Showtalk said:

Deep blue states shut down almost completely and their economies are spiraling down. Trump was right when he singled out blue states in the debate, but Biden said, we are all one country.

Yeah - I have noticed the difference, as have many others, who are close to New Mexico in Texas, and those who regularly go back and forth between the two states.

Most of those in the borderland areas are coming to Texas to shop and eat out and generally get vehicle maintenance done and other things.

I picked up some pocket change this week making a run to a town in southeastern New Mexico to deliver some stuff  because the stores in Odessa-Midland are open for a reasonable amount of time, while Hobbs NM practically has shut down everything except oil field related stuff in the remote areas. Since Hobbs rolls up the streets several hours before a typical oil worker's workday ends, and doesn't open stores until after most have to be at work - we're calling that "Covid Savings Time" - which I've heard multiple people say on the air - there's a lot of them who drive the extra hundred miles each way to go to Odessa and shop for essentials.

As a result of continued short hours in NM, as well as the risk of being trapped there if they ever come up with enough bureaucratic personnel to actually enforce statewide quarantines and keep healthy people from exiting the state, businesses in Kermit, Monahans, Odessa, Midland, are staying busy with a LOT of cars and trucks with NM license plates seen on the streets.

Meanwhile, the majority of traffic freely crossing the state line are 18 wheelers who have been protected under federal mandate so essential goods can be delivered.

Fortuately in small places like Jal, Eunice, Dexter, Tatum, Lovington, etc. and rural areas of NM, you can get away with a lot of travel as long as you don't raise red flags by trying to book a motel or something. Thus you see a lot of people sleeping in cars by the side of roads and in parking lots to avoid leaving a paper trail.

I wonder how long before travels like yours will be turned into a movie? Lot of things going on most people di not hear about.

Well, Smokey and the Bandit was about bootlegging a load of beer from Texarkana to Atlanta.

'cause they're thirsty in Atlanta and there's beer in Texarkana. We'll bring it back no matter what it takes.
Eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin'
We're gonna do what they say can't be done
We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there
I'm eastbound, just watch ole Bandit run.

If they can’t leave home, how do they get out to leave their own states?

When the Democrats started threatening gun rights I started voting Republican.

 

They want to remove all guns and that will be the end of the 2nd Amendment.  Can’t have rights without weapons.

The same way everyone else does. Basic evasion and escape tactics just like if you're a pilot shot down over North Vietnam?

So far no one challenged anyone going in and out of southeastern New Mexico where it borders Texas.

Now up around Albuquerque, they're probably still mostly trapped there. But there's some very remote rural areas that one could probably come and go with impunity because dystopia is really expensive and takes a lot of resources to really enforce.

Kind of like when the Communists took over some countries. They controlled the big cities while the rebels controlled the countryside.

That’s a depressing thought.

and I made another successful entry and escape from New Mexico on Sunday night.

Virus cases are rising sharply again so we may be depending on "the man" mostly focused on the dense blur cities, and hope state lines in remote rural areas aren't bulldozed into makeshift barriers like a new Berlin Wall where there aren't enough bureaucrats to man checkpoints at all the ingress and egress points.

i know of many places one could easily slip in and out of NM from TX via assorted oil lease roads, or even a half mile off-road as long as one's vehicle can cross sand dunes without getting stuck.

In other news,
https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/national/national-politics/bidens-path-270-widens-trumps-path-narrows-texas-moves-toss

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html

https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/covid-19-is-claiming-more-lives-than-the-official-data-indicates/article_6312e45b-0dce-5cc6-8406-93d529bacb11.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/27/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/covid-cases-hospitalizations-continue-to-surge-as-us-reaches-critical-point-in-pandemic.html

THen things could be more dystopian over the holidays:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8886855/Police-commissioner-says-officers-break-Christmas-dinners-families-flout-lockdown-rules.html

Why are you sneaking in and out of New Mexico this week?

I just heard someone say Texas is getting more R registrations than D for the first time in years. I don’t think they know.

Do we want to be England where law enforcement can arrest people in their homes for eating together?  

These are a lot of extreme ideas. Have you become a Covid conspiracy theorist?