The nation had better fire back

In the spring I watched several operas on the Metropolitan Opera free streaming service and told you about them. I watched less frequently when the service started repeating operas – not surprising they don’t have videos of 280 different operas in their archives. But last evening and today they did one I hadn’t seen and I don’t think they had previously streamed. The opera is The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (no, it’s not mahogany). The words are by Bertolt Brecht and the music by Kurt Weill (both famous for The Treepenny Opera). As with much of Brecht it is a dark commentary on society. The opera opens with two men and a woman on a truck that breaks down in the middle of nowhere. They are fugitives from the law, so can’t go back and there’s too much wasteland ahead to try to cross it. They had been considering prospecting for gold, then realize it is easier to extract gold from humans than from rivers. So they build their town where they stopped. In their town one can buy food, booze, and love and even bet on fights. Jimmy and three friends had spent seven years in Alaska at a lumber camp and while looking for what’s next in life, they find Mahagonny. Jimmy falls in love with Jenny after buying her services. Two of the friends succumb to the town’s offerings. Even though Jimmy is in love, Mahagonny doesn’t provide the happiness he seeks. When one friend enters a fight Jimmy bets all his money on a win. When his friend loses Jimmy consoles himself by buying drinks for the house. When the bill is due Jimmy realizes he has no money. Because Jimmy can’t pay the bill and can’t bribe the court, he is executed. The town falls apart after that. Yeah, it’s dark. There is still news and commentary about the attempt by Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, to ask the Supreme Court to overthrow the presidential election results in Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. I wrote about it a couple days ago. 126 House members and AGs from 17 other state signed on to this attempt at sedition. On Friday evening the Supremes said go away. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed the second group of House GOP members who signed on. He quoted Jacob Rubashkin in saying that 19 of the 126 signers of this attempt are from Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. They’re calling for an overthrow of the vote in their own states. Strangely, they don’t advocate for the overthrow of their own election, just that of the president. But how can Biden’s election be due to fraud and their own not? Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, included a few important quotes. From Adam Serwer of The Atlantic:

Never forget that the majority of Republicans sought to overthrow the results of a presidential election and install their unelected candidate, the majority of their supporters approved, and their sniveling apparatchiks concocted post hoc rationalizations justifying it. None of the people who supported that document—not a one—can ever again honestly claim to believe in freedom, democracy, individual rights, or constitutional government. All they believe in is their own divine right to rule, no matter what the people say.

Politico noted:

Not a single GOP senator signed a “friend of the court” brief for the long-shot Texas lawsuit to throw out other states' results in a bid to keep President Donald Trump in power. And there was no coordinated effort to get Republicans on board, according to interviews with more than a half-dozen Republican senators before the Supreme Court rejected the case Friday night.

Christopher Ingraham quoted Lee Drutman, a political scientist at New America:

If Mitt Romney had real courage, he would announce today that he is leaving the Republican Party, and forming a new Conservative Party, and invite elected Republicans who oppose the Texas lawsuit to follow him. As of today, the Republican Party can no longer be saved.

Then Ingraham responded:

I don't think the gravity of what's happening with the GOP has sunk in yet for most people, but every political scientist in my timeline is talking like this.

And Adam Kelsey of ABC News tweeted:

The @TexasGOP is out with a statement in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, all but calling for secession: “Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.” More from @AllenWest tonight -- this time less 'we're outta here' and more 'actually, they're the ones who should secede.' "...let these other states go out their own separate way and let them not be supported by these other states such as ourselves."

What’s this about who is not abiding by the Constitution? Mark Sumner has a few more details of what’s going on in Texas. Brian Tyler Cohen tweeted:

When the 126 Republicans who backed the TX lawsuit to overturn the election results *themselves* refuse to be seated, considering their claim that the election was rigged, then I'll believe they're serious. Until then, it's nothing more than pathetic, seditious political theater.

