More Gaslighting

State of the Union: The Republican party appears to be imploding, or at least that what we keep being told, but imploding or not they still have a significant following, 50 Senators and are only a few seats away from a House majority.  The former guy appears to be moving closer to announcing his 2024 run.  Although Liz Cheney stunned GQP Leader Kevin McCarthy when she stood near him and said it was time for the former guy to get lost and Mitch McConnell is on record saying that the justice system is the place to deal with his obvious crimes, yesterday McConnell backtracked saying of course he’d support him if the party makes him their 2024 candidate, something that Mitt Romney who won’t support him, says he expects to see happen. And Mike Pence, even though the former guy was all in on him being strung from the gallows, he says that they’re still on the best of terms.  As to others in the Republican contingent far too many of them continue to rewrite the not so distant history of January 6, pushing the it was antifa and BLM not our white supremacists followers and if it was those white guys, no worry, it was the nice ones.  That gaslighting isn’t going over with their Democratic contingent who keep calling their “colleagues” from across the aisle out for their B.S. but it is welcome on right wing TV, where Tucker Carlson actually argued that there’s no such thing as QAnon because he can’t find their website. Though the Republican set seem outraged that the fences are still up around the Capitol, yesterday we learned from the head of the Capitol Police that they’re up because  some, make that a lot, of those nice insurrectionists are threatening to blow up the Capitol and all those inside when President Biden makes his first address to Congress. Nothing but everything to worry about here.

Legislative Update:  Yesterday the House passed the Equality Act, legislation intended to guarantee gay and transgender rights.  That’s the good news, the bad news is that it passed on a party line basis with only three Republicans crossing the aisle, that’s three fewer than crossed the aisle last time this legislation which hasn’t passed the Senate and probably won’t this time either came up.  The three Republicans who joined with the Democrats were New York State’s Tom Reed and John Katko and Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick.  Two Republicans who voted for the legislation last time it was proposed, New York’s Elena Stefanik and Florida’s Mario Diaz-Balart, voted against it this time after being pressured by the religious right to change their votes, two others, Will Hurd and Susan Brooks are no longer in Congress. Of course Q Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is totally LGTBQ antagonistic and with all that time she has on her hands not serving on any committees was last seen sans mask of course posting a nasty sign making her view clear. That’s Marjorie Q who admittedly cheated on her spouse with a tantric yoga guy because religious morals go only so far.   Keeping with that theme during the Senate confirmation hearing for Dr Rachel Levine, the former Pennsylvania Health Secretary who Biden has nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary of Health, Rand Paul, the eye doctor who shuns masks and spreads nonsense about coronavirus was his usual horrible self, calling gender realignment surgery genital mutilation.  To her credit, Dr Levine who is transgender responded calmly to Paul’s intentionally cruel and demeaning line of questioning. Biden’s virus relief legislation which is widely supported by the general public, Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike, is expected to sail through the House today on a party line vote.  Apparently Republican legislators are against it, populace be damned, largely because it’s not their legislation though of course they’re claiming concerns about fiscal responsibility because now that they’re not in control that’s an issue again.  The House version of the legislation includes a provision that would raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour but last night the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that including that provision in legislation being passed by the lower threshold reconciliation method would be a violation of the Senate’s Byrd rule.  Of course, progressive Democrats are up in arms about that, calling for VP Harris to override the Parliamentarian’s ruling something she could do but that she probably won’t.  The real problem is that the Democrats would probably lose the votes of Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin if they went against the Parliamentarian ruling.  At the end of the day, with no Republicans signing on, Democrats absolutely need Sinema and Manchin’s votes to pass the relief bill so expect that while there will be lots of squawking, the provision will get dropped from the final legislation.  Though increasing the minimum wage, another one of those things that’s widely popular with the general public, would be hard to do on a standalone basis because the ten Republicans that would need to sign on wouldn’t, it might not be dead yet as the Democrats could tack it on to another piece of legislation like the easy to pass annual defense funding bill later in the year.  Talking about defense, last night Biden conducted his first military action, bombing sites in Syria used by Iranian militia in retaliation for their bombing US sites in Iraq.  The Biden team is also planning to declassify the CIA’s report on the brutal killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi today, that’s the report that concluded, contrary to the former guy and son in law Kushner’s assertions, that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the killing and bone saw dismemberment. For now at least, Biden is bypassing MBS, speaking only to King Salman.  Morally correct but a bit awkward to say the least.                       

Variants and Vaccinations:  The FDA says that J & J ‘s one shot vaccine is safe and effective, particularly at preventing severe disease and death, the things that matter most.  Though J & J’s effectiveness at preventing moderate disease isn’t as impressive as the Pfizer or Moderna two shot regimens, the J & J studies were conducted later, after some of the more recent virus variants were already prevalent, which might account for some of the difference.  The J & J shot also appears to be less effective among the sixty and over set, so though it’s expected to be approved for use in the US with shots going into arms during March, it’s possible that it will be targeted at a younger population.  As to those variants, they appear to be popping up all over the place here in the US or at least we’re now learning that there are lots of them and that they’re all over the place because until recently we weren’t testing for them and now we are.  The UK and South African ones are still out there multiplying but now there are also ones named after New York and California.  It’s not totally clear what that means for all of us, the general conclusion remains that everyone should get their shot or shots as soon as they qualify and can get an appointment and that at some point some, if not all of us, will probably need one of the boosters that the manufacturers are already developing.

Et Cetera:  Neera Tanden’s nomination to lead OMB continues to swing in the wind.  While the Biden team insists they’re still behind her, they’ve already got an alternate in mind and say that they’ll find her another suitable position where she won’t have to be confirmed if they can’t get her into the OMB slot.  My little Stanley isn’t swinging or playing much right now but to those who’ve asked for an update, he is home and recuperating.  Now if I could only get him to eat more!     

508 314

68,274,117 shots in arms

6.6% fully vaccinated

 

Jovial and Friendly?

Cross Sections: Yesterday the Senate held a hearing on the January 6^th Capitol attack.  Putting aside a number of absurdly inane comments from the usual members of the loony tune gallery like Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson who asserted that the insurgency crowd represented a mostly  jovial, friendly, and earnest cross section of America and that the violent attackers among them weren’t Trump supporters but antifa and the like in drag, it remains clear that the attackers were Trump supporters but that much about what led up to the day’s violence and why the Capitol police weren’t better prepared is still murky. The FBI did warn that extremists were threatening violent attacks on the Capitol but it’s not clear why their alert bulletin wasn’t delivered more forcefully and why those in command who should have recognized that the warnings they received were ominous, especially given the volume of social media postings visible to everyone, made decisions that left the Capitol without an adequately robust defense force and whether they made their decision not to be better prepared under direction from those high up the food chain as in someone in the White House. We still have much to learn about January 6^th but one thing we do know is that Thomas Webster, a 20-year NYPD veteran, former Marine, and Trump supporter was arrested yesterday charged with attacking a DC police officer with a pole and trying to gauge his eyes out during the insurrection.  If he’s representative of America’s cross section we’re all in big trouble. In other news, Stephen Miller, another one of those jovial characters may be gone from the White House but sadly is still up to his old shtick.  Apparently, he’s been keeping busy meeting with Congressional conservatives, helping them hone their anti-immigrant rhetoric in preparation for attacking anything and everything Joe Biden plans to do to ease immigration and the path to citizenship.  Miller has even met with a very receptive Mike Pence who won’t be at the CPAC conference this weekend because the former guy doesn’t want him there and threatened to stay home if his former VP was invited.  In keeping with the Stephen Miller anti-immigrant line, a number of Senators are squawking about Biden’s Health and Human Services Secretary pick, Xavier Becerra, claiming that since he’s not a doctor he shouldn’t head up HHS, an odd assertion given that they had no problem confirming that other non-doctor Alex Azar.  Their real concern is that Becerra wants to provide health care to undocumented residents.  While OMB candidate’s Neera Tanden’s nomination continues to dangle by an increasingly frazzled thread, a number of Senators, including possibly nomination killer/coal state Senator Joe Manchin are lining up in opposition to Native American Deb Haaland’s nomination to Interior Secretary over concerns that she’s too friendly to the environment and not friendly enough to the fossil fuel industry.  That said, some nominations are going through, yesterday Linda Thomas Greenfield was confirmed as Ambassador to the UN and Mitch McConnell who once refused to grant Merrick Garland a hearing when he was nominated for the Supreme Court announced that he’ll be voting for him to become Attorney General. Garland is expected to sail through as soon as the Senate holds his confirmation vote.  

Viral Musings:  Pfizer and Moderna announced yesterday that they’ve successfully ramped up their vaccine production capabilities and as a result now expect to deliver 140 million doses over the next five weeks, that’s 28 million per week.  To date they’ve only delivered 80 million doses, so that ramp up would result in significantly more people being vaccinated more quickly than previously anticipated.  And again, those numbers do not include J & J or the other vaccines still in the pipeline including a two dose one from Novavax which so far appears to be 89.3% effective but is still undertaking its US trials. In separate news, virus guru Fauci says that he expects the CDC to issue new less stringent guidance for those who have already been fully vaccinated.  Don’t get too excited, that guidance isn’t going to give license to “normal” behavior but is expected to address how the vaccinated can behave in family settings and among other vaccinated individuals.   

