053 The Erickson Report for May 6 to 18

053 The Erickson Report for May 6 to 18

This episode:

US COVID deaths hit 1,000,000
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/covids-toll-us-reaches-1-million-deaths-unfathomable-number-rcna22105

SCOTUS to overturn Roe v. Wade
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473
https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/roe-v-wade
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/833/case.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/163us537
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenstadt_v._Baird
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/02-102
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/478/186
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/obergefell_v._hodges
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
https://www.marquette.edu/news-center/2021/new-marquette-law-poll-finds-sharp-decline-in-public-opinion-of-the-supreme-court-s-job-performance.php
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/16/post-abc-poll-abortion-supreme-court/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/abortion-roe-v-wade-polling-where-americans-stand
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/cnn-poll-abortion-roe-v-wade/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-texas-california-foster-care-scott-wiener-b17a53196d54c7929d3c340b1bf3410c
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/09/08/study-banning-abortion-would-boost-maternal-mortality-double-digits
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23021104/texas-abortion-murder-charge-starr-county
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/02/abortion-ban-roe-supreme-court-mississippi/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/22/braun-supreme-court-interracial-marriage/
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/sen-braun-open-to-u-s-supreme-court-rescinding-ruling-that-legalized-interracial-marriage/article_19cf8eaa-f75a-5642-865e-5ce88b374160.html
https://www.vogue.com/article/anti-birth-control-movement

Inflation is driven by corporate greed
https://apnews.com/article/us-inflation-rate-historic-high-4ba3435cc3730198e299690a9d968038
https://www.wbur.org/npr/1092291748/economy-recession-inflation-federal-reserve-interest-rates
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/13/1080494838/economist-explains-record-corporate-profits-despite-rising-inflation
https://truthout.org/articles/corporate-profits-reached-record-high-of-nearly-3-trillion-in-2021/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/11/30/executives-hike-prices-us-corporations-rake-biggest-profits-1950
https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3n5m3/applebees-wayne-pankratz
https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1509634830505426952
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/20/intergenerational-wealth-middle-class-spiral/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/12/07/richest-1-took-38-new-global-wealth-1995-bottom-half-got-just-2

David H. Gans on originalist roots of abortion under the 14th amendment:
https://www.theusconstitution.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Issue-Brief-Reproductive-Originalism-FINAL.pdf

Jordan Smith of "The Intercept" on Alito's reasoning:
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/04/roe-abortion-supreme-court-samuel-alito/

041 The Erickson Report, Page 2: COVID deaths top five million

041 The Erickson Report, Page 2: COVID deaths top five million

But since no Good News can go unsullied, three days later, on November 11, AP reported that the global death toll from Covid-19, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University, had passed 5 million, less than two years into a crisis that has not only devastated poor countries but humbled wealthy ones.

For example, together the United States, the European Union, Britain, and Brazil, all upper-middle or high-income countries, account for just one-eighth of the world’s population - but nearly half of all reported deaths. The US alone has recorded over 740,000 dead, more than any other nation.

According to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo, the worldwide death toll rivals the number of people killed in battles among nations since 1950. Covid-19 is now the world's third leading cause of death, after heart disease and stroke.

What's more, that total is almost certainly an undercount because of limited testing and people dying at home without medical attention, especially in poor parts of the world, such as India.

I suspect the grim reaper is not feeling so grim these days.

By the way, after what seemed like a tsunami of news accounts about breakthrough cases, where a vaccinated person tested positive for Covid, accounts which were used to attack the value of vaccines, recently released federal data sheds light on the matter.

What it comes down to is exactly what you should expect: Overall, fully vaccinated people had a far lower chance of testing positive for the virus or dying from it than the unvaccinated. All vaccinated age groups saw similar rates of breakthrough infection, and they all had much lower rates of infection and death compared with the unvaccinated in the same age groups.

As noted by Dr. David Dowdy, a public health researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, for any disease other than Covid, what everyone would be struck by is the dramatic difference between the unvaccinated and fully vaccinated.

But of course this is not any other disease, it's Covid, which is as much a political disease as a medical one.

Which leads me to end this segment with a wonderful comment from one Neil Truick:

For decades, it was "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service." Nobody said a word. They added "No Mask", and people lost their damn minds. For decades, it was "Cover your mouth when you cough." Again, nobody said a word. "Wear a mask" and it's grounds for insurrection. People fatigue me.

Me too, my brother.

