Democrats Against Democrats

As Hasan notes, this is what Democrats do:

This is why Democrats lose to Republicans. Because no matter how badly Republicans behave, certain centrist Democrats will always indulge them - as Coons here does, with Graham - and self-flagellate. It’s infuriating to watch Lucy, Charlie, and the football again and again. 🤦🏽‍♂️ https://t.co/y01508XmuM

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) April 9, 2022

A press release from the governor of Florida on March 7 boasted "Today, Governor Ron DeSantis was joined by Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo and world-renowned physicians and epidemiologists to discuss the failures of lockdowns and mandates in response to COVID-19."  Last August, Texas governor Greg Abbott declared “One thing that we know is that safe practices are important. That said, one thing that we learned along the way is lockdowns are wrong during the course of a pandemic..."

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn and other center-left Democrats rail against Democrats embracing the label "socialist" or slogan "defund the police," though it is mostly they themselves who in disgust employ the terms. Similarly, two prominent Republicans refer to "the failures of lockdowns" and "lockdowns are wrong." But then, there also are Democrats who use the same framing, as when Democrat and famed SARS-CoV-2 minimalist Bill Maher on Sunday evening stated (at 2:02 of the video below)

We're not in the middle of one (pandemic) and it's no wonder and it's debatable whether we should have lost our s_ _ _ to that degree. And there are also people who say lockdowns didn't really change anything.

The common thread is "lockdowns" and the assumption is that we've suffered through them.  Notwithstanding the unavoidable closure of schools in the spring of 2021, "lockdowns" have been nearly nonexistent in the USA.  

The USA never has gone into lockdown because, like almost every country, a "zero Covid strategy" never has been our goal. Two of the exceptions have been Australia and New Zealand, the latter going "into the highest level of restrictions when a single person was diagnosed with Covid-19 in Auckland. No working in the office. No going out to dinner or the gym or church. In most cases, no leaving the house."

Contrast that with the USA, in which freedom of movement never was restricted. In the extreme, of course, lies mainland China, which on March 11

ordered a lockdown of the 9 million residents of the northeastern city of Changchun amid a new spike in COVID-19 cases in the area attributed to the highly contagious omicron variant.

Residents are required to remain at home, with one family member permitted to venture out to buy food and other necessities every two days. All residents must undergo three rounds of mass testing, while non-essential businesses have been closed and transport links suspended.

The latest lockdowns, which also include Yucheng with 500,000 people in the eastern province of Shandong, show China is sticking to the draconian approach to the pandemic it has enforced for most of the past two years, despite some earlier indications that authorities would be implementing more targeted measures.

Those are actual lockdowns, harsh in democratic republics and ruthless in totalitarian states such as mainland China. For Democrats to have allowed reasonable and sensible restrictions during this pandemic to be defined as "lockdowns" is serious political malpractice. If messaging is considered an art, Democrats struggle for the grade of D-.

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Please Calm Down

It was an inspiring, and politically uplifting, statement when Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson stated "I am the dream and the hope of the slaves." Nonetheless, it was a speech, and only a speech. Dan Rather, an excellent journalist falsely accused of smearing George W. Bush and forced out of his job as anchorman at CBS News, is offering false hype.

Please stop whatever you are doing to listen to (and share) this historic moment. The words of Judge Jackson resonate in defiance of cynicism, they grow from the deep roots of pain and struggle, and they usher forth a vision of hope in a better and more just America. https://t.co/IFMrBxLfFB

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) April 8, 2022

Please stop whatever you are doing to listen to (and share) this historic moment. The words of Judge Jackson resonate in defiance of cynicism, they grow from the deep roots of pain and struggle, and they usher forth a vision of hope in a better and more just America.

They usher forth a vision of hope in a better and more just America. Jackson's words are meant to stir and uplift but can do little more, and are not intended to do more.

While campaigning for President in June of 2008, Senator Barack Obama in rousing political rhetoric proclaimed

Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that, generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless...

... this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal...

... this was the moment when we ended a war, and secured our nation, and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.

Barack Obama was elected and yet

Sea levels along coastlines in the United States will rise about one foot by 2050, with larger increases on the East and Gulf coasts, according to a comprehensive new report by federal climate scientists.

