A primarily conservative disease

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos discussed how the efforts to get a bipartisan infrastructure deal are going. Short answer: not well (and we’re not surprised). As part of that discussion McCarter wrote:

Capitol Hill reporter, NBC's Leigh Ann Caldwell, perhaps hit on the larger truth here in a bit on MSNBC Monday morning, in which she characterized the situation as "extremely stalled." Her Democratic and Republican sources, Caldwell said, are telling her that the Biden White House is "engaging in these negotiations on infrastructure for an audience of one, and that is Sen. Joe Manchin," who has said "over and over again he doesn't want to go down the partisan path on infrastructure unless things don't work out with Republicans." That very well may be true.

A hint for Joe Manchin: things aren’t going to work out with Republicans. McCarter quoted a tweet from Meet the Press:

Members of the Republican Party ... are telling their members when they're home in their district to talk about inflation and blame the president for overabundant spending.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos reportd the House GOP is starting to talk about the talking points they will use in the 2022 campaign. After a year of having no platform other than sucking up to the nasty guy and obstructing Biden and Democrats, they will run on ... cutting the social safety net. Again. Yeah, straight out of former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s playbook. Eleveld wrote:

The party that blew an $8 trillion hole in the federal debt is looking around for savings and realized the easiest thing to do was to put voters on the hook for their costly mismanagement. "We make the mistakes, you just pay for them!"—another 2022 GOP gem!

Hunter of Kos wrote that Democratic areas are way ahead of Republican areas in getting the COVID vaccine.

We can begin to see how the next year of the pandemic will unfold. As access to the vaccine becomes more widespread, non-Republicans will become increasingly immune. Diehard Republicans, however, will remain willingly at risk. While a good chunk of Republicans will get vaccinated, the most ideology-obsessed will not. So they'll die. The numbers will likely never reach those of previous pandemic spikes, because ideological fascists do not make up 100% of any community—a good chunk of their neighbors will provide the necessary buffer that slows pandemic spread, with the virus transmitting mostly among fellow cult members—but we may well reach the bizarre pandemic point where COVID-19 is, in this country, a primarily conservative disease.

As appealing as letting all the conservatives die off is, we’re not monsters. There is also the problem that some people can’t be vaccinated – they’re allergic to the components, are immunocompromised, or living in areas that are not good (or are hostile) at getting shots into arms. Juliette Kayyem, an analyst for CNN, tweeted a thread. It’s in response to reckless Marjorie Taylor Greene’s latest:

Greene is disturbed. She is also promoting a familiar violent narrative meant to incite. Greene is equating those who support masking with Nazis. That's obvious. But it is more than horrifying. It is code. If we are Nazis, then violence towards us is justified. Wink and nod. It's a technique Trump mastered; promote violence without saying so, a sophisticated use of stochastic (inciting for random acts of violence) terrorism. "Liberate Michigan!" and they tried to kidnap the Gov. He would deny it. Just a joke, his people would say.

Kayyem added: Voter suppression is the threat of state approved criminal punishment for wanting to vote. That comes with violence. Tucker Carlson of Fox News has talked about “replacement theory.” That is the foundation of violent white supremacy – it is a zero sum game: me or you. Kayyem has gotten threats. She asks us to call out these comments and also explain why the comments are violent. Igor Volsky of Guns Down America tweeted a thread. The threat of and actual violence against politicians is up. Those who believe white people are being discriminated against by black people have much higher support of political violence and are more likely to own guns. These people are targeting Democrats. The weapons of choice are guns and explosives. Yes, Republicans are opposed to increased funding for lawmaker security. They also refuse to make it harder to prohibit guns sales. My conclusion: Republicans want a well armed population ready and eager to commit deadly violence against perceived enemies. Farah Baker, who lives in Gaza, tweeted some photos of community efforts to clean up the rubble from the recent Israeli attack. Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish woman who sparked climate activism, is still working at it. Here’s a bit of the latest. And it shows she has a great sense of humor. Such as this tweet:

Being fat-shamed by Chinese state owned media is a pretty weird experience even by my standards. But it’s definitely going on my resume.

Thunberg responded to an article that included our Climate Envoy John Kerry saying...

"50% of the carbon reductions needed to get to net zero will come from technologies that have not yet been invented" Great news! I spoke to Harry Potter and he said he will team up with Gandalf, Sherlock Holmes & The Avengers and get started right away!

My notes from her five minute video posted a few days ago: Our relationship with nature is broken. The climate crisis, ecological crisis, and health crisis are all linked. We can change that relationship. If we don’t “we are f*cked.” 75% of new diseases come from other animals. Because of our farming and the way we treat nature we increase the chance of diseases spreading from animals to us. 83% of agricultural land feeds livestock. This is the size of North and South American combined. Yet livestock provides only 18% of our calories. If we continue we’ll run out of land and food. We’ll also destroy the habitat of most wild plants and animals, driving many to extinction. If we lose them, we’re lost too. We’ve been waging a senseless and suicidal war on nature. Farming is about ¼ of greenhouse gas emissions. If we shift to a plant based diet we would need 76% less land for farming and nature could recover. Animals show signs of what we call empathy, yet 70% of farm animals live in factories, in America, it’s 99%. We can change how we treat nature. All of us can do something. What will we do? I’ve got another Thunberg video in my browser tabs that’s been there 11 months (yes, really). I found it again (deleting a lot of other old tabs along the way, but there are still lots more) and see why I have been avoiding it – it’s 75 minutes long! I don’t have enough time this evening to get into it. So it may sit there a while yet.