America Standing on a Threshold.....

     As I write this, people are protesting, marching and even rioting in the streets of America.  The death at the hands of a murderous cop in Minneapolis of George Floyd, another unarmed black man....one more in the seemingly never-ending stream of Americans of color who have been killed by the police, may be the police murder that has finally proven to be the last straw,  not just for people of color, but for Americans of all stripes, who have finally just had enough.  There comes a point when too much is just TOO MUCH.

  In the age of the smart phone, it is almost impossible for an event to occur in public and not be recorded by a bystander....as George Floyd's agonizing final moments were. Not only was a 17 y.o. woman recording Derek Chauvin's knee on Floyd's neck....for just shy of NINE MINUTES....but, as it became clearly apparent that Floyd was in dire distress, this young woman is heard pleading with Chauvin to remove his knee from his neck.  And, the video shows him with his hand stuck almost casually in his pocket, face impassive...as he continues to squeeze the life out of his victim. It would almost be easier to accept his actions if his face was contorted in rage...but, no, his expression is devoid of emotion.  I find it eerily disturbing at a very deep level.

  Then it took four days for the Minneapolis DA to decide to arrest Chauvin and charge him with both 3rd degree murder, and manslaughter.  As one watches the heart-rending video it is impossible to perceive that Chauvin is doing anything but willfully killing the man under his full body-weight.  Why the DA chose to charge anything but 1st degree murder is hard to understand.  Certainly, people across the country can clearly see that this is what is happening as the impassive Chauvin just keeps on squeezing the life out of Floyd.  He actually did not remove his knee for almost 2 minutes AFTER FLOYD HAD GONE UNCONSCIOUS.

  It's beyond merely outrageous.  It is inhuman, disgusting and fucking EVIL. As the legal process around this travesty unfolds, perhaps we'll get some inkling of what was going through Chauvin's mind.  But, this is a cop who has been cited 18 times for inappropriate treatment of a citizen, and has shot one and been involved in the shooting of another.  So, it's not unfair or a stretch to assume that this is a man with issues around violence and perhaps people of color too.  Derek Chauvin is the kind of cop that the nation's police departments NEED TO REMOVE.  He and his ilk should not be wearing uniforms, carrying weapons and exerting authority over ANY-FUCKING-BODY.  No. Police departments all across the country need to stop practicing arrogance and start hiring police persons who actually have a whole different set of skills and qualifications.  Does anybody in the law enforcement field today really even mention the need for compassion or wisdom?  I kind of doubt it.

  So, here we are: barely past the critical phase of the worst pandemic to strike since the Flu pandemic of 1918, just over a hundred years ago, and now we are in full societal crisis.....it almost defies the imagination that such a toxic mixture of events and circumstances could be real, and happening to us RIGHT NOW.  But, it is.  And, now we need to make one of the most critical decisions in the history of this country: we need to decide WHO WE ARE, as a nation, as individuals, and as a society.  We need to answer the burning question: Is this who we want to be?

   And, if it happens that a majority of Americans don't want to continue on down the path that is presently unfolding at our feet.....then we need to really come up with some radical changes, in our attitudes toward others, and in our attitude toward the planet and the rest of the world.  Because if we demure...if we wimp out and fail to make a firm decision...we risk becoming a nightmare society that is living out the wet-dream of a sick, piratical, idiot of a wannabe dictator.

  This is not a 'police problem'....not by a long shot. What it is, is an American problem, having everything to do with the fact that racism is far from being expunged, healed, or just transmuted into something where respect and kindness are present.  America is still...and has been for about 400 years....an essentially racist society.  You are bullshitting yourself and you need to get out around the country more if you cannot see this.

   I first hitched across the U.S. in the early 70s, and, yes, there are lots of good people everywhere you go. I met them.  But, there is also a sinister undercurrent that has always been there and remains intact today.  The fact that we elected...well, sort of....a president who is a racist himself should give you a notion that racism is much more prevalent and pervasive than most Americans are willing to acknowledge. 

  And, if you are one of the Americans who supports Donald J. Trump, who thinks his attitudes are just fine....all the lies, the deceits, the attacks, the unending greedy machinations, the total absence of anything even resembling compassion or some wee evidence that he even feels human emotions....then you are part of the problem.  Oh, yes, you are.

