Real Characters Episode 48 Congress has just sold out America

               

                Barack Obama is facing a health crisis.  A novel disease known as Ebola has come to America.  In order to combat the virus, he hires a man named Ron Klain who is very good friends with Al Gore.  Although he has no medical experience, he is the nation’s hope in dealing with the virus.  He calls a meeting of the task force and he starts, “The first item on the agenda is we need to know the extent of the threat.”

                Someone on the taskforce replies, “The standard FDA and CDC protocol is to get testing kits and send them over to the CDC for testing and they’ll come back with the results.”

                “That is a good idea.  It’s very important that we don’t have false positives out there with random people doing the test.  The CDC will be solely responsible for analyzing tests.”

                Another member inquires, “Should we maybe consider mass testing?”

                “No, surveillance is the protocol so that’s what we’ll go by.  I don’t think it’s necessary to do mass testing of the entire population.”

                It is now 2020 and Donald Trump is the president.  There is an unprecedented pandemic that has hit America and President Trump has tried to get ahead of it but had no cooperation from others in government.  In Mid-January, during his State of the Union, he warns the public about the new Coronavirus.  In response, Nancy Pelosi rips up the speech calling it lies.  Also in January, President Trump orders a travel ban to and from China.  This unleashes a fury of attacks from Democrats and the left calling him a xenophobe and racist.  It is at this time that Ron Klain reemerges and tell people not to fall for the president’s racism.  He urges people through twitter that as it relates to the Coronavirus, people should go to Chinatown and sit down to have dinner.  They should go shopping.  After all, the virus affects humans not a certain people.  He claims that fear is hurting Chinese-Americans.  This draws the attention of congress who calls him in for testimony. He tells the committee that travel bans to and from China are impossible and not practical because people need it for merchant reasons.  He advocates letting them come but to test them as they come in.  The point is to monitor, not ban, thus implying that the President is overreacting.

                Now, it is Mid-March and Ron Klain is the guiding light for the liberals and Democrats.  With the outbreak plaguing Europe, President Trump adds Europe to the travel ban for thirty days.  Again, Klain attacks it as an overreaction.  Just to be different, he claims it to be a red herring from what Klain perceives as a failure of Donald Trump.  Presumably thinking people can’t remember what he said two months ago, he now is saying that if you are not at work right now, it’s because Donald Trump didn’t do his job in January and February by under-reacting to the problem.  When asked for specifics on what President Trump did wrong, Klain criticizes, in complete contradiction to what he advocated when he was in charge, President Trump for not testing everyone.  As Trump rewrites the FDA/CDC rule to allow schools and labs to do their own testing in order to get more tests out, Klain claims it was done too late.  As he’s a frequent guest on mainstream media, he constantly touts that South Korea has done more per capita testing than the United States and there’s no excuse for that.  There is a reason that he had to clarify ‘per capita’ because the United States has tested more people than any other country in the world.

                In the last week of March, the Democrats and mainstream media are no longer interested in combating the Wuhan Virus.  Instead, they want to use it to damage President Trump in an election year as much as they can.  Luckily, they will get a chance as Congress is about to pass a 2 Trillion dollar spending bill.  The bill was all but complete until Nancy Pelosi flew in from San Francisco to block the bill.  She called Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who helped co-write the bill and praised it, and asked, “Chuck, what are you doing?  We can pass all our agenda and the Republicans will be too blinded by Covid19 and the pressure to do something to notice.”

                “Don’t you think that we need to get a bill that only deals with the virus?”

                “Of course not!  This is our best chance to bypass the President and pass Green New Deal shit.”

                “I didn’t think of it that way.”

                “I’ll make it like 1,000 pages so that no Republican will have time to read through it.”

                “What things will you bury in there?”

                “Everything including the kitchen sink.  They’ll catch some of them but others will get through and that’s all we care about.”

                After two days, the Republicans did read the bill and slashed funding Planned Parenthood in direct violation of President Trump’s executive order a couple months ago, forcing airlines to cut their emissions by 2025 and before giving a loan, a full report on the ethnicity and gender of board members plus their comparable salaries needs to be submitted.  Senator Grassley told his fellow Senators, “If we pass any of the non-virus related things, then we should include that we don’t get a salary because we failed the American people and didn’t do our job.”

