Baby Talk from the Infantile Right

            Jim Jordan, cover your nose.             A full-grown individual should know the function of a mask in a pandemic.             There was the Ohio congressman, however, in full 3-year-old mode, his nasal instrument hanging out as he berated Anthony Fauci.             Jordan was reprising a tiresome Republican act: assailing…

Forward the GOP white brigade

            Half a league, half a league, half a league onward.             All in the valley of Death rode the 10 thousand.             “Forward the White Brigade!”             Apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson, but a certain full-of-self Republican in Texas has made the appropriation too easy.             Last week the…

Vote suppression: the GOP national pastime

            Wanted: a new location for the Major League All-Star Game. Qualifications: (1) must love baseball; (2) must show fidelity to self-government, meaning opposition to chicanery that makes it harder for poor people to vote.             Georgia, you’re out, says Commissioner Rob Manfred.             Hey, MLB, pick my state, Colorado. It has done great…

Build the wall — at Texas’ entry to New Mexico

            In his 2013 best-seller “Spillover” (subtitle: “Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic”), David Quammen used quotation marks to introduce “superspreader” to the reading masses.             Wholly unneeded keystrokes now — the meaning self-evident — I doubt a single Republican flinched to see Trump rallies denounced as superspreader events,…