  So, change your attitude and join the human race.  We are not destined to be a country like the one we presently are modeling.  We ARE destined to wake-up and realize that we have a lot of work to do in learning how to take care of ourselves, each other and the planet.

  And, if we can't do that.....then we really will be well and truly FUCKED.

  So, what'll it be, America?

He's Like a Disease That Won't Go Away.....

He bellows, whines, wheedles, castigates, insults, demands and that isn't all.....

   I would be willing to bet that this idiot's face is found in more than half of the images on any particular political website.  He is plastered every-fucking-where.  And....it's making me sick.

   You think I am kidding, don't you?  I'm not.  When I see his porcine likeness now...usually contorted in some derisive or explosive expression....I actually feel the first little inkling of nausea. Were I to allow myself to take in more of his disgusting visage, I believe I could actually go the rest of the way, to kneeling in front of the porcelain throne and heaving my guts out.  On every possible level, this idiot has inserted himself into our lives.  The coronavirus shut-down might have provided some respite from this inundation of ugliness....but, no, he's still all over the place causing more suffering and trouble.  Whether he's telling people that it's all a hoax, or that they should be taking a potentially lethal drug, drinking bleach, shoving a high-powered U-V light up our butts....doesn't matter.  He's THERE....everywhere you look. 

  This is, of course, his wish...that he be like Big Brother in the novel 1984...everywhere at once and in control of, hell, EVERYTHING.  Today has hardly gotten going and he's in full attack mode.  This time it's social media, because Twitter had the astonishing temerity to post a 'fact check' after the Idiot posted another conspiracy lie.  The site refused to remove his attack tweets aimed at Joe Scarborough, falsely implying that he might be involved with the death of an intern in '01.  Scarborough was over a thousand miles away when the poor girl had a cardiac event causing her to pass out and hit her head, killing her. And, now the Asshole in Charge is trying to pedal the conspiracy that Scarborough was somehow accountable for her accidental death.

   The husband and family of the unfortunate woman, Lori Klausutis, even asked Twitter to take down the Idiot's conspiracy posts, pointing out that it was cruel to the entire family.  They refused...despite the fact of it being a violation of their stated policy to stop such postings.

   Twitter is a Trump whore.  No kiddin' at all on that one. They not only allow him to use their platform as a launching pad for his inane ramblings but also for his vicious and fact-free attacks on anybody he decides should be his target of the day.  This making of special accommodations for the Idiot clearly is in conflict with Twitter's stated policy and no other sub-human would be allowed the same freedom to act out so badly.

  But, always astute, ol' Donny boy has decided that Twitter should not even have the right to point out to readers that something he's posted is factually incorrect....i.e. IT'S A LIE.  So, he's ginned up an 'executive order' that he is attempting to use to muzzle Twitter and all other platforms for social media.  It's okay for him to lie, to attack, to be a total piece of shit....but it's not okay for the platform he is using to do so, to point out when he's clearly outside the Truth Zone..wandering in a swamp full of nasty stuff. 

   Not only does he expect to be allowed to lie his sorry ass off....he expects to have the power to shut-down any attempts to inform readers that they are being lied to.  He wants it all.  So, what's new, right?

  Here is where I should point out that it's, once again, not even clear that the Idiot has the legal power to shut down a private entity, thereby violating its right to Free Speech as guaranteed by the Constitution.  Of course, the Idiot has only the vaguest of ideas about what is in the Constitution, and he clearly could never, would never take the time to read something so 'complicated', eh.  His speed is a briefing with short sentences...better yet, just bullet points....and colorful graphics.

  Well, here's a tiny nugget of hope for you:  he's losing it.  I have read a host of professional opinions from psychiatrists and psychologists who are among the very top most respected in their field...and they are all coming around to the inevitable conclusion that ol' Donny boy is coming apart at the seams.  For me, the image that comes to mind is that of a B-17 limping back across the Channel, one prop just hanging, holes all over from the German fighters and flak.  One engine is smoking and he's losing altitude.  Will he make it to an auxiliary field and land safely? 

  Nah.  He's going to ditch....in November.  It's going to be a nasty landing too.

