I used to hate-read Jen Rubin back in 2012, and if you’d told me then that within a decade, her column would be a must-read because she consistently tells the goddamn truth, I’d have called you daft. Yet it is so. In today’s column, Rubin writes that Republican-led states have the highest rates of murder and COVID-19 deaths and cites a JAMA article about the growing health disparity between red and blue states:
In 1990, life expectancy in New York was lower than in Oklahoma, but the trajectories separated sharply in the 1990s and, by 2016, New York ranked third in life expectancy, whereas Oklahoma ranked 45th.” Moreover, “the widening gap cannot be explained by changes in the racial and ethnic composition of states, because the same trend occurred within racial and ethnic groups.”
Instead, Woolf says the politics of red states is killing their residents. “Conservative governors increasingly use preemption, the authority to override local governments, to block liberal health policies (e.g., indoor smoking bans),” he notes. “States have preempted local regulations on nutrition (e.g., menu labeling, food deserts) and, as of 2013, 45 states had enacted statutes to limit local firearm regulations.”
Red state governors also used preemption powers to block public health responses to the COVID crisis, and statistics like the ones cited below should be tattooed on the forehead of the next political gossip monger who praises Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s handling of the pandemic or says it gives him a political advantage without the context that it’s based on lies:
States that rushed to curtail lockdowns in the spring of 2020 experienced more protracted surges in infections and disruptions to their economies. In 2021, excess deaths were disproportionately concentrated in states where resistance to COVID-19 vaccination was prevalent. For example, excess death rates in Florida and Georgia (more than 200 deaths per 100 000) were much higher than in states with largely vaccinated populations such as New York (112 per 100 000), New Jersey (73 deaths per 100 000), and Massachusetts (50 per 100 000). States that resisted public health protections experienced higher numbers of excess deaths during the Delta variant surge in the fall of 2021. Between August and December 2021, Florida experienced more than triple the number of excess deaths (29 252) as New York (8786), despite both states having similar population counts (21.7 million and 19.3 million, respectively).
It’s good that the study relies on excess death statistics rather than COVID data because, as we know, red states lie about or withhold pandemic statistics. And why wouldn’t they? It works. Despite making the state demonstrably less free and more sick, DeSantis still has fairly high approval ratings — a lot higher than President Biden’s.
Maybe we can turn that around in November, maybe not. Regardless, it suggests that in addition to polarization that creates a floor of support, terrible red state governors benefit from a whole lot of ignorance and apathy too. We knew that, of course, but maybe it makes sense to make the health effects of Republicanism more widely known. Couldn’t hurt, so kudos to Rubin.
Open thread.
Baud
They’ll try to tear blue areas down to red state levels if they get the power to do so.
burnspbesq
I live in Texas. Tell me something I didn’t know.
But it’s not just politics, it’s also behavior. There is more obesity, more smoking, and more alcohol abuse here than anywhere else I’ve ever lived, including the post-industrial wasteland of Upstate NewYork
Baud
Another way to frame this is that Dems are good for your health.
scav
Red states: Diamond Lanes to Jeebus.
Worse. High Capacity Public Transportation to Heaven!
Betty Cracker
@burnspbesq: Good point. Also, the food in the South tastes wonderful (IMO) but isn’t good for you. Too many fried meats and bacon-flavored veggies.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Like a vegetable tray without a fat-laden dipping sauce!
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@scav: Someone noted there’s a stairway to heaven and a highway to hell. That’s all you need to know about projected traffic patterns.
Antonius
Build those walls. Allow the refugees through.
delk
Herschel Walker Attack Ad
wow
Kay
@delk:
It’s rough but it’s true. His behavior with women is that of a serious, dangerous abuser. That they’re actually running him knowing all this is just shocking. I guarantee it isn’t just two women.
Bill Arnold
With some work, this could be hung around DeSantis’s neck for the upcoming election; he and his henchmen would not be able to blame excess deaths on COVID restrictions (Florida proudly barely did restrictions), and it’s also strong evidence for big-time Russia-level lying.
lee
Here’s what really pisses me off about this: the kids.
More studies are coming out how the kids are having long term issues (e.g. higher rate of diabetes) with even mild cases of Covid. The red states (mine included) did everything they could to stop preventative measures in schools. These kids are are going to suffer life long problems because of stigginit.
scav
@Betty Cracker: It’s not exactly a new phenomena (albeit perhaps accelerating.) There was an article I read geological eons ago about a geographic pattern of tornado deaths (Northern v. Southern states) that seemed best described by differences in behavior & coping styles. The South more often just seemed to (exactly) leave it to Jesus.
The Tornado Threat: Coping Styles of the North and South: Tornado death rates in Illinois and Alabama may be related to the psychology of their residents. Science. June 30, 1972.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
If you tell me that liberals want to take away my eggs fried in bacon fat, I’m going to have to vote Trump.
Sorry….
burnspbesq
@Kay:
Have you seen Herschel’s recent statements on in vitro fertilization and evolution? Dude makes Tommy Tuberville and Louie Gohmert look good by comparison.
Kay
@lee:
It concerns me too. They’re now finding longer term (one year out) damage in adults from even asymptomatic covid in healthy adults- lung and heart damage. They just don’t know enough about the effect on kids yet for anyone to be speaking with such certainty about how they aren’t harmed.
Kay
@lee:
It concerns me too. They’re now finding longer term (one year out) damage in adults from even asymptomatic covid in healthy adults- lung and heart damage. They just don’t know enough about the effect on kids yet for anyone to be speaking with such certainty about how they aren’t harmed.
Amir Khalid
You’ve heard of The Ghost of Kyiv, the (probably mythical) Ukrainian MiG-29 pilot who shot down five — or six — Russian jets in one sortie and became an instant ace? Well, meet The Ghost of Moscow.
SiubhanDuinne
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin):
Theres also a Road to Ruin and a Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
:-o
Kay
@burnspbesq:
I saw it briefly but as far as I’m concerned the two police reports are absolutely disqualifying, so his nutty opinions are just beside the point. Every line of the reports of the incidents with his wife is a long established red flag for serious DV. The kind of attacks that kill women. They know and they went ahead with him anyway. They have 30 years of collected info on how those abusers behave- like him.
scav
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): There’s a new earworm for ya. And they’re buill-ill-illding a HOV to Heah-eh-ven.
ArchTeryx
Dying of whiteness.
