According to Worldometer data, the US Covid death toll is now at 924,000. Last year, on June 1, 2021 the US death toll was 615,000. Thatâs the minimum number of deaths we could have suffered prior to the widespread availability of Covid vaccines in the US.
That 600,000± pre-vaccine death toll is comparable to the deaths that occurred in the Civil War. Weâve studied the Civil War for generations, although itâs doubtful that the Republican Right wants America to study all that much about Covid. On to cartoons.
As someone (?) once said, it takes a village, and we don’t have one:
The Olympics are on TV. Should we watch? Views differ:
Supreme Court nominations of women through time:
Bidenâs alternate nominating strategy:
Trump doesnât care who knows:
Putin and Biden ridinâ around the Ukraine speedway:
The NYTsaid on Saturday that portions of the Russian army near Ukraine have reached full combat strength. No one knows what will happen next, but there seem to be two likely outcomes. First, that any conflict is limited to Ukraine territory or second, that it moves beyond Ukraine to other parts of Europe.
If it goes beyond Ukraineâs borders, we could quickly find ourselves again on the threshold of nuclear war, since that’s a red line for NATO. But Russia also has other cards to play. They could launch massive cyber-attacks on the US, attacking and disabling our power grids, communications systems, and/or our financial system.
We would try to do the same inside Russia.
Wrongo isnât trying to spread fear. Heâs expressing the hope that we can get past all of the hollow political posturing and take a cold, hard look at what weâre truly trying to achieve if we decide on military intervention on behalf of Ukraine.
In a sense, the world changed on Friday when Chinaâs Xi and Russiaâs Putin met in Beijing. Their joint statement is unequivocal. China & Russia are now explicitly willing to at least challenge or possibly replace, Pax Americana, in Eurasia.
Borrowing from ancient history, in 560 BC, King Croesus was considering war on Persia. He consulted the Oracle at Delphi. Famously, the Oracleâs forecast was âIf you make war on the Persians, you will destroy a great empireâ. Letâs hope that Biden is receiving less ambiguous advice.
Paradise Springs, South Kettle Moraine, Eagle, WI – January 2022 photo by Nick Schroeter. The spring water is warm enough that it doesn’t freeze in winter
This week two years ago, Covid began to enter Americaâs consciousness. It was February 3, 2020 when Trump declared a public health emergency because of the virus. Now, Republicans are again saying âlet âer ripâ. Mother Jones reported that Iowa is taking âdone with Covidâ to a whole new level. On Thursday, Iowaâs Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds announced a plan to end the stateâs Covid disaster declaration and to shut down its case count and vaccination websites later this month.
âWe cannot continue to suspend duly enacted laws and treat COVID-19 as a public health emergency indefinitely,â Reynolds said in a statement. âAfter two years, itâs no longer feasible or necessary. The flu and other infectious illnesses are part of our everyday lives, and coronavirus can be managed similarly.â
In a state with less than two-thirds of the population over 5 years old fully vaccinated, Wrongo asks what kind of governor and legislature shuts down a website aimed at making it easier for people to get their shots? If the last year has taught us anything, itâs that it is in the peopleâs best interest to make it as easy as possible to vaccinate as many people as possible.
The Register adds:
âHer move comes as Iowa’s spike in cases and hospitalizations from the omicron variant has begun to ease. Still, 794 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Iowa as of Wednesday, while 109 patients required intensive care and 51 required ventilators.â
The data do not seem to make a case to treat Covid and the flu the same way.
The governorâs decision to end the emergency declaration may be more sensible. Many states have already discontinued theirs. And as Omicron case counts plummet, maybe thereâs a chance to reallocate resources to other state priorities.
Soon, the state health departmentâs website will not include regular reports on Covid hospitalizations or nursing home outbreaks. Kelly Garcia, interim director of the Iowa Department of Public Health, said Iowa will no longer require hospitals and nursing homes to report the data to the state, since they already report it to the federal government. Iowans wanting updates on those numbers will be referred to federal websites.
Lina Tucker Reinders, executive director of the Iowa Public Health Association, said in an interview that the move was premature, and could give Iowans the false impression the pandemic is over.
Iowaâs own statistics show that isnât the case.
