Louisiana Voice

“There’s not too many states that I know of that are going up. Almost everybody is headed in the right direction.”

—Donald Trump, during a Fox News town hall on Sunday.

“In reality, new coronavirus cases are increasing in about a third of states, compared with just a few where there has been a sustained decline. A plurality of states are hovering around the same level, with neither a significant uptick nor decrease in daily cases.”

—The Washington Post, on Tuesday, May 5.

“I’d point you back to his long-running mantra of ‘leave no vacancy behind.’”

—Mitch McConnell spokesman David Popp, on Monday, May 4, on McConnell’s requesting that Republican-appointed federal judges nearing retirement step down now so that their successors may be nominated by Trump. [Could it be that McConnell sees the handwriting on the wall that tells him Trump’s days as president and the Republicans’ days as the Senate’s majority party are numbered? Otherwise, why the sudden urgency?]

“The American people may well elect a president who decides to nominate Judge Garland for Senate consideration.  The next president may also nominate someone very different. Either way, our view is this: Give the people a voice.”

—Mitch McConnell, on his reasons for blocking Barack Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in 2016 on the shaky grounds that he didn’t want to confirm an appointment during an election year. [What was that again about Moscow Mitch’s “long-running mantra”?]

“Oh, we’d fill it.”

—McConnell, in a speech to the Paducah, Kentucky, Chamber of Commerce in May 2019, on what would happen if a Supreme Court seat became open in 2020. [No doubt if the roles were reversed, the Democrats would likely resort to the same tactics, which raises this very serious question: How can we trust anything our elected representatives tell us if they can so expeditiously and effortlessly shed their ethics and change the rules for no reason other than self-preservation and self-enrichment? At what point will we decide we no longer wish to be pawns in a giant chess game played by powerful people who don’t give a damn about us?]

“You attacked George W. Bush for simply sending out a unifying message, to give Americans hope. He said positive things about Americans. He said positive things about health care workers. He said positive things about this country. He said, ‘We choose to rise.’ Even that offended you.

“Mr. President, I ask that you get checked out. I ask that you take a rest. I ask that you take care of yourself. Maybe let Mike Pence run things for the next week. You’re not well. Let Mike Pence work with Dr. Fauci, work with Dr. Birx.

“Mr. President, you’re getting worse every day. You need to take a rest. You need to let Mike Pence actually run things for the next couple of weeks. Come back when you’re feeling a little better and when you can really actually focus on your job. You just can’t do that right now.

“Americans are dying every day because of it.”

—Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough, Monday, May 4.

“Concast should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough. I know him and Crazy Mika well, used them beautifully in the last Election, dumped them nicely, and will state on the record that he is ‘nuts.’. Besides, bad ratings!”

—Totally predictable reaction by Donald Trump to any hint of criticism, Monday, May 4. [And, of course, everything to Trump is about ratings. That, apparently, is the sum total of his knowledge—and concern—about this county and its citizens. And yes, Trump does use people and dump them when they’re no longer of use to him: a classic character trait of the narcissistic personality.]

“They always said, Lincoln, nobody had got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.”

—The arrogant, self-pitying, narcissistic s.o.b. Trump, in virtual “town hall” meeting Monday.

[Editor’s note: I had outpatient back surgery Friday and didn’t get to post any quotables so I’m making up for it today.]

“Louisiana lawmakers remotely VOTED BY MAIL to roll back an expansion of VOTE BY MAIL by voters.”

—Tweet by Jennifer Walsath Harris. [No double standard there. Can you say irony?]

“At what point can we call the armed, non-PPE-wearing ‘protesters’ that stormed the Michigan Capitol terrorists?”

—Tweet by Michael Brazell.

“Signs and banners are banned from the building to prevent potential damage to the architecture, but guns are allowed in the Michigan statehouse. And that, my friends, is the lunacy of America’s gun laws in a nutshell.”

—Tweet by Shannon Watts.

“How have we gotten to this? The majority of Americans want better background checks, gun safety. But we are allowing these kind(s) of weapons into our legislative chambers?”

—Tweet by former U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

“I remember when unarmed, peaceful demonstrators in Wisconsin were arrested for singing. Not to mention Jane Fonda being arrested every Friday. But aggressive white men armed to the teeth, forcing their way into the capitol and threatening the governor, no problem.”

—Tweet by Gary Andover. [The mere mention of Jane Fonda here is certain to bring out the vitriol but the accuracy of this tweet stands.]

“Just wondering how this would have played out if a group of Muslim protesters armed with guns had stormed into a US legislature.”

—Tweet by Anton Enus. [Again, the word Muslim will serve as a dog whistle for the fringe wingnuts.]

“If these a**holes with weapons in Michigan want to prove how tough they are. Put down you damn toys, gear up, and go to the hospitals to help people. That’s bravery. These are chicken s**ts with guns.”

—Tweet by American Veteran. [Now that’s the true American spirit—words worth remembering.]

“Imagine a mob of black men with guns storming Michigan’s state capitol or BLOCKING THE ENTRANCE, as happened this week.”

—Susie Madrak, political writer.

