What will it take to call out the obvious?
Fiddling while Rome burns from climate change
Welcome to a premium Thursday edition of Progressives Everywhere!
Today was a very busy news day, rife with non-stop speculation, breaking headlines, and machinations by some of the richest and most powerful people in the world. I’m talking, of course, of the international soccer transfer deadline, the last day that clubs can buy, sell, and trade players until a month-long window opens in January.
My beloved Liverpool FC held tight and didn’t make any major moves outside of extending its captain’s contract, completing a summer of inactivity that rankled supporters that have watched their rivals, a dozen or so of England and Europe’s most prestigious and deep-pocketed teams, splash out hundreds of millions of dollars on new players over the summer. Some of those teams are owned by Middle Eastern oil states, another is owned by a Russian energy magnate, and several others are generational giants with worldwide reach.
As with everything else in this world, the economic inequality that has always plagued soccer has reached record heights, and the chasm has become so vast that only shame and threats of nasty legal battles have been able to stave off a permanent schism of the haves and have-nots.
On that note, let’s get to some big, important stories happening here in the United States.
A few years ago, I got into the habit of tweeting the term “Republicans are terrorists” on a fairly regular basis.
It felt apt to me, given the GOP’s very enthusiastic support of Donald Trump’s incessant efforts to undermine democracy, cage children, and deepen economic suffering to provide tax breaks for billionaires. A few friends, while perhaps concurring with the sentiment, warned me more than a few times that repeatedly saying something so “controversial” in public might not be the most appropriate professional decision.
Now, it’s borderline malpractice for people to refer to some Republicans as anything other than a band of terrorists. And yet, while you’d think four years of the Trump administration’s malfeasance and open hostility toward journalists would have made it easier for Beltway media types to drop the painfully outdated “nonpartisan” approach to reporting, but if anything, it’s gotten worse over the first nine months of the year.
It is impossible to produce a dispassionate presentation of violence, sedition, and pernicious policies, because offering what might seem like an even-handed presentation of the facts functionally downplays the emergency and absolves those that are responsible for the chaos.
On Sunday, the New York Times published a witheringly boring examination of the absolute tsunami of Covid cases pummeling Florida on a daily basis. The story, titled “What Went Wrong With the Pandemic in Florida,” details the devastating spike in Covid cases and deaths in the state and quoted experts on the science behind the Delta variant’s enhanced potency. But nowhere does it say a single word about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s maniacal campaign to turn the state into a fetid swamp of viral infection.
Omission of DeSantis’s homicidal decisions would actually be an improvement on the way his efforts are reported and framed in the story. Instead, it opens by giving him credit for opening vaccine clinics across the state, a straight-forward statement that any elides entirely DeSantis’s purposely unequal and corrupt distribution strategy.
DeSantis kicked off the vaccine rollout by making it available only to rich white residents and donors, some of whom flew in front out of state to steal shots; then, he gave a major distribution contract to Publix, a grocery store and pharmacy that generally only services wealthier white neighborhoods. He’s made mockery of public health precautions since the pandemic began, banning vaccine passports and local mask mandates (until courts intervened) and selling anti-Fauci merchandise on his campaign website this summer as Florida’s numbers began to surge.
Yet here’s the paper’s “best explanation” for what happened in Florida:
The best explanation of what has happened is that Florida’s vaccination rates were good, but not good enough for its demographics. It has so many older people that even vaccinating a vast majority of them left more than 800,000 unprotected. Vaccination rates among younger people were uneven, so clusters of people remained at risk. Previous virus waves, which were milder than in some other states, conferred only some natural immunity.
And Florida is Florida: People have enjoyed many months of barhopping, party-going and traveling, all activities conducive to swift virus spread.
Unlike in places like Oregon, which is clamping down again, adopting even outdoor mask mandates, Mr. DeSantis continues to stay the course, hoping to power through despite the devastating human toll.
