West of the Rotunda

Idaho’s grandstanding Attorney General, Raul Labrador, has decided he doesn’t like the process whereby the University of Idaho entered into a business deal with the University of Phoenix. He’s threatening the Idaho Board of Education with a lawsuit unless they “do over” an executive meeting where this forth coming deal was discussed. He’s insisting the deal be discussed in public.

I’m all for shining the light on public processes. But private companies might find this a chilling consideration, should any future businesses consider trading assets our way. Maybe that’s Labrador’s plan: throw cold water on state business deals. I am scratching my head about what he’s thinking unless it’s just my original assertion: he’s grabbing for the spotlight.

I can’t say I like the U of Idaho/ Phoenix deal, but the confidential business process is a long-standing Idaho tradition. Public institutions acquire, partner with, or somehow deal with private entities all the time. The Boards that ostensibly govern those state entities (appointed by the governor, approved by the State Senate) might hear some generalities about the process, or not. The discussions might be in public meetings, or they may not.

Take the 2016 affiliation of the private, for-profit medical school in Meridian with Idaho State University. Those deals were done in similar confidential ways. I don’t know if the Board of Education had discussions back then in executive session. But Labrador wasn’t AG then, he can rightly declare.

The announcement of the conclusion of that deal was heralded by most (but not all) as a wondrous accomplishment. Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine is still a private, for-profit entity, paying Idaho State University an annual sum on their thirty-year lease for the buildings on ISU’s Meridian campus. The payments go right into ISU’s operating budget, with no legislative appropriation. I wonder how many thirty-year leases there are in state contracts. I’ll bet there are a lot. I just know about this one because I asked some questions.

Maybe Labrador is “just asking some questions”. If so, he’s being pretty public about his process.

What business would want to subject a major investment with the whimsical Idaho legislature?

Labrador’s point that there are public meeting laws is fair. And agreeing to support a long-term binding deal by the Board of Education in executive session is clearly not public.

But how is our state going to do business? And a lot of what our state does involves business deals.

I’m no lawyer. But I did spend some time on the easily read “Idaho Open Meeting Law” website that has AG Labrador’s picture quite prominently above the introduction. There, on page 17, in discussing when governmental entities can go into executive session, taken straight out of Idaho Code it says:

(e) To consider preliminary negotiations involving matters of trade or commerce in which the governing body is in competition with governing bodies in other states or nations;

It seems our state, indeed our governing bodies can have nonpublic sessions to consider preliminary business deals.

Since this seems OK under the law, and it’s something Idaho government has been doing for a long time, just what point is AG Labrador making?

Does he have the same sour taste I do about the University of Idaho, the “Flagship University of Idaho” getting in bed with a disreputable, private, for -profit University? If so, that’s a poor excuse to twist the plain words of the law into a bullying action by our states elected head lawyer.

This action, and quite a few others are making Idaho the state doctors are fleeing, and soon lawyers will flock to. Esto Perpetua.

We citizens have decided it is best to let our legislature call itself into session whenever they can get enough to sign on. So be such folly. But while our august lawmaking body does their potato field, or insurance sales work and makes no laws, not in session, some small legislative groups labor on. For there is work to do. This is a wiser strategy.

The House and Senate Health and Welfare Committee chairs, during this last legislative session agreed to sponsor a resolution to call an interim committee together to consider whether it would be wise to move Idaho Medicaid toward managed care. They are thus meeting. I’ll bet you missed it. There were no headlines. But the meeting is available for your review if you have the hour to spare for the download.

I took that time.

They aren’t dummies, this group. That is deeply reassuring to this skeptic.

Just what the heck is “managed care”? Since in modern parlance, we can put a fancy name on anything we want to sell, the buyer should always beware. Make no mistake, we taxpayers are the buyer. Just what are they selling?

And I found the legislative group to share my skepticism. When someone goes into this sort of inquiry with a passionate bias, I expect somebody somewhere to make a lot of taxpayer profit. I did not see such bias as I watched the 4-hour download.

