Watching it burn holding a turned-off hose

I looked at Michigan’s COVID data based on data as of Friday, August 6. The peak new cases per day in the weeks of July 4 and 11 have changed only a little from when I last reported a week ago. So I’ll leave them out. For the last three weeks: July 18 – the week’s peak revised upward from 512 to 579 with days of 573 and 561 that week. July 25 – the peak revised upward from 662 to 802. August 1 – peak of 1150 with another day at 1083. The case rate for the state has now risen to 11/100K. In the last two weeks the deaths per day was at 12 for one day and 8 or below for the rest of the time. Thankfully, deaths per day has not been rising behind new cases per day. Back in April I wrote a program to draw Michigan counties and color them based on their viral spread. With a change of month I ran it again. In July (so already a week old), there was one hot county, Branch, along the Indiana border. In that county in July 0.05% of the population tested positive for COVID. A county at the west end of the Upper Peninsula had 0.035% testing positive. All the rest of the counties are under 0.025% testing positive. For populous Oakland County that can still be a couple hundred cases. A few days ago I wrote about the latest details about the Capitol attack that came out this past week. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos added an overall picture.

Donald Trump isn’t just a sore loser. He isn’t even just a sore loser who indiscriminately lashed out and encouraged his supporters to riot. Donald Trump was at the head of an actual, methodical coup attempt last December and January, a fact that’s starting to draw more and more notice as details emerge. ... CNN’s Zachary Wolf likewise pointed to how … intentional, and truly coup-like, this is all looking, writing that the details that have recently emerged “show that Trump's assault on democracy, which looks more and more like an attempted coup, was even more reckless and insistent than previously thought.” Yeah. And we still may not have all the most damning details. Anyone who doesn’t take this seriously, at this point, is laying the groundwork for a successful coup next time. Republicans from Congress to state legislatures are laying that groundwork very intentionally. But pretending it didn’t happen, and failing to see the continuing work Republicans are doing toward 2022 and 2024, is almost as dangerous.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Ron Brownstein of The Atlantic discussing Biden’s insistence on bipartisan deals and wondering if Biden understands the current GOP.

On the other side are Democrats who fear that Biden’s stress on bipartisan cooperation is normalizing the GOP even as the party is radicalizing on many fronts—from restricting voting and defending the January 6 rioters to opposing many public-health responses to the pandemic. These Democrats worry that Biden’s approach makes it easier even for voters who view Trump as unfit for office to back Republicans in upcoming down-ballot races.

Dworkin also quoted a tweet from David Frum:

Republican anti-vaxxism offers a fascinating study of relationship between right-wing elites vs. rank-and-file. Elites first fomented anti-vax feeling for partisan purposes. They succeeded so well that they cannot/dare not now reverse. Elite leads; rank-and-file then constrain.

Also a tweet by Scott Braddock:

It should be national news tonight that the biggest school district in Texas is on track to defy Gov @GregAbbott_TX's ban on local mask mandates.

Staying with schools – A week ago I quoted a tweet by Leah McElrath about Republicans using the pandemic to undermine parental support for public education. She added a couple examples. McElrath quoted a tweet from John Harwood who quoted Education Week:

"Tennessee aims to levy fines starting at $1-M on school districts each time a teacher is found to have 'knowingly-violated' state restrictions on classroom discussions about systemic racism, white privilege, and sexism, according to the Dept of Education"

Then a quote of Zeke Miller, quoting the Associated Press:

Florida approves private school vouchers if parents say children feel bullied by a district's mask-wearing rules.

A week ago McElrath quoted the Washington Post:

Perspective: Experts and writers who mostly disagreed with Trump — often vehemently — to look back on what he got right.

McElrath responded:

Trump attempted a coup and contributed to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans through his lies and inaction—and THIS is what the @washingtonpost is going with.

Author Celeste Ng wrote:

I feel closer to an actual nervous breakdown right now re: COVID stuff than I did in April last year. Maybe it’s because we have tools to fight it and we just aren’t using them? It’s one thing to watch the world burn. It’s another to watch it burn holding a turned-off hose. And I feel like our situation now is some of us holding a hose and wanting to use it, while some people push us away from the fire and also spray gasoline around. While waving the flag. Oh, and while saying the kids inside the building have a right to not get wet.

