I do watch Fox News with an awareness of their bias. I also voted for Trump in the last election and will likely vote for him in the next one. Our country and world is facing down a crisis unlike any other in our lifetime. IMO, everyone got it wrong early on. I didn’t think it was a big deal until mid-March. I thought it was an overreaction to cancel Copia, but was quickly proven wrong. They made the right call. That’s small potatoes.

I tend to evaluate politicians and others by what they do more than by what they say. I don’t like a lot of what Trump says. I am not a fan of the self-congratulations. But, I do like most of what he has done. Closing travel to and from China and Europe turns out to have been wise, for example. Also, the guidelines have proven to be effective. He has been effective in ramping up production of PPE and ventilators.

It is up to the state governments to make decisions regarding their states and the federal government is the backstop. The media seems to have it backwards on this point. Back in my heyday, I responded in disaster relief to 9/11, Katrina, Sandy, and many others. FEMA came in to provide coordination between the affected states, but the states made the calls. States had their own stockpiles of food, water, medicines, etc. We have had an unprecedented number and severity of disasters in recent years which no doubt led to a depletion of state and federal stockpiles. We also made a huge strategic error in trusting China to provide our medicines and PPE. My points are that assigning blame is not helpful, and that we, as a country, need to focus on solutions. Just like we got free of OPEC, we need to be free of communist China government. I hope one day that the Chinese people can be free of the communist government.

One of my news sources is our state government health department daily updates. Our Minnesota governor seems to be inclined to keep us locked down. He is likely to experience a similar reaction to Michigan. He is considering closing the BWCAW, for example. One of the factors that affects me personally is that I had knee replacement in the last round of surgeries at Mayo before the shutdown. My rehab is going well, and I look forward to getting out of the house and doing more walking and hiking. I’m starting to go ‘shacky wacky’.