As promised, the purpose of today’s column is to update the status of Senate races which might flip from red to blue and help bring the federal government back to some kind of reality stance. Above is how the races looked as of yesterday’s polls:

Note that the blue candidates in two races – Arizona and Colorado – are at or near the magic 50% mark. If you compare this chart to last week’s chart, you’ll see that in none of these races has the GOP candidate narrowed the gap. However, with the exception of Arizona and Colorado, the other 4 races could still go either way. But what these numbers underscore was the message that Mitch McConnell sent to the entire GOP Senate caucus this week.

              Last week Trump tried to divert attention away again from his massive failure to do anything about the corona virus by saying something incredibly stupid about postponing the election beyond November 3^rd. The comment drew immediate rebukes from the entire Senate GOP leadership group, none of whom would have said one friggin’ word without clearing their remarks all the way up the leadership chain. Trump has also been ranting about the mail-in voter ‘fraud,’ but here again he’s a voice out there by himself.

              The Democrats apparently fear that if the election goes their way, that Trump and his supporters will do whatever they can do to prevent the election results from taking place. To which all I want to say is that if we make sure that everyone votes early and often on November 3rd, that on November 4^th Trump will be able to count all his supporters on the fingers of one hand.

              If you take a look at a national map of Covid-19 infections, you’ll notice that the infection rates may have initially been highest in blue states with large, inner-city, minority populations, but now the pandemic is tearing its way through many red states. And from the beginning of the crisis, Trump defined the federal response in partisan-political terms, which meant there would be no national response because why waste time, money, and resources on populations in states who won’t help you get re-elected anyway?

              I’m not being paranoid or indulging in my own version of a conspiracy theory by saying that the President of the United States is killing people to further his political goals. I am saying that credible evidence is now emerging which shows this to be the case. When Trump made the decision in March to forego a national testing plan, he was relying on the judgement of Dr. Deborah Birx, who claimed that high infection rates in cities like Chicago and New York didn’t necessarily mean that other, less-urbanized state populations were at risk. And Dr. Birx bolstered her advice to Trump with two studies which have since been retracted by the medical journals where they appeared because they were so wrong.

              Guess what? If your campaign strategy is based on suppressing the minority vote and turning out the highest possible number of voters from non-urban states, then Birx’s approach isn’t just predictive, it’s also a convenient, self-fulfilling prophecy around which a national campaign strategy can and should be built. Unfortunately, the Tulsa rally debacle laid that bright idea to rest, and I notice how a Trump campaign ‘official’ said the New Hampshire rally might take place in mid-August. And I’ll lose 10 pounds on my latest diet by mid-August. Yea, right.

              Here’s today’s national ‘red spot’ map from the ‘failing’ New York Times:

              Where are the worst hit spot-clusters?  In red states like Florida, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, and Tennessee – states which Trump needs. But as one medical expert that Trump doesn’t listen to said, “The virus does what it wants to do. We don’t tell it what to do.”

              On November 3^rd, however, we can tell Donald Trump what to do. He can kiss America’s rear end in Macy’s window.  That’s what he can do.