'They Are Fed Up': US Labor on the March in 2021 After Years of Decline

Demonstrators rally in front of Jeff Bezos' home in New York City in November. (photo: John Lamparski/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock) 21 December 21

Workers went on strike and pushed union drives in record numbers after corporations made giant pandemic profits

Michael Sainato / Guardian UK

 readersupportednews.org  

In 2021 workers appear to have had enough.

Amid constant claims from some industries of labor shortages as the economy recovers from Covid-19 shutdowns, workers have been pushing employers and elected officials to raise wages, improve working conditions and benefits such as paid sick leave through walkouts, protests, rallies and strikes.

The last few months of 2021 saw workers quit at record or near record rates, while an uptick of strikes occurred around the US in October and November 2021.

“I’ve been traveling a lot to picket lines all over the country in the last couple of months, been in so many different states and across all industries. But the one thing that’s been really consistent is the sentiment of the working people who are out there taking the risks is that they are absolutely fed up,” said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the main union federation in the US.

Thousands of workers went on strike in 2021 at Frito-Lay, Nabisco, Kellogg’s, John Deere, Volvo, Frontier Communications, New York University, Columbia University, Harvard, carpenters in the Pacific north-west, hospitals, airports and at coalmines in Alabama, while workers at several fast-food and retail chains including McDonald’s, Walmart, Wendy’s, Burger King, Bojangles, Jack in the Box and Family Dollar, held walkouts or short-term strikes.

Shuler believes that the hardships of the pandemic – when so much focus was put on the sacrifices of workers in often manual jobs that were deemed essential – has sparked a reawakening of labor politics in America, especially as some companies have tried to go back to business as usual.

Shuler added: “When I was walking the line with those Nabisco workers, and Kellogg’s workers, I kept thinking about all of them in the plant, making Oreos and the Ritz crackers, while the rest of us were inside consuming those. Those are the folks that really made the sacrifices and the whole time, they were told that they were essential. Then they go to the bargaining table, and they’re basically disposable because the companies continued to profit through the pandemic and then say, ‘Thanks, but we’re not going to compensate you, we’re not going to protect you, we’re not going to value and reward you for making those sacrifices.’”

One of the year’s most important strikes is playing out in the deep south where about 1,100 coalminers at Warrior Met Coal in Alabama have been on strike since 1 April, as workers fight for better wages after accepting concessions in their previous union contract.

“The past eight months have been some of the hardest times of our lives. I don’t think any of us imagined the strike would be going into its ninth month with no end in sight, but I’m proud of our resolve,” said James Traweek, a miner who has worked for four years at Warrior Met Coal in Brookwood, Alabama.

Other strikes have broken records.

At the Tenet Healthcare-owned St Vincent hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, about 700 nurses have been on strike since 8 March over understaffing and cuts at the hospital before and during the pandemic, the longest strike in Massachusetts’ history.

Tenet Healthcare has sought to permanently replace nurses on strike as the hospital faces fines from the state for closing down inpatient behavioral health beds due to the strike. An agreement fell through in August over Tenet Healthcare’s return to work agreement that would have prevented some nurses from returning to their previous positions.

“Saint Vincent hospital nurses’ fight has now become all of labor’s fight,” said Marlena. “It’s a big red flag for all of labor and all of humanity that if you stand up for what you believe in on principle and stand up for patients and you stand up for one another as workers, Tenet Healthcare’s strategy is that you can be replaced and will be punished for that. That’s very dangerous, this strategy trying to diminish our union rights instead of coming to a settlement, trying to intimidate nurses to cross a picket line.”

On 18 December, a tentative agreement was reached after the US secretary of labor, Marty Walsh, served as mediator in the final negotiating session, which will end the strike if approved by the nurses.

The Labor Action tracker at Cornell University Institute of Labor Relations documented 346 strike locations in 2021 as of 10 December. Johnnie Kallas, the project director , attributed an uptick in strikes in October and November to increased leverage of workers in a labor market where workers are in high demand and burnout of workers who have continued working through the pandemic.

“Labor market conditions can provide workers with more leverage, but strikes don’t just automatically happen. They often require deep organizing and always require incredible sacrifice,” said Kallas.

