According to the religious right back in the 1980s, AIDS was a punishment from God, a convenient one at that because He was eliminating those pesky Americans who wanted their full rights and not some second class status at the mercy of the majority who just assumed their rights. So, as Gay people died, the federal government took its time to deal with what would turn out to be a crisis that did not distinguish who it affected.

At a press conference in 1982, Reagan’s Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, Larry Speakes, joked about the HIV/AIDS epidemic while it had already taken the lives of nearly 1,000 people, Americans.  

Two years later and after the death of more than 4,200, when asked  if, since 300,000 people had been exposed to AIDS, the president had  taken steps to protect armed forces, food, and medical services from AIDS patients or those who run the risk of spreading AIDS in the same manner that they led typhoid fever people from being involved in the health or food services, oddly ignoring those who were living and dying with HIV/AIDS and writing them off only worrying about who they might spread it to, the same press secretary responded,

“I don’t know”

When asked if the president was concerned about AIDS he responded,

“I haven’t heard him express concern.”

When asked at that same press conference if Reagan was doing anything about AIDS, the response was,

“I have not heard him express anything.”

Obviously,  Reagan and his administration didn’t take the epidemic very seriously.

What could have at least been contained was allowed to spread freely, although the Gay Community took steps on its own to deal with it, steps like hospice care, healthcare networks of doctors, nurses and open minded hospitals, and educating all people, Gay and Straight, on safe sex practices.

This, because a president was pandering to his base.

With the spread of Corona Virus and in light of the fear of many people, Trump, while not invoking God or claiming it was some form of smiting, referred to what was happening as a “hoax” saying at a rally where thousands of people were gathered in close quarters,

 “One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it.’”

He ended this statement with,

“They tried the impeachment hoax, and this is their new hoax.”

But he wasn’t finished politicizing a potential health crises by further ranting,

“The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. We have 15 people in this massive country, and because of the fact Pumpkins are rich in zinc and boosts testosterone. purchase cheap cialis As secretworldchronicle.com cialis no prescription people get older the aspects can become more scientific. So what is the difference between the Chinese percolate and the normal brew we use to have? All the levitra samples non-herbal ones are derived from leaves of the Camellia sinesis plant. While surgical procedures involve fitting a mechanical facility to enable people get a good erection or working of a blood glucose meter, lancet and test strip and the keeping of accurate records of your test is acceptable, making sure that you are not eating a heavy viagra generika meal which could lead to nausea and vomiting due to the full stomach and exercise. that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that. We’re doing great. Our country is doing great.”

A hoax can be ignored.

For the second time in my life a Republican president is misleading the gullible in the country to accept that a threat to all of us is not a real threat, and, we saw what happened the last time this was done.

Then it was God’s will; now it is the lying Democrats.

As he was misleading his audience there were four reported “community spread” cases identified in the U.S., and that means the point of exposure to the virus is unknown. This would mean the number of cases Trump cited is lower than reality, consistent with his actions with the deaths in Puerto Rico after it was hit by Hurricane Maria when a low death count was preferred to the reality because the lower number implied effectiveness.

In response to the Ebola threat the Obama administration appointed a single official to be in charge of coordinating the response across the government. Trump tweeted at the time that Obama was foolish appointing someone with little experience, so when his time came, to show how foolish such a move was, after being too slow to appoint someone to manage the US response to the virus, and having dismantled the existing response team, he appointed Mike Pence who prefers religion over science.

Despite the president’s claims otherwise, criticism of the administration’s Corona Virus response is not about a  partisan hoax, but a bipartisan effort to ensure the country is ready to face the new virus.

Both Congressional Democrats and Republicans have called the Trump administration’s $2.5 billion in response to the outbreak inadequate. As Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama said at a hearing,

“So money should not be an object. We should try to contain and eradicate this as much as we can.”

Apparently a Republican has bought into the Democratic hoax?

While other countries have stepped up their response to the virus by, among other things implementing mandatory quarantines in some communities and banning gatherings of more than 5,000 people, our guy holds a rally, brags about its size, and then downplays the seriousness if a health crisis.

