The end of Liz Cheney, a morality tale.

 (Originally May 7) Liz Cheney is soon to be removed from her leadership position in the GOP hierarch in the House. Her unforgivable error was to vote for Trump's impeachment and be vocal about it. She was trying to hold Trump accountable for his part in the failed coup on Jan. 6. 

She survived one vote shortly after the impeachment by over 2-to-1. Now it looks like Kevin McCarthy has thrown her under the bus and will let others run her over repeatedly. 

Why the change? I don't know. Maybe it's jockeying in the deep GOP circles, as people have to swear loyalty to Trump (and his lies) or they get dumped. I can believe Trump-support is that strong in some places. However, in general I think Trump will get weaker and he'll continue to get weaker. He doesn't have much of podium, and his program of whining about the election will look more and more immature as time goes on. I think this will shrink the GOP because a lot of people in the US are smarter than that, and will want some results instead of just resentment whines 24/7. 

But with people who remain in the Republican party, Trump may be a post you latch on to. Rally around him.... in the absence of actual policy and issues. This should cost the GOP in the midterms, but that's not a certainly at all. It depends on what the Dems are doing. Are they have their own crazy moments, or is sanity holding sway?

It looks like Cheney will be replace by another token woman, Elise Stefanik from upstate New York. She's been a good GOP barbie, repeating all the requisite lies. I doubt she'll be able to lead in anything other than continuing to sell out and cash in. Liz Cheney cashed in on being a GOP woman in Congress, so why not someone else. It's not like Cheney got the position because she was well known for her scruples. 

Image: glitternight.com

Extras. Mitt Romney was booed at a convention in Utah. When he came to the podium to speak, there was lots of clapping and warm response, but the boos were in that background and didn't stop until a party leader admonished the crowd. Not good Mormon behavior folks. 

Update 6/30/22. Liz Cheney is getting some very thorough revenge. She's doing great in the hearings about Jan. 6. Very poised and on-point, without grandstanding. June 28 was particularly devastating with a top aide of Mark Meadows spilling a lot of stories not heard before. GOPers wanted to relegate Cheney to the ash heap, but she's not going there. 

Epidemic progression... past Easter

Hospitals are have now been slammed in several cities: Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, San Jose, Atlanta, and New Orleans. Nine states saw significant increases in deaths just today, which is a sign that the we are riding the death curve up to where it could get steeper due to lack of medical resources. This happened in Italy and Spain, and there's no reason to think it won't happen here. The nine states are: New York, New Jersey, California, Michigan, Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Colorado, and Connecticut.

First-person accounts. In previous posts I linked to accounts from Italy (one, two, three) and New Orleans. This time I have accounts from Washington (older account but good details) and New York City (one, two). Another account from New Orleans. Video from an pulmonary specialist in New York City with practical tips to avoid infection.

We know from all these accounts that about 10-20% of those infected with the virus need hospitalization, so the hospital can jammed up beyond capacity. The virus might have a death rate of 5-10% of those hospitalized in ideal situations, but the death rate goes up to 8% or more in overloaded hospitals. In Italy, many people just stayed home and died there.

The hospitals in northern Italy got slammed about March 8, and the country instituted a quarantine. Eighteen days later and the death toll is still at a peak. There may be some relief after three weeks, which is the average time between exposure and death.

That means for New York City there probably won't see any relief until April 13... if New Yorkers were as blase about contacts as NY mayor DiBlasio was. (DiBlasio didn't close schools until 3/23.) Probably enough New Yorkers started being careful about contact by 3/14 that there might be a noticeable decline in deaths by April 4. But New York has a huge population that is a large reservoir for infection, so the peak may last many more weeks. The example of Italy is that we don't know how long to expect the peak to last.

All these shutdowns are so annoying--to those who want a strong economy going into the elections this fall. It's terribly inconvenient and unfair to have a pandemic spoiling the economy (and election chances). So some, including Trump, are suggesting that we get back to normal as soon as possible, pandemic be damned! Young people should go back to work and elders stay home (one suggestion). The recovered should go back to work. The exposed should go back to work if they aren't having symptoms. Maybe even the older should go to work and the young stay home.

All these ideas ignore some basic facts that can't be fudged. More exposures means more people getting infected, and passing it on. Most jobs are skilled, and absences mean that the workplace will be disrupted. The idea that people can continue working ignores that many will get sick, so soon the workplaces would be closing anyway due to lack of workers and patrons. It's hard to say how soon this would happen. The infection is more concentrated in cities at this point, but it's also inexorably spreading. So will medium sized cities in Ohio have too many sick in 4 weeks or in 8 weeks? We don't know. It's hard to explain why so many GOPers don't understand this--maybe happy-thinking is the mantra and endemic. One contrarian is Liz Cheney, but she doesn't have much of a voice.

So the upshot is that this pandemic, and the way this virus spreads, was always going to be highly disruptive unless it was contained extremely quickly. In the US, we missed that window, so we are taking the huge economic lumps for that. There is no avoiding it.

Image: omfif.org