Itâs become an article of faith inside the Republican cult that Covid is No Big Deal, and that vaccinations are either unnecessary or some sort of plot. And that masks are also unnecessary, because Covid is just like the flu.
Across the country, these same Republicans are seeing the elderly in their families, neighborhoods and churches die of Covid while a free and effective vaccine is available. But they don’t care enough to make getting themselves vaccinated a priority.
If they donât care about their elders, why would they care about nurses, or teachers? That would require disrupting their entire worldview.
No scientist says that the virus is finished mutating. So will treating it like the flu be good enough? If it isnât, Gov. Reynolds certainly wonât give a shit.
Time to let go for a few minutes and relocate to a chair by a window for our Saturday Soother.
It will be another winter weekend of indoor sports in New England, with binge streaming of favorite shows on tap, along with chiseling ice on the walkways around the Mansion of Wrong.
Letâs start into the weekend by brewing up a large mug of Chutzpah Coffee ($13.99/ 12oz.) brought to us by Hebrew Coffee. Their tag line is âA strong coffee to get you off your tuchesâ. Now settle into your chair and watch âPow Surf 101â, a long snowboard ride through deep powder, while listening to Claude Debussyâs âClaire de Luneâ, written in 1890 when Debussy was 28. The snowboarding takes place in Steamboat Springs, CO. Consider this Wrongoâs nod to the Winter Olympics:
San Juan Mountains, near Telluride CO – January 2022 photo by Ben Clark
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was an unprecedented move by Washington to save jobs and businesses as the country slid into a Covid lockdown in 2020.
The PPP  ̶ included in the $2.2 trillion CARES Act of 2020 â offered low-interest loans to a wide range of businesses to help keep them afloat in the pandemic. The concept was if participants used the cash to cover payroll and certain other expenses, the loans would be forgiven completely.
The Intercept is reporting that Bank of America (BOA), the second-biggest lender in the PPP loan program, is refusing to forgive some small business ownersâ loans and is blocking them from getting relief directly from the Small Business Administration (SBA), which oversees the program:
â…in over a half-dozen interviews and emails with The Intercept, small business owners who got their PPP loans through Bank of America described the same experience: A year or more after they first received their loans, they were told that the bank determined they had originally received too much money and that it would only forgive a portion, leaving them to pay back the remainder with interest.â
When those business owners applied to BOA for forgiveness, the bankâs online portal was pre-populated with an unexplained and lower amount of loan forgiveness. The form on the website didnât allow them to change it, or to upload any supporting documentation showing that they actually did qualify for forgiveness of the full amount of the original loan.
The Intercept reviewed a screenshot from one small business owner who, when she tried to change the figure in a box titled âRequested Loan Forgiveness Amountâ from the bankâs figure to the full amount of her PPP loan, it showed an error message. She was unable to move to the next screen. The Intercept says that the borrowerâs calls to the bank were fruitless.
More from The Intercept:
âFearing a hit to their credit scores or defaulting on their unforgiven loans, some small business owners submitted Bank of Americaâs forgiveness application for the lower amount despite believing that they should be forgiven for the full loan. Others are refusing to apply for forgiveness for an amount they say is less than they deserve.â
BOA reported that many of the problems are related to SBA rules on whether the money could be used to pay contractors, or for suppliers, or for other situations.
After widespread complaints about the slow and confusing forgiveness process, the SBA set up its own portal in August 2021. That allowed small business owners to apply for forgiveness directly with the agency.
But in a typical Catch-22, the banks had to opt into using the SBAâs portal, and BOA is among those that refused to do so. So businesses that got their PPP loans through BOA had no option. They had to use the bankâs portal. In a statement, BOA said the SBA site is redundant:
âIf we used the SBAâs site…we would still be required to review each application for forgiveness and provide the recommended forgiveness amount, as we do on our own site.â
The Catch-22 nightmare gets worse: The SBA has an appeal process for PPP loans, but that process doesnât begin until a borrower submits an application for forgiveness to their bank. That requires accepting Bank of Americaâs loan forgiveness number.
These small business PPP borrowers say that they followed the rules as they were written at the time they signed the promissory notes and therefore shouldnât be held accountable for the many rule changes the SBA made after the program launched.
