In an alarming turn of events, management of the Texas Medical Center in Houston has halted the reporting of real time COVID-19 data.  They haven’t reported new data since Thursday.  That’s right, folks; as COVID-19 new case rate goes almost vertical and ICUs are being overrun, TMC has halted real time data reporting.  Why, you ask?  Apparently, the heads of TMC cut a deal with Greg Abbott.  As we know, Abbott awoke from his Stupid Coma on Thursday and shut down all elective surgeries in the state to relieve the load on hospitals in the state.  He also ordered bars throughout the state to close again after he had stupidly allowed them to reopen starting in May.

Doctors within TMC have been ringing the alarm bells for weeks as new case rate increased.  Leadership also provided public warnings about capacity, reporting that they were going to exceed surge ICU capacity by the first week of July.  Late Thursday, though, TMC management reversed themselves, saying they had plenty of capacity.  What happened?  I’m hearing that Abbott built in a huge loophole in his shutdown policy to allow elective surgeries in TMC and affiliates as long as the hospitals have “enough capacity”.  Apparently “enough capacity” is pretty damn vague.  Methodist Hospital even sent out a “don’t worry, be happy” post on Thursday that they had plenty of room and elective surgeries (translated “very profitable”.  As I’m sure is a complete coincidence, TMC simultaneously halted realtime reporting of COVID-19 case rates and ICU capacity utilization in Houston.  Hmm.

All of this is going on as ICU capacity at TMC and other is overrun.  TMC hospitals are even moving adult patients into Texas Children’s hospital, turning kids away.  It’s like we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into the Greg Abbott version of Trumpland.  I continue to shake my head at the willful ignorance and magical thinking coming from our elected leadership.  It’s an alternate reality where Abbott/Patrick/Paxton & Company run us into a brick wall at 100 miles an hour only for them to say, “Oops, that didn’t work.”  My jaw is aching from dragging on the floor.

Jesus.

Trump got his money’s worth this morning, using one of his judges on the DC Court to overrule district court judge Emmet Sullivan, ordering him to immediately drop the charges against Michael Flynn to which he had twice pleaded guilty.  The order was written by Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee and protege of none other than Clarence Thomas.  Rao was joined by Karen Henderson, an HW appointee.  Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, disagreed.

The judicial branch of our government is now completely corrupted, caught in the iron grip of Trump criminality.

Two new ones, and they’re rich:

Your campaign was so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. pic.twitter.com/cfAAkGLttH

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) June 22, 2020

From one of our salon customers – Lincoln Project gold.  I love mocking Trump, and this is one of the best.  Watch to the end.

This is art. https://t.co/ZPJxHu20TV

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) June 21, 2020

Brad Parscale, Trump’s digital marketing guru, boasted earlier this week that one million people had applied for tickets to Coronafest in Tulsa.  Usually brilliant, Parscale fell for a prank by Tik-Tok users whose viral posts prompted all those ticketed no-shows.  Only 6,200 showed, the outdoor events were abruptly canceled, and you know that Trump raged all the way home.  But the best thing?  This photo:

Nothing embodies Trump’s fizzling re-election prospects more than this image.

We all know that generally, Trump is in poor health.  He’s obese, and lies about his weight and his height to conceal that.  He wears lifts in his shoes to appear taller which throws off his posture.  At the G7 summit in Italy in 2017, he rode in a golf cart while other world leaders strolled through the town where it was being held.  His diet is terrible, and he was rushed to Walter Reid Hospital last November for an unknown reason, only that it was for pre-work for his annual physical.  That physical is reported to have occurred in April, but results weren’t released until June 3rd, showing weight gain but stating the he “remains in good health”.

There have been a lot of questions about his true health as frailty, unsteadiness, and slurring his words have come to light regularly.  At It happened again on Saturday during the West Point graduation that Trump invited himself to attend, demanding that graduates already released to protect them from COVID-19 were ordered back to provide a backdrop for another of his rambling, self-aggrandizing word salad speeches.  This time, though, he struggled to drink water out of a glass, unable to raise it to his mouth with one hand, struggled to pronounce the word “ceremony” and then, after the speech unsteadily negotiated a shallow ramp down from the stage.  Here’s the walk.

Some make the excuse that he’s 74 years old; some think that he’s unsteady with those lifts in his shoes; I think he has some kind of health issue that he’s concealing from the public.  The slurring of words and weakness on his right side are telling, and feed speculation about Trump’s health on social media.  The lies and bombastic rhetoric pouring out of the White House  and his enablers tend to numb the public to his outrageous behavior; add that to his doctors exaggerating his “good health” and you get what you have today – speculation about his true condition.  Trump even gaslights the American people about his own health.  It’s time for him to come clean before the election, but I’m not holding my breath.