The Bad News

This Sunday, looking back at all the madness of the past week, past month, past year... past decade... Hell, pretty much everything since 1992... sigh.

There are more people who died during Wednesday's seditious coup attempt by trumpian Brownshirts at the U.S. Capitol. The woman I mentioned getting shot and killed was a QAnon believer attacking one of the officers defending a barricade. About three other protesters died during the riot, some of them in darkly karmic ways we shouldn't laugh about. Another was a Capitol police officer caught defending one of the doorways, beaten upon by the mob, reportedly his head crushed in with a fire extinguisher. There's video from the security cameras, it is not healthy to watch.

People may not understand just how close we came Wednesday to trump's rioters staging a successful insurrection. There are pictures of rioters running around with police-grade zip ties used to bind people: The rioters were planning on capturing people, possibly Congresspersons they wanted to harm. There is credible witness testimony that some of trump's rioters were plotting to seize his own VP Pence (because Pence has "betrayed" trump's call to overturn the election results). The rioters had built gallows outside the Capitol, at best to intimidate people and at worst to actually hang anyone they caught. (If you ever research the Far Right militia culture and their mindset, you will come across their Bible The Turner Diaries and find out how this insurrection was the closest they've ever come to cosplaying their bloody fantasies)

The COVID-19 pandemic is spiraling out of control, still, as has been since Thanksgiving. The holiday travel and family gathering were NOT GOOD IDEAS, Americans.

It does not help that there is a mutated strain of COVID - more infectious, more lethal - spreading just as fast as COVID-19 spread in January 2020.

At my state level, Governor DeSantis is still mismanaging things, failing to grasp the severity of the pandemic, desperate to avoid another lockdown because he's more concerned with revenues and happy businesses than with public safety and healthy families.

The overall vaccine rollout that's been happening for the past month has been haphazard at best nationwide. Stocks are not being deployed properly in certain states and metros. There has been almost no leadership at the national level on managing the deployment, which have left the states to struggle making their own guidelines (as in who gets priority treatment, essential workers obviously but then who?), which haven't been explained or enforced properly at the hospital/health provider level. This is what happens when you let trump dismantle the commission designed to coordinate all this stuff back in 2018.

Getting back to the political crises at hand, trump is still in the Oval Office winding down his days as President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice). His online ranting and calls to riot have become so threatening that the social media outlets - not just Twitter and Facebook but also Pinerest and Shopify! - have finally suspended or banned his accounts because he was violating their User Agreements. You might think this is Good News, but cutting off trump's supply of outrage to his fanbase is going to create a negative feedback implosion in whatever persists as trump's damaged soul. trump will well lash out in other ways.

With all of the public backlash at trump for his open call to insurrection at his riot audience on Wednesday, you would think most other elected Republicans would distance themselves at least, openly denounce the violence at best. But far too many Congressional Republicans in the House and Senate have doubled down on supporting trump and his messages of rage and conspiracy. Far too many Far Right pundits are refusing to admit their rhetoric and rage are responsible for the divided state our nation is in today. The madness will not go away when trump is dragged out of the White House.

Also, I think the cost of the Wendy's Baconator went up a nickel.

So there's the Bad News...