Banana Republicanism – Page 29

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – June 27, 2021

Long-time blog reader Terry McK. commented about yesterday’s column on infrastructure:

“If we look at the collapse in Florida, there is a simple lesson about infrastructure. A report has just emerged that shows that the building had many compromises – but presumably, the costs of rehabbing the structure were prohibitive. We have deferred maintenance costs for so long across the US and one can see the results in bridges and tunnels across the US. So, what is needed is more money, not the shell game of making something look like it won’t cost more money.

But real money means taxes.”

Terry’s right, the Florida condo is a metaphor for the failure of our legislators to legislate. Here’s a view of the horrific damage:

Photo via AP

A 2018 engineer’s report cited by the NYT found major structural damage to the concrete slab below the pool deck and “abundant cracking and crumbling” of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage. And two and a half years later, before a repair project was scheduled to begin, the building pancaked without warning.

The city released that report saying the damage was caused perhaps by years of exposure to salt air and water intrusion: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Though some of this damage is minor, most of the concrete deterioration needs to be repaired in a timely fashion…[in order to maintain]…the structural integrity” [of the building]”.

Prior repairs to cracks were failing. Concrete on many balconies were also deteriorating. This building isn’t a public property. Responsibility for its maintenance is on the shoulders of the owners, the condo association, which will probably declare bankruptcy and move on.

But the collapse is an object lesson for our DC pols. First, it reminds us that our public infrastructure is deteriorating and in need of replacement. Second, Republicans who lecture us about personal responsibility and that there is no free lunch, nonetheless are always fighting to cut taxes and limit funding for maintaining our infrastructure.

They would also support the right of the condo ownership to declare bankruptcy.

Third, it shows how important it is not to turn over public goods to public/private partnerships to build, own and manage, and then expect them to stay safe and intact. The economic incentives for private parties maintaining public goods will be all wrong. On to cartoons.

Washington’s unvirtuous circle:

It’s clear who’s truly against America:

Derek goes away:

Why Won’t Manchin Help Keep Jobs in West Virginia?

The Daily Escape:

Grand Canyon NP at golden hour – photo by indieaz

Viatris is a new pharmaceutical company formed by the merger of Mylan and Upjohn late last year. Their strategy for improving profits post-merger was as is usual, to restructure and cut $1 billion in costs. One victim of the cost-cutting is the Viatris plant in Morgantown, West Virginia. The company announced the plant would close last December.

The Morgantown plant has been in operation since 1965. It employs between 1,500 and 2,000, whose jobs will be offshored to India and Australia. These are well-paying jobs in one of America’s poorer states. The bulk of the layoffs will occur on July 31, when 1,246 people will be let go, including 764 union workers and 482 nonunion staff. Complete closure will happen by March 2022.

Mylan reported $3.9 billion in profits in 2019. Naturally, local union president Joe Gouzd had harsh words for Viatris:

“This is the last generic pharmaceutical manufacturing giant in the US, and executives are offshoring our jobs to India for more profits. What is this going to do to us if we have another pandemic?”

The local union represents about 900 workers. Gouzd said:

“…we’re going to rid ourselves of 2,000 high-paying jobs in north central West Virginia, taking out $150m to $200m out of the local economy…”

The West Virginia legislature passed a bill calling on Governor Jim Justice and Joe Biden to save the jobs. Biden has proposed taxing companies that offshore jobs, but it remains to be seen whether he will be successful.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Marco Rubio introduced the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Review Act to study America’s over-reliance on foreign countries in pharmaceutical industry, but neither West Virginia Senator has sponsored the bill.

The Guardian reports that Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito has ignored pleas to work with Biden officials to save the plant. Democrat Joe Manchin, whose daughter Heather Bresch served as Mylan’s chief executive until she retired in 2020, didn’t fully ignore their requests to get involved; he held a Zoom meeting in December that might as well have focused on “thoughts and prayers.”

Isn’t it curious that the state’s two Senators aren’t trying hard to keep jobs in their state?

You probably hadn’t heard that Bresch collected $37.6 million when she stepped down from Mylan. You also missed that under her leadership, Mylan recently undertook what’s called a “tax inversion”, changing its headquarters for tax purposes from Pittsburgh, PA to the Netherlands, reaping big tax breaks. So, less tax revenue for America.

