Tag Archive: Florida

Send postcards to stop the Republican recall of California Governor Newsom

California Governor Gavin Newsom

Republican ideas are not very popular, as is reflected in GOP election losses at the presidential level, in control of the U.S. Congress, and in a number of states. Nowhere is this more apparent than in California, where the voters routinely choose Democrats for virtually every statewide office. Rather than coming up with better policies and trying to sell them to voters, however, California Republicans instead have tried to circumvent the regular election process by commencing recall petition drives against California Governors. Backed by Republican millionaires, these recall petitions, which can get on the ballot as special elections, attempt to throw out the Democratic Governor and replace him with a Republican. The last time the Republicans tried this in California — against Governor Gray Davis in 2003 — it worked, and the result was the disastrous era of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, the Republicans are at it again, and have forced a special election on September 14 to determine whether Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom should be recalled (and, hopefully for the GOP, replaced by a Republican).

However, Governor Newsom and the Democrats are not standing by idly. They have launched various “Vote No” campaigns, including personal appearances by Newsom and others. Even President Joe Biden is lending his support:

Part of this Democratic campaign is a large effort to get out the vote by sending hand-written postcards to California Democratic voters. We have a bunch of postcards on the way here to be written, and are really looking forward to joining this grassroots effort. The following are some resources to be part of this nationwide postcard writing campaign to save Governor Newsom’s duly won seat:

In ironic twist, Republicans lose Big Business over COVID

Norwegian Cruise Line, fighting Republican COVID inaction

Last week, we reported that, by standing in the way of COVID vaccinations and precautions even as the delta variant ravages the U.S. population, Republicans are increasingly “out of touch with the current reality, and way behind the curve of events.” At the time, there was a small but growing number of big corporations and organizations (e.g. Walmart, Target, Tyson Foods, McDonald’s) that were ignoring Republican anti-safety ideology to some degree and taking precautions of their own, such as vaccination and masking requirements. Now, the list of such companies is growing rapidly, and includes, for example, Google, Facebook, United Airlines, and Frontier Airlines. Other companies, such as Delta Airlines, require the Coronavirus vaccine for new employees, and formally encourage vaccination for existing workers. At this point, therefore, an increasing percentage of U.S. workers is under some kind of COVID mandate from their employers, again in contrast to the unhealthy rhetoric from the GOP. It is also reasonable to think that many small businesses look to these larger companies for guidance, and will soon, if they do not already, require similar protections for their employees.

Republicans are losing the COVID war

Oregon National Guard soldier receiving COVID vaccine

On Monday, President Joe Biden‘s White House COVID-19 Data Director, Dr. Cyrus Shapar, reported that the United States had reached a long-sought milestone in vaccinations:

Perhaps not surprisingly, however, red states have been of little or no help in reaching this COVID vaccination milestone:

Nevertheless, despite the efforts of many Republicans, including those on Fox “News,” to raise doubts about and opposition to COVID vaccines and other precautions such as mask-wearing, things are starting to change. If these Republicans are waging a very sick war that keeps COVID alive and kills many Americans, it appears they are losing allies.

The story is COVID. Drive the story.

Everyone should be masking in public

If you subscribe to the right news services or social media accounts and look through the headlines, you will find out that right now, America and the world are facing a new COVID emergency. The problem, largely based on the “Delta variant,” is bad enough that organizations from the California State University System to the Washington Post are starting to require proof of COVID vaccination for those who show up in person, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) announced Monday that it would mandate coronavirus vaccines for its front-line workers. Likewise, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) just announced that all people, including those fully vaccinated, should wear masks indoors again in areas with “high” or “substantial” COVID transmission.

However, U.S. Republicans, whose anti-vaccine, anti-mask diatribes and protests are largely responsible for the new COVID emergency, don’t want to talk about the new COVID surge (except, cynically, to try to blame President Joe Biden, who has made extraordinary strides and numerous public calls for full vaccination). Rather, Republicans want to distract by cosplaying about immigration, attacking the imaginary “Critical Race Theory,” fretting about trans people and their bathroom use, or just about anything else that is part of their 24/7 Culture War.

