Doing what’s necessary and popular shouldn’t be the hard part of governing

A poll by the Human Rights Campaign showed that 92% of LGBTQ people in the US have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Good job people! The poll was done through Community Marketing & Insights (CMI), who do an annual poll of LGBTQ people. This poll surveyed over 15,000 people. David Paisley CMI Senior Director of Research wrote:

There are many reasons why LGBTQ+ vaccination rates may be higher than the general population, including higher percentages of the LGBTQ+ community being liberal, living in blue states, and living in urban areas. While participants had strong education levels, those with no more than a high school diploma still had an 87% vaccination rate. We also see that COVID isolation significantly impacted LGBTQ+ people, which may have motivated quick vaccination to reenter the community.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported that vaccine booster shots are likely coming. Sumner gets into the reasoning and the timing. It will take a massive effort, just like it did for the first time around. Pien Huang of NPR has a different take. Yes, boosters would help. However, what would help more is to get shots to the unvaccinated. Those vaccinated would be better protected if the virus can’t circulate at all. That includes the unvaccinated around the world where some countries haven’t started vaccinating yet, simply because they don’t have the vaccine or don’t have the resources for a nation-wide campaign. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has tested positive for COVID. Abbott has been vaccinated (he’s high risk, so appropriate). He currently doesn’t have symptoms. He gets tested daily. He is receiving treatment, even without symptoms. Leah McElrath, who lives in Houston, has a few things to say about the situation. Abbott’s daily testing and current treatment are out of the reach of most Texans. He was at a fundraiser the night before, full of older people, and not a mask in sight. Yeah, he’s the one banning mass mandates in the state, though 72% of voters favor mandates for schools. Texas is out of ICU beds, so good thing Abbott doesn’t need one. He minimized being vaccinated as a reason why he has no symptoms. Joan McCarter of Kos reported last week that Texas state Senator Carol Alvarado stood for 15 hours overnight to filibuster the special session Senate Bill 1, the voter suppression bill. Along the way she described the original Voting Rights Act and how this bill was a regressive step back. She had plenty of time to go through all the harms in this new bill. She also shamed national Democrats who are doing very little to to get modern voting rights bills passed. She couldn’t stop the Senate from passing the bill. It now goes to the Texas House where Democrats have been out of state to prevent a quorum. David Neiwert of Kos reported the Proud Boys are still at it. This group played a leading role in the Capitol attack. Even though some of their leaders are in jail because of that attack they are still carrying out their tactics. Which are: Attach themselves to a local conservative cause, such as a protest against Critical Race Theory, by volunteering to be the “security.” During the event start a brawl against counterprotesters and journalists. Blame it all on Antifa. Neiwert mentions it now because that’s what happened recently in downtown Los Angeles during an anti-vaccination protest. Annoyingly (for us), both the LAPD statement and the LA Times story did not mention the Proud Boys were there. Thankfully, there were lots of video taken by the counterprotesters of good enough quality that various Proud Boy members could be identified. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos quoted Alex Pareene of the New York Times, who was writing about a Pyrrhic victory in the Senate.

Mr. Biden and Senate Democrats set out to prove that their preferred way of doing business still works, and they did: The Senate can still function, not by just doing something but by taking a very long time to do half of something, on a bipartisan basis, with a dubious promise to finish the rest later. This bipartisan infrastructure bill is popular (and much of the spending is urgently needed throughout the country). Infrastructure spending, like bipartisanship, usually is. But having to spend so much time tortuously wringing support from the minority party to spend money on things people need and want is not actually a sign of a healthy system of government. Doing what’s necessary and popular shouldn’t be the hard part of governing, requiring painful compromise.

I think the withdrawal from Afghanistan has quite thoroughly botched. That is shown in numerous ways, especially the desperate crowds at the airport. McElrath tweeted another:

The US collected biometrics from our allies in Afghanistan. The Taliban reportedly has possession of the resulting database. They’re in a position to use it as a kill list, essentially. We SHOULD be using it to circumvent paperwork and admit refugees. ARE WE?

Chasten and Pete Buttigieg have become parents! They’re in the final stages of the adoption process. In memory of the death of “cowboy philosopher” Will Rogers back in 1935 Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included a few of Rogers’ observations. Amazingly – and annoyingly – they’re still accurate almost a century later.

Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat. People want just taxes more than they want lower taxes. They want to know that every man is paying his proportionate share according to his wealth. One thing about Republican presidents: They never went in much for plans. They only had one plan. It says, 'Boys, my head is turned. Just get it while you can.' Our distribution of wealth is getting more uneven all the time. A man can make a million and he is on every page in the morning. But it never tells you who gave up that million he got.