You would be forgiven for reading this and thinking that DeSantis has had nothing to do with the deadly surge devastating the state he runs — he’s “staying the course,” the Times explains, as if fostering incessant human tragedy is some normal course of action. I wonder if DeSantis administration’s ghastly attempt to cover up the sheer enormity of the surge in deaths also qualifies as “staying the course.” Perhaps the Times will update their story to reflect the lawsuit filed by state Rep. Carlos Smith today in an effort to compel force DeSantis to cough up some more of the data he’s hiding.
Instead of following up their woefully negligent story with further reporting, today the New York Times ran a piece framing the blood on the hands of DeSantis and his fellow sociopath GOP governors as a political tactic, which is only true insomuch as they’ve proven fully willing to murder tens of thousands of their residents to gain a potential edge in a presidential primary three years away.
There is not a single quote from a Democrat, public health official, or even independent doctor. It is just a smorgasbord of quotes from Republicans who lie with every breath they take, taken reprinted with zero pushback or context. These Republicans are framed as defending Americans against “the threat to personal freedom” posed by… broadly popular and scientifically proven public health policies. Apparently eating horse paste and then being wiped out by a vicious virus on the advice of cynical politicians and hack radio hosts is the new definition of freedom.
It’s not just the Times, either. The Washington Post, ostensibly the nation’s other broad paper of record when it comes to politics, yesterday ran a thuddingly dull story on Nazi dimwit Madison Cawthorn’s very blatant call for another violent insurrection against the government. The just-the-facts nature of the piece made it seem as if were recapping a speech about parking regulations, not trying to inspire white supremacists to take up arms.
And I haven’t seen a story yet about the GOP House Minority Leader openly threatening telecom companies with retribution should they cooperate with a federal investigation into the first insurrection. Maybe that’s merciful, given the atrocities outlined above.
It has become painfully clear that the mainstream media is woefully incapable of handling the GOP’s unrepentant fascism, pursuit of genocide, and manipulative and cut-throat approach to politics. Our esteemed news outlets, which employ so many brave and outstanding journalists, have elected to hew dangerously close to an outdated and inadequate tradition of observe and report that does a disservice to their readers and assists the fast-encroachment of a terrifying regime of right-wing terror.
Some coverage of the near-blanket abortion ban about to take root in Texas tomorrow would also be nice.
The only editorializing we get are out drastically misguided stories about the necessity of ongoing war shaped by failed military leaders and opinion columns dressed up as “analysis” that fully misreads the public temperature and peoples’ most pressing concerns. Stories about how Biden can’t escape the Afghanistan storyline are especially egregious, especially when they come from the same publications pushing that story. Do reporters think that media narratives are sentient?
I’m not suggesting that members of the media stump for Democrats, and not just because half of my own coverage is dedicated to criticizing and pushing the party’s more corrupt and pathetic lawmakers and power brokers. But dutifully documenting the oncoming collapse of human rights in this country is not some noble deed, but more an ensemble cover version of whatever Nero was playing on his fiddle when Rome burned.
Elections and Ballot Initiatives
Virginia: Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe holds a five point lead over the GOP nominee, shape-shifting businessman Glen Youngkin. The race thus far is much tighter than expected, though the 2017 race also looked to be a neck-and-neck contest until now-Gov. Ralph Northam wound up blowing out Republican Ed Gillespie.
California: Speaking of worrisome gubernatorial races, Gov. Gavin Newsom right now has a modest but steady lead over Republicans’ top recall replacement choice, wing-nut radio host and Stephen Miller fanboy Larry Elder. The amount of money that traditional Democratic allies are pouring into this race is remarkable, and though Newsom has been far from perfect, he’s certainly been more successful in passing progressive policies than just about any other recent governor.
Los Angeles: Once considered a leading contender for Vice President (at least publicly, anyway), progressive favorite Rep. Karen Bass says she’s seriously considering running for mayor of LA. After years of Eric Garcetti, Bass would represent a very big improvement.
Colorado: Ballot initiatives are set for this November’s election in Colorado. There are three initiatives in total; two of them, including a cut in property taxes on multi-family homes and hotels, are being pushed by a conservative interest group. The third initiative is a sales tax increase on recreational marijuana, the proceeds of which would be used to fund out-of-school learning programs like tutoring and mental health programs.
