To mask or not to mask... That’s still the question?

Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled in favor of abortion rights. The ruling affected a law in Louisiana that required a doctor to have admitting privileges in a nearby hospital. That law is only for limiting abortion. It doesn’t have a medical use.

The five justices that voted for overturning the law included Chief Justice John Roberts. He agreed with the liberal justices that the law should be overturned, though wrote his own opinion. His reasoning was simple: The exact same law (though from Texas) was before the court four years ago. Therefore it is settled law and shouldn’t be changed. That’s it. That’s even though he thinks abortion is wrong and voted on the other side of the issue four years ago.



Greg Dworkin in his Daily Kos pundit roundup quotes Scott Duke Harris of USA Today. He wrote that people in Hong Kong think Americans who refuse to wear a mask during this coronavirus pandemic must be suicidal.

To mask or not to mask... That’s still the question? Seriously?

It shouldn’t be, not when a lethal virus might be a sneeze, a cough, or simply a breath away. Not when the pandemic has killed nearly a half-million people worldwide, including more than 124,000 in the United States — and several states are spiking.

People here in Hong Kong understand this and wonder: Why, after so much misery, are millions of Americans so clueless?

In the same roundup Dworkin quoted Rachel Bitecofer. There has been a lot of news about Russia supposedly setting a bounty on American soldiers in Afghanistan. This reportedly has resulted in deaths of Americans. But the nasty guy denies he was ever told, though John Bolton insist he did. I’m not going to confirm the details with links. Plenty of news sources have several stories.

And do you know why EU intel is confirming this?

They want YOU, the American voter to know, before Election Day, that your president not only DID NOTHING, he continued to coddle the Russian president after finding out.

For months.
...
And finally, its clear exactly WHY Trump didn't do anything. He's counting on Putin's help in the election. He's willing to accept the targeted murders of our soldiers in the field so long as he gets his personal favors.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, said:

We’re not in the situation of New Zealand or Singapore or Korea where a new case is rapidly identified and all the contacts are traced and people are isolated who are sick and people who are exposed are quarantined and they can keep things under control. We have way too much virus across the country for that right now, so it’s very discouraging.

After quoting Schuchat, Mark Sumner of Kos responded:

It’s not just discouraging. It’s enraging. The virus may be a natural development that evolved from a related infection of wildlife. But the reaction to that virus was a series of human choices.
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None of that happened because it had to. None of it came because the U.S. could not do those things.

All of that happened because Donald Trump chose not to provide any genuine federal response to the crisis, and because Republicans refused to address his failure.

How bad might it get? I’ve heard projections of 100,000 cases a day.



Leah McElrath tweeted a thread. Here’s part of it:

The human suffering in this country alone is about to accelerate and will likely reach levels we haven’t seen since the Great Depression.

People on here don’t talk often about it when their lives go sideways, but—with tens of millions of jobs lost—we know evictions are starting.

Millions are jobless, will be without healthcare, and, soon, will be homeless as well.

During a pandemic.

A pandemic seemingly being managed in such a way by the GOP leaders in this country as to lead to the greatest numbers of infections and deaths possible.

This is insane.

And where are the Democratic leaders?

People need IMMEDIATE financial relief NOW. Anything that can be done to prevent homelessness MUST be done. But it isn’t.

It isn’t even being DEMANDED.

I want our leaders with their hair on fire SCREAMING right now.

That’s not happening.

Instead, we get the condescending admonition just to “vote” from Dem leaders living in multi-million dollar houses who spend more on grooming than many of us can afford to pay to feed our children.

And we DID vote.

Those of us who could. Those of us who weren’t disenfranchised.

Do they have ANY concept of how much suffering is going to happen between now and November?

If the answers is yes—and it might be—I want to hear them BEING OUR VOICES.

Because many of us are on the edge. Some of us might not make it.

But simply knowing you are seen CAN help.

She then quotes Robert Reich:

Brace yourself. The wave of evictions and foreclosures in next 2 months will be unlike anything America has experienced since the Great Depression. And unless Congress extends extra unemployment benefits beyond July 31, we’re also going to have unparalleled hunger.

Walter Einenkel of Kos reports that Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, had reinterpreted the education rescue parts of the CARES Act, the big coronavirus relief bill. Congress designated the money to help desperate public schools. In spite of what the law says DeVos says the money must be shared with private schools. Another example of diverting public money to private interests. Einenkel wrote that a big difference between public and private schools “is that public schools must follow considerably better vetted policies of equality than private institutions.”



The House has approved a bill approving statehood for the District of Columbia. Its citizens do not have voting representation in the House or Senate. It’s lot likely to get far in this Senate. Beau Willimon explains why:

Why don’t Republicans want DC statehood? Because the only way they have a chance at keeping a Senate majority is with small red states getting 2 senators each.

The Senate is even more important to them than the presidency. The senate oversees judicial appointments. The senate controls executive branch nominations. The senate can hold up any federal legislation. These four states are the key to them maintaining disproportionate power.

The four states are Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. All of them are close in population to DC, which has about 710K. And definitely Democratic.

To put this in perspective, the combined populations of these four red states is about 3 million people. That would be like Chicago having 8 seats in the Senate.

Tonight’s opera is Die Walküre, part 2 of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle. Yes, I saw it about three months ago as part of Metropolitan Opera’s Wagner week, when all four of the cycle were presented. This time it is alone and this time it is a 1989 production. One thought is why is the stage lighting so dark? It would be nice to see a bit more.

I’m watching because I so enjoy the music of the third act, or at least the first 20 and last 20 minutes. The whole thing is four hours. I felt I only wanted to spend two. So I listened to much of the first act, which, beyond the love duet is rather boring. I skipped most of the second act for the same reason.