Josie
@Kay: The truth is they just don’t care. Domestic violence is not a big problem in their minds. He is black, so put him up against another black person. He’s a famous football player, so he’ll be popular. Problem solved.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That’s what I find so unspeakably outrageous; these shitheads are knowingly gambling with kids’ lives for political gain. I sincerely hope people like FL’s flaming kook of a surgeon general, who is exhorting parents not to vaccinate children, wins his bet and that unvaccinated kids don’t end up with a host of debilitating problems in the years to come.
But the truth is HE doesn’t know what’s going to happen, and he apparently just doesn’t give a shit. He’s not stupid, so the only other explanation is that he doesn’t care. It’s mind-boggling.
Cameron
@Kay: They went with him for one reason: Trump wants him.
Old School
@Amir Khalid:
Somehow, I don’t think he’ll be as much of a hero to Ukraine.
lowtechcyclist
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m On the Road To Find Out.
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
Correction: Looking at the CDC data, Florida’s excess deaths/mortality and reported COVID mortality are not wildly out of line, unlike Russia’s numbers.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm#dashboard
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
5 to 11 have really low vaccination rates too. I’m not even asking them to be cautious, because I know any inconvenience is a grave offense to the constitution and also tyranny.
I just think they should stop telling people they know. They don’t know. They didn’t know a year ago that even mild covid cases in healthy adults did heart damage. They found out.
Cameron
I’m willing to bet that the same jokers who poo-poo the seriousness of COVID by claiming that it’s only people with co-morbidities who become really ill or die also completely reject the idea of expanding Medicaid to help get those co-morbidities treated.
japa21
Keep in mind, these are the same people that want to get rid of the no preexisting conditions requirements of the ACA (along with all the rest of it).
On another note. Gas at the Costco where I am mildly gainfully employed on Tuesday was $4.55 per gallon. Yesterday was $4.40. Long way to go yet, but definitely in the right direction.
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
It was suspected by late spring/summer 2020, though. Good scientists tend not to publicize their suspicions with at least some backing evidence (and preferably, peer reviewed publications), so this wasn’t widely known.
There was a recent UK biobank paper (large study using UK (socialized) medical information) with before/after brain scans showing brain (mostly white matter) shrinkage in “recovered” COVID patients. It languished in peer review for about a year (preprint march 2021) before recently being published in Nature. It was adults only.
Basically, not vaccinating kids and/or exposing them to COVID should be considered functionally similar, for brain effects only, to occasionally randomly feeding them lead paint chips; precautionary principle, based on the the adult studies.
lowtechcyclist
And at a personal level, that’s why I’ll be wearing my KN-95 mask a long time after everyone else has stopped masking up: I plan on living a long time yet, and I want them to be good years. I don’t want to get a mild case of Covid and find out a few years later that my lungs won’t let me hike the Rockies.
But at the societal level, it’s hard to see this as anything different from the 1960s drug pusher who’d tell you that no, this drug won’t do anything bad to you, it’ll just make you feel awesome.
They’re pushing tribalism, the payoff to the pushers are high office for some of them, more viewership hence more money for others. And the people who buy what they’re selling pay the price.
Brachiator
Can’t hurt, but this is part of a larger ideological war.
Conservatives are saying that big government is bad, and that science and public health boards as part of government are also bad, because, Freedom!
There is no social good, only individual choices.
Then comes this irrational pirouette. Since the right to individual choice is laid down, by Baby Jesus in the 10 Commandments, individuals cannot possibly make the wrong decision, so any death figures must be lies.
The solution of DeSantis, Rand Paul and others is to abolish public health agencies and bar the collection of any data related to deaths and illness.
trollhattan
@delk: “Go Dawg”
He seems nice.
cain
@Cameron: You just extend the prosperity gospel to include health – if you get sick, it just means that you didn’t love your God enough. (even with prayer warriors, clearly they are losers)
cain
Except when it comes to pregnancies and other things – that they have to track cuz women’s bodies are a property of the state.
Alison Rose ???
Yeah, I’ve said before that one of the weirdest things about the Trump era is that it made me approvingly cite Rubin on multiple occasions. I’m sure I’d still disagree with her on plenty of things, but at least she turned out to have a functioning brain.
trollhattan
@japa21: Typically buy gas about 1/month and this week Costco premium was $5.59 and a month ago, $4.59. Around town it’s at or above $6.00 at most stations.
trollhattan
@Kay:
This got me curious and our county reports 38% of the 5-11 cohort are vaccinated. They were the last eligible, so I’m not surprised it’s the lowest of any age group; obviously there’s a huge opportunity for improvement. Guessing now that our case rate is back to very low (80/day vs. 4,000 on Jan 10) folks have wandered onto other shiny things and simply can’t be bothered.
Soprano2
@Kay: It probably started in high school, actually, and it’s probably still going on. They think as long as he’ll vote the right way their voters won’t care, and shockingly they’re probably right. Look at how many people in AL voted for Roy Moore, and how many voted for TFG.
trollhattan
@Alison Rose ???:
Agreed. For the first of the Trump years I was very skeptical given her history, but I truly think she’s had the scales lifted from her eyes and has the backbone and ethics to observe and report/opine based on what she sees, not what she wishes she saw. Unlike, say, David Brooks.
Soprano2
@Kay: I’m concerned that my husband’s “winter cough” was made worse by him having Covid. I also suspect he might have had Covid again in January, because he got really sick for a few days but there were no tests to be had because that was the Omicron peak here, and he didn’t think that was it anyway (it’s just my winter cough! he says). To me it seems worse now than it ever has been, and he did have asthma when he was a kid.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
Crude oil prices (e.g. WTI) have dropped from early March. (Peak of 125.7?, now around 100, up from 95)
Kay
@trollhattan:
It worries me. I was a proponent of opening schools. I thought kids were really harmed by closed schools, especially the most vulnerable kids. But I hoped people would still take reasonable precautions as a kind of trade off to opening them- masks and vaccines- and they won’t even do that. So increased risk with opening = more important to retain the other mitigations. That seems reasonable to me. Nope. Must instead continue to insist we know they aren’t harmed, when we don’t know shit.
Ohio Mom
Even as a lay person, I know of viruses that continue to cause harm long after the initial illness polio/post polio syndrome, chicken pox/shingles, and herpes, which never goes away, just cycles off and on — so how much imagination does it take to consider that as time goes by, Covid might also remind the patient of its existence?
I am thinking just as every law enforcement immediately sensed after hearing Nicole Simpson had been murdered,”OJ did it”, every infectious disease specialist must have been wondering from the start about long-term after effects.
Sure Lurkalot
Number one, I don’t think their constituents care, well anyway, until it affects them or friend/family and sometimes not even then. Poor Uncle Fred, you know, he never really took good care of himself….