Earlier, Mylan disclosed that it is in an ongoing lawsuit by the Public Employees Retirement System of Mississippi that alleges misconduct by the company. The suit alleges “misrepresentation and concealment of violations of FDA regulations governing pharmaceutical product quality and safety.” In 2016 and in 2018, the FDA found documentation, record-keeping, quality-control and cleaning issues. The plant was shut down temporarily after the 2018 findings. It then reduced production volume by about two thirds, and “right sized” plant staff.

But we initially heard about Ms. Bresch during Mylan’s EpiPen pricing controversy. They had been hiking prices for years on their epinephrine injector to the point where many people could no longer pay for it. Along with the EpiPen fiasco, Mylan paid $465 million to the federal government to settle claims it underpaid Medicaid rebates.

Understandably, the town and the state are looking for ways to head off the layoffs. Last week, members of the union and others rallied outside the state capitol in Charleston to urge Republican governor Jim Justice to help save the facility. According to the union, Justice said his administration was trying to find an alternative to closure, including holding talks with two companies that have expressed an interest in buying the plant.

But Justice said that Viatris was not cooperating:

“We’ve talked with Viatris, and we continue to struggle with them….They’re difficult to work with. The least they could do …is be cooperative.”

So, Viatris isn’t the best of corporate citizens. That doesn’t make them different from most multinationals. That means political pressure is the only leverage that will keep these jobs in America.

Yet, when you see these two “bipartisan” Senators not lift a finger to help the soon-to-be unemployed citizens of their own state, you have to ask: Why haven’t they done more?

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – June 20, 2021

Wrongo went to his local power equipment repair place on Saturday. It was the first time he consciously didn’t wear a mask in a public setting. Two weeks ago, he went with son Sean to watch a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. While we had seats in the vaccinated section, it was wonderful to be a human among a large gathering of humans, doing very human things.

Connecticut has a new Covid infection rate of less than 2 per 100,000. Our county has zero hospitalized Covid patients and a vaccination rate of more than 70%. That’s not true for much of Red America. An MD friend wrote this on her Facebook page: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“England just delayed their full re-opening by 4 weeks as Covid cases are rising again even though 80% of adults are vaccinated. 99% of their cases are the Delta variant now and a vast majority of their new cases are in children and young adults who have not yet been vaccinated. 10% of hospitalized patients with the Covid Delta variant have been fully vaccinated (Pfizer is 96% effective in preventing severe illness w/Delta variant while Astra Zeneca is 92% effective). We are usually about 3-4 weeks behind Europe.”

As the Delta variant becomes more widespread in the US in the next 4 to 8 weeks, it will be a real challenge for our poorly vaccinated states. No one really knows how to reach those who refuse to get vaccinated. But Wrongo no longer cares what happens to them. If they don’t want to take basic health precautions, it’s on them:

If you are fully vaccinated, go outside. Be around other people. Bask in the sun. Draw energy from sunlight and the other people.

The Supremes upheld the ACA for a third time. Not everyone is happy:

Juneteenth is now a national holiday:

We should never underestimate the importance of symbolism. And as symbolic gestures go, who exactly could be insulted by celebrating the emancipation of enslaved people in America? A national holiday might not be as substantial as a voting rights law, but everything doesn’t have to be judged through the same lens.

Putin Summit wasn’t fun for somebody:

GOP is not happy with the Summit. They fail to see the irony:

Like Lambs to Slaughter

The Daily Escape:

Camden, ME – June 1, 2021 photo by Daniel F. Dishner

From Eric Boehlert:

“If you were part of an amoral political movement, wouldn’t you want to attack free and fair elections in order to give yourself a permanent advantage? If you had no concern for democracy, wouldn’t you set out to make sure future Democratic victories could be invalidated? That’s what Republicans are now doing, without pause, and out in the open.”

Two snippets of news from over Memorial Day weekend. First, in Texas, Republicans held an all-night legislative session to try to pass one of the most stunning voter suppression laws in the country. According to the Texas Tribune, the law will:

“…cut back early voting hours, ban drive-thru voting, further clamp down on voting-by-mail rules and enhance access for partisan poll watchers…”

It’s designed to curb voter fraud that doesn’t exist in Texas. The bill didn’t pass because Democrats walked out of the legislative session just before it expired, in a form of walking filibuster. It is merely a temporary setback for Texas Republicans.