Unionization rates in the US have declined over the past few decades, but several union organizing efforts were launched in 2021 in response to pandemic working conditions, while labor leaders and unions continue pushing for labor law reforms to rein in anti-union employers and facilitate US workers’ ability to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining.

According to unionelections.org, 890 union elections in the private sector were held in the US in 2021 as of 11 December, with 573 resulting in a new union certification. Union election rates and union density in the US have been in a downward decline over the past several decades, though approval of labor unions in the US is at 68% according to a September Gallup poll.

“If we see any changes, it will be next year. Between the tight labor market and the high profile coverage of the strikes and recent elections, Starbucks for example, I’d expect to see some increase,” said Kevin Reuning, assistant professor of Political Science at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who manages the unionelections.org website.

Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, attempted to form the first union at the retail giant in the spring and though the union lost the election, the National Labor Relations Board has ordered a new election to be held due to Amazon’s anti-union misconduct. At the same time New York’s attorney general is pressuring Amazon to reinstate a fired employee and improve safety protections amid a union organizing drive led by the terminated employee, Chris Smalls, in Staten Island.

Starbucks workers in Buffalo, New York, also won a historic union election on 9 December, forming the first union at a Starbucks corporate store in the US. A second branch is likely to have won their union election after challenged ballots are resolved and three more stores are set to hold union elections in Buffalo, New York, and another in Arizona. With the union victory spurring optimism, it could lead to more stores requesting to unionize.

“It was a major victory,” said Brian Murray, a Starbucks barista in the Buffalo area and one of the organizers with Starbucks Workers United. “I think our real fight will be now getting a first contract and hopefully having them recognize the right to organize, but with these wins I’m sure we’ll see more workers organizing nationwide in the near future.”

Approval of labor unions in the US is at 68% according to a September Gallup poll.

 

Rep. Greene uses racist term for Asian Americans while trying to prove conservatives aren’t racist

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Rebekah Sager

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Monday December 20, 2021 · 10:29 AM MST

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Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was in her element at the Turning Point USA’s “AmericaFest” rally on Sunday. Using her moment on stage to in part call out the diversity of the attendees, the “Black people, brown people, white people, and yellow people” only to highlight that the event can’t possibly be racist. 

Oh, okay. Who uses the words “yellow people?” Racists. That’s who, you QAnon-believing, anti-vaxxing, gun-toting blockhead racist. 

In addition to her comments on race, she waxed poetic about former one-term President Donald Trump and a nice Jewish boy from Palestine named Jesus. 

“And then there’s talk of freedom and loving America, and conservative principles, some crazy people in here were talking about how much they love this guy named Jesus. And I heard — someone I really like — I think I heard that a lot of people here like a guy named Donald J. Trump. And then I said, ‘Oh, oh, I know exactly what this is: the left calls this a white supremacist party.”

Yes, she was chumming the waters of her base bigly. 

It didn’t take long before people began calling out her xenophobic and bigoted comments. 

"I honestly haven't heard someone use ‘yellow people’ for decades," tweeted George Takei, the famed Star Trek star and activist. 

"Referring to Asian Americans as 'yellow people' definitely isn't something a white supremacy cult would do," tweeted activist Nathan Schneider.

The term “yellow people” stems from “yellow peril,” a racist ideology dating back to the 19th century used to misrepresent people from Asia, painting them as a group to be feared and reduced to something less than white Europeans.

After her racist comments, Greene moved on to her usual swipes at fellow lawmakers, like GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for “making a deal with Chuck Schumer” over COVID-19 vaccine mandates and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over “completely eras[ing] gender this year.”

“No male, female, mother, father, sister, brother, daughter, son, he, she, him, her, all of those words are forbidden in Congress,” Greene said. “I’m kind of one of those gender people, I’m all about the male and the female.”

She also whined about the “lies” on her Wikipedia page and called the Jan. 6 insurrection a “Fedsurrection,” implying that the terrorists who attacked the Capitol were set up by federal agents. 

Not to mention her complete paranoia suggesting that she’s being targeted by the Jan. 6 committee for trying to “stop” a “communist revolution.” 

As MSN News points out, this isn’t the first and only time Greene has made racist and anti-Asian comments. She’s said in the past she would deport Chinese people loyal to the Chinese Communist Party. 