Number two, they make up shit to convince themselves that it’s the “right” people getting sick. My local paper is full of comments on COVID related articles about how it’s the vaccinated that are sick and dying.
It’s a freaking cult.
Betty Cracker
@Cameron: It almost makes you hope Walker wins the primary because he’d be easier to beat. But on the other hand, there’s a non-zero chance he’ll win, in which case we’d have a violent, brain-injured creep in the senate. (Not the first, I suspect…)
bbleh
Well, but see, all those problems are OTHER people’s fault, and also they MADE us do it. Plus you can prove anything with “statistics.” And also something else something something Jesus something libruls. That’s why we need MORE Trump, not less.
SiubhanDuinne
@delk:
Meanwhile, Sen. Warnock is running a series of positive TV spots highlighting his accomplishments, constituent services, etc. The contrast between the two is striking. Especially because (can’t believe I’m agreeing with Chuck Todd’s point), as both are Black, there’s no underlying racial component in the event of that matchup.
jonas
The victims of red state governors’ pro-Covid policies were largely the working poor (esp. POC) who had to remain on the front lines during the pandemic with no safety precautions and few or no heathcare options prior to falling seriously ill. In other words, they didn’t matter. Sure, some old white people died from it as well, but again, if you’re a Republican, they were probably going to die soon anyway, so wev. Anyone else was just weak. On the upside, that big boat parade in Tampa Bay could go forward, so huzzah!
Soprano2
It won’t surprise me one bit if the Republican-led states stop gathering and publishing Covid data in a month or two. See, if you don’t gather than data, then no one knows how bad Covid is in your state, and the problem is solved! *rolleyes* It’s dumb, but for the true believers it’ll be effective.
Annie
All too true.
I live in deep-blue San Francisco. Total for Covid 19 here is 122, 546 cases and 838 deaths.
South Dakota, deep-red land of Kristi Noem, with a population about 1% higher than ours, has had 236,750 cases and 2,870 deaths. And S. Dakota’s numbers ought to be lower since their population is a lot more spread out than San Francisco’s.
Cacti
The goal of the 21st century GOP is to make every state into Mississippi.
zeecube
@delk: good add. Was wondering why it had Chuckie Todd at the end giving his usual deep political thought thingies about Warnock running against black v white candidates Then realized the add was produced by the white guy not named Purdue.
Bill Arnold
@Ohio Mom:
It was especially concerning because the virus has a novel (except for SARS-1) method of insertion of itself into cells, and so much different tissue tropisms (what tissues in the body get infected) than other viruses, even than other coronaviruses. And the disruption of vascular epithelium aspect was apparent early 2020. (1000+ square meters of surface area in one’s vascular system.) Some of the weirder effects, like type 2 diabetes, were a bit of a surprise, but again have been suspected for a while by clinicians.
SiubhanDuinne
@burnspbesq:
Why are there still apes? Huh? Think about it. https://www.bet.com/article/d5zmto/herschel-walker-evolution-comments-apes-exist
I missed his comments on IVF, but I’ll bet they were doozies. Off to consult Mr. Google
Brachiator
@cain:
RE: The solution of DeSantis, Rand Paul and others is to abolish public health agencies and bar the collection of any data related to deaths and illness.
Yes the contradictions are mind-boggling.
West of the Rockies
And these Republicans would rather suffer and die than be proven wrong.
It is bizarre.
smith
The racial component is in the Repub’s thinking that Black candidates are interchangeable, because the only important thing about them is that they’re Black. Here’s hoping it works out as well as it did when Alan Keyes was the Republican Great Black Hope going up against Obama in 2004. Obama’s margin of victory was 43%.
mrmoshpotato
@lee:
Killing your constituents to own the libs. The entire GOP is garbage.
Alison Rose ???
@trollhattan: David Brooks. What an asshole.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: If your 3-legged stool is (1) DJT’s blessing, (2) violence against women, and (3) disbelief in evolution, there are all too many places in this country where that would be enough support to boost you into office. Shoot, even in Pennsylvania, when you get out into the sticks and stop for a cold one somewhere you’ll be sharing the bar with Skeeter and Cletus Lee and Goober. And they won’t be shy about telling you what they think of you, whether asked to or not.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
The goal of the 21st century GOP is to make every state into 1850 Mississippi.
Rusty
The six reactionaries on the Supreme Court are going to bring the blue states down to the red states level of lethal policies when they decide to toss most of the regulations for OSHA and the EPA. They will also equalize death rates by firearms between states by eliminating gun regulations.
Cameron
@West of the Rockies: As long as they own the libs, what else truly matters? Surely not petty questions of suffering and death!
Kay
@Cameron:
Horrible to say but in Ohio anyway, I think Trump’s abusive treatment of women helped him with his base. It’s one of the things I’ve had to accept over the last years- how deep that runs in the US.
That they’re proudly running a candidate with a record like Walker’s just convinces me more. It may not even be a liability. It’s sad because 20 years ago this would have been unacceptable. Now it’s not. They’re going backward.
Ksmiami
@Baud: or “We’re Democrats; Come with us if you want to live…”
SiubhanDuinne
@smith:
Well … This is Georgia, not Illinois. But let’s hope voters here can spot the differences and not vote based on Old Dawg worship.
Also, true about the GOP’s belief that one Black candidate is much like another. Same with women, especially with identifiable racial/ethnic minority status (“Kamala Harris, you say? Heeeeere’s Nikki Haley!!”)
Cameron
@smith: A friend of mine went to a talk in Harrisburg back then featuring Keyes and Alan Dershowitz. Her impression was that they were both highly intelligent and more than a little repulsive. She said she thought Keyes didn’t have all his marbles.
Brachiator
@jonas:
I don’t know that this is entirely correct, and have not seen much data that includes race and income.
But I know that conservatives wish it were true.
And the “old people were going to die anyway” is such bullshit.
Also, too, “it’s just like the flu, same mortality rate.” Another lie.
Even though these lies are easily refuted, the Covid-stupid crowd keeps coming back to them.
JaySinWa
@West of the Rockies:
The preference of dying over admitting being wrong is probably distributed evenly across the population. The tendency to believe in wrong things that end up being deadly appears to be more prevalent among a certain group however.
WeimarGerman
Just wondering if Dems will actually run a campaign on “GOP leadership kills”. Whether its clean air, clean water, gun laws, food safety, lack of road maintenance, women’s health – no matter what its all worse under the GOP.
I fear the Dems dont have the gumption to call it like it is.
japa21
Totally off track, but I still have a perfect bracket.
