Month: October 2020

Charlie and I watched a news broadcast yesterday morning that had a segment about a 50 year old man who was being released from a hospital after fighting off Covid-19 in a hospital intensive care unit for 208 days.

Last night, we watched about half of the Third Presidential Debate of 2020. In it, Donald Trump bragged about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying that “We’re rounding the corner on Covid-19!” and that his leadership had probably saved a million lives.

Debate opponent Joe Biden correctly pointed out that the President had initially discounted coronavirus as nothing serious, continued for months to “downplay it” (Trump’s words), said in the Spring that it would “go away soon”, said in the Summer that it “would just go away when the weather warms up”, and, now that it’s Fall, with 80,000 new Covid-19 infections yesterday, is implying that his Administration has the coronavirus pandemic “under control”.

This cheerful news reminds me of the never-ending public relations bullshit that emanated from the Department of Defense during the Vietnam War. Accompanying the statistics of enemy (and American) soldiers killed in action was always the optimistic promise that, “We can now see the light at the end of the tunnel”. The core problem was that the Johnson Administration was never able to find the tunnel in the first place.

We have the same problem in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump Administration. In fact, Trump yesterday publicly said, believe it or not, “We can see the light at the end of the tunnel”.

Back in February, the President and his advisors didn’t want to believe that Covid-19 was a serious threat, because that would be a big problem in a year when the President would be running for re-election. Knowing better, they publicly pretended (and privately hoped) that the pandemic would “go away” quickly.

From the beginning, once the Trump Administration realized that Covid-19 had imbedded itself in America, the public relations spin from the White House was that the coronavirus was simply another version of the annual flu, that most Americans wouldn’t become infected, and the vast majority of those who did would survive it. As in, “No big problem: life will go on”. So, the attitude was “don’t make the  cure worse than the problem itself”; i.e. don’t fuck up the economy (because that’s the success story that the Trump 2020 re-election campaign will be built around).

Seven months into the pandemic and there is still a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospital workers and there is no quick-turnaround Covid-19 test available to Americans. The President has undercut his Coronavirus Task Force and publicly belittles their advice to citizens. He continues to lead by example, invariably going facemask-less in public and taking pains to undermine elected officials in states (usually Democratic-led) where sound public health measures are being employed.

In the midst of this cock-up, the President has reverted to the old “Look over there!” distraction maneuver…some kind of national security scandal involving Joe Biden’s son’s supposed misplaced laptop. Honestly!

As with many things that have occurred in the Trump presidency, his inferred “solution” to the problem was not thought-out. That solution, as hard as it is to say it, seems to have been to let the chips fall as they may; after all, most people who will die from Covid-19 are old or have pre-existing health issues…so, in essence, they’re expendable.

It is morally reprehensible to even contemplate such a “solution” to a public health problem, but this attitude has been pretty apparent in Trump Administration statements for the past seven months. This should surprise no one because these are the same folks who separated would-be Latin American immigrants from their children at the border…and then (purposely?) lost them (as a deterrent?).

Coupled with his laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, the President has also employed his favorite go-to techniques: casting blame and doubling-down.

From the very beginning of the pandemic and up to the present, Trump has used every opportunity to blame the Chinese for unwittingly or wittingly unleashing the coronavirus on the world, as if this blame-throwing excuses his Administration’s lame response.

Would “They started it!” have justified FDR sitting on his hands while the Axis powers proceeded to ass-whip the United States? Probably not.

The blame game is one of the President’s favorite pastimes. Every time there is a massive forest fire in the Western states, Trump is quick to blame forest managers for not “raking leaves”. The problem is that most of the large fires in the past four years have taken place in Federally-owned/managed forests, which are under the purview of…President Donald J. Trump.

How much leaf raking has he ordered?

During his four years in office, our leader has done and said a lot of stupid things. And, yet, he never apologizes, admits a mistake, or promises to do better. Instead, when it’s obvious to everyone that he’s human and messes up now and then, he “doubles-down” on his mistake by shouting louder and taking an even more aggressive (stupider?) stance. It’s his calling card; i.e. raising the ante on a losing hand.

This has been his pattern in business dealings, and he’s imported it to the Presidency. The only difference is that, in the private sector, a numbskull can declare bankruptcy and live to make more mistakes, which Donald J. Trump did a number of times over the years to the chagrin of his bankers, contractors and vendors. In the public sector, the ones who suffer are the citizens whom Trump pledged to protect.

The President, who has led a Nationwide protest movement against his very own Coronavirus Task Force’s recommendations regarding social distancing and the wearing of face coverings, counters criticism by noting that only a fraction of the people who are infected with Covid-19 actually die from it. This is one of the few true things he has said in four years.

However, the real drag on the Nation, psychologically and economically, is the number of people who have been affected. Trump’s attitude marginalizes all of those individuals who got sick and lost work or their job due to the illness, all of the folks who had to go to work in hazardous conditions because they would lose their job if they didn’t, all of the people who contracted the virus and then infected their loved ones, all of the people who couldn’t visit their dying loved ones in hospital quarantine, all of the seriously ill survivors who now have persistent side effects and huge unpaid medical bills, all of the at-risk teachers who are terrified to return to the classroom, and all of the Americans who have lost their jobs because people are afraid to go to a stadium, or a movie theater, or a convention, or fly on a plane, take a cruise, or eat a meal at a fancy restaurant.

So, ninety-nine percent of these affected Americans didn’t die from Covid-19, but they are victims of the pandemic. Their President has seemingly given up on them, while proudly unmasked holding packed campaign rallies with thousands of his facemask-less fans, basically shoving it (the pandemic) in the victims’ faces.

Let’s go back to the story about the gentleman who recovered from Covid-19 after the 208-day hospital stay. Trump’s attitude would be, “See, most people survive the coronavirus!” True, but it took untold hours of intensive medical care for that one man to survive. A stay of 208 days in intensive care would cost a minimum of $1.5 million. How does that get paid?

Most seriously affected Covid-19 individuals don’t spend that much time in the hospital. However, plenty of them do: in fact, about 1 in 5 positive cases require hospitalization. The average hospital stay of those individuals is one week to two months and stays in intensive care (with ventilator) averaged about two weeks.

Seven months into the pandemic and this Nation has already experienced 8 million Covid-19 infections. Statistically, twenty percent of those infected people have had to visit a hospital. That is a tremendous load on the Nation’s health care system. Not only do the quarantine requirements of the coronavirus pandemic involve great costs to hospitals and emergency rooms, but the volume of these extra cases has overwhelmed many community hospitals. Doctors, nurses, aides and janitorial staff have been working for seven months straight in an environment that puts their health at risk. They are, understandably, worn out and pissed off.

During the debate, when President Trump declared that, “We’re turning the corner on Covid-19”, the country was averaging about 60,000 new reported infections per day. Two days later the number of daily infections had reached 80,000. Experts have predicted for months that this would happen, and they expect that this Fall/Winter “normal flu season” will feature a big spike in Covid-19 infections.

Turning what corner? The corner to Hell?

“Mr. 208”, the lucky survivor of Covid-19, is like the national economy, hanging on to see another day but feeling like someone who got run over by an eighteen-wheeler. Neither needed to suffer like this, but did, thanks to poor leadership in Washington D.C.

