A few thoughts off the top of my head which I’ll try to elaborate on in the coming days/weeks. I suppose I’m losing my “fire” to keep writing, although will likely change as the right wing assault on our nation continues. First, I haven’t heard a word from any of the republicans who were predicting individual 1 would return to the “Oval Office” on August 13. it’s August 24 as I’m typing this and our TWICE IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING (ex) president (who’s also a LOSER in, likely, a record number of lawsuits) is still stuck in Mar a Lago. Is there a better place for him? Absolutely! How about some actual U.S. prison – maybe a private one.

Secondly, today – for whatever reason – I’ve been wondering how the Matt Gaetz investigation is proceeding. He’s, of course, very prominent in the QAnon “universe” which claims democrats are child sex abusers – or something like that (disclaimer, I don’t do “QAnon” so I’m paraphrasing what I’ve heard, second hand) – it should be interesting how that “community” responds should the indictment many are predicting comes about – an indictment which allegedly accuses Gaetz of “child sex trafficking.” (Will that make him a democrat?)

Thirdly, and hopefully lastly – at least for today – I’m, as usual, following the continued pandemic as it spreads across the nation – mostly in the South. Maybe up to two months ago I saw the beginnings of this happening in Florida and with Florida being under the “leadership” of Ron DeSantis it should be no surprise Florida was the “trigger” to the spread of the so-called “Delta variant” of the Sars-Cov-2 (Covid-19) pandemic. With leaders like DeSantis “we the people” could be looking at an “endemic” instead of a “pandemic.” I believe, back then, I predicted the “rest of us” would be paying a “price” for the intransigence of Mr. DeSantis!

And, “We the people” can’t depend on republican governors in several states to allow “truthful” data to come out. For example, and speaking of DeSantis, I’ve been speculating for over a year now that he’s “cheating” on the statistics coming from his state. An example from a couple days ago – Florida was reported to have almost 25,000 NEW cases in one day – their hospitals are FULL of Covid-19 patients – and, there was ONE death reported. I mentioned last year how republican governors were ordering their health departments to “gigger” the death certificates of people who died of Covid – by saying, instead, they died of pneumonia. I believe the death toll from the disease caused by the virus is much HIGHER than reported. For heaven’s sake, there are several (republican run) states who aren’t reporting ANYTHING. (Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota among them – and, yes, once in a while you see a report coming from one of those states – but it’s less than sporadic – which simply means the INFECTION of America is WORSE than we are led to believe.

OK, yes, I”m also thinking about the American withdrawal from Afghanistan today (7 days till the “deadline”), how could anyone who pays attention to the news not do so. I was reminded of my previous post where I mentioned about some people I recently visited in a rural part of Southern Oregon who thought Joe Biden was “screwing up” the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I presumed they were talking about all those Afghani’s who were trying to escape the country now that the Taliban has taken control, but – NO – they were lamenting the opposite – that there would be an influx of Afghan refugees coming to America. As I mentioned in the post, they are AVID Fox “news” viewers – it’s on their TV much of the day.

Well, that was then and this is now. (It’s Sept. 5th) Regarding the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it surely could have gone smoother, but, as I wrote a couple weeks ago, there was no way it was going to be “smooth” considering the Afghan “military” either “laid down their arms” or headed into the hills to fight another day – time will tell. Regarding my friends in Southern Oregon, I’m guessing it won’t be long and Tucker Carlson will be spewing more of his white nationalist hate regarding the “dilution” of America because of the Afghan refugees which make it here. I don’t even know how many of the 120,000 who “got out” are on American soil, but, if you’ve been around this site at all it should be obvious I believe “we the people” should put out the “welcome” sign for as many as can get visa’s from the State Department.

Do I feel bad for those who wanted to leave but couldn’t get out? Yes, but 120,000 is a pretty incredible accomplishment – especially when you consider the circumstances. Do I want the U.S. to continue BOMBING targets in Afghanistan? Well, NO! Why not make it a clean break? We’ll soon enough know whether the Taliban are able to create a functioning government and, from what I’ve read, the possibilities aren’t that great. The country has been “ruled” by factions led by “warlords” for (maybe) centuries (I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to go back and reread the books I’ve read on Afghanistan). What I know is the “outcome” of our “adventure” in Afghanistan was predictable from the day we provided the airlift to get Osama bin Laden into Pakistan back in 2001 and began the so-called “war on terror.”

Speaking of the “war on terror,” I know this wasn’t one of my original thoughts to this rant, but I kind of hope our Justice Department will actually venture into a “war” on the terrorists residing in our own country. Those connected to the INSURRGENTS who ransacked our nation’s Capitol Building on January 6th, 2021 are spread all across this nation. If we truly are a “nation of laws and not men” then the Justice Department SHOULD hold those to account who are threatening the very fabric of the nation. And, it shouldn’t, in my mind, be centered on the schmucks who are too STUPID (sorry) to understand they’re being fed a steady stream of LIES, but, instead, those who are spreading the LIES and INSTIGATING their “low information voters.”

