The Patriot Post® · Weekend Jackass Awards
Last week, the U.S. surpassed the rest of the world in the total number of individuals tested for the China Virus, an amazing feat that the mainstream media predictably ignored in favor of the more sensationalized headline exemplified by The New York Times: “The U.S. Now Leads the World in Confirmed Coronavirus Cases.” It should go without saying that more testing will mean more confirmed cases. Yet a clearly still bitter Hillary Clinton took a lame jab at President Donald Trump, linking to the above headline on social media along with this obtuse statement: “He did promise ‘America First.’” With thousands dead, hundreds of thousands sickened, and millions of Americans having lost their jobs as the nation has gone to extreme measures to combat this highly contagious virus, Clinton saw only an opportunity to gloat over the country’s misery. This is why she is not president.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized Trump, claiming, “[His] denial at the beginning was deadly. … As the president fiddles, people are dying.”
Actually, as President Trump noted in his interaction with a CNN jackass this week, his early comments about COVID-19 did not reflect “denial” but his commitment to “keep the country calm.” Trump reiterated, “I don’t want panic in the country. … I want to have our country be calm and strong and fight and win.” Those objectives are, of course, anathema to CNN.
And for the record, in January, Pelosi and her Senate side kick, Chuck Schumer, had everyone inside the Beltway and the mainstream media preoccupied with their impeachment charade, while Trump was actually taking actions to limit the nation’s exposure to COVID-19.
In fact, on January 31, when Trump suspended entry by foreign nationals who posed a risk of transmitting SARS-CoV-2, he was accused of being “xenophobic” and, the same day, Pelosi reissued her call for legislation (No Ban Act) to prevent Trump from imposing “such biased and bigoted restrictions.” Pelosi declared, “The Trump Admin’s expansion of its un-American travel ban is a threat to our security, our values and the rule of law.” There were 219 House Democrat cosponsors for Pelosi’s legislation, which was not withdrawn until March 13, as COVID-19 surged.
Furthermore, if anyone is guilty of fiddling during a crisis, it is Pelosi, who delayed and derailed for days the passage of the bipartisan relief bill as she sought to stuff it with unrelated funding for her leftist special interests and Green New Deal regulations.
“She’s a sick puppy,” Trump responded.
Finally, earning the award for most obtuse commentary (and, dare we say, straight-up fake news) was The Washington Post, which asserted on Saturday that “the coronavirus crisis is exposing how the economy was not [as] strong as it seemed.” So, the federal, state, and local governments mandating that nonessential business shut down in an effort to combat the pandemic exposes a weak economy? In truth, if the economy under Trump wasn’t as strong as it had become — if it had remained in the doldrums as it was under eight years of Barack Obama — Americans would be in far worse shape than they currently are. As one astute Post commenter observed, “I’m sorry… what economy anywhere at anytime would not grind to a halt when customers, employees, businesses, everyone was not ordered under penalty of law by the government to literally grind to a halt?” Or, as another commenter put it, “My wife turned off the hose earlier, exposing how the stream of water pouring out of it wasn’t as strong as we thought.”
That these three political hacks would use death and economic destruction just to score cheap political points is a testament to the acute onset of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
(Updated and revised.)