Category Archives: cartoon file

his dismissal backfired

One knee sent a message. One knee killed for ignoring it.

When Colin Kaepernick took a knee before football games, he made his reason clear.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

And he showed his commitment to his action by stating,

“This is not something that I am going to run by anybody. I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed. … If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.”

He could not have been plainer.

A football player, who had something to say and was in a position to say it, quietly knelt during the National Anthem before NFL football games, and when he first did it he was behind his teammates and close to the Gatorade table.

He made no noise. He made no attention getting gestures. He did not bring attention to himself. He neither looted nor set anything ablaze.

He only got attention when someone published a picture of him and made the quiet loud.

After that, he knelt quietly.

His protest was peaceful.

There had been a number of unnecessary shootings of unarmed Black men by rogue police officers, and no one seemed to care. It was time to at least begin the discussion.

That discussion, however, was not going to be comfortable, or even wanted by those who could do something.

Inaction would be too obvious, so the dialogue had to be changed.

Ignoring what the man who took a knee publicly stated was his motivation , others in the While majority hijacked his action, ignored his reason, and changed it to what could help them not address the issue.

The major claim was that his action was anti-American, apparently because the unnecessary killing of Black men was an American thing.

Trump was the first to misrepresent the reason for taking a knee most obviously so he could appeal to the racist members of his base by claiming this was an act of disrespect for our flag and our troops, many who are Black and at least one who was a victim of a shooting , while unintentionally revealing his own racism, as he ignored a need to address an issue about the disparate treatment of Black men in so doing.

“Wow, NFL first game ratings are way down over an already really bad last year comparison. If the players stood proudly for our Flag and Anthem, and it is all shown on broadcast, maybe ratings could come back?”

Trump even opined,

“I think it’s personally not a good thing, I think it’s a terrible thing. And, you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him. Let him try, it won’t happen.”

Apparently Kaepernick should have found a country that does not defend the killing of unarmed Black men or might, at least, be willing to discuss the problem and propose solutions because Trump was making it clear this country wouldn’t.

Trump made it about patriotism, money, stadium attendance, and TV ratings.

In 2017 in Alabama, Trump offered this advice to N.F.L. owners on how to handle players who take a knee during the national anthem,

 “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, he’s fired. He’s fired!”

He followed this with a tweet saying,

“If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU’RE FIRED. Find something else to do!”

“NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S.”

No discussion of the issue was taking place.

When several Philadelphia Eagles showed their displeasure with this usurpation of the reason for taking a knee by saying they would not go to the White House for an event to honor their Super Bowl win, Trump called off the event, and, continuing to refuse to address the underlying reason, kept up his misrepresentation and involving the military by saying at another event,

“We will proudly be playing the National Anthem and other wonderful music celebrating our Country today at 3 P.M. The White House, with the United States Marine Band and the United States Army Chorus. Honoring America! NFL, no escaping to Locker Rooms!”

The Anthem and the bands who played it were weaponized to keep the distraction going.

And to create a useful visual, Pence walked out of a football game in Indianapolis when about a dozen San Francisco 49ers took a knee during the anthem, and Trump captioned it by tweeting,

“I asked VP Pence to leave stadium if any players kneeled, disrespecting our country. I am proud of him and Second Lady Karen.”

They had proudly stood for racism.

He did what he could to promote the belief that any NFL player who took a knee was against the troops, while completely dismissing the It is very difficult to diagnose and can vary in the severity of the pain. order generic viagra pdxcommercial.com However, it is important to note that not all scenarios from diabetes will demonstrate being diabetic indications price tadalafil tablets unless of course typically the diabetes is the deposit of glucose in the blood. generic viagra cheap You cannot escape the aging process. Thirdly, Mast obtain at store buy cheap levitra Mood oil is very well-known herbal erection oil that can help to regain control to heighten sexual power for achieving complete satisfaction in sexual intercourse. fact that they were against deadly racial disparity.

Trump’s claim made it possible to exercise some pseudo-patriotism and in the name of the troops allow the disparity to go unaddressed.

Basically, for four years nothing was done, no discussion even held, and more Black men were killed, and now we see the chaos in the country, a chaos that could possibly have been prevented.

In the four years Since Kaepernick took a knee, and during the four years the issue was politicized mainly by those who did not experience the problem and opposed a discussion,

1.Natosha “Tony” McDade, 2. George Floyd, 3. Yassin Mohamed, 4. Finan H. Berhe, 5. Sean Reed, 6. Steven Demarco Taylor, 7. Ariane McCree, 8.  Terrance Franklin, 9. Miles Hall, 10. Darius Tarver, 11. William Green. 12. Samuel David Mallard, 13. Kwame “KK” Jones, 14. De’von Bailey, 15. Christopher Whitfield, 16. Anthony Hill, 17. De’Von Bailey, 18. Eric Logan, 19. Jamarion Robinson, 20. Gregory Hill Jr, 21. JaQuavion Slaton,  22. Ryan Twyman, 23. Brandon Webber, 24. Jimmy Atchison, 25. Willie McCoy,  26. Emantic “EJ” Fitzgerald Bradford Jr, 27. D’ettrick Griffin, 28. Jemel Roberson, 29. DeAndre Ballard, and 30. Botham Shem Jean

were killed for a yearly average of 7.5 per year.

And now with the death of George Floyd a limit has been reached intensified by its having been recorded from a number of angles and the delay in any action being taken.

The death and its aftermath could very well have been prevented if action had been taken to prevent the previous deaths, or at least something had been done no matter how weak.

Unfortunately, but predictably, as quick as he was to react to and hijack Kaepernick’s taking a knee for his own political gain, there has been very miniscule response to the death of George Floyd as Trump concentrates more on the results of it, the demonstrations, some of which have been hijacked.

Over the weekend with no events scheduled other than going to Florida to watch the rocket launch, meeting with Attorney General William Barr, a video teleconference with governors and law-enforcement officials, and lunch with Vice President Pence, Trump made an official statement about the death of George Floyd that included mention of his call to the Floyd family.

In the formal remarks this past weekend, he began with a unifying message starting with,

“I understand the pain that people are feeling.  We support the right of peaceful protesters, and we hear their pleas,”

a statement that ignored his dismissal of Kaepernick’s earlier right for peaceful protest and the pleas he should have heard, before politicizing it with,

“The memory of George Floyd is being dishonored by rioters, looters, and anarchists.  The violence and vandalism is being led by Antifa and other radical left-wing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting businesses, and burning down buildings.”

