October 8, 2022

A Study Finally Shows Just How Much Deadlier COVID Has Been for Republicans

This essay was adapted from Donald Moynihan’s newsletter, Can We Still Govern?


For at least a year now, there has been strong but largely circumstantial evidence that right-wing anti-vaccine rhetoric was having deadly consequences in the United States.

Despite early wide-scale access to COVID-19 vaccines, the U.S. has outstripped its peer countries when it comes to the all-important measure of mortality known as “excess deaths.” Meanwhile, U.S. life expectancy has continued to drop dramatically due to the coronavirus even as longevity measures have begun rebounding elsewhere.

One seemingly obvious explanation for this grim piece of American exceptionalism is that Republicans, egged on by right-wing political and media elites, have been avoiding simple public health measures to protect themselves like getting vaccinated, and dying at elevated rates as a result.

This problem wasn’t exactly hard to pick up on just by paying attention to social media or reading the news. But the story appeared to be borne out by more careful data analyses, too. Some of the key clues:

• When it comes to the public’s beliefs about the pandemic, such as whether there should be more or fewer COVID restrictions, the gap between left- and right-leaning voters has been much higher in the U.S. than elsewhere.

• COVID cases and deaths are higher in more Republican counties.

• Republicans are more likely to believe misinformation about vaccines.

• Republicans are substantially less likely to get vaccinated.

• Researchers have found that exposure to conservative media, particularly Fox News, made people more vaccine hesitant.

This body of evidence had some limitations, though. For instance, the fact that red counties tended to have higher death rates than blue ones might not mean that conservatives were more likely to die from COVID if lots of Democrats who happened to live in right-wing parts of the country were perishing too. Or, if more Republicans were dying, it might also be because they were different from Democrats in ways that affect COVID outcomes but were not directly driven by ideology. They might just be older, in worse health, or in a community with poorer health resources, for example. ...........(more)

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/covid-deadlier-republicans-study.html

October 8, 2022

Stop obsessing over election polls -- the less attention voters and the media give them, the better

(Salon) In the days leading up to an election, I have two predictable habits. Each morning when I wake up, and occasionally when I doom scroll at 3 a.m., I obsessively check the polls. I go to FiveThirtyEight, then to the Washington Post, then check Quinnipiac. I look at them seeking some sort of certainty. If they don't give me the answers I like, I keep looking. I want them to tell me that the candidates I care about are going to win. When they don't, I keep checking, hoping that their predictions will shift. When they offer favorable results, I worry they will change. So, I check them again. By the time we are a few days from Election Day, I am checking them about 10 times a day.

I can also be counted on to never, ever answer a poll — whether the requests come to me via email, spam call or text. I am not doing it. I never have. Sometimes when I am out with friends we joke that none of us has ever done one. Who has time for that? Who picks up calls from unknown numbers? I have yet to find a single friend who tells me they have answered a poll. Even weirder, we seem pretty smug about the whole thing.

Then, as if that weren't enough, when election results come in and they differ from the polls, and when this means a candidate I thought would win, doesn't, I am crushed. Like stuck on my couch in my PJs at 4 in the afternoon down. How could the polls have been wrong? I thought we had this.

....(snip)....

Each time they are wrong, they tell us next time they will be less wrong — only to, at times, be even more wrong.

Second, answering polls doesn't appeal to everyone. Here I am not just referring to myself and my smug friends. In a story for Vox after the 2020 election, Dylan Matthews pointed out that the kind of people who answer polls are weird. In it, he interviews pollster David Shor, who explains that the type of person who answers a poll is generally quite different from one who doesn't, and that discrepancy means polling will inevitably be off.

"The reason why the polls are wrong," he explains, "is because the people who were answering these surveys were the wrong people." .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2022/10/08/stop-obsessing-over-polls-the-less-attention-and-the-media-give-them-the-better/

October 8, 2022

Desperate Tudor Dixon summons the Antifa bogeyman

OP's comment: "Antifa Revenge"? My staged bullshit detector is going off the charts


(Detroit Metro Times) According to Republican candidate for governor Tudor Dixon, the property of a retired Lansing couple who supports former President Donald Trump was vandalized by “Antifa,” which allegedly scrawled messages like “TRUMP NAZI SCUM,” “GOP TERRORIST,” and “ANTIFA REVENGE” on their vehicles and driveway in red and white spray paint.

