The next to last day of a very bad year.

 This was written yesterday December 30^th . But things are about the same today..

 

 

 

 

Covid-19 patient who has had a stroke is prepared to be flown to another hospital.

 

One word about today's news – bad! Living in California I appear to be if not in the exact epicenter of the global pandemic in its vicinity.  All hell is breaking loose in Southern California. Covid-19 has besieged the entire world for 11 long months and now it is attacking California with a vengeance. The US is fairing worst than any other country in the world both in terms of the shear number of reported cases over 19.5 million (with 183,058 added today) and our number of of fatalities so far with 338,769.  The NY Times' color coded world map denoting the degree of seriousness shows the US with a dark rouge color (the color coding shades out to beige in countries where Covid-19 is under control, with shades of orange in the middle)  Also, interestingly the Times has changed the way they sort countries maybe to lessen our embarrassment. They no longer show them descending from most cases which usually correlates with most deaths where we would be firmly at the top. Instead they now sort them by the fatality rate (deaths per 100,000 in the last 7 days). This leads to obscure small countries with serious outbreaks and limited resources to lead the pack like Liechtenstein and Croatia with 3.8 and 1.6 deaths per 100,000 respectively). But here the USA even by that metric we are still not doing well. We, the richest country in the world of  over 190 countries, are still way up in 18th place in terms of death rate with 0.7. We are tied with a a whole host of well off European countries that have well endowed state-of the-art medical care but serious outbreaks.

So much for Governor Gavin Newsom's great leadership and Californians' feeling of self righteousness and superiority with our low numbers all spring and summer. We are now looking a lot like southern Europe or NY City earlier in the year in crisis mode. Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties are being hammered with hospitals filled beyond capacity, and being driven to battlefield triage measures. Ambulances, unable unload critically ill suffering patients, are forced into a holding patterns. Lobbies, corridors, gifts shops are filled with beds. The staff are working 12 hr plus shifts. They have descended into a ring of hell.

. Yet on other fronts things also suck. 'The Trump' despite being voted out of office continues to cling to outrageous claims of vague unfounded, ill-defined widespread vote counting conspiracies engineered by the (otherwise inept) Democratic Party. Or else he is claiming that huge quantities of ballots should be simply thrown out. The problem is that Trump knows that nearly half of the country (but importantly not more than half) voted for his fat ass even as he lost.  And as we know the hoards of of MAGA hat wearing fools believe anything this world renown liar says. So, despite like 86 court decisions against him and Republican sanctioned counts, he still claims he actually won. To his many acolytes he was cheated by the evil, baby eating, liberal/socialist, corrupt, latte drinking Coastal Elites. He with his minions in tow want to cling to the absurdity that he really won in not only in the three swing states (that he only barely won in 2016) but also Georgia, where Republicans ran the elections. And now, and you can't make this up, Trump is calling for the Republican governor of Georgia to resign. All of this hopefully will help the two senatorial run-off Demo candidates, Ossoff and Warnott, win  Now today(12/30) a proto-fascist aspiring 2024 GOP presidential candidate, from Missouri (with the redneckian name of Josh Hawley) wants to vote against the Congress's procedural proforma certification of the Electoral College vote next week. Apparently he wants to set up some kind of Biden-eliminating Congressional fight. But most legal analysts see this as simply cheap political theater that will go nowhere. 

Trump is not introspective or self critical enough to realize how close he came to actually winning had he not been so anti-science and stubbornly adverse to listening to people who know more than he does. He could have let the experts at CDC and NHC guide our national response to the pandemic from its inception. A rational response would made a world of difference. His criminally negligent handling of the Covid-19 response was not lost on many potentially pro-Trump ordinary voters who vote based on their personal financial well being and pay little attention to the never ending psychodrama of Dems vs Repubs.  Despite the Mueller Investigation, the Impeachment, immigrant children being put in cages, and the daily batch of Tweeted lies and fairy tales, enough apolitical non-ideological voters in the swing states would have put him back in – legally. But his full-a-shit, know-it-all style finally caught up with him. Let's hope as a disgraced one-term President his influence will wain as he confronts his many upcoming legal and financial challenges – that is if he can be physically pried out of the White House come January 20.

It's got to get better once Biden takes over as uninspiring and charisma-challenged as he is. At least he still believes in a democratic transfer of power. If badly needed restructuring and serious reform are not in the cards, at least we don't have some dude as president that aspires to be a Valimir Putin or a Mohammed bin Salman.