Second, in Maricopa County Arizona, the GOP’s “audit” continues unabated, as Republicans continue to try to conjure up a different election result than the one that gave Biden a victory. The ballot review being conducted by a private company called Cyber Ninjas, has drawn widespread contempt for its lack of professionalism and poot control over the ballots, while also raising conspiracy claims that bamboo fibers were found in ballots supposedly shipped in from Asia.

Across the country, many Republican legislatures are moving swiftly to make sure that fewer people vote in upcoming elections.

Vote suppression was the Republican’s game in the late-2010’s. Now they’ve concluded it didn’t work well enough. So, they’ve gone to the next level, which is to simply put state legislatures in the position to nullify their voters’ wishes. That’s going to be their game in the 2020’s. Taken with the Republican vote to filibuster the Jan. 6 commission, the eyes of Democrats should be open to this change in GOP strategy. Republicans correctly perceive that the doors will quickly close to mount legal challenges to their electoral suppression.

Our democratic future will only be secured by ending the filibuster, which will allow HR-1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to pass in the Senate. But that effort may not be successful despite Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s intention to bring them to a vote in June, since Democrat Joe Manchin (D-WVA) won’t vote for it, and Schumer can’t change his mind. As Charlie Pierce says,

“In the fight to save American democracy, Joe Manchin Is Neville Chamberlain”

Manchin wants peace in his remaining time in the Senate. He has defended the prerogatives of Republicans since the Democrats took control, by refusing to either reform, or nuke the filibuster. Instead, he insists that Democrats should be working across the aisle, despite McConnell vowing to block the entirety of Biden’s agenda. Now, Manchin’s excuses are finally becoming flimsy. He called the GOP filibuster vote on the establishment of the Jan 6 committee “unconscionable”. Yet, he’s still against eliminating the filibuster.

Shouldn’t the idea that partisan legislatures and handpicked Republican officials can actually reverse election results be enough to move any Democrat on the filibuster question? Isn’t an unprecedented and dangerous assault on American democracy enough?

They even fail to see the continuing “coup” talk as a threat. As former national security adviser Michael Flynn said over the weekend, a Myanmar-like coup — in which the military overthrew a democratically elected government — “should happen” in the US: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Appearing in Dallas at a QAnon conference, Flynn was asked during a Q&A session that was shared in a Twitter video: ‘I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here?’

After cheers from the crowd died down, Flynn responded: “No reason. I mean, it should happen here.”

One way or another, the Right thinks they deserve to be in power by whatever means necessary. Here’s Maggie Haberman of the NYT on Trump:

They want this so badly they can taste it, and so can tens of millions of Republicans. They’ve already tried once. They will absolutely try again.

The problem today is like that identified by Herbert Marcuse in his critique of liberal tolerance: How do you maintain a social compact with people who simply reject that compact whenever it becomes inconvenient, like when they lose an election?

The incredibly frustrating thing about the present situation is that Democrats could potentially defend against the “GOP game” if Manchin and Sinema just recognized (or cared) about the reality of the situation.

Historians certainly won’t be able to say the Democrats (and American democracy) were overwhelmed – they just sort of sighed and put their heads on the chopping block.

Saturday Soother – May 29, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Old Beach gate and oil house at Race Point Light, Provincetown MA – 2021 photo by Kristen Wilkinson Photography. The Oil Houses provided fuel to light houses before they were electrified.

On Friday, the Republicans had a successful filibuster of the bill to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. The final tally was 54-35. Eleven Senators weren’t present to vote, including nine Republicans and two Democrats, Patty Murray (D-WA), and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ).

Party’s over, drink up. It’s 5 o’clock somewhere. As Jonathan Last says:

“At some point, soon, Democrats are going to have to pick a pathway for 2022.”

They’re acting as though the GOP’s performance in the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection were aberrations, that we’re still in a normal political environment. They seem to be thinking there’s a way to slide past the voting havoc being raised by the Republican Party in the state legislatures that they control.

Don’t you think that if Democratic leadership really believed democracy was at risk, they’d be spending all of their energy working on passing structural reforms to lessen the power of state-level control by political minorities and make American government more democratic? We’re at an inflection point that requires eliminating the filibuster to:

Establish federal election standards as contained in HR-1.
Establish federal standards for redistricting. The Apportionment Clause of Article I, Section 2, of the US Constitution requires that all districts be as nearly equal in population as possible. That isn’t a significant barrier to partisan gerrymandering. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment requires that districts be substantially equal. Some states have provided a deviation standard. For instance, Colorado prohibits districts from having a population deviation above 5%. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits plans that intentionally or inadvertently discriminate based on race, which could dilute the minority vote. Again, this doesn’t prevent gerrymandering.
In addition to the standards set out by the US Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, states can adopt their own redistricting criteria, or principles, for drawing the plans. Principles, or criteria, are already found in state constitutions. A list of possible federal reforms can be found here.

Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report looked at 2020 House races and what it means that Democratic candidates consistently ran behind Biden:

“…that a majority of House Republicans in the most competitive CDs [Congressional Districts] out-performed Trump suggests that the former president’s presence in 2022 is more of a liability than a benefit for vulnerable GOP House incumbents. The fact that House CDs with significant Latino populations provided the largest ticket-splitting gaps (voting overwhelming Biden and narrowly for House GOPers) means that we need to take a very different approach in how we assess races in these types of districts in upcoming elections.”

Walter adds:

“While Biden handily carried the once-GOP-controlled suburbs around Dallas (TX-32), Houston (TX-07) and Chicago (IL-06), House Democrats (who also won there) polled 2-3 points lower. We saw the same pattern in the suburban exurbs where Biden came up short, like MO-02, TX-21 and TX-22. These House Democrats would have lost even if they matched Biden’s showing in those CDs. But their 2–4-point underperformance suggests that the anti-Trump vote doesn’t completely convey to down-ballot Democrats.”

Without Trump on the ballot in 2022, will these dyed-in-the-wool Republican voters support Republican candidates at higher levels?

Jamie Harrison, current head of the DNC must come up with a better strategy than his predecessor Tom Perez used in 2020. Democrats need to win both Houses again and with expanded majorities, so Harrison and the Dems need to be as close to 100% confidence that they can make that happen.

If not, then Democrats should reorganize their priorities and possibly, their leadership.

On to our Saturday Soother. Our new split rail fence was installed this week, 30 days later than promised. The fields of Wrong are coming into full bloom. Here’s a picture of our starting to open Itoh Peonies:

We’re off to another of the four bachelor and grad school graduations by our grandchildren this spring, so no cartoons on Sunday. Still, there’s time to both kick back and simultaneously gear up for the weekend.

Take a seat by a window and listen to “Pick Up the Pieces” originally by the Average White Band (AWB). For the youngster readers, they were a Scottish funk and R&B band that had a series of soul and disco hits between 1974 and 1980. “Pick up the Pieces” was their top-selling track. Here the AWB are live with Daryl Hall at Daryl’s House in January 2010:

The AWB were pretty good, but they never sounded this funky on their own. Very nice!

The Disconcerting Truth About the Big Lie, Part III

The Daily Escape:

Moon rise, Whitaker Point, Ozark National Forest, AR – 2021 photo by mattmacphersonphoto. This is the sixth time we’ve featured a Matt Macpherson photo.

Reader Ben van N. says:

“I fail to see why the election rules are different in every state. The country should have the same rules for voting (and make them all as simple and accessible as possible) no matter where you live. Having a variety of methods, rules and restrictions opens the door to what you have now.”

Ben doesn’t live in the US, but he has analyzed the problem correctly. Our federalist system makes it fiendishly difficult to have standard rules in America for policing, education, or elections. And we need to make all three of them better.

Regarding elections, Roosevelt University political scientist David Faris was interviewed by VOX:

“You have anti-democratic practices at the state level that produce minority Republican governments that pass anti-democratic laws that end up in front of courts that are appointed by a minoritarian president and approved by a minoritarian Senate that will then rule to uphold these anti-democratic practices at the state level.”

And there’s no clear path for Democrats to overturn these state-level voting laws through the courts. The Supreme Court has already said it’s not going to touch gerrymandering. And so, there’s nothing left except Congress using its constitutional authority under the elections clause to regulate elections. That will require ending the filibuster.

More from Faris: (brackets and emphasis by Wrongo)

“Take the scenario where Republicans don’t have to steal the 2024 election. They just use their built-in advantages [where]…Biden wins the popular vote by three points but still loses the Electoral College. Democrats [get more votes for]…the House…but lose the House. Democrats [get more votes for]…the Senate…but they lose the Senate.

That’s a situation where the citizens of the country fundamentally don’t have control of the agenda and they don’t have the ability to change the leadership. Those are two core features of democracy, and without them, you’re living in competitive authoritarianism.”