“A retired couple in Lansing had their cars and property vandalized by the tolerant people of ANTIFA because the couple supports President Trump,” Dixon wrote on Twitter. “Another example of the radical left’s ‘fight like hell’ tactics, courtesy of Gretchen Whitmer.”

Dixon provided no source for her claims. According to a story from WLNS-TV published after Dixon’s posts, Lansing police are investigating the incident, which allegedly occurred between Wednesday night and Thursday morning on the 2800 block of Lasalle Gardens on Lansing’s east side.

https://twitter.com/TudorDixon/status/1578401712402059268

Anyone with information is invited to contact Lansing police at 517-483-4600.

“Antifa” refers to “Anti-fascists,” a loose, decentralized political movement often cited as a bogeyman by the right. It is not clear what Whitmer has to do with this vandalism, assuming it’s real, other than saying that Democrats need to “fight like hell.” ............(more)

https://www.metrotimes.com/news/tudor-dixon-claims-antifa-vandalized-lansing-trump-supporters-property-31278327

October 7, 2022

Political warlord Trump now targets his enemies -- and Mitch is first on the list

Political warlord Trump now targets his enemies — and Mitch is first on the list
Like a cornered animal, Trump is ready to lash out — and he longs to make his violent fantasies come true

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 7, 2022 6:30AM (EDT)


(Salon) Donald Trump aspires to be a warlord. He publicly admires despots, tyrants and other authoritarian leaders who kill their enemies and take away the rights of anyone who oppose them. Mental health professionals have repeatedly warned that Donald Trump is likely a sociopath with an erotic attraction to violence and mayhem.

He has repeatedly shown that he has no regard for the rule of law, democracy, human rights or other restrictions on his behavior. He encourages his followers and allies to engage in acts of terrorism and other violence on his behalf. The most notable example came, of course, on Jan. 6, 2021. To this point, Trump has been limited by his cowardice. He prefers to have others engage in violence on his behalf instead of directly ordering such acts or participating in them himself.

Matters are now in flux. Trump is under investigation by the Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies, and may face serious consequences for his lawbreaking for the first time. As George Conway described in a recent conversation with Salon, Trump is ready to lash out:



Ultimately, as Donald Trump becomes more desperate, he will reveal more of his true self: a violent predator who will almost always attack instead of retreating or otherwise surrendering. Last Saturday, Donald Trump took one more step on this journey when he threatened the life of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump accused McConnell of having a "death wish" because he has (on a few specific occasions) supported legislation sponsored by Democrats. Trump also used a racial slur to describe McConnell's wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, calling her "his China loving wife, Coco Chow!" .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2022/10/07/political-warlord-now-targets-his-enemies--and-mitch-is-first-on-the-list/

October 6, 2022

Joe Biden asks questions worthy of Thomas Paine: Who the hell are we, and what century is this?

Joe Biden asks questions worthy of Thomas Paine: Who the hell are we, and what century is this?
For all the problems of the Biden White House, the president has no illusions: America faces a historic emergency

By BRIAN KAREM
Columnist
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 6, 2022 9:33AM (EDT)


(Salon) Thomas Paine is sorely missed. We've abandoned the Age of Reason, are lacking in common sense and live in times that truly try men's souls.

"Folks, what century are we in?" President Biden asked the press pool Tuesday afternoon.

His detractors will no doubt seize upon the question as further proof of the president's mental decline, but the facts — and the context — once again won't support it.

Biden was talking about the anachronistic stance of today's Republican Party, a synthesis of evangelicals, crackpots, conspiracy theorists, authoritarians, misogynists, sadists, racists, masochists, flat-earthers and science deniers whose greatest shared characteristics are fear and ignorance.

