There is a collective sadness in
England as Prime Minister Boris Johnson is going on a ventilator to treat his
Wuhan Virus. Even though Johnson is not
the first government official to get it as members of the royal family have,
given that he conducts the policy of the country and the royal family is a mere
figurehead, there is uneasiness in England.
Kera and her cousin Fanis are Americans living in London and can feel
the tension. Kera is an international
Chinese art dealer and business had been slow amidst this pandemic. Despite that, the Chinese government was
still doing a good job of convincing the world that they should not be
shunned. Therefore, people still wanted
to deal in Chinese artifacts but travelling became increasingly
burdensome. Kera had a private plane but
airports on the ground had strict protocols when she arrived to make sure she
wasn’t contaminated. As Fanis was her
bodyguard, he tagged along and was exposed to the same treatment. As it turned out, Kera was more concerned
about the pandemic than Fanis but Kera was accustomed to working seven days a
week and she wasn’t going to put that on hold for anything.
Kera calls out, “Hey Fanis?”
“Yea”
“You know that drug that Trump
keeps pushing for Covid?”
“Hydroxychloroquine or plaqunill,
yea, what about it?”
“Well, it appears that he has
stock in it.”
“I guess you didn’t read the
article; you just read the headline.”
“Is it fake news?”
“Yea, kind of. The stock he owns is part of a mutual fund
and amounts to approximately $99.”
“That’s it?!”
“Yea, and the company that
produces it doesn’t even produce it for the United States so if it becomes
popular in the US, it still wouldn’t really help that particular stock.”
“Even if it did, he’s a
billionaire so even like a 500% profit wouldn’t really help him.”
“Yea, that’s not even $500; you
might as well say 50,000%.”
“Yea, even that’s only $49,500”
“I don’t understand you
people. You have no problem with Hunter
Biden receiving $1.5 Billion from a Chinese company but President Trump can’t
own a stock worth $99 in something he’s promoting because it may cure a
pandemic.”
“China does a lot of business
with the United States. Lobbyists are
paid to influence the government so why can’t China do that same thing?”
“They can but Hunter Biden has
to fill out a FARA form but he didn’t”
“That’s on Hunter Biden”
“I would agree. What are we even arguing here? I’m not blaming China for giving Hunter Biden
the money. I’m just saying that there is
a hypocrisy that people have a problem with President Trump making $99 off a
stock and nobody bats an eye for Hunter Biden making $1.5 Billion.”
“Well, pack your things. We need to go.”
“Oh good, I get to be scrubbed
by strangers again. Where are we going?”
“India.”
“Alright”
“Look, I know what you’re
thinking. India is not a very healthy
country to begin with. Every time you’ve
gone, you’ve gotten sick but as it related to Covid, it’s not that bad. There are only 178 people that died.”
“I said nothing.”
“I know what you’re thinking”
“No, you don’t because I wasn’t
thinking that.”
“Look at all the doctors here
and the United States that came from India.
It’s safe”
“Well, you’re 178 number may
seem low but they have 5,916 cases.
That’s a death per case of 3%.
That is better than the 11.69% we have here in England but America’s
average is 3,23% so closer to that.”
“There, so I’m not putting us in
danger. It’s more dangerous staying here.”
“Something tells me you’re
scared”
“Of course I am! It’s the second most populated country in the
world.”
“I know that but the most
populated country, where it originated, has opened everything up so we could be
good.”
Kera glared at him as she knew
he meant China, which Kera was very protective over. “Let’s just go.”
They go to their air strip and
get put through a decontamination protocol before getting on the plane. On the plane, Kera asks Fanis, “What do you
think this is going to do to us.”
“I think people are being
stupid. There’s a lot of pressure on
cops to arrest people for stupid things.
In California, people are being arrested for paddleboarding with nobody
around because they’re outside. People
are being encouraged to rat out their neighbors. We are fracturing the bonds we have in our
society. I used to not care when I
walked by a cop but now I’m worried about being arrested just for being
outside. There’s no good that can come
from that.”
“Conservative till the end huh?”
“Of course.”
“Well, the people I talk to back
in the states love the extra money they’re getting from the stimulus package.”
