I thought I had seen the lowest of the lows, but Republicans continue to shatter the floor for dishonesty.  Today, while North Carolina Democrats were at a 9/11 memorial ceremony,  Republicans pulled a fast one and held a rush vote to override Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the Republican budget bill.  The Repubs have been trying to override the veto for 2 months, but couldn’t get the 3/5 majority.  Earlier, Republican chairman of the rules committee, David Lewis, lied to Democratic leader Darren Lewis that there would be no votes while the Democratic caucus was at the 9/11 ceremony.  As soon as they left, he held the vote and rammed through the vote, overriding Cooper’s veto.  Democratic Rep. Deb Butler shouted her objection and Repub Speaker Tim Moore tried to have her arrested.

They can’t win by the rules anymore, so they just break them.

In Harris County yesterday, lines of voters were long and the wait was up to 5 hours.  Why?  There are two primary reasons:

• Since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act Texas has closed 542 polling places, most in historically black and Latino areas.  If you include 2012 closings, that number rises to 750.
• In Harris County at least, the Republican party refused to allow a joint primary with Dems.  What that meant was that the voting machines were divided in 2, half for Repubs, half for Dems.  Since Trump essentially had no opponent, turnout in the GOP primary was very low so HALF of voting machines remained essentially unused.

Both of these moves by Republicans made it harder for Texans to vote, which has been their goal for over 20 years as demographics started moving against them.  I got to experience their strategy yesterday since my polling place was one of those closed.  It took me three attempts at two different polling places to finally cast my vote, and I had to drive 15 minutes from one polling place to another to accomplish that.  After discovering my polling place was closed, I drove to my old polling place only to find the line out the door and down the block. I went to have some lunch and returned about an hour later to find the line almost as long.  A nice young poll worker for Ben Rose had information on other polling places, so I drove all the way out to Buffalo Speedway to vote at a church there.  The line there was about half an hour (and it was air-conditioned) so I waited it out.  When I got into the polling place, HALF of the voting machines were being unused while Republican poll workers twiddled their thumbs.  On the other side, Dems were forced to wait in multiple lines to access the other half.  Total time not including lunch was about two hours of waiting and a lot of driving just to vote in a goddam primary.

It’s shameful that the Republican party has been allowed to continuously and increasingly restrict access to the Constitutional right to vote.  Their rationale, of course, is based on lies since their actual goal is voter suppression not “election integrity” which is one of their standard lies.  Texas Republicans are perfectly happy to make the lives of their fellow Texans miserable simply for political gain.  This reason alone should be enough to vote the bastards out.

You knew it would happen.  Trump’s incompetent response to the COVID-19 outbreak is one of the few crises in the last three years that is not of his own making, and his sycophants have come to realize that he can’t lie or tweet his way out of this one.  The response?  Gen up the Noise Machine, WhatAbout Version.  One of the loudest blowhards in the Machine is PJ Media formerly called Pajamas Media, one of the biggest manure shovelers on the web.

The WhatAbout target this time?  Barack Obama, of course, and this time it was his response to the H1N1 flu outbreak in 2009, days after he had taken office.  H1N1 became apparent in January 2009 and being researched by the WHO then.  The first case of H1N1 was discovered on April 15, 2009, the WHO declared a medical emergency on April 25, and the CDC began releasing anti-viral drugs to fight the disease. Obama declared a US medical emergency on April 30.  He requested $1.9 billion then and as the pandemic grew, requested another $9 billion for response and vaccines.  In October of 2009 Obama did declare a national emergency, but only after multiple efforts to control the virus.  Today, H1N1 continues as a recurring flu virus and has killed an estimated 75,000 Americans since 2009.  It’s part of the annual flu vaccine today that many Americans still refuse to receive.

