Just in case you were wondering what our country would look like if Trump had been reelected, just look at India and Brazil.  That’s exactly what would be happening.

The state of Telangana reported 10,122 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and it was the fifth consecutive day where the state saw over 6,000 cases in 24 hours. At such a time, when the health mechanism is grappling with the crisis, political parties in the state are contributing to the swelling number of cases by holding election campaign rallies and road shows.

Yeah, Trump would be doing that.

And this sounds familiar.

Dr Navjot Dahiya, the national vice president of the Indian Medical Association, on Monday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “super spreader” of the coronavirus for holding political rallies in poll-bound states and allowing Kumbh Mela to take place amid the second wave of the pandemic, reported The Tribune.

So, that would be us.

I learned a long time ago not to argue with my wife about matters of science. Science is just one of those courses I avoided in school. Maybe it was because my high school Chemistry teacher managed to suck any joy there ever was out of science. Maybe I just didn’t have the brain for it. I’ve always done better in English and Social Studies and that is why my school primarily puts me in those classes to support students.

We have seen this story in the comments on previous posts, so I will not belabor it here. A private school in Florida has chosen to bar teachers that have been vaccinated from working with students. I’m not much of a scientist and even I know that is the dumbest thing anyone has ever heard. That is until you hear the reasoning for doing it. I can just imagine the kind of teacher they get for their 30K bonanza of a salary.

Instead of poking fun at these people I decided to ask a serious question. How can we adapt our science curriculum to help our students and future voters not fall for junk science and alternative facts. The scientist in the house had a very simple answer to the question. The answer seemed simplistic to me and yet I went back to my mantra I mentioned in the first sentence. I should not argue about matters of science.

Her answer was one word. Christianity. Both of us are cradle Catholics and yet we somehow came down on the more liberal end of the Christian world. Mind you, she is more politically conservative than me, but I think she’s more fed up with the interference from the Christian community into science and the natural mistrust that is there.

You can’t paint anti-vaxxers with the same brush, but most come in with a Christian mindset. God will protect them. Of course, the irony is palpable. Much of the Old Testament is a recorded faith history of the Hebrew people. Included in that are the kosher laws. As a general rule we don’t follow those laws anymore, but these people seem to have a lack of historical understanding of the purpose of those laws. They discovered that certain foods or combinations of foods led to more deaths. Kosher laws were meant to protect them.

That is at least partially built upon the basic tenets of the scientific method. They made observations and changed policy and practices to fall in line with what they observed. Of course, we’ve learned more since then, but it was very much ahead of its time and built nearly entirely on science and not faith.

The funny thing is that God is not supposed to be in our public schools. Yet, we tend to avoid subjects like evolution almost entirely because it would tend to offend. The teaching of science becomes particularly problematic when knowledge itself becomes political. Experts become scorned and replaced with those without credentials on YouTube. Biologists with PhDs like my wife are replaced with celebrity anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy and Rob Schneider. I know which one I will be listening to.

Biden’s speech last night was like a breath of fresh air after we all endured the verbal manure that flowed so freely from Trump’s mouth and Twitterfingers for 4 years.  Biden spoke of a rising America and introduced his trillion dollar American Families Plan that, after decades of decline and neglect, will attempt to make our lives better.

Predictably, the Republicans hate it, all of it, and it’s all predictable.  This morning on CBS News, Rick Scott was given a remarkable 5 minutes of national airtime to spew nonsense and childish attacks against  Biden and the GOP’s other favorite targets.  His lies came fast and furious, blaming Biden for all the ills HIS side caused.

