Daily Archives: August 22, 2021

The connection between Republican political views and skepticism about COVID-19 precautions, such as mask mandates and vaccine passports, is clear but not intuitive.

While not all unvaccinated people are Republicans, nearly half of Republicans have yet to receive even a single shot, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll from late July. Republicans also make up the largest share of opposition to mask mandates in schools and public places, vaccine mandates at work, and vaccine passports to use services and businesses, and GOP politicians have led the charge against these ideas.

The reasons for this are not obvious. Before the current pandemic, vaccine skepticism was not disproportionately common among Republicans. Republicans are not less likely to get sick and die from the coronavirus. And, as conservative vaccine champions like to note, the current vaccines were largely developed during the Trump presidency.

David Frum: Vaccinated America has had enough

One way to explain the rights resistance to precautions is anti-government sentiment, but as I wrote Thursday, the description doesnt really fit, because enforcing bans on mask mandates and vaccine requirements often requires government to flex its muscles. Nor is it quite right to call this simply a manifestation of anti-science GOP views. Although the resistance to precautions includes a dangerous strain of COVID-19 denialism and vaccine nonsense, many of the debates on responding to the pandemic are more about risk calculations.

Instead, the best way to think about the Republican opposition to COVID-19 precautions might be as another manifestation of the surging feeling in the American conservative movement that it represents an embattled minority that needs to use the power of government to defend its independence. Public opinion consistently shows majority support for mask mandates and vaccine requirements, but several states, all of them GOP-led, have prohibited them. The minoritys insistence on opposing masks and vaccines privileges the individual rights of the few Americans who dont want to take these steps over those of the collective mass of their compatriots who dont want themselves or their loved ones to get sick.

Although it might come as a surprise from reading news coverage, Americans actually broadly agree on many COVID-19 precautions. An Axios/Ipsos poll released Tuesday finds 69 percent of Americans support mandatory masking in schools, and 64 percent back mask requirements in public places. More than half (55 percent) of the respondents support employer vaccine mandates, similar to a Gallup poll (52 percent) released Wednesday. Other surveys have found even an larger backing. That comes in the context of seven in 10 American adults already being fully vaccinated, a figure that falls short of herd immunity but represents, as Ariel Edwards-Levy notes, an astonishing degree of consensus for contemporary America.

Perhaps thats precisely why the minority has been so noisyand so effective. Videos of angry parents berating school officials who are considering mask mandates have gone viral. Governors and legislatures in several states have blocked anti-COVID measures. Eight states (Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah), all of them with Republican trifectas, have forbidden mask mandates, according to Pews Stateline project. (Some of these bans are currently being litigated.) The website Ballotpedia has tallied 20 states with some sort of ban on vaccine requirements, all of them GOP-led. The Axios/Ipsos poll found only 44 and 40 percent of Republicans in favor of school and public mask mandates, respectively.

Like other political questions today, views about COVID-19 restrictions are not only divided by party but also contain little middle ground. The Gallup poll, which found 5238 support for employer vaccine requirements, also reported that two-thirds of respondents held their position strongly.

The gap between what the public overall wants and what its noisiest members demand in opposition is not new. Last spring, as states across the political spectrum hastened to loosen initial pandemic restrictions, I pointed out that the public was strongly supportive of the existing measures. That small portions of the population have repeatedly succeeded in imposing their will on the majority may help to explain the fury, documented by my colleague David Frum, that some vaccinated people now feel toward their fellow Americans who are not taking similar care.

National polls, though, may not tell the whole story. In some conservative enclaves, most residents oppose COVID-control measures. And they dont just want to reject them in their own communities. When local governments in red states have attempted to impose masking or other restrictions, Republican-led state governments have frequently preempted them. They arent just giving local officials a choice about whether to complythey are ensuring that they cannot.

David A. Graham: Its not vaccine hesitancy. Its COVID-19 denialism.

This inverts the typical pattern in a democratic polity. Usually, laws and dictates emerge from popular opinion. Here, Republicans are turning to government as a force to impose their will in situations where they have already lost the battle for popular opinion. The fight over COVID-19 echoes previous battles over preemption, such as gun regulation, transgender bathrooms, and immigration enforcement.