His question to the press pool was a retort after being asked about contraception and comes on the heels of regressive actions by the Supreme Court toward women and reproductive health care in particular, while certain members of Congress try to throw the nation into a tailspin in order to embrace a time that never existed. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2022/10/06/joe-biden-asks-questions-worthy-of-thomas-paine-the-hell-are-we-and-what-century-is-this/

October 5, 2022

Detroit Free Press editorial: MI Republicans are riding stolen election lies to political oblivion

(Detroit Free Press) In January 2021, four days after the now-infamous assault on the U.S. Capitol, the Free Press published an editorial documenting the roles 28 Michigan Republicans had played in the unsuccessful attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Headlined “People of the lie,” the editorial described how a small group of elected leaders and GOP operatives in our state plotted to prevent the presidential candidate Michigan voters preferred from succeeding the incumbent he had defeated – first by pressing bogus claims of election fraud, then by delaying certification of county and statewide election results, and finally by seeking to invalidate the electoral votes Joe Biden had won in other swing states.

Like most Americans, we had been shaken by what fact-finders would subsequently expose as a coup attempt months in the making, and we thought it important to memorialize the complicity of Michigan Republicans. But our outrage was tempered by the recognition that a critical mass of principled Republican officials had refused to participate. So in addition to pillorying the 28 who had abetted the scheme, our editorial saluted eight GOP leaders who had upheld our state’s election laws and helped assure the peaceful transfer of presidential power. In their honorable conduct, we found reason to believe Michigan’s democratic institutions would withstand a lawless cabal’s efforts to undermine them.

We harbored no illusion that a post-Trump Republican Party would abandon the policies and priorities the former president had during his four years in the White House. But was it so naïve to hope that Michigan’s next generation of GOP leaders would look more like Liz Cheney, and less like, say, Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Apparently it was. ..............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/editorials/2022/10/02/editorial-michigan-republicans-riding-stolen-election-lies-to-defeat/69531227007/

October 5, 2022

Battery wars: Michigan snags $4B investment, 4,500 new jobs

(Detroit News) Michigan is battling back in the state-vs-state battery wars, landing two investments totaling nearly $4 billion and creating close to 4,500 jobs in two parts of the state.

Our Next Energy Inc., a two-year-old battery startup based in Novi with just 160 employees, confirmed Wednesday that it will invest $1.6 billion to create a battery-cell manufacturing plant in western Wayne County’s Van Buren Township. With a $200 million grant from the state’s Critical Industry Fund, the project code-named “Project First” is expected within six years to employ 2,112 new jobs paying an average of $35 an hour.

The investment follows parallel confirmation that Gotion Inc., a Chinese-owned battery maker, plans to invest $2.3 billion to build a battery components plant in Big Rapids that would create 2,350 new jobs with an average hourly wage of nearly $30 an hour. Internally dubbed “Project Elephant,” the Gotion project is expected to receive a $125 million grant from the state’s critical industry fund and $50 million from the Strategic Site Readiness program.

That’s a sharp turnaround from a little more than a year ago, when hometown stalwart Ford Motor Co. shocked Michigan’s business and political leadership with plans that it would head south to partner with South Korean battery supplier, SK Innovation, to invest a combined $11.4 billion to build a battery assembly operation in Kentucky and a battery-and-vehicle assembly campus in west Tennessee. ...............(more)

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/columnists/daniel-howes/2022/10/05/michigan-battery-investments-our-next-energy/69540016007/

October 5, 2022

Demand for abortions in Michigan doubles among out-of-state residents

(Detroit Free Press) They're coming to Michigan from Ohio and Texas, Tennessee and Kentucky. Some by car and others by hourslong bus rides or by plane. All seek to end an unwanted pregnancy.

The number of abortions in Michigan performed on out-of-state residents has more than doubled since the U.S. Supreme Court's June ruling reversing Roe v. Wade, leaving abortion access up to states to decide, said Paula Thornton Greear, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Michigan.

"In some weeks, our patient care teams at our health centers are serving triple the previous average," said Greear, who took the job leading the nonprofit just weeks before the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization created a nation with a patchwork of abortion laws that continue to shift as bans and restrictions are put in place and tested in state courts.

Dobbs abortion decision created 'a new reality for us all'

"If the previous weekly average was 18, the new average would be around 42 and sometimes as high as 58 in a week."

Out-of-state patients, she said, make up about 20% of the abortion care appointments at Planned Parenthood of Michigan's 14 health care centers. ...............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2022/10/05/abortion-michigan-out-of-state-residents-ohio-tennessee-texas-kentucky/69539316007/

October 5, 2022

SCOTUS: What Three Dissenters Can Do Now

What Three Dissenters Can Do Now
Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor are perfectly aware of their situation.