Et Cetera:  Rough day yesterday for golf legend Tiger Woods who though he survived a car crash was severely injured.  Also a rough day for my little goldendoodle Stanley who ate one too many foreign objects off the streets of New York and is now in the vet hospital recovering, hopefully, after having undergone intestinal surgery which accounts for today and yesterday’s shorter than usual and somewhat awkward write ups.  Oy, Oy.  

502,681

65,032,100 shots in arms

 

 

WWI, WWII, Viet Nam

Quick Overview:  Joe Biden, the current President, was genuinely compassionate yesterday, holding a candle lit ceremony to commemorate the 500,000 plus who have died from coronavirus. While Biden was emoting, the former guy threw a hissy fit, issuing a crazy diatribe about how he really won the election and all his other usual stuff after “his” Supreme Court finally cleared the way for his tax returns and other financials to be released to Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance.  Absent a leak or a quick indictment those financials won’t be available for public view anytime soon but former guy appears to be super concerned about what they’ll reveal about his income, debt and financial crimes which may be one of the reasons that he wants everyone to treat him as the presumptive Republican candidate for 2024.  There’s money to be made running and if former guy actually manages another victory, he would get at least another four year get out of jail pass, or so he probably thinks or prays.  Unfortunately, given recent polls it appears that a significant percentage of the Republican party is all in on him winning again.  Maybe he’ll discuss or at the very least hint his plans when he speaks at the CPAC conference this weekend.  The theme of the conference is Cancel Culture, intended to be a scathing critique of all those socialist liberals who’ve been out there cancelling right wingers and a few too many of their own so it was particularly ironic that CPAC actually cancelled one of their planned speakers, an avowed anti-Semite named Young Pharaoh who, despite all the evidence, including his name, they’d failed to notice was a hatemonger.  Then again with so many bigots among their crowd, it was probably easy for CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp to miss Young Pharaoh’s despicable tweet montage.  That’s the same Matt Schlapp who rejected all those court rulings concluding that Biden won the election fair and square, including yesterday’s additional announcements from the Supreme Court that it doesn’t plan to weigh in on any more of the 2020 election lawsuits.  Well at least most of the Justices were okay with leaving 2020 in the rear view mirror, three, including Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas would have been happy to reevaluate Pennsylvania to provide guidance for how best to suppress votes in the future, Thomas even took the moment to push some of those conspiracy theories his right wing wife and the former guy love so much about how all absentee ballots are suspect or at least Democratic voting ones are. 

As to conspiracy theories, the Dominion Voting Machine company followed up on their threats, suing Mike “Pillow Man” Lindell for those lies he continues to push about their company’s machines, George Soros and the very dead Hugo Chavez.   Their lawsuit points out that not only does Lindell continue to lie about their machines but that he uses those lies as part of his pillow marketing pitch.  While Lindell was being served, the Senate took up Merrick Garland’s nomination to serve as Attorney General.  Quite a few Republicans, many of whom probably sleep on Lindell’s pillows, seem very concerned that Garland will serve as Biden’s tool, something that they actually loved during the former guy’s term but that they now want us all to think is something that Democrats rather than Republicans tolerate if not encourage even though Biden has made it clear and Garland has repeated that they both view the Attorney General as the country’s lawyer rather than the president’s Barr.  A few of the same Republicans, including Josh Hawley, John Kennedy, and Tom Cotton, particularly Cotton, are very concerned that Garland might actually advance racial equity, a big no-no to them.  They’re right to be concerned, Garland who grew emotional discussing how he feels he owes America for taking in his family when they were fleeing anti-Semitic pogroms will go after white supremacists and the like and also appears okay with advancing equity.  On the tweeting front, OMB nominee Neera Tandem is probably toast, the victim of her tweets, truly ironic given what we’ve lived through during the past five years.  The Republicans may not stop there, they’re also lining up against a few other Biden nominees, and if Joe Manchin sides with them on any of those, the way he is on Tanden, they’ll succeed.  Lastly, though J & J’s vaccine hasn’t been approved yet, the company is prepared to deliver 20 million doses by the end of March assuming that, as expected, they get their emergency use authorization shortly.

502,267

64,177,400 million shots in arms

        

All That Jazz

Viral Musings:  Late last night the US COVID death count crossed over 500,000, no small feat for a virus that the former guy alleged was no worse than the flu. The good news is that, at least for now, infections, hospitalizations and deaths are declining.  Projections from experts remain mixed with one, Johns Hopkins professor Martin Makary, probably way too optimistically, saying that given the level of US infection and the vaccination rollout we’re rapidly closing in on herd immunity with others warning that we’re far from out of the woods, that our path forward depends on the outcome of the race between vaccinations and the more virulent strains. Some among that latter group want the US to follow the UK lead, focusing on first shots rather than on the timely delivery of second doses, but virus guru Fauci and the CDC still want second shots delivered on schedule because that’s what Pfizer and Moderna tested and because they’re concerned that despite the apparent effectiveness of first shots, delaying the booster second ones too far outside the recommended window might also feed those nasty variants.  Though the storms that ripped through the country last week impacted the number of shots making it into arms, with more delivery capacity than doses to deliver, we’ll be back to where we would have been within a few days as those delayed doses make it to their intended destinations.  The news out of test country Israel continues to be promising,  a recently completed study of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine indicates that it doesn’t just prevent illness, it is also 89.4% effective at preventing infections. Given its data sharing arrangement with Pfizer, Israel is sitting on its Moderna supply, only administering the Pfizer doses, but its fair to assume that the results would be the same for Moderna’s vaccine given its similarity to Pfizer’s.

Politics Unusual:  The former guy is gone from office but the press continues to give his most ardent Congressional supporters plenty of air time to press his big “stolen election” lie. On Sunday ABC had Congressman “I was shot but love guns” Steve Scalise, NBC had Senator Ron “conspiracy theories are us” Johnson, CBS had Lindsey “golf buddy” Graham and Fox had Rand “even my neighbor hates me” Paul.  Even Marc Short, who was Mike Pence’s chief of staff wouldn’t criticize the former guy’s insistence that his VP refuse to confirm the Electoral College results or face the consequences, like violent insurgents with nooses.  Instead during a Saturday evening appearance on CNN, Short said that Trump wasn’t all that bad, he had just gotten bad advice from people around him, something that one of those bad advisors, former trade advisor Peter Navarro, quickly refuted, insisting that Biden only won because of Hugo Chavez and all that jazz. At least one Republican, Asa Hutchinson, the current Governor of Arkansas, was a bit more measured, saying that though Trump’s family, including Ivanka who says that she isn’t planning to primary Marco Rubio, is all in on loving America he wouldn’t support Trump running again in 2024; he’s okay with him having a voice but feels his Oval Office time is up.  That’s nice, but there’s a more than good chance that Hutchinson, who’s time in office will be ending soon, will be replaced by one time press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and we all know where she stands on the subject. As to the former guy, he’s scheduled to speak at the Conservative political action committee (CPAC) annual meeting at the end of the week.  In addition to pushing the big lie he’s expected to hammer away at Biden’s immigration proposals in an effort to make it clear to sitting Republicans that a vote for any immigration legislation that makes it easier for those “undesirable aliens” to make it into the country, or g-d forbid, become citizens would be a violation of the first tenet of Trumpism.  And given that polls continue to show that most members of the Republican Party, or at least those who still call themselves Republicans, are still firmly Trumpists, his warnings are likely to have an impact, especially if the press continues to give all that time to his acolytes.  On the insurgent front, so far nine Oath Keepers have been arrested for conspiring to storm the Capitol and one of them, Jessica Watkins claims she was in Washington on January 6 to provide security for legislators and that she actually met with Secret Service agents.  It’s not clear if that last part is true, but it is worth noting that Biden replaced his entire Secret Service team upon taking office and Oath Keepers are made up of former law officers so?  As to law officers, it appears that quite a few members of the Capitol Police did not follow hero officer Eugene Goodman’s lead on January 6^th,  six of them have been suspended and thirty-five are being investigated.   

Usual Politics:  Democrats are doing what they usually do, infighting and I am not just talking about the continuing Governor Newsom and Cuomo sagas.  On Friday West Virginia moderate Senator Joe Manchin announced that he would vote against the nomination of Neera Tanden as head of Office of Management and Budget due to her divisive tweets which he characterized as “overly toxic and detrimental.”  Manchin isn’t totally wrong in that someone with aspirations for future high political appointment probably should have refrained from nasty tweeting but then again it’s not like the guy running the country at the time of her tweets wasn’t doing far worse. Tanden’s confirmation now hinges on support from Budget Chair Bernie Sanders who she also tweet slimed, as well as at least one Republican and one of those Republicans, Susan Collins, doesn’t seem all that happy about Tanden’s tweets either, so though Biden hasn’t pulled her nomination yet, don’t be surprised if he does. The Democrats are also publicly disputing a few other issues, including how much student debt should be forgiven and whether or not to include the $15 minimum wage in the important to pass quickly virus relief package.  Notably the issue isn’t whether or not to forgive student debt, the issue is whether the amount forgiven should be $10,000 or $50,000 with Biden at $10,000 and the progressive crowd at $50,000.  Similarly, raising the minimum wage is popular, the question is whether or not it can be included in the relief package which is going to be passed through the reconciliation process, that decision resides with the Senate Parliamentarian and is currently being discussed with a very persistent Bernie.  The hearing on Merrick Garland’s nomination to serve as Attorney General takes place today.  It’s expected that he’ll be confirmed with lots of votes from both sides of the aisle.  Lastly, Ted Cruz made a few token appearances in Texas pretending to help, but the real stars were Beto O’Rourke whose phone banking organization helped get services to a lot of the homebound and NY’s Congresswoman AOC who raised around $6 million for local Texas charities, a classy and quite effective way of countering those absurd false right wing assertions that her Green New Deal ideas were responsible for the Texas disaster.    