Oceans have already risen about one foot in the last century, as climate change melts glaciers and ice caps around the world. But the pace is accelerating, scientists warn, and the next 30 years will see the same amount of sea level rise as the previous 100.

"It's like history is repeating itself, but in fast-forward," says William Sweet, a sea level rise expert with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and one of the authors of the new report.

Sea levels along coastlines in the United States will rise about one foot by 2050, with larger increases on the East and Gulf coasts, according to a comprehensive new report by federal climate scientists.

A group of researchers created the Job Quality Index and in late 2019

found when crafting their measurement, there is now a growing number of low-paying jobs relative to employment with above-average pay.

"In 1990, the jobs were pretty much evenly divided" said Daniel Alpert, a founder of Westwood Capital and one of the creators of the index. In the process of running the numbers, he said, "We discovered that 63% of all jobs that were created since 1990 were low-wage, low-hour jobs. That was a pretty stunning statistic."

To be sure, the metric indicated a slight improvement during the Obama years. As of when he had left office, it had declined beyond the point it was even in early 2009. The trend is unmistakable.

It turns out that Barack Obama's message on that day represented nothing more than "a vision of hope" that went down in flames in November, 2016. No doubt he wanted the USA "restored (to) our image as the last, best hope on Earth." However, when Donald Trump was inaugurated as the next President, he would emphasize "American carnage," a major theme of his successful campaign. In the following four years, the President effectively undermined the USA as leader of the Free World, an emphatic rebuke of the words spoken by his predecessor.

Let's cool our jets. The words of Ketanji Brown Jackson did "usher forth a vision of hope in a better and more just America." However, they represented only a vision and hope.  We should recognize them for what they are and for what they're not, lest the dream fall far short of the vision. We've seen that play before.

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The Three Free Votes

Credit should be given to Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah for deciding to vote to confirm the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court. The Washington Post noted that 47 Republicans had voted against confirmation

But to three Republican senators, the narrative that Jackson was a partisan extremist did not ring true. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Jackson had the “experience, qualifications, and integrity” to merit confirmation and, in backing Jackson, appealed to her colleagues to step back from the partisan brinkmanship that has increasingly dominated Supreme Court confirmations.

 Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said much the same, decrying the “corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees, which, on both sides of the aisle, is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year.” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), meanwhile, declared Jackson to be “a well-qualified jurist and a person of honor.”

You can be forgiven if you believed those GOP votes were pivotal, or even significant.  Collins made her announcement on March 30, thereby, as The Post noted, "becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back President Biden’s nominee and all but guaranteeing Jackson will become the first Black female justice in history. "

The following Monday, Senator Murkowski announced that she would vote for Jackson and Senator Romney followed a couple of hours later.

That was all for show.  The real news had come five days before Collins' statement when on March 25 Senator Joe Manchin announced

that he will vote for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be confirmed to the Supreme Court, clearing the way to an all-but-certain confirmation.

The West Virginia Democrat has become a pivotal vote in the evenly divided Senate, as he often sides with Republicans, and his opposition could have blocked Jackson from becoming the first Black woman to sit on the bench.

President Biden needed support from all fifty Democrats, thus ensuring approval of the nomination with the tie-breaking vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Harris was present on Wednesday to preside over the Senate but her vote would not be needed because of support of the three GOP senators. However, their vote became moot once Joe Manchin gave his thumbs-up. It was only then that Senator Collins, followed by senators Murkowski and Romney, decided to throw in with the majority and be on the winning side.

Republicans don't suffer apostates gladly. Of the GOP House members who voted to impeach Donald Trump after January 6, 2020

in the year since the deadliest attack on the Capitol in centuries, none of the 10 lawmakers have been able to avoid the consequences of a fundamental miscalculation about the direction of their party. The former president is very much the leader of the Republicans, and it is those who stood against him whom the party has thrust into the role of pariah.

Since they cast their impeachment votes on Jan. 13, Representatives Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois have announced their retirements amid death threats from voters and hostility from colleagues. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming has gone from a star in the House Republican leadership to an exiled party gadfly and truth teller.

Representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Peter Meijer of Michigan and Fred Upton of Michigan have Trump-endorsed primary challengers on their heels and uncertain political futures. Four others — John Katko of New York, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Tom Rice of South Carolina and David Valadao of California — have gone to ground, silent if not silenced, in the apparent hope that the entire episode will be forgotten.

