It’s time to discuss the meaning of "well regulated."

Today I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data. The big drop in cases per day is likely because Monday was a holiday and data has not been posted yet. So I won’t go into any more detail. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported on research that found a single flu shot reduced the risk of developing Alzheimer’s for several years. During the four years of the follow up study 5.1% of flu-vaccinated patients developed Alzheimer’s while 8.5% of the non-vaccinated did. It appears that activating the immune system against flu also activates it against Alzheimer’s. So get your flu shot. In a Ukraine update Kos of Kos discussed the high price of the guided artillery that Ukraine is now using – some types are $135K a shot. They can also fly 85 km and hit within 1 meter (rather than 1 km) of the intended target. Hitting within 1 km is fine if all one wants to do is create rubble. Hitting within 1 m is necessary to take out ammo depots in populated areas (and not commit war crimes). The accuracy and expense are because guidance electronics are built in. Another nice thing with some of these high tech rockets is they can be delivered to a site where they aren’t easily seen. The launcher circles through to a site, launches a rocket, and moves on before the enemy can fire back. There were lots of Ukrainian lives lost in the defense of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. These lives will be worth it if the Russians lost a lot more lives. But we won’t know that until after the war, and maybe not even then. Lauren Boebert is one of the really nasty members of Congress. She tweeted that a mass shooting in Denmark, with strict gun laws, proves that gun laws do not stop mass shootings. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Twitter schooled her real quick. Some of the responses: Britt Nessie shared the sign I’ve mentioned before showing that in one year handguns killed 10 people in Japan, 611 in Canada, and 38,658 in the US. Hondo Resists showed a meme of George Washington saying “A ‘well regulated militia’ doesn’t shoot up the 4th of July.” and added “It’s time to discuss the meaning of ‘well regulated.’” Kyle Griffin:

Gun violence deaths per 100,000 people in developed economies: U.S.: 3.964 Denmark: 0.141 She's lying because there are no consequences for her lies.

Athletes are frequently asked (sometimes required) to talk to the press after a game. So Sacha Kljestan of the LA Galaxy soccer team sat down in front of the mic – and talked about how sick he is of gun violence and that we’re doing nothing about it. The mass shooting at the 4th of July parade had happened earlier the same day. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the lawyers who pushed the Big Lie on behalf of the nasty guy. Yeah, Rudy Giuliani lost his law license. But that hasn’t slowed him down any. For the things he’s doing now, such as ranting on Fox News and pushing conspiracy theories, he doesn’t need a law license. As for the rest of them, including Sidney Powell, they’re doing just fine. Other than Giuliani they’ve all kept their law licenses. Sumner reported that it appears the January 6 Committee hearing featuring Cassidy Hutchinson was rushed onto the schedule. The reason is likely that the nasty guy’s team were leaning on her to keep silent and if they leaned any longer she might have backed out. In a post from two weeks ago Sumner reported that as everyone sees how successful and damaging the January 6 Committee hearings have been, Republicans are looking for someone to blame. And they found it in House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. He had a chance to turn the committee into an ineffective farce, but didn’t. When the committee was formed he proposed five members. Pelosi rejected two – Jim Jordan and Jim Banks – because they could be called as witnesses. Instead of naming alternates, and there were hundreds of possible alternates, McCarthy pulled his other three choices. That left Pelosi to name Cheney and Kinzinger, who are more interested in truth than appeasing the nasty guy. The Republican chorus to “blame Kevin” grows louder. And the rest of the country is thankful. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted several articles of interest. First is Katherine Stewart of the New York Times. She attended the Christian Nationalist Road to Majority Policy Conference, as she has in the past. She saw three clear trends: 1. The level of violent rhetoric has increased significantly. 2. Dominionism – that these Christians have a biblical mandate to take control of government and society – is explicitly embraced. 3. They’re giddy at the legal arsenal the Supreme Court has laid at their feet. The invitation by Clarence Thomas to bring him cases challenging the right to same-sex love and marriage will be gleefully taken up by these people. Second, Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted:

Republican Senators on Twitter today admitting that their strategy was to pack the courts with political conservatives in order to enact an agenda that was too unpopular to pass through an elected, popularly accountable Congress.

Third, Darren Hutchinson tweeted a common narrative is Democrats are failing to inspire young people to vote. Hutchinson added that young people have always voted in low numbers. That means Republicans aren’t inspiring them either. Yet Democrats are blamed. Fourth, Jason Stanley tweeted:

A goal of fascist politics is to have multiple scapegoats, to lure each group whose single issue is that target into the fold. So you gather a coalition of single issue voters, each of whom can maintain that they don’t share the hateful ideology of the other groups in the fold.

Fifth, Amanda Carpenter of Bulwark discussed Doug Mastriano’s continued pushing of the Big Lie. He’s the far right candidate for Governor in Pennsylvania. His platform includes:

+ loosening restrictions on poll watchers to make it easier to challenge votes; + repealing vote-by-mail laws; + appointing a fellow 2020 election-denier to be secretary of state who could enable him to decertify every voting machine “with a stroke of a pen”; + forcing all Pennsylvania voters to re-register; and + defunding the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Sixth, Patrich Chovanec tweeted:

My wife and 9-year-old daughter were in Philadelphia for a chess tournament and saw people running in terror from the shooting last night. People can legitimately disagree about what exactly needs to be done. But the notion that heavily armed gunmen perpetrating massacres on a regular basis is just the price of living in a free society is utter bulls---.

That made me realize that living in a society with frequent massacres isn’t a free society. It certainly isn’t free from fear. Seventh and last, Morgan Fairchild tweeted a link to an article in the LA Times:

New ultra-contagious Omicron subvariants BA.4, BA.5 worsening California coronavirus wave.

Sir Humphrey Appleby tweeted:

It’s interesting, isn’t it? That politicians want to talk about moral issues and bishops want to talk about politics.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included a 20 second video of the struggles of a jenga tower.