Remember when Republicans used to be all Church Lady Methodist and then they turned against the church and became Onward Christian Soldiers?

So, they gave up religion pretty much altogether and bought themselves some military weapons and got all Majorie Taylor Green, who could name maybe three or four books of the Bible and thinks Leviticus Two is in the New Testament.

Remember when Republicans used to be on the side of big business against the government?

Oh, not so much.  They just met Donald Trump with his hand up Greg Abbott hiney, talking and yakking.

Texas business groups come out in force against ban on vaccine mandates for private employers – AGC-TBB, NFIB, Texas REALTORS, Chemical Council, Texas Civil Justice League, CPAS, Hotels and Lodging, TMA, Texas Trucking Association, multiple Chambers, and many others urge lawmakers to vote no on anything like SB51 by Sen. Hughes.

So screw business. Republicans now have military weapons and anarchy.

Big Business responds thusly.

Okay, so here’s the deal.  The QAnon woman who was trampled to death by her own colleagues at the January 6th coup attempt, was carrying … wait for it … a Don’t Tread On Me flag.

They were warned not to tread on her and they did it anyway, dammit.

So that makes your Don’t Violently Overthrow My Government tee-shirt pretty much worthless.

Sorry.

“Moms for Liberty”.  It’s the latest result of the poisoning of millions of American minds through continuous dosing of toxic disinformation and outright lying.  Founded by a Florida women, co-founder Tina Descovich is calling on its 56,000 members to disrupt school board meetings all over the country to protest not only mask mandates and disease mitigation, but also curriculum content including which words to learn how to spell and pictures in science books.  She also calls on children to rip the masks off of other children.

Tactics used by this group include not only shouting and jeering during school board meetings but also harassing school board members in their homes, filing false police reports, and doxxing, the same tactics used by gun nuts all over the country against those who call for common sense gun laws.

As long as law enforcement and the courts look the other way on right wing terrorists, these tactics will continue.  These terrorists, inspired by the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th won’t stop until they see a large group of these domestic terrorists go to jail for years, not months.   Local police must also stop their nonsense at meetings and prosecute menacing and personal threats.  If we are to have any chance of saving our democracy, groups like Moms for Liberty must be met with strong opposition and prosecution for their tactics.

Woo … woo … a statement.

Damn, I find myself in the odd predicament of agreeing with Donald Trump: The single most important thing for Republicans to do is – don’t vote.  But hell, they’re gonna whine either way.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott got taken down to the river and after they dunked him in the spit of Donald Trump, they bashed his head against a rock a few times.

It’s bad enough that he has decreed – and I mean that in the regal sense – that no business in Texas can require their workers to be vaccinated to protect their customers. So much for the first commandment of the Republican Party: government should get off the backs of business.

Bad enough that he has decreed that my constitutional right to privacy is worthless and he – and he alone – can control my body.

He’s trying like the dickens to up the death toll in the wake of his conversation from Really Mean Guy to Trump Death Machine.

His latest meaner than ten acres of snakes move is this one.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) quietly removed information intended to help prevent LGBTQ youth suicide from one of its websites after Gov. Greg Abbott (R) was criticized by a primary opponent for “promoting transgender sexual policies to Texas youth.”

This came about because Don Huffines, Abbott’s Republican opponent, posted this to Twitter:

It’s offensive to see @GregAbbott_TX use our tax dollars to advocate for transgender ideology. This must end. #txlege pic.twitter.com/gQiAEJZ8YR

— Don Huffines (@DonHuffines) August 31, 2021

But that’s not even the half of it.  A taxpayer funded governmental agency, Family Protective Services, begin exchanging emails about the Huffines tweet within 13 minutes of him posting it.

Thirteen minutes after Huffines’ video went up, media relations director Marissa Gonzales emailed a link to Crimmins, the agency’s communications director, under the subject line “Don Huffines video accusing Gov/DFPS of pushing liberal transgender agenda.”

“FYI. This is starting to blow up on Twitter,” Gonzales wrote.

Crimmins then queried Darrell Azar, DFPS’ web and creative services director, about who oversees the page. “Darrell — please note we may need to take that page down, or somehow revise content,” he wrote.

The page was taken down and left a big fat lie in its place. They lied that the page was taken down to update the sources.

This information was directed to older kids in foster care, where kids are three times more likely to attempt suicide compared to those who never spent time in foster care.

He has an evil heart, y’all.

People that know me well know I love baseball statistics. I’ve even written about them once or twice before. Even though analytics have made their way into football and basketball, there is a special love between the analytically minded and baseball. It’s a more one on one sport, so it lends itself to that sort of thing. Like anything else, there has been a backlash to analytics from people we might classify as “get off my lawn” guy.

I’m not going to bore you with statistics like weighted on base average or hard contact rates or anything like that. Yet, there is a divide like that in society. At this point, many of the anti-vaxxers are jumping on the statistic that those that get COVID have at least a 97 percent survival rate. So, why sweat it?

Not coincidentally, these are the same folks that feel they need to carry a gun everywhere to keep themselves safe. This comes despite all of the available evidence to the contrary. The evidence is overwhelming. Guns are more often used or misused in the home for assaults, murders, and suicides than they are to thwart would be assailants. Yet, when you live outside the numbers you are free to believe anything I suppose.

The best analogy I have heard as it pertains to COVID is to imagine a bowl of M&Ms. We can even split the difference to make things easier. There are 100 of them in a bowl. Two of them will kill you. Sure, the odds are forever in your favor if you decide to eat one. Those of you adept at the math could calculate the odds if you choose to eat a handful. Everyone can calculate the odds if you choose to eat zero.

That’s really the whole point here. Dying at the hands of a rogue M&M is an unforced outcome. If you get vaccinated, wear a mask, and practice social distancing your death rate drops to nearly zero. It is almost like declining to eat any of the M&Ms. You know the outcome.

Yet, millions have chosen to eat the M&Ms anyway. Unwittingly, they’ve chosen to eat multiple M&Ms without even knowing it. They obviously don’t know how numbers work. If the death rate is one to three percent for everyone then that number includes vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans. The death rate for vaccinated Americans is practically zero even if they contract COVID. Therefore, logic would clearly dictate that the odds jump for unvaccinated Americans.

I’m not an expert on health related statistics and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I can harbor a guess that if roughly half of the population is vaccinated then unvaccinated people might see their odds roughly double. So, one to three percent becomes two to six percent (or some similar number).

Overlooking some of these obvious facts is par for the course. They do the same thing with their guns and likely do the same thing with their health in other areas. We even see combinations that would be comical if they weren’t so tragic. Let’s combine alcohol and guns just to see the multiplication effect. The actuary tables on these Americans has to be entertaining for people who are into that sort of thing.

As much as I enjoy baseball statistics, I don’t make it a habit to delve into these. No one is hurt when a hitter strikes out or a pitcher is pulled from the game. All these numbers do is describe pain and suffering. Every note on a page describes someone’s tragedy and it is impossible to derive any enjoyment from that. However, a basic understanding is helpful. As the computer in War Games said, “the only winning move is not to play.”