                Unfortunately for America, the other Senate Republicans weren’t as smart or strong as Senator Grassley.  The things that slipped through allocated millions of dollars to things that had nothing to do with the virus.  A strong Republican Senator asks a RINO (Republican in Name Only) why they did what they did.  The RINO responds, “We just didn’t have the numbers.  Rand Paul and other Senate Republicans were quarantined so we had to work with the Democrats”

                “You didn’t work with them, you sold out America.”

                “Don’t be so dramatic.  We got them to get rid of the big stuff.”

                “Don’t you realize the big stuff was there to distract you from the little stuff?  They wanted to make it appear that they were being reasonable and willing to cut back on things.  The reality is they went for the farm so they would get something.  In case you didn’t realize, we didn’t ask for anything on our special interests.  We are already $ 23 Trillion in debt; no extra money for anything that didn’t have to do with the virus should have been in there.”

                “I don’t even know what you’re referring to.  It’s 880 pages, who has time to read that?”

                “We all have staff to read these bills and report back.  Did you not do your homework?  Did you not assign and delegate someone to go through the bill before you agreed to it?”

                “Of course I did.”

                “Then what am I referring to?”

                “You’re nitpicking a couple things here and there.”

                “You can’t even tell me.”

                “Of course I can”

                “Then name one.”

                “I don’t want to play this game.”

                “How about S 60 Million for NASA.  Why was that needed?”

                “They are a scientific organization; maybe they can make ventilators and masks.”

                “Have they said they were going to?”

                “No, but I mean they could.”

                “How about the $ 8 Million for the National Archives.”

                “Museums are important.”

                “How does that have to do with the virus?”

                “Since people aren’t able to gather in large groups, they’re not going to the museums so they need help.”

                “That’s the least of our problems now.  You would be better off giving that to restaurant owners.”

                “They got money too.”

                “Then we could save that for the economic apocalypse coming.  What about 99 Million for the energy fund?”

                “Ventilators need electricity?”

                “You think there’s going to be a blackout because of the Wuhan Virus?”

                “Well, no, but, look I don’t like this line of questioning.”

                “I don’t care. You’re going to listen to it because you just sold out the country and I want you to feel ashamed for what you contributed to.”

                “I don’t have to answer to you.”

                “Yes you do.  What about the three million for Forest and Rangeland research?”

                “Three million out of two trillion is a drop in the bucket.”

                “It all adds up.  What about 27 Million for wildfire management?  Does the virus cause forest fires now?”

                “Look it how devastated Greece, Brazil and Australia had been when they had wildfires.  We need to be prepared.”

                “How about for the Wuhan Virus bill, we focus solely on the Wuhan Virus crisis at hand then, when that’s over, we can prepare for other things that might happen.  We can’t deal with the hypothetical situations, we need to deal with the problems at hand.”

                “I get that.”

                “Clearly you don’t or else you never would have voted for this.  $500,000 for a water project in Utah?”

                “If people don’t have water, the health crisis will be even worse.”

                “Again, no threat of our water supply being contaminated.”

                “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

                “Not when you’re writing a bill for a specific virus at a specific time.”

                “How many are you going to do?”

                “That’s the problem! There are so many to choose from.  The $78,000 for Native American Preservation Society.  I’m glad you have stopped making up justifications and spinning it that it may have something to do with the virus.”

                “We owe them for stealing their land.”

                “In every American war against the Indians, we had Indian tribes fighting on our side.  They were divided and the tribes were constantly at war.  They constantly stole land from each other and stole it from whoever was here before them.  We didn’t steal anything. “

                “Now who’s justifying?”

                “What does it have to do with the Wuhan Virus?”

                “Nothing; there you happy?”

                “No, I’m not happy.  Democrats want to bankrupt the country by using crises to implement big government policies and pretending that they’re the answer to save us when it’s not.”

                “It’s just temporary.”

                “No, it’s not.  This is how they always do this.  They pretend something is temporary during a crisis.  Then when the crisis is over and we try to go back to pre-crisis levels, they throw a hissy fit and claim that they’re ‘evil Draconian Cuts” and it never gets slashed.  We have to nip this in the bud or else it will become a problem after the Wuhan Virus is a thing of the past.”

