Barry Hastings: Rounding up the usual suspects

A hundred and one years ago, an influenza pandemic killed 20 million people around the world, and infected 500 million. The first world war raged across Europe with no end in sight (though it was just around the corner). The world’s population was much smaller then, and there was much less interaction between the continents.

So here we sit, on the edge (if not in the start) of a new pandemic, where the President says something new (and usually wrong) about the Corona virus daily; the man he’s placed in charge of fighting it says something completely different, doctors and public health officials say something else again, in effect, “beware!”

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson‘s answer was to get Congress to pass a Sedition Act, making it a crime to say anything that would impede the war effort, thereby forcing public health officials and family doctors to tell people what they were witnessing was a common cold, or a flu like sickness commonly called “the grippe.”

In those days people thought it better to stay outside their homes to avoid the ‘bug.‘ They were wrong, and died like flies. If you value your life, and health, don’t listen to Trump, he’s a dumb ass. Call your doctor.

And speaking of dumb asses, how about these Republican Senators, a third of whom will be running for re-election this year. You know who they are, the ones who followed Mitch, and let him sit on hundreds of bills, passed by the House of Representatives through the past couple of years. If you want to see change, you’re going to have to get rid of them, and Trump. They’ve been supporting, and defending, a President who lies to the American people daily, and on many days, almost hourly.

Democrats might as well give up on the racist, sexist pigs who defected to Trump in 2016, and concentrate on Republicans who’d like to defect to Joe Biden. Bernie is Just too much “pie in the sky” for me, and most of the Democrats I know. I’m not saying he‘s a liar, but he’s stretching truth a long, long way when he claims Biden wants to cut Social Security payments. I don’t believe there’s a Democrat alive silly (crazy) enough to attempt, or even think about, such an act.

Bernie sounds more like a grumpy old man every day. He‘s acting like he deserves the nomination because it’s his second time around. He was beaten by Hillary, and he’s on the cusp of being beaten by Biden. He, and his supporters, are claiming a deep laid plot to cheat him of the nomination, when, in fact, his choice to wear the mantle of ‘socialist’ around his shoulders, despite fully realizing its unpopularity in the nation, is the direct cause of failure in both this campaign, and the last.

After spending half a billion dollars on print and TV advertising in his brief run for the presidency, Mike Bloomberg was driven out of the race by the shrill harping of Sanders, Warren and others. Fortunately, he’s not a man who holds a grudge, and has pledged his fortune to aid Biden, and others, in their efforts to reclaim our democratic republic.

It must have been a shock to him when he realized most of his printed advertising was wasted in a nation where half of the adult population is functionally illiterate. His TV ads were classic — the best I’ve ever seen from any politician (or non-politician). His printed mail ads were excellent, as well. But fewer people noticed. Poor public education at work here?

The bulk of Democrats want to restore the constitutional state of our union after the long, criminal, dangerous era of Trump, and is showing how they feel at the ballot box. Republicans, after universally claiming they’d never support him three and one half years ago, proved they haven’t the cojones to rid us of him, even when offered the perfect opportunity when the House of Representatives impeached the scoundrel last year, and gave the Senate plenty of fodder to boot his fat ass out of office.

Let’s all do our best to regain our old friends and allies, keep the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians out of our elections, and keep all three countries out of the lives of freedom loving people around the globe.

So, those screaming TV ads don’t work as well as retailers thought. Art Van has gone belly-up. Good riddance. I hope the rest of them have learned something from it. Maybe automobile dealers will. .. , but I doubt it.

“Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again, singing the battle cry of freedom.”