The Intercept cites one case where a borrower, who lives in an economically depressed region, was able to apply for a grant through the Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EDIL) program, also run by the SBA. The EDIL loan gave him a low interest rate and a longer term for repayment.
As soon as he received the EDIL money, he used it to pay off the unforgiven balance of his PPP loan.
It seems that BOA and the SBA have walked away, at least partially, from the original understanding with these borrowers. And some of them, fearing that they had no option to fight the system, and that their credit scores would be hurt, have submitted their BOA forgiveness application at the lower amount. Now they are setting up repayment schedules with BOA for their still-outstanding loan amounts.
Even a useful and well-intentioned program can leave victims in its wake. And itâs hard to climb out of the hole when your banker keeps shoveling dirt on you.
It may have been wrong for Congress to place banks in the middle of the PPP loan program to begin with. Although the SBA has always used local banks as their point of administration and distribution for its lending activities.
It seems that for BOA at least, it gave them an additional profit opportunity!
The WaPo reports that House Republicans are putting together policies to run on in the 2022 mid-terms, and at the top of their list is tapping into parental discontent at how local schools are managed. They plan to focus on parental control of school curricula and school closures.
The new strategy is based upon last yearâs gubernatorial race in Virginia, where Republican Glenn Youngkin won in a purple state by promising that parents would have more say in their childrenâs education. Younkinâs win was seen as a political earthquake by both Parties.
Now Republicans plan to use public education as a national political wedge issue. The strategy behind this is based on polling by the Democratic polling firm Anzalone Liszt Grove Research (ALGR) which gained prominence following Youngkinâs victory when they surveyed 500 Virginia voters. In an NYT article based on that poll, the Times stated:
â…polling showed that school disruptions were an important issue for swing voters who broke Republicanâparticularly suburban white women.â
Rachel M. Cohen, writing in The New Republic, says that the school closure issue may be overblown. But she thinks there are many other reasons for Democrats to be worried regarding schools.
Parents were frustrated about the fallout Covid visited on school-age kids. Many parents were forced to work from home or to leave the workforce to supervise their kidsâ education, and to otherwise care for them when formerly, those kids would have been in school:
âBut outside Twitter and op-ed pages, many surveys and studies have shown that actual parents and voters hold much more nuanced views. They can hate the harms of distance learning….They can express frustration with their circumstances but maintain that not all problems have…clear villains.â
While Democrats did poorer politically in 2020 than expected, it isnât clear that it was because of school closures, as the questions surrounding schools changed almost on a weekly basis.
When kids returned to school in the fall of 2021, the Delta variant was circulating, kids were wearing masks, and individual classes were subject to rolling shutdowns after positive tests. However, the vast majority of children were physically back in school buildings full-time.
The University of Southern Californiaâs Understanding America Survey surveyed parents four times during the pandemic: from October 2020 when 29% had fully in-person school, through October 2021 when 93% were in person. They found that parentsâ concerns about their childâs learning declined significantly.
But public opinion shifted after the efforts by some on the Right to demonize the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) which examines the history of institutional racism in America. Since last summer, weâre seeing a widening of the Republicansâ war on CRT. Republicans have passed legislation in Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Iowa, Idaho, along with Texas and others, placing significant restrictions on what can be taught in public school classrooms, and in some cases, in public universities.
Republicans are saying they must protect students from CRT, but they canât show examples of it actually being taught in schools. Once again, weâre seeing Conservatives pushing a concocted claim and the entire Republican Party playing along.
OTOH, Democrats must know that itâs impossible to win elections by telling voters that their concerns are imaginary.
In a nationwide poll conducted in early December 2021 by Global Strategy Group, researchers found just 13% of Democrats and 27% of independents described school closings as a âvery concerningâ issue compared to 60% of Republicans. However, slightly more Democrats and independents (17% and 39% respectively) were now saying that they were very concerned that Democrats were promoting Critical Race Theory in schools:
Opposition to CRT is now a proxy for the need for more parental input at schools. From Cohen:
âMario Brossard, a senior research vice president at the Democratic polling firm Global Strategy Group, who conducted polling in October on CRT, told me, âIt is clear that the discussion or the talking points around having parents have more input into the curriculumâ is being used as a euphemism for CRT. âThe folks who are anti-CRT are fairly well entrenched, and they hold those sentiments quite stronglyâ…â
Again, Virginia showed Republicans the way forward.  A Fox News voter analysis survey conducted by NORC polled over 2,500 Virginia voters right after the gubernatorial election. It found a stunning 72% of respondents said the debate over teaching CRT in schools was âan importantâ factor to them, with 25% calling it âthe single most importantâ factor.
