I have an aunt up in Havre.
Oh...about 15 years ago or so she decided she wanted to become a foster parent.
She ended up taking care of a girl around 8-or-9-or-10-years-old. The girl had been born with fetal alcohol syndrome, so wasn’t all there upstairs.
She’d had developmental problems because of what her mother had done to her in the womb, and was probably as intelligent as someone half her age. Because of this, she often followed my aunt around from room to room, both because she wasn’t sure what she should be doing by herself, and because she was insecure.
My aunt is a good person, and she had good intentions and wanted to make a difference. And for a year she did, but after that she got out of the foster care program.
It’d become a lot of work, with too much hassle. She wanted her life back.
I think Montanans are a lot like my aunt.
They want to help, and when given the chance to, they often will. But there’s a limit to their generosity, a limit to how much they’re willing to give...and take.
I think we’ll see that soon with the facemasks and the lockdowns and all the rest of it.
Montanans were happy to shut down for two weeks, and we even went along with the extensions that turned into months.
We’re happy to go along with the facemask order, and many of us were doing so even before it became an order.
But how long are we going to keep doing it? How long are we going to let our government tell us what to do?
It should be the other way around.
But again...how long do I think we’ll have to wear these masks?
Until January 4, 2021.
171 days from now.
That’ll be Governor Gianforte’s first day on the job, and I’m sure he’ll either lift the statewide mask mandate at that point, or at the very least, kick it down to the counties for them to decide for themselves.
I hope it’s the former, as if the counties get to decide, I know Missoula will keep it in effect probably into the summer of 2021 and maybe beyond, all to spite both Gianforte and Trump for winning.
The virus is never going to go away, and I don’t think we’ll ever get a vaccine. Even if we do get one, a huge portion of Americans will never take it.
So for the next few years - at least - we’ll have coastal blue states like California mandate masks and business shutdowns, while further inland, red states like South Dakota will require neither.
And school shutdowns? Most of California will close schools for the first half of the 2020-21 school year, and they’ll probably keep them closed through next summer. After a year and a half of being shutdown, it’s going to be hard for those schools to reopen for the fall of 2021.
Most of those teachers will have become quite accustomed to sitting at home, doing relatively little work, but getting full salary and benefits.
Montana schools will push for the same deal, and chances are good they’ll get it. I sure hope not. I feel for the parents in California, parents that were clinging to the hope that their kids could go back to school next month, lending some kind of sense of normalcy back to everyone’s life.
Now those hopes are shattered.
If I was living in California, I’d be looking at South Dakota and thinking it looks pretty good. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people are currently moving around the country, getting away from lockdowns and facemask orders.
I was listening to Aaron Flint on the radio this morning, and that’s where I heard this tidbit, which I researched and found was true.
We have a monumental problem with fake news.
Take Texas. I bet you’ve heard from the corporate, drug-dealing media that Texas ICU beds are full.
That’s a lie.
Just 19% of Texas’ ICU beds are occupied by Covid patients.
How about Florida? Boy, the corporate media wants you to believe that state is heading for total ruin.
That’s simply not true. The vast majority of Florida hospitals have 25% to 50% of their ICU beds empty and available.
But that kind of truth doesn’t fit the narrative.
Use your head, folks - the media is lying to you.
Why would they do this?
Well, first of all they don’t care about you and never did. To them, all you are is somebody they can sell prescription drugs to...drugs that will make you less healthy than you already are (their product kills 100,000 Americans a year).
Bet you didn’t hear that in the corporate media.
Know why? It’s not profitable for them to tell you the truth.
I’m so sorry that we have a small group of rich, well-off Americans that want to ruin this country.
They hate Trump, mostly because it’s costing them money. These are the leeches that feed off your tax dollars, enriching themselves.
They hate Trump because he revealed their swamp.
They tried everything to get rid of him, but instead of ruining his chances, it appears he’s going to head to a landslide victory.
Trump should have lost this year. He’s awfully weak in so many ways. But the Dems just had to put up Dementia Joe, someone that doesn’t have a chance of winning.
Why would Dems do this? Because losing is better than exposing the truth - most Dems want Bernie, but Bernie won’t benefit the brass of the Dem Party.
How could Dems keep enriching themselves if Bernie is in power? They couldn’t. For most Dems, Bernie is worse than Trump.
Trump never would have been elected if Dems wouldn’t have railroaded Bernie in ‘16, but they did. And then they turn around and blame Trump for their problems, when they created all these problems via their electoral shenanigans.