Thanks for your concern. No, I don’t have the Coronavirus and am not in the hospital on a ventilator. I’ve been off grid camping and so haven’t had a way to communicate. It was wonderful — no cell phone, no internet, no television, no Trump news. Just a beautiful clear blue sky, green vegetation, and quality time with the missus, daughter, son-in-law, and grand dog Charlie — eating, drinking, walking Charlie, hiking, playing games and cards, drinking, walking Charlie, reading, restful sleep in the mountain air, walking Charlie, and driving son-in-law crazy giving Charlie an abundance of dog treats from my front left pants pocket every day. I’m a grandpa, I get to do that. We did a beautiful hike on Tuesday to Falls Creek Falls, a three tiered series of falls that has a total height of 335 feet. You also get to cross two suspension bridges over the creek on your way up to the falls. What I found encouraging and appreciated was almost everyone on the trail masked up when approaching other hikers. The one’s who were not wearing a mask didn’t act like an a-hole and flaunt their political stance, like those maskless jerks I have seen in grocery stores and other places. This hike is well worth your time if you are in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and want a 3 mile hike for some exercise and a gorgeous set of falls for your viewing pleasure. Now this was on a Tuesday, so we thought maybe we would see three or four cars at the trailhead. Wrong. There must have been thirty cars in the parking area, with over half the cars one particular make. Guess what make. Yep, Subaru. It is the car for outdoorsy folks. Anyhoo, back home, back to projects, and back to the reality of our current health and political situation.

I was so glad to hear when we got home that Kamala Harris is Biden’s choice for VP. She is the person I was hoping would be Joe’s running mate, not that other’s weren’t qualified, but I like her toughness, her intellect, her experience, and the fact that I don’t think she will be a “yes sir ass kisser,” like our current VP. The GOP was planning on Susan Rice as the VP choice and was salivating as they planned their attack. It looks like they didn’t expect Harris, but are now beginning their attacks of her with some of the same birther BS they did with President Obama, saying she’s not an American citizen, even questioning her being black. Comrades, this just the beginning. It’s gonna get ugly.

Ramble at ya later. Have a great evening. Ziggyman

Had a dental appointment down in Portland today and then got home to finish chopping and stacking the firewood to get it covered before the forecasted rain for tomorrow. Have all the firewood chopped, stacked and covered. Didn’t give me time to write, so I will just post some photos I just took after dinner while sipping on a Chardonnay. It’s too bad I don’t have time to write because the “Stable Genius” has offered much to ramble about over the past couple of days. Getting pretty scary, isn’t it? Anyhooo, have a great evening and stay safe. I was very impressed with my dentist office protocols today — felt they have it under control, just like Skyway Bar and Grill. Keep smilin’.

I can’t leave without a small comment on our leader’s assessment of the current pandemic situation we are experiencing. Is it just me or this guy a frigging moron?

Night Night!! Ziggyman

Yeah, I know, my posts have been in absentia for a few days, but here I am again. I don’t know if the break was because I have been busy working on outdoor projects and didn’t have time to write or I was just getting tired of the same topics day after day — tRump, the virus, and protests in Portland. It was nice having a little break from that schtuff and there are other important topics that need consideration, so I will try to broaden my ramblings to other topics such as the economy, the reopening of schools, the US Postal Service, Food, and sex with alien demons. I think I will start with our stalled economy and the lack of a bipartisan urgency to get the economy out of our current situation. The Democrats blame the Republicans for not acting and compromising, and, of course, the Republicans blame the Democrats, so nothing is getting done. What we have is a lack of trust by members on each side of the aisle, and without some sort of trust you will not get to a point of compromise in the negotiation process. I was heavily involved in collective bargaining negotiations for years and saw firsthand the importance of trusting the members of the team across the table from me as we each presented our priorities and what we could accept and what we could not accept. Unfortunately, right now Congress is being strictly partisan, and as a result, there is no deal being reached to help get the economy moving again. The $600 per week emergency unemployment benefit expired last week and each side is blaming the other for allowing those payments to expire. Those were payments that the unemployed worker was putting back into the economy in the way of groceries, rents, gasoline, etc. With businesses sending their employees home, shops and restaurants shutting down, jobs being lost, consumer spending declined at an annual rate of 34.6% in the second quarter, the biggest decline on record. Trump and his followers think that reopening businesses and getting kids back in school is the answer to healing the economy.

