Biden Won -- Not Trump

 

The first thing I do every morning when I wake up, is to access CNN from my iPhone. After what I read on November 22, 2020 (see opinion piece below) about Trump’s latest antics, it made me so angry. Trump is not willing to admit that he lost the 2020 election. The numbers do not lie. Joe Biden actually won with a convincing electoral college victory and a popular vote of over 78 million votes. The most votes of any presidential candidate in history.

What does Trump do? He sends out lawyers and his henchman, Rudy Giuliani, to make accusations of voter fraud with no evidence to prove it. So many courts have thrown out the lawsuits that have been submitted to the court systems in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia, to name a few.

====================

 Opinion by Richard Galant, CNN

Updated 9:28 AM ET, Sun November 22, 2020

“Addressing the former New York City mayor, who was parroting Trump's lie about massive voter fraud, US District Court Judge Matthew Brann posed a devastating question at the hearing on Tuesday.”

"You're alleging that the two individual plaintiffs were denied the right to vote. But at bottom, you're asking this court to invalidate more than 6.8 million votes, thereby disenfranchising every single voter in the Commonwealth. Could you tell me how this result could possibly be justified?"

On Saturday, November 20, 2020 the judge effectively answered his own question by dismissing the lawsuit and saying, "this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations...and unsupported by evidence."

====================

On Saturday, November 13, 2020 Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election. What was Trump doing? Playing golf. He has reportedly been on the grounds of his golf courses or played golf elsewhere 299 times since becoming President in 2017. Pretty impressive record. That will look good on his resume.

What will not look good on his resume is this latest debacle. A grown man (questionable) is throwing a hissy fit, making baseless claims about massive voter fraud because he lost an election. He is not able to act dignified (he never does), and congratulate President-Elect Biden on his win. Why can’t he do this? According to him and his posse he won the election by losing over six million votes to the other guy. 

He doesn’t know how democracy works. He never committed to a peaceful transfer of power. Does that sound like democracy? More like Fascism or a dictatorship. Is that what his followers voted for? Then they don’t know what democracy is either.

Democracy: “a) government by the people esp. rule of the majority  b) a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.”

Autocratic leadership is just the opposite of democratic. These leaders tell others exactly what they want done – and assume full responsibility for the results. There is no consultation. The leader speaks and expects absolute obedience.

Whoa, “the leader expects absolute obedience”. What does that sound like? Trump wants to be the “King of America” and not the “President of America.” That is not what millions of Americans fought wars for and lost their lives to protect all of us so we could live in freedom and make our own choices.

Home of the Free – Because of the Brave 

Remember when Trump called Senator John McCain a loser because he was captured by North Vietnamese soldiers in 1967? McCain endured being a prisoner of war until 1973. He was a hero and not a loser. Trump discredited the work of real American heroes (as he recently called many members of our military, losers), just as he now seeks to tear down the workings of democracy. 

In the Washington Post, Paul Waldman put it starkly. "No president in American history has ever before spent the end of his time in office trying to discredit our democracy, degrade the federal government, and set Americans against each other," Waldman wrote. The Republicans, "are finishing the Trump presidency the way they started it, with a show of complicity and cowardice."

When historians write about all the corrupt polices that Trump and the Republicans stood by during 2017 through 2021, the word “democracy” will not be used to describe what we have lived through these past four years.

Update: (CNN) “On November 23, 2020 General Services Administration has informed President-elect Joe Biden that the Trump administration is ready to begin the formal transition process, according to a letter from Administrator Emily Murphy sent and obtained by CNN. The letter is the first step the administration has taken to acknowledge President Donald Trump’s defeat, more than two weeks after Biden was declared the winner of the election.” BUT Trump has not conceded because he still thinks he won the election. Really??? 

   

What is Family?

Fam′ i-ly n. the members of one’s household; close relatives; a social unit, such as a tribe; a related group, as of certain plants or animals (from Webster’s Pocket Dictionary, 2002 Edition).

Since I was a small child of six or seven, I have been on the hunt for a family to belong to. Yes, I had two people in my life whom I called Mommy and Daddy, but we were not a “family.” We were three humans living under the same roof and remained that way until my father died when I was 17. Life improved somewhat after his death, but I still felt that my mother and I did not constitute a “family.”

My vision of a family was a group of people consisting of parents, grandparents, siblings and their girlfriends or boyfriends, aunts, uncles, multiple cats/dogs, and a picket fence. Events such as: births, christenings, graduations, weddings, funerals, family reunions, and celebrating the holidays with huge dinners and lots of presents, were part of the picture.

This was not true in my case. We never invited over to the relatives for the holidays, nor did we go to any of their houses to celebrate. When I asked, “why?” I was told that Daddy’s relatives lived in Philly out on the East Coast, which was too far away to travel. And since we never visited them, I thought that the East Coast had to be another planet, far, far away from Nebraska.

While I was attending the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, I latched on to anyone who would invite me to their house for the holidays. I was never happier, even though I wasn’t part of their family. It was always such a wonderful time plus there was great food to boot!

