So, I had an idea to write this, as the trials are ongoing and the dumb fucks are being sentenced and locked up (some of the very same people who shouted “lock her up!” at Trump rallies are now sitting behind bars — irony can be beautiful). I know it’s out of season, but it needed to be created so I’ll be able to post it on January 6th, Dumb Fucks Day, next year, and every year after.
Be wary, be wary
On sixth January
Of gallows, sedition, and riot
There is no reason
This seditious treason
Should ever be kept quiet
Dumb fucks, dumb fucks
'Twas their intent
To take over congress
And kill old Pence
Violent throes
With MAGA foes
And poor old Biden
To overthrow
By our vigilance
They were stopped
With a coerced Tweet
From the orange hair mop
Proud boys, proud boys let the cells clang shut
Proud boys, proud boys those people are nuts.
As of the moment I am writing this sentence, 75,991 Americans have officially died from COVID-19, directly. By the time I publish this, hundreds more will be dead. As of now 1.28 million Americans have been confirmed to have the disease.
There is a lot of disagreement surrounding these numbers, and there should be. No matter how you slice it, these numbers are complete bullshit. They’re 100% bogus. The reason they are bogus is one of the same reasons they are so high. We don’t have adequate testing and contact tracing in place. Those numbers only include people who have been lab-confirmed tested positive for COVID-19 and deaths that doctors deem were probable COVID-19 deaths, but didn’t have testing available to confirm.
I personally believe that the numbers are vastly under reported. I’ve read a lot of stuff from people who believe the numbers are being artificially inflated. First, I want to get into why I believe far more people are dying from COVID-19 than are being reported. Then, I’ll look at each reason I’ve heard for over reporting and see if they have any meat on their bones to pick at.
Most importantly, hardly anyone has been tested. America has tested roughly one percent of its population. Within that one percent, we have a 20% positivity rate, one in five people tested has shown positive. But they’re only testing people who present with severe symptoms and people who are exposed or at-risk, like health care workers or rich people.
But we’ve also been told that a lot of people who get it have mild to no symptoms. So it’s hard to say whether that 20% positivity rate would hold steady on a random test of the population. To know that, we’d actually need random tests of the general population.
For just a second, let’s assume that the one in five positivity rate is accurate. The current population of the United States is just over 331 million people. Twenty percent of 331 million is 66.2 million. That’s a lot bigger number than 1.28 million. But, of course, that’s just a possibility. That’s reasonably the high-end possibility at this point. There’s no reason to believe the number is quite that high until we see data. At the same time, until we have data, there’s no reason to believe it’s not that high. The only thing we know for sure right now is that we don’t know.
The fact that our numbers have plateaued for now doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t mean that the virus has slowed its spread. Because the number of tests per day have not increased. We’re testing roughly 150,000 people per day, consistently. The number of tests per day have plateaued, and the number of new confirmed cases per day have plateaued. Which tells us one thing, only. We’re still testing at about a 20% positivity rate.
So, if we are at 66 million infected and only 75,991 people have died, that’s a pretty decent mortality rate, right? That’s .11% mortality. That’s not bad. That’s comparable to the flu in an average year. Except it’s far more than 75,991 dead. Remember, the only people counted as COVID-19 deaths are confirmed cases and suspected cases, which are going to be the common symptoms we all know about.
But COVID kills in other ways. People with mild symptoms are dying from COVID related blood clots. Some people aren’t going to the hospital at all. They aren’t reporting their symptoms, they are dying at home. This is reflected in the excess mortality that began to spike as soon as COVID-19 hit our shores. These are COVID deaths, but aren’t being added to the official count.
Excess mortality is an increase in the overall number of deaths from all causes. Starting in March and continuing to skyrocket, the number of deaths over and above what is expected in an average year is increasing daily. We know that traffic accidents are down due to greatly reduced travel. A lot of people aren’t out and about getting themselves killed in various ways, so we should se some balance to the extra deaths from COVID. But we don’t. Instead we see an alarming number of extra dead people, over and above the official lab-confirmed COVID death count.
We know that heart attack deaths are up because people ignore their symptoms, terrified to go to the hospital. Heart attack deaths may also be up due to blood clots formed during a COVID-19 infection. COVID-19 is a clotting disorder as well as a respiratory disorder, evidence shows. They’ve been treating people with blood thinners with positive results. But these heart attack deaths won’t be counted as COVID-19 deaths. These stroke deaths won’t be counted as COVID-19 deaths. Because they won’t have a post-mortem test for the disease, and without that, it would be impossible to know if that condition was a COVID-19 death, or from other causes.
