Wait 'Til You Hear This!
An essay about misinformation...
After the collision between a commercial airliner and a military helicopter in Washington, D.C., President Trump blamed DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) hiring policies, but had no evidence to back up his claim so a reporter asked how Trump could say that when we still didn’t know exactly what caused the crash and Trump answered:
“Because I have common sense.”
Which was news to everyone in attendance because this is the same guy that, in no particular order:
Thinks sending U.S. troops into Gaza will calm things down.
Believes an anti-vaxxer should be in charge of the Nation’s Health.
Once wondered if injecting bleach would kill the COVID virus, which inspired the American College of Emergency Physicians to put out a warning that drinking or injecting bleach can kill you, so I think you have to give this one to Trump on a technicality because apparently injecting bleach would kill the COVID virus if you don’t mind dying along with it.
See?
This is just the kind of outside-the-box thinking (in this case the box is a medical school) that scientists with all their fancy degrees and inconvenient logic have kept from the rest of us, but now that the Flat-Earthers are in charge of the government, we can at long last continue to explore the many benefits of ingesting household cleansers and just in case you’ve forgotten, here’s an experiment in snorting Ajax which was conducted in 1978’s Up In Smoke by Dr. Cheech and Professor Chong:
(OK, after posting it I found out you can’t watch the video without going to YouTube which is probably a good idea because with all the knuckleheads currently roaming our landscape and halls of government, somebody would watch that video and think “Hey, she looks like she’s having fun! I think I’m going to try that!” So go to YouTube and search “Cheech & Chong Ajax snorting” and you’ll be glad you did. Also, don’t snort Ajax.)
Anyway…
Mr. Common Sense also believes America wants to see him dance to YMCA which he doesn’t seem to know is about gay sex although if you’re a homophobe, maybe it’s a brilliant plan to scare Gay Men straight because if anything would convince you to stop having sex with men it’s this:
(OK, now I have a bone to pick with YouTube because you can’t watch some hot chick snort Ajax, but you can watch this? I’m guessing Ajax would screw up your nasal passages, but watching this made me want to jam Number 2 pencils into my eyes and then join a monastery.)
In any case…
After bragging about his common sense Trump added that air traffic controllers needed the “highest levels of genius” which, oddly enough, doesn’t seem to be a requirement for Trump Cabinet Members.
In the meantime, a number of Conservative Republicans have warned about the dangers of hiring unqualified Black government employees and think we should go back to our previous tried-and-true system of hiring unqualified White Males because if you don’t count the 123 military conflicts the United States has been involved in, centuries of racism and sexism, the popularity of mullets and Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA, nothing bad has ever happened with them in charge.
Apparently thinking “Geez, I haven’t said anything moronic since lunch” Donald Trump announced that the United States is going to take over Gaza and force the Palestinians to leave and then we’ll build resorts and hotels and casinos and make it a Mideast Riviera (although a Mideast Branson seems a lot more likely) and pretty much everyone who wasn’t high or suffering from a severe learning disability immediately said that’s not actually going to happen.
Trump Administration officials tried to walk the Gaza plan back and deny we’d send troops there, even though when Trump was asked if he would send U.S. troops to take over Gaza he answered: “We’ll do what is necessary. And if it’s necessary, we’ll do that.”
The next day, Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary and Chief Rationalizer, said:
“The president has not committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza” and then mesmerized the press when she waved her hand and added, “These are not the ‘droids you’re looking for.”
And considering Trump’s propensity for pulling statements directly out of his backside, we probably ought to get used to Trump Flunkies telling us we didn’t just see and hear what we just saw and heard.
Donald Trump decided he liked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once RFK Jr. abandoned his campaign for president (which is a lot like me abandoning a campaign to play centerfield for the Kansas City Royals because that’s never going to happen either) and once RFK 2.0 decided to endorse Trump — despite the fact that RFK Jr. has spread a lot of misinformation about vaccines — Trump decided he should be the Secretary of Health and Human Services and we’ll now take a short break to talk about how all this anti-vaccine crap got started.
Wait ‘Til You Hear This!
Here’s a link to the story I wrote during the pandemic about how all this anti-xaxxer stuff got started: https://leejudge.substack.com/p/a-story-about-vaccinations-canadians
And assuming you didn’t read the article because most of you didn’t, here’s the short version:
In 1998 a British doctor named Andrew Wakefield published a study in Lancet – a British medical journal – that said there was a connection between autism and the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. So people started looking into Wakefield’s study and found it was “fraught” with ethical, financial and methodological improprieties. If you want to read more about that, here you go:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1925209/
Turns out, Wakefield fudged the numbers and failed to disclose he was getting funding from lawyers who were suing vaccine manufacturers and other studies couldn’t replicate his findings so eventually Lancet retracted the article and Wakefield lost his license to practice medicine.
That’s the guy who started all this anti-vaxxer bullshit which reminds me of the following quote:
“A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”
That was said by either Mark Twain or Winston Churchill or Jonathan Swift or Thomas Jefferson or the makers of Tony Lama cowboy boots and while I have no further information on who actually said it, I get the feeling it might be tattooed on Donald Trump’s left butt cheek.
As you may have noticed, people love being “in the know” even when what they “know” is complete horseshit.
And the more shocking the misinformation is — immigrants in Ohio are eating people’s pets, despite producing two children Michelle Obama’s actually a man, there’s a pedophile sex ring being run out of the basement of a Georgetown pizza parlor that doesn’t actually have a basement — the more fun it is to talk about and the truth continually finishes second in the Misinformation 100-Yard Dash because the truth is generally boring and it’s a lot more fun to think Lizard People have taken human form (an actual rumor) which is totally ridiculous with the possible exception of Mitch McConnell.
And now, however reluctantly, back to RFK Jr.
So I’m reading a newspaper and come across a headline about RFK Jr. having trouble in his confirmation hearing and having the mind of a 12-year-old on a sugar rush, I immediately transformed that into RFK Jr. having trouble with his hearing and looked up his other health issues (he’s got some weird ones) and added his reluctance to listen to people with more expertise which is pretty much exactly how George Armstrong Custer got him and all his buddies killed because George didn’t want to listen to his scouts who were telling him:
“There’s a shitload more Indians down there than you seem to think.”
So from now on just imagine yourself as a trooper in the 7th Calvary being led by an egomaniac who sees no reason to listen to anybody who says something he doesn’t like.
For all the above reasons and many more I couldn’t fit into this essay, I used the news that President Trump had visited the scenes of floods and wild fires to comment on how I think his Second Presidency is going so far.
Today’s Lesson
Somebody whose name I’ve already forgotten predicted that if we re-elected Trump we better get ready for a trip to Bizarro World because Trump got rid of anybody who tried to talk sense to him about losing the election and overthrowing the government and kept all the brown-nosers and ass kissers who tell him all his ideas are terrific and should be implemented ASAP.
Also…
One more time: don’t snort Ajax, when Trump says he’s going to do something nuts believe him and never ever get on an elevator alone with Mitch McConnell because he just might be a lizard.
If the past month is any indication, it’s going to be an interesting four years.
I wonder whether the name "Custer" rings any bells in Donnie Diaperload's cobweb strewn cranium.
Glad to read this - yours is about the only political commentary I can read any more without bursting into tears.