Top 10 Conservative Idiots #8-15: Just What Dr. Trump Ordered Edition

[Top 10 Idiots]

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #8-15: Just What Dr. Trump Ordered Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! What’s up everyone? We’re stuck inside another week while this virus lingers throughout the atmosphere. But we’re making the most of it. And we also thank you for sticking with us in this trying time. We do have plans to come back better than ever during the 9th season when we will be taking a look at Joe Biden’s road to the White House. Yeah how exciting is that? This could be our first real shot at taking down Trump. I cannot wait until that happens. Do we have time for the thing? First off today is national superhero day – who is your favorite superhero? I know my answer would easily be Iron Man, though I would take a page for the Incredible Hulk and Bruce Banner. Then you got to add Dr. Strange, Captain America, Thor, the whole Avengers lineup really. Of course with the new Black Widow movie being delayed for obvious reasons, we will have to wait to get some female superheroes. But I also can’t wait for Wonder Woman 1984 in August, that should hopefully breathe some life into the dismal and non-existent box office ratings. I do remember that we used to have these things called movie theaters where you would pay money to go watch a movie on a really large screen with a really awesome sound system and you would . I can’t wait to get those back. Argh, life under quarantine sucks balls. OK enough of the intro, we have a lot of idiocy to get to but first Bill Maher is back and he outlines the grim conditions we treat our food supply with that gave us COVID:

Well another week, another home show for the time being. So where do we begin this week? In the number one slot this week is of course Donald J. Trump (1) and just when you thought he couldn’t possibly get any dumber, he recommends that people go out and inject bleach and inhale Lysol to cure the virus because, reasons. In the number 2 slot this week is Mitch McConnell (2) and he is essentially taking the culture war up a notch and telling blue states to go fuck themselves and declare bankruptcy, despite that blue states are working with red states. In the number 3 slot this week we’re going to do our due diligence on when the economy should reopen. There’s many sides to this debate and well, we have no clear answer because right now the virus is in charge. And unless it goes anywhere, we’re stuck at home for the foreseeable future. Taking the fourth slot this week, is Donald Trump Supporters (4) and in a time when it’s absolutely critical to listen to science and experts, they want to do the opposite and flat out fire Dr. Fauci. Yeah they’re insane. Taking the fifth slot this week, is of course our weekly investigative piece Top 10 Investigates (5) and this week we’re going to take a look at vaccines for the coronavirus and what you can expect as they get deployed. In the number 6 slot this week is of course our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in “Holy Shit” (6) and this week, our resident pastor is going to look at the brewing Holy War on Social Distancing. Really, religion is going to make this thing that much worse. At slot #7 – is a new “Beating A Dead Horse” and why are we over celebrities? This is a weird phenomenon trending on social media, but nobody knows where it originated from, and we will get to the bottom of it! Taking the 8th slot this week – we add Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp (8) to the ever-growing list of People Who Somehow Got Elected, and we have a lot of those lately! For the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot this week, we have a new I Need A Drink, and this week we’re having some drinks and discussing how the hell someone swiped a rare Van Gogh painting while the whole country of France is in lockdown! Yes, that happened! Finally this week, we have Stupidest State Round 2 Week 2! This week it’s a Family Values faceoff as #1 Alabama takes on #4 Indiana for a spot to play Florida in the Final Four! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

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[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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Mark it down: 4/23/20. That is the day that the President Of The United States, in his trying and infinite wisdom, simply stopped giving a flying fuck. See, we at the Top 10 have been tracking Trump’s exploits since he first wormed his way down that golden escalator way back in 2015, which by today’s standards, literally seems like an eternity ago. Remember civilization? I miss those times. But last week, he crossed the line and just stopped caring about us. Remember that in November, kids. Want a president who will be at your side? Vote Biden. Want a president who will bring about the apocalypse and then not give a shit about you? Then vote Trump. Because here’s what you get with a Donald J. Trump presidency as opposed to a president who actually listens to experts.

Presented with incontrovertible evidence that Donald Trump is stupid and clueless and that the American people should not follow his advice, reporters and editors in America's top newsrooms averted their eyes.

Home delivery subscribers to the Washington Post, for instance, wouldn't have a clue that Trump on Thursday evening proposed injecting patients with disinfectants to see if they would kill the coronavirus in lungs, as they do on the kitchen counter. There was no mention of it in the print edition.

Yes, Trump actually asked, after hearing a presentation on how bleach and rubbing alcohol can kill the virus on surfaces: "Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because, you see, it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that."

Is there a stupider, more dangerous thing he could possibly say? Could he possibly give a clearer indication that he is manifestly unfit to lead the nation during a public health crisis? Small children know better than this.
https://www.salon.com/2020/04/24/dont-drink-the-bleach-why-is-the-elite-press-still-covering-for-trumps-profound-stupidity/

Yes, poison control is higher than number one! But really we have a president who’s a fucking sitcom character. He is the kind of character who’s the annoying neighbor who is constantly looking for his next get rich quick scheme, and then when said scheme backfires on him, he desperately wants to get a “get out of jail free” card. And that’s what this is. But like all things that happen, actions have consequences.

Illinois Poison Control has seen an uptick in calls since President Donald Trump questioned if injecting disinfectant could cure coronavirus.

Dr. Nogzi Ezike, head of the Illinois Department of Public Health, warned people not to try to use cleaning products on or in their bodies to fight coronavirus. She also said Illinois Poison Control has gotten more callers after Trump’s Thursday comments.

“Injecting, ingesting, snorting household cleaners is dangerous. It is not advised and can be deadly,” Ezike said during a Saturday press conference. “In the past two days, there’s been a significant increase in calls to the Illinois Poison Center compared to the same time last year.”

The governor’s office did not immediately provide numbers showing how large an uptick there has been.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/04/25/illinois-poison-control-gets-more-calls-after-trump-incorrectly-wondered-if-disinfectants-can-fight-coronavirus/

Yeah exactly Trump is Newman in this case! His scheme to peddle hydroxychloroquine is backfiring on him, now he’s suggesting that people simply drink bleach. And never mind that bleach packages have giant warning labels on them, and Rob Gronkowski did a commercial to remind people not to eat Tide Pods (see: Top 10 #4-2). But no, we have a president who is telling people to drink bleach.

A talk radio caller suggested vaping bleach as a possible treatment for coronavirus, and conservative host Jeff Kuhner assured him the recommendation wasn’t crazy.

The caller, who identified himself as Zack from Stoughton, called into Boston’s WRKO-AM on Friday morning to talk about President Donald Trump’s dangerous suggestion to use disinfectants or powerful light internally to treat COVID-19.

“I’ve been thinking about this thing,” Zack began. “I was a smoker for years, I smoked about three packs a day, and I never liked this new vape thing coming out with the nicotine in it, but I also have a bunch of friends with big cleaning companies.”

After hearing an ad on Kuhner’s program offering a disinfecting service during the pandemic, Zack said he started connecting the dots and wondered whether vape pens could deliver bleach and other disinfecting chemicals into infected lungs.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/conservative-radio-host-agrees-with-caller-that-vaping-bleach-might-cure-covid-19-youre-not-crazy/

Seriously, we went from curing polio and exploring the moon to telling people that they shouldn't drink bleach. And after realizing tha Trump is our president and he's spouting this nonsense, it occurred to me, this is why we don't get nice things. That is a huge drop off in the ever ongoing sad state of humanity in 2020. At least this has been good for some cheap laughs, and god knows we need more of that in society to get us through this thing. Even Snoop Dogg is having some laughs at Trump’s expense, and at this point, I’d much rather have Snoop in charge!

Rapper Snoop Dogg shared a depiction of President Donald Trump drinking bleach on Instagram, following the president's suggestion that maybe disinfectant may be used to treat the virus, via injection.

During a press briefing on Thursday, Trump suggested that ultraviolet light or disinfectant maybe used to treat COVID-19. "And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?" he said, according to BBC. "So it'd be interesting to check that."