Donald J. Trump, liar and denier, will go to his grave publicly acting as if the pandemic was no big thing. (And, besides, it was China’s fault.)

Toward the end of World War II, the Japanese were in dire straits.

Superior American forces were inching closer to their island country with an overwhelming advantage in naval and aviation forces. The end was near. In desperation, the Japanese resorted to “kamikaze” attacks on American aircraft carriers; this tactic involved the Japanese pilot deliberately crashing his bomb-laden plane into the U.S. warship, doing great damage and committing suicide in the process.

Thankfully, these kamikaze attacks didn’t turn the tide.

Many years later, the term “kamikaze attack” has grown to mean a futile, last-ditch effort by someone who is doomed.

We are now witnessing a modern-day kamikaze spectacle: the last stages of the 2020 Trump re-election effort.

President Trump, who trails opponent Joe Biden by double digits in some polls, has basically employed one lame “October Surprise” effort after another, every day for the past couple of weeks, trying to re-create the magic that put him over the top in 2016.

Of course, back in 2016 the Russians were working hard to dig up dirt on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. In response, ex-F.B.I. Director James Comey opened an investigation of Mrs. Clinton a couple of weeks before Election Day, providing Trump with just the boost he needed to win.

Would you believe that Trump agents are trying that same scam again this year? It’s true.

Republicans have been trying hard for the past year to identify some kind of scuzzy behavior by Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, in the Ukraine. They failed to do that and, in the process, Trump got implicated in some extortion activities involving the Ukrainian President and got himself impeached for his troubles.

If not for a Republican-majority Senate, Donald Trump would be an ex-President today.

Undaunted, Trump agent Rudy Giuliani has supposedly unearthed a laptop supposedly belonging to Hunter Biden which he supposedly left unclaimed at a computer repair shot which supposedly contains all manner of compromising e-mails which supposedly reveal that he and his father are crooked.

Isn’t that amazing, that some Republican operative might find a discarded laptop containing devastating political information just a couple weeks before the election?! Wow, what luck! (Also found in the treasure trove was the Ark of the Covenant, The Missing Link, Van Gogh’s Missing Ear, and President Trump’s misplaced Nuclear Launch Codes.)

Of course, the Republican-led Senate conducted an extensive investigation earlier this year, seeking scandalous information on businessman/consultant Hunter Biden’s activities in the Ukraine and found…bupkis. It was a “Nothingburger”, to re-purpose some Republican slang.

Let’s face it: Giuliani’s miraculous “discovery” has the unmistakable odor of a futile, last-ditch effort of someone who is doomed. It also smells a lot like a Russian disinformation initiative. Just sayin’.

Besides, honestly, who in America gives a shit about what’s happening in the Ukraine? And, since when is businessman Hunter Biden running for President? This Giuliani red-herring is reminiscent of the “Benghazi” and “Hillary’s e-mails” scandals that so captivated right-wing America in 2016 but, eventually, proved to be nothing more than “Hey, look over there!” red herrings.

Speaking of smelling, the Republican Party has begun to sniff the possibility that they may not only lose the Presidency in November, but also their Senate majority. Accordingly, they have ratcheted up their machinery to warp speed in order to confirm the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett before the Democrats regain power in D.C. Justice Barrett may come in handy if/when Trump challenges the election results after Election Day…”fixed”, “fraud”, “illegal ballots”, etc.

Interestingly, now that Republicans have engineered the takeover of the Supreme Court by a strongly conservative majority, they are duly alarmed by the thought that Democrats, if brought back to power in Washington D.C., might want to reverse engineer that conservative majority. That seems to be the big campaign issue of the moment: “What is your position, Mr. Biden, on court packing?”

Unfortunately, with the political antics of the past four years, the patriotic, Democracy-defending credentials of the Republican Party have been seriously diminished. They are now seen by most Americans as the corrupt, power-hungry scum that they’ve long campaigned against. Party founder Abe Lincoln would be ashamed.

Republican members of Congress in tight elections are spending most of their time right now trying to subtly distance themselves from the legacy and antics of Donald Trump. Unfortunately for them, the Republican failure in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, and the resultant collapse of the economy, have the effect of an anvil tied around one’s neck.

(That plus allowing Trump to behave like a tin pot dictator for four years.)

Republicans have never really understood (nor could admit) that the economy will not recover while the pandemic is still raging. They wanted to believe their own hype, that it was a Democratic hoax, and that, as their President said, “It will just go away.”

News flash: As epidemiologists have predicted for the past six months, the Fall has seen a resurgence in the pandemic. It’s happening in Europe, too, and unfortunately, the worst may be yet to come.

Reluctantly, many formerly dismissive Republican Congressmen, campaigning in their districts, are wearing facemasks now…to show their seriousness about the plague. It will be too little, too late for some.

President Trump, the world’s most famous anti-facemask fanatic, who has aggressively shilled supposed Covid-19 miracle drugs, such as Hydroxychloroquine, Chlorox, and Remdesivir in months past, has now shifted his Presidential endorsement to Regeneron, which he claims “cured” him of his recent infection. He also now claims to have immunity from Covid-19, which is news to medical experts.

The President’s overall strategy seems to be: to minimize the pandemic (he still claims that it will “just go away”); to hype supposed curative medicines (even experimental ones, not available to the public); and, to promise the imminent availability of a vaccine (“by Election Day”). His Coronavirus Task Force has been muffled, and the “star” of that group, esteemed epidemiologist Anthony Fauci, has been publicly contradicted by the President on medical facts.

In an effort to shift the public’s attention from Covid-19 and the economy, and receive some much-needed praise, President Trump has resumed his famous rallies in front of thousands of avid MAGA supporters. At  these events, the President rails against Democrats in general, “antifa”, Obama, Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, “traitors” who have written tell-all books about him, Republicans who have defied him, public protestors, and journalists who don’t fawn over him.

In these “made for TV” events, every person in attendance is either wearing the ubiquitous red MAGA hat or a Trump campaign shirt and/or is holding up a manufactured Trump campaign sign, of which there are hundreds of duplicates in the crowd, with the words “Fill That Seat!”, “Four More Years”, “Keep America Great”, “Women for Trump”, and the like. I’ve even spotted an occasional “Blacks for Trump” sign, waved by some paid stooge. (There can’t be one hundred of those confused souls in America!)

These seem to me to be a waste of time and resources, as the attendees were going to vote for Trump anyway. Maybe the President just likes to hear himself talk and hear applause?

The only good thing to possibly come out of these rallies is the fact than some of the facemask-less fans will contact Covid-19, will get scared shitless before recovering (hopefully), and will become more responsible in public when the second wave of infection inundates the U.S. this Fall and Winter.

After blowing up the first Presidential Debate with constant interruptions and disrespect shown the moderator, the President was looking forward to an encore performance in the Second debate, but the Denier in Chief caught Covid-19 and it was canceled. It was just as well, because new rules were supposed to be in the offing to tone down Trump’s juvenile and disruptive behavior, and he opposed that. Instead, once the President recovered from his Covid-19 symptoms, two separate televised “town hall” meetings were hastily arranged, with each opponent having his own audience.

Unfortunately for the President, his town hall moderator, NBC’s Samantha Guthrie, was rock solid, taking no shit from him, and peppered Mr. Trump with a number of probing questions. He didn’t come off so well. According to news accounts, Joe Biden did better in his town hall meeting on ABC…which got more viewership than Trump did on NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC.

