How many lives have to be lost to “satisfy” Fox News and it’s viewers that the COVID-19 pandemic is actually a problem anyone should take seriously?

Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends is outraged that the country has been shut down—some states more than others—for a measly 100,000+ dead and for what he claims is “only” a 0.3 percent mortality rate from the COVID-19. Where is the 2.2 million dead that was supposed to occur from the virus in this country? "We're all frustrated by what the scientists told us, we're all frustrated by the graph that didn't pan out. When we definitely noticed the seriousness when almost 100,000 Americans die. But what I took from the Dr. Siegel math was, 0.3% — not even 3%, 0.3%. We've shut down an entire country for 0.3% of those who get it lose their lives," Kilmeade proclaimed. 

Fox News, Fox News. Do we really expect (outside of its devoted fan base) actual dissemination of reality? Fact check time: The 2.2 million projected deaths, which was also enunciated by Donald Trump, was based on numbers provided by the London Imperial College, which projected that number of deaths in the U.S. if no action was taken to halt its spread.  Soon afterward it reduced the projection to 100,000 to 240,000 if steps were taken to do so—a number which Trump also repeated. No one has been talking about 2 million deaths for at least two months, so clearly Kilmeade is playing simple-minded partisan political games here. If anything, actions taken by governors like Andrew Cuomo have at the very least kept things from getting much worse than they already are, no thanks to Trump and Fox News ignoramuses like Kilmeade and the “Big Three”—Carlson, Ingraham and Hannity.

What “graph” is Kilmeade talking about? I’m sure most people have no clue what he is talking about, and very likely he knows even less about it. One thing we do know that is the death toll went up from practically none in mid-March to over 100,000 now. If there is a graph, it would show a line going practically straight skyward, and has yet to trend downward. Far from being based on "guesswork," a 240,000 top-end death projection seems more than realistic by the end of the year.

But perhaps even worse is Kilmeade’s claim of only a 0.3 mortality rate. This again shows not just the dangerous ignorance of right-wing commentators, but kind of dangerously ignorant information that Fox News viewers are being fed. Kilmeade is not telling us the mortality rate of those testing positive for the COVID-19; his 0.3 percent is per the total population. Currently at this moment according to Worldometers,  1.773 million people in the U.S. have tested positive for the virus, and over 103,540 have died. That is an actual mortality rate of nearly 6 percent—20 times Kilmeade’s claim. If everyone in the U.S. tested positive for the COVID-19, then the “projected” death count would be close to 20 million—ten times the London Imperial College numbers.

Kilmeade, of course, made the weak admission that every death is “unfortunate,” but like the rest of his colleagues at Fox News his interest is partisan politics. Fox News revels in its claim to be  Trump’s principle  “advisor” in policy matters, having long shed its claim to be “fair and balanced”—even Hannity has confessed that he believes there is nothing wrong with being unfair and unbalanced in his commentary. Fox News is apparently terrified of Trump losing the election, because there will be no one else like him to boost its ratings. Ratings for more death seems to be a “projection” that Fox News can live with.

China needs to come clean on its virus problem, or the world will continue to be plagued by it

I suppose one should look upon anything that the World Health Organization says in regard to China—especially its present “praising” of China’s alleged willingness to “discuss” the issue of bringing in foreign scientists to investigate the origins of the COVID-19—with a jaundiced eye. China’s virus data is impossible to believe, and the WHO’s failure to demand accurate information from China strains its own credibility. China is virtually alone in failing to provide numbers of people tested for the virus; Chinese authorities first claimed that it would test everyone in Wuhan, but then later reduced that to “narrow testing,” whatever that means in Chinesespeak. Instead, we have heard many stories of Chinese citizens who have come down with symptoms that were very likely due to the virus, yet when they go to hospitals, they are refused testing and even admittance, and told to “self-medicate” at home—and because they are not tested, if they die Chinese authorities can keep them off the COVID-19 death rolls. 

Does anybody really believe that in a country with the population the size of China, where the pandemic started and Chinese authorities tried to conceal from the world for at least a month before it got out-of-control, hasn’t had a virus-related death in weeks? Foreign Policy recently released a “leak” of the data collected by China’s National University of Defense Technology, which suggested that the actual number of cases is at least 640,000—eight times China current claim; the number of deaths, however, was not recorded. China is currently claiming that the few new cases have been brought in by Chinese nationals returning from abroad, certainly a bizarre claim coming from the country this all started in. 

