;)
The Commentariat -- May 21, 2021
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Knocking Up a 14-Year-Old is Totally "Romeo & Juliet." Michael Cummo of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle: "U.S. House candidate Anthony Bouchard [R] had a relationship with and impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 18, he told the Star-Tribune late Thursday, hours after he disclosed the relationship in a Facebook Live video to his supporters. Bouchard, who did not specify the girl's age in the video, said he went public with the information to get ahead of the story after learning that people were investigating it in opposition to his candidacy. A Wyoming state senator since 2017, Bouchard has risen in prominence since announcing he would challenge Rep. Liz Cheney.... 'So, bottom line, it's a story when I was young, two teenagers, girl gets pregnant,' he said in the Facebook Live video. 'You've heard those stories before. She was a little younger than me, so it's like the Romeo and Juliet story.'" MB: The star-crossed lovers married in Florida and divorced three years later. The young woman committed suicide at age 20. No Romeo in sight. Have at it, Will Shakespeare.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "Deaths from Covid-19 and Covid-related causes are likely to be two to three times the number that countries have recorded in their official data, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Some six to eight million people may have now died from Covid-19 or its effects since the start of the pandemic, compared with 3.4 million deaths recorded in countries' official reporting, Dr. Samira Asma, assistant director of the W.H.O.'s data division, told reporters."
David Fahrenthold & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump charged the Secret Service more than $40,000 this spring for rooms that Trump's own protective detail used while guarding him at his Mar-a-Lago Club, according to federal spending records.... While he was president, Trump's properties charged the U.S. government more than $2.5 million, often so that Secret Service agents could use rooms near him.... Trump's decision to charge the Secret Service rent appears unusual -- both for a sitting president and now for a former one.... The closest parallel to Trump was ... Joe Biden. While he was protected as vice president, Biden charged the Secret Service $2,200 per month to use a cottage on his property in Delaware. In total, Biden received $171,600 between 2011 and 2017. Biden has not charged the Secret Service rent since becoming president in January, a White House spokesman said. Historians said they were surprised Trump was still charging the Secret Service, considering that ex-presidents are entitled to an array of other taxpayer-funded benefits, including paid staff and a $219,000-per-year pension."
Doha Madani of NBC News: "Princes William and Harry pressed for higher standards in the news media following a BBC investigation that found the journalist Martin Bashir used "'deceitful behavior' to secure a landmark interview with Diana, Princess of Wales. William, Duke of Cambridge, said, '... what saddens me most, is that if the BBC had properly investigated the complaints and concerns first raised in 1995, my mother would have known that she had been deceived.'... Harry, Duke of Sussex, went a step further and explicitly blamed the media for his mother's death. Many have attributed the paparazzi following her for contributing to the car crash that killed her in Paris.&" Related stories linked below.
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Barbara Sprunt of NPR: "Following overwhelming support from both chambers of Congress, President Biden signed legislation Thursday that addresses hate crimes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular emphasis on the increase in violence against Asian Americans. At an event in the East Room of the White House, Biden thanked lawmakers for coming together to pass the legislation. He said standing against hatred and racism, which he called 'the ugly poison that has long haunted and plagued our nation,' is what brings Americans together."
Blinken Disavows Crazy, Insulting Trump Development Plan. Summer Concepcion of TPM: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday assured that the Biden administration has no desire to buy Greenland -- a reported desire of former President Trump's that never came to fruition and set off a diplomatic fallout. While visiting Greenland on Thursday, Blinken told a reporter during a news conference that it was 'correct' that the U.S. does not seek to purchase the autonomous Danish territory, according to Reuters.... Trump, who was scheduled to visit Denmark, abruptly cancelled his trip after its prime minister wouldn't fork over Greenland." Update: The New York Times story is here. MB: Rats. Now if I want to move to Nuuk (capital & largest city, pop. 18,000) without investing in a new passport, I'm out of luck. Okay, until five minutes ago, I never heard of Nuuk.
Marie: For a party whose "leaders" and followers are so obsessed with freeedumb and so virulently "Christian," Republicans are surprisingly averse to the notion that "The truth shall set you free." (said Jesus, according to evangelical's favorite Gospel of [John 8:32]).
