Greg Palast, America's Last Journalist, reminds us that the Louisiana blackout is "Not an Act of God, But an Act of Entergy." Good New Orleans residents' electric bills keep going up and up, while Entergy's infrastructure loss during Hurricane Ida was, somehow, something far, far worse than a power loss "in Bangladesh after a typhoon." Bangladesh, as you know, is not exactly known for taking care of its citizens very well, so ouch. After that, you won't be surprised by the corruption Mr. Palast details -- though you may be surprised that Entergy has been running this scam for decades. It took Entergy a year to get the lights on after Katrina, but only Kathleen Blanco faced any accountability for that.
Jesus Mary and Joseph "moderate" Democrats are actually saying we can't tax unrealized capital gains because TEH FAMILY FARMZ!!!! It was horseshit 20 years ago, and it's even more horseshit now, since the Biden plan literally exempts family farms and small businesses from its proposed capital gains tax changes, but God forbid we let facts get in the way of yet another rage-addled drama foisted on good Americans by the rich. (As an aside, former Senator Max Baucus, who wrote the Wall Street Journal op-ed foisting this zombie lie upon us once again, was a bankster shill for all of his 36 years in office, yet retired from our Senate as one of its poorest members. You mean he did all that work for banksters because he believed in it? Gosh, I'd have liked him better if he'd lined his pockets!)
Colorado's allegedly Democratic Governor, Jared Polis, told a "conservative" conference (you know they're "conservative" because their event had the word "freedom" in its title!) that he wants to get rid of Colorado's state income tax. Arthur Laffer praises him, which is a kiss of death if ever there's been one. Mr. Polis further said he'd rather tax "things you want to penalize in society," like pollution and cigarettes, and though I'm warm toward the former and cool toward the latter, I have spent almost two decades arguing that excessive, unearned wealth is one of the "things you want to penalize in society." Also, too, a flat income tax is a bad way to penalize excessive, unearned wealth.
No, Virginia, police officers are not quitting in droves due to being told they execute too many Black folks. What's that? You've heard your cop friends say that? Your cop friends rely on stories they heard, but here's the data: local police departments have lost 1% of their employees during the pandemic, versus 6% for the economy as a whole. Our brains may be hardwired for stories, as they say, but collecting stories ain't necessarily the best way to build a civilization. Oh, and not for nothing, but the American Rescue Plan Act, for which precisely zero Republicans voted, sent more money police departments' way; so much for the "defund the police" talking point, amirite?
If you've been hearing about ZOMG TEH 2000 BREAKTHROUGHZ DEATHZ FROMZ TEH COVIDZ!!!!!, Richard Tofel reminds you that 2,000 deaths (if indeed there have been that many!) represents about one in 82,000 Americans, meaning you're more likely to get killed in a dog attack and almost as likely to get killed by lightning. "A Call for More Proportionality in Pandemic Coverage," he entitles his argument, though given how well our "liberal" media does with numbers, they're as likely to say ZOMG 82,000 DEADZ!!!! I'm more inclined to blame said "media" than I'd blame our own national aptitude at math, given how often our media present scare numbers without context. Remember ZOMG 941,000 SMALL BIZNIZZIZ!!!!!!? One could go on.
Finally, when I hear that anti-vax protestors have disrupted, and even shut down, vaccination drives in Georgia, my first reaction is what happened to "it's a personal choice"? Oh, right -- like everything else, it's a personal choice only for them; it's not a personal choice for you, and certainly not if you're going to make a different choice than they would. Which means these protestors aren't "free speech martyrs," they're just fascists. No, really, if they're actually going to prevent you from getting vaccinated, then they're trying to impose their choices upon you, which is what fascists do. I don't just fling that word around.
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