The COVID-19 Delta variant is more infectious, doctors say, than the original strain. But how much compared to two other plagues loose in the land?
“Bothsides beltway journalism, folks,” Josh Marshall tweeted, illustrating with clips from a Washington Post story:
No. House Republicans led by prospective material witness Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) took his Confederate flag and went home after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of his five committee picks. McCarthy takes with him prospective material witness Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.). He could have submitted two other names and chose instead to pitch a well-planned hissy fit in which he declared the investigation had lost “all legitimacy and credibility.”
Pelosi was able to veto his picks because Senate Republicans previously rejected “an evenly divided 10-member bipartisan commission, with both parties having veto power over subpoenas.” McCarthy, Banks and Jordan voted against that. Somehow, three Post reporters seem not to have noticed Republicans made this bed for themselves. Two other Post writers (on the opinion side) acknowledge that McCarthy’s temper tantrum means the House investigation “will both have more integrity and be more likely to undertake a valuable accounting.”
E.J. Dionne writes about the GOP attempt to sabotage the investigation:
It’s past time to recognize the disqualifying extremism of the Trump-era Republican Party. Politics as usual just isn’t possible anymore. Pretending that today’s GOP is the same Grand Old Party of even a decade ago is dysfunctional and misleading.
That contagion has spread far beyond the Beltway.
Thus, a post from Michigan Advance caught my eye this morning. Editor Susan J. Demas writes:
Republicans — with the help of four cowardly Democrats — celebrated their ignoble victory Wednesday over common sense and public health, as they ditched a 76-year-old law that makes it easier for governors to respond to catastrophes.
The Detroit Free Press reports that the Michigan House along mostly party lines voted Wednesday to support initiative petition language repealing the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act (EPGA) in a move Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) cannot veto. Whitmer used those powers to fight the COVID-19 pandemic that has (as of today) sickened 1 million Michiganders and killed over 21,000.
Demas observes:
One of the biggest obstacles to getting coronavirus under control is that too many policymakers have obsessively attempted not to anger the very vocal minority of COVID conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and far-right activists who have dominated news stories far more than they deserve to.
You know, like the self-styled militiamen who allegedly plotted to kidnap and kill Whitmer last year over her health orders. Or like the fine AR-15-wielding folks who invaded Michigan’s Capitol last April during yet another GOP vote to yank Whitmer’s powers. That would later be called a “dress rehearsal” for the violent pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol when our democracy teetered on the brink for several hours as right-wing activists tried to hunt down members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence to stop Biden from being certified as the rightful winner of the 2020 election.
That would be the insurrection U.S. House Democrats want to investigate, both for its origins and in the interests of future prevention. Echoing Dionne, Demas has advice for Michigan Democrats that those inside the Beltway would do well to heed (emphasis mine):
There’s no reasoning with folks like that who don’t believe in the social contract or even democracy itself. The sooner we accept this, the sooner we can start crafting policy solutions that work for the reasonable, sane majority.
But with leaders assiduously trying not to inflame those who have behaved the worst during the pandemic, like lifting mask mandates for the vaccinated but requiring zero proof because vaccine passports would hurt the feefees of conspiracists constantly egged on by GOP politicians, it results in an endless stupidity loop.
That’s the problem. One of our major parties has stopped participating in democracy and has opted instead to join an authoritarian cult. Republicans have abandoned the social contract and democracy itself, except as bad conceptual theater. It is the Republican Party that has lost all legitimacy and credibility. They mean to take the rest of the country with them.