Ted's Excellent Vacation

Fun in the Sun?  In 2018 when Texas had the chance to replace Senator Ted Cruz with then Congressman Beto O’Rourke, voters punted, narrowly reelecting Cruz, sending him back to Washington where he stood out as one of Trump’s most sniveling supplicants and went on to participate in the January 6^th insurrection.  Yesterday, while millions of Texans were suffering in the cold, without heat, electricity, adequate food supplies and potable water, Cruz again showed his true colors.  He caught a flight to Cancun for an impromptu, get out of Dodge vacation with his wife and daughters. We know about the trip because he and the police protection entourage he’d requested were caught at the airport where he was getting ready to board his Mexico bound flight and one or maybe more of his wife Heidi’s “friends” shared the group text where she encouraged a few of those friends to join them at the “great security” $300  per night Cancun Ritz Carlton. Cruz, who Trump, there goes that name again, of all people fittingly anointed Lyin’ Ted, then lied about the purpose and duration of his trip, claiming he was just a dedicated father, accompanying his daughters to Mexico, insisting that, despite his overstuffed wheelie and Sunday return ticket, he had never planned to stay more than a few hours.  Of course, Lyin’ Ted didn’t mention that Heidi, a Goldman Sachs partner, was more than capable of taking his daughters to Mexico on her own. Anyway, after trying to lay the blame for the trip on his daughters need for fun in the sun, Cruz returned to Texas where he finally admitted the whole episode was a mistake. In contrast, Beto, the candidate Texas didn’t elect, spent the day acting like a Senator is supposed to act, asking people on his extensive campaign list to help reach out to the neediest while also personally providing assistance to storm victims.  It’s hard to feel too sorry for the 50.9% of those Texas voters who went with Cruz, given his track record they should have known better.  Unfortunately those 48.3% who voted for Beto were also left out in the cold. The sad thing is that Texans and maybe even a lot of the remaining members of the increasingly right wing Republican party, would vote for Cruz again, after all he was the Republican candidate who came closest to beating Trump in 2016 and Texas is Texas.

Truth and Consequences? We keep hearing that now that he’s out of office Trump will suffer some consequences for all his “alleged” financial crimes and other misdeeds, like the slandering of sex crimes victims E Jean Caroll and Summer Zervos, but we’re still waiting.  Yesterday we learned that the Supreme Court is okay with the delay,  apparently Trump’s Justices are still sitting on the decision to release his financial information, that’s a ruling that should be a slam dunk and should have been issued months ago.  That’s the bad news, or good news for Trump.  The good news for the rest of us is that in addition to his earlier hire of a topnotch forensic accounting firm, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance has now retained the services of Paul Weiss partner Mark Pomerantz a topnotch white collar, organized crime expert/former prosecutor who has stepped away from his firm to serve as Vance’s special assistant on all things related to the expanded investigation into Trump’s financial machinations, things like tax and bank fraud and maybe even the keeping of two sets of books.  Of course the response from Trump’s spokesman is that this is just another Democratic witch hunt.  Apparently, the usual crowd of Republican officials agree with that characterization as Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise, whose Republican House leadership position sandwiches him between GQP Leader Kevin McCarthy and on the outs Liz Cheney visited Mar a Lago this week, something to do with polishing Trump’s golf shoes.  Former UN Ambassador/aspiring presidential candidate Nikki Haley who recently suggested and now regrets saying that praying at the Trump altar wasn’t such a good idea, apparently tried to do that first but given her recent not so friendly to Trump utterance she was refused an audience.

Viral Musings:  The news on the virus front remains mixed. Snow storms and flight problems delayed a significant number of yesterday’s vaccinations. A number of medical experts/pundits, including frequently Dr Doom Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine, warn that the current dip in virus cases could be temporary, that infections will spike back up again by April as one or more of those super contagious variants, particularly the one from the UK, starts to dominate in the US.  However, others including the very talkative former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says that the vaccine ramp up which he believes is likely to exceed the Biden administration’s conservative projection, combined with seasonal changes will contain the UK variant in most of the country with the possible exception of southern parts of California and Florida.  Yesterday Bloomberg analysts projected that the number of vaccine shots should rise to almost 20 million a week in March, more than 25 million a week in April and May and over 30 million a week in June.  Despite concerns that the sneaky, concerning variants are less deterred by current vaccines, they are “cautiously optimistic” that the shot ramp up, on top of the current virus decline, will lead us out of virus hell sooner rather than later.  In other vaccine news, a number of US experts are pushing to delay second doses of the Moderna and Pfizer shots beyond the three and four week periods included in the companies’ test protocols under the theory that one shot provides almost as much protection, at least for a while, and that protecting more people faster rather than less people thoroughly is the way to go or at least the way they’d like to go and the way that the UK which has widened the shot interval to twelve weeks is going.  Pfizer and Moderna continue to recommend their three/four week intervals.  Additionally, though the one shot J & J vaccine is still due to be reviewed and probably approved by the end of the month, the company is now testing the benefit of adding a second shot to their vaccine protocol in an effort to raise effectiveness to Pfizer and Moderna’s levels. Also, Pfizer is now seeking permission for its vaccine to be stored at higher temperatures which should make for easier storage and wider administration and is beginning a clinical trial on the vaccination of pregnant women.   

493,119

57,737,800 shots in arms

Perseverance rocks.

Stay safe. Double Mask-up.

    

Life Spans

Viral Musings:  Cases of coronavirus and related deaths are declining almost everywhere though experts aren’t sure exactly why or if the decline is temporary. It’s too early to fully attribute the drop to the roll out of the vaccines because with the exception of a few places like Israel and convalescent and senior homes, it’s unlikely that the vaccines are responsible for more than a small portion of the decline.  The consensus, to the extent there is one, attributes the decline to a combination of  seasonality, better adherence to masking and distancing guidelines, the vaccine rollouts and undertesting. In any case, its too early to celebrate the trend as early indications are that the vaccines, which are remarkably effective against most variants are less effective against that troubling one from South Africa.  Don’t panic yet, both Pfizer and Moderna say their vaccines neutralizes the South African strain in the lab but both companies are moving forward with plans to adapt their vaccines and/or provide boosters. On the testing front, Biden announced that he’ll be spending $1.6 billion for the expansion of testing in K – 8 schools and underserved communities, bridge funding until the passage of his $1.9 trillion virus relief legislation which includes $50 billion specifically for expanded testing. In addition, the CDC plans to invest $200 million to identify and track emerging COVID strains through genome sequencing, something we haven’t been doing even though we should have been. And remember last year around this time when that Other Guy told us that the coronavirus was no bigly deal, well as we all know that was off the charts wrong, so wrong that this morning it was reported that average life expectancy dropped one year during the first half of 2020, more for Blacks and Hispanics who have been disproportionately impacted by the virus.    

Politicians on the Edge:  That Other Guy is back.  He called into all of his favorite right wing media channels ostensibly to mourn the passing of his good friend Rush Limbaugh who was last seen crossing the river Styx yesterday from lung cancer but probably also because he misses all that adoration.  Of course since it’s always about him, the OG said one of the things he loved about Rush was that he too believed that the election had been stolen by the Democrats.  The OG went on to complain that his supporters hadn’t been violent enough on January 6^th asserting that had Republicans stolen the election from Democrats, they would have been more violent. Enough said about him.  With Texas frozen and its politicians blaming everyone but themselves and their independence from Federal regulation and an over reliance on market forces, people in the state are suffering, without heat, food and potable water although none of that seems to concern former Governor/Energy Secretary Rick Perry who said Texans are okay with going without electricity for as long as it takes to keep the federal government out of their business.  He like a number of other Texas Republicans stuck with their “blame the windmills” strategy for the disaster while also attacking socialism, AOC and the Green New Deal, their favorite bugaboos. Florida’s Governor DeSantis is another one who wants nothing to do with socialism, he does, however want to make sure that his friends and contributors get their vaccines.  He’s come under fire for setting up a pop-up vaccination site in a largely white, affluent Manatee Country neighborhood chock full of his donors.  His response to criticism from Manatee County officials was to threaten to move the County’s vaccine allotment somewhere else in the state.  It’s not just Republicans on the edge.  Some in California are trying to recall Governor Newsom, a strategy that worked once before when voters recalled then Governor Gray Davis.  The state’s demographics have changed since then so recalling Newsome is less likely to happen but still, who wants to govern under that cloud.  Certainly, not NY’s Governor Cuomo, last Spring’s virus hero which might explain why he got into it on a phone call with fellow Democrat State Assemblyman Ron Kim.  Kim says Cuomo threatened him, Cuomo says that he didn’t but whatever happened Kim’s accusation is just providing more fuel to Cuomo’s adversaries.  Last night it was widely reported that the Brooklyn US Attorney and the FBI are investigating the way Cuomo’s administration handled data about nursing homes and related COVID deaths as if that was breaking news, it’s not, we’ve known about that investigation as well as another one opened by State Attorney General Letitia James for a while.  That said, Cuomo needs to chill, maybe a trip to Texas, or Buffalo is in order.   

