Lack of opportunity to hike for the past two weeks – The pre-Christmas storm – Lower life expectancy in the U.S. – COVID in China – Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems – The conclusions of the Jan. 6 investigating committee – The upcoming committee report from Georgia – Evening statistics
I have said little of hiking in the past few entries, due to the uncooperative nature of the weather. I went with the Vigorous Hikers to Sky Meadows on the 6th and I led a hike for them along the McLean Loop on the 13th. Both of these were enjoyable. Conditions for the McLean Loop were especially propitious this time: the preceding period of dry and relatively warm days created low water levels for the numerous streams that this hike route crosses. On the 10th I accompanied the Capital Hiking Club down to the American Chestnut Land Trust, where I had the gratification of seeing several hikers pleased and impressed by a first visit on their part to this area. But during the latter part of the month such walking that I have done has been urban. Originally I had planned, as part of my visit to New York, to spend a night in New Jersey and hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail. But it rained incessantly on the 15th, the day before I was to arrive in New York; and I had no wish to drive several hours in a rainstorm, or to hike afterwards in an unrelenting downpour. I returned from New York on the 20th, and on the 22nd we had yet another day of continual rain, lasting well into the following morning. This rainfall was followed by a drop in temperature that went down to the single digits during Friday night and got up only to the teens today. It actually turned out to be a beautiful day in other respects, but the frigid weather discouraged hikers from signing up for either the CHC or the Wanderbirds hikes that weekend. Both were therefore canceled.
At that, our region has been lucky; the storm that caused merely a day of rain here resulted in a considerable amount of snow and sub-zero temperatures in many other parts of the country. More than a million homes and businesses are without power. Some parts of New York, close to Lake Erie, may receive as much as three additional feet of snow by nightfall. More than 200 million people, or around 60% of the U.S. population, are currently under some form of weather warning or advisory. Air travel has been in a state of confusion. Nearly 6,000 flights within, into, or out of the United States were canceled and an additional 11,500 were delayed yesterday
The life expectancy of Americans has reached a 25-year low. Life expectancy for those born in 2019 was 78.8 years. Life expectancy for people born in the U.S. during 2021 was 76.4 years, the lowest on record since 1996: a drop of 2.4 years in all. The main causes, according to the CDC, are COVID and of the amount of deaths due to substance abuse. Although COVID has become more controllable, it still remains the third leading cause of death (out-ranked only by heart disease and cancer). But even though the mortality rate of COVID will continue to decline as both vaccines and therapeutic treatment becomes more sophisticated, substance abuse shows no signs of alleviation. A study by Johns Hopkins indicated that over 20 million Americans over 12 years of age have substance abuse disorders – about 1 in every 13. It is not the use of illicit drugs that is the primary factor; the usage rate has remained fairly constant over the years. But prescription drugs are readily available, and the number of people who get addicted on them is steadily increasing. Nearly 107,000 Americans died of a drug overdose in 2021. San Francisco alone saw a 45% increase in drug overdose deaths in a mere two years.
The pretense that COVID is responsible for only a handful of deaths in China is beginning to wear a little thin. Tesla has suspended production in its busiest facility in Shanghai due to the number of workers calling in sick. Many other factories have followed suit. Taiwan is contemplating a restriction on bulk buying of pain relief medications because of the number of people who are buying them to send to their relatives on the mainland. Reporters from independent organizations such as the Associated Press have seen hospital intensive care units overwhelmed by patients and ambulances being turned away. Sun Yang, a deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated that some 250 million people in the country have caught COVID-19 in the past three weeks. Even with a 0.1% mortality rate, such a figure would translate into at least 250,000 deaths. There are some reports that crematoria are burning 20-to-30 bodies daily and that many have a long waiting list in addition. Sharply increased numbers of absences from work on account of illness, shortages of fever-reducing medicine, hospitals with no available ICUs, and staff working overtime at crematoria all suggest – to use the mildest term – that the deaths from the virus are widespread.
There are new developments in the case Dominion Voting Systems has filed against Fox News. Sean Hannity, one of Trump’s staunchest sycophants minions defenders, said under oath that he never believed the lie that Trump was cheated of victory in the 2020 presidential election. So did Meade Cooper, Fox News’ executive vice president. Fox News did have a few partisans of common-sense during Fox News’ campaign to prop up the lie about the “stolen” election, including, rather surprisingly, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, who warned her colleagues that “we can’t give the crazies an inch.” But she was overruled, and Hannity along with many others amplified and embraced Trump’s claims, presenting them to millions of viewers, and slandering Dominion Voting Systems, which collected the ballots, in the process. The lawsuit will drag out for several months to come. To win in court, Dominion must demonstrate that Fox stars and decision-makers knew these claims of election fraud were lies, but let them be broadcast anyway, or were negligent in disregarding warning signs. But these admissions from Hannity and Cooper certainly provide a promising beginning.
And the committee for investing the events of January 6, 2021, has declared that their central cause was “one man” and that Trump carried out “a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” recommending that Congress consider whether to bar Trump and his allies from holding office in the future under the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists. But will the Department of Justice take this tolerably broad hint and indict Trump some two years after the insurrection? There are undoubtedly some practical considerations that hinder such an undertaking. In the words of Amy Sorkin of The New York Times: “Presidents have been impeached, but none has ever been asked, after leaving office, to turn himself in for arraignment, with the prospect of arrest if he failed to comply. No judge has had to consider the question of cash bail for a billionaire who once lived in the White House, or asked the former head of state to turn over his passport. The voir dire of potential jurors would be an unprecedented spectacle; so would the mug shot.” There is a further complication of time constraints. If Trump were indicted, he would undoubtedly create delays by raising objections and appeals, all of which take time to resolve; and in the meantime the Republican primary is quickly approaching. And even if he were indicted and convicted before the upcoming Presidential election in 2024, the next President has the option of pardoning him.
There is one hope: presidential elections and pardons do not affect state trials. The special grand jury investigation in Georgia has begun to write up its final report. If it gives a criminal referral to Donald Trump, State Attorney General Fani Willis could formally charge him. And if the case comes to trial and the verdict goes against Trump, then there is the possibility that he will get time in jail, perhaps as much as twenty years. This outcome is greatly to be desired, for no other type of penalty will create as much as a dent in that iron-shelled juggernaut that is Donald Trump.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 661,440,225; # of deaths worldwide: 6,685,239; # of cases U.S.: 102,211,153; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,115,933.