Capitol Hill Blue Forums Hot Topics & Breaking News The RoundTable RoundTable - SPRING 2020

Facebook has labeled this ad as "anti-Trump." Ya' think?

I just thought they were sociopaths trying to kill me for their "freedum". But really, they are terrorists. They certainly make me afraid. I think in "stand your ground" states, you could shoot them and then claim they made you fear for your life. But I've always thought the same about people who confront you while armed.

Yesterday was a hard news day for me, watching my beloved country crumbling before my eyes. I understood the Supreme Court decision about Bridgegate, even as I disliked the implications for the prosecution of corruption, which was punctuated by the craven and lawless move to dismiss Flynn's pleaded conviction. Corruption just no longer seemed to matter. I was heartened that those miscreants who orchestrated the murder of Ahmaud Arbery were finally arrested, but the video of his murder was wrenching. Yet, without it there would be no justice. The COVID death toll continued on apace as the feckless leadership in Washington dithered, maskless, and States begin the process of accelerating its spread. The House Intelligence records regarding the Trump-Purin election scheme finally were released, but there will be no repercussions during this year, highlighting the universality of Republican corruption. Economic figures are universally bad, even nurses are getting laid off.

Yep, it's all terrible. I have a French friend and she keeps sending to me from Paris all sorts of memes making fun of our president. We are a joking matter now; we were once a powerful and proud nation, the leaders of the free world. Now we are a Banana Republic with a wannabe dictator, a spike in corruption (like all Banana Republics), and the persistent denial of sciences (it's the movie Idiocracy all over).

Truth is gone in this era of fake news, when the president tells 15,000 lies and his new press secretary (they made sure to make her cute as opposed to the last fat cow, for better ratings) promises to never tell lies, and proceeds in her first press conference to... tell multiple lies.

My hopes of the end of the pandemic by July or August are gone. We are in for the long run until a vaccine is found, and this is not at all warranted, despite all the over-optimistic news. It is not uncommon that promising vaccines fail to deliver sufficient protection especially when the virus mutates, and the rushed development doesn't bode well for safety.

Treatments so far have either been ineffective or confer modest advantage.

Even after the pandemic is over (hopefully with an effective vaccine otherwise the virus will just encroach, become endemic, and a permanent threat) the economic recovery will take years.

Several businesses will go into bankruptcy. Several laid off people won't be re-hired. Salaries will see no raises but rather pay cuts for the lucky ones who will still have a job. Entire sectors won't ever be the same if the virus becomes endemic (cruises, airlines, restaurants, rental of office spaces, gyms, movie theaters, etc).

Meanwhile with likely very dirty tricks like extensive voter suppression, or even worse fraud (if we move to voting by mail, I don't like the fact that Trump has just appointed a new head for the USPS) like in Banana Republics (we are one, now), Trump may very well win re-election and finish the job of destroying American democracy.

The raise of nationalism, right-wing governments (US, Brazil, Italy, UK, Hungary, etc.), racism, and xenophobia doesn't bode well for the brotherhood of nations, and it's the brewing grounds for world wars.

Global warming, worsening weather events, pollution, plagues...

I think I've never seen in my lifetime such a confluence of bad news and bad indicators, pointing to extremely troubled times ahead.

My son and his fiancee (they were planning to get married in early June but had to postpone) are saying that they do not want to put children in this world because the children are likely to suffer lots of hardship when they become adults, in a deteriorating world. My hopes for grandchildren are being dashed, as my daughter and her husband have already firmly decided the same.

The things I like the best for leisure - live classical music concerts and opera, gourmet restaurants, breweries, having lots of friends over for dinner, sports (NFL, world soccer, college football and college basketball) are all gone. I'm sick and tired of watching Netflix TV series as there is nothing else to do.

I feel very gloomy today. It's all very depressing, and there is no solution in sight. I think things will only get worse.

They could actually hold basketball games, if the NBA would get on it. Teams would have to be in tight quarantine, with delivered sterilized food, etc. for a few weeks. Then everybody gets PCR and antibody tested. If all goes well, the teams could play games in empty courts and televise them. As the only sports on TV, the audiences would be HUGE!

This is inspired from all the quarantined couples making amateur porn and selling subscriptions online. As long as your quarantine is tight, you should be able to interact with other people in tight quarantines. Hardly anybody really has tight quarantines, but they are not impossible.

I would start with basketball, because the teams are so small. But they could do this with most sports.

LOL, while I wouldn't want to sell subscriptions to amateur porn with my wife (being with her is great but we don't need people watching us), I'd love to see basketball and football games being played in empty stadiums. Yes, commissioners, please bring back our beloved sports, in a safe way. I'm bored!

Trump x R.E.M. - Losing My Civilians

So the past two, three weeks my right knee has been really hurting. I thought it was because I have been walking more because of Corona like everybody is doing with their newly found free-time these days. I went to the doctor yesterday and told the doctor that I would quite often wake up in the middle of the night several times because of excruciating pain. The doctor diagnosed it as tendinitis. Take Allieve.

Today I got up early and did my washing and other chores and took a nap in the early afternoon. The pain returned. I realized why the pain was there while I slept.

Don't laugh.

I now realize the entire issue started a few weeks ago when I acquiesced more of the bed to Rocksus. I was literally on the right side of the bed and because my right leg no longer had any more of the bed, I simply cantilevered my right leg off the bed. I'd been doing this for weeks now. Because there was no support under my leg to take the weight of my leg which was literally airborne, the tendons of my knee were holding my leg up in the air, putting the support of holding my leg on the patella tendons.

I'm taking back the majority of the bad and Rocksus will just need to curl-up into a tighter ball as he once did.

Lately, he's been in the habit of sleeping on his back with his lower half spread eagle and taking up the majority of the bed and that's probably when this all started.

Betty Boop does this too, and it's been a long hard slog to train her to stay at the low end of the mattress and sleep down there.
Sometimes I wind up cuddling next to Karen in my sleep but on a couple of occasions Karen has woken up to find me shoved off to the side because Boops decided SHE gets Karen, not me.

The lil sh!t



Fiona Kitty always sleeps at the bottom end of Karen's mattress...or my grandmother's ottoman stool.

Fortunately I don't have any pets. I hate pets. And no, that doesn't make of me a bad person like most pet owners assume.