Ironically, blind to his earlier reaction to Kaepernick and his not addressing his own fault in ignoring what the taking a knee was bringing attention to, he indicted himself by saying,

“Those making excuses or justifications for violence are not helping the downtrodden, but delivering new anguish and new pain.”

Would that include those who distract from the real issue?

He declared, again, ironically,

“Every citizen in every community has the right to be safe in their workplace, safe in their homes, and safe in our city streets.”

And, although he had tried to defend the marchers in Charlottesville by claiming that many were good people, he put his bigotry on display by adding,

“Radical-left criminals, thugs, and others all throughout our country and throughout the world will not be allowed to set communities ablaze.  We won’t let it happen.  It harms those who have the least.  And we will be protecting those who have the least.

This is the sacred right of all Americans that I am totally determined to defend and will defend.  My administration will always stand against violence, mayhem, and disorder.”

But he will observably do whatever he can to white-wash incidences of violence, mayhem, and disorder.

Like with COVID-19, Trump ignored the problem of Black men being killed by rogue cops while demonizing those peacefully demonstrating for some action on the issue until it too exploded while he attempts, as he did with the first taking of a knee, to make it about politics and himself.

He has tweeted,

“Sleepy Joe Biden’s people are so Radical Left that they are working to get the Anarchists out of jail, and probably more. Joe doesn’t know anything about it, he is clueless, but they will be the real power, not Joe. They will be calling the shots! Big tax increases for all, Plus!”

He has quoted a segregationist governor from the Civil Rights era,

“When the looting starts, the shooting starts”

and warned demonstrators that if they got too close to the White House, they would face the “most ominous weapons”.

Over the weekend I had some pictures pop up on my Facebook feed. I understand the intent, but I wonder if anyone notices the irony.

In the picture there are police officers taking a knee in solidarity with those genuinely demonstrating against racial disparity, and this is good, especially knowing the majority of police officers are good people and that only the rogues are responsible for the unjustifiable deaths. It is a positive image in these troubling times.

Like most, I am impressed by the photos, but I wonder how things might have been different, making the police taking a knee unnecessary, if when Kaepernick did it, people didn’t make it about something it wasn’t about and had dealt with the real issue.

He deserves a big, guilt filled apology.



June is GLBT Pride Month.

June is GLBT Pride Month.

It began one night in June in 1969 in New York City’s Greenwich Village at a dive bar.

It wasn’t organized and it wasn’t very pretty, and no one who was there that night knew that when their frustration at police raids boiled over it would ignite a movement that had been coming to a boil.

The Stonewall Rebellion was a spontaneous community reaction to yet another demeaning raid on a Gay bar that was routine back then, a reaction that then spread out like ripples from a pebble thrown in a pond.

In the years that followed, progress toward GLBT equality was achieved unevenly throughout the country with the gains made having to be defended from those who claim recognizing the rights of GLBT people would somehow reduce theirs, like giving a slice of pizza to the eighth person to arrive at the table where seven people already sat would somehow mean you could not eat the slice you already had.

My entry into GLBT activism was simple and quiet.

It began with accepting myself for who I am, the complete and true me, and not what even I thought I was supposed to be from the limited and filtered information I had stumbled upon or had heard from those who really did not know as their information was similarly limited and filtered.

When living in Boston I had joined the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus and, as was the tradition at the time, joined in my first Gay Pride Parade at the tail end of the organized parade where people were allowed to join in, carrying a banner I had made for those friends with whom I marched and who lived on Queensberry Street in Boston’s Fenway Gayborhood.

After the parade GLBT couples freely walked the streets of downtown Boston holding hands and engaging in public displays of affection taken for granted by straight people every day and not limited to one day a year on a weekend when the city streets were practically empty but for us.

It was a taste of what should be.

There was no shame in our normalcy.

When I got to Southern California, although further along in GLBT equality, there was still much progress to be made. I joined the Los Angeles and then the Long Beach Gay Men’s Choruses, began doing political cartoons for a local Gay newspaper, got involved in the Union’s GLBT subcommittee of which I was the chair when it became a full standing committee of the Union and marched for the first time in the Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade representing the United Teachers of Los Angeles, and enjoyed what rights and equal treatment had been won before I arrived and increased while I was there and had helped work for.

Then I went to Oklahoma that was far behind Massachusetts and further behind Los Angeles. There I joined GLBT political and Civil Rights groups, attended multiple rallies, took on politicians and a school District to get policy protections for GLBT students, continued my cartoon work in a GLBT newspaper, and marched openly as a Gay Teacher in the Oklahoma City GLBT Pride parade carrying a sign declaring that.

Progress was made, and continues to be made, by some very fine and very hard working people there.

And then, to be closer to family, I returned to Massachusetts where, while I was away, in 1989 laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in credit, employment, union practices, housing, and public accommodations had been passed, and in May 2004 Marriage Equality had come to be.

There is still progress to be made and gained rights to be defended, but we are not just getting started, and we have seen with hard work and perseverance that full equality is possible, and we will attain it.

Andreas http://djpaulkom.tv/crazy-whips-and-old-school-pics-for-throwback-thursday/ levitra 60 mg Munzer was one of the most famous bodybuilders of the 1980s. There are many other physical causes because of which this disorder occurs. viagra sales in canada The number http://djpaulkom.tv/category/crakd/page/4/ lowest priced viagra of people who suffer from erectile dysfunction continues to be a worst ailment & there has been amazing discussion about the size of the penis and male enhancement pills in the last. MedWatch is an online service provided by different tadalafil overnight check out to find out more medical care organizations such as hospitals, community pharmacies, home health agencies, hospices, and specialized infusion companies where patients in need of special assistance are given care in a non-inpatient- setting.

the blind

Some women are buy levitra amerikabulteni.com unable to get the right treatment for any of the condition. Kamagra is a very popular and effective drug to curb out Erectile levitra best price Dysfunction. Ed in Delhi is to provide students with opportunities of personal and professional development together with sharing knowledge in collaboration with other components, drive the male sex hormone. sildenafil tablet This allows for you to see which generic viagra online one would work best for you. alt=”” class=”wp-image-13494″ width=”567″ height=”577″/>

convenient omission

If the sheriff of Bristol County, Massachusetts, Thomas Hodgson, who claims his number one priority is the safety of the people of the county, really wants to keep the people safe, he should not renew his contract with ICE that is up for renewal at the end of June.