"If I was in charge and I had my way, I would come down on China so hard," Greene said. "I would kick out every single Chinese in this country that is loyal to the CCP. They would be gone. I do not care who they are."

"You're gone, back to China," she added. "I don't care how much money you have, how much land you own, how many businesses you own, how much money you've donated to colleges and universities, I don't care about who your kid is, and how many students you've sent to colleges."

"If they are loyal to the CCP, they go back."

But, truthfully, should we be at all surprised that the GOP congresswoman would use a derogatory trope?

Greene joins GOP Oklahoma Sen. David Rader, who in October referred to Asian American families as “yellow families” when testifying before the legislature about racial inequality. Now former-Sacramento County Health Director Dr. Peter Beilenson faced a tidal wave of criticism when during a meeting about racism, he called Asian Americans “yellow folk.” Beilenson resigned two weeks later.

Well, I guess you could say she's wearing a mask, with Covid streaming out her nose and racist diatribes out her mouth.

Bernie unloads on Manchin

 

Bernie (The Bern) Sanders in Warren, Mich., during the 2020 presidential campaign. (photo: Devin Yalkin/TIME)

 

Bernie Sanders / Reader Supported News

20 December 21

The President of the United States, the U.S. House of Representatives and 49 members of the U.S. Senate are prepared to pass enormously consequential legislation which stands up to powerful special interests and finally deliver for the working families of our country. With almost every Democrat in the House and Senate on board, there is one member of the Democratic Caucus in the Senate who stands in the way.

Senator Joe Manchin.

In America today the very rich are becoming richer while millions of working families are struggling to put food on the table or pay their bills. We now have the absurd situation in which two multi-billionaires own more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans, the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 92% and the gap between rich and poor is wider than at any time in the last 100 years.

The Build Back Better bill, supported by President Biden, the vast majority of Americans and almost every Democrat in Congress is an unprecedented effort to finally address the long-neglected crises facing working families and demand that the wealthiest people and largest corporations in the country start paying their fair share of taxes.

Here are just a few of the things we are trying to do:

We are going to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and lower the cost of prescription drugs in America. Last year, while nearly one out of four Americans could not afford to fill the prescriptions their doctors wrote, six of the largest drug companies made tens of billions in profits.

We are going to expand Medicare to cover hearing aids, dental care and eyeglasses. Today, in the wealthiest nation on earth, millions of seniors cannot chew their food or see and hear their loved ones.

We are going to help seniors and people with disabilities get the home health care they need. Across the United States, and in places like West Virginia and Vermont in particular, seniors should be able to be around their loved ones as they age as opposed to being forced into expensive nursing homes.

We are going to expand the Child Tax Credit that has reduced childhood poverty by 50 percent in the United States.

We are going to end the dysfunction of a childcare system that forces working families to spend up to 1/3 of their limited income on childcare and keeps millions of women out of the workforce.

We are going to make sure pre-K for 3 and 4 year olds is universal and free, giving our young children the best chance at success regardless of where they are from or how much money their parents make.

And oh yes, there is the not-so-small matter of the existential threat of climate change. With the planet getting warmer and warmer, unprecedented drought, fires, flood, and extreme weather, we are going to finally begin the process of cutting carbon emissions and transforming our energy systems to save this planet for future generations.

This morning, Senator Manchin announced he would not support the Build Back Better Act.

And if that is the case, he should be prepared to vote NO before the working families of West Virginia and America and explain why.

We should give Joe Manchin the opportunity to explain to West Virginia and American people why he opposes taking on the greed of the drug companies and lowering the cost of prescription drugs.

We should give Joe Manchin the opportunity to explain to West Virginia seniors why he opposes helping them secure hearing aids, dental care and the eyeglasses they need.

We should give Joe Manchin the opportunity to explain to families why their loved ones should age in expensive nursing homes instead of around those who care about them most.

We should give Joe Manchin the opportunity to explain why only the children of the wealthy from certain zip codes should have the opportunity to attend pre-K.

And we should give Joe Manchin the opportunity to explain why he sides with those who profit from climate change and the destruction of the planet for future generations.