                “What is your problem?”

                “We can’t spend two trillion we don’t have.  Eventually, the people we borrow from will want their money back and we don’t have it.”

                “We have the best military in the world, who’s going to make us pay?”

                “Are you kidding me?  If we don’t pay, then they’ll never want to lend to us again.  If they do, it’ll be at an enormous interest rate.  That’s how this works.  Take yourself for example.  If you lent money to someone and they never paid you back, would you be less likely or more likely to lend money again?”

                “Less, but the micro doesn’t work like the macro”

                “Actually it does.  The only difference is the micro is more black and white, loan or don’t loan.  The macro; they have interest rates to assess the risk.”

                The RINO looked up at a TV and was relieved, “Look, Pelosi is on TV.  Let’s just see what she says.”

                The strong Republicans turns and looks at the screen.  They turn up the volume and hear Pelosi assure people that everything in the bill is needs that people have and is all about the Coronavirus and nothing else.  She pledges that it is just temporary.”

                The RINO replies, “There you have it.”

                “She is lying!”

                “We’ll find out won’t we?”

                “That’s the problem. We approved the deal so we will find out and then it’ll be too late to stop it.  We’re going off the fiscal cliff.  Just remember when it happens that you were part of it and you are partly to blame.”

                The strong Republican leaves the RINO gaping at the screen.  Not too far away from this debate, Dr. Burks is shaking her head.  Unlike the Ebola task force, the Wuhan Virus task force has actual doctors heading it.  She laments, “Thank God we have daily press briefings. There is just so much false information out there.  We really need to dispel the myths every day.”

                Someone on the task force chimed in, “It’s very frustrating, but this is the world we live in.  Are you ready?”

                “Yes,”

                Dr. Burks gets on stage with a stoic expression and declares, “I just want to be clear.  Right now, there are still ICU beds and significant ventilators.  There is no shortage despite what the media is telling you.  These claims of forced DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) are not a present problem.  It is important to note that we focus on the problems at hand and not ones that aren’t here yet or maybe never will be.”

A reporter queries, “What are we doing about the shortage?”

                “There is no shortage yet.”

                “But there may be.  We may become like Italy and we have to stop treating the elderly.”

                “We are of the opinion that If we need ventilators, we’ll figure out a way to make more ventilators.”

                After the press conference, Dr. Burks calls Johns Hopkins University as they have been doing a study on worst case scenarios that would require rationing care.  She inquires the open question, “How close are you to a conclusion?”

                “We’re just about done.”

                “Care to share?”

                “Well, at first we thought about rationing on a first come, first serve basis.  Our conclusion was that it’s not a very effective method.  Then, we thought of a lottery system and that wasn’t very practical either.  The more we tested, the harder it came to ignore a glaring solution.”

                “What would that be?”

                “Just build more hospitals and ventilators.”

                “That’s very Ayn Rand of you.”

                “Yes, she did say that humans could solve any problem.  The only reason they hadn’t was because it wasn’t imminent.  If it becomes an imminent problem, I do think we’ll prove her right.”

                “Considering the example she used is the sun blowing up and then we find a way to survive without the sun, it appears that building ventilators is very simple in comparison.”

                “It sounds like you agree?”

                “I do”

                “Oh good, we thought you’d be upset because it’s not really what you asked for?”

                “On the contrary, it’s exactly what I asked for.  If we run out of ICU beds and ventilators and rationing is on the table what are we going to do?  The answer: ‘building more hospitals and producing more ventilators’ does solve the problem.”

                “We thought it may be an oversimplification.”

                “Sometimes the simple answers are the correct ones.”

                “That is the basis for Ochman’s Razor.”

                “True”

                As the daily press conference is over, the mainstream media is distraught because President Trump’s approval rating has been rising since they started.  CNN, NBC and other mainstream media outlets have rallied to end live streaming of them even though they’re the ones that demanded it.  They now accuse President Trump of replacing his rallies with the press briefings as he constantly reminds the people that everything they take issue with started with Obama and when President Trump acted in January, they all mocked him.  Unlike President Trump, the media has had to do a complete 180 about the threat of the virus.  The mainstream media blamed the WHO (World Health Organization) for getting it wrong so they couldn’t possibly know but President Trump knew and they were briefed as well.  They just refused to believe or heed the president’s warning.  The Mainstream Media head is in a board meeting and asks, “Who can we get on to counter what Trump’s task force is spouting to the world?”

