Coughlin’s sister lived alone after two bad marriages and as an aspiring painter she had refused to have children. She was a pretty good painter but not good enough, Coughlin said, adding that this put her in the highest category of the “almost” and made her a clear example of the “wretched” and “mysterious” lack of democracy in the arts. “Many are called but few are chosen,” he concluded pouring himself an amber glass of malt scotch at two A.M.
—“True North” Jim Harrison
1.
Are you on Medicaid? The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that the pandemic continuous enrollment provision ends March 31…today. States that accept the enhanced federal funding can resume disenrollments beginning in April but must meet certain reporting and other requirements during the unwinding process. KFF estimates that between 5 million and 14 million people will lose Medicaid coverage once the continuous enrollment provision end.
In case this slipped by you, here’s state by state Medicaid enrollment links for more information.
2.
And, of course, the answer is MORE GUNS in regards to mass shootings. That is what Republican lawmakers are pushing across the country right this minute. Bill Lee, Republican Governor of Tennessee where the latest egregious killing spree took place this week, insisted that tighter firearms laws would never deter wrongdoers. “We can’t control what they do.”
In recent years, Republicans in the Tennessee State Legislature — a 20-minute drive from the site of this week’s mass shooting — have passed a series of measures that have weakened regulations, eliminating some permit requirements and allowing most residents to carry loaded guns in public, open or concealed, without a permit, training or special background checks. The decisions came even after a representative of the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association rose at a legislative hearing to oppose the permitting measure, saying it would make knowing whether a person was unlawfully carrying a weapon more difficult for law enforcement.
Republicans across the country, however, are offering very strong Thoughts and Prayers for the dead while focusing on “parents’ rights” to remove books, films, anything to do with black history, or not approved by elderly white men. But they are not silent about guns. Take America’s favorite firearms enthusiast, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who promised to wear a Glock to Congress. In a speech on the House floor recently, she said: “A recent report states that Americans own 46% of the world’s guns. I think we need to get our numbers up.”
Republican lawmakers now publicly share holiday photos of their family members, including children, holding guns instead of presents. Some MAGA Republicans in Congress have begun replacing their American flag pins with assault-style rifle pins. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a potential vice presidential candidate in 2024, is referring to violent insurrectionists as political prisoners. No one should be surprised that nearly a third of Republican voters polled support using violence to “save” and defend their country.
It’s encouraging that thousands of people have gathered at the state capital in Tennessee to demand changes to the gun laws. Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton echoed Governor Bill Lee in saying “Even if we had the most restrictive ban on weapons, when you have someone who is willing to die and kill other people you cannot stop them. Unless you can determine very quickly what they are going to do.”
If you’re not happy with the way Republicans think about this and many other issues, JUST. VOTE. BLUE.
3.
A little over a year ago I posted about the right-wing political activism of Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She has actively pursued efforts to overturn the presidential election, and sent emails urging swing-state lawmakers to set aside Joe Biden’s popular-vote victory in awarding electoral votes.
Now she’s back in the news for collecting nearly $600,000 in anonymous donations to wage a cultural battle against the left over the past three years, according to the Washington Post. Under Thomas’s direction, fundraising dollars were funneled through Capital Research Center (CRC), a right-wing think tank aligned with Crowdsourcers’s work. Around $400,000 of the $596,000 that CRC received on behalf of Crowdsourcers also went through a different group, Donors Trust, which has a history of collecting money from wealthy conservative donors seeking to avoid disclosing their identities.
Though these aforementioned ethics concerns have led her to step away from the advocacy group, she still maintains that “Conservatives and Republicans are tired of being the oppressed minority, and that the left was pushing cultural Marxism and eroding the pillars of our country.”
I’m tired, too, but mostly of the people who use Jesus and white men in suits to pass laws that dictate how the rest of us should live our lives. JUST. VOTE. BLUE.
4.
Once again Heather Cox Richardson put the whole debt ceiling debacle in perspective in Tuesday’s post. She said that House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) sent a letter to President Joe Biden accusing him of being “missing in action” on efforts to address the approaching debt ceiling crisis. McCarthy accused Biden of “putting an already fragile economy in jeopardy” and tried to portray himself as the reasonable party, trying to negotiate “what is best for the American people.”
McCarthy lives in Bizarro (and compromised) World because he has it turned around. McCarthy seems to conveniently forget that the debt ceiling is not about future spending. It’s about meeting the obligations past Congresses have incurred. And a great deal of that debt was incurred during the Trump administration, in large part from the 2017 tax cuts that the Congressional Budget Office estimated would cost almost $2 trillion over 11 years.
Biden, in answer to McCarthy, said “My proposals enable us to lower costs for families and invest in our economic growth, all while reducing the deficit. Unfortunately, the Republicans' proposals would exacerbate the debt problem I inherited by adding over $3 trillion with more tax cuts skewed to the same constituencies who should be paying more, like multinational corporations and the richest taxpayers.” He urged McCarthy, once again, to produce a detailed budget plan rather than vague calls for savings, “so we can understand the full, combined impact on the deficit, the economy, and American families.”
JUST. VOTE. BLUE.
5.
Maybe 30 years ago…
6.
And hopefully the dominos are starting to tumble for the most sleaziest and abysmal person IN THE GALAXY. That’s 100 to 400 billion stars of people and ALIENS to contend with. “The Left thinks that if they bury me with enough witch hunts and intimidate my family and associates that I’ll eventually throw up my hands and give up on our America First movement.” WITCH HUNT! Contribute today.
And now…