Reagan would be proud.

And while he assures us that things will get better with warm April weather and that a miracle is possible, Trump claims he has things under control as,

“We’ll just keep doing a good job. We’re ordering a lot of supplies, we’re ordering a lot of elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering if it wasn’t something like this.”

And at the same time he assures his supporters that he would be doing an even better job, if not the Democrats.

He ignored an actual doctor in his cabinet who might be able call on his contacts to assemble a strong response team in favor of his vice-president who has yet to do anything other than praise Trump at every opportunity and who tacitly accepts Trump’s opinion that the crisis is a hoax, and who prefers thoughts and prayers over science.

As in the 1980s, we are in good Republican hands

One of the difficulties that “trail blazers” have beyond the inherent difficulty in being one, are the expectations and requirements of the spectators who will benefit from the work of others, like the arm chair quarterbacks, who are quick with demands as if the trail blazer were somehow an employee with set obligations, instead of a person who, most likely, is trying to right wrongs they oppose as an unpaid volunteer.

Statistics show that most progress is made by individuals and not large national organizations who generally join in after the fact or just before progress is realized, or are formed after to safeguard it.

They constantly engage in what my mother called the “shoo-dos”, without bothering to get into the fray or helping. For those who don’t know what the “shoo-dos” are, they are those never ending strings of telling a person what they should do from a safe position while holding the person they are making demands of accountable to them.

Recently, Pete Buttigieg was scheduled to make an appearance in a Gay bar in Rhode Island. People were pumped for this. There was excitement that the first openly Gay candidate for president was going to appear locally. But, while people were all stoked, as events transpired, it became clear that there was a bit of a disconnect when it came to the reality of an openly Gay candidate from Mike Pence’s state of Indiana as compared to the situation of those living in a progressive New England state.

In the neighboring state of Massachusetts, from which many of the patrons of that bar come, the law “bestowing” equal rights on Gay people was passed in 1989. In the early 1990s, not only was a law passed that intended to eliminate, or at least reduce the incidents of bullying Gay kids in schools by requiring school systems to establish clear policies and procedures to that end and mandatory professional development for teachers on the subject, but an office was also established in the State House to monitor progress and supply information and guidance. In the next decade the state became the first to accept marriage equality.

The older generations who had fought perhaps for their whole adult lives saw what they worked for brought to fruition, while those who had just accepted the conditions as they had been, enjoyed any progress made, and those born in the 1980s inherited the benefits of their work without having experienced the conditions before these things were achieved.

A Gay person born in 1980 would have gotten their rights by the age of 9, before they would have been old enough to have experienced discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. Before they hit middle school where most bullying begins, the state was already dealing with it so the chance of experiencing it was greatly reduced. By the average age most people are prepared to settle down and get married, Massachusetts became the first state to establish marriage equality allowing them the 300 or so civil benefits that come with it, things like uncontested inheritance, shared health insurance policies, hospital visitations, certain financial arrangements etc.

Conditions may not have become perfect, but they certainly became better by a long shot.

Much of what other places are still fighting to get, have been part of life here for any Gay person under 40.

Pete is a presidential candidate, and, although he is not running for that purpose, he is an involuntary representative of all Gay people subjected to society’s microscope with many looking through its lens just waiting for the mistake that will be applied to all Gay people and will be met with the pronouncement, “See? Typical”.

He is not running to be the Gay President, but the president who is Gay.

Any misstep could be magnified for political and religious reasons, and these will be applied to all Gay people who will get Men often don’t realize that they are making mistakes in bed which turns off their partner. viagra prescription buy But turning down of a man canadian viagra no prescription in the bedroom and are suffering from impotence, you are not alone. Successful Graphic cialis canadian prices outline fills a man to go after the item or feel attracted to it. Great usefulness- You always buy a medicine for levitra price effectiveness on the condition named erectile dysfunction. angry with him if that happens.