Managed care does not rile up folks like critical race theory does. Or indeed like “death panels” did. Health care policy puts people to sleep. It’s not like you are protecting your children from groomers or predators. The sad truth is, if you want to make some progress on public policy, saving the taxpayer a dime, you need to focus on some details. And that is boring, slogging, sit in the chair and pay-attention work. And that’s what this group seems ready to do. I was a bit thrilled. Are you?

Maybe instead you want to bring your semiauto to a pizza parlor to save the children. It seems that’s the prevalent mood out there. So, I want to speak up about the courage to pay attention to the details. Nobody brandished a weapon. But we are talking big money.

For contracting with a firm to “manage care” for Idaho Medicaid mean we, the Idaho taxpayers, are entering into a $3B dollar contract. Puleeze, notice the “B”. We might spend a million on a bridge, or a new school, but BILLIONS? Who is going to ride herd on such a contract?

It was telling that the spokesperson to the Department of Administration early on in the hearing admitted, meekly, that indeed it would require another full-time hire.

So, we’re going to hire one more person to make sure they don’t rob us blind?

Idaho has, since the Republicans have taken over, continually hummed the off-tune hymn “Business is Better than Government”.

Can I remind you of these mistakes? I know, all you guys with the Trump flags on your ¾ ton pickups will consider this a waste of time, but here I go.

Idaho tried privatizing our prisons. After lots of evidence for failures, a Republican governor who had advocated for this, abandoned his run.

Then there was the IEN fiasco, for broadband in schools.

Then the Luna Laws.

Wherever there is a lot of money in Idaho government, there are contractors out there willing to do our work for us. For a slim(?) share of the (?)profit.

Forty states have Medicaid managed care contracts. We have a lot to learn from them.

Heck, Idaho even has tried managed care with our Medicaid mental health contract. We contracted managed outpatient care back in 2014.

What did other states learn from these efforts? What have we learned?

Our poorly paid interim legislators have some hard work to do.

Our Attorney General is trying for a mulligan from his office in our House of The People down there in Boise. That’s what we get when we elect bullies. They shoot off their mouths, and then expect us to pay for it.

Let me catch you up. An AG’s opinion letter sent to Idaho Representative Brent Crane last month was made public. In it, our new AG, Raul Labrador, stated that a doctor who “referred” a patient across state lines to access abortion care would be guilty of a felony. Further, a doctor who prescribed medication for an abortion for an Idahoan to pick up across state lines would also be felonious.

This “AG analysis” as his signed letter heading indicates, hit the national news and in a few days our AG decides he didn’t really write it. It turns out he, or his staff figured out the analysis was requested by Crane for fundraising, rallying the troops, purposes, so he announced the analysis had never happened. It was “rescinded”.

Still, the alarm bells went off for some folks, mainly the ACLU, and now our AG is spending time defending this letter that he claims was never written in Federal Court. Isn’t that where we want our state’s lawyer spending time? Defending an analysis, he says now he didn’t even write in federal court? I’ll bet some of us do. I doubt AG Labrador serves in the Militia for the Unborn. But I know he wants their votes.

This militia is well organized. I remember getting called out of a room when I first started to practice long ago in Idaho by my nurse. “There’s somebody on line 4 that wants to talk to you.” It was the old days, and I could recognize a long-distance call by the static on the old land lines.

“Doctor Schmidt, will you be providing abortions?”

She waited for my answer.

This last week in the clinic where I work now there were two people scheduled to see me whom I did not know. The reason for the visit was in the computer as “discuss family planning”. I wondered, were they sent to entrap me? Did they want to get me to mention a clinic across state lines where they could access the care unavailable to them in this state? And then would they share this information with our state Attorney General? And would the state troopers roll up as I’m having a beer with dinner?

When asked to clarify his “analysis” by reporters, our Attorney General refused. He did not say this analysis was wrong, he just said it hadn’t happened.

I guess that’s how my fellow Idahoans want this to play out. Only legislatively approved care can be provided by doctors. Really?

It’s going that way with all the hot button issues. Abortion, transgender care, what is next? What kind of personal care will come under the scrutiny of our legislature and the analysis of our AG?

Could a twenty-year-old man request a vasectomy?

Can a 42-year-old woman request fertility treatment?

Can a 95-year-old man get Viagra?

