Science

The Refusal Of So Many Americans To Accept Science, And The Role Of Government

It is extremely frustrating to witness, both personally, and in coverage of the news, that so many people refuse to accept science, and also the role of government.

The first purpose of government is to PROTECT and DEFEND the American people, and that includes sacrifice and concern about others, NOT just about one’s own pleasures and desires.

And the promotion of science is essential, and needs to be respected over religious beliefs and whims, and this includes recognition of updates in science over the decades since one learned science when in school!

To see so many people claiming their rights over responsibility to society as a whole is infuriating, and it has made the struggle against COVID 19 ever more difficult, leading to one of every thousand Americans dying as the year 2020 comes to an end!

Any government leader who refuses to put restrictions on the population in a time of a once in a lifetime pandemic is someone who should be summarily removed from office, but instead, we have many Americans condemning such state governors as Andrew Cuomo of New York, Larry Hogan of Maryland, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Gavin Newsom of California, among others. These are both Democratic and Republican governors, so this is not a political statement!

Instead, these selfish, self centered individuals applaud such reckless and irresponsible governors as Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who have presided over disastrous conditions, and lied and manipulated the truth, following the lead of Donald Trump, who is responsible for his refusal to accept reality, and promoted masks and social distancing as a model for America!

So the so called “greatest nation in the world” has the biggest loss of life, cases, and hospitalizations of any nation in the world, and it could have been otherwise, but politics and egomaniacal behavior mattered more to Trump than the lives and safety of Americans.

Donald Trump will never live down the massive loss of life in less than one year on his watch, and those who refuse even now to accept science and the role of government will carry the burden of guilt, and many of these same individuals will refuse to accept vaccination, and the hope is that fate will punish them for this stupidity and lack of concern for others!

The Heroes Of 2020: Bright Lights In A Year The Worst In Most People’s Lifetimes

The year 2020 has been the worst year in most people’s lifetimes, but there have been heroes who deserve attention and appreciation from all decent Americans.

The ultimate hero is Dr. Anthony Fauci, who reached the age of 80 yesterday, and has been an inspiration to anyone who believes in science, and respects expertise over “junk science”, or science that is generations out of date.

Some of our greatest heroes of the year, sadly, have departed, including Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who left a legacy of promotion of equal rights for all groups in America, including women, people of color, the disabled, and equal justice for all.

Also departing this world was Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, who promoted the concept of “good trouble” to advance human rights in a world and nation that too often is not engaged in such efforts.

Another hero is former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who advanced equality of gays and lesbians, just by becoming the first known gay Presidential contender, and now will be the first openly gay Cabinet officer as Secretary of Transportation.

Another hero is Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who has done an amazing job pursuing justice, equality, and the interests of the American people, in a time of the massive threat presented by Donald Trump, and has not blinked at his threats, misogyny, and crazed insanity. She has had to deal with the unrelenting misogyny of many in the Republican Party opposition, and Trump supporters who show a total lack of respect for her that they would never utter against a man!

Another hero is California Congressman Adam Schiff, who was a key player in the impeachment investigation of Donald Trump, and is Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He has suffered from threats and vicious attacks by Donald Trump and his minions, but has demonstrated courage and conviction in an admirable manner.

Another hero is South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, the highest ranked African American in Congress as House Majority Whip, third ranking leadership role. If it were not for Clyburn, Joe Biden would not have been able to become the Democratic Presidential nominee this year, as Clyburn’s endorsement was a major factor in Biden winning the South Carolina Primary and moving forward to the top of the Democratic Presidential ticket.

Another such hero is the future First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden, who, with her elegance and intelligence, will raise the level of that position from the disgraceful low level it reached in the past four years.

California Senator Kamala Harris, soon to be Vice President of the United States, is another hero, who will be the first woman, and first woman of color with her Jamaican and Asian Indian heritage, to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. She is a role model for women and racial minorities, and will be a very influential Vice President, more in the direction of Joe Biden, Al Gore, and Walter Mondale, than Mike Pence!

And last but not least, Joe Biden, who is a man of decency, compassion, ethics, and empathy, will be our 46th President on January 20, 2021. He will face the most daunting set of issues of any President since Abraham Lincoln in 1861, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, and Barack Obama in 2009. His long career in Congress, and his outstanding Vice Presidency give America hope, that in a time of a “dark winter”, as Joe Biden calls the COVID 19 Pandemic and the Second Great Depression, that Biden will take leadership on the level of FDR’s New Deal to take us to brighter days and a recovery in 2021 and beyond!

Everyone needs to pray for his success, but all know that he will not waste a minute or a day in promoting himself on Twitter or playing golf, as our despicable 45th President, Donald Trump, has done more of in the past four years, than doing his job!

America Is Returning To Its Values: Open To Immigrants; Believing In Science; Pursuing Allied Diplomacy

As President Elect Joe Biden introduced his first Cabinet advisors in a press conference yesterday, it was clear that America is returning to its long held values that made it great, and a model for the world.