  Mark my words.

A Tsunami of Stupidity...

    Well, today is Memorial Day, and before I get to the subject of the title, I want to take a moment to remember a single person who, in my mind anyway, serves as a touchstone, linking together all those who have given their lives for the grand idea of Freedom and a country ruled justly and kindly by it's own people.   

    William Stanley Smoyer, was killed in Vietnam in July '68.  He was a platoon leader in a Marine company that got into a vicious fire-fight on that day and he'd only been in country for a few weeks. The navy medic (all marine fighting units depend on the navy for their combat medics....don't know how it got that way, but it is) attached to Bill's company was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions that day...and that tells you that it was a bad shit-storm in the rice paddies.

  I grew up with Bill, known forever to me as Billy, and we went to Princeton Country Day School together.  He was a natural athlete and leader. We jokingly called him, "Chairman of the Board', but it was out of respect not mockery.  Billy went on to Dartmouth, where he captained the hockey team, and was president of his senior class.  He also took NROTC and after graduation he joined the USMC.  I only learned of his death in combat some months after it happened, and I was devastated.  I had always felt that Billy was destined to accomplish something special in this life.  He was not merely a bright guy who was good at sports.  He was exceptionally kind and even 'wise', if one can be wise at a tender age.

  So, when I heard he'd been killed in 'Nam, it came as a swift kick in the nads.  Potential missed, a gift to society...destroyed.  And, I struggled for years to gain some kind of understanding around it all.  And, on occasion, I still do.  A WWII combat veteran, Paul Fussell, an author and college professor (d. 1988), wrote a book about his combat experience in Europe.  And, at the end of it he opined that only the 'underclass', the working people and especially people of color, are the ones who sacrifice their children in the ruling class' wars.

  I wrote Fussell and told him that he was full of shit, that the war in Vietnam had inflicted tragedy on all levels of our society. And, I explained who Billy was and what had happened.  He never had the temerity or the politeness to admit his error in grossly generalizing.

>>>>>>>*<<<<<<<<

  So......................here we are.  And, the news is plastered with images of  Americans clumping together this weekend.  Seems a large segment of the population has finally run out of patience with the Covid-19 shut-down...so, they're choosing to flaunt the rules: no masks, no social distancing etc.  So, hey, do what you want to do...because, who cares, right?

  I shouldn't be either surprised or offended by this. It was inevitable at some point. And, now we must wait and see how the rule flaunting manifests.  Maybe, just maybe, there won't be a tsunami of new infections.  But, much more likely, there will be.  People are almost certainly going to pay for the loss of patience with their lives. And, some of them will just shrug it off...which is exactly what the Big Cheeto wants to happen.  He is so callous about lives...other than his own...that he will be celebrating.  His obvious goal is to get re-elected.  That's it.  Nothing else can even come close to having the same urgency in his mind.  He NEEDS power, craves it, because along with the office comes the praise and adulation that is his opiate of choice.

   The Idiot has already told us that we should regard 100K dead Americans as a 'badge of Honor', as if he even knows what the hell Honor is.  And, until people wake-the-hell-up to what he's really all about here, he will keep urging us to ignore all the safe-guards and rules and get the hell back to work.....so his sorry butt can get re-elected, because he knows that will not happen as long as the economy is in the shitter.  But, sly and clever as the Big Weasel is, he figures he can force the economy in much the same way that professional gardeners force some plants to flower....by creating the right circumstances and constantly reminding people that all this sickness and suffering is A) not as bad as we're making it out to be, and B) that it will magically disappear on its own, or C) it's all the Chinese's fault anyway, so why are we blaming him?.

  So, hey, let's have a beach party and drink bleach.....why the hell not?  And, hey, can you get me some of that--what's it called?--Hydroxychloroquine?  Oh, I guess there is a run on it, eh.

  Are you going to fall for it?

 Really?

 

A Ray of Hope......

     In these difficult and dark times, with the death toll of Covid-19 victims mounting daily, there are not a ton of items in the news that can give one hope.  You have to mine for them and look carefully at the implications of some stories before you can take a sigh of hopeful relief.

