When I think of individual 1 the phrase “how low can you go?” often comes to mind. So, our IMPEACHED so-called president is heading toward an even lower low as his desperation in regard to the upcoming election becomes more significant and more dangerous. Just a little less than a week ago he was claiming “absolute authority” in regard to the issue of “shelter in place” in the Covid-19 pandemic and the very next day he said “It’s up to the governors to decide when to “open the economy” in their states. (Of course, he added they need to operate with his permission??) Within another day, and this one is even more incredible, he was encouraging his supporters to protest the “stay at home” orders at the governors mansions around the country.
What did we see at these “individual 1 rallies” – which he can’t hold in person – so, he’s encouraging his cult to violate the “social distancing” guidelines to show us all how “courageous” they all are. (?) Of course, the “mitigation” procedures put in place by various governors at the advice of Anthony Fauci are working, but if they are “relaxed” too soon, well, the “experts” say we’ll be going back to where we started. Of course, many of the individual 1 supporters feel we should just treat this like the “flu” and let it run its course letting the “cards fall where they may.” So, “going back to where we started,” to them, is where we should have been all along. The “shelter in place” orders are violating their right to give ME the virus!
I’ve admitted to being a “cynic” as I watch individual 1 in his “briefings” – I should say “watched” because I just can’t stomach watching them anymore – it’s like being at one of his campaign rallies – but, I have to wonder if the “data” is actually what is causing these people to “hit the streets.” From what I’m seeing, the “segments” of the population more likely to die from this pandemic appear to be old people – especially those in long care facilities – and people of color. Those groups represent a much higher percentage of deaths compared to their percentage of the population. Am I reading more into this than I should? One of the similarities I’ve seen at the protest rallies has been the confederate flags flying right next to the “individual 1” flags. (You know the name on the flags, I just can’t write it) Today, I even saw a man who was interviewed with a swastika on his hat. OMG! (And, almost all the protesters are white)
It’s appearing as if people who don’t have access to health care are the more likely to get this virus in its ugliest form – so, we’re seeing more members of the “black and brown” community ending up in body bags after they have contracted this virus. Keep in mind, many people in the “black and brown” community live in circumstances which makes “social distancing” pretty much impossible. Individual 1 has divided this nation like never before in my lifetime and if you don’t think his “base” is significantly made up with the “white nationalist” movement – well, I believe you’re not being realistic. (I wanted to say something less “kind”)
The cult isn’t likely to figure out what individual 1 is NOT doing – or, more cynically, what he’s doing is the reason they support him – so, for me, it’s just getting uglier and uglier. Everything he does is designed to protect himself from BLAME should the next thing he says become another in the long line of ridiculous decisions he’s made – all while he’s busy deflecting BLAME from the worst of his previous BLUNDERS. Think about this, he’s encouraging people to protest at the governors mansions around the country to open up their “economies” and he’s set the very same governors up to be the “fall guys” when the virus “kicks back up.” This is “deflection 101!”
Yesterday he suggested governors want it both ways when they’re asking for the federal government to provide testing so they can open their states back up – as if his feelings have been hurt by the criticism he’s clearly earned earlier in the crisis – so there’s no way he’s going to allow the federal government to provide testing in large numbers – he said, “it’s up to the governors.” That’s the epitome of “wanting it both ways.” And, then to encourage all of these protesters – with their confederate flags no less – is another “setup” due to his wanting it “both ways.” Pressure governors to open up and then blame them for the calamity which is likely to follow. Yikes!!!
Dealing with individual 1 is like dealing with a petulant sixth grader. It’s like you would like him to succeed, but you have to be careful with every word you use with him because the next “tantrum” is “right around the corner.” And, his tantrums can be a problem for the entire class – or in the case of individual 1 it’s the entire country. For example, it appears he’s refusing to enact the Defense Production Act to ensure there’s a massive testing program so that we CAN start moving toward “business as usual” because his feelings were hurt by some of the criticism he’s received for being so incompetent. (That, of course, is because he IS so INCOMPETENT)
If he had any sense of character he wouldn’t be sulking about all the criticism he’s EARNED, but he’d acknowledge “I screwed up” and he’d be doing everything he could to make up for his blunders. It appears he actually believes he’ll be able to LIE himself out of accountability for his blunders, but the reality his, the more he tries to do this the worst it gets for him. He continues to make campaign commercials for Joe Biden and other groups (PAC’s) who want him out of office sooner rather than later. IMPEACHMENT #2 will have to come at the polls this November!
