December 11, 1920. The Burning of Cork.

Unionist, Police Auxiliaries and Black & Tans set a section of the Irish city of Cork aflame in retaliation for the IRA ambush at Dillon's Cross.  The Auxiliaries and Black & Tans further interfered with fire department attempts to come to the scene and address the fire.

The Bishop of Cork, Daniel Cohalan, condemned the arson at a Mass held on this day and also condemned the earlier ambush, issuing an edict that those participating in attacks of that sort should be denied Communion. It was not the first time he had issued such an edict.

In his sermon, he stated:

Murder is murder and arson is arson whether committed by agents of the government or members of the Volunteer organisation, and it is the duty of a bishop to denounce murder and arson from whatever source they come. In face of the destruction of the city, it was the duty of everyone to condemn, and try to put a stop to, outrage, murder, kidnapping and ambushes, with which, unfortunately, they had become too familiar.

He also noted: 

Some republicans say that districts have been delivered from British sway when the policemen were murdered and barracks burned. It is a narrow view. Who will now mention that a district has been delivered from British rule by the murder of RIC and the burning of the barracks? No – the killing of the RIC was murder, and the burning of the barracks the destruction of Irish property. Reprisals began there after the murder of Lord Mayor Mac Curtain, and now it looked like a devil’s competition between some members of the IRA and agents of the Crown in feats of murder and arson. 

The Bishop was noted for his condemnation of violence on both sides.  However, at this point things were spiraling out of control and the action by forces of the British government, while completely unauthorized, notched the violence up a notch in a way that could not help but cause the Irish to be further regarded as an occupied people.

On the same day a fire broke out at Walter Reed Hospital.

And Herbert Hoover was photographed on the streets of New York City.

Hoover was widely admired as a hero at the time for his running of food relief efforts in Europe following World War One.

December 11, 1940. Compass and other matters.

 

Day 468 December 11, 1940

Sowing the wind.

It has long been part of the American political canon that what George Washington did for the country should be and must be repeated by his Oval Office successors.

Washington served two terms as the first President under the Constitution.  As he approached the end of his second there was serious debate in some quarters on whether he would step down and out, run again, or just declare himself to be the chief administrator of the country.

He simply retired and went back to public life.

No American President broke that tradition until Franklin Roosevelt kept running, ultimately dying in office.  Controversial at the time, it lead to the Constitutional Amendment prohibiting that.  But Roosevelt's presence in the office was democratic, not judicial.

Now President Trump has shattered that tradition, refusing to concede that he has lost when he did, and resorting to crackpot litigation.  Lawyers who are deeply in Trump's camp have signed on for the effort, including the Attorney General of Texas and Ted Cruz, who offered to argue the Pennsylvania appeal at the Supreme Court level if it got in the door. . . as if that was really supposed to achieve something.* The Republican Party has generally gone along with this.

The real thing that separates democracies from dictatorship is the democratic habit.  That's about it.  Lots of dictators started out as elected officials and then retained office by refusing to step down, manipulating the organs of power in order to make their retention of power appear legitimate.  It's extremely common.

Here the US judicial system has been put a stress test and really held up. The Republican Party has been put to one and has not.  Real questions remain going forward what this will end up causing.

Back in 2016 when Trump secured the GOP nomination I commented here that the GOP would have to live with the implications.  It will, and now the question really is, is there a GOP?  The party has certainly changed from what it was four years ago, and one of the things that has developed is a scary section of belief that the leader's word must be true because he is the leader. Added to that is the additional element that power must be retained as the opponent is unworthy of power, or even traitorous.

That crosses over a political line from supporting democracy to something akin to what fascist parties believed.  At their core they believed that only they were worthy of rule as their opponents were evil.  Indeed that outlook caused a debate in the 1930s on whether or not Communist parties were fascist parties, as that was in essence their belief as well.  It's not that the Soviet Union didn't have elections, it always did.  It's that only the "right" votes counted.

Added to that you can only stress things so many times before they bend.  Due to the disfunction of the American Federal Government since the 1990s the Courts have increasingly become an unelected national legislature.  Chief Justice Roberts complained about this openly in an oral argument just the other day.  Now the Courts are all that is keeping an attempted coup through the courts from succeeding. They're doing a magnificent job of it, but how many times can they keep doing that, and will it now be the case that every one of our national elections is legislated this way.  

If the latter is the case, we're now a second or even third rate nation, protected only by the overabundance of lawyers in our society.  That's a scary situation to be in.

We really don't know where this will lead over the next two to four years.  My suspicion is that the Trump banner will rapidly fade and with it will come a restructuring of the GOP back to a more Buckleyesque part.  If not, it'll split in two into a center right party and an alt right part, neither of which will be able to contend against the largest party in the nation, the Democratic Party.  