Domestic violence deaths are likely up right now. That’s a guess, on my part, but it only makes sense. Suicides are going to be up. You just have to think about the way the world is operating now vs the way we were a few months ago to start to pinpoint that types of deaths should be going up and which type should be going down.
But in the end, at any rate, one would think it would be pretty much a wash, and we’d see a small spike in excess deaths from this pesky new Coronavirus. But that’s not what we see. We see a huge spike in excess mortality. What is causing all that extra death, if not COVID-19?
Alright, so, we’ve got the constantly climbing excess mortality, a one percent test rate, and only counting positive tests as COVID-19 deaths. That’s what tells me the COVID deaths are being under reported. Now let’s look at some theories I’ve seen floated about why the count is being over reported.
Some people are claiming that flu deaths are down this year, and that’s because deaths that should be reported as flu deaths are actually being reported as COVID-19 deaths. But, if the flu numbers this year are lower than the numbers projected earlier this flu season, there’s actually a pretty good explanation for why that is. Because lower flu numbers this year should be expected. The flu season wasn’t over when a good portion of the world began to self-quarantine. Although the self-quarantine was intended to slow the spread of COVID-19, which it did, it also slowed the spread of influenza, which is far less contagious than COVID-19. The self-quarantine should have drastically lowered instances of flu-related death, and the numbers are, understandably, reflecting that.
However, I’m not sure the final tally for this flu season is official just yet. And the decrease in cases later in the flu season may be offset by the increased testing for influenza that started when COVID hit. Since they didn’t have COVID tests, they increased testing for influenza. If you had flu-like symptoms but tested negative for flu, then you’d get a COVID test, if available in your area. Testing available at participating hospitals, restrictions may apply.
Some people say that if you have a heart condition and you die, they will posthumously test you, and if you have COVID-19, that will be counted as a COVID death. Well, no. That’s not happening. I don’t even need to research that. Just think about it. You would need the cooperation of morticians across the country. A whole lot of them would be speaking out if that were happening. If we were testing all those dead bodies when we don’t even have enough testing supplies to increase the testing on our living population to an acceptable level.
So, no, they aren’t testing most people posthumously and adding them to the count. But for certain conditions, I think they should. COVID kills people with comorbidities at an elevated rate. COVID causes blood clots, which, in turn, lead to heart attacks and strokes. So, there’s a good chance that the person with the heart condition would have gone on living many more good years managing their condition had they not been struck with COVID. That is a COVID death, and they are not being counted.
And now Trump has latched onto another popular conspiracy theory, that hospitals are over-reporting COVID deaths to increase their funding, basically, accusing them of exploiting the CARE act. Again, for this to happen on a wide enough scale for it to affect the numbers, it would involve so very many people. Doctors, nurses, hospital administration. So many whistles would be blown internally at hospitals all across the country if this were happening.
So, it might look like I’ve just glossed over these theories and dismissed them out of hand with no research. That’s kind of true. But that’s because there is nothing to research. These are wild claims with no evidence to support them. To argue against something, I need something to argue against. I need some evidence to try to disprove. It’s just people alleging things may be happening with no evidence that anything they are saying is true.
As of the moment I am writing this sentence, 75,991 Americans have officially died from COVID-19, directly. By the time I publish this, hundreds more will be dead. As of now 1.28 million Americans have been confirmed to have the disease.
There is a lot of disagreement surrounding these numbers, and there should be. No matter how you slice it, these numbers are complete bullshit. They’re 100% bogus. The reason they are bogus is one of the same reasons they are so high. We don’t have adequate testing and contact tracing in place. Those numbers only include people who have been lab-confirmed tested positive for COVID-19 and deaths that doctors deem were probable COVID-19 deaths, but didn’t have testing available to confirm.
I personally believe that the numbers are vastly under reported. I’ve read a lot of stuff from people who believe the numbers are being artificially inflated. First, I want to get into why I believe far more people are dying from COVID-19 than are being reported. Then, I’ll look at each reason I’ve heard for over reporting and see if they have any meat on their bones to pick at.
Most importantly, hardly anyone has been tested. America has tested roughly one percent of its population. Within that one percent, we have a 20% positivity rate, one in five people tested has shown positive. But they’re only testing people who present with severe symptoms and people who are exposed or at-risk, like health care workers or rich people.
But we’ve also been told that a lot of people who get it have mild to no symptoms. So it’s hard to say whether that 20% positivity rate would hold steady on a random test of the population. To know that, we’d actually need random tests of the general population.
For just a second, let’s assume that the one in five positivity rate is accurate. The current population of the United States is just over 331 million people. Twenty percent of 331 million is 66.2 million. That’s a lot bigger number than 1.28 million. But, of course, that’s just a possibility. That’s reasonably the high-end possibility at this point. There’s no reason to believe the number is quite that high until we see data. At the same time, until we have data, there’s no reason to believe it’s not that high. The only thing we know for sure right now is that we don’t know.
The fact that our numbers have plateaued for now doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t mean that the virus has slowed its spread. Because the number of tests per day have not increased. We’re testing roughly 150,000 people per day, consistently. The number of tests per day have plateaued, and the number of new confirmed cases per day have plateaued. Which tells us one thing, only. We’re still testing at about a 20% positivity rate.
So, if we are at 66 million infected and only 75,991 people have died, that’s a pretty decent mortality rate, right? That’s .11% mortality. That’s not bad. That’s comparable to the flu in an average year. Except it’s far more than 75,991 dead. Remember, the only people counted as COVID-19 deaths are confirmed cases and suspected cases, which are going to be the common symptoms we all know about.
But COVID kills in other ways. People with mild symptoms are dying from COVID related blood clots. Some people aren’t going to the hospital at all. They aren’t reporting their symptoms, they are dying at home. This is reflected in the excess mortality that began to spike as soon as COVID-19 hit our shores. These are COVID deaths, but aren’t being added to the official count.
Excess mortality is an increase in the overall number of deaths from all causes. Starting in March and continuing to skyrocket, the number of deaths over and above what is expected in an average year is increasing daily. We know that traffic accidents are down due to greatly reduced travel. A lot of people aren’t out and about getting themselves killed in various ways, so we should se some balance to the extra deaths from COVID. But we don’t. Instead we see an alarming number of extra dead people, over and above the official lab-confirmed COVID death count.
We know that heart attack deaths are up because people ignore their symptoms, terrified to go to the hospital. Heart attack deaths may also be up due to blood clots formed during a COVID-19 infection. COVID-19 is a clotting disorder as well as a respiratory disorder, evidence shows. They’ve been treating people with blood thinners with positive results. But these heart attack deaths won’t be counted as COVID-19 deaths. These stroke deaths won’t be counted as COVID-19 deaths. Because they won’t have a post-mortem test for the disease, and without that, it would be impossible to know if that condition was a COVID-19 death, or from other causes.
Domestic violence deaths are likely up right now. That’s a guess, on my part, but it only makes sense. Suicides are going to be up. You just have to think about the way the world is operating now vs the way we were a few months ago to start to pinpoint that types of deaths should be going up and which type should be going down.
But in the end, at any rate, one would think it would be pretty much a wash, and we’d see a small spike in excess deaths from this pesky new Coronavirus. But that’s not what we see. We see a huge spike in excess mortality. What is causing all that extra death, if not COVID-19?
Alright, so, we’ve got the constantly climbing excess mortality, a one percent test rate, and only counting positive tests as COVID-19 deaths. That’s what tells me the COVID deaths are being under reported. Now let’s look at some theories I’ve seen floated about why the count is being over reported.
Some people are claiming that flu deaths are down this year, and that’s because deaths that should be reported as flu deaths are actually being reported as COVID-19 deaths. But, if the flu numbers this year are lower than the numbers projected earlier this flu season, there’s actually a pretty good explanation for why that is. Because lower flu numbers this year should be expected. The flu season wasn’t over when a good portion of the world began to self-quarantine. Although the self-quarantine was intended to slow the spread of COVID-19, which it did, it also slowed the spread of influenza, which is far less contagious than COVID-19. The self-quarantine should have drastically lowered instances of flu-related death, and the numbers are, understandably, reflecting that.
However, I’m not sure the final tally for this flu season is official just yet. And the decrease in cases later in the flu season may be offset by the increased testing for influenza that started when COVID hit. Since they didn’t have COVID tests, they increased testing for influenza. If you had flu-like symptoms but tested negative for flu, then you’d get a COVID test, if available in your area. Testing available at participating hospitals, restrictions may apply.
Some people say that if you have a heart condition and you die, they will posthumously test you, and if you have COVID-19, that will be counted as a COVID death. Well, no. That’s not happening. I don’t even need to research that. Just think about it. You would need the cooperation of morticians across the country. A whole lot of them would be speaking out if that were happening. If we were testing all those dead bodies when we don’t even have enough testing supplies to increase the testing on our living population to an acceptable level.
So, no, they aren’t testing most people posthumously and adding them to the count. But for certain conditions, I think they should. COVID kills people with comorbidities at an elevated rate. COVID causes blood clots, which, in turn, lead to heart attacks and strokes. So, there’s a good chance that the person with the heart condition would have gone on living many more good years managing their condition had they not been struck with COVID. That is a COVID death, and they are not being counted.
And now Trump has latched onto another popular conspiracy theory, that hospitals are over-reporting COVID deaths to increase their funding, basically, accusing them of exploiting the CARE act. Again, for this to happen on a wide enough scale for it to affect the numbers, it would involve so very many people. Doctors, nurses, hospital administration. So many whistles would be blown internally at hospitals all across the country if this were happening.
So, it might look like I’ve just glossed over these theories and dismissed them out of hand with no research. That’s kind of true. But that’s because there is nothing to research. These are wild claims with no evidence to support them. To argue against something, I need something to argue against. I need some evidence to try to disprove. It’s just people alleging things may be happening with no evidence that anything they are saying is true.
Here’s where I am with politics right now: The fact that ANYONE is voting for Trump or McConnell sickens me. The fact that it’s going to be so many people that they could both win again solidifies my belief that our species is doomed, and rightfully so.
But then, compounding upon that, 80% of the people who aren’t voting for them are still complete idiots who believe themselves to be intellectually and morally superior, but are actually unable (or perhaps just unwilling, which may, in fact, be worse) to change their opinions when presented with facts that contradict their beliefs, and are only on the right side of this thing because they were raised to be, or were converted by someone. They’re just two conservative parents or a seductively convincing friend away from voting Trump. Lack of critical thinking skills is the new illiteracy, and it is rampant.
So, I’m anti-Trump, true. But that doesn’t mean I’m even remotely similar to most other people who hate him. I don’t even hate him for all the same reasons. When it comes to a lot of the Trump outrage, my reaction to it is, “So fucking what?” I don’t hate him because he’s crass. I don’t hate him because he’s rude. I don’t hate him because he has a foul mouth and is unconventional. Those are all traits I can respect in other people.
I do hate him because he’s a rapist, and, quite possibly, quite likely, a rapist of underage girls courtesy of Jeffery Epstein. But before I knew that, I would have said:
I do hate him because he’s willfully ignorant. I don’t know if he’s technically stupid. I don’t know what his processing power is. I assume it’s very not good, very, very #SAD. But it doesn’t even matter, because he’s definitely ignorant; he doesn’t have any knowledge. I hope he’s stupid, because smart people who are bereft of real knowledge are far more dangerous than a well-informed moron. Imagine, if you will, an AI program drawing on a database of pure fiction and, hey, it’s the President. But I highly doubt that’s the case because he sounds like a fucking moron with access to the same well of fictions and fantasy.
I do hate him because he lies constantly. I hate him because he’s an idiot with a severe lack of curiosity and no desire to know the truth of anything. I hate him because he doesn’t care whether he’s lying or not because he doesn’t care what the truth is. I hate him because he is an old man with the emotional and mental maturity of a twelve-year-old boy. But my hatred of him goes back before I knew that, too.
I hate him because I’ve always hated him. I hated him before I was a twelve-year-old boy. I thought his hair was stupid, and I hated him because I knew he had to look in the mirror before leaving his house, yet he wore his hair like that, anyway. And even after everyone publicly made fun of how stupid his hair looked, he continued to wear it that way and continued to allow it to become more and more ridiculous.
I hate him because I’ve been seeing that stupid hair and that stupid face on my television for my entire fucking life, and I’ve hated him the entire fucking time.
But the truth of the matter is, a whole lot of people who hate Trump annoy me just as much as he does. They’re just his polar opposites. They’re just as misinformed, just as stubborn, just as obtuse, just as unwilling to pull their heads out of their asses and look at the world from a different perspective. They are the black to his white, or the white to his black, or however you want to say it. They are all extremists on opposite sides of the spectrum, and the rest of us are here, lost in the grays shaking our heads because you’re both fucking crazy.
I think people should shut the fuck up about guns right now. I’m for sensible gun reform, sure, of course. It’s something we, as a country need to do. But it’s not going to happen with Donald Trump in the White House and a Senate full of Republicans
It’s not going to happen unless there is a Democrat in the White House and they have the majority in both the Senate and the House. And, quite frankly, talking about gun reform leading up the the election is not going to help make that happen. It is a wedge issue and it is not an issue that is going to turn out favorably for the Democrats in the general election.
These mass shootings are horrific. The motivations are horrific. The senseless loss of life is heartbreaking and the ease with which we can all obtain weapons capable of killing dozens of people in mere seconds is pretty scary.
But the people you’re trying to convince already agree with you, and the ones who don’t aren’t going to. The Democrats shouldn’t run on this issue, and despite the horrible recent tragedies, it’s not what people should be talking about right now. The way to honor the deceased and to prevent future tragedies is to get new people elected by any means necessary. And that means not making guns an issue during the election.
Democrats should get themselves elected on other issues, and then do the gun stuff once they are in. It won’t be easy for them even then, because there will be a whole lot of debate within their own party about how far they really want to go. But that will be the time for all this gun debate. When we have a government who will actually try to do something about it.
Ah, that would be nice. Lol. If we lived in that kind of reasonable world, where people really understood how to politic. But, nope. Not here, not now. This is Earth, 2019, Kiddies, and we are so very fucked. So, you might as well just sit back, enjoy the ride, and hope we don’t all blow up before this shitstorm is over.
I just keep watching Trump and his army of alt-right trolls set political traps for the left and then I just watch the left, pretty much collectively, wander right into the traps, and not seem to even know they’re getting caught. Trump wants this election to be about race and guns. And he’s getting his wish. And the Left, pretty much collectively, is going to lose so fucking hard.
So I’m not getting emotionally invested. I’m going to do my part and I’m going to vote in the Primary and I’m going to vote in the General, and both votes are going to be calculated and cast in a way in which I believe will be the most likely to get Trump out of office. And that’s all I can do. That’s all anyone can do.
Getting mad at people on the Internet and yelling at them, telling them they’re stupid, telling them they’re racist, homophobic, xenophobic (okay, but, really, who isn’t xenophobic? I mean Xenomorphs are fucking TERRIFYING. Oh, what? That’s not what … oh, I see, nevermind), misogynistic, or whatever else we’re accusing people of at the drop of a hat these days.
I mean, yeah, sure, some people are all these things. The world is full of haters. Homophobes, misogynists, and racists, oh my! They’re everywhere, and they suck. But sometimes … a lot of times … someone just asks an innocent question, or happens to have a different take on race relations than someone else, and they’re shouted down as a bigot. Call me crazy, but I don’t really think that’s a very smart way to try to get someone to vote for your guy (or girl). But, hey, what do I know?
But I’ve digressed, wandered off on a tangent, as I’m prone to do. Bringing it back around, another thing that’s not going to get them to vote for your guy is telling them you want to take their guns away. It doesn’t matter how sensibly you try to frame it, all they hear is that you want to take their guns away. Do you want to take their guns away? Because that’s not how you take their guns away.
Instead, don’t talk about guns. Talk about the other issues that matter, issues that affect their every day lives. The way to beat Trump would be to make it so that nobody was talking about guns, or race, or misogyny, or homophobia on election day.
But that’s fucking crazy. Because this is America. So, sit back, watch the shit show, and don’t let it get your blood pressure up. That’s my advice. Because this is going to be a bumpy ride and the landing is probably going to suck.
That’s what they’re doing. They’re going to repeal Obamacare. They’re going to repeal the ACA. Contrary to popular opinion, those aren’t two things. They are two different names for the same set of laws. They’re going to mess up Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and anything else they can get their grubby paws on. They need to make sure that the filthy rich barely pay any taxes while keeping the military funded. So the average American is just going to have to buck up.
That’s how it is, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can cry, you can whine, you can scream and shout and protest. It won’t do you any good. They don’t care. The people they need still haven’t figured it out yet. The people they need won’t figure it out until it’s too late. You can try to educate those people. You can try to change their minds. You can try to make them see what is happening. You may get a few. Most of them are too damn stubborn. They like lying to themselves. They get something out of it, I’m not sure what. I have difficulty understanding them.
Hell, I have trouble believing we are the same species. We all know what it feels like to meet someone you just instantly click with. Well, I hope we all do. But the opposite of that exists, as well. Sometimes you meet someone and after talking to them for a while you realize that you disagree with every single thing that comes out of their mouth. Like their brain is the universal counter-balance for your brain and if one of you were to perish while the other still lived, it would throw off the balance of all existence. But I digress.
My point is this: The people about to be in power know how to manipulate their crowd. If you didn’t vote for them in 2016, they don’t need you to vote for them in 2020. They don’t want you; they don’t need you; they don’t care what you think. They care what their voters think, those loyal patriots, and they know how to keep their voters. They know what to say and how to say it. So, do what you can, sure. But, buckle-up, things are going to get bad. We’re going to get beaten up. Some people aren’t going to make it through, and that’s the saddest part.
Hey, look on the bright side, though. If they fuck it all up bad enough, yet don’t kill us all, maybe that’ll stir up enough previous non-voters to fix it next time. Well, you know — don’t hold your breath or anything. But feel free to hope.
