Today’s article is basically a continuation of yesterday’s. I’ll try to cover many of the other things that happened last week that I think stink. The culprits, with one exception, are Republicans and I’ll conclude with a Democrat caught in a situation that stinks.

More Than I Can Cover

I write a lot about Congressional races and this year I’ve made a conscious effort to beef up my gubernatorial coverage. There are plenty of down ballot races of extreme significance! I simply lack the resources to cover them sufficiently. Among those are state Secretary of State races. In most states the Secretary of State is the chief elections officer. Considering the Trump-led effort at voter nullification and the decades old Republican efforts at voter suppression these are of paramount importance.

A Colorado judge ordered the arrest of Tina Peters for flagrantly breaking the terms of her bail release. Peters is the Mesa County (CO) Clerk who is currently awaiting trial on charges of election tampering. She is currently barred from administering the 2022 election in Mesa County which is a major part of her job. She was also a Republican candidate for Colorado Secretary of State. Fortunately, she lost in last month’s primary.

Peters denies the results of the 2020 election and her bail violation was on purpose.

Deny Inconvenient Reality And When Exposed Deny That

The case of the ten year-old rape victim who was forced to cross from Ohio into Indiana to obtain an abortion received more publicity last week.

In the immediate aftermath of the initial reports Fox News, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post all questioned the existence of the rape. The Indiana Attorney General, Republican Todd Rokita, publically stated that to his knowledge the Indiana physician who performed the medical procedure hadn’t filled out the paperwork. The fact is that the physician had and Rokita was either too anxious to take advantage of what he perceived as a political opportunity or simply lacked the skills to look up the files. On second thought, perhaps both.

Ohio Republican Representative and human being impersonator, Jim Jordan, had tweeted that the initial reports were another lie. That tweet was subsequently deleted. Jim, you can delete tweets but that doesn’t obliterate an inconvenient fact. It’s kind of like you can deny that you knew your athletes were being molested but that doesn’t change the facts that they were and they said you knew.

Pro Life, Really?

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and AG Ken Paxton are suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over a ruling that abortions must be performed to save the life of the mother. Yes, these pro-life (just ask them) Republicans are telling pregnant people they must bring their fetus to birth or die trying. Perhaps it’s a deficiency in my education but I can’t see how that is pro-life! How dare Joe Biden and his heathens try to protect the lives of living people.

Oh, Joe Again

Once again West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin has doomed a Democratic piece of crucial legation. Basically, he has torpedoed the desperately needed climate change legislation by refusing to support it via reconciliation which would sidestep the filibuster. There is a lot more to unpack here than I have time for today but let me just say I’m done defending Manchin.

Let’s put two issues of politics in perspective before we move on. Don’t blame the Democrats for the failure of this bill. The Senate is split 50-50. 49 of the 50 Democrat support the bill; that’s 98%. None of the 50 Republicans do; that’s 0%. When I was in school 98 was an “A”; 0 was an emphatic “F”.

Manchin is the Chair of the Senate Energy Committee. Many progressives want him stripped of that position. I content that, for a variety of reasons, his committee chairmanship is the main thing he cares about. If the Democrats stripped him of that he would simply walk over to Mitch McConnell’s office and the conversation would go along the following lines.

Manchin – “Mitch, I’ll switch parties as long as you let me keep my committee chairmanship.”

McConnell – “Agreed and welcome aboard.”

With that deal McConnell is Senate Majority Leader again and controls the Senate agenda. How is America better off in that scenario?

Our Joe

President Biden spent much of last week on a Middle East tour including a stop in Saudi Arabia. I’m stealing and paraphrasing someone else’s line (I honestly forgot who) but I think he wanted that stop about as much a root canal. Despite all the rhetoric coming out of the White House press shop the real purpose of the trip is to beg the Saudis to increase oil production in the hope that prices at the pump will drop.

Sometimes, especially when you are the boss, you have to do things that stink. Biden has a valid excuse and is trying to act in the best interests of Americans; I can’t say that for the others.

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