It looks like there will be a second round of stimulus checks going out, as each side seems to be in favor of getting some relief into the hands of Americans who qualify, which should help increase spending and give a boost to the economy. A flaw in the bill, however, is that qualifications for receiving the stimulus is based on the Adjusted Gross Income for 2019. The stimulus is supposed to be for the current situation in which folks don’t have the same income they had previously. For a number of reasons, I believe there are many citizens who don’t qualify because of their AGI last year, but whose income this year will be below the threshold for qualifying. These could be married couples whose combined income last year was above $199,000, but this year because of job loss, business cutbacks and salary reductions, their income will be reduced and be in the qualifying range, but because the bill bases it on 2019 taxes, they will not get the stimulus check. Retired couples who have a portion of their income from stock dividends could see a reduction in their Adjusted Gross Income if their investments are in companies who have cut their dividends or reduced the dividend amount. Even though their current income will be in the qualifying range, they don’t qualify because of last year’s tax figures. I have written my congressmen regarding this flaw, but they don’t seem to get it. Surprising, huh?

You wonder how the United States Postal Service could be involved in the November election? Politics. We have a new Postmaster General who has given Trump a boatload of money over the years and is now in a position as the PG to do Trump’s bidding by making changes to the system. The changes being made mean some mail could arrive later than expected, and some could simply fall through the cracks. The New York Times reports that it’s already happening, with “reports of letters and packages being delayed by as many as several days.” Election officials are worried that slower mail service will mean ballots are not delivered in a timely manner or not delivered at all. It looks like there has been a concerted effort by the Trump administration to weaken the USPS as Trump has been critical of mail in ballots, thinking vote by mail would hurt his reelection chance. Republicans have historically been in favor of mail in voting because it makes it easy for senior citizens to vote, and they tend to vote Republican. Now they are afraid that mail in voting will lead to more Democrats voting by mail because of the fear of the coronavirus at polling places. More to come on this as Trump is ramping up his efforts to stop mail in voting.

Gotta get goin’, we’ll get to the alien demons tomorrow. Ziggyman

Hopefully we will see less violent protesting in PDX now that the Federal agents are leaving town after negotiations between the Trump administration and Governor Brown. How we got to this point is interesting depending on who is doing the talking. Nik Blosser, the Gov’s chief of staff says that the Feds were clearly looking for a way out, while Chad Wolf, the interim head of Homeland Security says that the Governor finally reached out to them. Other accounts have the nightly tear gassing of the Wall of Moms and munitions from the Feds being shot at people who are not acting violently whatsoever splattered across the national news as reasons that Trump and his crew wanted to get out of town. Now that the State Police have the task of guarding the federal courthouse and the federal agents are gone, the extremist actions better be gone also. The cause for the increased violent protesting directed at the federal officers and the courthouse was supposedly as a result of the federal agents being brought into PDX. If these nightly actions continue, then it’s going to be a win for Trump as he will be tweeting “See I told you that these were anarchists, radical crazy people. My Secret Police Force wasn’t the cause of all the destruction in that libtard city.” Anyhooo, it’s a good thing that they are gone.

And now we have a fight between the Wall of Moms founder and the Black-led community group Don’t Shoot Portland. “The lies are finally clear and we are sad but ultimately not surprised that anti-Blackness showed its ugly head,” read a post published yesterday by Don’t Shoot Portland. This came about after Wall of Moms founder Bev Barnum allegedly filed for business registrations without consulting the Black leaders who recently joined the Wall of Moms group. The Wall of Moms answered a commenter’s question on their official Twitter account saying, “The founder went rogue. Many of us do not agree with her decisions. And she does not currently have access to this account.” I hope they settle their disagreements peacefully.

It was nice that former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama attended and spoke at the funeral of Rep. John Lewis today. 95 year old former president Jimmy Carter sent a statement that was read at the service. Notice anything missing here? Yep, tRump was MIA, just like he didn’t attend the funeral of Rep. Elijah Cummings last October. Kind of sends a message doesn’t it? I bet he will attend Herman Cain’s service, however, since Cain probably contracted the virus at Trump’s Tulsa rally and was a strong supporter of this president. Oh, and President Obama got a standing ovation at the conclusion of his eulogy. I’m sure that really pissed ‘you know who’ off.