Nancy Can Count. Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "By the thinnest of margins, a divided House voted on Thursday to approve $1.9 billion in emergency spending to cover costs related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and increase security to prevent a repeat, with progressive Democrats joining Republicans in opposition. The bill passed the Democratic-controlled House by a vote of 213 to 212, leaving its future uncertain in the evenly split Senate, where most legislation needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and advance to a vote. Every Republican voted against the security spending plan -- a move that top Democrats cited as further evidence that the party is trying to rewrite the history of the mob violence that unfolded on Jan. 6 by downplaying or outright denying crucial facts and opposing efforts to investigate it."
Dana Milbank: Mitch McConnell came to Donald Trump's rescue -- again. "And McConnell did it with a baldfaced lie.... McConnell announced on Wednesday morning, before the House vote, that he would 'oppose the House Democrats' slanted and unbalanced proposal.' For good measure, he accused Democrats of 'partisan bad faith.'... The bipartisan commission bill was negotiated by Rep. John Katko (N.Y.), the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, with House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy's blessing.... Katko argued on the House floor Wednesday ... that the bill was 'nearly identical' to one Republicans introduced.... 'Thanks for not throwing me under the bus, Kevin,' Katko said at a Republican caucus meeting Tuesday, tire treads still imprinted on his face." (Also linked yesterday.)
Fear of Trump. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... [Rep.] Greg Pence [R-Ind.] [has] arguably the closest personal connection to someone directly targeted by the mob [i.e., his brother mike whom the insurrectionists planned to hang].... As they were marauding through the Capitol, [Donald] Trump ... took to Twitter not to call off the dogs, but to attack [mike] Pence. Alas, [Greg Pence is] hardly the only Republican to apparently set aside Trump's attacks on his family while aligning with Trump.... Trump has also gone after [Mitch] McConnell's wife, former transportation secretary Elaine Chao, mocking her and attacking her over her supposed family ties to China. (Chao was born in Taiwan.) McConnell has in the past labeled similar attacks as racist.... Trump at one point promoted a tweet attacking the appearance of [Ted] Cruz's wife. Trump also suggestively floated a baseless supermarket tabloid conspiracy theory that Cruz's father might have been involved in killing John F. Kennedy." ~~~
~~~ Kremlin Cruz. David Moye of the Huffington Post: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) ... suggested [in a tweet] that the Russian army was better prepared than America's 'woke emasculated military.' The smarmy Texas senator made the comments while retweeting a video that contrasted a Russian recruiting video of men working out with a U.S. recruiting video from a female soldier who credited her desire to serve her country to her two moms.... Many Twitter users felt Cruz was the wrong person to be talking about emasculation, considering the way he supported ... Donald Trump even after Trump attacked the looks of Cruz's wife, Heidi Cruz, and falsely suggested the senator's father helped assassinate John F. Kennedy." Moye republishes some great tweety responses. Brian Williams of NBC News noted that while Ted had never served in the military, he had been to Princeton, Harvard and Cancun. ~~~
~~~ Update. The Washington Post story is here. Ted's tweet was even more offensive than the HuffPost let on. According to the WashPo story, Ted tweeted that "the contrast with Russia's campaign ... made American soldiers 'into pansies.'" MB: Maybe that Lorena Bobbitt gal, the QAnon rep from Colorado, can "fix" Ted, one way or another.
Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "U.S. authorities have arrested three more alleged associates of two right-wing groups in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, including one who allegedly shouted, 'Let's take the f---ing Capitol!' an hour before the assault while marching with a large group of Proud Boys around the building. Charging papers identified Daniel Lyons Scott, 28, of Bradenton, Fla., as the Proud Boys member nicknamed 'Milkshake,' who ... allegedly yelling about taking the Capitol.... Also arrested Thursday was James Breheny, 61, an alleged Bergen County, N.J., coordinator for the Oath Keepers.... Separately, Arizona resident Micajah Joel Jackson, 25, was arrested Tuesday after turning himself in to the FBI in Phoenix on charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct at the Capitol."
Daniel Lippman of Politico: "... Donald Trump sought to oust FBI Director Christopher Wray last spring and replace him with counterintelligence head William Evanina, according to three former Trump officials.... Under the plan, the former officials said, Kash Patel -- a former aide to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and a fierce critic of the Russia probe -- would have become the bureau's deputy director. Previously unreported details of the proposal reveal just how seriously the former president took his grievances against the intelligence and law enforcement establishment. It shows Trump at his mercurial peak, ordering up the removal of his own appointee in a fit of rage, only to back down when then-Attorney General William Barr threatened to resign if he followed through with the maneuver. (Aspects of this story were first reported by Business Insider.)"
