Not Going Forward

The Senate election in Wisconsin looked to be the one that would finally send incumbent Republican Ron Johnson packing.  Democratic Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes (below) was ahead in earlier polls.  Now it appears that he's falling behind.

It appears that Johnson has - successfully, alas - tied Barnes to the rise in crime mainly due to the fact that he once voiced skepticism about policing and the fact that - hey, why don't I come out and say it? - Barnes is black.  Not to mention the fact that Barnes was named after the most famous black political prisoner of the twenty-first century, which makes for a pretty good dog whistle for Johnson to use in Wisconsin, the whitest state in the Great Lakes region.

Meanwhile, Johnson is on record as saying that the January 6 rioters were not in fact violent insurrectionists but in fact rioters who simply got a littel out of control. But hey, they stayed within the velvet ropes in the Rotunda, right? 

I can't believe that Johnson could be on his way to a third term on the issue of fighting crime when he's perfectly comfortable with the crimes the January 6 insurrectionists committed at the Capitol!

I gotta check my passport again . . . 

Forward or Backward?

Wisconsin - another pivotal state that could have implications for the 2024 elections and beyond - just had its primary for the general midterm election.  Tim Michels, a 2020-election denier with the support of Trump, defeated Rebecca Kleefisch, who had the backing of Mike Pence and former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.  Michels faces incumbent Democratic governor Tony Evers in November.  Michels could win thanks to favorable trends for the Republicans nationwide, and Evers barely won his office in 2018, a Democratic year. 

On the one hand, I was happy to see a Walker-backed candidate lose, because I still hate Walker, who lost the governorship to Evers. On the other hand, a Trump-backed governor could send Trump electoral votes to Washington in January 2025 even if the Democrats carry Wisconsin in the next presidential election in a landslide.  Talk about getting the feeling of watching your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your new Mercedes . . . 

Be that as it may, the Democrats just nominated Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes (below) to oppose Ron Johnson for the U.S. Senate in November.  Johnson is a two-term incumbent who may or may not deny the results of the 2020 presidential election but does question COVID vaccine repeatedly.  Barnes is a progressive who has supported the Green New Deal and has the endorsement of noted non-Democrat Bernie Sanders. 

A black progressive named for a black South African icon running for the Senate in a working-class state that's also the whitest state in the Great Lakes region.  Oh, yeah, that's a recipe for success!

Well, maybe it is.  The first polls for the general election show Barnes with a slight lead over Johnson.  And Barnes' chief qualification to oppose Johnson is that he is not Russ Feingold, who lost to Johnson twice.  

Codify THIS!

Let me get this straight, Senator Schumer . . .

You say you're going to hold a Senate vote today on codifying Roe v. Wade that you know won't pass for the sole purpose of getting Republicans on record as opposing such an action to motivate pro-choice voters to go to the polls in November.  That's your strategy.

But what happens when someone like, say, Republican Senator Ron Johnson, up for re-election in Wisconsin this year and unlucky not to have an opponent named Russell by his mother and Feingold by his father this time, inevitably votes against the codification of Roe?  Oh, sure, it may motivate Wisconsin Democrats, but in a likely tight election in Wisconsin, won't it motivate pro-life voters to come out in full force to Johnson - and possibly tip the election in his favor?

You're not so smart, are you Chuck? 😠 

Covidiots

 

Forty-seven percent of Trump supporters won't get the COVID vaccine, nor will forty-nine percent of male Republicans.

One in four members of Congress won't get the vaccine either.  Including U.S Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), who said that since he had COVID, he has antibodies. Antibodies which, I'm sure will wear off by the time we may have a fourth wave, and then the noted white supremacist Johnson might get it again.

Tucker Carlson is calling the energy authorization of the vaccine a "guinea pig" experiment on Americans and is dissuading people from getting it - even though Trump and his wife did.

All of us are in danger from these folks who won't get a shot because, if they don't, the virus could spread and mutate into variants that could evade the vaccines available and force us to wait interminably for vaccines that will work against them.

And we'll have to walk around looking like bank robbers and ninja warriors longer than we should. 😠

Vaccine Fix

The COVID vaccines are coming to provide a fix.  I need a fix 'cause I'm going down, down to the girl that I left uptown, I need a fix 'cause I'm going down . . .  

Because I want to see her full face and be able to stand within six feet of her.

But Trump has complicated all of that, apparently, because back in the summer he had the chance to buy more than the 100 million vaccine doses Pfizer offered to the United States. How about 400 million more?  But - he turned it down.  I still have no idea why.  But Trump's actions mean that other countries will get more vaccines and we have to wait six months for another order.  We only have enough for 50 million people, because each person who gets vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine needs two shots.  Now we have to hope that Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca can provide more vaccines sooner when they go online.

Meanwhile, even as Trump is trying to take credit for COVD vaccines, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) held a Senate hearing at which a vaccine skeptic was invited to testify.  It's as if the Republicans want the pandemic to continue in the U.S. even as it ends elsewhere, so as to keep us scared, pessimistic, and distrusting in government.

Gee, ya think?

Trump is addicted to stupidity.  He needs a fix, 'cause he's going down . . .

Mother Superior jump the gun . . .

Mother Superior jump the gun.

(Viciously naughty of me, yes . . .)