Category: 2020 Election

Should the Filibuster Die?

The Daily Escape:

Inspiration Point, late winter, Bryce Canyon, NP UT – March 2021 photo by CampsG

Biden’s pandemic relief plan became law, and the Senate confirmed Merrick Garland as attorney general. Those, and a few more cabinet level confirmations are all that’s likely to pass the Senate before the 2022 mid-terms.

That’s because the American Relief Plan, along with cabinet confirmations, and Supreme Court justices are no longer subject to the filibuster, while most other bills are.

Back in the dim past, when Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) was Majority Leader, Obama could not get his federal judge nominees an up or down vote because they were blocked by the 60-vote requirement to close debate (“cloture”) in the Senate.

In November 2013, Reid and Senate Democrats used the “nuclear option” to eliminate the 60-vote rule on executive branch nominations and federal judicial appointments. In April 2017, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans extended the nuclear option to Supreme Court nominations to end debate on the nomination of Neil Gorsuch, when McConnell couldn’t get the required 60 votes for ending the debate.

Today, the three-fifths majority vote (60 of 100) is still required to end debates on legislation. That means we most likely won’t see HR-1 (S-1 in the Senate) the bill to reform voting rights in America make it to an up or down vote in the Senate, as long as there is a filibuster.

That’s probably also true for the minimum wage, for Biden’s infrastructure initiative, and other wish-list items like DC statehood, a carbon tax, and reasonable gun legislation.

The best argument for keeping the filibuster is that it keeps the Party in the minority from being steamrollered by the Party in the majority, what pundits call the “tyranny of the majority”. Both Parties should take stock of everything they were able to delay or derail because of the filibuster. Then they should imagine all of that (and more) enacted by simple majority vote, when the opposition Party regains control of Congress and the presidency, which eventually will happen.

The worst argument is that it fosters compromise. But we know that the Senate is substantially more partisan today than it has ever been in the modern era. In fact, we’ve seen limited compromise on legislation, unless there was no way around it, such as when needing to extend the federal borrowing limit.

The Democrats haven’t been shy about using the filibuster. When Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was minority leader, he used the filibuster in 2019 to block funding for construction of Trump’s border wall. Dems used it twice to impede passage of the Cares Act, forcing Republicans to agree to changes including a $600 weekly federal unemployment supplement. They used it to block legislation to force “sanctuary cities” to cooperate with federal officials, and to stop a prohibition on taxpayer funding of abortion. And a few other times while Trump was President.

So, should the filibuster go? It should, at least in its current form. Several proposals to change the filibuster are out there. From the NYT:

“One proposal would bar its use for legislation involving voting rights or other democratic expansions. Another would require the old-fashioned “talking” filibuster. A third would entail holding a series of cloture votes spaced three days apart, lowering the number of senators needed to end the filibuster each time.”

The Democrats do not currently have the votes to end the filibuster, since Sens. Manchin (D-WVA) and Sinema (D-AZ) say they will not vote to abolish it. We’ll have to wait to see whether they back McConnell against Schumer and Biden when the Republicans launch a filibuster against the major Biden initiative that requires 60 votes for cloture. Or, if they’re open to one of the reforms mentioned above.

Wrongo favors eliminating the filibuster at least for bills that concern voting rights. That would allow the H-1/S-1 bill to move forward at a time when Jim Crow-style laws are likely to be re-introduced in many Republican-controlled states. The Republican falsehoods surrounding the 2020 election, culminating in insurrection, should convince Democrats that HR-1/S-1 is worth passing, even if the price is eliminating, or partially eliminating the filibuster.

Manchin and Sinema can probably be strong-armed into agreeing with that.

In 2017, a Republican-controlled Senate found it easy to forget tradition and eliminate the filibuster for the confirmation of Supreme Court justices, despite that being the key instance where the requirement for a broad, bipartisan vote should be obvious.

So, why should it be such a problem to remove it entirely? The framers of the Constitution didn’t include a supermajority requirement for the Senate to pass legislation; that came into being in 1837. It has been modified many times since.

Now, it’s long overdue for the filibuster to go. It’s the biggest roadblock to democracy in America.

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American Rescue Plan: A Bold Bet by Biden

The Daily Escape:

Jay Peak, VT – photo by Alan Baker

Today, Wrongo listened to a NYT podcast that tried to dissect “Republican Populism”. Based on the American Rescue Plan that is about to become law, no one should EVER again say that the GOP are populists, except in the demagogic sense.

Long-time blog reader David P. called yesterday to alert Wrongo to Steve Rattner’s appearance on Morning Joe. Wrongo never watches morning television, so he would have missed the charts Rattner used to compare Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to Biden’s American Rescue Plan. They are important:

The two bills are nearly the same size, but Trump’s plan on the left above shows that 85% of the benefits from Trump’s plan were tax cuts for businesses and people making more than $75k/year. Just 16% went to people making less than $75k.