I understand the passion of the Militia for the Unborn. They see the lives to be saved. And what’s a little arson, or a sniper round to save these fetuses?

And now, we have the full power of the government, the state, the marble-halled Capitol, the Peoples House, coming into this conversation.

I talked with the young women about their choices for family planning. I tried to understand their needs, their situation. I decided not to fear that I might be prosecuted. But I considered this going into the room.

Sometimes how you get the call is an important part of the story. Sometimes, it’s who calls you, sometimes it why they thought you needed to be called, sometimes it why you weren’t called. All these little nuances to being a small town, rural county coroner fascinate me. So, when I picked up my phone on a warm fall afternoon and I got gruff old Ivan’s voice yelling into my ear, “Doc!?”, I didn’t expect this to be a coroner call.

“Yeah Ivan, what can I do for you?” He’s 85 years old, a crusty skin and bones old rancher in the east county. I see him maybe once a year as his doctor, less if he had his way. But the time I stuck him in the hospital with congestive failure and told him he wouldn’t make his 82^nd birthday inspired him to come in annually after that, mainly to rub my nose in my errant prognosis.

I saw him more when his wife was dying. They cared for her at home right up to the end. She got demented and went fast, thank God. I’d met her three or four years earlier and while I was asking her about her family history, she looked me in the eye and told me a fractured but intelligible story of her brother, five years older, who’d gotten demented and died within a year.

“That old Alzheimer’s can really take you down,” she’d tsk’ed and shook her head. I nodded but silently disagreed. Alzheimer’s usually takes some one five years or more after the initial diagnosis. My mom had taken more than ten years. Usually, it’s plenty of time for families to flounder with personality changes, bed sores, diaper changes, nursing home costs and guilt. But Ivan’s Irene had just gotten pleasantly forgetful and died a year later. Her pattern, and her brothers made me fear I’d missed a diagnosis. None of this was on Ivan’s still sharp mind this fall Saturday afternoon.

“You still the coroner?” he yelled. His deafness made him yell. He was the deaf one, but he yelled to others out of politeness, I guess. “I know I voted for you once but maybe I missed something.”

“Yeah Ivan, I’m still the coroner. You fixing to die or something?”

“What?”

“How can I help you? Yes, I’m still the coroner.” That last part as loud as I could yell into the phone.

“Oh no, I’m not dead. At least I don’t think so.” He laughs. “Say, I got a dead guy for you.”

“Really?”

“Yup. Out on American Ridge. I was out looking to bring in some cows and found him.”

“You call the sheriff?”

“No. Should I? I don’t think he needs arresting, he’s dead.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m back at the house. But he’s up on the ridge like I said.”

“OK Ivan. I’m going to call the sheriff’s office then we’ll come out to your house, and you can show us this guy.”

“When’ll it be?”

“Maybe an hour. Why?”

“I was gonna get something to eat.”

“You go right ahead. See you soon.”

I hadn’t wanted to suss out details, yelling into the phone and his hard of hearing. I knew Ivan was a solid guy and wouldn’t be calling me about some pile of deer bones or an old flannel jacket on a log. So, I called the sheriff’s office. I think this was the first and only time I ever called them about a dead body. They usually called me. But it can go all sorts of ways. One time the funeral home called the local police about a coroner case. An old guy had driven his ’63 Chevy truck into the funeral home parking lot, taped a note to the driver side window and shot himself behind the wheel. He was trying to save us all the hassle. But we all got rousted out anyway and then had to call to get his bloody truck towed away.

I got to Ivan’s house after the deputy. They have radios. The deputy and Ivan were up on the front porch. Though sunny, there was a fall chill and a westerly breeze that suggested rain. Hunting season was full bore, so my hunch was this body was a lost hunter. But usually Search and Rescue hears about such a thing before the guy’s feet get cold. He doesn’t come back to camp and the word goes out. Still, some guys go out by themselves, break a leg, who knows.

I climb the porch steps. “Hello Ivan. Hello Brandon.”

Ivan smiles. Brandon grins. “Did you take a wrong turn doc?” He knows I’m famous for getting lost on the county roads.

“No, I just had to put the tools away. I’m mudding some sheet rock.”

