Oh, gee, the Democrats are hopeless, again

Donald Trump

Jennifer Rubin is writing about a potential criminal case[1] against Donald Trump over that phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State.[2] It seems the odds look pretty fucking good here and the district attorney thinks she’ll be making a decision in the first half of this year.[3] I hope, really hope, she is not relying on local police white supremacist gangsters[4] for her protection because I very much fear she’ll need something a lot more trustworthy.

Marc Levy, “Court won’t block entire election ‘investigation’ subpoena,” WTAE, January 10, 2022, https://www.wtae.com/article/pennsylvania-election-investigation-subpoena/38727643

Katelyn Polantz, “Trump’s potential liability for Capitol riot faces major test in court,” CNN, January 10, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/10/politics/trump-civil-liability-insurrection-court-hearing/index.html

Jan Wolfe, “Trump challenges riot lawsuits, says fiery speech was official act,” Reuters, January 10, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trump-ask-judge-throw-out-suits-by-lawmakers-police-over-us-capitol-riot-2022-01-10/

Jennifer Rubin, “A single district attorney in Georgia has the best case against Trump,” Washington Post, January 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/11/single-district-attorney-georgia-has-best-case-against-trump/


Pandemic

Arwa Mahdawi would really like to see vaccines start reaching poor countries before she has to take a fourth dose of the vaccine.[5] She’s right of course, but as a species, we are so far away from doing sensible things that it all really seems senseless to even hope that we might.

There is a new blog post entitled, “Special treatment for Novak Djokovic.”

Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow, “Supreme Court seems skeptical of Biden’s vaccine rules for businesses, more receptive to policy for health-care workers,” Washington Post, January 7, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-biden-vaccine-mandate/2022/01/06/93b4d45c-6f2e-11ec-a5d2-7712163262f0_story.html

Angie Schmitt, “Why I Soured on the Democrats,” Atlantic, January 7, 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/democrats-botched-public-school-covid-policy/621183/

Will Sommer, “QAnon Star Who Said Only ‘Idiots’ Get Vax Dies of COVID,” Daily Beast, January 7, 2022, https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-star-cirsten-weldon-who-said-only-idiots-get-vaccinated-dies-of-covid

James Tapper, Michael Savage, and Robin McKie, “End mass jabs and live with Covid, says ex-head of vaccine taskforce,” Guardian, January 8, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/08/end-mass-jabs-and-live-with-covid-says-ex-head-of-vaccine-taskforce

Michael E. Miller, “Novak Djokovic wins case against Australia over canceled visa, clearing path for him to play in Melbourne,” Washington Post, January 9, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/09/novak-djokovic-australia-court-visa/

Patrick Reilly, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tests positive for COVID-19,” New York Post, January 9, 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/01/09/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-tests-positive-for-covid-19/

Melanie Evans, “Hospitals Cut Beds as Nurses Call In Sick With Covid-19,” Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-cut-beds-as-nurses-call-in-sick-with-covid-19-11641810781

Amy Graff, “Head of COVID response at UCSF: ‘I have not intubated a single COVID patient during this Omicron surge,’ SFGate, January 10, 2022, https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/COVID-San-Francisco-staff-shortage-UCSF-16758335.php

Travis Caldwell and Deidre McPhillips, “Covid-19 hospitalizations reach record high, HHS data shows,” CNN, January 11, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/11/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html

Max Hoppenstedt and Jörn Meyn, “Were the Results of a Positive PCR Test Manipulated?” Spiegel, January 11, 2022, https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/novak-djokovic-were-the-results-of-his-positive-pcr-test-manipulated-a-cf3e7344-e98f-4fc3-8bb3-7727d4795e97

Arwa Mahdawi, “Anti-vaxxers are touting another new Covid ‘cure’ – drinking urine. But they are not the only obstacles to ending the pandemic,” Guardian, January 11, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/11/anti-vaxxers-covid-drinking-urine-misinformation

Kristin Gelineau, “Amid Djokovic backlash, Australia grapples with omicron wave,” Associated Press, January 12, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-novak-djokovic-sports-health-sydney-37b896e43f91a051990606ef7a963a76

Jon Pye and Rod McGuirk, “Djokovic: Not isolating after COVID infection was ‘error,’” Associated Press, January 12, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/immigration-coronavirus-pandemic-novak-djokovic-sports-health-591c103de643abc147b0fb7e2703afc2

Hayley Smith, “With hospitals reeling, California tells COVID-positive medical workers to stay on the job,” Los Angeles Times, January 12, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-12/california-to-covid-positive-healthcare-workers-keep-working


Republican rule

So Joe Biden went down to Georgia and did[6] just what activists warned him not to do, that being to give a speech without a solid plan.[7] Such a plan to pass voting rights legislation does not exist and cannot exist as long[8] as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema oppose changes to the filibuster, which they do.[9] So all of this is the Democrats’ specialty, hot air, and activists’ exasperation remains utterly justified.