"they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind"

The sad thing is that this is pretty conclusive evidence that there is something extremely fractured in American society.  It'd be too early to consign the country to the grave in terms of it being a first rate nation, but the US is fooling itself it believes that there's a quick fix to this.  Donald Trump promised to "make American great again", and he has some economic advances to his credit.  But the political damage now done to the country won't be repaired in four years, eight years, or twelve.  His legacy will be principally defined by an effort to illegitimately hold on to power, just like Richard Nixon's long and distinguished career is defined almost wholly by Watergate.

The country did get over Watergate, of course, although in real ways the reaction to Watergate and what it brought into the nation's politics is responsible for what we're seeing now.  It's certain, retrospectively, that Gerald Ford is partially responsible for what is happening now by his pardoning of Nixon, something that never should have been done.  Nixon should have been tried and convicted for his crimes so as to set a standard and example for the future.

Indeed, Nixon's pardoning is one of the two great American pardoning political mistakes that continues to haunt the nation, the first being the United States decision to decline prosecuting the treasonous Southern figures who lead the rebelling against the country in 1860 to 65.  Just as Washington's peaceful transfer of power set an example that lasted over 200 years, the post Civil War  and post Watergate examples set a precedent that you really can attack the institutions of the country and get away with it.  Trying the Southern rebels for treason would have shocked the Southern population into reform, which they were already inclined towards, in 1865 and have kept their antebellum masters from returning to rule over white and black alike once again.  Trying Nixon would have proved that the President wasn't above the law even when sitting behind the Resolute Desk.  Instead we made heroes out of traitors in the first instance and inserted the concept of near dictatorial powers while in office in the second.  Indeed Nixon openly opined that the President couldn't commit a crime.

But the President can and in a loose non judicial sense a crime against the American political culture is being committed right now and shows ever sense of running right up to the inauguration.  The Atlantic magazine has turned out to be prophetic in what Trump intended to try.  For the most part only the courts, and some brave state Republican officials, have kept this from occurring.  If it had succeeded the result would have been complete anarchy.

Some commentators, at this point in time, have begun to ponder if what is presently occurring goes further than that, however.  It might be a real crime, they're stating, with that crime being sedition.

Sedition, in Federal law, is as follows:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

As can be seen, the elements require two or more people, making it a species of conspiracy, who conspire to overthrow the government or "to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States".  

There's been commentary that this must be an attempt to violently overthrow or hinder, but that's not really clear.  Law is not only in the details, but also in the grammar.  It's perfectly possible to read 18 USC § 2394 to prevent conspiracies to 1) overthrow, or 2) put down, or "destroy by force". That doesn't require the conspiracies to overthrow, put down, or  hinder to require force.

Of course, that question is academic as nobody is going to charge Trump or his confederates with sedition.  And if they did, they'd fail, contrary to what some commentators have argued, as the effort has been pretty open and doesn't look like any sort of conventional conspiracy so much as a rather odd litigation based strategy.  The point, however, is that by sow the winds of the court, the doors are now open to what that may reap.  Some on the left are now openly advocating for trying Trump for something.  

By and large, that would be disastrous for the left unless something really dramatic comes forward post election, which some are speculating will.  That, they argue, is Trump's real reason for trying to hold on to power. The evidence doesn't support that, however.  It appears just to be an effort to hold on to power combined with a disrespect for the American democratic tradition.

Disrespect, of course, won't take a person anywhere without support and it seems pretty clear that the last time a crisis of this type, Watergate, existed neither the public nor the Republican Party were willing to participate in it. Of course, in that case an outright crime had occurred.  Still, being old enough to remember 1973, I can remember Nixon being held in contempt by average people for what he did.

Here we are seeing something else.  People are signing up to be part of this effort.  And that points to something just as troubling.

It wasn't in 2016 that the nation suddenly had a disgruntled populist segment of the country that was voting to light the match to the nation.  That impulse went all the way back to the latter part of Ronald Reagan's administration in the figure of such people as Newt Gingrich.  Starting in the 1970s the blue collar, rust belt, section of the nation began to suffer a decline which nobody made any effort to reverse.  At the same time the American left went from begin a WASP based sort of Episcopal left to an increasingly Hight Ashbury sort of left that had a really strong element of contempt for Western culture and tradition.  The right, in turn, began to give lip service to deep nativist impulses that have always been a feature of American culture even while directly participating in left wing agendas that directly impacted and damaged the people they were pitching to.  Rust Belt denizens who felt that they'd been forgotten and abandoned by both parties and cultural elites were completely correct, they had been.

Hence what we are now seeing with Donald Trump.  Trump is a populist and if he seems a populist in the mold of Huey Long or Fr. Charles Coughlin, it's because he is. Both of those men from the 1930s pitched to the same base and in the same fashion, and if people suspected that they were anti democratic, it was was a suspicion that was merited in the first instance and correct in the second.  Indeed, Trump may be more like Long in his personality that Coughlin, who was more anti democratic but not personally tainted by personal vice.  

