Sunny-warm this late-afternoon Tuesday here in California’s Central Valley, 77-degrees still with maybe a chance of topping 80 tomorrow — summer’s coming.
Yet the winter of our discontented virus continues…

(Illustration by Kelly Caminero at The Daily Beast).

In the T-Rump’s presser/rally today, and as yesterday, he has a shitload of trouble handling the truth when it’s thrown into his weird-swollen face. Even if there’s obvious truth to the truth question. Just about every encounter at these events the T-Rump has a flare-up with reporters asking relevant queries on way-relevant shit — people are dying.

In a most-definite tract regarding veracity of our current deadly predicament, Nancy Pelosi kicked some T-Rump ass today with a reality check via a letter to House Democrats :

The truth is that Donald Trump dismantled the infrastructure handed to him which was meant to plan for and overcome a pandemic, resulting in unnecessary deaths and economic disaster.
The truth is that in January Donald Trump was warned about this pandemic, ignored those warnings, took insufficient action and caused unnecessary death and disaster.
The truth is that Donald Trump told his most loyal followers that the pandemic was a hoax and that it would magically disappear, thus endangering lives and paving the way for economic disaster.
The truth is that we did not have proper testing available in March despite Trump repeatedly claiming that we did; and even now, we do not have adequate tests, masks, PPE, and necessary equipment, which creates unnecessary death and suffering.
The truth is because of an incompetent reaction to this health crisis, the strong economy handed to Donald Trump is now a disaster, causing the suffering of countless Americans and endangering lives.
The truth is a weak person, a poor leader, takes no responsibility.
A weak person blames others.
The truth is, from this moment on, Americans must ignore lies and start to listen to scientists and other respected professionals in order to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
…
But if we are not working from the truth, more lives will be lost, economic hardship and suffering will be extended unnecessarily and our children will not be safe, happy and learning. Our future will be healthy and prosperous if we no longer tolerate lies and deceit.

We must recognize the truth, we must speak the truth, we must insist on the truth and we must and will act upon it.

Digby has a good post on female world leaders who’ve taken the lead on handling the COVID-19 pandemic, way-way better than a huge host of shit-faced men. Pelosi is right there among them.
Coincidentally, the T-Rump hates smart women. Pelosi (and all Democrats) were snubbed by the T-Rump not-being invited to the coronavirus relief bill signing at the end of last month, supposedly unable to be in the same room with her.
Asshole.

Female journalists are taking-up the task, too — a revealing piece yesterday afternoon at the Guardian:

Yesterday, the CBS reporter Paula Reid was determined to ask him about it at a White House press conference.
“How do you close down the greatest economy in the history of the world when, on January 17, you have no cases [of Covid-19 in the US] and no deaths?” he replied.
“On January 21, you have one case and no deaths. Think of that, we’re supposed to close down the country?”

In the exchange, the president highlights his decision to close US borders to China, and suggests that Democrats, in particular Joe Biden, accused him of xenophobia at the time.

But Reid was not convinced.
“The argument is that you bought yourself some time. But what did you do with that time? You didn’t use it to prepare hospitals, you didn’t use it to ramp up testing. Right now, nearly 20 million are unemployed, tens of thousands of Americans are dead,” says Reid.

In the ensuing debacle, Trump talks over her, raising his voice and calling Reid disgraceful – a pattern he seems to follow when talking to female journalists, and female journalists of color particularly.
Earlier this month, the PBS journalist Yamiche Alcindor had a similar interaction with Trump, during which he told her to “be nice”.
Alcindor stood her ground and held her line of questioning.

Trump continuously looks down during Reid’s questioning, but if it’s a script he is consulting, it doesn’t seem very versatile.
“What do you do when you have no cases in the whole United States –” he begins, before Reid interjects: “You had cases in February.”
Reid does what all journalists who are facing Donald Trump should do: she demands an answer, she holds him to account, and she remains steadfast and unfazed while he ignores her questions and insults her instead.

“Look, look, you know you’re a fake. You know that, your whole network, the way that you cover it is fake,” responds Trump.
He goes on to ask about Joe Biden apologizing for closing the borders.

“There are thousands of Americans dead right now, we don’t care about why Joe Biden didn’t apologize to you,” responds Reid.

And for some reason this morning, during my walk with Leroy, my daughter’s basset hound/greyhound mix, I started thinking about this song, and Glenn Campbell, who died almost three years ago:

A while later, this mentally popped-up from David Bowie, who died way-too young (69) four years ago — my favorite of all of his incredible stuff:

And again, for some unexplained reason, a memory of Glenn Frey — died eight days after Bowie four years ago — and of the era of ‘Miami Vice.’ Frey and I were near-about exactly the same age (‘were,’ he’s dead, I’m still alive):

Maybe the connection is that they’re all dead — I heard snatches of the three songs in my mind for awhile, then the music drifted away, and I didn’t even remember until way-later.
What day is this? And I didn’t sign-up for all these ‘Twilight Zone‘ episodes, either…