Donald Trump thrust minority rule into the center of the Republican Party. He was elected president in 2016 with a minority of the popular vote, but has always purported to represent the true consensus of authentic Americans. (Silent majorities are, it turns out, just minorities.) When he was defeated in 2020 by an even larger popular-vote margin as well as in the Electoral College, his reactionsupported by many members of his partywas to attempt to have votes thrown out, and to allow the minority to override popular will.

Some Republicans bucked Trump on his blatant attempt at election subversion, but the party as a whole remains firmly countermajoritarian. Representative Liz Cheney and Senator Mitch McConnell, for example, were both critical of the January 6 attempted coup, but have eagerly defended Republican-led efforts to introduce antidemocratic state election laws that would facilitate minority rule and enable future election subversion. McConnell has also wielded the filibuster prolifically, a minority-rule tactic par excellence, even blocking a bipartisan commission to investigate January 6.

David A. Graham: Democracy defeated, 35-54

Many observers have interpreted support for Trump, even among those unlikely to concretely benefit from his policy positions, as a gesture of resentment: They are angry at someone (elites, liberals, the government, the establishment) for telling them how they ought to live. Trump might not materially improve their position, but hes willing to stick it to those groupsand if that requires antidemocratic means, so be it. The current countermajoritarian resistance to masks and vaccine mandates emanates from the same feeling. Many conservatives are tired of being told how to live by the majority, and they want to live exactly as they please, even if that means they may dieand even if that means making other people sick along the way.

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The Noisy Minority - The Atlantic

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The American-nurtured Afghan military of the last 20 years that had suffered thousands of prior casualties evaporated in a few hours in the encirclement of Kabul.

Enlistees apparently calculated that their own meager chances with the premodern Taliban were still better than fighting as a dependency of the postmodern United States despite its powerful diversity training programs.

Forces more powerful than the Taliban, in places far more strategic, will now leverage an ideologically driven but predictably incompetent administration, a woke Pentagon and politically weaponized intelligence communities.

Why not, when President Joe Biden trashes both American frackers and the Saudis only to beg the Kingdom to rush to export more of its hated oil before the U.S. midterms?

BIDEN SAYS 'NO ONE'S BEING KILLED' IN AFGHANISTAN, CAN'T 'RECALL' ADVISERS TELLING HIM TO DELAY WITHDRAWAL

Why not, when Biden asks Russias Vladimir Putin to request that Russian-related hackers be a little less rowdy in their selection of U.S. targets?

And why not, when our own military jousts with the windmills of "white supremacy" as Afghans fall from U.S. military jets in fatal desperation to reach such a supposedly racist nation?

Biden keeps repeating that he was bound by former President Donald Trumps planned withdrawal.

Really?

A mercurial Trump repeatedly demonstrated that he was willing to use air power to protect U.S. personnel and to bomb an Islamic would-be caliphate. The Taliban knew that and so struck when Trump was gone.

Biden claims he was bound by Trumps decision to withdraw and thus cannot be blamed for his reckless operation of a predetermined departure. But all Biden has done since entering office is destroy Trump pacts, overturning past agreements on energy leases, protocols with Latin America and Mexico on border security, and pipeline contracts.

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL: BIDEN OWNS AFGHANISTAN MESS HE WASTED TIME, IGNORED ADVICE AND NOW BLAMES OTHERS

No sooner did Biden claim he was straitjacketed by Trump than he reversed course to defend not just his own withdrawal but the disastrous manner of it. Biden claims that he has no free will while insisting he would have done nothing differently if he did.

In a sane world, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense would resign. We have heard for too long their careerist boasts about assigning climate change as their chief challenge. For too long they have virtue-signaled their critical race theory credentials to Congress. For too long they have bragged about rooting out alleged white supremacists from their ranks. For too long they have sparred with journalists while fighting Twitter wars and issuing cartoonish commercials attesting to their woke credentials.

In other words, they sermonized on anything and everything except their plans to prevent a humiliating military defeat of U.S. forces and their allies.

