Google searches are free for a reason.

You are the product being sold.

"Free" means whoever is providing the service has found a way to monetize you, very likely in a way you don't see or understand. 

It isn't necessary bad, but it is nice to know the score.

Google Ad report for the week

Google searches are free. So is Gmail. Google makes tens of billions of dollars every quarter by selling ads, targeted to you, based on your activity.

When a person does a search, or when they drift from one topic to another on the web, Google tracks where they have been. Google learns something very valuable. Google lets advertisers target ads to exactly the people who would likely be interested in the product or service of the advertiser, based on that web tracking.  

I have a small ad buy on Google promoting my blog. I specified that the ads should show up on the searches of adults who were interested in political news who live within 20 miles of my home in Medford--my effort to increase my local audience. (More of my readers are spread out around the country.) Sometimes when I am looking at a political site--Politico, Washington Post, Fox News, The Nation, Breitbart--I see my ad in the middle of an article. 

Google Ad location target

The targeting works. People who go to those sites are in fact the people most likely to be interested in this blog. Google is like Santa in that Christmas song for children: "He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake." Google knows where you have been and what might influence you. Some months ago I had occasion to look up the mileage of current Volvos for an idea I was considering for this blog. That search brought me to the Volvo website. Beginning that week I began getting ads for new Volvos wherever I went on the web. Google saw I searched Volvos so maybe I am in the market to buy one. Volvo was happy to learn that.

Search is free because Google is selling my search history.

I also have a small ad for this blog on the KOBI-TV website. www.kobi5.com KOBI is the NBC-affiliated TV station for the Medford region. They run news shows morning, evening, and late, so presumably people see KOBI as a credible place to get local and national news, including at their website.

Today my ad looks like this. I decided to emphasize the fact that I am not a whack-job conspiracy nut. Since I am independent of any institutional affiliation, I don't have the imprimatur, for better or worse, of some well-established brand. I am the brand, just me. I am trying to be a bit provocative by saying I write "sane" commentary, as distinguished from other presumably-less-sane writers. I attempt to make a virtue out of my independence. I have refused to be a cheerleader for Democrats, which had the advantage of helping me see earlier than most commentators that Donald Trump had the "magic sauce" that would win far more votes than the polls suggested, both in 2016 and 2020. Media companies, podcasters, and bloggers have figured out that people want their opinions validated, not challenged, so they do narrow-casting for an audience that wants a reliable slant with a tone of self-righteous certainty. I hate that kind of commentary so I don't do it. I get negative feedback from Democratic readers and it diminishes my potential audience. Republicans don't like the faint praise I give Trump by calling him an extraordinarily talented and successful con man, narcissist, and demagogue. Oh, well.

I say "non-corporate" because I hear from readers on both left and right that they don't trust "corporate news." Their presumption is that the news is filtered--maybe created--by corporate overlords. Corporate meddling is not an idle fear. Local TV stations nationwide--including one here in Medford--are being bought up by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. They require stations to air "must run" conservative commentary pieces. Conservative opinions aren't what bothers me. I dislike that they require local news anchors to read verbatim laudatory introductions to the packaged commentaries. I think that diminishes the credibility of local news anchors. 

So I advertise on KOBI, the one remaining locally owned station in my home region. They have not tried to edit my ad copy and I don't think they follow me around on the web to re-sell my search history. Most of the time my ads on KOBI are catchy headlines summarizing that day's blog post. "Spend, spend, spend. What could go wrong." was a recent one. 

I don't know if the ads work to draw new readers. Do any internet ads work? Lots of people apparently see the ads, both on KOBI and the Google ones that appear on political sites. Both Google and KOBI report to me high number of "impressions." (Google claims about 2,000 impressions a day.) I suppose I see ads all the time, but I don't think I notice them, excepting that Volvo ad coming right after a search. 

I like having ads on a local TV station; I hope they work. I have misgivings about advertising with Google. On one hand I realize how handy it is to have really relevant ads. The fact that Google snoops on me means I would get ads for heartburn cures the day after I searched the word "heartburn." It is creepy, but convenient, and I can always ignore the ads. And since this blog platform--blogspot--is owned by Google, perhaps tomorrow I will start getting heartburn ads on political sites. After all, I have written the word "heartburn" four times in this paragraph. Maybe I am in the market to buy medicine. Tums would want to know.

