Election infrastructure

It’s been a while since I watched a free opera on Met Opera’s free streaming service that’s been running since the start of the pandemic. They are showing either operas I’m not interested in or in operas they’ve already shown and I’ve seen. Last night they showed one of interest I hadn’t seen before (though heard on the radio about a month ago). The opera is Billy Budd by Benjamin Britten. It is based on a short novel by Herman Melville. The story takes place on an English military ship in 1797 looking to do battle with the French. With that setting all of the singers and characters on stage are men (with a few boys). Gay that I am I much prefer listening to men’s voices, the deeper the better, than women’s. So that aspect was a treat. The ship is led by Captain Vere, well respected by the men. The master at arms in John Claggart, not respected at all. Budd is a newcomer on board, having been press-ganged into service. No matter to him because he considers himself a seaman and one ship is as good as another. Budd is well liked by the other men and the captain. But Budd’s handsomeness and goodness annoy Claggart, who is soon plotting ways of getting rid of Budd. The story is told with a prologue and epilogue by Vere looking back at the incident. He is anguished, even years later, because he could have saved Budd ... and didn’t. Britten was gay and his life partner was tenor Peter Pears. Many important tenor roles in Britten’s operas were written with Pears in mind (Pears played Vere in the premier). Britten was English and also a pacifist during WWII. Critics have noted that a recurring theme in Britten operas is “an isolated individual at odds with a hostile society,” as Wikipedia puts it. That very much describes Peter Grimes, the other Britten opera I watched in the last year. Critics and commentators are less decided on whether Britten tended towards that theme because of his own pacifism and gayness. A look at COVID data in Michigan based on Friday’s numbers shows that in the week before last the peak of new cases per day was raised from 184 to 190. The peak this past week was 136. Things are looking good! At least in Michigan. As for the rest of the country and the world, Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported the Delta variant of the virus, along with a new “Delta Plus” variant, are spreading quickly. These variants are also infecting and causing illness in people who have already been infected. Those who have been vaccinated with both shots are still protected, though maybe not quite as well as with the other variants. Because of this reinfection those who claim they don’t need to be vaccinate because they’ve already had COVID have lost their excuse. All this means the virus is spreading much more readily, but only among the unvaccinated. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said this week, “nearly every death, especially among adults, due to COVID-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable.” The faster we’re all vaccinated the greater chance of avoiding a variant that can elude the vaccine. A bit of solace. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that a Monmouth University poll found that 57% of Americans view fraudits (like the one going on in Arizona) as “partisan efforts to undermine valid election results.” A third of respondents saw them as legitimate efforts to find voting irregularities. 40% say the effort will weaken democracy, 20% say they will strengthen it. But on to the scary. Mark Sumner reported that Pearson Sharp of One America News Network said a lot in a minute. He repeated the claim the election was stolen. Then he called for the execution of tens of thousands of Americans over fake voter fraud claims. Sumner wrote:

At no point is there even a suggestion that the election might not have been stolen. Neither does he pause for a second to ponder how a conspiracy as large as the one he posits wasn’t easily revealed. And naturally, in reeling off a list of states where he contends that “audits” are sure to uncover problems, he ticks off Michigan despite the fact that a Republican-led commission there has concluded that it found no evidence of election fraud. As might be expected, this particular little speech is being met with great excitement on right-wing social media and chat rooms. Just as on OAN, no one is questioning the idea that a massive unseen conspiracy denied Trump another chance to keep not delivering on vaccines, or any of the other things he promised. They’re moving on to celebrating the idea that OAN must be aware something big is coming. They’re excited about getting to see those mass executions. They’re hoping that they come soon, soon, soon. And they’re all speculating about the best—meaning the most painful and humiliating—ways to kill tens of thousands of their fellow Americans. Or maybe just skipping anything that formal and simply nuking the parts of the nation they don’t like. This is where they live. This is what they’re stewing in. Both online and off, “conservatives” are being told that their countrymen are psycho commie traitors who deserve only death.

Biden got an infrastructure deal with Republicans. Joan McCarter of Kos supplied more, though there are a lot of details of the plan yet to work out. Yeah, we need infrastructure spending. However, there are some things in this bill that are not good. It is less than half of what Biden originally proposed. It cuts pandemic relief unemployment insurance and other programs. It requires raising state and local taxes to invest in broadband. It includes selling public assets to private companies so they can charge us for what should be public things – such as putting toll booths on bridges. On the good side Biden demanded that he won’t sign this bill unless there was a companion bill to cover the rest of what he originally proposed, even if that companion was passed only by Democrats. That bill would include climate infrastructure and care infrastructure. There were apparently two hours between the time Biden stood with a bunch of senators to announce the deal and the time Biden held a press conference to say the deal needs to be accompanied by a Democrat only bill. On a second post McCarter reported that predictably, Moscow Mitch declared that in those two hours Biden caved to an ultimatum from his left-wing base. Mitch said Biden is not serious about a bipartisan outcome. A couple other Republican senators did the hissy-fit thing, declaring they won’t vote for the bipartisan bill. Bill Scher tweeted:

If McConnell is trying to sink the deal, here's his problem: If he pressures the Group of 21 Rs to abandon it, then that frees up Manchin, Sinema etc to do the whole thing by reconciliation anyway. So infrastructure still happens, just without Rs getting any credit.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted a few sources on the topic. First, from Grist, on Biden promising the bipartisan bill and the Democrat only bill must be linked.

