How Many Republicans Should Be Quarantining Rather Than Campaigning Right Now?

If contact tracing were taking place right now to find all the recent close contacts of Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Kayleigh McEnany, Ex-Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), Bill Stepien, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Hope Hicks, and other current #TrumpVirus sufferers, how many Republican Senators and Congresspeople would be caught in that net, especially after so many recent unmasked COVID-19 superspreading events to which Democrats were not invited? 

The C.D.C. page on contact tracing seems to be crystal clear about what to do if you were attending an event like the infamous Amy Coney Barrett #RoseGardenMassacre: "If you have been around someone with COVID-19, stay home and away from others for 14 days (self-quarantine) after your last contact with that person and monitor your health." 

So,

POLL:
If the C.D.C. were to begin actual #ContactTracing from the #RoseGardenMassacre and other recent Trump contacts, what percentage of GOP members of Congress (House and Senate) would currently be in #quarantine?

— True Blue Liberal - #BidenHarris2020 (@TrueBlueLiberal) October 5, 2020

This, of course, assumes that contact tracing is taking place. It's not. 

JUST NOW: @shearm, one of the WH reporters who has tested positive says he has received ZERO outreach, no contact tracing at all. ZERO.pic.twitter.com/TngXhKuDUc

— John Berman (@JohnBerman) October 5, 2020

The White House considers itself immune from the laws that govern the rest of us, sending VP Pence off to a debate and more MAGA rallies, and calling the Senate back to rush their right-wing replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg onto the Supreme Court bench before November 3rd.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update 10/5/2020, 7:00pm

And now it's official, the White House will not be doing contact tracing of the Rose Garden superspreading event.

From The New York Times this evening : "The White House has decided not to trace the contacts of guests and staff members at the Rose Garden celebration 10 days ago for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, where at least eight people, including the president, may have become infected, according to a White House official familiar with the plans."

This could be the most effective healthcare speech in the current Trumpcare 2.0 debate

Normally I'm not a fan of the American television and celebrity culture that has given us our current resident of the White House, but maybe that culture is also the best weapon to help bring him down too, or at least help neutralize his power to take away health insurance from those who finally gained it under President Obama.



Although if I ever watched late night television, it might be hard to decide between Kimmel and Colbert.

Poll: How will Trump's first speech to Congress go off the rails?

We all know that Donald Trump's first appearance before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday will be a train wreck, and that it will go off the rails early, but we don't yet know exactly how it will leave the tracks.

These seem to be two of the most obvious possibilities:

Poll:
In his Tuesday speech to Congress, which will Donald Trump address first, whining about "Fake News" or bragging about his "Big Win"?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) February 26, 2017

True Blue Liberal's Bible School for Conservative "Christians" Continues

Religion has become a theme in this year's Presidential Sweepstakes, so we might as well continue to speak in religious language here as well. This year we seem to be going beyond the normal hypocrisy; today, for example, Ted Cruz announced his "National Prayer Team" to pray his way into the White House.

This morning's TBL Bible Verse for Conservative "Christians" isn't only meant for Cruz's religious shock troops begging God for electoral success; it's for Trump, Bush, Carson, Fox News, and 289 members of Congress (etc., etc.) calling for anti-refugee measures. It's from the New Testament today, specifically Matthew 25:41-46 (using the 1611 King James Version, i.e., the REAL Bible for REAL Christians), and should be self-explanatory.

41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devill and his angels:
42 For I was an hungred, and yee gave me no meat: I was thirstie, and ye gave me no drinke:
43 I was a stranger, and yee took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sicke, and in prison, and yee visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answere him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sicke, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45 Then shall he answere them, saying, Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternall.

{Hat Tip to @TheTweetOfGod who pointed me in this direction; as the author of the book, he should know the most relevant passages.)

Today's Bible Lesson for our Anti-Refugee "Christian" Governors, Congresspeople, and Presidential Candidates

From Leviticus Chapter 19, with no further commentary needed:

33 And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.

34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Video proof that Iraq and Iran are still indistinguishable to some people.