I’m sure you understand, first and foremost, I’m talking about individual 1. The FACT he’s the MOST corrupt president (TWICE IMPEACHED and a two time popular vote LOSER) in this nation’s history (with the possible exception of Andrew Johnson) should have the attention of the various PROSECUTORS who SHOULD be putting cases together with the intent of holding him to account. And, yes, I’m talking about Merrick Garland first and foremost. For heaven’s sake, he’s the unindicted co-conspirator in the “Stormy Daniels” payoff which landed Michael Cohen in jail. Wouldn’t fairness suggest he must face the same charges? And, what about all the OBSTRUCTION evidence “memorialized” by Robert Mueller? Shouldn’t those legal transgressions be further investigated? And, naturally, the INSTIGATION of the Assault on our nation’s Capitol Building with the INTENT to overthrow the election (along with mountains of corroborating evidence as to his INTENT – well, what on earth is Mr. Garland waiting for?

Here’s a couple similarities I see between the republicans and democrats. Republicans won’t agree to ANY legislation designed to mitigate the Climate Crisis until the disasters are so great even their BRAINWASHED supporters demand action – and, of course, it will likely be too late to make much of a difference. On the other hand, democrats will fail to hold the republican assault on the fundamental values of America to account until it’s too late and they are in the position of being virtually blocked from regaining a majority in Congress or gaining the “White House” because they FAIL to act on voting rights legislation. Republicans ALREADY have STACKED the courts in their favor, have the potential to control Congress with a MINORITY of support to the “tune” of TENS of MILLIONS – and, that’s the people that manage to actually vote – I’m not even counting the MILLIONS who will be disenfranchised due to all the VOTER SUPPRESSION bills being passed in various states. (And, I didn’t even mention, directly, partisan gerrymandering)

I’ve always felt the reason individual 1 is so appealing to republicans is due to his WILLINGNESS to CHEAT! I’ve been saying for years the republican M.O. is “The end justifies the means.” They’ve been LYING and CHEATING for as long as I can remember. And, of course, they consider democrats “weak” because they continue trying to “play by the rules.” Additionally, it doesn’t help that each time the democrats PROVE their unwillingness to hold republican “leaders” to account for BREAKING our laws, it just further empowers them to take it even further – and, of course, I’m referring to them BREAKING even MORE laws.

That gets me back to Matt Gaetz. I questioned as I started this rant what was going on with him? We keep hearing (OK, I keep hearing) he’s going to be indicted in a couple of weeks. I keep reading about Mr. Greenberg in Florida who is apparently providing MOUNTAINS of evidence implicating Mr. Gaetz along with several other prominent Floridians in his sex-trafficking racket. The last I’ve heard is the prosecutors are “negotiating” with Gaetz’ attorneys – which, I’m not sure what that means? Certainly, there couldn’t be a “bigger fish” could there? (Well, if you’ve followed my rants at all you’d know I speculated about Roger Stone. Could he be entangled in this “deplorable” mess? I did see one photo of Stone, Greenberg, and Gaetz with the proverbial s@#t eating grins you might seen on three older men having sex with young girls. Just sayin……………. Stay tuned……….

Finally, the Covid-19 (SARS-Cov-2) pandemic. I follow the statistics virtually every day on “Worldometer.info” where every reported case is logged into their HUGE database. (They keep track of much more than Covid) As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, there are several REPUBLICAN governors who apparently have ordered their health departments to stop reporting the data. Some of them report the cases but not the deaths. DeSantis of Florida is a bit of both. For one week recently, with an average of around 25,000 NEW cases EVERY day being reported in Florida they were reporting 8 deaths each day.

Well, I knew that wasn’t possible. The Florida hospitals are SLAMMED with Covid patients. The reports on the original “waves” of the virus stated roughly 10 percent of the cases reported ended up in hospitalizations and this “Delta variant” is MORE transmissible and MORE deadly – so, that would mean, likely, MORE than 2500 new cases needing hospitalization in Florida EVERY day – over the past month or so. So, I did a little more “digging” and, last week, Florida was averaging around 325 deaths (at least) per DAY from the virus. (100 more than just two weeks prior) When you look at the maps showing where the worst Covid infections are nationally you see bright red in Florida and not quite as bright red in the surrounding states, moving North. Obviously, many people travel into and out of Florida every day.

