The Ten Day Final Stretch

Yes we are in the final ten days of the Presiential race.  It doesn't look like there is going to be any October surprise like there was last time around with that FBI agent turning up all those fresh E mails by Hillary.  That incident turned the race around and turned it into a tie, and election fraud did the rest.  This time the farmers are voting for Trump because despite his disasterous trade policies Trump has bribed the farmers with so much money they can't help but vote for Trump.  Meanwhile on the election front I don't feel safe unless there is at least an eight or nine point lead in the questionable states.  This is the case in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.  Strangely, Nebraska is in this collum.  When you combine all of the four and five point states it looks like enough for Biden to win.  But we can't be sure.  The last time you remember they said that "Trump had a very limited path to victory".  This proved not to be the case.  The big states are Arizona, Florida and North Carolina.  If North Carolina and Florida don't go for Biden it will make it harder for Biden to win.  With these two states winning will be a breeze for Biden.  Trump failed to hit one out of the park at the debate on Thursday night.  There was no knock out punch like Reagan scored against Carter in the final debate in 1980 ten days before the election.  This swayed the numbers from being a dead heat to Reagan scoring a landslide on election day.  Who would have guess that could happen.  Now they say young Latinos are voting for Trump in droves.  This is not a good sign.  A lot of people have already voted.  I turned in my ballot last Thursday and I'm happy with the way I voted on all of the propositions in this state.  I just hope they have results for us on election night and the thing is not somehow hopelessly dragged out.  If the votes are already in, why can't they just be counted along with all of the regular votes on election day.  Quarantine keeps me from getting to the polls on election day.  This quarantine has gone on for in excess of seven months and it's a little much.  Now here is more about the debate on Thursday night from an earlier observation.

.  The preliminary debate coverage began at five.  I watched it till past eight with the commentary and all.  Trump’s weakness were two.  He kept talking about opening up the country as the way to tackle  the virus problem.  It made no sense.  The other was saying that Joe Biden wants to lock up Black people and Trump is responsible for letting more Blacks out of prison than Obama.  Trump often gave good lines but they weren’t emphasized strongly enough like saying that Obama couldn’t get rid of the Black crime bill because the republican congress wouldn’t let him.  Also the climate of the times wasn’t right.  Trump talked about “shutting down the economy” to save lives when the opposite occurred and Trump was forced at gun point to do everything he did do.  He kept talking about the epidemic being over by Easter with the arrival of the spring, or it would be over in July.  They covered six topics taking fifteen minutes each.  There were two minutes at the beginning of each segment with the other fellow’s microphone was muted.  It was an altogether more civilized debate this time.  I went for medication just before seven and then I smoked a cigarette.  The sleeping pill kicked in and I dozed off on some of the commentary and turned the TV off about twenty after eight.  The debate was held in Nashville.  It was the second and final debate, therefore significant.

Mike Pence Consistently Talks Over His Allotted Time

Today is John Lennon's birthday and he would be eighty if he were still living.  This means he's spent half  of his eight decade existance- - dead.  Pastor Greg Laurie has the COVID 19 virus.  He's only sixty-seven.  I thought for sure he was older than me by how quickly he got bald.  Of course Trump has the Corona virus and a whole lot of his staff including Kellyanne.  Chris Christie has the virus.  Trump spent so much time at rallies without masks or social distancing it was only a matter of time it seems before he got it.  Henow knows he isn't Superman.  Of course I should shut up on that issue because I've been smoking more and more and haven't died of lung or throat cancer and I haven't had a heart attack.  I'm living on borrowed time, as Lennon says in a song.  If anything Harris didn't hit Trump's personal health issues hard enough.  Of course now President Trump doesn't want to debate Biden at all if he can't do it face to face.  And Biden doesn't want to debate Trump as long as he is sick.  To need oxygen is a serious matter the way I look at it.  I imagine Trump's health has taken a toll in his presidential polling numbers.  I finally got my ballot material today.  I've found that various commercials aren't exactly honest but misleading.   We have propositions ranging from 14 to 25.  I have all my own oppinions.