                “I contacted Andy Slavitt.  He said he’d be interested in coming on” Comes a journalist.

                “Who’s he?”

                “He was part of FEMA and loyal to President Obama.”

                “Great, have him on.  We’ll have him debate with Craig to make it seem like it’s not biased but make sure you allow Slavitt time to make his attacks and keep Craig on the defensive.”      

                The segment airs and Slavitt attacks President Trump because there is an abundance of masks but people are hoarding them.  He never explains why it’s the President’s fault that people are hoarding masks but he is given free rein to make the accusations.  Rather than play the media’s game, Craig rips out the microphone snapping, “I’m not going to deal with bullshit people” and walks off the set.  The host tries to convince him to come back but he was already gone so Slavitt backs off a little bit and expresses he has no personal probably with Craig as he doesn’t know him personally.

                As the segment was ruined, Slavitt takes to twitter.  He has just read a report that stated that a major hospital in the Midwest has stated that if they run out of ventilators, they may have to resort to rationing.  Based on the article, he tweets out, “a major hospital in the Midwest had reached a limit on ventilators.  Says rationing is going on right now.”

                The lie gains traction and travels around.  Someone close to Slavitt calls him and queries, “You know that the article said that they weren’t there yet right?”

                “Yes, I know but it’s a simple economic formula about expectations vs. reality; more specifically, creating reality.”

                “I’m not familiar with that economic principle.”

                “Let’s say that you want the price of gas to raise a dollar per gallon tomorrow.  There may be no reason for that to happen but you announce it to the world and somehow get a message to every cell phone in the country.  This causes a panic for people and they immediately drive to the gas station to fill up on gas even if they aren’t that low.  With this huge increase in demand, simple economics, higher demand means higher price.  The next day, the price of gas may just be a dollar more per gallon than it was the previous day.  What you have just done was create a self fulfilling prophesy.”

                “Let me get this straight.  You put that out there so that anyone that coughs for like choking on their own saliva will rush to the hospital to get a ventilator.  With the mass hysteria, you may create the reality that we’re out of ventilators.”

                “Yes”

                “That’s pretty diabolical”

                “We have to milk this crisis for everything it’s worth.  It’s not about saving people’s lives, it’s about making Trump look bad so he doesn’t get re-elected.  This is what it takes.”

                “This is too much man.  People are dying”

                “The ends justify the means.  You have to break eggs to make an omelet.”

                “People will know what the actual article said.  You’re not going to get away with it.”

                “Yes, I know but then I just remove the tweet and write a retraction.  In which case, a fraction of the people that saw the original tweet will see the retraction and my ass is covered.”

                “This is too much.”

                “It is necessary”

                “Okay, well, you do your thing.”

                “I intend to.”

                Slavitt isn’t the only one taking to twitter to attack president Trump.  Julia Ioffe of the New York Times taunted the president with a simple tweet, ‘Who’s the shithole country now?”

                This was in response to the United States having the most Wuhan Virus cases in the world.  Like most things with the Wuhan Virus, it is heavily relied upon unreliable data; in this case; Chinese data.  This is nothing new as the New York Times and mainstream media always believed everything Russia told them.  Even those that travelled to Russia were fooled by being shown only what they were supposed to see and the Pravda media spread their disinformation throughout America using the American media as their conduit.  The Chinese are repeating that strategy now.

                Over at CNN, an executive is having the same conversation as everyone else in the mainstream media; how do we hurt Trump.  A reporter remarks, “Why don’t we just do a fact check.”

                “We always do that.”

                “Yea, because it works.”

                “What are you fact checking?”

                “Trump said that we’ve done more Coronavirus testing than any other nation.  Let’s see if that’s true.”

                “Have you checked it or are you just asking the question?”

                “I checked it.”

                “And what did you find?”

                “He’s right that we have the most testing but it’s misleading because we don’t have the highest per capita.”

