Some days I wonder if they’re re-running news from some previous day. You know: the death numbers have increased; health workers don’t have what they need; Trump said something stupid or offensive at the daily briefing; some idiot minister is defying the no-large-gathering order, as if the whole pandemic were a satanic plot to shut down his particular church; more people lost their jobs; and so on.
And now I’m part of it, because the weekly summary will (once again) have all that stuff in it.
With the same outrageous stuff happening week after week, it can be hard to notice when something happens that is outrageous even by our newly elevated standards of outrage. But Tuesday’s Wisconsin state elections (and incidentally, the presidential primary) was such an event. The Republican legislature (which is only Republican because of gerrymandering) used the threat of the virus as a voter-suppression technique. And then the supreme courts of both Wisconsin and the United States backed them up. So Wisconsinites were out there in face masks and garbage bags, standing as far apart as the long lines (to get into drastically fewer polling places) allowed.
Usually, the “I Voted” sticker is a mark of civic responsibility. Tuesday it was a badge of courage.
The vote still hasn’t been announced (more on that later), so we don’t know yet whether this bit of election tampering achieved the results the Republicans wanted: holding a seat on the very state supreme court that said all this was OK.
Anyway, the featured post will go into the blow-by-blow of all that. I’m aiming to get that out by 10 EDT, but I’m also moving unusually slowly this morning. The weekly summary will have this week’s versions of the news re-runs listed above, as well as a recap on the Democratic nomination race, which seems to be over now that Bernie Sanders has shut down his campaign. Speculation on Biden’s VP choice is rising. Trump’s taxes are going to the Supreme Court. And I’ll close with a John Prine song. I’ll try to get that out by noon.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
I know I’m in trouble when I see a story about tornadoes in the South and I say, TG, something that’s NOT a COVID story. then I think about the consequences those folks are going through and feel remorse.
When that storm system made it up here to New England, lots of people lost electric power. (Not us, fortunately.) But I remember thinking: “That’s all we need.” We’re trying to minimize trips to the grocery store, so if our fridge goes out it’ll be a real problem.
On the southern coasts, this year’s hurricane season is going to be insane, I fear. The usual solution of putting cots in a high school gym could be a disaster.