Google is free because Google knows everything about me. Too much, maybe. I traded privacy for the convenience of getting useful searches. But are they useful to me, or are they useful to the advertisers? Google's responses to my searches queries are what Google wants me to know, presented as being objective. It isn't. 

They aren't just answering my questions. They are shaping my reality.

Georgia Shooter's Motives. The Scramble.

     "Please don't let it be one of ours."

That is the silent prayer of politically-engaged people upon news of another mass shooting. First the breaking news. Then, almost immediately, the motive-blame-game.

Whose team was he on? The murders were a symbol, of course. But of what?

Accused killer

On Tuesday, March 16, apparently Robert Aaron Long, a White 21-year-old man, went into two spa locations in Georgia and shot and killed eight people. That was the breaking news.  

Then the scramble. Who was this guy and what was his motive?  Motive would be the hook that would justify commentary on the bigger story of the deep rot in American culture. The big question is which deep rot. 

Is this a story about a lone-wolf crazy guy--and therefore evidence of the failure of our mental health system?

Is this a story about an abusive parent or ugly divorce--and therefore part of the narrative of American family disfunction?

Was Long a drug user--so is this a story about the dangers of drugs?

And then, the most consequential question: which political team to blame.

Was he Muslim? Was he an immigrant? Oh, how delicious for Fox News and Trump and their narrative of radical Islam or immigrants bringing crime.

Was he a Trump supporter? Oh, how delicious for the left if the narrative of violent lawless Trump-supporters was re-energized, linking this event to the Capitol assault.

Was he a church-going Evangelical Christian, motivated by Christian Nationalism? Oh, how delicious for secular Americans to witness another iteration of hate-thy-neighbor Christian hypocrisy.

CNN

Was this a racial hate-crime, in the form of White-against-Asians, or perhaps more narrowly, White against sexually-objectified and fetishized Asian women? 

There was a scramble to define where the rot is, and the winner was race. 

Mainstream news sources are publishing multiple stories premised on this event being another iteration of  the long history of White prejudice against Asians--with a little boost from Trump calling COVID the "China virus." The women killed were from Korea, not China, but most White Americans cannot tell the difference and don't care.

There is a rich vein to mine for story angles. Discrimination against Chinese miners in 1849 California. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The Japanese Internment in World War Two. Attacks on convenience stores owned by Koreans. Harassment incidents. College admissions ratios. Tiger moms.  Asian women objectified. Low numbers of Asians in Congress.

The accused murderer himself reported a motive. He said he had a sex addition and he wanted to eliminate the source of his temptation.

The very first news about Long mentioned his close association with a Baptist congregation. The early scramble to cast blame left open the potential that the real story was going to be "Evangelical Christian terrorist goes on killing spree inspired by violent teachings of his racist church." His Church--the Crabapple First Baptist Church--deflected this potential story line, promptly repudiating his actions as antithetical to their beliefs. 

We were absolutely devastated at this senseless loss of life and callous disregard for human beings created in the image of God. . . . These unthinkable and egregious murders directly contradict his own confession of faith in Jesus and the gospel.

We want to be clear that this extreme and wicked act is nothing less than rebellion against our Holy God and His Word. Aaron’s actions are antithetical to everything that we believe and teach as a church. In the strongest possible terms, we condemn the actions of Aaron Long as well as his stated reasons for carrying out this wicked plan. The shootings were a total repudiation of our faith and practice, and such actions are completely unacceptable and contrary to the gospel. Click for full statement

The consensus mainstream media stories are a mixed blessing for the political left. It continues the narrative that racism intrudes everywhere. That looks like a "win," and certainly it is better for the left than a clear narrative loss, as would be the case if the murders were done by a Muslim, an immigrant, or a person carrying Biden campaign material. 

But the left is making a persistent error in political consequence. The establishment media jumped to a conclusion that this is a race crime. That isn't demonstrably untrue, but it is far from proven. Maybe Long is just a pathetic, conflicted, murderous criminal who killed the spa workers because they were workers in a spa where he got "happy ending" massages and felt guilty about it. Or did not get them, but wanted them and was angry. 