But what has been the reaction of politicians or voters of the Republican Party? Thus far, at least: crickets.  Confirmation of Judge Jackson was, as Joe Biden would have put it at a younger age, "a big f-"- well, you know the rest. For the media and much of the Democratic base, it was a big deal because Ketanji Brown Jackson thus became the first black woman on the Supreme Court.  For those less impressed by an individual's pigment or chromosomal makeup, it is because the Court has gained another liberal voice, and a highly impressive one at that.

Nonetheless, senators Collins, Murkowski, and Romney have not incurred criticism for breaking ranks with their party colleagues and the betting here is that they will face little or none. Those 47 other Republican senators and the GOP members of the House- including such luminaries as Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and Paul Gosar- know the score. So does Donald J. Trump, who generally tolerates no disloyalty. They knew the die was cast when Joe Manchin decided to back Jackson.

It's likely that had Manchin declared opposition to the nomination, neither of the three Republican senators who voted for the judge would have done so.  Any Republican who dared to cross the GOP leadership would have provided the Democrat's crucial 50th vote in the Senate, and none would have done so. Senator Manchin ultimately was responsible for three votes aside his own.

Having cast their irrelevant votes, Collins, Murkowski, and Romney will return to voting as right-wing party loyalists.  Joe Manchin will continue to be Joe Manchin, who is no prize. But in the matter of filling out the Court with someone so worthy, the West Virginia senator did come up big as the 50th Senator Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden, and the country needed.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Discovers Microagression

You'd be excused if you thought this was a joke.

.@ABC, this threat of violence against me by @jimmykimmel has been filed with the @CapitolPolice. pic.twitter.com/nxYX1LF2jK

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) April 6, 2022

The Daily Beast reminds us

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) downplayed the violence at the Capitol, voted against awarding congressional medals to Capitol Police officers injured in the insurrection, and ranted that the agency is like the "gazpacho" (presumably a reference to Nazi Germany’s Gestapo)....  Greene has, among other things, harassed a school shooting survivor, posted a mock-up pic of her holding a machine gun near lawmakers’ heads, and liked a Facebook post about executing Democrats.

Only nine (9) days earlier:

I never watch the Oscars but I’ve seen the Will Smith/Chris Rock clip a million times this morning.

I have to say I appreciate the Alpha male response of a husband defending his wife.

It was settled and then no more drama.

Chris Rock handled it like a man with no whining.

1/2

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) March 28, 2022

Greene was impressed that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock but wants police protection because someone joked that Smith should slap her. Of course, Smith's slap (assuming the incident wasn't staged) was not meant to inure Rock but to humiliate him, just as Kimmel doesn't want someone to attack, but humiliate or insult, Greene.

Kimmel also referred to the congresswoman as "this Klan mom" which, truth be told, is reprehensible and was no joke. Greene did not comment about a liberal associating her with the Ku Klux Klan. But then, she may have interpreted that as a compliment.

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No Mere Maggot

This is a glimpse into what ails the Democratic Party. Democratic National Committee chairperson Jaime Harrison noted on Wednesday's Morning Joe that Tom Cotton of Arkansas blocked Senate approval of Cassandra Butts, President Barack Obama's nominee for ambassador to the Bahamas in 2014. Butts, who was suffering from leukemia, died before any vote in the chamber took place.

Only last week, Cotton absurdly interrogated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson about Guantanamo Bay detainees, whose as a federal public defender she was assigned to defend . So Butts asserted

It shows you who this little maggot-infested man is. He does not deserve to have that pen. He doesn’t deserve to be in the United States Senate representing the good people of Arkansas…He put his hand on the Bible, took an Oath of Office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and he use it as a play toy. That is the Republican party we see today. It is a party built on fraud, fear, and fascism. They don’t deserve to be in power. Not because Democrats should, but because they don’t deserve to be in power of this great nation.

