This is our system, capitalism.
Governors are bitching that they don’t have supplies. The feds seem to have supplies still. These will run out, and then governor’s are at the mercy of the market and bidding wars.
This is how we want it. This is the system we set up years and years ago when we shipped all our jobs to China. Steve Daines was critical in making that happen.
States will usually complain when they have a problem. It’s a lot easier to complain when you’re caught with your pants down than to admit you never planned properly in the first place.
Trust me - we’ll see tons of bills in legislatures across the land this year, bills to increase those states’ stockpiles.
Should have been done years ago, but states like to do two things depending on who’s in power: give most of the tax revenue back to rich people in the form of tax cuts, typically capital gains...or give most of the tax revenue to poor people in the form of DPHHS payments.
Montana had a $210 million budget surplus at the end of our last session. So we have the money to increase our stockpile right now.
Are we doing that? No, of course not. If we did that, how could Bullock blame his problems on Trump?
Remember, this is an election year, and Bullock has already shot himself in the foot a couple times by closing the state, keeping it closed, and then hinting that he’ll extend that closure this week.
We’ve had six deaths in this state, or 0.00006% of the population.
He’s destroyed countless businesses and ruined countless lives because six people have died. He actually thinks he can win an election this year with that kind of track record. Daines and his countless out-of-state millions and PAC warchest will steamroll him.
It’s common knowledge that the Montana GOP is going to steamroll the Montana Democrats this fall.
This will be quite clear to us when the primary is done, as it is every year.
It’s the turnout.
More GOP voters show up to the polls than Dem voters.
Ventilators is a terrible story. If you get on one of those things, chances are good you’re going to die. In fact, just 15% of people that go on one ever get off it.
Here’s how a doctor in Missoula put it today:
“Recent communication with front-line physicians in New Orleans suggests that most coronavirus patients on ventilators don’t survive to leave the hospital. More ventilators won’t stop this epidemic. Neither will a vaccine — which is likely a year away — or hydroxychloroquine, or other exercises in magical thinking.”
And yet we have this narrative in the media that these ventilators are critical. Yeah...critical to die. When you get to this point, you’re done.
We can blame these deaths on the people that are dying. They had poor health. Many times, this was years of poor living. As usual, we have no one to blame for our problems but ourselves.
I suspect many of the younger people in their 30s that are dying were vaping. Remember the stories on lungs getting destroyed by vape pens last year?
No one made you smoke. No one made you eat that fat. No one made you sit your fat ass down in front of that TV each and every night for years, exercise not included.
But let’s blame Trump. Easier than looking in the mirror.
Why do we need to flatten the curve? Because our healthcare system in broken and has been that way for decades.
Flattening the curve isn’t about preventing more people from getting the virus, it’s about spreading those infections out so the hospitals can handle it.
In other words, we know that this isn’t going to prevent the spread; it’s just going to put it off for a bit, kick the can down the road.
Instead of everyone getting sick now, they’ll just get sick in a month or two, or maybe this fall.
All we’re trying to do is keep our shoddy system shoddy instead of trying to fix it. Fixing it would decrease the annunal bonuses the CEOs get. I think one of the best ways to ensure we fix it is to watch it get overwhelmed and collapse.
It’s the only way we do things in America...when we have to.
To make things worse, it appears that immunity cards are coming to various countries around the world. These cards allow you to leave your home and go to work.
Papers, please?
Economies all over the world have been destroyed. Now the lawsuits are starting.
Australia is suing Carnival Cruise Lines. A ship from that company docked in Sydney with 600 infected passengers, and they were let off the ship before anyone knew how many were infected.
This makes up 10% of all the cases in Australia.
Here in Missoula, we’re opening the jails to let the criminals out.
Meanwhile, a local car dealership business owner is being threatened with $500 in fines because he had the audacity to put balloons out to let people know he was open.
The idea of letting criminals out of jail is very popular with the bleeding-hearts crowd at the moment. Destroying local businesses is also popular with them.
Two weeks ago, two detention officers at the Yellowstone County Jail in Billings got the virus. Then the jail decided they had to let people out. They had 500 inmates and now they have 383.
By Wednesday last week, the jail had 12 cases of the virus.
Here’s how the jail explains the process:
“Inmates will be placed in some sort of monitoring program and given a notice to appear in court at a later date, he said.
However there is one primary concern when it comes to releasing inmates: they may be arrested again once they're out, according to Linder.
“Our main concern is the possibility of having a release, rearrested and brought back, possibly being a carrier of the virus. However, we will continue to screen everyone brought in to the facility,” he said.”
I went ahead and looked at the Yellowstone County jail roster. A bunch of people were arrested this weekend for partner or family member assault, mostly strangulation. I suspect this was stress caused by job layoffs.
Sadly, many of those that were released from the jail over the virus scare have now been rearrested and put back into that jail.
At the same time we’re letting these criminals out, we’re threatening otherwise law-abiding citizens with 90 days in jail if they walk around in Billings with more than a couple people.
We took the First Amendment and ripped it to shreds.
No one noticed; no one cared.
Stocks rallied today and gold shot up in price. The oil war looks like it might be ending.
Here in America, the virus’ peak has been downgraded from April 26 to April 15. It’s clear that cases in Italy and Spain are going down. It appears that New York is going to get things under control sooner rather than later. In Washington State, they’re so over the virus that they’re giving their ventilators to other states.
The storm is passing...though it was never really a storm in the first place.
Mostly, it was a bunch of insecure people running around acting like the world is going to end.
For many of them, it is. Most had no savings, tons of debt, bad health, and a reliance more on the government than themselves.
People expected to die because they weren’t really living. They certainly weren’t free. Most of these folks are slaves to debt and their own out-of-shape bodies. Most couldn’t quit the jobs they have and hate because they have no savings, have nothing else.
Americans are incredibly weak, have been for decades, and this crisis only made it glaringly and painfully obvious.
Sadly, when this crisis passes in a couple weeks, Americans will go back to living the way they always have.
There will be no attempts to get out of debt and grow savings; no attempts to get in shape and improve our health.
We’re lazy. We’re fat. We’re stupid.
We have a very good chance right now to change this, but we won’t.