Race is an important problem in America, but the politics of it are terrible for the left. The left is talking about race when they could be talking about reducing child poverty. White Americans are touchy about being called racist or anti-Semitic even if--especially if--there is some truth to it. They think the left is over-eager to find racism in everything, immediately. Possibly, in time, there will be good evidence that Long was motivated by racial animus, but the quick jump to that conclusion is what a great many Americans think is wrong with the left.

His church gives a different explanation for what might have motivated their church member. Humans are miserable sinners inclined to do evil.

III. OF THE FALL OF MAN

We believe that man was created in holiness, under the law of his Maker, but by voluntary transgression fell from that holy and happy state; in consequence of which all mankind are now sinners, not by constraint but choice; being by nature utterly void of that holiness required by the law of God, positively inclined to evil; and therefore under just condemnation to eternal ruin, without defense or excuse. [Statement of Faith, Crabapple Baptist Church]

      

 

USA: An ungrateful nation

     "Interesting you brought up the Melian Dialogue, which is more aptly applied to the Democrats and their desire to wield raw power. D.C. should not be a state. It was clearly the intention of the founders for the district to be separate for very good non-racist reasons."

             Kevin: in a comment on yesterday's post.

Kevin proves my point.

Asking for equal treatment makes District of Columbia people the bad guys.

Today's Guest Post, the third on the issue of District of Columbia statehood, notes that opponents of giving residents of the District full representation in Congress attack the motives of those seeking representation. Kevin likens them to the powerful Athenians thuggishly demanding do-or-die tribute from a weak victim, the people in the island city of Melos. Mitch McConnell called it socialism.

Frank Albert and wife Marie-Therese

Take a moment and consider. The central and most sacred ideas of the American republic are that individuals are are valued and entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" that "governments derive their just power by the consent of the governed;" that all of us are "created equal;" and that "we, the people" agreed to create a government for ourselves. Those ideas are who we are as a people. In this country of our sacred ideals, there are no second class citizens. We all play by the same rules. We are all in it together, equally, and that is why it is fair.

Residents of the District are not asking for special anything. They are asking for the right to be treated like every other American as regards representation, which is only fair because they are treated like every other American as regards duties. They are not asking it out of a position of power--as suggested by Kevin--but out of weakness.  

Frank Albert's Guest Post is mostly an autobiographical journey that reflects his frustration and sense of insult that his long service to America might be dismissed in a casual insult by Mitch McConnell. Frank Albert served his country in the foreign service. I include here a photo of him in the gracious black-tie image Americans have of the high life of diplomats. How easy and pleasant. In reality, most people most of the time in the various branches of the foreign service--Frank Albert included--are working in the field in difficult, sometimes-dangerous places, far away from family and home. He doesn't have photos of that work.

The results of the work of Albert and people like him show up in the disputes over trade that were avoided, in the diseases we don't know how to pronounce because they did not spread here, and countries we know nothing about because we did not fight a war there. Frank Albert isn't asking Mitch McConnell for something special or for a perfunctory "thank you for your service." He is asking to be treated like every other American.

Guest Post by Frank Albert.

Many people’s lives are like rocks rolling down a hill. They start slowly, pick up momentum and then slow down. My life has been like that. I like where I’ve landed—and plan to remain here—but I’ve also lost something along the way. I now live in Washington D.C. where I am not allowed to have a voting representative in either chamber of the federal government’s highest law-making body, the United States Congress. Okay, I could move to neighboring state. Practically, however, I’m too old and my belongings here—physical and personal—are too heavy and too precious. Besides, I don’t really want to change locations again. I’ve done that too many times already.

To explain. I was born at Sacred Heart hospital in Medford in June 1940 and taken by my mother and father to their small house in west Medford. I subsequently attended and graduated from the Washington grade school, Hedrick junior high and Medford senior high. High school diploma in hand in summer 1958, I picked pears and loaded hay bales on to trucks, saved my money, bought an old car, drove it to Eugene and enrolled at the University of Oregon (UO) in September of the same year.