It turns out that Harrison's "maggot-infested" attack was not launched on the spur of the moment, given his remark of the night before:

I’m speaking to a group of preachers in the morning & I can’t say what I would like, but Bless the tiny, mold and maggot infested space where @TomCottonAR heart is supposed to be. https://t.co/HRfl80ThWR

— Jaime Harrison, DNC Chair (@harrisonjaime) April 6, 2022

The problem is not the ad hominem condemnation of "maggot-infested" which, though literally inaccurate, may be an understatement. When in 2015 the Obama Administration was conducting negotiations with Iran in over Riyadh's nuclear weapons program, Senator Cotton 46 other Republican senators strove to undermine USA foreign policy. In the "Open Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,"  coordinated by Cotton, they vowed "we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei" which could be revoked by the "next President" or modified by any Congress.

Tom Cotton was the ringleader of a gang trying to sabotage the nation's President and subvert American foreign policy. As Michael Gerson wrote at the time, "if Republican senators want to make the point that an Iran deal requires a treaty, they should make that case to the American people, not to the Iranians. Congress simply has no business conducting foreign policy with a foreign government, especially an adversarial one." 

Seven years later, nuclear war, spurred by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, presents its greatest threat in decades. The chairperson of the Democratic Party recognizes the smarmy nature of the Arkansas senator, who put United States national security at risk by going behind the President's back to run his own foreign policy.  Then the chairperson calls him a maggot for..... refusing to understand the importance of defending terrorists.

Under the American system of justice, the alleged terrorists deserved legal representation, few of them ever have been convicted, Ketanji Brown Jackson was merely executing her responsibilities, and only two of 780 ever apprehended have been convicted. To which most voters probably would say: so what?

Nevertheless, this is what the current head of the Democratic Party condemns Senator Cotton for. Yet whatever the facts of the matter, voters have little sympathy for accused and suspected terrorists.  When Democratic Party officials pounce on an irresponsible Republican, they should focus on words or actions which pose a threat to the American people. Insults of the magnitude and quality of "maggot-infested man" should not be wasted.

 

 

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"It's great. I'm Against It."

I thought this was over and done. I thought we, specifically the people inflicted with this disease, had overcome it. But I was mistaken.

On Sundays "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," the host asked Republican senator Roy Blunt of Missouri  whether he had decided how he'd vote on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court. Blunt responded

Well, I have, George. And good to be with you this morning.

You know, I've thought -- initially, my sense is that the president certainly had every good intention and every right in the campaign to talk about putting the first black woman on the court. I think it's time for that to happen. I was hoping that I could be part of that. I had a great conversation with her.

"Putting the first black woman on the court. I think it's time for that to happen" means "it's not time for that to happen." He was "hoping that I could be part of that," suggesting that he would have been just fine with a right-wing black woman. Blunt continues

Really, there are two criterias, I said immediately. One is, is the person qualified for the job? And two is, what's her judicial philosophy?

She's certainly qualified. I think she's got a great personality, I think will be a good colleague on the court. But the judicial philosophy seems to be not the philosophy of looking at what the law says and the Constitution says and applying that, but going through some method that allows you to try to look at the Constitution as a more flexible document, and even the law. And there are cases that show that that’s her view.

I think she's got a great personality.  For men of Blunt's age (71), in their youth "she's got a good personality" meant "although she is ugly."

Blunt continued

I think she’s certainly going to be confirmed. I think it will be a high point for the country to see her go on the Court and take her unique perspective to the Court but I don't think she's the kind of judge that will really do the kind of work that I think needs to be done by the Court.

I think it will be a high point for the country to see her go on the Court and take her unique perspective to the Court.  You know what's coming next.

It's such a "high point" that the Senator added "I won't be supporting her but I'll be joining others in understanding the importance of this moment."

Roy Blunt on ABC says Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirming to SCOTUS will be "a high point for the country," but he won't support her. Asked why by Stephanopoulos, he offers a word salad. pic.twitter.com/QLjE4sDcMR

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 3, 2022

The term "moment" is curious. If the moment is most important, it was the moment candidate Biden promised he'd nominate a black woman for the Court or the moment the President actually did so. No Republican had anything to do with that. It was all Joe Biden.

But the moment itself itself is of no significance unless it's tied to placement of a black woman on the Court. Roy Blunt wants no part of that and will not be part of that, given that he will cast his vote against Jackson.

Roy Blunt admits he will vote against someone he maintains "will be a good colleague on the Court" and whose confirmation by the Senate "will be a high point for the Court." He also applauds her "unique perspective" while asserting opposition to Jackson's judicial philosophy.

