I have a really bad habit of checking my phone for messages, notifications, and headlines each time I waken during the night.  Since for the past several nights I have been waking up every hour like clockwork, this means I get more news than I do sleep!  I think this is the reason I wake each morning filled with snark and it has to have somewhere to go, lest it overflow!

If there is another nation on the planet that has done as poor a job in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic as the U.S., it is Brazil.  In truth, Brazil hasn’t done quite as badly as the U.S., but they’re sure as heck running a close second.  Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is another pea in the Trump pod, denying climate change, ruling from self-interest rather than common interest, has an ego the size of his country, and tolerates no criticism.

Like Trump, Bolsonaro has been skeptical of the coronavirus and the preventative measures that are required to curb its prevalence.  He has described the virus as “a little cold”, repeatedly waded into crowds of supporters, threatened to host a large barbecue to defy health measures, and as recently as last week attended a Fourth of July party at the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia without wearing a mask. A Brazilian court last month ordered Bolsonaro to wear a mask while in public.

Well, guess what?  Jair Bolsonaro now joins the 1.6 million people in his country who have tested positive for the coronavirus!  Sometimes karma just catches up with you.  This morning he told reporters …

“There’s no problem. It’s natural. There’s no dread. It’s life.”

Okay, then.  It couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.  Well, perhaps there is one other who is equally deserving …

These days, there are so many ‘breaking news’ stories that it’s hard to keep up with them all, and today’s jaw-dropper may fade to the back of our minds by three days hence.  Remember just over a week ago when the news broke that Russia had paid Taliban operatives a bounty to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan?  Trump had been briefed by the intelligence agencies but had kept quiet and not acted on the information.  He claimed he hadn’t been briefed, but there was ample evidence that he had.

To date, Trump has still done nothing … no sanctions against Russia, no promises to act in order to protect our military in Afghanistan and elsewhere, no … nothing.  Trump has, however, ordered an investigation.  No, not an investigation into Russia or the Taliban, but an investigation to try to find out who leaked the information!  It matters not that Russia is paying to have our military killed, but it only matters to Trump & Co who “ratted him out” for sitting on the information rather than acting on it.

Remember back a few years ago when we had a real leader in the White House?  Ah, those were the good ol’ days.

Well, folks, Trump and his family tried really hard to keep his niece, Mary L. Trump, from publishing her book. Not only did they fail, but now the publication date has been moved up from July 28^th to July 14^th, due to “high demand and extraordinary interest”.  That attempt to stifle rather backfired on Trump, didn’t it?

Two snippets from the New York Times article this morning …

Even at the start of Mr. Trump’s campaign, his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal appeals court judge, had deep reservations about his fitness for office, Ms. Trump writes.

“He’s a clown — this will never happen,” she quotes her aunt as saying during one of their regular lunches in 2015, just after Mr. Trump announced that he was running for president.

Maryanne Trump was particularly baffled by support for her brother among evangelical Christians, according to the book.

“The only time Donald went to church was when the cameras were there,” Ms. Trump quotes her aunt as saying. “It’s mind boggling. But that’s all about his base. He has no principles. None!”

As a high school student in Queens, Ms. Trump writes, Donald Trump paid someone to take a precollegiate test, the SAT, on his behalf. The high score the proxy earned for him, Ms. Trump adds, helped the young Mr. Trump to later gain admittance as an undergraduate to the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton business school.

Mr. Trump has often boasted about attending Wharton, which he has referred to as “the best school in the world” and “super genius stuff.”

Hmmmm … no wonder the one with a super thin tolerance for criticism was trying to block the book’s release!

There is a pharmaceutical company, Novavax, based in Maryland, that has never yet brought a product to market.  And yet, the federal government has contracted to pay the vaccine maker $1.6 billion to expedite the development of 100 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by the beginning of next year.

Think about that one for a minute.  The company has never yet been tried or tested, has never successfully produced a drug, and yet Donald Trump has decided to place the lives of some 330 million people in this company’s hands.  And he is giving away a massive amount of our money to do so.  And if you have any doubts, Trump will demand that the drug be for U.S. citizens only, which is probably a relief for people in other countries, for you and I both know this drug will not be properly tested before it is turned loose on a largely unsuspecting populace.

In May, the administration announced it was awarding up to $1.2 billion as part of Operation Warp Speed to the British drugmaker AstraZeneca, which has said that its vaccine could be available by October. Four other companies — Moderna Therapeutics, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Sanofi — have also received federal assistance for their experimental coronavirus vaccines.

They surely are playing fast & loose with our hard-earned tax dollars, aren’t they?  And would you trust any vaccine that came out of a company that has never successfully developed a drug?  I wouldn’t.  I envision two years down the road, everyone who took the vaccine developing some form of cancer, or suddenly experiencing abnormal heart attacks or strokes.  No thank you, Donnie … could you refund my portion of the money you paid them, please?

Okay, I feel better now … thank you for letting me get all that off my chest!