I’m Just as Confused over Covid19 as Everyone Else, but IMHO:
The best way for those without symptoms to deal with the spreading variants of the coronavirus is to behave as if they had tested positive for them even though they weren’t tested! Simple, inexpensive home testing would make life, and survival, easier for us all. And that is what President Biden advocates.
Eventually,
almost everyone will at some time or other, test positive, as the virus spreads
among us all, not necessarily with symptoms, among the unvaccinated and to a
lesser extent, among the vaccinated. The
fact is that vaccinations do wear off.
How quickly, we do not know yet.
But it appears that those vaccinations significantly reduce the number
of infections resulting in hospitalization or death.
While behaving as if one tests positive doesn’t mean going into an actual quarantine, as a real, not a theoretical,
positive test result would usually call for until a subsequent test is
negative, it does mean using masks and avoidance of crowded public places as
much as possible. And of course,
vaccination plus booster shots are a given. Such a spread is like a
double-edged sword: It suggests an eventual herd immunity effect reducing
infections while at the same time increasing the number of those infected, a
few of whom will be seriously sickened.
Almost as great a hazard to public health as the virus itself presents is the obstinancy of those who debunk the remedies and the protocols science and medicine have developed to fight it. Their position is based on "bad science." Unfortunately, the Republican Party recognizes that these people form a significant voting bloc and identifies with them in many parts of the country. Many unnecessary deaths will result from this and Covid19 will persist for far longer than it otherwise would because of them. Anyone who votes Republican is an ally of the virus, knowingly or not!
JL
* * * *
Political
Commentary: Don’t Trust Manchin – Also, Boebert and Cawthorn and the Rest of
that Vile Crew
Senator
Manchin’s withdrawal from supporting the “social infrastructure” portion of President
Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, support that might have enabled its
passage, should not blind voters to the fact that not one of the fifty
Republican Senators supported the legislation which, among other things, would
have strengthened the expiring Child Care Tax credit. Not one of them. They’re all “no good.”
And West
Virginians are among the top recipients of that benefit. Manchin had implied earlier that some of them
might use the money to “go hunting during deer season” or buy drugs. Tell that
to the wife of an unemployed coal miner with four kids working nights as a
waitress to make ends meet. Don’t expect
Manchin to ultimately swing around. He
has played that game before and is not to be trusted.
The millions
of poverty level parents whom this will penalize must be mobilzed to defeat
Republican candidates at all levels on Election Day, Nov. 8, 2022. Face it: Republicans are against “government
for the people,” something their Party, contrary to the words of Lincoln, would
like to see “perish from this earth.”
They think
“government for the people” is socialism. Too many Republican voters are either
ignorant, gullible or stupid enough (take your choice) to actually believe such
crap. Here are two quotes from the Nazis, oops, I mean Republicans, in
Congress:
At a recent gathering of young fascists,
oops again, I mean conservatives (Turning Point USA), Representative Lauren Boebert
(R-CO) said: “I am tired of having Godless people who hate
America run this country! You and I are going to take this country back!”
Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) told the audience of college students
that they should drop out of school. “I think you should home
school. I was home schooled all the way through. I am proudly a college
dropout. Unless you are becoming a doctor or lawyer or engineer, I highly
encourage you to drop out.” These two pieces of crap would have been among those who
forced Socrates to drink the hemlock. (You
might have to explain to Cawthorn who Socrates was.) Think about the kind of
people who vote them into office. These fellow citizens of ours are just as bad
as they are.
I know some Republicans
don’t really believe this crap but go along with it anyway. They don’t deserve
a pass. They are equally guilty.
JL
* * * *
They Just
Might Get Away With It, So Register and
Vote!
Do Americans
realize that if the Republicans win the House in a bit more than ten months,
the House’s January 6 investigation will
disappear? Bannon, Meadows, Clark, Perry, Flynn, the
former president, etc. will walk away smelling like roses, vindicated by an
electorate whose Congressional votes on Nov. 8 will have validated their
ignorance, gullibility or stupidity (take your choice) by believing the “big
lie” and that the mob that attacked the Capitol were just enthusiastic
tourists?
JL
* * * *
Lifetime
Tenure in Congress?
I made the
following comment on the Washington Post’s website where Dana Milbank’s
Dec. 23 column appeared, discussing how the Republicans, by controlling
elections and gerrymandering at the State level, are turning many of their
Congressional Representatives into lifetime officeholders:
“In my opinion, unless the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act are passed and put into effect within the next month or two, the Republicans will control Congress starting on Election Day, Nov. 8, 2022. They also will also increase their control of State legislatures, whose role in the election process is making this tragedy likely to take place just a bit more than ten months from now. Speaker McCarthy (!) and Senate leader McConnell (!) will quickly lead repeal of whatever parts of President Biden's agenda have passed, and we can say goodbye to any further investigation of the January 6 insurrection. The rioters will end up as heroic patriots demonstrating against a "stolen election." Gerrymandering will continue and the economic and social successes already passed by Congress will disappear. I don't know how a sense of extreme urgency can be imparted to Democratic leadership, but unless they have something magical up their sleeve, their goose is cooked. And they don't even smell the aroma coming from the oven! They must pass Voting Rights legislation NOW, while they have bare Congressional majorities or all is lost for the next half century.”
Carving out
a filibuster exception for voting rights legislation will be necessary to get
something done.
JL
* * * *
Having Your
Cake and Eating It
Here’s a quote from Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ on Wednesday, 12/22:
“It appears that the circle closest to Trump is
not going to try to deny involvement in the attempt to overturn the election,
but rather is challenging Congress’s authority to ask about their actions. This
is an extraordinary position to take: they are declaring that they are not
bound by our laws (although they are apparently eager to try to use them to
reduce their exposure.)"
That’s known
as “having your cake (protection of our laws) and eating it (committing acts of
insurrection against those laws).”
JL
* * * *
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