This is the basis for the Republican move to politicize how schools are administered. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has released a âParents Bill of Rightsâ that would create new mandates for school districts. They would require that districts post curriculum and school budgets, as well as lists of books in school libraries. McCarthyâs document asserts that parents have a âright to be heard.â School boards almost uniformly allow for public comment, though recently many across America have shut down meetings because of public disruptions and threats of violence.
According to the WaPo, Newt Gingrich is advising McCarthy on the issues that will resonate with voters in the November election. Just when you think things can’t get worse, Newt makes a comeback!
For Democrats, the 10 months until the mid-term should be enough time to make it clear to voters that parental input into how their schools are managed has always been a cornerstone of Democratsâ local politics.
But nothing will change the now-deeply ingrained distrust of local officials on the part of many Americans.
Winter sunrise, Monument Valley, Four Corners – January 2022 photo by Lothar Gold
Wrongo is rooting for Biden and for the Democrats to grab victory from the jaws of defeat in the November 2022 mid-terms. He also has a few thoughts about Bidenâs first year as president. Dickens said it best in The Tale of Two Cities in 1859:
âIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…â
This seems to apply today. The best is how the economy is performing. GDP is up while unemployment is down dramatically. Six million new jobs have been created. Wrongo repeats what he said earlier this week:
âA year ago, forecasters expected unemployment to be nearly 6% in the fourth quarter of 2020. Instead, it fell to 3.9% in DecemberâŠ.Wages are high, new businesses are forming at record rates, and poverty has fallen below its prepandemic levels. Since March 2020, Americans have saved at least $2 trillion more than expected…the median householdâs checking account balance was 50% higher in July 2021 than before the pandemic.â
The worst of times includes too little progress in four areas: First, our inability to put the Coronavirus pandemic behind us. Second, our inability to do anything about the looming threats to our elections that partisan vote-counting in many Republican-controlled states implies. Third, the continuing fracturing of our social cohesion, and fourth, our inability to face up to the climate crisis.
These are not solely Bidenâs failures. These failures are shared by Republicans, along with the rest of the Democratic Party leadership who seem to have forgotten what the job of being a politician is. If you doubt that, consider what Paul Begala said on MSNBC:
â…the problem for the DemocratsâŠis not that they have bad leaders. They have bad followersâ,
Begala is Dem royalty from an earlier time, even if heâs no longer powerful today. Doesnât this show that the rot is throughout their leadership? Matt Taibbi wrote: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âDemocrats are now in their second straight year of losing significant ground with all minority groups. There are major defections among Asian and Hispanic voters, and even Trumpâs six-point gain among black men last year is beginning to look like a thing (Bidenâs approval rating with black voters has dropped from 78% to 57%).â
So, does all that add up to the age of foolishness or the season of darkness? Opinions differ. More from Taibbi, who says given Americaâs demographics, Dems had a glidepath to a permanent majority:
âIf Democrats had just figured a way to deliver a few things for ordinary people over the years, they would never have lost again….if that were its real goal, the formula was obvious. Single-payer health care, bulk negotiation of drug prices, antitrust action against Too Big To Fail banks or Silicon Valleyâs surveillance monopolists â really anything that demonstrates a willingness to prioritize voters over the takeover artists and CEOs who fund the party would have given them enduring credibility.â
With nine months until the 2022 mid-terms, what can olâ Joe and the even older Democratic Party leadership do to turn things around? The truth is that theyâre most likely incapable of turning the tanker that is the Democratic Party onto a new, true course that will return them to majorities in the House and Senate.
Wrongo has covered what they should do. He has little optimism that they are up to the task.
