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| Winston Churchill |
The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" was one of the many highlights of the "Concert for New York" held Oct. 21, 2001 at Madison Square Garden in the aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Let's not get fooled again as president Trump attempts to re-write history to avoid responsibility for the woeful federal response to the coronavirus crisis.
The man who on Feb. 26 compared COVID-19 to the flu is now trying to cast himself as the very stable genius that knew all along that coronavirus posed a mortal threat to the US. He spins about saving thousands of lives, which is pure bunk.
Trump had the audacity on March 31 to say during his rambling and unhinged press conference:
"I mean, I've had many friends—businesspeople—people with great, actually, common sense, they said, 'Why don't we ride it out?' A lot of people have said—a lot of people have thought about it. 'Ride it out. Don't do anything, just ride it out and think of it as the flu.' But it's not the flu. It's vicious."
Presidential errand boy, Mike Pence, followed up today, criticizing the Centers for Disease Control and Protection for missing the early warning signs of one of America's worst public health crises.
Shifting blame to the CDC is quite a stretch, considering Team Trump doesn't care one bit about the views of America's scientific community. For instance, Trump dismisses global warming as a hoax cooked up by China, though 98 percent of the scientific community say the threat is real.
Sadly, Pence heads Trump's COVID-19 task force. A leader is supposed to lead, not dodge truth and blame others for his or her mistakes.
My hope is that the Vice President will redeem himself by declaring the cheap shot at the CDC as just an ill-timed April Fools' Day prank.
The self-proclaimed wartime president is following in the steps of a real wartime leader, Winston Churchill, who famously said, "Never let a crisis go to waste."
As the nation's reels from Trump's bumbling response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House is rolling back the vehicle fuel efficiency standards that were put into place by Barack Obama as his signature effort to fight global warming.
If that rollback survives legal challenges, vehicles would spew more than a billion more tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the equivalent of 20 percent of US emissions.
Scientists say weakening the standards will result in more than 2,000 deaths per year and tens of thousands more cases of respiratory illnesses.
The tweeter-in-chief contends the rollback will allow Americans "to buy, safer, more affordable and environmentally friendly cars." The sticker price of cars would fall about $1,000 due to the eased fuel standards.
President Obama took a swipe at Trump's rollback move via a March 31 tweet:
"We've seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic. We can't afford any more consequences of climate denial. All of us, especially young people, have to demand better of our government at every level and vote this fall."
Speaking of signature Obama achievements, Trump has decided against reopening Obamacare enrollment to uninsured Americans.
That cold-blooded decision was made against the backdrop of the specter of massive unemployment due to COVID-19 and projections of 100,000 to 240,000 Americans dead from the virus in the "best case scenario."
To Trump, it appears that wiping the slate completely clean of the Obama presidency is more important than insuring Americas who pray that they or their family won't get COVID-19.
Churchill also said: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they've tried everything else."
The British Bulldog though never met Donald Trump and his band of sycophants.
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