Today, the price of oil on the spot market fell to -$37 per barrel. You read that right, that dash stands for MINUS – meaning oil producers were PAYING people to take their oil off their hands. There’s so much oil, there’s no place to store it. Conversely, I’m putting in a garden and needed oil for my rototiller so I went to the local shop and purchased two QUARTS of oil – and, it cost me $10. I couldn’t help but thinking, $10 would have purchased about 500 gallons of crude oil in West Texas today. Yikes!! And, for all those day-traders on Wall Street who are keeping the Stock Market propped up due to their confidence our “free market” republicans can find TRILLIONS for any emergency I continue to believe this market is like the house built on sand. It’s just a matter of time until it heads south again.
That’s not a criticism of anyone – that’s just my sense of what is going to happen with the market based on my logically working brain. I just don’t see how the economy can be in such a weak position – unemployment between 20% and 30% by most estimates and, no matter how bad individual 1 or the governors (right now the republican governors – not all of them) want to re-open the “economy” – consider me a skeptic. Are people going to rush to the restaurants once they re-open? If baseball was “on again” would the stands be full of fans? Individual 1 is predicting 100,000 fans at football games this fall – do you really think there’s that many people who love football that much? Especially, if the numbers of people getting infected is still high?
How about if they remove restrictions right now – do you really think the amount of infections won’t spike upward again? Do you believe individual 1 when he says it’s just going to “magically go away?” Or, are you one of those people who believe it’s a “hoax” and just another “flu?” Let it run its course, open up the economy – more people will die from having the economy “closed” (although, of course, only about a third of the economy is “closed” – if that, but I digress) than if we just let this virus run its course. According to Dr. Oz (I had to check to make sure he’s a real person) on Fox “news” we’d “only” lose “2% – 3%” of our population if we just opened things up. (I’ve written before, as a former 6th grade math teacher I was easily able to figure out that would be between 6 and 10 MILLION) That was more than I could stomach, but, well, maybe……..)
As I mentioned above, a much higher percentage of the deaths in relation to their percentage of the population suggests people in nursing homes and Black and Brown people would bear the largest “brunt” of that “plan.” Maybe, to some people, that would be appealing – I hope not, but I’ve been witnessing some pretty ugly stuff in the past few days as individual 1’s “LIBERATE” protests have been springing up all across America – financed by our IMPEACHED so-called president’s more wealthy backers. As I mentioned earlier, today one of the protesters was wearing a hat with a swastika on it and there were several confederate flags mixed in with the individual 1 flags – I don’t remember which state had the privilege of those people protesting.
And, of course, many of the protesters are being interviewed and, well, unless you watch Fox “news” and listen to people like Limbaugh I’m guessing you’re a bit embarrassed to listen to some of the people. I certainly don’t consider myself an “elite” but I do believe when people actually believe they’re speaking in “facts” and what they are saying is preposterous you just have to wonder how bad is it getting on places like Fox in order to stir some of these people up enough to get them to show up and protest – speaking utter garbage. I wish I could put it another way – but it’s embarrassing to me to think we have so many Americans who are so, well…. stupid. Everytime I listen to one of them I think back to individual 1, after the Iowa Caucuses in 2016 saying “I love my uneducated voters.” Of course he does!
And, Oh by the way: A couple weeks ago I was listening to Dr. Birx explaining the “models” they were using to predict “If we do things perfectly” there would be “between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths resulting from Covid-19.” I predicted, at the time, this was a “set up” in order to give individual 1 something to brag about if there are fewer fatalities than those predictions, despite the FACT whatever the number of deaths we ultimately face from this pandemic will be far too many, largely because of individual 1’s “missing 70 days” which, no matter what he does going forward, he can’t LIE away. Of course, he’s STILL incapable of making rational decisions so he’ll just continue making campaign commercials for Joe Biden as he can’t resist the cameras every day with his so-called “take force press briefing.” And, if too many states listen to individual 1 and open too soon, maybe those estimates of fatalities will end up conservative.