Voting Rights
Texas: Welp, it’s happened: Republicans have officially passed the massive voter suppression bill that House Democrats had spent nearly two months staving off in an unsuccessful attempt to convince the Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to find some souls and allow the passage of the For The People Act. Here are all the horrible ways that this bill will choke democracy in the state.
National: Protecting voting rights is popular across the country! In fact, it’s so popular that even in Arizona, 60% of voters say that Democrats should pass voting rights protections even if they have to do so without any bipartisan support. I’d like to think that might change Kyrsten Sinema’s mind on changing the filibuster for voting rights, but her refusal budge isn’t based on political expediency, it’s simply megalomania and corruption.
Ohio: The redistricting battle in Ohio is already getting nasty. The bipartisan redistricting panel can’t agree on who will draw the maps that will be presented to the GOP-dominated commission in charge of green-lighting maps.
Democrats released their own map proposal today, which I’ve included below for people with any knowledge of Ohio’s county and political lines:
Does this make any sense to you? Have thoughts? Let me know!
Workers’ Rights and Economic Justice
New York: New Gov. Kathy Hochul, hoping to distance herself from the conservative policies of disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and rack up support from progressive lawmakers ahead of running for her own full term next year, is moving full speed ahead on some major initiatives. First up: Extending the state’s eviction moratorium.
Wage Theft: https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/workers-rights/cheated-at-work/usps-cheated-mail-carriers
Tesla: I’ve been working on the Tesla labor abuse beat for months. Here’s our latest piece at More Perfect Union:
More to come…
Dollar Stores: Already a scourge on poor communities and small businesses across the country, dollar stores are now trying to muscle their way into the pharmacy business. Exactly what our health care system needs.
The NBC puff piece on Dollar General’s dastardly ambitions has some jaw-droopingly inaccurate lines, none more egregious than these:
“What we're going to be squarely focused on … are those services that rural America today especially doesn't have access to,” Vasos said. “We talk a lot about grocery deserts or food deserts. There's as equal health care deserts out there across the U.S. and we're in all of these communities.”
About 75 percent of Americans live within five miles of one of Dollar General’s 17,000 stores, according to the company. For many rural residents, Dollar General has become their main grocery store, where they can pick up both fresh and packaged foods along with household items such as paper towels, toilet paper or cleaning supplies.
In reality, dollar stores help create and perpetuate food deserts — several cities across the country have had to pass laws limiting their construction and requiring them to carry more fresh produce because they carry so little of it.
Corruption
Arizona: Aides to Republican Gov. Doug Ducey are under FBI investigation for steering a massive $100 million tax rebate to some of his biggest political donors. I’m sure Ducey had no idea it was happening!
Reconciliation: Now, to be fair to those since-fired Duce aides, their scheme is child’s play next to the corruption happening in DC around the reconciliation bill and corporate attempts to sabotage its corporate tax increases and other progressive initiatives.
The ten “Democratic” lawmakers who tried to kill the bill last week have been receiving extra-large gobs of cash from health care and hedge fund execs at recent fundraisers, while lobbyists for the biggest corporations in the country (and world) are doing everything they can to rip everything worthwhile out of the bill:
The emerging opposition appears to be vast, spanning drug manufacturers, big banks, tech titans, major retailers and oil-and-gas giants. In recent weeks, top Washington organizations representing these and other industries have started strategizing behind the scenes, seeking to scuttle key elements in Democrats’ proposed overhaul to federal health care, education and safety net programs.
Among the most active is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is starting to put together an economy-wide coalition to coordinate the fight against the still forming economic package, including its significant price tag, policy scope and potential for tax increases.
That this many lobbyists and special interest groups are this afraid of the bill is as good an endorsement as you’ll find.
School Boards
The battle over masks and Republicans warped boogieman version of “critical race theory” is tearing communities and school boards apart. It’s become intense and in some places downright dangerous, but it’s also led to moments like this one, which I implore you to watch.
I can’t believe it went on for so long!
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