This is what Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the MAGAt leaders in the House of Representatives has to say about the Nashville school mass murder today. She wants to see more guns in schools. Really, she actually said it. Can you have any doubt that the Republican Party values guns more than children? Can you actually believe that the main cause of death for children in the United States is being murdered by a gun? Why isn't something happening to end this horror? The answer is not complicated. The corporations that make the guns rent corrupt Republican members of Congress like Greene to make sure no laws that will diminish their profits are passed, and about 3% of the population, the MAGAt supporters, feel weak and vulnerable and are obsessed with guns, and support those loathsome politicians.
In the immediate aftermath of a school shooting in Nashville that left at least seven people dead including three children, Marjorie Taylor Greene blamed Joe Biden, Democrats, and gun control advocates.
Greene blamed gun free school zone laws that passed in the 1990s when Biden served in the Senate, in particular, for Monday’s shooting.
“Joe Biden’s gun free school zones have endangered children at schools leaving them as innocent targets of sick horrible disturbed people ever since he worked as a Senator to pass this foolish law,” Greene tweeted.
Greene blamed gun control advocates, who she described as “gun grabbers.”
“Gun grabbers like Joe Biden and Democrats should give up their Secret Service protection and put themselves on the same level as our unprotected innocent precious children at school.
We are the greatest. We are the most advanced. We are the world leaders. You hear this kind of crap repeated endlessly in America's corporate media. And that is exactly what it is, crap. Try this, instead, "American children are less likely to live to age 5 than children in other high-income countries." A few days ago I published a report on the decline of life expectancy in the United States. Now, here is a more detailed account of this miserable trend. Do you hear any MAGAts in Congress talking about this? You do not. What you hear from them is, let's cut child care food support, let's gut Medicare. Let's gut Social Security. If you want to hear about fostering wellbeing, listen to Democrats such as Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. Let's talk about universal birthright single-payer healthcare based on fostering wellbeing.
Just before Christmas, federal health officials confirmed life expectancy in America had dropped for a nearly unprecedented second year in a row – down to 76 years. While countries all over the world saw life expectancy rebound during the second year of the pandemic after the arrival of vaccines, the U.S. did not.
Then, last week, more bad news: Maternal mortality in the U.S. reached a high in 2021. Also, a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association found rising mortality rates among U.S. children and adolescents.
“This is the first time in my career that I’ve ever seen [an increase in pediatric mortality] – it’s always been declining in the United States for as long as I can remember,” says the JAMA paper’s lead author Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. “Now, it’s increasing at a magnitude that has not occurred at least for half a century.”
Across the lifespan, and across every demographic group, Americans die at younger ages than their counterparts in other wealthy nations.
One of the things that has been made very clear by the Covid-19 Pandemic is that the MAGAt Republican Party is not working to create a society based on facts, and neither understands nor cares about science. For the MAGAts, based on what they themselves say, it's all about ideology and putting profit above wellbeing. This is part of why the life expectancy of Americans is dropping while the other developed democracies are increasing their citizen's life expectancy.
MAGAt Republican Senator Rand Paul (left) and CEO of Moderna, Stephane Bancel Credit: C-SPAN / screen grab
Rand Paul was shocked this week to learn from the CEO of Moderna that more people get inflammation of the heart from catching Covid than from the mRNA Covid vaccines.
Republicans in Missouri just passed legislation outlawing an employer’s ability to fire workers who refuse to take vaccines.
Republicans in a dozen state legislatures (so far) have put forward legislation preventing medical licensing boards from punishing doctors or nurses who prescribe hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin. It’s the law now in North Dakota and Tennessee.
In Florida, Ron DeSantis hired a medical school graduate who needed certification and had aligned himself with the anti-vax group America’s Frontline Doctors, standing side-by-side with such notables as Dr. Stella Immanuel, who says vaginal/endometrial bleeding is caused by women having sex with demons in their dreams.
DeSantis got Joseph Ladapo his certification in 2 days (a process normally requiring up to six months) and then made him Florida’s Surgeon […]
Here is some lovely good news. I have been to both Avi Kwa Ame (Spirit Mountain) in Nevada and Castner Range in Texas and am very happy to see Biden make them national monuments. In both cases, it respects the views of local indigenous people, and it preserves for everyone beautiful scenic areas that lighten your soul when you visit them. The MAGAts opposed these designations of course, just as Donald Trump tried to privatize such spaces for profit.
Spirit Mountain in Nevada, now a national monument Credit: Outside Magazine
President Biden on Tuesday designated two new national monuments in Nevada and Texas.
Biden designated Nevada’s Avi Kwa Ame, also known as Spirit Mountain, and Texas’s Castner Range as monuments, protecting a total of nearly 514,000 acres of public lands from development.
Biden announced the proclamations during a conservation summit held at the Interior Department. He did not sign the proclamations on stage, but they were sent out by the White House ahead of his speech. Biden also said he’s issuing a memo to consider designating additional protections around a marine monument that’s southwest of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.
“When we conserve our country’s natural gifts, we’re not just protecting the livelihoods of people who depend on them … we’re protecting the heart and the soul of our national pride,” Biden said, adding that it’s also “telling our story that will be told for generations upon generations to come.”
Avi Kwa Ame is part of the creation story of many tribes and is sacred to indigenous groups including the […]
DENNIS AFTERGUT, FormerFederal Prosecutor, Currently of Ccounsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy - Salon
Stephan:
Here is some more good news. How do we save democracy in America? Michigan shows the way, as well as showing why how people vote affects their own wellbeing. What did they do? They voted Democrats into power. Compare this with what is happening in the Red states.
Democrat Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer celebrate during an election night watch party at MotorCity Casino Hotel on November 09, 2022 in Detroit, Michigan. Credit: Brandon Bell / Getty
In the market for a bit of hope on how to return to sensible politics and public policy? Look no further than Michael Moore’s home state of Michigan.
On March 22, the state legislature passed an eight-bill gun safety package. A repeal of the state’s 1931 ban on abortion has also been adopted. On March 19, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law bills protecting the rights of LGBTQ citizens.
Meanwhile, the legislature is rushing to expand election protections by instituting automatic voter registration, reinstating the voting rights of ex-felons, criminalizing the harassment of election workers and broadening access to early voting.
On March 22, the Michigan legislature also voted to repeal the state’s 2012 “right to work” law in order to strengthen unions’ ability to protect workers’ collective bargaining leverage. Once signed by Whitmer, the bill would signal a historic turnaround, making […]