His scariest comment is that, after Republicans steal the 2024 election:

“People are going to wake up the next day and go to work, and take care of their kids, and live their lives, and democracy will be gone. There really won’t be very much that we can do about it. Or there’s the worst-case scenario where the election is stolen and then we’re sleepwalking into a potentially catastrophic breakup of the country.”

As Ben v N. says, there’s certainly an opportunity to do something about all this at the federal level, but time is slipping away. And Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema continue to vacillate somewhere between concern and hostility, to taking effective action. Action, such as ending the filibuster.

If both can’t be swayed from their current intransigence, the remaining options for our democracy look poor.

The media would have you believe that Biden and the Democrats in Washington are the ones overplaying their hand. Not true. Look at what’s happening at the state level:

In Ohio, Republican legislators are pushing to ban all vaccine requirements, not just for Covid. They would prevent Governor DeWine’s incentive program for Covid vaccinations, and ban even requesting that people get vaccinated.

In Texas, Republicans are about to legalize carrying handguns without a license. Without a permit, without training, or a background check of any kind. Under current state law, Texans must be licensed to carry handguns openly or concealed. Applicants must submit fingerprints, complete four to six hours of training, and pass a written exam and a shooting proficiency test. That’s too restrictive for the GOP.

In Florida, Republicans just enacted a law that makes it illegal for large technology companies (Facebook, Twitter, Amazon) to remove the posts by candidates for office during election campaigns. It also makes it easier for Florida’s Attorney General and individual citizens to sue those companies. The law is certainly unconstitutional. Curiously, this is an example of the new GOP declaring that it wants more government control over speech.

In Alabama, Republicans are regulating yoga, because it originated in the Hindu religion. Along the way, they plan to ban the use of Sanskrit words such as “Namaste.”

Saving the worst for last: Arizona. GOP legislators have not only launched a farcical “audit” of voting in Maricopa County, but then they stripped the State’s Secretary of state of her authority over elections after she criticized their audit fiasco. Arizona, of course, is only one of the many states where GOP legislatures are pushing new laws to make it harder to vote, while trying for increasingly partisan control of the election process.

Democrats have allowed themselves to be lulled to sleep because American democracy dodged a metaphorical bullet during the November to January Big Lie barrage.

We can’t relax, because next time, the bullets won’t be metaphorical.

The Disconcerting Truth About the Big Lie

The Daily Escape:

Sunset at Race Point Light, Provincetown, Cape Cod, MA – May 2021 photo by Kristen Wilkinson Photography

There’s a new Ipsos poll that asked the question: “Who do you think the true President is right now? Choose one”. (The choices were Joe Biden and Donald Trump).

Among all respondents, 75% said Biden, while 25% said Trump. So far, so good. Those saying that Trump is president broke down as Democrats 3%, Independents 22%, with 53% of Republicans answering that Trump is the actual President, not Biden. And that wasn’t all:

(The new Ipsos Poll is a national sample of 2,007 adults and was conducted between May 17th and 19^th. It has an overall margin of error of 2.5%. The margin of error for the groups is: Democrats 3.7, Republicans 4.1, and Independents 8.0).

The question about whether the election was legitimate, or the result of illegal voting or election rigging, showed that Republicans believe the Big Lie, with 56% saying the 2020 election was illegitimate.

It doesn’t matter what the motives of the 53% of Republicans who say they believe Trump is really the president are. Maybe they believe what they’re saying, or they say it because they feel group (cult?) pressure to say it. The effect is the same. They are poisoning our democratic system, and they’re proud to be doing it.

Republicans throughout the country are saying that they need to restrict the vote to restore faith in the electoral system for their voters. But let’s not kid ourselves. The only way their faith will be restored is if Republicans “win.”

Does anyone remember polls of Democrats saying that Gore was the real president after the 2000 election, not GW Bush? There was plenty of complaining that Bush won through a corrupt legal process, because that’s what happened. The idea that Bush wasn’t actually the president would have been considered delusional. From Paul Campos:

“But today…a majority of the people who identify as members of one of the nation’s two major political parties are saying something that’s actually quite a bit crazier — that Donald Trump, who unlike Al Gore doesn’t have any factual basis for believing the election was stolen from him, is the true president RIGHT NOW — and we just have to shrug because that’s just something a lot of Real Americans happen to believe, just like they believe their guns protect them from the Government…and that global warming is a liberal myth…”

Paul Krugman on our current political mess:

“What’s different this time is the acquiescence of Republican elites. The Big Lie about the election didn’t well up from the grass roots — it was promoted from above, initially by Trump himself, but what’s crucial is that almost no prominent Republican politicians have been willing to contradict his claims and many have rushed to back them up.”

