Jacketless Jim
Don’t mess with Fauci.
Shirtsleeves Jordan’s “point” is that people are told not to go to church so why won’t Fauci tell people not to go to protests?
Which is stupid because as Fauci keeps pointing out, it’s not his job to make laws, it’s his job to give medical advice.
Jim Jordan is a representative because he gets to run in a rather peculiar district.
That’s not a normal, non-gerrymandered shape for a Congressional district.
Gerrymandering is often bad, but often it’s a matter of spin. So this guy’s district avoids urban areas. Well, does it not make sense to group rural areas into one district and urban ones into another? You’re grouping people with similar interests together.
There was a district that was often presented as the poster child of bad gerrymandering because it snaked all over. It looked bad, but then people pointed out it was drawn that way for a benign reason: The area was characterized by relatively wealthy people that lived away from the main road and poorer people that lived next to the road. Rather than chop up the poor people into many districts, they grouped them all together so they could have some representation. Then, years later, it was spun as this wicked gerrymandered district that ridiculously snaked all over…
Back to the main topic, it is ridiculous that some people are totally cool with mass protests but feel going to church or to a rally is dangerous. Either they’re all OK or they’re all irresponsible. Of course we don’t get to hear Fauci’s answer here because it’s conveniently cut off just as it gets interesting. I suppose the internet was simply running out of storage space and that’s all they could keep. Oh well.
First up, I’m uneasy about the protests in terms of the spread of disease as well.
There is an important distinction to be made nonetheless: outside with masks on is a lot different than inside, masks off, and singing. If people want to gather outside for church with masks on it really isn’t a huge problem. Indoor worship and campaign rallies are pretty much as bad as it gets.
Skeletor, no matter what the first gerrymander may have been for, the biggest reason for gerrymandering now is to group people in such a way that they deny representation to a particular group of people, or deny them the ability to have more than one representative, even though they may be a more populous group. Usually the targeted groups are blacks or Democrats. It is why Republicans continue to win elections even in areas where Democrats actually get more votes, because of the way they broke up the districts.
So, yeah, there is something wrong with it. I think we should all do it like they do in Iowa – a non-partisan commission, making sure both parties have good representation.
The entire exchange is available, and I heard it. Fauci continues to press that he is a health professional, not a politician, and that he is advising that crowds, particularly where people don’t wear masks, are likely to increase virus transmission. He refused to be baited. Good for him.
After time was called for Jordan, the chair commented that they should consider if a large crowd of unmasked individuals indoors at a political fundraiser pose a risk. Zing!
The point as I see it: Jordan kept asking about protests; Fauci replied about crowds. Fauci recognizes that it’s not his call to opine about protests per se. If it’s possible to have protests without large groups of unmasked people, then the health risk is reduced. But that wasn’t part of Jordan’s question at all, just “protests”. Ditto church services or any other activity. It’s not the reason that people are gathering that is at all relevant, it’s the fact that people nearly always do these things in large groups, and that some such groups include people who refuse to wear masks. Bravo to Fauci for keeping to the correct topic.
Re gerrymandering: “Responsible Parties” (Rosenbluth/Shapiro) advocates large, diverse districts, rather than monolithic districts. In general they claim that politics works better when people have to deal with a variety of others with a variety of needs and viewpoints, and that this concept goes right down to the district level. “Stovepipe” thinking tends to foster extremism. (I think they make sense, although they disagree with some other things I’ve read that also make sense, so I don’t have a well-formed opinion on the topic.)
Ah, the real Skeletor is back again, alas.
Return of Cis Skeletor.