Time to pivot to our Saturday Soother, where we let go of questions like âWill Russia invade Ukraine?â or âWill Ivanka testify?â and focus on a weekend of professional football playoffs or the Australian Tennis Open. Here, weâre gonna watch the TV return of âBillionsâ. Weâre also taking down the last of our Christmas decorations and hoping for the return to normalcy that Biden promised us a year ago.
Time to grab a seat by the window and listen to Gregorio Allegriâs âMiserere mei, Deusâ (Have mercy on me, O God), performed in 2018 by the Tenebrae Choir conducted by Nigel Short at St. Bartholomew the Great Church, London. We all need a little mercy now, and this is beautiful:
This was composed in the 1630s for use on Holy Wednesday and Good Friday of Holy Week. Pope Urban VIII loved the piece and forbade its performance anywhere outside of the Sistine Chapel.
For over 100 years, ‘Miserere mei, Deusâ was performed exclusively there. In 1770, Mozart who was 14, heard it, and transcribed it from memory. The following year, Mozart gave the sheet music to historian and biographer, Dr. Charles Burney. Burney published it in London, which resulted in the papacy lifting the ban.
A new Quinnipiac University Poll, conducted between January 7 – 10 of a nationwide sample of 1,313 adults shows that Americans are confused about which Party is protecting voting rights:
This is another example of poor messaging by Democrats. Republicans have been trying to suppress voting in many states, and the Republicans in Congress have prevented Democrats from passing legislation to protect the right to vote for all citizens. But only 45% say Democrats are protecting the right to vote and 43% say it’s the Republicans. That’s within the poll’s margin of error of 2.7%, meaning it’s a virtual tie.
There are only three cohorts with more than 50% saying that one Party is better. Women (52%) and Blacks (86%) say itâs the Democrats, while Whites (51%) say itâs the Republicans. It’s also interesting that 12% apparently have no opinion about which Party is better for voting rights. Whatever the reason why this poll is so close, it isnât good for the country. On to cartoons.
Let’s vote our way out:
More GOP inflation:
Sen. Sinema is just not that into him
Are Sen. Manchinâs priorities misplaced?
Supremes reject federal governmentâs right to set rules for public safety:
(The mandate would have covered about 84.2 million Americans. OSHA estimated (before Omicron) that the rule would save 6,500 lives and prevent 250,000 hospitalizations over a six-month period.)
Chaco Canyon’s Chetro Ketl Great House – January 2022 photo by James C. Wilson
Every media outlet is talking about the latest inflation numbers. The NYT reported that the Consumer Price Index climbed to 7% for the year through December, and 5.5% after volatile prices such as food and fuel were stripped out. Sounds terrible, right?
Nobody likes higher prices. But remember that 12 month inflation rates (called year over year rates) are a look backward in time. And consumer prices increased 0.5% in December, lower than in the past several months. Month-to-month measures are more reflective of current conditions, although they bounce around more than year/year numbers. A half of one percent rise in December annualizes to a 6% inflation rate, less than the headline rate, if it remains at that level going forward.
Also, wholesale prices rose just 0.2% in December, the smallest increase in 13 months. So maybe inflation is starting to level off.
So, maybe this is a case of beware the headlines. Eric Boehlert says that US media canât (or wonât) give people context for the current inflationary trend:
âConvinced that rising prices are the defining economic issue of the day â not huge job gains, record-setting GDP predictions, or boosted wages â the press continues to portray inflation as a uniquely American problem thatâs hounding Democrats.â
Boehlert says that whatâs missing from our inflation coverage is information that inflation is a global phenomenon, fueled by the pandemic. He cites the following articles:
Republicans claim that Bidenâs agenda is responsible for inflation. The average person can be forgiven if they believe that Bidenâs policies are the cause, but Biden didnât cause inflation to jump in all of these other countries.
The Economist reports that since the pandemic, there has been a total of $10.8 trillion in worldwide fiscal stimulus, equivalent to 10% of global GDP. The result was that developed countries finally moved the needle on inflation, after they added money to their economies for nearly 15 years since the Great Recession.