Snoop was one of many people to show his skepticism for the disinfectant treatment. The image Snoop shared showed Trump pouring a giant bottle of Clorox right into his mouth. He said that he thought if Trump or his supporters tried it first, maybe then he'd give it a shot. "Aight u go first then ya voters and I'll be here waiting to c [sic] how y'all feel before I go under my kitchen sink for some bleach," he wrote in the caption.

Granted, Trump did qualify his statement by saying that he wasn't a doctor. "I'm not a doctor. But I'm, like, a person that has a good you-know-what," he said.
https://www.newsweek.com/snoop-dogg-trump-drinking-bleach-1500073

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[font size="8"]Restarting The Economy
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It’s no secret that the coronavirus has just annihilated our way of life. Business has grinded to a halt, as has all domestic and international travel. There’s no events of any kind being held. There’s no school, people can’t return to their jobs safely. Retail, construction, and restaurants are feeling the pain of the virus. People are getting restless and stir crazy not being able to leave their houses. So what do you do? How do you reopen the economy? Let’s use the model from the magazine of choice from my youth – Highlights For Children. Most particularly the comic strip Goofus and Gallant. There’s the Gallant way of reopening the economy – doing things the smart and safe way. And then there’s the Goofus way – doing things reactionary and stupidly. Considering the way things are going, we have way more Goofuses than Gallants in this country.

Today California governor Gavin Newsom and Department of Public Health leader Dr. Sonia Angell outlined a broad plan to reopen the state’s economy, including the limited reintroduction of in-room dining for restaurants and other openings for non-essential businesses like manufacturing, childcare facilities, retail, and even gyms and hair salons. Newsom continued to decline to give an official reopening date, but noted that “we believe we are weeks, not months away, from making meaningful modifications” to the state’s stay-at-home directive.

Newsom outlined four broad phases that California is working through during the current coronavirus pandemic, saying that the current lockdown represents phase one. “As we move into phase two, where businesses can begin to reopen,” Newsom said, “we need to make sure that guidance is abided by, and is organized in a very deliberate way.”

Phase two includes lower-risk spaces like restaurants and retail, which could be modified for more consistent curbside pickups and limited physical interactions. As for schools, Newsom said that the state is considering moving up the fall 2020 school year to “July or early August,” with restaurants and retail expected to reopen before that.

It remains crucial to “make the essential workforce environment as safe as possible” for both customers and employees before an official reopening rollout, said Dr. Angell, though she did note some “cautious optimism” with the current flattening of the curve statewide. Part of that safety included the continued practice of physical distancing, wearing face masks, and wage security for those employees who fall ill while still employed.
https://la.eater.com/2020/4/28/21240193/california-governor-gavin-newsom-economy-business-reopening-news-los-angeles-coronavirus

So that’s how Gallant does things – and we’ve even had two more states join our coalition. In fact multiple states are making pacts out there since nobody can rely on the guy who we call president to get any jobs done. While we’re waiting for the worst of this virus to subside, it will be interesting to see how things slowly get back to normal. But we won’t be jumping in the deep end just yet. It will be a gradual progression.

Colorado and Nevada on Monday became the latest states to join California, Oregon and Washington in the Western States Pact, a working group of Western state governors that will coordinate how to reopen from the stay-at-home orders each has issued to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

"There's no silver bullet that will solve this pandemic until there is a cure, so we must have a multifaceted and bold approach in order to slow the spread of the virus, to keep our people safe and help our economy rebound," Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said in a statement on Monday.

Nevada Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak echoed that message, saying he "believe(s) the sharing of critical information and best practices on how to mitigate the spread, protect the health and safety of our residents and reopen responsibly will be invaluable as we chart our paths forward."

The inclusion of Colorado and Nevada in the Western States Pact bolsters the collaborative approach to reopening embraced by Democratic governors across the country.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/colorado-nevada-western-states/index.html

This is how Gallant does things. We all want things to get back to normal. We all want to get back to the plans we had before this nightmare pandemic happened. I get it, we all get it! Now let’s see how Goofus does things. If anything this is going to have more of a long term effect than if we just stayed put. Hey, the sooner we get rid of this awful POS virus the better. But don’t do what Goofus does.

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said during an interview Tuesday that Governor Brian Kemp's decision to reopen businesses was "dangerously incompetent and deeply callous."

Citing the right-to-work nature of employment throughout the state, Abrams said during the interview, conducted by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, that low-wage workers in particular would risk forfeiting their jobs if they passed up opportunities to resume work during the coronavirus outbreak.

"We're telling the most vulnerable people in our society, 'You can either work or you can lose your life,'" said Abrams, a Democrat. "We are putting them at risk, and we're putting their families at risk."

Last week, Georgia became the first state to begin lifting widespread restrictions imposed during the pandemic. Tattoo parlors, gyms, bowling alleys and salons were permitted to reopen last Friday, and movie theaters were allowed to reopen Monday. Although restaurants could also begin serving dine-in patrons this week, more than 120 around the state have said they don't plan to resume dine-in operations just yet.
https://www.newsweek.com/stacey-abrams-says-decision-reopen-georgia-was-dangerously-incompetent-deeply-callous-1500787

See Georgia??? You could have had Stacy Abrams as your governor and she would keep your safety in mind, but no, you had to go and elect the jackass. Because by not listening to experts, here’s what you are going to get. Rather than completely flattening this curve, you’re going to keep it going for the next several months, possibly years. So yeah don’t be like Goofus.

As some Southeastern US states start to reopen, Georgia is projected to see its number of daily Covid-19 deaths nearly double by early August, according to a model shared by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and created by independent researcher Youyang Gu.

The epidemiological model, which provides projections for 40 countries and every US state, has been included among the seven models CDC highlights on its website for Covid-19 forecasting.

Gu said Tuesday that his model is based on an epidemiological methodology called SEIS, which stands for susceptible, exposed, infectious, susceptible modeling.

"We use a very classic epidemiologic model," Gu said, adding that his model is updated daily and he is concerned other models are under-projecting deaths.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/health/georgia-coronavirus-death-projections/index.html

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[font size="8"]The War On Experts
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Welcome to an America that’s under far right religious conservative control. Experts in their respective fields do not need application. We don’t need no stinking public health experts or doctors to guide us out of a pandemic. We need prayer warriors and the MyPillow guy. Never mind that places like New Zealand or Germany or South Korea – which are led by people who know things like science, are close to having this beast fully contained. But oh no, not here in the States. Here in the US, you can be a breeder of Labradoodles one day and then be the US pandemic expert the next. I believe this is the concept known as “failing upward”.

(CNN)A former Labradoodle breeder, an internet thug and a college senior walk into the White House.

This may sound like the set-up of a joke. During the pandemic, however, with the US death toll passing 50,000, these actual administration officials are a grim reminder that we shouldn't expect much from the Trump administration.

Any remaining hope of competency within the Trump administration may have been dashed on Thursday when President Donald Trump mused about using sunlight or injections of disinfectant as Covid-19 treatments (DO NOT DO THIS).

While Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator, did shoot down Trump's bizarre ideas during the news conference, other members of the Trump team have not inspired much confidence.
Brian Harrison, who serves as the chief of staff to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, was tasked with handling the department's virus response in January.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/25/opinions/white-house-pandemic-team-labradoodle-breeder-dantonio/index.html

Hey maybe the repo men will get jobs as Trump’s new commerce secretary! Gee is it any wonder why we’re fucked for the foreseeable future? If we had competent leadership, imagine what we could accomplish in our war on this horrible virus! So let’s explore this clusterfuck for a minute. In America – unqualified professionals can get qualified for extremely dangerous jobs, like sheriffs could be used car salesman, or drive thru laborers can be coroners. That’s how this happened.

