The Western Word is coming to you, STILL coronavirus free, from deep inside an underground bunker in Montana. The bunker also serves as the worldwide headquarters for The Western Word blog!

Quote of the day…

In case you lost track, today is March 97th. – Unknown

Today’s independent commentary deals with these people/issues:

• Bullock & Montana
• White House Press Briefings
• Lock Him Up
• One More Thing

BULLOCK & MONTANA:

Lee Newspapers is reporting that governors in a call with President Donald Trump on Monday raised concerns about having sufficient testing capacity to track the spread of the coronavirus in their states, with Montana Gov. Steve Bullock pressing on maintaining sufficient supplies here.

Trump said in response that he “hasn’t heard about testing in weeks.” “We’ve tested more now than any nation in the world. We’ve got these great tests and we’ll come out with another one tomorrow that’s, you know, almost instantaneous testing. But I haven’t heard anything about testing being a problem.”

It sounds like Trump just did hear about testing being a problem and ignored it.

Also on Monday, Bullock directed that travelers arriving from another state or country to Montana for non-work-related purposes undergo a 14-day self-quarantine. The Directive follows the governor’s prior travel advisory and last week’s Stay at Home Directive.

For those folks from Iowa, that’s two weeks. 😉

WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFINGS:

Like I have said before, it’s apparent that President Trump has a hard time when presented with his actual quotes and then questioned about them. It seems everyone working for Trump is a “Yes” person and when members of the press corps ask him tough questions, he gets pissed.

Trump has attacked the press just about every day when there have been press briefings about coronavirus.

I am thankful for a press corps who are not afraid to ask tough questions of our elected leaders. I can’t believe any Trump supporter, if the tables were turned, would think it was OK to only ask softball questions to someone like Hillary Clinton during these historic times in our nation. If these Trump supporters dislike the questions because they are being asked of Trump, then they are more ignorant than I thought.

Here is a really simple question asked of Trump recently:

Sir, what do you say to Americans who are upset with you over the way you downplayed this crisis over the last couple of months?

Trump interrupted the reporter about halfway through the question saying, “Here we go.”

Trump answered the question and could have shut up, but then he added:

And it’s people like you and CNN that say things like that. That — it’s why people just don’t want to listen to CNN anymore. You could ask a normal question.

Trump seems to want everyone to be a team player and agree with him always.

A moment later he added, “And instead of asking a nasty, snarky question like that, you should ask a real question.”

At the end of the briefing he was asked another legitimate question about coronavirus testing:

Mr. President, you said several times that the United States has ramped up testing, but the United States is still not testing per capita as many people as other countries like South Korea. Why is that? And when do you think that that number will be on par with other countries?

The President fires back with a question of his own:

Look — look — per capita. We have areas of country that’s very tight. I know South Korea better than anybody. It’s a — very tight. Do you know how many people are in Seoul? Do you know how big the city of Seoul is?

Before the reporter answers the President says the population of Seoul is “Thirty-eight million people. That’s bigger than anything we have. Thirty-eight million people all tightly wound together.”

Actually, the population of Seoul is about 9.7 million people. Trump says shit and does not believe that anyone will fact check him. If he lies about the population of a city in a foreign country, he will lie about anything.

All the quotes in this section are from the White House website. You can click HERE to read the full transcript.

LOCK HIM UP:

Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, 58, who oversees a Tampa, Florida, megachurch is facing charges after refusing to close its doors despite a “safer at home” order in effect in Hillsborough County, meant to stop the spread of COVID-19. The sheriff says up to 500 people were in attendance at Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne’s Sunday services. (Fox13)

He was arrested and posted a $500 bond and was released.

Churches all over the country, large and small, are streaming their services to their members. Howard-Browne challenged authority and lost. I hope he is prosecuted to the fullest.

ONE MORE THING:

This is day XX of social distancing (I lost count). My bear is playing the piano. He can’t carry a tune…

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