Let’s talk about how Republicans responded to the virus back in 2009 versus what they are saying now.  During the funding debates of 2009, Republicans opposed Obama’s request because, well, they’re Republicans.  Also, the noise machine cranked up led by Gleen Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Rush Limbaugh.  Glenn Beck, who at that time had a big show on Fox Noise said, “…you don’t know if this is going to cause neurological damage like it did in the 1970s,” adding that he would do “the exact opposite” of what the federal government recommended and might even attend a swine flu party to deliberately infect himself before the virus could mutate.  Rush Limbaugh said, “I am not going to take it [the H1N1 vaccine], precisely because you are now telling me I must. . . . I don’t want to take your vaccine. I don’t get flu shots.” He added that if “you have some idiot government official demanding, telling me I must take this vaccine, I’ll never take it.”  In Congress Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) commented, “We can’t let all of our spending and our reaction be media-driven in responding to a panic so that we don’t get Katrina-ed. . . . It’s important because what we are talking about as we discuss the appropriateness of spending $2 billion to produce a vaccine that may never be used—that is a very important decision that our country has to make.”  Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) added, “I don’t think we need to spend $1.5 billion on flu vaccine when . . . the research shows that it’s not going to be very virulent. . . . We are stealing our grandchildren’s future by borrowing and spending. . . . This hysteria over the flu is driving the media, and it’s driving the administration, driving the leadership here. We’ve got to stop that.”

The funding was passed, but after intense anti-vaxxer misinformation and loud Republican opposition, the distribution of the vaccine was greatly suppressed and even THAT was affected by party.  Democrats outnumbered Republicans by almost 50% in saying they would take the vaccine.

The Repubs are singing the same song this time, too, calling the outbreak of COVID-19 a hoax and supporting Trump’s idiotic and incoherent blabbering and tweeting about it.  Even as they try to cover for Trump, they’re attacking Obama for doing exactly the opposite of what he actually did.

Same song, different pandemic.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Democrats have desperately tried to get vote by mail passed in states that don’t have it in time for the November presidential election.  It’s a non-starter with Republicans lead by Trump.  At the same time, the Postal Service is losing $2 billion per month with reduced volumes of mail.  Democrats tried to put a $15 billion bailout in the relief bill, but Trump threatened to veto the entire multi-trillion dollar bill if it included any money for the Post Office.  The bill finally got passed with a $10 billion loan, by Mnuchin is holding it up in Treasury, and Trump fired the IG assigned to oversee the distribution of funds from the relief bill last week.

Republicans have been trying to kill the US Postal Service for decades, trying to privatize it and hand it over to some of their largest donors.  In 2006, the Republican controlled Congress passed a law that required the Postal Service prefund 75 YEARS of anticipated pensions, totaling $72 billion.  They then diverted that money to paying down federal debt caused by GWB’s slashing tax cuts.  Even though the Postal Service is no longer a full federal agency the Congress still controls its budget, continuously starving it for funding.

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic has caused mail volume to plummet,  Republicans, lead by Trump, have stonewalled any support to keep the service alive, and without funding, it will run out of cash in September.  At the same time, Democrats are trying to introduce voting reforms that allow vote by mail for the November elections.  Of course, Republicans are also stonewalling that.  About 20 states already allow voting by mail.  Why in the world would Republicans want to kill the Postal Service?  That answer is now crystal clear – no Post Office?  No voting by mail.  Trump’s plummet in the polls can be offset by making it almost impossible to vote during the pandemic.

Yep, Republicans figured out many years ago that reducing turnout through voter suppression, as well as radical gerrymandering, improves their chances of hanging on to power.  This effort is that strategy on steroids actually taking away Americans’ Constitutional right to vote.

The Narcissist in Chief (you know the name) just couldn’t stand it – four nights of national prime time television during the Trump National Convention?  Irresistible.  Trump has decided to speak all four nights of the prime time convention.  That’s right, every night.  Trump’s advisors are afraid that he’s over exposed, especially after he has resumed his nightly soliloquy’s masquerading as a COVID briefings, so Trump’s solution is MORE exposure.  Add this to nut jobs like the St. Louis gun toting couple and Scott Baio, combined with the banishment of the few Republicans left with a shred of credibility, and it should be a hell of a show.  I won’t be watching, of course, because I don’t want to put my shoe through the screen, but I can’t wait for the video of his gaffs and childish insults the following mornings.

MUST READ.  LONG, BUT MUST READ.