From another Dworkin pundit roundup from earlier this past week, Charlie Sykes from Bulwark.

On one level D’Souza’s mockery of police officers injured in the line of duty is just another example of performative assholery, but it also fits a pattern worth noting: Charlie Kirk mocks Simone Biles for “weakness,” Tucker Carlson cackles about critics, and Laura Ingraham ridicules victims of the January 6 riots. None of this has any relationship to the fight for freedom, limited government, or national greatness, or anything like a coherent set of ideas. But there is a through-line here: a strutting posture of faux toughness, and the celebration of the “strong” as opposed to the weak. We’ve seen this play before.

And a bit of fun: Comedian Vinny Thomas does a two minute routine about “The Galactic Federation Interviews Earth for membership.” It’s from last December and has gotten 4.9 million views.

The rejection of bipartisanship

I had written that Pelosi had named eight House members to the committee to investigate the Capitol attack. The committee was formed after the Senate blocked a bill to have an evenly bipartisan committee. The version that passed the House included Pelosi having veto power over the five people Republicans can name. Hunter of Daily Kos reported Kevin McCarthy finally did so and included Rep. Jim Banks and Rep. Jim Jordan. Pelosi rejected Banks and Jordan, though permitted the other three. Hunter explained Banks was rejected because he had declared is purpose in serving on the committee was to expand the scope to include Black Lives Matter protests, allowing a both sides did it narrative. Jordan was rejected because he has already disrupted the nasty guy impeachment investigations. He’s a guy ready to deflect and attack any connection between the attackers and the nasty guy. McCarthy responded by removing all five of his choices. That leaves the committee with one Republican, Liz Cheney, appointed by Pelosi. Cheney got the seat for her refusal to be a part of the Big Lie. In a post from last week Mark Sumner of Kos discussed a book about the nasty guy White House that was about to be released. Sumner didn’t buy the book and doesn’t name it. He worked from an article in the Washington Post. The book, according to the article and Sumner, describes the senior military officers, led by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, in the days before the Capitol attack. They were so concerned that the nasty guy would use them in a coup they developed a plan to resign, one by one, rather than accept an order to be a part of the coup. The officers so concerned they discussed this with other generals and members of Congress. Yes, this is scary. In the comments Sumner added: If the top military leaders resigned decision making would have gone to their second in command. And most of that level and below had recently been replaced by nasty guy loyalists. Resignation would have played into the nasty guy’s plans. I’m glad the top guys didn’t have to resign. Sumner then gets into an important question. When did the book’s authors know this important detail? If it was that disturbing why are we hearing about it just now? In another post (which I don’t have a link for or remember who wrote it) the author gave a warning. Do not buy and do not read these nasty guy revelation books. The flood of them is just beginning. If they contain important details news outlets will discuss them. So the only things you will miss is people trying to buff their reputations. An example in one book is the Princess reminding everyone that she was the only one who could keep Daddy from going off the deep end. Without her controlling him the whole thing would have been much worse. That reminds me of a friend who was a teacher. After hearing a student’s excuse, she would say, “Oh! I like fairytales. Do you also know the one about the three bears?” Another reason for avoiding these books is something Sumner mentioned. Why is the author telling us now – when they are being paid by the book sold? Why didn’t they tell the world about it at the time when the knowledge might have done some good? Chuck Schumer had the Senate hold a test vote on the bipartisan infrastructure plan (no actual bill yet). All Republicans voted against it. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote about the lead up to the vote. She quoted a tweet from Brian Schtaz, who summed it up well:

It is hard to credibly claim you are for bipartisanship if you filibuster bipartisanship.

Chitown Kev, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Nicole Hemmer of CNN discussing both Pelosi’s rejection of Banks and Jordan and bipartisanship.

Pelosi was right to reject Jordan and Banks, who, as blood was still drying on the floor of the Capitol, voted to give the insurrectionists what so many of them wanted. At a deeper level, Pelosi's actions here also constitute a crucial development: the rejection of bipartisanship as a positive force in US politics. The select committee will still be bipartisan -- GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who voted to impeach Trump for fomenting the insurrection, will still serve on it -- but the notion that Democratic leaders must work with Republican leaders in order to have political legitimacy is well and truly dead. As it should be. The fetish for bipartisanship has dominated Washington for at least 80 years. In that time, bipartisanship acquired a rosy glow: to label a policy bipartisan was to deem it both representative and virtuous, the byproduct of opposing sides compromising their way to the best possible solution. But on its own, bipartisanship has never been a virtue. It has been, at best, virtue-signaling -- a legislative both-sidesism that has infected US politics for far too long.