BY DAHLIA LITHWICK AND MARK JOSEPH STERN
OCT 05, 20225:45 AM


(Slate) Two things were obvious after Tuesday morning’s oral arguments in Merrill v. Milligan, one of the term’s most important voting rights cases: One is that there will be three female justices on the losing side of virtually every single important case for the foreseeable future. And two—they are not going down quietly. All three of Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson brought the full force of history, text, original intent, and statutory purpose to the table during arguments about the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act—values the court’s conservatives purport to espouse. In so doing, they highlighted that the state of Alabama, aided and abetted by the court’s so-called textualists and originalists, are engaged in a radical project to engineer a new era of “race blindness” in voting that violates both the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. That these oral arguments are now broadcast live means that Americans could listen to three women, one of whom is Black, one of whom is Latina, and one of whom is Jewish, administer nothing short of a beat down to both Alabama’s solicitor general, Edmund LaCour, and their own colleagues on the bench.

Merrill is a challenge to an Alabama gerrymander that packed most of the state’s Black voters into a single district and spreads the remainder throughout white districts where they would not be able to elect their preferred candidate, a trick known as “packing and cracking.” As a result, Black voters control just one of seven congressional districts despite making up nearly a third of the population. The Supreme Court has previously held that such race-based vote dilution is impermissible under both Section 2 of the VRA and the 14th Amendment, so the case should have been straightforward. When faced with this lawsuit, however, Alabama turned those ideas on their heads by insisting that any maps that take any race into account violate the Constitution. In other words, redressing illegal racial discrimination is, itself, illegal race discrimination. This is a parody of an argument about the need for race-blindness, but it’s an idea that is ascendant this term, here and in the upcoming affirmative action and Indian Child Welfare Act cases.

The problem with this strategy, as Kagan immediately pointed out, is that when the Supreme Court took away Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County, it promised that Section 2 would be available to remediate racialized voting measures. When the Supreme Court chipped away at Section 2 of the VRA in Brnovich v. DNC, it glibly promised the law would still be available in cases where states diluted the power of racial minorities’ votes. But now the court has a vote dilution case in Merrill, and that promise has proved hollow; instead, the court is preparing to take away the use of Section 2—and with it, the VRA—altogether. What’s left, Kagan asked, after that?

https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1577311279328514055

Kagan also said that under existing precedents, Alabama could only prevail if the court ignored or overruled existing law. Of course, ignoring and overruling existing law is the raison d’etre for the new conservative supermajority, for which precedent is a mere annoyance on the way to its final destination. ...............(more)

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/what-liberals-can-do-now-scotus.html

October 5, 2022

Officials celebrate completion of the Long Island Rail Road Third Track project

The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) Third Track project is complete with state and transit officials marking the milestone on Oct. 3. The project saw the construction of a new 9.8-mile section of track between Floral Park and Hicksville that will allow LIRR greater operational flexibility and support an increase of service across the system when Grand Central Madison opens later in 2022.

"The completion of the LIRR Third Track gives the LIRR more flexibility to serve customers on the Ronkonkoma, Port Jefferson/Huntington and Oyster Bay branches. When combined with the new terminal at Grand Central Madison and the newly renovated LIRR concourse at Penn Station, LIRR customers will have more frequent service, upgraded stations with a host of modern amenities, and easier reverse peak trips,” said LIRR Interim President and Metro-North Railroad President Catherine Rinaldi.

The newly built Third Track is physically the southernmost track on the roadbed and will carry eastbound service. It opened in three sections, with the first leg opening August 15 through New Hyde Park and Merillon Avenue and the second stretch to Mineola on August 30.

The Third Track project is a central element to the LIRR Main Line Expansion Project, which includes the renewal of five LIRR stations along the route (New Hyde Park, Merillon Avenue, Mineola, Carle Place and Westbury), the elimination of eight at-grade railroad crossings, upgrades at seven railroad bridges, parking expansions, installation of new sound attenuation barriers and landscaping improvements. With only minor station work left to complete, the project is heading toward the finish line $100 million under budget almost four years after breaking ground. .............(more)

https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/infrastructure/article/21282731/officials-celebrate-completion-of-the-long-island-rail-road-third-track-project