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.