G.F. Brandenburg writes in this post about the apparent abandonment of the fight against the global pandemic.
Trump has completely lost interest. No good headlines for him, so he has ignored the pandemic altogether. His attitude—and his stubborn refusal to wear a mask—signals that the danger is past. He has made clear that the stock market means more to him than death rates, so no more attention to the daily death toll.
As he resumes his mass rallies, with MAGA fans packed together, he won’t wear a mask, and neither will they.
Those of us who live in hard-hit New York will watch with interest as Trump encourages his followers to ignore all precautions while he will be at least 50-100 feet from his adoring, unmasked fans.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One day you can’t understand surrealism, and the next you’re living it.
Well said, Arthur.
Abraham Lincoln’s to blame. He should have just let them secede. Did you know he was a Republican? Many people don’t know that.
Brilliant–a quote for the ages.
tRump doesn’t wear a mask, because he doesn’t want his “red make-up” to SMEAR.
That’s one reason he doesn’t wear a mask. Another reason is that he thinks wearing a mask is a sign of weakness, and he wants to appear macho. This man who evaded the draft must appear tough and strong and send the message that “real men don’t wear masks.” Come to think of it, the Lone Ranger wore a mask. Batman wore a mask. Trump’s got it all wrong, as usual.
Trump has gotten everything all wrong from the day he took the oath of office
Trump has gotten everything wrong since about the age of 12. His parents sent him away to military school, a typical response in that era to a boy who was uncontrollable at home and school.
tRump gets everything wrong. He’s a big, fat ZERO.
Thanks, Diane. You made me chuckle.
My wonderful wife worked all night then came home and instead falling into bed started doing all sorts of things including sending me a link to this article: ‘Heartbreaking,’ Say Global Experts, Alarmed at Signs US Has ‘Given Up’ Fight to Stop Covid-19
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/19/heartbreaking-say-global-experts-alarmed-signs-us-has-given-fight-stop-covid-19
The quote at the end really nails it for me:
“Michael Rozier, a public health and ethics professor at St. Louis University, said the U.S. response to Covid-19 is rapidly beginning to resemble its approach to facing gun violence.
‘The U.S. will endure much higher, persistent negative effects from something that other countries have solved; we’ll normalize it and convince ourselves nothing can be done,’ Rozier tweeted.”
Our country “normalizes” all sorts of dysfunctional things including pervasive inequity in our schools. And in health care.
So….
Some children will live…some will die.
But to be clear…
That is NOT ‘new’.
That is NOT ‘normal’.
That is NOT ‘great’. In fact it is the absolute inverse of a ‘great’ society.
It is SINISTER.
Talk about Sinister. From Politico June 17, 2020
“The new chief of U.S.-funded international broadcasting on Wednesday fired the heads of at least three outlets he oversees and replaced their boards with allies, in a move likely to raise fears that he intends to turn the Voice of America and its sister outlets into Trump administration propaganda machines.”
The new CEO for US Agency for Global Media is Michael Pack, a filmmaker mentored by Steve Bannon. Pack has removed a from their posts all of the agency’s Pulitzer prize winning journalists along with all of the VOA board members. Pack’s new “team” has been drawn from Trump’s appointees and loyalists in other agencies including the Department of Housing and Development.
Pack will actually be in charge of four media organizations in addition to Voice of America: Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Open Technology Fund.
Pack was confirmed by the Republican Senate. Pack is known to be a patsy for Trump and buddy of Steve Bannon. Trump has been critical of VOA’s reporting on COVID-19. Trump is said to have stopped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from cooperating with VOA journalists. In effect, Trump wanted to kill the source of bad news about the virus. He also wants to stop reports on corruption of some of Trump’s “best friends” in Turkey, Russia, and elsewhere.
This purge of professionals in journalism working for VOA—technically for the US Agency for Global Media—with Pack in charge of staffing means that the VOA has been captured as a near world-wide mouthpiece for Trump and also in time to make use of this agency as his Ministry of dis-Information. This will be in addition to FOX news, whose reporting Trump has complained about in the last several months.
For more on this takeover and some background on its purpose, see https://www.vox.com/2020/6/18/21295549/trump-bannon-pack-global-media-china-wednesday-massacre
I heard about the housecleaning at Voice of America and the installation of a Bannon clone. It was chilling.
From the comfort zone of history
On the lips of trusted loved ones
To the lonely, fragile minds of angry youths
No sooner was it over
Than the memory made it nobler
The selective means by which to point the view
Compelled, but not defeated
Surrender under protest if you must
Compelled, but not defeated
If it’s all you can remember
Then it’s been that way forever
And for six long generations it’s been told
But among the fallen was tradition
That tradition was the mission
And that the wrongness of the sin was not the goal
Does the color really matter?
On the face you blame for failure
On the shamin’ for a battle’s losing cause
If the victims and aggressors
Just remain each others others
And the instigators never fight their own
Compelled, but not defeated
Surrender under protest if you must
Compelled, but not defeated
Surrender under protest if you must
Surrender under protest if you must