“That’s the point. That is why it’s not going to stimulate
anything. Big government is always bad,
even in a pandemic.”
“People are beginning to realize
why they need big government.”
“That’s usually what happens
right before a totalitarian communist government takes over and destroys a
country and their people.”
“Ayanna Pressley made an
appearance. The next bill she wants to
forgive student loans and give money to illegal immigrants and inmates.”
“That’s what happens when you give
an inch to the libelous, scandalous, treacherous Democrats like they did in
Phase 3”
“People are hurting; you don’t
think we have an obligation to help them?”
“We live in a world of ills and
harms. There are trade-offs in
everything we do. It’s not about helping
people, it’s about being realistic. It’s
not realistic for the United States to save everyone in the planet that decided
to illegally come to our country. If you
really want to help people, you’d open the economy and let people work. For those that are scared, they can stay home
but there needs to be incentives to work, which means we shouldn’t bribe people
to stay home.”
“It’s not bribing people. They can’t work because our government shut
them down. They need to compensate them
for that.”
“Or eliminate the problem they
caused to begin with. There is no money
fairy. Employers care more about their
employees than the government does. Let
them decide if they’ll let people work from home.”
“America first right?”
“You can’t help people if you
don’t help yourself.”
“Let’s get back to bribing
people not to work. Is that really how
you see it?”
“That’s what Phase 3 was. Part of it was an incentive to make your full
paycheck to stay at home.”
“You followed this closer than I
did.”
“You get a thousand dollars a
week to not work. If you make less than
that, why would you go back to work? You
get paid more to stay home.”
“I just think leaving people out
to dry is wrong.”
“That’s because you don’t
understand our options. You think our
options are to screw people and let them die or give them money that has
absolutely no consequences. The reality
is that our choices are to bankrupt the entire country now so we have no hope
of recovery or spend a lot of money but still have restrictions so there is
still an incentive to go back to work when the economy does open up. Neither is very good as we don’t have the
money to be spending even for option two but it sure as hell is better than
option one.”
“This sounds like a welfare
argument.”
“It’s the same concept. The government is competing with employers
for employees. All the government did
was raise the salary making it harder for employers to compete.”
“These are unprecedented
times. Look, people like getting a
thousand dollars in the mail for nothing.”
“It’s not for nothing. We will be fitting the bill either through
inflation or taxation. Are your friends
going to have that feeling when the price of everything they need shoots
up? What about when their taxes
increase. Do you think maybe then
they’ll be like, ‘you know, I didn’t really need the deck I used my stimulus
money for?’”
“Inmates aren’t illegal
immigrants. Are we just going to let
them get hosed?”
“We need to fix the incentive to
not work problem before we can help inmates.”
“I think what you fail to
understand is that these relief payments are temporary.”
“Phase three expanded them to
Mid-June. That’s way too long to be
paying out this money. It should end
April 30; which is when they should open the economy; if not before.”
They land in Bangalore, a city
in Southern India. They get into an
auto, which is a three wheeled vehicle used as a taxi, and head toward their
hotel. The auto driver inquires,
“Americans?”
“Yup” Fanis says proudly.
Although Fanis is accustomed to
Indian driving, Kera is still getting used to it. The best way to describe it
is ‘chaos.’ Whereas many places, like
Europe, will have no trepidation to pull into oncoming traffic to pass a slow
car, in India, it’s impossible to tell what side of the street you’re supposed
to be on as you spend an equal amount on the left and right side. There are no traffic lights in Bangalore as
people simply beep to alert cars that they are coming into the intersection,
then beep to let people know they are currently in the intersection and then
beep once again to notify them that they’re safely through the
intersection. As the sound is the same
for each of the three possibilities, what you get is just a continuous and
constant beeping of all motorists. When
you do come to an intersection, there is massive slamming of the brakes as each
driver navigates their vehicle amongst all the other ones.
Most people insult the driving of the Indians for this
but Fanis had a different approach; he was shocked there aren’t more
accidents. Every time he got in an auto
and saw how much room there was between the auto and the other vehicles, he
marveled at how they knew the exact dimensions of their vehicle. He quickly learned that when in an auto, keep
your hands and legs inside at all times for if you don’t, it will be slammed
into another car.