* Numbers from NY Times based on Johns Hopkins data base

Where Things (disappontingly) Stand

               cartoon from Economist magazine June 2020

 

As we are distracted by a global pandemic raging out of control and a mad king as President of the United Stated trying desperately to perpetuate his reign, it's difficult to realize that the pandemic is only the beginning.

It's an understatement to say the Election 2020 was bittersweet. It was bitter in that there was nothing close to a 'Blue Wave'. It was sweet in that Joe Biden won decisively, and Donald Trump was given the hook. Unfortunately most of the craven and corrupt GOP Senate Republicans survived. Observers all over the world who had hopes that the US would lead the world out of its of its ecocidal and proto-fascist death spiral were dashed. There was no solid rejection of the Republican Party's obstructionist and reactionary non-agenda. But most alarmingly over 73,000,000 Americans voted for Donald Trump even as he was leading many of them to ICU wards and ventilators. And now most of the same fools have been deceived into believing the Democrats cheated and he should have won.

The myth on the left that the 40% of the electorate who seldom voted harbored progressive tendencies if only they could be persuaded to participate was dispelled. A record number of Americans voted including those who usually don't. And, alas,  many of them apparently voted for Donald Trump or if not split their ballot and still voted for Repubs for legislative seats. The US is bitterly divided.

The Demos not winning a decisive majority in the Senate killed all hopes for real change. The level of Trump's support gave the Frankenstein monster of Trumpian Republicanism a mainline hit of meth. A significant number of voters must have voted to oust Emperor Nero but for retaining his Republican Party consorts. Pollsters were again deceived. And now everything hinges on flipping two Senate seats in a cracker-infested Deep South state which Biden surprisingly narrowly carried. This will be a very heavy lift. And if successful there will still be only a tenuous 50-50 split with the Demo VP giving the Demos a measly one vote majority - hardly a Blue Wave. It hard to admit but it appears that had not Covid19 intervened and had not Trump fumbled the response so tragically, he probably would have a waltzed into a second term. Too many Americans have lost their way.  It is very sad.

Barring the discovery of some serious administrative error by Rudy Giuliani's crew of legal beagle scumbags, that can be framed as the tip of some evil iceberg, Trump will be gone Jan 20th 2021. No way will the Joint Chiefs of Staff allow him to pull off some kind of banana republic style coup with his 'irregular troops' of training-in-the-woods militias and dull normal range intelligence members of the Proud Boys. Not after Mr. Bone Spurs dissed all those who gave their lives in past wars.That is not say the above crew of 'irregulars' especially the militias who fancy themselves as "armed patriots" and "heroic defenders liberty" won't or can't cause serious problems in future days.

In his series of presidential campaign rallies Trump predicted that if Biden won, it would be only through 'mass voter fraud'. This was obviously a characteristically Trumpian veiled threat of refusing to leave even if he lost. So surprise surprise he lost and is now refusing to concede or cooperate on the transition. And his MAGA hat wearing Kool Aid drinking hoards are angry, yelling “we wuz robbed”. Where all of this is headed is unclear. Hopefully it will dispel at some point and Trump will slink off to Mira Logo and concentrate on staying out of a New York jail cell.

This present charade would seem unthinkable - except most of the GOP is going along with it as if it were a perfectly normal post election process. Trump's absurd refusal to acknowledge reality and his ability to drag along his political party only goes to show what depths of depravity and dishonesty the Grand Old Party has sunken to.

Mustering enough Deep South Georgia voters to bump out not one but two corrupt knuckle draggers is a thin reed to depend on. Difficult but not impossible. Otherwise things look very bleak. McConnell and the Senate Repubs without Trump as President know Trumpism still alive and well. They no doubt will feel the wind in their sails. They will be encouraged to be evermore recalcitrant in hopes of gaining more seats back in the future if nothing significant gets done wing. It will be Obama redux minus Obama's charm and charisma - total obstructionism and with an even harder right wing Supreme Court as a backstop.

I sincerely hope I am being overly pessimistic but we could see:

• As Biden tries to re-invigorate a post-pandemic economy with multi-billion dollar 'green' infrastructure oriented spending proposals the GOP rediscovers the Dreaded Deficit as it moves deeper into multi-trillion dollar territory.

• Only an inadequate stimulus spending clears the GOP held Senate and the post-pandemic economy flounders allowing the Republicans to claim the Democrats ruined Trump's “Greatest Economy Ever”.

• The crisis of immigration and undocumented citizenry continuing to fester as the xenophobes and nativists within the GOP resist any reasonable compromise.

