A quick note about COVID and mask wearing

A Qanon anti-mask conspiracy crackpot at

an anti-mask protest

A study published Nov. 11, 2021 in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine comments:

INTRODUCTION  

This study examines a hypothesized association of face covering mandates with COVID-19 mortality decline across 44 countries in 2 continents.

METHODS 

In a retrospective cohort study, changes in COVID-19-related daily mortality rate per million population from February 15 to May 31, 2020 were compared between 27 countries with and 17 countries without face mask mandates in nearly 1 billion (911,446,220 total) people. Longitudinal mixed effect modeling was applied and adjusted for over 10 relevant demographic, social, clinical, and time dependent confounders.

RESULTS 

Average COVID-19 mortality per million was 288.54 in countries without face mask policies and 48.40 in countries with face mask policies. 

CONCLUSIONS 

This study's significant results show that face mask mandates were associated with lower COVID-19 deaths rates compared with countries without mandates. These findings support use of face masks to prevent excess COVID-19 deaths, and should be advised during airborne disease epidemics.

 

So, when some QAnon crackpot or anti-masker extremist tells you that masks do not work, or some cynical, self-serving Republican politician tells you that refusing to wear a mask is a matter of freedom over tyranny, a person can tell them two things. First, one that they are full of crap or maybe something more civil. It is a matter of public health, not politics. Second, one can also say that anti-maskers are personally responsible for lots of needless deaths and lots of needless economic damage.

QAnon conspiracy crackpottery in high gear doing its thing, i.e.,

poisoning minds

Arizona Republicans protesting the tyranny of mask mandates:

a popular chant: 

I CAN'T BREATHE!! I CAN'T BREATHE!!  I CAN'T BREATHE!!

Wonder if she's pro-abortion

Partisan tactic: Break government, divide society, oppose everything, blame the opposition

Media Bias Fact Check rating of Washington Monthly

The cynicism and bad faith alleged in this article are jaw dropping. The Washington Monthly writes in an article entitled, How the GOP Engineers Crises to Blame on Biden:

Republicans say Biden has failed to end the pandemic and restore normalcy to our politics—but they are the ones spreading the lies and disinformation to undermine the vaccine and keep America divided.

On a recent episode of the Hacks on Tap podcast, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report discussed President Joe Biden’s falling poll numbers. She pointed to predictable factors like the emergence of the Delta variant of the coronavirus—slowing down our return from the pandemic—and the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. But she also argued that many Americans were disappointed by the continuing vitriol of the political discourse and the intense partisan divide. They blamed Biden, she said, for not restoring a sense of “normalcy” to politics.

The president of the United States is the most powerful person in the world, but he cannot single-handedly fix our politics.

To a certain extent, Biden perpetuated the idea that he could return calm to our politics: “American people are looking for a candidate who will promise them peace, not just victory.” He campaigned on the idea that Donald Trump’s presidency was “an aberrant moment in time,” arguing, “We have to remember who we are.” He promised that he would work with politicians on both sides of the aisle to pass legislation—and he has fulfilled that promise. Indeed, he has passed more bipartisan legislation than many of his supporters anticipated, such as the American Rescue Act and the infrastructure package.

Of course, politicians always make bold promises during campaigns. But perhaps Biden oversold his ability to restore decency to our nation’s politics. When he launched his presidential bid in May 2019, he acknowledged that the American people were “sick of the division. They’re sick of the fighting. They’re sick of the childish behavior.” In other words, his presidency would be the solution.

But it’s one thing to work with the few moderate Republicans who are left, and it is another to change the behavior of the party’s rank and file—especially when the GOP, as a whole, is still led by a would-be autocrat, and their whole modus operandi is to manufacture problems they can blame on Biden.

Simply put, the Republican Party has embraced a three-part platform: undermine the Biden administration; perpetuate anger and division; and blame Biden for not fixing the very crises they have engineered. This strategy isn’t a secret. In May 2021, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was “100 percent” focused on “stopping” the Biden administration—not ending the pandemic, battling climate change, or rescuing the economy from the devastation of COVID-19. His stated goal is pure obstruction.