Michael Gerson of the Washington Post: Liz Cheney "has accused a former president of her party of employing the threat of violence as a tool of intimidation. And election officials around the country -- Republican and Democratic -- can attest to the results: Death threats. Racist harassment. Armed protesters at their homes.... If Trump has a political philosophy, one of its main tenets is toxic masculinity -- the use of menace and swagger to cover his mental and moral impotence." Gerson explains how Trump, et al., are using the threat of violence as an election strategy.
Jeremy Herb & Jessica Schneider of CNN: "The Trump administration secretly sought and obtained the 2017 phone and email records of a CNN correspondent.... The Justice Department informed CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, in a May 13 letter, that prosecutors had obtained her phone and email records covering two months, between June 1, 2017 to July 31, 2017. The letter listed phone numbers for Starr's Pentagon extension, the CNN Pentagon booth phone number and her home and cell phones, as well as Starr's work and personal email accounts.... The seizure of Starr's records is the third disclosure in as many weeks where the Trump administration used its Justice Department to secretly obtain communications of journalists or to expose the identity of critics of ... Donald Trump's allies.... Three Washington Post reporters who covered the FBI's Russia investigation were told earlier this month that last year the Justice Department had obtained their phone records from 2017. In 2018, the Justice Department disclosed it had also obtained 2017 phone and email communications from a reporter for Buzzfeed, Politico and the New York Times who had written stories about Russia."
Annals of Journalism, or Something
Josh Dawsey & Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post: "CNN anchor Chris Cuomo advised his brother, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, and senior members of the governor's staff on how to respond to sexual harassment allegations made earlier this year by women who had worked with the governor, according to four people familiar with the discussions. Cuomo, one of the network's top stars, joined a series of conference calls that included the Democratic governor, his top aide, his communications team, lawyers and a number of outside advisers.... The cable news anchor encouraged his brother to take a defiant position and not to resign from the governor's office, the people [familiar] said.... The behind-the-scenes strategy offered by Chris Cuomo, who anchors CNN's 9 p.m. nightly newscast, cuts against the widely accepted norm in journalism that those reporting the news should not be involved in politics.... In a statement, CNN acknowledged that Chris Cuomo took part in the strategy sessions, saying his involvement was a mistake.... The network said Cuomo will not be disciplined." The Hill has a summary report here.
Mark Landler of the New York Times: "On Thursday, [25 years after then-BBC reporter Martin Bashir interviewed Princess Diana of Britain,] an inquiry concluded that Mr. Bashir deceived Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, to obtain the interview. And it faulted the British Broadcasting Corporation's management for covering up Mr. Bashir's conduct, which included creating fake bank statements to undermine a rival news organization.... The conclusions, though not unexpected, are a black eye for the BBC at a time when it has been under pressure from the Conservative government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson for its news coverage. The government has threatened to overhaul the compulsory license fee that finances most of the BBC's operations.... A previous internal BBC investigation -- led by Tony Hall, who later became the broadcaster's director general -- did not even consult Mr. Spencer before pronouncing Mr. Bashir an 'honest and honorable man.'... The BBC, which commissioned the independent inquiry in November, issued a contrite response, admitting that 'the process for securing the interview fell far short of what audiences have a right to expect.'" A CBS News story is here.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here. (Also linked yesterday.) The Washington Post's live updates for Thursday are here.
The Covid Caucus. Paige Cunningham of the Washington Post: "Fewer than half of House Republican members have agreed to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to a CNN survey. Around 45 percent have been vaccinated, compared with at least 92 percent of Senate Republicans and all Senate and House Democrats.... Yet it's Republican members who are also rebelling against masks.... A dozen refused to put on masks in the House chamber this week, my colleague Felicia Sonmez reports."
Having trouble gettng a Covid vaccine in your area? Why not take a vacci-cation -- to Mongolia! ~~~
~~~ Alexandra Stevenson of the New York Times: "Mongolia, a country of grassy hills, vast deserts and endless skies, has a population not much bigger than Chicago's.... But during a pandemic, being a small nation sandwiched between two vaccine makers with global ambitions can have advantages. At a time when most countries are scrambling for coronavirus vaccines, Mongolia now has enough to fully vaccinate its entire adult population, in large part thanks to deals with both China and Russia. Officials are so confident about the nation's vaccine riches that they are promising citizens a 'Covid-free summer.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times explores the cult-like dictates of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity.