Biden’s American Rescue Plan (on the right above) gives 52% of its benefits to individuals making LESS than $75k, of which, 8% is in the form of tax cuts for dependent children. Biden’s plan also spends $1.75 Trillion on attempting to return the American economy to pre-pandemic normalcy.

Rattner’s next slide shows where each plan’s benefits went by income level:

This bar chart divides America by income bracket. The blue bars are Biden’s plan, and the red bars are Trump’s plan. Starting from the left, Biden’s plan provides 23% of the overall benefit to people in the bottom 20% income, while Trump’s plan gave them just 1%. Instead, Trump’s plan gave 65% of the benefits to the top 20%, while Biden’s gives them just 11%, mostly in the form of the $1,400 checks.

It’s easy to see which bill has helped the rich, and which did not. A key Republican talking point in the past few weeks was that the American Rescue plan isn’t focused enough on the pandemic. Yet when Trump and the Republicans had their chance, they showed themselves to be the same old plutocrats.

A key difference between the two Parties:

The CARES Act was a Republican accident. They got scared, and when the Republicans are scared, they’ll flirt with doing the right thing for self-preservation.

The America Rescue plan is a big win for Biden and the Democrats. When signed, it gives more than just cash to American families. It makes Obamacare more affordable for more people. It  provides $27 billion in rental assistance and much-needed help to cities and states, and it establishes a child allowance of $3000-$3600, which could become permanent down the road.

It doesn’t contain the $15 an hour minimum wage provision, but compared to previous big pieces of Democratic legislation, like Clinton’s 1993 tax bill or Obama’s 2009 ACA, despite the American Rescue plan’s huge price tag, it passed relatively easily. And just like those two earlier bills, no Republicans voted for it.

Let’s hope that the media continue to describe all of the things Republicans hate in the bill. Who gets what and when, and how, down to the last Biden buck. That they continue to talk about Republican consternation about the deficit and how we pay for it all.

Republicans today have zero ideology. For decades, tax cuts were their preferred economic tool. Tax cuts also caused revenue shortfalls for the government, who would then be unable to offer more safety net programs for the middle and working classes. A Republican delight!

Progressive Democrats believed that putting money in the hands of working people and the poor would be a better economic stimulus because it provided material support to people who needed it.

That’s Biden’s plan.

Progressives want to make things better; conservatives want to maintain the status quo. Progress is usually a good thing, but it isn’t a baseline premise for both Parties.

Reagan turned “liberal” into an epithet. Modern Republicans are doing the same with “progressive.” That will be a hard sell if progressives are bringing jobs and a measure of economic security to hometowns across America, while all the Republicans have to offer is “Look what the progressives did to Mr. Potato Head!”

They will always have the cultural issues, real or imagined, to run on.

But on economic issues, the whole “progressive wish list” compliant from the Republicans is pretty weak tea, when they’re unwilling to vote for anything.

Biden and the Democrats are making a big net on progressive, Democratic ideology. It will be exciting to see how it works. And all of it is going to be popular.

 

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Saturday Soother – March 6, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Castle Hill Lighthouse, Newport, RI – photo by Ray Dickson

A few random Saturday thoughts: The Capitol wasn’t invaded by hordes of Trump dead enders on Thursday demanding that their leader assume the presidency.  But the House of Representatives was fearful enough to take the day off. So mission accomplished!

Second, those dead enders were probably too busy digging through their mom’s basements looking for their old Dr. Seuss books. They heard that Dr. Seuss has been “cancelled” by Biden and the Democrats. According to Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade:

“The cancel culture is canceling Dr. Seuss….It’s out of control.”

There’s nothing like a culture war to distract the Republican rank and file from noticing that none of their House and Senate representatives voted for the Covid Relief Bill or for HR 1.

Dr. Seuss Enterprises is a private company. It made a private business decision about its private property, taking six Seuss books out of circulation. Republicans, those stalwart defenders of private property and free-market capitalism, of course, are going nuts.

OTOH, the Dr. Seuss tempest is capitalism in action. Dr. Seuss Enterprises is minting money off the conservative backlash to the sidelining of his six racist books: Nine of the top ten bestselling books on Amazon right now are Seuss books that aren’t being “cancelled”.

Third, on the economic front, we added 379,000 jobs in February, outpacing expectations. But we’re still about 9.5 million jobs behind where we were one year ago, before the pandemic hit. Even if we were to continue adding jobs at last month’s rate, it would take two full years just to get back to that level.

That should tell us that the only real answer to the jobs crisis is containing Covid. Too bad so many Republican governors are all about undermining that effort by refusing mask mandates. Here’s a map showing the states that have no mask mandate:

It shouldn’t be news that ALL these states have Republican governors, including WY and KS, who have limited mask mandates.

