'Let them eat cake'
While thousands of Americans filed for unemployment after losing their jobs following the COVID-19 virus outbreak and many others sought out food banks in order to eat, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi showed off her kitchen and her ice cream collection on "The Late, Late Show" last week.
The tone-deaf appearance reminded many of the remark attributed - though historians think incorrectly - to French Queen Marie Antoinette, speaking of the plight of peasants who had no bread, in the late 18th century: "Let them eat cake."
Following an appearance on the show where she trashed President Trump but made no mention of how she held up passage of a virus relief package for the American people, she participated in a show-and-tell segment, displaying her top-of-the-line San Francisco kitchen and her 15-flavor ice cream collection.
"We all have found our ways to keep our spirits up during these trying times," she tweeted, appearing in front of her restaurant-size refrigerators. "Mine [ice cream] just happens to fill up my freezer."
Get a new insult word
Trump Derangement Syndrome has been evidenced in fascinating and unbelievable ways over the past four years, but a recent tweet by a former LA Weekly columnist brings the illness to a new level of paranoid.
Art Tevana tweeted a photo of President Donald Trump's signature last week and termed it "the signature equivalent of a swastika." He was steamed because the president's signature is on the stimulus checks that were finding their way into the mailboxes and bank accounts of Americans last week.
The writer apparently is not aware that comparing the president to something related to the World War II German Nazi regime is so 2017. Indeed, referring to any Republican president as a "Nazi" anymore hardly raises an eyebrow. It is still reprehensible but so behind the times.
At least one Never Trumper tweeter saw through the idiocy.
"Stupid s--- like this drives more people towards Trump," the tweet said.
Fauci's hookup advice
It's not the advice he's giving to America as a whole, but Dr. Anthony Fauci says those individuals who cruise the dating apps Tinder, Bumble or Grindr for a match should go for it if they're willing to take the risk.
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force was asked his thoughts last week in an interview on Snapchat's "Good Luck America."
Asked what to say to the person who is "swiping on a dating app like Tinder, or Bumble or Grindr, and you match with someone that you think is hot," and you wonder if just one stranger would be OK, Fauci said, "You know, that's tough. Because that's what's called a relative risk."
But he wasn't finished.
"If you're willing to take a risk - and you know, everybody has their own tolerance for risks - you could figure out if you want to meet somebody," Fauci said. "If you want to go a little bit more intimate, well, then that's your choice regarding a risk."
And there was a caveat.
People can also transmit the virus when they're asymptomatic, Fauci said, so don't base your hookup on whether "the person is feeling well."
In a whit of trouble
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer found herself in over her head last week when she suggested protesters surrounding the state capitol in Lansing were endangering people's lives. Many of the protesters, who were angry at their inability to work because of COVID-19 virus outbreak stay-at-home orders, wore masks, maintained social distance from each other and did not exchange handshakes or close greetings.
In addition to those on the capitol lawn, others in their cars honked horns, played patriotic music and waved American flags.
Whitmer, who may have forgotten about the constitutional freedom to assemble, said the demonstration "is going to come at a cost to people's health," though she would not predict what "certain percentage" would fall ill.
Other Michigan residents filed suit in federal court over the governor's executive order to shut down businesses, ban travel to private homes and freely associate.
"It's taking a sledgehammer to an ant," attorney David Helm, representing the group, told WJBK. "We believe it is broad and overreaching."
Radio host Steve Gruber, who attended the rally, said the executive order will have another consequence.
It's, effectively, "putting Michigan in Donald Trump's win column again in 2020," he said.