“Oh yeah. Don’t want that shit to dry on the tools.” He’s being familiar but I doubt he’s ever remodeled or fixed up even his single wide.

“So, what have we got?”

“Ivan here says it’s a plane wreck.”

“Really?” I’m surprised. I felt bad for not asking more over the phone. But in person is best with this old guy. I made him come in once a year at least for his medicine refills, though he only took one or two pills, way below average. He took great glee showing me he had beat my prognosis. I had to go over him pretty good, since he minimized everything. The 2-centimeter skin cancer on his right shoulder I’d found under the Carhart jacket, wool shirt and long underwear.

“Oh, that.” He’d said when I asked him about it. Plane wreck? Small potatoes, I guess.

Ivan was retelling Brandon about how he’d noticed all the broken trees across the canyon. I could figure this was a retelling since Brandon rolled his eyes at me. Somebody had to cut him off; we’re losing daylight.

“So, Ivan, can you get us to this wreck? I wore my boots. How far is it?”

He puckered to an expression of thought. “Well, what rig we gonna take?”

“Which one did you take?” I yell at Ivan.

Brandon interrupted. “You get the twenty doc. I’m gonna tell dispatch about the plane wreck thing.” He went to his rig and the radio.

Ivan’s grinning at me about his answer. “Well, doc, I was on Sadie.” He looked at me intently and waited.

“Who’s Sadie?” You gotta let them tell the joke.

“She’s my old mare!” He slaps his thigh.

Old brittle 85-year-old on horseback with congestive failure rubbing my doctor nose in it.

“So how can I get there?”

“You driving that thing?” He nods at my rusty old Toyota two-wheel drive pickup.

“I drove it here. We need four-wheel?”

“It’s a bit muddy past the gate.”

“We’ll take the deputy’s rig. It’s got four-wheel.”

Brandon said no one knew of any plane wrecks but dispatch was going to check with the FAA. We all got into the deputy’s Ford Explorer. I got to sit in the back where the doors don’t open from the inside, so Ivan managed the gates. They were his anyway.

It was about three in the afternoon now and it would be getting dark by 5:30 or 6. At least it wasn’t raining yet or snowing. We passed three wire gates then we get into broken timber. Ivan was telling Brandon how he’d come at it a different way on horseback so he’s not sure we can see it here from the dirt track. “Hell, Sadie saw it first!” he yells. “I’m looking for cows and she keeps staring off at the far ridge, so’s I think she’s seeing some there, but that’s when I saw the broken trees and the plane.”

“Did you go up to it?” Brandon asks.

“Naw, but I could see something in the pilot’s seat with the glasses. He’s dead.”

After twenty minutes and maybe five miles Ivan suggests we stop. By the rig he offers, “Just climb up this ridge and head south a bit.” He’s gesturing with gnarled hands and stiff shoulders. “We was up on this ridge I think when we seen it.” He twists back. “I could show you but I’m not too good in this downfall.” Another gimped up gesture and I’m looking for a path.

“If you’re staying here, I’ll leave the keys with you if you need to warm up.” Brandon handed the old man the keys.

We clambered over logs and through brush. I didn’t sense any ridge nor even magnetic direction. After thirty minutes we agreed to go back and get Ivan. “I seen you were dropping down too soon” he grinned.

There were the usual jokes about if anybody got hurt at least we had a doctor. And if it really went to shit, we had the coroner. I’ve heard them too many times. Ivan was remarkably agile, though slow and I’m thinking of daylight. He followed game trails and stayed with the grade until we came to a clearing.

“You might be able to see some broken trees from here off that a way.” He gestured again. Both Brandon and I looked off. It was a quarter mile or so below us still. The thing that got my attention was the fine white dusting across a couple hundred yards before the broken trees and white fuselage shined at us.

“Think it was a crop duster?” Brandon asks.

“Nope,” I say. “They don’t spray white powder.”

“OK Ivan, we can see it. Do you think you can get back up to the rig?”

“I think I better stay with you guys. You got pretty fouled up last time I sent you off. It ain’t far.”