Fourth, here’s a great chart showing how many hours it took to pay rent back when the $7.25 minimum wage was new and how long people have to work for the same space now:

Source: WSJ

Back in 1968, no minimum wage worker had to work more than 20 hours/week to make rent. The chart makes it clear that even if a $15/hour minimum wage is passed, only workers in Toledo OH would be better off than they were in 1968. So, why can’t Republicans see this? Who are they afraid of? Certainly not their own economically distressed voters. Shouldn’t they get on board and say it’s time to pass the $15/hour minimum wage?

But enough of all that ails us, it’s Saturday, and time to take a break from the big questions of the day, and concentrate on smaller things, in other words, a Saturday Soother. Here at the Mansion of Wrong, we have finally taken down our Christmas tree. Since it’s a faux tree, we have zero dead needles on the floor.

We’re also looking forward to setting up our new treadmill today. Because of the pandemic, these babies are in short supply. The delivery team said yesterday that we were their 12th stop of the day. Should have bought stock in that company.

Today we’re brewing up your coffee from the Brooklyn Roasting Company in Dumbo, on Brooklyn’s coffee waterfront. Today, let’s pop the top on a 12 oz. can of their 3D coffee, ($15) with its notes of berry, dark chocolate, and honey. The roaster says it pops out and pulls you in.

Now take a seat by a window and listen to “Meditation” from Jules Massenet’s opera, “Thaïs”. It is based on the novel “Thaïs” by Anatole France and was first performed in Paris in March 1894. Here it is played by Nathan Farrington on Bass, and Allison Allport on Harp, not the more traditional violin or orchestral version:

BTW, Wrongo checked, and today is the fifth time he’s featured the “Meditation” on a Saturday. He must really like it. If you’ve never listened to it before, please try it today!

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HR 1 Must Pass in the Senate

The Daily Escape:

Florida Beach – photo by Wrongo. Most years, we’re in FL looking at the ocean this week. That’s another thing cancelled by Covid.

The House passed HR 1, the “For the People Act,” an omnibus voting rights, and ethics and campaign finance bill. If passed by the Senate and signed by Biden, the legislation would set national standards for federal elections, require nonpartisan redistricting, and put the brakes on hundreds of bills introduced by Republican legislatures across the country to limit ballot access in the wake of Democrats gaining control of Congress and the White House.

Jonathan Last says that Senate Democrats now must make three calculations as they decide whether to take up the legislation:

  1. Do they have the votes to pass it?
  2. Do they have the votes to break the filibuster?
  3. If the answers to (1) and (2) are yes, should they move forward?

Let’s assume for the sake of this discussion that the answers to (1) and (2) are yes. Then, of course they should move forward! Last observes that:

  • We have one party with a small—but clear, and durable—majority.
  • We have another party that has given up on trying to create a majority and instead has retreated into attempts to use systemic leverage—of both geography and anti-democratic gerrymandering — to preserve power for their minority.

Last says the only counter to the Republican’s efforts to game the system is to use the system to create more democracy — to lessen the points of leverage available to Republicans.

So, the Senate must pass HR 1. That expands voting. It moves the leverage away from politics and for the first time in America, towards the people. Last brings up a NY Magazine interview with David Shor, where he says:

“Since the maps in the House of Representatives are so biased against us, if we don’t pass a redistricting reform, our chance of keeping the House is very low. And then the Senate is even more biased against us than the House. So, it’s also very important that we add as many states as we can.”

So, if Democrats can kill the filibuster and pass HR 1, a next step is to bring up statehood for DC and Puerto Rico. Republicans will howl, but as Last says, if the Dems have learned anything in the last four years it’s that there are only two relevant questions when Congress acts:

  • Are you explicitly forbidden from doing something by the black letter of the law?
  • Do you have the votes to do it?

If the answer is No to the first and Yes to the second, then you can do it. That is exactly what Republicans did every time in the Trump era. Remember Merrick Garland, and Amy Coney Barrett? Remember that members of the Trump administration refused to testify in front of House committees?

Remember too that the Constitution allows Congress to add states by simple majority vote. If Democrats have the votes, then they can also do that. Republicans aren’t the only Party who can use the political leverage available in our system.

The difference would be that Republicans have used that leverage to empower electoral minorities, while the Democrats in this case, could use that leverage to empower electoral majorities.

Vote suppression is the Republican’s default position. They have become truly authoritarian, despite continuing to give lip service to the Constitution and to democratic principles. January 6 taught us that the only election reform Republicans will unanimously accept is one that declares its candidates the winners regardless of the election’s results.