Four years later, a Duck for life, I graduated from the UO. I loved the university, my family and my friends, but I wanted to see other places and meet people regularly who didn’t look like me. So I joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Thailand to teach English and math to students preparing to be secondary school teachers in their country’s public schools. Whether my students learned more from me or me from them over the two ensuing years is a moot point.

However, the experience bumped my life trajectory into another lane. After returning to the United States and attending graduate school for a year in Washington D.C.I joined the United States Information Agency (USIA), later serving overseas and in Washington with USIA, the Department of State and the United Nations. My assignments in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, western and northern Europe and Africa were all different but often centered around one theme: the benefits of democracy, support for the rule of law and respect for human rights.

Now retired in Washington D.C. I live in the only political and geographical entity within the United States whose citizens bear the responsibilities of citizenship, including taxation and selective service registration, without sharing in the full rights and privileges of citizenship. The other 706,000 residents and I pay more in taxes than our counterparts in 22 states. We also provide more money per capita to the federal government than any state does. We also have a larger population than Wyoming or Vermont and nearly as many citizens as North Dakota. Yet we don’t have anyone to represent and vote for us in Congress.

After the U. S. House of Representatives passed a District statehood bill on June 27, 2020—the first time a chamber of Congress had ever passed such legislation--Washington’s Mayor, Muriel Bowser, said the unprecedented January 6 assault on the Capitol added to the urgency of the cause, pointing out that residents in her city had “risked their lives to defend a Congress that affords them no voting rights.”

Those opposed to correcting that merely shrugged. Last year, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark) conceded that Wyoming may have a smaller population than D.C. but it has a greater right to statehood because it’s a “well-rounded, working-class state” with workers in mining, logging and construction. And the former Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) once called the Democrats’ campaign for statehood “full-bore socialism.” A guy who grew up in west Medford, bucked hay bales and picked pears, a socialist?? Well, if you say so Senator.

Jim Crow in DC. Today.

Disenfranchisement of voters in D.C. has a history. 

It is "Jim Crow" thinking. 

Jim Crow thinking is about race. It is also about power. Simply power.

In the years after the Civil War a few Black Americans made their way into the federal Civil Service. After his election in 1912, President Woodrow Wilson began reversing that. His new Secretary of the Treasury, William McAdoo said segregation in his department was necessary "to remove the causes of complaint and irritation where white women have been forced unnecessarily to sit at desks with colored men.”

Through most history of Washington, D.C. Blacks have been free, but second class. Black Americans were first present mostly as slaves but by the early Republic--Presidents Monroe and Jackson--a majority of Blacks were free citizens. In April 1862, nine months before the Emancipation Act of 1863, Congress passed District of Columbia's own Emancipation Act. The District was legally a free city--but deeply segregated by law and policy.

Click: Mapping segregation

The status of the majority-Black residents of The District has long had a slave-to-owner, and then low-status employee-to-owner quality. They are present and useful, but they aren't citizens or co-owners of the enterprise. They have the right to do as they are told. They are governed. They are subjects. As Jennifer Angelo described in yesterday's post, government is by absentee overseers in Congress. That is the status quo, and 700,000 Americans are dis-enfranchised.

This blog has said multiple times over the past five years how useless, indeed counter-productive, it is for the political left to ascribe racial animus to Republican political behaviors, even if they perceive it to be obvious. It backfires, always. People resent being accused of racial prejudice. People do not see it or admit it in ourselves. We dig in, mentally. Thus, the appeals in fundraising letters from GOP officeholders are all about stopping cancel culture. Democrats accuse us of racism. How dare they! We are the victims.

McAdoo did not say his reason for wanting removal of Black employees was racism. Rather, it was a matter of sound administration and office morale. I observe a race-linked history to District disenfranchisement, but there is another, sufficient reason. It is about power. It is just hardball political self-interest for Republicans to stop the addition of two Democratic senators.

Jack Mullen

Disenfranchised D.C. isn't consistent with American democratic principles, but it is the way of the world, now and always. As described by Thucydides the Athenians said they did not want to bother arguing the morality of their planned subjugation of the island of Melos. It wasn't about morality or fairness or principle, the Athenians said. It was simply a matter of power and will. They wanted Melos paying tribute and in subjugation, simple as that. "The strong do what they want and the weak suffer as they must."