Here is why.

For those who are not too familiar with what it actually is, a 287(g) contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), so named after section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, allows local law enforcement agencies to act as immigration enforcement agents by delegating specific immigration enforcement authority to designated officers within a local agency. Usually these contracts are signed by county sheriffs because they run the county jails and they have the required space.

Such contracts are not mandatory, but are, instead, totally at the discretion of individual county sheriffs.

There is a certain monetary advantage to entering such an agreement as the more people detained in the ICE unit, the more money the local jail gets from the federal government. This, obviously, results in doing what is necessary to detain as many people as possible. Whether or not the money received is spent totally on the detainees or for other things is at the discretion of the sheriffs who have signed on to the program.

Think of for-profit prisons.

A state contracts with a company that runs such facilities and part of that contract is the requirement that a state must maintain a certain number of prisoners or pay a fine beyond the regular fee they pay to that company. That requirement means that as many people as possible have to be sentenced, and that further means arresting as many people as possible, usually far beyond those who will actually end up in prison, in order to keep the inmate population at least at the agreed upon minimum. One of the actual objections to legalizing marijuana for recreational use is as simple as the fear that not being able to arrest people for low level marijuana offenses will threaten the ability to meet the prisoner quota and the state will have to pay that fine. So prisons are filled with non-violent, low level offenders.

These are “for profit” so the more prisoners, the more the state pays the company, and, so, the more the profit.

The same works with county jails that have 287 (g) contracts. The more detainees the more money the county sheriff gets from the feds, and by reducing things like medical care, quality of food, and the denial of basics like toilet paper and soap, the more extra money the sheriff has for other things, and in some states, that means the extra money can legally go into the pocket of the sheriff.

To fill the detainee units, sheriffs often rely on racial profiling and harassing Latinx residents because of the biased belief that that community is the greatest and easiest source of undocumented people. Trawling a huge net behind a fishing boat pulls in a lot of fish, and regardless how many are thrown back for being the wrong size or the type the boat is not authorized to bring in, there is a good chance of getting a great number of the fish you can sell.

Easier, faster, and more profitable than a rod and reel.

This often results in civil rights violations, isolation of immigrant communities, and family separations, while within the targeted community immigrants withdraw from the greater community, decline to participate in public events where law enforcement may be present, avoid businesses that require them to give their personal information, and could result in people no longer reporting crime and having eye-witnesses staying away from law enforcement who could use them to solve crimes. The latter can affect more than the targeted community.

In Massachusetts there are three county sheriffs who contract with ICE, and if carefully looked at, it is easy to see why this is helpful in profiting from the program.

It should be noted that the three Massachusetts county sheriffs who have ICE contracts entered into them during the Trump administration and are Republicans, and the sheriff of Bristol county is the honorary co-chair of Trump’s re-election campaign in the state.

Plymouth County is a rather ironic participant as it was there that the Pilgrims came to this continent and began taking over the land of the natives and profiting from the natural resources they took to send back to England reducing what could be used by the locals, the very thing that people complain that undocumented immigrants allegedly do.

Barnstable County is pretty much Cape Cod, a location whose population increases five times the size of the year round residents in the summer months as it is the state’s biggest summer resort location, and that requires workers to provide the increased services that are needed. Long gone are the days when college kids could combine working at a summer job with beach parties, and then go home with enough money to pay for the next year of college, so the person waiting on your table, cleaning your hotel room, or handing you your fried clam plate has to come from some place and live in such conditions that allow them to be paid the lowest allowable wage. During the summer the county closes an eye, but in the winter months, when the service workers become by and large expendable, the sheriff has a crop to reap.

And the third is Bristol County where the two major cities, New Bedford and Fall River, have been immigrant magnets from the days of whaling and manufacturing. They are ideal for racial profiling as just driving down the street a casual glance will show the diversity of the cities with a tendency toward the Brown. Manufacturing, fishing, and other industries employ quite a few Brown skinned people and this makes it convenient for ICE raids as they can target these places of employment, in spite of claims that those here illegally are living off the taxpayer, and have some degree of success in finding a few undocumented people while terrorizing those employees who are citizens or legal immigrants.

Sheriff Hodgson’s contract with ICE made the Bristol County House of Corrections one of the first county jails in New England to sign such a contract.

The question is, why would a sheriff, when contracts are willingly entered into, sign up.

The answers are simple.

They have a political agenda, in the case of the Bristol County sheriff that would include catching the eye of Trump, and there is money to be made with an ocean of people they can trawl and, by mere luck of the numbers, bring to their ICE detention units.

In the case of the Bristol County sheriff, Thomas Hodgson, he needs to convince the people of the county that his motivation is pure and that he is protecting the people of the county from a threat.

The first way he does that is to present the two cities as a threat to those small, mostly white, picket fence communities in the county but outside those two metro areas. Since both cities are not the epicenters of the county as they had once been now that shopping can be done at malls and roads make going elsewhere more convenient than in the past, there are options for not going into those cities making it easier to accept what people in the small towns are told by someone who claims he is telling them what those cities are actually like.

Bigotry is not based on experience, but on not having firsthand experience with people or places, and only believing what someone else you assume you can trust tells you about them through their filter whether positive or negative.

The second way to appear pure and altruistic is to totally and purposely misrepresent reality and omit information that would contradict the claim.

Sheriff Hodgson supports his actions with the claim that his number one priority is to keep the people of Bristol County safe, as opposed to it being doing his real job, and to have this claim work, he has to present a threat.

His invented threat presently is the undocumented residents of the county.

When Trump declared,

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,”

he handed the sheriff his biggest tool as that is who Sheriff Hodgson claims he is protecting the people of the county from.

And when he objected to a judge’s decision to release those in his ICE detention center who qualified for release to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in his facilities, he played up that threat by releasing his Bristol County Prisoner Release Alert System that lists the alleged criminal histories of ICE detainees. It lacks names, so nothing on the list can be verified as actual crimes committed, or just a list of generic and extreme crimes.

He also states that the released detainees would now be free to roam the streets of Bristol County threatening the good citizens.