If the US decides to be the volunteer police force for this guy again, maybe we can create another ISIS.

A Day to Remember Ernest Gruening and Wayne Morse

On this fiftieth anniversary of the passing of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that pulled us deeper into Vietnam on false pretenses, I wasn't happy to turn on my computer at lunchtime to see this updated headline about Iraq on The New York Times' homepage:

"U.S. Weighs Iraq Airstrikes, Citing Crisis" The New York Times, 8/7/2014 at 1pm EDT

On August 7, 1964, the House voted unanimously and the Senate voted with only two exceptions to give President Johnson the authority to "take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force" in Vietnam after an incident between American warships and North Vietnamese patrol boats in the Gulf of Tonkin that turned out to be not at all what it was presented to be when Johnson and McNamara explained it to the press, the Congress, and the American people.

Members of Congress and the American people should always remember when they read a bellicose headline or watch a speech from a Secretary of Defense or State with professional-looking maps, that only two members of Congress took a correct action 50 years ago today.

All Vietnam is not worth the life of an American boy...
— Alaska Senator Ernest Gruening, August 1964

I believe that history will record this resolution as a historic mistake. I am not going to go along with this kind of program, in South Vietnam … that in my judgment is going to kill needlessly untold numbers of American boys, and for nothing.
— Oregon Senator Wayne Morse, August 1964

If you want more details of the event itself, click here for the the Gulf of Tonkin excerpt from Daniel Ellsberg's Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.

A Glimpse Inside the Right-Wing Echo Chamber

Here are the results as of 9:30 this morning of an extremely unscientific (think Creationism unscientific) NewsMax ("Independent. American.") poll about the current government shutdown engineered by Ted Cruz, the Heritage Foundation, and the Teabagger Caucus in the House.

If you have trouble reading the small type in the screen grab, the first question is "Should Congress risk a government shutdown in order to defund Obamacare?" and 63% say "Yes, cut all funding."

The second question is "Do you support a one-year delay for the 'individual mandate' in Obamacare?" and 47% say the ACA should be repealed totally and another 20% say the mandate should be delayed.

Finally, the third question asks the self-selected respondents who they would "hold most responsible" for the shutdown and 52% blame President Obama, 33% the Congressional GOP, and 14% the Congressional Dems.

It may seem silly to even glance at these polls, but these polls are the ones that the Tea Party Caucus is using to confirm their ideas (while ignoring the cognitive dissonance between wanting a shutdown in question one but blaming it on President Obama in question three). This is the "majority against Obamacare" they keep mentioning in their speeches. These are also the polls that had the right-wing universe shocked, SHOCKED, when the Romney Ryan juggernaut didn't win by a landslide last November.

A Remedial Civics Lesson For Teapartiers

People on Fox News and Teapartiers on Twitter need to stop referring to the Affordable Care Act as "A Bill".
It's "A Law" and it has been since it was passed by the 111th Congress and signed by the President in 2010.

On Language and Twitter and Peace and War.

I have aesthetic preferences when it comes to Twitter. I like a tweet that uses complete sentences, no abbreviations, proper punctuation, and exactly 140 characters. When the first draft of one of my tweets meets all these criteria, I feel as if it has automatically assumed a level of truthiness, as if the muses had written it, not me. Well, here's the tweet I woke up with this morning. It meets all my aesthetic criteria. The last period of my first draft was character number 140.

We're living one of the most important moments in the long debate over how democracies should wage war. The 'No' of the people needs to win.
— TrueBlue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) September 6, 2013

I'm going to try to leave this as my only tweet of the day for as long as I can because I don't want to bury this thought under an avalanche of retweets and snarky comments about the Donalds Rumsfeld and Trump. I really believe strongly that "We're living one of the most important moments in the long debate over how democracies should wage war. The 'No' of the people needs to win." If wide majorities of the American public and their Representatives on both sides of aisle believe that we shouldn't be bombing Syria, then the President needs to stand by that judgment just as David Cameron is standing by his rebuke from the British Parliament. And these judgments of the people about the necessity and utility of adding more weapons and violence to the Middle East will not only be seen as historic, but they could be one of President Barack Obama's greatest legacies.  Here's another tweet of mine from yesterday morning that expresses my suspicions about the President's possible motives for going to Congress. The truthiness of this tweet is a little more suspect because I needed to abbreviate "Pres" and leave the initial "It" off the second sentence in order to fit it into exactly 140 characters, but I still stand by it:

