Light is Coming, Liquid Lags

And we're gonna need money to pay those bills.

Appetizers

9 Gridsters: A thick array of home grown Ludicrous Excuses arranged on a thin layer of Texas Toast. Serves 12 million, maybe. While Governor Greg ‘Bud’ Abbott and an array of GOP Costellos instinctively faulted a non-existent Green New Deal for leaving 4m Texans without power and 12m without drinkable water for days, there were 9 grid operators frantically working to prevent a complete system meltdown that could have left Texans powerless for months. They said they were ‘seconds or minutes’ away. Now the Governor and AG blame the power operation entity and plan an investigation that will determine ERCOT screwed up, not the Republican government that failed to direct upgrades to the system that were recommended a decade ago.

The plate includes our famous Yeahright dipwad sauce. $10

Cancun Crow: An entire crow, shoved down the throat of a Redface Ted complete with multiple corrections of the record. While Senator Cruz bailed out with his family, it appears his wife was trying to get other friends to join in their vacation via an online forum. Apparently those friends were not particularly close, as they quickly reported the Missus for her gaffe. The Senator tried to claim he was just being a good daddy, escorting the family out of their cold house to the Cancun resort before a quick return. Except he had to move up his return date by 2 days. And some reports indicate they left their unattended family dog behind in the cold, cold house. 25 cents (aka two bits)

Beto Bits: While most of Texas was dark including our country’s 4th largest city - Houston - El Paso was lit. That city remained on the national grid that Texas politicians wanted no part of. Cruz barely beat Beto O’Rourke in his re-election campaign and while Beto’s city stayed warm, he joined thousands of volunteers that were phoning people all over the state to see if they were okay. They helped direct them to safety or sent first responders to aid them. This is served on a bed of Ted’s border hopping. $12

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Entree

We have two offerings today.

Cautious Optimism: Most of the US has seen declines in new covid cases, new covid deaths and hospitalizations. Almost every state has seen their new cases drop to pre-Thanksgiving levels while the other two measures lag behind. But now the evidence is coming in that the vaccine rollout is contributing to this continued decline. Senior living facilities and other institutional residents have mostly been vaccinated now. And it’s clear their rates of decline are well underway.

In more good news, while anti-maskers claim mask mandates failed, that’s simply wrong. The Spring wave occurred due to the lack of available tests. The Summer wave occurred because a number of governors re-opened too quickly and several notable super spreader events occurred from Memorial Day weekend, to the Sturgis Bike Rally and quite a few others, including Trump rallies.

And the long, frightening Fall/Winter wave occurred for several reasons: college students returning without taking proper measures, cold weather forcing more people indoors, some states where mask wearing was minimal (I visited one in Nov/Dec: Tennessee), some where Big Agriculture was putting workers at high risk, and it largely became evident that the spikes that began in colder northern states kept spreading southward, partly from seasonal migration of aggie workers and retirees and partly from areas where mask use was shunned because of politics.

But in addition to all that, it’s now known that mutations in the virus had already occurred between Wuhan and the US. The mutants were more transmissible than the residents of Wuhan faced. Had millions of masks not been worn, the already shocking numbers would have been far, far worse. After seeing the spikes from Thanksgiving get-togethers, mask use went up, gatherings declined and only a few states saw brief Christmas spikes.

And what of the fresh mutations from the UK, South Africa and Brazil? Yes, they spread even faster. But the vaccine rollout so far has thwarted them. We are likely within 6 weeks of having all the most at risk populations getting their first vaccines. Even if there’s a new wave in Spring, it’s not likely to be as deadly or cause so many hospitalizations.

That’s why ‘cautious’ optimism is the order of the day. There are still side risks, like the current wave of record cold weather, which has caused a decline in testing in several states and likely caused some people afflicted to travel to get help. We’re in a footrace, but we may win this one.
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For our second entree we have the Biden Bailout Agenda. Because of political partisanship, ten years of GOP resistance to helping the bottom 40% of income earners continues. President Biden can overcome some of that with executive decrees. But most of the Covid rescue package falls on Congress. The Senate could kill the filibuster to get it through but at least two Democrats are resisting that, which takes away that option. Which only leaves a budget reconciliation process. While that requires just 50 Senate Democratic votes, the rules of that process don’t permit the entire package to go through that way.

The $15/hr minimum wage looks like one thing the rules will prevent. However, the president has clearly indicated he’s not surrendering that initiative. He just has to find another way. As 29 states already have already boosted theirs above $7.25, we need to ask the GOP legislatures in those other right-to-cheapskate states how long they plan to unhook their workers from the National Fair Wage Grid? Till they freeze and starve?

Yes, it may be on us to lead the way through this Republican Poverty Scam. Congress can horse trade but without us demanding this long overdue measure, it could fail. We need to tie the talking points to other failures of the GOP and the corporate horses they rode in on.

Here’s another fresh example: Kroger Foods offered, essentially, combat pay for their front line grocery workers of $2/hr when the first lockdown occurred. But they cancelled it last May. In Seattle, a union passed an increase and Kroger responded by shutting down its two stores there completely. Kroger has made billions in extra profit during the pandemic. So yeah, boycott pressure’s an option.

I know, I recently indicated Publix should be boycotted. If you live someplace where those are your only two shopping options, you’ll have to pick one. Economic boycotts have been the most effective way to create badly needed change. Those oldtimers who did civil rights sit-ins at Woolworths know. The boycotts after Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus put a big hurting on her city. We need to up our effectiveness.

I’m also not sure Biden can get immigration reform through in this budget reconciliation process. Extremist Republicans have blocked most progress there for 3 decades, and they’re clearly signalling opposition to any Biden initiative there. They’ve pandered to their xenophobic, anti-Latino, base for so long even while immigration enforcement has been reducing the flow of undocumented workers pretty steadily for 25 years under the pat 4 presidents. Both Bushes bemoaned the inability to get any compromises from the footdragging extremists in their own base.

All the rest of the Biden rescue package can likely get through. Frontline workers aren’t getting the respect they’ve earned and neither are POC and light skinned Latinos.

And it’s not just about pandering. The GOP is mostly convinced that if they can shut down the voting of racial minorities, and stop more POC from immigrating in, they can hang on to their tenuous hold on power. They still don’t get that if they represent everyone - not just rich people and old white retirees - they can convince POC to vote for them. They do know this, of course, but they just don’t want to change because of racism.

It does appear though that President Biden has one surprising new ace in the hole he can use a a bargaining chip. Support for a new program of government jobs to rebuild infrastructure is huge, even from Republican voters.

>>It found that 93 percent of respondents thought this was a good idea, including 87 percent of Republicans.

“Even when the pollsters put a hypothetical price tag on the effort— $200 billion or more — almost nine out of 10 respondents said the benefits outweighed the cost. And hefty majorities — of Democrats and Republicans — also preferred government jobs to more generous unemployment benefits.”<<

If Democrats strike hard and fast with an initiative there, they could pass the bill, then put the money out in the same percentages as the population actually resides, state by state. And if low population states like Montana and Nebraska and Wyoming want more from that pool of money, Biden can tell them ‘Sure, pass the minimum wage, let Dreamers finally be granted the right to stay, and we can make a deal.”

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Desserts


One, light and sweet

And a very popular one

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