Lies of a Feather......

Flock Together: Like COVID, Trump is not going away any time soon, instead he is lingering, rebounding, throwing off variants and leaving long lasting effects on those infected by his poison.  He’s out of office but continues to have outsized influence over the Republican Party so really who is surprised at QAnon Marge’s report that he called her to express his support because why wouldn’t he be all in on a gun wielding, anti-Semitic, white supremacist, conspiracist in the House of Representatives? As Republican conscience Mitt Romney put it this weekend “lies of a feather flock together.” Speaking of flocks, over the weekend five lawyers including lead attorney Butch Bowers, who Trump had retained on the recommendation of Senator Lindsey Graham, and Deborah Barbier, Josh Howard, Greg Harris and Johnny Gasse quit his team.  The departing attorneys planned to defend him during his Senate trial by arguing that impeaching an out of office president was unconstitutional, a good strategy, not because it’s correct but because most Senate Republicans already voted that they would buy it.  However, Trump didn’t like their plan, instead he wanted them to focus on those baseless allegations of election fraud.  Last night Trump announced that he’s hired a new team.  The new lawyers are David Schoen and Bruce Castor.  Schoen who has previously represented Trump buddy/pardon recipient Roger Stone was the last lawyer to visit Trump associate/pedophile Jeffrey Epstein before his alleged suicide.  Castor is best known for being the Pennsylvania county district attorney who refused to pursue charges against that other sexual deviant Bill Cosby.  Birds of a feather?  

Tick Tock: As to the January 6^th insurrection, the event that together with the efforts to prevent the confirmation of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory came close to being a successful coup, today’s NY Times has a damning tick–tock of all of the nefarious actions that Trump took between election night and the inauguration, beginning with his plan to declare victory on election night, the plan that was upturned by Fox declaring Biden the winner in Arizona, through to his efforts to get Georgia to overturn its election results and on to his urging of the rioters and insurgents who attacked the Capitol and threatened the lives of many in Congress and his obsequious understudy, Mike Pence.  The NY Times isn’t the only main stream paper focused on Trump and his supporters’ attempts to undermine democracy, Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is also in on the action.  Together the two papers provide detailed information regarding a number of the right wing groups and financial contributors who provided the money for the January 6^th shindig.  That group includes far right media personality Alex Jones and Julie Jenkins Fancelli, heir to the Publix supermarket fortune.  In addition, at least five “former” Trump campaign staffers were involved in the logistics of the event.  As to the inadequate protection provided to the Capitol on insurgency day, a recently revealed memo from Christopher Miller, the Acting Secretary of Defense that Trump put in place late last year despite his lack of any relevant experience, goes far towards explaining why the insurrection could not be contained.  Miller authorized the DC National Guard to support the Capitol Police but said that the soldiers could be given no weapons, no body armor and no helmets.  So basically, Trump’s questionably selected Defense Secretary set them and the police up for failure, leaving Congress totally exposed.  That, the video evidence of the January’s 6th horror show, and the growing list of Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Oath Keepers being arrested for things like conspiracy and head smashing are likely to make up the case that the House prosecution team presents next week during the impeachment trial.  All of it, together with some additional information about the Trumpkins who participated in the erev riot get together at Trump’s DC hotel will provide the evidence needed to convict. Okay, who am I kidding? As Trump pointed out when his first five lawyers jumped ship, he doesn’t need to spend money on defense lawyers, the fix is in, he owns somewhere around 45 of the jurors/Senators.  By the way, on the money front, Home Depot, a dependable conservative contributor has announced plans to suspend contributions to any of those Republicans who voted against vote certification but merely voting that Trump did nothing wrong will be okay.  Home Depot joins a growing list of corporations showing some conscience, well at least for now.  Suspend is a fairly non-committal word.  By the way does anyone think it’s a coincidence that Florida’s Governor DeSantis tried to make Publix the sole provider of COVID 19 vaccines in Palm Beach County?  Or that Fox has fired the analysts on its election decision desk who accurately called the Arizona election for Biden? Or that Arizona Republicans are now trying to pass a law that would allow the state legislature to throw out presidential election results they don’t like?  Or that Georgia is trying to pass a law requiring that voters requesting absentee ballots jump through more hoops first?       

Politics as Usual:  President Biden wants to get his COVID relief plan through the Senate this week before next week’s impeachment trial. He can push it through using a variation of reconciliation, the technique that Republicans used to pass Trump’s tax cuts without any Democratic support and that they also tried to use to kill Obamacare or he can continue to try to strike a deal with the ten Republican Senators who insist that they’re willing to negotiate. Those so-called moderate Republicans argue that passing anything without their support would prove that Biden wasn’t serious when he claimed that he wanted to be a uniter.  To that end, a group of ten led by Maine’s Susan Collins and including Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Indiana’s Todd Young, Kansas’ Jerry Moran, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy,  North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Ohio’s Rob Portman, South Dakota’s Mike Rounds, West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito and Utah’s Mitt Romney sent Biden a counter proposal over the weekend.  Their proposal provides only $600 billion, far short of the $1.9 trillion in Biden’s bill.  Among other things their proposal doesn’t include Biden’s $15 minimum wage or much if any of the state aid money that Biden’s calls for and lowers the income trigger for receiving any supplemental payments.  Biden is due to sit down with the Republican “ten” this afternoon.  No way he’s going to agree to go down to $600 billion, no way they’re going to suddenly see the light and agree to go up to $1.9 trillion.  Maybe they’ll find a middle ground, maybe Biden will break his package in two, passing a portion with the ten Republicans and the rest through the lower reconciliation threshold or maybe he’ll say thanks but no thanks and go ahead with his full package now.  On the cabinet front, the confirmation vote for Biden’s Homeland Security pick Alejandro Mayorkas which was finally due to be voted on today has been pushed off until tomorrow due to the blizzard enveloping the northeast.    

Viral Musings:  Moments after Friday’s email went out, Johnson & Johnson released their vaccine results.  While their one shot adenovector vaccine is not as effective as the two dose mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer in preventing infection, it prevents hospitalizations and death. If anyone told us last April that we would have a shot that did that we’d be jumping for joy so consider J & J’s news and the availability of another US vaccine a very good thing,  The J & J vaccine isn’t approved yet, but it’s fair to assume that it will be shortly. The Biden team only includes approved vaccines in its shot in arms projections, once J & J receives is approved, their projections will show more people getting vaccinated sooner with the only constraint, and it remains a big one, being manufacturing capability and supply.        

441,331 dead

31,123,300 vaccines administered