Et Cetera:  Then Defense Secretary Esper revealed that he and Secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milly held up advancing the promotions of Air Force General Jacqueline Van Ovost and Army Lt General Laura Richardson to the four star commands that they deserved over concerns that their nominations would “hit a roadblock” at that Other Guy’s White House.  Apparently the concern was that the OG wouldn’t sign off on the promotion of any candidates other than white men.  Recommendations for the promotions of the two officers are now being sent to the White House. Though virus relief legislation hasn’t been passed yet, Biden has already started on his next plan, immigration legislation.

490,717

56,281,827 shots in arms (lower increase due to weather delays)

 

 Godzilla v Kong

Town Hug: Last night during his Wisconsin CNN Townhall President Biden referred to his predecessor as the Other Guy, saying it’s time to remove his name from the daily discourse so going forward, well at least for today, I am going to try to do the same.  More substantially, Biden said that now that he’s started filling what he referred to as the empty cupboard he was left by that OG with vaccines, that everyone who wants one will be able to get one by sometime in July.  Additionally, virus guru Fauci expects that by April we’ll be in open season, meaning that all adults will be able to schedule shot appointments.  Assuming that Pfizer and Moderna meet their delivery targets, those projections, especially Biden’s, seem conservative since the administration is still not taking into consideration the expected J & J approval.  During his townhall Biden also emphasized the importance of getting relief legislation passed by mid-March, said he only plans to forgive $10,000 rather than the progressives’ wish of $50,000 in student loans, and talked about the challenge of reopening schools in his first 100 days.  Who but everyone would have guessed that getting the schools fully reopened, like health care, is complicated, particularly when you’re the one who has to balance the demands of teachers and their unions with the needs and demands of parents and students. With the insurrection behind us, at least for now, a lot of pundits from Fox to CNN’s Jake Tapper and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes are beating the Biden team up on the politically sensitive school reopening issue.  Not a lot of happiness there but give me school frustration over Democracy ending coups any day. Overall, Joe’s style contrasted significantly from the OG’s, though he rambled and emoted, he didn’t shout or insult.  Given COVID, he had to restrain from group hugs, but he did manage a virtual one to a mother and child duo, comforting them while telling the rest of us that things will be normal, whatever that means, by  Christmas, let’s hope that’s another conservative estimate.   

The Other Guy: The OG came out swinging for Mitch McConnell yesterday, kind of like one of those horror movies where both sides get muddied and bloodied but both, sigh, go on to make it into the sequel.  The OG’s diatribe sounded like a series of those tweets he no longer can issue melded into one long memo, he called Mitch a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack,” text that was watered down from what Trump whisperer Maggie Haberman of the NY Times says was his original even more insulting draft.  He then went on to attribute McConnell’s Kentucky reelection victory to his help, a stretch of anyone’s, even his imagination, while also blaming those Georgia losses that resulted in Chuck Schumer taking over the reins of the Senate on Mitch, rather than his own failure to graciously admit defeat, another diversion from reality.  My favorite part of the diatribe was when he attacked Mitch’s ability to deal with China, saying he couldn’t because of his wife, Elaine Chaos’ connections.  That’s probably not totally off base, the McConnell/Chao duo are conflicted, but come on, the OG’s the one who appointed Chao to serve as his Secretary of Transportation.  Humor aside, unless he gets derailed by one or more of his legal problems, and maybe even if he does, the OG plans to support  candidates of Quality, mostly QAnon types, in Republican primaries in 2022, especially in primaries against those who voted for his impeachment.  As to those lawsuits, the OG wasn’t the only one to come out swinging yesterday.  The NAACP, Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson and civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll filed a lawsuit against the OG, Rudy Giuliani, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers saying that their riot and insurrection violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction era statue designed to protect both formerly enslaved African Americans and lawmakers in Congress from white supremacist violence. Two other Democrats, Representatives Hank Johnson and Bonnie Watson Coleman are expected to join the suit in the coming days.  The OG’s spokesperson, accused child support scofflaw Jason Miller, responded that the OG had been fully acquitted during the ”latest impeachment witch hunt” and that Rudy was no longer his lawyer. How many times have we heard that Rudy is no longer the OG’s lawyer? He like Godzilla, Kong and the OG, is likely to make it into the next sequel.       

Texas, Texas, Texas:  As you’ve probably heard, Texas and a large number of its residents are freezing right now with lots of snow and ice and little to no electricity.  Given the rarity of deadly snow storms in that part of the country, Texas suffering a few outages shouldn’t be surprising.  Anyone who has lived through a bad New York storm and its aftermath or a California blackout knows that happens all too frequently.  However, the Texas situation is massive and unique, the result of the state’s refusal to become part of the national electric grid and its reliance on an unregulated utility market. Apparently Texans fear being regulated by the Feds more than anything and avoiding interconnecting with the national grid is their way of avoiding regulation so most of the state with the exception of a few areas remains independent form the rest of the country. Ironically, Texas does have some connections to Mexico’s grid, convenient if the state ever goes forward with those threats to secede, though it’s not clear that Mexico would have them.  Anyway because Texas officials prioritize competition among providers over anything else and in the rush to profitability those providers, even more than providers elsewhere, have failed to keep key infrastructure up to date, the system is facing a dire but not totally unpredictable catastrophe  Of course Texas Governor Abbott, with the help of Fox has concluded that the problem lies with the state’s windmills and Congresswoman AOC’s calls for a Green New Deal.  Yes those windmills did freeze up but so did almost all of the those fossil fuel burning plants responsible for providing the lion’s share of the state’s electricity.  Without asking for a quid pro quo Biden offered emergency aid, and despite his and his state’s Senators opposition to aid to other parts of the country when they’ve needed it, Abbot appears happy to take it.

488,100

55,220,400 shots in arms

Eyes and Ears

State of Play:  The impeachment is behind us but the political divide remains.  Outspoken Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, one of those who crossed party lines to vote to impeach Trump, is getting nasty letters from members of his own family who think his brain has been taken over by Satan and a Pennsylvania GOP official condemned Senator Pat Toomey, another one who crossed over, saying he wasn’t sent to Washington to “vote his conscience” but to do the right thing and by right thing, think kowtow to Trump.  Proving that George Orwell knew what he was talking about when he wrote that the party’s most “essential command” was to “reject the evidence of your eye and ears” a number of Republicans have taken to the airwaves to recharacterize the events of January 6^th.  Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson who spent much of last year dwelling on Hunter Biden’s laptop, says that the Capitol attack “didn’t seem like much of an armed insurrection” to him because most of those present were just nice Trump fanatics out for a day in the park and anyway the problem was that a teeny tiny small but highly visible group of them were agitators.  As to that weaponry Johnson appears to be conveniently ignoring the automatic weapons, tasers and those still unattributed pipe bombs found near both the Democratic and Republican headquarters. Johnson is not alone, others question why anyone would think that carrying of scads of zip ties was an indication of plans to restrain any officials because obviously sometimes a zip tie is just a zip tie and those screaming for Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence’s heads were just kidding. Of course Jim “Gym” Jordan and Devin Nunes also have something to say. Together with a few fellow Republican Congressmen they assert that the insurrection was all Pelosi’s fault, that she, rather than Trump or his obedient Acting Defense Secretary, was the one who failed to authorize the calling up of the National Guard because clearly someone with her “enormous institutional responsibilities and involvement in all operational decisions” could have and should have done so. Nancy’s not buying any of their crap, instead yesterday she announced plans for a bi-partisan, independent 9.11 like commission to study the origins of January sixth as well as the day’s events. That’s important but those kind of reports take time to produce so the divisive rhetoric and fantabulous accusations will continue abetted by right wing social media site Parler which reared its ugly head again yesterday.  Unfortunately twitter for extremist wingnuts has found a new host, California’s SkySilk, and a new interim CEO, Mark Meckler, one of the creators of the Tea Party. How long before Trump starts sending out parlers? Probably sooner than the curiously silent former Pence starts speaking out about his horrible, terrible day.