Charlie and I didn’t watch either one, having already sworn them off after viewing the First Debate and the V.P. Debate for a few minutes each. A colossal waste of time, we agreed and, instead, watched some re-runs of an HGTV home remodeling show.

As we approach two weeks left in the campaign, the President has little to brag about:

“The Wall”: Very little new construction has been accomplished in four years.

“Repeal and Replace Obamacare”: Republicans have failed to come up with anything better.

“Repeal NAFTA”: The trade deal with Mexico was repealed and replaced with a deal which is almost identical.

“The Tax Cut”: There was a tax cut, with 90 percent of the benefits accruing to the wealthiest Americans, as usually happens with tax cuts.

“Trade Deficit with China”: No trade deal, tariffs enacted to no avail, and trade deficit has grown.

“Rust Belt Relief”: Despite promises, no resurgence in manufacturing or coal production.

“Drain The Swamp”: Instead, the swamp of lobbying favoritism, backroom deals, and corruption has been enlarged, with the Trump family at the head of the public trough.

“Lock Them Up!”: Promised investigations of Democratic misdeeds and election fraud have unearthed…zero.

“Supreme Court”: A legitimate success story for Republicans by appointing two, soon to be three, Conservative justices.

“Disaster Response”: Low marks in Puerto Rico, hurricane ravaged areas in the South, and areas devastated by wildfires in the West.

“Coronavirus”: Leadership failure exacerbated the pandemic, resulting in 217,000 deaths thus far and a very divided nation.

“The Economy”: Failure to effectively manage the Covid-19 pandemic caused the healthy economy to collapse, and lack of leadership continues to plague the stalled economic recovery.

“Make America Great Again”: Failure in numerous diplomatic endeavors, as America has forfeited its global leadership position to China.

Of course, that doesn’t stop him from lying about all of his imagined successes, which he does 24/7.

In actuality, there’s been a lack of accomplishment due to poor leadership from the top down. Some of this is due to the “revolving door” of Cabinet officials and senior advisors in the Administration. The original “best and brightest” that Trump could find have long since either fled in disgust or been fired for not adequately kowtowing to the Boss.

As we approach the end of this election cycle, desperate measures are being taken.

There is a saying that has been attributed to Carl Sandburg, the famous American poet, regarding arguing a case at law, which I suppose could be applicable in a campaign for election: “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table.”

For the Republicans and President Donald Trump, its table-pounding time.

Since an unfavorable election outcome is anticipated, a lot of noise is being generated about a supposedly corrupt process, “rigging”, illegal voting, and such…in Democratic-majority states, of course.

In Republican-majority states, mail-in voting is a splendid idea.

Actually, most of the impropriety discovered to date involves the…Republican Party…in terms of blatant voter suppression measures. States have made it harder to register to vote, harder to vote absentee, harder to get to a polling place, harder to drop off a completed absentee ballot ahead of Election Day, and so forth. GOP operatives in California have installed bogus “Official Ballot Drop Off” boxes around the State. Idiots using them can say, “Adios” to any ballots deposited therein.

Republican sponsored lawsuits, 300 of them, have been filed in heavily Democratic states, challenging mail-in and absentee voting procedures, setting up the prospect of election challenges weeks to months after November 3^rd.

The President himself has refused to confirm that, if defeated, he will leave the White House peacefully. As a matter of fact, he has publicly winked at far-right militia groups and said, “Stand back, but stand by”.

A veiled threat.

I think Trump will be defeated by Joe Biden. I’m guessing the popular vote will favor Biden by 5 to 10 million votes, and Biden will achieve a decent majority in the Electoral College.

President Trump has a history of making threats and then backing off (for example, North Korea, Venezuela, China, Russia, Syria, etc.) when challenged. He’s the Macho Man who invented bone spurs to keep from going to Vietnam. Loud bark, feeble bite.

I think that Donald Trump will leave office voluntarily, not wanting to be rousted from the White House by the scruff of his neck. He’s a narcissist and he hates to be embarrassed.

He hates losing, so he will have to find a way to reimagine his electoral outcome as a “win” for real Americans.

I predict that President Trump will retire from Federal employment but will re-emerge as either a radio or television (or both) political talking head on Fox TV News, the E.I.B. radio network, or some similar right-wing media outlet.

This scenario was made more likely today when Rush Limbaugh, the blowhard energizes right-wing conversation and conspiracies via his nationally syndicated radio talk show, announced that he has terminal lung cancer. That’s unfortunate for the cigar-smoking Limbaugh, but the timing couldn’t be better for Donald Trump.

Having a national broadcast podium will enable Trump to act like a winner and shoot his mouth off, like he loves to do, with total disregard for the consequences. He might even write another book: “The Art of Grabbing America by the Pussy”.

That way, he can continue to take pot shots at Joe Biden, Democrats, and imagined enemies, while stoking disunity throughout America, like he’s done for the past four years.

The self-centered asshole will eventually die but, like the Kamikaze pilot, he will try to take down the ship (S.S. American Democracy) with him.

Out here in the Sonoran desert, most homes have gravel landscaping with occasional plantings of drought-resistant species (trees, shrubs, cacti) that are kept alive by drip irrigation. It is actually pretty lush in our subdivision, and our corner lot probably has more vegetation that most properties.

The gravel keeps the soil from getting too baked and blowing away. It is required by our H.O.A. The home builder provides a 2-inch layer of the stuff when the property is finished. However, over time, due to rain and settlement that 2-inch layer begins to get thin in spots.

I thought it would be a good idea to get some more gravel to beef up the coverage, so I ordered three yards of the stuff to be delivered to my house ($300) where I planned to wheelbarrow it all over the property.

Yesterday morning a truck arrived and dumped the three cubic yards of gravel in the street in front of my house. Holy Shit, that was quite a pile! I had no idea; it was only later, when I Googled it, that I found out that 3 cubic yards of gravel = 6,600 pounds!!!!!

I spent all of the day wheelbarrowing that stuff to the back of my property. I must have made 100 trips in 90-degree heat. Whew! That’s the hardest work I’ve done in fifty years. And it’s a good thing that my brand-new artificial hip was working perfectly: yesterday was my 44^th day since the surgery!

Anyway, today my body feels 100 years old.

Day after tomorrow (Saturday) will be the semi-annual community-wide yard sale here in Sun City Mesquite. I look forward to this, as it gives me a chance to drive around in my golf cart, peruse the offerings, and make new friends. The last one (Spring) was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so there should be an overflow of merchandise on people’s driveways. Charlie and I will probably buy $100 worth of shit that we don’t need…but will have fun doing it.

Face masks, social distancing, and hand sanitizer will be the order of the day. We don’t have much of a problem with scofflaws in this community because everyone is in the high-risk category and, despite political leanings, are pretty cautious about Covid-19. There are lots of Trump signs in front yards, but those old fogey MAGA true believers In Sun City Mesquite aren’t buying his dismissive attitude about the pandemic…because they could die from it.

That idiot Trump is still holding “rallies” in states that are spiking with Covid-19 infections! What is the purpose of that, anyway? Those nincompoops are going to vote for him…no matter what stupid thing he does…so why “rally”? The only predictable outcomes are that he’s wasting his time with them and that many of the facemask-less supporters will get infected and go home to distribute the coronavirus within their families and communities.