And, one last thing – it’s apparent “we the people” have no tolerance for “shutting things down” to “stop the spread” and, it seems almost the opposite. Personally, I love ML baseball and tonight I was watching (on my computer via streaming) the Giants Dodgers baseball game – maybe the two best teams in baseball. Oracle Park in San Francisco was FULL of yelling fans – only a small few of which I saw wearing masks. Talk about your “super spreader” events. And, of course, College Football stadiums are full of “rabid” YELLING fans and the NFL starts next week. It appears to me this “wave” is going to get far worse before it gets better and, if a “variant” which is not at least slowed down by the present vaccines, well, look up the word “endemic.” Just as I implied “we the people” won’t deal with a serious crisis – no matter our “political affiliation” – until it’s too late – well, I see the definite possibility with Covid-19.

The Concession workers in Oracle Park are going on strike because of the dangerous situation they’re in just working the Giants games. (If you don’t know baseball, Oracle Park is in San Francisco) In the past week or so 20 of the workers have contracted Covid. They’re claiming it’s NOT safe for them to work – and, well, as they say, the “proof is in the pudding.” Just try to imagine how many of the 45,000 or so “fans” at the game tonight will be in the hospital next week. And, picture that for all the other baseball and football games across this land. Reports I’ve read suggest the “Delta Variant” can be spread from one person to 9 or 10 others. If there were even half a dozen people who were infected but didn’t know it at that game, just picture how many others will be infected by, well, NOW! (It’s a few hours AFTER the end of the game) (Do you understand the word “exponential?”)

Joe Biden is doing everything he can to mitigate the spread of this virus, but people either are vaccinated and believe they’re “safe” (which is somewhat true, but not completely true – there are more and more “breakthrough” cases being reported) or, seemingly, they’re unvaccinated and believe the virus is a hoax. When you see THOUSANDS of people crammed together and almost NONE of them even wearing a mask like at Oracle Park, well – at least I – see what looks like, as I said above, a “super spreader event” – and, maybe I should add “on steroids.” I’m sure President Biden feels as if his hands are tied. The political division in America has been exacerbated to the point where many people are not even open to “science” and many of the others think they’re “safe.” (due to being vaccinated) And, the virus keeps spreading!

Here’s how bad its gotten. I live in a small community which seems to be evenly divided politically, but since my days in high school back in the early 1960’s there has been overwhelming support for our public Schools. (And, by the way, as a sixth grade teacher I taught history in a way which didn’t shy from America’s “warts” and no one objected) So, a couple of days ago a young lady at one of our high schools (and, apparently, the same situation happened at a neighboring Middle School and Elementary school) refused to wear a mask and was not allowed to attend. Her parents protested and enlisted the support of one of the right wing militia groups you read about regarding protests in Portland, Oregon. (We’re right across the Columbia River).

The Militia guys (from a group calling themselves “Patriot Prayer” along with some “Proud Boys” – trust me, they’re anything but “patriots” or “proud”) actually TRESPASSED on the school grounds (along with the young student’s mother) and the police had to be called to remove them – I haven’t heard if any of the “patriots” were arrested, but three schools had to be put on “lockdowns” because of the “crisis.” The High School has over 2000 students and ONE decided to put the district to the “test.” I worked for this district for over 20 years and I have to add, I hope they “stick to their guns.” I read where they’re trying to “work things out” with the parent, but this parent and her children have a history of bullying – I know, because my granddaughter was a victim of it a few years back – and, it was devastating for her. I would say to the parent, “you have two choices – your child wears a mask while at school or you can ‘home school’ her.”

Final Thought: OK, I “get” I said 1 LAST thing above, but speaking of pro sports, I’m going to make a prediction. Many teams are going to find themselves unable to actually play the games at some point going into the fall. I’m thinking mainly football teams, especially the teams in the areas of the country which are, well, “on fire” with the Delta variant. Just this past week the Boston Red Sox have had 10 players (this is out of 28) put on the “Covid” list and they can’t play until they test negative something like two or three days in a row – after their symptoms subside. (And, God willing, none of them will get the “bad” Covid)

Teams which have to travel to Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and other Southern states will be heading into the “teeth” of the “storm.” Just picture over 100,000 screaming Dallas Cowboy’s fans at a game with the roof of the stadium closed and all those Covid “particles” flying in the air. Even if you’re vaccinated I’d say it wouldn’t be worth the $150 or so you’d have to shell out for the average seat in order to expose yourself to this Delta variant – but, in the true American spirit I’m guessing it will take deaths of some prominent “fans” to get the attention of those who want their fan base in attendance “come hell or high water.” Should be an interesting Fall. (And, by the way, I hope my prediction is wrong! Usually, i’m correct, mainly because most of my predictions are “no brainers” – and, I believe this one falls in that category. (Just ask the Concession workers at Oracle Park)