“Now, do you think African Americans, Latinos or anyone who had a deep spray-on tan could have made it this far inside alive while armed like this?”

—Tweet by Rootwoman.

“The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people.”

—Donald Trump tweet, May 1, 2020. [Yep. And those white nationalists down at Charlottesville in 2017 were also “very fine people,” remember?]

I just finished a very good book called This Just In, by retired CBS newsman Bob Schieffer and among the myriad of wonderful stories he had to tell about his career, none stood out more than his account of the 9-11 attacks.

He described the horror of one reporter watching people jump to their deaths from the World Trade Center rather than being burned alive, the anguish of a news director trying to do his job while frantically trying to learn the fate of his daughter (she was okay), how another correspondent running from the collapse of the first tower heard a noise and looked back only to no longer see the man who had been running right beside him (he had been crushed by falling debris), how there were few injuries because anyone hit by debris died because of the size of the falling material. If you weren’t killed it was because you weren’t hit by anything and thus were not injured.

Schieffer also gives a heart-warming account of how we came together as a nation. It was one of those rare times when the color of your skin or your sexual preference or your religious affiliation or your social status no longer mattered. We were just Americans. All of us. And we were under attack and an attack on one of us was an attack on all of us.

Unity. For such a short word, Schieffer did a helluva job of describing just what it meant in a time of crisis.

I thought we had approached that measure of unity again when were attacked by the coronavirus. No one was immune. We were all vulnerable and we again cared for each other. We looked upon first responders and health care workers as the heroes they surely are and we watched as those who beat the virus were cheered by nurses and doctors as they left the hospital.

With one notable exception, of course. A man who made it all about him as he does about everything else. Donald Trump feels he must be the center of the universe with everything revolving around him and he sank to the occasion as is his wont.

He at first denied that COVID-19 was anything more serious than a cold. Then he said only one person had it and it was under control. He said it was a hoax Then he said it would disappear in April. But then, he really started sounding ugly when he declared it to be a plot by the Democrats to bring down his presidency. He made it about race when he called it the “China virus.”

It was, at best, behavior unbecoming the office of the president. At worst, it was disgusting, shameful, and pathetic.

When he was finally forced to acknowledge it was indeed a problem, he declared incredulously that he “knew it was a pandemic long before anyone used the word.” Of course he did. He’s Donald Trump.

Seriously, is this the kind of “stable genius” we can trust as leader of the free world?

Finally, when the gravity of the situation finally penetrated his orange Cheeto head, he was forced to shut down the country in an effort to contain the spread.

And it worked.

But then along came the Republican bomb throwers who just had to turn a pandemic into politics. First they passed a $1.2 trillion relief package that mostly relieved big business while dishing out $1200 checks to individuals—$1200 that, in most cases, wouldn’t even cover one month’s rent or mortgage payment, let alone food and utilities. But never mind, as long as big business got theirs, who cares? And wasn’t it convenient that some of the relief money went to Trump businesses? Wasn’t it Republican Herbert Hoover who sniffed that “The business of America is business” just before the crash of ‘29? No voting by mail, the Republicans said. Can’t risk letting Democrats confined to their homes do something so irresponsible as voting. Get the economy open again, they said. Better a few thousand more deaths than a recession, they implied.

So, now we have Louisiana, one of the hottest of the hot spots, thanks to Mardi Gras, which planted the match that flared in New Orleans and spread outward like waves on a pond throughout the rest of the state.

We have a governor who, while maintaining a cool, level-headed approach that has flown beneath the national radar, has systematically and calmly addressed the crisis as best he could with the limited resources available to him. Limited, of course, by a president who first claimed to have “full authority,” but then punted to the states while saying he was “not responsible at all.” Limited because Jared Kushner declared that ventilators and masks belonged to “us,” meaning the federal government—as if the “us” to whom he referred were somehow detached from the rest of the country—and not the states.

And now we have a small bunch of lunatics in the legislature passing around a petition to block Gov. Edwards from extending the stay-at-home order to May 15.

Seriously, folks, those people are maniacs who probably drink Lysol for breakfast and fart Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity platitudes.

For a far better explanation of that petition, you can read Lamar White’s exceptional account in Bayou Brief HERE.

If you really want to know why there was a toilet paper shortage, it’s because those hysterical idiots, led by the likes of LABI President Steven Waguespack, Republican operative Jay Connaughton, and State Sen. Sharon Hewitt are so full of crap.

And you have to wonder if Trump’s inspiration for ingesting disinfectant as a cure came after an evening of drinking weed killer with John Kennedy.

“Releasing either of these individuals, or anyone similarly situated, would be an affront to those affected by their evil schemes, and a complete failure in the administration of justice. Stanford lived lavishly by preying on the vulnerabilities of Americans who trusted him with every cent of their savings, many experiencing financial ruin when the scam fell apart.” 

–U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, voicing his opposition to any early release of fraudsters Allen Stanford or Bernie Madoff because of the coronavirus pandemic. [Gotta go with Kennedy on this one. Too many white collar criminals have gotten off too lightly for too long. Those two have earned their punishment and warrant no special consideration while those with lesser offenses remain incarcerated.]