That means that Democratic leadership will attempt to shepherd a bipartisan bill through Congress, a massive feat in its own right, along with a budget reconciliation bill, which will require some serious herding of moderate cats in the Senate, with the aim of bringing both bills to a vote soon. Talk about a moonshot plan.

A tweet from Sahil Kapur:

For a number of Republicans, the explicit attraction of a physical infrastructure deal was to tank a separate multi-trillion Democrats-only bill. Biden + Dems building a credible structure to link the two is naturally upsetting to that camp.

Adam Jentleson tweeted:

The thing about the past 48 hours is that neither side can hide their strategy anymore. Dems’ strategy is to pass two bills. Republicans’ strategy is to use the bipartisan bill to kill the reconciliation bill. Everyone’s cards are on the table. Now it’s just a matter of who wins.

And Dworkin quoted a tweet by Mark Murray:

The 3 ways Biden's bipartisan + reconciliation vehicles could get derailed: 1. Conservatives revolt (which we're already starting to see). 2. Dem unity unravels. 3. The great unknown: Can Dems hold on to their fragile majorities thru the fall?

In this case I see the Republican point – from their perspective why support a bipartisan bill if Democrats are going to pass all the other stuff on their own? I also understand Biden – he had to try, and do so quite visibly, to get Sen. Joe Manchin to see how futile it was to try to negotiate with Republicans. So, yeah, lets lay the bipartisan attempt aside – along with all the stuff of swiping money already designated for relief and giving assets away to the rich. John Stoehr and his Editorial Board tweeted:

In response to a question Wednesday from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on what the Democrats were going to do after the Republicans blocked consideration of a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s voting laws—basically, Maddow was asking, “What are you going to do to save democracy?”— the Democratic senator from Minnesota said, “We can include election infrastructure in there.” By “election infrastructure,” she meant a sweeping overhaul of election laws. By “in there,” she meant in the second of two infrastructure packages the Democrats can pass w/o Republicans. And with that, the Democrats can save democracy while leaving the filibuster untouched. ... It would make a lot of sense for Joe Biden to stuff the For the People Act, or some variation of it, into that second “human infrastructure” package and do so in the name of national security.

Dworkin has one more tweet to share. I had written that the Catholic Bishops in America had started the process of denying communion to politicians who supported a woman’s right to choose. The denial is clearly aimed at Biden. Anthea Butler tweeted, with a link to a story in the Washington Post:

After controversy, U.S. Catholic bishops say there will be ‘no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians’.

Jennifer Bendery, a politics reporter for Huff Post tweeted:

Biden quietly hit a milestone yesterday: He's confirmed more lifetime federal judges than any president has done in 50+ years by this point in their first six months in office. It's still very early in his presidency. We're not talking huge #s yet. But. Biden has confirmed 7 lifetime federal judges so far. By this point in their first 6 mos, his predecessors had.... Trump: 2 Obama: 0 GWB: 0 Clinton: 0 GHWB: 4 Reagan: 0 Carter: 4 Ford: N/A Nixon: 7

Bendery cautions us: this rate does not mean Biden will surpass the massive number of judges nominated by the nasty guy (actually by the Federalist Society) and confirmed by Moscow Mitch in the last four years. It does mean Biden and Senate Dems are not wasting time. Albert Kim of Vancouver tweeted something that could apply to many cities (then reported the tweet went viral):

In times like this, it's worth thinking about how our city is designed - why can't I freaking sit down anywhere - in the shade - where are the public washrooms - where can I get water if I'm thirsty - without paying - why do I have to breathe car exhaust everywhere

Michael Harriot tweeted about Critical Race Theory:

I’m not really concerned about the stupid backlash to CRT, “wokeness,” or reverse racism… I just find it interesting that their worst fear is the horrific possibility of innocent little white kids being subjected to THE EXACT SAME THING their schools do to Black kids every day.

My friend and debate partner has taught me that correlation is not the same as causation. Even though the measurements of two things move together (correlation) does not mean one caused the other. Oded Rechavi of Tel Aviv University tweeted a photo that explains this situation. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included some quotes appropriate for Pride Month:

I was born of heterosexual parents. I was taught by heterosexual teachers in a fiercely heterosexual society. Television ads and newspaper ads [were] fiercely heterosexual. A society that puts down homosexuality. And why am I a homosexual if I’m affected by role models? I should have been a heterosexual. And no offense meant, but if teachers are going to affect you as role models there would be a lot of nuns running around the streets today. —Harvey Milk If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work: Hello? Can't work today. Still queer. —Robin Tyler