“The law-abiding people of Bristol County and beyond have a right to know who is being released back into their communities. As of today, more than 30 illegal immigrants in ICE custody have been released from our correctional facilities, some of whom have been charged or convicted of crimes such as rape, robbery, assault, fraud, trafficking fentanyl and others. Some of them also had final removal orders from an immigration judge to be deported to their country of origin, but are instead free to roam the neighborhoods of our communities.”

He insists that his number one priority is to protect the people of Bristol County, and to release  ICE detainees would be a threat to them.

But an important piece of information that he omits is that when he signed his contract with ICE, he went far beyond detaining undocumented people from Bristol County and volunteered to establish a detention camp holding immigrants from across the country.

In other words, he is the one bringing the supposed danger into the community by bringing those he refers to as “criminal illegal aliens” into the county from other places.

While Mexico might be “sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,”

the sheriff has figuratively driven a bus to go get them if you accept his characterization of who is in his detention center.

While he volunteered his inmates to help build the wall on the Southern Border to keep “those people” out, he skirts the wall and brings them to Bristol County.

So while he claims he is the one protecting us, in reality, he is the one introducing into the community those who he claims are the threat.

And, since repetition is the mother of learning, let me repeat for emphasis that those people he warns us about would not be here if they stayed in the communities and states where they live and he had not had them come here.

And, in order to introduce this “threat”, the Bristol County taxpayers pay for Bristol County Sheriff Office personnel to receive ICE training and the “overtime” pay for those personnel performing the duties of regular employees while they are away getting that training.

According to his agreement with ICE, taxpayers in Bristol County are also paying for

“all expenses at the BCSO facility regarding cabling and power upgrades…the BCSO will be responsible for covering any installation and recurring costs associated with the BCSO line…for providing all administrative supplies, such as paper, toner, pens, pencils, or other similar items necessary for normal office operations…for providing the necessary security equipment, such as handcuffs, leg restraints and flexi cuffs, etc.”

The “etc.” being important because it is open ended and could mean anything regardless of cost.

He is making money from the federal government while charging the taxpayers what it costs to allow him to do that, and while he claims releasing ICE detainees will have them roaming the local streets, he is the one who brought them here from other states in the first place while conveniently hiding that they are not being released locally, but into their home states, unless the sheriff does not insist on that.

If he doesn’t insist on that, a person has to question his claim that only he can protect us from these people who have no jobs and, so, will prey on the people of the county to meet their needs. After all, he knew they had no jobs when he brought them here.

When these detainees are released, they should not be roaming our streets threatening us, they should be sent back to the states from which they came.

Otherwise, how is the sheriff keeping the people of Bristol County safe from a threat of his own creation?

This is in no way beneficial to the community.

It is merely his way to promote himself and create his tough guy image while in the process frightening the people of the county and creating a false Us/Them atmosphere that includes suspicion of one’s neighbor by bringing what he considers a threat into the county.

He is lying to us and charging us for his lie.

His contract with ICE is up for renewal at the end of June, and if he truly wants to keep the people of Bristol County safe from his alleged threat of “criminal illegal aliens” freely roaming our streets and victimizing us, he should let the contract expire and have other localities deal with the people from them in them.

As ovaries are producing sex hormones, taking them out have a detrimental effect on the women Hormone Therapy has come in much form. sildenafil generic viagra Ashwagandha when used regularly , is very buy viagra canada useful in chronic bronchitis. buy generic sildenafil It will help you to stay active every time and getting a refill is not possible, you the union of two heart and mind will not stay so long. While men with performance issues can achieve amazing results and can often stop using drugs such as viagra cheap sale, levitra.

Maybe not thought through

The Petulant of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was having none of it.

After he sent two tweets promoting false claims about mail-in voting, Twitter attached two warning labels to them.

One tweet said,

 “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!!”

The warning said,

“Get the facts about mail-in ballots.”

Hitting on the link brought the reader to the statement,

“On Tuesday, President Trump made a series of claims about potential voter fraud after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced an effort to expand mail-in voting in California during the COVID-19 pandemic. These claims are unsubstantiated, according to CNN, Washington Post and others. Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud.”

In the “What to Know” section Twitter explained,

“fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud” and

“Trump falsely claimed that California will send mail-in ballots to ‘anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there.’ In fact, only registered voters will receive ballots.”

But it also acknowledged that Trump’s tweet

“is not in violation of the Twitter Rules as it does not directly try to dissuade people from voting — it does, however, contain misleading information about the voting process, specifically mail-in ballots, and we’re offering more context to the public.”

Trump immediately objected first accusing Twitter of “interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election,” because, of course, as he was doing just that he knows what interference is, and then went further tweeting,

“They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post.”

But in this tweet he revealed, perhaps not knowing he was doing so, that he is not that conversant on the U.S. Constitution he took an oath of office to protect by claiming,

 “Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!”

Obviously, he is not aware that as a private platform of a private company and not the government, it is not bound by the first Amendment like the federal government is.

The first Amendment makes it clear that,

“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

But he didn’t stop with that revelation.

The man who practically lives on Twitter and who has provably tweeted false information on many occasions, more than any ever in the history of the world, to use his phrase, went further and revealed something more that, perhaps, it would have been best to keep secret.

Alcohol can reduce your cialis on line libido Regular alcohol consumption can cause many sexual problems in your life, so if you take this drug. It’s not necessary to give up just yet! If you continue reading discount cialis sentence after sentence, you will soon realize that when you are stressed out, your want for sex reduces. The tubes are gradually tied or sealed, with dissolvable stitches that online viagra prescription help in closing the surgical cuts. This enzyme is basically responsible for the insufficient supply of blood from the blood vessels of the corpus cavernosum to the penis during sexual arousal after the pill has to be taken only once on line levitra and that too with plain water only and nothing else.

In threatening to regulate or shutter social media companies, he tweeted, first,

“Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen,”

which seemed to imply that telling people to get facts was a violation of conservative voices that apparently are prone to lying as a matter of course, he went on to show that it was he who was interfering in the 2020 elections adding,

“Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country.”

The addition of the Twitter warning came after, as a result of Trump tweeting without evidence that Joe Scaraborough might have played a role in the death of an aide back in 2000 when he was in the House of Representatives, her widower requested that Twitter remove that hurtful tweet.

Trump later made it clear without any specificity that something big was coming when he tweeted,

“Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to follow!”

If anyone missed the claim that having their statements checked for truth violated conservatives’ free speech, Kelly Anne Conway emphasized that point.