The unfortunate thing about the Trump administration, beyond the nepotism, incompetence, mass corruption, idiot kids, white nationalism, wholesale assault on the concept of truth, and pure evil, is that oftentimes it’s beyond parody. For instance, we already knew the federal government’s response to the coronavirus crisis has been catastrophically bad, from the months of insisting the virus was fake news, to a criminal lack of early—and current!—testing, to listening to Dr. Jared Kushner’s advice on the matter, to pushing for a dangerously premature reopening of the country. But despite everything we know, it would just be too much to learn that, at one point, a dog breeder was running the administration’s coronavirus task force. And yet!

Reuters reports the nearly impossible-to-believe news that back in January, Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar “tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19.” The aide was Brian Harrison, 37, and the move was somewhat surprising, given that prior to joining the administration in 2018 as Azar’s deputy chief of staff, he spent six years running a company called Dallas Labradoodles, which is not, in fact, some kind of code name for a firm doing cutting-edge medical research or developing vaccines or doing anything remotely related to humans. Instead, Dallas Labradoodles, which Harrison sold for $225,000 in April 2018, pretty much does exactly what you’d expect: sells Australian Labradoodles, which are a cross between poodles and Labrador retrievers. Which are actually quite cute dogs! They are supposedly “friendly, social, loyal, loving, smart, curious, and happy”! Which is nice for the people adopting them, though less helpful vis-à-vis the pandemic that has killed more than 47,000 Americans to date and infected over 850,000! Funny how that works!
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/brian-harrison-dog-breeder-coronavirus

Except that it’s really not that impossible. This is America, we are a land of fuck ups! And we’ve been that land of fuck ups since 1980, even more so going into 2020! Yeah sure, we had some bright spots here and there, but the fact remains that we really fucked up on this one. And by we, I mean the Trump administration, he has a history of hiring shitty experts. Shit, even Mitch McConnell thinks this is a bad idea!

Even Mitch McConnell seems to think it'd be wise for President Trump to scale back his time behind the White House podium. The Senate majority leader said Monday that it would "probably be a good idea" to focus coronavirus briefings on public health experts, rather than the president, whose fact-challenged scientific claims often steal the spotlight.

Fox News Radio's Guy Benson asked McConnell if it would be "wise" for the White House's coronavirus briefings to be shortened, or to not have the president show up every day.

"Well, certainly what the American people are most interested in is the advice from health professionals about how to conduct their daily lives safely," McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told Fox News Radio. "To the extent that the White House decides to re-craft those briefings to reflect that goal — would probably be a good idea."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-coronavirus-briefings-health-experts-mcconnell/

Trump, you’re a leader! It is your job to lead! You’re here for us, we are not here for you! And leaders are supposed to lead by listening to people that know shit! They don’t listen to a guy who hawks ridiculously cheap pillows on late night infomercials! So why is any medical or public health professional putting up with his bullshit?

Does President Donald Trump not know that people will believe him when he speaks from the White House podium? Does he not care?

He has made clear, again, that he either doesn't understand the concept of science or doesn't care about it. Both options are bad.

He's the President. That's not changing for at least nine months, and maybe not for another four years. But now he's making up medicine (see below).

Even if you can believe his attempt to say his bad medicine was actually sarcasm (but, really, you shouldn't), let's all agree the time for sarcasm ended sometime around the time the pandemic happened.

Should all the capable doctors around him resign? He has, at times, listened to them. He criticized the reopening of Georgia earlier this week after a talking-to by Dr. Deborah Birx.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/25/politics/what-matters-april-24/index.html

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[font size="8"]Firing Fauci
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We’re battling two pandemics right now. The first pandemic of course is the dreaded COVID-19 disease that is currently plaguing the landscape. The second pandemic is rampant insanity with an added dose of stupidity! We really are living in Idiocracy right now, and that movie isn’t supposed to be a documentary, either. Do you really try to fire and point fingers at the one guy who’s trying to help save your life? Well, in this upside down Trump world that we are living in, the answer to that question is most easily yes. Because in the minds of the Trumpers, everything is upside down and inside out. Bad is good, night is day, and so on. In fact here’s how this is shaping up right now.

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said in an interview published Tuesday he was not pressured to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after President Donald Trump retweeted a message earlier this month calling for the ouster of America’s top infectious disease expert.

Asked by the health news website Stat whether he was concerned he would have to make an “impossible decision” in the aftermath of the president’s social media post, Collins maintained he was never worried he would be forced to remove Fauci as director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — a position Fauci has held for more than three decades.

“I didn’t actually think that was likely to happen, so no, I don’t think I was worried. And certainly nobody reached out to me at that point,” Collins said, adding that he and Fauci speak by phone every evening. “I don’t think we ever talked about that tweet.”

In recent months, Fauci has become one of the most widely recognized and respected faces of the federal government’s management of the novel coronavirus. His even-keeled, data-focused response to the pandemic has even fostered an ardent fan base, with calls for the 79-year-old immunologist to be named People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” or awarded a Nobel Prize.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/21/faucis-boss-says-wasnt-pressured-to-oust-after-trump-retweet-198036

No, no one is getting fired just yet. But really this is getting to be quite ridiculous. And as we’ve repeatedly said on this program is that Trump is a guy whose bad side you do not want to get on, by any stretch of the imagination. His ass likes getting kissed, like any good mobster, and he will let you know it or not know it.

Asked Monday while appearing on ABC's Good Morning America about protests popping up around the country against local stay-at-home measures, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned such demonstrations may "backfire."

“I think the message is that, clearly, this is something that is hurting from the standpoint of economics, from the standpoint of things that have nothing to do with the virus,” Fauci replied. “But, unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery, economically, is not gonna happen.”

He continued, “If you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re gonna set yourself back. So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it’s going to backfire. That’s the problem.”

Multiple rallies organized through social media have been cropping up last week, and more are planned for this week, deploying thousands of protesters. They all had a common message to governors: relax the strict stay-at-home orders deployed to combat COVID-19.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/20/fauci-warns-coronavirus-orders-protests-may-backfire/5167386002/

Don’t you know that it’s a bad idea to listen to social media protestors? They’ve given us nothing but bad things like the anti-vaccination movement and the Flat Earth Society. These are people who you should not listen to! And don’t listen to their attempts to fire Dr. Fauci – there’s no reason for that under any circumstances. Don’t fire the one guy who’s trying to help! But does Trump even really have the power to do this?

Congress can prevent this: It ought to pass a law stipulating that directors of the centers and research institutes that are part of the National Institutes of Health—officials like Fauci—should be removable only for malfeasance, neglect of office, or incapacity, but not for mere policy differences or politically inconvenient messaging. Similar protections exist for the heads of numerous independent agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission and Social Security Administration. These protections prevent presidential politics from excessively influencing an administrator’s performance.

As it happens, the Supreme Court is supposed to decide a case this term that could make it more difficult for Congress to limit when the president may discharge executive-branch officials to cases of “good cause.” At least since the Reagan administration, opponents of independent agencies have insisted that such restrictions impinge on the executive power vested in the president by Article II of the Constitution. The current dispute focuses on the director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.

Advocates of what’s known as “unitary-executive theory” insist that presidents have constitutionally guaranteed authority to fire all executive officers at will and to command them in how they make policy. Heretofore, the Supreme Court has consistently rejected that argument. The majority of our executive-indulgent Court, however, now likely subscribes to that theory, no matter how grounded in myth it may be. The question is to what degree that majority will consider itself bound by precedent not to destabilize the long list of agencies, including the Federal Reserve System, whose directors are insulated from at-will dismissal.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/protect-dr-fauci/609220/

Yeah but do you really have the hiring and firing power? No? Well Trump doesn’t either. And if you were to do a ven diagram of people who are anti-vaxxers and people who are Trump supporters, well, you’d get a pretty good cross section. As I said, don’t listen to the people who are claiming to Fire Fauci. And quite frankly, don’t listen to Dr. Trump either. This is just what Dr. Trump ordered.

Several dozen people, including anti-vaccine advocates, gathered outside the Capitol building on Saturday in Austin, Texas to protest their state's lockdown policy as the coronavirus continues its spread across the country.

