A new week begins, and it’s almost quiet. A quick look at the news is showing nothing too terribly interesting or nothing we didn’t already cover in detail last week. Enjoy it while it lasts, I guess.
The Democratic National Convention begins tonight in Wisconsin, a fairly key battleground state. I haven’t put too much stock in those things for years, though this one is a little different. Due to the COVID-19 rampaging out of control due to our “leaders” apathy and incompetence plus our own hubris, it’ll be a “virtual” to-do. There’s been dust kicked up about folks like conservative also-ran John Kasich getting more speaking time than a rising star like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or, indeed, all that many Hispanic speakers.
For what it’s worth, I can see both sides. One of the prime strategies for the Biden campaign is wooing disaffected Republicans. At the same time, the Democrats are making errors ignoring the Left-wing of the party and the Hispanic vote has become very important the last couple of years. Julián Castro, for example, would’ve done them a bit of good. That being said, Kasich is speaking along with Bernie Sanders tonight. I don’t see either moving the needle very much. As I’ve said many times, if you’re mind’s not made up about November, you’re just trying to get on a CNN special.
The Trump Administration’s ongoing attempt to influence the November election by hobbling the U.S. Postal Service has generated enough outrage among us ungrateful plebes that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called her crew back to work late yesterday evening. The mail’s disruption has bled over into many other headaches, from lost medication to pilled up mail. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy swears up and down he didn’t foresee when monkeying with the thing at the height of a pandemic just before a presidential election, the dumb bastard. In a totally predictable happenchance, the delays are heaviest and most pronounced in key battleground states and liberal bastions.
Conservatives have long had a serious hard-on for getting rid of the mail, so this is all fairly unsurprising. Much of it dates back to the Postal Act of 2006, which required the post office to fund pensions for the next 75 years, something required of absolutely no one else. Trump is trying to blame it on Amazon, but that’s mainly because he’s sore Jeff Bezos could buy and sell him ten times over. That all being said, Pelosi is definitely painting this as an effort to “save the post office” from Trump’s machinations, but, hey… that’s politics, baby.
Finally, the SEC plans to announce its schedule for the 2020 football season today. Due to the fears about COVID-19, which is responsible for 170,000 deaths nationwide, the conference is only playing 10 games this year. Regardless, having a season at all is sticking some of the players’ craws, and why not. Like the Pac-12 players who managed to shut things down, there’s a growing number of SEC kids not willing to risk their health so a bunch of pitiful bastards’ very existences are justified and made meaningful for another week.
There’s a bunch of players from Vanderbilt giving it a miss, but that’s Vandy, so no one cares. One player I did find interesting was Ole Miss center Eli Johnson, who is sitting out his last year of eligibility. He started all 12 games last year and had a solid spot for this year. However, his father David spent all summer of a respirator after contracting COVID-19 and has just now come out of the hospital.
Known in the Professional Sports Writing Business as a “big ol’ boy,” Johnson said he felt he was in greater danger of contracting the virus due to his size and weight. So, like 60 other players across the country, he’s decided to give it a miss. Instead, he’s going to concentrate on finishing up his masters’ degree in Social Work.
Good for him.
Dear Y'all 