The More Things Change...

From the "More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same" file. As it says, this was created around 1930 during the smallpox virus of the day.

Get vaccinated. Get the vaccine, folks. It's for yourself, your family, friends and all of us out here.

Kansans! Your State Legislature Last Week!

Once again, Davis Hammet of Loud Light gives a fantastic and even important, if also brief summary of what your legislators did in Topeka last week. God help us all.

We Need to Tax the Rich -- Here's Why

Yes, we need to tax the rich. Robert Reich spells out why and then how, too. This would be an excellent way to support and fix our infrastructure. Just look around the city, at, say, Ward Parkway, Wornall Road, 63rd Street, all across town and you can see how and where we need this. Let's do this, America.

Week 10 of This Presidency

Week 10 at the White House:

--Launched the American Jobs Plan! --20m Syringes in 7 days: a record! --11 judicial noms w/in 1st 100 days: most ever! --Offshore Wind Plan: powering 10m homes by 2030! --900K new jobs in March: first admin Heavy plus signover 1m jobs in first two months! --Ronald Klain @WHCOS

Never Forget Who Voted Against COVID Relief, Missouri

Yes, Missourians, let's never, never forget just who, exactly voted against the COVID Relief Plan.

During the worst, most killing, deadly international pandemic in the last more than 100 years, when Americans supported this relief package, they didn't and voted against. Remember in 2022. And 2024. And forever.

Entertainment Overnight -- Mr Biden, Bring My Vaccine

From--who else? Randy Rainbow!

Good night, y'all! Sleep well. And if you haven't already, get that vaccine soon as possible!

The Incredible Republican Party Year -- So Far

Think about it. In about 2 months this year, it's nearly unimagninable what the Republican Party has done---has gotten away with, really. First, on Janurary 6, of course, the Republican Party President lead an insurrection, an attack on our nation's Capitol and our government resulting in death and harming fellow citizens.This from the supposed "law and order" party. Then, more recently, they followed that up just last week with voting down, every one of their members in Congress voting down a financial relief plan for the nation, for Americans during the worst, most killing, deadly international pandemic in the last more than 100 years. Incredible. Loet's hope, hope, they have now, with this last one, done their worst. For the rest of the entire year. Hey, we can hope.

BREAKING: US Senate Just Passed Biden 's COVID Relief Plan!!!

Fantastic!! It just broke! Our US Senate just passed President Biden's COVID relief plan for Americans and America 50-49!! Fantastic!! Yahooooo!!

The only thing better than this is that NOT ONE Republican voted for it. America, you're getting help. And Republicans didn't support it in any way! Have a great day and weekend!!!

Quote of the Day -- Conservatives and Coronavirus Edition

"Mask refusers appeal to liberty. But even staunch libertarians know that checking the spread of disease is a legitimate government function. The hostility to masks isn't libertarian. It's nihilistic. Nihilism has come to characterize a significant part of today's 'conservatism.'" --Bill Kristol @BillKristol

Missouri Is Celebrating Its COVID Rollout

This is stunning to me. It was only a few days ago that Jackson County, finally, finally flipped from getting the vaccine for Phase 1B, Tier 1 for "First Responders, Emergency Services and Public Health Infrastructure" to now, Phase 1B, Tier 2--"High Risk Individuals (18-64) and Individuals 65>." Whoop-tee-doo. Now, check out this little celebration going on today on social media.

On March 15--TWO WEEKS FROM NOW, of course--we'll switch to "Criical Infrastructure" citizens of Missouri. Just that. That's all. And keep in mind, there are still FIVE, count them, 5 more levels until the get down to all the rest of us average citizens out here in the state. How does this remotely make sense? How is this not insane? How is this not the most pitifully slow rollout of a very needed vaccine the world has needed in the last more than 100 years? Thanks, Mr. Trump! Thanks, Republicans! Y'all are just terrific. Really.

Republicans in Topeka Continue to Weaken Kansas

From Davis Hammet at Loud Light. Listen and weep, Kansans.

Kansas Senator Mark Steffen is a real piece of work, this brief video makes clear. He and his efforts are nothing if not tunning. I say again, no other source in the area, no other news source, covers the statehouse in Topeka more or better than Mr. Hammet. No one.If you don't watch and keep up with him already and you live in Kansas, you would do well to do so. Just saying.

