Not So Gentle Bossa Nova

Noise and the Hurry: Last week shortly after the Washington Post ran an article describing how a bipartisan group of senators including West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, Utah’s Mitt Romney, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Maine’s Susan Collins, and Virginia’s Mark Warner came together over moonshine provided by Manchin, but not touched by Mormon teetotaler Romney, to craft the $900 billion virus relief legislation that was then combined with the $1.4 trillion omnibus spending act and passed by both houses of Congress, toddler Trump threw a temper tantrum. Of course he waited until after everyone celebrated the passage and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin who had served as his designated negotiator promised that the $600 checks included in the virus portion of the legislation would hit bank accounts within days.  During his fit, the petulant, bitter and grievance spewing Trump shocked all by saying that he wouldn’t sign the legislation, calling the meager $600 payment a disgrace and everything in the omnibus spending part, i.e., the funds to keep the country running irrelevant to coronavirus relief, largely because those things were as that was the point of combining both pieces of legislation. While there’s a chance, a teeny, tiny one that Trump really cares about upping the size of the virus relief payments to $2000, who believes that, after all he seemed equally aggrieved that Vogue had failed to put Melania on the cover of one of its issues during the whole four years of his term, another thing he tweeted about this weekend.  It’s more likely that Trump was just angry that others were getting credit for the legislative breakthrough, especially a group that included pro impeachment Romney, and that he wanted to prove his own relevance while injecting more chaos into the already turbulent environment in the run up to January 6, the Electoral College confirmation of his election loss, that Democratic process that he still hopes to upend with the help of some Congressional toadies and violence in the street.  After Trump rejected the legislation, he headed to Mar a Lago to golf, VP Pence headed to Vail to hit the slopes and Treasury Secretary Manchin flew off to his home in Mexico to pull the knives out of his back.  While they were frolicking in the sun and snow, the unemployment insurance program that was serving as a lifeline to the jobless expired and the shutdown of the entire government and the end of eviction protections loomed. 

Forget all Your Troubles:  Facing increasing pressure from Mitch McConnell whose concern that Trump’s antics would lose him the leadership of the Senate had to be weighing heavily on his shell, last night Trump relented and signed the virus/omnibus legislation. He did so while issuing a statement calling for Congress to vote on increasing the virus relief payments to $2000 and to excise wasteful stuff from the legislation; he claims that he’s going to send them his redlined copy, as if anyone believes he’s actually taken the time to read and edit all 5,000 plus pages.  He also called on the Senate to initiate an investigation into all that imaginary voter fraud and to begin the process of eliminating the social technology companies’ Section 230 protections, things he asserts Mitch McConnell promised he would do during the six remaining days that Congress is in session, as if.  Among other things, those Section 230 protections allow companies like Twitter to mark Trump’s false assertions about election fraud as false, thus he hates them.  Today, Speaker Pelosi plans to vote on increasing the $600 payments to $2000, something her caucus is happy to do. Senate Leader McConnell commended Trump’s decision to sign the legislation but his statement notably did not reference the $2000 payment which his crowd abhors and is unlikely to pass, voter fraud or any effort to eliminate any of that “wasteful” stuff through the passage of another bill.  The focus now turns to the easily passed Defense bill, which Trump, angry over the renaming of the Confederate bases and furious about it not including the elimination of those Section 230 provisions, actually did veto.  The House is going to try to override his veto, assuming they’re successful the Senate will try to do the same. Republicans now face a dilemma, do they stand by the military and the soldiers they claim to love so much and vote to override Trump’s veto or do they side with the irrational mango maniac?

Forget All Your Cares:  First the good news, or at least the potentially good news.  The UK is likely to approve Astra Zeneca’s coronavirus vaccination later this week. Owing to some screw up in dosages given to trial participants, the US is unlikely to immediately follow suit but assuming more data is presented and things go well across the pond, we will probably get it soon.  Unfortunately, the virus remains out of control, the US death count is now up to 333,140, California is out of ICU beds, and following the example set by leaders like Trump, Pence and Mnuchin, people are still traveling, hanging with their friends and family and spreading the virus. The vaccine rollout isn’t ramping up as quickly as hoped, no surprise there but still depressing unless of course you are one of the few who managed to get vaccinated by the medical group in Brooklyn who, at least until they were caught, got hold of some shots to give their clientele at the expense of the rest of us.  

Music in the City:  Setting his van to play Petula Clark’s 1965 hit Downtown, lone suicide bomber, 63 year old Anthony Quinn Warner blew up his van, some of the streets of downtown Nashville and damaged an ATT facility on Christmas morning.  His motive remains unclear, it might have had something to do with his belief in a conspiracy theory linking 5G cell phone technology to the coronavirus epidemic and brain destruction. In case you’re wondering, those things aren’t linked unless you’re part of the tinfoil hat wearing and/or QAnon sets.  Though the explosion was huge, thanks to the quick action of the mostly junior policemen and women stuck on Christmas duty, Warner was the only one killed by his deadly deed.  Of course since he wasn’t a Black Lives Matter demonstrator or an Antifa guy, aside from a statement from the White House communications office that he’d been briefed, Trump pretty much ignored the situation because who interrupts a golf game for something so trivial?

Twenty-three very long days.