Killing at the White House and A Letter to Joe

see the emerging beast

    It dawned on me as grand daughter Addie and I were playing "do you see it?" 
     When she looked closely she could indeed see a giant tan horse or a dragon emerging from the copse of trees. Can  we see the destruction in front of our quarantined eyes?

     We've witnessed a devolution of everything in we regard as normal. A sense of reality is being recoded. We may think we are helpless, but we are not. Let's go a little deeper into the woods.

      The awful norm that is apparent is the number of US citizens who are 1 pay check from disaster. That's wrong and it's a prescription for disaster.

     It is shortsighted of the money class to permit working Americans to reach desperate straights. Who will generate commerce, engage financial institutions, pay bills and taxes, keep companies afloat and enable bonus compensation, empower growing ROI's or fuel their jets, yachts, weekend homes and country clubs? 

     As the global economy has crash closed, the disparity in wealth can no longer be only talked about or ignored. The boot heel on the neck of working people could be a trigger for the looming depression. 
     The immoral financial distance between corporate boards and overlords, bankers and tax evaders and those who do the work, teach the kids, fight fires, protect safety, make things, fill orders, serve meals, and work in hospitals is obvious. It is stripped naked in front of our eyes and revealed for the evil it is. 

     To be strong, this nation cannot permit people who work  to be one pay check from disaster. Fat cat indifference should be criminal. Generations need a sense of hope in a good future, worth working for.

a new virus emerges

incompetence and stupidity

   A national rage is excusable in how the new and massive unemployed have been unable to get phone calls or computer links to process claims. The government is a cluster of bungling, floundering, and useless suits. 
    When will the funds flow, when will the stimulus checks be cut, when will applications and phones be available? Who knows?

    A digression-remember how some howled when the Obama healthcare Web launch had glitches? The screeching and Fox News drum beat made it seem the whole economy had shut down, that cities become ghost towns, people hiding inside, thousands dying.

     Where is the indignation from the quisling accomplices now? Don't you wonder what corporate interest or finance king Moscow Mitch is under the covers with? 

    The Trump mob is inept in such a way as to establish a new low for government failure.

     48% of American jobs are dependent on small businesses. Those small business owners are dying because the Trump regime can't figure how to get the emergency loans to them. Though the President has had no trouble in firing and destroying the careers of two Inspectors General, including the man who was to be the watch dog on how the $billions were to be distributed to Trump friends, corporate barons, Republican funders and the uber wealthy, and more than likely even his own family business.

      Trump has presided over a dismantling of the federal government by means of idiocy. He was unfit, unqualified and lacked the character to be President and he proves that daily.

       I have written that his personal leadership made us unprepared and ill-equipped. Donald J. Trump is responsible for the death of people who need not have died from this virus, how many hundreds or thousands we'll never know.

       I watch the news hoping to see Anthony Fauci and Chuck Schummer yank him out to the rose garden and beat him back and forth like a beach ball.

       If Nancy Pelosi were to shoot him, would you cry?

can you see the beast a little better?

    

    This beast before us is also us. This is touchy matter now. The truth is that our sheltering at home has helped reduce the spread, but at a huge cost. Two important elements about this-

     a) We all complied with somewhat draconian policy and for the most part, willingly. We abandoned personal freedom for a sense of greater good. But we were forced to so because of an incompetent government. That government did not plan or think and when they responded implications of impact and constitutional regard got short shrift.  

     b) You can expect to see a growing debate between capitalism and the Hippocratic oath. The economy has been devastated, but was there a better way to safeguard general health? As we go forward we are likely to see an amplification of this very hard issue. That hard conversation about who gets to live-who gets a ventilator- is a sample of the larger issue

it's been interesting seeing the homes of journalists, analysts, experts and entertainers

   An ancillary matter here is media coverage and what is best described as a kind of hysteria. 

    There has been extraordinary journalism and reporting in very difficult and challenging circumstances. Working from home has never looked so good, but there has been an insufficient analysis of the morbidity tables. I mourn the loss of any and hate to think a person's days were cut short. Still, of those who have died, what is the data with regards to co-morbidity or underlying illness, what is the age, how many were in terminal conditions, is there a way to know what was their life expectancy, how do the numbers, not the estimates but factual numbers compare with other virus outbreaks, what are the genetic factors/similarities of those who have died, what are the matches on generational vulnerability, and etc?

    Learning and rational analysis of this pandemic can equip us for a better response next time.

    We deserve leadership that looks at event horizons, integrating strategic reserve, medical preparedness, and health intelligence as part of the national security calculus. 

    Donald Trump was warned. Scientists and scholars have predicted this outbreak. He ignored it. He fired a pandemic expert from the National Security Council. We should never be in a place like this again.

the road forward

      It's paramount to break free from this Trumpian prison of incompetence, lies and madness.

     We are lucky he's such an idiot. A more clever would be dictator would not have deferred so much leadership to the states and Governors. Smarter fascist strongmen would not have said, "I am not responsible." 

    We are lucky the current Republican brain trust are such, poltroons, inside traders, pedophiles, ideologues, nazi pretenders, and bought and paid for fools. They're too busy patting themselves on the back about not convicting Trump, giving the rich a tax cut and for packing courts with intellectual lightweights and inexperienced "true believers" they missed a chance to have seized the kind of authority they might have. This is a vain crowd, motivated by money and access and are willing to grovel and kiss the fat man's ass to stay in his favor. They are not only quislings, they are without character and they behave like brown shirt lackeys. History will attest they are stupidly compliant. 

a memo to joe

    Joe Biden has been around Washington long enough to forget more than Trump could ever learn. I know traditional conservative Republicans who will vote for Joe. Anymore from this gang and you might well have an American revolution of revulsion. I mean in the streets. 

    Biden is an old hand. He knows both ends of Pennsylvania Ave and both sides of the street. He knows foreign affairs and he's a blue collar guy. He's a great choice for this time.

     

    Mr Vice President, sometime soon I'd like to see you, Amy, Bernie, Elizabeth, Andrew, Pete, Tom, Kamala, Corey, Julio, and Michael, together outlining the path forward, the recovery, the building of the future. Sharing a vision.

    Maybe you can get Presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton and Carter to chair a national recovery commission. Bring in Bill Gates to help you appoint a true team of the "best and the brightest" to build an actual plan, and strategy to rebuild this nation. 

    Perhaps you could call it the New Beginning, like the New Deal, New Frontier, New Society.

     what if sheltering at home violates social distancing?

   Thanks for enduring this. As bonus here's some fresh air.

A recent low tide revealed a mussel bed. No social distance observed here.

   Take care of each other. Stay well.

   See you down the trail.