Question for Governor Parson and the Jackson County Health Department

 

WHY ARE WE STILL IN PHASE 1B, TIER 1 IN JACKSON COUNTY, MISSOURI, for only first responders, emergency services & public health infrastructure? 

We've been there for WEEKS. 

Are we EVER going to get the vaccine????

In fairness, an answer today, this morning, from the Jackson County Health Department:

Thanks for your email. For the last several weeks the state has not sent us vaccines, so we have not been able to offer appointment times for 1^st doses in your tier. We hope to be able to offer appointments again in the next few weeks. In the meantime if you have a primary care provider you can reach out to them and the hospital they are affiliated with. They may be able to get you an appointment at the hospital before we have times available. You can also reach out to the State of Missouri Vaccine Navigators at 1-877-435-8411 or https://covidvaccine.mo.gov/navigator to get more information on various organizations receiving vaccine.

So we wait. We continue to wait. And hope.

Humanity Needs to All Start Working Together

Nothing shows any better how humanity needs to start and then keep working together for all our benefit than this killing, international pandemic, worst of the last more than 100 years.  Coincidentally, I wrote this on social media, again, a week ago. Also coincidentally, an article in The Atlantic rather makes this same point now.

Credit: Getty Images

Bhutan Is the World's Unlikeliest Pandemic Success Story

On january 7, a 34-year-old man who had been admitted to a hospital in Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu, with preexisting liver and kidney problems died of COVID-19. His was the country’s first death from the coronavirus. Not the first death that day, that week, or that month: the very first coronavirus death since the pandemic began.

How is this possible? Since the novel coronavirus was first identified more than a year ago, health systems in rich and poor countries have approached collapse, economies worldwide have been devastated, millions of lives have been lost. How has Bhutan—a tiny, poor nation best known for its guiding policy of Gross National Happiness, which balances economic development with environmental conservation and cultural values—managed such a feat? And what can we in the United States, which has so tragically mismanaged the crisis, learn from its success?

In fact, what can the U.S. and other wealthy countries learn from the array of resource-starved counterparts that have better weathered the coronavirus pandemic, even if those nations haven’t achieved Bhutan’s impressive statistics? Countries such as Vietnam, which has so far logged only 35 deaths, Rwanda, with 226, Senegal, with 700, and plenty of others have negotiated the crisis far more smoothly than have Europe and North America.

These nations offer plenty of lessons, from the importance of attentive leadership, the need to ensure that people have enough provisions and financial means to follow public-health guidance, and the shared understanding that individuals and communities must sacrifice to protect the well-being of all: elements that have been sorely lacking in the U.S.

America has “the world’s best medical-rescue system—we have unbelievable ICUs,” Asaf Bitton, executive director of Ariadne Labs, a Boston-based center for health-systems innovation, told me. But, he said, we have neglected a public-health focus on prevention, which socially cohesive low- and middle-income countries have no choice but to adopt, because a runaway epidemic would quickly overwhelm them.

“People say the COVID disaster in America has been about a denial of science. But what we couldn’t agree on is the social compact we would need to make painful choices together in unity, for the collective good,” Bitton added. “I don’t know whether, right now in the U.S., we can have easy or effective conversations about a common good. But we need to start.”

But then, beyond this killing pandemic? Other things we need to all come together to work on and against.

Climate change. Global warming.  Pollution.

What Humanity Must Do to Prevent Catastrophic Climate

More.

Poverty.   Yes, poverty. Everyone, the world over, needs to recognize that poverty is a human construct.

Poverty is a social construct

3 Ways Humans Create Poverty

Poverty as a Social Problem its Causes and Solutions

And we need to start soon.

Now.

Bring On the New Year!!

 

2021 will have to be an improvement, a big improvement.

We're going to lose Donald Trump as President and a killing, international pandemic, both.

Happy new year, indeed!!

May it be a happy, healthy, prosperous one for us all!!