Speaking of venturing out into society and tempting fate, Charlie and I and our friends Lloyd and Sandy are going on an RV trip to Moab, Utah at the end of the month. It will be our first outing since the pandemic erupted seven months ago. We plan on doing a bunch of hiking, off-road exploring in Lloyd’s tricked-out Toyota 4×4, eating good food, playing cards, and enjoying an occasional adult beverage. The dogs don’t know it yet, but they are going to have a good time, too.

We will all be observing Covid-19 protocols while up in Moab. Except the dogs.

Speaking of dogs, little BonBon graduated from junior high to high school this week: she learned how to negotiate the doggie door!

Oh, Boy, freedom at last! Now she is a full-fledged member of The Pack and can come and go (into the large backyard) whenever she damn well feels like it.

Yesterday, while I was lugging one hundred wheelbarrow loads of gravel into the backyard, I noticed BonBon using the doggie door frequently to watch me, sunbathe on the artificial grass, do her business (hooray!), and return inside when she got overheated. Hallelujah, those dog obedience lessons have paid off. Hopefully, BonBon will now start doing ALL of her business outside!

I have tentatively scheduled some RV trips in the next twelve months. In late December we will travel to Yuma to spend Christmas with our good friends Dan and Peggy Quinn and their Boston Terrier “Katie”. We are thinking of putting in a week or so at Paradise By The Sea in Oceanside, California in March. In the Spring, we are going to visit our “adopted 5^th son” Jason Friedman at his home in Colorado. And then, we are going to resume our annual Summer RV road trip to the Oregon coast. We will be gone for all of July and August which are wickedly hot here in Mesquite but are pleasantly cool at the beaches in Coos Bay and Brookings, Oregon.

Of course, all of our plans are dependent upon the Covid-19 pandemic.

Charlie’s doctor clients have been warning about this coming “flu season” for the past six months. In their opinion, this is when the pandemic will hit with its full fury. That’s pretty scary, since 8 million Americans have already been infected and 216,000 have died.

I heard on the news this morning that Covid-19 infections are on the rise again in 37 U.S. states and in Europe, as well, where there was tremendous pressure to “re-open” the economy and schools despite the danger from the virus. We will all now pay the price of re-living last Spring and Summer. Can you imagine what our health care workers think about this?

It amazes me how stupid some people are in this country.

Infectious disease experts have laid out all of the facts about this virus and the basic steps to keep it at bay; however, lots of people want to believe that they know better, that the virus won’t affect them, and that it will just go away like snowfall in Spring. Don’t count on it. As an Indian sailor once said, “Trust in the Lord, but row away from the rocks.”

Those airheads will probably be encouraged by President Trump’s recent Covid-19 infection and quick recovery. “See”, he said, “it nothing to worry about!” Nothing could have been worse for America: Covid-19’s chief denier experiencing a quick recovery. How many people will now be encouraged to ignore the danger?

Actually, for the common man, a Covid-19 infection is pretty serious because Joe Citizen wouldn’t be getting the world-class medical care that the President did, including treatment with several experimental drugs that aren’t even FDA-approved or for sale in the United States.

And, for a lot of Joe Citizens right now (and their families), any quality medical care for Covid-19 is problematical since they have lost their jobs and their health insurance due to the collapsed economy.

And, in the midst of this catastrophe, our Imbecile in Chief is scheming to pack the Supreme Court with conservative justices so he can eviscerate Obamacare, denying another 20 million Americans affordable health care.

Go figure.

As for Charlie and I, we are going to be careful about traveling and socializing in the coming months. We’re both in our 70’s now and would probably not fare well if we caught the coronavirus. We’re going to avoid orgies and pong parties this Winter.

I’d do better shoveling three tons of gravel than inhaling one microscopic coronavirus aerosol.

Look what arrived in my mailbox today:

It looks like the antidote for what’s been ailing me (and the Nation)!

By just about any standard of measurement, it’s been a horrible year for America: catastrophic natural disasters, one after the other; a pandemic; an economic collapse; mass protests and rioting in the streets; allies giving up on us, and enemies licking their chops; and lie after lie from our “leader” in Washington D.C.

It’s like he’s living in one reality and the rest of us are coping with another. Trump’s idea of “great” leaves a lot to be desired: the guy ran out of ideas back in 2016, and most of them were bad ideas; he needed to unite America and, instead, divided the Nation; the U.S.A. is circling the drain thanks to the clown.

It’s embarrassing, to be honest. If I was traveling the world, I’d hide my head in shame.

Anyway, Charlie and I did our patriotic duty today and mailed in our ballot. I hope it gets to Election headquarters in Las Vegas.

Isn’t that a horrible thing to say… in a democracy? That you actually have doubt that your vote will be counted? I’ve never felt this way before, and I’ve voted umpteen times since 1968. Of course, we didn’t have the current President then.

Donald J. Trump seems to have a thing about elections: he doesn’t trust them to be fair…unless he wins. In 2016, on Election Day, he reiterated his oft-spoken claim that the election was “rigged”. The next day, after it was apparent that he’d actually won, he proudly announced that America had spoken…correctly.

However, he later went on to claim that he would have won by a larger margin (he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes) if millions of illegal ballots hadn’t been counted. Neither the new President nor his specially-appointed commission on election fraud was ever able to generate a scintilla of evidence to back up this claim. And yet, he continues to claim that the election was rigged…but not enough to deny him victory.

(A massive conspiracy, it was, probably orchestrated by the “Deep State”, George Soros, the New World Order, or left-wing socialist antifas. It couldn’t possibly be the Communists because, as we found out later, those Russkies were actually helping Trump “rig” the social media in his favor.)

So, what we now know is that our President is opposed to “rigging” unless he’s in charge of it. And, since he’s quite concerned with the 2020 election, my guess is that his agents haven’t worked hard enough to rig the election in his favor.

Which brings me to my concern about the ballot that I just put in the mailbox.

The President dislikes mail-in ballots, despite the fact that he votes absentee, himself. He’s publicly dissed all voting schemes that don’t involve the individual voter going to a polling place and physically voting there. Less chance for fraud, supposedly.

The Trump re-election campaign has also filed lawsuits in many election “swing states”, challenging mail-in voting. As the President has said publicly, mail-in voting disadvantages Republicans, because it skirts voter suppression schemes.

Lost of potential voters can’t get to their polling place…because Republican elected officials in their state have come up with ingenious ways to deny them their Constitutionally-granted franchise. Statistically this unfairness falls upon minorities, poor people, folks living in heavily-Democratic districts, etc. Republicans feel that voter suppression like this gives them a better chance to win elections, and so it is justified in their minds.

In the Jim Crow south, in some precincts, Black citizens had to correctly estimate the number of jelly beans in a jar to demonstrate required intelligence to vote. Some polling places were moved inside police stations to intimidate Black people.

Except that it isn’t right, morally…not that there is anything called “morality” left in this Nation of tribes, cults, and deceivers and their believers. No one cares about anything anymore except raw political power…and who cares how it was obtained.

A right-wing militia group was arrested this week in Michigan. They were plotting to storm the State capitol, kidnap the Governor, try her for treason (for Covid-19 restrictions), and perhaps execute her.