.  I got here a minute to six and caught all of the debate between  Camila Harris and Mike Pence.  Harris did a B plus job and maybe a A minus.  She said everything  she wanted to say when Mike Pence would let her speak.  Mike Pence kept talking way over his allotted time and  I don’t think the time was ever made up to Harris. I went out for medication when they were talking about Islamic terrisom and maybe that was a mistake.  I heard all of the stuff about police and race relations and I think Harris over-stressed this.  You need to weed out the really important shooting cases and let the others go.  Mike Pence took his time but finally admitted he was a staunch anti-abortionist.  Mike Pence told outright lies and also was replete with over-generalizations about everything.  He refused to answer direct questions put to him like what does he plan to do to “fix” Obamacare and insure that people still get coverage ofpre-existing conditions.   Harris needed to talk about women’s rights more than she did and the loss of liberty is Roe verses Wade is overturned.  The debate went till about 7:35 and then they had media commentary till eight.  In general it was a more civil debate.

Trump Beats Biden in Head to Head Debate

First let's talk about the death  of Justice Ginsburg last week.  This is a major crisis for liberalism and it looks as though it's one they can't win.  The democrats cant filibustter like they could in the old days before Mc Connell changed the rules.   We are going to have to learn to live with a six judge majority of conservatives.  I know I should have written last week but I'm lazy.  The only remedy lies if the US senate goes democratic and they decided to expand the number of justices to thirteen.  There's a fat chance of that.  In the old days in the nineteenth century they would manipulate the number of supreme court justices all the time for political reasons.  You can't get away with that today.  But lucky for the democrats there is one thing you still can't get away with and that's saying flat out you want to overturn Roe verses Wade.  That won't fly in any election and for Trump to be tied with that line would spell his political doom.  You have to learn to speak in code now just like they do with race.  George Wallace would have trouble winning an election today.  But maybe I should take that back.  President Trump refuses to condemn racist groups even today so indeed overt racism has come back in fashion.  But there is a really strong women's lobby out there and they will band together and fight any outright overturning of Roe verses Wade.  I think Biden should have stressed this more last night.

Joe Biden was a disappointment in last night’s debate.  I feel Trump one the debate because he was a slick, practiced liar and he performed well and appeared at ease with all of the lies he told.  Biden appeared reluctant to really take on trump and went out of his way to appear relaxed to the point of apathy.   He wasn’t at all like he was with Paul Ryan back in 2012.  Any Joe Blow watching the debate would say Trump won the debate easily because he made all of these so called “factual points” that weren’t fact at all.  Chris Wallace of FOX moderated the debate and he was pretty good at getting things back on topic once they strayed.  Trump interrupted more than Biden.  This got criticism from the media.  The thing was divided into six topics of the day including crime in the city and how Trump feels about right wing hate groups.  I don’t think Biden was strident enough in saying what a disaster it would be for women ia six conservatives were on the bench.  The Corona virus was discussed.  Biden said more jobs will be shipped to Mexico because of the latest Nafta reform bill.  But at ten to seven I left to get my medication.  I had a conversation with Bernadette about whether Ambien is the best sleeping medication to take.  I really don’t think it is and I seem to do just about as well without it, which isn’t that good.  I no sooner returned here than I got a case of the runs.  My diaria returned after three days of my thinking I was home free, and as you know I can’t get it.  The debate ran from six o clock to twenty to eight.  There was the usual commentary afterward.  I learned almost nothing new from this debate.  I thought there would be fireworks where Biden put Trump on the defensive all of the time.  That didn’t happen.  Trump wasn’t defensive at all.  There was the usual commentary after the debate.  I watched on channel two. 

Trump's Fresh Smoking Gun

 

This is Friday September 11, 2020 and we have a new presidential blunder to talk about.  President Trump deliberately misled the American people as to the COVID 19 virus just as President Bush failed to warn us that 9 – 11 was coming.  Bob Woodward has a new book out that’s the smoking gun of this campaign.  It will insure that people who may have had a shred of anticipation to vote for Trump will not now because of what happened in January.  As you know President Trump received repeated warnings about the Corona virus.  He ignored them all.  But privately he was telling people that it was a really dangerous virus and we should do something.  But publicly he was almost calling it a hoax or some Democratic plot to steal the election.  This is worse than mere duplicity and hypocracy;  it is putting 190 thousand lives in danger needless.  These deaths are on the president’s hands.  He had the power in January to take the bull by the horns and deal with  this virus like they did in China but he chose to do nothing.  Worse yet he diswaded people who wanted to take needed action and blocked and discouraged them at every turn.  He discouraged the wearing of masks.  He talked about churches being packed out at Easter time.  In his own rallies he put his own people at risk by the failure to practice social distancing or the wearing of masks.  Joe Biden is really going to pillary Trump on the first debate.  I haven’t heard when any of the debates are.  Trump may want to cancel.  How can he face Vice President Biden now?

