With the shelter in place dragging on, our everyday routine has changed in various ways. Getting up every day with each day the same as the last has some people unable to keep track of what day it is. While I haven’t had that problem, I find my sleep schedule shifting – staying up later and getting up later because - why not? What difference does it make? A person who used to shower every morning without fail, I now find myself going two, sometimes three days between showers. And shaving is something that happens occasionally, not every day as well.

For me it is not as bad as it could be. I live in Texas, not New York, California, or Michigan. Our governor has been far less draconian than others, who don’t even want their citizens to buy seeds or plant gardens. My garden is coming along very nicely, thank you very much. And I have gotten things done around the house that I have been putting off for years. My wife and I went out for a long drive the other day. Why not? We didn’t leave the car, no people were harmed during the course of our drive, and we were able to help in our own small way to deplete the enormous supply of gasoline that has been building up due to less driving being done. U.S. petroleum industry, we have your back.

If I do go to the store, or interact with anyone, I practice safe distancing. I wear a mask. My wife has made 70 or 80 of them so far – and given most away to family members, and the nursing staff that takes care of my grandson Gavin who has SMA and is under 24 hour nursing care. For the most part I have noticed that life has changed for almost everyone. Will it change back? Only time will tell.

Not everything has changed however. Some things seem immutable as rocks. One of these is our national media sources. While many things in American life have changed during this pandemic, their irrational hatred of President Trump has not abated one whit. Ditto the Democrat Party. At a time when we should be pulling together against the pandemic, both of these old and august institutions seem hell bent on driving us apart.

There once was a day when hardship and crisis would pull Americans together. Politicians on both sides of the isle would work together to solve the nation’s problems and put their political differences on the back burner until the crisis abated. Americans would pull together and be Americans; helping their fellow citizens no matter what the political persuasion. Heck, political views were the least of the concerns. Those days have long past, at least for the media and the democrats. These sentiments may still exist in the hearts of most ordinary Americans, at least I hope so, but for many they are as dead as the dodo.

I can go for days without listening to the news. When I do check it out to see what is going on, it is as if I never left. New allegations against President Trump. House hearings on his handling of the pandemic – while we are in the middle of it and millions of Americans are sheltering in place at home! Questions posed by the media at press briefings that had they been listening to the briefing, had already been answered. But then again, it isn’t about the answers, it’s about the sound bites and how they can twist what the President has to say when he is talking extemporaneously. You can always get a good gotcha on Trump when he speaks off the cuff. And the press corps are adept at deliberately misunderstanding what he said, taking it out of context, twisting it, or taking things literally that they would not take literally if anyone else in the world said them.

So now, based on the media, I am supposed to believe that President Trump, on national TV, suggested that we should ingest and inject household bleach at home in an effort to beat the virus. When of course, if you actually watch the video and listen, he actually said no such thing. And that’s just the media story de jure. Every day there is a new one. When it gets to the point however that the media is willing to misrepresent potential cures for this pandemic in order to score political points and drive this president from office, things progress from the farcical to the criminal. Yes, President Trump does not have a medical degree. I am aware of that. I knew that when he was elected. I don’t need the media telling me that 24/7.

Had this pandemic happened under President Barack Obama, and had Barack Obama said on national TV that hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has been around and in use for decades, showed promise in combatting COVID-19, the press would have swooned and looked for evidence supporting that premise. But the pandemic happened under President Donald Trump instead. And when he made the comment, the press went into overdrive to ridicule the president and to find evidence that hydroxychloroquine was the devils brew itself.

So instead they ignore the evidence (which I first became aware of in February, before the media even deigned to cover the virus), and instead focused on a couple in Arizona who drank fish tank cleaner (which they, the media, with a straight face, portrayed as being done on the advice of the President when he again advised no such thing), and in as many counter “studies” as they could find, while ignoring or discrediting any evidence to the contrary. The latest in this unending parade of disinformation is the VA “study” which purports to show that not only does hydroxychloroquine not work, but that in fact it might lead to more deaths.