To do any of this, the Senate Democrats need to be united, and that is the most important test for new Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) laid out the case for getting rid of the filibuster:

“We have a raw exercise of political power going on where people are making it harder to vote and you just can’t let that happen in a democracy because of some old rules in the Senate…”

Schumer’s task is to corral Democrats Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). Surely, they see the Republican Party’s antidemocratic bad faith. The Republican Party is no longer republican.

As Wrongo has said before, Jan. 6 should have shattered any illusions about the intentions, not just of Trump and his dead enders, but about the Republican Party’s allegiance to our Constitutional republic.

Democrats must act accordingly. And as soon as possible.

The course of action available to them won’t be an option in 2022 after the GOP passes all the voter suppression legislation that they now have pending.

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Texas Takes Off Its Masks

The Daily Escape:

Monument Valley, AZ – Winter 2019 photo by Petar_BG

From CNN:

“Gov. Greg Abbott announced…he’s lifting the mask mandate in Texas, even as health officials warn not to ease safety restrictions. Abbott….issued an executive order rescinding most of his earlier executive orders like the mask mandate…‘Too many Texans have been sidelined from employment opportunities. Too many small business owners have struggled to pay their bills. This must end. It is now time to open Texas 100%…’”

Texas is among the worst states in vaccination rates, especially in the poor and minority communities. But to Abbott, that’s no problemo!

Like Trump before him, since they’re most likely Democratic voters, he doesn’t seem to care so much.

Biden replied: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way in which we’re able to get vaccines in people’s arms.
The last thing, the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking — that, ‘In the meantime, everything’s fine. Take off your mask. Forget it.’ It still matters.”

Biden’s calling Abbott a Neanderthal may make their meeting after Texas’s next natural disaster less hospitable than the last one. OTOH, Abbott is undermining a national strategy to end the pandemic.

Think about it: In a marathon, you don’t call yourself a winner at mile 24, because the race is 26+ miles long. Abbott’s declaring victory early.

America’s running a marathon against Covid and its variants. It’s a miracle that we now have three acceptable vaccines to combat the virus. It’s been a long struggle trying to ward off the disease. So many have died, in part because so many Americans have refused to stay physically distant, and when they can’t, to mask up.

After a year, we finally have a president who takes the virus and the methods to control it seriously. But there’s no question that a large sub-set of our people are either vaccine or virus skeptics who will refuse to act to protect themselves or others.

Leadership on the town, state and federal levels have worked to contain the spread of infections and deaths, finally with some success. And now, just when we can have some optimism again, when we can envision a time where we can return to some form of normal, a few of the Republican Abbotts of America pull the plug.

By eliminating Texas’ mask mandate, Abbott’s betting that fewer, not more cases and deaths will occur. Every time a governor has relaxed these guidelines, cases and deaths have risen. See this tweet from Julian Castro:

After @GregAbbott_TX reopened Texas businesses in May, we saw a 300% jump in hospitalizations.

The question that Abbott and other governors (like Mississippi‘s Tate Reeves) need to answer is, what constitutes an acceptable number of increased cases? Or deaths? If Abbott and Reeves are so concerned about the economies of Texas and Mississippi, shouldn’t they have figured out acceptable casualty counts?

How many Texans/Mississippians are worth sacrificing so that their states’ business owners can have a better year?

Abbott is betting that the pandemic no longer poses a serious threat in Texas. Here is what’s really happening on the ground:

Does Abbott simply care more about businesses than people? How can someone responsible for the health, safety, and well-being of his fellow citizens treat that responsibility so cavalierly? Presiding over a state that from a virus viewpoint, is a larger version of South Dakota, isn’t a great way to demonstrate one’s leadership chops.

What’s going on right now is a contest between the literally incredible achievements of medical science, and the almost literally incredible stupidity and perversity of our right-wing politicians.

Tune in to see who wins this exciting race! Spoiler, there won’t be any winners.

The Biden administration says there will be enough doses available to vaccinate every adult by the end of May. The soon-to-be-passed Covid relief package has money to assist states deliver their doses.

The latest KFF COVID vaccine monitor poll puts the “definitely refuse” the vaccine at 15%. They also found that about 18% had been vaccinated, 37% would get it as soon as it was available, and 22% would wait and see how well it is working. So, we might be able to get up to around 75% vaccine uptake voluntarily.

Having a President rather than a Twitter troll in the White House seems to be helpful. Who could have predicted?

Even with the millions of doses of the vaccines that are coming, a spike in Texas may mean that instead of getting them where they’re needed, we’re going to be spending time, money, and shots in a place that could have avoided another spike in the first place.

But most of the sociopaths in the Republican Party can’t accept a good thing, even when it’s handed to them.

