Bucky
Bucky's JournalI'm shocked, Shocked!!, more members of the Capone Party didn't support Ness's Crime Commission plan
We must work harder to ensure more bipartisanship.
The reality is that any measure coming out of a new constitutional convention...
Will have less than a snowball's chance in hell of being ratified. Probably the only measures that could unite the nation are Congressional term limits or a balanced budget amendment. Neither proposal would do that much to fix the institutional problems in Washington.
And the balance budget amendment would either be toothless and meaningless or would cause grave damage to our fiscal health.
Here's a giant sledgehammer. Please don't hit me over the head with it
Guess who I am!
Need a clue?
Some AZ Republican Recounters verging on self-awareness
If fact, they're getting sooooo clloooose to self-awareness, it's like watching hominids evolving up to homo sapiens in real time:
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/az-goper-who-supported-sketchy-election-audit-now-says-it-makes-us-look-like-idiots
AZ GOPer Who Supported Sketchy Election Audit Now Says It ‘Makes Us Look Like Idiots’
Arizona state Sen. Paul Boyer (R) apparently has regrets about backing his fellow GOP senators’ push for a shady audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election ballots to boost ex-President Donald Trump and his allies’ bogus conspiracy theories about voter fraud.
“It makes us look like idiots,” Boyer told the New York Times in an interview published on Sunday. “Looking back, I didn’t think it would be this ridiculous. It’s embarrassing to be a state senator at this point.”
{snip}
There have been indications that the audit is being shaped by MAGAland’s bonkers conspiracy theories, including an analysis of the ballots looking for bamboo fibers, a recognition of one conspiracy theory claiming that tens of thousands of ballots were shipped in from Asia.
The review has caught the attention of the Justice Department, which sent a letter to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R) last week outlining its concerns that the ballots being examined were “not being adequately safeguarded by contractors.”
The DOJ also criticized the auditors’ plan to knock on voters’ doors to verify the addresses they had listed when registering to vote,” telling Fann that “Such investigative efforts can have a significant intimidating effect on qualified voters that can deter them from seeking to vote in the future.”
Charles M Schulz, like most Minnesotans, was a sunlight deprived morose Lutheran
Most of his female characters were mankilling harpies who tormented Charlie and Linus. It was only after his remarriage to a younger more supportive woman that his "second generation" more positive characters like Peppermint Patti and Marcie came along and lightened the mood of the strip.
Honestly, the darker themes is what set Peanuts apart from the Howdie Doodie antics of the other newspaper funnies.
600,000
A week from now we'll reach 600,000 deaths from Covid-19
100k - May 22 - 85 days
200K - Sep 13 - 114 days
300K - Dec 9 - 87 days
400K - Jan 13 - 35 days
500K - Feb 14 - 32 days
600K - May 16 - 91 days
As a loyal Democrat, shouldn't I welcome the self-destruction of the Republican Party?
I don't know if it's a quantifiable turning point when the Republicans go from "Let's all drink the Koolaid" to "Let's deplatform anyone who won't drink the Koolaid when we say so." But that's where they're going. And you may well think, "As a loyal Democrat, shouldn't I welcome the self-destruction of the Republican Party?"
Sure, in the same way that Czechoslovakia should have celebrated at the news when that idiot Hitler took over their potentially hostile neighbor. What's happening in the GOP is a joke, but it's not a harmless one. While the current Arizona recount is a clowncar full of amateurish mishaps, the long-range prospects for the GOP isn't real self-destruction.
How GOP rage at Liz Cheney makes a future stolen election more likely - (WaPo May 5 OpEd by Greg Sagent)
Rep. Liz Cheney’s fate appears sealed: Republicans are set to oust the Wyoming Republican as the No. 3 in the House GOP leadership, and will most likely replace her with Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, whose loyalty to Donald Trump remains unquestioned.
This is being widely depicted as a battle over the past, and over Trump. Most accounts portray it as a sign that in today’s GOP, fealty to the former president is a bedrock requirement, denouncing his lies about 2020 has become unacceptable, and telling the truth about the Jan. 6 insurrection is disqualifying.
All that is true, but the forward-looking dimension to this story is getting lost. What also seems unavoidably at stake is that the GOP appears to be plunging headlong into a level of full-blown hostility to democracy that has deeply unsettling future ramifications.
What they're destroying is the "republican" part of the Republican Party. They'll still call themselves the Republican Party, but they'll be as much in favor of republicanism as the Democratic Party of 1856 was in favor of democracy. What is taking its place is a far more disciplined party, a QOP, that won't scruple to cheat to win elections. That's what all the voter suppression laws are all about, of course. That's what all the inevitable recounts will be about in the states that follow Arizona. They won't fight fair. If not stopped they will eventually succeed in legally declaring some of the 2020 Biden states as "stolen."
More importantly, they are setting up to rig the '22 and '24 elections. And there won't be a Brad Raffensperger around to take a principled stand next time. For a couple of months I was thinking that January 6th was the high water mark for Republican fascism, that the voter suppression efforts would be duly wiped clear by federal judges, even ones appointed by The Donald. I'm starting to doubt those roadblocks. I couldn't care two figs for Liz Cheney. But she's the canary and America's the coal mine. When their party purges are over with, they're coming for us next. And then they're coming for you.
Seems like a lot of celebrities are dying lately, but Ruth Buzzi is still rockin' down in Texas
She and her longtime hubby moved here about four years ago and she is pretty active on Facebook.
https://www.post-journal.com/life/arts-entertainment/2017/03/at-age-80-ruth-buzzi-settles-down-in-texas/
Normally 2.8 million Americans die each year. Last year 3.4m died -- 362,000 from Covid-19. So...
The issue is, that if there was a 594,000 increase in the mortality count in 2020, but only 76% of those died from the pandemic, why did an additional 142,000 people die of? Going into this pandemic. One intriguing warning conservatives who hate the lockdown warned us about was that social and economic isolation was going to lead to large numbers of suicides -- like Wall Street 1929 levels of desperation would set in. It was a strangely humanistic note from the "fuck your feelings and cut my taxes" crowd. Surprisingly, their predictions were wrong. Suicides decreased--not just per capita, but in raw numbers--dropped by 6% in 2020, 2700 fewer people took their own lives.
There was an additional 2000 people murdered in 2020. Murder has been drastically declining in America up till now. But a year locked up with family members (most homicides are domestic) took its toll. But that's still leaving 140,000 extra deaths unaccounted.
What killed that 142K?
The NCHS, which tabulates these things, reports the following '19-'20 changes to the top causes of death:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234
Heart disease: 659K to 691K
Cancer: 600K to 599K
Accidents: 173K to 192K
Strokes: 150K to 159K
Lower respiratory disease: 157K to 152K
Alzheimers: 121K to 133K
Diabetes: 88K to 101K
Flu & pneumonia: 50K to 53K
Kidney disease: 52K to 52K
(*this drop is linked to covid, which took many of these people faster than nature's course might've other have)
The causes in bold each saw over 10,000 additional deaths and collectively account for 85,000 additional fatalities.
These increases -- heart disease, accidents (called "unintentional injuries" ), strokes, diabetes, Alzheimers, and diabetes -- all either need emergency medical treatment or early detection and treatment.
This would be going on at the same time that hospitals were seeing overcrowded conditions or patients were not getting routine medical check ups because of the quarantine. Like the factory workers who died in accidents during WW2, the people who died from reduced medical attention or access during this pandemic won't be counted among the official victims of the crisis. But we lost many of them too because we failed to contain the crises as quickly as we could.
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Name: Mister ReaGender: Male
Hometown: Houston
Home country: Moon
Current location: afk
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 53,987