GORDON CHANG: CHINA-TALIBAN CONNECTION WE MUST HOLD BEIJING ACCOUNTABLE FOR AFGHAN MILITANTS' CRIMES

Our intelligence and investigatory agencies are just as morally suspect. The legacy of John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and Andrew McCabe has been the destruction of the reputations of the CIA, NSA and FBI.

Current and retired intelligence lackeys and careerists all wasted years promulgating Russian "collusion." They swore Hunter Bidens laptop was Russian "disinformation."

They surveilled and unmasked officials and hatched adolescent plots against an elected president. All that was more important to their careers than warning of the growing threats in Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the Afghan debacle, we must de-politicize and de-weaponize these warped agencies and incompetent institutions.

We could get a symbolic start by pulling security clearances from all retired operatives, officers and diplomats who go on television to offer partisan analysis.

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The retired and pensioned top brass should finally be held to account if they violate tenets of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. When four-star generals lecture the nation that an elected president is a Mussolini or Nazi-like but keep mum during the greatest military setback in a half-century, they should forfeit exemptions from existing military codes.

Retired officers who revolve in and out of corporate defense contractor boards and Pentagon billets should have a cooling-off period of five years before leveraging their inside knowledge of the Pentagon procurement labyrinth.

As for Biden, his team in defeat threatens the victorious Taliban with possible ostracism from global diplomacy as the price of their illiberality. We are to assume that in between executing women, the Taliban will fear losing the chance to visit the U.N. in New York.

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Biden has defied a Supreme Court ruling and assumed that it was a good thing to have broken the law. Under his watch, the fate of Americas border, equal enforcement of the laws, economy, energy, safety from crime, foreign policy and racial relations have imploded and in seven months no less.

If Biden were a Republican, the current Democratic House would have impeached him. It would have been right to have done so.

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Victor Davis Hanson: If Biden were a Republican, Dems in Congress would have impeached him. They should - Fox News

GILFORD, N.H. Republican Sen. Rick Scotts jam-packed one day trip to New Hampshire this weekend naturally sparked speculation about the former two-term Florida governors potential national ambitions.

But while pundits see Scott as a possible 2024 GOP presidential contender, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chairman's Saturday stops in the state that for a century held the first presidential primary were laser focused on the 2022 midterm elections rather than the next White House race.

"Im focused on the Senate," Scott said in an interview with Fox News.

FIVE BIG QUESTIONS AS THE GOP TRIES TO WIN BACK THE SENATE IN 2022

Republicans need a net gain of just one seat in next years midterms to regain the Senate majority they lost in the 2020 election cycle. Theyre playing plenty of defense the GOP is defending 20 of the 34 seats up for grabs, including five seats where Republican senators are retiring, with two of them in the key battlegrounds of North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

But Republicans see strong pickup opportunities to flip a blue Senate seat red in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire, if they can recruit popular Republican Gov. Chris Sununu to challenge Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, his predecessor as governor.

Scott and Sununu briefly chatted ahead of a Belknap County GOP event and fundraiser, where the governor introduced the senator, who gave the keynote address.

"I hope he runs for the Senate and Im going to do my best to get him there," Scott said. "I think hes going to do it."

Earlier Saturday Scott took part in a "Save Our Paychecks" event in Manchester organized by the conservative group Heritage Action. The senator also held private meetings during the afternoon with Republican leaders in the Granite State, which according to sources were mostly about the 2022 midterms rather than the next GOP presidential nomination race.

2022 EFFORTS BY THIS GOP SENATOR SET TABLE FOR POTENTIAL 2024 RUN

A trip by Scott in early April to Iowa the state whose caucuses kick off the presidential nominating calendar also sparked speculation. But Iowa could also have a potentially competitive Senate race next year if longtime GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley decides against running for reelection.

For years, potential White House hopefuls have traveled to the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, to help members of their party running in the midterm elections, in hopes of making friends in those key states that could pay dividends in the ensuing presidential nomination race.

Speculation over Scotts future national ambitions were first sparked early last year, when he ran ads in Iowa targeting then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in the weeks ahead of the 2020 caucuses.

Asked about a potential White House run, Scott told Fox News on Saturday that "Ill worry about 24 in 23 and 24" and emphasized that "I have no plans to run for president."