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We’re Riding on a Slow-Moving Train Wreck

The Daily Escape:

El Matador State Park, Malibu CA – 2021 photo by stephencovar

It’s commonly accepted knowledge that it’s hard to look away from a slow-motion train wreck. We should note that it’s even harder when you are riding on the train. And it’s harder still when some of the people riding along with you would be totally happy to see it wrecked.

Let’s start by revisiting CPAC and Trump. He attacked the Supreme Court for not overturning an American election, and his supporters cheered. We can’t let ourselves forget how wrong that was, and if unchecked, its implications for the future.

Second, the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans has decided that Catholics may take the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines, but not the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine. They say the J&J shot is “morally compromised”, since it was developed using cloned cells derived from fetuses aborted nearly a half a century ago.

New York Magazine’s Ed Kilgore writes:

“It’s worth noting that another Catholic diocese not far away, in Tyler, Texas, has rejected all three vaccines as having been “produced immorally”….But….the Vatican itself is administering the Pfizer vaccine (with Pope Francis and his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, among its recipients).”

The faithful in New Orleans and Tyler, TX must decide whether they must be more Catholic than the Pope. Anybody else wonder how America can get the pandemic behind us when religious leaders won’t follow science?

Third, as Bill Kristol notes at the Bulwark, our democracy is in crisis. For the first time in our history, we failed to have a peaceful transfer of power, and Republicans want to ensure that fewer people can vote next time around. They’re supporting many new voting restrictions at the state level.

The Brennan Center has identified 253 bills to restrict voting rights in 43 states that would impose measures to make voting harder. They include reducing early voting, limiting the use of mail-in ballots, eliminating drop boxes, and imposing new voter ID requirements.

This is crucial to our democracy, since Democrats only control 15 states, none of which is a swing state like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. Republicans have compounded the Dem’s problems through aggressive gerrymandering in Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

It’s difficult to understand how in a democracy, there is any discussion of restricting the right to vote. Unless we protect this right, we’re heading down a slippery slope. So to help avoid this slow-motion train wreck, Democrats need to get as many people registered as possible right now.

Finally, secession is on the map again, exactly where you might have expected it to be. Bright Line Watch, in a study released in February, showed that one-third of Republicans said they support secession. And it gets worse: Half of Republicans across the former Confederacy (plus Kentucky and Oklahoma) are now willing to form a newly independent country. Here is Bright Line Watch’s map of secessionist support by Trump approval ratings:

The Texas Republican Party recently supported a referendum on Texas seceding from the union. While secessionist rhetoric is couched in claims about fiscal responsibility and burdensome federal regulations, it doesn’t take much to see ethno-nationalism lurking behind it.

Secession in Texas is a combination of nativism, xenophobia, and white grievance. Texas secession Facebook pages are saturated with fantasies of forcing Democrats to leave the state and seizing their property. Just like the Confederates of the 1860s, this modern secessionist push is rooted in large part in maintaining white supremacy and authoritarian governance.

The increasing marriage of secessionist chatter and GOP ideology should be cause for concern since it is widespread throughout the heartland of America. Of course, state-level secession is illegal in the US. Even Justice Scalia said:

“If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.”

America has argued about secession since the days of John C. Calhoun, who worked to protect the south’s commitment to slavery from the 1820s until his death in 1850. Trump’s efforts to overturn an election in which Black voters did so much to defeat him in the south, recalls Calhoun’s efforts to deny them citizenship and the franchise almost two centuries ago.

We’re living in a moment when we will see whether American democracy survives these attacks on it by Republicans.

The ability to vote is central to our Democracy. It is at the core of our belief system and without it, all else is meaningless.

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Monday Wake Up Call – March 1, 2021

Sorry that we didn’t have Sunday cartoons. For the first time in 11 years writing this little blog, Wrongo couldn’t find much that was worthy of publishing, except this one:

The NYT reported that around one-third of America’s military have declined to take the Covid vaccine. The reluctance is largely among younger troops, and that it’s a warning about the potential hole in the broad-scale immunity goals for the country. Here is what’s known: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Roughly one-third of troops on active duty or in the National Guard have declined to take the vaccine, military officials recently told Congress. In some places, such as Fort Bragg, N.C., the nation’s largest military installation, acceptance rates are below 50%.”

The Defense Department doesn’t collect data on who fails to take the shot, but says: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…there is broad agreement that refusal rates are far higher among younger members, and enlisted personnel are more likely to say no than officers. Military spouses appear to share that hesitation: In a December poll of 674 active-duty family members conducted by Blue Star Families, a military advocacy group, 58% said they would not allow their children to receive the vaccine.”

Although hundreds of thousands of military members have received shots so far, taking the vaccine is voluntary for military members, since it’s only been approved for emergency use by the FDA. If it becomes a standard, approved vaccine, the military can order troops to take the shot.