Midterms Already: Mitch McConnell who isn’t going anywhere, took to the Wall Street Journal to further justify his vote to acquit that criminal Trump letting us know that voting to acquit wasn’t a vote to exonerate Trump but a defense of the Constitution, or at least the Constitution as he sees it. Mitch also confirmed what we already knew, that his goal is to retake the Senate in 2022 and though he’d prefer more mainstream candidates, he’ll take anyone who can win against Democratic opponents and he’ll be happy to accept any assistance from that crime king Trump as long as he gets behind those who can win a general election rather than just a primary.  And in case you’re thinking we’re not even two months into 2021, why are we talking about the 2022 midterms, the Georgia Senate election is already in play.  Yesterday, former Senator David Perdue who was unseated by newbie Senator Jon Ossoff announced the formation of an exploratory committee to run against newbie Senator Raphael Warnock who since he only won a filler seat,  is up for reelection in 2022.  And it’s not just Perdue, former Senator Kelly Loeffler who Warnock beat in January’s runoff is also considering running again as is Georgia Congressman Doug Collins. What happens in Georgia really matters since the Democrats’ hold on the Senate is tenuous.  One more interesting note, while the Republican parties in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Kansas, Louisiana have censured their Senators for voting Trump guilty and Maine’s party is considering doing the same to Susan Collins, Utah’s has no plans to follow suit.  The state’s party says that they’re just fine that Mitt Romney thinks Trump is a criminal while their another Senator, Mike Lee, is one of his biggest fans. Maybe that’s what happens when most of your residents shun, or at the very least say they shun, caffeine and alcohol?

Viral Musings: There’s been a lot of debate about the CDC’s school reopening guidelines, mostly focused on whether or not teachers should get their vaccinations before being told to return to schools.  Even though school transmission, particularly in elementary schools, is low it’s fair to say that teachers should be prioritized for shots. The good news is that they are in 28 states, DC and Puerto Rico but even though the CDC recommends that they be prioritized everywhere, they’re not in the remaining states.  Sure shots remain a scarce resource, but really what are those states’ Governors thinking?  As to shot availability, the FDA’s meeting on J & J’s one shot vaccine is scheduled to take place on February 26.  Assuming the shot is approved, and it likely will be, its early March availability could help with the teacher situation.         

486,332

52,884,400 shots in arms

Guilty But Acquitted 

Presidents Day: The Senate jury is in, Trump was acquitted.  What that means for the future of Trumpism remains unclear.  Although there was a brief kerfuffle about calling witnesses ultimately the House impeachment team decided to move forward without doing so, likely because the diversion from Biden’s legislative priorities wasn’t worth the time combined with threats by Trump’s lawyers that they would waste even more time by calling their own witnesses, like Nancy Pelosi, as well as concerns that the Democratic team would lose one or more of their expected Republicans votes.  Witnesses or not, the Democrats did what they set out to do.  Helped along by the video record and recollections from Washington state Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Butler who shared an account of a conversation between GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and Trump indicating that Trump refused to call off the Capitol onslaught despite McCarthy’s pleas and another by Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville that Trump knew that Mike Pence had come close to being nabbed by the insurrectionists, they provided a convincing  case for conviction.  Unfortunately, led by their leader Mitch McConnell who late Friday told his crowd that he planned to vote to acquit Trump, all but seven Republicans put party over country by voting to acquit.  Notably six of those acquitting Senators (Blunt, Portman, Thune, Crapo, Moran and Wicker)  had voted to impeach Bill Clinton back when they were members of the House and five of them (McConnell, Graham, Grassley, Inhofe and Shelby) had voted Clinton guilty because obviously lying about sex is so much worse than insurrection. Turning to the Republican Senators who joined with all the Democrats by voting Trump guilty, two of them, North Carolina’s Richard Burr and Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey, will be retiring from the Senate in 2022.  Three of them, including Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, Nebraska’s Ben Sasse and Maine’s Susan Collins, just won reelection.  One is Utah’s Mitt Romney, who may or may not have plans to run for reelection when his term is up in 2024 but who has already established that though he’s reliably conservative he votes how he wants when he wants and the last is Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski who is up for reelection in 2022 but who last time won her reelection as a write-in after she lost the Republican primary, giving her a degree of independence that a lot of her gutless Republican colleagues lack.  Immediately following the vote, Mitch McConnell delivered a surprisingly frank speech where he made it clear that he firmly believed that Trump was guilty of inciting the insurrection but voted for acquittal because the Democrats had failed to hold the trial while Trump was still in office, blaming them for a decision he made, and because an out of office president couldn’t be impeached, a false conclusion that he knows is false.  McConnell went on to say that it was now up to the justice system to go after Trump for all of his crimes and while there’s a good chance that the system will, tying Trump in expensive knots for years, McConnell’s decision and his speech were classic McConnell, full of faux righteousness and a nod to the Republican donor class that they shouldn’t be put off by Trump, QAnon, or his party’s all too large white supremacist wing, that they should open their pockets to help him regain his Senate leadership position.

What’s Next? Immediately following the vote, Trump announced plans to go back on the road to make America great again, his way of teasing another run for the presidency and/or an excuse to line his pockets.  Reportedly he’s already working on plans to primary the Senators and Representatives who voted against him.  Lindsey Graham announced that he plans to head to Mar a Lago for some golf and to discuss strategy with his good buddy, he also threatened that “when” his party takes back control of the House and Senate that they’ll impeach Kamala Harris, as payback. That strategy that Graham plans to discuss includes begging Trump to share his donor list, something that GOP Leader McCarthy asked for but did not get during his recent lunch visit. The desire to get that list partially explains why Graham endorsed Lara Trump for the soon to be open North Carolina Senate being vacated Burr. As to Burr, like Cassidy, his state’s Republican party is censuring him for his somewhat unexpected guilty vote.  Burr’s vote was a bit surprising, but its worth remembering that until he got embroiled in a Trump Justice department investigated insider trading scandal he served as Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee where he had shown a degree of independence that had put him in Trump’s crosshairs.  Its not a coincidence that Burr got more heat for the relatively small amount of trading he did after learning about the seriousness of the incoming pandemic than anyone else, including those two Georgia Senators who lost their reelection bids, largely because of Trump’s big election lies.  The bottom line, there will be far too much Trump going forward, the question is whether his legal woes overwhelm his efforts to maintain control of the Republican Party and/or run again for president.  On that last point, his biggest supporters are also those with their own presidential aspirations.  They want his support, don’t want to offend his base, but in their heart of hearts want to see him slip away.  Already, one of his fans, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is on record telling Politico that maybe, just maybe her party should have called him out sooner.  For their parts Senator Rubio, who may or may not be primaried by Ivanka, and former Secretary of State Pompeo are tweeting Bible verses.  Ted Cruz has a new white supremacist hairdo and Josh Hawley is doing his best to resuscitate his career. 

Human Resources:  The Democrats lost their first team member after White House deputy press secretary TJ Ducklo who had threatened a reporter over her story about his relationship with an Axios reporter resigned.  Initially he had been punished with a one week suspension, but was ultimately pushed out when the story about him refused to go away.  Ducklo, who was earlier diagnosed with advanced lung cancer probably was being given more latitude by Biden’s team due to his health struggles, but given Biden’s position that no one on his team will ever be allowed to act inappropriately, that cover wasn’t enough to save him. The Senate is on holiday hiatus this week, so confirmation hearings and votes will remain on hold until their return.  Keep an eye on OMB nominee Neera Tandan, it turns out that she didn’t just tweet Trump attacks, her tweet history also includes quite a few Bernie Sanders zingers.  He chairs the Budget Committee so her fate rests in his hands.   Also, keep an eye on the Lincoln Project, those are the Republicans who came out swinging for Trump. Turns out that one of their now prior members was caught propositioning too young men, another one of their members, a woman, left after accusing them of being boys club and now Steve Schmidt the former McCain campaign strategist has left their board. It’s not totally clear that the Lincoln Project ads did much damage to Trumpy candidates but they did agitate Trump so it would be nice if these guys can get their act back together. In any case, their remaining members are unlikely to go away entirely, more likely, if their Lincoln brand becomes too tarnished, they’ll just reappear under a different name.          

Viral Musings:  Coronavirus cases are down but at this point the decline is due mostly to the end of the holiday season surges rather than the rollout of the vaccine.  That said, vaccinations are up significantly with a number of states opening up criteria for the still limited, but growing, amount of available shots.  The news out Pfizer’s test case country, Israel, is really good.  Yesterday Reuters reported on a study by Israel’s largest health care provider that after both doses of the Pfizer vaccine people are 94% less likely to have symptomatic COVID infections.  In New York one time virus hero Andrew Cuomo is taking heat for the way he handled COVID positive nursing home patients last Spring. The issue centers on whether he should have sent COVID positive patients released from hospitals that needed what was then a scarily short supply of beds back to their nursing homes or whether he should have found them another place to go, as if there was another place at that point.  The issue is complicated by how deaths of nursing homes patients who died in hospitals were counted and whether including them as hospital deaths obfuscated the nursing home problem.  Cuomo is the favorite punching bag of local, and for that matter national, Republicans and left wing Democrats so it’s hard to tell if he willfully hid information or if this is some combination of a fog of war situation and a political hit of a very vocal visible target. In any case, given the number of mourning families, political pundits looking for a high profile target, the attention of State Attorney General Tish James and Cuomo’s rambunctious personality we’re likely to be hearing about this for some time.   