Kev also quoted Sara Reardon of Nature, who explained why the delta variant of COVID is worse.

Researchers report that virus was first detectable in people with the Delta variant four days after exposure, compared with an average of six days among people with the original strain, suggesting that Delta replicates much faster. Individuals infected with Delta also had viral loads up to 1,260 times higher than those in people infected with the original strain. The combination of a high number of viruses and a short incubation period makes sense as an explanation for Delta’s heightened transmissibility, says epidemiologist Benjamin Cowling at the University of Hong Kong. The sheer amount of virus in the respiratory tract means that superspreading events are likely to infect even more people, and that people might begin spreading the virus earlier after they become infected.

Lauren Floyd of Kos shared:

An Alabama doctor gave the kind of account of her job during the COVID-19 pandemic that nearly brought me to tears in one paragraph. “I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections,” Dr. Brytney Cobia wrote in a gut-wrenching Facebook post on Sunday. “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late. ”A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same,” Cobia added. “They cry. And they tell me they didn't know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn't get as sick. They thought it was 'just the flu'. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can't. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.”

That story prompted Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama to change his tune and now support getting vaccinated. Laura Clawson of Kos discussed the Out of Reach report put out by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The report defines housing affordability as a full time worker paying no more than 30% of income towards an apartment charging fair market rent. There are over 3,000 counties in the US and a minimum wage worker can afford a one-bedroom apartment in only 218 counties. There are no counties where a minimum wage worker can afford a two-bedroom apartment. Clawson included a map that turned the equation around. What would the minimum wage in a state need to be to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment? West Virginia has the lowest need – a wage of $14.83 an hour. But the minimum wage in the state is $8.75. West Virginia is the only state where the affordability wage is under $15 an hour. There are 15 states where the minimum wage to afford a two-bedroom place would need to be $23 an hour or higher. California is at the top where a worker would need $39.03 an hour to afford a two-bedroom place. In another pundit roundup Kev quoted Paul Krugman of the New York Times and the changing view of government spending.

First, Covid-19, and the extraordinary policy measures America took to limit economic hardship during the economy’s induced coma, had a lasting impact on economic ideology. Large-scale disaster relief was obviously necessary; even Republicans voted for it. But the positive role played by the government during the pandemic helped legitimize an active role for government in general. Second, the legend of Reaganomics has become unsustainable. It used to be common for conservatives to assert that Reagan’s tax cuts and deregulation ushered in an era of unprecedented economic success; in fact, I still hear that sometimes. But these days the response to such claims is, “Do you even FRED, bro?” That is, have you even looked at the numbers available in places like the wonderfully usable Federal Reserve Economic Data site? Overall economic growth has been slower since 1980 than it was in the decades before; thanks to rising inequality, growth for the typical family has been much slower. Real wages for most workers have stagnated.

Christopher Ingraham tweeted a map showing by region what percent of people by party (Dem, Independent, GOP) want to secede from the US. In the South – Texas to Virginia – 66% of Republicans say the South should secede. 50% of Independents agree, as do 20% of Democrats. In the Pacific region – California to Washington – 47% of Democrats have said they want to secede. Ingraham said the data came from Bright Line Watch. He cautions the statements about secession may be only partisan signalling. Elie Mystal replied:

Back to this are we? For people saying "Bye Rednecks" remember, now as before, the problem isn't that white people want to leave, it's that they want to set up a white ethnostate OVER THE OBJECTION of the Black people who ALSO live there. In any event, it should really be the *blue* states that secede, then write a new constitution (this time at convention that represents all of the people) that takes out the concessions made to the slave states. That would be the boss move.

Marissa Higgens of Kos reported that the Louisiana legislature passed a bill banning openly trans athletes from participating in school sports. Democratic Gov. John Edward Bel vetoed it. The legislature tried a veto override. It failed in the House by two votes. A reason why Bel vetoed the bill was to prevent major events from pulling out of or not considering his state. Democratic Sen. Karen Carter-Peterson echoed Bel in saying, “You either want business to come to Louisiana or you want to discriminate.”