This year our President has encouraged right-wing militia groups to defy State authority (where there is Democratic leadership) and has inferred that these gun-toting goons may be needed to straighten things out in the even that he is defeated in November. Our President has refused to denounce such groups and has publicly implied that he may not leave office quietly, if defeated.

There’s 13 Trump votes in the bag.

But, seriously, isn’t that a great attitude…the President of our democracy refusing to gracefully admit defeat, if it happens. :Publicly telling the Proud Boys, another White supremacist militia group, to “Stand down” but “Stand by”.

This is how the Civil War got started, a bunch of hardheads flipping off their Federal government.

Dictator-in-Chief Trump has tried to engineer a version of voter suppression through “his” U.S. Postal Service. He planted an agent (Louis DeJoy, nicknamed “Delay”) atop the hierarchy with instruction to slow things way down so that all those mailed-in ballots might not arrive at election headquarters on time. It was/is a brilliant idea, if you’re a Republican and are down with winning at any cost.

Dedicated postal service workers were not amused and blew the whistle on DeJoy. He acted contrite when questioned by Congress, but pressed on with the his cost-cutting moves to slow service with the President’s blessing.

Some people intend to fill out their mail-in ballot and then hand-deliver it to a ballot drop-off location in their county, thereby avoiding possible Covid-19 infection at crowded polling places on November 3^rd. That would take care of the Trump/U.S.P.S. threat.

(However, in Texas, the Republican governor countered by reducing the ballot drop-off locations to one per county, to make it harder to vote in heavily-Democratic counties.)

It’s not a very American thing to do, i.e. using the U.S.P.S. as a component of one’s re-election campaign organization, but, then again, Donald J. Trump has never given a rat’s ass about tradition, rules, laws, or his Constitutional responsibilities. All he cares about is himself and retaining power…so he can do more un-American shit.

And, so, I am somewhat skeptical that my mailed-in ballot will arrive at election headquarters on or before November 3^rd, even though I put it in the mailbox today…October 11^th.

That gives the Postal Service almost three weeks to process it for delivery only 70 miles from my house…or find a dumpster to toss it in.

I sure hope that our democracy hasn’t deteriorated to that level because, if it has, the fascists have succeeded and we’re doomed.

Not too many years ago, Christian televangelists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell made a habit of attributing natural disasters, pandemics, and terrorist atrocities to God’s wrath, because He was pissed off about some sinning by earthly political leaders.

Typically, the offenders were Americans who were offending the Almighty by supporting equal rights for women, LBGT, same-sex marriage, and abortion while opposing prayer in public schools, use of taxpayer funds to support private religious schools, and such.

Rev. Falwell, a co-founder of the conservative Moral Majority political organization, said that the AIDS epidemic was God’s punishment “for a society that tolerates homosexuality”, and blamed the September 11^th terrorists attacks on LBGT organizations who had “angered God”.

Rev. Robertson claimed that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for America’s abortion policy and blamed the 2010 Haiti earthquake on its political leaders “pact with the Devil”.

Conversely, he called Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016 “a mandate from Heaven”.

The Rev. Falwell died in 2007, but his political legacy was carried forward by his son, Jerry Falwell Jr., who was a big Trump supporter in 2016, calling him “one of the great visionaries of our time”. In 2017, Falwell Jr. referred to Donald Trump as a “dream President for evangelical Christians”.

That is what makes 2020 so baffling.

One would think that God’s anointed President would be successful beyond measure. However, with God’s help (?), Donald Trump has managed to fuck up just about everything he’s touched this year, jeopardizing his re-election. His poor leadership and mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic in America has killed 210,000 people thus far and torpedoed the economy. His aggressive and divisive rhetoric has inflamed tensions in society, resulting in mass protests and rioting. And his self-centered behavior has infuriated national and international political leaders, whose support he needs to accomplish his goals.

What’s going on here? Has God given up on Donald Trump?

Could be.

After all, the 9^th Commandment cautions the Lord’s subjects not “to bear false witness”. In other words, not to lie. God apparently cannot stomach liars.

It has been estimated by PolitiFact that Donald Trump publicly lied over 15,000 times in his first three years in office. God must be pissed, particularly since He had such high hopes for His chosen one.

And the Prez has put his lying mechanism into hyperdrive during this election year: he’s probably told 15,000 fibs on Covid-19 alone.

We all know what God does when He’s mad.

According to the Reverends Falwell and Robertson, He inflicts pain and suffering on people, like hurricanes, diseases, and hunger. Heck, one time He was so ticked off that He flooded the entire earth and killed everyone except Noah and his family.

Hell hath no fury…like the Heavenly Father when He’s in a bad mood.

Typically, the fundamentalist Christian community would interpret a simultaneous pandemic, economic collapse and rioting in the streets, plus California and Oregon on fire and multiple devastating hurricanes in the Gulf states to something that has offended God. But, surprisingly, we’re hearing not a peep from those folks lately.

The televangelists probably know what is going on but are embarrassed to admit it.

At the Vice Presidential Debate last night V.P. Mike Pence went off-script (i.e. not answering the moderator’s question but creating a new subject he could expound on) by pressing his opponent Kamala Harris to respond to the question: “If Joe Biden wins, will the Democrats attempt to pack the Supreme Court?”

We’ve heard that one before. Actually, President Donald Trump posed the same question to Mr. Biden at the First Presidential Debate awhile back.

Neither Biden nor Harris took the bait, keeping all options readily available if they win in November.

One of the few major campaign promises that Donald Trump has kept as President is his stated intent to re-mold the Judiciary with Conservative judges. He and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have done this with gusto. Their current project is to ramrod the nomination of judge Amy Coney Barrett through the Senate confirmation process before the end of the year.

Of course, approving a new Supreme Court Justice in an election year was, according to Senator McConnell in 2016, unfathomable, because “that decision should be left to the voters”. Accordingly, he in essence “pocket vetoed” President Obama’s nomination, conveniently keeping the Supreme Court balance tilted in a Conservative direction.

Now that Republicans control the Senate and the White House, McConnell has changed his tune big time, and is doing his darnedest to fit Mrs. Barrett with Supreme Court robes before the voters have a chance to say, “Whoa, Nellie!”

Mrs. Barrett’s expected confirmation will give Conservatives a solid majority for decades and will likely spell the end of “Roe vs. Wade” (legal abortion), Obamacare, civil rights, and environmental regulations and more favorable treatment regarding the treatment of religion (Christian), Republican voter suppression schemes, and gun rights.

That is, these things will happen unless Congress and the Presidency go solid Democratic in 2020.

Then, the Democrats would “have the votes”. And, per Senator McConnell, if you have the votes you can do anything you want.

A Democratic Party-controlled Congress can pass laws which clarify previously-regulated matters. The Supreme Court has been accused of making law, instead of simply interpreting it. If Congress passes definitive legislation, it leaves very little room for the Court to re-engineer it.

A Democratic Party-controlled Congress can also tinker with the makeup of the Supreme Court by adding Justices. This tactic would be the “Court packing” item that both President Trump and Vice President Pence tried to surface during their debates. Republicans are worried about this because it is permitted under the Constitution and it has been done six times in the past. The Supreme Court would have a tough time determining that it would be un-Constitutional.

In order for Democrats to seriously consider such a gambit, they would have to win the Presidency handily and would also have to regain the majority in the Senate. With three weeks left in the 2020 campaign, the former is possible and the latter is doubtful.