America’s next election will require UN observers.

The GOP’s party leaders have largely sworn allegiance to Trump and his movement, and they continue to propound the Big Lie. At the state level, they are moving quickly to restrict voting rights in as many locations as possible. And to help tie their program together, they are blocking attempts to investigate the coup on Jan 6th.

It is obvious that the GOP’s leaders are playing to the Republican base – fifty-six percent of whom think the election was stolen, and a majority of whom support the idea that “force may be necessary to save the American way of life.”

All this leaves America walking a tightrope over the abyss of authoritarianism. Any misstep and we could lose our democracy.

This is made all the more dangerous, of course, by the false sense of security Democrats are feeling now that Biden is in power. The Greenberg Research poll in late April focused on voter intensity levels in the states and Congressional Districts that will likely decide who controls Congress after 2022. It found 68% of Republican voters report the highest level of interest in the midterms, compared to just 57% of Democrats.

So, the fear of a Republican return to power in the Congress in 2022 is real. And will the GOP’s enthusiasm be matched in 2022 by Democratic voters rushing to the polls to show their gratitude to the Party for bringing back the economy and getting the vaccines distributed? Maybe.

Democrats need to realize sooner rather than later that it’s going to be hand-to-hand political combat for the foreseeable future and plan accordingly. No matter how much money you gave in 2020, you will need to give more in 2022.

Otherwise, if the Republicans are successful at overthrowing American democracy, there won’t be a next time. That’s it, game over. For a very long time, possibly for good.

January 6th Must Be Investigated

The Daily Escape:

Muldrow Glacier, Denali NP, AK – 2021 photo by Tim Raines with NPS. The glacier has started moving rapidly, something called a glacial surge. From September 2020 to March 2021, the ice has moved down mountain by as much as 1.9 miles.

On Wednesday, 35 Republicans broke ranks to join the Democrats in the House, voting to create a 9/11-style Commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The final vote on the bill to create the commission was 252-175, with all “noes” coming from GOP Congress critters.

That means 83% of House Republicans voted against investigating the attack. For those keeping score, that’s an increase over the 66% of Republicans who voted against counting the Electoral College votes on January 6. The anti-democratic caucus is growing before our eyes.

The Senate will take up the Jan. 6 Commission bill next week. Most pundits say it will be DOA in the Senate, but Wrongo disagrees. Republicans can filibuster it, which will look bad politically, particularly after it received a bipartisan vote in the House.

The GOP could negotiate with Schumer. Will Democrats search for a way to get 10 Republican votes by tweaking the bill? We’ll soon learn just how far Schumer and Pelosi will go to establish the Commission.

If Democrats can find 10 Republican Senators to support bringing the bill to the floor, the Republican concern is that bipartisan commissions produce written reports. As we saw with the “9/11 Report,” these reports establish baseline facts that create a national viewpoint about an event that linger for decades to come.

If they can’t get 10 Republican votes in the Senate for this, what are the odds that any Democratic compromise on any legislation can get to 10? If the filibuster allows the Party that incited the insurrection to prevent Congress from forming a nonpartisan Commission to investigate and document the insurrection, then why keep the filibuster?

Even if it passes both Houses, Republicans can hobble it. McCarthy and McConnell get to choose the five Republican members of the committee. They could choose not to appoint any Committee members. Since subpoenas by the Committee require at least one Republican vote, it could never call a witness. Alternatively, they could appoint very radical Party members to sit on it, which would mean no subpoenas are ever issued to Republicans.

That McConnell and McCarthy are opposing even a balanced Commission suggests they are intent on simply covering up what was arguably the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.

It doesn’t require a great deal of imagination to understand why many Republicans would prefer to keep as much as possible about January 6 out of the realm of delivered knowledge. If Mitch McConnell can kill the Commission, he ensures that Trump, Cruz, Hawley, and all the House Republican deniers will never have to deal with their willingness to usurp power.

If Dems can’t find 10 GOP Senators, the House should hold hearings anyway. They should do for a critical issue what Republicans did with Whitewater and Benghazi, two rabbit hole issues of zero importance.