Why are Republicans so opposed to anything that makes Americans’ lives better?  Because if people are happy, they won’t keep them in power.  The GOP has raised hatemongering to an art form because they know that if they can keep millions of Americans miserable and pissed off, they can then blame Dems for that misery and drive angry people to the polls.  And it works like a charm.  The GOP base is driven by adrenaline fueled anger, fomented by hate radio, Newsmax, OAN, Fox Noise, and the NY Post where the blame is regularly placed on “socialists, gays, Satanists, Pelosi, AOC, and Bernie.” Instead of focusing on real issues like education, income inequality, job security, and healthcare, they focus on bathroom bills, gay wedding cakes, and now the new target “boys pretending to be girls leering at your daughters in the locker room” accusing trans kids of trying to take advantage by posing as the opposite sex.

If the GOP had to actually face voters over their piss poor performance they would lose every time.  THAT’s why they are willing to inflict generational misery to the populace so they can keep everyone pissed off and insecure so their base will blame the rest of us.  That’s also why they are trying to push through voter suppression bills to make it harder to vote.  They know the truth and are really worried now because Biden rammed through the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill that helped to relieve some of that misery.  If we follow that with making airports, roads, and other public infrastructure once again usable, the GOP is terrified that their supporters will like their lives made better and the veil finally lifted on their scam.

And that’s why they have zero interest in doing their jobs and making Americans’ lives better.

I thought y’all would be happy to know that Rudy Giuliani had visitors today.

“Executing a search warrant is an extraordinary move for prosecutors to take against a lawyer, let alone a lawyer for a former president, and it marks a major turning point in the long-running investigation into Mr. Giuliani.”

I wonder if they found the shoe polish he uses on his hair?  I mean, face it, that’s gotta be criminal.

The part that struck me hard was this from Giuliana’s lawyer, who was not happy about the raid.

“What they did today was legal thuggery,” Mr. Costello said. “Why would you do this to anyone, let alone someone who was the associate attorney general, United States attorney, the mayor of New York City and the personal lawyer to the 45th president of the United States.”

So, all men are equal under the law except those who got elected?

But there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Investigators for the FBI tried to execute these warrants last year.

Under Mr. Trump, senior political appointees in the Justice Department repeatedly sought to block such a warrant, The New York Times reported, slowing the investigation as it was gaining momentum last year. After Merrick B. Garland was confirmed as Mr. Biden’s attorney general, the Justice Department lifted its objection to the search.

The big wheel keeps on turning, Rudy.

I originally wanted to fold this over into my last post, but instead decided it needed its own space. Tucker Carlson is at it again. Of course, it is all too predictable as Carlson has made a career of throwing bombs just for the attention. Yet, even for him this is completely outrageous and he knows it.

For those that don’t watch his program and don’t want to click on the link, Carlson suggested that if you see children wearing a mask outside that you should immediately call CPS because of the obvious child abuse. Yup, people being extra careful are guilty of child abuse. The problem is plain to see when you peruse the headlines. Carlson is obviously acting in bad faith because he wants the ratings. Other idiots don’t know any better.

While these stories are not directly related, Carlson seems to allow and encourage others to get their crazy on. Anti-maskers don’t necessarily directly relate to anti-vaxxers, but there is definitely a Venn diagram at work here. The ties that bind are the emotion involved in the grift. It entices those that already feel this way to act on their feelings no matter how ill conceived or clearly wrong.

Right on cue, a private school in Florida has decided to ban teachers that have previously gotten the vaccine. The apparent stated reason was related to the anti-vaxxing line of thinking. On the one hand, I suppose a private school can do whatever it wants to do, but the tale has to be the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever heard. That’s of course only true until you listen to Carlson’s clip. Hold my plant based beer I guess.

As I implied in the last piece, there is a special place for those that know better and inflame the passion of idiots anyway. He knows exactly what he is doing and he’s been doing it for years. I can’t even begin to address his argument because it is beneath us to do so. All I can do is sit back in shock at the unmitigated gall.

It’s difficult walking the tight rope between pointing out obvious shenanigans and avoiding those shenanigans to keep from giving them oxygen. That’s the life of commentating. Ultimately, we are all part of the same game. The name of the game is eyeballs. Once you get them focused on you then you get the sponsorship dollars, the speaking engagements, and the gravitas that comes with relevance.