Despite McConnell saying the quiet part out loud, large portions of the American population have accepted the premise that Biden is responsible for the vitriolic climate—even though it’s a climate cultivated in part by the conservative charlatans at Fox News who spread lies and misinformation every night to their millions of viewers.  

And we should also recognize the reality that the Republican Party has made a concerted effort to engineer crises that they, in turn, blame on Biden. It’s a cynical scheme—and voters need to pick up on it before it’s too late.

The article correctly points out that (i) Biden can’t make people like each other, (ii) he can’t control the divisive rhetoric and lies from Fox News, OANN, or Newsmax, and (iii) he can’t prevent republican politicians from spreading crackpot conspiracy theories or publishing animated videos depicting political violence against evil Democrats. He absolutely cannot control how social media spreads falsehoods and divisive content intentionally designed to create an irrational distrustful, angry national us vs. them bunker mentality.

Questions: 

1. Does the article get American political reality about right, or are allegations of cynical bad faith by the Republican leadership and their break it first and blame the opposition second tactics either false, or just over the top partisan exaggerations?

2. Does Biden deserve blame for promising bipartisanship when it was not possible to deliver, and he arguably should have know that was the case? Was Biden a fool to think that Trump’s presidency was “an aberrant moment in time,” or can that still turn out to be true?

Another warning about radical right attacks on democracy

I'm not alone:

Some other people that believe the 

Republican Party has become fascist

The warnings are coming fast and furious these days. Apparently, more people are waking up to what we are in the midst of and how deadly serious this is. A Washington Post opinion piece comments on a new report warning that the US is now close to civil war. The WaPo opinion comments:

Barbara F. Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego, serves on a CIA advisory panel called the Political Instability Task Force that monitors countries around the world and predicts which of them are most at risk of deteriorating into violence. By law, the task force can’t assess what’s happening within the United States, but Walter, a longtime friend who has spent her career studying conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Rwanda, Angola, Nicaragua and elsewhere, applied the predictive techniques herself to this country.

Her bottom line: “We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.” She lays out the argument in detail in her must-read book, “How Civil Wars Start,” out in January. “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war,” she writes. But, “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America — the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or the Ivory Coast or Venezuela — you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely. And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”

Indeed, the United States has already gone through what the CIA identifies as the first two phases of insurgency — the “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” phases — and only time will tell whether the final phase, “open insurgency,” began with the sacking of the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6.

Things deteriorated so dramatically under Trump, in fact, that the United States no longer technically qualifies as a democracy. Citing the Center for Systemic Peace’s “Polity” data set — the one the CIA task force has found to be most helpful in predicting instability and violence — Walter writes that the United States is now an “anocracy,” somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state.

U.S. democracy had received the Polity index’s top score of 10, or close to it, for much of its history. But in the five years of the Trump era, it tumbled precipitously into the anocracy zone; by the end of his presidency, the U.S. score had fallen to a 5, making the country a partial democracy for the first time since 1800. “We are no longer the world’s oldest continuous democracy,” Walter writes. “That honor is now held by Switzerland, followed by New Zealand, and then Canada. We are no longer a peer to nations like Canada, Costa Rica, and Japan, which are all rated a +10 on the Polity index.”  

Others have reached similar findings. The Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance put the United States on a list of “backsliding democracies” in a report last month. “The United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself," the report said. And a new survey by the academic consortium Bright Line Watch found that 17 percent of those who identify strongly as Republicans support the use of violence to restore Trump to power, and 39 percent favor doing everything possible to prevent Democrats from governing effectively.

Note that 17% of staunch Republicans support violence to restore Trump to power and 39% want to stop the Democrats from governing. Millions now support violence to restore Trump. And, Americans who are open to the use of violence is not limited to just Republicans.

Hey, Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema, are you two yahoos listening, or are you just corrupt dolts who do not care about democracy or even hate it? Keep on blocking law to protect voting rights and you two traitors will get what you are asking for, namely a Christofascist kleptocracy.

Questions: 

1. Is this just more baseless Democratic Party alarmism, or is the US democracy under an intense ongoing attack by the Republican Party and its propagandists, allies, and financial backers (liar Fox News, greedy Christian nationalists, the deranged Koch Leviathan, etc.)? 