That should be really frightening as what that means is that a large demographic really doesn't care if what Trump does in an effort to retain power is democratic or not.  And that's what gave Italy a figure like Mussolini, Spain a figure like Franco, or Portugal Salazar.  They didn't seize power on their own, they obtained it as they were supported by a real base that had lost interest in democracy in the greater sense and who were concerned only about their own agendas, which they believed to be the correct agendas.

What this means is that the incoming President, Joe Biden, has a massive amount of work to do in order to address populist complaints.  Ultimately, all populist movements break upon reality and the key is to address the complaint, or alternatively to completely bury the complaining demographic politically.  Indeed, all totalitarian populist movements ironically achieve that latter result. Portugal went right from a right wing dictatorship to a radical Socialist government with nothing in between. The Spanish Falangist are thing of the political past.  In the US, however, the disgruntled populist demographic is too large to ignore.

Biden has only four years to really get this fixed.  It'll be a big task, but frankly not an impossible one.  To do it, he has to ignore the advice of his supporters who want to treat the nation like a giant sociology petrie dish.  Forcing more left wing ideology down the throats of the public on social issues will cement the populist drift of the GOP and likely bring a rapid end to Democratic power in Congress in 2022.  Biden, who was once a Republican, and who was at one time an observant Catholic, can return to much of his roots and assuage fears while also addressing issues that need to be addressed.  If that's done, he may come out a hero in what is likely to be his single term, and perhaps start to repair the damage being meted out to the country by a President who clearly doesn't respect American political culture.  Or he can ignore that, or just be ineffectual, and make the damage worse.

At some point, however, people who supported this poorly thought out effort to effect a sort of judicial coup will have to come to account.  We can expect them all to have long political careers, but like American politicians who said nice things about the Nazis in the 1930s, and not like the American politicians who said nice things about  the Soviets in the 1940s, they'll need to address it.  With this having been loosed in the hot wind of this election seasons, something is going to be need to send when the wind calms and the weather cools.  It'll be necessary for the country.

*It probably did put an end to speculation that Cruz would make a good Supreme Court justice.  There's no way he'd pass muster now.

Pandemic, Part 4

 SARS-CoV-2, (2019-nCoV, COVID-19).  The spikes on the outer edge of the virus particles give coronaviruses, a family of such viruses, their name, using the latin name for "crown", corona. "Crown virus". Credit: NIAID-RML

October 31, 2020

This isn't going to be a cheery entry, not that any of the entries so far have been.

It's now clear that the disease is mutating.  European scientists have isolated a second strain that's ripping through Europe that originated during the first Spanish episode.  Viruses mutating is a common evolutionary strategy they employ for survival, but oddly at least the Spanish mutation is every bit as lethal as its predecessor.  Usually viruses, such as the 1918 Spanish Flu (poor Spain, to be associated with such disasters), grow less lethal as they evolve. So far, in at least this example, it isn't.

This may explain, but only in part, why its now clear that being infected at least twice is perfectly possible, and now appears common. Wyoming has had its first such instance with a UW student who has had it twice.  The other reason that this may be the case is it is clear that immunity from being infected lasts a mere eight weeks.  It's not permanent.

Added to that. . . no vaccine yet.  And obviously coming up with one, given that the disease has evolved, is going to be difficult.

Keeping it isolated in the first place in free societies, quite frankly, was never going to be possible.  That's why it ripped through Europe and is now doing so a second time. And that's why its ripping through the US.  It's also why its now ripping through South America and India.

But that also means that the opportunity, in my view, to have contained it effectively, and then put a lid on it, is lost.

That's a grim assessment, but at this time, my prediction is that it will last not only through the winter and into next year.  It's become endemic in society and will be something we'll have to go on to accept as a horrific lethal actor in society, like small pox once was.  Our best hope is that a vaccine that's effective on whatever the local predominant variant is developed over the next few months and at least 60% of the population gets it.  That might knock it back to the level of where its capable of being handled.

In other grim news the disease has hit a Casper nursing home and at this point, at least locally, you know somebody who has it.  It's spiking in Wyoming with the new infection rate growing daily.

November 2, 2020

People arriving in New York state must quarantine for three days before taking an infection test.

The United Kingdom is going back into lockdowns and shutting down much of the public market, if you will, economy.

Laramie County's mask requirement comes into effect today, although their District Attorney is indicating that she will take no steps to enforce it.

November 3, 2020

A crowd shouted down public health officials in Natrona County attempting to explain the state of the virus.  This is really inexcusable and inexplicable.  Part of the time the taunters chanted "USA, USA", which makes no sense in this context whatsoever.

Donald Trump hinted he may fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after the election.

November 4, 2020

Albany County, Wyoming has imposed a mask requirement to go into effect this Friday.

November 9, 2020

The State of Utah has issued a mask mandate.

The University of Wyoming will not be playing its scheduled football game against the Air Force Academy.

The Wind River Indian Reservation is closing its casinos for the second time.

Cont:

From the New York Times:

Pfizer’s Early Data Shows Coronavirus Vaccine Is More Than 90% Effective

This is moving really rapidly.  Vaccinations  could start by the end of the year.

