Cause mass death with no repercussions

I did something today I hadn’t done in a while – I bought gas for my car. The last time I did that was four weeks ago while driving through Ohio on my way home from visiting my niece. In those four weeks I’ve used only a quarter tank. I usually wait until the empty warning light goes on. So even though the gauge said I still had a quarter tank I thought it a good idea to fill up early.

Then I went to a grocery store, the small store I mentioned before. I found they are no longer open on Sundays.

Last fall I started working on my garage. I pulled down some of the old paneling and started assessing what I needed to patch drywall and paint. I talked to my brother, who likes to do home fix-up jobs and can’t while living in an apartment. He offered to visit this spring and stay a couple days to help me in this work. But he’s stuck at his daughter’s house – and doing plenty of fix-it jobs there – while stay at home orders are in place. So I’ve started doing the work myself. Yeah, this could take a long time. Which, at the moment, I have lots of.



We’ll start with a provocative, yet probably accurate, observation from Sarah Kendzior. She studies authoritarian regimes and I’ve quoted her tweets and podcast Gaslit Nation frequently. Kendzior responded to a comment about the nasty guy seeming to do all the wrong things during this pandemic:

It's because he savors the idea of mass death, and especially of being able to cause it and face no repercussions. There are four decades of interviews with him fantasizing about that.

When asked for more details she referred to her book coming out next week, that podcast, and many articles – one was in the Globe and Mail last week.

So, yeah, the “incompetent” response to this pandemic is actually quite intentional malice. He actually does want to kill us. Have a nice day.



With that in mind this make sense. Joe Lockhart, a CNN political analyst, tweeted:

When asked yesterday if the federal government would make sure NY had enough ventilators his answer was No. Followed by a lecture on why they didn't deserve them. As they reach the apex in NYC remember what the President said. Not they would try...he just said no.

States – people – don’t deserve ventilators? Yikes! I wouldn’t want to see his definition of who is deserving.



Michael Harriot is a senior writer for The Root and describes himself as a master race-baiter. He tweeted a thread:

Black journalists have repeatedly asked for race-inclusive data on coronavirus but people keep wondering why we want to inject race into a global pandemic. Here's a list of reasons:

* Healthcare is segregated … Like America. White people have more access to healthcare.

* Testing for COVID-19 costs money and because of the racial insurance coverage gap it is likely black people are less likely to be tested.

* Healthcare professionals are biased. They believe black people can tolerate more pain and so reject complaints or symptoms.

* Coronavirus is racist. Most of the hot spots are where black people live. Like Detroit.

* The underlying conditions that tend to worsen symptoms and the possibility of death disproportionately affect blacks. These include lung disease and asthma, heart conditions, obesity, diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, and being immunocompromised.



Dr. Ryan Gamlin tweeted a thread about another problem of healthcare for profit. He begins his thread with a story: He worked at a hospital when a California wildfire drew quite close to it. Soon there were a huge number of firetrucks pouring water on the building so it wouldn’t burn. They could do that because of latent capacity. Public safety is built on that. Governments pay for first responders to be idle for much of their time. They are overprepared for emergencies.

But if profit is the goal management doesn’t want idle health care workers. They want efficiency where employees do more work, care for more patients, fill out more paperwork. There is no latent capacity for the emergencies.

The frontline workers are overworked, just holding on. Who isn’t hurting: executives.

Corporate healthcare is murder.



Diatonic Dissonance tweeted a thread about what food supplies he always keeps in his kitchen for times such as this. I’ll let you read the details.



Leah McElrath has a thread on suggestions on what to do when your income drops and you are facing poverty. I am financially good so I don’t know if what she is saying makes sense.



Want to thwart the nasty guy? Stay alive. Make sure his attempt at mass death doesn’t include you. So stay home. Wash your hands.