2. Have Americans been warned enough yet? (probably not)

3. How does responsibility for America's descent into fascist tyranny lie?

My take on it:

Republican Party and its supporters, lies and rhetoric: ~80%

Democratic Party and its supporters, lies and rhetoric: ~12%

Everything else, e.g., Russia, non-voters, corporate liars and their propaganda, etc.: ~8%

Treason alleged against Republican Representative Jim Jordan

Newsweek writes in an article, 'Jim Jordan Is a Traitor' Over Mark Meadows Texts, Says Fellow Congressman:

Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego has called Republican Representative Jim Jordan a "traitor to the Constitution." This comes after Jordan's office confirmed he sent a text to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about rejecting Electoral College votes on January 6.

Gallego, who represents Arizona's 7th congressional district, told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday that "a slow-moving coup" was still taking place.

Gallego told MSNBC: "Look, Jim Jordan is a traitor. He's a traitor to the Constitution of the United States. He has been a traitor to the Constitution of the United States for quite a while, and now we actually have it in text."

"But we shouldn't be surprised and why is anybody surprised?" he said, saying Jordan had lied on the floor of the House of Representatives about the 2020 election.

"My biggest issue isn't Jim Jordan. My issue is the fact that there's a lot of people out there that are not taking this seriously," Gallego went on. "The fact that there is a slow-moving coup that is happening right now all over this country that are led by the Jim Jordans and other people."

Jordan's full message read: "On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all — in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence. 'No legislative act,' wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78, 'contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.' The court in Hubbard v. Lowe reinforced this truth: 'That an unconstitutional statute is not a law at all is a proposition no longer open to discussion.' 226 F. 135, 137 (SDNY 1915), appeal dismissed, 242 U.S. 654 (1916). Following this rationale, an unconstitutionally appointed elector, like an unconstitutionally enacted statute, is no elector at all."

Jordan's legal rationale is nonsense. But these days, that is what the face of American fascist crackpottery looks like. Guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton is meaningless. What law Jordan believes is invalid isn't stated, so his reference to the Hubbard v. Lowe legal precedent is also meaningless. Why hasn't Jordan or anyone else filed suit to invalidate the allegedly invalid law(s)? The answer is that there is no invalid law(s) to invalidate. 

Jordan is a liar and a Republican traitor. He is respected by the Republican Party leadership. Logically, that makes the Republican Party leadership treasonous to a significant extent. 

Meanwhile, in other Republican Party news, the ex-president is calling for Mitch McConnell's head because, among other bad things, he has something to do with passage of Biden's unfrastructure bill. Newsweek comments: 

Former President Donald Trump has issued a statement calling for the replacement of Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, blaming the longtime Kentucky senator for helping Democrats with their "unfrastructure" and "Build Back Worse" bills, both key aspects of President Joe Biden's agenda.

"Mitch McConnell has given away the Unfrastucture Bill and will soon be giving away the Build Back Worse Bill, which will change the very fabric of our society," Trump's Wednesday statement began. "This was all made possible by the two-month extension he gave the Democrats, the separation of the two Bills, and, most importantly, his lack of courage in playing the Debt Ceiling Card."

"He has grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory!" Trump's statement continued. "How this guy can stay as Leader is beyond comprehension—this is coming not only from me, but from virtually everyone in the Republican Party. He is a disaster and should be replaced as 'Leader' ASAP!"  

In early October, McConnell gave Democrats a two-month extension to avoid a vote to raise the debt ceiling until December. He gave them the extension, he said, because he wanted Democrats to say the specific figure that they sought for the new debt ceiling. That amount was nearly $30 trillion, largely to pay for budget items approved during the Trump presidency.

McConnell had also said that he would force Democrats to raise the debt ceiling using a process called reconciliation, which would allow Democrats to pass measures through the Senate with a simple majority vote. He and other Republicans said they preferred reconciliation so that Democrats alone would be responsible for whatever consequences the debt increase might pose.  

However, in early December, McConnell changed course. At that point, McConnell said that he would allow Democrats to avoid using reconciliation by finding 10 Senate Republican votes to approve a raising of the debt ceiling by Democrats using a one-time simple majority vote.

Questions: What about voters who keep voting people like Jordan into office, treasonous or not? What about major Republican Party donors? What about the ex-president, mendacious traitor or not?