Marc
Sadly, that’s absolutely not true. The manufactured perception will be that one candidate would vote FOR legislation that helps the black community at the expense of whites, whereas the other would vote AGAINST.
lowtechcyclist
@Rusty:
And they’ll surely decide that gun regulation is one area that states’ rights doesn’t apply to. If you can open carry without a license in one state, then they’ll say Article IV, Section 1 means every state must honor your right to do so.
cain
@Brachiator:
The goal is to make it like Russia, a whole bunch of poor and a whole bunch of oligarchs ripping the state off.
lowtechcyclist
@WeimarGerman: I fear the Dems dont have the gumption to call it like it is.
This is the thing that worries me too. Republicans have been demonizing their Dem opponents for as long as I can remember.
And now that all you have to do to demonize Republicans is to tell the fucking truth about them, I’m scared that the Dems will continue to speak of Republicans as a legitimate political party, just that the Dems are still the right choice, rather than treating them as a party that should be wiped off the face of the earth.
cain
@Brachiator:
Ultimately, they are killing their own base. They are creating a natural filter where the unvaccinated who primarily are voting GOP are going to have shorter life spans and die off faster.
It will push them to end this silly Democracy experiment since they’ll not win.
cain
@lowtechcyclist:
I think stats still show that voters prefer having positive messages not negative ones. We’ve survived this long on that kind of messaging.
GOP voters just want the world to burn.
trollhattan
@Bill Arnold: Price volatility seems to only occur in one direction. Prices shoot up like a rocket then float down as if under a parachute (when they come down at all). Funny, that.
ETA My only possible positive is folks trying to decide “RAM, Tundra, or F-150?” chill the hell out when pondering the $200 fills. That Camry is looking a lot smarter lately. My neighborhood was completely built out by the 1940s so not designed around hosting giant SUVs and trucks. Last week I counted the number of trucks parked in front of one especially egregious home: six.
West of the Rockies
@Cameron:
Oddly enough, I never feel especially “owned” by Republicans. I can’t think of a single time I said, “Damn, they’ve got a good point there. Why the hell shouldn’t preschoolers be allowed to open carry?!?”
trollhattan
Sweet Jesus, why?
trollhattan
Trick question: we know they’re supposed to rush the shooter, en masse.
Just One More Canuck
@SiubhanDuinne: We’re on the Road to Nowhere
Cameron
@trollhattan: In fairness, she didn’t know who they were – a wingnut neighbor of hers suggested it. She found it an interesting experience, but not worth repeating.
Villago Delenda Est
Facts, schmacts. The GQp base isn’t interested any any “facts” that don’t fit in precisely to their ideological view. What people like DeathSentence do is pander to them, but they don’t perceive it as pandering. They view it as affirming their fundigelical dominionist druthers.
LongHairedWeirdo
You know, we’d like to think there was some sort of self-correction available here. Back in 2012, the Republican Party was already barking mad, and unable to be supported by good faith people. (By “good faith,” I mean people who don’t invent arguments to support a predetermined conclusion.)
We’ve lost our “barking mad barometer” because, for some reason, people are allowed to state, and be quoted as saying, absolutely ridiculous things. I mean, isn’t it wrong that people who state that “sure, invading Iraq was fine, we should just kill a bunch of people every so often, just to remind the world that we’re serious” where “serious” apparently means “random killers”? Or the words of a soi disant pundit who thinks “just suck. On. This,” is a good argument regarding warfare.
Cameron
@West of the Rockies: The “owning” is all in their heads – it usually involves them muttering (or shouting) magical owning words like “woke,” “antifa,” or “cancel.” They have no idea what these words are supposed to mean, just that they prove how bad/lame/WTFever libtards are. And thus are libtards owned.
UncleEbeneezer
Glad to see my state pushing back:
smith
@Brachiator: It may not in fact be correct that POC have suffered the most from covid in red states. CDC gives case and death stats by race/ethnicity over time, and you can see them state-by-state or by HHS regions. If you look at per capita deaths by race/ethnicity for the reddest region, HHS region 4 (the South), you’ll see that non-Hispanic whites had the highest death rates in the three big surges (winter 2020-21, Delta, and Omicron). It is true that before that first big winter surge minorities in this region did have the highest death rates, but later, when political stances hardened and then vaccines became available, white deaths went to the top and stayed there. They don’t give cumulative numbers, but looking at the graphs it’s pretty clear that for most of the pandemic, whites in that region have been worst hit.
This is also very different from the national numbers, which show that POC have suffered the most deaths, with different groups leading at different points during the pandemic.
So, yes, they are killing their own.
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
I think that the Democrats can make some powerful arguments for their side.
But we shall see what actually happens.
The Moar You Know
@SiubhanDuinne: Ms. Haley seems to have recently been unpersoned by the GOP. I wonder how she pissed God-Emperor Trump off?
Barry
@Betty Cracker: “wins his bet and that unvaccinated kids don’t end up with a host of debilitating problems in the years to come.”
IMHO, that is not his bet. His bet is that it will not matter.
Roger Moore
@Alison Rose ???:
One of the things I like to say is that I’m not surprised there were some Republicans who questioned their politics because of Trump, but I’m constantly surprised by who and by what was their breaking point. The one who really gets me is Joe Walsh. He’s not a liberal or anything, but he’s willing to admit that the problems started before Trump, and he was complicit. That, to me, is the big sign of intellectual honesty. I don’t trust anyone who acts as if everything in the Republican party was fine until 2016. They’re lying to themselves so they don’t have to admit their own role in taking the party down the road that led to Trump.
Kay
@smith:
That’s interesting. It doesn’t suprise me that much- this white lower income Trumpy area got hit really hard – but I didn’t know it had shifted to that extent.
I’m so mad at them. It’s hard to be generous. Of course I am on an individual level- I’m not a jerk about it- they lost family members, they’re mourning, but I am so, so tired of hearing the theories. I said to one who was telling me the vaccine “might” cause heart problems as an excuse to not getting vaccinated when his workplace was just overrun with infection “stop overthinking this – just follow ordinary mainstream advice”. It IS overthinking it. They don’t do this with anything else! The doctor tells them to do something they don’t run off and read 15 studies. Just covid.
catclub
Did you see the item at TPM that sewage testing is indicating another rise in Covid? Things where I am have relaxed a lot.
Betty Cracker
@Barry: Good point. And the horrifying thing is, it probably won’t.
Alison Rose ???
@UncleEbeneezer: Same!! I like living in a state with a government that doesn’t hate me or anyone else. (Whereabouts are you at?)