The Republican Party Insanity Today, Christmas Eve, on COVID Assistance

So here it is. Christmas Eve. Here we are. At long last. And now, this is where we all are with this Republican Party Congress, Republican Party President and the possibility of COVID assistance.

House Republicans To Block $2,000 Stimulus Checks On Christmas Eve

So Congress, at long last, came up with a bill they could all agree one, months in the making, for COVID pandemic assistance to and for America and Americans. After all that negotiating, this Republican Party President Trump concludes they assistance should be $2000, not the paltry $600 at the last minute or he'll veto it all. Yahoo! Right?

Except this is where we are now. On Christmas Eve. The Republicans in Congress are all going to collectively be Scrooges. They say they are voting it all down. It's their President but they want no part of it.

So what, pray tell, do these Republicans in Congress do now with their President? Go to the White House and implore him to see it, to see things their way? If that's even possible?

Merry Christmas indeed, America. 

Happy holidays?

Happy new year?

More:

Trump gives Congress chaos for Christmas, with aid to millions up in the air

Update. Breaking in the last two hours:

GOP senator warns $2K checks can't pass, urges Trump to sign COVID deal

It seems our own Missouri Senator Roy Blunt did the right thing and reached out to the President.

Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.) a member of the GOP leadership, warned Thursday that President Trump's demand for $2000 stimulus checks can't pass the Senate and urged him to sign a massive year-end agreement.

Some semblance of sanity seems to be coming about, anyway. It's nice that it's coming from our own Senator and state.

Sidney Powell: Senior Aides Are Blocking Trump From Giving Me White House…

Bill Barr's Quote APresidential Pardons Resurfaces on His Last Day…

GOP senator warns $2K checks can't pass, urges Trump to sign COVID dea

Quotes of the Day -- On Health Care

Universal health care is such a complex beast that only 32 of the world's 33 nations have been able to make it work.

--Duke @Maxonsdad 

If you think Covid treatment should be free (of course it should), why do you think insulin shouldn’t be? 

Or cancer treatment? 

Or mental health?

Health care should not be run for profit. Period.

--Robert Reich @RBReich

Thanks, Mr. President! Thanks, Republicans!

 That's quite the leadership you got going there.

US hits grim new daily record with 3,656 coronavirus deaths

This broke yesterday on CNN: US hits record breaking number of COVID cases 11 days in a row.

Seems this administration is one of the reliable carriers, too.

Interior secretary tests positive for COVID-19 after two days of meetings with officials: report

Not done there, oh no.

Weekly jobless claims rise to 885,000

Note that this next summary is from the very conservative, very business-friendly Business Insider, too

The GOP's 'outrageous' effort to overturn the election cements its status as 'a willing party to authoritarianism'

Authoritarianism, Fascism, let's not split hairs.

But hey, at least the Dow and the markets are up, huh? 

Stocks rise to record highs on talk of COVID relief deal

At least Mitch McConnell and then Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue down in Georgia are going to be doing okay on their stock portfolios, right??

And again, this President Trump. What a guy. Always there to do the right thing at the right time, eh?

Trump cuts $200M in health care funds to California over abortions

Y'all are terrific.

Really.

Where This President And His Followers and Republican Party Have Brought Us

Did you see the latest? It's come far closer to home now.

Kansas mayor resigns over violent threats for backing mask mandate: ‘I do not feel safe anymore’

A bit of the story.

The emails and voice mails to Dodge City, Kan., Mayor Joyce Warshaw began pouring in last month, after the city commission voted to require everyone in town to wear masks indoors.

Some anonymous messages told her that she was restricting civil liberties, Warshaw told The Washington Post. Others said she should go to jail over her vote.

But after the western Kansas city’s uphill battle against the coronavirus pandemic was highlighted in a USA Today feature on Friday, the messages grew more frequent and aggressive: Burn in hell. Get murdered. One person simply wrote, “We’re coming for you.”

So after nearly eight years in government, she called it quits Tuesday.

“They were loud, and they were aggressive, and they frightened me and my family,” said Warshaw, who had been serving her second stint as mayor. “There’s a strong part of me that wants to say they are only words. But people are angry right now, and I don’t know that for sure.”