    But, yesterday, I was buoyed up by a piece online that made me think there could actually be a ray of sunshine on the horizon.  The Big Cheeto is poisoning himself.  No, really.  He's taking poison and wants us to be rid of his sorry ass.

   Nah.  He's not.  What he is doing is lying....again....about taking hydroxychloroquine.  He wants us to believe that he's taking an unapproved drug with known dangerous side-effects....as a preventative for the coronavirus infection.

   This is where I call, "Bullshit!!!"  I get to do that all the time when I am writing about this idiot.  It's refreshing to call out his lies and his nastiness and know that, if anything, I am under-stating the severity of them.

   So, how do I 'know' that he's lying this time?  That's easy.  Donald the Don would NEVER do anything that might harm himself...and, he especially wouldn't do anything that might benefit others in a self-sacrificing manner.  That's not our Donny-boy.  No.  He thinks way too highly of himself to cross that line.

   But, what he WOULD DO is lie to us about this because he wants people out there to insist on getting this drug that he has been pushing since the pandemic began here.  One way or another, he'll find a way to make money off of our national tragedy.  One way or another, he'll get the country's economy firing on all cylinders....in time to assure his re-election.

  Unless he is poisoned by his own stupidity first.

  Oh.....irony.

Trump's Followers....and a New Civil War.

   

      When a few MAGA types in Wisconsin decided that 'enough is enough' with all this 'stay at home' stuff....they decided to waddle on down to the state capitol and protest.  They also decided that it would help their cause if they showed up there armed to the teeth.  I must be missing something.
   
      Presenting their grievances as an 'armed mob' instead of doing so peacefully sent a message to the entire rest of the country....and even the world.  No sensible person can deny that appearing in the state capitol carrying assault rifles is a form of threatening the governor and the rest of Wisconsin.  It is a very direct statement that if they don't get what they want, violent insurgence is--quite possibly-- going to be their response.

    Never-mind that we supposedly live in a free democracy....if this single-digit percentage of the great American public doesn't get what they demand, in their minds it's okay to start shooting...at what or whom is not precisely clear just yet.  It 's the behavior one would expect from thugs and punks, from people who have chosen as their 'Fuehrer' a man who clearly approves of this kind of threatened violence.  He is on their side, and he has already made very clear threats himself, that if he's not re-elected this November, a second Civil War could be the response from the right. Of course, he always makes these kinds of threats as if they aren't coming from him. "I'm just telling you what I've heard.", spoken in a sly and almost whimsical manner.  He's a slick one, oh yeah.

   First of all, how is it okay for these knuckle-draggers to threaten the entire rest of America with violence if they don't get something they are demanding:  the end of caution around Covid-19.  They feel it's just too painful to continue making all the sacrifices Americans have made in order to slow and eventually stop the pandemic.  So, to hell with what the scientists and knowlegable experts say, it's time to pretend all of this is not happening?   

Right at 90,000 Americans have died as I write this.  CDC has estimated that the death-toll will surpass 100K  by the first of June.  To put this in perspective, about 40 thousand die in auto accidents each year.  Fifty-eight thousand died in our eleven year war in Vietnam, and 3,000 plus or minus, died on 9-11.  About 2600 were killed in the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, plunging America into the Second World War.  Approximately 405,000 Americans died in that war, and the costliest war in our history was the Civil War, with a now estimated 750,000 dead from all causes, yes, three-quarters of a million. 

  So, the take-away here should be that Covid-19, taken as a single event, is one of the greatest disasters America has suffered over the course of her history.  It shouldn't have to be pointed-out, by me or anybody else, that THIS IS NO JOKE.  So, for a small percentage--estimated at well below 10%--to barge onto the public stage and make demands that are front-loaded with the threat of violence, is unconscionable, immoral, stupid and just plain despicable. 

   In plain language, who the fuck do these assholes think they are?  Is it really possible that they are so incredibly dumb that they think their armed showing would persuade ANY-FUCKING-BODY to come around to their flawed and dangerous viewpoint?   Is it really possible that they think it's okay to act this way because, "Hey, we're Americans and we have rights!!!"?  Oh, bullshit.  Nobody has the right to threaten the rest of the country that they will become violent if they don't get their way.  No.  They just DO NOT HAVE THAT RIGHT.