And there we are today. The human mind can create a non-racist, non-selfish facially-neutral reason for justifying it: History. Republicans say the District isn't a state and that is the way the Founders wrote it up. Sorry, not our fault. No, you don't get a vote.

Jack Mullen is a friend from my youth. We picked pears side by side for Naumes orchards. Later we worked together for a Democratic populist Congressman, Jim Weaver, a Democrat swept into office in the 1974 post-Watergate wave. Mullen now lives in Washington, D.C.

Guest Post by Jack Mullen

One of my most vivid childhood memories is seeing my parents, dressed in their Sunday finest, leaving our house after diner, to go vote.  It may sound corny, but I dreamed of the day when I too could vote.  

My dream came true when as a young adult I accompanied my parents to Hoover School in Medford Oregon, and cast my ballot for my favorite candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.  That was an emotional day for me, to be able to cast and have my vote count in the world’s longest established democracy.  Not only did I feel a strong bond with my parents, but also with all those throughout the country who, I trust, never take our citizenship for granted. 

Little did I realize that in 2021, efforts to suppress voting would be thrust forward in 43 state legislatures.

 President Rutherford B Hayes, a Civil War Colonel who fought alongside General Phil Sheridan in Shenandoah Valley campaign, turned his back on Reconstruction.  President Ulysses S. Grant, Hayes’ superior officer in the Union Army, nurtured the passage of the 15^th Amendment giving the right to vote for all Americans. Hayes, as President, gave a big wink and nod to Jim Crow and we feel the singe to this day. 

It might be the legacy of Jim Crow, or just an overall national distrust engendered by mere mention of the name Washington D.C. that makes legislators deny Washingtonians the right to vote for Congress?

 It bothers me that states like Wyoming and Vermont, with much smaller populations than Washington D.C., have two members each in the Senate. 

 What bothers me even more is that statehood denial played a big part in the January 6 insurrection.  In 50 states of the Union, the Governor has the authority to immediately call the National Guard into action.  In Washington, the Mayor has no authority to call the National Guard and the tragic mix-up in the chain of command in Washington reminded me of the Abbott and Costello ‘Who’s on First’ routine. Only there is no humor when the Vice President and the Speaker of the House narrowly escaped the mob that entered the Capitol. My, how the ghosts of Jefferson Davis is pleased to see the Confederate flag finally flying inside the U.S. Capitol.  

Mullen, 1965

If nothing else, the attempted insurrection on January 6 put on full display the need for D.C. statehood.  And, by the way, I’d like a full vote like I had with my parents back at Hoover School.

[Note: Of interest to Oregon readers: In a high school basketball game Mullen jumped to catch a pass from fellow-senior Bill Enyart. Bill went on to be known as Earthquake Enyart, an All American fullback for Oregon State. OSU beat USC in an historic game that pitted OJ Simpson's team against OSU. Oregon State won.]

DC: the 51st state

      "Taxation without representation is tyranny."

        James Otis, Sam Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and all the founders of the American republic

Give DC residents the privileges of American citizens. If not, then let them be a tax haven.

Currently 700,000 Americans live in the District of Columbia. They pay federal and local taxes just like everyone else in America.  They are subject to America's laws. They are worse than second class Americans; they are subjects of tyranny.  We make the rules they must abide by and they haven't a vote. DC is not a state for the simple political reason that Republicans estimate that it would almost certainly elect Democratic senators, and they don't want two extra Democratic senators. It isn't complicated and it isn't a secret. 

I think Americans should fully own what we are doing. We say DC is a special place, an exception, a quirk, too small to treat like a regular state. So let's be true to our own theories of legitimate government. They are too small to matter, so let's make them a tax haven. They give up something to live in DC--full citizenship--and they get something--no federal taxes. The result would be instantaneous. Many people would see DC not as a handicap and disadvantage, but as a fair exchange. It might even bring conservative anti-tax people into the District, which might change the political balance there. 

I presented this idea to Jennifer Angelo, requesting her perspective. She is a retired federal attorney, now a resident of the District of Columbia. She is married to Jack Mullen, who will supply his own guest post perspective tomorrow.