November 10, 2020

New Jersey has re-imposed restrictions on indoor dining.

November 12, 2020

The University of Wyoming and Central Wyoming College are bringing in already scheduled all on line classes for the campus early.  The campuses will go all on line on Monday.

Sublette County is seeking to impose a mask requirement.  If imposed, which is likely, it will be the fifth Wyoming county to have one in effect.

Governor Gordon's office issued this release yesterday:

Governor to Bring Additional Medical Personnel to Wyoming for COVID Response

 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Wyoming hospitals are seeing a drastic spike in COVID-19 cases and report that the main concern at this time is having adequate staffing. In response, Governor Mark Gordon is utilizing $10 million in CARES Act funds to bring additional medical personnel to the state to alleviate the strain on hospitals and Wyoming health care professionals. 

The Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) has partnered with the Wyoming Hospital Association to bring in temporary medical personnel to address the surge in hospitalizations that has occurred around the state, and to prepare for additional staffing needs that are likely to arise. As of November 10, Wyoming hospitals were reporting a record 178 COVID-19 current hospitalizations. One month ago there were only 56. 

“We are grateful to the Governor for recognizing the imminent need for additional staffing around the state,” said Eric Boley, President of the Wyoming Hospital Association. “Medical staff across the state are strained and exhausted. There is an immediate need to bring in additional help to ease the burden shouldered by our healthcare professionals. This move by the Governor is important and is giving us critical resources allowing us to find and retain medical personnel to support our hospitals in their fight against COVID.”

“This funding will help ease the strain on our hospitals and healthcare workers, who have been working tirelessly to provide care to increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients,” Governor Gordon said. “As hospitals around the region face the same issues, our hospitals cannot plan on transferring patients out of state. I want to ensure Wyoming maintains its ability to provide our residents access to the treatments and care they need.”

The Wyoming Hospital Association will work with the state’s hospitals to evaluate medical staff shortages and consult with the WDH on each facilities’ needs. The temporary medical personnel will allow hospitals to treat additional patients, offset staff shortages that may occur due to illness and provide relief to hospital staff dealing with heavy workloads and long stretches of overtime.

--END--

November 13, 2020

Twenty-one county health officers have urged Governor Gordon to institute a statewide mask order.  Wyoming has twenty-three counties.  Presently only a few of those counties have imposed mask orders themselves, including Albany, Laramie and Teton Counties.

The Governor is holding a public conference on COVID 19 later today. His address has been twice delayed this week.

Costco tightened its mass requirement in the US enacting a policy requiring everyone to wear one and, if people have medical exemptions, to wear a face shield.

87 year old Don Young of Alaska, the oldest member of Congress, has contracted COVID 19.

The COVID 19 death toll has surpassed 10,000 deaths in Massachusetts.  California has surpassed 1,000,000 infections.

The Mayor of Chicago has urged that Chicagoans stay home except for essential travel.

Jet Blue and Southwest Airlines are ending blocked seat policies and returning to selling the entire cabin.

The Ivy League has called of winter sports.

November 14, 2020

In a heartfelt address, Governor Gordon indicated that all options are on the table even as he tables whether or not to use any for the next couple of weeks to see how things progress and whether people act independently to address the current peak infection rate in the state.

Governor Mark Gordon's Press Conference on COVID-19 - November 13, 2020

The Wyoming Supreme Court vacated all jury trials.

Oregon's governor ordered that state into a strict two week lockdown.

Puerto Rico activated its National Guard to enforce curfews, which shall be partially tasked for enforcement to the unarmed soldiers.

A court in Texas rules that El Paso County's stay at home order was invalid as that authority was vested solely in the Governor's office.

November 15, 2020

The Tribune this morning has banner headlines with "the Numbers", and a set of graphs.  A visually and informationally impressive front page.

Austria is going into a national lockdown.

November 16, 2020

New research has shown that COVID 19 was circulating in Italy, but with low lethality, in September 2019, before the disease was thought to have existed.  This means, according to researchers, that the disease is capable of circulating without high lethality which, ironically, also means it will be very difficult to eradicate.

The Navajo Nation has gone into lockdown.

The number of Americans who have been infected surpassed 11,000,000.  Mexico surpassed 1,000,000.

November 17, 2020

The President of Wyoming's Senate has contracted the disease and is recovering.

The Wyoming State Republican Central Committee passed a resolution asking Governor Gordon to rescind the state of emergency he declared in March.

November 18, 2020

Mask orders will go into effect in nearly every Wyoming county.  At least one county where they have not yet been approved has an order submitted to the State awaiting approval.

Natrona County's was interesting in that the County Health officer submitted an order for approval without providing it to the County Commission which therefore was unaware of its exact terms at the time it was approved, although almost all of them have mirrored the order in place for Teton County, which was the first county to have one independently in place.

Some types of mouthwash have been demonstrated as being effective in killing the virus in the mouth.

November 20, 2020

Governor Gordon announced yesterday that on November 24 restrictions on the number of individuals in gatherings shall be instated.

