “to be prepared for containment, including active surveillance, early detection, isolation, and case management, contact tracing and prevention of onward spread.”

Yet, all President Trump did was ban flights from Chinese nationals on Jan 31. Thousands of Americans who had traveled to China, still were allowed to return home, unscreened and untested for the virus. The President wouldn't acknowledge the virus' serious threat publicly or take any other significant action for another lost six weeks.

By halting WHO funding, Trump, again is making critical decisions designed to obfuscate his guilt and boost his phony stance as a “war time President” – which, at the same time, weakens the global effort to get the disease under control.

It should be clear by now, that Trump, wittingly or not, has been a facilitating arm of the Coronavirus. His multitude of missteps, incites, lies and boasts have done nothing to hinder the deadly disease’s spread.

Quite to the contrary. The President's dark-minded, contrived chaos has only exacerbated Covid-19's destructive path of death and financial dire straights for Americans. 

The pandemic not only has uncovered the engrained economic disparities of America's poor and uninsured, but it's undeniably exposed Trump as America's greatest enemy.

Bernie And Joe Uniting Key To Reclaiming Country

Finally, the kind of unity this country has been desperately lacking and unequivocally needs right now amidst the unprecedented, heartless scourge of President Donald Trump.

Bernie Sanders endorses Joe Biden for president

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/politics/bernie-sanders-endorses-joe-biden/index.html

Sanders: "Today, I am asking all Americans, I'm asking every Democrat, I'm asking every Independent, I'm asking a lot of Republicans, to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy, which I endorse."

Biden: "I think that your endorsement means a great deal. It means a great deal to me. I think people are going to be surprised that we are apart on some issues but we're awfully close" on others, Biden said. "I'm going to need you -- not just to win the campaign, but to govern."

Bring it on.

We Still Need Bernie

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) may have dropped out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race, but he's not going away. 

Announcing his withdrawal from the race on Wednesday, Sanders said:

"While Vice President (Joe) Biden will be the nominee, we must continue working to assemble as many delegates as possible at the Democratic Convention, where we will be able to exert significant influence over the party platform and other functions."

That's a good thing for the American people. And a logical, smart move by Sanders to stay on the ticket.

The Covid-19 pandemic, that's killed nearly 15,000 and infected 430,000 Americans, has not just exposed the criminal fraudulence of President Donald Trump, who for months inexplicably denied the reality of the enchroaching deadly virus.

It's exposing in real time the very same gross economic and healthcare disparities between the haves and the have nots in this country, which Sanders has long decried louder and more consistently than any single presidential candidate in recent history.

Sanders' movement for social equality captures the character and compassion of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt "New Deal," which was instrumental in facilitating our nation's economic recovery from "The Great Depression" of 1929.

Now, more than ever, as the death count mounts daily from the Covid-19 outbreak, and society shuts down, the need for a universal healthcare system, a living wage and a government that actually gives a damn about its people is abundantly clear.

Prior to the pandemic, some 140 million people have been living below poverty or right at the cusp, just paycheck away from going bust and tens of millions were uninsured. But now, as Americans "shelter in place" amidst the Coronavirus epidemic, millions more have lost their jobs, as well as employer health benefits.

A record nearly 17 million workers have filed for unemployment in the past three weeks. Those millions of jobless and furloughed workers now face the uncertainity of keeping enough food on the table and paying bills.

But just as crucially, despite empty promises from the Trump administration, it's still unclear to what degree the suddenly uninsured will get stuck with hospital bills if they get sick.

The $2.2 trillion relief package that Congress passed at the end of March for businesses, government agencies and citizens will help. But it won't be enough to offset expensive hospital stays.

On top of that, it's America's low-wage workers admirably working the front lines at Dollar General's and various essential businesses, who are most vulnerable.

Many of these underpaid workers putting their health on the line to serve the people, face a double or triple whammy.  Not only do they lack lack a living wage. They don't have healthcare either. And sick day pay is either scant or in some cases, non-existant.

So, what to do if they get sick?  They can't afford hospital bills. And they can't afford to not work either. Chances are they'll work sick, risking the spread of the virus to the community.

Americans may have allowed the right's fear mongering of Sanders as a "socialist" to force them to play it safe with Biden, but Sanders' Democratic socialist (there's a difference) ideas have gained wide traction across the homeland, nonetheless.

“It was not long ago that people considered these ideas radical and fringe,” Sanders said on Wednesday. “Today they are mainstream ideas.”

"I want to express to each of you my deep gratitude for helping to create an unprecedented political grassroots campaign that has had a profound impact in changing our nation,” Sanders told his supporters.

And Biden, acknowledging the success of the Sanders's movement of "Not me, Us," appears to be graciously welcoming Sanders input in shaping future Democratic policy.

“Bernie gets a lot of credit for his passionate advocacy for the issues he cares about,” Biden said. “But he doesn’t get enough credit for being a voice that forces us all to take a hard look in the mirror and ask if we’ve done enough.”

Said Biden: “While the Sanders campaign has been suspended — its impact on this election and on elections to come is far from over."

Amen to that.

Will They Finally See?

Maybe now they’ll wake up.

Maybe now, as a pandemic viscerally threatens the American homeland in the wake of President Donald Trump’s bungled and dismissive initial response to the deadly coronavirus  Coved-19, slavish Trump believer’s eyes will finally be opened.

Unfortunately, it’s come to this. Trump may not be responsible for the disease, but his dismissing it early on as little more than a common cold and a Democratic “hoax,” has exposed his ineptness in ways that his endless lies and inciting and deflecting tweets can’t bury.

Arguably, Trump’s slow response in taking the virus seriously has exacerbated the virus’ impact and will lead unnecsaarily to the loss of American lives.

And pathetically, in a performace akin to a Saturday Night Live outtake, while wearing a “Keep America Great” Trump campaign hat, suggested that he's some kind of a epidemiology whiz with a full grasp of the virus. 

In the meantime, as the Trump administration plays catch up, the President pathetically tries to rewrite history in recent press conferences, claiming he was way ahead of the game and that the virus is "under control" and lies about the availability of testing for "anyone who needs it." 

He plays dumb when asked why he disbanded the White House National Security Council's entire Global health unit in 2018 of which Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institue of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has said: "It would be nice if the office was still there."

Trumps’ hopes to assure the people, as all leaders should, rings hollow.

The late American author Gore Vidal once said: "We are in the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing."

President Trump depends on, thrives on such a phenomema. He thinks he can disingenuously recast himself as a guy in charge from the get-go. Unfortunately, too many wanting to desperately believe that Trump is their daddy, will believe that.

The truth has been from the get-go that Trump is a narcissistic, two-bit conman resigned to obliterating the last vestiges of morality, democratic values, health and security of our nation in everything he does, says and tweets. 

As I wrote more than hree years ago in The Hill, “Trump is America's most dangerous home-bred terrorist. His weapons are fear and divisiveness, planted not so subtly in the hearts and minds of the disenchanted, subject to explode anytime.”

Now, more than ever it’s clear that Trump is in over his head, but he'll pull any desperate ploy to obscure that truth -- even if it means many will have to die.

The Coronavirus pandemic has exposed not just Trump's ulterior motives, but the dire need for a universal healthcare sytem. It’s proven that millions of people who contract the disease, won’t be able to afford testing -- let alone a physician's care. So, they’ll keep on working, risking the virus's spread.

Thankfully, Democrats negotiated an agreement with Trump for a bill that will provide billions of dollars towards alleviating those burdens. For now. But for the most powerful country in the world, it’s truly a national tragedy that we haven’t been able to supply the basics of healthcare for the citiizenry like most other major developed countries in the world.