Dogs, Pigs, and Asses in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

I’d say last night was a very successful Nala night! Though, concerns abound. I followed the vet’s advice and gave two shorter walks as opposed to 1 big walk. This was better for Nala certainly. Instead of getting a long drain tired and then building her energy back up until Bed Time… she had her walk, got tired, built her energy back up, got a walk, got tired, had bed time. Much better. But from my body’s perspective? Instead of getting a long drain and then having 12 hours to desperately attempt to heal my legs… I had a walk, my legs got tired, attempted to initiate healing, had to do another walk, and then they protest in the morning because they haven’t had sufficient time to heal. Definitely one of those experiences where, if charted along a long enough course, you can see where the benefits do not meet cost. But we’ll keep pushing until that point is reached.

I could tell it worked out for Nala, though, because the “bed time” signal was responded to VERY differently!! After the kennel night? She slept under the bed. Screw human contact, screw being part of the pack. Last night? I said, ‘Bed time!” and Nala raced to the bed, jumped up on the bed, and curled up in the center of the bed ON THE PILLOWS. Basically a “You have to cuddle if you’re going to sleep here tonight” position. And when I got into bed, she didn’t move. So cuddling mandatory. And she stayed there all night. She didn’t reposition. She didn’t hop down and go under the bed. She didn’t hop down and sleep in her bed. She didn’t hop down and whine at the door. She posted in a “cuddling with Daddy” place and slept there.

This morning… waking up was very difficult. I mean… adorable puppy cuddling, but also the leg and back screaming “We’re not ready yet!” So I slept in, skipping breakfast and a shower yet again. I got out of bed eventually and went to work around the house. Nala stayed in bed asleep. A good sign, for the most part. In an effort to prepare for tomorrow night, though, I went downstairs to grab some stuff. As expected and as always, me going downstairs was enough to get Nala out of bed. As Nancy is coming over today, I decided to put Nala in the kennel for today as opposed to the Outdoor Run. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make much of a difference when it comes to food and water as she did not drink or eat at all yesterday until I came home. Besides, if Nala is as tired as her “staying in the bed” suggests… she’ll be fine just sleeping in her kennel most of the day.

Got to work and… blargh. Work has been crazy this week. For both me and my boss. Like witnesses, victims, defendants, government entities… all losing their damned minds. Just a brief “last seven days” glimpse:
Friday- My 2.5 hour insane phone call
Saturday- My 20 minute crazy phone call
Sunday- Boss was called because one of our Juvenile Housing units wanted to bypass me and the Juvenile Court system all together because they were “tired of the process” not working in their favor
Monday- Craziness over Witnesses for Depositions and Attorneys trying to pull fast ones
Tuesday- Craziness over Juvenile Defenders having tested positive for COVID19 were being shipped out to other places that couldn’t take them because the Juvenile Housing Units “didn’t want to deal with it anymore”!! WHAT?!
Wednesday- One of the three most powerful elected officials in the county was angry that Voters didn’t vote out a person he didn’t like last year. SO HE’S SUING HER. This is insane for many reasons. (1) This year HE is up for re-election. Doing something like this THIS YEAR is highly likely to bite him in the ass. (2) He is ON HIS OWN right now. Since he, as a private individual, is suing a County Employee due to her work for the County… he is essentially suing the COUNTY. WE have to represent HER. This is just… insanity. And it is insanity that this office is forced to deal with… despite already having the insanity of trying to deal with our STS problem (that will create massive issues every day for us until solved by the STATE government) and the problem of Courts in the Time of COVID and the problem of having (presently) 90 cases that need a jury trial but only three jury trial dates… and that is assuming the Courts still think we can have a jury trial in September (which isn’t looking promising) and WHILE WE HAVE a kidnapping case involving the county’s biggest drug lord going sideways because all of the witnesses including the victim not wanting to testify.

So yeah… bit crazy.

Then… time to weigh into the actual work of the day. What with all of my trials having been delayed due to the Judge’s whim.... all that is on my calendar is...... 12 phone hearings; most of which will either be closed or continued without resolution. So… hooray. Another nothing day that is likely to be filled with random, surprise, over-dramatic insanity.

SEGUE

Random, surprise, over-dramatic insanity actually makes a great deal of sense in this position these days when you consider I work for a government controlled by the Republicans. Because if a snake is led from the head; Trump has certainly set the tone that the required expectation is “as random, surprising, over-dramatic, and off the rails crazy as possible.” Whether it is interrupting his own speeches to brag about how hard a test for Dementia was, or inventing random conspiracy theories about mail in voting; this President can’t seem to stick to the basic structure of One Thought per Sentence let alone Critical Thinking At All. In fact, while today it was made public that the U.S. economy suffered its worst period ever in the second quarter, with GDP falling a historic 32.9% (more than the Great Depression or the Great Recession); Trump decided what we needed to focus on was an unlawful suggestion that he could and would postpone the Presidential Election in November. And he didn’t even suggest this in a manner that would potentially get support from NON fringe conspiracy theorists. The way to do that would have been to suggest that, since Mail In Voting is a decision made by the States, he wanted to delay the Presidential Election due to COVID concerns so that states could have a better picture of whether they should do In Person or not. No, that thought would have been too complicated and filled with a sense of empathy or concern that we all know Trump simply can’t even fake. No, Trump has suggested that he postpone the election because he is that opposed to Mail In voting being allowed at all. This is a ridiculous notion in general considering how many Mail In Ballots happen in a normal election year (you can’t support the military without supporting mail in ballots, it just isn’t possible) but it is especially ridiculous when you look at Trump and his family’s own personal history with Mail In Voting.