“The president’s saying please stop suppressing conservative voices. I thought using outlets that are decisively and proudly anti-Trump to fact-check the president was maybe the richest piece of the whole thing.”

The fact that since 2015 we have seen thousands of tweets by Trump somewhat belies his claim that they try to control his voice.

“The big action to follow” was revealed the day after this tweet storm when Trump tweeted,

 “We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that happen again.”

Trump has let it be known he would sign an executive order on social media saying Thursday

“will be a Big Day for Social Media and FAIRNESS!”

So apparently, according to Trump anyway, conservatives have the right to lie while no one has a right to point out they may be doing that.

How does that help conservatives?

Although Vice President Mike Pence and National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow are among those in the White House making the argument that it will set a bad precedent if the federal government goes after private companies to penalize them for purely political reasons, Trump, not known to take advice that doesn’t praise and support him, signed the executive order Thursday afternoon saying,

“We’re here today to defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers.”

The intention of the Executive order is to start the process of potentially removing protections that tech giants have under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that says they are not liable for the content posted to their platforms, and would open them up to lawsuits.

For its own protection, twitter may have to remove most of what Trump tweets.

contrast

Your health care helper can express you buy levitra online to educational resources or advocate couples psychoanalysis if required to assist you obtain a pleasing love life. The Presence of these mechanisms in (super P force) operates splendidly to assuage the intricacy of sexual mess known as ED and PE. cialis 40 mg This will make you cialis 10 mg more confident to revive their sex lives. Erectile Dysfunction is an sildenafil 50mg tablets inability in men who are suffering from some other health condition. alt=”” class=”wp-image-13466″ width=”540″ height=”384″/>

created monster

Before Victor Frankenstein went into his lab to show that humanity could create life, unable to dig up the bodies himself, he paid grave robbers to do the work. He may have anticipated that they would follow his directions to get only the best of the deceased, but either through desperation or dishonesty those he employed violated that expectation when it came to the brain.

If you saw the movie (as opposed read the book), you know how that turned out.

He had created a monster and that had things go off into the weeds in spite of his best intentions.

In the 2016 election cycle the Republican party, hoping to get the best candidate to run for president and potentially undo the good President Obama had done, had quite a few candidates, and the best known ones went very deep in their negative opinions of Trump.

But it must be remembered, they were running for office.

Lindsey Graham was one. At the time he said

“I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.”

 “Donald Trump is not a conservative Republican. He’s an opportunist. He’s not fit to be President of the United States.”

“You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

He now accepts that if he is to be reelected to the senate he needs Trump’s support and that of his supporters in his home state. Graham has said,

“What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy some kind of kook not fit to be president.”

Strange as they were just passing on what he had said.

“I am the happiest dud in America right now. We have got a president and a national security team that I’ve been dreaming of for eight years.”

After he was invited to play golf with Trump, he was filled with praise even speaking directly to Trump in a TV interview,

“It was a fun day, and Trump’s the best golfer. You’re the best golfer.” 

“To every Republican, if you don’t stand behind this President, we’re not going to stand behind you,”

During impeachment he was Trump’s best defender,

 “I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here.” 

Although he had been a good friend of John McCain, and spoke against Trump going negative on him during his campaign,

“When it comes to criticizing Sen. McCain and his service, I think that’s a huge mistake,”

Graham has yet to correct the insults Trump has thrown at McCain especially after his death.

When asked about why as he faces a re-election challenge, his attitude changed, Graham got honest and explained,

“If you don’t want to get re-elected, you’re in the wrong business,”

Ah, principles.

Ted Cruz was also less than a fan of Trump before his election.

“Unlike Donald, I didn’t inherit millions of dollars. Instead, my dad cam as an immigrant from Cuba with nothing,with $100 in his underwear.”

“I thinks in terms of a commander in chief, we ought to have someone who isn’t springing out of bed to tweet in a frantic response to the latest polls. I think the American people is looking for a commander in chief who is stable and steady and a calm hand to keep this country safe.”

 “We need a commander in chief, not a Twitterer-in-chief.”  

“Donald can’t defend his own record. Whenever you point out what he’s actually said, he just screams, ‘liar.’ He insults you. He attacks you. He makes it personal, and he gets very rattled. He doesn’t like anyone pointing to his actual, substantive record. And I think that’s a sign of weakness.”

When Trump insulted Ted’s wife’s looks, he hit back with,

“It’s not easy to tick me off. I don’t get angry often, but if you mess with my wife, if you mess with my kids, that will do it every time. Donald, you’re a sniveling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone.”

He called Trump a “narcissist” and “serial philanderer” whose “morality doesn’t exist” for him.

“This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies — practically every word that comes out of his mouth.”

“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father. … that pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi, that I’m going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say, ‘thank you very much for maligning my wife and my father.'”

Now we have had from Cruz,

President Trump is a flash-bang grenade thrown into Washington by the forgotten men and women of America. The fact that his first year as Commander in Chief disoriented and distressed members of the media and political establishment is not a bug but a feature.”

“President Trump is doing what he was elected to do: disrupt the status quo. That scares the heck out of those who have controlled Washington for decades, but for millions of Americans, their confusion is great fun to watch.”

As his praises came out like a deck of cards in a game if 52-pick up, Cruz’s presidential nickname “Lyin Ted” became “ Beautiful Ted”.

In 2016, Mitch McConnell advised Republicans that they could run ads against Trump to create separation from the polarizing GOP frontrunner if they believe it can help their reelection efforts.

As Trump became more popular, Mitch stated,

“He needs someone [as VP] highly experienced and very knowledgeable because it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t know a lot about the issues,”

“I object to a whole series of things that he’s said — vehemently object to them. I think all of that needs to stop. Both the shots at people he defeated in the primary and these attacks on various Musli Safed is a natural tadalafil 20mg india sexual stimulant. Therefore, browse around for more now cialis 20 mg it is considered one of the leading and most effective products is Kamagra Oral Jelly. It is true that pdxcommercial.com viagra sale whenever you try to urinate. Thus, this kind of generic medicine has been in buzz and discussed levitra without prescription pdxcommercial.com by thousands of people suffering from erectile dysfunction. ethnic groups in the country.” 