The trend line is going in the wrong direction, friends. Don’t get complacent. Wear your mask, wash your hands, and don’t have sex with alien demons. You just don’t know what’s in their DNA and it’s probably not good. Ziggyman

I’m backkkkkk! Took a few days off from ramblin’, but it’s too hot to work outside this afternoon, so I’ll take a nice, cool break and write a few thoughts. I’ll start off with what is happening in Portland, which seems to be the talk across the country. I think we are on day 62 of the protests in PDX and my feeling right now is “enough is enough.” What started out as peaceful demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd and the cause for “Black Lives Matter,” has morphed to rioting and destruction of property that is playing right into Trump’s hands. The videos that people across the country are seeing in the media are not the peaceful protestors, but the people that are in it “for the party,” as they tear down fences, set fires, throw molotov cocktails, shine laser lights in the eyes of the police, and so on. This is not going to end well, I’m afraid. It seems that two weeks ago things started simmering down and it looked like it might move to the next phase of leaders of local government and leaders of the movement sitting down to talk about reform across the table from each other. Trump and Barr, however, wanted to have a showcase for “law and order,” so in came the “Secret Police” and their paramilitary tactics, which caused the more extremist folks to ramp up their tactics, resulting in violent and destructive actions that Trump couldn’t be happier to tweet about. The people we see on television who come out after midnight and start the violent and destructive behavior probably don’t understand how their actions are helping Trump. They have created a campaign platform that he didn’t have before. As Senator Nadler said this morning to Barr, “The president has made clear that he wants conflict between protesters and police as a central theme of his campaign.” The longer this goes on in Portland, more and more people are going to get tired of the violence, disorder and chaos, and will begin to side with the guy who is going to bring law and order to the streets of cities across the nation. I believe the majority of people who have been downtown for 62 days are nonviolent and have carried their message in an appropriate manner, but now need to try to move their efforts to the conference room and sit across the table from government and police leaders to begin the next phase. Leave the few Antifa’s and “party participants” for the Fed’s to deal with. Let’s not give Trump any more campaign ammunition.

OMG, it looks like tRump has found himself a new coronavirus doctor in Dr. Stella Immanuel from Houston, Texas. She is a hydroxychloroquine advocate, says you don’t need to wear a mask to prevent the spread of the virus, claims that certain medical issues like endometriosis, cysts, infertility and impotence are the result of sex with “spirit husbands” and “spirit wives,” which Immanuel described as having sex in dreams with witches and demons, and is a minister with Fire Power Ministries. Donnie Jr. got booted from Twitter for 12 hours this morning after posting a video of her misinformation. Daddy Trump thinks this doctor’s statements were “spectacular.” Wow.

Stay cool, wear your mask, and wash your hands frequently. Have a great evening.

While tRump hides behind the walls in the White House watching his “goon squad” in Portland on cable television guarded by his Secret Service, knowing he can make a mad dash to the basement if need be, we see a young lady facing off against the “goon squad” in a “c’mon you f****ers, I dare you,” pose. We don’t know her name, but she has now become known as “Naked Athena, goddess of war” in posts across America. Bare ass naked except for a beanie and face mask, she sits on the pavement across from the armed paramilitary sent by the “President-who-would-be-King.” Down the street from “Athena” are the “Wall of Moms” forming an arm-in-arm chain link like fence separating and trying to protect the protestors from the Federales. These women ain’t hidin’ in the basement afraid, but are symbols of what the right to peacefully protest should be all about in this country. They have shown more toughness over the past few days than tRump has in a lifetime. It sounds like Chicago and Albuquerque will be next to experience this tyrannical experiment in how far presidential power can be expanded. Look out America, your city could be next.

“Person, woman, man, camera, TV.” Whew, I feel relieved now knowing that our leader is a “stable genius,” just like he has been telling us all along. In a test designed to measure whether a person is experiencing dementia or cognitive decline, the wizard thinks he aced an IQ test and is pretty damn proud of it. I saw excerpts of the interview he did with Chris Wallace on Fox this week and what a comedy that was. During the interview Wallace said that he, too, had taken it, and “it’s not the hardest test” — one question involved correctly identifying a picture of an elephant. Trump sputtered that the final few questions were much more challenging.

Been going back and forth writing over the past three hours between phone calls, preparing dinner, and eating dinner. Done with dinner. Done with writing. I’m going to go out back and grill some peaches to have with some sparkling wine and enjoy the rest of the evening. I hope you do as well. Keep smilin’ and stay safe and healthy! Ziggyman