The rule limiting the Pentagon’s authority to mandate vaccinations unless they’ve been approved by the FDA was designed to protect soldiers from being treated as medical guinea pigs by Uncle Sam. Troops cited the military’s use of an anthrax vaccine in the late 1990s which was believed to cause adverse effects as evidence that the military should not be on the front lines of a new vaccine.

There are many other examples from LSD experiments to radiation exposure that have been visited on America’s military in our lifetimes. But this is an example of a good rule that’s produced a possibly bad outcome, since the vaccine has already been given to nearly 50 million Americans.

This shot doesn’t quality as “experimenting” on the military, but rules are rules and vaccine skeptics within the ranks are taking advantage. Mandating compliance is likely to bring other problems. The NYT says:

“In some ways, vaccines are the new masks: a preventive measure against the virus that has been politicized.”

We’ve written about how the military is moving rightward politically. Most of the reasons quoted by the Times for not getting vaccinated sound more like the QAnon party line than what we hear in civilian society.

More from the Times, quoting a 24-year-old female airman in Virginia who said she declined the shot even though she is an emergency medical worker:

“I would prefer not to be the one testing this vaccine”….She also said that because vaccine access had become a campaign theme during the 2020 race for the White House, she was more skeptical, and added that some of her colleagues had told her they would rather separate from the military than take the vaccine should it become mandatory.”

The NYT says in the article that the military’s vaccine skepticism is simply a reflection of the society at large. They quote  Dr. Michael S. Weiner, the former chief medical officer for the Defense Department:

“At the end of the day, our military is our society….They have the same social media, the same families, the same issues that society at large has.”

What’s happening in the military is like what we’re seeing across the entire US: There’s a higher percentage of older people taking the vaccine, and that percentage trends down with age.

According to the latest poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 77% of Americans 65 or over have either gotten a shot or plan to do so as soon as possible. But just 41% of Americans aged 18-29 say the same.

The military traditionally operates in confined quarters. On ships, in barracks, or at a duty station where there’s little room for social distancing. There soon may be enough military anti-vaxxers where they can cause issues with readiness. There was a Covid outbreak on a navy ship that infected 1,100 crew members, about 20% of the ship’s crew.

Time to wake up America! Returning to nearly normal will take a few things: First, keeping your distance from others who may have the virus; it doesn’t spread easily at distance. Second, taking FDA-approved precautions like getting the shots. Or third, at least wearing a mask.

If you won’t do any of those three, you risk yourself, your family and the rest of us.

To help you wake up, listen to Hennessey the Band do their song “8 Men“:

Sample Lyric:

8 men have all the money.

8 men have more than half of the money than everyone else in the world has combined.

8 men control the economy.

8 men have all the wealth.

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Saturday Soother – February 27, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Boulder Beach, Acadia NP February 2021 photo via Scenes of Maine Photography

It’s Saturday, so we have a lightning round of news you can use. First, the Daily Beast reports:

“A pickup truck parked at the US Capitol and bearing a Three Percenter militia sticker on the day of the Jan. 6 riot belongs to the husband of freshman Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois, who approvingly quoted Adolf Hitler a day earlier,”

The Three Percenters are a para-military group who wish to overthrow the US government. And before you ask, yes, Rep. Miller is a new Republican Congresscritter, who spoke at a pre-coup “Moms for America” rally in front of the Capitol the day before the riot. She said:

“Hitler was right on one thing: whoever has the youth has the future…”

This is Republicanism today. She later apologized for the remarks. Sure.

Second, a new poll on Covid vaccine skepticism shows that since last fall, it has come way down for Blacks and Hispanics. Skepticism remains high among white Republicans. Nearly 60% of White Republicans will either not take the vaccine or are unsure:

Source: Civiqs

One of the great challenges during the pandemic has been establishing public trust, particularly among racial minorities who have a long history of both exploitation and neglect by the medical establishment and the government.

The good news is that vaccine skepticism is falling substantially over the past few months. It now appears that the only barrier to achieving herd immunity is White Republicans.

Their skepticism about government involvement in health is part of a long trend among Republicans. In the 1960s, Reagan was against Medicare, and called any expansion “socialized medicine”. He refused to acknowledge the AIDS crisis. In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich blocked Clinton’s health care plan, although he was in favor of a similar program that was adopted by Mitt Romney as Governor of Massachusetts.

The Romney plan was the template for Obamacare, which all Republicans opposed, including Newt Gingrich, who was for it before he was against it.

It isn’t just ideological resistance, it’s a bone-deep antipathy to any collective attempt to have high quality public health in America. Their antipathy toward health is beyond ideology, it’s pathology.

