Pizza Rat

Putsch Chronicles:  We keep on learning more and more about the events of January 6, none of it good, which goes far towards explaining why Republicans are so nervous about what will come out during the impeachment trial that they are trying hard to avoid.  The toll on the ill prepared, inadequately garbed and armed Capitol police is horrifying, about 140 of them were injured including several who have sustained brain injuries, one with two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs and another who is likely to lose an eye.  Yesterday it was reported that another officer who was injured during the attack has committed suicide bringing the attack’s death toll to six.  Of course, with only a few exceptions the Republican message is that we should all move on because focusing on a coup attempt is so divisive and you have to know that the cast of characters that held thirty-three hearings on Benghazi wouldn’t want to do anything other than promote unity.  The Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have a new head yet because Republicans in the Senate are doing their best to impede the confirmation of Biden’s nominee Alejandro Mayorkas because his and their immigration views are not simpatico but that hasn’t stopped DHS from raising concerns about further domestic terrorist attacks.  Yesterday Homeland officials issued an advisory warning that there remains a heightened threat from domestic extremists, the advisory isn’t focused on a specific event, but officials are and have been concerned for some time that people opposed to government authority, the presidential transition and COVID restrictions could continue to “mobilize to incite or commit violence.”  These concerns extend back to November, but under the prior administration issuing warnings about anything related to white extremism was verboten. It’s not clear what the domestic terrorists have in mind but quite a few in Congress including NY’s Hakeem Jeffries, all of the Republican house members who voted for impeachment and others in Democratic leadership have received threats. Count former VP Pence among the threatened, he’s back home in Indiana but his exact whereabouts are not known as he and Karen, neither of whom have spoken with Trump since the coup attempt, have been moving around a lot to avoid running into any of those carrying a noose with his name on it. Also on the domestic terrorism front, one of the Michigan militiamen accused of conspiring to overthrow Michigan’s government, kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and put her on trial for “treason” has pleaded guilty and has also agreed to cooperate with Federal authorities, not good news for his partners in crime. Apparently he’s not the only rat in the pizza parlor, something weird is up with Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio.  Tarrio who was arrested two days before the January 6 insurrection and charged with possession of some high capacity rifle magazines and for setting fire to a Black Lives Matter banner during a December pro-Trump demonstration in DC wasn’t around on January 6^th because he had been ordered to leave the city after his arrest.  Yesterday it was revealed that he has been a “prolific” informer for Federal and local law enforcement.  Not surprisingly he denies that he’s ever informed on his friends and racist compatriots, but his convenient banishment from Washington right before the coup attempt raises lots of questions about what he knew and what Federal officials may have known in advance of the putsch.

Viral Musings: Yesterday, Biden’s virus task force, led by Jeff Zients, the White House’s Coronavirus coordinator rather than Biden himself, held their first of what is now going to be thrice weekly press conferences.  Though the technology of their zoom presentation was awful, for a while it appeared as if the Kraken or worse yet Kayleigh McEnany the soon to be Fox commentator had gotten into the video feed, their message was refreshingly truthful, chock full of facts and science and in some cases overly long and somewhat boring, just the way scientists more skilled in their fields of expertise than in giving horse and pony shows should sound.  The sobering news from CDC head Rochelle Walensky is that though infection rates are trending downward for now, given that mortality is a lagging indicator another 90,000 will die from COVID during the next month, sad but not surprising given that just under 4000 died yesterday. On the vaccine front, virus guru Fauci mentioned that the much anticipated one shot J&J vaccine that hopefully will get emergency approval in a few weeks, ran some of its trials in South Africa.  That means that we should know more about all of the vaccines’ effectiveness with regard to the concerning South African variant.   

Politics:  Yesterday Biden detailed his plan to shift the US away from fossil fuels while creating millions of jobs in renewable energy, conserving “vast swaths” of public lands and water with a focus on poorer areas where mostly minority populations have suffered the most from dumping and related pollution. He plans to replace government owned gas guzzling vehicles with electric ones, buying them from US auto makers.  Think more charging stations so that those USPS trucks and maybe the rest of ours can run on easily charged batteries.  His plan is aggressive evidenced by the fact that Congresswoman AOC is smiling while the fossil fuel industry  and their bought and paid for representatives not so much. Biden’s plan will involve passing a lot of his related legislative agenda through reconciliation to avoid coming up against the dreaded filibuster assuming West Virginia/coal country Senator Joe Manchin doesn’t get in his way. Biden also plans to take advantage of the precedent set by Trump who funded a lot of his wall by claiming that building it was a national emergency.  There will be pushback, lots of it but come on, melting ice caps, flooded cities, countless hurricanes, sounds like an emergency to me.  In other news, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who sees visions of life as the Speaker whenever he hits one of his Mr Pillow pillows, will be visiting with that prior president today in Florida to discuss politics and the like because while he who shouldn’t be named is gone from office, he still wields a lot of undeserved influence.  That’s the same Kevin McCarthy who told his warring factions that they shouldn’t be dumping on each other but should be focused on thrashing Democrats.  He also promised to have a serious talk with Georgia’s  QAnon Congresswoman Greene to address things like that video of her harassing David Hogg one of the more articulate/famous Parkland School survivors. Representative QAnon is on record saying that the Stoneman Douglas school attack, like the one at Sandy Hook elementary school and the 2017 Las Vegas shooting were staged to raise the popularity of gun control measures.   

429,214 Deaths

24,652,600 Shots