Monday Reading

 

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/op eds.

Perry Bacon, Jr., starts us off with why he's disappointed with Democratic governance thus far:

On Jan. 7, I did not expect the Democrats to get rid of the filibuster, pass new voting rights laws or pursue judicial reforms such as adding new justices to the Supreme Court; after all, the Democrats would have only very narrow majorities in the House and Senate. But I also did not think such steps would be absolutely essential. Now, I do. Republican radicalization needs to be met with a proportionate Democratic response.

And we just aren’t seeing that response. One reason, of course, is that the slim Democratic majority is big enough to address the world I foresaw on Jan. 7, with a less extreme GOP, but not with this even more extreme Republican Party. But I’m convinced the issue runs deeper. There are a lot of signs that Democrats don’t fully grasp the extent of the GOP’s radicalization or accept that it must be addressed aggressively.

Many in the party remain cautious, incrementalist and obsessed with bipartisanship. It’s one thing for West Virginia’s Sen. Joe Manchin III, in a state that Trump won by 39 percentage points in 2020, to defend the filibuster, but Sen. Christopher A. Coons in Delaware, where Biden won by 19 points, is also bristling at the idea of changing the rules.

Bacon concludes his piece with a call to arms for Democrats to fight the anti-democratic, increasingly Christofascist Republican Party -- a message that needs amplifying and repeating.

His WaPo colleague E.J. Dionne, Jr., reviews the Biden agenda landscape and comes to a similar conclusion:

At least with battles over spending and taxes there are many paths to compromise. What cannot be compromised is democracy itself.

Yes, the stakes are that high. The horror of what so many Republican-dominated state governments have done — most recently in Texas — to restrict access to the ballot and undercut the honest and nonpartisan counting of ballots presents Democrats with only two options: Act uncompromisingly at the national level to ensure democracy everywhere, or accept that many states in our union will, in important ways, cease to be democratic.

Killing a strong voting rights bill means accepting, to evoke Abraham Lincoln’s declaration on slavery, a nation half-democratic and half undemocratic.

The next 30-60 days will be make- or- break time.  We'll see if Democrats have democracy's back soon enough.

Floriduh boys:

Two Florida middle-schoolers are being held at a juvenile detention center after being accused of planning a mass school shooting inspired by Columbine.

The 14-year-old and 13-year-old boys, whom The Washington Post is not naming because they are minors, are eighth-graders at Harns Marsh Middle School in Lee County, about two hours away from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman killed 17 people in 2018. They were charged with conspiracy to commit a mass shooting and have been ordered to be held at a juvenile detention center for three weeks, reported WINK, a CBS affiliate in Fort Myers, Fla.

Police investigations suggest the boys had looked for guns on the black market, studied ways to build pipe bombs and researched the 1999 school shooting that occurred at Columbine High School in Colorado, County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said. [snip]

Police officials who executed search warrants of the boys’ homes found a gun and several knives, Marceno said.

Both boys “are well known to deputies, as we have responded to their homes for almost 80 times combined,” Marceno said.

The two underwent assessment at a mental health facility, then were transferred to the Lee County Jail.

If the police have responded to their homes that many times, they should've received professional help well before now.  Another broken system.

Tweeter Incunabula has a thread on ham and cheese (mmm, ham 'n' cheese sammiches) and European civilization that's worth a look.  Here's how it begins:

European civilization is built on ham and cheese, which allowed protein to be stored throughout the icy winters. Without this, urban societies in most of central Europe would simply not have been possible. This is also why we have hardback books. Here's why.

Another week, another fabulous link round-up from Infidel 753.  While you're there, take time to read his thoughtful essay from the past week on religious rigidity and cultural evolution.