Day 1234 – Pandemic? What Pandemic?

Friday June 5, 2020 

149 Days until the election on November 3^rd

229 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

You know the pandemic was so yesterday. Now we are marching in the streets because a black man got killed. This killing was especially obvious. It was so obvious that the Republican senators almost made a public statement about it and Trump’s reaction. They scuttled like little crabs trying to avoid the sunlight (okay, it’s an analogy and it suffers. Got it.) None of the Senators seemed to have read or seen or known what Trump had done. They did seem vaguely aware that a black man had been killed. Lisa Murkowski took the bold step of publicly saying that she thought that maybe they ought to think about doing something like saying something about what they were thinking about. The others? Blackburn had a phone call. Portman had read anything. Mitch didn’t speak. Another said he was late to lunch. Another said China. This is the kind of leadership we’ve come to expect from the Republicans in the Senate.

And we are depending on them to stop Trump?

The streets of DC had men in tactical gear: hard helmets that looked like super duper bike helmets, big fat vests, sunglasses, that kind of stuff. Who they were, or what they were doing there was unclear. What was clear was that they wore no identification and would not say who sent them. I hope someone was smart enough to take their pictures and put them up on Facebook so that they could possibly be identified. This is what we have come to.

By the way, where are the Second Amendment guys? You know those guys who like to parade around with their AR-15s? Why aren’t they out in the streets protecting their rights? Seems like when someone shows up who actually might be able to use a weapon and is in shape these 2^nd Ammenders are no where to be found.

Meanwhile, the number of Covid cases are on the rise in states across the country. Yeah, doesn’t the virus know it’s fifteen seconds of press coverage is over? That was last week.

Then there’s the mail in ballot and voting rights. Oh boy, do we have to go over this? Well, yeah. Seems there some new wrinkles on this peach. The corona virus has been shown to effect older people a lot. Turns our most poll workers are older people. Seems those people don’t want to work to die. Hey, why not invoke the War Posers Act and force them to work? What? Oh. You don’t want people to vote? Just your people? Not the other people? Got it. What? Yes, I know; isotopes in the ballots, change the vote. Yeah. Got it. 

Okay the real issue is the Republican party thinks that they will lose if people vote. I have heard that higher turn outs favor Democrats. This has translated into mail-in ballots are bad for Republicans, but in fact, there is no evidence that mail-in ballots favor one party over the other. This hasn’t stopped the Republicans from doing whatever they can to stop mail-in voting. You know it’s ripe with fraud? No, I didn’t. Did you know that in Oregon out of over two million ballots there were a little over 50 that were suspicious? Yeah. Many of those were attributed to people moving and getting their ballot from the old place – stuff like that. There was, as far as I know, not one confirmed case of fraud. This hasn’t stopped the folks at Fox from warning of its dangers. I guess that’s because the only real example of voter fraud recently was a race in North Carolina where it was the Republican who had people cheating for him. But there it wasn’t fraud in the sense of someone trying to pretend who they weren’t; it was what is known as “ballot harvesting,” a practice Devin Nunes approves of btw. Ballot harvesting is the practice of picking up a ballot from someone and delivering it to a place to be counted. This is illegal in 49 of the 50 states; California being the exception, hence Nunes’ desire for it. (Otherwise Nunes claims he will lose.)

Then you’ve got Fox and all the stuff about fraud and mail-in ballots. John Oliver went through all the steps you’d have to go do in order to submit one fraudulent ballot. They included knowing the birthdate of the deceased, having records like a driver’s license, etc. After doing all that you could submit a ballot. If you got caught you’d face jail time. Apparently, no one wants to go to the hassle and face jail time. This is something that eludes the folks at Fox. 

Will there be justice for George Floyd and all the George Floyds? Maybe this time. Maybe this time?

Meanwhile, the virus is still out there. It’s lurking. It’s waiting.

PS Rocket Man and Fat Boy