In my mid-twenties I got married (ex-husband #1) and thought, finally I’m in a family. No such luck. I just didn’t fit in with them. They were my first experience with a large group of people who were members of  a “dysfunctional family." That was truly a mind blowing experience! First time in my life, when I thought I might be "normal."  Both ex-husbands' (2 & 3) families were better, but I never developed a history with them so it still didn’t feel like "family" to me.

So when Mary came into my life with a large family, I thought bingo! How lucky could I get? Unfortunately, her family decided not to have contact with us. We were sad over their decision, but we moved on and created our own family.

Our family consists of Fast Eddie and Miss Gracie (our four-legged fur children), some amazing friends, and of course, we have each other. What more could one ask for? Life is good!

Until the next time...

 

Masks - Why Not?

 

Face masks are part of the daily patter of words we hear over and over these days: COVID-19; pandemic; fatality rate; flattening the curve; social distancing; ventilators; stay-at-home; lockdown; quarantine; and essential vs. nonessential businesses and services.

When the virus outbreak first started in China, what I saw on the news was that everyone there was wearing masks. When the virus arrived here in the U.S., we were told masks weren’t helpful. We were told that washing your hands and not touching your face plus social distancing would help stop the spread of the virus.

On Friday, April 3, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged all Americans to wear masks when leaving their homes. Those masks are not the medical or surgical grade that hospital and emergency workers would need to stay safe while administering to the sick and dying.

Then we have Trump who said, “With the masks, it is going to be a voluntary thing.” He also said, “Wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens – I don’t know,” he added, though he stopped receiving foreign dignitaries weeks ago. “Somehow, I just don’t see it for myself.”

When a person is presenting no symptoms of a disease, yet has the disease that is called being asymptomatic. And that’s a problem. There are people wandering around who do have the virus, but show no symptoms of it. Instead, the virus just moves to the next person and feeds off that person's lungs. If an asymptomatic person is wearing a mask, then that person's “droplets” would not jump over to someone else’s lungs. 

How do you know if you are the one spreading the virus? You don’t. Current testing for the virus is only happening to individuals who are exhibiting a high temperature, dry cough and shortness of breath. Unless you are the President then you can get treated with drugs that the general public doesn’t have access to and that cost around $100,000.

Where do those who are not in the medical field find masks? Well, I tried a number of cloth masks that neighbors and through friends whose family members were making them. They just didn't fit right. It was especially a problem when I heard that masks should be dried in the dryer. All that did was make the masks even smaller!

Recently, I was shopping (a rare event), looking for a sympathy card, when I saw a table of masks. So many different choices. I wanted to get it right this time. Well...I found a company called Ocalm. I bought my first package of five masks and went home. Hallelujah! 

I went online and ordered another two packages (10 masks). I was impressed with their quickness in letting me know that: they received my order; they were packing my order; they shipped it and included an easy-to-use tracking link. Plus they replaced one of the masks that had a defective loop. Wow! Check them out at: www.o-calm.us

By the way, in the early days of the pandemic during his press conferences, Trump’s staff members were seen standing less than six feet from one another. Could their reasoning have been that the virus was not contagious to Republicans and only to members of the Democratic party?

Then came the super-spreader Rose Garden event to introduce the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in late September. I guess there must have been Democrats present and that is how the President and his staff got it. Just kidding!

Trump also suggested his getting the virus in early October happened during a ceremony to honor fallen soldiers. He said it was from the Gold Star Families that he met at that event and not at the Rose Garden event. More likely he already had COVID-19 and he exposed those military families to the virus.

Another one of my favorites - Trump also believed that Hope Hicks caught the disease from “people from the military and law enforcement” who keep wanting to hug him and his team (which included Hope Hicks).” REALLY? My experience is that military and law enforcement are not the “hugging type” especially while on duty which these individuals he mentioned would have been.

Thankfully, President-Elect Biden, realizes that we need a consistent message and plan from our government on how we should conduct ourselves during this horrific crisis. I personally feel that the Trump administration never got a clue as to how to handle this pandemic other than to say, “it is rounding the corner.”

As of November 15, 246,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and there are over 11.1 million cases. Just wear a mask…wash your hands… and stay a minimum of six feet from others to save lives.

========================

Until the next time...stay safe.

 

 

 

 

You are a New Englander....

If any of these witticisms from Jeff Foxworthy hit home, you live or have lived in New England:

 

v If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don't work there;

v If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number;

v If vacation means going anywhere south of New York City for the weekend;

v If you measure distance in hours;

v If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once;

v If you have switched from 'Heat' to 'A/C' in the same day and back again;

v If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching;

v If you design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit;

v If the speed limit on the highway is 55 mph you're going 80 and everybody is passing you;

v If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow;

v If you've worn shorts and a parka at the same time;

v If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction;

v If you have more miles on your snow blower than your car;

v If you find 10 degrees "a little chilly";

v If you think everyone else has a funny accent.