We dipped back down into the timber following the old man. There was a temptation, like when you shoot a deer, to head off full bore to where you think it’s down. But long ago I learned that temptation is to be avoided. Slow and steady got Ivan to 85. By the looks of it he’ll make 90 at this rate.

The white powder I saw contrasting the dark needles wasn’t visible on the ground, but I warned Brandon. “Don’t touch the ground and put your fingers in your mouth. You won’t be passing any drug screens the sheriff puts you through.”

“Is it OK to breathe?” He chuckles.

“Only through your nose.”

The wreckage was mostly intact though both wings had sheared, and the fuselage buckled. We could see it was a twin-engine prop, no numbers on it. Ivan had stopped and was looking back. “I think I spotted her from up over there.” He gestures back toward a clearing across the canyon a couple hundred yards up and over; always orienting. “I could see the guy in the pilot’s seat. He’s dead. That’s why I called you.” He reminds us.

Brandon was ahead of us downhill looking into the tilted cabin, past the bent and split open fuselage. There were lots of wrapped bricks and white powder back here. He hustled up the slope a little breathless. “I gotta call this in. They’re gonna want to know about this. I’ll head back to my radio in the rig. Hope I can raise them here. If I can’t I’ll drive out a ways. You guys gonna be OK? I’ll be right back.” He was panting.

“Sure.”

“Take your time.” Ivan advised. “We’ll be fine.”

Brandon scoots up the sidehill back toward the Explorer. I walk down toward the cockpit. Ivan follows. It’s pretty quiet here in this canyon, no wind, but I can see it’s getting gray. We have another couple hours of light I figure.

The windows are all broken out and I can step into the tilted plane pretty easily with the left side torn open. Ivan was right, the pilot was very dead, not days, just pale and stiff. But it’s been cool, and this is a north slope, so maybe a couple days. No animals had gotten to him. There’s blood out both ears and the head is tilted at a funny angle.

I spook when “What do you think killed him doc?” is yelled in my ear. Ivan is all serious and frowning.

“Jesus, Ivan.” I want to tell him to soften his voice here in the presence of the dead, but I know it’s no use. “I think he died in a plane wreck.”

Ivan’s laughter is loud, and he laughs too long; my skin crawls a bit, I don’t know why. He gets serious and asks me intently, wanting to know. “No, I mean doc, did he bleed to death? I see some blood but not that much.”

“Oh, Ivan, it’s hard to tell. Here let me check.” I reach in and twist his head a bit and feel some grating bones. “Yeah, I think his neck is broken.” The yelling I have to do makes this almost obscene.

“But is that what killed him? People survive…” he trailed off as I turned my back to him. I wanted to get some identification. There were satchels that looked like luggage on the cabin floor and more stacked up where the copilot’s seat would have been. I zipped open a small one behind the pilot’s seat. There on top of rumpled clothes were three passports, one Columbian, one Mexican, one Peruvian. Miguel Sandoval was on the Mexican, Manuel Salinas was on the Peruvian and Miguel Santoro was on the Columbian. There were three other satchels jumbled next to him. I unzipped one. Bundles of US currency were neatly stacked and wrapped, some fifties, some twenties, some hundreds.

I jumped again when Ivan said, quieter this time, “Don’t know as I’d called you guys if I’d a known all that was there.”

Brandon got back in about a half hour. He looked troubled. “We’ll stay put ‘til they get here. Won’t be long.” For some reason I didn’t ask who. “Why don’t you take Ivan back up to the rig so he don’t have to scramble around if it gets dark.”

Ivan and I made the slow walk back to the Explorer, then I headed back down and across the slope, a little faster on my own.

When the big black helicopter came over just before dark and all the paramilitary dark suited guys came down the slope, I knew it wasn’t our sheriff’s department. A short man approached us with his combat weapon by his side as the others fanned out and disappeared in the gloom. He had night vision goggles up on his helmet, black clothes, black gloves and a smile. He didn’t offer his hand. He spoke to Brandon. “OK, we got it. You can take off.”

Brandon nodded and softly gestured to me as he turned up the slope. “Hey,” was my simple objection and the short man turned toward me.

“Who are you?” he shot at me.

“I’m the county coroner.”