And spotlighting his busy travel schedule, the senator said "this week I was in five states, I think. Part of my job is to travel and talk to potential donors and candidates."

The other Scotts also coming to New Hampshire

There are two Republicans in the Senate named Scott.

And the other one Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is also seen by political pundits as a potential GOP 2024 White House hopeful.

Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate and a rising star in the GOP who was chosen earlier this year to give his partys response to President Joe Bidens first joint address to Congress, in April made a political stop in Iowa.

TIM SCOTT'S EYE-POPPING 2022 FUNDRAISING GRABS 2024 ATTENTION

Now, Scotts coming to New Hampshire, to headline a major state GOP fundraising event, on October 8 in Manchester.

The invitation for Scott to headline the New Hampshire GOP fundraiser is no surprise. State party chair Steve Stepanek told Fox News in May that "Im going to be watching Sen. Scott because I think great things are before him Wed love to have him up here."

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the Senate and a rising star in the GOP, on June 28, 2021 launched his 2022 re-election campaign. (@votetimscott/Twitter)

While the New Hampshire trip will insert Scott further into the 2024 discussion, he first faces reelection next year back home in South Carolina. Scott hauled in an eye popping $9.6 million in the April-June second quarter of fundraising this year, more than any other GOP senator, in another sign of his rising stature and popularity within his party.

Noem in South Carolina on Monday

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, an ally of former President Trump whos also viewed as a potential 2024 White House hopeful if Trump doesnt run again, heads to South Carolina on Monday.

Noem will speak at the "Faith and Freedom BBQ" in Anderson, South Carolina. The event is described as one of the largest annual gatherings in the state that votes third in the GOP presidential nominating calendar.

NOEM SAYS SHE'S COUNTING ON TRUMP RUNNING AGAIN IN 2024

Noem made the short trip to neighboring Iowa last month, to speak along with former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a summit hosted by the Family Leader, an influential social conservative group. And she spoke remotely earlier in the year to a crowd of influential conservative leaders and activists in New Hampshire.

New 2024 cattle call in Palmetto State

The South Carolina Republican Party is launching a new semi-annual conference in a move to attract more potential GOP presidential contenders.

The inaugural event, titled the "First in the South Republican Action Conference," is scheduled to be held in Myrtle Beach Oct. 29-31. Organizers say the confab is modeled after the Conservative Political Action Conference, known by its acronym CPAC, which is the largest annual gathering of activists and leaders on the right.

"South Carolina's first in the South position is not something we take lightly. It's important to us and important to our voters," South Carolina GOP chair Drew McKissick said in a statement. "We're looking forward to hosting this conference, getting folks excited and prepared for the upcoming election cycles, and reminding everyone you can't make it to the White House without stopping in South Carolina."

Pence holds donor retreat

The former vice president was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a week ago, to host a donor retreat for his recently formed nonprofit organization Advancing American Freedom.

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The two day gathering Pences first since the end of the Trump administration also included speakers such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Republican Governors Association chair Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona.

News of the invitation-only retreat was first reported by Politico and confirmed by Fox News.

More here:

Why Rick Scotts trip to New Hampshire was really more about 2022 than 2024 - Fox News

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Texas House Republicans finally got their long-sought quorum Thursday by the skin of their teeth.

There were 99 members registered as present Thursday evening, the exact number needed to end the 38-day Democratic quorum break over the GOPs priority elections bill. But it quickly became clear that some of the 99 members were not physically on the floor and instead marked present by their colleagues.

That means that the House could be operating with a tenuous quorum in the coming days, even if more Democrats start returning though none were giving any indication of that Friday.

While some Democrats conceded Thursday night that the quorum bust was over, others were less willing to admit defeat.

Based on numerous media reports, it seems evident there was not a true quorum present today ironic, given this entire session is premised around Republicans preaching about so-called voter integrity, Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement.

A group of 34 House Democrats released a statement Friday that called it a questionable quorum and warned that Republicans will lie about the number of legislators present at the Capitol to establish quorum, keep Texans in the dark, and bend the rules to get their way.