“This is what dictators do,” tweeted Representative Joaquinn Castro, referring to Trump’s Secret Police and their actions in Portland over the past few days. It appears that this administration is testing the waters to see just much they can get away with in their attempt to make the United States a full-fledged authoritarian government. What’s happening in Portland between the peaceful demonstrators and the federal police is similar to what you have seen throughout history from fascist countries. There have been at least four incidents in PDX that have shown the objective of the fed’s is not just to protect the federal courthouse property from the “thugs” and “domestic terrorists,” but to show those on the far-right that this “law and order” administration is not going to support first amendment rights of peaceful protest. The first was the guy standing across from the courthouse holding a boom box over his head yelling at the camouflaged paramilitary Secret Police and then getting shot in the face by a rubber munition, fracturing his skull. The videos of that incident clearly show him not throwing objects or demonstrating violently. The second incident, which has occurred for three nights is a group of mom’s, some of whom are pregnant, standing arm-in-arm with their backs to the courthouse, again not exhibiting any violent or criminal acts. Each night they have been tear gassed. The third example is of people being pulled off the street without probable cause, pulled into unmarked vans by these Secret Police, handcuffed and taken to a holding cell to be interrogated, and then released without explanation. Finally, on Sunday a Navy vet standing in the middle of the street facing the federales, gets pummelled by them with their batons and then tear gassed resulting in what he said was “a bunch of bruises and a broken hand and fingers that will need surgery.” Do these actions sound like something that would happen in a free, democratic society? Get ready, he’ll probably start trying to get the pentagon to have a military parade for him on Labor Day, just like his dictatorial heroes get to have.

Today we learn from the president that the coronavirus pandemic in the United States will probably “get worse before it gets better.”  Yesterday he even acknowledged that masks were a good thing and showed patriotism if you wore one. Wow, why the change of heart? I think his advisors have probably got him to realize that his approval rating in dealing with the corona virus is dismal and the poll numbers are getting worse each day for the upcoming election, and thus, a revision in his rhetoric and an effort to improve his ratings by showing some sort of leadership. Yesterday we had over 1,000 COVID deaths in the US, but he still says this administration is doing a fabulous job and today says “I don’t think any president, any administration has accomplished so much.” Your right, no other president or administration has accomplished the deaths of over 141,000 Americans and now the White House projects that more than 220,000 Americans could die of the virus by November 1st. Good job, Donnie!

Good to be ramblin’ at ya.’ Have a great evening! Ziggyman

Holy S**t!!! What country do we live in? There certainly isn’t anything “united” about the United States of America, and it’s getting worse every day. Now we have King tRump’s ‘Federales Secret Militarized Police’ in camo uniforms driving around in unmarked rented minivans snatching people off the streets without any probable cause, taking them to a holding cell in the federal courthouse, and then releasing them hours later with no charges and no written record of what and why. This is something that you might see in a country like Russia or North Korea or Saudi Arabia, but in America? Ooops, I forgot that “the little man who thinks he’s big” wants to be just like his authoritarian heroes. This action is egregious, unconstitutional and, in my opinion, being done strictly as a political stunt by “Mr. Law and Order Tough Guy” for his like-minded base, and to see just how far he can push the limits of executive power. American citizens being intimidated and unlawfully detained by an administration and a president that does nothing about Russia paying bounties on American troops, but will strongly defend a can of Goya beans. This is pathetic.

And yesterday, a day that saw a record 72,045 new cases of the coronavirus in the United States, we learn that the tRump administration has a new trick up their sleeve. They quietly, in the dark of night, moved the reporting of Covid-19 related data by hospitals from the CDC to the Department of Health and Human Services. Poll after poll is showing that Americans across the country are not happy with the way this administration has handled the virus, so first they said “let’s do less testing,” and now it appears that they want to take control of the data so they can tweak it as they see fit. It could also be one more attempt to undermine the CDC and Dr. Fauci, as that seems to be the latest opposition campaign by these tools. This move has caused concern from many groups who have come to rely on the data for developing strategies and for reporting reliable information to the public. What will the administration do next? Perhaps they will try to kick CNN and MSNBC off the air and make FOX News the government-backed media outlet. Gawd, I’m starting to sound like one of them thar conspiracy theorists.

Yesterday while I was outside putting new sealer on the deck, the missus was in the kitchen making raspberry jam. Had some on my toast this morning and it was delicious.

