DL Open Thread Sunday, July 25, 2021
Is anyone under the impression that the Democratic Party has moved to the left? If so, please take a look at the vote to increase Pentagon spending by $25 billion, to $740 billion, passed the Senate Armed Services Committee on a 25-1 vote. Elizabeth Warren was the only one to vote against it.
Democrats who believe in bipartisanship are no less deluded that the Trumpiest Trumper, in that they believe in something unsupported by the evidence, and right now we can prove it. Arizona’s two senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, have taken different approaches to bipartisanship: Sinema stands with Joe Manchin, Kelly with the majority of Senate Democrats. The latest polling delivers grim news for the Fascism Accomodaters: Kelly outperformed Sinema with both Democrats and independents.
The firm Data for Progress had the smart idea of seeing which, if any, approach to centrism was more popular with Arizona’s tipping-point electorate. The result: Mark Kelly’s approval-disapproval split among Arizonans is 50-39, or +11, while Sinema’s is 44-42, or +2. The difference is basically the same among independent voters, too: Kelly 46-36, Sinema 38-38. In her effort to appear independent, this poll finds, Sinema is alienating many Democrats but not impressing independents.
The so-called border crisis is not a crisis at all, and this article explains why it’s easy for the Fascists to manipulate the numbers to make it look like one.
Remember all those corporations that were going to cut off donations to Republicans? Ha ha, made you look. It was all bullshit. They resumed donations as soon as everyone moved on to the next outrage, and shame on anyone who believed them for even a second.
Coral reefs have enough problems coping with climate change. Now reefs in the Caribbean are succumbing to a disease spread by ships dumping ballast water, similar to how zebra mussels invaded the American Great Lakes.
A lot of people are all worked up about Israeli spyware being used against private citizens, apparently by governments around the world. This article explains what Pegasus is, how it works and how to detect it. Of course, there’s an easier way — stop using the spy device in your pocket that you undoubtedly refer to as a “cell phone.”
The floor’s yours.
More self-selection, this time from Tennessee. Vax ‘doubter’ radio host comes down with COVID, regrets his previous stance:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/07/a-conservative-radio-host-mocked-the-vaccine-now-hes-hospitalized-with-covid/
Reporting on Covid doubters who have gotten really sick or died is rapidly becoming a journalistic beat. Not all of them are regretful.
It’s sort of like how we think that if gun nuts got shot they’d change their minds, but they don’t. Somebody almost shot off Steve Scalise’s dick and he came back just as gun-nutty as ever.
It’s true. There are stories every week of gun owners’ children being injured or killed by their very own firearms but that doesn’t bring any outrage. They are beyond help.
Fox News & Tucker Carlson Could Be Sued For Anti-Vax Propaganda:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/fox-news-tucker-carlson-vaccine-lawsuit.html
I’m toying with the idea of doing a weekly roundup of the self-selection caused by these dopes. Working title : ‘Freedumbs’.
Loads of Americans can’t spot using their smart phones because it make them smart. Maybe that’s why so many are being gaslighted? Just an observation.
“Loads of Americans can’t spot using their smart phones because it make them smart. ”
And sometimes smart phones add extra irony.
A month after the Miami condo collapse, 97 victims have been ID’d. One remains unaccounted for, and her family can’t sit shiva until she’s found.