Now I know Joe Manchin continues to talk about his concerns over the national debt, but I find it amusing I didn’t hear his concerns after voting, just this week, for a military budget of $778 billion, four times greater than the Build Back Better Act over ten years and $25 billion more than the president suggested.

Forgive me thinking that maybe, just maybe, something else is at play here.

Joe Manchin should have the chance to explain what it is.

Say it ain't so, Joe.

Denying Affordable Insulin to Millions of Americans Isn't 'Politics.' It's Sadism.

  Biden wants to cap insulin prices at $35 a month. (photo: Scott Eisen/Getty)  

Charles Pierce / Esquire

19 December 21

readersupportednews.org 

The Obamacare fight brought Republicans to a whacked-out posture on healthcare they've been unable to shake.

 Speaking of politicizing disease, this is one godawful paragraph to read. From the Washington Post:

“If you’re one of those Americans that are paying too much for insulin, my ‘Build Back Better’ plan is going to change that … because we’re going to guarantee you pay no more than $35 a month,” President Biden said last week.

But it’s a pledge Democrats may be unable to keep, as they seek to speed their massive social spending package to the Senate floor for a vote, which could happen as soon as this month. Senate Republicans are eyeing a procedural move to prevent the insulin cap from applying to privately insured Americans, seeking to deny Democrats a talking point heading into next year’s midterm elections — even if it means that some patients will go without relief.

“Seeking to deny Democrats a talking point.”

That’s the best they have? Don’t help 7 million diabetics so the Democrats won’t be able to make commercials about it? I’m supposed to write about politics, but this isn’t politics. This is something beyond politics. This is ideological sadism, as pointless as it is cruel.

Senate Republicans repeatedly declined to comment on whether they would use the “Byrd rule” — which governs legislation enacted through the budget process — to knock out part of Biden’s insulin plan…At least 19 Senate Republicans have previously signed on to legislation to lower drug costs for diabetics, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pushed the GOP to oppose the Build Back Better Act as a bloc. And even Republicans who have written legislation to limit the price of insulin, such as Sens. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and John Neely Kennedy (La.), have been tight-lipped about whether they would support efforts to stop Democrats’ cost controls.

Cowards. Afraid of their own best instincts. And their donors. And their lunatic base.

As jockeying over the spending bill continues, diabetics have appeared on Capitol Hill to share their stories about spending hundreds of dollars per month on insulin — or going without and suffering disastrous consequences. Mindy Salango, a patient advocate from West Virginia, on Friday told reporters at a news conference convened by Democrats and Protect Our Care, an advocacy group, that she spends about $350 monthly to cover her insulin needs, despite having private health insurance through her employer.

“I’ve met people in a parking lot to provide them with insulin and supplies that they need to survive,” Salango said. “This is not health care. This is survival of the richest.”

I’ve been developing a theory that, just as the Republicans lost their minds over economics when they went whole hog after what Poppy Bush called the “voodoo economics” of supply-side, they lost their minds on public health during the fight against the Affordable Care Act. They got behind so much utter nonsense—death panels, Obama is Witch Doctor Hitler, the whole Tea Party bag of horrors—that they never found their way back to whatever the Sensible Center used to be when Republican Senator Jacob Javits proposed what amounted to Medicare For All back in 1970. (Let alone back to where Otto von Bismarck and Thomas Paine, two advocates of universal health care, were in their own time.) That has left them with such an inflexible political posture on the issue of healthcare that they are locked into positions that seem positively inhumane.

Of course, the Democrats are fighting among themselves about how good the Biden plan really is, and over what it doesn’t do, rather than what it might.

Meanwhile, Republicans have been meeting with the Senate parliamentarian to determine whether the bill’s health provisions would technically qualify under budget reconciliation, a legislative maneuver that allows Democrats to avoid a GOP filibuster and enact policy changes with a simple majority, so long as the legislation is linked to the federal budget. Under the Byrd rule, lawmakers can challenge individual provisions in the bill.

If Senate Republicans challenge the insulin provision, some policy experts say they expect the parliamentarian will determine that the plan to cap insulin costs for privately insured Americans is “merely incidental” to the federal budget. In that case, Republicans could call a point of order to strip the provision from the bill. Although the Senate could overrule the parliamentarian, that would require 60 votes — the entire Democratic caucus plus 10 Republicans — and McConnell has already made clear: His caucus will vote to oppose the Build Back Better Act and its provisions.

