Nice planet you have there

Rather than do anything useful – like help the country recover from a pandemic and convince their base to get the vaccine – the GOP has been doing such things as keeping black people from voting and bullying transgender kids. Their latest dangerous effort, as reported by Aysha Qamar of Daily Kos, is to penalize protesters. There are 81 bills proposed in 34 states. They include such things as denying access to state funded loans, such as for going to college or getting a mortgage. There would also be penalties such as denying government food assistance and unemployment benefits. There are also increased penalties for crimes committed during protest (and who gets to decide the definition of a “crime,” hmm?).

“This is consistent with the general trend of legislators’ responding to powerful and persuasive protests by seeking to silence them rather than engaging with the message of the protests,” said Vera Eidelman, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. “If anything, the lesson from the last year, and decades, is not that we need to give more tools to police and prosecutors, it’s that they abuse the tools they already have.”

Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed those refusing the vaccine. They’re not “hesitant,” they are saying no. Reasons why include (all of them bunk): Submitting to the government will bring on totalitarianism. It’s part of a plan by some billionaire (usually Bill Gates) for social control or genocide. It’s the Mark of the Beast. They hear that they’ll need a booster shot every year (appears they don’t get flu shots). They’ve made their decision and by golly, they’re going to stick to it! And now they feel bullied by people asking them to get the shot. However, they are looking for fake vaccine cards to allow entry into large entertainment venues. Which means the “vaccine passports” that are being talked about need to be secure. I’ve been wondering how those passports will work. A lot of the talk is some kind of app on a phone that links to a vaccine database. So what will they do about people, like me, who don’t have such a phone? Dartagnan wrote:

And this is where we come back to the original mindset of these Trump voters. Nowhere in [Republican pollser Frank] Luntz’s focus group is the slightest hint or acknowledgment that they risk infecting others with their behavior. Forget about herd immunity, forget even about their own health—these people obviously don’t even care what happens to their neighbors and friends, let alone society at large. ... Ultimately, it appears that this vaccine refusal phenomenon is little more than a red herring, an extension of the same selfishness these people exhibited when they voted for Trump in the first place. For some of them, it may feel like their own personal revenge on the country for Trump losing the election, just like 2016 was their personal revenge for the election of a Black president—twice. Whatever their claimed motives are, those who refuse to get vaccinated don’t deserve a pony, and they don’t deserve to be coddled for their ignorance or their obstinacy.

Dartagnan quoted Jennifer Ruben of The Washington Post:

There is no right to remain a breeding ground for dangerous coronavirus variants or a threat to the small number of people still susceptible to the virus despite their vaccinations (known as breakthrough infections). The country is approaching the point when it should stop catering to those bent on being a danger to themselves and others. We have all sacrificed too much for too long to indulge reckless conduct.

Dartagnan concluded:

The most effective means of getting people vaccinated should rely less on emphasizing the benefits if they do, and more on emphasizing the consequences if they don’t.

President Biden has been leading an online climates summit over the last couple days. Mark Sumner of Kos has a good summary. Sumner also wrote about the speech by Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. To Sumner it sounded like a mafia don demanding protection money:

Nice planet you have there. It would be a shame if someone were to, say, burn down a region that holds the greatest biodiversity, plays host to thousands of endangered or not yet discovered species, and provides a home to ancient and isolated human cultures. That’s not exactly what Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said in his speech at President Joe Biden’s climate summit on Thursday, or the content of a proposal that Bolsonaro circulated to world leaders on Wednesday. But it certainly seems to be the implication.

Bolsonaro’s price tag: $1 billion to protect the Amazon rainforest. Sumner wrote:

The same factors that make the Amazon so diverse are exactly those that make it highly unsuitable for long-term occupation by large numbers of humans. The rainforest provides a high level of biological resources as long as it remains intact. As has been demonstrated again and again around the world, rainforest lands make horrible farmlands. The soils and environmental conditions there are utterly unsuited for either farming or ranching, and after only a few years, production from these lands slips to almost nothing while the thin, bare topsoil washes away and goes toward ruining the ecology of both rivers and oceans. In fact, Bolsonaro’s policies in allowing more expansion into the region are making this disparity infinitely worse, resulting in not just more destruction, but more people who feel that their only chance at survival lies in carving ever deeper into a land that cannot sustain them. There’s no reason to either believe Bolsonaro, or to trust that if he had a billion in hand, he wouldn’t go right on encouraging his cronies to burn through the forest.

A few years ago the Supreme Court said that teenagers cannot be sentenced to life without parole. This new Court overturned that ruling. The majority opinion was written by Brett Kavanaugh. That brought a scolding from Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent. It is an important type of scolding. Referring to the cases that prompted the earlier ruling, Sotomayor wrote:

The Court simply rewrites Miller and Montgomery to say what the Court now wishes they had said, and then denies that it has done any such thing. The Court knows what it is doing.

Laura Clawson of Kos explained:

But it comes as no surprise that the man who, red-faced and screaming, lied his way through his confirmation hearing would write opinions lying about what he was doing to precedent once he was on the court. ... It’s chapter infinity in “Republicans lie,” but it’s especially relevant as Kavanaugh lies in his official Supreme Court opinions, while writing for the Trump majority. This court can have no moral standing.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Sarah Longwell of Bulwark who noted many Americans don’t think about democracy.

Democracy is the system we have, and have inherited, but most of our experiences with any of the alternatives are so remote that we view democracy as the default state. As something that just is. That isn’t to say that Americans don’t think about politics. Oh, do we. Probably more than is helpful. We have, as a people, some pretty out-there opinions and preferences and expectations about politics.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary. Here’s one of them.

Chauvin's defense, and so much of the defense of racist police abuse writ large, depends on telling us not to believe our eyes. We can see the injustice with our own eyes, but there's a whole industry of people—from police unions to private prisons to cable pundits—whose very lucrative job is to try to convince us that what we can see and hear with our own eyes and ears isn’t real. —Seth Meyers

Artist Tomer Hanuka tweeted:

I’ve asked my 3rd year illustration students at @sva to come up with a post-pandemic New Yorker magazine cover. Here is what they sent in:

Click on each image to see the whole thing.