With the Thanksgiving Holiday coming up, the CDC is urging Americans not to travel, among other recommendations.  Their recommendations, which are extensive, start off as follows:

Travel during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Updated Oct. 21, 2020

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• Syndicate

On This Page

• Before You Travel
• Steps to Take if You Travel
• Considerations for Types of Travel
• Avoid getting and spreading COVID-19 in common travel situations
• Anticipate Your Travel Needs
• Check Travel Restrictions
• After You Travel
• Higher Risk Activities

Travel increases your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19. Staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.

You can get COVID-19 during your travels. You may feel well and not have any symptoms, but you can still spread COVID-19 to others. You and your travel companions (including children) may spread COVID-19 to other people including your family, friends, and community for 14 days after you were exposed to the virus.

Don’t travel if you are sick or if you have been around someone with COVID-19 in the past 14 days. Don’t travel with someone who is sick.

The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Irinej, has died of COVID 19 at age 90.  The Patriarch recently preceded over a funeral of a clergyman and came down with the disease shortly thereafter.

November 22, 2020

The Texas National Guard has been deployed to El Paso to assist with a morgue crisis in that city.

November 23, 2020

South Korea tightened restrictions on Seoul.

Protesters in Germany compared German restrictions to Nazi era rule.

France ordered 1,000 minks infected with COVID 19 culled.

Chile reopened its borders.

November 24, 2020

According to Colorado Public Radio, 1 in 49 Coloradans are now infected with Covid 19, or a little over 2%.

The same report notes that Denver International Airport is packed.

Cont:

The Governor's office is now closed due to a staff member coming down with COVID 19.  It is set to reopen tomorrow.

November 25, 2020

The Wyoming legislature determined its members won't have to comply with local mask orders when they are sworn in.

Cont:

Governor Gordon has tested positive for the virus.

November 30, 2020

Senate Republicans are suspending their in person lunches. The Democrats did this earlier.

Santa Clara County, California, has suspended team sports. The county includes the NFL's San Francisco 49ers.

December 1, 2020

News remains good on the vaccination front, with some indications that the commencement of vaccinations is only weeks away.

December 2, 2020

The UK has approved the Pfizer vaccine.

Canada has announced that its border control policies with the US will remain in place until the end of the pandemic.

Hong Kong has limited gatherings to two people.

December 4, 2020

The First Lady of Wyoming, Jennie Gordon, now has COVID 19.

Dr. Igor Shepherd of the Wyoming Department of Health spoke at an even in Colorado last month in which he claimed that Russia and China invented the virus in order to spread communism around the world and that the vaccine is a biological weapon.

President Elect Biden will ask Americans to wear a mask for the first 100 days of his presidency.

The number of Americans who have had COVID 19 has surpassed 14,000,000 people.

Cardiac arrests due to drug overdoses are also surging in the United States as the pandemic has caused an uptick in drug and alcohol use.

December 5, 2020

The Natrona County mask mandate was continued to January 8, 2021.

December 7, 2020

Increase in Deaths and Challenges to Hospital Capacity lead to New Actions to Fight Virus

Governor pushes effort so businesses stay open and local authority respected

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – With Wyoming hospitals seeing record numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients and rising deaths, Governor Mark Gordon has announced a new approach that protects the public and keeps schools and businesses open. This involves requiring face coverings in certain indoor public settings in all counties, reducing group sizes, and reducing hours of businesses where COVID-19 transmission is more likely to occur. However, counties can opt out of the requirements if local conditions move to safer levels in accordance with White House metrics.

“Our state and those surrounding us are facing a hospital capacity crisis that now compels us to take additional action. All through the fall, Wyoming has seen a rise in serious cases of COVID to a point where every county is facing critical and dangerous levels of spread of the virus. Too many people have died,” Governor Gordon said. “Science tells us limiting gatherings of groups and using face coverings are effective in slowing transmission of this virus. With these actions we can avoid taking the more drastic step of closing schools and businesses.”

The new health orders signed by State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist take effect Wednesday, December 9 and extend through January 8, 2021. Sixteen Wyoming counties already have county-level orders requiring face coverings. Little will change in those counties, as local officials continue to have authority to administer the face covering requirement in their community.

“I want to thank the majority of Wyoming counties who have taken the lead, and the people who are working hard to protect their friends, neighbors, and colleagues by wearing face coverings. They will make a big difference but it will take time. We stand behind the local actions that are in place. These new orders are meant to support local leadership and we should all know that in Wyoming these mandates are not about citations, but about caring for others,” Governor Gordon said.

The Governor's previous steps to address the rising number of hospitalizations included reducing the size of allowed gatherings, accepting federal assistance from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and providing additional financial and staffing support to hospitals in the state. With federal CARES Act funding scheduled to expire at the end of the month, the Governor said the use of face coverings is a cost-effective tool that can help reduce hospitalizations and keep businesses and schools open until a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available. Wyoming reported 128 COVID-19 deaths in November, the highest number since the pandemic began in March.