As if to scare Kera more, the auto driver lifts one hand
in the air and makes a fist, “Go Trump.”
Fanis laughs and Kera gives him a dirty look. He responds, “Yes, your President Modi is
very good friends with President Trump.
Modi had you guys help us out by making masks for us.”
“Yes, and he is rewarding us because he said in his press
conference that we built the economy back once and we’ll do it again.”
“He should be saying that every day. It really should be his only message.”
“That would be good for India. You need to understand when the American
market goes down one point; it affects India market by 10 points.”
“I would agree the whole world benefits if we help
ourselves. After all, America consumes
51% of the world goods.”
“Good luck”
“Thank you. It looks like we’ll need it since the
Democrats keep trying to destroy our economy, which will destroy the world.”
The pleasantries ended when they
got to their destination. The auto
driver had raised the price they agreed upon before. You don’t tip auto drivers in India and even
though it was a nominal amount, word spread fast so you needed to fight for
every penny and Kera and Fanis did and paid him what they agreed on.
In normal circumstances, it was
hard for Fanis to find something to eat in India as he didn’t do well with
spicy food and pretty much everything is spicy in India. Now, with the pandemic, access to food was
diminished so restaurants didn’t have most things on the menu. As uncultured as it was, he opted to go to
Hard Rock Café where he could get mild chicken wings that were about half the
size of normal chicken wings. Kera, who
also doesn’t do well with spicy food, got spaghetti and posed, “Okay, so you’re
against the shutting down of the economy.
You’re all about choice in letting people choose to take the risk to
work rather than force everyone to be in this together. I see your point but you are pressured to
open shop even if you’re scared if your competitor does.”
“Well, if you’re correct about
the pandemic being as bad as it is, then your competitor will die and you can
get his market share.”
“You really are heartless. Let me just finish my thought.”
“Okay”
“I know you don’t want to shut
down the economy but let’s say people did.
Businesses are crushed because they had trouble finding employees and
now you’re tasked to rescue them. How do
you do it?”
“Did we already pass Phase 3?”
“Let’s say yes.”
“Well, we need to cut spending
then. First, we need to cut taxes across
the board. Make it a uniform tax rate of
18% on capital gains, income and corporate so there’s no more juggling to avoid
paying it. Second, if you’re under 55,
you no longer have to pay for social security because you’re not going to be
getting any. This will save us like 100
Trillion dollars in the future. Last,
dump ObamaCare and get government out of healthcare. People can deduct tax-free amounts into their
own accounts and take care of their health needs. I can see letting people go to the emergency
room and getting them off the streets but even that I think can be covered by
making pro-bono care a tax write off for hospitals and doctors. Then, we can really get our debt under
control.”
“That’s a good way to lose an
election.”
“If you win though, you attack
the two biggest expenditures for government; medical care and social security.”
“I noticed that you didn’t touch
the third highest; military.”
“That’s fine right where it is.”
“Of course it is.”
“Health and Human Services alone
is a third of all our spending. Why
wouldn’t you hit that?”
“Thank God you’re not in
charge. If the media thinks it’s bad
that Trump mocks them when they ask about oil even though they don’t know where
it’s at now then they haven’t seen anything when you come along.”
“Seriously though, if you don’t
know where oil is at, how can you attack President Trump for it?’
“He could have answered.”
“No, it’s not his job to do
their work for them.”
They finish dinner and head back
to their hotel to sleep. The next day,
they head to the meeting. Fanis is
inside with Kera and the client’s security is there as well. Fanis has been accustomed to having a
conversation in hushed tones so as not to disturb the meeting. He has found that other security guards
contain the same skill. The guard comes
over and queried, “What happened with the voting in Wisconsin?”
Fanis’s head bobbed back in
surprise. He knew that the world was
heavily involved in American politics but he found it incredible that someone
in India would be asking about a state’s election. To buy him time to get over his initial
surprise, he responded, “I didn’t know India was so interested in Wisconsin.”