.  Ever since Trump’s impeachment hearings there have been fresh instances of evidence coming in that by themselves would constitute grounds for impeachment.  This failure to warn about COVID 19 is an instance where millions of lives were put needlessly at risk because the president used the power and presteige of his office to block needed action.  Of course congress will be leaving on their campaign tour before that many more weeks so they won't be able to do anything.  I guess you could say Justice Ginspurgh made it through the crisis period without dying.  If she dies now the democrats are safe because they will be off campaigning for their jobs.  Obviously bringing fresh impeachment charges now is out of the question but "It's the thought that counts".  Won't it be nice when Trump is defeated this November third and Biden is finally President?  We won't have to hear these endless tweets of President Trump.  We thought that time would arrive four years ago but it didn't.  But it's going to arrive now.

So When Is the Political Campaign Going to Start?

OK here we go after a month.  We've obviously set a record for length of time not having done a blogger entry since 2006.  So the question remains, "Has the political campaign begun yet?"   We had the democratic and then the Republican convention weeks.  They were definitely different, particularly the Democratic one.  I found myself dozing off but this could have been because they were experimenting with my medication and things still aren't resolved in that department.  I don't know how many face to face debates Trump and Biden will have.  Usually they do three, don't they?  And they do one with the vice presidential candidates.  This should prove to be the most interesting of all because Pence and Harris are so dramatically different in every way imaginable.   We shall see.  I would just like things to get back to normal a little.  I've always looked forward to political campaign years.  They cut the thing off in March this year and I still haven't entirely gotten over that one.  First there were ten candidates and before you know it there is just one everyone is expected to rally around.  Actually Biden has done a pretty good job as standard bearer.  He has been strident and forceful in the few times we have seen him on the media, which has been precious little.   The Corona virus doesn't dominate the media as much as it did in the spring.  Other things like a hundred days of protests in Portland and all of these California fires are back, along with a hundred and ten plus degree heat wave in this metropolitan area.  But even at that I think Biden is uinder-represented in the media and I would definitely like to hear and see more of him.

We are still under quarantine around here even after five and a half months.  I laughed when someone said it would be the first of November that we would be free to leave.  I've actually slipped out twice illegally and I don't believe I was caught or observed either time.  But I don't think it's wise to press my luck.  But the supply of cigarettes is rather dubious with the person in charge of selling cigarettes.  I've also had two dentist appointments and two trips to the bank.  One was just last week.  The other was in April.  I need to see an eye doctor.  My cateract, if I have  one, isn't getting any better.  

.  Where are all of the party conventions we’re supposed to have this month?  This is August tenth already and Biden still hasn’t picked his vice presidential nominee.  We can only assume it will be a woman and probably a black woman.  Both the evenings and the mornings are getting darker now. The days are getting shorter. The Perseus meteor shower is coming up in a couple of days.  Mid August is the anniversary of Woodstock.  People are obsessed with school and they have been for weeks now but even the earliest dates seem to center around the eighteenth.   Even by that recent standard this is early.  Now there is talk about canceling the entire NCAA football season and that would be a drag all the way around. 

LA county accounted for most of the deaths in the LA area starting out in March and April.  Then it dropped to half and now it's less than half.  Also as far as new cases of the COVED 19 virus goes LA county accounted for most of the deaths in the early days.  Now it's way less than half.  This is information just released today.   Now let's try and publish this thing.  

. Thus new post thing is too strange.  They say they'll let us have our old format till September.  I would like to go back to that if possible.    Below is changes in going to the dentist on Friday.

