Well, This Is Bleeped

Is this what the fall of the Roman Empire was like, except with wifi? Every time I look at the news, everything seems to be spiraling out of control.

The pandemic? The New York Times has a headline, Cases in the U.S. Grow to Their Highest Levels Since April. The curve for the nation is going up, never mind not flattening.

More than 35,000 new coronavirus cases were identified across the United States on Tuesday, according to a New York Times database, the highest single-day total since late April and the third-highest total of any day of the pandemic.

As the United States continues to reopen its economy, case numbers are rising in more than 20 states, mostly in the South and West. Florida on Wednesday reported a new daily high of 5,508 cases. Texas reported more than 5,000 cases on Tuesday, its largest single-day total yet. Arizona added more than 3,600 cases, also a record. And in Washington State, where case numbers are again trending upward, the governor said residents would have to start wearing masks in public.

The issue is not that there’s more testing; it’s that there are a higher percentage of positive results from those being tested. It’s also more hospitalizations in many areas.

Here in Missouri there is an increase in cases, but so far not an increase in hospitalizations, which has led the absolutely worthless Governor Mike Parsons to declare the economy was going to be ALL THE WAY OPEN and there would be NO GOING BACK. So all the restrictions are now lifted, just as cases are going up. I’ve felt relatively safe here until recently; now, not so much.

Just about everyone in the county but me and some elderly ladies of my acquaintance have stopped wearing masks or respecting social distancing. Last week I took a chance and got my first haircut since early March, and there was not a mask to be seen other than mine in the salon. I probably won’t get another haircut for awhile. There haven’t been many cases in the county until recently, but now there’s an outbreak at a state prison not three miles from where I am right now. I never completely left shelter in place mode, and now I’m definitely staying in it.

And it appears that, yeah, the White House is ending federal funding for testing sites. What will happen to money appropriated by Congress and not spent I do not know, as the Senate isn’t willing to hold Trump to account.

The European Union may ban travel from the U.S. If they don’t do it now, they may do it later, as a lot of health experts are warning that fall, when flu season starts, will be brutal. See also New York, New Jersey and Connecticut impose 14-day quarantine on travelers from coronavirus hotspot states.

The Dow did another 700 + nosedive today on news of the increase in coronavirus cases.

An appeals court has ordered the Michael Flynn case be dropped. It was a three-judge panel; the decision split two to one. The judge writing the majority opinion, Neomi Jehangir Rao, is a Trump appointee. The dissenter is an Obama appointee, Robert Wilkins.

Today the Senate confirmed Trump’s 200th judicial nominee.

The police brutality protests, which have been quite successful so far, seem to have entered a messier phase also. A state senator, a Democrat, was attacked in Madison; it’s not clear why. The statue toppling thing really needs to slow down. Confederates, yeah. The particular statue of Theodore Roosevelt in front of the American Museum of Natural History needs to go, although that one is being moved by the museum. Christopher Columbus, okay. I don’t mind them ripping down Andy Jackson near the White House, if they ever manage to do it. But now it seems people are tearing down statues just to tear down statues. Along with the statue of Ulysses Grant in California, some people in Madison destroyed the statue of a local Union hero who had been a strong abolitionist. This kind of thing threatens to violate the Bigger Asshole rule (“Effective demonstrations are those that make them look like bigger assholes than us.”)  and could hurt the positive public support the demonstrations have enjoyed so far.

And boy howdy, is the Trump Administration in meltdown mode.That’s a positive thing, of course. But it might get more dangerous now.

And I haven’t even gotten into the continuing saga of whatever Bill Barr is up to, but that will have to wait for tomorrow.