Jonathan Chait: “White women voted for Trump. Or so you have probably heard. In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, the finding from early exit polls that 53 percent of white women voted for Trump formed the basis for a million social-media posts, op-eds, and rally placards. That this “fact” is not true is not even close to the biggest problem with its ubiquitous place in progressive social-justice discourse.”

“The 53 percent figure turned out to be erroneous, and corrected analyses eventually pegged Trump’s share of the white female electorate closer to 47 percent. Nonetheless, the impulse that propelled so many writers to blame white women for electing Trump proved strong enough to survive even after the factual basis was undercut. Indeed, left-wing opinion writers continued churning out polemics based on the erroneous 53 percent figure for years.”

You get a fever, and it's a little hard to breathe, but not that bad. Take some tylenol and go to bed. You wake up in the middle of the night to find yourself gasping for air. You reach over to your wife and get her attention.

She rolls over, “What's wrong honey? It's the middle of the night.” It's then she can hear you breathing, or trying to. She turns on the light and sees the panic in your eyes...

No matter how much you inhale, it's not enough, it's never enough. That would be bad enough but the fever is spiking, it's hard to focus.

Your three kids come into the room, they heard Mom talking loud, trying to get your attention. The little girl, 6 years old, you're the center of her universe. She's a daddy's girl and loves it when you take her places with you. "Is Daddy Okay?" Mom tries to hide her panic "He's fine honey, he'll be okay..."

She struggles trying to decide if she should drive you to the emergency room or get an ambulance. She decides to drive. You're too out of it to get dressed so she takes you in your pajamas.

Once there, they admit you. Your wife cannot go in. You're alone. She is sent to the house to quarantine with the rest of your kids. They start to work on you. You're getting tired, your chest hurts from trying to breathe for so long. Your blood pressure is up. They lower your fever a little and put on an oxygen mask. It seems to help a little, but only for an hour or so.

Then your lungs begin to fight for air again. They offer to turn you over on your stomach, "sometimes it helps" they say. They roll you over... It does. You look out the door, Doctors are running everywhere. There are patients in the hallways. The ward is full, and everyone is trying to keep up. You hear Code calls, and ventilator machines being rolled up and down the hallway. You notice you cannot smell anything, and you have pain all over.

You wonder about your family. Your daughter, the fear in her eyes as her daddy was put into the car. "Why are you leaving Daddy? I'll take care of you..."

Pain.. the fight for air. It's back. You press the button. They roll you back over and check you out. The doctor comes up to your bed. Completely covered, face mask, hood, looks a little like an astronaut.

"Sir, you're not getting enough oxygen in your blood. We need to put you on a ventilator." You nod in agreement, gasping.

"Sir... You won't be able to talk once we do this. Would you like to say anything to your family? We can arrange a facetime with them if you like.”

As your head tries to wrap itself around this offer, one question comes to mind: "How serious is this?" It takes the doc a while to respond, he's done this hundreds of times, but it never gets easy.

"Patients that go on a ventilator have a 4 in 10 chance of not recovering. Should we try to reach your family?" You nod... Numb. Your brain can't handle all the info it's getting. The fever, the pain in your chest the struggle for air, it's too much.

A nurse comes back in with an iPad. "I have your family online" she tries to say with a smile. You take the iPad. There they are, all three kids and your wife. Your everything. The look on their faces is a look you've seen before. The brave smiles. The look you give when you feel sorrow and pain, but need to cheer up the person you’re talking too. They are not at home. It looks like they are outside.

You pull in as much air as you can so you can sound somewhat normal. It does not work. "Hey guys, where are you?" Your wife forces another smile. “We're outside your window honey. They put signs out so we know where you are. They can't let us in. We're not supposed to leave the house but we needed to be close to you.” She starts to cry, it's too much for her.

That's when it hits you. Clarity, all at once.. You're saying "goodbye.” The next time you hug your family will either be a few weeks from now, or in the hereafter. So this is your last chance to say something.