“I don’t know where it would be
on the map but I heard they were forcing people to go to the polls even with
the Wuhan Virus.”
“That’s a lie. The Supreme Court said that the mail in
ballots had to be postmarked by April 7 in order to be counted.”
“What was going on with
in-person voting then?”
“That had nothing to do with either
the Wisconsin Supreme Court or the US Supreme Court.”
“There’s more than one?”
“Yes, each state has one.”
“Is it true that Republicans are
the ones that messed up?”
“No, Wisconsin is a Democrat
state.”
“But I heard….”
“It was a lie. Democrats were the ones that filed the
lawsuit because they wanted to force a delay in the election. There’s a law that you can’t change election
rules the day before the election.”
“That makes sense but why did
they wait till the day before the election?”
“Excellent question. I don’t have an answer.”
“Why did the Supreme Court get
involved?”
“One level below the Supreme
Court is the Federal Court. A federal
judge that Obama appointed made a ruling that you could vote by mail up until
April 13 when the election was April 7.”
“Then you can just wait till the
result of the election to see how or if you’re going to vote.”
“In order to stop that, the
judge ordered that Wisconsin election officials weren’t allowed to release the
election results until after April 13.”
“Don’t people rely on the
results that night though?”
“Hence, the Republican National
Convention asked the Supreme Court to get involved. Someone had to stop this dumbass from the
retarded ruling he made.”
“What did the US Supreme Court
say?”
“That the judge had no authority
to silence the Wisconsin Election Committee.
They scolded him for involving people in the case that had nothing to do
with the suit.”
“Whose decision is it to postpone the election?”
“The governor; whose name is Evers”
“What did he say?”
“Up until the day before the election, he declared them
an essential business so they had to stay open.”
“Was he a Republican?”
“No, he’s a Democrat.”
“Let me get this straight; you have a Democrat lawsuit
responding to a ruling made by a Democrat Governor that was decided upon by a
Democrat judge.”
“That’s correct”
“Then why did the media say it was the Republicans?”
“Because they’re liars.”
“Oh wait, the Republicans asked the main Supreme Court to
get involved.”
“And the US Supreme Court has a majority of Republican
appointed judges but the problem was started by Democrats.”
“That’s what it sounds like to me.”
“Yea, Democrat governors are dropping the ball. The Michigan one and Nevada ones are pretty
bad too.”
“Why?”
“President Trump found an effective treatment for the
Wuhan Virus called Hydroxychloroquine; so they banned it so that Trump couldn’t
get a win.”
“That can’t be the reason they said.”
“Well, I don’t know what the reason the Michigan governor
gave but the Nevada one, Sisolak, he was worried that private citizens would
hoard it and keep it hidden in their house.
The funny part was, it turned out the Sisolak was hoarding it after he
banned it. He was guilty of what he was
accusing his constituents of.”
“That sounds more like something you’d see in India.”
“I admit I don’t know anything about Indian politics but
if you mean it’s corrupt and people will sacrifice their people to hurt their
enemies, then yes, it’s like that.”
Kera finished up her meeting and Fanis says good bye to
the security guard realizing that they never actually introduced
themselves. As they leave, Kera and
Fanis go around looking for something to eat and end up at a McDonalds. The interesting part of the McDonalds in India
is that they don’t serve beef and have some interesting things on the menu like
seaweed burgers.
As they leave, they are approached by a man who points at
them “Let me ask you American something.
Your Dr. Birx thinks that if anyone dies with the Wuhan Virus that it
counts. Don’t you think that inflates
the numbers?”
Kera gives him a strange look so
Fanis answers, “Yes, it’s becoming more and more apparent that the Wuhan Virus
has trouble killing healthy people. My
best friend died of cancer and that is what I tell people but technically he
died of a cold. The cancer destroyed his
immune system, which allowed the cold to finish him off. It would be ridiculous if I told people he
died of a cold.”
“That’s what I mean. All of a sudden nobody is dying in America
from diabetes, stroke, cancer or heart disease.”
“Yea, all those numbers are way
down.”
“America is the only country doing this too. Other countries are reporting it
responsibly.”
“That’s probably why everyone
says that America has it the worst.”
