“The point is, if you wanted to stop evictions, you could do it, with legally appropriated money. In theory.” But in practice, even with lots of money available and a simple method of distribution — show up at eviction hearings, pay the debt — we can’t make it happen.
The same is true, Ezra Klein says about the humanitarian case for war: if we want to improve the lives of women, or medical care or anything else in the developing world, we have the money, the resources and the skills to do “far more good and less harm.” But as LGM says, that doesn’t generate money for military contractors, or satisfy the chickenhawks who glory in fighting a war from their living room.
Part of it is that we have a deranged, anti-American, white-supremacist, male-supremacist party that’s wildly unpopular — it’s won the popular vote once in a presidential election this century — but due to the structure of our government is often able to grind government to the halt. They’ve got right-wing judges into as many courts as possible. They’re coming for city councils and school boards. And election officials. And more city councils. And more school boards. And it’s only going to get worse because there’s enough extremists to oust anyone who doesn’t play ball. And nobody has the spine to step back — they’ll punish Liz Cheney for questioning Trump but they won’t say boo to Madison Cawthorn. Another example of spinelessness is that despite criminalizing abortion in Texas, they’re trying to pretend it’s nothing of the sort.
And it’s clear they’ll impeach a Democratic president for any reason, at any time they think they can get away with it.
We have liars who claim concentration camps for the oppressed, abused unvaccinated are inevitable. Maybe he believes it; maybe he’s catering to the people who do. Either way, it makes things worse. So do scam artist hatemongers like Mat Staver who claims vaccine mandates cause suicide, while encouraging people to give him money to Fight The Man.
Then we have “Typhoid Ron” DeSantis whose policies have made the Trump Virus much worse in Florida than necessary. Those extra deaths, he says “are a terrible thing … what we’re trying to do is say, ‘OK, what was not being done? Where was the gap?’ And the biggest gap was in the early treatment.” Not, of course, his efforts to prevent businesses and school boards from requiring masks or vaccine mandates.
Not that the right-wing public is any better — attacking breast cancer patients over a clinic’s mandatory mask policy, for instance. They pretend their issue is choice, but they’re willing to harass and intimidate medical workers so other people can’t make a choie they disagree with.
The right-wing hatemongers are getting louder. I don’t think Josh Bernstein has much political clout, but calling on the trucking industry to starve Democratic-majority areas until Biden resigns is still alarming rhetoric.
“In late July, anti-vax conspiracy theorist Chris McDonald asked for prayers for his father, who had contracted COVID-19. Two weeks later, he announced that his father had died. Last night, McDonald said COVID-19 vaccines are a plot to commit “genocide” and urged everyone to refuse to take them.” Right-Wing Watch
The media are listening to the national-security “experts” who, Ross Douthat says, “managed to build nothing in the political or military spheres that could survive for even a season without further American cash and military supervision” — and unsurprisingly hate that Biden pulled us out (his fault, not theirs!). It’s slightly horrifying I agree with not only Douthat but Ann Coulter about this. I’m much less surprised I agree with this LGM post on the topic.
And let’s not forget, the America-Hating Party attempted a coup earlier this year. And they’re still nervous about their own leaders involvement — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is threatening telecoms that turn over member phone records from Jan. 6 to the investigating committee. I do find some amusement that 17 of the seditionists were represented by an anti-vax attorney who’s now come down with covid. Or that Rand Paul is pretending nobody’s studied ivermectin as a covid cure because they hate Trump (here’s a look at how ivermectin became an obsession). And if we criticize them and they get upset, we’re the special snowflakes.
A school board in Wisconsin has refused a free lunch program that’s free to the district too. They’re claiming that making free lunches available will make children spoiled.
Fraser Sherman's Blog 