All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[CSTowle]

1. "Bitching" about things is one of the few ways we get things done as ordinary citizens in this country. Protests, boycotts, even voting are forms of political speech. If we see a wrong in the world we should speak up about it. It may seem like a waste of time, and in the short-term likely is, but if enough voices do speak up they can sway things. If there were a mass movement we could probably easily get the pharma companies to send out more just for the PR, and despite the cynical motivations it'd result in more folk getting vaccinated. Not likely to happen though, in a country torn between "me first" and "I'm not taking that thing".

2. You can absolutely look out for yourself and your loved ones. As I said before, "I got mine" and/or "looking out for #1" are very common political philosophies, especially in the US. But don't also be offended when someone points out that it's what you're doing and that they think it's wrong. You don't need to justify it, nobody's the villain in their own story and we all do mental gymnastics in our heads to tell ourselves we're either not wrong about things or that we're less wrong than others.

I just think it's worth taking a moment to reflect that when the chips are down most people virtue signaling about how much their hearts bleed for the less fortunate in the world during the good times are just as myopic and selfish as the average Trump voter. I'm not sure being prickly and defensive about it is better than owning it (or doing both).

[Tami]

Can-cel culture: GOP lawmakers in Georgia kicking Coke to the curb over voting law criticism

Coke isn't it for some Georgia lawmakers.

A group of eight Republican state legislators sent a letter to the president of the Georgia Beverage Association over the weekend asking to have Coca-Cola products removed from their offices after the company's CEO criticized the state's controversial new voting law.

"Given Coke's choice to cave to the pressure to an out-of-control cancel culture, we respectfully request all Coca-Cola Company products be removed from our office suite immediately," the group said in a letter that was obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The beverage giant, which is headquartered in Atlanta and employs about 4,000 Georgians, has provided free drinks for lawmakers' offices for decades, the AJC noted.

[Hellion]

In another sign that 2021 just isn't the GQP's year, my very own Governor Gianforte just tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing "mild" symptoms. Sometimes life just gives you a moment.

[worstblogever]

In another sign that 2021 just isn't the GQP's year, my very own Governor Gianforte just tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing "mild" symptoms. Sometimes life just gives you a moment.

If only he'd been sick that day he needlessly killed a protected species of wolf, and not out to mindlessly kill it without a permit.

[worstblogever]

Can-cel culture: GOP lawmakers in Georgia kicking Coke to the curb over voting law criticism

For a party obsessed with "putting an end to cancel culture" they're suddenly calling for a s*** ton of boycotts of every major corporation for daring to speak out against Jim Crow 2.0.

It literally was six weeks ago that CPAC's theme was "America: Uncancelled". We have this list of things the GQP now hates for standing up for voting rights, plus they lost their minds over Lil' Nas X for giving Satan a lapdance in a video (he successfully trolled them into more fame) and Pantene shampoo for having the nerve to put a transgender child in an ad.

They're more full of s*** than a port-o-john on day 3 of a chili-cookoff festival.

[PwrdOn]

Are you presuming this situation WON'T change, that the US will NEVER waive that monopoly? Call me naive, but I don't see that happening. How about we wait and see what happens before passing any sort of definitive judgment.

If the US and the rest of the Western countries were really concerned about human rights and all that, the time to release the IP protection on these vaccines would have been months ago, so that the production and distribution could be ramped up and sufficient doses made available to everyone. And yeah just like all other pharmaceutical patents, the IP on those vaccines will expire eventually, but by then it won't really matter because the pandemic will mostly be over and the pharma companies will have made all their money already.

But waiving those rights isn’t really up to countries governments.

The intellectual property is fundamentally owned by pharmaceutical companies...they are the ones that must decide whether they are willing to waive the rights.

They aren’t...so countries must decide whether to change legislation to take the rights away (which may well make future medical breakthroughs less like likely) or to throw a lot of money at the pharmaceutical companies to buy out the rights.

So I think the real question is: all those countries that want to see the rights waived: are they willing to stump up money to make it happen??

All of the vaccines were funded by wads of federal money, to say that the pharma companies somehow hold all the cards and can demand a massive payout in exchange for releasing the IP sounds like some libertarian hogwash. Of course, the optimal solution would have been to declare the COVID vaccine to be a global public good and then develop the various candidates as part of a coordinated global effort, but there was never going to be the political willpower to do this.

And more than all of this, the vaccination drive is a golden opportunity for the US and UK to exercise that vaunted global leadership and be the beacon of hope for the rest of the world like we're always telling ourselves that we are. So maybe instead of writing dozens of snarky articles about how Russia and China are using sinister "vaccine diplomacy" to sway countries to their side, maybe it's time we started playing some vaccine diplomacy of our own.

I just think it's worth taking a moment to reflect that when the chips are down most people virtue signaling about how much their hearts bleed for the less fortunate in the world during the good times are just as myopic and selfish as the average Trump voter. I'm not sure being prickly and defensive about it is better than owning it (or doing both).