Beyond the Beltway
Arizona. Jane Timm of NBC News: "Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said Thursday that the voting machines Republicans turned over to private companies as part of their audit of the 2020 election are no longer safe for use in future elections. In a letter sent to Maricopa County officials and shared with NBC News, Hobbs, a Democrat, cited security concerns about losing the chain of custody over the equipment when it was handed over to the auditors and urged the county to get new machines. If it does not, her office would consider decertifying the equipment involved in the audit, she wrote. That would remove the machines from service." A Washington Post story is here. ~~~
~~~ Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "The Trump-backed 'audit' of the 2020 election in Arizona is sinking deeper into madness, as Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward this week threatened her own party's officials with arrest. The Daily Beast reports that the audit has been driving divisions within the state GOP even deeper, and Ward is now pushing for the arrest of Republican election officials in Maricopa County if they refuse to comply with the auditors' demands. 'There have to be consequences,' Ward earlier this week. 'There could be arrests of people who are refusing to comply.'"
The idea that history is a project that's decided in the political arena is a recipe for disaster. -- Raul Ramos, University of Houston historian ~~~
~~~ Texas, etc. Simon Romero of the New York Times: "... a flurry of [Republican-]proposed measures that could soon become law would ... try to reframe Texas history lessons and play down references to slavery and anti-Mexican discrimination that are part of the state's founding.The proposals in Texas, a state that influences school curriculums around the country through its huge textbook market, amount to some of the most aggressive efforts to control the teaching of American history. And they come as nearly a dozen other Republican-led states seek to ban or limit how the role of slavery and pervasive effects of racism can be taught, [including Louisiana, New Hampshire and Tennessee]. Idaho was the first state to sign into law a measure that would withhold funding from schools that teach such lessons." ~~~
~~~ These legislators' proposals are akin to -- but worse than -- this: ~~~
~~~ North Carolina. Katie Robertson of the New York Times (May 19): "Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for The New York Times Magazine, was denied a tenured position at the University of North Carolina after the university's board of trustees took the highly unusual step of failing to approve the journalism department's recommendation.... The Republican-controlled North Carolina Legislature appoints the university system's Board of Governors, which has significant control over the university's board of trustees." MB: UNC is a state-run university (the first one in the country). My husband taught at UNC for decades, and departments always decided/voted on who earned tenure. I'm not saying that granting tenure was not political -- at every university, it's as political as can be (tho usually not on a left-right continuum) -- but at UNC, the trustees kept their noses out of the decisions. It appears from the report that Hannah-Jones will hold a distinguished chair funded by the Knight Foundation, and the department was "allowed" to grant her the chair.
South Carolina. "Are We There Yet?" as a Life-saving Defensive Measure. Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post: An armed hijacker from Fort Jackson commandeered a school bus, driver & 18 children. "Then, the kids -- the kindergartners especially -- started peppering him with questions, [the driver] said." The hijacker, apparently tired to the barrage of questions, ordered the driver to stop the bus & ordered everybody off. The "suspected" hijacker, "Jovan Collazo, was quickly apprehended and charged with kidnapping, armed robbery, carjacking and other offenses, authorities said."
Way Beyond
The New York Times' live updates of developments is the Israel armed conflict Friday are here: "The sirens across southern Israel were silent on Friday, and the thunder of bombs bursting in Gaza City was replaced by sounds of celebratory gunfire as a fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas went into force, bringing an end to more than 10 days of fighting that claimed more than 200 lives."
** Steve Hendrix, et al., of the Washington Post: "Israel's security cabinet voted Thursday night to approve a cease-fire in its 11-day aerial battle with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The cabinet, made up of top security officials and ministers, voted unanimously 'to accept the Egyptian initiative for a bilateral cease-fire without any conditions, which will take effect later,' according to a statement. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has also agreed with the Egyptian proposal. Taher al-Nounou, a media advisor to the head of the Hamas political bureau, said, 'We were informed by our brothers in Egypt that an agreement had been reached for a mutual and simultaneous ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, starting at 2 am on Friday, May 21, 2021. And that the Palestinian resistance will abide by this agreement as long as the occupation is committed.'" The AP's story is here.