The Atlantic is reporting that the Trump campaign has been conspiring for MONTHS to steal the election, no matter what the will of the voters.  The plan is much like we’ve talked about before, but even worse. Trump’s nonsense is now starting actually make sense; his continuous ranting about mail in voter fraud has been a signal for loyalists to vote in person, because millions of mail in ballots will be declared fraudulent, justifying his refusal to concede an election he’ll clearly lose.  Trump has been coordinating with Republican lawyers and legislatures in the battleground states to ignore the popular vote (citing said alleged fraud) and appoint electors to vote for Trump no matter the actual vote in those states.

This report is bone chilling, but connects all the dots.  Michael Cohen was right; Trump will never leave office willingly, and is depending on corrupt politicians in the battleground states to violate their oaths to the Constitution and the people to keep him in office.

Spread this far and wide.

Biden’s speech last night was like a breath of fresh air after we all endured the verbal manure that flowed so freely from Trump’s mouth and Twitterfingers for 4 years.  Biden spoke of a rising America and introduced his trillion dollar American Families Plan that, after decades of decline and neglect, will attempt to make our lives better.

Predictably, the Republicans hate it, all of it, and it’s all predictable.  This morning on CBS News, Rick Scott was given a remarkable 5 minutes of national airtime to spew nonsense and childish attacks against  Biden and the GOP’s other favorite targets.  His lies came fast and furious, blaming Biden for all the ills HIS side caused.

Why are Republicans so opposed to anything that makes Americans’ lives better?  Because if people are happy, they won’t keep them in power.  The GOP has raised hatemongering to an art form because they know that if they can keep millions of Americans miserable and pissed off, they can then blame Dems for that misery and drive angry people to the polls.  And it works like a charm.  The GOP base is driven by adrenaline fueled anger, fomented by hate radio, Newsmax, OAN, Fox Noise, and the NY Post where the blame is regularly placed on “socialists, gays, Satanists, Pelosi, AOC, and Bernie.” Instead of focusing on real issues like education, income inequality, job security, and healthcare, they focus on bathroom bills, gay wedding cakes, and now the new target “boys pretending to be girls leering at your daughters in the locker room” accusing trans kids of trying to take advantage by posing as the opposite sex.

If the GOP had to actually face voters over their piss poor performance they would lose every time.  THAT’s why they are willing to inflict generational misery to the populace so they can keep everyone pissed off and insecure so their base will blame the rest of us.  That’s also why they are trying to push through voter suppression bills to make it harder to vote.  They know the truth and are really worried now because Biden rammed through the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill that helped to relieve some of that misery.  If we follow that with making airports, roads, and other public infrastructure once again usable, the GOP is terrified that their supporters will like their lives made better and the veil finally lifted on their scam.

And that’s why they have zero interest in doing their jobs and making Americans’ lives better.

Texas in the national news yesterday:

• Ken Paxton’s lawsuit to attempt ONCE AGAIN to repeal the ACA was tossed by Scotus.
• Greg Abbott commits $250 million of Texans’ money and then begs for donations to build Trump’s wall that takes private land to create a solution that doesn’t work.  Ask the Chinese about that.
• Abbott signs SEVEN bills that unravel 150 years of gun safety laws allowing any idiot to carry a firearm in public with no license, no background check, and no training.
• ERCOT asks us to reduce power usage due to normal summer weather.  This is after Abbott smugly announced that laws that he signed that will do nothing to fix our state power grid has fixed our power grid.

Like one person posted on social media yesterday:

“We are flying electric helicopters on Mars, but Texans can’t run their dryers.  That’s because scientists are in charge of Mars and Republicans are in charge of Texas.”

This week the NY Times published an excellent analysis of US response to the COVID 19 epidemic by compiling data from Johns Hopkins, the World Bank, and the US Census Bureau.  What the data show is a stark picture of just how badly the US responded to the pandemic compared to other developed countries.  The stupidity of the response is well illustrated in just two graphs:

The left graph is cumulative deaths per 100,000 since the pandemic began. The right graph is cumulative deaths from only the Omicron wave.  Notice that the US “wins” the death race over other wealthy countries by a LOT, and that failure stems from stupid public policy that is engrained in the US; the failure is worsened as a result of the stupidity of millions of Americans who chose to believe bullshit and have participated in politicizing science, vilifying of scientists  and doctors, and spreading nonsensical conspiracy theories about vaccines.

