Day 178 – Cruelty, Stupidity, Arrogance, and Fascism – The dregs of the past administration haunt us

Thursday July 15, 2021

The amazing thing about Trump is that he is always worse than you think. A new round of books is coming out now that point this out in different ways. Additionally, he remains popular with enough people that others emulate his behavior and lack of policy with devastating consequences.

Just this week Tennessee has fired their head of vaccinations and has said that no child needs to be vaccinated against anything. I call that policy “Every Child Left Behind.” How long will it be before that state has outbreaks of diseases we thought eliminated? In Missouri there is a huge outbreak of Covid. Why? Much of the state remains unvaccinated – and proud of it. In Florida the governor is ramping up his re-election campaign with swag saying “Don’t Fauci Florida.” I wish we could let them all to their fate, but we can’t. 

Last week a book came out about the Trump which said there was cruelty. It wasn’t a byproduct, it was the point. Yesterday I learned that Steven Miller agreed to letting more visas out but only if translators working with our troops in Afghanistan could not apply for exit status from that country until they had served 24 months. Do you think the Taliban cares? 

Then there is a new book about how dysfunctional the White House was in the last year of Trump’s time in office. General Milley compared the president and his policies and outlook to Hitler. Most journalists shy away from such comparisons because it seems like they have gone over the top. Here we have the head of The Joint Chiefs doing it. 

There’s another book out about the previous administration and their response to the pandemic, I can’t remember what awful terrible thing it was that they’ve uncovered but it is, was.

Meanwhile, there is talk of what to do about Africa and the pandemic. Only 1% have gotten vaccinated on that continent. What to do? George W Bush did a global effort to fight AIDS. It is a model of what we can do against Covid. I’m not sure I understand all of the finer points of his effort but I think the way it worked was to put a big pot of money in the center of the room, keep all the government agencies that wanted a piece of it focused on a goal.

What else?

There’s talk that the Senate may do something. The problem is that not a single Republican will help and we have one Democratic Senator who isn’t willing or wants something else. Maybe, something will happen that will help people.

In Virginia the Republican running for governor has refused to debate the democratic nominee. I wonder why? My guess is he’s got nothing. By that I mean he has no idea how to run a state, and has put forward no ideas as to what he would do if elected. He’s run ads attacking, but ideas? Lordy no.

We’ve kept up with The Tour de France. Only one stage behind right now. There was one or two truly exciting finishes. Watching the Tour is like following a baseball team for a season. There’s a lot of slogging and a few moments of real drama. 

Olympics are coming up and I’m sorry that the woman with the colorful hair has not been allowed to run. She’s the fastest in the world and she smoked pot in a state where it is legal and did so to help her deal with the loss of her mother. As one person pointed out if she can smoke reefer and still be beat everyone else more power to her.

I still don’t understand the whole pot thing. Remember stoners from the 60s? Yet, the advocates say it’s not as bad as alcohol. Okay. I don’t get it, but so what? Why make it a crime? Seems drugs and addiction to them should be treated as a health issue. I know, why show compassion when you can demonstrate cruelty.