Old Man Shadow
Having an actual goddamned fascist/Nazi sympathizer take control of one half of the political establishment was a wake up call to a lot of Jewish op-ed writers who were dabbling in neocon shit.
Alison Rose ???
@Roger Moore: Yeah, that one kind of shocked me. I thought that dude was a permanent douche. I mean, he still is in some ways. But credit where due!
Steve Stuart Stonestacker
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): Low Life lane and Riff Raff road
smith
@Kay: And actually, the recent data on death rates correlated with voting patterns should tell us the same thing as the CDC data. Not only have the TFG-voting areas been more badly affected by covid than the Biden-voting ones, the differences only became really apparent after the vaccine became available and the Repubs decided to go all-in on anti-vax. And the differences have only been growing over time. That’s being driven by white voters in Trumpy areas.
Geminid
@cain: Social scientists find that people say they do not like negative political advertising. Studies also show that negative advertising is effective. Some interpret these disparate findings as evidence that many people like to think of themelves as more high minded than they really are.
Successful campaigns seem to use both types of ads: sunny scenes of a candidate intently listening to different types of people and earnestly affirming that “we’re all in this together,” with folksy backgound guitar music; and dark monochrome pictures of the frowning opponent, with an alarmed narrator detailing their dangerous intentions while nails are scraped across blackboards. This latter type of advertising is often left to independent Political Action Commitees.
I think candidates have to have the positive advertising to succeed, but they have to fight fire with fire when it comes to negative advertising. In that area, the best posture may be, “Below the belt? What belt!?” But Republicans typically furnish plenty of reasons for attack ads that don’t need exaggeration or deception to be effective.
Mike in NC
Yesterday Dana Milbank put out an article in the Washington Post on many of the American companies still doing business in Putin’s Russia. Subway is among them, with close to 500 locations still open. Koch Industries supports Putin, which should surprise absolutely nobody.
Suzanne
@burnspbesq:
Truth. I’ve learned not to talk about my job much here, as it gets me branded as a coastal elitist. I’ve had a couple of encounters recently in which I mention that I like to do yoga, and the response is, “I don’t exercise at all”. I’ve also seen multiple grown-ass adults proudly announce that they don’t eat vegetables ever. Also, there are really very few gyms and health food restaurants here. It’s a bummer.
I wish they would open a CAVA here.
Barbara
@smith: I would characterize it this way — when it became evident at the beginning of the pandemic that frontline workers were at high risk, the air went out of the balloon for imposing community wide protection because these workers were disproportionately African American or Latino. Resistance to public health protections have now hardened into a political position even though the demography of death changed over time. There is no doubt in my mind that the early demographic trends — blue states, people of color, marginalized workers — set the stage for the response in states like Texas and Florida.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Betty Cracker: With warm regards, that’s one of the things that drives me craziest about the world today.
THESE ARE NOT THE HARD QUESTIONS. “Shall we save lives, when doing so is dirt cheap, and will stimulate the economy, while preventing economic damage?” is easy.
And I’m not sure if it’s journalists per se, or if there’s something more dangerous, but it seems to me like:
1) Journalists won’t call an opinion barking mad, if enough people espouse it,
2) It’s always okay to oppose the opposing party, even when the opposing party is *clearly* correct, and
3) right wing media will spread any popular seeming meme, counting on repetition to help everyone in the media chain (from politicians to Fox News and indies).
And it feels like there’s some kind of brainwashing at play. I’ve seen the most childish and ridiculous ideas “supported” with arguments so weak, so obviously wrong, so obviously not-even-supported, that it makes everyone stupider.
Like, how the *heck* does *anyone* accept the above argument? “We should be throwing people off Medicare, rather than providing them with health care, until there’s a better way to pay for their health care.”
It doesn’t even *begin* to make sense, yet it’s quoted. Failing to call out idiocy, bad faith arguments, and flat out non sequiturs, strikes me as journalistic malpractice (even if it’s at the editorial level).
bbleh
@Kay: Lol they don’t run off and read 15 studies on covid either. They don’t read studies. They read comments on Facebook and they listen to Fox, and they retain factoids that conform to their pre-existing beliefs. I don’t imagine 99% of them would know where to find a study report or how to approach it.
UncleEbeneezer
@Alison Rose ???: Altadena. The other “dena.” :)
CliosFanBoy
@scav: I was driving home early Sunday morning through Bakersfield
Listening to gospel music on the colored radio station
And the preacher said, “You know, you always have the
Lord by your side”
And I was so pleased to be informed of this
That I ran twenty red lights in his honor
Thank you Jesus, thank you Lord
Rolling Stones, “Far Away Eyes”
CliosFanBoy
@burnspbesq: Oh Lord, what did he say about IVF?
hotshoe
I’ve given up feeling ashamed of myself for wishing that every Republican dies.
I have an occasional hiking partner who is a wingnut, and other than his politics he is the nicest person. Helpful, cheerful, raised two kids to be smart and hard-working … and even him, when I heard he had gotten Covid, my thought was “good, one less Republican voter”. Okay, Mike recovered (mostly, won’t admit he might have any symptoms of Long Covid because that would be unmanly) so I don’t have to feel any remorse about wishing the worst.
But damn, their organized politics of destroying the social fabric makes it impossible for any decent person to be safe in red territory. I hate that. I hate them and I hate their policies and I hate how they damage the lives of people I do care about.
Bill Arnold
@Brachiator:
If everyone in the US has been infected with SARS-CoV-2 exactly once, then the 1M (1.2 excess deaths) COVID-19 kill numbers suggest a lower bound on the IFR (infection fatality rate) of 1M/330, or about 0.3 percent.
The measured IFR for influenza, for comparison, is roughly 0.04 [1] percent, roughly 10 times lower. (earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, the IFR was higher than 0.3; more like 0.6.)
[1] https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3410/rr-6
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
Wonder how this matchup will compare with the matchup that inspired the crazification factor – this time with more crazy by one of the candidates.
Suzanne
@Sure Lurkalot:
Don’t overlook that neglect of health and care for one’s appearance are coded as masculine in some of those circles. Going to the doctor, wearing sunblock, even something as basic as using hand lotion after washing one’s hands are Not Things Real Men Do.
Good health and basic hygiene/maintenance of appearance are gay and/or feminine, doncha know.