So, while each item of the Consumer Price Index â cars, homes, energy and so on â has unique factors driving its prices, thereâs an overall reality: The economy is recovering far more quickly than it normally does following a severe recession. But that recovery is uneven, showing up in some sectors as high prices. From The Gridâs Matthew Zeitlin:
âWhat really worries economists is not just inflation per se, but a situation, as in the 1970s, where prices are rising and the economy is otherwise stagnant, with little job growth or overall growth. This condition is called, naturally enough, âstagflationâ.â
Zeitlin goes on to say:
âThereâs clear evidence that stagflation is not the direction in which the economy is headed. The unemployment rate is down to 3.9%, and overall output is easily above its pre-Covid level…..itâs simply not the situation that the labor market is trending in the wrong direction.â
And the Conference Board is forecasting that 2022 GDP growth will be 3.5% and it will be 2.9% in 2023, so no worries about stagflation in our future.
Zeitlin points out that the supply chain is also a culprit. Over the course of the pandemic, Americans shifted their consumption from services to goods, especially durable goods like furniture and cars. While services still amount for the bulk of US consumer spending, shifting the balance between goods and services can have large effects:
These changes in consumer spending have caused major stress at ports, and throughout the logistics system that moves goods around. This has raised the costs of everything that needs to be shipped.
Chinaâs Zero Covid policy is creating severe lockdowns to keep the variant from spreading ahead of the Beijing Olympics next month. This raises the prospect of more disruptions for supply chains that are based there. China remains the largest supplier of goods to the US.
The Zero Covid policy has economic consequences: Delivery times for ocean shipments from China to the US stretched to a record 80 days in December, up 85% from 2019. This also impacts the cost of shipping a 40-foot container from Asia to the US West coast: It currently costs $14,572 this week, down from a peak of more than $20,000 in September. But thatâs about a tenfold increase from two years ago.
The major question facing the Federal Reserve, as well as Biden, businesses and everyday consumers who have to make decisions, is how likely is increased inflation to persist? If the inflation problem is largely being driven by how consumers and businesses have had to adjust to Covid, then while itâs severe, it may be temporary.
Nobody likes or wants higher prices. Pent-up demand and abundant cash savings are part of what’s causing inflation. The other part of the problem is labor shortages, which are resulting in large wage increases for certain occupations.
The only way to stop prices from rising is for the Fed to reduce the money supply, raising rates until demand comes down far enough to match supply. The balancing act for the Fed is to tamp down price increases, while not causing a recession.
Nathrop , CO – December 2021 photo by Haji Mahmood
âAnd now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never beenâ – Rainer Maria Rilke
Wrongo hasnât published predictions since 2018, because while it became increasingly hard to imagine that things would get worse, every year they did. Every year. Itâs his fervent hope that despite evidence, things wonât turn out to be even more terrible in 2022.
This year, maybe we should avoid saying âHappy New Year!â in favor of âHopeful New Year.â Letâs simply resist saying âWeâre doomed!â, because thereâs always reason for hope, even in the darkest times.
Pandemics do not go on forever. Even before vaccinations, eventually everyone who was susceptible was infected. Covid wonât be any different. Ever so slowly, more people will get vaccinated, and better treatments will be found. We should remain hopeful that 2022 will see the pandemic fade.
Our economy is humming along. We have a normal President who displays empathy and common decency, and (rarely) zero common sense. But weâre going to elect a new House in ten months, and most polls show the forecasted outcome to be Republicans in control.
If that happens, any progress made so far in the post-Trump era will end. If we are to avoid that, the Democratic Party will need more than a fresh coat of paint and a kitchen renovation, because the Party looks a lot like grandmaâs house just before it goes on the market.
That doesnât leave a lot of time for a makeover. The NYT said it best in its âEvery Day Is Jan. 6 Nowâ editorial:
The violence every American witnessed at the Capitol one year ago demonstrated the will of Republicans to take over our democracy. And while the select committee in the House promises a detailed accounting and, presumably, some sort of referral for action to the DOJ, time is short.
Time is short for all of us.
In state after Republican-controlled state, efforts continue to put in place, under cover of law, mechanisms for Republicans to overturn elections results not to their liking.
