Day 1290 – Which Was Most Memorable?

Friday July 31, 2020

93 Days until the election on November 3^rd

173 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Yesterday, oh what a day. So much. So much. Winning? Losing? Idiocy? Landmarks.

Yesterday John Lewis was put to rest and three Presidents spoke at his funeral. Thankfully, president Trump did not show up. He didn’t even wander into the Rotuda when Lewis was there to pay his disrespects. I guess that makes sense, being the showman he is, even he, probably thought the usual flash grenades and tear gas (excuse me – pepper spray canisters) that accompany his entrances these days was too much. Do you remember when he accepted the nomination he used smoke and, not mirrors but a white curtain backlit to show his shadow so he’d appear larger than life. Might have looked inspirational had his posture not looked like a slumped over paunchy old man.

Then there was the news that we had passed 150,000 dead from Coronavirus and we were dying at the rate of 1,000 a day. That figure was updated later in the day to say no it was more like 1,400 a day and that we’d hit 240,000 by Labor Day. The day before a bunch of doctors signed a letter begging that we do a reset. Stupid. The president doesn’t read. (I’m sorry. He’s an excellent reader. He reads a lot. You’d be surprised how much reading he does. …) 

When it comes to the coronavirus it’s the same old stuff, nothing changes. There is no plan, no guidance, just denial and PR. Trump can’t figure out why he isn’t as popular as Fauci. OMG. BTW, Fauci had a baseball card made and they sold over fifty thousand, making it one of the most popular baseball cards of all time. Gee, let’s do one of the Donald, throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. (Well, yeah he’s not really going to do that. He lied. But we ought to be able to photoshop him in, put a bald eagle on the card with a giant USA and a flag … come on. ) Ya know I never thought of this before but if you look closely at the word Russia what do you see? ( rUSsiA ) OMG, it’s sooo obvious.

Also, yesterday the president tweeted that maybe we should delay the election. That got some push back from Mitch McConnell and other Republicans. Wow. Way to go boys.

The president is against mail-in ballots but for absentee ballots. Another wow. Two points here: one) the terms are synonymous, 2) Republicans win close elections by mail in ballot. 

But hey, he ain’t done yet. He’s appointed a guy to head the post office that’s a bud of his, DeJoy by name. Mr. DeJoy has put in place measures on July 15 to screw up the post office. You can’t work overtime. You can’t do other things to get the mail out. It’s all to screw up mail-in voting before the election. Way to go. Slit your throat and let it bleed slowly.

Btw He also has a bud of his collecting the coronavirus

But we aren’t done with the winning. Oh no. Here’s the real news: The economy took its biggest nose dive in history this past quarter. Worse than any time in history:

That’s the official graph from out government. Our Gross Domestic Product went down 32.9% last quarter. Coronavirus you say? You bet, but let’s not forget the sterling lack of leadership in the White House, and the Republican led Senate.

And I’ve got news for you, it’s going to get worse, a lot worse.

Consider this: Mark Meadows, former head of the Tea Party and person who with Mic Mulvaney stood in the way of every proposal by John Boehner and later Paul Ryan is chief of staff. Their philosophy, taken from Grover Norquist and Steve Bannon, was to shrink the government to the size of a pea and flush it down the toilet is running things.

Yesterday, Mark Meadows even suggested gosh golly maybe, maybe, we ought to do a four month extension on giving folks on unemployment that $600 a week. Of course, the Senate, Fox News, and the rest are saying people are not going back to work because they are making soooo much money on unemployment. Like $600 a week is a lot. I’d like to see them survive on six hundred a week. But no that’s not the reason people aren’t going back to work. There is no work to go back to. And the work that there is can get these people sick and they’d have a good chance of dying. Hum. Maybe that’s it? I dunno.

The 600 dollar checks run out today and the Republicans have gone home. So there is little chance that anything will happen in the near term. Of course they will try to sell the idea that they proposed something and the do nothing democrats wouldn’t go along with it. 

The Republicans wanted to slash the $600 to $200. Steny Hoyer explained that would destroy the economy and they weren’t going to agree to be a party to it. So the Republicans went home. 

On May 15, Mitch McConnell said, “We’ll pause.” He saw no reason to do anything. Apparently, he still doesn’t. He did suggest that the best idea was for the states and cities should go bankrupt. Well, it looks like we’ll see how the “We’ll pause; Let ‘em go bankrupt” plane of the Republicans will play out. 

I’m guessing people are going to start to be evicted.

So we’ll have more people out on the street. This time it will be young mothers with their children.

States and cities will have to but back on services. Like trash pick up and hospital staff.

I wonder what America will look like with trash bags piled up on the corners. Rats running around bothering the homeless mothers, and people sitting in cars outside hospitals dying?

It’s also being reported that the foreign affairs people in our government have isolated themselves from the president as he screws things up so badly it’s better if he’s not involved.

Okay so while the Republicans have “Paused” ( ie done nothing ) what have the Democrats done? I mean, let’s be fair. What have you done?

Steny Hoyer this morning said that the House under Speaker Pelosi has done the following (in the last 15 days):

– Passed a Justice & Policing Bill;

– Passed a DC Statehood bill;

– Strengthened the ACA (Affordable Care Act);

– Passed a Rent & Mortgage Relief bill;

– Passed a major Infrastructure bill;

– Passed ten Appropriation bills;

– Passed Land and Water Conservation bills;

– Passed two Childcare bills;

And what has the Republican led Senate done sine May 15^th?

– Nothing.

On a positive note: NASA launched Perseverance on from an Atlas 5 rocket. It didn’t even make the major headlines. Wow. What a launch. Set your calendars for February 18, 2021 when the mission arrives at Mars.

93 Days until the election on November 3^rd

173 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Here’s another way to look at the Winning job Trump has done on the economy.

This graph looks at the GDP as compared to the previous quarter.