041 The Erickson Report, Page 1: Good News

041 The Erickson Report, Page 1: Good News

On October 22, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California rejected an attempt by the Blahden administration to keep in place a Tweetie-pie-era Clean Water Act rule which environmental and Indigenous advocates argued would have "devastated" states' ability to manage their rivers.

The June 2020 rule changed the Clean Water Act certification process to allow federal agencies to approve large projects such as fossil fuel pipelines, hydroelectric dams, industrial plants, and wetland developments over the objections of states and Native American tribes along with establishing with a one-year deadline for permitting decisions and limiting the factors that state and tribal officials could consider.

Washington Attorney General and co-plaintiff Bob Ferguson welcomed the ruling, saying the Trump administration "did everything it could to yield to the interests of polluting industries." And now - my words, not his - over the objections of the Blahden administration, that rule is no more.

=

On October 29, the Supreme Court refused to block a vaccine requirement imposed on Maine health care workers, the latest defeat for opponents of vaccine mandates.

The Court had previously rejected challenges of vaccine requirements for New York City teachers and Indiana University staff and students, but this was the first time it had ruled on a statewide mandate.

The mandate went into effect on October 1 but the state gave until October 29 before it would be enforced to give time for people to get the shot.

As of November 2, Maine's four largest hospital systems reported that between 96 and 100 percent of employees were either vaccinated or had a valid medical exemption.

041 The Erickson Report for November 4 to 18

 

Good News:
- Court throws out Tweetie-pie era water rule
- Supreme Court upholds Maine vaccine mandate

COVID-19 deaths worldwide pass 5 million

A Closer Look at critical race theory

Noted in Passing
- The reactionary smirk
- Dem House leadership tells progressive members to pretend they are winning
- Kavanaugh, Barret seem skeptical of Texas anti-choice law
- RIP Mort Sahl

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages
- Clown: teacher tells Arab student re math assignment "We don't negotiate with terrorists"
- Clown: Premier Joe Manchin says all emissions are coming from Asia
- Clown: Texas legislator "investigating" if school libraries hold any of a list of 850 books
- Clown: Missouri governor threatens to prosecute reporter as "computer hacker" for obtaining publicly-available information
- Outrage: Israel labels six Palestinian civil rights groups "terrorists"
- Outrage: judge rules prosecution can't call those shot by Rittenhouse "victims" but defense can call them "rioters" and "arsonists"

The Erickson Report for December 9 to 22, Page Six: COVID relief still stalled

The Erickson Report for December 9 to 22, Page Five: COVID relief still stalled

I don't know what state this will be at when you see this; hopefully it will be a done deal. But history says be cautious, so I'll cover this now even though I hope it's already outdated.

GOPper Sen. Bill Cassidy of Lousiana predicted on December 6 that Tweetie-pie and Fishface McConnell will wind up backing a $908 billion COVID relief bill being worked out in bipartisan negotiations that went around the GOPper Senate leadership and White House.

It includes continuing the ban on evictions plus money for small business loans and state and local aid, along with renewing the federal unemployment insurance supplement but at a reduced rate of $300 per week. It would also direct funds to COVID vaccine distribution, schools, and the transportation sector.

The downsides, and they are significant, are it does not include any money to replicate the earlier $1200 direct payments despite their demonstrated effect at reducing COVID-driven poverty and does include a supposedly "temporary" federal liability shield for corporations fearful of being held responsible for their COVID-related cruelties and mismanagements - think, for example, of the people forced at the cost of losing their jobs to keep working in meatpacking plants without protective gear.

Those failures have lead to some, including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to say they might oppose the bill.

As I prepare this, Congress is apparently planning to pass a one-week spending bill to keep the government running, with the House voting on December 9. The idea is to provide more time to nail down the final language of the proposal, which is part of the omnibus spending package.

So you may know more than I do on this. A final thought for me here is that this is a case where I separate from Bernie and AOC: They are absolutely correct that this is not nearly enough, that there really does need to be at minimum a repeat of the $1200 check program, but with a large number of small businesses on the ropes and people on the verge of losing both the unemployment supplement and protection against eviction, I think the need is so great that we're at the point where we just take what we can get, come back for more, and hope for some surprisingly good news on January 5.

Updates: The one-week extension passed (of course). And Fishface says he won't let this package, which for Democrats is a compromise of a compromise of a compromise, come to the floor. Making the assumption that he is not completely devoid of humanity, the only reason I can think of is that he wants the economy to crash and burn, the better to bring down the Blahden presidency - but after saying that it occurs to me that both of those are probably true.