Anyone else getting the feeling that Pres Obama went to Congress to get a No vote on unilateral action? Leaves him free to pursue diplomacy.
— TrueBlue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) September 5, 2013

I believe that the candidate and constitutional law professor from Illinois believed (and believes) what he said on December 20, 2007: "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." Going to Congress before attacking Syria and having Congress assert its war powers by voting no is that candidate living up to his word, and his Congressional "loss" could be his ultimate objective. The Senator and candidate Obama did not want any President to have the war powers he (and his successors) currently hold.  Handing some of that power back to the people and their representatives could turn out to be one of his most important achievements. 

Hey John, Where's Your Obligatory Flag Jewelry?

Did you get dressed in the dark?  Or in the bathroom of the bar around the corner?

If either President Obama or Vice President Biden had arrived at tonight's State of the Union speech without the mandatory Stars'n'Stripes jewelry on the lapels of their dark suits, the Right would be screaming with outrage and asking for longer form birth certificates to prove our President wasn't actually born in Kenya.
But a right-winger like Speaker John Boehner can appear with no patriotic hardware on his lapel because no one on the Left gives a fuck.  But I figured I'd post this picture from a few minutes ago and mention it anyway, just because of the hypocrisy of the thing.

Gabrielle Giffords Steps Down: "I have more work to do on my recovery"

All the best.

Representative Maurice Hinchey

In these years of low approval ratings for Congress, I have been very appreciative of my Representative in Washington, Maurice Hinchey. Read his Wikipedia entry for an impressive list of stands on environmental issues during his time in Congress, most recently with his co-authorship of the FRAC act to end the exemptions from the Clean Water Act given to the gas and oil industries by the Cheneyites.  His anti-fracking activism invoked the wrath of Karl Rove's American Crossroads in the 2010 elections (the 21st-century badge of honor -- the equivalent of being on Dick Nixon's Enemies List).

Later today, Congressman Hinchey will be announcing his retirement from Congress after this term. I want to wish him a happy well-earned retirement, good health, and thank him for his service.  There will be no jokes or snark in this entry.

The Middle Class Tax Increase Calculator

Check out this White House calculator to see what the inaction of John "Tangerine Tango" Boehner's GOP Congress will cost you.   And please spread the word.  I don't think that many Republicans will be pleased with their representatives either if they see what this means for them in dollars and cents next year:

"Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportion Reconciliation Act" Part Deux?

If the SuperCommittee does emerge from its SuperHideout before next week's annual celebration of turkey genocide with a deficit-reduction act that pays for private-jet tax breaks with cuts to services for the poor, sick, and elderly, then I suggest that the task of naming this SuperTurkey be assigned to Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).
 Six years ago, in November 2005, the Republican Congress was pushing its "Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005", which proposed paying for Hurricane Katrina and Rita expenses by... (do I even need to finish this sentence?)... cutting "entitlement" programs for the old and sick. Like many Democrats in Congress, Lautenberg was appalled, saying, "Let's call this bill what it is -- a moral disaster. This bill would close the door of opportunity and cut critical services to the poor, elderly, sick and hungry."  He proposed an amendment to the Reconciliation Act, an amendment that renamed the entire piece of legislation with a more memorable moniker:

"Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportion Reconciliation Act"

While closer to the truth than the original 2005 act's name, I'd suggest that Senator Lautenberg propose something even more honest for the SuperCommittee's 2011 legislation if (as feared) the six Democratic members of the committee give more in cuts to vital programs than they gain in increased revenue from the so-called "Holy Job Creators".

"Payback to Our Benefactors for Their Long Years of Contributions Act"