So, the Capitol riot is continuing in a bloodless, legalized form that no police officer can arrest and that no prosecutor can try in court. The fact that half of Americans watched Jan 6 in real time and have concluded that it was a legitimate effort to prevent Bidenâs election and to restore Trump to office suggests that the decades-long project of the Right wing is nearly complete, unless we intervene. More from the NYT:
âDemocrats arenât helpless, either. They hold unified power in Washington, for the last time in what may be a long time. Yet they have so far failed to confront the urgency of this moment â unwilling or unable to take action to protect elections from subversion and sabotage.â
That means Democrats must shelve Build Back Better and throw everything they have at voting rights. The mealy mouth discussion by Sens. Manchin and Sinema about what might happen if the filibuster was suspended, is an artful dodge when the threat to democracy is so clear today.
Temporarily suspending the filibuster is not radical; standing on the sidelines and not doing anything to stop Republicans from ending our democracy is radical.
Time to wake up America! Democrats need to force the issue on their leaders. Wrongoâs view is âno money until Voting Rights are passedâ. That means zero donations between here and the mid-terms unless Democrats act on voting rights. It means Wrongo replies to every tweet and email solicitation with that message.
To help the Democratic Party wake up, hereâs âWake Up Everybodyâ, originally by Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes, featuring Teddy Pendergrass. Teddy left the group for his solo career after this album.
Today we listen and watch John Legendâs 2010 cover of the tune, backed by Questlove and the Roots Band along with Melanie Fiona, and Common. The song is as strong today as it was 47 years ago when it was released:
Sample Lyric:
The world won’t get no better
If we just let it be
The world won’t get no better
We gotta change it, yeah, just you and me
Mt. Baker, viewed from Bellingham, WA after 66â of new snow â December 2021 photo by Randy Small photography
Wrongo tested positive for Covid on Christmas Day, despite being vaxxed and boosted. When he asked if it was Omicron or Delta, the hospital didnât know, saying that the test might be selected randomly for further genetic testing. That means itâs highly doubtful any facility in Connecticut can separate Delta and Omicron patients. In fact, most places wouldnât have the resources to do that, even if they wanted to.
So, while recovering here at the Mansion of Wrong, weâve tried to take the required precautions, including cancelling family events, informing those who we had spent time with earlier that week, and masking indoors. One family friend who was with us last week, just texted to say that his 3.5 year old grandson whom he babysat for after seeing us, just tested positive. Itâs rampant.
We are entering year three of Covid, and the pandemic isnât over, even though most of us believed it would be over by now. Instead, for its junior year, Covid is looking like it may shift from a pandemic to an endemic disease, one we will have to live with, possibly forever.
We have effective vaccines, but a political effort is stoking anti-Vaxx feelings in order to keep the pandemic going. Republican leaders are opposing vaccinations, wearing masks, and social distancing (even though they know these things are very effective). And their followers are well — following, by refusing vaccinations, masks, and social distancing.
Despite Covid having a roughly 2% mortality rate, they seem to be more threatened by a vaccine that has a 0.0022% mortality rate. We can ask why GOP politicians are doing this. Most of them are vaccinated. They know that refusing these measures will make people sick and will likely kill quite a few of the unvaccinated, but they don’t seem to care.
They understand that a continuing pandemic could make Biden a one-term president. A continuing pandemic may help Republicans retake the House and Senate in 2022. Nobody likes a loser, and they think the majority of voters will blame Biden for the continuing pandemic.
The numbers are against Biden. Americaâs now at 821,000 dead. Unless we get very lucky, in another 100 days, weâll be somewhere between 920,000 and 1,000,000, because since August, we have averaged more than 1,500 deaths/day. Unless the daily deaths change, weâre headed to a million dead by spring.
Republicans are going to use this fact to attack Biden, saying that heâs handled Covid worse than Trump did, because there are more deaths on his watch.
Republicans have done everything possible to prolong Covid and to slow or prevent the implementation of measures that would have lowered the death toll. Itâs like an arsonist complaining about the fire department not putting out fires fast enough. The idea that Covid vaccinations should be treated as a matter of individual consumer preference is absolutely brain-dead Republican nihilism.