At the beginning of the pandemic, most wealthy countries locked down quickly, including the US.  The difference, though, was how the US did that compared to other countries.  Unlike the US, other wealthy countries, especially in Europe, took over the paychecks of their citizens, keeping them financially secure, which encouraged them to stay home and safe.  Characteristically, the US did it wrong.  First the US government stupidly poured a TRILLION dollars into companies with the stated goal of keeping people on the payroll, but the program was botched, and much of that money went into the pockets of the wealthy with little reaching  those who actually needed the money.  Second, GOP lead states like Texas started the misinformation campaign that developed into what is now a death cult among conservatives.  Recall that during this time, Dan Patrick, retired talk show host and bar owner, actually suggested that we should sacrifice the old and weak in favor of saving the economy.

Red states like Texas did extend unemployment benefits for a time, but that support was nowhere near livable, forcing millions of people to choose between risking the lives of themselves and their families and putting food on the table.  We all know how that turned out.  Add that to bullshit coming out of TFG’s mouth, his shutdown of all pandemic response that Bush II and Obama had put in place, and putting PPE response into the hands of that idiot Jared Kushner, and the perfect storm of stupidity flooded the entire country driving the US to the highest case and death rate in the developed world.

And it continues.  Playing to their base in an election year, Republicans all over the country are trying to out crazy one another doubling down on anti-vaxxer fears,  goofy conspiracy theories, and trying to to distract them with wild rhetoric about critical race theory and banning books.  And while they’re doing everything but their damn jobs, people continue to die.

In England there are signs everywhere to “mind the gap.” If we translate that into English we would discover they are talking about the gap between the platform and the train. Since public transportation really isn’t a thing here in Texas, we can certainly borrow that term and apply it to our politics.

We see two gaps that threaten long-term stability in our country. The first gap is the gap between how many people consider themselves to be moderate, liberal, progressive, or leftist and how many of those politicians actually end up representing us in Congress. Yet, the percentage of total voters registering as Democrats is growing. So, there is a gap between the number of representatives that are Democrats and the number that should be Democrats.

That’s a problem that’s not easily fixed. As we have seen in Texas, the GOP has a stranglehold on the state. Very few particularly like any of the Republicans that occupy state offices and yet they continue to vote for them. This has been a two decade tradition. They have rigged the game to make it easier for them to win. It will take a doubling of efforts to get that turned around and we see the same thing nationwide.

The second gap is one Democrats can address and address immediately. This is the gap between what gets done in Washington, Austin, and any other government center and what people actually think on the issues. Take any issue and you can see clear fault lines of where the public actually is on the issue. You could talk abortion, gun control, health care, public safety, education, or any other issue.

What Americans think on these issues is pretty clear. Overwhelming majorities agree on numerous planks on all of those issues. Yet, we are told America is a center-right country with center-right values. The problem is that this statement has no basis in fact when you actually look at public opinion polling on each of those issues individually. The GOP is on the wrong side of each issue and it isn’t even particularly close.

Democrats collectively make the mistake of getting off message. Either they overshoot these widespread popular opinions by suggesting things beyond what the general public want or they bungle up the messaging with slogans that don’t reflect the will of the people. These things are simple. Let’s keep them simple.

For instance, Americans want background checks on gun sales, don’t want guns in the hands of dangerous criminals, and generally don’t want automatic weapons in anyone’s hands. These are easy things to keep hitting over and over again. Yet, Beto O’Rourke introduced the idea of gun confiscation. That pushed the envelope too far and made him seem extreme. So, stick to background checks, keeping guns away from criminals, and an assault weapons ban. That’s easy messaging that will resonate with the majority.

It’s about simple messaging. When people understand what you are for and they are for the same things they vote for you. When they think you are an extremist or if they don’t understand what you are for they don’t vote for you. It’s really as simple as that. You find out what they like and then keep repeating that you are for that and the other side is against that. You keep repeating that until they understand. You keep repeating it. That is how you close the gap.