He’s arguing that he has a right to be a criminal

In mid December I wrote about the cold I had earlier in the month and speculated it might have been a third bout of COVID. Recovery from this cold (or COVID) has been slower than the other two times I got it (one confirmed, one presumed). Even now, a month after the worst of it I still have moments of coughing that used to have me sleeping with a cough drop between teeth and cheek. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos has been reporting on COVID for four years, before it shut down the US in March of 2020. He posted another article today. The US is experiencing a surge in cases (I didn’t download US or Michigan data), perhaps peaking next week at 2 million infections a day, according to public health analyst Dr. Lucky Tran. Then Sumner discussed a report published in Scientific American that said keeping up with COVID vaccines significantly reduces the chance of getting long COVID. With most diseases having a case of it is about as good as a vaccine in preventing the disease from infecting a person again. But with this disease, successive COVID infections increases the chance of long COVID. I’ve had the initial double dose of the vaccine and three boosters. I had a narrow window to get the reformulated booster in October with time to take effect before Thanksgiving travel, and missed it. Some of the talk around the boosters is that if one has had COVID a vaccine booster isn’t as effective nor as urgently needed. I wonder if that calculation changes with this report. I’ll be asking my doctor. What attracted me to this post by annieli of the Kos community was the opening photo. Between lines of barbed wire are the words:

Trump is not arguing that he’s innocent, he’s arguing that he has a right to be a criminal...

annieli quoted an article on MSN that says back in 2020 Maggie Haberman of the New York Times said, “one of the reasons why Trump was running was to avoid prosecution, because you can't prosecute a sitting president.” Then the discussion turned to a statement tweeted by George Conway: “Can anyone explain to me exactly why we’ve never had a serious national discussion about Donald Trump’s mental health?” Steven Hassan, PhD responded that he’s been trying to get that discussion going. He wrote the book The Cult of Trump. That mental health question came up because of E. Jean Carroll defamation suit against the nasty guy. In response to losing the original case he got on his version of Twitter and defamed her again. She brought suit again. Recently a federal appeals court denied his attempt to delay the second trial, scheduled to start in two weeks. That news prompted him to post a deluge of a 31-post thread in 26 minutes with more defamatory language. That certainly doesn’t help his case. Is this the action of a healthy mind? When are we as a nation going to discuss it? And, yes, I’m very aware Republicans are going to do all they can to make sure we don’t have the needed discussion. Sigh. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that the Department of Health and Human services has proposed a rule change that would require welfare agencies to place LGBTQ youth in need of foster care in “environments free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse.” Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana has introduced a bill to prevent that rule change. The rule change is needed because LGBTQ kids are far more likely to need foster care because they are more likely to be thrown out of their original families. Thirty-four states and DC have taken steps to ensure better care of LGBTQ kids. So this rule is mostly for red states. Banks and others are concerned about the rights of parents (to abuse non conforming kids) and the rights of agencies to not place LGBTQ kids. There is a bit of good news in all this. Hating on LGBTQ kids has been quite unpopular at the voting booth. There are several good quotes in this pundit roundup for Kos assembled by Greg Dworkin. In response to the news that the nasty guy received $7.8 million in foreign payments while in the Oval Office – yeah, they’re illegal – James Acton tweeted:

It's pretty much an inviolable law that Trump has actually done whatever he wrongly accuses Biden of doing.

Yesterday I wrote about the resignation of Claudine Gay as president of Harvard University. Tommy Barone, editorial co-chair of The Harvard Crimson, tweeted a video of him talking about the resignation on MSNBC. He said there are legitimate criticisms of Gay, which the attackers would gladly point out. But their smear campaign against her had nothing to do with those criticisms. And after her resignation Rep. Elise Stafanik, the one who asked the gotcha question that led to Gay’s downfall, crowed about eliminating another supporter of “wokeness” from education. Sherry Pagoto tweeted a link to an article in the New York Times saying because merit can’t be easily defined it is useful for slippery slopes. Pagoto quoted an excerpt from the article:

What has happened at Harvard is not just a blueprint for taking over higher education; it is a strategy for taking over our information environment.

Down in the comments of the roundup are some good cartoons. One is by Mike Peters of the Dayton Daily News. At a pharmacy a mother asks, “Can I get birth control pills here?” The pharmacist replies, “Sure. But do you have a prescription from your congressman?” A cartoon by Bill Bramhall is titled “Bothsidesism.” It shows a balance named “Evidence of foreign payment” and it is level. On one side is the nasty guy with cash falling out of his pockets. On the other side is Biden with no cash around him. A cartoon by Jack Ohman shows the nasty guy at a desk with stacks of papers filling the room. An aide comments, “You wouldn’t think that someone who hates the rule of law would file this many lawsuits.” A cartoon by John Buss showing Speaker Johnson on the near side of a river holding up a gavel and giving the finger. Down the middle of the river are orange buoys that Gov. Abbott placed to make getting across the river much harder. On the far side are a couple of immigrants. Buss captioned it:

Mike Johnson fulfilling his duties as Modern Day Moses. He ain’t parting nothing, because the Promised Land isn’t for everyone anymore.

I wrote about Johnson’s claim to being a Modern Moses a couple weeks ago. In another pundit roundup Chitown Kev quoted Tom Nichols of The Atlantic discussing why, with the economy having been doing quite well for many months, a lot of people continue to think the economy is doing quite poorly.

Even in casual conversations, I find myself flummoxed by people who argue, with much conviction, that America is in fact worse off, even if their own situation is better. When I respond by noting that inflation is not going up, say, or that America is at full employment, or that wages are outpacing prices, or that pay is increasing fastest for the lowest-paid workers, none of it matters. Instead, I get a response that is so common I can now see it coming every time: a head shake, a sigh, and then a comment about how everything is just such a mess.

Perhaps people are confusing the economy with politics? In the comments more cartoons. Nick Anderson drew one of a scene in a birthing room. An elephant stands on the woman’s chest and tells the doctor, “Save the baby. No matter what.” Ted Littleford drew a cartoon of the nasty guy towards the back of an elephant labeled “GOP” and in pain. The nasty guy says, “Shut up, or I’ll squeeze harder.” Off frame are two voices. One says, “Is Trump milking him?” The other replies, “Those aren’t udders.” Since today is a good day for cartoons, here’s one by Matt Wuerker of Politico. The caption what the nasty guy has been saying about immigrants, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country.” In a hospital bed Uncle Sam is looking mighty green. A Dr. Don with an assistant that looks like white supremacist Stephen Miller is readying injections of bleach, raw fear, racism, hate, bigotry, and MAGA poison.” Wuerker’s title for the whole scene is “The Poisoner in Chief.”