Of course, the press fails to note that the “study” was not a controlled clinical study; it was a “retrospective” analysis; that is, it went through medical records of patients to see if any useful data could be correlated. The patients given the hydroxychloroquine were already very ill – some already on a ventilator. As essentially a “Hail Mary” pass, it is not surprising that it “didn’t work.” That isn’t how the drug is supposed to be administered in fighting the virus.

Anti-virals are supposed to be given before the onset of serious illness. Their purpose is to lessen the effects and end the illness quicker than would be the case if it were just allowed to run its course. Tamiflu, for example, is of no use once the flu is in full bloom. It only works at the onset. The treatment with hydroxychloroquine is the same. It is a zinc ionophore. It allows zinc into the cells which interrupts the replication process of the virus. It is also notable that nowhere in the VA study (or others touted by the media purporting to show no effect) does it mention using zinc in conjunction with the drug. This combination has been mentioned in every successful study I have seen.

But hey, it “refuted” what “Dr. Trump” had to say, didn’t it? Never mind that the study was flawed. I bet they didn’t even read it – or have any unbiased medical “expert” do so either. As far as the press is concerned it is as good as gold. Again, the information showing the efficacy of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and zinc was available in February (or even earlier – that is when I became aware of it) but because President Trump mentioned it as something that had been reported on elsewhere and might work, and needed further investigation, all the media wants to do is trash it. Why is that do you suppose? You would think that they would be interested in anything that might work.

But all the media and the democrats were aware of in February (and the month leading up to it) was impeachment.

Then there is the Democratic Party itself. Less interested in fighting the pandemic and more interested in ensuring that President Trump in no way derives any credit for anything and instead is always presented as the demon president unjustly in charge of our nation. Recently, a democrat state representative from Detroit Michigan was ill and nearly died of COVID-19. What ultimately saved her? Hydroxychloroquine. In fact, she publically committed political suicide by thanking Trump for making her aware of the drug that saved her life. Unfortunately for Karen Whitsett, she apparently was unaware that being a female woman of color was not enough to save her from her momentary departure from democrat talking points; she is now facing censure by fellow democrats who will be ensuring that she will not be a representative for much longer.

The Democrats, so I am told, are supposed to be the “party of the people,” at least according to the public school system here in San Antonio; you would think they would be interested in helping the people of the country during the pandemic. And they are, to hear them talk. They want to make sure that during this time of crisis you can still get your abortion, or your sex change operation. No fringe group should be left behind. And they want to give you big bucks. But when it comes to actually passing funding bills, agenda comes first. Let no good crisis go to waste! This is an opportunity to advance the leftist agenda, no more, no less. The pandemic represents political leverage. When you have the media covering for you, it is amazing what you can get away with, secure in the knowledge that it won’t be reported. And if it is found out, and published somewhere other than ABC, CBS, NBC, AP, MSNBC, or CNN, well it can always be discredited as being from a “ultra-right-wing” fruitcake website, or, of course, Fox News.

I found long ago that the best news sources for getting information on what is going on inside the United States is media sources outside the United States, which can be used for corroboration with alternative news sources inside the country. Taking care of course, to watch out for circular reporting. Heck, you can learn a lot by listening to our MSM and deducing the truth from taking the opposite of what they say. If for example, they say Trump said this or that, it means I need to go to YouTube (or some other video source) and watch the video to see exactly what he said and what the full context was. It is almost never exactly what they say it was.

It is an election year. Both the MSM and the Democrats want Trump out so bad that it almost hurts to watch them, they are so blatantly obvious in their desire. To the point that they are running a candidate that clearly has dementia issues against a president that they claim is demented. What a hoot! Even fiction isn’t this weird.

And where is the media in all this? Where is the “investigative journalism” when it comes to the Democrats? Oh, that’s right – nothing to investigate! Anything done to get rid of Trump is OK. Ends justifies the means. It’s a war! I remember growing up Democrats saying they would vote for a yellow dog before they would vote Republican. Enter Joe Biden, yellow dog. Well past his use-by date, but he’s the only one left standing so we’ll go with him. What is important isn’t Joe, it’s who he picks as his running mate. Joe is just the shell company.

It would be nice if the media could focus. But every time Trump says something they go “Squirrel!” Then they get really squirrely.