Until only political stooges are left

I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data again today. Last week’s peak of new cases per day was only 266. That’s only 55% of the peak the week before. And that was 56% of the week before that. In the last week the peak of deaths per day was only 15. That’s still a lot of cases and a lot of deaths, but compared to April, when we peaked at over 8100 cased and 95 deaths per day, this is a big improvement. And the trend is very nicely going in the right direction (though I was saying that in January too). Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos discussed a report from the Brennan Center on voter suppression.

When Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia shot down Democrats' signature voting rights legislation in an op-ed last week, he said that protecting voting rights "should never be done in a partisan manner." But a new Brennan Center analysis of the voter suppression laws sweeping the nation shows what a preposterous and indeed hypocritical position that is. The center's examination of the 24 state-level voting restriction laws enacted as of early June proves the suppression efforts have been an almost exclusively Republican enterprise. "Overall, we find that these new laws were enacted as part of an overwhelmingly partisan Republican push," reads the report. "Republicans introduced and drove virtually all of the bills that impose new voting restrictions, and the harshest new laws were passed with almost exclusively Republican votes and signed into law by Republican governors.” Still somehow Manchin insists that GOP lawmakers at the federal level are both interested in and fundamental to playing a corrective role to their counterparts in the states.

Eleveld then included some of the reasons they say voter suppression is exclusive to the GOP, such as no Democrats sponsored any of the 17 most restrictive bills and no Democrats voted for 13 of the 17. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that activists in West Virginia, home state of Sen. Joe Manchin, and in Arizona, home state of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, are getting tired of their senators being part of the problem rather than part of the solution. In Manchin’s case black voters were key to his most recent narrow victory yet his meeting with black leaders didn’t go well. As for Sinema her favorable rating has dropped 30 points, with most of that drop happening in the days after she refused to support removing the filibuster, which meant a minimum wage increase could not happen. Sinema has been part of a bipartisan team trying for an infrastructure bill. I hear they have an agreement, though it seems they don’t agree what they agreed to. Even so, that team has five Republicans and Moscow Mitch will be very sure there aren’t the ten needed to get past the filibuster. There is also another problem, as reported by McCarter. The more the bill appeals to Republicans, the less it appeals to progressive Democrats. In particular, Republicans insist infrastructure for climate action be taken out. Progressives are saying if that is taken out they won’t vote for it. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted few sources of interest. First, a tweet from Matthew Dowd:

Bipartisanship is like a healthy relationship. It only works if you are dealing w/ someone who has same fundamental values. If you are with someone who lies, cheats, is abusive to those you care about, and is unwilling to be held accountable, then the relationship doesn’t work.

Second, a quote from Reuters discussed the threats Tricia Raffensperger has been getting. She’s the wife of Brad Raffensperger, Secretary of State of Georgia, who refused to alter the vote there to say the nasty guy won. Reuters wrote:

Those messages, which have not been previously reported, illustrate the continuing barrage of threats and intimidation against election officials and their families months after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s November election defeat. While reports of threats against Georgia officials emerged in the heated weeks after the voting, Reuters interviews with more than a dozen election workers and top officials – and a review of disturbing texts, voicemails and emails that they and their families received – reveal the previously hidden breadth and severity of the menacing tactics.

Third is a tweet responding to that report by Ryan Enos:

See, and this is how democracy dies. You can't blame somebody for not wanting to hold this job and put his family at risk. Sooner or later, those with principles are all gone, and only political stooges are left.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos discussed the Reuters article in more detail. It said that one of those receiving threats is Jocelyn Benson, Secretary of State of Michigan. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Republicans are trying to outdo each other in calling Dr. Anthony Fauci a liar, or demanding he resign, or saying he deserves to be in prison. Yeah, the Dr. Fauci who quietly insisted on getting information to Americans to keep them safe from the virus while his boss, the nasty guy, undermined those efforts. Fauci’s offense this time is he isn’t going along with the story that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. The “evidence” of a cover up is supposedly in a huge release of Fauci’s emails that were recently obtained. The claim of cover up is because of a lack of such evidence. Sumner wrote:

This isn’t a war on Anthony Fauci. It’s a war on anyone who will not bow down. That the Republicans feel not just empowered, but comfortable, in waging this war against a figure who has the respect of colleagues, decades of experience, and a consistently high level of support in the American public only demonstrates that no one and nothing is off the table. In fact, the way that Republicans are trying to make this about Fauci rather than about a political figure is just another example of how the feedback loop now in play rewards the most outrageous action against the least deserving person. Meanwhile, the supposed evidence on which Republicans launched this fresh assault looks less compelling by the day. Not only did the thousands of Fauci’s emails released through FOIA requests only show a hard-working official struggling to not take a position other than supporting the best available evidence, the articles driving the resurgence of the “lab escape” theory keep falling apart. ... The scandal at the moment is not just that Republicans are attacking Fauci and undermining science to help Trump and generate anger among their supporters, but also that the news media was so quick to jump onto the idea that the lab escape theory was “covered up.” The lab escape theory was investigated and found unlikely. That was reported. That’s not a conspiracy, that’s accurate reporting. That single finding certainly won’t be the end of it. New investigations will bring new evidence, and when it arrives, it may require a massive revision of current thinking. Or not. But for the moment, Republicans have shown once again that all they had to do is raise a claim that media did something wrong, and media will fall all over itself to address that claim … even if it means doing something wrong.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included late night commentary, including this one:

President Biden flew to Europe on his first foreign trip. Biden's going to England, Belgium, and Switzerland. Biden had some cicada trouble, swatting away one before his flight. Tomorrow that cicada will be on Fox News in a neck brace calling for Biden to be impeached. —Jimmy Fallon

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.

History should make you feel uncomfortable

My Sunday movie was My Beautiful Laundrette. I heard about it when it came out in 1985, but had not seen it. The reviews of the time said it was a touching gay love story, something revolutionary for the time. This is the story of Omar and his extended Pakistani family living in London. The men in the family get Omar involved in the various family businesses, some of them illegal, and finally he settles on managing a dingy laundrette (what we would call a laundromat). Omar calls on childhood friend Johnny to help him run and reform the place. Yeah, the white guy worked for the guy of color. Johnny is a former skinhead and his racist friends lurk in the background. Omar and Johnny of course fall in love. But the story is more about Omar and his family and as people of color trying to fit in to English society than the gay relationship. Omar’s uncle Nassar referred to his home country of Pakistan when he said, “I can’t go back. Religion is sodomizing the country. It’s getting in the way of making money.” Interesting description in a movie with a gay relationship. Omar and his father live in an apartment near where two commuter rail lines cross. Many scenes include trains passing by. That got me wondering whether they timed the scenes to the train schedule or they had their own trains they could run by as needed. Or the trains were added later through special effects. I was a bit surprised that Johnny was played by Daniel Day-Lewis. IMDB, in the trivia for this movie, said that this and another Day-Lewis movie premiered in New York on the same day, demonstrating the range he has as an actor. I had heard that until the last couple decades playing gay tended to damage an actor’s career. Why would Day-Lewis chance it? The big example of the damage was the movie Making Love, from 1982, just thee years before. I haven’t seen it. That, I had heard, had damaged the careers of its male stars Harry Hamlin and Michael Ontkean. But looking at their filmography on IMDB doesn’t show a gap in their work. Patrick Wyman, who writes about history, tweeted:

Lot of folks out there confuse "history" with "stories from the past that make me feel good about who I am in the present." Most of the time, when somebody's whining about "rewriting history," what they mean is "this knowledge about a real thing that happened makes me feel bad." History should make you feel uncomfortable. Lots of bad things have happened. The past doesn't exist to validate your sense of who you are in the present. People did evil things, heroic things, mundane things, bizarre things, and it's not about you. If your sense of self is contingent on a belief in the unimpeachable righteousness of your chosen ancestors, real or mythical, then I'd say that's a pretty fragile sense of self.

Lauren Floyd of Daily Kos wrote about what the police tell the press and public and many time it isn’t the truth. For example, after George Floyd was murdered...

But an initial press release police officials sent to media representatives about the murder didn’t even mention Chauvin’s involvement. “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction” was the title of the release. An investigation of California law enforcement agencies published by The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday found that this kind of marketing spin on police killings is hardly unique.

Floyd listed several other cases of what the police told the press were misleading or actually lying. Christopher Reeves of Kos wrote about his autistic son graduating from high school. Along the way he talked about the way we view those who are disabled – and we’re all disabled sometime in life, whether it is permanent or temporary.