Justified or not, however, these activists themselves need a solid plan. The Democrats have repeatedly demonstrated they are hopeless; a sensible approach on any number of issues[10] will blindingly obviously require something different.

David Daley, “Seven ways Republicans are already undermining the 2024 election,” Guardian, January 10, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/10/republicans-election-democracy-seven-ways-trump

Jonathan Lai, “Pennsylvania Republicans want a lot more power in redistricting for state maps,” Philadelphia Inquirer, January 10, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-redistricting-republicans-constitutional-amendment-20220110.html

Ed Kilgore, “Who Is Biden’s Big Georgia Voting-Rights Speech Really For?” New York, January 11, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/bidens-georgia-voting-rights-speech-whos-it-really-for.html

Alex Leary and Eliza Collins, “Biden Endorses Filibuster Rule Changes if Necessary to Pass Voting Legislation,” Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-casts-election-law-votes-as-turning-point-for-nation-in-speech-11641897003

Jewel Wicker, “Georgia activists warn Biden against a ‘photo-op’ visit that lacks voting rights plan,” Guardian, January 11, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/11/georgia-biden-harris-visit-voting-rights-bill


Postal Service

Really the only news here, if you can even call it that, is that austerity is failing to produce the savings it was supposed to produce.[11] But you know, neoliberalism.

What I’ve seen myself is a serious deterioration in my ability to track priority mail. This was especially concerning as I was trying to respond to California’s Franchise Tax Board last year. The only way I knew, sort of, that they’d actually received what I’d sent them was that the checks, yes, two of them, got cashed.

Michael Sainato, “The fight to oust Louis DeJoy and his ‘disastrous’ austerity plan,” Guardian, January 12, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/12/fight-louis-dejoy-austerity-plan


  1. [1]Jennifer Rubin, “A single district attorney in Georgia has the best case against Trump,” Washington Post, January 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/11/single-district-attorney-georgia-has-best-case-against-trump/
  2. [2]Amy Gardner, “‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor,” Washington Post, January 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html
  3. [3]Jennifer Rubin, “A single district attorney in Georgia has the best case against Trump,” Washington Post, January 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/11/single-district-attorney-georgia-has-best-case-against-trump/
  4. [4]David Benfell, “Stephen Zappala’s resignation would be nowhere near enough,” Not Housebroken, January 4, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/06/03/stephen-zappalas-resignation-would-be-nowhere-near-enough/
  5. [5]Arwa Mahdawi, “Anti-vaxxers are touting another new Covid ‘cure’ – drinking urine. But they are not the only obstacles to ending the pandemic,” Guardian, January 11, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/11/anti-vaxxers-covid-drinking-urine-misinformation
  6. [6]Alex Leary and Eliza Collins, “Biden Endorses Filibuster Rule Changes if Necessary to Pass Voting Legislation,” Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-casts-election-law-votes-as-turning-point-for-nation-in-speech-11641897003
  7. [7]Jewel Wicker, “Georgia activists warn Biden against a ‘photo-op’ visit that lacks voting rights plan,” Guardian, January 11, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/11/georgia-biden-harris-visit-voting-rights-bill
  8. [8]John Harwood, “Why Democrats haven’t given up on Joe Manchin and voting rights,” CNN, January 2, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/02/politics/joe-manchin-voting-rights-filibuster/index.html; Siobhan Hughes, “Democrats Seek Filibuster Changes to Pass Elections Bills,” Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-seek-filibuster-changes-to-pass-elections-bills-11641128403
  9. [9]Siobhan Hughes, “Manchin Deflates Democrats’ Hopes of Changing Filibuster, Passing Election Bills,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/manchin-deflates-democrats-hopes-of-changing-filibuster-passing-election-bills-11641328293; Ed Kilgore, “Who Is Biden’s Big Georgia Voting-Rights Speech Really For?” New York, January 11, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/bidens-georgia-voting-rights-speech-whos-it-really-for.html; Alex Leary and Eliza Collins, “Biden Endorses Filibuster Rule Changes if Necessary to Pass Voting Legislation,” Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-casts-election-law-votes-as-turning-point-for-nation-in-speech-11641897003
  10. [10]David Benfell, “Democrats and contradiction,” Not Housebroken, January 7, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/11/18/democrats-and-contradiction/
  11. [11]Michael Sainato, “The fight to oust Louis DeJoy and his ‘disastrous’ austerity plan,” Guardian, January 12, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/12/fight-louis-dejoy-austerity-plan

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