“We have said from the beginning that we will follow the science. We are at a critical juncture for our state,” the Governor said. “These next few months are going to be challenging for our businesses, citizens, families, and our healthcare workers. This is a necessary step to ensure a happy and healthy holiday season and a safer and Merry Christmas, and set ourselves in good stead for the new year. The deployment of the vaccine in the coming months will help put this awful virus finally at bay and bring us back to some semblance of normal.”

The decision to extend the face covering requirement statewide was endorsed by the Wyoming Medical Society, the Wyoming Primary Care Association and the Wyoming Hospital Association.

“Wyoming’s physicians and PAs are deeply grateful that the Governor has taken this critical action in leading our state to the other side of the pandemic,” said Sheila Bush, Executive Director of the Wyoming Medical Society. “Everyone wearing a mask is the simplest and most effective way to reduce the state’s rate of transmission, enabling us to safely keep schools and businesses open until we reach the other side.”

“We realize that masks are not the cure for COVID, but we know they can be effective in slowing the spread of the virus,” said Eric Boley, CEO of the Wyoming Hospital Association. “Hospitals are reaching capacity and nursing homes are seeing increases in infection rates. Medical staff are exhausted and are wearing thin as they battle this disease. We need to slow the spread and flatten the curve until the vaccine is readily available. It is all worth it if one life is saved by wearing masks. Thank you Governor for your leadership on this issue.”

A fact sheet is attached providing details on the new orders, along with the orders themselves, and these can also be found on Wyoming’s COVID-19 website.

“Rest assured that we are doing everything in our power to mitigate the economic damage and social costs to the state,” the Governor continued, “But how we emerge on the other side is in large part up to us.”

--END--

• Order2_EighteenthContinuation_Dec72020.pdf
• Order3_EighteenthContinuation_Dec72020.pdf
• Order1_EighteenthContinuation_Dec72020.pdf
• WDH_Changes to Public Health Orders_12.9.20.pdf
• Order4_StatewideFaceCoveringOrder_Dec72020.pdf

December 8, 2020

Denver has closed its bars and restaurants.

The new Wyoming orders are summarized in this letter issued by the state:

December 10, 2020

Dr. Igor Shephard quit his post with the Wyoming Department of Health.  You can read about his statements above.

December 11, 2020

The Gates Foundation pledged $250,000,000 to fight COVID 19 worldwide.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Related and prior threads:

There are over fifty threads mentioning the disease, so only the prior version of this trailing post are noted here.

Pandemic, Part 3.

Pandemic, Part Two

Pandemic

Blog Mirror: US plugs and sockets origin and early models

 Ever go into an older house and see some odd sockets?

US plugs and sockets
origin and early models

Well, that probably doesn't happen as much as it used to, but it did used to occur.  I just knew that they were older.

Well, here's a site, and one in keeping with the focus of this blog, that explores such topics.  Lots of stuff I never knew.

December 10, 1920. War, Peace, News and Meetings.

On this day in 1920, the British extended martial law to four Irish counties.

On the same day, Woodrow Wilson received the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Inauguration Committee of the Senate met and was photographed.
 

And a newsboy was photographed sitting in an office window.

A group of Osage Indians were photographed in Washington D.C.

As were a group of women at a health conference.

Strange and Strained Observations.

Its interesting, post election, to see the conclusions that people have reached regarding what just occurred.

Indeed, we should take heart at that.  People's prognostication abilities, even those of really bright people, often tend to be incredibly poor.  We all know this and exhibit it when we actually express surprise that a dire prediction, or a cheerful one, of the past actually comes true.  Most flat out don't.

Which doesn't mean that they don't have some contemporary influence, sometimes negative influence, at the time they're given.

A strong feature of this is to rationalize the recent results.  People who lost are convinced that its a milestone in the decline of something, just as people who've won assume its the turning point in something.  Sometimes it is, but rarely so.

So, with that introduction, we'll note a few of the more strained ones we've seen.

Victor David Hanson, the agrarian Southern Californian historian, whose histories I do like, but whose political analysis is frankly suspect, came out with the conclusion that the election has been a hallmark of decline because the "tradition" of "everyone" going to the polls on Election Day has been destroyed.

While he doesn't come right out and say it this creeps up on two arguments, one out in the open and another one that is not, that this past election has had about mail in ballots.

What people want to say, if they're opposed to them, is that they're an invitation for fraud.  This has in fact been the bloody banner that Trump started waiving before the election, but at least in this election that proved to be absolutely false.  

The other thing, which people don't argue openly, is a long held feeling that if you mail out ballots the poor and minorities will vote, and they'll all vote Democratic.

Well, that turns out to be false too.

Indeed, if anything, what this election demonstrated is that encouraging record numbers of voters by whatever means actually favors Republicans.  Going off of old models, the Democrats assumed, and understandably, that they were going to demolish Trump at the polls and take out the GOP with him.

They didn't do that.

Indeed, Republicans did really well at the polls.