His smirk didn’t feel so good. “You can go, sir. We got it.”

“And just who are you?”

Brandon was three or four steps up the slope. He stuck out a beckoning hand. “C’mon doc.” Like I’m a balky puppy. The short guy was getting ready to turn away again and I asserted all the authority a county coroner has. “What happens to the body?”

This time he wasn’t deferential. He snapped back toward me and up in the trees I could see a dark shape, maybe two, step into view. The short man looked me directly in the eyes. “You can go. We got this.”

Brandon was now stepping down the slope, impatient with me. “Come on doc. We’re going. These guys are taking over. They’ll take care of it. We gotta get back.” He put his hand on my shoulder, softly, not like he would have grabbed a puppy’s scruff, but like we were having beers. “C’mon.”

The trail back up was dark.  I only slipped a couple times.

“You guys see that big black heelocopter?” Ivan asked. Brandon wouldn’t tell us nothing. Maybe he didn’t know.

It was about three weeks later I got a call from the medical examiner’s office in Spokane. “Dr. Hawthorne?”

“Yes, how can I help you?” I hadn’t requested their services for years.

“We have a body here and we need your permission to release it to the family.”

I’m clueless. “Who is it?”

“Manuel Sandoval”

“Why are you calling me? I don’t know this guy. It’s not my case.”

“Our paperwork says you are the coroner on this case, and we just need your permission to release the body.”

“So, are you sending me a death certificate; an autopsy report?”

“Uh, no. Those were sent to Washington. We just need your authorization to release the body.”

“Call Washington. I don’t know anything about this.”

“Uh, we did. They said to call you.”

“Is my name going to be on any record of this?”

There was a pause. “No sir. We just need your permission to release the body.”

Deep sigh. I thought of Ivan’s smile and his slow steady gait. How he looked the graceful scarecrow under the dark pine canopy weaving through the brush and sticks. I thought how he would laugh at this silly joke. I wanted to be sitting on his porch in the afternoon sun, telling him this story, yelling him this story, repeating myself when he said “eh?” and finally getting tired of the whole tale, realizing it’s not a short joke but a long one with nothing really to laugh at. But then we’d just sit there and look at the sun on the hills from his old farmhouse.

“You have my permission to release the body.”

No death certificate filed.

The wind out of the west was chill and biting on Dale’s face. He pulled the collar on his camo coat up. Patrol could be boring, but they’d gotten an alert about a grey van possibly heading their way.

Dale looked back west at the roadblock, manned by his fellow militiamen. This two-lane highway didn’t have a lot of traffic. But it headed west to a heathen state, so the Militia for the Unborn patrolled it. He was here to save lives.

He regretted missing his son’s basketball game that night. But when he’d joined the Militia, and the legislature gave them the marching orders, he knew this cause was righteous. He accepted the sacrifice. He’d known this cause was worthy all along, but now they could act.

That time they’d crossed the border and set fire to that abortion clinic had been an unofficial act. He knew they were breaking a law in that neighboring heathen state, but Dale believed there were higher laws than the laws of man. Still, when the laws of man sanctioned their actions, he did feel a warm comfort. It felt good to be in a righteous state where he could serve the unborn.

His alert gaze swept back east as he saw a grain truck approach. He radioed down to his comrades. They got up and stood by their barricades in a semblance of attention as the semi barreled past.

Nothing for a while. The property taxes coming due filtered into his mind. How was he going to pay them? Maybe sell that old snowmobile. Might get enough if Craigslist panned out.

He couldn’t get anybody to help with the plumbing business, so that money had been getting short. Doug, his old helper was doing a rider for meth, and he couldn’t get anybody to do the crawlspace work. Dale looked down at his girth and sadly smiled. That belly ain’t getting under a house. He patted it fondly. Hell, it even made kitchen sink repairs tough.

Still nothing coming.

Jenny had said she’d take the three little ones and go to Hiram’s game. He needed the support. The other parents would accept Dale’s sacrifice. Maybe not all of them. He got a sense some thought he was not doing God’s work out here on patrol. Their weakness didn’t trouble him too much.