Yeah for as much as right wing chuds have abused "bleeding hearts" and "virtue signaling" to further their own stupid propaganda, that doesn't make it any more believable or less annoying when it does happen. The way the pandemic has played out should have convinced everyone that matters of public health CANNOT be left up to the whims of individuals, and that strong institutional controls and equally strong enforcement mechanisms are necessary to keep a handful of bad actors from ruining it for everyone. And in this respect, a pharma company hoarding its IP is just as much a problem as someone refusing to wear a mask in public.

[SuperiorIronman]

Just found out my old college just had an active shooter. I've been out of that place for awhile but it scares the shit out of me that some mother fucker has the balls to do that on a campus with a federal base literally right next door.

I don't know if it's connected but a guy recently even killed a man in an operation to buy firearms for a mass shooting. He was caught within a week but it did make me wonder if this is what was being planned since he wanted to hit something big.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Can-cel culture: GOP lawmakers in Georgia kicking Coke to the curb over voting law criticism

I read somewhere, Twitter maybe, that there's a picture of Trump down in Mar-a-Lago seated behind a knock-off of the Oval Office desk....complete with a can of Coke on same.

[Tami]

Fears of White People Losing Out Permeate Capitol Rioters’ Towns, Study Finds

When the political scientist Robert Pape began studying the issues that motivated the 380 or so people arrested in connection with the attack against the Capitol on Jan. 6, he expected to find that the rioters were driven to violence by the lingering effects of the 2008 Great Recession.

But instead he found something very different: Most of the people who took part in the assault came from places, his polling and demographic data showed, that were awash in fears that the rights of minorities and immigrants were crowding out the rights of white people in American politics and culture.

If Mr. Pape’s initial conclusions — published on Tuesday in The Washington Post — hold true, they would suggest that the Capitol attack has historical echoes reaching back to before the Civil War, he said in an interview over the weekend. In the shorter term, he added, the study would appear to connect Jan. 6 not only to the once-fringe right-wing theory called the Great Replacement, which holds that minorities and immigrants are seeking to take over the country, but also to events like the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 where crowds of white men marched with torches chanting, “Jews will not replace us!”

“If you look back in history, there has always been a series of far-right extremist movements responding to new waves of immigration to the United States or to movements for civil rights by minority groups,” Mr. Pape said. “You see a common pattern in the Capitol insurrectionists. They are mainly middle-class to upper-middle-class whites who are worried that, as social changes occur around them, they will see a decline in their status in the future.”

One fact stood out in Mr. Pape’s study, conducted with the help of researchers at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, a think tank he runs at the University of Chicago. Counties with the most significant declines in the non-Hispanic white population are the most likely to produce insurrectionists. This finding held true, Mr. Pape determined, even when controlling for population size, distance to Washington, unemployment rate and urban or rural location.

[CaptainEurope]

That graphic really doesn’t give a fair view of EU/UK relationship in COVID vaccines. Vaccines aren’t produced by the EU or UK governments, but by large multinational pharmaceutical companies.

For various reasons UK although it has a large pharmaceutical industry has concentrated on other things than large scale vaccine production.

Accordingly when it was clear large scale production would be needed UK government actually pumped money and help into concerns based in EU countries, and also pumped a lot of money into COVAX ( the international initiative to send vaccines to less rich countries).

So a chunk of those “EU exports” into UK and other countries were the result of capacity partly funded and created by UK.

Oh...and, of course, a lot of factories situated in EU producing the final vaccine are dependent on specialist materials sent over to them by the UK.

That seems to be something the right wing UK media keep harping about, and it's quite likely a lie:

[Malvolio]

If only he'd been sick that day he needlessly killed a protected species of wolf, and not out to mindlessly kill it without a permit.

Or if he'd been sick the day he body-slammed a reporter.

[Malvolio]

I read somewhere, Twitter maybe, that there's a picture of Trump down in Mar-a-Lago seated behind a knock-off of the Oval Office desk....complete with a can of Coke on same.

It was a bottle of Diet Coke (Trump's favorite), which they tried to hide behind a phone, but everyone could see it anyway.

[Tami]

This is from an article about the upcoming political races in NJ.

Murphy, a Democrat, is running for a second term. He is expected to win his party’s nomination.

The incumbent filed more than 14,500 petitions for his re-election bid (1,000 are required for a gubernatorial hopeful).

Roger Bacon of Phillipsburg Is challenging him for the Democratic nomination.

Bacon, who submitted 1,271 petitions, is running under the “Make New Jersey Great Again” slogan. He has been a candidate in multiple failed races in the state, including running for Congress as a Libertarian in the early 1990s and placing fourth in a Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2009m when three people tried to challenge former Gov. Jon Corzine.

Sound familiar?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Fears of White People Losing Out Permeate Capitol Rioters’ Towns, Study Finds

Oh, yes, right wing whites who fear losing out on their rights to hate and make life hell for minorities, gays and followers of religions other than Christianity. My heart bleeds.

[Tami]

Oh, yes, right wing whites who fear losing out on their rights to hate and make life hell for minorities, gays and followers of religions other than Christianity. My heart bleeds.

Note that their definition of Christianity is also very limited.