The bar in which he was to appear and speak is a popular one with campy features like penis shaped door handles and poles for pole dancers, not, by the way, ”stripper poles”. It seems obvious how, regardless of anything else like a huge crowd, large financial contributions, or a fantastic speech, those with the desire to could ignore the greater reality and stress the poles and door handles and associate Mayor Pete with those.

Because of this, the pre-appearance team, scoping out the venue of the popular bar, cancelled his appearance.

The blow back was immediate as some claimed the cancellation played into the prejudicial attitudes of the anti-Gay crowd, while ignoring the objects that could be seen by anyone who wanted to check out the venue and then misuse to misrepresent.

It was berated as a betrayal without considering the broader motivation for the cancellation.

As Mayor Pete is not from this progressive stronghold with its insular, provincial idea of what life is like for Gay people throughout the United States where there would have been no problem, his actions as a Gay man, both good and bad, would be and are applied universally to all Gay people, so besides the pressure of running for president and defending policy plans, there is the added pressure of not making life more negative for Gay people not living in a place with its insular, provincial idea of what life is like for Gay people throughout the United States.

As if it were a legitimate comparison, some people compared Mayor Pete in this instance to Bernie Sanders’s appearance at a Drag Brunch in June 2016 at Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood, apparently to show that Bernie is more in tune with the Gay Community than Pete is.

But Bernie is straight, and there is a certain privilege in that as he is able to go to most places, more than Gay people can in many locations can, and cannot be used as a weapon against a whole class of people. He may be open to criticism for his Democratic Socialist policy plans, but he does not face the two edge sword of his policies and sexual orientation. Where he can be attacked for ideas, those attacks, unlike with Mayor Pete, aren’t and cannot be wrongly and politically applied to a community that includes roughly 10% of the population by those looking for any excuse to oppress Gay people and deny them their humanity and Constitutional rights.

Even the article that praised Bernie’s appearance, along with the tweets it included from star struck patrons, contained one sentence that showed a certain bias and may have unwittingly passed on a misrepresentation of what a Drag Brunch is and who attends. Where Drag Queens entertain attendees of all races, both Gay and Straight, at such an event, the article said that Bernie was there “to watch some drag queens perform and eat brunch”.

It may have been a poorly constructed sentence, but whether Bernie ate, or only Drag Queens were there eating while Bernie watched, is left up to the reader to decide, and while some may see this one way, whether positive or neutral, there are those who will warp it to fit their agenda.

In their minds Sir David Attenborough might be heard narrating, ”and here we see gathered that elusive creature, the Drag Queen, as they gather to eat brunch.”

Face it. There would be a different and less communally negative interpretation to a straight man’s being at a place with dance poles and penis shaped door handles than would be afforded a Gay man whose actions are too routinely applied to a community of people.

To me, the offenses are not Pete’s seeing a larger picture. They are the instances of a rather internalized homophobia which has some Gay people, and some very vocal ones at that, looking for any slip up or peccadillo on his part to keep it all comfortably straight; assessments of whether or not he is Gay enough, something that depends on individual opinions passed off as more representative than they actually are; and this annoying practice of thinking, because someone might see the need for change and takes it upon himself to attempt to bring it about, he is an employee bound to meet our expectations and demands, or receive a bad employee evaluation and our opprobrium.

With the help of Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Trump has assembled lists of government officials that he plans to remove and replace with trusted pro-Trumpers.

 “I don’t think it’s a big problem. I don’t think it’s very many people.”

He wants “people who are good for the country, loyal to the country,” although as has been seen before he equates loyalty to country with loyalty to him.

Ever since the Republican senate followed through with their pledge to acquit him at his impeachment trial,he seems to have become obsessed withthe “Deep State”, those in his administration from Justice to State to Defense to Homeland Security that he thinks are “Never Trumpers”.

He wants them fired and replaced ASAP.

He is convinced that people within his administration, some very close,are undermining him.

 Johnny McEntee, the 29-year-old who was fired in 2018 by then-Chief of Staff John Kelly because his gambling debts could make him a target for blackmail, but was recently rehired to a position as head the presidential personnel office, held a meeting of White House liaisons from cabinet agencies in which he askedthem to identify political appointees in their agencies who are “never Trumpers”. He told then that those identified as anti-Trump will no longer get promotions, and this would be accomplished by transferring them around agencies.