It will be interesting to see what develops following the November 3^rd election.

We held a backyard barbeque last night with three other couples from the neighborhood. Good times were had by all: good food, lots of laughs and tall tales, and a little Presidential election banter.

I spent the evening shooting the breeze with the three husbands: Al, Jim, and Galen. They are nice guys that I occasionally golf with. And they’re all Donald Trump honks.

The three of them got on a collective rant about law and order, communists, black celebrities that talk too much about Black Lives Matter, and such. I’m sure they believe in their hearts that they’re not racist, but if someone had taped the conversation of these three old Caucasians, and then played it back to them, they’d probably be ashamed of themselves. I’m sure their mothers and children would. I just sat there and listened to them, not wanting to ruin the evening by saying something impolitic.

The Trump cult has demonized free speech, peaceful demonstrations, public protest, and even weapons-toting mobs intent on getting across some important social message…except in the cases where the participants are MAGA supporters, Nazi sympathizers, or Second Amendment nutjobs flaunting Confederate flags who like to brandish AR-15s in public places. The President is even proud of the teenager who crossed state lines with his assault rifle and shot to death two BLM protesters.

American citizens who are fed up with systemic racism in the criminal justice and law enforcement arms of government are branded “leftists”, “socialists”, “Antifa”, “communists”, “disloyal traitors” and worse. I heard some of that shit at the barbeque last night, along with cackling about the Democratic Party wanting to “defund the police”.

Let’s all be honest with each other: everyone is in favor of law and order in American society. Even Black people and Democrats. Of course, “law and order” means different things to different Americans: it means protecting the status quo to White people, while to Black people it means getting the same service from the police that White people do.

The hot issue right now is not getting rid of our police departments but, rather, making them more accountable for their actions.

Police officers are public servants, just like all of the other workers who toil for our cities and counties. There are codes of conduct for all public employees, and those individuals can’t make up their own rules as they go along. I worked for the County of Riverside for 32 years, so I know what I’m talking about. Crappy performance has consequences. Employees who violate laws get fired.

Unions used to be big in America but are not so much nowadays. They got a bit too big for their britches and employee demands for better working conditions and more pay got increasingly out of hand. Lots of industries that used to be unionized are now either defunct (because they can’t compete) or they were shipped overseas so they could be competitive.

The bottom line is that powerful unions sometimes lose track of what’s important: like the mission of the business.

One of the few instances where unions are still very powerful is law enforcement. Police unions fund candidates for City Councils, Mayors, and Sheriffs. They exert their political power by demanding high wages and exorbitant retirement benefits for their members. They demand that the local governing authority (usually a City Council) allow police officers to regulate themselves by “reviewing” citizen complaints in-house. They have intimidated local officials to adopt police officer “Bill of Rights” ordinances, which protect officers from being held accountable when they abuse their authority. In many states, police unions have pressured State legislators to adopt laws which shield officers from criminal liability in cases of police brutality.

The generic police slogan “To Protect and Serve” that one sees on the sides of squad cars has unfortunately come to mean protecting and serving themselves as a first priority.

Accountability has become a common casualty in many jurisdictions.

Recently a brouhaha developed in the Breonna Taylor case, when the secret grand jury proceedings (that led to no criminal charges against the police officers who murdered Ms. Taylor) came into question. The Kentucky Attorney General, who briefed the Grand Jury, said everything was on the up-and-up, but one of the jurors revealed that murder charges against the three officers were never even considered.

Once again, Black Americans are outraged, and the whole law enforcement/criminal justice model is brought into question. As it should be.

Secret grand juries are relics of the past, now only found in the United States and the African country of Liberia. They are sometimes used to determine if criminal charges should be brought against a person or organization. In most cases, the function of a grand jury has been replaced by a “preliminary hearing”, where a District Attorney will bring evidence before a judge to determine if the matter should go to trial. In this normal way of doing things, the accused can be represented by counsel and can argue that (for instance) insufficient evidence has been presented to warrant criminal charges. Or present exculpatory evidence (like, perhaps, the accused was in another country at the time of the crime).

So, while the function of the grand jury has been, for the most part, absorbed by Superior Courts, prosecutors can utilize grand juries if they think secrecy is necessary. For example, if the activities of an extended criminal enterprise (like the Mafia) were being investigated, prosecutors might need to shield witnesses from public scrutiny until after the criminal indictment has been authorized by the court.

Unfortunately, the prosecutorial authority (a District Attorney or state Attorney General) can misuse secret grand jury proceedings for political purposes.

The temptation to do this can be strong when it comes to holding police officers accountable for their criminal behavior. This is because the police, prosecutors, and the courts work hand-in-hand; i.e. they need each other’s help in carrying out their jobs. Hence, prosecutors are loath to bring charges against law enforcement officers. It’s considered traitorous by members of the Thin Blue Line.

In a case like the murder of Breonna Taylor, obviously police broke down the door of her apartment (under a no-knock warrant looking for drugs).  Her boyfriend, who was startled by the crashing door, fired a shot at the intruders, which is his Constitutional right to do. The police then riddled the apartment with 30 bullets, five of which found Ms. Taylor, who had awakened to see what was going on.

No drugs were found, and no charges were brought against the boyfriend who fired at the intruders. Bottom line: the police shouldn’t have been there.

The police officers claimed that they announced their presence before bashing in the door, even though they possessed a “no knock” warrant. The intent of such a warrant is to catch the perpetrator by surprise or “in the act”. Possessing such a warrant, one would wonder why they would then yell out, “Police here. Open up!” Obviously, they wouldn’t do that if they thought drugs might be hastily flushed down a toilet. So, it is extremely doubtful that the three police officers announced anything before busting down the apartment door.

At the time of the initial investigation, no witnesses claimed to have heard anything more than the loud sound of a door being bashed in. Later, a witness was produced by the prosecutorial authority that claimed to have heard the police identifying themselves. That witness testimony materialized months after the fact (when police were tidying up their official story…because the outraged Black community became militant and the story was picked up in the national press).

Evidently, the Attorney General who presented the case to the Grand Jury only quoted that one, exculpatory witness which, of course, justified the police returning fire. The A.G. did not recommend criminal charges against the officers who murdered an innocent woman in her own home. The only charges he recommended (six months after the fact, when public outrage was at a fever pitch) was “reckless endangerment” against one of the cops who had emptied his clip wildly, spraying a nearby apartment with bullets. His punishment will be a slap on the wrist.

The Black community has a right to know: (a) What evidence was presented to the grand jury; (b) What evidence was not presented (i.e. contradictory witnesses, forensic evidence on the bullet from the boyfriend’s gun, possible contamination of the crime scene by the police); (c) Why no charge of murder or manslaughter was brought against the officers involved; and, (d) Why no charges of any kind were brought until many months after the incident, and only when public outrage had reached fever pitch.

As a matter of fact, all Americans need to know the answers to these questions. There have been too many of these cover-ups involving police misconduct.

I like having police officers around and am glad that they do the job that they do, protecting me and mine. Most of the ones I’ve met in my 72 years have been good guys, and I’m sure they think they are. My son Ronald is a retired Lieutenant of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and is now double-dipping as a “consultant” with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (in Southern California).

I can’t imagine my son shooting up Breonna Taylor’s apartment…and then pretending that it was OK to do so. But I could be wrong.