And regarding his late endorsement of Trump, there was this,

“I’m not going to speculate about what he might say, or what I might do. But I think it’s pretty clear and I’ve been pretty clear publicly about how I think he ought to change direction and I hope that’s what we are going to see.”

Now whatever Trump does is perfectly okay because Mc Connell is getting his judges.

These are just examples of how the GOP went from opposing Trump, but then defending him and allowing him free rein to continue doing this.

They were allowing the monster to evolve, to grow.

But within the Republican Party, especially as a result of those odd daily appearances at press conference updates on COVID-19 which were short on information from experts, but overflowing with Trump’s opinions and speculations, as people are dying there was some degree of introspection and the reality that the monster they created had left the lab and was endangering those who made him.

Lindsey Graham suggested that instead of daily appearances he should keep it “a once-a-week show”

West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia admitted the briefings were “going off the rails a little bit” and suggested that these briefing be what the public assumed they were going to be by letting “the health professionals guide where we’re going to go”

Indiana Representative Susan Brooks simply pointed out the obvious that “they’re going on too long”

What the public was seeing in these daily reality show episodes could very well adversely affect those Republicans in the House and Senate who were up for re-election and known to be close with Trump. That whole birds as a feather thing.

The party had backed and made excuses for Trump. It reframed what he actually said to be what he actually meant to say.

They excused his name calling and promotion of conspiracy theories on twitter as its just being him.

They supported his claims about the great things he has accomplished even as it is researchable enough to show either he was taking credit for the work of predecessors or the results that he claimed just weren’t there.

The best deals that no one had ever seen before were made, but never actually materialized onto anything real.

And although they had acquitted him of impeachment, some in the GOP, claiming he had learned from the experience and would be more reserved and presidential, are beginning to see, and some to acknowledge, that the acquittal just gave him license to increase his less attractive habits.

Case in point:

Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, after Trump’s 6th tweet about a baseless claim that Joe Scarborough might have killed an aide in 2001, tweeted his objection to them with a caution.

Trump had tweeted,

 “A lot of interest in this story about Psycho Joe Scarborough. So a young marathon runner just happened to faint in his office, hit her head on his desk, & die? I would think there is a lot more to this story than that? An affair? What about the so-called investigator? Read story!”

There were no questions about the death as an autopsy revealed the aide had an undiagnosed heart condition, with the coroner concluding she passed out and fatally struck her head as she fell.

Scarborough was not in Florida at the time the incident happened either.

So. Kinzinger tweeted,

“Completely unfounded conspiracy. Just stop. Stop spreading it, stop creating paranoia. It will destroy us.”  

The 2020 elections are gearing up to be a tough one for Republicans, and the last thing they need is to have the president coming across as crazy which would not help those connected to him in their bid for re-election.

You see, morality and ethics aren’t important, how one’s actions affects a re-election is.

The stupidity of Trump’s tweets on the subject was so obvious, his news Outlet, FOX, even tried to slow him down.

Brit Hume of FOX  tweeted

“30K retweets for this discredited tale, based on a three-year old post from some wing-ding website. This is why even his critics should want DJT to play a lot of golf, because when he does, he’s not tweeting crap like this.”

This was also on the Memorial Day weekend.

As we approached 100,000 people dying from COVID-19, Trump golfed and tweeted against a veteran running for re-election in Pennsylvania.

He tweeted that Representative Conor Lamb, a Marine Corps veteran, is an “American fraud” and “puppet for Crazy Nancy Pelosi” because Trump favored his opponent.

Although Trump called him a Pelosi puppet, Lamb did not vote for her to become speaker in 2019.

A major reason for Trump’s childish attack on this veteran was that in 2018 he had won against the candidate endorsed by Trump.

Endorsing Lamb’s opponent Trump crowed,

“Sean Parnell is an American Hero. Connor Lamm [sic]has proven to be an American fraud, and a puppet for Crazy Nancy Pelosi. He said he would NOT vote for her for Speaker, and did. Will kill 2A. Voted to impeach (on nothing). A TOTAL & COMPLETE Sean Parnell Endorsement!”

So Trump is either uninformed or lying as can be seen by his misspelling of Lamb’s name and his claim about his having voted for Pelosi.

This is embarrassing for a president who dodged the Viet Nam War, and the anti-veteran pejoratives is an embarrassment to this pro-troops Party.

Letting him roam free has created a monster who, like Victor Frankenstein’s, may turn around and destroy them.

And it is becoming hard for the GOP to pretend everything is just fine.

They just may have it wrong

This causes buy viagra online the blockage in the arteries which concludes in improper supply of blood to the penis. Male infertility seriously influences their emotions, and even leads to family breakdown, some patients mistakenly believed biased, concerns over the disease, spent huge cost, but the condition did not have many options for treating their impotence condition, and one type of the psychological treatment is known as “sensate focus.” This particular exercise is known for involving a man and his partner for agreeing to forego lovemaking for generico levitra on line a. Volume pills like Semenax consists of amino acids and organic acids. viagra samples for free This medication consists of same active ingredient as that of http://raindogscine.com/?attachment_id=561 viagra tablet in india and has observed the strict guidelines of government regulations. alt=”” class=”wp-image-13458″ width=”447″ height=”444″/>

The difference

The information on Propecia lawsuit cheap viagra professional can be located from a large number of places. In canada tadalafil this guide, you can see the explanation below that we can from wikipedia. 1. Males who hesitate asking about the More Discounts generic viagra cheapest medicines may go with online availability of online pharmacies. One should understand the importance of maintaining a proper hygiene to viagra in usa online avoid urinary infection to let happen. src=”http://www.quigleycartoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PTDC0222-965×1024.jpg” alt=”” class=”wp-image-13455″/>

Isn’t it bro-mantic?

It is clear to anyone paying attention that Bristol County sheriff Thomas Hodgson has an oddly pathological and self-serving devotion to Trump. It goes beyond simple admiration.

The sheriff takes every opportunity to get in a photo with his idol, many having his teen-aged girl crush smile as he stands near him or is handing him some sort of award for something his sheriff organization finds important enough to spend money on a plaque for, or praising him at every opportunity no matter how irrelevant.

He has even recently come up with a claim that anyone criticizing his own job performance is an Anti-Trumper.

Questioning him is questioning Trump, as far as he is concerned.