Biden undoes Trump’s war on language

Trump White House official at work on government website

As a recent New York Times article (reprinted here at Yahoo! news) indicates, one of the many areas where President Joe Biden is trying to undo the extensive damage done by Donald Trump is the language used by our federal government. Obviously, Trump and his minions agreed with what we have written about here for more than 10 years, i.e. that “messaging matters” and, in particular, that Republicans are experts at framing issues in ways that favor their point of view. Part of this framing is the use of certain loaded words and phrases. While Trump was in the White House and not busy playing golf, he liked to use Nazi propaganda tactics such as the repetition of big lies, and he had his federal government employ loaded words, or prohibit the use of other words, to gain political advantage. The two areas where this seems most prevalent were, perhaps not surprisingly, the politically contentious subjects of immigration and the environment/climate change. Take a look after the jump to see what Trump did, and how Biden is trying to repair the damage:

Push back on right wing narratives with your own

COVID precautions are one area of competing political narratives

Republicans, with the help of Fox “News” and the Trump administration, are very good at creating and repeating political narratives. Here are a few that you will hear, in one form or another, over and over again:

–Government Bad/Corporations Good

–California and New York Bad

–Unions Bad (except Police unions)

–Scary Brown People (subsets include Blacks = “Thugs,” Hispanics = “Illegals,” Muslims = “Terrorists”)

–Oil Good/Clean Energy Bad

–“You’re on your own”

Moreover, Republicans love to be the aggressors and bring up these narratives all the time, whether at the dinner table, the supermarket aisle or elsewhere. So what to do when Republicans voice their Fox right wing narratives? Well, Republicans shouldn’t have all the fun. We should respond to their right wing narratives with our own narratives.

Five things the Democrats need to do after the election

Simple concept that GOP now opposes

While the 2020 presidential election and various other election races are still being fought, there are already some lessons to be learned. In particular, based on the Republicans’ behavior thus far, Democrats need to do some things differently to match and defeat their opponents going forward. Assuming that Joe Biden, currently well ahead in both electoral and popular votes, defeats Donald Trump for the presidency and/or Democrats at least tie the Republicans for control of the U.S. Senate, here are five things the Democrats should do as soon as they take power:

The secret weapon that will make Trump lose the election

Donald Trump’s response to COVID

There is a growing electoral threat to Donald Trump, and it is poised to swamp him in the 2020 elections taking place just 99 days from now. If you guessed that the secret weapon is COVID, you’re only partially correct. Indeed, Trump’s deadly failure to respond to the Coronavirus has now claimed the lives of 150,000 Americans. But in particular, the secret weapon that is poised to defeat Trump in 2020 is a giant bloc of voters that is terrified of COVID, and that went for Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

U of Chicago economists say COVID fears slowing the economy

Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Tom Wolf takes precautions with mask and temperature check

A revealing new study by two University of Chicago economists indicates that fear of COVID (a/k/a COVID-19 or Coronavirus) has had a greater negative impact on the U.S. economy than government-imposed Coronavirus lockdowns, as Americans make their own choices for themselves and their families. Among the findings from Drs. Austan Goolsbee (former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama) and Chad Syverson, based on cell phone records of customers visiting over 2 million businesses:

–“While overall consumer traffic fell by 60 percentage points, legal restrictions explain only 7 of that.”

–“Individual choices were far more important and seem tied to fears of infection.”

–“Traffic started dropping before the legal [shutdown] orders were in place; was highly tied to the number of COVID deaths in the county; and showed a clear shift by consumers away from larger/busier stores toward smaller/less busy ones in the same industry.”

The study appears to indicate that (1) many Americans feared the Coronavirus even though they were being told by Republican politicians not to fear it; and (2) based on the current explosion in COVID cases, those fears were perfectly rational.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis screws the pooch on COVID

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, not social distancing on April 28, 2020

The news about COVID (a/k/a Coronavirus or COVID-19) cases in Florida is coming fast and furious, and it’s not good. Cases are skyrocketing. Additionally, Apple announced Friday morning that it was temporarily re-closing all 14 of its South Florida stores (located in Miami-Dade County, Broward County and Palm Beach County, where the most COVID cases have occurred in the state). And also on Friday, the state of Florida banned alcohol sales at all bars statewide. It feels like a more extensive lockdown is inevitable. And it’s happening three days after the Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said that the Coronavirus has “brought this nation to its knees,” but that, at the same time, our efforts to fight the virus are still underfunded. Let’s take a look at this Republican failure of government: