Tuesday! What a Concept.
Tuesday! What a Concept.
Real talk: Are we going to overthrow the government or what?
Rent is only due tomorrow in your landlord’s mind. I almost feel bad because my landlord is actually a childhood friend and one of three people I haven’t alienated yet. Does this stop me from studying how Mao Zedong radicalized peasants into publicly executing landlords? Absolutely not.
If you live in an apartment complex or whatever, I would encourage you to collectively tell your landlord to fuck off on account of the global pandemic. It’s called a rent strike. The lords of land are already licking their chops over that $1,200 corona cash, so I think they can survive until Uncle Sam cuts the damn check.
The thread of society has collapsed around me to the point my only solace comes from a comedian who truth be told should be our treasury secretary.
“Mama economy make me understand” is something I want tattooed on my chest. Nobody in Franklinton owns stocks. Yet every 10 years the cocaine addicts (no offense) on Wall Street melt the world economy and somehow that translates into all my neighbors losing their jobs that underpaid them and offered no benefits.
Why we tolerate this nonsense is beyond me. I’ve done two financial meltdowns in my life and I’m thinking that’s enough for one lifetime as a member of the generation with no money or political power.
REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS REAP WHAT THEY SOW
Every day feels like a decade now. Even the novel coronavirus seems like some vague pop culture reference from a time when it was legal to drink in a bar crowded with strangers.
In a functioning democracy that wouldn’t be a problem because we would have voted for competent adults to hold the highest elected offices in the land. Instead we live in a country where Fox News is considered a legitimate news source by 50% of the electorate.
The Republican party sold the last shards of their soul in exchange for President Business Deals outsourcing federal judge appointments to the ghoul cartel that calls themselves the Federalist Society.
Unfortunately for their voters in rural states, Business Deals is a narcissist who is incapable of basic governing.
From Ed O’Keefe of cbsnews.com:
Several rural-state governors alerted President Trump on Monday that they are struggling to obtain urgently needed medical supplies and testing equipment, warning that despite the worsening situation in New York and other urban areas, more sparsely populated parts of the country need help, too.
In response to requests for more testing kits, Mr. Trump said, "I haven't heard about testing in weeks," according to an audio recording of the call between the president and governors obtained by CBS News.
During the hour-long call, Democratic and Republican governors detailed how they are struggling to obtain the protective equipment doctors and nurses will need to treat the sick and the test kits needed to determine whether sick residents are suffering from COVID-19.
"We understand the challenges in New York. I have family in New York," Wyoming Republican Governor Mark Gordon told the president. But, he told Mr. Trump, "I think a little bit of supply going our way could get us better prepared going forward."
"Good point," Mr. Trump replied. "Thank you very much, Mark. If you have a problem, call me. I'll get you what you need."
What can you even say at that point? Your boss just told you to call him if you have a problem while you were literally already on the phone. Every asshole knows in the room he’s incapable of getting you what you need, otherwise there would have been no need to ask for it in the first place.
Ostensible adults like Mark Gordon voted to run our government like a business and now this is what they have wrought. States competing against each other with poor, rural areas losing to affluent cities in the war for resources. Where have I heard that story before?
MIKE DEWINE FINALLY ADDRESSES HOMELESS CITIZENS DURING A GLOBAL PANDEMIC
Mike DeWine has led the Republican response to the coronavirus. On one hand I’m proud. On the other hand I’m frightened for the rest of America because DeWine is a Cold War conservative who has fought against the social safety net policies that would benefit millions of unemployed Ohioans right about now.
I don’t know how many homeless people there are in Ohio. I do know it’s a smaller number than vacant houses or hotels throughout the state. Instead DeWine is basically pleading with cities to think of the homeless.
From Zack Budryk of thehill.com:
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said at his daily coronavirus press conference Monday that the state has created a task force to address the specific effects of the pandemic on the state’s homeless community and is working to incorporate their needs into social distancing guidelines.
“A big challenge is still helping reduce the number of people in homeless shelters. Shelters aren’t built for social distancing, so many communities are finding alternates to shelter or spreading out to other locations,” DeWine said. “We are asking all local communities to include homeless shelters in your planning so that we can more quickly help support these Ohioans to meet the social distancing guidelines.”
The state government shouldn’t be asking cities to do anything. It should be leading by example.
We can no longer pretend homelessness isn’t a problem, and we’re not going to beat a pandemic if our most vulnerable citizens are left to the mercy of whatever crackpot has amassed political power in their neighborhood. I refuse to see why hotels can’t be repurposed as homeleses shelters.
CLEVELAND COURTS STILL AN UNIMAGINABLE HELLHOLE
As Serial Season 3 laid bare, the Cleveland court system is an abject horror that should be razed at the soonest possibility. And even then, the ashes might not be worth saving.
Today’s contact includes a report about how state officials conspired to sentence an innocent man to death row.
From Eric Sandy of clevescene.com:
Documents filed this morning with the Ohio Supreme Court argue that newly discovered evidence should allow Death Row inmate Melvin Bonnell to revisit his 1988 murder conviction and course-correct decades of alleged bad faith on the part of the state.
Only a few weeks ago, in February, his defense attorneys found long-lost bullets that were removed from the victim's body and shell casings that were collected at the scene of the crime, all sitting in envelopes at the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office. This abrupt discovery came after the office had insisted since the mid-90s that any and all physical evidence tied to this case was gone—except for Bonnell's corduroy jacket.
The documents—a motion requesting a new trial and related exhibits—paint a confounding picture of how the state has handled this case.
Bonnell was scheduled to be executed Feb. 12, 2020. His death sentence was reprieved by Gov. Mike DeWine, who, unable to secure the pharmaceutical drugs needed to kill state inmates, opted to grant Bonnell another year behind bars. He's currently scheduled to be executed March 18, 2021. Based on the re-discovery of this physical evidence (and wherever this latest motion leads Bonnell's case), that extra time on the clock may have made all the difference in the world.
So to recap: The state colluded to murder this innocent man right until they couldn’t find a drug cocktail that would execute him without violating his Constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
Just another example of why I could never be a prosecutor. One day you’re tawdry “tough-on-crime” figure and then next you’re the asshole that jammed an innocent man into a jail cell for the better part of his adult life. I couldn’t live with either reality.
THOSE WMDs. How vacation became just another thing we’re working on… Teen wrestling champ stops kidnapping… 3-D printed homes in the Netherlands… The contrarian coronavirus theory that informed the Trump White House… The president is trapped.