Louisiana Voice

“Maybe he’s busy, and maybe he’s negotiating with Kim Jong Un, OK, about nuclear weapons. So that he’d say, ‘Please, could you walk my dog? Do you mind walking my dog? I’m talking to Kim Jong Un.’ Or, ‘I’m talking to President Xi about paying us for some of the damage they’ve caused to the world and to us, please walk my dog.’ To who, a Secret Service person or somebody, right?”

—Donald Trump’s utterly insane, incredibly stupid, nonsensical, asinine—and yes, adolescent-like—response to questions about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s firing of the State Department’s Inspector General who was investigating Pompeo. [Pompeo, who had refused to sit for an interview with IG Steve Linick, had an equally unbelievable explanation that he didn’t know he was being investigated. Anyone who can stretch credulity to defend this administration has to be some sort of human contortionist—and slamming Obama as a means of justifying anything this administration does is not a valid defense. Please stick to the issue at hand.]

“How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?”

—Donald Trump tweet, Feb. 12, 2016. [A better question: how can evangelical Christians support one who “lies so much and is so dishonest”?]

“A dishonest slob of a reporter, who doesn’t understand my sarcasm when talking about him or his wife, wrote a foolish & boring Trump ‘hit.'”

—Donald Trump tweet, Feb. 14, 2014. [Full disclosure: whenever Trump is caught in a flat-footed lie (which is often), he invariably claims he was being “sarcastic.”]

“Happy Veterans Day to ALL, in particular to the haters and losers who have no idea how lucky they are!!!”

—Donald Trump tweet, Nov. 11, 2013.

“For all of the haters and losers out there sorry, I never went Bankrupt.”

—Donald Trump tweet, April 18, 2015. [Not personally, but his companies did—six times—and that’s not counting the times he simply defaulted on paying his bills.]

“Isn’t it crazy that people of little or no talent or success can be so critical of those whose accomplishments are great with no retribution.”

“HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The nice part is it’s been around for a long time, so we know that if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody,”

—Donald Trump, speaking to reporters on March 19 about the “benefits” of his coronavirus cure.

“Clinical trials, academic research and scientific analysis indicate that the danger of the Trump-backed drug is a significantly increased risk of death for certain patients. Evidence showing the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating covid-19 has been scant.”

—Washington Post, May 15, 2020. (Emphasis added.)

“They should say, ‘We know there are harms, and until we know the benefits, let’s hold off,’”

—Joseph Ross, professor of medicine and public health at Yale University.

“It’s important to use available clinical data,” Rick Bright told lawmakers. “And if we know there are potential risks, we need to make sure that we are cognizant of those risks and make sure those drugs are used in a very safe and controlled manner.”

—Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. [Bright, as we know, was demoted for disagreeing with Trump.]

So, the obvious question is: Why doesn’t our stable genius, the Tangerine Toddler, listen to those with the expertise, follow their advice and shut the hell up? If the following explanation is why, then that’s pure politics and the wrong reason and Le Grosse Orange has absolutely no business occupying the Oval Office:

“If the message were to go out with complete objectivity, it would be disastrous for Trump. So, he is doing his best to prevent experts from speaking out or using their expertise, and he’s simply trying to divert attention. It will work for some people, but he can’t get over the fact that many, many people are dying — and they’re dying on his watch. Too many people are dying, and that’s the fact that he can’t cover up however much he tries.”

—Political science professor Max Skidmore, on Donald Trump’s efforts to silence officials who disagree with him, downplay the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, and to dismiss statistics that don’t square with his demands to reopen the economy.

The rantings of Clay Higgins and Dan Fagan about freedom to congregate and freedom to do so sans appropriate protection notwithstanding, six Louisiana cities, including the two largest, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, rank among the 50 cities in the U.S. with the highest number of COVID-19 cases on a per-capita basis, according to statistics released today by 24/7 Wall Street.

24/7 Wall Street is a financial news and opinion company which publishes about 30 articles per day on finance, consumerism, and state surveys on such topics as obesity, income, political corruption, taxes, roads, prisons, etc.

In today’s release, the survey considers the number of cases per 100,000 population in its determination of which cities had the most confirmed COVID-19 cases. The populations were not limited to the cities per se, but to the metropolitan areas of each city, which reflects hither populations than the cities themselves.

The Hammond metro area, with a population of 133,777, had 679 cases of the coronavirus as of May 12, giving it an infection rate of 520.3 per 100,000 population, severe enough for 48^th highest in the nation. Ranking immediately behind Hammond were Flagstaff, Arizona (49^th) and Barnstable, Massachusetts (50^th).

Other Louisiana cities included on the list and their rankings included:

• Monroe (44^th with 1,094 cases, a rate of infection of 534.9 per 100,000 population);
• Baton Rouge (42^nd with 4,789 cases—561.9 per 100,000);
• Shreveport (41^st with 2,312 cases—575.5 per 100,000);
• Houma-Thibodaux (39^th with 1,248 cases—592.0 per 100,000);
• New Orleans (8^th with 17346 cases—1372.7 per 100,000)

Sioux City, Iowa, with 3,521 cases, was highest with an infection rate of 2,431.3 per 100,000 population, followed by New York-Newark-Jersey City with 426,361 cases, a rate of 2,207 per 100,000 population.

The survey used COVID-19 data from state and local health departments, along with population data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

“The cities on this list tend to have at least one of several characteristics that make them particularly vulnerable,” the release said. Most on the list, for example are densely populated and others are manufacturing hubs or magnets for domestic or international tourism.

“Regardless of the contributing factors to the high concentration of COVID-19 cases…the total number of cases would likely have been much high if not for the stay-at-home orders that were implemented at the state level,” the release said.

It noted that the metro area hardest hit was in Iowa, “one of the few states not to implement a stay-at-home order.”