📣 MICHIGAN: A case study in how the #COVID19 partisan "hoax"/anti-science divide led to the COVID partisan vaccination divide: acasignups.net/21/05/03/michi…
And so, I've taking it closer to home; I'm tracking vaccination levels at the county level here in Michigan. Here's where things stand today (the 12 counties which voted for Biden actually have 55% of Michigan's population, while the 71 which voted for Trump only have 45%):
Statewide, the Blue counties have vaccinated 10% (3.3 points) more of their residents than the Red counties.
This may not sound *too* dramatic until you realize that the Red counties have *22% more senior citizens per capita*. If anything, they should be way AHEAD so far.
UPDATE: No offense to @JoeKanter, but if he'd been following me for the past year this wouldn't have caught him off guard, which is kind of my point. #JustSaying
Thread. ~20 years ago, one of the minor controversies surrounding then-President George W. Bush was after being warned that something he wanted to do was unconstitutional, he allegedly angrily replied that the Constitution is "just a damned piece of paper!" 1/
I don't know whether this actually happened or not, but regardless of how appalling it my is, on the most basic level that's actually *correct*: The Constitution *in and of itself* *is* "just a damned peice of paper." It's not a talisman. It doesn't have any magical powers. 2/
The power of The Constitution is in the hands of whoever the American People happen to be at any particular point in time.
If those in charge *and* enough of those who aren't either actively want to ignore the Constitution or just don't care enough to defend it, guess what? 3/
🧵 I just had a lengthy conversation with someone who wanted some insight as to how I've been so successful with my Democratic fundraising project over the past few cycles.
(obviously it wasn't called that in 2020 or 2022) 1/Blue24.org
For those unaware, I've raised nearly $8 MILLION *directly* for hundreds of Democratic candidates since 2019. And I've done it *without* a mailing list or texting anyone. I've done it without a PAC or a staff.
It's all been done purely online via social media. 2/
The reason I started "formally" raising money for Democrats online (as opposed to just occasionally retweeting some candidates ActBlue link now & then) is because I kept seeing Dems griping that they didn't trust how the DCCC/DSCC was allocating funds, etc. 3/
I said it's our only *chance* of doing so. It would also require, within the next 4 years, either:
1. Both Alito & Thomas retire (hah) or pass away.
Or...
2. Congress passes legislation to either expand or otherwise modify SCOTUS.
Even THEN, the damage done by the SCOTUS majority (half of which appointed by Trump) *until* either of those things happens would still take YEARS or DECADES to repair.
And some of it can never be repaired.
...all because some of you refused to vote for Hillary in 2016.
As someone pushing HARD for folks to donate to Democrats up & down the ballot, I’d like to note something about the AIPAC money brouhaha re NY-16.
Yes, money CAN make a significant difference in a race, but only up to a point. After that there’s diminishing returns. 1/
My guess is the first few million dollars AIPAC spent on the NY-16 race probably helped Latimer by a point or two. After that, however, it probably didn’t make much difference at all & may have even hurt him a bit due to residents getting sick of the constant ads/mailers etc. 2/
As a different example, in 2020, the poster child for throwing money down the drain was Amy McGrath for Senate in KY. She raised an insane $90 million & lost by 20 points. Even more insane is she probably would have lost by about the same margin if she’d spent 1/10th as much. 3/
I just returned from my 4th road trip from Detroit to DC & back over the past 2 years. Since it's the same route each time I have a pretty apples to apples comparison on EV public chargers over time. 1/
The good news is that it looks like Electrify America, which makes up most of the chargers along the route (I-275/280, I-80/90 (OH Turnpike), I-70/270 (PA Turnpike), seems to be in the process of upgrading their charging stations; the newer ones seem to be more reliable. 2/
The bad news is that they've raised their prices substantially, at least at the stations along this route--they were usually $0.35/kWh 2 years ago; now they're charging $0.56/kWh.
By comparison, residential electricity in Oakland Cty, MI is around $0.18/kWh. 3/