Finally, a few words about just how old and out of touch members of Congress have become. Demo Memo, a site Wrongo highly recommends, posted about the demographics of Congress. The bottom line is that the Baby-Boom generation dominates both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

“According to an analysis of the 117th Congress by Pew Research Center, Boomers account for a 53% percent majority of the House and for an even larger 68% percent of the Senate…”

House: number (and percent) of members of the 117th Congress by generation

Millennials: 31 (7%)

Gen Xers: 144 (33%)

Boomers: 230 (53%)

Silent: 27 (6%)

Senate: number (and percent) of members of the 117th Congress by generation

Millennials: 1 (1%)

Gen Xers: 20 (20%)

Boomers: 68 (68%)

Silent: 11 (11%)

The ages of the 117th Congress range from 25.5 years to 87.7 years. The median age of the House is 58.9. The median age of the Senate is 64.8. That may explain why Sen. John Thune (R-SD), can reminisce about working for $6/hour in a restaurant in 1978, as part of his objection to a $15/hr. wage.

A $6/hr. wage in 1978, adjusted for inflation, would equal $24.07/hr. in 2021. A person making $24.07 an hour, working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year would earn over $50,000 a year before taxes. And a person working the same hours and earning the proposed wage of $15/hr. would earn just over $31,200 a year before taxes.

A person working the same hours and earning the current national minimum wage of $7.25/hr. earns just over $15,080 a year, before taxes today.

Time to let go of the DC merry-go-round for a few minutes and enjoy a brief Saturday Soother. It’s going to rain in Connecticut today, helping to melt some of the snow remaining on the ground. So, settle back and watch this stunning video from “Playing for Change” who we’ve featured a few times in the past. Here, Peter Gabriel is singing his song “Biko”, that he wrote and performed in 1980.

It’s a tribute to the South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who died while in police custody. More than 25 musicians from seven countries join Gabriel for this global rendition, including Beninese vocalist AngĂ©lique Kidjo, Silkroad’s Yo-Yo Ma, and bass legend Meshell Ndegeocello:

Lyric:

You can blow out a candle, but you can’t blow out a fire. Once the flames begin to catch, the wind will blow it higher.

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If the Covid Relief Bill Passes, Who Wins?

The Daily Escape:

Sedona, AZ – 2021 photo by jess.kesti96

Republicans are closing ranks against Democrats’ proposed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. Despite thin majorities in both Houses of Congress, Democrats are poised to start by pushing it through the House today.

The Senate may be another matter, as changes to the bill seem likely. Specifically, the $15/hour minimum wage may not be in the final version of the bill. And it appears that there will be little or no Republican support in either House. Not one Republican in either chamber has officially announced that they are backing the legislation.

From Politico: (Brackets by Wrongo)

“Instead, Republicans are…foisting blame on Biden for shutting them out of the legislative process and hammering Democrats over the slow pace of school reopenings across the country — an issue they think will become a potent political weapon, particularly in key suburban battlegrounds….On Tuesday, Senate GOP leaders devoted most of their weekly press conference to the school reopening debate. [Sen. John] Thune said Democrats seem more interested in money for Planned Parenthood “than they are about getting kids back into class,” while Sen. John Barrasso said Biden “has surrendered to the teachers’ union.”

Voting against the relief bill is a unity test for the GOP following their bitter infighting after the Capitol riots and last month’s impeachment vote. But Republicans are playing a dangerous game. The pandemic has killed over a half-million people and damaged the economy by throwing millions out of work. And people like the bill, although the Republicans oppose it.

In this case, while the bill is controversial in Washington, there is little disagreement about it anywhere else in the country. In fact, a substantial majority support the bill: 66% of adults and 65% of registered voters. The chart below is from a new Economist /YouGov Poll, conducted between February 19 and 22 of 1,500 adults (including 1,201 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 2.7 points, and for registered voters is 3 points:

The data say that the bill is consistently popular across all age and gender groups, with only a plurality of Republicans objecting to it. A Quinnipiac poll similarly found that 68% support the rescue package, and 78 % support its $1,400 relief checks.

The Republicans have tried to discredit the bill, but their efforts haven’t been effective. They’ve complained about the overall size of the stimulus, and that too many people will be helped. They’re against assistance to state and local governments, saying that most of it may go to cities and states where there are lots of Democrats. But little in their arguments seems to be persuading many voters.

In fact, the bill is one of the more popular pieces of major legislation in recent US history. That demonstrates how small the risk is for Democrats, even if they get zero Republican votes for the aid package in either the Senate or the House.

To its eternal credit, the Biden administration has made it plain that it will go it alone if needs be. So far, it has waved off half-measures like the alternative proposal on the minimum wage proposed by Republican Sens. Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton.

To be passed under the reconciliation process by the Senate, the minimum wage increase would have had to survive a ruling by the Senate parliamentarian that it complies with the Byrd Rule. That rule requires that each part of the bill must produce a significant effect on federal spending, revenues, and the debt within 10 years. However, the Senate parliamentarian ruled Thursday evening that the provision to increase the minimum wage to $15/hour cannot be included in the broader relief bill.

