The White House is delusional

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has just issued a press release. You only have to read as far as the first highlight to earn a rueful laugh.

Trump has ended the COVID-19 pandemic? That’s not what the informed authorities are saying.

Nationally, surveillance indicators tracking levels of SARS-CoV-2 virus circulation and associated illnesses have been increasing since September, driven primarily by activity in the Southeastern and Central parts of the country. COVID-19 related hospitalization rates and pneumonia, influenza and COVID (PIC) mortality for the most recent weeks may increase as more data are received.

The Trump administration wasn’t even able to contain the outbreak in the White House.

More personally, about 10% of my cell bio class are currently under quarantine (none diagnosed with the disease fortunately).

Has anyone out there noticed that the pandemic is over? Not me.

Bob Murray is dead!

Perhaps you recall John Oliver’s hilarious expose of the evil coal baron, Bob Murray, which prompted Murray to fling a SLAPP suit at him, that ended badly for Murray, with Mr Nutterbutter awarding him diddly.

Murray was notoriously litigious, and he had a lot to hide. He was a callous exploiter of coal miners, who opposed legislation protecting the health of his employees, even while expecting government benefits for black lung for himself.

At least that much is admitted in a tepid obituary for the old monster.

While Murray applied for black lung benefits, bankruptcy enabled his company to avoid obligations to employees diagnosed with black lung, shifting its $74.4 million liability to the federal government’s Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, according to Labor Department estimates provided to Congress.

Good riddance, Bob! Now you’re even more dead than the coal industry!

Democrats need fire in their bellies now

There is a good collection of hard-hitting political videos at this independent site. They go for the gut, punching hard at how awful Trump’s policies are, and where his decisions are taking us.

Why aren’t the Democrats fighting as fiercely as the people they expect to vote for them? I just can’t picture Pelosi or Schumer campaigning for their party with this same anger; I can’t imagine Biden doing it either.

One more week, maybe

Chuck Wendig makes his election predictions for next week. Spoiler: he has no idea.

Neither do I, and that’s the terrible thing. I’ve been through awful elections, like when Reagan was anointed as president, and while I was disappointed and unhappy, I knew one thing about election day: the election wouldn’t be a problem. Voting would go smoothly, ballots would be counted, and on election night, you’d get the results and one party would concede and the other party would celebrate. That ended with Bush/Gore. It’s much worse now. We have early voting in some states, and the lines go on for blocks, because the Republicans have been killing polling places; we have swarms of people, like me, voting by mail because we have no confidence in our voting booths any more. That’s tragic for a democracy. You’d think we’d look at absurdly long lines for voting and realize there’s something fucking wrong with the system, and do something about it, but for some reason we’ve turned a blind eye to this failure of simple voting mechanics.

I’ll be braver than Wendig and make some horrible predictions.

  • There will be incidents. Armed yahoos will try to intimidate voters at multiple polling places. The police will do nothing about them.
  • There will be no resolution of the election on the night of 3 November. Or the 4th. Or the 5th. It will drag on interminably. Even if there is a clear Democratic winner, the Republicans will find reasons to waffle about, calling into question any and all results.
  • If the Democratic candidate does not have a strong majority, and the Republicans whine a little bit, the Democratic party will collapse like a ripped bladder and concede.
  • The Supreme Court will find a way to interfere.
  • If he actually loses, the Current Occupant will continue to hold rallies and incite his followers right up until 20 January. There will be more violence.
  • I have no idea what the USA will look like on 21 January. The Occupant could be dragged out on meathooks and the Republic will persevere a little longer, or the entire country could be reduced to burning rubble with us civilians fighting it out for scraps.

I will not be watching the news next week at all. Leave me a comment if civil war breaks out so I know to bunker up and seal up all the windows and doors.

Yeesh, but I detest Collin Peterson

Collin Peterson does not belong in the Democratic party.

It’s an election year, so naturally I’ve been flooded with Republican attack ads against our local representative, Collin Peterson. He sides with Nancy Pelosi 4 out of 5 times! He’s too liberal! It’s the only reason I voted for him this time.

I wish I could retract that vote, and I’ll never make that mistake again. Peterson has come out with a rebuttal ad, in which he touts how truly conservative he is: he voted against the Trump impeachment! The NRA loves him!

Fuck Collin Peterson. I’ve got no shortage of Republicans to vote for, and if I wanted to vote Republican, I wouldn’t have voted for his lying ass.

The story chain begins!

As a writing exercise and as part of our Halloween fundraiser, several of us here at FtB are participating in a short story chain. William Brinkman started us off with some scene setting in FTB Presents: A Dark Intellectual Web (Episode 1), and Freethinkingahead expands on a couple of characters and gives us intimations of trouble awaiting us in A Dark Web: Part Two. You’ll have to check in every day as a different blogger builds on the story, reaching a climax in time for Halloween.

I’ll be reading with a particular anxiety, because they cruelly assigned me the job of writing the final bit, and I have no idea where the story is going. It’s all a surprise! I suggested that one possible final chapter would be, “And then a giant spider leapt out of a tree and killed them all! The End,” but apparently that would be cheating and not very satisfying.

Would it be cheating if readers suggested angles I could take in the comments?