   And, if they are so misinformed as to what their rights are under the Constitution, perhaps they should read it, yes, sentence by sentence, and maybe even come to realize that we ALL HAVE RIGHTS. And, one of the principle rights afforded all of us, is freedom from harassment, threats or anything else that degrades or prevents our right to, "....life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".  I don't know about you, but I just don't think I will feel very 'happy', or free, if a bunch of thugs are waving guns around telling me what I can believe, do or support.  Naw.

    No statement about what these thugs are doing would be complete unless it at least mentions that the far-right in America is actually already committed to the idea that a second Civil War is coming, is, in fact, inevitable.  They now wear Hawaiian Luau shirts and use the term, 'Boogaloo' to allude to this fact.  The Boogaloo is their code-word for an all out race war....and, they have spent vast amounts of time and money preparing for it.  Whether it is the numbers of assault-style weapons, ARs, and AK's, Mini-14s, SKS, M-1As, or other odds and ends, the amount of 'tacti-cool' combat gear that is sold each year, magazine holding vests, body-armor vests and the plates they hold, camo-combat uniforms, and on and on, you cannot understand the scope of how popular this life-style--for it is that--has become.  Rural America is--without exaggerating--armed to the teeth.  And, a whole lot of these people believe that Boogaloo is on the verge of happening.

    Once again, it's time to remind you that November is out there....headed right this way.  And, unless you consider yourself to be a victim and a passive observer in our society....it's time to
GET THE VOTE OUT.  That means not merely voting yourself, but being willing to put some energy into persuading every person you know to vote Donald J. Trump....the hell out of office.  That will at least be a start towards fixing all the damage he and his picaresque cronies have done.

 

Lethal Hubris

 

Captain Bone Spurs looks unhappy.

 Donald Trump practices arrogance and buffoonery on a world class level.  In fact, he practices these traits so bombastically that it might be hard to find any other historical figure who has out-stripped him. I don't even think the strutting and puffed-up antics of Mussolini were more over-the-top.
     Yesterday, he told a gathering of reporters that Dr. Anthony Fauci gave an 'unacceptable' answer to a question about re-opening schools this fall, i.e. Fauci told them that we need to go slowly or risk creating Covid-19 'spikes' that could balloon into a resurgence of the sickness that we cannot stop....or even slow down.
    So, the Orange Idiot immediately popped off that Dr. Fauci's answer didn't please his Highness. He labelled it, as above, 'unacceptable'.  And, the reason for this lack of acceptance by The Fool was as obvious as a tick on a hairless cat.  Trump is desperate to get the economy re-started, but not because he has any concern for the great sacrifices and hardships being endured by working people across the land.  No, no.  He wants the economy jump-started because his best hope for re-election was how robust and profitable it has been during his tenure.  This is something he claims full credit for at every opportunity.  He loves to point out how he is the 'best president' to ever hold the office....and that his great wisdom and determination is the sole reason we have come this far.

Oh.....BULLSHIT!!!

   The economy was well on it's way to a full recovery when Obama turned it over to the Idiot. Check the facts. This is TRUE.  But, ignoring truth and replacing it with his own lies has never caused Captain Bone Spurs to lose a wink of sleep.  He lies so easily that my wife and I are often asking if he really even knows when he's lying.

   The agonizing truth is that Trump doesn't give a rat's ass about the working people and he's now doing all within his power....and that would include reaching for power that is arguably not even legitimately his, to get businesses open even when it appears that the workers will be at extreme risk of getting sick and even dying.  He does something just to see if it will fly...and because ol' Moonface McConnell is his lap-dog and never stands in his way, he often has gotten away with doing things that would have been called out.  And, of course, when he was called out, i.e. impeached, the senate obligingly acquitted him.  So, why would he be the least concerned about 'right and wrong'?

   In his haste to get the economy back on track, Donald J. Trump is willing to cause the deaths of thousands of Americans.  It won't bother him even a tiny bit if these workers in meat packing plants die in droves. He is, as has been demonstrated over and over ad nauseum, completely unable to feel empathy or compassion.  In fact, I just read an article by a highly respected psychiatrist in which he gave a lucid explanation of how a malignant narcissist operates and why empathy is just not available to them.