And finally VDH's historical analysis is just baloney.  We've been moving towards a longer election season and mail in ballots for decades.  Arguably it started during World War Two when the country actually debated on whether to let soldiers vote or not.  It decided they could. . . by mail.  In the Western U.S. mail in balloting has been common my entire adult life.  In recent elections more and more people have availed themselves of that process.  Only in the East Coast was the "show up and vote" process the norm, and mostly because Eastern states are really slow to adopt innovations of that type.

And even if mailing out ballots does change the tradition, so what?  Does VDH want to go back to locked wooden boxes?  For over half of the country's existence the tradition was that only men voted, and for that matter lots of Native American men weren't regarded as citizens, even as recently as a century ago.

So that's just loss sulking, really.

In the same camp is Conrad Black, but with a different twist.

Black is a Canadian ex pat living in the UK who was convicted of some sort of crime in the US and pardoned by Trump.  He's wealthy and a Trump supporter.  He's also the founder of the Canadian National Post.

Black has issued his opinion that Trump backers should not despair as within six months Americans will be crying for the return of Donald Trump, leading to Trump Revolution Part Three (I'm not sure why its part three, but he feels that it is) in 2024, or even earlier.

Well, my prognostication on Presidential elections hasn't been great recently, so perhaps I should abstain from a prediction here, although I did get the results, but not the margins, right this go around.  

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously observed that there were "no second acts in American lives" and that's largely true.  I don't see Trump coming back, although lots of Republicans are living in hope or fear of just that. 

Indeed, my prediction is that the next six months are not going to be good for Trump who is going to have to worry about Federal prosecutors in some areas who are still circling like sharks in some areas, and others in both the Democratic Party and the GOP who will be out for revenge.  Trump's going to have to endure an immediate assault on his reputation and he won't have the bully pulpit to lecture from.

Indeed, we really don't know what his own personal finances are like and there's been some speculation, which may be completely in error, that part of the reason he continues to fight to hold on to the White House is purely personal.  There's something to hide.  I don't think that will be the case or that this is his motivation, but we can be sure that there are going to be piles of memoirs and releases that start flooding out after January 20 and little of it is going to be complimentary.  If there's really anything to hide, moreover, its coming out.  Again, I don't think a dossier of photographs will be slipped under a door from the Russian Embassy, but I do think that Trump is set to be trashed more than any President, ever.

Additionally the ability of a departing President to really retain a grip on anything is pretty poor. The only ones I can think of are Theodore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland.  And Roosevelt doesn't provide a really good example as he retained support of less than half of the Republican Party in his attempt at a post office run, which split the party.  When he left office the party was united behind him.  In very short order, it wasn't.  Younger Republicans who have been biding their time to run for the Oval Office are probably not going to wait.

Nor should they.  Surely the current President will be the last Boomer President.  He needs to be.  The grip of the Boomers on American politics has been excessively long and is growing exceedingly long in the tooth.  Indeed, Political lamented this last year in an article entitled:

How the baby boomers broke America

The most likely outcome in 2020 is that voters will yet again ask a baby boomer to fix what the baby boom broke.

The article correctly predicted the results, but this literally can't keep going on this way.

Which brings me back to Trump.  He's in his 70s now and doesn't look fit.  Indeed, he looks like somebody who has been living on stress and adrenaline.  In a little over a month, he's going to get a break, and like a lot of old fighters who get one, witness again Theodore Roosevelt after his last run, my suspicion is that he's going to be in situation of the classic Top Gun line in that his "ego is writing checks his body can't cash".

If that sounds rather dire, I don't mean it to be, but I've seen this too many times and with men a lot less controversial than Trump.  Something about the daily routine and even the daily struggle of hard stressful jobs either kills people young are keeps them going into old age.  Once they get a break, the rest sets in a rapid decline, and it does that to men who are in a lot better shape than Donald Trump.  Indeed, those who retire best are those that had other interests to go to.  There's no evidence that Trump does.

Not that I'm really terribly optimistic about Joe Biden and his ability to run again either.  He's a very old man that has worn out a lot of very young men.  My guess is he's going to be a one term President.  I suspect in four years he won't run again and Trump won't be in any shape to do so.  Trump may make a pretense at it, but time will have passed him by.

Another National Post commentator, whose name I've forgotten, who is an American ex pat declared that the election proved the US needed to "modernize" its election system by which she meant make the US system a parliamentary one.

You'd have to be delusional to think the US is going to do that.  We're not going to.

Indeed, ironically, for a columnist who wasn't impressed with Trump, if we did that, Trump would have remained the President.  If the House is our House of Commons, and its controlled by Republicans, and the Commons picks the chief executive, that would be the result.

Moreover, that writer cited Woodrow Wilson favorably noting that he preferred parliaments, which he did, and he was the only President who was an historian. That latter citation isn't really correct unless we mean an academic historian, and even at that its only marginally true.  Wilson was a lawyer by training and went back to school to study history after feeling that courtroom work wasn't his deal.  It probably wasn't.  Theodore Roosevelt, however, was also a published historian.