                “How is that misleading?  We don’t have the highest population so having more tests than China would be beneficial for us.”

                “South Korea leads the world in testing per capita.  Actually in pure number, South Korea, not China, is in second place now.”

                “That isn’t what he said though.”

                “Who cares?”

                “It’s your reputation on the line.”

                “Our audience will think it’s a legitimate point.  All we have to do is change what the president said and then reveal that it was incorrect then Trump looks like he lied again.”

                “Sounds complicated.”

                “it’s not; quite simple.”

                “Well, you have my blessing.  Go for it.”

                “Thank You”

                The executive calls to the group, “Any other ideas?”

                A reporter calls out, “The Supreme Court just ruled unanimously that if you sue for racial discrimination, the burden is on you to prove that racial discrimination occurred and that no other reason was involved.”

                “Why would we report that?  That’s bad for us.  Now, we can’t have frivolous lawsuits to make our enemies suffer by spending a lot of money on defending a case.  We may lose the case, but we take a pound of flesh and make their policy expensive.  Now, the judge can just throw it out and it will cost people we falsely accuse of racial discrimination nothing.”

                “Isn’t that good?  We don’t waste the court’s time.”

                “You are so naïve.  No, that’s not what we do.  You are not reporting on that.  We are ignoring that story.’

                “Yes sir.”

                “What else do we got?”

                An anchorwoman articulates, “I don’t think this Obama vs. Trump thing is getting much traction.  Perhaps we can go another route.”

                “What did you have in mind?”

                “We can talk about current mayors and governors and allow them to blame the president for what’s happening in their cities.”

                “You mean De Blasio?”

                “No, New York is too easy.  I want to give a Democrat a chance at redemption.  I have New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell who wants to come on to tell her side of the story.”

                “Her side of what story?”

                “Why she allowed Mardis Gras to happen.  Afterwards, there was a massive outbreak of the Coronavirus and their death rate is one of the highest in the countries now.”

                “You want to highlight a Democrat mayor destroying her city?”

                “No, I want her to say it was Trump’s fault that Mardis Gras happened.”

                “Is she going to say that?”

                “Yes”

                “On what grounds?”

                “The federal government and Trump failed to tell her about the Coronavirus.  Since she didn’t have the information, she couldn’t have known to cancel Mardis Gras”

                “But, the CDC had already warned everyone before Mardis Gras happened.”    

                “It’s been long enough that most people won’t put two and two together.”

                “Trump mentioned the Coroanvirus during the State of the Union and had a Travel ban to China from it months before Mardis Gras”

                “All people remember from the State of the Union is Trump bragging about the unemployment rate and the economy, giving Rush Limbaugh a medal and Pelosi ripping the speech.”

                “It does rile up our base.  At least an elected politician is saying it.”

                “It also gives her a chance to highlight the good things she did so her constituents don’t think it’s all bad.  Remember, if she loses then a Republican will be in charge.  We can’t let that happen.”

                “She can get primaried.”

                “Let’s just help her.”

                “What good did she do?”

                “She shut down Super Tuesday and the St. Patrick’s Day parade.”

                “Nobody had a St. Patrick’s Day Parade.”

                “Exactly but Trump highlights his successes to hide his lies and failures; we should let her do the same thing.”

                “I’ll allow it.”

                “Thank You”

                As the mainstream media and the Democrats collude to use the Wuhan Virus to attack the president, people continue to die much to their delight.  Just as how when the virus was spreading around the world and set to come to America, the Democrats were impeaching President Trump, now that the Wuhan Virus is wreaking havoc on America and the American economy, instead of helping with the problem, they actively try to increase panic and are preparing to impeach the president yet again.  It looks like Trump’s Coronavirus task force are the only ones trying to save Americans and the media and Democrats will do everything they possibly can to stop them.  Whether or not distressed Americans realize this will be told in November when they vote.  Even with a Trump win, the recent Senate stimulus package may give a final blow to the United States national debt and cause massive inflation and astronomical interest rates.  By then, there may be nothing President Trump could do to reverse it.  The Wuhan Virus seems to be the greatest threat now but it appears that the reaction to it will be far more catastrophic and have a much longer lasting effect than the virus itself.  The future looks bleak even as the virus seems to be dissipating.