Jeffro
@Amir Khalid: such win
Betty Cracker
Joe Manchin, who is indistinguishable from a Republican on many important matters, is also hazardous to the planet’s health, and therefore to ours. Via New Republic, here’s a quote from his remarks to energy execs at a recent conference:
Good thing for Manchin the SCOTUS basically legalized bribery. Otherwise, talk like that could get him in trouble! Shortly after giving that tip to fellow energy company fat cats, Manchin tanked Sarah Bloom Raskin’s Fed nomination, for the sin of backing measures to mitigate climate change. They sure got their money’s worth out of him.
I hope elected Dems will keep that in mind when Manchin misses the klieg lights and starts yapping about making a deal that addresses climate change again. We’re stuck with him because of the composition of the Senate, but he’s openly corrupt and a known liar.
Jeffro
@delk:
@Kay:
@burnspbesq:
at some point, one would think the Rs would demand better representation…like, is there literally no one else who can take up the banner here for the GQP? Bueller? Bueller?
Steeplejack
@Bill Arnold:
Just got home from an appointment. Gas at my local BP was $4.30 (regular), $4.49 (super) and $5.00 (premium). Prices rounded up 1 mill. ?
Citizen Alan
@Kay:
The Republican party is the party of rape and incest. I’ve been saying that for years now. The Republican party is the party of rape and incest. I’ve been saying that for years now.
Alison Rose ???
@UncleEbeneezer: Ahhh you’re SoCal. I forgive you ;) I’m in Santa Rosa
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist:
I’m 100% certain that if the GOP texts the traffic in 2024, they’ll make masks illegal in all 50 States to States. They want to kill us all.
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: seconded about Walsh. About 1 tweet in 20 he falls back on both-sides-ish stuff, but for the most part these days he really calls it spot on. Which, considering where he was a decade ago, is kind of amazing.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
They can pretend to work with him on climate change if they want- there’s no real harm in it. As long as they understand that he will never vote for anything that repeals or modifies any of the Trump tax cuts to the wealthy.
Bill Arnold
@bbleh:
This. Hell, I’d be considerably happier if people skimmed the relevant wikipedia articles before opining on anything.
Somebody should put together a short guide on how to skim new scientific literature mentioned in the press. Something like
(1) If the piece in the press has a link to the paper, great.
(2) If the journalist is a trusted science communicator (Derek Lowe, for example) consider trusting them. But be sparing with trust and revoke it freely.
(3) If not, find the damn paper. This can be annoying (scholar.google.com, search on a mentioned name, sort by date) and many articles are paywalled, though most COVID-19 stuff has been open. Google scholar sometimes has a free link, and sometimes a preprint is still out there on a preprint server.
(4) Read the abstract, the summary if any, the results, the size of the study (e.g. how many people), whether or not it had a control group, and the discussion/last few paragraphs. Look at least briefly at the charts/diagrams.
(5) See the affiliations of the authors or at least the lead author, and maybe look up the lead author’s list of works (e.g. in scholar .google.com) to see if they have an obvious bias/agenda in their career.
Pretty much all academics in these comment sections have a very roughly similar set of heuristics.
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: hope that fucker croaks once we win in 22
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Jesus Christ Manchin, not only that sweet return on investment (legal bribe) but also, too, “eliminate uncertainty.” You certainly can count on Joe Manchin to do you right, coal-oil-gas people.
Ksmiami
@LongHairedWeirdo: I’m just hoping that Covid keeps coming for them and successive waves reduce their numbers
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
After the Access Hollywood tape I listened to all national pundits proclaiming how this would hurt Trump and maybe it did with Trump leaners but he probably made that up with increased enthusiasm from his base as a result of the tape. They thought it was manly and admirable. Maybe they think this is also manly and admirable:
Four years after the divorce he was still stalking her.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore:
Not to be confused with Ringo’s brother-in-law, the other Joe Walsh.
Steeplejack
@Steve Stuart Stonestacker:
Directions.
Soprano2
@smith: And then they use those deaths to say that Biden was worse than TFG when it comes to Covid. I always tell them it’s not Biden’s fault they didn’t get a safe, free vaccine that could have kept them from dying.
catclub
@Citizen Alan:
of course, if you look into rules for the public in banks, masks are already illegal.
This also reminds me of the sane billionaires post, something along the lines of:
Insane Billionaire: “Let’s kill everyone and take all their money.”
Sane Billionaire: “I like the way you think, I really do. But if you keep them alive and working for us, you will get even more money.”
Insane Billionaire: “That’s crazy talk.”
Soprano2
@Geminid: This reminded me to Google “Team PAC Missouri” to find out who is sending out slick advertising saying Eric Schmitt, our Republican attorney general, is a liberal. *pauses to laugh and laugh and laugh at this idea* Turns out it’s a PAC supported by a wealthy man named Richard Uihlein who supports Eric Greitens. It’s an interesting tactic, painting the attorney general who sued every school district in the state that tried to keep a mask mandate as a huge liberal.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: What kind of yoga do you do? I like classical kinds, like flow or Iyengar. I definitely stay away from hot yoga. I think it’s dangerous.
catclub
but how about conservopedia? huh?
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Wow, what a fucking lunatic.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: This isn’t “whiff of OJ” it’s fullbore “who’s he killing first, and will one be enough?” territory.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: I love hot yoga, personally. Only time in my adult life that I actually had to adjust my thyroid meds *downward* when I was practicing regularly. Best shape I was ever in. I sometimes wish I didn’t live in the sticks in a house that needs to be fired by two wood stoves just to edge into the 65 degree F territory, so that I could get back to it.
Barbara
@UncleEbeneezer: Abbott’s quest is one of the most depraved acts I can fathom, and there is a lot of competition. Enabling the state or individuals to shame and bully vulnerable people, but especially, minors who are struggling with gender identity, because he can and because he stands to benefit from other people’s misery, is repellant. I mean, there is a non-trivial chance that kids will end up committing suicide as a result of this.
Soprano2
Yep, this exactly.
trollhattan
Those are the infamous ULine Corp family of extreme wingnuts. Yup, the cardboard box and such people.
Anyway
@Soprano2:
I love vinyasa and hate meditation. Also not a fan of hot yoga.
Haven’t done any yoga for over 2 years – need to get back but lost my mojo
NotMax
@Soprano 2
Poised to resurrect the furtive whispers of “Did you hear? His wife’s a thespian!”
//
Actually what you relate sounds more like a mirror image of Nixon’s “Pink Lady” character assassination campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas. (Also anti-Semitic, with anonymous callers instructed to ask voters “Do you know she sleeps with a Jew?” and then hang up.)
sab
@UncleEbeneezer: Who the phuck coming from a red state can even afford to live in California?