Jennifer Angelo

Guest Post by Jennifer Angelo

When I returned to Washington, DC in 2016 after 17 years in San Francisco, there were a lot of things I didn’t miss about California: drought, fires, petty crime, smallish living quarters and – since we lived in a hipster neighborhood – always feeling like the oldest person in the room. But what do I miss? The Bay, the Oakland Athletics and having two Senators and a Congresswoman representing me in Congress.

DC is sometimes called a plantation, with the United States Congress in charge. This was brought home to me a few months after we moved back to DC. The DC City Council had enacted a Death with Dignity law after going through extensive hearings, public input and debate. The law allowed DC residents to end their own lives after going through a closely supervised process.

Under the Constitution, Congress has the right to overturn any law passed by DC if it acts within 30 days. Jason Chaffetz of Utah headed the Committee with jurisdiction, and its members included several Republicans from the Bible Belt. Naturally, they introduced a resolution to stop District residents from controlling their own end-of-life decisions.

My husband and I went to a small protest outside the House Office Building the evening the Death with Dignity law would be debated. Then we sat in the hearing feeling angry and helpless while Chaffetz and Congressmen from Georgia, Alabama, Texas and North Carolina talked about their own religious views on assisted suicide. They would not, as a matter of “conscience,” give DC residents the right to end their own lives, no matter how much pain they were enduring. Our own Representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton – who can vote in Committee but not on the House Floor – spoke passionately for DC self-government. Other Democrats and a few Republicans joined in. Luckily, there were enough Republicans on the Committee who, on principle, felt DC should have autonomy. The resolution to overturn the Death with Dignity law failed. So here in the District, which party controls Congress has extra significance. When the Democrats are in charge we can safely govern ourselves without fear of interference. When Republicans take over, we worry.

Voting in DC is important on a local level. We vote for Mayor, City Council and a representative for a neighborhood advisory body. We vote on local referenda. But when it comes to federal representation, we vote for President and have only one non-voting Delegate to Congress. Eleanor Holmes Norton has held this job for as long as I can remember. We also vote for “shadow” federal Senators. This is a symbolic act.

So over the last four years, when Trump’s Cabinet and judicial appointees were under consideration, the tax cut was debated, Republicans tried to overturn the ACA, the House and Senate held two impeachment proceedings, and countless important bills were introduced, we had no say. No Senator or Member of Congress spoke for us or voted for us. We watched.

In an attempt to be heard, I began writing to random Senators with my views. I never received a response. When I called or emailed a federal legislator, I had to give my address. I’m sure my opinions were ignored. I never spoke to a live person or had a responsive email. No vote, no voice.

This is especially aggravating because District of Columbia residents pay the highest per capita federal taxes in the country. We rank first among all states and territories in percentage of residents with Bachelors and Advanced degrees. We have more permanent residents than Vermont or Wyoming and aren’t far behind Alaska.

So will this ever change? Once again, DC’s (and Puerto Rico’s) inferior status is getting national attention. Yet I am not hopeful. There are two ways to change things: Make DC a state, or return it to Maryland, one of the states from which it was originally carved (retrocession). Democrats overwhelmingly favor statehood. After all, DC voted 92% for Biden, 5% for Trump. And although it is no longer majority African American, 47% of its residents are black and it has a long and rich African American history. Republicans favor retrocession because although it probably would add a Democrat to the House, the Senate wouldn’t change. Senators from Alaska, Wyoming and the Dakotas, with their small populations, would carry on with their disproportionate influence.

Neither Statehood nor retrocession has much chance of success. As long as the filibuster rule remains, Statehood has no chance in the Senate. Even if it could pass the Senate, there are questions about whether the Constitution would have to be amended, requiring an affirmative vote from 34 states. As for retrocession, Maryland would have to agree to take us. And most Marylanders don’t want us. We’re a city. We have problems.

While I would prefer Statehood, I would be satisfied with retrocession, though I know I’m in a small minority. My comfort level with being attached to Maryland probably stems from growing up in a Maryland suburb of DC; I am not so tied to the identity of DC as a separate entity because I always thought of myself as coming from DC. It’s the city where my father worked, where I played, and whose newspaper we read every day. My wish is to have voting representation in Congress. I spent my career in the federal government. I am extremely well-informed on the big federal issues. Many of my neighbors are federal workers. It’s unjust for DC residents to be on the outside looking in when decisions critical to our nation are made. One way or another, we want to be heard.