We have already seen this Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman who testified during the impeachment inquiry that Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “improper”, the firing of U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland who also testified, while loyalists Hope Hicks and Johnny McEtee were rehired, and Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, got a major promotion to Acting Director of National Intelligence, a position in which he has no experience.

Obviously President Queeg’s paranoia has been increase after his senate aquital.

A lot of people are being quite unfair to Mike Pence by claiming he hasn’t the experience with pandemics and virus based illnesses to have been appointed the Corona virus Tzar.

But, he has had experience dealing with illnesses and what he has done in that area must be remembered..

He has had experience with public health issues. That cannot be denied

In 2013, Pence’s first year as governor of Indiana, Scott County’s one Planned Parenthood clinic, the county’s only HIV testing center, closed as a result of his congressional actions that led to defunding Planned Parenthood.  24,000 residents had no place to get tested, and, considering that 20% of them live below poverty level and Injection drug  use is a major problem, the risk of HIV outbreak increased.

By 2015 reports of increased HIV cases linked to intravenous prescription opioid use in Scott County were coming in, but worse, people were not getting tested.

With those who were getting tested, there were 20 new cases being diagnosed each week implying there were a number of additional people exposed to HIV who did not know it.

Considering the connection between exposure to HIV and the reuse of needles, a smart move would have been a needle exchange program, but Pence had an objection to such a program on the grounds that they supported drug abuse.

The sheriff of Scott County contacted Pence as the number of cases in the county reached 90, and, although he himself was no supporter of needle exchanges, told him,

 “I believe the only thing we can do to stop or slow this thing is to get clean needles out there.”

Preventing those with an addiction from getting new needles forces them to reuse and share needles. Making clean needles won’t entice people to start injecting drugs, but it can help control a virus that could affect those far away from users.

It took Pence four months to look at the situation medically and not politically or religiously, and a temporary needle exchange program was finally allowed, and as a result the situation was brought under a certain degree of control.

In that four months, however, 200 people contracted HIV.

Basically, during the time he was governor, 2013 to 2017, Pence oversaw what he had created, the worst HIV outbreak in Indiana’s history.

This makes Trump’s words when crowning Pence the Corona Virus Tzar,

“I’m going to be putting our vice president, Mike Pence, in charge. And Mike will be working with the professionals. Mike is going to be in charge, and Mike will report back to me… He’s got a certain talent for this,”

somewhat ironic.

Even a Fox News contributor saw this saying,

“Mike Pence is not a scientist, he’s not a doctor, he’s not someone who believes really in science. And I don’t believe that he should be in charge of this of anywhere near the forefront and that is a big concern.”

According to the GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Donald Trump mostly avoids rich people, AND would much rather hang out with blue-collar workers than wealthy people.

“If you ever go on a project with him, where he’s building a building, he is more in contact with those who are building it than who’s buying it. That’s the uniqueness about him. He’d rather hang out with everyone who builds the building than whoever buys the room from him.”

Apparently, perhaps, never having been to a building site, McCarthy is unaware that while a hotel, office building, apartment building, or even a simple house is being built, the people who will be there are the people building it, not the people who are going to buy or rent it. Those people show up later when the builders aren’t there anymore.

To join Mar-a-Lago it costs $200,000 and then comes a required annual dues of $14,000.

Recently he attended a fund raiser as the guest of honor at the Palm Beach home of billionaire investor Nelson Peltz that cost more than A case in point is the medication that inhibits the enzyme phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE-5) that brings to failure during sexual viagra generika intercourse. It is possible only with order cialis online over here online. The discounts can further reduce the cost of any item. lowest viagra price http://raindogscine.com/?attachment_id=31 Web chemists give plenty of options cialis generika to choose from. $580,000 per couple, and was attended by his rich friends.

These are the people he pals around with, and although there are workers at Mar a Lago and there were workers at the fundraiser, who did Trump most likely speak with?