I love California, but normal (not rich) people coming from red states probably can’t afford first-and-last months rent or a downpayment to buy.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: I fucking adore hot yoga. I have heard others say it’s bad, but I love it. I think living in the desert made me better able to endure heat. Other than that, mostly vinyasa.
Citizen Alan
@Citizen Alan: Jeez, it’s been a long day. I really should have read that a second time before posting.
laura
@Alison Rose ???: My hometown?
Dorothy A. Winsor
Speaking of dangers in red states, I just saw this from a writer friend. Active shooter in the Target
Captain C
@Geminid: I remember from a class on media, politics, and advertising, that positive advertising is generally designed to drive up your own turnout/vote totals, and negative is aimed at suppressing the votes for your opponent. As you mentioned, it helps if ‘unaffiliated’ PACs run the latter ads.
Matt McIrvin
@Bill Arnold: Back in spring 2020 there were people claiming IFRs of 0.1% or lower. I knew that was wrong because of New York City. So many people had died in NYC that it couldn’t be that low even if everyone in the city had gotten COVID.
Gin & Tonic
Speaking of Republicans, for those keeping score at home, here’s a handy list of Russian assets in the House of Representatives:
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I was in a Target in Mesa, AZ, one time when a total idiot tried to rob the snack bar at gunpoint. Shots fired, I ran like a crazy person with Spawn the Elder, hiding, etc.
What made the entire episode so stupid? Well, there were already Mesa PD officers in the store when he attempted to rob it. Cars parked right in front and everything. Everyone was fine.
Mike in Pasadena
Betty Cracker,
Rubio talks big for two weeks about how the US should be doing more for Ukraine and should have helped sooner, but voted against the billions in aid to Ukraine on the basis that the bill had pork for some states (including Florida) and blah blah blah. Scott, Florida’s other Senator! Also gave Ukraine the finger. Like Rubio’s never voted for pork in a bill. And where was Rubio’s perfect, pure and “clean” bill to help Ukraine ? He’s a goddamn Senator and so helpless that he could not persuade his fellow Republican Senators and ONE Democrat to vote for his pure and porkless bill? Like his boss mcconnel he’s so helpless. The sanctimonious turtle was criticizing “this administration” for not doing “more” for Ukraine. Exactly what “more” Senator Turtle? I realize to propose substance might make you, Senator, vulnerable to criticism. Where were the turtle’s bills to help Ukraine? Could he not rally his fellow Repubs? He’s so helpless, a Senator can do nothing, he’s powerless! With Manchin or cinamon he could not have passed his own bill? So, after just a few days I have broken my promise to myself to refrain from commenting after being attacked for daring to compare the US invasion of Iraq to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I am not simple – I realize that the two actions are different. Thank you. I know plenty about Crassus of the triumvirate, richest man in ancient Rome at the time invading Parthia (Iraq and neighbors) is one of many examples of invasions but i doubt Putin looked to ancient Rome for examples he could follow. Crassus, like Cheney-Bush, ignored advice, alienated the local militaries, and was brutal in its treatment of locals but I doubt Puti Put Put looked to Crassus. I was amazed to learn that Balloon Juice has so many fans of Cheney’s execrable invasion of Iraq. Have a nice life ya’all!
Calouste
@Gin & Tonic: You mean Russian assets in the House who are too stupid or too compromised to hide that they are Russian assets.
Because I’m pretty sure there are a lot more than 8.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Soprano2:
I went through a rough round of Covid before there was a vaccine and my lungs took a beating. No hospital but I believe it was damned close. I had asthma as a kid and now it’s back with a vengeance. I am vaxxed but needing boosted and I mask everywhere (N-95). I swim in a sea of red, maskless plague rats so I live dangerously.
Best wishes to your husband (and you!). I know what he is going through and it’s he’ll feel for the rest of his life. I hate it and when I think of how it’s being inflicted on the innocent and ignorant, it just pisses me off to no end.
janesays
That’s kind of disturbing, given the fact that there are nowhere near 45 solid red states in this country. The Democrats have won at least 19 states in every single presidential election since 1988 (averaging 25 states per cycle in the last 8 presidential elections), and I’m guessing there are probably at least 10 states the Democrats have won every single cycle in that span.
So who are these blue states passing overly permissive gun laws that override local restrictions?
Soprano2
It’s what they wish they could do. In a lot of ways, TFG is the person they think they want to be – a wealthy asshole who does whatever he wants with no consequences at all.
Soprano2
@Kay: Classic abuser behavior – he thinks she belongs to him no matter what she thinks.
Soprano2
@Miss Bianca: I know a lot of people love it. I’m not interested in starting out hot!
Soprano2
@Anyway: Come sit by me in yoga class, I’m the same. I’ve never been able to do much meditation. Right now I take a flow/vinyasa class that’s pretty strenuous. Three years ago I took an Ashtanga class for about six months. I loved it, but the teacher had to quit teaching because he got a job where he had to travel (this was fall 2019, I’ve always wondered what happened with his job) and the class they replaced it with was the kind of yoga that people think of when they think of stereotypical hippie yoga – chanting and crystals. I found another studio about a month after that.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I don’t think I could tolerate it, although I might lose 5 pounds in a session from what I’ve heard about it. I have no desire to start out at 105 degrees!
Ocotillo
If Walker gets the nomination to run, an outside PAC needs to run an ad citing these same things and end asking “where have we heard of that before?” and the pic of Walker slowly splits in two and one portrait is him the other is O.J.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: FWIW, the classes I took were usually in the 90s- degree range, just because it’s that hard to get the heat cranking in a creaky little mountain town studio.
I did learn to love the higher heat, tho, when I could get it! The last hot yoga class I took was in London, the day I was supposed to fly back home. Almost missed my plane, but it was worth it. ‘Twill be seven years ago, now. Ah, memories…
Suzanne
@Soprano2: The hot classes I do are at 105, but the lights are low. So cooler than Phoenix and much dimmer!
The amount of sweat is significant. One time I weighed myself before and after, and I was two pounds less afterward, and I had been drinking water throughout the class.
gene108
I wonder how much of the divergence in health outcomes is due to rejection of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion?
Some Republican states seem hell bent on rejecting it, even as it kills them.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
Yeah, I hate that shit. I look specifically for places that keep that stuff to a minimum. I just want to streeeeeeetch.
stinger
@SiubhanDuinne:
And a Lonely Street — at the end of which is, of course, Heartbreak Hotel.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I don’t think Herschel Walker’s statements on in-vitro fertilization and evolution will lose him many votes, even though they should. The stories of domestic violence and his checkered business career could hurt Walker among the relatively few persuadable voters. It’s good that a Republican is amplifying these stories this spring. Polling shows Walker way out ahead in the primary, so his opponent is only helping Senator Warnock.
