The Week in News
From Covid to the space race to the Insurrection, it was another busy week
Welcome to all our new subscribers, and thanks for joining us. In addition to writing a few stories throughout the week, I like to do a wrap-up of sorts every weekend. I look back at the week, discuss any late-breaking news, and then give you a few fun stories to lighten things up a bit. Enjoy. JOHN
And PS, if you like what you see, consider converting your subscription to a paid one, and I’ll clean your bathroom for a whole month! (I won’t.)
Covid, Covid, Covid. Delta continues to spread, and as I wrote earlier this week, the GOP’s sudden about-turn on vaccines — last week they hated them, this week they can’t get enough — is welcome, but odd. I’d still like to know what motivated the change of heart. And while surely they’re worried about the stock market — or more precisely, their big-money donors are worried about the markets — I think they’re also legitimately afraid for their own lives, not just the political one (though that’s probably part of it, I bet they saw some scary poll numbers that could jeopardize their taking control of Congress next year), but also that Delta might actually kill them (a bunch of old men) if they remain unvaccinated. But they didn’t know this already? Something happened.
The Space Race. I know a lot of folks on the left disagree with me, but I still got shivers watching Jeff Bezo’s phallus take off this week. Space flight will always excite me. (It might be a generational thing. I remember my mom making me watch the moon landing. I don’t recall the actual landing itself — just mom saying it was important!) And Bezos’ and Branson’s flights, billionaires and all, got me thinking that we need some lofty goals that unite us. Yes, we still need to address climate change, but I’m talking about things we can all (for the most part) agree on, not the controversial stuff. And I think science, and particularly, space, is one of them. And it has the added benefit of reintroducing Americans to the notion that science, and facts, are good things. I wrote more about this earlier in the week.
Back to Covid. I have to say, I’m losing patience. I know that the medical community, and health care advocates, are loathe to use scorn as motivation, but I’m not sure we have much else left in our goody-bag arsenal to get the holdouts vaccinated. Though, I did have a few more ideas. Some joking, some not. What about giving a large tax rebate to everyone who can prove they’ve been vaccinated? Republicans LOVE their tax cuts. Also, someone on Twitter came up with a good one: Tell the Republicans that we finally agree to enact Voter ID at the polls, but we’re including proof of vaccination! (That one might not work as well for us, as the Black community has unfortunately remained a holdout on getting vaccinated. Still, I love the spirit of it!)
Doing more thinking on the American vaccine holdouts, it’s true that the Delta variant came from India (or at least first surfaced there). So, even if we reach herd immunity here in the states, it’s not a given that some new vaccine-busting variant won’t develop elsewhere, where vaccination rates remain low, and then come over to our shores anyway. BUT, if we’re at herd immunity, it could still be a lot harder for the virus to spread. Unless of course it’s truly a variant that has co-opted the vaccines entirely, then God help us. Which argues for a much more robust approach, by all developed countries, in making sure the developing world gets the vaccines they need to whoop this thing once and for all.
There was a politico story, today I think, about how southern Republicans are saying they won’t get vaccinated because they’re made about Trump losing the election, and they don’t like that Democrats think they know what’s best. (As if Republicans never win elections, and think THEY know what’s best: e.g., Donald Trump.) I did a quick TikTok on the topic. And sadly, the fascist ant-Covid movement is on the rise in Europe as well.
Insurrection. Good news on the Insurrection-fighting front. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has appointed Tea Party Republican Adam Kinzinger to the Insurrection Committee, as I call it (the House select committee investing the January 6th attack on our government). Kinzinger is former military and a conservative Republican — I had forgotten that he got elected as a Tea Partyer! — so his conservative bona fides, like Liz Cheney’s, are intact (not for Trumpers, but they think Trump is a Republican, so whatever). But Kinzinger, like Cheney, is no Trump stooge. So he will strengthen the much-needed bipartisanship of the committee. Remember, this isn’t about convincing Trumpers they’re wrong. They’re crazy cultists. Logic isn’t gonna cut it. As far as I’m concerned, they’re lost to us. But we need a historical record of what happened that day, for history’s sake, and maybe we’ll also be able to influence some folks in the middle, and moderate Republicans (there still are some), to keep siding with us against Trump and the forces of darkness.
A bit more on vaccinations. Do you think Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson got secretly vaccinated and didn’t tell anyone? Think about it. Taylor Greene was asked the other day whether she’d been vaccinated, and she went off on a whole HIPAA tirade about how it was a violation of her rights for a reporter to ask her that! It’s not. HIPAA applies to health care workers and your employer. Reporters can ask you anything they want about your health. But what stuck out to me was that Taylor Greene never answered the question. Proud anti-vaxxer that she is, why wouldn’t she tell the reporter: “Damn right I didn’t get it.” Instead, she lectured him about her privacy. To me, that says she got it and didn’t want to show what a hypocrite she was. Same goes for Tucker — does anyone really think he didn’t get the Pfizer jab? We should be pushing both of them on this point.
And now for something different
Cat gets scared
Cool Ukrainian artwork
Possibly my favorite West Wing scene ever
This didn’t age well
Trump is threatening to not have Republicans vote again. You promise?
And watching this man tell-off Tucker Carlson will make your day.
Okay, that’s it for tonight. Off to walk my dog in the somewhat-kinda-sorta-but-not-really cooler evening temps. Let’s make this a good week, folks. JOHN
OK. They don't believe in science. No vaccine, OK. But also, they will also have to forgo cars, electricity, TV, computers, cell phones, penicillin, aspirin, running shoes--the list is endless.
All things produced by that vicious stupid science.
I sure WISH science was an area we could all agree on. A recent YouGov poll it's been doing for many years confirms a long-term trend. MOST Republicans don't "believe" in science. I think it was 56% that reject science. And it's been trending that way for decades. Hence our problems with COVID and the climate crisis and health care in general and education and a million other areas. They are fact free. Scary.