485,337

52,884,400 shots in arms

 

 

Arsonist in Chief

Impeach, Impeach: The House’s impeachment managers rested their case yesterday. The bottom line is that although Congressman Jamie Raskin and his impressive team of impeachment managers did a thorough and impressive job detailing Trump’s despicability and criminality, it remains highly unlikely that Trump will be found guilty because at the end of the day the trial is a political exercise and far too many Republican members of the “jury” are either on board with Trump’s misdeeds and/or prioritizing their careers, including their presidential aspirations, over country even though credible concerns about future Trump inspired violence remain.  It’s particularly ironic that one of those likely not guilty voters is the frequently clueless Tommy Tuberville of Alabama who provided one of the most implicating pieces of evidence by revealing that that when he spoke to Trump during the attack, on that misdirected phone call that landed on Senator Mike Lee’s phone, he told him that he “had to go” because Pence  had just been evacuated from the chamber due to the chaos of the siege.  That’s Mike Pence who actually had the back-up nuclear football with him, that nifty piece of deadly equipment almost got intercepted by a few of those charming insurgents, the same guys who say that they were fighting for their hero Trump.  Trump’s response to learning that his VP was in danger didn’t involve sending in the cavalry despite calls from a number of Republicans including former NJ Governor Chris Christie to do so, instead he continued to jeopardize Pence’s life, tweet attacking him for failing to have the “courage” to overturn the election.  And then, even after it was known that people were dead and injured, the remorseless Trump tweeted “These are the events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away.”  As to future violence, Trump’s Washington DC hotel has raised rates for March 4 because his most dedicated followers believe that the real inauguration will take place then, that the one that was held on January 20 was just make believe. No one said that the QAnon crowd was all that into reality; violence yes, reality not so much.   

Kraken Time: Today, Trump’s lawyers who spent some quality time strategizing with “impartial” jury members Senators Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham last night is due to present their defense.  It’s reported that their presentation will be short, that in addition to relitigating the already decided constitutionality issue, they plan to show  a video or two of the Black Lives Matter protests as well as clips from the Portland Oregon mess to “prove” that Trump’s Oath Keeper, Three Percenter and Q buddies aren’t the only ones who are disruptive. Of course, they won’t mention that the BLM demonstrations were largely peaceful, that participation of those antifa folks that Trump and his acolytes keep blaming for everything was significantly exaggerated by Trump and his then AG Barr, and that in any case, none of last summer’s demonstrations or Portland’s problems were incited by the leader of the free world. They’ll probably spin the recent arrest of some of those Oath Keepers who coordinated with other white supremacist groups, were working on a plan to ferry “heavy weapons” across the Potomac River into Washington, who had begun training for “urban warfare” in the run up to the election  and who said they had been awaiting directions from Trump as inconsequential background noise. They also plan to show a video of now Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the one where he threatened a whirlwind against Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, as proof that Trump isn’t the only one who can be threatening to make the point that threatening language shouldn’t be taken seriously. Someone should tell them that Brooklyn’s Chuck waving his arms and pontificating is more comical than threatening.  Returning to background noise, that’s how quite a few Republican Senators treated yesterday’s session, instead of paying attention they doodled, drew on maps of Asia, left the room and otherwise ignored the presentations. No point doing otherwise since with likely too few exceptions their minds are made up.

Viral Musings:  Yesterday President Biden announced that he’s finalized a deal for 200 million more vaccine doses from Pfizer and Moderna.  As a result, the US will have more than enough mRNA doses to vaccinate the country by the end of July without even taking into account any of the one shot ones that are likely to be approved shortly and to start flowing from J & J in March. While getting a vaccine remains frustratingly difficult for most, the US remains way ahead of Canada and most of Europe in shots administered per 100,000, in sixth place after Israel, UAE, Seychelles, UK and Bahrain.  The UK’s numbers appear better than they really are since the Brits are currently delaying most second shots.  We also learned yesterday that Trump’s encounter with COVID was more serious than had been revealed when he was whisked off to Walter Reed  which goes far towards explaining why he was bombarded with the antibody concoction that was at that point not yet available to the masses and why he also got the steroid dexamethasone which is indicated  for use on those with severe respiratory complications. It turns out that his oxygen saturation was in the 80s, that his lungs were seriously inflamed, and that his doctors thought that he might have to be put on a ventilator.  All of that probably means he’d been sick and spreading coronavirus germs during his debate with Biden.  It also makes his recovery that much more remarkable but then again he was the healthiest president ever, or so his since deceased doctor Harold Bornstein said.          

475.449 (+3685)

46,390,300 (+1,620,300) shots administered

 

Inciter in Chief

Tick Tock: The Democrat’s Impeachment Managers, including yesterday’s star presenter Virgin Islands Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett as well as Texas twin Joaquin Castro, California’s Eric Swalwell and Rhode Island’s David Cicilline brought receipts yesterday to bolster their case against Trump. Those receipts included a damning stream of videos, many not previously aired, from perpetrators’ cell phones and Capitol police body cameras as well as Trump’s self-incriminating speeches and tweets, and of course there were lots of tweets.  The evidence tracked the origin of the January 6 insurrection from the months preceding the November election during which Trump told us repeatedly that he’d only recognize the results of the election if he was declared the winner, through to the Capitol invasion that he incited and urged on and failed to stop when he easily could have.  We already knew that the attackers were out to get Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, but hearing the Trump boys, well mostly boys, scream for both while seeing how close they got to nabbing their targets, and in the case of Pence his family as well, was chilling.  Notably those screams echoed the words in Trump’s tweets and speeches, the Trump boys even referred to Pelosi by her Trump anointed “Crazy Nancy” nickname.  The Trump thugs also missed Mitt Romney by a hair, the Utah senator was saved by Capitol officer Eugene Goodman who, as it turns out, was even more of a hero than we knew, and we already knew that he was among the day’s saviors. As to the other officers on the job on January 6, forget about any of those early suggestions that they were in any way complicit or sympathetic to the invading hordes, the videos document how much they were outnumbered and how hard they tried, at their own peril, to protect the Capitol, Congressional staff and all of the Senators and Congresspeople. Given how much they were tormented, it’s horrifying but not totally surprising that two of them have since taken their own lives.  The scenes of them being abused by the hordes of Trump thugs were painful to watch. Well painful for most of us, Senators Rick Scott and Josh “fist bump” Hawley thought that the Democrat’s presentation was just a waste of their time.  Lindsey Graham thought it was absurd and offensive and Ron Johnson said it was a double standard presumably because no clips of Black Lives Matter protesters were included because, you know, they’re the ones who were really responsible for January 6, right?  The day’s presentation ended with a bit of a kerfuffle from Senator Mike Lee who seemed really upset that a reference to a much reported call that one of his staff people had confirmed but that he denies, was included in the Democrat’s overview.  That was the call from Giuliani urging Tommy Tuberville to protest the confirmation of electoral college votes that through Rudy incompetence ended up on Lee’s line.  Incriminating timeline, bone chilling violence, not a problem for Lee, but possible misinformation about a misdirected Tuberville/Rudy call, that’s what has him twisted in knots. By the way, Twitter announced yesterday that Trump’s ban from their platform will last for ever even if he declares another run for office. 

Other Legalities: The Impeachment managers included Trump’s questionable call with Georgia’s election officials in their tick tock of events.  That’s the call that Secretary of State Raffensperger wisely got on tape.  Though the impeachment trial is likely to go Trump’s way despite the weakness of his defense or the incompetence of his lawyers who as one NY Times letter writer said could show up and read from Green Eggs and Ham and still get a not guilty verdict given the jury, it looks like prosecutors in Georgia take efforts to subvert elections seriously.  Democratic District Attorney Fani Willis, the top prosecutor in Fulton County, has opened a criminal investigation into the call because asking for “enough votes to overturn” an election strikes her as a big, illegal no no.  Worth remembering, though it wasn’t taped, Raffensperger also reported having a similar call with Lindsey Graham; could that be why the South Carolina stooge finds all this impeachment stuff so offensive? Similarly, Rudy Giuliani might have a few more things to be concerned about.  Apparently, higher ups in the Trump Justice Department prevented SDNY prosecutors from obtaining a warrant for some Rudy’s files they wanted to peruse as part of their investigation into whether Giuliani had illegally lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of the Ukrainians who helped with his search for compromising information on the Biden family.  Of course those same senior DOJ officials had no problem signing off on the Hunter Biden investigation. With new “sheriffs” in charge, Rudy may find that the election machine lawsuits are the least of his problems.

Viral Musings:  Mask and then mask again, the CDC says that double masking is a good thing in that, when done correctly, double masking can reduce viral transmission by 96.5%.  Correctly means a snugly worn surgical mask covered by a cloth mask.  Notably a good number of out and about government officials including virus guru Fauci are frequently seen wearing two masks.  The CDC has also revised some guidelines for the fully vaccinated. While mask wearing and social distancing is still required, those who have been fully vaccinated for two weeks and who are within two months of their second dose can avoid going into quarantine when exposed to a COVID positive person.  That assumes, of course that the vaccinated person has remained asymptomatic since their exposure.  The two month outer boundary likely reflects an absence of data about the durability of vaccinated immunity rather than an indication that the effectiveness of the shots wear off quickly; hopefully as time passes and data flows in the advice will be adjusted.  It turns out that social media isn’t just “biased” against right wingers, yesterday Instagram permanently banned anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy’s Instagram page for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about COVID and vaccines. And yes, unlike Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, anti-vaxxer Kennedy is a member of the Kennedy family.  RFK’s Facebook page remains up because even though FB owns Instagram and asserts they are fighting against vaccine misinformation, they have no problem with Kennedy continuing to post.  Hey, it’s Facebook, after all.  

471, 764    

44,770,000 shots administered

  

Vampires and Voldemort

Impeachment Two, Day One: Yesterday morning, during a Senate hearing on her nomination to serve as the head of the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden was skewered by Republicans for the critical, sometimes polarizing tweets that she sent out during the Trump years.  Apparently, they failed to see the humor in her comparing Ted Cruz to a vampire and “Moscow” Mitch McConnell to Voldemort; nor were they pleased about the ones where she said that Susan Collins was the worst and that Tom Cotton was a fraud. That’s the same group of Senators who rarely admitted to even seeing Trump’s tweets and/or excused them with a shrug.  So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that after sitting through the thorough and heartbreaking presentation provided by the House Democrat’s impeachment team followed by an incoherent, rambling, factually inaccurate one provided by Trump’s lawyers, forty-four of them voted that trying the out of office Trump for inciting an insurrection would be unconstitutional.  Only one, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy joined the five other Republican Senators, Romney, Murkowski, Collins, Toomey and Sasse, and all the Democrats who had previously indicated that proceeding with the rest of the trial was the way to go by voting that the trial is constitutional. Cassidy who was just reelected to his seat was almost immediately condemned by his state’s Republican Party for his treachery. Apparently, they, unlike him, failed to notice the incompetence of Trump’s lawyers.  Nor did they appreciate the Democrat’s chilling opening video or the presentations provided by the Democrats, most notably the legally convincing and thoroughly heartbreaking words from Maryland Congressman/team leader Jamie Raskin or the calm yet forceful ones from Colorado’s Joe Neguse, who, judging by his performance is one to watch in the coming years. Even some of the Republican Senators who voted against the constitutionality of the trial continuing, including Mississippi’s Roger Wicker, admitted that the Democratic team had done a far better job than Trump’s lawyers. Utah’s Mike Lee just said that everyone including Trump is entitled to make mistakes, that’s why there are mulligans.  Lee by the way was one of the eleven Republican Senators who actually voted against the hearing rules agreed to by Senator leaders Schumer and McConnell.  The other ten were Cruz, Hagerty, Hawley, Johnson, Marshall, Paul, Rubio, both Scotts and the ever clueless Tuberville.  

Only the Best: Getting back to Trump’s legal team’s performance, it embarrassed a lot of Wicker’s colleagues who had hoped that they’d be able to justify their votes to end the trial by saying that Trump’s lawyers’ arguments were brilliant, or at least decent.  As to Trump, unlike Joe Biden who was too busy running the country and dealing with the virus to stay glued to the TV, he spent the day watching the trial but fortunately not rage tweeting since he remains banned from Twitter.  Reports are that he was furious, at the ineptitude of his legal team and because the more rambling of the two, Bruce Castor actually complimented the Democrats on their performance, admitting that he and his colleague David Schoen reordered their remarks in an attempt to diffuse the Democrats’ effectiveness.  Trump was apparently also less than pleased that his lawyers actually acknowledged his election loss while also suggesting that there are other ways to punish an out of office president for his criminal activities.  One of those criminal activities worth looking into might involve Parler, the currently out of commission far right version of Twitter.  Apparently, back when he was sitting in the Oval Office Trump entertained pledging to post only on Parler in exchange for a 40% ownership interest.    

Up Next: With the constitutionality vote over, the trial moves forward today.  House Democrats will lay out their case, touching on whether Trump was just exercising his First Amendment rights when he urged the mob of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and those other willing/gullible insurgents to move on to the Capitol, whether the House violated his due process rights when and how it impeached him, and whether this is a “bill of attainder,” as in legislation singling out an individual or group of people for punishment without trial.  Trump’s lawyers may or may not do a better job laying out their defense arguments but who are we kidding, their incompetence probably doesn’t matter.  Trump may be furious about their performance, but it looks increasingly like he was right when he said just a few weeks ago that he didn’t need to waste money on good lawyers because given the jury he didn’t need the best ones or even good ones.  That’s not to say that there’s no chance that a few more Republicans won’t see the light, Voldemort Mitch has apparently told his crowd that they’re free to vote their consciences but it would be absurd to think that enough of them actually have consciences or are willing to go up against their state parties and those threats of censure.  And, its worth noting that Senator Voldemort is the same Mitch who delayed holding the trial until after Trump was out of office, setting up the constitutional debate in the first place. 

Human Resources: Neera Tandem probably shouldn’t have sent off all her exasperated tweets during the four years of Trump darkness given her government aspirations, but really who among us thinks that anything she said was wrong? Anyway, with Democrats controlling the Senate, she’ll probably be confirmed even if she fails to get a single Republican vote, possibly before the widely respected Merrick Garland, who with Lindsey Graham demoted from the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, replaced by Illinois’ Dick Durbin who replaced the less than coherent Diane Feinstein as the committee’s senior Democrat, finally has a confirmation schedule.  By the way, most of the Trump era US Attorneys have been told to pack up their bags. Among those who will be spared for now are Connecticut’s John Durham who is still working on that investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation and  Delaware’s David Weiss who is heading up the investigation into Hunter Biden. Could anyone ever imagine Trump who routinely fired uncooperative US Attorneys holding on to any involved in inconvenient investigations?        

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43,206,200 shots in arms

Must See TV Day

Impeach, Impeach:   Impeachment Part II kicks off today with a debate about whether it is constitutional to impeach an out of office president.  In addition to the legal mumbo jumbo, the debate is likely to include some histrionics from the usual crowd of outspoken Republican Trump acolytes like Rand Paul, the doctor who is barely a doctor, and Lindsey Graham, an actual lawyer who long ago stopped pretending to be ethical.  After Trump’s team argues that the impeachment is both unconstitutional and mean the Senate will vote on whether it has the jurisdiction to go forward with the rest of the trial.  The answer to that is they do.  Since the threshold to move on is a simple majority of 51 votes and given that all 50 Democrats plus five Republican Senators including Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse and Pat Toomey more or less already decided the constitutionality issue when it was first raised by Rand Paul, it’s a given that the trial will continue.  It’s also possible that a few more Republicans including one or more of those brave soon to be retirees like Rob Portman will join the initial five Republicans and the fifty Democrats.  Tomorrow the trial will proceed giving up to sixteen hours to each side to present their cases.  Both sides plan to show lots of carefully selected and edited videos with Trump’s team portraying him as an enthusiastic but good natured cheerleader just out having fun and exercising his First Amendment rights while also citing dubious right wing sources that claim that the evil doers were antifa plants and the like.  The Democrats’ director’s cut will document how all that not so mild mannered “enthusiasm” inspired the mayhem and rampage that endangered the lives of all of those next in line for the presidency while resulting in death and critical injuries. Though he hasn’t gotten a Kushner dispensation from his Rabbi, Trump lawyer David Schoen has withdrawn his request that the trial be put on hold on for the Sabbath, saying that the rest of the team can cover for him while he attends shul.  Of course they can, it’s not like the outcome of the trial hasn’t already been decided. Also on the legal front, Georgia’s Secretary of State has opened an investigation into Trump’s very questionable  taped phone call, the one where he asked Secretary of State Raffensperger to find enough votes to seal his victory.    

Human Resources:  Yesterday Alabama’s long term Republican Senator Richard Shelby announced that he will not be running for reelection in 2022, he’s 86 so that’s not a total surprise.  Though it would be nice to believe that Shelby’s retirement  provides another opportunity for Democratic former Senator Doug Jones, it’s Alabama so absent another child molestation scandal, that’s not going to happen.  It’s far more likely that Alabama puts forth another Tommy Tuberville or maybe even worse Congressman Mo Brooks. Former Obama Chief of Staff Denis McDonough was confirmed as Veterans Affairs Secretary yesterday by a vote of 87 to 7 and yes, of course, Missouri’s Josh Hawley was among the 7  voting against his confirmation.  The other “no” voting Republicans were Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, Tom Cotton, Joni Ernst, Roger Marshall and Bill Haggerty. Republican Congressman Ron Wright of Texas has died of COVID.  Wright, a mask skeptic, who also had lung cancer, tested COVID positive following the January 6 insurrection. On a less dire note, at least with regard to life and death, upstate NY Congressman Anthony, a Democrat, formally conceded his close loss to Republican Claudia Tenney yesterday, further closing the gap between Republicans and Democrats in the House. Believe it or not one more seat is still being disputed. After “winning” by six votes Iowa Republican Mariannette Miller Meeks was seated in the House in January but only on a provisional basis.  Her opponent Democrat Rita Hart is contesting the election asserting that 22 previously uncounted ballots will change the election’s outcome.  And one more thing to keep an eye on, although the Democratic House margin is frighteningly teeny, it’s been reported that Speaker Pelosi has okayed Congressman Adam Schiff’s efforts to be appointed to the California Attorney General position soon to be vacated by Biden HHS Secretary nominee Xavier Becerra.  The AG position is viewed as a stepping stone to the Senate seat that will at some point be vacated by Diane Feinstein.  