McConnell's "Scorched Earth" Senate

Mitch McConnell warns Democrats not to end the filibuster:

     "As Senate Republicans wind up back in the saddle, we wouldn't just erase every liberal change that hurt the country, we'd strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies with zero—zero—input from the other side. How about this—nationwide right-to-work for working Americans, defunding Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities on day one, a whole new era of domestic energy production, sweeping new protections for conscience and the right to life of the unborn, concealed carry in all 50 states and the District of Columbia."

It is a bad bluff.

Mitch McConnell made two threats. The first was to gum up everything.

That is a worthy threat. It is real.

Abortion Ban

Political parties benefit from their obstruction, so long as Social Security checks get sent on time. The minority looks brave and the majority looks bad at governing. Republicans called Obama "feckless" when he couldn't get things done because the GOP was obstructing him at every step. People got frustrated--at Obama. It isn't logical, but it is the reality of the political and media world of today. 

Public respect for Congress is already in the low teens--less popular than hemorrhoids, traffic jams, and herpes, as Arnold Schwarzenegger joked. Click  Americans expect Congressional disfunction and they will get it. Biden would get the political blame. He didn't unite America.

His other threat is a bluff. Ban abortion, end Planned Parenthood, concealed-carry in DC.

Yeah, right.

If Republicans were to get their wish and pass the legislation McConnell threatens, the GOP would further shrink their support. They would lose 40 states in a presidential race. It would cause further abandonment of the GOP by women and their losses in the suburbs would be so grave they would lose some 350 Congressional Districts. Republicans maintain their popularity precisely because the GOP policy goals McConnell listed are unattained. Like the ten-year-old girl and her wish for a pony, the imagined fun is much, much sweeter than the actuality of cleaning out a stall.

With the benefit of hindsight we see that Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have been correct in her warning that it was a mis-step for abortion rights for Roe v. Wade to have been decided by the courts--as a right of self-determination and autonomy for the woman--rather than through legislation as an agreed-upon consensus of the public. By being decided in the courts, a conflict between rights, the political right formed an equal and opposite right, that of the fertilized egg and fetus to humanity. Right to life.

 In the absence of the filibuster, I do not doubt that a GOP majority could pass national laws outlawing all abortions. A GOP officeholder might be bound by party loyalty and fear of a primary to vote for that.

Abortion rights advocates should oppose that effort. Passage would be cruel, especially to the most vulnerable of women. The unpopularity of the law would likely take some years to play out. In the meantime people would suffer--including prosperous young women in red Bible-Belt states, who would need to schedule unexplained flights to Toronto or Tijuana. Babies would be born to women with no means to care for them. Illegal abortions would be rampant. Some doctors and women would go to prison. Abortions would move underground. Then, it would fall apart under its own weight of unpopular policy. People want what they want and they want to be free. There is a reason abortion drugs and procedures have been around since the beginning of time.

Abortion ban successful in Philippines 

The practically feasible rules regarding abortion are approximately the policies that are in place now. Discrete, legal, and safe abortions are generally available with some effort and inconvenience to the woman, at low cost. It isn't free, nor paid by taxpayers, but it is available to the motivated. It does not please abortion rights advocates, but it generally works. GOP voters think they oppose abortion access, on principle--until they deal with the consequences of the public losing that access.

Do Republicans really think that Americans want a free-for-all of concealed handguns? Again, as a matter of principle, and to keep one's NRA credentials intact, a GOP legislator would likely speak for it and vote for it. But in reality, a gunned-up America with 18-year-old guys packing guns in bars is a prescription for mayhem. Let every citizen demand, as Rep. Lauren Boebert did, the right to walk around screens intended to keep handguns out of the Capitol? I suspect not.

Republicans have prospered politically by being in perennial frustration. The worst thing that could happen to the GOP is to succeed. Democrats should try to stop them-- for the good of America as Republicans would come to see for themselves soon enough--but if they cannot, it is not all bad for Democrats. The politics would assure that the situation would self-correct.

