“Republican wack pack”

Here, the queen assumes the year 2020 is over and that the worst has passed.
Not so, your highness. 

Eleven more days present Donald Trump, a desperate man trying desperately to stave off the inevitable, wiggle room to bring down the system of governance that voted him out of office.
The United States heads towards, not only pandemic disaster, but the disaster of doing too little, too late to stop a crazy man. 

In 2012, Americans such as Steve Schmidt began warning  about the appearance on the political scene of Donald Trump and the “Republican wack pack,” (aka “an autocratic cult of personality.” An interview worth watching – 18:30 mins.)
If you think we’ve reached bottom with the Trumpster and Trumpism, think again. The cult may be gasping for oxygen, but the Republican wack pack is headed up by powerful politicians determined to weaken essential American-style democracy.  (5:40 mins)

News blues…

Trump acolyte, Covid denialist, and anti-maskist, Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, stands accused of sending armed officers to raid the Tallahassee, Florida home of Rebekah Jones.
Jones is the former Florida official who says she was ousted from her job managing the state’s COVID-19 data for refusing to censor and alter case information. 

After her ouster in the spring, Jones went public with allegations that her superiors had told her to put misleading and false information on the public-facing COVID-19 dashboard, which people could use to track data about coronavirus infections in Florida.
The information they asked her to post would have over-counted the number of COVID-19 tests performed and under-counted the total number of cases, she said, as Florida rushed to reopen its economy. She also said she was asked to remove evidence of people testing positive for the virus in January.
… FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen disputed Jones’ claim that the officers [invading her house] pointed guns at her and her children. But Jones’ video indicates that they may have pointed weapons in her family’s general direction. When the officers enter the house, one demands her husband come downstairs while another points what appears to be a firearm directly to the top of the staircase.
Jones said she’ll return to work running her dashboard on Tuesday.
“If [DeSantis] thought pointing a gun in my face was a good way to get me to shut up, he’s about to learn just how wrong he was,” she tweeted. “I’ll have a new computer tomorrow. And then I’m going to get back to work.”

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The Lincoln Project: Pence  (0:34 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

• Earth photo essay
• Our global fire crisis is the sign of a dying biosphere. But we can take action.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A pandemic positive: picking up a plethora of new skills. I did not choose these roles. They – through circumstances – chose me.
I’m delving into the sad ins and outs of early dementia in the elderly. I’d prefer to do without this skill. Words of warning: as a member of collective humanity, you will, come face-to-face with dementia in someone you love. Prepare for that, now.
Pool Gal: After waiting three months for Pool Guy Richard to show up to troubleshoot the small pool, he arrived, looked it over, removed the apparently dysfunctional “creepy” suction system, quoted “R2,500 or more” to finish the job, then tucked the “creepy” under his arm and departed. 

Five days and many phone calls later, he returned the creepy. In the interim, the gardener and I experimented with “fixing” the filter system. No dice. Despite tardiness and lack of specificity in tasks required or associated costs, Pool Gal must defer to Pool Guy’s expertise.
Recycling Carpenter is a role I relish since I relish creative reuse. I’m rising to the challenge of recycling odds and end to build a garden worktable for my new home. A perfect-enough discarded kitchen counter top, two recycled “legs” and a recycled former dog bed all go into the mix. 

Photos forthcoming….