So here we are. Thanks so very much, Mr. President. Thanks, Republicans. In the middle of the worst, most killing, deadly international pandemic of the last more than 100 years, now you're threatening local, legally elected government officials who are, by the way, just trying to get and keep us safe, trying to keep us well and alive.

Y'all must be so proud.

This Republican Party President is Having Another Meltdown Today

Yes, here we go again. This Republican Party President Trump is, one more time, having a social media meltdown. This morning:

He started with this about an hour ago.

Donald J. Trump

 

MOST CORRUPT ELECTION IN U.S. HISTORY!

Then went to this, minutes later.

THE BIGGEST WINNER OF OUR NEW DEFENSE BILL IS CHINA!. I WILL VETO!

It's getting, it's gotten old. It's tiresome. For and to his supporters, it's dangerous. He's still, still trying to overturn our vote, our votes, our election and to attack our Democracy. Sadly, unfortunately, it has lead to this.

Joe Biden 'Will Be Removed One Way or Another,' Alex Jones Tells Pro-Trump March

It's reckless, it's dangerous, it's deeply irresponsible. 

Added to this, the following shows where we are just now.

...the American coronavirus pandemic is entering its worst stage yet, with cases and deaths skyrocketing across the country. Last Thursday saw over 3,000 deaths — more than 9/11 or Pearl Harbor — and with ICU beds at or near capacity in most of the country, absent serious change it is possible there will be double or even triple that number per day in a matter of weeks. We may yet top the deadliest day in American history, the Galveston hurricane of 1900 that killed an estimated 8,000 people, very soon. President Trump is doing precisely nothing about this.

As we know, the Supreme Court, at long last, shot down Trump's and the Republicans' attempt out of Texas to overturn our election and votes. Tomorrow, Monday, the Electoral College will release their offficial election results, confirming, again, that Joe Biden won and is President-Elect and that--wait for it--Donald Trump lost. 

Sure, it's been a bad, 4 day weekend for the Donald but using his own words, "It is what it is." It's the reality. We voted him out. We desperately need to get fellow Republicans to talk this, their President down off his ledge and to, at long last, concede.

Link to above quoted article.

The Constitution has an answer for seditious members of Congress

Just Some of the Legacies of Republican Party President Donald J Trump

Herewith. 

Donald Trump’s Legacy of Lies

To assess the legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency, start by quantifying it. Since last February, more than a quarter of a million Americans have died from COVID-19—a fifth of the world’s deaths from the disease, the highest number of any country. In the three years before the pandemic, 2.3 million Americans lost their health insurance, accounting for up to 10,000 “excess deaths”; millions more lost coverage during the pandemic. The United States’ score on the human-rights organization Freedom House’s annual index dropped from 90 out of 100 under President Barack Obama to 86 under Trump, below that of Greece and Mauritius. Trump withdrew the U.S. from 13 international organizations, agreements, and treaties. The number of refugees admitted into the country annually fell from 85,000 to 12,000. About 400 miles of barrier were built along the southern border. The whereabouts of the parents of 666 children seized at the border by U.S. officials remain unknown.

Trump reversed 80 environmental rules and regulations. He appointed more than 220 judges to the federal bench, including three to the Supreme Court—24 percent female, 4 percent Black, and 100 percent conservative, with more rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association than under any other president in the past half century. The national debt increased by $7 trillion, or 37 percent. In Trump’s last year, the trade deficit was on track to exceed $600 billion, the largest gap since 2008. Trump signed just one major piece of legislation, the 2017 tax law, which, according to one study, for the first time brought the total tax rate of the wealthiest 400 Americans below that of every other income group. In Trump’s first year as president, he paid $750 in taxes. While he was in office, taxpayers and campaign donors handed over at least $8 million to his family business.

America under Trump became less free, less equal, more divided, more alone, deeper in debt, swampier, dirtier, meaner, sicker, and deader. It also became more delusional. No number from Trump’s years in power will be more lastingly destructive than his 25,000 false or misleading statements. Super-spread by social media and cable news, they contaminated the minds of tens of millions of people. Trump’s lies will linger for years, poisoning the atmosphere like radioactive dust.

Thanks, Mr. President.

Thanks, Republicans.

Now, America, let's set about cleaning up these messes.