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Reader Comments (10)
Everybody: Thanks so much for sane answers to my whining yesterday-- everything does seem so much worse than even during the reign of King Dumb Donald-- and it is almost as if he is sitting there watching the entire populace declare their allegiance to him, but he has nothing to do with it. I agree wholeheartedly with the assessment of the Vicious Turtle-- he IS even more soulless than Dumpie. He has dead eyes and that gravel voice, lying, and with such certitude==
Rachel's show tonight (Thursday) was scary. Apparently it is mass hypnosis. Or something. Audits for everyone! Again! In our state, PA, the "tyranny" of Governor Wolf has made poor little students and customers and teachers and merchants wear the Big Bad Masks, and NOW, after Tuesday, the hideous legislature will have all the power going forward. I'm ready to move back to Illinois, home of the many jailed governors. At least people don't seem as demented there. Rachel played some of the phone calls in CA-- complete lunatics demanding something-something.
About that fetal heartbeat thing-- more lunatics. But those lunatics are patient, and have waited a long time for their Valhalla-- now within sight, thanks to Bart and Prissy Amy. Lotta old guys surrounding the TX governor. It's always guys. Telling women what they have to do, including birthin' every unwanted, unbidden, unheralded bit of protoplasm that has unfortunately appeared. These sanctimonious people will also not support services for the unwanted children forced into the world, because bootstraps or lazy parents or something... The more things change, the more they don't. Plus ce change etc.
Anyhow, thank you all. I can always count on good, smart folks here, and I salute you all. You are all a thousand suns.
We will likely be hearing more about Fatty’s paranoid ideas for replacing the insufficiently loyal with his list of approved bootlickers, as well as additional revelations about his (cough*-cough*) foreign policy “plans”, moving armies around like on a Risk board. But we may not hear about the most absolutely batshit bullshit he tried to pull. Yes, he surrounded himself with bobble head dolls, but it’s possible (likely) that some of the truly meshuga crap he thought would fly couldn’t even make it past the fat-ass kissers.
And truly, this is the sort of thing that demonstrates the disgusting depths the “leaders” of the GQP were (and still are) willing to accommodate in order not to piss off this ignorant fraud, subjecting the country (and the world) to the malignant whims of an unstable toddler. As if killing half a million Americans wasn’t enough, they’re still lining up to triple down on his dangerous lies.
They all deserve perdition.
@Jeanne: I know it's depressing reading what horrors Republicans are up to. Sometimes I can barely stand to link stories about GOP atrocities. I came of age when American life seemed to be getting better: Brown v. Board of Education, federal civil rights laws, affordable higher education, women's rights.
A lot of that came to a halt when Reagan became president & Republicans controlled the Senate. However, Democrats controlled the House, and Reagan had to compromise. (When Nixon was president, Democrats controlled both Houses, so Nixon was sort of "liberal." whether he wanted to me or not.) But Reagan & his coterie did begin the March of the Wingnuts. And, unless American voters revolt, the wingnuts will regain control of the Congress soon. The Republican party has long been a threat to fairness and equality, but it is now -- obviously -- an existential threat to Constitutional government. These are crazy, corrupt, power-hungry, authoritarian nitwits, and they are backed by nearly half of our dimwitted citizens. And because they are corrupt, all they need is "nearly half." They have cooked the electoral process.
So I have to keep linking these depressing stories. I do try to throw in a few nonsense stories -- like Ted Cruz promoting the "masculine" Russian military -- because the nitwits' corruption is, when viewed in isolation, often pretty funny.
I don't have much advice about what to do about it -- other than not just saying "uh-huh" when your neighbor blames "Washington" or decries "government regulations" or says, "Politicians are all alike." I politely (at least I think I'm polite!) tell people why they're wrong unless I think they're absolutely insane. I think if we all sweetly corrected the dimwits every time they piped up, it might help. For instance, just yesterday, I had to take my car in for a repair, and the service lady complained to me that "the government" was trying to "fool people" with an advertisement she saw that touted "free vaccines." "Why would they do that?" she said. "All the vaccines are free." So I said, "Well, you know the federal government is paying for the vaccines, and I know that. But a lot of people don't. I just read in the paper (I didn't tell her my source was the "left-wing New York Times") that one reason people give for not getting the vaccine is that it costs too much. So that ad was essentially informing those people they wouldn't have to pay." That seemed to satisfy her. I made her think she was smarter than "those people," and "the government" was not trying to con anybody.
See the Don't Want to Know Party is still at it. The Texas legislature that has been trying to control history (as taught) as long as I can remember, the Capitol riot deniers and the Repugnant legislators who refuse to get vaccinated.
