Are We Still Talking About This Stuff?

The Schloss-Blog is wondering this week why we're still writing about COVIDiots, let alone now about revelations that Donald Trump used the Department of Justice to investigate people he thought were his political and personal enemies. Plus, now we have the list of Republicans who voted against awarding Congressional medals to the Capitol Police who defended them during the insurrection, let alone being in denial about the insurrection.

And so, this week, we ask...

Did you know...while vaccination rates continue to lag in southern and/or Red states, then-President Trump was once upon a time suggesting to his closest advisers that people infected with the virus, particularly tourists returning home, be isolated ... in Guantánamo Bay, with some of the worst of the worst political prisoners?

Yeah, he wanted to imprison them, not have their conditions in the official count of those infected to minimize it as much as possible, knowing it would be an election-defeating proposition for him.

And it worked that way, didn't it?

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Did you know... that of 21 Republican representatives who voted against awarding Congressional Gold Medals to the Capitol Police who helped protect them during the insurrection, seven also voted against recognizing Juneteenth as a national holiday.

Takes some balls to be a traitor and not recognize the people who saved your lives, but to double down as a racist, that takes ultimate degrees of arrogance. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, not the most-patriotic of representatives, were not stupid enough to be on both lists (they voted against the Congressional Gold Medal awards, though).

Andy Biggs (Arizona), Paul Gosar (Arizona), Ralph Norman (SC), Chip Roy (Texas), Matt Rosendale (Montana), Thomas Massie (Kentucky) and Andrew Clyde (Georgia) were the ones on both lists. Gosar's siblings want him expelled from Congress for the role they say he allegedly played in the insurrection.

Clyde described the insurrection as tourists strolling through the Capitol.

People vote for these guys. Real people, American citizens. Your neighbors, perhaps. Your acquaintances. Your relatives. People you know.

Think about it.

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Did you know... in Florida, at a state-government building, two people are dead, four were hospitalized after a COVID-19 outbreak there?

Those six were not vaccinated. The only other person in the office who was exposed wasn't stricken, but was vaccinated. Shocking, right?

Speaks for itself in a state where the governor and his fellow Republican legislators are more interested in restricting voters' rights than protecting voters' health.

Or keeping high-rise apartment buildings upright.

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Did you know... speaking of insurrections and politicians who are complicit in them, in Oregon, Republican Mike Nearman was expelled from the state's House of Representatives because he "unapologetically coordinated and planned a breach of the Oregon State Capitol" that happened on Dec. 21 of last year.

The vote to expel him was bipartisan, 59-1. The one vote was his own.

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Did you know... the Department of Justice, which announced a review of restrictive voting laws in GOP-controlled states, has now followed through by taking Georgia to court?

The new Georgia law allows state officials to literally take over local election boards, severely limits the use of ballot drop boxes and makes it a crime to approach voters waiting in long lines to vote and offer them sustenance, otherwise known as food and water.

The whole premise of the law seemed odd to begin with, considering state officials declared their 2020 vote secure and accurate but passed this legislation to prevent the type of fraud that Donald Trump says took place there anyway.

To my friends in Georgia - Ann, Lee, Nancy, Nancy and Peter - may your voting journeys remain unobstructed and crystal clear, or, as one of you put it to me, despite "Dr. Death" in the governor's mansion.

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Finally, while President Biden declared that "we have a deal" on infrastructure, it turns out it's just a framework, there's a lot more negotiating to be done, some Democrats are likely going to hold out for a larger package anyway, McConnell has called it "extortion" and Rand Paul is a schmuck.

Just threw that in on general principle.

In typical D.C. fashion, and in the immortal words of Bluto Blutarsky, "Nothing's over until we say it's over."

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Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.