06 January 2022 ⚡️One year later, are we closer to a resolution or a revolution?
06 January 2022 ⚡️One year later, are we closer to a resolution or a revolution?
The US reported a record 3,876,416 new Covid19 cases for the week ending 05 January 2022, surpassing 01 January 2021 cases by about a third. Most are Omicron.
On 05 January 2021, brave souls in Georgia made sure that the Peach State would have two new US Senators: Jon Ossoff, Georgia’s first Jewish Senator, and Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black Senator.
Then came January 6th.
The two are related, Just Security argues in a timeline of the Justice Department investigation of false claims of election fraud in Georgia. That investigation was “in sharp divergence from long-standing policy to refrain from overt investigative steps in the course of an election.”
Congressional and media investigations appear to have conflated actions of U.S. officials that occurred in this timeline with a separate scheme by then-President Donald Trump to pressure the Justice Department to help overturn the presidential election.
Focusing on the insurrection, Jimmy Carter, the 39th President, pulled few punches in this NY Times (🎁) essay, “I Fear for Our Democracy.”
“Politicians…have leveraged the distrust they have created to enact laws that empower partisan legislatures to intervene in election processes. They seek to win by any means…
“Phony claims of illegal voting and pointless multiple audits only detract from democratic ideals.”
I agree with his assessment.
I disagree that ‘we the majority’ can do anything to change the minds that Trump has corrupted.
Trump had a lot of help sowing and nurturing #TheBigLie.
Eight Republican Senators rejected state election results: Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS), Cynthia Lummis (WY), John Kennedy (LA), Josh Hawley (MO), Rick Scott (FL), Roger Marshall (KS), Ted Cruz (TX) and Tommy Tuberville (AL). In the House, 139 Republicans also rejected the truth that Joe Biden won the election.
Between January and October 2021, Republican legislators and governors in 19 states enacted 33 laws to restrict voting access. The big lie continues to gain traction.
The route to November 2022 is like surfing atop an avalanche.
The path to accountability for January 6th progenitors, serpentine.
To whit: former president Donald Trump still perpetuates a second lie, that it wasn’t his supporters attacking the Capitol. He “had big plans” for the one-year anniversary of his supporters storming the Capitol, including a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, until saner heads convinced him to cancel it:
In light of the total bias and dishonesty of the January 6th Unselect Committee of Democrats, two failed Republicans, and the Fake News Media, I am canceling the January 6th Press Conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, and instead will discuss many of those important topics at my rally on Saturday, January 15th, in Arizona—It will be a big crowd!
Trump can still rely on predictable agitprop from Rudy and Dinesh. (I read it so you don’t have to.) A reminder about voter fraud cases in Florida (three Republicans and one independent).
In contrast, New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim reflected on the January 6th insurrection one month later. An important read, still, on this anniversary (ThreadReader).
As to the question I posed at the start — One year later, are we closer to a resolution or a revolution? — I fear the resolution will not come soon enough. That the Senate will not protect voting rights. That Republican machinations will bring the November 2022 elections to a calamitous end.
Then I read something like this, from Teen Vogue: This is what it's like to be the child of a January 6 insurrectionist. And despair a little more.
What do you think?
🤓 Recommended reading
❝ The U.S. president is trying to steal the election, and, crucially, his party either tacitly approves or is pretending not to see it… in English, only one widely understood word captures what Donald Trump is trying to do, even though his acts do not meet its technical definition. Trump is attempting to stage some kind of coup, one that is embedded in a broader and ongoing power grab.❞
On 07 December 2020, The Atlantic published a prescient essay by Zeynep Tufekci: ‘This Must Be Your First’. Acting as if Trump is trying to stage a coup is the best way to ensure he won’t. You should read (or re-read) it. Today.You may remember Seattle’s racial justice protest in 2020. The Seattle Times reported Wednesday that Seattle police “faked radio chatter about Proud Boys.” The ACLU has a timeline of Seattle police “accountability;” SPD has been under a consent decree with the Department of Justice since 2012.
An 18-year-old British student started a practice of daily acts of kindness in March 2020 when his school closed due to Covid-19. With the help of his mother, he has now set up The Sebbie Hall Kindness Foundation; he has raised almost £40,000 (US$54,050).
💉 COVID-19 in review
The US has now recorded 57 million Covid cases. According to Johns Hopkins, 3,876,416 new cases were reported the week ending 05 January 2022. This is more than the prior seven-day record ending a year ago, 01 January 2021, when only a handful of us had been vaccinated.
Reported cases do not capture all infections, and Omicron has led to the official number being even less reliable. Many people are using at home test kits, which are not as accurate at detecting Omicron; it is currently estimated at 95% of current Covid-19 infections.
And many people cannot find an appointment for a PCR test.
Although the hospitalization rate appears to be lower with Omicron than it is with Delta, Omicron is much more contagious. The risk of a hospitalization surge that could stress an already stretched health care system is very real, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN on Monday.
This virus is hitting children harder, and faster, than prior variants, with the most childhood cases yet reported last week. For the week ending 30 December 2021, more than 325,000 children tested positive. This is 64% more than the prior week (199,000 cases); it is almost twice the case counts from two weeks prior.
Quote of the day
“What’s shocked me most in this pandemic has been that absence or loss of trust,” Mike Ryan, head of the health emergencies program at the World Health Organization, told STAT News…
“The biggest collective failing has been that we’ve underestimated this microbe. We’ve always made judgments assuming the best-case scenario. And I’m not one for assuming the worst-case scenarios as a modus operandi, because otherwise, you can strangle society. But I think at every opportunity we’ve seem to have taken the best-case scenario as the basis for our policy. And this virus, I think, has sequentially exploited that.”
A WHO official weighs in on Covid, vaccines, and mistakes that were made. 03 January 2022, STAT News.
USPS is asking for exemption from “vaccinate or test” mandate.
The CDC is now recommending Pfizer boosters at five months rather than six. Israel is offering a fourth shot to anyone older than 60. Some high-profile Republicans are silent or rejecting boosters, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt. The House Republican Judiciary Committee and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) have tweeted misinformation about boosters, masks and mandates.
On Monday, the FDA approved the Pfizer Covid vaccine booster for those aged 12 to 15 years old. The CDC is expected approve the vaccine this week as well; record numbers of children are being hospitalized due to the virus.
In Southern California, a man attacked workers at a Covid vaccination clinic on 30 December 2021. He called them “murderers” and has been arrested. Not unlike abortion clinics, the vaccination site “had been protested and picketed by people who believe the pandemic is a hoax.”
On Wednesday, the Republican Attorney General sued St. Louis County (Missouri) for passing a mask mandate. On Monday 03 January 2022, Missouri reported the most new cases in a single day, 20,156; the seven-day average was 6,847. The seven-day average on Wednesday 05 January 2022 was 8,046. The second most cases reported on average was 18 November 2020 (5,154 seven-day average).
To share with skeptics (ThreadReader):
📈 U.S. cases by region (91-divoc)
Vaccinations, and the fact that Omicron seems to attack upper rather than lower lungs, are providing saving grace, at least to adults. Try to imagine what sort of social collapse we would be experiencing if no one were vaccinated.
🪦 U.S. deaths and cases (NYT)
Reminder that most of the people who are dying of COVID-19 are not vaccinated. These are preventable deaths. No vax data from Georgia or Texas, for example; NYC and 26 states provide these data.
🏥 U.S. hospitalization data (NYT)
Last January, hospitalizations were declining. This January, after everyone could be fully vaccinated, hospitalizations are rising. For all ages.
Happy new year!
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