Austin's "You Can't Close America" protest, which featured many signs supportive of President Donald Trump, attracted so-called anti-vaxxers, who propagate disproven conspiracy theories about the alleged dangers of vaccines.

One such protester, who attended the rally with her 7-year-old daughter, told The New York Times she's "not worried about catching the virus" and added that if she or her family did, "I feel that we're healthy enough to fight it."

She held a sign reading, "Make Texas great again! Please open everything!" and her daughter held one reading, "Bill Gates can keep his poison — I'm homeschooled! No mandatory vaccines!!"
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-texas-lockdown-protesters-anti-vaxxers-chant-fire-fauci-2020-4

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[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates: The Vaccine
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It’s time to investigate beyond the headlines! This is Top 10 Investigates!

It’s been 2 months since the coronavirus exploded into a global pandemic. Now the question that’s on everyone’s minds is what is it going to take to cure this thing so we can all get back to our lives the way they were before the pandemic? It’s going to take a global effort to end a global pandemic and that is for absolute certain. But what can happen between now and the time the vaccine is developed? There are currently 78 vaccine projects around the world beginning trials in various phases, with another 37 in development. Not to mention over 100 drugs designed to treat the dreaded coronavirus. But how would such a vaccine work? And what are the ramifications of getting one out in such a short length of time before we have enough time to find out how the world would react to it? Well here’s how it works.

When a new H1N1 influenza virus, known as swine flu, caused a pandemic in 2009, “there was an alarm bell because this was a brand-new H1N1,” Cowling says, and it was very similar to the 1918 killer. Swine flu proved less severe than feared. In part, Krammer says, “we were lucky because the pathogenicity of the virus wasn’t very high.” But another important reason was that six months after the virus appeared, scientists developed a vaccine for it.

Unlike measles or smallpox vaccines, which can confer long-term immunity, flu vaccines offer only a few years of protection. Influenza viruses are slippery, mutating rapidly to escape immunity. As a result, the vaccines must be updated every year and given regularly. But during a pandemic, even a short-term vaccine is a boon. The 2009 vaccine helped to temper a second wave of cases in the winter. As a result, the virus much more rapidly went the way of the 1918 virus, becoming a widely circulating seasonal flu, from which many people are now protected either by flu shots or by antibodies from a previous infection.

Projections about how COVID-19 will play out are speculative, but the end game will most likely involve a mix of everything that checked past pandemics: Continued social-control measures to buy time, new antiviral medications to ease symptoms, and a vaccine. The exact formula—how long control measures such as social distancing must stay in place, for instance—depends in large part on how strictly people obey restrictions and how effectively governments respond. For example, containment measures that worked for COVID-19 in places such as Hong Kong and South Korea came far too late in Europe and the U.S. “The question of how the pandemic plays out is at least 50 percent social and political,” Cobey says.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-covid-19-pandemic-could-end1/

Unfortunately we wont be in the endgame for quite some time. As some have stated we are in the end of the beginning of this trial, there’s still the middle and end of this thing that we have to fight. However, one vaccine in particular is gaining a lot of traction and global attention. That vaccine is being developed at the University Of Oxford in England.

Six monkeys given a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford are said to be coronavirus-free 28 days after sustained exposure to the virus.

The result is a promising early sign for the vaccine, which is also undergoing human trials. A working human version, however, remains months away even in the best-case scenario.

The monkey experiment was carried out in late March by government scientists at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Montana, The New York Times reported Monday.

Six rhesus macaques received a vaccine produced by the Jenner Institute and the Oxford Vaccine Group. They were then exposed to heavy levels of the coronavirus that were known to have previously sickened other monkeys. These monkeys suffered no ill effects, however, and remained healthy at least 28 days later, The Times said.
https://www.businessinsider.com/monkeys-given-new-oxford-vaccine-coronavirus-free-strong-exposure-encouraging-2020-4

Ah if only we could be as lucky as Mr. Burns! But sadly we are not until we find the vaccine for Coronavirus. So while we had the space race in the 60s and the Cold War in the 80s, the 20s have become a war to find a vaccine for a killer virus that is having some severe consequences on how humanity operates. So how does the vaccine work? There’s a whole variety of different vaccines in production but it will take just one that works.

Moderna Inc. MRNA, +1.43% said late Monday its candidate for a coronavirus vaccine will get to be evaluated further. The biotech company said it has submitted a new-drug application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to evaluate the vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, in a more extensive study if supported by safety data from an initial study. The phase 2 study is expected to begin in the second quarter, Moderna said. That will evaluate the safety and any adverse reactions and immune responses of two mRNA-1273 vaccinations given 28 days apart, the company said. Each person participating in the study will be assigned to receive a placebo or different doses of the vaccine candidate, Moderna said. The plan is to enroll 600 healthy adults and older adults in two cohorts, Participants will be followed through 12 months after the second vaccination, Moderna said. "Submitting this (investigative new-drug application) is an important next step in the clinical development of our mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, and we are moving rapidly to potentially address this global health emergency," Moderna's Chief Medical Officer Tal Zaks said in a statement. A third phase could begin in the fall of 2020, the company said. Moderna is one ofnearly two dozen U.S. companies working on a vaccine against COVID-19 as the disease has killed more than 200,000 worldwide.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/modernas-coronavirus-vaccine-candidate-advances-to-next-stage-of-testing-2020-04-27

So while Oxford is leading the charge overseas, companies like Moderna and Johnson and Johnson are leading the charge at home in the USA. But while the news is currently grim, there is a lot of hope for those stemming for a vaccine before the end of the year. The Oxford vaccine continues to be the most promising as it has been developed by people who have experience in this sort of thing. But what does the future hold for this? Only time will tell.

A group of scientists at Oxford University have already begun clinical trials for a coronavirus vaccine, which could be ready by the fall.

Around 1,1000 people so far, who are between the ages of 18 and 55 and have not tested positive for COVID-19, have been enrolled in the trial, which began on April 23.

The study “aims to assess whether healthy people can be protected from COVID-19 with this new vaccine called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19,” according to a press release. The vaccination is made from a “weakened version of a common cold virus,” which affects chimpanzees but “has been genetically changed so that it is impossible for it to grow in humans.”

Researchers hope that after being given the vaccine, the body will be able to “recognize and develop an immune response” to the virus, which will help prevent infection.

So far, vaccines made from the weakened virus “have been given to more than 320 people…and have been shown to be safe” with minimal side effects.
https://people.com/health/oxford-scientists-started-human-trials-coronavirus-vaccine/

That’s it this week for Top 10 Investigates. Good day.

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[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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Gather around my fair brothers and sisters! It’s time to take a seat in the virtual pew and pass the collection plate, for the Holy Church Of The Top 10 has convened and it’s time to remind you that the holiest among us are the most full of:



My fair congregation! You know it’s no secret that our brothers and sisters on the right are preferring the politics and policies of the unholy, ungodly Dark One, whose name shall not be spoken in my church, even if it is online only for the time being! But they seem to be turning this war against the PLAGUE into a holy war! Because why not? What’s a war without some good old fashioned fire and brimstone religion injected into it? Even if the war we are fighting is against an invisible enemy? Well certain groups are going all out in their propaganda machines! Because then you hear crazy shit like this:

Religious-right supporters of President Donald Trump have been adding their voices to the right-wing protests calling on governors to “reopen” states by easing restrictions on businesses and public gatherings, while deflecting responsibility for the spread of the virus and the economic consequences away from Trump. Christian nationalist political operative David Lane joined the fray in over the weekend in a column for Charisma decrying “unelected government bureaucrats, selected ‘experts,’ doomsday soothsayers, computer models and a frenzied media” for what he characterized as “overreach” in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Lane devoted much of his column to reprinting something written April 18 by Steve Riggle, a Houston, Texas-based pastor. Unlike many of the right-wing protests, which initially targeted Democratic governors, Riggle had harsh words for the very conservative governor of Texas, Greg Abbott:

Liberate Texas now. Time to reopen Texas. We have been patient, even though every projection of the impact of the coronavirus has been grossly wrong. We were told to flatten the curve because there was no cure, even though a very small number actually die from the virus in comparison with the population and other diseases and causes of death we live with on a daily basis. Now, over 22,000,000 people have lost their jobs in one month … and there is more economic fallout to follow [for example, 43% can’t afford to go more than one month without a paycheck, and 24% have less than $250 in their bank accounts preceding payday.] In our county, in the same time period, we had five coronavirus-related deaths and 15 suicides.
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/christian-nationalist-david-lane-portrays-reopen-calls-as-righteous-resistance/

That is correct, these people need JAYSUS! And leave it to the religious right to ruin this for everyone, much like they’ve ruined pretty much everything since the dawn of time. But do we really need the uber right wing religious groups to be in charge of this pandemic? Of course the Dark One would listen to these people, never mind things like facts and science. But if we let these people get the best of us, these are the kinds of policies we will get to fight this thing.

The American Family Association, like Liberty Counsel and other religious-right groups, is portraying the enforcement of social distancing requirements as a threat to religious liberty. “Don’t let the coronavirus turn America into China,” blared an AFA press release distributed Friday. AFA called it “extremely troubling” that some state and local officials have imposed restrictions on public gatherings “that trample religious liberty underfoot.”

AFA sent an action alert to its members last week with a similar message. AFA recognizes that temporary, “evenly applied” public health restrictions “may be permissible,” but said it is “blatantly unconstitutional” for officials to prohibit churches from holding drive-in services “while allowing liquor stores, restaurants, and others to offer drive-in or curbside services.” State and local officials have taken differing approaches to drive-in worship gatherings.

AFA is encouraging activists to tell their governors, “Extraordinary state actions prohibiting the peaceful gathering of American citizens to exercise their religion violate the U.S. Constitution and are not permissible … I want to encourage you stand ready to defend the peaceful gathering of our state’s citizens should their right to do so be infringed upon by any government official or police.”

Some prominent religious-right figures initially resisted and defied social distancing requirements and restrictions on public gatherings, with pastors mocking congregants who stayed home out of fear of the virus, calling other pastors who complied with guidelines “losers,” and suggesting that people who didn’t show up at church and shake hands were “pansies.” But most churches seem to have decided to abide by state and local requirements, with many moving services online.
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dont-let-the-coronavirus-turn-america-into-china-warns-american-family-association/

Of course it’s the secular progressive’s fault because we’re not embracing the LAWRD almighty! But that’s where my church comes in! And that brings in the question – who do you place the blame on this horrible atrocity for? Well now if you listened to E.W. Jackson, he places the blame for this squarely at China and there can be no debate on this one! Yeah really, this is why people are getting harassed right now, and well, Brother Jackson be shamed!!

Right-wing pastor E.W. Jackson said on his “The Awakening” radio program yesterday that anyone who doesn’t blame China for the COVID-19 pandemic should be investigated for treason.

Jackson was urging the lifting of social distancing guidelines and the “reopening” of America so those who are not in at-risk groups have “an opportunity to develop the antibodies [and] just let their bodies do what our bodies are designed by Almighty God to do, which is to resist illness, to resist disease.”

“You know what? God built in a vaccine for us,” Jackson said. “And we ought to be letting that take its work.”

Jackson then lashed out at Bill Gates, who recently said that efforts to blame the pandemic on China are “a distraction.”

“Let me be succinct and to the point,” Jackson said. “Anybody, after seeing the carnage this thing has wrought on our country and on the world, anybody who leaps to the defense of communist China should be investigated and perhaps charged and tried for treason. I know that may sound harsh, folks, but I’m serious.”
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/e-w-jackson-says-anyone-who-wont-blame-china-for-covid-19-should-be-investigated-for-treason/

So Brother Jackson is leading a holy crusade against China and you never want to see anyone use that phrase for anything, because it’s worked out so well in past history hasn’t it? But the venerable holy war against COVID and social distancing has been proving to be, well, as toxic as the virus itself. In fact, we do not need their endorsement of the unholy Dark One as proof of this! I cannot allow it, good sirs and madams!!

James Goll, a self-proclaimed prophet and intercessor, did a livestream Saturday with Christian broadcaster Sid Roth, during which he claimed that he had been told by the Holy Spirit that President Donald Trump will win reelection and become “a great praying president” during his second term in office, usherin in the next Great Awakening.

“I believe it is the will of the Lord for President Trump to be reelected for a long-term reason if Jesus tarries any at all,” Goll proclaimed. “It is to turn this nation for lineage and legacy unto—this was the exact phrase the Holy Spirit gave me—to true constitutional conservatism. So I believe it’s God’s will for him to be reelected.”

Goll said that when he was visiting the Roland Reagan Presidential Library in 2019, the Holy Spirit spoke to him about Trump and what his reelection will mean for America’s future.

“He spoke something to me about later, in the middle of a second term,” Goll said. “He will become, Lord willing, in the middle of the second term, he will—there will be such an apprehension of God in his life that he won’t only have gone in by praying, he will be a great praying president who God will move on his heart, and he will be a part of welcoming in the Great Awakening.”
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/james-goll-prophesies-trump-will-become-a-great-praying-president-in-his-second-term/

You know there will be a Great Awakening when this is all over, but it will hopefully be without your people ruining it! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]Beating A Dead Horse: Your Favorite Celebrity Is Over
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Can you really be over your favorite celebrity? Well there’s plenty of reasons why you should, and also plenty of reasons why you shouldn’t. What makes this even weirder is that these celebrities who are “over” are being cherry picked and for ridiculously crazy reasons. But what you might not know is that the forces that are driving these social media trends aren’t. Like all bad things, this trend got hijacked by bots pushing Korean pop videos and trying to downplay American culture. But what you might not know is where this originated from. This entire thing started when Nicki Minaj decided to ditch her record label and hold an “Atlantic Records Is Over” party.

They really didn't have to snap this hard - or did they?

Fans of Nicki Minaj put Atlantic Records on blast over the weekend when they accused the music giant of misconduct against their artists - again. While the origins of Saturday's resurfaced shambles are still questionable, it was definitely the Barbz that made #AtlanticRecordsOverParty the number-one trending topic in the entertainment category.

Atlantic, a subsidiary of Warner, planted its deep roots in jazz almost over 70 years ago with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Otis Redding - so, this might be THE longest trail we've ever been down, it's absolutely littered with similar allegations.

We can't find any other outlets covering Minaj's indirectly-direct relationship to this newest edition of #AtlanticRecordsIsOverParty (or even the topic in general). What we did find was a bit of the backstory.

It's still a little funny to see Minaj's name credited with that of Cardi B's in the same song title. After their 2017 collab with MotorSport, Cardi told a UK press outlet that Minaj's original verse was "not the verse that is out there right now." Hearing this, Minaj called Cardi out for not telling the whole story.
https://theblast.com/126308/nicki-minaj-fans-host-atlantic-records-is-over-party-as-allegati

God can you imagine what would happen if Nicki Minaj and Cardi B got together in the same room? I can imagine there will be lots of yelling and bling comparisons, followed by which tiny purse dog is better than the other one. Now you would think this hashtag would end there. But oh no, just like a certain virus, it spread. And it spread to a whole bunch of different celebrities. Like Demi Lovato for instance!

It seems like there have been multiple attempts to "cancel" Demi Lovato, and the latest "Demi Lovato is Over Party" broke out over recent comments the singer made regarding Selena Gomez on a private Instagram account.

Previously, Demi was "canceled" by everyone on the internet for orchestrating the sexual assault of one of her private bodyguards as a "joke" by sending an escort to his room to engage in some funny business.

People didn't find the humor in Demi's "gag" and began calling her out for not only mistreating an employee but "trivializing rape" by merely calling it the "meanest prank" she ever pulled.

There's tons of other instances where people were ready to "pull the plug" on supporting Demi forever. But you know how the world of Twitter outrage works, at the end of the day.

For the most part, people latch on to something they're pretending to be furious about for a few hours, get said topic trending, then once that fizzles out, they jump onto the next issue to be upset about. The satisfaction seems to come from tweeting about how upset you are, rather than, you know, actually doing anything about it in real life, for the most part.
https://www.distractify.com/p/demi-lovato-is-over-party

Yeah so chalk this up to a dose of fake outrage and people who clearly don’t get the idea of what they are talking about. Now that’s the female side of this equation. What about the male side of this equation – let’s look at Adam Driver, the star of the recent string of Star Wars films. Is he over? Oh you had better believe that he’s over!

While social media has mostly been smitten with Kylo Ren actor Adam Driver for his appearances in Star Wars, Marriage Story, and his stints on Saturday Night Live, some people turned against the Hollywood star because of his military service with the United States Marine Corps. A Twitter hashtag claimed #AdamDriverIsOver because some users disagreed with his reasons for serving in the military, but it didn't take long for fans to come to the actor's defense.

All of it stems from Driver's decision to join the Marines and people taking seemingly out of context quotes and reading way too deep into offhand information to distill a person's entire life story down to one decision, and of course fans getting entirely too worked up over what other people are saying about their favorite celebrity.

It all comes out because Drive ended up joining the United States Marine Corps shortly after the September 11th attacks in 2001, serving nearly three years in the Marines before being medically discharged due to a dislocated sternum. After his time in the Marines, Driver got into the Julliard School and...well, the rest is history. An iconic run on Star Wars later and now he's one of the most sought-after actors in all of Hollywood.
https://comicbook.com/starwars/news/star-wars-adam-driver-is-over-party-twitter-trending/#4

Really? You’re mad that Adam Driver joined the Marines in his early life? No wonder that guy looks like he could kill you more ways than John Wick. Or how about another unlikely celebrity to get tangled up in all of this mess – Brendan Urie? You know him as the lead singer and performer of Panic! At The Disco, but did you know that he made some transphobic remarks in the early days of PATD? Well, neither did we! And he’s famous for playing a drag performer in “Kinky Boots”!

In the thread, @dinasapphic posted a video from a past concert in which Brendon states: "I wish I was born black so I could wear the clothes I wear without getting made fun of." He then states that black people are able to wear whatever they want but white people aren't.

There is also a video in the thread in which Brendon says to a crowd that he wants to "fuck them whether they want him to or not", comments in which he compares Caitlyn Jenner coming out as trans to Rachel Dolezal claiming she's black and a snippet from an old interview in which he uses a transphobic slur.

Given that many of these comments were made years ago, Panic! fans have rushed to defend Brendon and argue that he's changed and these remarks no longer represent him. In the case of the transphobic slur, Brendon apologised for it in his Twitch livestream. He said: "I am so deeply sorry. I felt sick to my stomach when I realised how hurtful that word is."

A Panic! fan tweeted: "brendon urie is trending for shit he’s done years ago again. i’m not gonna get in on it much but it’s obvious he has changed and he has apologized for all the stuff he’s said in the past. ffs just fucking drop it and move on. focus on the present, not the past. #weloveyoubrendon" [sic].
https://www.popbuzz.com/music/artists/panic-at-the-disco/news/brendon-urie-is-over-party-transphobic-racist/

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[font size="8"]People Who Somehow Got Elected: Brian Kemp
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Politicians at the state and local levels who are so toxic, you wonder how they’re able to get away with the things they get away with. This is:



This week – Georgia governor Brian Kemp. You might remember that we previously covered his battle between him and Stacy Abrams following the 2018 governor elections. But now he’s being added to the list as being the governor of the state who’s reopening the earliest amid the crisis and it’s shaping up to be quite the disaster. But now apparently he’s going against the president and let’s face it, Trump is not the kind of guy who you want to screw with, because it will end very badly for you. So in an era where Trump has simply given up leading the country, he’s literally left it to states to fend for themselves in this pandemic. Well let’s see how that is going.

President Donald Trump's surprisingly public rebuke of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's reopening plans is still reverberating through state capitals across the country and is contributing to decisions by some governors to take a slower approach in opening businesses in their state, Republican officials in a half-dozen states told CNN.

"No governor wants to endure the same wrath as Brian Kemp," a top adviser to a Republican governor said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid drawing similar ire from the White House.
"We all watched that very carefully and no one wants to be called out like that by the President," another aide to a Republican governor said.

The President's conflicting guidance -- initially calling to "liberate" states, but then sharply criticizing Kemp for opening some businesses on Friday -- has led to an often confusing, messy patchwork of state-by-state rules.

The reopening of some Georgia businesses, which started including restaurants on Monday, was at odds with White House Task Force guidance for states to first have a 14-day decline in coronavirus cases. After initially signaling his support for Kemp, Trump criticized the move after his medical advisers voiced strong concern.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/trump-kemp-georgia-governors-reopen/index.html

That’s how they say it down there – y’all suck! And yes, this is one of the biggest circular firing squads out there, and Trump is a guy who you do not want to engage in that kind of behavior with. But when you live in a country run by a president who simply doesn’t care, where are you left to turn? Either you go on your own, or you shut up. And well, neither option is particularly good right now.

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence repeatedly told Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that they approved of his aggressive plan to allow businesses to reopen, just a day before Trump pulled an about-face and publicly bashed the plan, according to two administration officials.

The green light from Pence and Trump came in separate private conversations with the Republican governor both before Kemp announced his plan to ease coronavirus restrictions and after it was unveiled on Monday, the officials said. Trump’s sudden shift came only after top health advisers reviewed the plan more closely and persuaded the president that Kemp was risking further spread of the virus by moving too quickly.

“I told the governor of Georgia Brian Kemp that I disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities,” Trump said Wednesday, just a day after telling reporters that he trusted Kemp’s judgment. “He knows what’s he’s doing.”

On Thursday, he was even harder on the governor: “I wasn’t happy with Brian Kemp, I wasn’t at all happy.”
https://time.com/5827411/trump-georgia-brian-kemp-coronavirus-lockdown/

Now how does this whole thing affect business owners? Well there’s plenty of ways that this could have an affect on the places you go. Do you really want to get a haircut or eat out at a restaurant or go to a bowling alley in this time when this virus lingers? And really the other question is – are there enough bowling alleys in Georgia for them to warrant essential business status?

Hair stylists at Salon Gloss in Woodstock, Georgia, wore masks and gloves on Friday, maintaining distance by using every other work station and keeping a supply of hand sanitizer nearby. Their customers also donned masks and gloves, while another employee disinfected a countertop.

Similar scenes played out across the state Friday, the first day Republican Gov. Brian Kemp allowed gyms, barber shops, hair salons, tattoo parlors and bowling alleys to reopen their doors, just a few weeks after he issued a stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
But other businesses remained closed, like Sabrina Watkins' salon in College Park, an Atlanta suburb. She won't return to work until she feels safe, she said, even though customers called asking if they could get their hair done Friday.

"I said, 'No, absolutely not. Get your hair done for what?'" Watkins said. "There's a pandemic, people are dying. As much as I love the business, now is not the time, regardless of who says it is."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/24/us/georgia-coronavirus-reopening-businesses-friday/index.html

Yes, you do suck. So in this unprecedented crisis that is affecting every person on the planet, we don’t have a leader at the national level. We might not even have leaders at the state level. But with a population eager to get back to work and return things to the level that they were before the virus, maybe we turn to the business leaders? They seem to be leading where our governors fail.

Unfazed by mounting criticism from mayors in his state and President Trump, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp forged ahead with his decision to allow businesses across the state to reopen Friday, as the confirmed coronavirus death toll in the United States passes 50,000 people.

Kemp, a Republican serving in his first term, was one of the last governors to impose a stay-at-home order for his state, which took effect on April 3.

Citing "favorable data, enhanced testing and approval of our health care professionals," Kemp said Monday that some businesses once deemed nonessential, like fitness centers, tattoo parlors and nail salons, can welcome back customers starting Friday.

In a tweet on Friday, the president reiterated his most recent stance that it was too soon for Georgia to reopen.

"I (or @VP) never gave Governor Brian Kemp an OK on those few businesses outside of the Guidelines. FAKE NEWS!," he said, despite praising the governor earlier this week. "Spas, beauty salons, tattoo parlors, & barber shops should take a little slower path, but I told the Governor to do what is right for the great people of Georgia (& USA)!"
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/24/844217371/georgia-businesses-start-to-reopen-as-trump-distances-himself-from-states-govern

So reopening against reopening provisions, and getting on Trump’s bad side. That’s Georgia governor Brian Kemp – yet another in the ever-growing list of:




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[font size="8"]I Need A Drink
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Hey everyone, I don’t know about you, but I could really use a drink!



Of course you know by now the idea behind this segment is that we have some drinks and while we’re drinking, we talk about anything in the news as long as it doesn’t relate to politics. And well, in the days of the Great Pandemic, that kind of news is in short supply right now. Look, I get it, we’re bored, there’s absolutely nothing to do because of COVID-19. And I’m stuck here at home with no bar, no bartender, and no wait staff. But I did swipe the copious amounts of booze we have on hand before we went into the Great Lockdown. Let me consult my virtual bartender for advice on what to drink. Tell me, o virtual bartender, what goes well with a story about a stolen painting? A unicorn cocktail? Eh, no thanks, I will stick with my usual Jack Daniels mixed with Jack Daniels. Anyway in the early days of the lockdown in Belgium, this happened.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch museum says that a painting by Vincent van Gogh was stolen in a raid overnight.

The Singer Laren museum east of Amsterdam says “Spring Garden” by the Dutch master was stolen in the early hours of Monday.

Police are investigating a break-in at a Dutch art museum that is currently closed because of restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus, the museum and police said Monday.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether any other paintings or other artworks were stolen in the heist. The museum did not release any details. It scheduled a news conference for Monday afternoon.

Before the closure, the museum was hosting an exhibition titled “Mirror of the Soul” with works by artists ranging from Toorop to Mondrian, in cooperation with Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2020/03/30/vincent-van-gogh-painting-stolen-dutch-museum-closed-covid-19/5086315002/

Now this raises many questions, and the biggest one I have is – where the hell does one acquire a sledgehammer in Belgium? I’ve been to Belgium, they don’t exactly have giant home improvement stores like Le Home Depot here. So how does one not only acquire a sledgehammer but use it on an art museum that was supposed to be closed because of the pandemic?

CCTV footage has captured the moment an art thief smashed his way inside a museum to steal a Vincent van Gogh painting while it was shut due to coronavirus lockdown measures.

A Dutch crime programme first aired the security camera footage showing how the man shattered the reinforced glass doors at a small museum just outside of Amsterdam.

The robber could be seen hurrying out through the museum gift shop with Van Gogh’s The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884) – said to have an estimated value of around £5m – tucked under his right arm.

Police hope that publicising the footage will help them track down whoever stole from the work from the Singer Laren museum on 30 March.

“I am shocked and unbelievably p***** off,” said museum director Jan Rudolph de Lorm. “It is horrible for all of us, because art is there to be seen and shared by all of us, for society as a whole, to bring enjoyment, to bring inspiration, and also to bring comfort.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/van-gogh-painting-stolen-coronavirus-lockdown-sledgehammer-cctv-dutch-museum-a9480391.html

Well yeah obviously. We’ll get the painting back, dude. Just chill out and have a drink with us. Now, the nice thing is that borders are closed and air travel is currently prohibited in most countries, so he can’t go very far! So how do we go about catching one of the ballsiest thieves in recent memory? Well we got video surveillance and there aren’t a whole lot of places we can go. Just need to pinpoint maniacs with a sledgehammer, and that’s some fine sleuthing!

All it took was a few sturdy swings with a sledgehammer and a prized painting by Vincent van Gogh was gone.

A Dutch crime-busting television show has aired security camera footage showing how an art thief smashed his way through reinforced glass doors at a museum in the early hours of March 30. He later hurried out through the museum gift shop with a Vincent van Gogh painting tucked under his right arm and the sledgehammer in his left hand.

Police hope that publicizing the images will help them track down the thief who stole Van Gogh’s “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884” from the Singer Laren Museum while it was shut down due to coronavirus containment measures.

Nobody has been arrested in the theft and the painting, which was on loan from another Dutch museum, the Groninger Museum, when it was stolen, is still missing.

Police withheld other footage from inside the museum in Laren, a town east of Amsterdam, to protect their investigation. They also did not air video from outside the museum of the thief leaving.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/world/2020/04/22/netherlands-stolen-van-gogh-sledgehammer/111583502/

Yeah so let that be a lesson to would-be art thieves out there. If you’re thinking of planning a heist during the Great Quarantine, then well, you’ve got another thing coming! But that should also double as a lesson for art museums out there – during the time of the Great Quarantine, you’ve got to figure out a way to keep your paintings and sculptures locked the fuck up, because if a guy can get into a museum that easily, what message does that send thieves everywhere?

Sixty hours ago, Van Gogh’s oil The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring was stolen from the Singer Laren museum in the Netherlands. I am certain that it was not what Van Gogh would have wished for his birthday; Monday was the 167th anniversary of his birth.

It also happened to be the birthday of Chris Marinello of Art Recovery International, perhaps the world’s foremost art theft expert. I called him and asked if he thought that the date of the theft was intentional. His response? “I don’t think that they were intelligent enough to know it. I’m not going to give them that much credit.” According to Marinello, others have conjectured that gangs or the underworld were involved, but he is unconvinced. “It was not done by professionals at all; it was not that sophisticated a theft.”

You will note that he uses the plural to describe whoever committed it. On the basis of the evidence thus far, Marinello feels that it may well have been two thieves. One performed the smash and grab, and the other waited outside on a motorcycle, or perhaps a bicycle, since it is The Netherlands, after all. (I cannot wait to see that CCTV footage.) There is, though, the chance that more criminals were involved.

Marinello explains that it was just a matter of timing. The one who smashed the front glass door rushed to the painting, removed it from the wall, and simply left before the police arrived. (More precisely, to quote a poor machine translation of an original Dutch report, the police arrived, “but the birds had already started flying.”) According to Marinello, “They simply took advantage of the pandemic lock down and the fact that officers are not responding as quickly as they normally do. The alarms are ringing and color cameras rolling, but they still can’t get to the museums immediately.” In fact, he confides that he is working on eight cases right now, all of which involve the slow response of law enforcement/government officials. “I’m concerned for all museums right now”, he ominously intones.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bardenprisant/2020/04/01/in-wake-of-van-gogh-theft-expert-says-im-concerned-for-all-museums-right-now/#6d776e8c4886

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[font size="8"]Stupidest State Round 2 Week 2: Family Values Championship
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Well folks our experiment for Round 2 Week 1 was a rousing success and we will keep doing this all the way through the Final Four and the championship! We will at least have one champion to crown this year, am I right? If you missed it last week, Florida routed New Mexico to reach their second Final Four and they have become one of the favorites to win the whole thing. This week, it’s the Family Values Championship! We’re in Chicago at the United Center where last year’s champion and current conference favorite #1 Alabama take on red hot rivals in #4 Indiana. Let’s go to the floor where the two are waiting and willing to tangle!

[font size="4"]Alabama:[/font]


Alabama is no stranger to being at the top of the Family Values conference. Their stats are legendary and they have some serious street cred behind their brand. So what have they been up to lately? Well the multiple failed attempts to put former judge and alleged child molester Roy Moore back in the spotlight have failed spectacularly. Well for starters since the entire world has been turned upside down by coronavirus, there’s plenty of things happening that have been well, concerning. And for starters PRIDE events in June have been either postponed or canceled because of this thing and that includes events in Alabama.

Alabama’s oldest LGBTQ pride festival has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Central Alabama Pride announced its decision to push back Birmingham’s Pride Fest and parade on its Facebook page Friday night. The events, which were originally planned for June 13 and 14, could be rescheduled for September or October. CAP officials will be getting feedback from other LGBTQ organizations as they discuss permanent dates during the next public meeting on Wednesday.