“Let me ask you something else
and let the woman answer. Given
everything that’s been happening around the world, what gives you the right to
sell Chinese stuff here?”
Kera snaps back, “Not everything
that is linked to China is contaminated you dumb fuck!”
Now it was Fanis’ turn to give
her a dirty look. The Indian guy shoved
her and barked, “Get out of our country.”
Kera fell back on the ground and
giggled as she looked at her cousin and bodyguard. Fanis took a deep breath and turned to the
man, “That was a mistake.”
The man took a swing at Fanis
who ducked under it. He unleashed two
punches to the Indian’s kidneys and shoved him forward. The Indian turned back and charged at Fanis,
who ducked and, as he approached, lifted his upper body up catapulting the man
over his head and flipping him on his back.
The man stayed down and Kera grabbed his arm and joyfully skipped off
while Fanis quickened his walk to keep pace with her.
Kera suddenly let go as the Indian had gotten up and
raced after them. He jumped and tackled
Fanis from behind. The Indian punched at
the side of Fanis’ face. Fanis pushed
himself up on all fours and grabbed the man’s right arm and dropped his
shoulder flipping the man off him and onto the ground. Both men got up and faced each other. They circled around each other and Fanis
waited until the Indian made the first move.
When he came forward, Fanis reached out and grabbed him by the throat
with his right hand. He had one thumb in
one carotoid artery and the other four fingers on the other squeezing. The Indian tried to pull Fanis’ hand off him
but he jerked him around. As the energy
was draining from him, Fanis dragged the Indian to a tree and smashed his head
against it. Kera followed and exclaimed,
“I want a turn”
Fanis let go of the man’s throat
and grabbed his arm and twisted him around.
Fanis wrapped his arms over the man’s biceps and interlocked his hands
behind his back exposing his front to Kera.
Kera smiled and slapped him across the face as hard as she could and
Fanis tossed him to the side. Kera
looked up and pointed near the tree, “Look a monkey.”
Fanis saw it too and
nodded. It was quite common to see
monkeys in India but both had forgotten that.
They got dinner at a local place and then went back to the hotel to
sleep. The next day, they headed to the
air strip and headed back to London. On
the plane, Fanis had intense stomach pains and kicked himself for eating at the
local place. Kera was fine and felt bad
for Fanis. She asked, “Are you okay?”
“No, but let’s talk about
something to distract me.”
“Well, it looks like Christopher
Steele may be in trouble after all.”
“No, Hillary Clinton will
protect him. She still owns the DOJ.”
“This isn’t the DOJ; three of
the Russians he named in the Golden Shower story in the dossier are suing
him. Part of the lawsuit is he has to
publicly admit that his dossier is a lie and a hoax.”
“That is huge but you know how
these intelligence guys are; they’ll just cite sources and methods and there
won’t be a case.”
“Actually, he tried that and the
judge, a Justice Warby, said that he may force him to answer the question and
he can’t hide behind them. I mean, he’s
Ex-MI6 and this is from three years ago so it probably isn’t as sensitive as he
pretends it is.”
“That would be amazing if the
Russians end up taking down Steele.”
“It will give fuel to the
liberals that Russia and America are colluding.”
“Yea, but they can’t say
anything because they did that for almost three years. The people don’t care anymore.”
“Let’s just get through the
Covid crisis and then we’ll see what happens.”
“I agree. I really hope the economy opens sooner rather
than later.”
“I’m beginning to come around to
your side but England is still bad.”
“That’s only because of
socialized medicine. There were long
wait times even before the crisis.”
“No, I know but nobody really
needs this right now.”
“Nobody ever needs a pandemic
but it’s here and we need to respond appropriately. This overreaction needs to stop.”
“I hope you’re right about the
pandemic but wrong about the economic backlash afterwards.”
“Me too.”
They land in London and Kera
hires a cleaning crew to thoroughly clean the plane while Fanis and Kera go
through a decontamination protocol.
Fanis wasn’t sure how long this was going to be their normal but it was
one of the few things he didn’t like enduring working for Kera. Within a day, Fanis was over his stomach
pains and back to normal.
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