Friday, June 26, 2020

Self-isolation Day 101.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, fell asleep quickly, was awakened by Teresa’s light snoring at 4:45 so I took the opportunity to make a trip to the bathroom, finally waking/getting up at 6:45.

Last night I played 5 games on Chess.com, winning 3 and losing 2, with a new rating of 1347.

Supposedly someone will come to the apt next Tuesday to hook up the water line for the refrigerator.

Teresa just talked to someone and now it will be next Wednesday.

 

COVID-19. On May 1, Texas became one of the first states to begin easing restrictions and reopening its economy. Now, the second-most populous state in the country is seeing a "massive outbreak" in coronavirus cases, with over 50,000 active infections. In Houston, at least one hospital has already run out of ICU beds. And now, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is putting the state's phased reopening on the backburner.

 

Yesterday, a government watchdog said the IRS sent $1.4 billion worth of checks to people who filed taxes in 2018 and 2019 but later passed away. And that while the IRS has access to official death records, the Treasury Department – which distributed the checks – doesn't. Treasury officials said this happened because they were working to get the money out "as rapidly as possible."

 

Last night, the Trump admin asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In 2017, Congress ended the financial penalty for not buying insurance, known as the individual mandate. Now Trump admin officials are saying the rest of the ACA "must fall" with the mandate. If the justices agree, the move could affect the health care coverage of an estimated 23 million Americans. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) criticized the admin's move for coming in the "middle of the coronavirus crisis." SCOTUS has previously ruled on two challenges to the act, leaving most of the law in place.

 

Yesterday, Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked Trump: “If you hear in 131 days from now, at some point in the night or early morning: ‘We can now project Donald J. Trump has been re-elected the 45th president of the United States’—let’s talk. What’s at stake in this election as you compare and contrast, and what is one of your top priority items for a second term?”

Out of all the problems that America faces which would the president choose? Medical care? Defeating the coronavirus? Saving Social Security? Improving infrastructure?

“Well, one of the things that will be really great, you know, the word experience is still good,” Trump said while turning to the audience. “I always say talent is more important than experience. I’ve always said that. But the word experience is a very important word. It’s an, a very important meaning. I never did this before. I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington, I think, 17 times. All of a sudden, I’m president of the United States. You know the story. I’m riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our first lady and I say, ‘This is great,'” Trump said. “But I didn’t know very many people in Washington, it wasn’t my thing. I was from Manhattan, from New York. Now, I know everybody, and I have great people in the administration.”

 

JPMorgan analyzed data from 30 million Chase cardholders and Johns Hopkins University’s case tracker and found that higher restaurant spending in a state predicted a rise in new infections there three weeks later. In-person restaurant spending was “particularly predictive.” Conversely, higher spending at supermarkets predicted a slower spread of the virus.

In the span of 24 hours this week, the president accused his predecessor of treason, accused Democrats of rigging the election, called his former national security adviser "a lowlife who should be in jail," said we'd have fewer COVID cases if we had fewer tests, posted a racist video, and misspelled "history" and "shame." 

 

George Nader, who was a key witness in the Russia investigation and informally advised President Donald Trump's team on foreign policy, was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison by a federal judge in Virginia, stemming from his convictions on child sex charges.

 

Vice President Mike Pence hosted the first White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing in nearly two months on Friday. The Vice President urged Americans to “pray,” four times during his remarks, while not even mentioning the life-saving importance of wearing masks even once.

 

When asked why Trump is holding rallies during the pandemic Pence said, “Well, the freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assembly enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, and we have an election coming up this fall, and President Trump and I believe that taking proper steps as we created screening at repeat events and giving people the very best council that we have. We still want to give people the freedom to participate in the political process, and we respect that.”

“If we don’t extinguish the outbreak, sooner or later, even ones that are doing well are going to be vulnerable to the spread,” Dr. Fauci warns. “So we need to take that into account because we are all in it together. And the only way we’re going to end it is by ending it together.”

 

Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) discusses the importance of wearing masks and social distancing and the role national leadership plays in enforcing that on citizens.

 

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Friday openly pleaded with White House officials to stage an intervention with President Donald Trump and make clear to him that he is going to lose badly unless he changes course.

Writing on Twitter, Grassley urged White House officials to make Trump read a Wall Street Journal editorial that warned the president is on track to face a “historic repudiation” at the ballot box.

 

A U.S. District Court judge in Washington has ordered that Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to President Donald Trump, must report to prison by July 14.

 

The virus that ravaged Northeastern U.S. cities is surging through Southern and Western states. It’s different this time.

Younger people are getting sick with Covid-19. States that had brief coronavirus lockdowns are struggling to encourage social distancing and mask-wearing. Many people appear to have embraced their usual summer rituals. Health officials are sounding alarms about a surge in cases racing not through nursing homes, but bars and house parties. Hospitals are filling with medically-vulnerable elderly—but also 20-somethings and patients in their 30s and 40s.

At 6:30 Teresa called her friend Gloria and ordered 3 slices of pizza for us to share.

We got a call at 7:15 and Teresa told me I had a package at the porteria. I had forgotten about that. On my way down I ran into Doyle, the gringo from upstairs. We had a short conversation and he informed me that he was from Texas and he feels much safer here.

I picked up my “package” and the pizza arrived at the same time.

After finishing the pizza I checked my package and it was 2 pieces of junk mail, my Reader’s Digest and a little plastic envelope with what looks like a little fabric bracelet inside. It’s nothing that I ordered so I sent an email to Nobraskja at Envios Market.

 

A Trump replay from March 31^st: “I haven’t heard about testing in weeks. We’ve tested more now than any nation in the world. We’ve got these great tests, and we’ll come out with another one tomorrow, that’s almost instantaneous testing. But I haven’t heard about testing being a problem.”

The US has 2,387,335  ð 2,426,751 ð 2,478,695 coronavirus cases with 121,833  ð 122,456 ð 124,966 deaths. (Total cases in the US had flattened for some time but now are increasing again.)

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 77,113 ð 80,599 ð 84,442 cases with 2,811 deaths.  Medellin has 1,409  ð 1,504 ð 1,624 cases, an increase of 120 from June 25^th to June 26^th. Colombia’s rolling 6-day average of new cases is actually increasing more than previously, Medellin included. Envigado has a total of 76 cases, an increase of 4 from June 25^th to June 26^th.

 

Joke of the day

Three handsome male dogs are walking down the street when they see a beautiful, enticing, female Poodle.

The three male dogs fall all over themselves in an effort to be the one to reach her first but end up arriving in front of her at the same time.

The males are speechless before her beauty, slobbering on themselves and hoping for just a glance from her in return.

Aware of her charms and her obvious effect on the three suitors, she decides to be kind and tells them, “The first one who can use the words “liver” and “cheese” together in an imaginative, intelligent sentence can go out with me.”

The sturdy, muscular black Lab speaks up quickly and says, “I love liver and cheese.”

“Oh, how childish,” said the Poodle, “That shows no imagination or intelligence whatsoever.”

She turned to the tall, shiny Golden Retriever and said: “How well can you do?”

“Ummm...I HATE liver and cheese,” blurts the Golden Retriever.

“My, my,” said the Poodle, “I guess it’s hopeless. That’s just as dumb as the Lab’s sentence.”

She then turns to the last of the three dogs and says, “How about you, little guy?”

The last of the three, tiny in stature but big in fame and finesse, is the Chihuahua.

He gives her a smile, a sly wink, turns to the Golden Retriever and the Lab and says, “Liver alone, cheese mine."