This is a nation of immigrants, and not just for the most successful and accomplished, but a place for people to escape to from oppression and denial of rights, and then to be successful and to accomplish, totally opposite the nativism pursued by Donald Trump and his corrupt administration!

This is a nation that believes in science, not in fake or out of date science, and is out to promote health and safety of all of its population. Donald Trump and his corrupt administration ignored and rejected science, and promoted a death cult that believes in herd immunity in the midst of a pandemic, a crime that should be pursued against those quack scientists and doctors who preach it!

This is a nation that has a role of world leadership, and cannot reject that role, and is returning to pursuit of allied diplomacy with peace loving and freedom loving nations against authoritarian governments of the Left and the Right around the world. Joe Biden will deal with authoritarians in a proper fashion, not embrace their pursuit of denial of civil liberties and human rights, as Donald Trump and his corrupt administration has done, to the disgrace of the American image in the past four years!

Joe Biden is a refreshing reminder of what made America great, and we must all wish him success in his mission of wiping out the cancer of Donald Trump, which must also include total pursuit of criminal charges against him, his family, his Cabinet members and other advisors, who committed horrible sins and actions against vulnerable people in the name of profit, greed, selfishness, egotism, narcissism, and total lack of concern for those less fortunate among us!

Science And Medicine Organizations And Agencies Declare War On Donald Trump

The New England Journal Of Medicine, The Scientific American, Nature Magazine, and Science Magazine (American Association for the Advancement of Science)—all major scientific journals—have declared war on President Donald Trump, as he has repudiated and ignored science and the environment, not just in the COVID 19 Pandemic, but also by his known ignorance and rejection of science and medicine.

Nobel Laureates, and the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine have also denounced the refusal of the federal government to listen to scientists and doctors.

And there is clear cut high levels of dissatisfaction in other government agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and the US Geological Survey.

Anti Intellectualism Run Rampant: The War On Knowledge, Education, Facts, Science, History

America is in a crisis of anti intellectualism run rampant, and it is undermining the nation in the present and the future!

There is a war on knowledge, education, facts, science and history.

Ignorant people, led by the President of the United States, are telling us we do not need any of these basic parts of a decent society.

This, if not overcome, will lead to the deterioration and decline of the country, to the detriment of all of us.

Just because many Americans do not move on in education beyond high school does not mean it is a virtue.

The saying “Ignorance is bliss” is NOT true!

Donald Trump Has No Regard For Human Life, Now Promoting Herd Immunity, Which Would Kill Millions Of Americans!

Donald Trump is so fixed on his own reelection that he has failed the nation in regards to the CoronaVirus Pandemic.

He has rejected science and scientists, and is pressuring the Centers For Disease Control and its leader, Dr Robert Redfield, who has said that the vaccine that is being worked on will not be readily available until second quarter or third quarter of 2021. But Donald Trump said Redfield is misled, and the vaccine will be available soon, which is a total lie.

Also, Redfield has said face masks are the best method, even more than a vaccine, to overcome the virus, but Trump refuses to promote face masks, and is contradicting Redfield, claiming he “misunderstood” the questions of reporters.

Now, additionally, a quack doctor, Dr. Scott Atlas, is promoting herd immunity, the infecting of at least 215 million Americans with the virus, as the best way to solve the crisis, but putting a minimum of 2.15 million people in likelihood of death, and possibly triple that!

Clearly, Donald Trump is promoting murder of a few million people, all for the purpose of being reelected, misleading the American people, and only appealing to his “Cult” of followers, who reject science.

The pressure is greater than ever that Donald Trump MUST be removed from office, as otherwise, the future of America is a Fascist dictatorship, ignoring science, and causing the death of more Americans than all of America’s wars combined.

This is a literal nightmare that we cannot escape from, as the election moves closer, now 47 days until November 3!

” Alternative Facts”: Denial Of Science, History, Economics, And Reality, By President Becoming More Incompetent By The Day

It is becoming more scary and horrifying by the day, as Donald Trump shows more mental incompetence .

He promotes “alternative facts”, which means lies, and denial of science, history, economics, and basic reality!

He says children going to school is not an issue or danger, and that the CoronaVirus Pandemic will go away soon, magically.

It is now clear, if not earlier, that our President is totally unhinged, insane, dangerous, and will likely be more so if he loses the election, and refuses to concede, or face the reality that he has to leave the Oval Office on January 20, 2021.

Anyone who tries to say that Joe Biden is showing signs of dementia, needs to think of all the evidence that it is Donald Trump who has shown dangerous levels of dementia, not Joe Biden.

Trump cannot pronounce words correctly, and recently, he was referring to Yosemite National Park in California, and called it YO SEMITE!

He is constantly slurring his words and making a fool of himself, as well as repeating statements over and over, and demonstrating a vocabulary that is high on extreme words, but showing no understanding of reality.