Just looking at the President himself, lets look to see if he thinks Mail In Voting is something he should avoid?
Trump voted absentee in 2018 in New York, where he lived at the time and was registered to vote at his former Manhattan residence in Trump Tower. Trump also voted by mail this March in his new home state of Florida, where he is now registered to vote in Palm Beach County. Florida allows any voter to cast a mail-in ballot without an excuse and has comparatively high levels of mail-in voting compared to other states.

So take note of that RIGHT THERE. The President, WHILE PRESIDENT, voted by mail in both times there was a vote (NY 2018 midterm election; Florida Primary 2020). His wife and children and Mike Pence and his Mom, I mean Wife that he calls Mom, have all voted by mail or attempted to do so in the last four years. So if this is a process that Trump trusts enough with his own vote; why is he routinely spouting conspiracy theories that voting by mail creates unprecedented fraud to the point where the election itself should be postponed? It’s obvious but there are still people who give him too much of a benefit of the doubt. This is a president that has routinely failed to state clearly whether he’ll even leave the White House if he doesn’t win the election. This man is so desperate to make everyone believe that he gets to be President whether he wins the election or not that he’s willing to discredit democratic practices that have been in place since the 1860s. And that’s all he is trying to do here is simply discredit the very idea of voting. Because the Constitution clearly lays out that the election can ONLY be moved, delayed, or postponed by an act of Congress. However, what is truly scary here, is that we know Trump has often ignored or outright defied the Constitution in such a way as to be obvious but people like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham refuse to rein him in or even do the bare minimum of their job which would be to say, “You can’t do that by executive order, it is illegal.” And that, to me, is what is truly frightening about this. That the Constitution quite clearly lays out that moving the election REQUIRES an act of Congress, but the GOP in power has been so complacent about Trump’s constant destruction of the laws of the United States that I genuinely don’t know if they’d respond to a Trump Executive Order cancelling the election. Obviously, I hope that there are still enough responsible adults in office that such an action would meet a strong reaction but… I no longer have faith in our system of government to do that since they have become so nakedly partisan and ethically bankrupt.

Take, for example, the current discussion about Supreme Court Justices. Back in 2016, over 200 days to an Election, then-President Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Mitch McConnell and the entire GOP threw up their arms screaming that we can’t allow even so much as a vote on the nomination in an election year!! Fast forward to 2020 with a President with far lower approval ratings and less than 100 days to an election year and the question gets floated: What happens if Justice Ginsburg passes away or Justice Alito retires in the next 4 months? Cue the GOP inconsistencies and blatant, unethical, transparent hypocrisy. Mitch McConnell and Joni Ernst have both said there would be no problems in voting for a Supreme Court Justice in that situation. It is such a transparent fog horn of “I have no ethics or morals, I just want power” that I find myself struggling to comment on it; the words catch in my throat due to disgust and horror. THIS is the very shit that destroys government, communities, and civilizations. When politicians, who we understand to say “I have different rules than regular citizens” start using the same thinking about other politicians. If 200 days from an election a President with a national approval rating of around 50% wasn’t allowed to have his nominee count? Then you’d better believe less than 100 days from an election a President with a national approval rating of around 38% isn’t allowed to have his nominee count!

Ultimately… I’m taking the “led by the head” to a more broad conclusion. Because this year especially we’ve seen the greatest problem of America in every facet of our lives. From The White House to the Local Grocer:
The greatest cultural disease in America right now is the Cult Worship of Self. MY convenience over YOUR health. MY ignorance over YOUR facts. MY beliefs over YOUR rights. MY desires over YOUR needs. Over and over and over again. It is choking us to death. THIS is the culture war we should be having. Instead of focusing on Homosexuality or Racism or Abortion or Politics… this, imho, is the ROOT of all of those. If we can miraculously fix this shit, the rest falls into place.

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ALSO… here’s a random thing. You know how there are too many people out there that keep saying shit like, “You’re either gay or straight. This talk of a sexual spectrum is bullshit.” To them I post the following picture. This is a man. He identifies as a man. He is part of a Cosplay group that does female cosplays. You want to look at this man and tell me that it would be “ridiculous or offensive” for a straight man to find this attractive? You must be out of your damned mind.

Last updated July 30, 2020