Now that the Electoral College has concluded it’s tally, and (a handful of) Republican Congress people have conceded Biden’s status as president elect, one can only hope that the Trumpster and his grift will exit stage right….
We’re inching toward a million confirmed infections.
Tighter lockdown restrictions in place locally, too (see below).
I’m preparing to move into my new home in a secure community – aka “the Valley” - that also houses the Care Center in which my mother – and her dog, Jessica – are resident.
Yesterday, the day after President Ramaphosa tighten Covid-related restrictions on all South Africans, “the Valley” leadership shut down access to visitors. This, due to an increase in infections.
Luckily I’d hurried to the office last week - the day after I was handed keys to my new home – to register my new status as owner. Had I not done so, “visitor” status would have barred from entering the grounds.
I’m pleased the community is vigilant against the virus and I’m dismayed that, for the duration, I’m permitted to visit my mother in the Care Center only once a week. Since she’s experiencing significant “adjustment issues” (“I can’t stay here,” she complains), I’ll stand outside and chat with her through the window.
I hope I can continue to walk the dog, too. I’ll meet Jessica at the back gate and take her for a short walk that includes a “roly poly.” I’d hate to deny her the pleasure of flopping onto her back and groaning with delight as she kicks her legs and twists and turns on the grass.
***
Happily, the Covid-19 notification app I added to phone reports, “no exposure found: according to your recent interactions with people using this app, you have not come into close contact with someone who uses the app and has tested positive for Covid-19.”
Nice to know. Best not to think about the app’s big weakness: effectiveness relies on a critical mass of users. How many, besides me, currently use this app?
News blues…
Twenty-four hours, 7,500 new Covid infections and 200 deaths in South Africa. The bulk of the deaths in in the Eastern (95) and Western (70) Cape. KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 23 of deaths, Gauteng 10 and Limpopo and the Free State six each.We’re inching toward a million confirmed infections.
Tighter lockdown restrictions in place locally, too (see below).
***
From The Lincoln Project: Our Republic’s institutions — from the courts, to election officials, to the Electoral College — held firm through the most critical stress test in over a generation.Amen!
Yesterday, members of the Electoral College met in their respective states to cast their official ballots. Without so much as a single faithless elector, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were duly elected President and Vice President.
The weeks since the election have served as verification for everything we believed and said about our current president and his enablers.
Trump’s attempted coup will go down in history as one of the most un-American, anti-democratic, destructive, and shameful undertakings by a sitting president.
This attack was a close call for democracy and our Constitution. Fortunately, the election itself was not particularly close — or we could be confronting a coup on the precipice of victory.
While Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’s triumph and the new chapter for our country should be celebrated, we cannot avoid the unvarnished truth — Trump Republicans are willing to discard democracy and the will of the American people when it becomes politically advantageous for them to do so.
Luckily, we know their names.
And the American people will know their names, and what they signed their names to.
We, The Lincoln Project, will ensure it.
As it has become increasingly evident that Trumpism has metastasized throughout Republican Party ranks, we are steadfast in our determination to expose and defeat every last one of them.
Healthy planet, anyone?
Ten thousand years of undisturbed nature will soon be open to the highest bidder, starting at $25 an acreOn 6 January, the [US] Bureau of Land Management, directed by the Trump administration, is scheduled to hold a virtual oil and gas lease sale – an “aggressive, competitive exploration and development program” – for drilling in Alaska National Wildlife Refuge - ANWR. More specifically, in the 1.5m acre coastal plain, the refuge’s biological heart: the birthing grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd, the prime denning area for the Beaufort Sea population of polar bears (a threatened species, numbering only 900), and the breeding sites for birds that every year fly across oceans and continents to raise their young on undisturbed, flower-embroidered tundra.Read the article “America's last wilderness is about to go to the highest bidder for oil drilling”
Ten thousand years of natural beauty and balance – America’s last great wilderness – will soon be “open” to the highest bidder, beginning at $25 an acre. The winner could initiate seismic testing: shaking the earth with massive vibration trucks, awakening polar bears in their dens. If the testing shows a strong promise of oil (which is presently unknown), they may build an industrial complex of roads, well pads, desalinization plants, airstrips and pipelines, all tied into Prudhoe Bay, some 80 miles to the west. If not, the seismic testing alone will produce many scars visible for decades.
How can this happen? Easy.
On the final page of the massive 2017 feed-the-rich federal tax bill, the Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski added oil and gas exploration as a “purpose” of ANWR.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
When it comes to virulent infection, timing is everything….I’m preparing to move into my new home in a secure community – aka “the Valley” - that also houses the Care Center in which my mother – and her dog, Jessica – are resident.
Yesterday, the day after President Ramaphosa tighten Covid-related restrictions on all South Africans, “the Valley” leadership shut down access to visitors. This, due to an increase in infections.
Luckily I’d hurried to the office last week - the day after I was handed keys to my new home – to register my new status as owner. Had I not done so, “visitor” status would have barred from entering the grounds.
I’m pleased the community is vigilant against the virus and I’m dismayed that, for the duration, I’m permitted to visit my mother in the Care Center only once a week. Since she’s experiencing significant “adjustment issues” (“I can’t stay here,” she complains), I’ll stand outside and chat with her through the window.
I hope I can continue to walk the dog, too. I’ll meet Jessica at the back gate and take her for a short walk that includes a “roly poly.” I’d hate to deny her the pleasure of flopping onto her back and groaning with delight as she kicks her legs and twists and turns on the grass.
***
Happily, the Covid-19 notification app I added to phone reports, “no exposure found: according to your recent interactions with people using this app, you have not come into close contact with someone who uses the app and has tested positive for Covid-19.”
Nice to know. Best not to think about the app’s big weakness: effectiveness relies on a critical mass of users. How many, besides me, currently use this app?
Inquiring minds wanna know….
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