   Even without this knowledge, one has had the last three plus years to observe Trump in action.  I don't know about you, but I have yet to see him demonstrate kindness, empathy, compassion, wisdom.....or, hell, any decency at all.  He's a sadistic son-of-a-bitch.  He revels at the idea that a dissenter at one of his rallies might get 'roughed up' as he is thrown out.  He mocks, he derides, he accuses, he does pretty much whatever he feels like doing in the interest of destroying his critics, all of whom are considered mortal enemies.

   So, here we are, over 85 thousand Americans have died, about 300,000 souls world-wide, and this man...and, I use the term loosely....wants to force workers back to work in potentially lethal working conditions....demonstrated clearly by the fact that dozens have been infected and died already.  This is not a problem for the Big Cheeto.  Call it 'collateral damage', or simply, "...the cost of doing business"....doesn't matter, it is how big business operates normally.  I can tell you stories of friends who had their lives destroyed by working in a paper mill here in Maine.  The company just ran them..and then their survivors...through the courts until they were broke.  In 2020 America, whether you like it or not, this is very often how big business operates.

   And, if you listen to Rush Limbaugh, or any of the Fox toadies, you will come to understand that life goes on...and, it's best to be on top.  What?  If you can get set-up as a 'taker' and avoid being a 'giver', it's all good. Republicans of the neo-liberal persuasion still like Ayn Rand's pseudo-philosophy in which the poor are just the suckers on whose backs the aggressive and superior members of a dog-eat-dog society ride.  The motto Ayn Rand could have embraced was, "Sucks to be you."

     As we move forward, through this living nightmare scenario, it is going to be of critical importance that those people who clearly see who Donald John Trump is....with all of his evil intentions clearly driving his decisions....must not just watch it all go down.  It is the responsibility of anybody who understands how dire and dangerous this situation is and how much worse...far worse...it could still become, to do everything in their power to get complacent people to sit-up and pay attention. Get them to commit to voting in November, and help them to realize that what hangs in the balance is easily the most critical choice in modern times.

   Either we knock the would be emperor off his throne in a fair and legal election, or we don't.  And, if we fail to get him out, the price will be so vast that it seems barely believable.  Our democracy will become a holographic illusion of a democracy.  The people will be under the command of the most insane and evil leader to ever gain the highest office in the land.  This sounds like hyperbole.

   But, sadly, IT IS NOT.

"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy......

.....And, the Big Fool says to push on."  That is a line from a Vietnam era protest song and the 'Big Fool' is, of course, LBJ.   I was driving back to the Penn State campus on a Sunday night and we were passing through Doylestown PA when LBJ made his announcement on the airwaves.  "I will not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination for President of the United States."

To many people this came as a shock. It's not typical for any politician to walk away from an election and possibly a greater role in determining the history of the world, and especially the U.S.  But, the hand-writing was on the wall.  He had inherited a rotten situation from JFK, and it had only gotten worse as he pumped more and more troops into Vietnam. As we have been able to re-visit those times, it has become apparent that LBJ and McNamara clearly understood that the war was a disaster and nothing they were doing was preventing it from getting worse.  So, he quit. It is a sad chapter in American history that both of these men lied in order to keep American sentiment from turning away from the war.  Eventually, we did wake-up and the massive level of rejection and protest had a pivotal influence in getting us out of there.  Honor an honesty didn't play much of a role in all that.  It was more a case of Americans waking-up and saying to themselves, "What the hell are we doing here?"

Unfortunately, Donald Trump will never walk away from any opportunity to either soak up more money, or to be adored by his screaming followers.  He's made an amazing track record for himself in the last 3 years, hasn't he?   He's stacked the court system, especially SCOTUS, and laid low almost every single rule, regulation, policy, agency and anything that could possibly be attributed to Obama's administration. It would take a long time to list all the damage he's done...all of it with the express intent of pulling the rug out from under working people.  He wants...apparently....the working class of America to suffer.  What other answer could there be?  A vast proportion of the American population has no financial 'cushion', i.e. less than $400 cash for contingency situations, and he's demonstrated a single-minded determination to remove, or at least reduce, anything that could serve as a 'safety net'.