“We feel this was the best decision for the health and welfare of our community,” CAP officials stated on social media.

The 42-year-old organization held its first public pride festival in 1980. About 250 people attended the organization’s first parade in 1989. Now, thousands of people across the southeast come to Birmingham in rainbow-themed attire during the annual events in June.

Gov. Kay Ivey’s statewide stay-at-home order from April 3 only shut down non-essential businesses and activities. The order is expected to be lifted on April 30, but CAP Vice President Justin McGuire said it’s hard to measure how long social-distancing rules, as well as the economic impacts of outbreak, will last.
https://www.al.com/news/2020/04/covid-19-outbreak-postpones-alabamas-oldest-lgbtq-pride-festival-parade.html

Unfortunately that wont be happening in Alabama this year. But Alabama’s family values have taken quite a sharp turn since the pandemic began. But what will be happening is that Alabama’s churches will still be operating as usual – thanks to Kay Ivey’s executive order. And guess what? If you think churches are immune from the virus, well, that whole congregation might be infected!

The Church of the Highlands continued its third day of hosting drive-through testing for COVID-19 and reached more than 1,000 total tests early Thursday morning.
***
The tests are being administered by the staff of Christ Health Center, a clinic founded by the Church of the Highlands in Woodlawn in 2009, and will be processed by Assurance Scientific Laboratory in Birmingham, which provides the test kits.

The testing is being done in tents on the parking lot at the main campus of the church on Grants Mill Road, just off Interstate 459. More than 100 volunteers and medical staff workers are coordinating the effort.
***
People are discouraged from coming if they don’t have clear symptoms or known exposure. Pre-screening will be done on site.

Drive-through testing patients are being billed through their health insurance. “Uninsured paid nothing," Schranz said. "If they had insurance they will be billed.”
***
more: https://www.al.com/coronavirus/2020/03/covid-19-testing-at-church-of-the-highlands-reaches-1000-mark-8-new-cases-detected-so-far.html

No, no, no demon birds here. Demon viruses, sure, and those must be gone if we are to get our society back to the way it was pre-pandemic. But there is one thing that can always be counted on – Roy Moore is always good for a laugh! So when you can’t beat ‘em, sue ‘em! And that’s exactly what Roy Moore has done. Never mind that he’s a garbage candidate who could never win a real GE, he’s… wait for it… suing against fake news!

Roy Moore is seeking more than $40 million in a lawsuit he filed Monday against a Washington magazine, three of its writers, its editors and owners over a series of what he describes as “fake news” attacks stemming from accusations he faced while a U.S. Senate candidate in 2017.

Moore, who is again running for the Senate, filed the lawsuit in federal court against the Washington Examiner publishing company and ownership and five employees.

It's the sixth lawsuit Moore has filed relating to the allegations that he made unwanted sexual and romantic advances to teen girls when he was in his 30s.

Moore has repeatedly denied all allegations.

In the latest lawsuit, Moore said writers for the Examiner acted with malice in writing stories about him and disregarded a demand for a retraction following the first story. The lawsuit includes two counts of defamation and one count of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The lawsuit seeks $10 million for damages to Moore's reputation and emotional distress and more than $30 million in punitive damages. Melissa Isaak, who is representing Moore in other lawsuits, filed the suit.
https://www.al.com/news/2020/01/roy-moore-files-40-million-fake-news-lawsuit.html

[font size="4"]Indiana:[/font]


Indiana is always a Family Values favorite. They of course gave us their former governor and current Vice President, Mike Pence. A guy who cannot even have lunch in the same room with another woman who isn’t his wife, in such an absurdly creepy branch of religion. Well, while Indiana may be the home of fizzled-out presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, they are also the home of some old fashioned fire and brimstone religion. But churches are fighting back against stay-at-home orders!

This year Holy Week for many Christians comes at a time when they are legally barred from gathering inside their places of worship, and Indiana's governor is asking religious leaders not to go against the social distancing order because churches are not considered "essential."

A few conservative Christian leaders have criticized Governor Eric Holcomb for not labeling church services as essential, like some other states across the country have done. But Holcomb said during his press conference Monday that he isn't backing down from his decision.

"This disease does not care," Holcomb said. "This disease will prey on the vulnerable, this disease will prey on large gatherings. We have it within us to prevent that."

Gov. Holcomb's strong words come after a Church of Christ in Hammond received a citation over the weekend for holding a Palm Sunday service in violation of the state's stay-at-home order.
https://www.theindychannel.com/news/coronavirus/covid-19-local-government/gov-holcomb-says-church-gatherings-arent-essential-urges-pastors-to-find-easter-alternatives

Yeah probably. Let’s not forget that this is about Family Values. Which there are a lot of in the Hoosier State. As much as they love college basketball – which we can’t have right now – they also love them some churches. Which, unlike a lot of their worshippers, have really evolved with the times. Well, some of them have anyways!

A suburban Indianapolis church held services on Sunday for the first time in more than a month, taking care to ensure that worshippers adhered to social-distancing best practices and limiting attendance to conform to the governor's coronavirus guidance.

The iTOWN Church in Fishers held 40-minute services in which only 10 people were allowed to attend, including the pastor. They started on the hour, leaving 20 minutes in between for cleaning crews to sterilize the inside of the church before the next group of worshippers arrived, the Indianapolis Star reported.

Pastor David Sumrall said in a Facebook post Thursday that the church would resume services while adhering to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb's executive order prohibiting gatherings of more than 10 people, adding that the church made its decision after consulting with “local government leaders and our lawyers.”

The services resumed on a day that the state passed two grim coronavirus milestones. In a news release, the state Department of Health said Sunday that 28 more people in Indiana had died of COVID-19, bringing the state's death toll to 813. It also said the number of confirmed cases in Indiana had climbed by 634, bringing the statewide total to 15,012.
https://local12.com/news/local/indiana-church-begins-offering-small-in-person-services-state-death-toll-to-813-cincinnati

Damn straight Rev! That’s how we are all feeling right now. But remember when Trump said that our quarantine nightmare would be over and that we’d have packed churches by Easter? Well pastors across Indiana held that same opinion as Trump and when they didn’t get their way, well, they of course went the predictable apeshit route you’d expect. At lest they have a governor who is more understandable than Kay Ivey.

This year Holy Week for many Christians comes at a time when they are legally barred from gathering inside their places of worship, and Indiana's governor is asking religious leaders not to go against the social distancing order because churches are not considered "essential."

A few conservative Christian leaders have criticized Governor Eric Holcomb for not labeling church services as essential, like some other states across the country have done. But Holcomb said during his press conference Monday that he isn't backing down from his decision.

"This disease does not care," Holcomb said. "This disease will prey on the vulnerable, this disease will prey on large gatherings. We have it within us to prevent that."

Gov. Holcomb's strong words come after a Church of Christ in Hammond received a citation over the weekend for holding a Palm Sunday service in violation of the state's stay-at-home order.
https://www.theindychannel.com/news/coronavirus/covid-19-local-government/gov-holcomb-says-church-gatherings-arent-essential-urges-pastors-to-find-easter-alternatives

[font size="4"]And The Winner Is:[/font]

Well we got a tie score here going into the last minute…. Indiana has the ball, they shoot, ooh they got denied! Now a rebound, also denied! 15 seconds left… Alabama has the ball, they shoot… and… IT’S GOOD!!! Alabama has stunned Indiana, they move on to face Florida in a rematch of last year! Sorry Hoosiers, better luck next year! Alabama – cut the net, guys! You earned it!



[font size="4"]Next Week:[/font]

Next week it’s Round 2 Week 3 and we’re live in San Jose at the home of the San Jose Sharks, the SAP Center in San Jose! It’s the Batshit Conference championship - #1 Virginia takes on red hot #3 Idaho in a winner take all contest to advance to the Final Four!



See you next week!

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