Trump supporter: "I don't want the vaccine."

     "I had a slight fever of 99.5 for a day and a half. I don’t think it was the boogeyman they made it out to be.”

             Steve, 43, Republican, quoted in Washington Post

     "Peter, don't try to convince Republican vaccine refuse-niks. They won't listen to you, and that just means more vaccine faster for Democrats. That's OK with me."

              Bob, 93, Democrats, email written to me

Half of men who voted for Trump say they won't take the COVID vaccine.

Pollster and focus group leader Frank Luntz gathered a group of Republican voters who said they did not plan to get the vaccine.  He wondered what might persuade them. Republican politicians urging them to get the vaccine didn't work; he tried that on them. Possibly they were persuadable, eventually, he concluded, but only in response to a slow drip of medical facts presented by people's own physicians. The group didn't trust politicians, the CDC, the media, pharmaceutical companies, or the medical community at large. They didn't trust authorities. 

Click: CBS

His observations are consistent with other public polling. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll showed 28% of Republicans "definitely would not" get the vaccine and another 18% said they were wait-and-see. An AP poll just released reported that 42% of Republicans would not or probably would not get the vaccine, versus 18% of Democrats. Click   A CBS poll found similar results. Most Democrats are going to get the vaccine; many Republicans are not.

Certainly within my own peer group of 71-year-olds, everyone is eager to get the vaccination and people are careful about wearing masks, which suggests I must primarily know Democrats.

People have their reasons for refusing the vaccination. They say it is untested, that they worry about side effects, that they simply don't trust drug companies. There are conspiracy theories swirling within conservative social media of mind control, of the virus, vaccine, and the whole COVID/CDC response having been concocted intentionally for some mix of financial reasons and social control of the "frightened sheep" American. It was all a big Democratic hoax to trip up Donald Trump. The disease is no big deal, the response was overblown, and that getting a vaccination is succumbing to the big establishment mind-game designed to empower the old establishment power structure, both political and corporate. Democrats win, Bill Gates wins, Jeff Bezos wins, and the nanny-state worry-warts win. They get us to wear uncomfortable "face diapers," they destroy small businesses, and then they want to invade our personal space by getting us to line up to get an untested vaccination.

That appears to be the thinking.

The CDC says, as public health policy, it would be better if nearly everyone got vaccinated. 

That statement embeds assumptions that the vaccinations in fact work and continue to work for a while. It assumes there isn't some time-bomb side effect waiting to be revealed, as in the Thalidomide case. It assumes that on the whole it is not safer for people to get the virus and perhaps have much better long-term immunity than the immunity gained from vaccination.  No one knows for sure. It is not irrational to think this way.

Click: Scientific American

Vaccination proponents observe that the more people who are unvaccinated, the more people will be around getting the disease and exposing others--a danger in itself. There is evidence that some immune-compromised patients who get aggressive treatment with established therapies including plasma survive long enough to create new variants of the virus. A Cambridge University medical team led by Ravindra Gupta reported on a patient who likely became the source of the UK variant, as first reported in Nature Magazine.

 Analysis of samples from the patient showed that the virus evolved rapidly after the plasma therapy, developing mutations that changed how it could infect cells and resist antibodies. The conditions turned out to be ripe for viral evolution. “This is a blueprint for how variants emerge,” Gupta says.

The bigger the herd of infected people, the more opportunities for the virus to break out into new variants. It is not irrational to worry about that, either.

What will cause Trump voters to get the vaccination? Probably nothing. Most people survive COVID, just as most people survive riding fast on a motorcycle. There is a matter of pride at not being "pushed around" by the dominant culture. Saying no to masks and no to the vaccination is a little bit like digging in ones heels at being bullied into politically correct thought and action. It is the Gadsden Flag response: Don't tread on me. Trump and Fox News encouraged that kind of thinking. South Dakota's Governor Kristi Noem voices it perfectly.

Bob, quoted above, is probably correct. Trump voters are unlikely to change their minds, and the effects of the virus will play out as it will. Democrats would be foolish to push on this. It would just confirm the notion that they are know-it-all busy-bodies trying to tell others how to live. The harder they would try, the more push-back they would get.

Leave refuse-niks alone.