With This Administration, Every Old Saying Is New Again
There's an old saying that I just made up: "When you talk out of both sides of your mouth, you need twice as much toothpaste." Hmm. Like all old sayings that I make up, it sounded a lot deeper in my head.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wants to be a team player. So, when quarterback (and linebacker, and fullback, and halfback, and referee, and play by play announcer, and concession stand salesman and ticket taker) Donald Trump calls an audible on China, Pompeo rolls with the play. (Did I mention cheerleader? The President has surrounded himself with them, but that doesn't mean he can't don a sweater and skirt and spell out his own praises. With pompoms.)
There is, however, no evidence that COVID-19 was a deliberate attempt by China to create a bio-weapon to use against the United States. When challenged with the fact that the US intelligence community had issued a formal statement to this effect, Secretary Pompeo agreed with that contradictory idea. Literally five seconds later.
Cognitive dissonance? It happens to even the staunchest of the President's allies. If Secretary Pompeo had remembered the President's admonition that it was actually pronounced "cognitive dissidents," he would likely have been much more careful about avoiding it!
Smiting The Infidels, One Sneeze At A Time
The Crusaders raped and pillaged their way through the Middle East, but at least they were honest about what their goal was.
Ohio State Representative Nino "The Dino" Vitale has argued that it is his "inalienable right" to infect other people with a deadly virus. Not taking precautions, such as wearing a mask when in public, is his way of exercising his "freedom"...to infect other people with a deadly virus.
Hmm. If you're seeing a pattern here, it's only because you're paying attention. (Okay, that last bit of those positions involved reading between the lines of Vitale's public statements, but the print is big and the lines are really far apart.)
The Bible says that god created man in his image. The entire man, not just his face. How did Vitale decide the face was where god was most seen on the human body? Did he ask god what his favourite body part was? Did he throw darts at a Playgirl centrefold? Did he ask Siri? Isn't god just as much in the palms of our hands or the cheeks of our buttocks as in our faces?
It would seem to me that the logical position to take from the Bible would be to support nudism. I would, therefore, expect Vitale to show up for sessions of the Ohio legislature wearing nothing but the smile on his face. It might be bearable in the summer; never having lived in the Buckeye State (they sure do sell their optic sensory apparatus cheap!), I wouldn't know.
And how does god feel about all of this? "I sent my only son to deal with people like those who dwell in the Basket of Deplorables," he told me over mojitos at Trader Abraham's. "We all know how well that turned out. I am everywhere, of course, but I am in some places less than others, and, for the sake of my own sanity, I try to be in the Basket of Deplorables least of all!"
Yutz, Putz, Schmuck - Yiddish Is So Expressive!
In the Basket of Deplorables, a day without President Trump is like a day without darkness. He is all four granite heads on Mount Deplorablemore. Look up chutzpah in a Yiddish-English dictionary, and you'll see his picture next to the word, and the words above and below it, because he'll take credit for embodying them, too.
So, here he is, blaming the Obama administration for not leaving him with a test for COVID-19, even though the virus hadn't existed before he took over office! Because the big brains in the Obama administration should have seen it coming and done something to protect the American people from it! Because what, me worry? Because it's the heat.
Does it make a lick of sense? Hmm. You can't catch the virus from licking sense, but the President is staying far away from sense as a precaution. Social distancing? He goes one better: semantic distancing!
As The Worm Turnages
The term "herd immunity" first gained prominence in the 1930s, but I guess modern medicine has come late to Antioch, California. It has certainly come as a surprise to Ken Turnage II, chairman of the city planning commission.
Turnage advocates adopting a "herd mentality" (presumably a herd of freedom-loving individuals). Like sheep? Because, sure, sheep leave their sick, old and injured to die, but that's because they never invested in tests to see who got sick, or producing ventilators to keep their sick alive until they got better.
Oh, wait. Neither has the United States.
Hmm. At least the sheep had an excuse: they were sheep.
Turnage added that "homeless and other people who just defile themselves by either choice or mental issues" should also be allowed to die as this "would fix what is a significant burden on our Society and resources that can be used." The social safety net is obviously a Communist ploy to take away law-abiding citizens' guns. Get rid of it, and you would free up resources for much more important purposes. Like producing stars and stripes jackets.
The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch? More like the Unholy Loose Cannon of Antioch! I suspect that if Turnage and Nino "The Dino" Vitale talked, they would find they have a lot in common...