.   The call came to get my ride a little after two when I was to hook up with Joselyn.  More time was expended though as she had things that needed tidying up.  I smoked another cigarette.  Finally we were in the van rolling out those gates on into freedom.   They are finally building abuilding there on that empty lot west of their office.  The first thing you notice was the air smelled more disinfected.  Next you saw there were only a few seats in there and no couches and there were no magazines.  Then I signed a form allowing for the Crown to be done.  I was having the usual problems with writing with my finger.  I was called into the office almost immediately.  I was given latex gloves to wear I wore the full length of time I was in the office.  I was also given another mask but it fell on the floor and was disgarded.  Before starting,  I was instructed to rinse with a glass of hydrogen peroxide and swoosh it in my mouth a minute or two.  She said it might not taste too good but that problem was minimal. The next thing you noticed was some big plastic tube thing and some motor.  Work began almost immediately.   They didn’t waste time.  She deliberately used less Novocain because she didn’t want me walking around with a numb tongue forever.  There were a few painful points.  Work proceded rather quickly.  I was surprised at how soon they were ready for the dental impression.  Soon after this I excused myself to go to the bathroom.  There was a lot of drilling on the substitute.  But when she placed it in it clearly wasn’t the permanent crown,   They finished that up at a quarter to four.  The appointment had begun right at two thirty.  Then they did the dental cleaning.   Dr Bui said they would only do what had already beessen approved by the board.  I looked in the mirror at the over-sized crown.  It was twenty aftI er four and Joselyn was already waiting to whisk me home.   They were having street construction on Magnolia coming home we took Brookhurst back in time for dinner.   We had a large hot dog and mustard and onions.  We had a pasta salad I left mostly.  We had red fruited Jell-O for dessert.  I had to go to my room to use the bathroom one more time.   I just hope they use strong enough glue.  The next appointment is Monday August 24^th.     

It Only Seems That We Get Bad News

It seems there is only bad news coming from the media.  No matter what gets closed down or banned in the way of hurting business the new cases and hospitalization and even the death figures only seem to rise.  It seems hopeless.  Someone in the media made note of this the other day saying “The only way we can change this pattern is to get a vaccination going.  They have about three vaccines competing with each other from major drug companies for who has the best product.  I would do everything I could to rush the trial period.  In terms of the seasons this is late July and the sun angles have begun to shift back.  Also it’s not as light at five thirty as it was a month ago.  The days are definitely starting to get shorter.  I heard one report saying it would be mid September when they lifted the quarantine.  Others are saying it won’t be till November.  That would be eight months and that is just way too long.  The next time I get out of here will be my dentist appointment on August seventh.  I need to savor those moments outside the gates.  The Republicans have apparently canceled their convention in August.  I guess the democrats are having a “virtual convention” to begin with.  Who would have guessed that it would be August and we’d still be having conversations more reminiscent of March or April.  There was hope in May, real hope, that the worst was behind us.  We had “turned the corner”but this has proved not to be the case.  Instead no matter what we do the figures only get worse.  The United States still leads the world in Corona virus outbreaks.  I guess the United States is still barred from traveling to most of Europe.  I don’t know if that includes England or not.

Phyllis a few days ago was telling me about all these unfortunate people who are plagued with every kind of disease.  I said something like “Well, where is Jesus?  How come he isn’t on the job?”  But you aren’t supposed to ask questions like that along with a thousand other quhreestions you aren’t supposed to ask yourself that an ordinary person would.  Some people say to be denied a blessing is a curse.  People don't like to live knowing or suspecting that God has abandoned them.  Jinxes have appeared in my life.  I have that swelling in my hip from sleeping on the same side.  I’ve developed a strange squeak or something in one of my tennis shoes.  Of course we had that cigarette burn in my pants last weekend.  Then we have the sock disappearing with the laundry.  I don’t like jinxes.  We have all these new people and no one of them seem to have cigarettes.  Borrowing rates have skyrocketed with little guarantee that they will be paid back on Tuesday.  Of course there is that toothache that came out of nowhere and it wasn't even the tooth that was scheduled to be worked on.  Doesn't Jesus care about the little things.  The little Chinese water torture of items that get you down?   Or are we to live in a continued state of fear that something else will go wrong.  I'd like to pray to prevent that before it happens.  It seems like even a month ago there were less jinxy items vesing my life.