Today can be seen as the first day of the rest of our lives. The Pfizer vaccine to conquer Covid started going into the arms of health care workers across the country, and the Electoral College started voting today to finally and officially designate Joe Biden as the next president. Despite Donald Trump delusions that the election was “rigged” and “stolen” and he really won. He has denied reality since Election Day just as he denied  the seriousness of the virus from the beginning. The consequences of that incompetence and the failure to act led to three hundred thousand deaths, millions of infections, overwhelmed hospitals, millions of people losing their jobs, thousands of businesses closing forever, and changing everyone’s life. We’ll never know how many lives would have been saved and needless suffering avoided if we weren’t held hostage by someone so damaged, he was incapable of caring about anyone other than himself.

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It’s now been three weeks that Donald Trump has tried to hold the country hostage. His grip on his alternate reality is starting to slip away. His spoiled child act that he really didn’t lose the election has continued to embarrass the country before the world. Kids who don’t get what the want will throw a tantrum or go sulk in their rooms. Trump rages around the White House and only comes out on weekends to play golf while the pandemic is out of control and getting worse by the day. Put that picture up against the thousands of cars lined up around the country for hours with people trying to get free food because they lost their jobs or get tested for Covid. People are still going to crowded airports to travel for Thanksgiving when all public health officials say it’s a bad idea. Trump ignores what he doesn’t want to see. His refusal to cooperate with a peaceful transition of power could have serious national security ramifications and hinder the incoming Biden administration’s plan to deal with Covid and roll out the vaccination distribution plan. Trump doesn’t care. It’s all about him, as it’s always been.

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We are living through one of the most consequential and extraordinary weeks in American political history. The Trump presidency has come crashing down even though,  to quote Jack Nicholson’s famous line, “You (Trump) can’t handle the truth.” We all knew Trump would not go down without a fight. He has threatened all along that if he lost the election, if would have to be rigged and fraudulent. His angry rant in the middle of the night after the election was typical belligerent Trump behavior. More telling and scary was his appearance Thursday evening in the White House Briefing Room. Trump had seethed and ranted all day as he saw his lead slip away with the counting of the mail in votes. Then he saw Joe Biden come out and calmly urge people to be patient with the vote count, but he believed when all the votes were counted he would win. You could see Biden taking on the role of president.

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Two weeks to go. The desperation and fear is growing. Covid is not only sickening and killing thousands of people every day, it looks like it’s going to be fatal to Trump’s re-election. I know it’s not over, until it’s over, but Trump has now finally gone all out after his nemesis, Dr. Anthony Fauci. It drives Trump crazy that Fauci is more respected and believed by most people on the real story of the virus. Trump says, “People are tired of Covid. I have the biggest rallies I’ve ever had. And we have Covid. People are saying. ‘Whatever’ Just leave us alone. They’re tired of it.” Let’s examine that statement. It’s a perfect illustration of how Trump thinks. First, “people are tired of Covid.” Yes, people are sick and tired and afraid of Covid. But he thinks they are tired of it because when it’s discussed it always reflects badly on him. “I have the biggest rallies…” It’s all about him and anything he does is the biggest and the best. How could he be wrong? Then the ultimate cope out “Whatever. Just leave us alone” That’s what someone says when they just can’t take it anymore. Finally, again “They are tried of it.” Trump’s a great repeater of his phony claims. If he says it enough, it must be true. He’s tired of it because it’s defeated him, so everyone must be tired of it.

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Just when we thought it couldn’t get any crazier, it did. It was a week ago tonight that President Trump tweeted that he and the First Lady tested positive for Covid 19. This after he returned from a private fund raiser at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey after he found out that Hope Hicks, one of his top and closest advisors, tested positive for the virus. Of course, there were very few masks and little social distancing at the event. The next evening it was off to the hospital after Trump needed oxygen at the White House. We were told very little by his personal doctor, Dr. Sean Conley, who looked like a doctor from an old daytime soap opera. He was clearly overwhelmed by the moment and following Trump’s orders to reveal as little as possible about his condition. There were pictures from the hospital with Trump posing at a table pretending to be writing sometime on a blank piece of paper with the oversized black marker he uses to sign all his Executive Orders. He didn’t hold up the paper as he usually does.

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It was a live American horror show. Three and half years of the Trump madness spewing out for the most frightening 90 minutes in the history of presidential politics, We’ve seen and heard it all on a daily basis for so long, we’ve grown exhausted and numb. Last night’s presidential debate wasn’t really a debate, and certainly wasn’t presidential. Trump came out growling and swinging knowing he had to bully and overwhelm Joe Biden because he was desperate. He knows he’s losing. He knows he’s survived by telling lies and living in an alternate reality universe where he’s always right and he can do wrong. He knows the clock is ticking and he’ll do anything to avoid being a loser and a fraud on Election Day.

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This was a sad and frightening week in a year that’s had more weeks that were once thought unimaginable. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lost her gallant fight against cancer in hopes of outlasting the Trump presidency. There couldn’t be two people more different. Could you imagine the outpouring of admiration and respect for Trump that has been shown to Justice Ginsburg? It came out in stark relief when Trump went to pay his respects to Ginsburg as she laid in repose at the top of the Supreme Court steps as dozens of her former law clerks stood down the steps paying honor to her memory. Trump stood stone faced behind a mask (a rare sighting) as the crowd chanted “Vote him out.” It spoke volumes about the state of the country. Trump later said he didn’t the chants. Everyone else did.

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You can’t escape it. It’s everywhere. The election. It’s even at the beach. We’ve all seen the planes fly over the beach with the banners advertising a local bar, restaurant, or a product we don’t really need. While sitting on a Jersey shore beach yesterday after two weeks of political conventions, you think you could enjoy the sunshine, refreshing breeze and perfect water temperature. Then my wife and I heard the sound of that buzzing single engine plane. It didn’t say “Eat at Joe’s” or “4 to 6 Happy Hour at the Clam Shack”. It said “Ukrainians for Trump”. We all know the trouble he had with Ukraine. He got impeached over it. So, we were unsure if this was a pro-Trump banner, or an anti-Trump banner. Were the people who had spent money on this Ukrainians who loved Trump and didn’t think he did anything wrong by pressuring their government to dig up political dirt on Joe Biden? Or was it mocking Trump for his betrayal of the law?

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Democrats are feeling confident and relieved after Joe Biden gave the speech of his life last night. It was all about hope, trust, honesty and decency. The contrast between Biden and Donald Trump couldn’t be sharper. The Democrats are painting the election as a race between a good, decent guy, who grew up in a struggling middle class family, who’s dealt with terrible loss, and who’s spent his life serving the country versus the man they feel is the worst human being to ever sit in the Oval Office. Next week, at the Republican National Convention, Trump and his party will get their chance to make their case about how great things have been under his leadership. They will paint Biden as weak, old, and a tool of the extreme left who will destroy America as we know it. We all know the issues, and it’s unlikely many people are undecided about who will get their vote. But I see this election as an end and a beginning.

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They come around every year, the Dog Days of Summer. The hot, sultry days that are supposed to be days at the beach, in the mountains, picnics, barbecues, trips to national parks, even to Europe, going to a ball game, looking forward to football in a few weeks, and squeezing the fun out of the last few days of summer before going back to school. How’s that working out for you this year? By way of little astronomy, the dog days got its name because the sun is in the same region of the sky as Sirius, the brightest star visible from any place on Earth. It’s part of constellation Canis Major, which everyone knows, means “The Greater Dog.” Well, it certainly has been a dog of a summer.

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