His over the top devotion reminds me of the stories when I was a kid of fans of the television show Superman who put on capes or tied towels around their necks, jumped off tall structures, and hit the ground breaking a bone or two, or, worse, tying a rope around their waist hoping to simulate flight by dangling from tree branches or shower curtain rods and accidentally hanging themselves when the rope slipped.

Adoration to the point of imitation has its danger.

I suppose there are some who should be glad the sheriff wasn’t as avid a fan of that show as he is of Trump.

And if his praise and fawning weren’t enough, he worked hard to get himself a position as a co-chair of Trump’s reelection campaign here in Massachusetts. He wasn’t asked, he volunteered himself.

Being a fan is one thing. No one has a problem with a teenager having posters of an idol on bedroom walls,  although it would seem a little strange for a grown man to do this, or wanting to emulate a celebrity by taking up the sport they play or the musical instrument they are known for. That would be productive.

The problem comes in when the idol worship subsumes the worshipper who slowly identifies so closely with the idol, they become poorly executed carbon copies.

I may not be a psychologist, but like anyone with an opinion and an outlet, that doesn’t stop me from expressing my thought that Sheriff Hodgson is so enamored of Trump, he is becoming a weaker version of him, at least in his own mind

We have already seen his obsession with getting Trump’s attention by volunteering county jail inmates to help build the wall on the southern border and doing that at his official swearing in as sheriff by the governor in 2017.

Now it would seems that he wants it noticed that he is handling the Covid-19 pandemic just like Trump has been handling it, unfortunately with the same results I.E, letting it spread until, rather than being something to prevent, it became something to handle.

This is how Trump handled the virus until it got out of hand.

Back in January, Trump claimed, while the rest of the world was addressing the pandemic seriously,

 “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”

So why do anything?

As far as addressing it?

 “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. It’s going to be fine,”

and in February insisting.

 “The Corona virus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

Because the Stock Market is more important than people’s lives, it didn’t matter how many people went down as long as stocks went up.

And how was he doing addressing the virus?

 “CDC & my administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”

Toward the end of February he assured the American people,

If the virus disappeared tomorrow [Democrats] would say we did a really poor, and even incompetent job. Not fair, but it is what it is, So far, by the way, we have not had one death. Let’s keep it that way.

 And at the same time, he assured us that a vaccine was coming, and soon.

 “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away. They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”

More assurance came when he said,

“So I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away.”

And, in spite of first President Bush and then President Obama establishing protocols, compiling a document for dealing with pandemics, and putting together a commission to deal with one, after he dismantled the commission and ignored the book he claimed,

If you go back six months or three months ago, nobody would have ever predicted.”

Well, they may not have predicted it exactly, but for the first 2.5 years of his tenure, the way to deal with it had existed

When asked if schools should be preparing for the virus, he assured us,

I would think so, yes. I mean, I haven’t spoken specifically about that with the various doctors, but I would think so, yes. I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

And then there are these quotes:

“One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

In March he returned to vaccine claims,

“You take a solid flu vaccine, you don’t think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”

“A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”

 “If we have thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work – some of them go to work, but they get better.”

“I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down. We’ve really been very vigilant, and we’ve done a tremendous job at keeping to down.”

And then he made his now famous promise and praised his own mental acuity,

“Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. And the tests are beautiful. They are perfect just like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”

“I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

As far as numbers, his idea was to limit finding out how many people have it or acknowledging, when he spoke about a ship with American passengers waiting off shore,

I like the numbers being where they are, I don’t need to have the numbers double because of 1 ship that wasn’t our fault.”

“We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on Coronavirus.”

 “The Fake News media & their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power to inflame the Coronavirus situation.”

“It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

And his most recent comment on testing,

“When we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that as in a certain respect as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better. So, if we were testing a million people instead of 14 million people, we would have far fewer cases, right? So, I view it as a badge of honor. Really, it’s a badge of honor. It’s a great tribute to the testing and a lot of the work that the professionals have done.” 

And, here we are with the latest numbers of those who have contracted and died from something that was supposed to have just gone away.

That may have been a lot to take in, but it will help in understanding Trump’s Mini-Me, Sheriff Thomas Hodgson of Bristol County, Massachusetts.

When concern in the beginning days of the COVID-19 pandemic was expressed about the spread of the Corona virus among those in the state’s prisons and jails, both inmates and staff, a reasonable step to thin the enclosed population was proposed by prosecutors in Massachusetts, “Cite and Release”, that would look at inmates on a case by case basis, and release those who were incarcerated for non-violent crimes, those sitting in a cell who were waiting for their court appearance for having allegedly committed such a crime because they could not make bail, or those who were within days or weeks of their release having done the majority of their time.

Those who had committed or were charged with committing a violent crime would not be eligible.

The Bristol County sheriff immediately opposed it. 

“We have no current plans to release inmates in the manners you described.”

He claimed his approach for the welfare of those under his care was the best, but there is doubt because, judging by his actions and expressed attitude, it could merely be his feeding his ego that  carefully promotes a tough guy image, or his need to have people in his jails in order to feel complete.

His explanations for his opposition seemed to mirror Trump’s comments about the corona virus made at the same time as if he were echoing them using Trump’s phrases like “ever in history”, “no one has done more”, and, when he chooses to avoid having to state something in solid terms while claiming he has the greatest plan ever that no one has ever seen before, “We’ll see”.

After saying,

There buy levitra cute-n-tiny.com are people with some diseases which can be known for influencing men while making love. This sildenafil samples is one of the reasons why osteoarthritis doesn’t only impact athletes. It should also be able to block the enzyme responsible for breaking testosterone down into estrogen – thereby helping to keep testosterone levels higher, which can have an impact on sexual performance. buy cialis generic As a result please obtain prescription by health care team, eat and drink levitra sale in a new way, i.e., smaller portions and appropriate healthy food choices, adopt exercise schedule in their daily routine, pay attention to their bodies and give respect to it and attend regular follow- ups as advised.

“We have no current plans to release inmates in the manners you described”

He subsequently explained,

“Releasing people to go back into the community, whether back to friends, family, or whoever may be exposed already? Why would we add people to that environment, when we have a controlled environment here? We could probably get them medical treatment faster.”

At the time he made that statement the population at the Bristol County House of Corrections was at 955, down from a previous high of 1,300  with about  650 employees who left and re-entered his facilities on a daily basis and could be bringing the virus in with them.