The NYT reports that where people are dying of Covid also has changed since vaccines became widely available: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âDeath rates fell in most counties across the country, and in about one in five counties, the death rate fell by more than half. But in about one in 10 counties, death rates have more than doubled.â
Now, ten percent of counties doesnât equal ten percent of the population. Hereâs the map provided by the Times:
Note the concentration in Kentucky and West Virginia. The latest data from the CDC, based on data from 25 states and cities, shows that the death rate for unvaccinated people is 14 times higher than that for vaccinated people. The article also includes a map where Covid deaths have decreased. You can view it here. In most ways, it fills in the blank areas on the map above with green cones instead of these red cones.
Weâve been at this for two long years. Now starting year three, maddeningly, the issues remain the same: The health care system is running out of resources. People can’t get tested. Some people refuse to help themselves and their neighbors. New variants can emerge in the wild faster than we can develop remedies, particularly when people wonât avail themselves of the remedies we already have.
There will be end of year reports on the good things that happened in 2021. There will be reports on both the good and bad things to come in 2022. One thing that doesnât seem likely to be in any of those reports is a changed reaction to Covid by Americans.
Time to put 2021 in the dumpster.
Happy New Year! Thanks for riding with Wrongo for another year. Raise a glass, knowing that we will try our damnedest to make sense of it all again in 2022. Letâs close with âAuld Lang Syneâ performed by The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin: (hat tip to Monty)
Great Santa Run, Las Vegas NV â December 2021 photo by Ellen Schmidt
(We will be taking the next few days off. Posting will be light and variable until the New Year)
Merry Christmas! You shouldnât be cruising the internet today, but here you are, and Wrongo thanks you for stopping by. Many say that this is the most wonderful time of the year, but perhaps itâs better that we donât think about what a roller coaster ride 2021 was for all of us.
Donât you think that we need a little Christmas after the year we had? The tune âWe Need a Little Christmasâ is from the musical Mame, which opened on Broadway in 1966. It is sung in the scene when the stock-market crash of 1929 has just happened, and Mameâs deceased brotherâs 10-year-old son has been entrusted to her care. She introduces him to her free-wheeling lifestyle, using her favorite saying: âLife is a banquet, and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death.â
Our economy is fine, but Mameâs saying (above) still sounds right in 2021.
With due respect to the Grateful Dead, what a long, strange trip 2021 has been. The January 6 attempted coup happened less than a year ago. Bidenâs Presidency is only 11 months old. The DOJ and 1/6 Committee are working away on an unprecedented case that is way more complicated and difficult than most of us seem to comprehend. So, amid the sudden re-emergence of yet another Covid variant, in this case, Omicron, letâs take a minute to review Bidenâs performance.
The Atlanticâs David Frum offers some perspective:
âRelative to its strength in Congress, the Biden administration has proved outstandingly successful. In 11 months, Biden has done more with 50 Democratic senators than Barack Obama did with 57. He signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-relief bill in March 2021….He signed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill in November. He signed some 75 executive orders, many of them advancing liberal immigration goals. Heâs also won confirmation for some 40 federal judges, more than any first-year president since Ronald Reagan, and twice as many as Donald Trump confirmed in his first year with a 54-vote Senate majority.â
More from Frum:
âAnybody can win a poker game with a good hand. It takes a real maestro to play a bad one. Biden won a bigger pool with worse cards than any Democratic president ever. He won that pool because Manchin gave Biden more loyalty under more adverse conditions than the moderate Democrats of 2009 gave to President Obama.â
Frum, a Never Trump Republican, closed with thoughts that mirror Wrongoâs:
âThe Democrats have a year remaining in the present Congress. Thatâs too little time to waste on recrimination, but time enough to secure voting rights, to accelerate the shift to carbon-zero fuels, and to complete and publish the investigation into the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021. A rebuff is not a retreat. Itâs a sign to proceed in a different direction.â
Thatâs a great perspective, we shouldnât dwell on who blocked the Build Back Better program, but on what remains to be accomplished.
Here, the Fields of Wrong have about an inch of snow, with a little more to come. Weâre settling in for a couple of long winter nights, bookended by music of the season, good food and drink, and possibly some binge watching of movies and favorite TV series.
Merry Christmas to all. Keeping with this weekâs theme, hereâs another seasonal tune. Watch and listen to the Celtic Trio and a Choir perform âO Holy Nightâ:
