It didn’t have to be this way. –

Oh Alabama,
New Orleans and Little Rock too
It didn’t have to be this way
When a free shot would do.

YouTube: Neil Young – Alabama

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. – It’s 72 degrees in the city Trump called a swamp. The humidity is low, and nearly 60 percent of the people just north of D.C. in Maryland have been vaccinated. Most never stopped wearing masks, except for a few fully vaccinated people in small outdoor parties back in May and June and on the Fourth of July.

Related: Vaccinated People in DC Dance as CDC Relaxes Coronavirus Mask Requirements

Meanwhile in Mobile, Alabama, where Trump held his first big stadium campaign rally in 2015, it’s 95 degrees in that swamp Saturday with a heat index of 109.

Only 34 percent of the people have been fully vaccinated and now the hospital beds are filling up again with people sick and dying from the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, many begging for the vaccine after it’s far too late.

Alabama’s Gulf Coast is experiencing the highest per capita spread of COVID in the state and nation, yet only about one in three people are vaccinated, according to NPR’s Debbie Elliott, my friend. There have been outbreaks in daycare centers, sports camps and churches, mostly fueled by the delta variant, according to epidemiologist Rendi Murphree, director of disease control at the Mobile County Health Department.

NPR: Alabama’s COVID-19 Vaccination Rate Is The Lowest In The U.S. And Infections Are Up

It didn’t have to be this way.

All it takes is 15 minutes and a free shot.

There is no excuse for poor people to avoid getting the shot, other than political misinformation from the likes of Trump.

Somebody should have figured out how to offer free shots along with a bucket of Bubba Gump Shrimp, handed out by the winners of the Flora-Bama bikini contest.

It’s really not that hard to market to rednecks.

Walmart can get them in by claiming to sell only American made goods cheap, flying American flags in the parking lot, even though they have “Made In China” right there on the label and the stuff is not even that cheap anymore since Sam Walton died. A Coke and a bag of Lays potato chips costs the same there as anywhere else.

An unwelcome resurgence of the coronavirus has caused a groundswell of impatience, frustration and even rage from Americans who got their shots months ago toward those whose resistance won’t budge, according to reporting from the Washington Post.

It’s true that we thought we were turning a corner back in May and June when there were lines to get the vaccine and hospital beds in many places were empty for a change.

We all needed a break. Those who got vaccinated deserved it. The economy came back because of it.

But to put this evolutionary killer back in the bottle, everyone needed to participate.

That didn’t happen. So we will have to deal with this pandemic for another hellish winter.

About 56 percent of the people who live in D.C. got vaccinated, and many never stopped wearing masks. But some people who work for the federal government did not comply, many Trump leftovers, so this will require a government mandate now.

Sports teams and corporations are coming up with vaccination mandates too.

It didn’t have to be this way.

About 55 percent of people in Virginia got vaccinated, but on a recent camping-cycling trip to Shenandoah National Park, it was obvious that many people in Virginia were still not wearing masks. It’s still a Southern state, in places stuck in the Confederacy of Dunces.

About 49 percent of people in Florida are now fully vaccinated, but the irresponsible governor there, Ron DeSantis, clearly wants to be the next Trump. Hospital beds are filling up there again too.

Only 44 percent of the people in North Carolina have been fully vaccinated, and only 39 percent in Tennessee have bothered to get their shots, in spite of the efforts of Dolly Parton to convince them to go along.

In Orange Beach, Alabama, one reader reported on Facebook Friday that beaches, restaurants, tourists shops, grocery stores and restaurants were packed, and there was “hardly a mask in sight.”

A party at the beach, no masks: Google

Maybe some people have a death wish.

Some Democrats on Facebook are laughing about this, hoping more Fox News viewers and Republican Trump voters will die. I’ve been guilty of this myself. But African Americans and Latinos are getting sick and dying too, their communities fraught with misinformation on social media.

The media is starting to criticize the president now too, since Joe Biden took off his mask on the Fourth of July and seemed to declare the worst of the pandemic over.

But the fact is those of us who got vaccinated needed and deserved a psychological break after the hellscape year of 2020. The economy needed the boost.

If only everyone had gotten onboard, we could have beaten this thing by now.

But noooo, fake news and Trump politics is still lingering around, like an unwanted uncle at the family reunion. He’s loud and lewd and drunker than a billy goat high on hillbilly heroin, and he won’t go away until somebody has the gonads to put him in jail.

Capitol Insurrection

The House Select Committee to investigate the Capitol insurrection got underway this week, and an unprecedented legal and political showdown over how to force members of Congress to take the witness stand is now underway.

Several congressional Republicans have admitted to having some contact with President Donald Trump during the insurrection or in the days leading up to it, making their testimony potentially key to the panel’s stated goal of being “guided solely by the facts.”

Washington Post: Jan. 6 committee faces unprecedented choice of whether to call Republican lawmakers to testify

I was listening on the radio to the gripping testimony on the first day Tuesday while driving north on Skyline Drive. It was a bit bizarre, since every time I went around another curve and ended up on the west side of the mountain, the station would change to classical music. Then another curve and on the east side of the mountain I heard the testimony. (I got video of it).

Watch the Video

A source tells me privately that the “stand down order” we reported on first back in January will come to the fore. We will see.

I will believe it when I see North Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks on the witness stand, along with Senator Tommy Tuberville.

Related: U.S. Justice Department Declines to Defend Mo Brooks in Capitol Insurrection Lawsuit

I was glad to see Maureen Dowd finally face the facts of 1-6-2021 in her column this week.

“We’re still learning the extent to which President Trump tried to strong-arm the Justice Department into helping him purloin the election. As the Times’s Katie Benner reported Friday, as late as Dec. 27, Trump called officials at Justice and, according to their notes, told them: “Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me,” assuring them that his congressional allies would help.

“The story is chilling because it shows that Trump was not merely thrashing about on his throne. His plan to reverse the election was more orchestrated and sinister than we knew. (I knew, and reported it that way).

“Could he actually have used the government to overthrow the government and become dictator perpetuo?”

NYT: Why Do Republicans Hate Cops?

Yes, that was clearly the intent. It happened right before our very eyes live on CNN, but many people still don’t believe it.

It’s like the circus magic act when the elephant disappears. You can’t see it anymore, but you know it’s still there somewhere, hiding behind a curtain like the Wizard of Oz.

What will it take to pull back the curtain and reveal Trump for the charlatan con man that he is for all to see?

Will we really have to deal with him again in the 2022 midterms and the 2024 election?

Oh, well, I guess that will get readership, circulation and TV news ratings numbers back up. We may be in for another wild Trump ride yet.

I would rather avoid it.

You?

Can’t we just put him in prison where he belongs?

Or at the very least, force him into exile like the tinpot dictator he seems to want to be?

Long live American Democracy.

Fuck Trump.