Republican legislative leaders in four of the five states Joe Biden flipped in this year's election say they won't intervene in their states' selection of electors, even though that's one of the stratagems our President is pursuing to try to "win" the election. They all sounded a little more willing last week, though that was before 16 assistant U.S. attorneys told our Attorney General to stop looking for widespread voter fraud because it's not there and our Department of Homeland Security issued a report finding the 2020 election "the most secure in American history." I'm a little dismayed to hear from Arizona's Republican House leader that folks are clogging up his phone lines begging Arizona Republicans to intervene. Maybe we'll do something about that tomorrow.
As the announcement of a possible COVID-19 vaccine gives us hope, we should remember that Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, if it works, won't be making its way to the world's poorer nations with any quickness. Pfizer will be able to make 1.3 billion doses in the next calendar year; now remember that the world's population is seven billion, and note that the U.S., E.U., U.K., and Japan have already bought most of those 1.3 billion doses, and you begin to see the problem. Why didn't world governments collaborate on a vaccine on their people's behalf? Oh, because that would have been "socialism." Fear of being a "socialist" sure seems to kill a lot of people.
When you read about "How Government and Private Industry Let the Main Street of a Black Neighborhood Crumble," you will be gobsmacked at the short-sightedness of so much public policy in Chicago's East Garfield Park area, once a thriving, black working-class neighborhood, but no longer. Long story short: local government lit a lot of money on fire trying to "lure" private investment (and got mainly speculators instead), and also tore down a lot of buildings because they were empty and/or drug-infested and where do small businesses go when the buildings are gone? And no, the riots of 1968 didn't permanently destroy the neighborhood -- those riots destroyed 200 buildings, whereas municipal policy destroyed 13 times that many in 1975 alone.
Been hearing that steady drumbeat from our "liberal" media about how more Latinx voted for our President than anyone could have suspected? Then let's relax and remember that 65% more Latinx voted in 2020 than in 2016 and Latinx voters went for Mr. Biden by 30 points. I've seen different reports on Mr. Biden's actual vote share -- some have it between 64% and 66%, rather than the 70% figure trumpeted in the article's headline -- but 64% of more votes means, you know, more votes. Too many so-smart-they're-dumb Democratic politicians think elections are won with percentages or something. They also tend to forget that not every Latinx voter is alike.
Jenice Robinson at ITEP says our "liberal" media should stop predicting that Mr. Biden's tax plan doesn't have a chance in Mitch McConnell's Senate. It's not their job to predict, after all, but report, and it's our job to communicate our will to our Congressfolk and our President. Our current President's 2017 tax "reform" obviously didn't protect the Republican House majority in 2018, and Mr. Biden becomes the second Democratic Presidential candidate out of the last three to talk of raising taxes on the wealthy -- and also the second of the last three to win their election. I sense a pattern.
Finally, perhaps the single worst thing I've read this year: Jonathan Chait at New York magazine says Joe Biden should give Republicans more tax cuts for the rich in exchange for merely passing some more coronavirus legislation. How about fuck no? "Give it to them once and they'll demand more of it in exchange for everything else forever and ever" isn't even the best reason not to do that. The best reason? Because you shouldn't make yourself a hostage to Mitch McConnell; making yourself a hostage injures our democracy and insults everyone who has worked, fought and died to keep it. Jesus Mary and Joseph do these "liberal" media "analysts" have any clue how they come off to regular folks?
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