Annus Horribilis

Poison Pill:  Our annus horribilis is almost over but the usual antics go on.  The good news for those getting a $600 “stimulus” payment, according to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, electronic payments starting going out last night, the bad news is that Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has figured out how to minimize the likelihood that an additional $1400 will follow.  Yesterday, as expected, Mitch refused to move forward with an immediate vote on the straightforward legislation that Speaker Pelosi passed with an assist from some House Republicans that provides for increasing the stimulus payment to $2000, instead saying he would bring up a discussion of that personally offensive subject only after his priority, the vote to override Trump’s veto of the Defense Act, is completed.  Mitch doesn’t want to increase the payment, he’s still not happy about the $600, but he does want to boost his two struggling Georgia Senators’ runoff chances so his intent is to bring the payment increase up for some kind of discussion, and maybe even a vote, but after the Defense Act vote and only after he attaches a poison pill to the legislation passed by the House.  Mitch’s “poison” is expected to include those other two items on Trump’s wish list:  the revocation of the “Section 230” provisions that shield tech companies from being held liable for what users post on their platforms and a provision that addresses all that faux election fraud that Trump blames for the loss he doesn’t recognize. One problem with that approach is though many from both sides of the aisle want to do something about the Section 230 protections, it’s a complex subject that requires extensive discussion and negotiation, ironically just deleting the protection would likely result in the banning of most of Trump’s mendacious posts.  Moreover, as Mitch knows, Democrats aren’t going to agree to any legislation that implies that the 2020 election results were the result of fraud.  So, what’s really going on is a kabuki dance, an opportunity for Senators Loeffler and Perdue to say that they’re all in on increasing the stimulus payments to $2000, even though they previously opposed doing so, but that it’s the Democrats who are obstructing the increase. Vermont’s very independent Bernie, plans to counter Mitch’s poisonous plan by demanding a vote on the House’s single issue version of legislation before any Defense Act vote, filibustering through New Year’s eve, a strategy that will ruin the holiday plans of the rest of his Senate colleagues, including Senators Rubio, Hawley and Graham who’ve actually said that they’ll support upping the payment to $2000, and force Loeffler and Perdue off the campaign trail.  The dance goes on.

Viral Musings: And so does the virus.  The new, uber contagious British version of coronavirus has been detected in a COVID positive patient in Colorado, not a surprise since we’ve already been told several times by an assortment of virus experts, including guru Fauci, that it was fair to assume that it had caught an early flight from Heathrow and was already here, something that we would have detected earlier but hadn’t because of our woefully inadequate gene sequencing capabilities.  In addition, 41-year old Congressman-elect Luke Letlow, a mask shunning Republican from Louisiana, was one of the 1900 people who died yesterday from COVID.  Yesterday, not long after VP-Elect Kamala Harris and second dude Doug, got their Moderna shots, a really concerned and somber Joe Biden took to the podium to warn us again that next month will be even deadlier than December.  He also slammed the pace of Trump’s vaccine roll out, noting that producing vaccines is nice, but getting them in to arms is far better and that with only 2 million first doses done so far, we’re far short of that promised 20 million by year end figure. Warp Speed is looking more and more like the Long Island Expressway during pre-COVID rush hour.  Biden is still talking about getting 100 million vaccinated during his first 100 days in office.  To that end he announced the appointment of three new national coordinators: Kaiser Permanente executive Bechara Choucair as vaccine coordinator; NJ Human Services Commissioner Carole Johnson, as  testing coordinator; and former FEMA deputy administrator Tim Manning as supply coordinator.  Note none of these individuals are Biden family members or in-laws.  Trump responded to the criticism by tweeting that it was only his job to get the shots to the states, that coordinating anything more wasn’t the Federal government’s job, an echo of his earlier PPE excuse and a repeat of his statement about every virus related failure of his administration.  Besides, it turns out that Trump has far more pressing things on his mind.  He Kraken legal team has initiated a few more lawsuits, part of his continuing efforts to upend the results of the election, the Manhattan DA’s office has retained forensic accounting specialists to help in their criminal investigation of his business operations and, most tragically, he hates Melania’s redecoration of his Mar a Lago digs.  Another Trump contractor or two who isn’t going to get paid? Little sympathy there, they should have known better than to take on that assignment.

339,839 Dead

Twenty-one Days