Loony lies

Cancer of the Party:  Last night without directly naming her Senate Minority Leader McConnell referred to QAnon Marge’s embrace of “loony lies and conspiracy theories” as a “cancer of the Republican Party” saying that someone who’s suggested that no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9.11, that horrifying school shootings were staged events and, one that’s new to me, that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr’s plane “is not living in reality.”  He also made it clear that he’s Team Liz, complimenting Representative Cheney who’s been subjected to heat from the House’s Freedom Caucus and a certain former WH denizen for voting for impeachment.  He called her an important leader with “deep convictions and the courage to act on them," saying that he’s “grateful for her service” and “looks forward to continuing to work with her on the crucial issues facing our nation.” Well forget about that last part, we all know that Mitch’s idea of dealing with crucial issues has more to do with confirming uber conservative judges than almost anything else. Since McConnell is known as a careful speaker who weighs every word he says there’s no question that his intent was to send a message to House GOP Leader McCarthy that it’s time to put an end to the push to dethrone Liz from her Republican House leadership position and that he should act ASAP to clip his loony QAnon bird’s wings, removing her from her committee assignments, including her Education Committee perch, a punishment that ultimately led to the end of both Iowa racist Steve King’s and extreme Trump critic Justin Amash’s House careers.  McConnell’s vocal thrashing of QAnon Marge and her hatemongering is warranted but who’s he kidding, she’s just a metastasis off Trump, the figure Mitch humored for four years not just for the judges but for the tax cuts and to facilitate the fossil fuels industry. As to the Congresswoman from QAnon, she hit back at McConnell calling him the “the real cancer for the Republican Party” for being one of those “weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully. This is why we are losing our country.”  And who doesn’t think that she has a point, not the losing gracefully part, but the suggestion that Turtle is part of the problem.  We should know more about Marge’s fate soon enough.  House Democrats have made it clear to McCarthy that if he doesn’t remove her from her committee assignments, they’ll do so via a floor vote.  Most Democrats would vote her out of the House all together if they could but unfortunately that would require the super majority that they don’t have. Getting back to McCarthy, that Marge was ever put on the Education Committee in the first place is a sign of his utter complicity. As to the excision of the primary tumor, that will be harder, the impeachment trial is on for next week, few but the most gullible think that even the most gut punching, implicating presentation will sway enough Republican members of  Trump’s Senate “jury.” By the way, would you be surprised to learn that one of the reasons that Trump’s lawyers jumped  ship over the weekend had to do with a dispute over fees? Or that a post mortem report of his campaign completed by his chief pollster says that he lost the election, because of voter perception that he wasn’t honest or trustworthy and that he was “crushed” by disapproval of his handling of the pandemic. Moreover, despite those baseless accusations of ballot-stuffing in heavily Black cities, the report notes that he was done in by “hemorrhaging” support from white voters. For his sake, hope that pollster got paid upfront.  It’s not like Trump isn’t swimming in cash, he raised buckets of it after the election with his “Save the Election” pitch with lots also going to the RNC which goes far towards explaining their loyalty.  

Politics as Usual:  Led by Maine’s Susan Collins, a group of Republicans met with Joe and Kamala at the White House yesterday for a show and tell.  The Republicans told Biden why he should accept their watered down virus relief package while he smiled a lot to show the public that he’s trying really hard to get bipartisan support even though he knows that it’s unlikely that he’ll really be able to pick off ten or maybe even any of them to get the votes he needed to pass his relief plan through the Senate the “regular” way, i.e. with 60 votes.  Though Collins reported that it was a “very useful” meeting the Biden team is already laying the groundwork to pass their version of relief legislation through reconciliation, the technique that would require only 50 votes plus  a VP Harris tie breaker.  That of course would require the support of Biden’s most conservative Democrats, Senators Sinema and Manchin, who both have indicated a preference for a smaller plan, something north of what the Republicans are proposing but south of Biden’s preference.  That said, Manchin who seemed a bit annoyed that VP Harris spoke directly to West Virginians this weekend, will probably get on board since his state’s Governor, Jim Justice, the former Democrat who turned Republican during the Trump years, is all in on going “big,” saying that so what if we “throw away” money now, we’re in a crisis. It’s likely that a number of other Republican Governors from cash strapped states agree with him even if they won’t say so.  Maybe Biden cuts a bit from his wish list to please Sinema and Manchin, maybe not but in all likelihood the show will go on with few if any Republicans.

Viral Musings: Grumblings about the vaccine rollout and the occasional story about a flat earther destroying full vaccine bottles aside, the US has been administering shots at a faster daily rate than any other country, giving about 1.3 million doses a day although given the east coast blizzard and related New York cancellations yesterday’s total shots in arms statistic probably took a dip. Bloomberg reports that 7.8% of us have gotten at least one shot so far, with 1.8% fully vaccinated and that, at least for now, we’ve crossed a threshold, more people have gotten shots than have been diagnosed with COVID.  The fully vaccinated number is likely to start ticking up faster as those who got shots right after the roll out categories were expanded beyond health professionals and nursing homes start getting their second ones.  Of course that last part assumes that Governors stick to the two shot plan, not a given everywhere but one that NY’s Cuomo and the CDC seem to be sticking with despite some experts pushing otherwise. Regardless of where you stand in the line #WearAMask or two.           

443,613 Dead

26,322,212 total cases   

32,222,400 vaccines administered