Fundamental values

We're smarter and better looking, but that's not why I love the left.  It's because despite being under constant attack, we don't hesitate to smack one another upside the head for being wrong.

Angered by Gov. Greg Abbott's absurd, wrong-headed and cruel decision to lift covid restrictions in Texas (with only 7% of residents vaccinated, 48th in the nation), Keith Olbermann tweeted, "Why are we wasting vaccinations on Texas if Texas has decided to join the side of the virus?"  I understand his exasperation, and so did many people who called him out.  Texas didn't hold a referendum, this is the work of one craven politician fighting for survival after a winter storm and power disaster that killed twenty-five people in Harris County alone.  Many more will die in a wide-open state that eschews masks if they don't pick up the pace on vaccines.  I'm sure Olbermann didn't intend that.  Besides, there are plenty of other Republican governors equally careless of human life.  Why ship vaccines to South Dakota or Missouri or Florida?  All the responses from the liberals (I assume) who follow Olbermann's tweets are instructive, but Dr. Lucky Tran nailed it:  "Health is a human right.  Doesn't matter where you live or who you voted for.  I know we are living in a political hellscape, but please let's keep this fundamental value intact."  

In the heart of the hellscape, hell goes on.  The Republicans alternate between insisting Trump won the election and trying to keep people from voting, which only seems contradictory to non-simpletons.  The Brennan Center reports that at least 106 bills to restrict democracy are pending in state legislatures.  For instance, Georgia wriggled out of their grasp, electing two Democratic senators and awarding its electoral votes to Joe Biden.  This led to unpleasantness for various state officials, including Trump-inspired death threats.  The legislature lost no time in passing a law that makes everything about voting more difficult; in an especially sadistic twist, it's currently illegal to give "food and drink" to an elector (voter) standing for hours in the Georgia heat.  Of which there will be many more due to other restrictions on early voting and mail voting and even dropping another person's ballot in the few remaining boxes.  Not to mention the probability of machines malfunctioning, as they did in the 2018 election.  It's the same all over.

Fortunately Congress has a cure, and it's named for Georgia's greatest Congressman ever:  The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore all the provisions destroyed by Shelby v. Holder by bringing back federal supervision, since apparently racism still exists no matter what John Roberts says.  Now all they have to do is slip it past Joe "DINO" Manchin.  

Meanwhile the war on democracy continues at every level.  In Ankeny, Iowa, there was a special election for the local school board and someone brought a pipe bomb.  I can't imagine what they do when a vacancy occurs on the city council.  Napalm?

Of course, you're still free to elect any sort of idiot you want.  For instance, the Texas 13th will probably keep Ronny Jackson next year despite revelations that he was very drunk and a li'l bit rapey on a trip to the Philippines with President Obama.  We're lucky Obama enjoys excellent health and never needed to call on this slob.  What did I tell you about doctors in politics?  All together:  "Howard Dean is the exception that proves the rule."  Write it down.

It must be Gratuitous Insults Wednesday:  Joe Biden called the decision by Mississippi and Texas to lift covid restrictions "Neanderthal thinking" and Timothy L. O'Brien's new biography of Trump compares him to Al Capone.  On behalf of all our Neanderthal ancestors, I am outraged.  

Update on the Golden Trump that was the hit of CPAC:  It was actually made in China.  Like the MAGA hats and his neckties and the schmattas that Ivanka sells.  But some Republicans thought Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo wouldn't be tough enough with China.  Unlike Wilbur Ross, who was on the board of Huaneng Invesco (Beijing) until 2019.  I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.