Did not think America’s longest war was worth fighting

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported there are 49 school districts in Texas who have declared their defiance to Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates. Attorney General Ken Paxton sent these districts a letter that reviewed Abbott’s order and threatened legal action. Sumner wrote:

All those schools should definitely hang onto that letter and mount it proudly in a place where students and visiting parents can see. Because less than eight hours after those papers went out, they became paper tigers. Facing lawsuits from multiple districts—and without a single decent argument to make for why children should be subjected to an avoidable risk—the Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced Thursday evening that Abbott’s ban on mask mandates would no longer be enforced.

In Florida, 60 districts are defying a similar ban on mask mandates. And Gov. Ron DeathSentence’s poll numbers are dropping. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that the State Election Board in Georgia, using the new election power grab law has appointed a panel to conduct a performance review of the elections in Fulton County. It’s the county with the highest population – and the most Democratic voters. That panel is “bipartisan” – 2 Republicans to 1 Democrat, so it is bipartisan in veneer only. As far as the GOP legislature is concerned the eventual goal of this effort is to replace the Fulton County election board with party hacks to make sure Democrats are never elected again. Kerry Eleveld of Kos suggested questions reporters could ask the 147 Congressional Republicans who voted to not certify the 2020 election. Several of these Republicans are in swing districts and their voters would be interested in these answers. Start with Sen. Rick Scott, head of the Senate GOP campaign. He recently declared, based on the chaos at the airport in Kabul, that Biden was unfit for office. Eleveld wrote:

At the heart of the matter is whether Republicans who voted to overturn the will of the people with no proof to back their claims are fit to participate in governing a democracy. The natural offspring of that question is whether a party led by seditionists is fit to participate in democracy. A common question for reporters to ask someone like Scott—who has been working to portray the Senate GOP caucus as mainstream—is whether he regrets his vote to overturn the election. But I think there's a better way to ask that question: "Sen. Scott, recently you questioned President Biden's fitness for office. You voted to overturn the 2020 election based on no credible evidence. Since then, none has emerged. Do you question your own fitness for office?”

The followup question is, “Do you still support democracy?” If Scott defends his vote, then turn to the members in swing districts and ask: Your leadership doesn’t believe in democracy. Do you? Will you approve seditionists for leadership positions? Voters deserve to know. That leads to a question from me to the media: Why aren’t you asking these questions? There are nine Democratic House menbers who are demanding the House vote on the Senate infrastructure plan without waiting for the much bigger House Build Back Better plan. A reason for doing it this way would be to then thwart the bigger plan. McCarter reported that Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are supporting their House counterparts. McCarter then went through a lot of detail about a group called No Labels airing ads in support of the nine Democrats. McCarter concluded:

So why don't Manchin, Sinema, and the nine want that to happen? The same reason Manchin and Sinema are ultimately fighting their own bill—that's what ExxonMobil and all the dark money groups behind them and No Labels want.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted several people discussing the situation surrounding Afghanistan. First from Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, and Rebecca Crosby of Popular Information. They ask, “Where are the anti-war voices?” We hear a lot of voices criticizing the withdrawal – often the people complicit in the two decades of failed policy there. But those who support what Biden is doing? They spoke to a communications professional, a person who works with news outlets to get voices on the air. But right now no one returns his calls. The supportive voices are purposely being shut out. The voices being heard are Bush administration officials criticizing the withdrawal. Dworkin then quoted an AP report on an AP-NORC poll:

Roughly two-thirds said they did not think America’s longest war was worth fighting, the poll shows. Meanwhile, 47% approve of Biden’s management of international affairs, while 52% approve of Biden on national security.

Finally, Dworkin quoted a tweet from Mark Hertling;

It’s interesting we’ve seen more public questioning of Afghanistan policy/strategy in the last three days than we’ve seen in the last several years.