We must unite to oppose Republican cowards. Afraid of their own best instincts. And their donors. And their lunatic base.

Behold the Creepy Little Cabal That Tried to Help Trump Overturn the Election in Congress

  Republican Congressmen Louie Gohmert of Texas and Jim Jordan of Ohio. (photo: Jonathan Newton/Getty)  

Charles Pierce / Esquire  

17 December 21

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Jim Jordan, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert—the gang of treasonous traitors is all here!

Back when the Clintons and their administration were bedeviled by conservative ratfckers and bed-sniffing yahoos like Ken Starr (and young Brett Kavanaugh), Hillary Rodham Clinton went on TV and called out what she called the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” that had targeted her husband and his presidency. This brought down upon her a veritable avalanche of snotty coverage from a lot of the reporters who’d been lapping up leaks from the ratfckers since before Bill Clinton had finished second in the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic primary. However, Calvin Trillin corrected her more gently. It wasn’t a vast conspiracy, he said. It actually was “a creepy little cabal.”

Speaking of which… From the New York Times:

The lawmakers — all of them members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus — worked closely with the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, whose central role in Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn a democratic election is coming into focus as the congressional investigation into Jan. 6 gains traction.

The men were not alone in their efforts — most Republican lawmakers fell in line behind Mr. Trump’s false claims of fraud, at least rhetorically — but this circle moved well beyond words and into action. They bombarded the Justice Department with dubious claims of voting irregularities. They pressured members of state legislatures to conduct audits that would cast doubt on the election results. They plotted to disrupt the certification on Jan. 6 of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.

There was Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the pugnacious former wrestler who bolstered his national profile by defending Mr. Trump on cable television; Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, whose political ascent was padded by a $10 million sweepstakes win; and Representative Paul Gosar, an Arizona dentist who trafficked in conspiracy theories, spoke at a white nationalist rally and posted an animated video that depicted him killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.

They were joined by Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas, who was known for fiery speeches delivered to an empty House chamber and unsuccessfully sued Vice President Mike Pence over his refusal to interfere in the election certification; and Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, a lawyer who rode the Tea Party wave to Congress and was later sued by a Democratic congressman for inciting the Jan. 6 riot. Mr. Perry, a former Army helicopter pilot who is close to Mr. Jordan and Mr. Meadows, acted as a de facto sergeant. He coordinated many of the efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office, including a plan to replace the acting attorney general with a more compliant official. His colleagues call him General Perry.

A conspiracy is taking shape that could be more than enough to warrant throwing the likes of Jordan, Perry, and Gosar out of Congress forever. None of this will happen, of course, but there's now no good excuse for it not to happen. We all know enough about it now. So does the Department of Justice. So does the special committee investigating this.

And while we’re on the subject, while so many people are experiencing holiday crushes on Liz Cheney, we should not overlook that committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson is playing this like a grandmaster. (And part of Thompson’s shrewdness is letting Cheney run point the way she has.) I freely confess that I knew nothing about Thompson except that he was a Democrat from Mississippi. But the way he’s played this so far reminds me of how everyone discovered Sam Ervin after he’d gaveled the Senate Watergate Committee into session. (Thompson, of course, doesn’t have the historic baggage that Ervin had.) He has been circumspect, but dogged in his pursuit of witnesses, and he’s proven to have a deft hand at getting helpful information out into the media. He has them on the run, and it shows.

On Dec. 21, Mr. Trump met with members of the Freedom Caucus to discuss their plans. Mr. Jordan, Mr. Gosar, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Brooks and Mr. Meadows were there. “This sedition will be stopped,” Mr. Gosar wrote on Twitter. Asked about such meetings, Mr. Gosar’s chief of staff said the congressman and his colleagues “have and had every right to attend rallies and speeches.”

“None of the members could have anticipated what occurred (on Jan. 6),” Mr. Van Flein added.

Irrelevant. Intent follows the mob.

Jim Jordan pauses during one of his diatribes to see if he has a brain.

Republicanism claims more victims: Pandemic deaths among pregnant Americans are 'surging'

Eager murderers: Trump supporters continue to kill Americans for the sake of a culture war of their own invention.