A red sedan came into view, and he radioed to his comrades. They put up the barricade and shouldered their arms. The sedan slowed. Dale watched from the hill, ready to provide back up. He hoped to be on the barricade next tour. They were due to be relieved tomorrow by the Freedom Militia.

He watched the commander approach the driver’s side as the other two brought their weapons to ready. He couldn’t hear anything from this distance and the wind was just enough to whistle in his ears. Nobody got out. The barricades moved back with the commander’s signal, and the sedan moved on slowly. I guess no one of childbearing age was inside.

That was the protocol. Look for the women who could be bearing. They had the pee sticks in their pockets. And they had the bottled water. Sometimes it took twenty minutes for the lady to get the stick wet. Then you read the lines and make your determination. One lady tried spitting on the stick, but now we make them squat in front of the car so we can be sure.

The red sedan was going really slow, not gunning off to make up for lost time. Dale thought that odd. He stared at it too long and didn’t catch sight of the gray van until it was on the straight heading toward the roadblock. The folks from the sedan had gotten out and were going back to the trunk.

Weapons came out.

Isn’t it just ironic that President Trump’s greatest accomplishment in his four years of Presidency was something his followers considered folly? It’s a symptom that government has become farce. Theater performs farce. Comedians convey farce. Maybe only government can deliver farce. It should not be.

Think back to when President Trump gets COVID dropped in his lap, like a baby’s diaper spill. He hadn’t drained the swamp; he hadn’t built the wall and now this “China Virus” had his shorts in a twist. Heck, he even got it. And he survived! Old obese man survives the China virus! Maybe we shouldn’t fear this bug.

But then we get Operation Warp Speed. It’s not shining light into all our orifices, it’s not drinking fish disinfectant, it’s not ivermectin for all. It’s dumping tons of money into biofirms that have been sitting on mRNA vaccine technology and getting them to ramp up. They had the capability to make vaccines quickly.

We were seeing deaths mount. Vaccines might help. Give them money to work faster.

And they did.

A vaccine went from innovation to mass production and mass delivery in a matter of months. This had never been done before. This was very new ground. All under the watch of a President whose followers hated the swamp. And huge government funding to Big Pharma is the just filling the swamp, not draining it.

We could all see his discomfort. The press conferences where he waffled, his allusion to possible other treatments. He could not pull off the farce in the face of the mounting deaths. But he tried.

Folks still today hold to the alternative reality. If only everyone had taken ivermectin for a few years, nobody would have died.

But millions did. Even with the vaccine, even with ivermectin, even with mask mandates and state mandated shutdowns. Farce is funny when we can all laugh. It’s not humorous in the funeral parlor.

There is unassailable evidence that vaccines saved lives. A study matching COVID morbidity with vaccine rates is clear. But such evidence does not make converts of the followers. They still line up to cheer for the indicted.

So, why would he agree to send all those billions to pharmaceutical companies if he didn’t believe in the immunization? Was he bought out? Did Donald get corrupted? Were his advisors pulling his strings?

In truth, we’ll never know. Maybe he’s just as dishonest as his Fox News shills.

But the truth is, we didn’t escape the virus. Over a million Americans died from COVID. Over 5000 Idahoans died from the virus. Neither the immunization nor ivermectin saved us. We all went our own way. Theater is supposed to bring us all together in the play. Farce, comedy, tragedy, we should all believe the story before us.

But, as a nation, we don’t do well when farce is the medium. The tragedy of Pearl Harbor united us. The comedy of Bill Clinton’s peccadillo amused us. But COVID was not sold to us as a tragedy. We got the message from our President it was a farce.

Farce makes fun of the prevalent truth.

Then the deaths came.

When the truth has ambiguity, farce has some leverage. Deaths are too solid.

What is truly amazing is that President Trump’s followers haven’t abandoned him for his Warp Speed action. He acknowledged the threat, he acted with decisive action that got immunizations out there for all who wanted. But his followers wanted farce, not tragic death. They didn’t believe the threat.

Now they haven’t rejected his billions to Big Pharma as a sellout. Like they don’t believe his pay off to Stormy was an illegal business deal. This guy has been making business deals to line his own pockets from adolescence. And many people still pay to see his farce. That’s the sad joke.