• Any formal legislation required to patch up the damage of four long years of Trump swinging his wrecking ball in the pottery shop goes nowhere and the hard won regulatory apparatus continues to atrophy including many environmentally crucial restraints.
  

• As Single Payer health care becomes a dead letter, improvement of the Affordable Care Act with the promise of 'a government option' gets short circuited and demonized as 'socialized medicine' leaving millions still without any health care. That is if ACA even survives further Supreme Court challenges.

• The Republican Party continues to stand for nothing but pseudo libertarianism, Second Amendment gun rights, low taxes (for the rich) and criminalization of abortion – and get away with it as the 6-3 Supreme Court finally throws out Roe vs Wade. Church and State fuse further into a theocracy.

• Biden goes down in history as a weak, do-nothing President. One of Trump's bozo sons wins in 2024 with a refined version of Trumpism, which has now morphed into full bodied Christian-evangelical fascism. This as the planet continues heats to a point of no return thus creating a self fulfilling prophesy of the End Times straight out of the Book of Revelations. 

  
  
  

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               SO IT BEGINS

 

Pacific Ocean: Wednesday September 9

Oregon, Washington and California are all under assault from a wildfire season of historic proportions, with the firefighting effort compounded by the coronavirus pandemic and misinformation online. Already, California has seen more than 3.1 million acres go up in flames, about 26 times as much as had burned at this point last year, and officials warn that more fires are likely.

NY Times 09/12/20

The West is on fire. As I sit here on a gloomy socked-in September afternoon, epic fires burn north, south and east of me.The air quality index shows us deep into the Red zone (Unhealthy) one notch below Friday's Purple Haze reading (Extremely Unhealthy). It seems we have now finally entered the Climate Crisis for real – and decades early. As I write this, here in the Bay Area we are hunkered down indoors not only due to Covid19 but also because our air is essentially un-breathable. And in the Southeast yet another hurricane bears down on Louisiana . Global Warming starting to begin really show its teeth – droughts, fires, weird lightning storms, more and bigger hurricanes, super cell driven tornadoes out of season. And then of course there is the Pandemic killing thousands daily, another story of environmental carnage. This time the ongoing habitat invasion has resulted in the transmission to humans of to a new brand ' novel virus' and a mass human die-off. The ongoing expansion of human population into areas previously undisturbed has lead to consumption of animals never before eaten by humans in turn introducing a slew of new and highly contagious viruses – like Ebola, SARS, Avian Flu and now Covid19 technically known as SARs-CoV-2. Pandemics are just another deleterious effect of our heedless exploitation of our planet's myriad life forms. We are getting what we so richly deserve.

All of this would have occurred in some form regardless of what happened here in the USA. But unfortunately our particularly version of democracy has made it worse for us. Our two political parties at some point had ceased to reflect real alternatives, both presenting versions of the same thing, but with branding that tried to portray choice. In time the false binary mutated from some kind of limited class differentiation into what has become cultural warfare. The result was by 2016 a crucial the sector of the working class  did not see much difference on the ground between either party and participated in the voting process (those that did) in a half-hearted, ill informed way. Many had gravitated to a political party that was diametrically opposed to their class interests but re-enforced their tribal proclivities. And in 2016 they chose what they saw as a wealthy likable rogue who offered emotionally appealing politically incorrect racist and xenophobic answers to complex problems capitalizing on divisive cultural issues above all else. In other words they fell for a demagogue, and furthermore one devoid of any governing experience or any identifiable political-economical philosophy. The result has been the disaster named Donald Trump.

That said, this round the clock Trump hate-a-thon really does not really move the needle. The cottage industry of insider disclosures from those who were unlucky to have to interact with the Orange One makes for fine nightly entertainment. But the audience needing to be targeted, undecided voters in 'swing states', probably does regularly tune into the ongoing Trumpian expose on MSNBC and CNN every night - only liberal and left political junkies who already abhor Trump. We already knew that Donald Trump was a first class swine and greedhead. That was all readily apparent going back to his New York City days of multiple bankruptcies and playboy shenanigans – all boring and easily ignored. It is to our eternal shame that we as a people and members political parties across the political spectrum allowed this renown fore flusher and upper class grifter to commandeer the highest political office in the land.