Maybe I've been too hard on them. They may have found a sensible way to navigate what is to them an overwhelmingly complicated world.
I just returned from sixteen days of no news and while I was away from it, my worry quotient diminished significantly, even when I was in a part of CA that featured nasty bumper stickers and hateful anti-Biden signs. Without the barrage of daily fact, ignoring the things I don't like was much easier.
But I couldn't ignore it all. I did read a few books, one on the Polio epidemic that some us lived through the end of back there in the nineteen fifties. Much I did not know, little whipper that I was, about its history and social consequences, the March of Dimes connection to FDR and the obvious parallels with our Covid present were sometimes breathtaking.
No, some things never change.
Will share this line from Thomas Rivers, one of the prominent polio researchers. "Our main problem now is not that there is something wrong with the Salk vaccine, but that there is something wrong with the people who won't take it."
We have been there before, haven't we?
Ah, the comfort of denial..
History (Texas and otherwise) has proved it's hard to beat.
"Although many Israelis scoff at the left-wing tendency to blame the occupation for the country’s problems, and Mr. Netanyahu has insisted for years that the conflict doesn’t control our lives, reality says otherwise. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dominates Israeli politics, muscling out sound policymaking in other critical areas of life. The conflict is suffocating liberal values, eroding Israel’s democratic institutions. Israeli leadership at large is collapsing under its weight...
It is time to accept that it’s not just that Israel controls Palestinians in the conflict. Palestine also controls Israel, Dahilia Scheindlin states in her essay in the NYT. "The occupation and the festering political conflict since 1948 have permeated every part of our society, political and social institutions, and well-being. If Israel and its supporters can view the situation in this light, they might reach different conclusions about what’s best for the country."
The story about Nikole Hannah-Jones–-denying her tenure because of her 1619 project is disturbing and frankly "in your face racism." What a slap in the face!
Jeff Flake was interviewed last night on Amanpour lamenting what has happened to the Republican Party–-his party–-explaining his need to depart from congress after seeing how Trump was operating. What he is seeing now is so off the charts–-especially the ditsy recount-recount in Arizona–-it defies explanation, he says. He backs Liz Cheney–-of course he does and I wished he was asked, after he said he was still a Republican that believed in its values, what exactly they were?
Big news! the world's largest iceberg ( six times the size of NYC) just broke off in Antarctica. Global warming warning signs keep coming–-cold comfort for those who take their comfort for granted.
YIPPEEE! KEN IS BACK!
As to your mention of the polio epidemic that we both went through. There's an excellent documentary–-American Experience on PBS–- on this period. The big difference on how all this was handled compared to this pandemic: Back then we had a president–-FDR; today we HAD a serial killer ( name withheld).
P.S. This just popped up in my email from a friend:
Shortly after receiving my first Moderna jab, I misplaced my car keys. I assumed that the vaccine was the cause, until my wife reminded me that a black cat had crossed my path at about that time. When I went for second shot, I carried my lucky charm, crossed myself three times, and threw some salt over my left shoulder — there were no ill effects.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
One of the facts that anti-vaxxers haul out involves a bad batch of Salk vaccine that was administered to California kids in the early 50s.
The fact is true: some people got polio from that "dead virus" vaccine.
My wife was one of those kids, and she got a mild case of polio, which had lifetime effects, none you would notice unless she told you. On the bright side, she got to be a poster child for the Jimmy Fund and posed with Ted Williams for that! (Navy brat, moved from CA to RI.)
But ... the point is ... despite being a poster child for problematic vaccine side effects, in January and February this year she spent hours each night (and pestered me to spend hours each morning) trying to run down vaccine appointments, which in Maryland were working with a kaleidoscopic mix of websites and prioritization rules. She was totally aware that her experience in the 1950s had NOTHING to do with the COVID vaccination situation in 2021, and that any one of the three available vax was an unalloyed good.
If you are an antivaxxer (none here I take it) you probably believe that medical science has regressed in the past 60 years. That would make you highly unobservant and slow. Like a dead armadillo.
The Daily Show shows what really happened on January 6th
@Patrick and any others who might be interested.
The polio history I quoted from: "Polio, an American Story" by David Oshinsky. Good book, published in 2005.
Includes a chapter on the Cutter Salk vaccine Patrick alludes to and his wife has good reason to know so well.
BTW, I'm not certain I got all of it, but believe Sabin's live virus vaccine is no longer recommended, that Salk's is preferred, if I read Oshinsky right.