Dallas Labradoodles, disinfectants, heat, and almost 50,000 dead.

While a deadly pandemic was heading to the Unites States, the trump administration wanted to fire one of the leading officials at the CDC, because her sounding the alarm about the pandemic was causing the stock market to tank. As it turns out, he did later on force out Dr. Rick Bright, who was a deputy assistant for preparedness and response, because Dr. Bright would not endorse an unproven drug that Mr. trump was peddling to the American people. 

As if all that isn't bad enough, we are now learning about the actions of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, who hired a man whose job it was to....well...I will quote a portion of an article from The Independent here.

"Azar is a Republican lawyer who once clerked for the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and counts current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as a friend. Under George W. Bush, Azar worked for HHS as general counsel and deputy secretary. During the Obama years, he cycled through the private sector as a pharmaceutical company lobbyist and executive for Eli Lilly. After Trump’s first HHS secretary was forced out in a travel corruption scandal, Azar stepped in, in January 2018.

Two years later, at the dawn of the coronavirus crisis, Azar appointed his most trusted aide and chief of staff, Harrison, as HHS’s main coordinator for the government’s response to the virus.
Harrison, 37, was an unusual choice, with no formal education in public health, management, or medicine and with only limited experience in the fields. In 2006, he joined HHS in a one-year stint as a “Confidential Assistant” to Azar, who was then deputy secretary. He also had posts working for Vice President Dick Cheney, the Department of Defense and a Washington public relations company.
Before joining the Trump Administration in January 2018, Harrison’s official HHS biography says, he “ran a small business in Texas.” The biography does not disclose the name or nature of that business, but his personal financial disclosure forms show that from 2012 until 2018 he ran a company called Dallas Labradoodles.

The company sells Australian Labradoodles, a breed that is a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle. He sold it in April 2018, his financial disclosure form said. HHS emailed Reuters that the sale price was $225,000.

At HHS, Harrison was initially deputy chief of staff before being promoted, in the summer of 2019, to replace Azar’s first chief of staff, Peter Urbanowicz, an experienced hospital executive with decades of experience in public health.

This January, Harrison became a key manager of the HHS virus response. “Everyone had to report up through him,” said one HHS official.

One questionable decision, three sources say, came that month, after the White House announced it was convening a coronavirus task force. The HHS role was to muster resources from key public health agencies: the CDC, FDA, National Institutes of Health, Office of Global Affairs and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. "

This would be funny if almost 50,000 Americans have not already lost their lives. If you have been watching trump's nightly coronavirus briefings you have got to be terrified. Rather than let medical professionals take the lead, Mr. trump has made himself the center of attention, and has told lie after lie while promoting himself and treating each briefing like it was a reelection rally.

Tonight, incredibly, Mr. trump seemed to suggest that we could kill the virus by simply treating it with heat or light, or, just as astonishingly, inject the human body with disinfectant to kill the virus. (Yes, he really did that.)You now have to wonder how many of his not too bright supporters will now start scooping up Clorox bleach and needles to start shooting up themselves. He also brought out one of his sycophants to try to sell the American people on the fact that warm weather will kill the virus.  It was all so bad that when he asked the Scarf Lady to back him, she could not. She had to protect whatever shred of dignity she had left.

It's a sad thing when a megalomaniac's need for loyalty extends to scientists and those who are charged with saving our lives. Sadly, this is where we are with Mr. trump, and this is the last thing that we need right now.

*Image from wjtv.com