The six year old is shaking, pale with fear. "Hey there nugget. How you doing?" "Daddy... Please come home... Who will read to me? I miss you so much, please get out of bed.. I'll do anything you want!"

You never realized you could cry as hard as you are right now, and it's making the breathing even harder. You know you're scaring her. You cannot stay on much longer. "I'm sorry nugget... I can't get out of bed right now. You take care of your Mama for me okay? I love your everything.” She looks at you through tear soaked eyes.. "I love your everything too.”

You can't do it... You can't say goodbye, it's all just too much. The iPad falls in your lap as you struggle to both breathe and cry all at once.

An alarm goes off, the Docs surround you and begin to put in the ventilator. Your eyes close for the last time.
It's over. It takes years for your family to recover. They lost their rock, and nothing will be the same, ever again... End

I felt compelled to write this to give a perspective to those of us who are more focused on comfort and "getting back to normal.” The above story has played out thousands of times with Mothers, Fathers, Grandparents, and children. Families that will grieve for years to come.

It’s not about how high the numbers go. It's about that one person. Your "everything.”

Please... show compassion. Odds are you know somebody that endured something like this. We're in a war right now, and we're losing. It's time to step up and make sure these kids keep their parents.

Thank you... Jay A Kelley 11/16/2020
*copied & pasted from Lee Ann Welch Kelley

“While trying to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has faced throngs of armed protesters at the statehouse and crowds outside his own home. Now, he is now facing efforts from within his own party to push him out of office entirely,” the Washington Post reports.

“A group of four Republican state lawmakers filed a dozen articles of impeachment against DeWine on Monday, saying the governor violated state and federal laws by requiring face masks in public and ordering some businesses to close.”

“Less than two months remain in the Trump administration, and Senate Republicans are doing something not seen in a century — confirming judges and other nominees after their party lost the White House. That norm-breaking rush to get GOP-approved picks through could get tricky, though, if lawmakers continue missing time because of COVID-19,” Roll Call reports.

“With only one exception, post-election confirmations of judges nominated to lifetime appointments by a president whose party has lost the White House hasn’t happened since the election of 1896 when William McKinley was elected and the Senate confirmed Grover Cleveland’s picks.”

“During previous presidential election years, senators have invoked the so-called Thurmond rule, an unwritten agreement named after the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) that calls for the chamber to stop approving circuit court nominations in the few months before Election Day.”

PARSI: The latest that's happening is that the Iranian president has come out with a statement essentially saying that Iran is not gonna walk into what he called a trap by the Israelis to escalate and create a war because that is, in his assessment, what the Israelis want.

WILKERSON: They want as a major outcome a war. As a middle ground outcome, they want a bombing campaign by the U.S. against Iranian nuclear facilities. and as a minimum amount they want to foreclose any possibility of the new president, Joe Biden, reentering the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear agreement with Iran. And it looks like they're well on that road to success.

PARSI: It's also important to recognize that Netanyahu must also have calculated that Biden probably does not have the political will to inflict a cost, impose a cost to Netanyahu if he does these things to box in Biden. And I think it is up to the Biden administration to prove Netanyahu wrong because I doubt that Netanyahu would have gone down this path unless he felt that it was pretty much cost-free from him. not just from Trump but also from Biden.

Utah’s mysterious metallic monolith, which made headlines after wildlife workers spotted it in the desert during a sheep-counting flyover, has vanished. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the only thing left of the 12-foot, three-sided stainless steel structure erected in a remote part of federal land south of Moab is the triangle that topped it off and a hole in the ground. “We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the ‘monolith’ has been removed from Bureau of Land Management (BLM) public lands by an unknown party,” the agency said in a statement. “The BLM did not remove the structure which is considered private property.” Also still unknown is who installed the structure, which was apparently undisturbed from 2016 until this week, and why.