Wilson was also a racist and pretty ineffectual in the last year of his Presidency so he's not an ideal model for things overall.  Indeed, he was a pretty poor President in general.

Moreover, citing the Canadian example right now only suffices in comparison to the last four years, if you assume that the last four years were embarrassing, which half the country does, another half does not, and which most of the outside world does.  Canada's chief executive is the politically correct pretty boy Justin Trudeau, who most Americans ignore and whom Canadians ought to.

So, anyhow, a slate of interesting opinions.  My predictions are that all of them are going to be wrong.  What the future will hold, only the future will tell, but my guess is that we're going to have a moderately center left government for the next four years, most of the really dramatic stuff that people hope for or fear won't occur, although some of it will, and that in 2024 the contenders aren't going to be Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau: 

Wyoming Myths. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

Okay, we recently discussed Sacagawea and, in that context, discussed Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.  Surely we have this covered?

Well, mostly. But to complete the story we really need to address Jean Baptiste as, just like his famous mother, he's the subject of a Wyoming myth. And indeed, it's the same myth.

And its illustrative as to both, as the later life of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau is very well known, and demonstrable with finality.  We know where he went to school, what he did as a young man, a middle aged man, and in the context of his times, as an old man.  

And what he did not do is to go to the Wind River Reservation with his very aged mother.

But that's the myth.

It's hard not to feel sad about the life of Jean Baptiste, even though he probably didn't see it as sad himself.  He wasn't even one year old when he was packed by his mother, as slave to his father, across the western half of North America as his famous mother acted as a guide and interpreter for the Corps of Discovery.  He was a young boy when his mother gave him up to William Clark to be educated, and Clark in fact enrolled him in two successive schools, the first a Jesuit school and the second another private school, at great expense.  He was therefore well educated for this time and became even more so when met Duke Friedrich Paul Wihlem of Wurttenberg in 1823 while he was traveling in the United States.  Jean Baptiste was working at a Kaw trading post on the Kansas River at the time.  The Duke was being guided by Toussaint Charbonneau on a trip to the northern plains.  He invited the younger Charbonneau to return to Europe with him, which he did.  He apparently traveled with the Duke in Europe and Africa while his guest.

Upon returning to North American he resumed a Western life and worked as a trapper, hunter and guide.  He was later a gold prospector.  In 1866 he died in Oregon after some sort of accident which threw him into a frigid river and left him with pneumonia.  He was 61 years old at the time.

He lived a rich and varied life, and a fairly well documented one. That he died in Oregon is something for which there is no doubt.

None the less, Grace Raymond Hebard placed his death in 1885 on the Wind River Reservation, and the work of Dr. Charles Eastman likewise places him there. And this all dates to the the stories associated with Porivo, and her adult son who entered the Reservation with her.  As with his mother, who died in North Dakota, there is a grave marker for him on the Reservation.

His actual grave is known as to location, and is in Oregon.

As with his famous mother, his reconstructed myth does not serve him well, although unlike his mother he lived a fairly long life.  He would have lived a longer one if the Wyoming myth was correct, but that would not do his life justice.  It was remarkably adventuresome right up to the point of his death, and like his mothers it crossed back and forth between two worlds in a way that makes contemporary readers uncomfortable.

Today In Wyoming's History: Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea and York

Today In Wyoming's History: Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacaga...: 

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea. An added footnote

Something I really should have footnoted in this item from the other day:

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea: Mural in the Montana State House by Edgar Paxson depicting Sacagawea and the Corps of Discovery in Montana.  Sacagawea's actual appearan...

When the Corps of Discovery went into winter camp after their first year of trekking across the western half of the continent they voted on the location and decided it by majority vote.

Both Sacagawea and York were given a vote.

December 10, 1940. Operation Compass, again.

 Operation Compass again:

Day 467 December 10, 1940

Blog Mirror: My Pandemic Cat Had a Secret

 

My Pandemic Cat Had a Secret

First of all, she wasn’t a kitten …

December 9, 1940. Points of the Compass

On this day in 1940 Operation Compass commenced in North Africa.  It was the first largescale British operation in North Africa during World War Two.

The British Commonwealth forces attacked Italian forces in Egypt and Cyrenaica in an offense that would run through February and, in the end take over 138,000 Italian and Libyan (Italian Colonial) forces as prisoners.  About 10% of the Commonwealth forces were killed in the effort, a loss of 1,900 men.

The signs were clear.  Italy, in spite of some initial promise for the Axis, was spent, the result of the hardcore fascist Italian forces having been used up in the Spanish Civil War, the Italian defense industry having peaked early, and ultimately lukewarm support of Mussolini in Italy.

And no, this doesn't mean that this has suddenly become the "80 Years Ago Today" day by day website.  That status would be long to the World War II Day-By-Day blog, which suddenly ended without the war completed.  It's entry for this day is here:

Day 466 December 9, 1940