Time to go pour myself a drink and prepare for the weekend. I’m starting to think that I have the answer for preventing coronavirus — a glass or three of gin each night. I haven’t got the virus and I drink gin, therefore it must be the gin. And I’ll bet gin tastes much better than hydroxychloroquine. Stay safe, stay healthy, wash your hands frequently, and wear your mask. Have a great weekend!! Ziggyman

It was weird having ‘Tax Day’ come up on my Google notifications for today, but it’s just been one weird year hasn’t it? There were two news reports this morning that struck me as karma. The first was the governor of Oklahoma testing positive for the coronavirus. What I find interesting about this is he had one of the most aggressive reopening plans out of all the states, and like tRump, rarely wears a mask in public. He also attended Donald’s embarrassing rally in Tulsa a few weeks ago, which their county health director said likely contributed to a surge in cases in the region. Even after getting the virus, the ‘gov’ has no plans to require masks be worn in public. Oklahoma had a record setting number 993 new cases yesterday, but he is probably a follower of Chuck Woolery, the ex Love Connection host. Do you remember the retweet Trump posted a couple of days ago from Dr. Chuck? If not, here it is:

Well, Woolery a couple of days later tweeted that his son tested positive for the virus and went on to say that he never said the coronavirus wasn’t real, so what was he meaning when he posts “the most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19,” and “Everyone is lying?” It appears to me that he is just like tRump and his allies who make a stupid statement or provide bad information and then come back a couple of days later with “that’s not what I said.” Twitter must not have believed his backtrack because I just went on Woolery’s feed and see that Twitter suspended his account two hours ago for presumably sharing false information about Covid 19. Don’t be like Chuck. And don’t be like this guy. A former mountain resident who moved over to Central Oregon who thinks tRump is the greatest thing since sliced bread and seems to be on some sort of “wear no mask” campaign. A post of his today.

And how about Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, writing an op-ed in USA Today yesterday claiming that Dr. Fauci has been “wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.” Not a smooth move, Peter. Dr. Fauci’s public approval rating is more than double that of Peter’s Master and even Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell don’t agree with his assessment. These attempt’s by the anti-science White House to discredit Fauci is strictly a political move to take heat off the president for his dismal leadership related to the virus and in my opinion will backfire on them bigly.

Ivanka has done it again. It looks like she just violated another ethics rule by endorsing Goya beans. My guess is that she has never eaten Goya black beans, but since the Goya CEO sucked up to her daddy last week, which caused a boycott of Goya products campaign, she is going to show support for the CEO and hold that can of beans like a trophy. Her tweet:

Here’s what she should have tweeted,

Enough for today. Ramble at ya tomorrow. Ziggyman

I start today’s post with an Arts and Entertainment recommendation. Last week my friend, RT, messaged me and said to get the new Bob Dylan album “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” so I did just that and man was he right on. The album debuted at number two on the US Billboard charts, setting a new record for Bob. He now becomes the only artist to have achieved a top 40 album in the United States in every decade since the 1960’s. I kind of lost it with Dylan over the last 20 years or so, as I didn’t think his later albums compared at all to the ones he produced in “the good old days.” This album has brought him back to me. Don’t just trust RT and me on this one, read this review from Rolling Stone, “at 79 he’s still channeling cosmic American mysteries like no one else in music.”

Okay, so last week I mentioned that I was so lucky to be retired and not having to deal with the logistics of getting schools reopened this fall. Now I’m thinking about how lucky I am that I don’t have a school age child and have to make a decision about sending her or him to school in September to meet the expectations of Betsy and Donnie of showing that everything is just hunky dory. Today I saw a post from a retired teacher with lots of questions that I won’t take credit for because she put a lot of thought into this before I even started thinking about it. So here goes,

• If a teacher tests positive for COVID-19 are they required to quarantine for 2-3 weeks?
• If that teacher has 5 classes a day with 30 students each, do all 150 of those students need to then stay home and quarantine for 14 days?
• Do all 150 of those students now have to get tested? Who pays for those tests? Are they happening at school? How are the parents being notified? Does everyone in each of those kids’ families need to get tested? Who pays for that?
• What if someone who lives in the same house as a teacher tests positive? Does that teacher now need to take 14 days off of work to quarantine?
• Where is the district going to find a substitute teacher who will work in a classroom full of exposed, possibly infected students for substitute pay?
• Substitutes teach in multiple schools. What if they are diagnosed with COVID-19? Do all the kids in each school now have to quarantine and get tested? Who is going to pay for that?
• What if a student in your kid’s class tests positive? What if your kid tests positive? Does every other student and teacher they have been around quarantine? Do we all get notified who is infected and when? Or because of HIPAA regulations are parents and teachers just going to get mysterious “may have been in contact” emails all year long?

Hey, Betsy Devos, can you please give us some answers? Yes, I know you’re about as smart as a sack of cement, so I’m not expecting a cogent response to these questions. You showed us what a tool you are yesterday on the Sunday morning telecasts. It looks to me like she’s puttin’ on the same makeup that Donnie boy uses.

Just another day of “same shit, different day” so keep on smilin’ and stay safe and healthy! Ziggyman