 

Hunter

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday December 16, 2021 · 11:31 AM MST

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You can chalk up more deaths for the "pro-life" crowd: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is reporting that COVID-19 is now claiming the lives of more pregnant Americans and resulting in more stillbirths. Poynter reports that deaths in pregnancy "rose sharply" in the last two months, and that 40% of such pandemic deaths have happened since August, when delta began surging in the United States.

Pregnant people have an increased risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms due to poorer immune responses and other factors, and the CDC is urging those who are pregnant or are planning pregnancy to get vaccinated immediately.

That 40% of such deaths have happened just since August is telling, because by August vaccines against COVID-19 were already widely available and the United States was well on its way to getting the population fully vaccinated. But it also marked a new surge of COVID-19 cases based, once again, in Republican-voting states and counties where pandemic safety measures like masking, social distancing, and vaccinations have been mocked or intentionally blocked by state and local Republican leaders. Those Republicans followed Donald Trump in claiming that the pandemic would not be serious, that it would lead to few deaths, and that his administration's inaction was therefore not just forgivable but noble. The party has since made resistance to pandemic safety measures a core "culture war"-style issue.

Notably, pro-Trump and anti-vaccine protesters have taken to mocking abortion rights protesters with anti-vaccine signs reading "my body, my choice" or variations.

What all of this means, then, is that the self-absorbed and virulently cruel Republican base is now murdering pregnant Americans and causing a new wave of stillborn births because, as a culture war issue, they are unwilling to wear a strip of cloth over their noses or be vaccinated against the pandemic that has already killed 800,000 Americans. This is a very mean way to phrase it, to be sure, but it is absolutely true. Every nonmasking bully who believes that "freedom" requires them to ignore and belittle safety measures is responsible for spreading a virus that is causing these deaths; you need not worry about their feelings because none of them, to a person, gives a damn that their selfishness and paranoia is killing those around them.

We know this because they all insist upon it. We know this because the professional "Republican" class defends their point of view on television and in print, declaring that Americans are tired of all this talk about masks and vaccines and are demanding a return to normalcy even if it kills either them or neighbors they may or may not even know. The "freedom" to not wear a mask during a pandemic is more important than the lives of the vulnerable, we are repeatedly and insistently told; that pregnant Americans are more vulnerable is not mentioned because not a single damn person cares.

This is the newest Republican Party and Fox News legacy. Tucker Carlson and Ron DeSantis have a new class of victims, and they do not care. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his muddle of Texas theocrats have done their level best to escalate the dangers associated with pregnancy at every turn, either claiming a religious mandate to do so (by dictating the forms of health care available) or an ideological mandate to do so (by sabotaging the pandemic safety measures of others).

There are no "pro-life" Republicans. Not a one. No American would continue to associate themselves with Republicans after the party made we do not care how many die a campaign plank, or made conspiracy theories and disinformation about masks and vaccines into a new political "wedge" intended to keep their base angry and suspicious and as ignorant as can be mustered.

The Republican Party has caused a new wave of pandemic deaths—a new surge that, county-by-county data shows, could have been far more controllable if Republican blusterers had the bare human decency of their Democratic neighbors—and they are responsible. The nonmaskers are responsible. Those spreading vaccine conspiracy theories are responsible. The Murdoch family is responsible. The Republican National Committee, now fully comprising pro-Trump sycophants willing to support anything from attempted coup to widespread corruption to a million pandemic deaths, should be ponying up the funeral costs.

Being angry about this is not a sin. Not being angry about this, however, is. We are seeing the transformation of nationwide pandemic into something that disproportionately kills Fox News viewers—and anyone they come into contact with. It has killed 1% of all the seniors in the country. Would-be parents are losing their babies and their lives and as we speak around the country. Angry but hollow-headed fascists are marching into stores and restaurants and demanding that everyone around them respect their "right" to spread a plague in service to Dear Bungling Leader and his aspiring minions.

And even those people are victims, because it may not ever have even dawned on many of them to turn a national emergency into an ode to the rights of sociopaths if their very rich "conservative" heroes had not decided that manslaughter could be turned into a new party identity.