The media needs to drone on less about the never ending exposes of Trumpian vitriol past and present and instead concentrate their journalistic horsepower on cataloging the damage his administration has done to our governmental institutions. There must be hundreds of mid level managers within the vast government bureaucracies who are sitting on a treasure trove of pertinent material that could be anonymously disclosed. What tales they must have to tell of the destruction, corruption and mismanagement of essential popular programs. For instance where is OSHA when we need them to  protect our  workforce from Covid19 in the workplace. What studies, research and oversight responsibilities have now been eliminated from Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Energy, Dept of Interior, etc?. What devastation and personnel carnage has occurred in agencies like EPA or FDA? Michael Lewis's excellent 2017 book The Fifth Risk just scratches the surface and what a surface it was.

After all as the election approaches the real target audience, as always is the un-committed voter in the so-called battleground states. Wouldn't these voters be interested in the shambles that these programs have become? Enough preaching to the converted. Whether Trump's manifold failure as a leader is due to his supreme ineptness or simply a crude monarchical quest for power, is beside the point. We are stuck with him for at least 3 1/2 more months. That is if he can be democratically ejected when his party the corrupt and complicit GOP controls much of our electoral machinery, and it's in the midst of a pandemic in which voting by mail is necessary but the USPS is being crippled.In fact that  is now crucial question.

But there is the hope that these voting obstacles can be overcome and removal of Trump can be affected leading to a major rebuild of everything – better, fairer and environmentally sustainable.

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American ' Federalies'

Trump is in trouble. His poll numbers even those done by Fox are in the toilet. He is desperate. And like a cornered rat he is becoming ever more dangerous and vicious. This law 'n order gambit worked for Nixon in '68 and '72. Portland is Trump's test case. If it works there, it can used on demonstrations all across the land. Street demonstrations made worse by police overreaction coupled with the criminally mishandled Pandemic could lead to an upward spiral of public anxiety beyond what now exists. BLM inspired demonstrations are largely composed of peaceful types but mixed in are some who see themselves as serious revolutionaries and believe this is some kind of 'October Revolution' moment and feel encouraged to engage in 'direct action'. Along with them are always opportunists who are out for a little plunder and mayhem just for the fun of it. So property damage, vandalism and looting (probably also abetted by pro-Trump agent provocateurs) will enviably crop up in any large demonstration making good television as well as alarming the good citizens of the politically centrist burbs. Add to this the serious effort of BLM and their white supporters to relieve the South of their statues that are tributes to the old Confederacy as well as ugly reminders of the Jim Crow era.

Trump hopes this racial discord will get people's minds off the fact that the Pandemic is totally out of control. Any and all resulting mayhem can be blamed on the so-called 'Antifa' thus giving Trump a rationale to take another giant step into 'Amerikan fascism'. So he has assembled without any authority an armed-to-the-teeth camouflage clad corp of 'American federalies' to wade in and exacerbate things if the local cops don't. A feedback loop of violence is thus created. The more Trump's new Federalies beat, gas and extra-legally arrest people, the more concerned progressive types feel compelled to come out and demonstrate. And thus the more possibilities for random property damage incidents to occur. Trump is hoping for many Portlands across the land so he can have both an election issue and take another giant step closer to a full-on police state. The House Democrats must fight back. But with the Senate still in Trump-enabling GOP hands, the House's authority over the budget is Nancy Pelosi's only weapon. But, alas, passing a relief bill ASAP is paramount. The need to provide financial support for the millions of American who are suffering from the economic carnage of this Pandemic will hold hostage any important budgetary confrontation to Trump's latest dangerous power grab. Thus we slowly inexorably descend into a post-democratic state.

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We're Number One

As I write this it's another gloomy, gray day here on the N. California coast. The news as always is also equally gloomy. The pandemic rages on. And Trump-driven new cycles, too, rage on. We are all sick of masks, precautions, hand washing and most of all the loss of normality. But the worst part of this collective misfortune is having the worst President in history during this unprecedented crisis.

The data below are from the today's NY Times on how things now stand. Not good!

 

                                  US

                                     GLOBAL

                                   Note sharp descent in hard hit countries (except Iran).

As is obvious the pandemic is not letting up one iota. Worse the USA, with the most cases in the world and the most deaths, is seeing its caseload not trending sharply down from the peak as has occurred almost every other country that got hit about the time we did. Instead we have leveled off at a high number of new cases coming every day - and now that's increasing.

Instead of going precipitously down after hitting a peak in April, our graph has flattened into an ugly plateau with a stubbornly large number of new cases still coming in each day. The US, which never ceases to brag about its wealth and power, has only 4.2% of the world's population but has 25.7% of Covid-19 fatalities. How could we have blown it so bad? How can Donald Trump even dare to show his face in public?  Where are the mobs with pitchforks?