The Chinese can’t even (or won’t) tell us the precise origins of the COVID-19. There have been various theories as to the exact origins of the virus; originally it was believed to have appeared in a seafood market in Wuhan, and that bats may be receptors, and if not bats, then civet cats. Then there is the “coincidence” of the presence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been studying coronaviruses. But now a study published in China claims that  genome samples taken from patients in Shanghai suggests that there is a separate “clade” or form of the COVID-19 different than the one that appeared in Wuhan, meaning that the virus may not have in fact originated in the seafood market or in animals at all. For the moment no really knows the true origins of the virus, which has led to calls for a more “international” examination of the virus, given that China very likely lost control of the situation and cannot be trusted to provide truthful information.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post is quoting scientists who are positing that the COVID-19 may never be eradicated even with a vaccine, but keep coming back, although presumably not in pandemic form as nations learn how to control it. But China’s continuing failure to be transparent in its reporting on the virus is extremely dangerous for a very specific reason: if its claims of having brought the virus under control are based on propaganda and lies, there is no way the world will know (unless all are tested) if any Chinese nationals or foreign visitors who come and go after travel restrictions are lifted are carrying the virus, simply because of the Chinese government’s failure to do adequate testing and simply pretending a problem doesn’t exist. It is not only dangerous to foreign nationals, but to the Chinese themselves if they simply have no idea of the true state of affairs.

Biden needs to choose wisely his running mate--which means taking a harder look at the negatives Warren would bring to the table

It still seems like ages away, but in a little over five months we will finally have that chance to vote out the Trump Era once and for all. That doesn’t mean that election day itself will end it all; Trump will still have another 10 weeks to cause a mighty amount of damage, and one suspects that Trump is the kind of breed of “human” that if he is going down, and he is going to do his best to take the country down with him. And Trump’s skunk spray on the country will takes years, if ever, to remove completely, and it is best to be done sooner rather later. 

In the meantime, there are still 19 more Democratic primaries and nearly 1300 more pledged delegates to go, although they are considered a mere formality on the road to Joe Biden’s eventual nomination. After that, there is still this business about Biden picking a running mate. That he has pledged to select a woman is no mystery; who he will choose is sort of one. The assumption is that it will be one of his primary opponents, and we are well aware that one of them has been megalomaniacal in her quest for the spot: Elizabeth Warren. When asked by her white elitist supporters in the media, she expressed an unseemly eagerness to “accept” such a nomination, as if  in her vast conceit she believes it is a fait accompli.

There may unfortunately be some truth to this. Those Warren supporters—that is to say those who support her for her alleged “progressive” views rather than simply support her as a “gendered” candidate—may be in for some disappointments as to what she is willing to give up in order to make herself more “palatable” to Biden. Politico recently reported that Warren has all but given up for good Medicare for All; a few weeks ago at an appearance at the University of Chicago, she informed students that she now “understands” that people are just looking for improvement in the Affordable Care Act, and she sympathizes with that view. Politico also observed that “Warren and Biden's policy teams have also been working closely together particularly on economic policy, according to sources in both camps. Her team has distinguished itself among his advisers on that front.” Good grief.

I suspect that most Democratic and independent voters don’t really want to see Warren on the ticket. This is a person who has lied, deceived and cheated to advance her career. What, you say? She lied about being a Native American, she deceived employers about being a “minority hire”—although they were apparently very willing to be deceived—and cheated those who were actually underrepresented minorities from being hired as such. Of course, Massachusetts voters were not fooled by Warren’s claims—being obviously white is why she was elected to the U.S. Senate. And of course Warren made up stories to advance her gender agenda, which didn’t help her, and all this deceiving will doubtless be used against her if she is on the ticket. She will very likely alienate more male voters than gain more female voters; Kerry Howley in New York Magazine may be one of those who  were “enthralled” by Warren’s brutish behavior during the primary debates, especially in regard to her attacks on Michael Bloomberg, but we may suspect that she merely disgusted other voters.

It is fascinating that the media never took a serious look into accusations of racism in the Warren camp; minority staffers reportedly quit her campaign after being made to feel like "tokens" and whose views and concerns were not taken seriously.  Given the fact that even in the South Carolina primary, Warren acted as if she didn’t know that the large majority of Democratic voters there are minorities, it is within the realm of possibility that she will be seen not only as some “old white” person not attuned to minority concerns (much as Bernie Sanders was wrongly accused of being), but if she goes the white privileged, entitled (yet “victimized”) “gendered” route, minority voters may wonder "What's in it for us?"