The race between Governor Kemp and former Senator Perdue is closer and each man is spending a lot of money tearing the other down. This divisive contest is a nice counterpoint to Stacey Abrams’ campaign theme of “One Georgia.”
Skippysan
I’ve been saying it for two years, Ron DeSantis is a murderer. Now we have receipts.
Chief Oshkosh
@SiubhanDuinne:
I disagree. Racists will happily accept, and vote for, a type of black person. Walker is viewed by them as a stupid brute (as many here view him), so to them he’s just another black man who will simply be ruled by white Republicans. Warnock, OTOH, clearly is his own man and will not be ruled by whites. No way will they vote for Warnock, but they won’t stay home and not vote for Walker. A vote for Walker is a vote for all the white supremacist R senators who will own Walker’s vote.
jonas
@Cameron: Maybe I’m misremembering, but iirc Alan Keyes was a student of Alan Bloom at Cornell and has a Ph.D in philosophy or government or something. He’s not dumb. But he is batshit insane. “Head trauma crazy” as I think John Rogers put it.
Geminid
@janesays: Virginia law used to prohibit more stringent local gun control laws. One of the six gun safety laws the General Assembly passed in 2020 allowed localities to enact more their own gun safety ordinances. I haven’t followed the current session closely, but if the Republican use their 52-48 House of Delegates majority to repeal this law the Democrats 21-19 Senate Majority will stop them.
I hope the Republicans in the House try to repeal all these laws (although they may not be so reckless as to try and repeal the one requiring firearms to be secured in homes with minors present). The six gun safety laws passed in 2020 all polled at 70% or more favorable. In 2023 both legislative houses are up for election, and finally on a more neutral map than the one Republicans gerrymandered in 2011. Democrats made gun safety a winning issue in 2019, and I think it will help us crush Youngkin’s minions next year.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chief Oshkosh: THIS! Walker is a Republican and as such he peddles anti-Blackness (Bootstraps, Respectability etc.). The GOP would never accept him otherwise. That’s the deal with the devil that every Republican makes to some extent.
Geminid
@Ocotillo: Or maybe an ad with the silhouette of a man playing Russian roulette, and a narrator reciting Walker’s own story of doing this, puntuated by “Click…Click…”
Walker maintains that his destructive behaviors ended when he accepted his savior. But people hear these salvation stories a lot, and only the most credulous are not suspicious of them.
NotMax
@Geminid
No one going to point out there are two on the globe?
//
jonas
@Chief Oshkosh:
I don’t know that anyone here is calling Walker stupid, but he appears to show some symptoms characteristic of CTE, including a violent temper. And he’s obviously massively ignorant about most issues a senator should know about, but that’s a feature not a bug in the current GOP. I think the larger issue is that he’s just another celebrity politician with absolutely no relevant experience who will be, as you suggest, easily led around. I think a more useful contrast is with Tim Scott of NC who marches in mostly in lockstep with the far right of his party, but who also doesn’t strike me as someone who lets anyone tell him what to think or do. It’s obvious Walker doesn’t know the first thing about what his job would be.
Roger Moore
@Mike in Pasadena:
This. Everyone in the media needs to memorize the question, “What should we be doing instead?” It’s not enough to say the people in charge are doing it wrong. Any criticism that is some variant on “you’re doing it wrong” without suggesting an alternative is a waste of breath.
Captain C
@jonas:
As a high-usage running back (I think he had well over 400 carries in one of his USFL seasons, close to 4,000 professional touches overall) who played 15 years in the pros (USFL plus NFL), this would not be surprising. It is a sad outcome, though. Regardless, he has no business being anywhere near a Senate seat.
Geminid
@jonas: I read that the Georgia Republicans did not want Walker to come from Texas and bigfoot their own candidates. But Trump was insistent that Walker was his choice and the state’s Republican establishment were afraid of alienating the man who lost Georgia to a Democrat for the first time in 40 years.
Mitch McConnell also expressed skepticism of Walker intitially but quickly came around. One reason Republicans lost the two Senate runoffs last year was that angry Trumpers stayed home because they blamed Georgia’s “RINO” leadership for Trump’s loss in the general election. So now the Republicans are very anxious to stay on Trump’s “good” side.
RandomMonster
@stinger: You could also check into the Hotel California but, of course, you could nevahhh leeeeeave.
[cue guitar solo]
Cameron
@jonas: He is supposed to be a really brilliant guy, with heavy-duty academic credentials. IIRC he’s also a religious nut who disowned one of his kids for being gay.
Martin
California is #2. Here’s the most startling stat:
CA has the lowest maternal mortality rate in the US. The 2nd lowest is MA, and it’s *twice* as high. The worst is Georgia, which is 10x higher. And that’s in a state with several million undocumented immigrants who don’t have access to federal medical support.
Why? Because we don’t divvy up women health into acceptable and unacceptable health. It’s all one thing, and it’s taught that way in our medical schools. Nurses now all receive specific maternal health training, including providing abortions. We do objective research on the subject, more than anywhere else in the country. It’s one continuum of health care without a bunch of bullshit politics inserted in the middle. And because we treat it that way, we don’t defund efforts that help lower maternal mortality rates out of fear that some dollar will be used for an abortion.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Conservative Christianity often believes that women “belong” to men, so it’s not much of a change for him. One of the more horrific stories I ever heard when volunteering at the women’s shelter was about a Baptist preacher who told his wife and kids that if they tried to leave and he caught them he would kill them and bury them in the backyard, and no one would know because he’d tell people they left and everyone would believe him. Pillar of the community and all that, you know. One of the kids made a T-shirt with their headstones in the backyard when they did an exercise about what they were anxious about.
Martin
@catclub: Yeah, BA.2 is cranking up here in CA. This is the variant that is breaking all of the established protocols across Asia. It’s going to rip through the K-3 and younger crowd in red states like nobody’s business.
Omicron has been tearing through the 0-5 population, with almost half of fatalities among that group occurring in 2022. There aren’t approved boosters for them, and they aren’t getting coverage because they don’t impact schools/jobs, etc. They just die, quietly, without public notice.
SteveinPHX
@CliosFanBoy:
@CliosFanBoy: Was just listening to that last week. Thanks!
@CliosFanBoy:
Barbara
@Martin:
California made a concerted effort to study the causes of maternal mortality and came up with targeted interventions that it has tried to have every hospital in the state implement, and it tracks the results. The lower mortality rate shows what kind of progress is possible with effort.