The thought that this man has the nuclear codes becomes ever more terrifying, as Trump starts to show evidence of total mental deterioration under the stress of realizing he is way behind Joe Biden in the states that gave him the electoral vote victory in 2016.

The Five Words Which Will Sink Donald Trump In November: “It Is What It Is”, Regarding CoronaVirus Pandemic Deaths!

When the history of the Presidential Election of 2020 is written in the future, it will be clear that the ultimate turning point of the election, of so many controversial moments and statements, will be the five word utterance of President Donald Trump to Jonathan Swan, the young Australian journalist who works for Axios, revealed to the world on HBO two days ago:

“It is what it is”, which regards the CoronaVirus Pandemic Deaths, a total of 157,000 and rising rapidly, as I write this.

It is clear this number will be likely double what it is now by November 3, Election Day, so a total of 300,000 or more deaths!

This will mean in nine months, more than combat deaths in World War II!

Or it will mean more than total combat deaths in World War I, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the War in Iraq combined!

Or it will be 100 September 11ths!

And while Donald Trump played politics and ignored science and medicine, Americans died in tragic numbers, with Trump vilifying and ridiculing Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx and other health experts!

This is the greatest bumbling and failure to react to a major crisis since World War II, far greater than any of the wars waged by the United States since then, and will doom Donald Trump in history to last place among rankings of Presidents, where he will stay for all time, below James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Warren G. Harding, and Franklin Pierce, who all, by comparison, look better!

It is now sadly clear that until Joe Biden is sworn in, nothing substantial will be done to deal with the CoronaVirus Pandemic, and there is no magical solution that can take place in a few months, so even with active utilization of science and new strategies and different personnel engaged in the crisis, the likely number of deaths will continue to grow throughout 2021.

Likely, the number of deaths by January 20 will hit 400,000, and with the hope that a vaccine will be created and be available during 2021, hopefully by the end of the first year of the new administration, we will see real progress on ending the pandemic.

But the number of deaths meanwhile will likely likely rise, at best estimate, to 750,000, and could reach one million at the most pessimistic levels!

And the one thing that stands out as worse than any of this, is that Donald Trump has demonstrated that he has no ability to show or express compassion or empathy, and is only concerned about himself!

“It is what it is” will reverberate throughout history as the judgment of the horror of the Presidency of Donald Trump!

Donald Trump Responsible For One Person Every Minute Of Every Day Dying From CoronaVirus Pandemic!

President Donald Trump has been a total failure in dealing with the most significant crisis of his Presidency: the CoronaVirus Pandemic.

It has been six months since the nation was given notice of the emerging Pandemic, and 155,000 people have died, many of them unnecessarily if only Trump had respected science, and told all of his followers to wear masks and practice social distancing.

But he has put his reelection ahead of everything, and has wanted everyone to return to “normal”, meaning go back to work and students go back to school.

By being reckless and irresponsible and self centered, he has encouraged boorish behavior which has made America the number one nation in the entire world in positive cases of the virus, hospitalizations, and deaths.

How can we say we are the greatest nation in the world after this total disaster, which, if there had been a different President, the death rate would have been much lower?

What Trump has wrought should lead to criminal charges when he leaves office for failing to protect and preserve the lives of tens of thousands of Americans!

We now see an American dying every minute of every day, and if that is not perceived as a Holocaust, then what is such?

Dr. Anthony Fauci A True Hero, And Should Be Time Magazine’s Person Of The Year For Upholding Science And Health!

Dr, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, is being mostly sidelined and ignored by President Donald Trump, who does not want to hear his insights and expertise on the infectious disease which has killed nearly 140,000 Americans in less than five months.

The CoronaVirus Pandemic is the greatest health crisis in the sense of deaths that we have seen in a century. While Fauci does not claim to have no imperfections, which we all do, he is certainly someone to be relied upon and respected, although many Americans who ignore science think he is a threat to Donald Trump’s reelection.

Fauci has served American public health in various capacities for more than a half century, and still has total energy as he nears 80 years of age this coming December. He has been an adviser to every President in the past forty years, and played a major role in dealing with the AIDS crisis, when it arose in the 1980s and after.

Fauci has been one of the most cited scientists in scientific journals for much of his career. He graduated first in his class at Cornell University Medical School in the mid 1960s. He has received over 30 honorary doctorates at universities in the United States and foreign nations. He has been the author, coauthor or editor of more than one thousand scientific publications, including several textbooks.

Sadly, he has had the need for a security detail, due to death threats and strong criticism from extremist right wing critics, including many on Fox News Channel. They do not have a clue on science or health, but promote the Trump agenda of ignoring the pandemic, as their only goal is to reelect Trump, despite his incompetence and lack of concern about the pandemic!

Dr. Fauci is a truly inspirational figure, and should be chosen as the Person of the Year by Time Magazine in December, and Joe Biden should utilize him in 2021 in a more respectful way than Donald Trump has displayed!