Thursday, July 30th, 2020
Nothing is precisely what happened all day. No feuds with anyone, just a regular day working from home with yet another early morning start causing me to skip my exercise routine and no time throughout the day to catch up on it. At least I did manage to get my 30 minute pool time the only other saving grace was a light lunch late in the afternoon consisting of a Fennel-Orange Salad accompanied by a small fried pork chop.
The highlight of the day so far was a long call with mum with the conversation going well beyond the usual family stuff. The discussion we had was triggered by a tweet released onto the world by the current resident of the WH, who suggested to postponed elections as mail-in votes may compromise election results. He specifically excluded absentee ballots though. Now this is flawed on many levels of course. Firstly, an absentee ballot is cast by mail. The process for applying for this is exactly the same as for mail in ballots. Secondly, mail-in ballots can not be forged and only used once. Thirdly, the only party on record as having abused absentee ballots is the GoP in something called “ballot harvesting”. Fourthly, Trump, his wife, his daughter, his son in law and a substantial number of the administration have in the past cast their vote through mail-in ballots. Lastly, only congress can change the election date as set out in the constitution of the USA as Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Elections were not postponed during either the Civil war or World War II. And finally, if no elections are held, the chair of congress becomes president as the term of the elected president ends at noon on January 20th, exactly four years after a president is sworn in if there is no election. I wonder how the GoP would take to a president Pelosi? Unless of course the troll in the WH stages a military coup.
Twitter is EXPLODING with responses of course and some posts are hilarious. Of course all of this is yet another ploy by the moron in chief to deflect from the terrible economic situation caused by the mismanaged pandemic response as well as the death toll and infection rates. The GoP must be terrified of loosing given its current ploys to suppress voters by letting the eviction moratorium expire, not honoring DACAs and so on. So much for the greatest democracy in the world.
Anyway, in the call with mum she asked if Americans get this kind of information. She, who has been here many times, was seriously wondering if there is such a thing as news (she did discount the news channels on TV as not providing news). Given all the news (troop withdrawal, which personally I think is a good thing. Let them all go to the NATO Eastern border, Putin will hate that, Virus mismanagement and now no elections) that comes out of the USA to Europe, Europeans are despairing with the USA and whatever standing the country had is quickly waning. Other than this scaremongering and attempt to get free airtime, there is not much other news.
The US pandemic continues its course, infecting 4.54 million as of today. The world total has increased by some 216k to 17.1 million today and the USA has contributed some 64k to this, so roughly a quarter. Everyday a non-mask wearing GoP official comes down with Corona I find myself thinking rather uncharitably: “He deserves it. May his infection become long and severe”.
Florida has now stopped testing altogether, supposedly because of a storm. How convenient is that? No tests, no new infections and already it is all much better. Whether or not cases are reported, people will continue to die. They will just not make it into the official statistics, which suits the moron in chief. I just cannot wrap my head around why is it so hard for Americans to wear masks and keep everyone safe?
And while Americans opt to expose themselves to infections amazing science continues to identify possible cures. If any of these are successful, how about America last?
Vietnam shows being tough on virus control may bring economic benefits. Given very low infection rates more and more manufacturers are considering opening plants in Vietnam. May be the USA can learn?