Of course Trump's fumble re: this emergency is just the latest in a litany of monumentally bad moves. In just three and a half years his damage is immeasurable. A partial list includes withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal, walking away from the World Health Organization, eviscerating the EPA and commandeering the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security for his own nefarious purposes both personal and political. His ineptitude geopolitically has fully undermined our credibility on the international stage.  Our State Department has been gutted and perverted and is no longer a force of diplomatic soft power to counterbalance our historical and often tragic over reliance on our massive over-built military machine. And a most alarming is his reckless cancellation a whole host of arms treaties painfully negotiated by both Democrats and Republican Administrations.

And then there is his sick admiration for the world’s most brutal dictators. Does he have ambitions in that direction? Alarmingly many fear that his support from heavily armed conspiracy-crazed right wing militia groups along with many rank and file cops across country could encourage him to refuse to leave office if defeated in November.

Now that our Blacks citizenry have had enough of routine police encounters becoming an excuse for summary executions, they are now robustly politically engaged. With a backdrop of a raging pandemic they are daily massing on the streets backed by a new generation of young white, Asian and Latino progressives. Trump and his supporters are being pushed into a dangerous defensive posture. The facilitating GOP overlords who benefited financially from the Trump Administration's cavalcade of corruption are running scared as two sides of a divided America face off. As Jim Morrison, poet, revolutionary, rabble rousing and self destructive madman said in the rebellious Sixties, “They got the guns we got the numbers”.

We also have the votes!

A Spring Fever from hell

Who would have expected that in the last year of the Trump presidency with the country  pathologically divided we (the humans race) would be visited by a monumental catastrophe - a pandemic of biblical proportions. The anti-Trumpians including Never Trump Republicans and the entire punditry often wondered how DJT would fare when confronted with a real crisis rather than the ones he inflicted on himself which he could at any time turn on or off like a spigot - see Trade War with China. Now we know.  

All of the kings horses and all of the kings men cannot now put this Humpty Dumpty back together again. We live in an age when too much is recorded digitally. Even the most obscure Internet user can find his or her life unraveling due to an unwisely posted video. And many a promising career has been short-circuited by some email note, jpeg file or video from their past. So it is with DJT in spades. It's all been recorded for all to see. It is totally impossible for this ultra publicity seeking cult figure and the 'President of the Free World' to extricate himself from his digitally recorded past. The televised blustery Nurenbergesque rallies, his rambling press conferences and his morning batches of spelling/grammar challenged Tweets are all there for posterity (and future political ads).


But in this case it is not only what he said or did, it was what he did not do during that fatal fallow period of inaction as the Covid-19 pestilence ramped up its insidious momentum. South Korea saw it. Taiwan saw it, Canada saw it. Hong Kong saw it. Why not us? With 14 intelligence agencies and a constant NSC presence in the White House, it must have taken DJT and his acolytes Herculean will power (or breathtaking stupidity) to so assiduously ignore this looming hell storm. But The Donald team managed to do so for a whole month.

But Trump aside we are still in deep doo doo. The data below are from the NY Times' daily updated mapping of the numbers of the pademic's carnage extracted from Johns Hopkins University's global tracking.  Some countries below like Japan and Brazil have lower numbers than one would expect probably due to a low level of testing or an early stage in the outbreak.

 

So as this pandemic engulfs the world, our numbers (shown in red) are positively numbing. As of yesterday (4/15/20) the US by far leads the rest of the  world in both the number infected with Corvid19, with 607318, and also with the number who have succumbed to it – over 26,000 and climbing. The table above shows those countries with the most (identified) cases along with that country's mortality rate. 

 Those countries shown in green have so far seem to have responded most successfully with low mortality rates. China is not included because their figures seem suspiciously low with a 2.2 billion population and only 84,802 infections. Those in gray have been hit the hardest so far both in terms of a high infection and a high mortality rates. It is really too early to see how this plays out globally. So far the only\ main takeaway is that US has over 3 times as may cases as any other country.  Our mortality rate at 4.29% still fairly low. Some have overwhelmed their health care systems like Spain and Italy. . This means our over worked, over burdened and under protected health workers are doing a truly selfless and heroic job.

This is just health care side of it all.  As much of the world's workforce is suddenly pulled from service in a unprecedented way no one yet has any real idea of how this will change the the once interconnected global economy as well each country's relative situation - or for that matter when all of this it will end.