This makes no sense except in the context of the election of Barack Obama in 2008, which was followed by unaffiliated voters and Republicans expressing pride that a black man they had voted against was elected President. They had hoped (for whatever reason) he would not become President, they did their small part to block his election, and then claimed the country had triumphed over racism.  Of course, having made their point about the wonderfulness of America, they proceeded to vote against Obama's re-election, and four years later there was Donald Trump.

Roy Blunt, and very likely some of his colleagues, are viewing this upside-down, with a harmful "perspective."  If the confirmation of a judge or election of a president for whatever reason is "a time for that to happen" or speaks well of a nation, the individual should be confirmed or elected. Helping the nation always is better than hurting the nation.

It's not as if Roy Blunt, or most GOP senators, will be voting against Ketanji Brown Jackson because she is black. And the least of reasons to vote for, and the least of reasons to have nominated, her should be her race. 

For Democrats, it should be the opportunity to support a Democrat, and one whose approach to the law is one that will serve the country well. For Republicans, it could be that the Court needs a ninth member and if the nominee is of a Democratic president, it may as well be one highly qualified and personally impressive.

 

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One Small Step

Leave it to Republicans to confront a flawed, albeit useful, bill and miss the point entirely, probably intentionally.

The problem is diabetes treatment, and it won't go away by wishing it away when

More than 37 million Americans live with either type one (produce no insulin at all) or type two (do not use insulin properly) diabetes and a quarter of them rely on insulin to stay alive.

But with the price of insulin skyrocketing in recent years (for instance, a vial of insulin made by Eli Lilly cost just $21 in 1999, but by 2019 prices had shot up by 1,000 per cent to $332 a vial), it’s now become the most expensive chronic disease to treat in the country.

That would be 37 million+ Americans diagnosed with diabetes and many others living with it, undiagnosed. The problem, then, is twofold- millions of patients can't afford insulin and pharmaceutical companies are price-gouging.  An effort is being made to address the first problem because the House of Representatives

passed legislation Thursday that would cap the monthly cost of insulin at $35 for the millions of diabetic Americans who rely on the drug.

Lawmakers approved the measure in a 232-193 vote, with just a dozen Republicans joining Democrats in support. It now heads to the Senate.

The Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would take effect in 2023, would limit cost-sharing under private health insurance for a month’s supply of certain insulin products at $35, or 25 percent of a plan’s negotiated price, whichever is less.

The legislation is necessary, though not sufficient because it

doesn’t address the major issue of the US pharmaceutical companies price gouging the overall price of the lifesaving drug, and instead shifts that burden onto a person’s insurers and employers.

For comparison, a study conducted by the RAND Corporation, an American nonprofit global policy think tank, found that drug companies in the US charge more than in nearly three dozen other countries surveyed, while the same study found that the average price in the US was more than ten times higher than the average for all of the other countries combined.

The American average list price for a vial of insulin was $98.70. The closest any other country came to that was Chile where the same amount of the lifesaving drug, on average, costs $21.48.

But leave it to Republicans (only twelve of whom supported the bill in the House) to confront a flawed, albeit useful, bill and miss the point entirely, probably intentionally.  Thus Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina called the legislation "a massive power grab that will lead our country one step closer to socialized medicine" as Democrats "want the government to control our lives in every way they possibly can," Similarly, Washington State's Cathy McMorris Rodgers whined "Today, it's the government fixing the price on insulin. What's next? Gas? Food? History tells us that price fixing doesn't work."

If only it were so, the legislation would be even better.  The cost of insulin often wipes out a family's financial security assuming, of course, that an individual or said family doesn't forego the drug in favor of, for example, extravagances such as food, shelter, or transportation.

The cost of insulin should be borne by the public at large, not only by individuals unfortunate enough through lifestyle, diet, heredity, or serendipity to suffer this common ailment. The ideal source should be general revenues, raised through the broad-based income tax, largely progressive notwithstanding unfortunate loopholes utilized by some of the very wealthy. If that's unacceptable, we could  try an excise tax, perhaps on an industry such as sugar or alcohol, without which the incidence of diabetes would be a small fraction of what it is.

Passage in the Senate is doubtful because Republicans will do what Republicans do.  But supporters of health care must press on because, in this case at least, the perfect must not become the enemy of the good.

 

 

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