TOPLINE: Organizations that vigorously oppose government spending took Paycheck Protection Program loans, including some that have criticized the CARES Act, which created the PPP program, according to data released by the Small Business Administration (For more, click on link below.)
Republican Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s 2008 campaign for president, was interviewed on MSNBC. In response to a very general question regarding the Trump Presidency, Mr. Schmidt spoke for two solid minutes and gave the most insightful and brutally honest response of what the Trump Presidency has done to our great country.
“Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And, I don’t say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And, he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And, there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.”
“When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don’t use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We’ve never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.”
“It’s just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he’s the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he’s brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale.”
“And, let’s be clear. This isn’t happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you’re the most likely to die from this disease. We’re the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are, because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/23/politics/steve-schmidt-donald-trump/index.html
Click on photos to enlarge. All photos used with permission from Unsplash.
And A Little Child Shall Lead Them
(For Greta Thunberg)
When it comes to children, upper classes can be haughty.
Even normal kid stuff they consider to be naughty.
They send them off to private school to simplify their keep
and their favorite time when they are home is when they are asleep.
The words and thoughts of children are rarely heard at table,
for it might upset the apple cart if they were only able
to introduce hot topics like the way this world is headed.
But, alas, they’re fed and watered and then promptly bedded
without asking what they’re thinking and of course they don’t insist.
They’re patted and they’re smiled at and they’re talked at and they’re kissed,
but their parents don’t consider how they are dissembling
and it’s their children’s future that they are disassembling.
Trashing up the oceans, melting the North Pole,
ruining the air with oil and gas and coal—
it’s the parents who are unruly and should be sent to bed
to see if kids could run things better in their stead.
Prompt words today are cart, asleep, hot, word and naughty. Photos from unsplash.
Click on link to see video by The Meidas Touch. (Go to second video.)
https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-jr-meidastouch-085910824.html
Treacherous Butterfly
No matter what censure, no matter the talk,
nothing will cause the man to take stock
of each unbalanced act and nonsensical statement.
Nothing on earth can prompt the abatement
of whims that he tries to pass off as facts.
Who can measure what harm his spontaneous acts
have caused nation-wide and likewise to Earth?
He’s a treacherous butterfly whose wings give birth
to a hurricane violent in its effect—
its currents fanned wilder by his crazy sect.
Word prompts today are plant, treacherous, butterfly, censure and stock. Image by Arun Clarke on Unsplash , used with permission.
King of Fools
It’s a virtual world we sink into for fun
now that our worldly contact is done.
Facebook is our friendship and Skype our salvation,
Zoom our replacement for kids’ education.
It’s our succor in sadness, replacement for sport,
when others malign us, our means of retort.
Our childrens’ frondescence confined to Twitter,
how can they resist being surly and bitter?
We’re culpable, all of us, I must confess.
How could we let things get in such a mess?
Money our God and diverted by pleasure,
we sacrificed a more vital treasure,
giving up liberty, we were distracted
by a buffoon who reenacted
presenting reality just as a show—
impressing with posturing, bluffing and dough.
And those for whom books were replaced with a screen?
They couldn’t tell the difference between
what entertained and what was for real
and that’s how he managed to posture and steal
liberty—both on a scale that was national
making decisions stupidly irrational,
and our own liberty, now that we’re trapped
within our boxes, trussed up and wrapped
with only the foolish wandering round
making decisions, unmasked and unsound,
the dupes of a Mother who’s finally decided
that all of these humans whom she has abided
for thousands of years are on their way out,
aided by their foolishness, without a doubt,
and by their leader, that king of all fools
who will bring down the world with his asinine rules!!!
Prompt words for today are frondescence, culpable, virtual, succor and sink. All photos thanks to Unsplash, used with permission.
A Empirical Truth
I’m writing to our leadership–selfish, short-sighted fools
who are selling off our national parks and making other rules
about protected species, pollution and our health.
Saying it’s for our good while the rich expand their wealth.
If Nero fiddled as Rome burned, it’s also true today
that our most notable leader also likes to play.
As he’s shooting birdies on wild habitats turned tame,
his kids take off for Africa to shoot some wild game.
What we do to others turns back on us in time,
and Mother Nature will find a way of dealing with your crime.
I suggest that you use caution when visiting a zoo
lest the animals you threaten end up hunting you.
Prompt words for today are explain, empirical, zoo, caution and leadership.
(Copied from a friend and shared. Please do the same. Sorry, I don’t know the original source.)
Let’s say you woke up with a terrible cough, a fever, and severe body aches. Immediately, you rush to the doctor and unfortunately, you’re diagnosed with COVID-19. For the last two weeks, you’ve been unaware that you were infected and you’ve ignored “the rules.” You’ve gotten together with some close friends for pizza, had a few people over, even visited a park and a beach. You figured, “I don’t feel sick. I have the right to keep living my normal life. No one can tell me what to do.”
With your diagnosis, you spend the next few days at home on the couch, feeling pretty crappy; but then you’re well again because you’re young, healthy and strong. Lucky you. But your best friend caught it from you during a visit to your house, and because she didn’t know she was contagious, she visited her 82-year-old grandfather, who uses oxygen tanks daily to help him breathe because he has COPD and heart failure. Now, he’s dead.
Your co-worker, who has asthma, caught it too, during your little pizza get-together. Now, he’s in the ICU, and he’s spread it to a few others in his family, too–but they won’t know that for another couple of weeks yet.
The cashier at the restaurant where you picked up the pizza carried the infection home to his wife, who has MS, which makes her immunosuppressed. She’s not as lucky as you, so she’s admitted to the hospital because she’s having trouble breathing. She may need to be placed in a medically-induced coma and intubated; she may not get to say goodbye to her loved ones. She may die surrounded by machines, with no family at her bedside.
All because you couldn’t stand the inconvenience of a mask; of staying home; of changing your familiar routines for just a little while. Because you have the right, above all others rights, to continue living your normal life and no one, I mean no one, has the right to tell you what to do.
#SocialDistancing = It’s not about YOU!
#WearAMask = It’s not about YOU!
#StayHome = It’s not about YOU!
#GetTested = It’s not about YOU!
#MaskItOrCasket = It’s not about YOU!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 