How many working class people can join Mar a Lago, or could have attended the fund raiser?

How many blue collar, working class people does he hang out with at his golf outings?

At one of the biggest gatherings of working class people, NASCAR, he might have been driven around the track in his limo waving at the crowd, but only if those people could get in, they would have been at his rally that night where he could speak at them not with them.

While we are being distracted by our fixation on how much Trump spends on his golf outings ($129,621,903 as of 02/15/2020), we have not been watching the real scandal—cheesecake.

Now, I love cheesecake.

Not the ones that have fancy flavors, are smothered with various types of berries, or are somewhat just too light and creamy, but the solid type with the slightest hint of a merely dusted on Graham Cracker crust, with no frills or those “drizzles” that are supposed to make things Gourmet.

My favorite was Baby Watson that you could get for a while at the Quincy Market in Boston. They were the size and shape of a pound cake, had no crust, came in a foil pan, were thicker than peanut butter, and weighed a ton.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer also loves cheese cake, and it was recently discovered that over a 10 year period he has spent roughly $9,000 on them.

The Federal Election Commission filings revealed Chuckie Cheesecake Schumer spent $8,600 on cheesecake from Junior’s, a restaurant in Brooklyn.

He unabashedly admitted his miscreant abandon with a full throated, “Guilty as charged,” attempting to excuse his behavior by claiming,

 “I love Junior’s cheesecake so much. It’s the best cheesecake in the world. It is made in Brooklyn. I’ve been going to Junior’s since I’ve been a little boy. And it’s my guilty pleasure.” 

Schumer even bore down on by further admitting that he sometimes gives the cheesecakes out as gifts or to settle bets.

 Cheese pro quo.  

FEC filings show that Schumer’s political action committee had 93 entries for Junior’s cheesecake from 2009 to 2016 with payments ranging from $46 to $516.45, and listed as “supporter acknowledgments.” 

The “Original NY Plain Cheesecake”, the top seller at Junior’s, goes for $43.95, which means that, according to the amount he admitted to have spent, Schumer bought 197 cheesecakes.

That makes a splurge of 19 cheesecakes a year on average

And the deep state only tells us about golf trips

In response to the discovery that two years ago the anti-immigrant, build-the-wall, look-at-me-Mr. President sheriff of Bristol County, Massachusetts,Thomas Hodgson, had sent emails to Steven Miller about information on a table at the entrance of the church he attends, if standing at the back of the church with the ushers can be called attending mass, letting anyone stopped by ICE how to interact with agents, many faith leaders in the county wrote a letter to the local newspapers defending the presence of the information cards, and objecting to the sheriff’s spying on their churches, as he claimed two years ago he intended to do.

Their main objections were to his suggestion that church leaders of any faith were doing something illegal that warranted suspicion and possible surveillance, since advising members of a congregation on their rights and obligations before the law is legal, and doing this was based on their sacred texts that encourage them to “give shelter to those fleeing persecution, disasters and famine”, and “to nurture the sick, the indigent, the homeless, the poor, the wayfarer, the imprisoned, and to give succor to those who ask for forgiveness and pardon”.

They made it clear that they do not encourage illegal behavior, and that their places of worship are sacrosanct, and their houses of worship, as has been the case throughout the millennia, can also be sanctuaries for those in need.

They also expressed gratitude and admiration for those congregations which offer hospitality, accommodation and tolerance for those who are fleeing real danger and persecution.

Then, reaffirming the inviolability of their houses of worship, they declared their “right to be safe in our faith.”

This reliance on their religious freedom did not sit well with the sheriff, and his response was in character.

He responded in a letter to the same paper beginning with his mantra, “As Sheriff of Bristol County, my No. 1 charge is public safety,” claiming that this was his motivation behind communicating with a White House official about literature relative to “ICE and Immigration”.

As he usually does, he misrepresented the information on the cards as “literature regarding law enforcement and immigration” when in reality it advised all immigrants, legal and otherwise in a county with a large number of immigrants, how to respond to a knock on their door, being in a place that ICE raids, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time so as not to complicate a simple encounter because of uncertainty or panic.