Now, it’s likely that any increase in the minimum wage will need bipartisan support, since it can’t be passed with a simple Senate majority that Democrats are planning to use for the stimulus bill.

Even without the minimum wage, Republicans are betting that the voters won’t punish them in the 2022 mid-term election for opposing it. They may be wrong, especially if Republicans in the Senate can either block the bill, or substantially reduce its benefits.

They could also turn out to be right if the Biden administration mis-handles the roll-out of stimulus funds. But voters have long memories if you try to take money out of their pockets.

It’s vital for Biden & Co. to show Americans early on that it’s possible for them to get what they voted for. While there are many things on Biden’s agenda that will require compromise, they should push this one through.

COVID-19 relief is controversial in Washington. Everyone knows that the Republicans aren’t objecting to relief, they’re objecting to this Democratic administration getting off to a successful start.

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Sen. Manchin Should Get Onboard

The Daily Escape:

Frozen waterfall, Westcave Preserve, near Austin TX – taken last week during the Texas cold snap. Photo by BusyRunninErins

Neera Tanden’s nomination to serve as Biden’s director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), appears to be on life support. There is growing concern that she may not be confirmed by the Senate.

It seems that Senators object to her history of mean tweets, many of which have been directed at a few Senators whose support she needs. So far, Joe Manchin (D-WVA), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Mitt Romney(R-UT) have announced their opposition to Tanden.

Without Manchin, Tanden will need to not only hold onto all other Democrats, but also pick off one of the two Republicans who haven’t announced how they’ll vote: Lisa Murkowski or Shelley Moore Capito.

According to Politico, Tanden has tweeted over 88,000 times in the decade since she joined Twitter. That’s about 30,000 more than Trump has tweeted over a slightly longer time span. Over the years she has gotten into Twitter fights with many on the political scene. She’s been very anti-Republican. But the question is whether her tweets should be a barrier to public service.

Much, but not all the opposition to Tanden’s nomination is coming from Republicans. it’s certainly hypocritical of any Republican Senator who stood by Trump despite his daily Twitter outrages, to raise these objections to Tanden – the double standard is obvious.

Sens. Susan Collins and Mitt Romney announced Monday they would oppose Tanden. Said Collins:

“Her past actions have demonstrated exactly the kind of animosity that President Biden has pledged to transcend…”

It’s notable that Tanden in the past called Collins “the worst”.

Still, Democrats control the Senate, and there’s no reason why Manchin, for instance, needs to stand up for his Republican colleagues’ honor by rejecting a Democratic cabinet nominee. But he did:

“I believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget….”

This is despite Manchin’s previously voting for polarizing Trump nominees. He voted to confirm Richard Grenell to the post of US ambassador to Germany, despite his toxic partisan tweets. Manchin also voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as AG, when Sessions’ racist past was well-known. He voted to confirm Bill Barr as AG and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

As Wrongo wrote yesterday, Congressional Democrats under-performed in the 2020 elections. Now, in a 50-50 Senate, Manchin is a pivotal vote and has real power. He’s in a position along with other moderate Democrats Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Jon Tester (MT) to set the terms of the Democratic Party’s agenda.

At 73, many think that Manchin won’t run again in 2024. Since he’s in control of West Virginia’s Democratic political establishment, he doesn’t need to bend to pressure from inside or outside West Virginia. So, why won’t he get on board with Biden?

While Democrats can get angry at Republicans, they seem to keep a supply of outrage on hand for their fellow Democrats. They have low expectations for Republicans, but they demand better of Democrats. But after four years of Trump, the double standard over Tanden’s nomination to lead President Joe Biden’s OMB is beyond ridiculous for Manchin, and even more so for Republicans.

The Right-wing won’t let go of Manchin easily, because they think he’s a rollable Senator.

He’s facing heat from Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed group. They’re launching a six-figure mail, radio and digital ad campaign to have him oppose President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

Republicans have returned to their old argument from the 2020 election, that Biden is a “radical.”

They say Biden’s foreign policy is “radical.” That his immigration policy is “radical.” That Biden’s climate change policy is “radical.”

They say that Biden’s nominees are “radical.” His Covid relief bill is a “payback to the radical left.” That Biden is the “most radical left wing president in history.”

But most Americans don’t see Biden that way.

They may not particularly like him or his policies, but the “radical” tag just hasn’t stuck. It didn’t work during the campaign; it hasn’t worked during his first month in office. Biden just doesn’t give off a radical vibe.

There may be things to criticize Biden for, but yelling “radical” at every turn isn’t going to work.

And Manchin ought to listen up: Biden should get the cabinet nominees that he wants, even if some of them tweet mean things at Republicans.

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