In a later post Sumner had a few more things to say:

It means that the Republicans fired a very serious shot at the United States. And the nation had better fire back. … That affront, that dishonor, that indelible stain has to be marked by *action*. It has to be marked by censure and expulsion. By refusal to seat those involved. By consequences that are lasting and impactful. Because if the Republicans get to take this shot at the nation and stroll away with chins held high, they will take another, and another. And not every one will miss.

Jesse Lifson tweeted:

Republicans are so quiet you can hear a Supreme Court case get dropped.

Victor Laszlo tweeted:

If you are appalled by the Republican belief that the Supreme Court must do whatever the president wants them to do, then I have wonderful news: As of noon on January 20, Republicans will suddenly believe that the Supreme Court must do NOTHING the president wants them to do.

Garry Kasparov tweeted:

Don't dare say "But the system worked" when a majority of Republicans in Congress support the overturning of a free and fair election. You don't celebrate a cancer not having killed you yet. You celebrate when you're cancer free. The system isn't working when so many of its participants and supposed defenders are trying to destroy it. That's the crisis, and it's not going away because this time some judges threw out cases prepared by idiots. As long as Republicans feel it's in their best interest to choose Trump and power at all costs, and see attacking the US electoral system as a way to do that, the cancer will continue to spread, eating away at American trust in govt and democracy.

Texas threatening to secede again? Mikado of the Kos community wrote what President Biden might have written to Texas. Some of the things it discusses: You’re on your own for highways. Hire your own air traffic controllers. License your own radio, television, and internet providers. All power lines will be disconnected at the border and only reconnected when treaties are signed. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are on hold until Congress decides of foreigners are included in the programs. You’re responsible for your own borders. Attached is an invoice for your part of the national debt. Rick Anderson tweeted a map with this:

This is a map of Black population density as a percentage of population in each area in the United States. The South ain’t Red, folks. It’s suppressed. Don’t pray for the South to secede. Ride down here and help fight.

The map shows counties in Mississippi and Alabama with several more across the South with black people being more than 50% of the population. Steven Dennis of Bloomberg tweeted:

Shocking COVID stat: ~1 out of every 500 residents in New Jersey dead.

Sumner reported about the COVID vaccine approval process. It was proceeding normally for final approval Saturday morning with shipping of doses beginning Sunday. And the nasty guy still stuck his finger in it. On Friday Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff, threatened the Food and Drug Administration commissioner with dismissal if the Emergency Use Authorization wasn’t issued on Friday. The nasty guy tweeted the same sort of thing. All this accomplished was to put a cloud over the approval. Did the vaccine get approved because all protocols are followed or because the nasty guy forced them? If it is the latter will that taint make people less likely to get it? That’s likely the reason they did it. Sumner concluded:

And when all is said and done, threatening the FDA commissioner and blowing up the end of a well-orchestrated process will make the vaccine available … not one day sooner. It will still move out on and begin being administered to healthcare workers on Monday. It will just do so with an extra dash of bullying, and another slap to a desperately needed agency.

NPR reported today that pallets of doses left the Pfizer plant in Portage, Michigan today and heading to FedEx and UPS planes for overnight delivery. A sweet story: Kelly Victoria tweeted a thread, beginning with this:

At the beginning of the pandemic I went through some painful personal stuff and would often go out at night for long walks because no one was around and I couldn’t sleep anyway. One night I was walking down my street and noticed that someone had set up a few little objects in a tree planter and upon closer inspection I realized it was a fairy garden with a little note about the 4 year old girl who felt lonely in quarantine and wanted to spread some cheer. The next day I wrote a little note to her, pretending to be a fairy named Sapphire that had come to live in the tree because she had set it up so nicely.

That began a correspondence between Kelly and the little girl. Kelly also left a note for the parents giving contact info so they knew Kelly wasn’t being a creep. A month ago the mother texted, saying they were moving. Kelly arranged to finally meet and hug the child with all sorts of virus protections in place. Magic does exist.