For now we can only hope that Biden chooses wisely; If he doesn’t, we may be asking why playing the gender card didn’t work any better in 2020 than it did in 2016.

Do the British show more "leadership" on how to run a country? The evidence suggests not

Over at the Donald Trump “brain trust,” Fox News, it is being declared that when the economy presumably starts improving by election time, Trump will triumph because of his “leadership” on the COVID-19 pandemic was just right. Who knows how many people will die by then—perhaps 200,000 or more—but the country “survived” it and everything is just fine now, presuming that the expected resurgence of the virus is no worse, and the economy doesn’t tank again, and voters will not wonder why they foolishly trusted a man who again proved once that he doesn’t care if people die, just as long as it isn’t a member of his genetically-superior family. Trump has been tweeting about his discredited "cold case" conspiracy theory involving a staffer who worked for then congressman and now MSNBC host Joe Scarborough--when there is still the "hot case" of how many people needlessly died because of the Trump administration's heedless actions early in the pandemic.

Trump wants to reopen the economy now, but you would think that to stay on the safe side and show true leadership he would be supportive of measures to keep the virus under control and prevent a resurgence in doing so. Instead, he has been openly dismissive of wearing facemasks and practicing social distancing. Why is he doing this? Because as he has done previously, he is attempting to suggest that the COVID-19 is not just overblown but can be easily  “handled” by wishful thinking and partisan political aims, like insuring his reelection and figure things out later.  Sure, more and more people in “progressive” Seattle are not wearing masks on their daily walkabouts, but they still don't like the shame by being vicariously connected to a “leader” who is doing so because he is just not a very smart man.

Of course, for the “culturally” attuned, the land that spawned this country must surely know best. But as I once noted in a MAD magazine back in the day, anyone with a British accent can sell a gullible American a bag of dog-doo. The Brits are certainly no better at managing an economy during a pandemic--the government is merely disguising its failure by putting 7.5 million workers on furlough, meaning it is paying that many for not being on the "official" unemployment rolls. Meanwhile, a story in the New York Times reports that an aide to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is causing some controversy, which apparently is nothing new, since Dominic Cummings—like Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani—has been a “loose cannon” and verbal hand grenade. However, unlike those two Cummings remains Johnson’s right-hand man, despite Johnson taking a “breathtaking gamble with his own popularity,” allowing Cummings “to go public with a detailed, yet stubbornly unapologetic, explanation for making a 260-mile journey that broke lockdown rules and ignited a political firestorm in Britain.” 

Now, it doesn’t matter what Cummings story was; no doubt it was carefully crafted for effect before it was given, with a few truths thrown in with mostly lies. The point was that Cummings’ wife apparently came down with the symptoms of the COVID-19, and he broke the stay-at-home order, driving 260 to visit his her in Durham, contracted the virus himself, and then drove back to London, although not before taking another 60-mile cruise around the neighborhood to see if he “well enough” to make the journey, a story which no one believes. If Cummings knew he had contracted the virus, he should have quarantined himself in Durham. Instead, he drove at least a five hour trip back to London where he likely made more than a few stops to spread his virus around. There are apparently no images of him wearing a facemask, and the interview given shows him without a facemask speaking toward a very large microphone in his backyard, with the cameramen a safe distance away. 

Despite the firestorm, Johnson is retaining him; political commentators say this is because Johnson is the kind of “chess player” who can only think one move ahead, and he needs “smart” aides like Cummings who can think two or three moves ahead. But it isn’t a “minor” thing that Cummings did; per capita, Britain is being hit worse than the U.S. by the virus, and has the second most deaths and deaths per capita in the world. The lack of leadership shown by Johnson by retaining Cummings is purely for the reason for what he believes in necessary for his political survival, for Cummings has a greater “feel” for what the British right[wing voter really feels is “important.” 

Yes, Cummings knows that race is a “big issue” for most of white Britain, especially those who consider themselves of a superior "breed." Cummings in the past outraged some by advocating for the kind of eugenics policies that supposedly went out with the Nazis, and while Foreign Policy observed that although Cummings was angered by white supremacist demagogues for potentially undermining the Brexit vote—a majority of the population hypocritically does not want to be identified as being openly nativist—that didn’t mean that Cummings didn’t believe in the race-baiting anti-immigrant angle to pass Brexit; FP noted that he made the “sinister” remark “Immigration was a baseball bat that just needed picking up at the right time and in the right way.” At the present time Cummings is pushing, with the help of Home Secretary Priti Patel (whose name identifies her as the member of a privileged Indian caste), for the passage of an immigration bill that is specifically tailored to supposedly “high-skilled” Indian workers—you know, the kind of “high-skilled”  H1-B workers that Microsoft has been especially desirous of flooding the country with, the ones who helped create that monstrosity known as Windows 10, whose latest forced-fed “update” has been wreaking havoc on many computers?