Watching my son complete a task many would think was impossible for him left me in tears of joy. Listening to the current administration talk about ways to improve the lives of those with disabilities, I heard the words that screamed, “pro-life.” Pro-life, as in actually putting value in those with disabilities. Not with fake bills demanding that they be carried to term, but with actual support after they’re born, when they need the love and care of others.

Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote about the bill to form a bipartisan commission to investigate the Capitol attack. The bill has passed the House and is now before the Senate where it will die unless the filibuster is eliminated. Dartagnan wrote, quoting Max Boot of The Washington Post:

Put simply, you cannot put a thoroughly corrupt political party in charge of investigating its own corruption. The nature of the Jan. 6 attacks itself is inextricably tied to the lie of election fraud, a lie that is at this very moment being perpetuated and furthered by the GOP, at both the national and state level. Since Republicans are wedded to this lie, they cannot be expected to willingly participate in any good faith effort to uncover its origins, its blatant falsity, or its relationship to the Jan. 6 insurrection. As Boot points out, “the Republican leaders have become Trump’s collaborators in a coverup.” To expect them to willingly cooperate, while their ties and affinities to violent white supremacists and other assorted domestic terrorists are revealed and dissected for public consumption is, putting it mildly, preposterous. So there can never be any bipartisan accounting of Jan. 6, by definition.

A call to do nothing and call that bipartisanship

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos looked at the census data released this week. What has been released so far are total populations for each state. This is enough to reapportion the House – redistribute seats based on which stated grew the fastest. Michigan is back above 10 million residents. Alas, it grew more slowly that most other states, so lost a seat. Political strategists expected Texas to gain three seats, Florida to gain two, and Arizona to pick up one. But Texas gained two, Florida one, and Arizona none. Why the difference? Demographic experts and statisticians think it is an undercount of Latino voters in all three states. That means in undercounting Latinx people the nasty guy and his minions prevented the GOP from getting three more seats. Knowing what happened for sure will have to wait until neighborhood data is released. Joe Biden gave a speech. At the top he noted behind him in the Vice President and Speaker seats were two women. I didn’t watch. Sen. Tim Scott gave the GOP response. Mark Sumner of Kos commented on what Scott had to say.

What was missing from the Republican response was a response. That is, anything that looked like a competing vision for America. Scott’s speech was devoid of alternatives. It was simply a call to do nothing and call that bipartisanship. It was a defense of playing defense from a party that doesn’t have a competing vision. ... Biden spent a large part of his speech calling for national unity and working together. Biden’s history in Washington shows that he means it—he won’t just extend an olive branch, he would accept a helping hand, even if that means compromise. But what Republicans are calling bipartisanship is really surrender. And neither Biden, nor the Democratic Party, are in a mood to give up.

Sumner wrote Scott left out the two issues that GOP legislators across the nation are embracing: torturing transgender youth and voter suppression. Actually, there is a third thing that gets GOP legislators excited – anti riot bills. David Neiwert of Kos described the law that was just signed in Florida. It seems to draw the definition of a riot very close to a peaceful protest. For example, one provision says it is illegal to block streets during a protest. That one is important because:

The most disturbing feature of the law is a section granting civil immunity to people who injure or kill people by driving their vehicles into protesting crowds, so long as they claim the protests made them concerned for their own well-being in the moment.

Neiwert described the history of how protecting vehicular homicide got to be a thing. Biden has proposed a $2 trillion American Jobs Plan (I think this used to be called the infrastructure plan). There was a lot of complaining by the GOP. But for quite a while, no counteroffer, so no way to negotiate. The GOP finally produced a plan, proposing a half trillion. But there still isn’t any negotiation because this sounds like their final offer. Eleveld then reviewed comments from Democrats. They’re now saying we tried for a bipartisan bill and that isn’t working. So we’ll do it ourselves. As for the big relief bill that Democrats did all on their own, Eleveld reported now that the money is hitting GOP districts, those GOP reps are showing their delight. That prompted Pelosi to say:

A number of them are trying to take credit for something they didn't vote for—that's not unusual. Vote no, take the dough—that's what the Republicans do.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, reported on some late night commentary.

Last night was President Biden's first address to Congress. And get this: 85 percent of people who watched Biden's speech approved of it. That's amazing. The only other things Americans like that much are Dolly Parton and cheese fries. —Jimmy Fallon Fun fact: for some GOP members of Congress, this is their first time back in the Capitol since those tours they gave to their friends on January 5th. —Trevor Noah

A fireman and an arsonist shouldn’t meet in the middle

I downloaded Michigan’s coronavirus data this morning. This is the third week in a row in which the number of new cases per day has gone up The high four weeks ago was 1150 new cases in one day. In the last week there was a day the state topped 1900 new cases. Deaths per day has stayed under 25 for two weeks. Four weeks ago Gov. Gretchen Whitmer eased some restrictions, such as opening indoor seating at restaurants to 25% capacity, then 50%. She and the GOP controlled legislature are still battling it out with them withholding money from vital recovery efforts until she gives up her emergency powers, which she isn’t doing. Some guy in the legislature said something about the state should promote personal responsibility – which is what caused the big spike in cases in November. I’m pretty sure the cases per day will go up until the number of people in the state who are vaccinated is enough to start curbing the spread of the virus. That makes me think the Legislature is making a last attempt to sicken and kill off as many people as possible before we’re all vaccinated. Fortunately, Joe Biden says that we should get enough vaccinated people in three months. I’m sure Sen. Ted Cruz was being snarky when he tweeted a picture of Biden with the phrase “Boring but radical.” Leah McElrath responded:

“Boring but radical” is kind of ideal for a politician, to be honest.

Others replied boring is good and ready for that to be a campaign slogan. Monty 61 added:

Boring But Radical is perfect. Boring = not seeking media attention every minute of the day, but actually doing the hard work that needs to done to put Democracy in America back together. Radical=not waiting for the GQP to get onboard to pass wildly popular legislation.

Responding to an article in the Washington Post Greg Sargent tweeted:

“Democrats should have done more to win bipartisan cooperation” is not a policy-neutral or ideologically-neutral observation. It necessarily embodies a preference for one policy/ideological outcome over another one.

Hoarse Whisperer added:

Ya know, this is elegantly simple and yet it never occurred to me in this simple way. Criticizing a lack of bipartisanship implies that a lesser policy position would have been a better one. A fireman and an arsonist shouldn’t meet in the middle.

Back on February 28 Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa, in a Gaslit Nation podcast said what they think of Cy Vance, the Manhattan District Attorney who has been given the nasty guy tax returns. I later heard the term “justice porn” – giving people the indication that justice is coming, but never intend to deliver – and think the term applies to what Kendzior and Chalupa were talking about. In response to a tweet gloating that Cy Vance had those tax returns and would soon give out punishment, Ben Franklin tweeted:

the endlessly gullibility of our side to trust people who don't deserve to be trusted, like cy vance, is very soul crushing. we're not getting any smarter over time and this will be used against us time after time again. even worse, there are sponsored content accounts who are being paid to tell us that Cyrus Vance, the guy who accepted a bribe to leave the trump kids alone and who spent his career covering for VIP sex criminals, is a hero who will save that day. do you see what's going on? ... Once you understand that there is an active effort to keep us pacified by hyping up saviors, none of whom ever come through and hold the bad guys accountable in an impactful way, using a stable of paid shills, the tactic loses its power. Think.

Responses to Franklin’s thread say that Vance has decided not to run for another term. Hunter of Daily Kos wrote about the efforts of Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to bring a civil rights focus to transportation issues. That started with an acknowledgment that highways had been deliberately built to eliminate black neighborhoods. Along the way Hunter wrote:

First and foremost, however, is that our highways are no longer a physically sustainable infrastructure plan no matter how much money we throw at them. ... In American metropolises, the space devoted to roads, highways, garages, parking spots, setbacks and related structure takes up so much space that it makes the islanding of each neighborhood a fiat accompli. You could not walk to a grocery store or other services even if you were motivated to do it, but need a car simply to drive past all of the infrastructure devoted to cars between you and it. Mass transit becomes less viable because the roads and parking spaces have imposed a cap on population density surrounding each stop, stretching out the fabric of each city and forcing transportation planners to either put an interminable number of people-collecting stops on each line or to decide that the majority of each neighborhood will simply not be served. We need our cars just to navigate all the spaces in America devoted to cars.

Commenters suggest the work at home trend, hastened by the pandemic, might also ease transportation issues.