NE Patriots haters must be loving the latest travails of the team. They suck this year. Cam Newton will be gone after this season.

Though I wouldn’t get too excited about what Tom Brady was able to do against the Lions last week. Detroit was without a number of key starters. A good game for Tom, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s see what he does against a really good defense.

It’s difficult to grasp just how inept and half-hearted the U.S. pandemic response has been.

Forget about the record-breaking vaccine development. Trump will want to take credit for that, but the foundation for the rapid development was laid long before he took office. Forget about the months-long efforts of doctors and nurses who are way beyond bone-tired by now. Let’s talk first about herding cats, trying to reason with stubborn, “patriotic” people who have chosen not to listen. Or think, for that matter.

The toll on this nation is immeasurable, except as we catch glimpses of the suffering and grief, the soul-crushing fatigue and fear and unanticipated poverty. The cabin fever and isolation didn’t have to last this long. We could have been on the downside of this if we had taken it more seriously and listened to the right people.

As it is, millions chose to place their bets on their President, their fearless leader who they believed, for some strange reason, had their best interests at heart. Half the country got taken to the cleaners and it affected everyone else in the process. It’s a fucking mess, way beyond shameful.

In retrospect, people may view it as criminal, if they don’t already. Purposely downplaying the severity, the absence of a plan, outright deception and lies, just to protect the economy, Trump’s perceived lifeline to re-election that ended up tanking anyway. Thousands of small businesses gone. Millions unemployed. Three hundred thirty thousand lives lost, and many more to come. A very dark chapter. A lost year, in many ways.

Oh, of course we learned some things along the way, and people came together, made lemonade, blah, blah, blah. Spare me. You can always find a silver lining if you look hard enough. But there’s no getting around the fact that this could have played out very differently if the leadership in Washington had been motivated by something other than self-preservation and obfuscation and preying on peoples’ gullibility. They had a chance to lead, and they decided not to.

They decided–consciously chose— to ignore reality, and placed minimal value on human life. It might be about the economy, stupid. But you can’t have a healthy economy without healthy people. The reality is that not enough people wanted to make the necessary sacrifices—relatively short-term sacrifices– in order to stem the tide of this virus. Enough among us were led to believe that such measures were unnecessary and even un-American.

A well-conceived testing program and contact tracing, wearing a mask, washing our hands, and keeping a safe distance were all turned into polarizing issues, just too much to ask or expect. How sad is that?

I think I have some grasp of the dilemma small business owners, particularly those who own eating establishments, are facing as this god-forsaken pandemic drags on. This is their job, their means for providing and procuring the necessities of life.

To a certain extent, I understand their rebellion, their decision to stay open, though I’m having a more difficult time squaring that with the disparagement of Governor Tom Wolf. He’s just trying to do his job. Making tough decisions based on actual data, and trying, despite the pushback, to keep people safe. The indignant barbs and charges of overreach seem to me to be an over-reaction, a not-so-faint echo of partisanship and the bile and sewage that has been seeping from the Trump administration since the beginning of all this.

The virus isn’t a hoax, quarantining and precautions may be perceived as infringements of constitutional rights, but we’re in a pandemic! Extraordinary measures and sacrifice are called for. And the governor isn’t a merciless overlord intent on taking away our freedom.

What doesn’t get mentioned nearly enough is that the federal government has had a role to play all along the way, and they haven’t played it very well. If Uncle Sam was engaged, then small business owners might be less fretful right now. They might have some assurance of financial support for them and their employees that would help them weather a period of shutdown, and give them hope for a light at the end of the tunnel.

Instead, it’s a whole lot of not knowing, of fear and baseless accusations, needless exposure to the virus, and parroting an administration in Washington that decided early on to go with herd immunity and obfuscation, in some ways treating the whole pandemic response as if there was no pandemic.

One of these days, maybe, that reality will sink in.

No matter how much verbiage is uttered, or ink spilled, Trump still has 27 days in office.

He is trying to do as much damage as he can, in part by not doing anything. He has refused to sign the Covid relief bill and the defense bill. He has pardoned a rogue’s gallery of criminals and cronies. Next up will probably be members of his immediate family. And then… himself? How is that possible, and what does it say about him… well, that hasn’t already been said? How is this slow-moving disaster going to end? AND HOW CAN SO MANY STILL BE ON BOARD WITH HIM?

The lesson not learned here is one practically everyone else learns in Little League: you can’t win ‘em all. You friggin’ baby.

So, what to make of Trump’s insistence on increasing the stimulus check amount?

Don’t make much of it. He’s certainly not doing it out of the goodness of his heart. He’s angling for something more sinister, just stalling for time, being his normal empty, ugly self.

And still he has millions eating out of his hand.

The looming reality appears to be that we are moving toward an end game that will not include a peaceful transfer of power. Trump and his flotilla of airheads and Nazi wannabes are not only hatching a plan to disrupt the Electoral College proceedings on Jan. 6. They’re also mobilizing an increasingly agitated Base who are itching for that worst-case scenario where they dust off the AR-15s and foment a second Civil War. They have always been ready to go there.

Unless there’s a miracle in the wings, it looks like we may be in for even more pain and suffering than we’ve already endured over the last nine months/four years.

How much of this is real, though? And how much is being made unnecessarily worse by incessant and incendiary media coverage?

Donald Trump is scared shitless. He knows what awaits him when he can no longer cower behind the Resolute Desk. He can pardon himself if he wants, but that is an act of futility, considering what awaits him in the SDNY. And who pardons themselves in the first place?

He is digging in, lashing out, and clearly not of sound mind. It’s ugly now, even uglier than it has been, and it’s going to get worse. You get the feeling that there might be a mortifying, though not unsurprising ending to all of this. He may literally have to be dragged out, or worse. Or better, depending on one’s perspective. Maybe he won’t survive this. Hopefully the country can.

His looney tunes army is mobilizing, causing trouble in Oregon, hinting at violence and unrest in other places, including D.C. on Inauguration Day. One could surmise that the volcano may soon blow. It raises the question: When are the good guys gonna step in and put a stop to this? Are they even out there?

People can be as gullible as they seem. I wonder if they still consider Trump a hero. And if they do, why? What is there about him that hints at anything honorable? Why would anyone take their marching orders from somebody who is so obviously self-involved and desperate? He’s listening to people who are suggesting martial law as a way to address the “grievous wrong” of losing an election by 7 million votes. And, in a relative way, it wasn’t any closer in the Electoral College.

We have been preparing for this unfortunate sequence of events, knowingly or not, since the son of a bitch took office. For various reasons, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to just about everyone.

Most of the inner circle are as rotten as we feared. They made it all the way to the seat of power, and now it looks like they’re ok with taking the country down on their way out the door.

These are evil, uncaring people clawing at the cliff’s edge, trying to hold on. Someone needs to step on their fingers.

How is it possible to have a $100K income and just be squeaking by?

There’s something askew there.

What would happen if the media just ignored Trump and his insistence on overturning the election results? I guess we need the watchdogs to keep him honest.

Honest. That’s funny.

I don’t give even one sixty-fourth of a shit that Pete Buttigieg will be the first LGBTQ person to hold a Cabinet post. Yes, it’s significant at this point in time, but I’m yearning for the day when the real news, as regards Mr. Buttigieg or anyone else, is simply that a person who is eminently gifted and capable has been named to a Cabinet post.

End of what would be a refreshingly boring story.