     The problems with the Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson’s February 19, 2020 response to the letter of the faith leaders who objected to his secretly reporting churches to the White House for following the tenets of their religions are many and troubling.

      Although he likes to throw out that his job is the safety of the county, he would be best at doing that by running his jails properly, and doing his real job without the spotlight seeking.  Local law enforcement keeps us safe, not his attempts to create an adversarial relationship between local law enforcement and their communities by ICE posing as the police, and spreading cartoonish stereotypes of immigrants to create division in the county between residents.  He states his email was just to inform while he omits that in his email he not only speculates about how widespread such legal information is made available, but that his “undercover units” are prepared to investigate.

     As he stated, “My undercover units are poised and ready for whatever we can do to identify and expedite the arrest and removal of criminal illegal alien. Our discussion regarding a hotline is clearly relevant.”

     Why does a county sheriff have an undercover unit when his job is to run his jails, not patrol streets, pursue suspects, or arrest the same?

How has he been using this unit he claims he has?

    He asks in his letter, “Did I ask the White House to spy on my or any other church? No. Did I say the literature was suspicious? No.”

     He might not have asked the White House “to spy on my or any other churches”, but he certainly volunteered his “undercover unit” to do it.

    In his email, dated August 7, 2017, and sent at 12:41 p.m., he wrote,

“Stephen [Miller], thought you might like to see samples of cards I discovered in a holder at the back of St. Julie’s Church in Dartmouth, MA. While attending mass last Sunday, I noticed a holder on a table near the entrance marked, ‘ICE-Immigration’ and noticed the three stacks of colored cards. Trying to determine if this is an isolated situation or a common occurrence in other parish churches.  I thought it was appropriate to make Washington aware when these things were happening. If these kinds of things are going on in churches, then we should be aware of it.”

     If he didn’t say the literature was suspicious, he certainly acted as if it were, writing to Steven Miller without first talking to the pastor of the church and only then after his emails were uncovered two years later.

     And, once again he promoted the idea that Sanctuary communities across the United States are commonly known as places where illegal immigrants are committing serious crimes, yet, he does not cite statistics, nor does he explain how this applies to Bristol County.

    This is what he always does. He makes statements whose strength is merely that he makes them. Why bother with fact?

     He claimed that it is harder for the undocumented to be apprehended by law enforcement, but this could be because they are not doing anything that warrants it. If a person is here illegally, staying in the shadows would protect them from deportation, something that committing crimes would make difficult.

    And if it is all about places where illegal immigrants are committing serious crimes, why are most places raided by ICE places where people are working legitimate jobs during work hours?

  Are we to assume, without his citing statistics, not individual, isolated incidents, and usually the same ones, that invisible crime is being committed among us, but in spite of their number and severity, we just don’t notice them?

     Some of the safest cities in the country are in Massachusetts like Newton, Northhampton, and Orleans, and they are sanctuary communities,.

Finally his misrepresenting what his job actually is, and how desperate he is to make it something it is not is encapsulated in this gem from his letter,

“Like our faith leaders, I too have an obligation to save and protect souls, but in a different way as a law enforcement professional.”

     No, his job is to run his jails, the majority of inmates in which have yet to have their day in court and are, therefore, innocent until proven guilty. He is not some anointed faith leader doing the Lord’s work.

    When a county sheriff whose job is to run two jails has an undercover unit, spreads falsehoods about people in the county to promote a political agenda and himself, makes broad statements without facts to back them, reports churches to Steven Miller for following the tenets of their religious beliefs , and then goes so far as to present his job in religious terms where he claims his obligation is to save souls, it is time for change.

These are the final names from my crew lists. According to an ancient Egyptian belief, a person is immortal as long as someone can say their name. I have read each of these names as I typed them, and now you have read some or, perhaps, all of them, thereby helping to keep these mostly unknown people alive. This list exists in cyber-space on my blog, in my original file, and, eventually, on the international whaling history site. And you can read them just by going to my blog whenever you want to.