In a follow-up interview, Turner said the apparent lack of a real quorum was of grave concern. He declined to speculate on whether the Democratic presence on the floor would grow when the House nexts meets on Monday.

Publicly, House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beamont, is not showing any concern over the durability of the quorum going forward.

Speaker Phelan appreciates the growing number of members who are fighting for their districts in the State Capitol, Phelan spokesperson Enrique Marquez said in a one-sentence statement for this story.

It is certainly possible that enough Democrats return to the floor in the near future that any uncertainty over the threshold is put to rest. The next opportunity for any returning Democrat to show up is when the House meets next at 4 p.m. Monday.

The first Democrat quorum bust happened in the final hours of the regular session in May, when members filed out of the chamber to block the final passage of a GOP voting bill. They upped the ante in July when more than 50 members boarded a plane and fled to Washington, D.C., for the duration of the first special session and continued to refuse to show up at the Capitol for the first few weeks of the second special session, which began Aug. 7.

The GOP elections bill would, among other things, outlaw local voting options intended to expand voting access and bolster access for partisan poll watchers. Democrats and voting rights advocates say it restricts voting rights in the state. Republicans, who control both chambers of the Legislature, say the proposal is intended to secure election integrity.

One of the Democrats who is still in Washington, D.C., Rep. Ron Reynolds of Missouri City, said he anticipates that maybe half of the remaining Democrats will return to the floor in the coming days while he and others will remain in Washington to continue their fight for federal voting rights legislation.

Im very disappointed, Reynolds said. Were disappointed that we had some members of the Democratic caucus return without a consensus, without a unified front.

Reynolds said he intends to stay in the nations capital at least through next week, when the U.S. House is expected to vote on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. He is still deciding what to do after that.

If the quorum margin continues to remain on the razors edge, Republicans cannot afford to have any absences and would have to continue showing up unanimously or close to it. They proved they were willing to go to those lengths Thursday with the attendance of Rep. Steve Allison of San Antonio, who recently tested positive for COVID-19 and registered as present while isolating in an adjacent room.

Allison tested negative Thursday and plans to be on the floor Monday and the following days that lawmakers are in session, according to his chief of staff, Rocky Gage.

The House cant do business without a quorum, which is two-thirds of the chamber, a threshold that stands at 100 when all 150 seats are filled. With two vacant seats pending special elections to replace former state Reps. Jake Ellzey, R-Waxahachie, who is now in Congress, and Leo Pacheco, D-San Antonio, who resigned effective Thursday to work for San Antonio College, quorum threshold is currently 99.

The special election for Ellzeys seat is Aug. 31, though it could go to a runoff at a later date. And the special election for Pachecos seat has not been scheduled yet.

The 99 members who effectively make up the current quorum include all 82 Republicans; 14 Democrats who, before Thursday, had never broken quorum or had already chosen to return to the floor; and three new Democratic defectors who announced their arrival shortly before quorum was met Thursday evening: Houston Reps. Armando Walle, Ana Hernandez and Garnet Coleman.

Without a mass return of the remaining Democrats, reaching a quorum in the coming days could still be a dicey proposition.

That is, of course, if House leaders actually count how many members are physically present something they have no incentive to do as they seek to put the quorum break in the past. Any member present can request strict enforcement of a vote, which would force a more accurate attendance count, but that did not happen Thursday.

Who is asking for strict enforcement? one of the Democrats still breaking quorum, Rep. Michelle Beckley of Carrollton, tweeted shortly before the House met and quorum was established.

It is unclear what incentive the members who are showing up have to call for strict enforcement they are mostly Republicans who are eager to get back to work and move past the quorum break. The same could arguably be said of the Democrats who have been present.

Reynolds said he is optimistic that as the Democratic numbers on the floor continue to grow, there will be more potential for strict enforcement.

We were disappointed that didnt happen yesterday, Reynolds said. But hopefully, as we go forward as a group, some of the returning members will agree to do that. I think theres already been a consensus of the members that are returning that are willing to do that.

Disclosure: San Antonio College has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribunes journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Texas House finally makes quorum, but Democrats say Republicans cheated to get there - The Texas Tribune