The 2020 mid-term campaign needs to be nationalized. The Democrats’ message should be that any Republican who denies that nothing wrong happened at the Capitol on January 6 is ineligible to serve. Campaigning on issues also matters. But any Democrat that doesn’t understand this doesn’t deserve to be in office.

What’s curious to Wrongo is that most polls show that Republicans are in a good position to take back the House, and possibly the Senate in 2022. This hardly seems possible when Trump’s popularity continues to hover in the high 30’s to low 40’s while Biden popularity is in the mid-50’s.

Let’s close with the words of Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) on the House floor. He thanked the Republicans supporting the creation of the independent Commission and then turned on the nay sayers:

“Benghazi. You guys chased the former secretary of state all over the country, spent millions of dollars. We have people scaling the Capitol, hitting the Capitol police with lead pipes across the head, and we can’t get bipartisanship. What else has to happen in this country….If we’re going to take on China, if we’re going to rebuild the country, if we’re going to reverse climate change, we need two political parties in this country that are both living in reality—and you ain’t one of them.”

Why oppose a bipartisan commission on the January 6th insurrection? Because it focuses a spotlight on an event that most Republicans want to forget.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 16, 2021

Both Houses of Congress have finally agreed to set up a committee to investigate the causes of the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Democrats wanted a Congressional investigation to reveal the causes of the insurrection so Congress could pass laws to prevent it happening again.

Republicans had been blocking its creation. Initially, they wanted to investigate all political violence in the country, including that caused by “Antifa”. Their strategy was that could water down the committee’s report and possibly obscure the role of Trump’s supporters in the insurrection.

The 10-person bipartisan commission will be evenly split between the parties. The Speaker of the House and Senate Majority leader will together appoint five commissioners, including the chair. The House and Senate Minority leaders will appoint the other five commissioners, including the Vice Chair.

Commissioners cannot be current government appointees and must have significant expertise in the areas of law enforcement, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, intelligence, and cybersecurity.

This might look like a victory for the Democrats, but it isn’t. The Republicans can control the investigation through the committee’s subpoena power. To issue any subpoena, at least 6 members of the committee must agree. This gives the GOP the power to veto calling any witnesses.

It will probably result in a milquetoast committee report. The GOP’s inherent veto over the subpoena process is a flaw that potentially dooms the investigation to failure. On to cartoons.

Same as it ever was:

If the elephant’s trunk was like Pinocchio’s nose:

How business’s view changed from stimulus #1 to #2:

Fox keeps the anti-vax message going:

Market for fake IDs seems to be the gas hoarders:

Will this ever end?

Israel is losing control of the narrative because there are only so many viral videos of brutality that it can dismiss by saying, “Actually this is way more complicated than it looks.” As Caitlin Johnstone says, a nation that cannot exist without nonstop warfare is not a real nation, it’s a military operation with suburbs. This map should tell you that there is no possibility of a two-state solution. Palestine won’t be viable unless large numbers of settlers are removed, and that’s not happening:

More: Back in the Nineties, Netanyahu said that then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was “against Jewish values” for offering to withdraw from some of the occupied territories in exchange for peace. He led a mock funeral at which his followers brandished signs with Rabin’s head in the crosshairs of a gun. And when Rabin was assassinated by one of Netanyahu’s followers, he said he never condoned violence.

He’s also the guy who hasn’t been able to form a government after four tries, who’s also in danger of going to prison for corruption, assuming he can’t somehow cling to power.

The US has to think carefully about what our role should be in this conflict.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 9, 2021

The Department of Labor released its employment statistics for April on Friday, and it was a big disappointment. Many economists thought the economy would create around a million jobs for the month, but the actual figure was only 266,000 jobs. That total would be acceptable if America had a healthy economy, but it falls far short of what is needed to recover from the Covid-created recession.

The increase in the civilian workforce was 430,000 in April. The net result was a rise in the number of unemployed workers. This caused the unemployment rate for April to tick up by 0.1% to 6.1%.

The media are filled with reports that employers say they can’t find enough workers for the jobs they have available. Leaving aside the devastating loss of childcare that occurred during the pandemic which is keeping many women at home, more workers will return if employers do two things: First, make sure the workplace is safe for returning workers. Second, PAY A LIVABLE WAGE. Enough ranting. On to cartoons.

What’s with the vaccine hesitancy?