Several times I have called for a warning label on ballots. Today I’m asking that it be even more strongly worded to reflect the harm the current Republican Party is doing. Here it is: WARNING: Voting for a Republican has repeatedly been proven to be hazardous to your health.

On Thursday of last week the Democrats finally brought the latest recovery/COVID bill to the floor of the Senate. Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin called for it to be read aloud. The Senate has an arcane rule (among its many arcane rules) that allows any Senator to request that any proposal be read aloud in its entirety. This dates back to the earliest days of the Senate when many Senators could not read. In the 21st century and with a minimum wage of $174,000 per year I assume that is no longer the case. Judging by the performances of many of the current GOP Senate delegation I may be being overly kind in my assumption – Johnson’s performance certainly among them. Remember this is the same guy who said that 1/6 was not an armed insurrection because he didn’t see any guns. I won’t take that statement apart in respect of the literacy of my readers.

The GOP plan supposedly entails offering a plethora of amendments to the bill – few if any of which have any chance of passage. The last part really doesn’t matter because if any were to pass it/they would not persuade a single Republican senator to vote for the final bill. That includes the sponsor(s) of the amendment. We have seen this movie before.

This is nothing other than a delay game and to make it worse, one without a purpose. I respect a good delay game in basketball where it is still played without a shot clock. (It is much more difficult to execute or coach than you think.) But you run it when you are ahead. The final bill will eventually pass by a 51-50 Kamala Harris tie breaker vote if nothing else. (Just like the motion to proceed did on Thursday.)

What happens while Johnson and his buffoon buddies play games is that people are severally hurt and/or die. Many people are in desperate need of the relief payments. It is not stimulus to them it is badly needed relief. While the Republicans try to own the libs for a few days or weeks more people get vehicles repossessed, utilities cut off and in the worst cases go without food. State and local governments run out of money necessitating layoffs and severe reductions in services. Vaccination programs go without the financial resources to continue and in some cases commence.

Almost exclusively via the management ability the Biden administration is displaying, we finally have good reason to be optimistic that an end to the pandemic may be in sight. So what has the Republican bench at the state level done? It is celebrating prematurely. Four states (Texas, Mississippi, Iowa and Montana) have dropped all COVID safeguards including wearing masks almost immediately and Alabama has announced it will just days after Easter. This is like being up by five with four minutes to go in a basketball game and to stop playing defense. If these “genius” Republican governors will promise to coach basketball all in the same conference I might consider coming out of retirement; eight sure wins is a great start on a winning season. (Plus, I figure they will be too lazy to recruit.)

I could come up with other examples of the Republicans killing Americans – and no doubt will in future articles but that is sufficient for today. I’m sure all Republicans are not threats to America, the world and mankind but too few to mention. The former center-right party has been taken over by extremists who do not care about America, humanity or democracy.

Germany just put its far right party, AfD, (and not as far right on climate change as the American Republican Party) on its list of terrorist organizations. Maybe we should consider a similar action in America. For the moment let’s just try the warning label.

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