While COVID complications are still very much on my mind, I completed most of my flight arrangements to Portugal yesterday and have a rental car reserved.\u00a0\u00a0 Now I will start locking down accommodations.\u00a0 \u00a0I plan to spend the first few days in Lisbon, then grab my rental car and head up north to the Silver Coast and the area around Porto.\u00a0 I will be there a little over a week.\u00a0 I then plan to drive the length of Portugal down to the Algarve in the south where I will spend the next two weeks.\u00a0 At least that\u2019s the plan.\u00a0 Everything these days is subject to change with short notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Right now, Portugal is open, although a negative COVID test is required prior to entry.\u00a0 The worst-case scenario would be if I successfully get over there but have trouble getting home.\u00a0 I guess we\u2019ll see.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping that if they determine that a third booster shot is required, they will make that decision before I leave.\u00a0 I will certainly be one of the first in line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cases in Montana are now surging like across much of the nation.\u00a0 We are also one of those Republican-controlled states where Governor Gianforte signed a bill prohibiting the enforcement of mask mandates.\u00a0 I find it extremely ironic that all of these Republican-controlled states cry loudly about \u2018States\u2019 rights\u2019 when the Federal government issues nationwide mandates but apparently think that once things get to the state level, they are entitled to act like dictators and strip the rights of every company, institution and person beneath them.\u00a0 \u00a0They don\u2019t want the president to act in an authoritarian manner but are perfectly comfortable doing it themselves.\u00a0 Go figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is hard to understand the thinking (or lack thereof) of people like Governor DeSantis (Florida) or Governor Greg Abbott who are acting like tin horn dictators with respect to outlawing basic public health measures that have been proven effective.\u00a0 Now, Governor DeSantis is threatening to withhold the salaries of school officials who defy his edict to ban masks in schools.\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 \u00a0Using children as political pawns is outrageous.\u00a0 There are international laws against using children as soldiers and this seems to be on the same level.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Think about this for a second.\u00a0 Ron DeSantis is one of the frontrunners in polls regarding who might be the Republican nominee for president in the 2024 elections if Trump doesn\u2019t run.\u00a0 (Hopefully he will have been indicted by then!).\u00a0 DeSantis\u2019 behavior to date seems to be Trump on steroids, if that\u2019s even possible.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s not hard to see what direction this country would take if someone like DeSantis were to be elected.\u00a0 That is truly frightening.\u00a0 If you thought Trump did everything he could to undermine democracy in this country, DeSantis would likely join Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, as someone who was responsible for the actual death of democracy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DeSantis\u2019 continuing harangue against immigrants and blaming them for the surge in COVID cases in Florida is right out of the \u2018authoritarian playbook.\u2019\u00a0 When you look at virtually every authoritarian leader who rose to power, they almost universally used inflammatory rhetoric against immigrants as one of their springboards to power.\u00a0 \u00a0Trump did it in 2016 and you can bet whoever the Republican nominee is for 2024 will do it again.\u00a0 If the nominee is DeSantis, the existing polarization in this country will get even worse.\u00a0 As I have said before, many people in this country don\u2019t seem to have any idea of how close we are to succumbing to authoritarian forces that will change this country forever.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to be optimistic and think that this trend can be reversed but somedays, after reading the news, it\u2019s very difficult.\u00a0 Which is why I intend to carry on with my exploration of places to potentially move.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While COVID complications are still very much on my mind, I completed most of my flight arrangements to Portugal yesterday and have a rental car reserved.\u00a0\u00a0 Now I will start locking down accommodations.\u00a0 \u00a0I plan to spend the first few days in Lisbon, then grab my rental car and head up north to the Silver … Continue reading August 10, 2021<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7FBZO-oG","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1531,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions\/1531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}