And, the level of individual 1’s defensive reactions to questions he receives at these press briefings are, well at least to me, embarrassing – because, these briefings are viewed around the world. Today, he was asked if he feels at all bad about people who listened to him in the early part of this crisis, then, in one instance went to a large wedding across country only to end up dying after getting the virus – and, another big one – the Mardi Gras going forward because of his recommendation “It’s all under control” – and, now people are dead – his response mentioned nothing about the people who’ve died, as if their deaths mean nothing to him, and, instead, he said, “Well, a lot of people like me – I think I’m going to be re-elected in November, in fact, I think I’ll win in a landslide.” I saw that and thought, “The question was about a guy who went to a wedding thanks to your advice and is now dead?” Where did that response come from? I can’t say it came from the heart, because you’d have to have one!
OMG: Tonight I’m listening to the mayor of Miami Dade County in Southern Florida suggesting they very well may have hit their peak – as the governor is moving to “open up the state” – he only “closed” it a bit over a week ago – does that remind you of anyone? (Of course, there’s more) So, I checked the Kinsa thermometer “weather map” which shows the places in America where the number of elevated temperatures are “atypical” predicting disease outbreaks a couple weeks ahead of the CDC. Well, sure enough, Florida – and, more predictably, South Florida – although, several other parts of Florida – are “lit up” in red (elevated temperatures in “atypical” levels) – which suggests, well, that maybe Florida should reconsider “re-opening.” Stay tuned.
The “more” I was referring to when I suggested “there’s more” above would be Georgia – another place where the governor, Brian Kemp, struggled to enact a “stay at home” order and, supposedly, after he “discovered” asymptomatic people can transmit the disease he did so. Of course, less than two weeks after he “closed” Georgia it will be open again. Today, Georgia had over 1200 new cases but, maybe individual 1 sent some protesters to the governor’s mansion? I mean, why would the governor open up Georgia while it’s numbers are spiking upward? I’m going to avoid being too overly cynical – maybe you can explain the thinking to me. And, the places he opened – I’ll try to remember some of them. Gyms, barber shops, beauty salons, places to get your nails “done” (I can’t remember what they’re called), bowling alleys, massage parlors (?), etc. You get the idea – all these will open this coming Friday. And, next Monday restaurants, bars, etc. will open. This will be a good source of data for the rest of us.
Final Thought: “We the people” seem to be proving how divided we are as this virus makes its way across the nation. It’s becoming clearer there’s no way we’re going to have a national response to the pandemic – which, based on what I’ve heard from the medical professionals is the worst way to “attack” this virus. The reality is Covid-19 is going to be “around” until there is a vaccine – and, who knows how that would be distributed. I’ve been under the impression the goal SHOULD be to “flatten the curve” so that our hospitals are better able to handle the number of cases – because it’s unrealistic to keep the economy “closed” indefinitely. I’ve been watching the “numbers” as closely as I can and I’ve been feeling sometime around mid May would be the time to start figuring out the best way to “re-open” the economy. We’ve seen how fast this virus spreads, so getting the numbers down to where the “curve” has been “flattened” would be the time to begin “moving forward.”
The economic realities, once we get to that point, are going to be dire. One industry after another is going to be in a really bad spot. By now, most people know the situation with the oil industry (they can’t give the oil away, Yikes!), the auto industry is really hurting, airlines? (are you planning a trip anytime soon?), homes? (Where do you think home prices are headed?) Restaurants, movies, sports, and I could go on, they’re all in trouble. This will all become clearer as the days slowly go by – most of us are stuck in our homes – but, painfully clear once things are “opened up.” Think logically, this “jolt” to our way of life will take a long time to recover from. I just don’t see “we the people” choosing individual 1 to be the one to lead us out of this mess – a far worse mess than what Bush/Cheney left for President Obama and Vice President Biden. With a competent person at the “top” it’s going to be a MAJOR challenge – with individual 1?????? And, do you really want Moscow Mitch running the Senate as we try to work our way out of this mess? I hope someone in Kentucky reads this – please work to get him out of office!