I need to up my game. That damn bird swears better than I do, the eff’er.
(Hat tip: Scissorhead Purplehead)
It seems that vaccination mandates actually, you know, work:
Delta Air Lines official says 4,000 unvaccinated employees got shots after surcharge announcement
Delta Air Lines’s chief health officer announced last week that 4,000 unvaccinated employees got inoculated after the company announced that it was adding a $200 monthly surcharge on its health care plan for employees who were not vaccinated.
Henry Ting, during a media briefing with the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said almost 20 percent of the 20,000 unvaccinated Delta employees moved to be inoculated after CEO Ed Bastian announced the new surcharge policy on Aug. 25.
He also said that the company has not seen any turnover or resignations in response to the new policy, according to WGNTV.com.
That sounds like a successful carrot-stick strategy, and note that last paragraph: none of ’em quit.
This also sounds like a good carrot-stick strategy: Los Angeles will require proof of vaccination at indoor bars, nightclubs, wineries, and breweries. It’s like what France did that got Parisians vaccinated practically overnight.
Republicans get to work!
Pennsylvania Senate Republicans voted Wednesday to subpoena vast troves of personal information about millions of voters, including partial Social Security numbers, as they engage with false conspiracies about the 2020 election…
But Pennsylvania appears to be taking a different approach than Arizona. Rather than requesting ballots and voting machines as Arizona did — and as Trump supporters have been pushing for — Pennsylvania Republicans are beginning their taxpayer-funded “investigation” by seeking voters’ personal information to, as the chair of the committee running the show said Wednesday, determine “whether or not they exist.”
…Republicans are demanding lists of personal information for all 6.9 million people who voted in Pennsylvania in the November 2020 election, everyone who voted in the state’s May 2021 primary election, and every person who was a registered voter in the state as of May 1. That personal information includes all voters’ names, dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers, the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, and the date of their “last voting activity.”
What could go wrong giving personal information to zealots? Congrats, PA, your Republican Senate just stole your identity. Sign up for credit monitoring today!
GOP Political Machinery
The media is filled with lots of arm-chair quarterbacking about the California recall and lessons learned. Our pals at Electoral-Vote did the work and gathered the headlines:
The dust has settled a bit in California, so lists of takeaways are starting to pop up. Here are a few of them:
CNN:
- A strict pandemic policy is a winner
- Will Elder run against Newsom in 2022?
- Lessons from California may not apply elsewhere where Elder is not on the ballot
- In the end, Elder didn’t claim the election was stolen and refuse to concede
- The huge cost of the election is prompting calls for recall reform
- Does Newsom have a mandate now to push liberal policies?
- Will constant claims of rigged elections depress turnout for Republicans in the future?
- COVID-19 put Newsom in jeopardy but also saved him
- Larry Elder was not a good candidate and Newsom would love to face him in 2022
- Recall reform is likely to happen now
- Republicans started this and they got crushed
- A big win in California doesn’t protect the Democrats from losing the House in 2022
- Republicans might not even need Orange County to take over the House in 2022
- The threat of a Trumpist winning is still a powerful motivator for Democrats
- Being famous doesn’t mean you win—just ask Larry Elder
- Elder won’t have any impact on 2022
- The polls were pretty good and in a tough election to poll
- The SurveyUSA poll was an outlier, but it caused people to panic even though outliers are normal
- Most of the political handicappers got it spot on
- Newsom’s margin was even bigger than expected
- Donald Trump is hurting the GOP
- Vaccinated voters are pro-vaccine
- Mobilization of voters still works and has implications for 2022
- Polling averages are better than individual polls
- Newsom is back in the national conversation
- Democrats have the cover they need to pursue recall reform
Gov. Newsom says that Democrats needs to “lean in” on COVID-19 prevention:
“So, what I’m saying here is, be affirmative. Don’t be timid. Lean in. Because at the end of the day, it’s not just about formal authority of setting the tone and tenor on masks — on vaccines and masks. But it’s the moral authority that we have: that we’re on the right side of history and we’re doing the right thing to save people’s lives.”
…but here’s my blunt assessment: it was more about Trump/Elder than it was about Gavin Newsom & the Trump-Virus. And because this was wide-open and not machine politics, the Republican base chose their preferred candidate and the Republicans didn’t have a chance. Tiger Beat on the Potomac (thanks Charlie) says:
Elder drew more than five times as many votes as his nearest Republican rival, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, in the initial vote tally.
The Pod Save Whatevs guys’ email thingie:
- Unfortunately, we can’t count on landslides to smother the zombie Big Lie in most elections, and it’s not about to fade away: In a new CNN poll, 59 percent of GOP voters said that believing Trump won the 2020 election is an important part of being a Republican. And while GOP candidates casually fold Donald Trump’s fraud narrative into their own campaigns, Trump is going around systematically endorsing Big Lie-promoters for secretary of state positions, in preparation to take another stab at stealing the presidency in 2024. Not great!
That ass-kicking Elder got was a proxy for Trump; the Republicans have a YUGE problem if the base keeps nominating nut jobs that can easily be lashed to Hair Füror.
Roger Stone: Never Laid Again?
The criminal mastermind at work:
Nothing like letting the courts know where you are hiding out.
H/T @NamelessCynic of the tweeter-twitter machine
I wouldn’t want to be the bouncer there.
WISCONSIN REPRESENT!!!
H/T @NamelessCynic of the Twitterverse
Guys, The Terrible Cheese Kingdom of Wisconski (home of Sen. RoJo) is gonna try an audit in the style of the Terrible Sand Kingdom of Arizonastan, and it’s off to a smashing start:
MADISON – Wisconsin election clerks are reacting with a mixture of concern and confusion to the first inquiry made by a special investigator hired by Republicans to examine how the 2020 presidential election was run in the battleground state…
Based on an Associated Press survey of all 72 county election clerks, the email from the lead investigator landed in the junk folders of at least seven counties and wasn’t received by at least 11 others. Several that did get it flagged it as a security risk.
The whole story is a cascade of FAIL:
The elections committee chairwoman, Rep. Janel Brandtjen, tried to subpoena voting machines, ballots and other election data in two counties. But her request was rejected by both counties, citing a state law that said the subpoenas had to be signed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to be valid.
Vos said he would not sign them.
Instead, Vos hired Gableman, at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $680,000, to lead another investigation.
But it’s off to a rocky start.
Two retired police detectives Vos initially hired to assist Gableman quit this summer, saying the job would take more time than they anticipated. Vos then revised the contract with Gableman, giving him authority to hire whoever he wants.
Oh, dear. Cyber Ninjas? I’m only guessing.
Gableman has already traveled to Arizona and attended a conference in South Dakota led by MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, where election conspiracy theorists made presentations. Gableman is also consulting with Shiva Ayyadurai, a losing U.S. Senate candidate who appeared in a conspiracy theory-fueled film and falsely claimed a million ballots were destroyed in Massachusetts, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on Tuesday.
How do the GQP keep finding these people? These nut cases must be sending a message only the GQPers can read. It’s amazing how you could have 1,000 people in a room and the two crackpots would find each other instantly.
Hair Füror —sensing that he is losing his grasp on Possum Hollar, what with losing the California recall election— returns to the urtext of his entire political career and blames [checks notes] The Kenyan Usurper:
The old racist is bonkers, the cheese has fallen off the cracker, his place setting is missing the fork.
“We’ve got good news and bad news for your annual review, uh, Hoomin. Now, about the treat situation…”
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