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| "Surprised Egg" - art by Common Household Younger Daughter |
July 30. Day 212 of the year 2020.
Let’s review. Today these things are going on:
GDP declined 9.5% this quarter (32.9% annualized). Basically, GDP fell back to about the 2015 level. This is a record decline.
We have had 19 straight weeks of unemployment claims over 1 million each week.
The Senate today failed to pass legislation to continue unemployment compensation. They were quite willing to put $1.75 billion in their bill for a new FBI building, a gift to Trump's business. But they couldn’t bring themselves to give $600 to out of work Americans. The Senate bill did have some kind of scheme in it to give graduated payments ($200 or less? – I didn’t read the bill. That’s the Senators’ job, not mine) which would probably cost more to administer than that difference of $400.
The Trump Administration is still working to dismantle the ACA, trying to take health coverage away from millions of Americans, during a global pandemic.
The funeral of John Lewis, a true patriot, a “good, kind, and gentle man,” took place in Atlanta, with a eulogy delivered by President Obama.
Citizens all over the country continue to demand racial equity, an end to police brutality, and the dismantling of systemic racism. The simpler changes, symbolic changes to help us move on from our racist past, such as changing the names of military bases named after Confederate traitor generals, ought to be easier. (An aside: at a Black Lives Matter solidarity rally, local to me last weekend, protesters claiming to be “backing the ‘blue’” chanted a list of which types of people they would like to kill, right after they shouted “all lives matter”.)
The Governor of Oregon announced that she has reached an agreement that federal agents will leave Portland. The Trump Admin disputes that.
More than 150,000 Americans have now died of the covid-19 illness. (For comparison, annual deaths due to influenza average in the range of 12,000 to 61,000). Herman Cain died of covid-19. Note that Cain attended the Trump rally in Tulsa, and did not wear a mask. Trump's national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, tested positive for Covid-19. It has been five months since I have seen my aging mother, because her nursing home is on lockdown. I wonder if I will be able to see her in person before her memory and cognitive functions decline irreparably.
That is today.
Is it any wonder that Trump tweeted his intent to postpone the election? Never mind the fact that he hasn’t read nor understood the Constitution, which says that it is not in the President’s power to postpone an election. We’ll likely hear feeble peeps from his enablers, but they won’t be courageous enough to confront Trump directly on this. I've waited all day to hear something from my Republican Senator. They are not willing to say their beloved emperor has no clothes.
This very day, Trump can’t stand that the nation’s heroes, Rep. John Lewis, and Dr. Fauci, are more admired than Trump. And oh, President Obama will get attention for making a speech with full sentences. Trump is beside himself with self-pity. Maybe if he tweets something outrageous about the election, he can draw attention away from Lewis, Fauci and Obama. Did no one in this man’s family ever see that he needed help for this problem? His untreated mental state is now our nation’s sorrow. But the enablers will refuse to say that their emperor has no clothes.
Is it any wonder that Trump and his enablers are committed to putting federal agents in cities, to do a trial run of martial law? The President asks you to please keep your attention on the unrest in Portland. Those moms in bike helmets and dads with leaf blowers – they are all socialist revolutionaries. So scary! He’s made it nakedly obvious that this is an election tactic – he openly declared he is sending agents to cities run by Democrats. The emperor has no clothes, but dresses his mercenaries in camouflage – rather odd, since they are in an urban warfare zone. For purposes of intimidation, perhaps?
Is it any wonder that Trump is grasping at straws to draw our attention away from the disastrous economic situation? In March and April he and his enablers could have chosen to do the right thing, and use the power of the Presidency to ramp up production of testing capacity and protective equipment. Instead, they did nothing but drum up a culture war over face masks. We ordinary citizens still can’t get a covid test unless we have dire symptoms. Imagine if we had enough tests to get everyone tested every week? We could much more easily return to school, work, shopping. But the enablers hide the fact that their emperor gets tested every day while we wait weeks for test results. If we can get a test.
Is it any wonder that Trump tweeted racist dog-whistles aimed at white suburban women, in order to foment fear and anger in his base of supporters? But the enablers will refuse to say that their emperor has no clothes.
When he ran for office, Trump said, “I alone can fix it.” A few months ago, Trump said, “I take no responsibility.”
It looks like it’s up to us to take responsibility. What will we do?
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| Broken egg on driveway - science experiment by Common Household Son |
2 comments:
It's exhausting, isn't it? I mean, there's such an ambush of awfulness that one feels like it's tough enough to tread water, let alone make any progress forward from this point.
I just keep counting down the days and speaking the truth--and writing my legislators every single week.
Yes, it is exhausting. I want to ignore everything, but I can't.
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