26/10/2020

 Welcome to the final week of October, Halloween is on its final march and so is the US election. But the march of COVID-19 is not stopping, neither is the incompetence and ignorance of the political leaders of the world. Let’s have a look at what’s happened over the weekend.

In America as I said the election is in to its last sprint for the line as news networks countdown each day predicting the outcome which may not be known for month’s because if Trump loses he will try and win in the courts. As the end is nigh both Trump and Pence are on the election wagon jumping from state to state trying to convince American voters they are the best bet for America’s future, all while spreading the coronavirus. Just days after been released from Hospital Trump was back at without any regard for the people in close proximity to him and Pence is now doing the same. Just days after Pence’s chief of staff was diagnosed positive for the virus, instead of self-isolating, Pence was seen on the election trail ignoring CDC guidelines claiming himself as an essential worker. How can the country still feel these men are suitable for public office when they have no concern for the people of America beyond the fact they require them to vote them back in to office come November 3rd. They have broken promise after promise when it comes to COVID19, COVID relief, law and order, the Supreme Court, climate and many more that could fill a book of ineptitude.

Trump is clearly showing the stress of been president and the strain the campaign trail is taking on his already fragile psyche. Time and time again Trump keeps insisting that the United States is “rounding the turn” in its battle against the coronavirus, yet the country recorded its highest number of new infections so far over the weekend, reporting more than 84,000 cases on Friday and 79,000 on Saturday which is illustrating Trump blinkered view of the virus especially since he now believes he is immune to it. Another example of a fractured psyche was his interview with CBS show 60 Minutes which was finally aired on Sunday night, where Trump was seen claiming his administration has done “maybe a great job” in fighting back against Covid-19 and losing his temper with presenter Lesley Stahl when she confronted him with his own past comments on decrying “fake news” as a tactic to discredit unfavourable press coverage. This prompted him to storm out of the interview like a scalded little schoolboy refusing to return. More and more slip ups are occurring during his super spreader campaign speeches also, like his miraculous announcement that he was the recipient of not one, but possible three Nobel prizes provoking confusion during his rally speech in Londonderry, New Hampshire just yesterday.

Then on the back of all these lies and misguided fluffs Trump is making, you have a senior aide to Trump conceding to the fact that the US is “not going to control the pandemic”, instead Whitehouse Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Covid-19 could only be defeated by “mitigation areas” like vaccines and therapeutics. While on the other side of the isle Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden said the Whitehouse was waving “the white flag of defeat” adding that Mr Meadows’ comments showed that the Trump administration had “given up on their basic duty to protect the American people” in response to Meadows statement in the interview with CNN where he said control of the virus was not a realistic goal because “it is a contagious virus just like the flu”. Basically the whole world is in the grip of this virus, yet America’s stubbornness to be told what to do is the ultimate cost of the now approximate 225,000 deaths in America which is almost 100,000 more than the next country on the world list which is Brazil at 157,000. Nothing will change in America until January when a new president is inaugurated and will never change if Trump is that person been inaugurated, so America it is up to you.

All this is just dumbfounding to me as an outsider, that so much ‘BS’ can be allowed to go unchecked especially by a group of biased politicians who have shown what they are made of by rushing through the nomination of a racist, white woman who continually goes against her own sex to support misogynistic views. When this woman is added to the Supreme Court the civil rights of all Americans will be lost and she could even be the deciding factor on the election as Trump is set to take the result to court should it go against him, which would mean democracy is well and truly dead in America as the administration and the senate will enact a cleansing of people’s right to vote. This will happen should the Supreme Court become the deciding factor of future elections taking away the democratic rights of all to a free unbiased election. Instead of the number of Judges been increased on the Supreme Court to create equality of sentencing, there should be a bill raised to remove the life time standing of each justice to a set term which would create an honesty factor on the bench. No Judge should be allowed to be paid extortionate salaries for life, they should be subject to election every four years and be not chosen by the senate or the sitting president, but the people themselves in a national election just like Sheriff’s, District Attorneys, Governor’s, Senators, Vice Presidents and Presidents are. A true democracy is chosen by the people for the people not a president who can commit injustices by installing unworthy individuals to further his or her own agenda.

On that I will shut up about America for today and return to see how much of a shit show has gone on in dear old Blighty since Friday. Well there is no movement on the virus lockdown situation or the people it affects as South Yorkshire joined the Tier 3 areas on Sunday. The main ongoing issue of the pandemic seems to be the ineptitude of the government to take free school meals seriously for those children of poorer families forced to go starving during school holidays or closures. The government who sit pretty in their well-furnished warm houses chomping away on the most expensive of gourmet meals while the rest of the country is suffering and expected to be able to survive on £10 worth of food a week. £10 pound is what the government and housing associations class as the weekly food bill for a single person which is not taking in to account inflation and the cost of food rising. So basically we the downtrodden who struggle to find work are classed as the dregs of society not worth any equality or a second thought by those in the government. They say the minimum wage is £8.52 an hour yet fail to understand that even those unemployed need a suitable impoverished benefit, instead choosing that £75.00 a week is enough to feed, pay bills and buy other essentials while even those earning that stipulated £8.52 are struggling also. We are governed by people of privilege, who yes may come from a working class background, but do not understand what it is like to try and survive on £75.00 a week when the basics of food is on the rise, energy costs are extortionately overpriced and been able to save for such things that are classed as luxuries is never going to happen, so starts the cycle of debt most unemployed find themselves in. On top of this most companies have gone in to a recruitment freeze due to the virus or are laying people off which is making finding a job even harder for the unemployed already on benefits. But what the hell as long as Johnson still gets his £150,000 each year and the members of parliament get their £75,000 each year, the rest of us can just whistle.

Then you have the unnecessary moves the Welsh parliament have taken by telling people what they can and can’t buy. As Wales entered their circuit breaker lockdown the Welsh government took the unprecedented move to tell shops to cease the sales of non-essential products. This has seen shops erect barriers preventing shoppers from buying household items, literature, entertainment and believe it or not ladies sanitary products, soap, toothpaste, etc. which I myself would consider essential items. We are seeing throughout the four nations of the UK a different style used, but all have the same outcome which is the governments using authoritarian rules to eradicate a virus while they still have no idea of how it is been spread. All in all we are living in a time where morons are telling more morons what to do. The only way to kill this virus is by doing the basics of clean hands, wear masks and keep your distance until there is a vaccine to slow the diseases affects. But jumping from one extreme to another like the governments are doing is never going to be the answer. Yes people need to earn a living, but when those better off than others can profiteer then that is when steps need to be taken to rectify the outcomes. An instance is the profiteering firms close to those in power, like the firms profiteering of PPE or the failing test and trace app. These are the people who need dealing with, not the innocents who have neglected the rule of six or social distancing protocols.

I know my head is all over the place today, my apologises for that, but the isolation is getting to me a little and been in the category that is downtrodden it just gets to me when I hearing about Johnson and his lackey’s total ineptitude in their chosen profession earning so much money and appearing to do nothing to earn it, then there’s the fact that such men like Trump, Pence, McConnell, Graham and Cruz are allowed to milk America for years while doing nothing to help the poorest of the nation. To me the way these men and women globally can get away with such blatant profiteering off of the people they promised to protect and serve is just disgusting. I know not all politicians are profiteers, but a good 90% are, using the office they were sworn in to, to perform corrupt acts of abuse. The populous will always be the ones to suffer until they take back the reigns and hold their own members of parliament, councillors, mayors, governors, senators, primeministers, vice presidents and presidents to task over the decisions made. On that I will call it a day,

Rant you tomorrow!