Viral Musings: With supplies still frustratingly limited getting a vaccine appointment requires being in a qualifying group plus lots of luck and perseverance but the good news is that it looks like getting shots into the most vulnerable is already paying off.  New COVID cases among nursing residents and staffs have dropped more than 50% in about four weeks with cases falling more than twice as fast in those facilities where shots have been most aggressively administered.  Also, according to an article published in Nature Medicine yesterday, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine grants protection against both the concerning South African and British coronavirus variants. Pfizer also reports that as it ramps up production its been able to shorten the its vaccine manufacturing time from 110 to around 60 days. One more thing, while the fully vaccinated are being told to follow all masking and distancing rules under all circumstances, Virus Guru Fauci says that the CDC is likely to be issuing revised guidelines soon focusing on loosening some rules for vaccinated “pods.”   

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42,417,600 shots in arms

  

 

The Sequel

Goats: If I had told you last February that Trump would face a second impeachment trial for staging an attempted coup; that the media would be obsessed by a Qster Congresswoman spouting conspiracy theories about Jewish lasers and staged school shootings; that we’d be debating the value of wearing one, two or no face masks; that we’d be scouring the internet for vaccine appointments and talking mRNA vs adenoviruses; that Trump had almost made the now pardoned Michael Flynn, who may or may not be the new Q, the FBI Director so that he could push forward with his martial law fantasy; that Lou Dobbs would be fired for claiming that election software flipped Trump votes to Joe Biden;  that Joe Biden would after countless attempts finally win the presidency; and that Tom Brady would lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to Super Bowl victory you would have questioned my sanity, at least about everything but Tom Brady, but here we are at Impeachment Week, The Sequel, and all those other things have or really are happening.

Dude Worship: Merely very conservative Republicans like Nebraska’s Ben Sasse who slammed his state’s Republican Party for censoring him while engaging in “dude worship” and Liz Cheney, who doubled down on her correctness of her vote to impeach Trump while also being censored by her state party, continue to play the long game while key members of the Republican contingent including Senators Graham, Cassidy, Paul and Johnson are still team Trump.  They were out this weekend pushing their argument that an out of office Trump, can’t be impeached with Johnson actually blaming Nancy Pelosi for the January 6 Capitol attack and Paul arguing that if anyone should be impeached it should be Senate Leader Chuck Schumer.  As to that argument that only current president’s can be tried, Charles Cooper, a top conservative lawyer who has represented the who’s who of Republicans including Ted Cruz, QOP leader Qevin McCarthy, John Bolton and Jeff Sessions posted an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal last night arguing that impeaching an out of office president is totally legit and to say otherwise “defies logic.” Logic is not a concept familiar to Lou Dobbs who continued to push the absurd conspiracy theory about the Dominion Voting Machines and Smartmatic voting software companies, even after he’d been told that doing so from his Fox perch was a big no-no so after Smartmatic named him, Fox, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, Rudy Giuliani and Kraken lawyer Sidney Powell in a $2.7 billion defamation suit, Fox pulled Dobbs off the air permanently.  Fox of course brushed away any suggestions that Dobbs is a sacrificial lamb and that his dismissal had anything to do with the very credible lawsuit that they will probably try to settle in order to avoid all that messy, implicating discovery instead claiming that he had been axed just minutes before he was supposed to on air to interview one of Trump’s impeachment lawyers as the result of a year-end review of the profitability of their programming.  As to Bruce Castor the impeachment lawyer due to be interviewed by Dobbs, he made it on to Fox News but had to settle for a tete a tete with an emergency stand in.  By the way, Trump’s other impeachment lawyer, David Schoen, has let it be known, that since he hasn’t been granted one of those special Rabbinical dispensations that son in law Jared always managed to obtain whenever he needed to toil on the Sabbath, he needs the impeachment hearing to rest next Saturday if it’s not put to bed beforehand. Leader Schumer has promised to accommodate him as long as he leaves his lasers at home and doesn’t try to jump any of the Capitol metal detectors like Republicans Reps Louis Gohmert and Andy Clyde who have started running up $5000/jump fines.

Politics as Usual:  Joe and the Democrats are getting roundly criticized by the Republicans for moving full speed ahead with their COVID relief legislation, the aptly named $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that former Democratic Secretary Treasury Larry Summers said is too large but that the current one Janet Yellin said will lead to full employment sooner rather than later. Biden wants the legislation  wrapped with a bow before March 14 before unemployment checks end.  The Republicans are squawking about Biden failing to honor his promise to be a unifying president because to them unification means concessions galore, at least that’s what it means when their leader Mitch isn’t in charge.  To Joe unification means balancing the needs of his left wing with the demands of Joe Manchin while keeping the majority of the country’s population happy rather than satisfying the wishes of ten or maybe even one Republican Senator.  The one major thing that will probably fall out of the package is the $15 minimum wage, not because of any negotiation but because the Senate Parliamentarian is likely to rule that it doesn’t qualify for inclusion in a budget package. That doesn’t mean that Biden has given up on increasing the minimum wage, it’s just unlikely to be in with COVID relief.   

Viral Musings:  The race to get as many of us vaccinated as soon as possible is on, hitting speed bumps but making some progress.  The not so good news is that the much discussed troublesome variants are spreading and that doses, and thus shot appointments, are frequently out of reach.  Though South Africa has paused the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine that is being used in the UK over concerns that it doesn’t adequately prevent against their dominate virus variant, they are moving forward with the Pfizer/Biotech and J & J vaccines, the other two in their national arsenal.  The much better news is that the J & J one dose vaccine which appears to be fully protective against the things that really matter, hospitalization and death, is likely to be approved for use in the US by the end of the month making it available to go into arms in early March. Noting that we are already up to vaccinating two million per day, former FDA head/frequent vaccine pundit Scott Gottlieb says we are on track to vaccinate 150 million by the end of March. Moreover he believes that we will be in the position of having to “boost” the demand side of the vaccine equation as we move into April. That’s good news for those seeking appointments, less so for the need to get to herd immunity, but hopefully the marketing gurus, the ones who cleverly cast Timothee Chalamet as Edward Scissorhands and Michael B Jordan as the steamiest Amazon Alexa ever will be able to come up with a few pitches to solve that part of the equation.  And by the way, the second shot can be just a bit more annoying than the first, but well worth the pain.

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41,210,900 shots in arm

 

Kevin Q-Ca

Off for shot two so this morning’s note will be brief. On the subject of shots,  the Republican Party continues to shoot itself in the foot. That wouldn’t be so bad except that they remain just a few seats away from winning back the House and only one octogenarian seat from regaining Senate control.  Yesterday QOP Leader Kevin McCarthy who the not very subtle Speaker Pelosi snidely referred to as McCarthy (Q-Ca) in an email to her troops gave his Representative from QAnon Marjory Taylor Greene a pass because she was only kidding when she trafficked in anti-Semitic and racist conspiracy theories and questioned whether 9.11 and mass shootings were real things. To drive home the point that she remains welcome in his caucus, around half of his complicit crowd gave her a standing ovation last night during their closed, but leaky, group grope.  That’s the same meeting where they also voted on whether or not Liz Cheney, who refused to apologize for voting her conscience on impeachment, should remain in her party leadership role. By 145 to 61 with 1 voting present,  Cheney won that that vote largely because it was a secret ballot and many Republicans are willing to cross Trump when no one can see that they have.  Given the way the ten Republican House members who voted for Trump’s impeachment are being treated by right wing media, their local party officials and even members of their own families, it’s fair to assume that if the ballot had been transparent, she would have had a harder time holding on to her position. Though the Republicans, or at least most of them not named Liz or Adam Kinzinger are okay with Margie Q retaining her committee positions, the Democrats not so much, later today they plan to vote away her committee assignments.  QOP McCarthy’s response to their plan is that the Democrats are being mean and spiteful, that they better watch out because if or when Republicans are in charge they’ll be sure to do the same to a few members of the so-called squad like Ilhan Omar, who actually apologized publicly for her anti-Semitic remarks or maybe even AOC just for the heck of it. On the subject of hate, our Canadian neighbors to the north declared that the Proud Boys, the guys that Trump told to stand by, are a terrorist group, putting them on a list that includes al-Qaeda, ISIS and al-Shabab.  While the US hasn’t done that, possibly because Trump nixed any and all efforts focused on the threats of violent white supremacism, newly confirmed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced plans for a military wide stand down, pausing regular activity at some point in the next 60 days to tackle the issue of white nationalism in its ranks, an acknowledgement that as shown by the number of current and former members of the military that were involved in the January 6 insurrection, we’ve got a mondo big problem. As to confirming other members of Biden’s cabinet and team, yesterday Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer finalized and passed their organizing agreement which means that Democrats now chair all of Senate Committees so that yokels like Lindsey Graham will no longer be able to sit on confirmations of nominees like soon to be Attorney General Merrick Garland.  On the legislative front, while President Biden and Bernie Sanders, the new head of the Senate Finance committee, are willing to lower the income qualification limits for families with more than two earners, they’re both standing by the $1.9 trillion size of the virus relief package. That package is moving forward via reconciliation, so while a few changes might still be made, with or without Republican support it will pass.

Have a good day! Stay safe and #WearAMask or two. 

450,805 dead

33,878,300 shots in arms