Dogs in the House

Major and Champ: That barking you hear in the background of President Biden’s White House press moments, it’s not your imagination, it’s Major and Champ, Biden’s two German shepherds. The pups have finally arrived from Delaware.  Also barking, from afar is the last resident of the White House. He had one of his slimmed down coterie of aides “reassure” Republican Senators that he’s still a Republican and that, contrary to rumors, has no plans to start his own party.  That’s probably true, mostly because starting a new party is hard work, and as we know working hard is not his forte, but the real reason he had that message delivered was to make it clear to them that he’s still the head of their party and that they’d better vote against his conviction or else.  While it still remains highly unlikely that seventeen Republican Senators will vote against him, he may have lost one of them yesterday.  Ohio’s Rob Portman who had previously said he was running for reelection in 2022, announced that he’s changed his mind due to “partisan gridlock.” He joins North Carolina’s Richard Burr and Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey, two other Republicans who previously announced their planned Senate retirements.  For a brief moment in time Democrats thought that they stood a chance of taking Ohio out of Trump’s column in November.  They didn’t, Trump took the state by eight points.  However, Ohio’s other Senator, Sherrod Brown is a Democrat who won his 2018 reelection bid by seven points so in addition to making it easier for Portman to vote his conscience in the upcoming impeachment trial, his departure makes the Ohio seat a possible pick up for Democrats, a big reach but not an impossibility if they find a sufficiently populist, centrist candidate in Brown’s mold.  A number of names are already being floated, including Tim Ryan, the Congressman who briefly ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.  He’s already announced that he’s looking into running. Of course, a number of Republicans are now looking at the seat as well, including the truly horrifying Jim “Gym” Jordan.  Though it’s not clear that Jordan, who holds a very gerrymandered Congressional seat, has what it takes to win statewide, we’ve been shocked before. As to Pennsylvania, the Democrats already hold one of its Senate seats and populist Lt. Governor John Fetterman, the guy who wears shorts all winter, has already indicated an interest in running for the soon to be open seat.  While we’re focused on the Senate, though the 2022 Senate map favors Democrats a few of the more vulnerable newbies will be on the ballot again because their 2020 were special elections. That means that Arizona’s Mark Kelly who is finishing out John McCain’s term and Georgia’s Raphael Warnock who is finishing out Johnny Isakson’s term will both be up again, which explains why you may already be receiving campaign solicitation emails from both of them.  And of course, Trump being who he is, ugh just typing his name hurts, he’s also going after Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney as well as the other nine House Republicans who voted for his impeachment and Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp for refusing to overturn his Georgia loss.  To that end, he’s got Florida Congressman/Trump fanboy Matt Gaetz heading to Wyoming to stir up trouble for Cheney who wants it known that in Wyoming real men don’t wear make-up, a snide reference to Gaetz’s over the top primping, and he’s encouraging former Georgia Congressman/failed Senatorial candidate Doug Collins to primary Kemp who’s up for reelection in 2022, likely against the Democrat’s favorite dragon slayer Stacey Abrams. 

Impeach, Impeach:  The House impeachment managers ceremoniously marched their Article of Impeachment over to the Senate last night.  The February 9^th impeachment hearing will be presided over by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, the Senate’s President Pro Tempore. Leahy replaces Chief Justice John Roberts who presided over Trump’s last impeachment trial because the mango maniac/insurrectionist is no longer in office and because Roberts, who didn’t enjoy his last impeachment experience, has no interest in a repeat performance.  Though his report won’t be out in time for the trial, the DOJ Inspector General has announced that he has opened an investigation into reports that Trump was working with the head of the civil division to overturn the election results.  In other Senate news, Majority Leader Schumer and Republican leader McConnell finally agreed on the terms of their power sharing agreement.  McConnell gave up on his demand that Schumer commit to keeping the legislative filibuster intact. The turtle saved face by noting that the filibuster is unlikely to go away given Democratic Senators Sinema and Manchin’s statements that they are for keeping it. The agreement paves the way for Democratic Senators to take over the chairmanship of all of the Senate committees.  Even before the agreement was reached, the Senate confirmed Janet Yellin as Treasury Secretary with all but fifteen Republican Senators voting her in.  The naysayers included Senators Barrasso, Blackburn, Cotton, Cramer, Crus, Hawley, Hoeven, Lee, Paul, Risch, Scott, Shelby, Sullivan and Tuberville.  No surprise about fist bump Hawley, who has now voted against every one of Biden’s nominees, a sure sign that he, like Cruz, Lee, Cotton, and Paul all harbor presidential aspirations.  As to Alabama’s Tuberville, no one, least of all him, knows why he votes as he does.  

Viral Musings:  Though the data is preliminary news out of Israel is encouraging, early results show a significant drop in infection after just one shot of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine and better than expected results after both doses.  As to those scary mutated virus variants, Moderna reports that its vaccine works against them though less well, but still adequately, against the South African mutation.  The company is already working on a booster shot in the event one becomes necessary.  Pfizer had previously said that its vaccine works against the UK mutation, they haven’t said much, if anything, about the South African strain but it’s likely that its vaccine, given its similarities to Moderna’s will respond about the same.  We should hear more soon.  As previously noted data on J & J’s one shot vaccine is expected soon, expectations remain that it will be approved for emergency use in the US and rolled out shortly after it gets that hoped for approval, which could be one of the reasons that President Biden revised his too conservative daily “shots in arms” number up to 1.5 million yesterday. As to other vaccines, last night AstraZeneca denied reports that its vaccine which has already been approved for emergency use in the UK had low efficacy in the elderly asserting that data shows it does provoke a strong immune response.  Lastly, Merck is now out of the COVID vaccine game altogether, the company shut down the development of its two COVID vaccines citing “lackluster” performance data opting instead to focus on what they are calling promising COVID therapeutic treatments.  All this vaccine news is rather academic for most people who still haven’t managed to snag an appointment.  And very frustrating to those like the incoming head of the CDC  Rochelle Walensky who reported on Sunday that the Biden administration still doesn’t have a firm grasp on the government’s vaccine supply, something to do with the previous administration’s tracking system.  Who would have guessed that the same crowd that couldn’t keep track of separated kids also can’t keep track of a much larger number of vials?  

Et Cetera: The Dominion Voting machine company filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani; it turns out that making baseless, business crushing accusations has consequences.  In response, Rudy, who finally admitted that Joe Biden won the election, said that he’s looking forward to the opportunity to prove that all of his accusations were true.  Maybe he plans to call Hugo Chavez and a Kraken or two as a witness?  It’s only a matter of time before Dominion files one of those lawsuits against Trump and why not, Dominion Tower and Dominion Lago are both really nice names.  

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#WearAMask or better yet wear two