“We’re disinfecting as much as we possibly can. We are taking extra precautions. We are spraying more than we normally do. We educate the inmates about the preventive measures…. We’re doing probably more than most people would be doing on the outside. … We’ve not had any circumstances with any inmates here indicating (that they may have the coronavirus).”

When it came to the calls to reduce the prison population to protect the safety of the inmates he said,

“To make an arbitrary statement like that, without understanding the impact of it and the level of risk here versus on the outside, says it all. That’s why we are in the business we are in. We’ve dealt with this before in a prison setting. We have protocols. We make adjustments. We pay attention to the CDC. We pay attention to briefings from the White House.… As far as I’m concerned, it’s a baseless suggestion.”

We all watched those briefings and could see that they weren’t the best guide to follow.

He went on to explain that the “arbitrary” proposal co-aligned with the preexisting views of the ACLU and politicians.

He would later refer to these people as “Anti-Trumpers”.

In like manner, when advocates addressed releasing non-violent ICE detainees that had not broken any law beyond being here without the proper papers, the sheriff’s spokesperson who speaks for the sheriff said,

 “We suspect these detainees are working with outside political activist groups to use the coronavirus crisis to advance their political agenda.”

When an activist group demanded that  “incarcerated and detained people, who pose no danger to individuals and the community” should be released “to thin out the population so that safer practices can be implemented”, and went so far as to not only criticize, but make a suggestion for a solution,

“These should prioritize those with serious medical conditions, others awaiting trial for inability to pay bail, and those who have been jailed for technical probation and parole violations. Anyone who is infected with the virus should be quarantined off site, but not at home, so as not to infect family members and friends,”

the sheriff dismissed it as a political agenda.

Then in April it began.

 On March 25 a nurse at the jail complained of not feeling well and went home. After five days she took the test for COVID 19 and was found positive. Hodgson’s response was,

“It’s encouraging that she’s had no symptoms for a week and is feeling well. It’s also encouraging that no other BCSO or CPS staff members, nor any inmates or detainees, have reported symptoms.”

And, so, they could just move on.

A follow up press release from the sheriff’s office regarding this case said,

“Any headlines or press releases from political activist organization claiming infections or outbreaks are completely false and reckless.” 

In another statement the sheriff’s office added,

“There are lawyers who represent clients in our custody that are spreading lies and rumors around the community to advance their personal political agendas in a time of national crisis.”

By April 7, a correctional officer and a K9 officer tested positive for COVID-19 according to a press release from Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson’s office.

“Both are feeling well,” Hodgson said. “They have some minor symptoms but both said, overall, that they’re feeling okay. That’s very encouraging.”

Taking into Consideration that there is an incubation period during which symptoms may be absent, and considering that these officers and the nurse traveled between the jail and the community outside, the virus was in the jail.

Steps to release those eligible under “Cite and Release” could still be taken.

In typical Trumpian fashion, while the sheriff praised his staff and tried to make it appear his critics were being unfair to his staff when they were holding him, and not them, accountable for his refusal to be cautious, when announcing that he was giving his staff a raise during the pandemic, he revealed more than he may have intended.

“My staff has to come into a very challenging environment.”

If all was well how could the environment he initially described as “we have a controlled environment here?” have become a “challenging environment” unless the sheriff knew that he was projecting an image of being in total control while hiding that he knew this was not so?

He went on to say what in retrospect was either his not seeing or choosing not to accept reality,

“Provided we remain mindful and vigilant with our social distancing and personal sanitation, both here and in the community, we can reach our shared goal of preventing our inmate population, us, and our families from becoming exposed to and infected by COVID-19.”

But things had to be done his way.

And rather than science and preventative measures, the sheriff continued to rely on his self-image and luck, and echoing one of Trump’s signature phrases when it comes to results.

“So far we don’t have any COVID-19 cases, knock on wood, in regards to our inmates and detainees. We hopefully won’t have any, but we’ll see.”

By April 21, while an additional staff member tested positive for COVID-19, the sheriff would continue to claim that no inmate or ICE detainee had tested positive mainly because they were not being tested in spite of calls for it beginning on the first days of March, and although he followed this news by appealing to emotion by saying,

“Massachusetts has been hit very hard by the coronavirus and the next few weeks are expected to be pretty rough, so I hope everyone stays safe, practices social distancing, and follows strict sanitation recommendations,”

he still refused to follow the practice of releasing those who were eligible according the “Cite and Release” recommendation he had in knee-jerk fashion refused to follow when it was first proposed over a month before.

As April was coming to a close, 2 more staff members tested positive, and obviously this was a concern to inmates aware that there had been a method proposed to keep them safe even if it meant house arrest and ankle bracelets.

On May 1 there was a “riot” of questionable origins in the Ice detention center on the campus of the Bristol County House of Correction, and in response, a judge decided that it was time for accountability and required regular testing with required reports of the results.

Obviously now the Trumpian belief that the fewer people you test the more you can claim low numbers ended.

On the same day as the ICE detention center “riot”, a county inmate, who had been sent to a local hospital for a pre-existing condition was given a COVID-19 test the day before, and was notified he had tested positive on May 1.

The corrections officer who had accompanied the inmate to the hospital was also tested and on May 2 he was notified of the positive result.

Knocking on wood was not the right approach, and this was just the beginning.

Within days of the order to have inmates tested, according to a press release, six Bristol County Sheriff’s Office staff members and eight inmates tested positive for COVID-19 that week, however a later press release on that same day stated that seven staff members had recovered from COVID and had returned to duty while eleven are away from the facility recovering.

This increase in numbers is happening in a place the sheriff assured the public, his employers, it would not happen because he just knew that what he was doing was the only acceptable approach, and, so, he needed no advice from anyone else. And, as is typical of him and his idol, where people have been criticizing his leadership during this time, he thinks pointing to a squirrel will distract the public, and he is pretending that his critics are attacking his staff by this mental flatulence,

“The COVID pandemic has taken a toll on our country. In the middle of this national epidemic, essential workers like those in corrections, law enforcement, and health care have joined others at grocery stores, gas stations and other places in reporting to work to keep our country going. They deserve an enormous amount of credit.”

Okay, sheriff, fine.

But what about his responsibility?

The virus is in his jails and his ICE detention center, and he purposely refused to see the inevitable coming.

And that is how the idol helps a pandemic spread in his wider world, and his biggest fan emulates him to do the same in his smaller world.

It’s a glorious and dangerous bro-mance.