Keep Your Pucker Up

Following the latest round of news about his administration's stupendously inept handling of the Ebola crisis (including the CDC's recommendation to a feverish Ebola patient to fly on a commercial aircraft), Barack Obama actually cancelled a fundraising event on Wednesday, then ice-skated across Hell to hold a press event to reassure the increasingly worried American public.

"I hugged and kissed a couple of the nurses at Emory hospital because of the valiant work they did in treating one of the patients," Obama said, "and I felt perfectly safe doing so."

Following CDC protocol about exposure to possibly contagious individuals, those nurses will now be closely monitored for 21 days to see if they start golfing, blame their mistakes on others, show unusual sensitivity to Fox News, or scratch their crotches during the national anthem.

BONUS CARTOON: EBLOA PROTOCOL

"Bodily Fluids" haven't been in the news this much since the heyday of president BJ Clinton and his faithful humidor, Monica Lewinsky.  Which is why this seems like a good time to remind the current occupant of the Oval Office of the potentially disastrous consequences of not taking common sense precautions, no matter how hard they are to swallow. 

So to speak.

HOPE N' CHANGE RECOMMENDS: MAC & WALLY
 

Politics has gone to the dogs - but in a good way! "Mac & Wally" are two funny, conservative dogs appearing in their very own comic strip which you can find on Facebook, Twitter, Ricochet, and probably some other social media services which we're too old to understand.

Hope n' Change has nothing to do with this strip other than really liking it. Click on the link and "like" or "friend" or "follow" or "poke" or whatever to get on the "Mac & Wally" bandwagon!

Another Round of Shots

As Vince Lombardi or perhaps Yogi Berra once said: "The best offense is a really offensive defense." Which is perhaps why a defensive Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, has come out saying that the reason his agency hasn't developed an Ebola vaccine is because of draconian budget cuts over the past 10 years.

The problem is, the NIH really hasn't had their budget slashed (in fact, for 2015 the Republicans gave the agency more money than Obama requested) and, quite demonstrably, they've felt so little belt-tightening in recent years that they've been perfectly happy to spend huge sums of money on medical projects of highly questionable value.

Among the things your tax dollars have paid to find out while the impoverished Ebola vaccine team was forced to eat ramen noodles and go without clean underwear:

• Male fruit flies would rather have sex with hot young female fruit flies rather than wrinkly older female fruit flies who are starting to look like Hillary Clinton. ($939,000)

• Chimps with the best feces-flinging abilities are also the best communicators, clearly establishing a Darwinian link to politicians. ($592,000)

• Cocaine can be used to make Japanese quail hornier. Which presumably cuts down on the amount of time they need for small talk and foreplay. ($181,000)

• Golfers can putt better if they just imagine the hole is bigger. Presumably female golfers can benefit from the same visualization technique when giving birth. ($1.1 million)

• Uncircumsized South African men who scrub their tallywhackers following sex may have a reduced chance of developing various kinds of godawful African crotch crud. ($832,000)

Still inconclusive is an expensive NIH study on why lesbians have a tendency to be overweight. We would suggest it's because they eat out too often, but the NIH grant we requested for a drummer to play therapeutic rimshots fell through.

All in all, Hope n' Change thinks that the NIH should stop trying to combine medicine with politics, stop suggesting that the solution to every medical issue is "give us more money," and - most importantly - quit pouring money into research projects that made them giggle when high on "medicinal" marijuana.

ADDENDUM: A second healthcare worker in Dallas has now tested positive for Ebola, raising serious questions about the efficacy of CDC protocols. The head of the CDC, however, maintains that the protocols are fine and human error is to blame. In fact, he's so confident of this that he told Megyn Kelly that he could safely treat an Ebola patient with no head/face protection, no footwear protection, and only one pair of gloves.

And that's exactly what Hope n' Change thinks he should do: fly to Dallas immediately and help restore calm and confidence to healthcare workers by demonstrating proper protocol technique while he treats the newest patients.

Hey, even if he's wrong about it being safe, he'd at least be providing the healthcare team with an additional patient to practice on in about two weeks...

Sick Joke

The first case of Ebola contracted inside the United States has now been documented in Dallas, after a nurse who bravely treated "patient zero" Thomas Eric Duncan tested positive for the virus. Disconcertingly, she was infected despite wearing full protective gear (trust us, "hazmat-chic" will soon be the new fashion rage).

The Center for Disease Control quickly responded that the nurse must have been responsible for a "protocol breach," because, as every political organization knows, nothing can stand up to protocol, including hemorrhagic fever.

Barack Obama, stealing a few precious moments between fundraising, golfing, and conceding defeat in the Middle East, attempted to quell public fears by saying you can't catch Ebola "by sitting next to someone on a bus."   Which is why the CDC is suggesting a new protocol in which medical professionals will skip the hazmat suits and simply treat patients while seated next to them on a bus.

Still, these palliative measures will accomplish little unless the United States can keep additional Ebola carriers from our shores. To that end, the president has ordered Homeland Security and the TSA to upgrade their screening procedures for people entering our country. Formerly, people were simply asked if they've had contact with Ebola victims. Now, after answering "no," they will also be asked to cross their hearts - a security measure previously only used to identify potential terrorists.

To be absolutely fair, it's not Barack Obama's fault that Ebola has found its way into our country. Although it is his fault that tens of thousands of young illegal aliens have crossed the border and been squirreled off to God knows where while carrying scabies, tuberculosis, and in all likelihood the enterovirus which is (ahem) mysteriously infecting children across our nation.

And importantly, it's also his fault that in a time of medical crisis neither the "healthcare" president nor his representatives in the CDC appear to have a well-coordinated response to Ebola - or any credibility whatsoever.

Unless, of course, there's anyone else on the bus.

BONUS: TAKE BACK THE FUTURE

With the midterm elections only a few weeks away, Hope n' Change created the message below in hopes that we can finally see some real Hope and Change. Please share it with others!