Cases like this (which are coming to our attention more and more nowadays due to video cameras) give credence to the idea that maybe it’s time for the police in our country to get their wings clipped just a bit. There’s too much self-serving shit going on, too much aggressive behavior targeting people of color, and very little accountability.

Anything can be improved if there’s a will to do so.

As an example of the wrong thing being done, just the other day the City of Buffalo (NY) enacted a law that removes the requirement that police officers wear a badge with their last name on it…so they can’t be identified by the public.

In other words, the people who pay their salaries, and get served by them, can’t know who they are! The police, who requested this law, said it was necessary to avoid police officers being doxxed (i.e. identified and harassed). Of course, other public servants in Buffalo wear name tags, and I’m sure they’d love to be nameless in case they wanted to insult or mistreat a constituent down at City Hall.

The whole idea of policemen being harassed goes back to the issue of public service…i.e. “To Protect and Serve”. An officer doing a great job has no fear of harassment. On the other hand, an officer who abuses his authority and mistreats citizens probably needs to be identified and weeded out of the police department. That’s harder to do when the abused citizen can’t identify the uniformed perpetrator.

The “no identification required” ordinance in Buffalo fits nicely with the general militarization of police throughout the United States.

Gone are the days when “peace officers” pounded a beat, knew everyone in the neighborhood and were known to all, and were armed with a nightstick. In recent years, policing has gone heavy into military-grade weaponry, body armor, SWAT teams, tasers, tear gas, bean bag launchers, and two-man teams.

The latter is important, because not only can the partner “have his buddy’s back” in the field, but he can also alibi his partner when things have come off the rails or something stupid has been done.

The use of force, often lethal, is all too commonplace in today’s model of policing. Officers responding to a variety of calls, many of which don’t involve violence or a heinous criminal act in progress, invariably exit their vehicle with guns drawn. That’s a problem: it indicates that the highest priority of the officer is self-preservation, not community policing.

A week or so ago, a woman called the police to report that her young son, who had mental problems, had run off. She asked if they could find him and bring him home. The police found him, and he fled down the street from them, disregarding their orders to “Stop!” The officers then shot him in the back, multiple times, killing him. He had no weapon, hadn’t threatened them or anyone else, and was just a scared kid. Evidently, he made the officers mad, so they shot him.

One wonders what the justification is for a police officer to discharge a lethal weapon. I would think that someone brandishing a gun in public, or shooting at police or the public, or someone caught in the act of committing a robbery, or assaulting or raping someone, would qualify.

On the other hand, we hear so often about people getting shot at by police for such serious offenses as showing disrespect to an officer or fleeing when the squad car pulls up. There are numerous incidents each year when someone is shot to death reaching for their cell phone; the cops say, “I thought it was a gun.”

Gee, if a private citizen uses deadly force against another, he better damn well make sure it was a gun, or he’s going to prison.

Too many “suspects” are getting shot in the back by police who supposedly were “fearful for their safety”. Jaywalkers and vagrants are being choked to death by police who claim that the individual was “resisting arrest”. Question: When did we pass a law that levies the death penalty for jaywalking, vagrancy, disrespecting an officer, or resisting arrest?

Answer: there are no such laws.

I think that weapons should only be drawn as a last resort, not as a first response. An officer who draws his gun from the holster inflames the situation, rather than calms it. The best tools in the policeman’s kit are his brain and his mouth; they need to be employed first, in most circumstances. That’s the way our beat cops used to work, and that’s the way policeman in Britain handle their jobs…without guns.

There has to be a Code of Conduct for police officers, just like there is for other public employees. Even our soldiers, in a battlefield, are subject to strict codes as to what they can and can’t do…even when they are pissed off.

I think that such a Code of Conduct should be approved and routinely reviewed by the governing body (i.e. the City Council or the County Board of Supervisors) after a public hearing. Citizens should know the rules by which their employees are governed. The Police Chief or the police union officials should not be the authority on allowable code of conduct by law enforcement officers: they are biased.

Each city or county should have a Citizen’s Review Board, appointed by the governing authority, to hear complaint’s about police misconduct. Perhaps the annual review and any proposed changes to the Code of Conduct should have to be reviewed by this Board before moving on to the governing authority for adoption.

The body camera (body cam) is a technology that helps to document what actually happened when there was a police/citizen interaction. Most police departments have acquired them and use them. However, far too often, when shit hits the fan, an officer will report that his body cam was “off” (i.e. not turned on). This is convenient in the cases where there was inappropriate action by the officer and/or his partner. It is particularly convenient when there was malice aforethought, as in cases of harassment of people of color.

I think that body cams should become mandatory equipment for each sworn officer and that they be required to be turned on whenever that police officer interacts with a citizen. Failure to do so would subject the officer to discipline, and three such incidents would result in termination (“Three strikes”).

The video footage from all body cams (and video cams on police vehicles) should be non-erasable and secured, and the integrity of this evidence should be the responsibility of the Chief of Police subject to policy established by the City Council or other governing body.

Video footage secured by body cams and vehicle cams should be made available to the Citizens’ Review Board upon request, as should incident reports and eyewitness accounts.

Police officers who repeatedly violate the Code of Conduct should be terminated. The “Three Strikes” rule should apply.

If measures like the abovementioned are adopted by local authorities, they will go a long way toward restoring community trust and confidence in law enforcement.

There is no need to “defund the police” as a punishment.

All we need to do is make them more accountable.

A little over one week ago, about 200 Republican Party bigshots gathered in the White House Rose Garden for the ceremonial announcement by President Trump of his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

As is customary in Republican circles, virtually none of the attendees were wearing face coverings nor were they socially distant. In fact, the crowd was packed like sardines into the small area, sitting shoulder to shoulder during the President’s remarks. Afterward, the crowd mingled, glad-handed each other, whispered to each other, and exchanged hugs and kisses.

The Covid-19 protocols designed by the President’s Coronavirus Task Force were totally unobserved by this group of nincompoop daredevils. It was as though this crowd sincerely believed the Trumpian mantra that the pandemic is a Democratic hoax.

It now (eight days later) turns out that that Covid-19 was an uninvited guest to the festivities and had a gay old time meeting new acquaintances.

Not only have the President and the First Lady tested positive for Covid-19, but quite a few others have as well: White House Public Relations Advisor Kellyanne Conway; Special Assistant Hope Hicks; Press Secretary Kayleigh McAnany; Senator Thom Tillis; Senator Mike Lee; Political Advisor/Ex-Governor Chris Christie; Campaign Manager Bill Stepien; and Notre Dame University President Rev. John Jenkins.

Not only was the “hoax” virus not a hoax, but the President has spent the past several days at Walter Reed Medical Center undergoing exams and treatment for viral symptoms that he’s experienced. At this point its hard to know exactly what the President’s medical condition is, because mixed messages have been forthcoming from Administration and Walter Reed “professionals”, as they try like Hell to put the most optimistic spin on the story.

As is normal for Donald Trump, Mr. Macho Man felt it necessary to downplay his illness yesterday by staging a campaign event in front of the hospital. Secret Service agents formed up a small motorcade with patient Trump at a window seat so that the vehicles could motor past some Trump fans who had been assembled on the sidewalk. The many MAGA supporters had a variety of non-homemade campaign signs at the ready, as if they knew in advance that the President would be rising from his hospital bed, against doctors’ orders, and going for a joyride at that specific hour. There was a camera crew at the ready during the non-spontaneous event.