These are the actions of a sick man.  He wants to inflict pain, and he has at his disposal a myriad ways of doing this to millions of people....and the real mystery is not why he does this, but why his sycophant followers can't see that he's screwing them silly.

Now, comes the pandemic.  Trump's 'ace in the hole', that he was positive would get him re-elected in a landslide, was the economy.  And, all of a sudden, out of nowhere (he lies) comes a virus that is laying waste to employment, peoples' lives and our way of life that we have been so fond of and dependent on.  Nothing is now normal.  In fact, the cliche of these times might be, "The new normal is that nothing is normal anymore."  And, we're nowhere near out of the woods with it.  As I write this, 1275 Americans have died of COVID-19....IN THE LAST DAY. And, it is with some horror that we have heard the experts estimate that it could be over 3000 per day by June 1st.

That is the equivalent of a 9-11 EVERY SINGLE DAY.  This is a calamity, a full-blown disaster, a body-blow to humanity and society as a whole....not to mention the immense suffering it is causing for individuals and families at the personal level.  A person can suddenly realize that they have a few or any of the dreaded symptoms....seek out medical care as directed...and be snatched up and put in isolation.  At that point, for any elderly person, almost all of whom have underlying conditions or complications, the nightmare has begun.

Isolation means that no family members whatsoever can visit, even with protective gear.  So, your respirations become labored, they put you on a ventilator...and your chance of surviving is now in the 20% range.  This means you are going to die alone, without any chance to say 'I love you' to your partner or family.  I can hardly imagine a scenario that is more heart-rending.  It is horrendous to contemplate, and people all over the planet are going through this EVERY GODDAMNED DAY.

ASIDE: It should be mentioned here that medical personnel have really become the heroes of this situation.  Many of them have stayed with dying patients and held their hand, and held a phone so FaceTime or Skype could be used to connect with loved ones.  Trump rarely pays any even lip-service to these actual heroes....but, they don't do it for recognition, and the price they pay is extreme, in terms of their own mental health and even their physical safety.

GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU MEDICAL AND OTHER SUPPORT PEOPLE!!!  You deserve much better than you are getting for logistical support.

So, the Orange Idiot is so fixated on getting the economy 'back on track' ....fully aware that he won't win re-election if it is still in the shitter at the time of the election....that he is willing to let the dying increase, however much it takes, to open businesses, re-start everything, making it impossible to avoid a second wave....a surge of infections that will kill thousands, and nobody knows how many thousands.  We just blew past 75K American dead, about a quarter million planet-wide.  But, Donald fucking Trump is not concerned about this.

His view is that, "This is a war. And some people will die."  What he really means to say is: "I will not let a few thousand extra deaths stand in the way of my being re-elected."  And, his inability to feel empathy or compassion comes perfectly into play here.  He really is incapable of feeling the pain of others...of anybody.  He is the one who matters over all else.

I don't know about you....but, I am way beyond just feeling sick or pissed-off over this asshole. He's a sick and cruel man and he craves not merely adulation from all around him...he craves POWER.  He wants to be the big man for all time.  He sees his role as running the planet.  Megalomania is not easy to watch in action.  But, if you look away and let it progress you end up with a deep feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.  The suicide rate spikes, the number of clinically depressed shoots up, and the general mood of the country takes a nose-dive.  Living under a mad-man's regime has never been pretty....and, unless you are in a coma yourself, you can easily see that this is where we're headed if we don't get off our butts and VOTE IN NOVEMBER.

I realize it's easy to minimize all of this.  My wife just met with a client who really believes the Idiot was 'joking' when he made those nonsensical remarks about injecting or ingesting bleach or other sanitizers....and getting 'light' into the body.  WTF?  She asked this woman if she'd seen the video of him.....and the answer was 'No. But, I read it on Facebook"

If that is the quality of understanding, of rational thinking, of a willingness to question what's wrong with him....we truly may be in a dark place on the day after the election.

That's my nightmare.  A mentally ill president, with wholly malevolent ideas and intentions, gains another chance to put our democracy to bed.  And, his AK-47 and AR-15 toting sychophants will help him do it.

America....is this really the best you can do?

Please say, "No!"