If someone tells you they are "pro-life," they are a liar. The term has become one used exclusively by sociopaths to justify claims that whatever tics are rolling around inside their own brains are so unfathomably important that abiding by them is worth killing others. American conservatism has been erased and replaced with a fascist shudder that glorifies murder in all its forms. Use a gun to kill, become a new fascist hero. Refuse to abide the safety measures meant to keep the country's "essential workers" a bit safer and the hospitals less overrun—you will be praised as a new fascist patriot. Kill a pregnant would-be mother because you would not wear a mask while passing her in a supermarket aisle during a pandemic, and Republicans everywhere will celebrate how boldly you stuck to your own principles, no matter who else died because of it.

Republicans followed Donald Trump in claiming that the pandemic would not be serious, that it would lead to few deaths, and that his administration's inaction was therefore not just forgivable but noble.

Tucker Carlson declares war on homeless over tree

The burning of Fox News Christmas tree has become a multi-day story.

Christopher Reeves

Daily Kos Staff

Friday December 10, 2021 · 10:01 AM MST

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Arson is bad. Arson is something no one wants in their community. I don’t wish it on anyone, and it should be handled accordingly. I also believe that homelessness is bad. Our refusal to really address the mental health issues faced by the unhoused matters. One element of this story that I will agree with is alcoholism and drug abuse can lead to homelessness, and homelessness can lead to alcoholism and drugs. In the 1980s, then-President Ronald Reagan made huge cuts in care for the unhoused and a plan for how to help people find a way to get back on their feet. “Homeless by choice” was the idea that conservatives ran with, and still run with today.

This has led Tucker Carlson and Fox News to a running opinion that boils down to the unhoused are our enemy, and we are going to do something about that right away. He comes up with a handful of instances of crimes against trees, assumes it is a national plague, and then follows that up with demands regarding the unhoused. The Fox host notes that the streets are more dangerous than they have been in decades, which makes me wonder how his idol Donald Trump managed to do nothing to stem that problem, nor were Republican states able to do much, but I digress. According to them, the problem with America is that we treat the unhoused as human beings, and according to Carlson, that has to stop.

There are certain crimes in America that happen too frequently—at a rate that outstrips the rate of crimes against Christmas trees. Police shoot and kill dogs that are not a threat; the over 2,100 attacks against the Jewish community in the last ADL report; and of course, the horror of school shootings continues. 

None of those, however, brings outrage like the arson of a Christmas tree. The Fox host openly demanded to know why the FBI’s director wasn’t dispatching a team to investigate tree arson. (Seriously.) Whether or not this was meant as a shot at the New York Police Department (NYPD). The NYPD captured the suspect in hours, so what exactly was the FBI going to do on a nonfederal charge that was being handled by the local authorities?

Oh, don’t worry about all of that. Certainly, everyone sees this situation the same way. The unhoused are drug-using bad guys who deserve everything they have coming to them! Down with the unhoused! They are all criminals!

Okay, maybe there are a few who disagree. After all, you can lose your home due to a lot of different reasons: loss of a job, divorce, death in the family, having a family unsupportive due to your sexual orientation, or any other reason. Your landlord could raise the rent. Your landlord could notify you of eviction because they are selling the property where you currently reside to new owners. There are lots of ways to become homeless.

Carlson contends all of this is a mess because no one on the left is willing to acknowledge the real problem is mental health. “These people should be in hospitals!” he and his guests declared. That is a nice thought. Mental health funding is critical. It’s too bad that the Republicans in Congress and then-President Donald Trump apparently didn’t believe in it, proposing cutting funding for mental health programs by a whopping 21%. In the 1950s, there were 550,000 beds for mental health care in America. Today, there are less than 38,000; while medication has certainly helped, the rapid reduction in bed space combined with an increase in population still leaves us with not enough space to handle the urgent need. Donald Trump and Republican governors demanded work requirements to receive mental health care, a great way to keep pushing people away and to make sure they don’t get any help.

You’re right, though, Tucker: If you want to think we have a crisis with mental health, I can agree. It’s too bad you and your party want nothing to do with helping those in need.

Arson is bad. Homelessness is also bad. Being overly hot about a problem you have refused to address? That’s just hypocrisy.

The American swastika: "Now they're coming for our Christmas trees!"