I don't know how this ends without violence and death

Officials in Cobb County, Georgia (can we guess they’re GOP?) have closed about half of the early voting sites for the Senate runoff elections that end Jan. 5. Cobb County is the third most populous county in Georgia, just west of Atlanta. Georgia NAACP is complaining the closures will affect black and Latino votes. In the early days of early voting in last month’s election some people waited 10 hours. This voter suppression sort of move, when the power in the Senate is at stake, is not surprising, but is getting quite old and has always been annoying. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos started a post this way:

As more than 200 Republican members of Congress ignore their oaths to the Constitution and abet Donald Trump's fascist attempt to overturn the election results, their cowardly silence is damn near ensuring that someone—or multiple people—will end up dead. "I don't know how this ends without violence and death," Clint Watts, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University, told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace Wednesday.

Eleveld then listed several threats, starting with the plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, and ending with one just yesterday where a citizen’s army shut down a health department vote to require masks by going to their homes and terrorizing their families. And GOP officials and the nasty guy keep trying to overturn the election and tweeting veiled threats. Steve Schmidt, a GOP strategist, told MSNBC in part:

What they're doing is for no purpose other than power. The Republican party is an organized conspiracy for the purposes of maintaining power for self-interest, and the self-interest of its donor class. There is no fidelity to the American idea and ideal. There is no fidelity to the ideas of classical liberalism or American democracy.

Hunter of Kos reported Senator Ted Cruz said as long as the election result is in dispute (as long as the nasty guy continues to dispute it) the Senate won’t start the process to confirm Joe Biden’s cabinet picks. And if the nasty guy keeps up the pretense after the inauguration, maybe the Senate won’t ever confirm Biden’s cabinet. The new Senate usually begins the process after the session starts in early January so most posts can be filled on Inauguration Day. But this tactic could mean Biden could take office without anyone at the head of national security or intelligence, or to run the pandemic response. Hunter concluded:

If Biden enters the White House with no top national security officials or Cabinet members in place, Republican senators will consider that a win. If further crisis strikes during that period, Cruz will be on television celebrating it.

Cori Bush, newly elected to Congress from St. Louis, tweeted:

Every extra dollar that goes into the military budget is a dollar taken away from a social service.

She also tweeted:

2020 marks yet another year where the police have killed more than 1,000 people. Black people are 3X more likely to be killed by police than white people. No other country even comes close to this amount of death. It's an epidemic.

She included a chart showing the number of people killed by police per 10 million of population. America is at the top with 33.5. Canada is next with 9.8. Hunter of Kos reported the CDC is demanding states provide “names, birth dates, ethnicities and addresses” of those who get the vaccine. Hunter sees all kinds of problems with this. That could discourage undocumented residents from getting the vaccine. It could also discourage anti-government people. For a government that has been particularly uninterested in what has been happening with the public and the virus, they now want to be sure we get our second dose? Likely most states won’t comply. Also, not many people will be vaccinated until after January 20 and Joe Biden will put a stop to this nonsense. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that a company has been hired to sanitize the White House after the nasty guy leaves. The West Wing has been the source of a lot of COVID cases. They don’t want the new president, who hasn’t been at superspreader events, or his staff to get sick. At least the new guy will treat the pandemic seriously. Sumner concluded:

So call in the disinfecting team. While they’re at it, the GSA might want to see if the Catholic Church can arrange an exorcism. And what about the Ghostbusters? Are they available?

That got the comments flowing. Readers also suggested to sweep the place for Russian listening devices. Another a good idea might be to bring in some crystals. The priest should bring a 10 gallon drum of holy water (which might flash into steam, aiding the sterilization process). Since the Biden children-in-law are Jewish, perhaps a rabbi should come to bless the place (“A minister, a priest, and a rabbi walked into the White House …”). Also bring out the garlic braids and incense. And why not add a Native American shaman. One of the commenters had an avatar picture that says “Biden 2020, Trump 20-Life” Ruben Bolling created a cartoon for Kos showing the response of people the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, but using the kinds of phrases the conservatives have been saying about the coronavirus. For example, in a gathering of young men one says, “Will I enlist? Hell no! Why should I join up just because a few thousand Americans died in Hawaii?