Talk about making lemonade out of lemons! I’m guessing that the PR guy who ginned up this spectacle was the same genius who engineered the Lafayette Park photo op during the BLM protests, where the President, escorted by armed goons, walked over to the neighborhood church and raised up a Bible (upside down, at first).

Mark Meadows, the President’s Chief of Staff, tripped over his Johnson when he fessed up that Trump’s condition was a bit more serious than that described by the President’s physicians. The President was reportedly furious about this breach of etiquette (i.e. actually telling the truth) but, by the next day, the physician’s came around and admitted that their previous statement had been coached.

What do you expect from this bunch of liars?

The jury is still out on the severity of the President’s infection. He is trying mightily to convince America that he’s just going to shrug it off, and he might, with all of the drugs (regular and experimental) that his doctors are pumping into him.

Most people survive Covid-19, but even people in high-risk categories like Trump (73 years old, obese, heart issues, bone spurs) who don’t die often get pretty weak and require bed rest. We will probably know more about the President’s actual condition by the time the Second Presidential Debate comes around (mid-October). In the meanwhile, he would be smart to avoid a lot of stressful work and campaigning, but no one ever accused him of being smart.

His opponent, Joe Biden, has religiously worn face coverings and has socially distanced for many months, almost to a fault. He’s tested negative for Covid-19 three times since the First Presidential Debate on September 29^th, which was three days after the Rose Garden “super spreader” event at which President Trump likely became infected.

At the rate and ferocity that the President was blowing smoke at his debate opponent that night, it is a wonder how Biden, who took his facemask off to debate, didn’t inhale any of Trump’s airborne viral droplets.

The fallout from the Rose Garden super spreader ceremony has yet to be fully appreciated. It is likely that other attendees are going to come up positive in the days to come. Attorney General Bill Barr, who was seen talking face-to-face with Kellyanne Conway, is said to be in quarantine. Supposedly there has been no “contact tracing” of the potentially infected by the Administration, which goes against the Coronavirus Task Force recommendations.

In related news, all of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff (two Admirals and ten Generals) are in Covid-19 quarantine after one of their members tested positive for the coronavirus. Let’s hope for national security sake that these officers are getting the same level of medical intervention that the President has received in the past few days.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is likely alternately weeping and silently high-fiving himself right now. The President spent months disputing medical science, advocating quack cures like Hydroxychloroquine and Chlorox, pooh-poohing face masks, insisting that Dr. Fauci, a world-reknowned epidemiologist, didn’t know what he was talking about, and encouraging a full re-opening of the economy.

The President also has promised, practically every week since March, that a vaccine would be available “before the election”. Medical professionals disagreed, and in the past few weeks, most vaccine developers indicate that the miracle cure won’t be available until Spring 2021.

It turns out that Fauci’s pessimism out-trumped Trump’s optimism.

The bad news is that epidemiologists world-wide are predicting that the Covid-19 pandemic is regaining steam right as we head toward Winter and the traditional flu season. Most states are now experiencing upticks in infection rates, and we’re only a couple of weeks into the Fall.

Oh, Boy, this could get ugly!

It’s October in an election year, so we can expect “breaking news” from the White House designed to  boost the Presidential  re-election effort.

Yesterday, October 1^st, saw news articles about: Republican efforts to challenge vote results in swing states where the President is trailing in the polls; a Trump-signed message included in Dept of Agriculture meals distributed to needed senior citizens (similar to the Donald Trump-signed stimulus checks sent to taxpayers); a press conference where the President claimed that he prevailed in the first debate with Joe Biden (despite the fact that polls indicated that the lost the debate by a 3 to 1 margin); Trump’s insistence that the rules for the debates (which he ignored in the first debate by constantly interrupting Joe Biden) not be changed; and, a lame denial that he gave encouragement to the White Nationalist group “Proud Boys” in the first debate (which he did).

All in all, not much to be surprised about but, rather, more of the same Trump flim-flam.

Today, October 2^nd, we awoke to the news of a legitimate October Surprise…President Trump and his wife Melania have tested positive for Covid-19!

This news is not a surprise, per se, because the President has spent the past eight months flaunting his own Coronavirus Task Force’s recommendations on social distancing and wearing of face coverings. His public denial of the severity of the pandemic and cavalier attitude regarding the threat obviously did not impress or deter the apolitical virus. It was really a matter of time before he got himself infected; he played with the bull and got the horns.

Ironically, at some point in the first Presidential debate, the President, who never wears a facemask in public, pulled a prop mask out of his coat pocket, saying that he always carries one in public (but, never wears one!). He then mocked Joe Biden for consistently wearing one in public, not realizing that he was conferring the Covid-19 leadership crown to his opponent.

Let’s all hope that Mr. and Mrs. Trump have mild cases and recover quickly from their illness.

Unfortunately for the President, this October Surprise is going to make it harder for him to prevail in November.

First, assuming his infection to be a mild one, he will have to curtail his campaign activities somewhat during a quarantine period of a week to two weeks. This will affect planned rallies, dinners with supporters, and probably the planned second Presidential debate.

Secondly, it will place more attention on his Vice President, who is scheduled to debate the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris next week. Harris is a formidable debate opponent, having been a District Attorney and an Attorney General before becoming a Senator. After Trump flubbed the first Presidential debate, there will be added pressure on wingman Mike Pence to save face for the Republican Party.

And thirdly, the President’s coronavirus infection will give more attention to his leadership (or lack thereof) during the pandemic, a subject that he was trying to distance himself from in his re-election campaign. The Democrats can be expected to pound away on this subject, as the death toll now approaches 210,000 and testing reveals that Covid-19 infections are surging in most states…exactly what public health officials predicted months ago.

Before he tested positive for Covid-19, President Trump was trailing Joe Biden nationally by a significant margin in most polls. However, as we know, a President is elected via the Electoral College process, so Trump could lose the popular vote (as he did in 2016) and still be re-elected. What really matters are the election results in several “swing” states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Florida, etc.

As mentioned earlier, Republican operatives working with the Trump campaign organization have filed lawsuits in many states in which the President is trailing in the polls, alleging in advance that election procedures are flawed (i.e. that absentee or mail-in ballot provisions allow fraudulent voting, that ballot drop-off locations invite chicanery, etc.) The President has been laying the groundwork for these lawsuits for the past three months or so, publicly announcing that the election is “rigged” (so that he has some cover in the event he loses).

The Electoral College process itself is flawed to the extent that it, too, is ripe for misuse.

For example, candidate Joe Biden might pull an upset in a swing state which has a Republican governor. If the state has ten Electoral votes, then ten delegates would normally be sent to the Electoral College to vote for Joe Biden. However, the Republican governor might refuse to send his state’s delegates to the Electoral College, thereby depriving Mr. Biden of the ten votes that he had won in the election.

This would be political hardball in its most savage form, but it is possible in this very contentious election. It’s just another reason why the Electoral College scheme should be scrapped.

Should all manner of election protests and shenanigans such as the one mentioned above occur after November 3^rd, the Supreme Court and the House of Representatives could be called to adjudicate the election.

In 2020, nothing should surprise us.