COVID-19 cases are still growing exponentially in the US with now over 800,000 cases and 45,000 deaths.  That’s not bothering the old Basement Bar in Fort Worth, though.  There was quite a flame war going on over on their Facebook page this morning after they announced they were fully opening this weekend to sell their $2 beer in exchange for the public health.  Let’s just say that the majority of the comments we’re not very supportive of such idiocy, and the author of the post, who I assume is the owner, got a little chippy with some of the commenters.  Here’s an example:

After over 3,200 comments, most not very complimentary of the bar opening right now, the post was removed.  What I found amazing, though, were the supportive comments i.e. “This was all exaggerated.” “The government can’t tell us what to do.” “It’s just the flu.” “I don’t know anyone who has it,” etc., etc., so forth and so on.  Fort Worth has become the weird mixture of education, sophistication, forward thinking, entrepreneurial vigor, offset by up with mouth breathing stupidity.

I hope they don’t get a bunch more people killed.

Kentucky Republican state representative and former GOP candidate for governor against Democrat Matt Bevin in 2019, got released from his home the hard way.  Robert Goforth upholds Republican values.

Goforth, 44, was arrested on first-degree strangulation, fourth-degree domestic violence and third-degree terroristic threatening charges about 3 a.m. Tuesday.

The alleged assault happened about 1:30 a.m., the Louisville Courier Journal reported. The woman completed paperwork for an emergency protective order, and she told deputies that Goforth tried to “hog tie her,” according to the Courier Journal.

Police said the man attempted to strangle the woman with an Ethernet cable.

There were three small children in the house at the time of the assault.

The Kentucky Republican reaction is that they “just been made aware of these charges and do not know the facts related to this case.”

Ethernet cable.  Hog tie. Children in house. Strangle marks on the woman’s neck. Not the first time this guy has had an assault charge leveled against him.  Are y’all waiting for a confession?

I have a theory.  When I see what businesses the rightwing want to open, I kinda get suspicious.

Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, will allow gyms, hair salons, bowling alleys, tattoo and massage parlors to reopen on Friday, followed by movie houses and restaurants next week.

It looks to me like they really don’t want to go back to work – they want you to go back to work.

And along comes Fox News with the outrage of the day.

Ainsley Earhardt, a blonde co-host (aren’t they all?) tells the real tragedy of the ban on immigration.

“Many families here, including mine — we have au pairs, and we rely on them,” she said. “I go to work at three o’clock in the morning, so I need her there. And I need her in my house so that she can help me with my daughter.”

“Many families rely on child care from other countries,” Earhardt continued. “These au pairs come here on work visas. They have to go back to their country to get the visas renewed, and we’ve been talking in my house about how that’s going to happen.”

Damn, I didn’t even think about the horror of that.  I mean, think of the single mothers teaching school, how do they function without an au pair?  Thousands of waitresses are waiting for their summer au pair across this country.

The Fox News host, who appears to be riding out the pandemic by the beaches of the Hamptons, presumably with her au pair, lamented in late March that women forced to stay home to prevent the spread of COVID-19 “can’t get their nails done.”

“Women — all my friends are saying — you know, this is not a priority. People are dying, and I realize that,” she said at the time. “But they can’t get their nails done.”

I appreciate that she said it was not a priority, but just one item in a long list of inconvenient atrocities rich white women must endure.

Thanks to S Gray for the heads up.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is back on his idea that some old people need to die to protect democracy.

His theory goes like this: if we reopen government, sure, old people will get this Covid Crap and die.  But, everybody else will thrive and we’ve saved democracy for our grandchildren. After all, it’s the least old people can do.

Okay, okay, I know that contrary to what we first heard, we have discovered that Covid-19 kills all age groups and it’s not just old people.  Dan’s brain has a lag time of about 30 days, okay, maybe 60 days.  The man, after all, is 70 years old so it takes a while to get things in his brain to do an oopsy.

For a while now Patrick has preached that the lockdown was unnecessary in Texas because we’ve only had 500 deaths because … ta da! … we locked down early.  So, we should lift the lock because it’s working.

Patrick said Monday that there are “more important things than living.” And that, he said, includes making sure the country is saved for his children and grandchildren.

Okay, for the second time because he didn’t hear me the first time, Dan Patrick should set a shining example for all the rest of us and give it up for my bank account.

You first, Dan.

Okay, so I have decided that the protestors should not be able to call themselves patriots.  Even “Quarantine Protestors” is too legit for them

I have been calling them the Pro Covid18 Council.  Up until them, there was a troublesome vacuum of leadership on the ProVirus movement.  Now it’s rowdy.

Thelma, however, wins. She calls them the Flu Klux Klan.

Yeah, you can steal that.

Well, our Attorney General, William Barr, is making headlines.

Seriously.  I took a scene shot of that because otherwise you would not have believed it.

In a new interview with right-wing talk-show host Hugh Hewitt, Barr threatens to throw the DOJ’s weight behind businesses to sue states and cities that fail to open up quickly enough. Barr’s premise is that Trump, as always, has taken a wise and measured course: “I think the president’s plan for getting the country back to work is really a very commonsensical approach that is based on really assessing the status of the virus in each state and each locality, and then gradually pulling back on restrictions.”

Yeah, yeah, posting LIBERATE! in all-caps is a helluva wise and measured course.

Okay first, when did all the state-rights Republicans flip the hell over to “we’re coming to make you work or die”?

And secondly, if they do sue the states that feel it’s not safe to re-open, what the hell do they have? A piece of paper signed by a third-rate judge who Trump appointed? Whoa, that scares me worse than dying a horrible death gasping for air as I watch the disease spread to my family over a $10 an hour job?

Is Barr gonna send one of his chubby buddies in funny glasses to make me go to work? Are little lawyer Barr-clones gonna come to my house, make me get dressed at subpoena point, and drive me to work at my receptionist desk?

Barr knows damn well he does not have that power but saying he does on talk radio makes his winkie two inches longer and 5 inches is a whole damn lot, I’ll have you know.

Aaarrrgh!  They make me crazy with their starving little egos.  Barr, listen up cowboy, you are short, you dress funny, and you walk like a penguin. I refuse to take you seriously to start with, and then this crap comes prancing out of your mouth on My Little Pony wings and you want me to react favorably? Nope.