One would not have thought it, but the English-speaking world holds a lot in common besides language—and one of those things is not being very smart when it comes to crisis. The U.S., the UK and Australia are all currently ruled by right-wing regimes; before the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia was wracked by deadly bushfires that right-wing politicians had “alternative facts” in explaining and not doing anything about. We don’t need to learn any lessons from them—we are already “well educated” by that dangerous ignoramus currently residing in the White House.

Is anyone missing not going to church, besides those on the "business" end of it?

For many Americans, this Sunday passed rather uneventfully, especially without any sporting events to watch. However, when I was younger, I was obliged to “dress up” and tramp on down to church. My parents at least in the beginning were typical Roman Catholics like their parents were, and going to church was a routine that one performed like eating and sleeping. It became even more so during the eight years I spent in a Catholic school, attending an abbreviated mass every school morning, and taking confession once a week, lying about lying. Things changed when I enlisted in the Army; there might be a chaplain and something that passed as a “chapel,” but few soldiers could be bothered, and it didn’t take long for me to take up that habit. It wasn’t that I didn’t “believe,” it was just that the world or my life didn’t seem to change whether I went or not. My parents also eventually stopped attending Catholic mass upon the discovery of less “traditional” preaching that didn’t make as many demands on achieving one’s eventual “salvation.” Mere “faith” was enough, not necessarily “good works” as required by the Catholic religion.

Yet Donald Trump has succumbed to the anguish of millionaire evangelists and proclaimed that churches are “essential” and thus should be open for “business.” Many megachurches have been openly defying stay-at-home orders, and why not? The emphasis should be on “business” of course, since these churches are in the “business” of making money rather than saving souls. I mean, why would a God want to allow in heaven far-right white nationalists,  racists and other assorted bigots who think that “believing” that there was a  Jesus but not actually taking his teachings seriously is sufficient to save their souls? They apparently don’t mind being “entertained” by a blowhard and give away that extra cash to feed those fakers expensive life styles rather than to the “underserving” poor and hungry. For many of these “faiths,” it is the will of their God that there are people who should be poor and starving, no less so that their God has bestowed his “grace” on billionaires who are permitted to be grasping selfishly in their cupidity, and whose “philanthropy” tends to be in support of their selfish interests.

A Reddit post notes that the ten richest megachurch “evangelists” and “televangelists” are worth over $1 billion, although Kenneth Copeland is the holder of the majority of that wealth; the post claims that they have donated exactly $0.00 in COVID-19 assistance, which of course isn’t surprising given their attitude toward the seriousness of the pandemic and reflective of their anger for the inconveniences it has caused them. They love  money as much if not more than they “love” spreading the “word”—and obviously their present lamentations have had no effect on reducing the number of deaths from the COVID-19, since that is not the subject of their “lamenting.”  

The majority of churches have seen decreases in “giving,” especially those who receive most of it at the collection plate, although some have been creative in setting-up online giving programs in the interim. But even in the best of times, parishioners in the Catholic church have not been particularly generous; the Catholic News Agency notes that the average contribution by Catholic families is $10 a week when they actually go to mass, and that money has to be “spread” around to service various needs. One of those needs is apparently not building maintenance; according to the CNA, “routine maintenance on old buildings is often delayed or neglected. Few parishes account for depreciation. When something breaks, the cost is high. And with dramatically decreased collections this year, what little maintenance might have been done is likely to be deferred.” 

And things may get worse, and not just for the Catholic church.  The Economist notes the phenomenon of “accelerating dechurching” in the U.S. caused by the virus—meaning that people who go to church because they feel they “have to” may after a few months of not attending church may get “used” to the idea and no longer feel “guilt” by not going. This more than anything is will hurt the “business” end of religion, because some prior churchgoers will no longer buy the idea that it is “essential” for themselves to pay someone to preach the gospel to them; they can read the Bible themselves and “practice” being a good Christian—and then hope that somebody up there actually notices.