Mostly Kooks

Viral Musings:  It’s hard to believe anything out of Russia given Putin’s atrocious behavior and the way he’s treating opposition politician Aleksei Navalny who was sentenced yesterday to two and one half more years in prison for violating the conditions of his parole by failing to report properly to authorities in person when he was in Germany recovering from being almost lethally poisoned by Putin’s thugs.  Navalny was on parole due to another trumped up charge intended to punish him for opposing Putin.  That said, assuming Putin’s scientists didn’t fudge their numbers, the world now has another safe and effective vaccine, as Lancet reports that Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is 91.6% effective against symptomatic COVID and 100% effective against severe and moderate disease. While Biden’s team announced that select local pharmacies, initially located in higher risk areas will soon be getting vaccines, don’t expect to see the Sputnik one in your local pharmacy anytime ever but its effectiveness and safety benefits all of us since Russia has already started distributing it to countries in need including Argentina, Serbia and Algeria, and Brazil, Mexico and India have already placed orders.  The pandemic doesn’t end until the world is inoculated which is also why Biden has joined COVAX, the international cooperative that provides vaccines to third world countries, something that Trump of course wasn’t into.  Closer to home, yesterday Pfizer announced that with its production running ahead of schedule, it now plans to deliver 200 million doses of its vaccine to the US by May, earlier than its initial forecast of July.  A new study indicates that the AstraZeneca vaccine that has already been approved for use in the UK not only protects recipients from serious illness and death but also substantially slows virus transmission. In the rush to get vaccines approved, the other producers did not study whether vaccinated people could still spread the virus, one of the reasons that we’re being told to continue masking even after getting shots, so the news from AstraZeneca is heartening, as their results likely apply to the other vaccines, something we should know soon as the others are currently studying post vaccination transmission.  One more thing on the vaccination front, it’s possible that people who’ve had COVID won’t need a second dose of the two dose vaccines. That still needs to be proven so if you’re one of those who had the dreaded COVID, for now assume that you’ll need two shots, assuming you get Moderna’s or Pfizer’s.      

Impeach, Impeach: Both sides submitted their impeachment briefs yesterday.  The House impeachment managers argue that Trump pushed his supporters into a “frenzy,” calling him “singularly responsible” for the deadly siege at the Capitol on January 6.  They go on to say that Trump’s actions were not protected by the First Amendment because “if provoking an insurrection riot against a Joint Session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard to imagine what would be.”  They also reject the argument that an out of office Trump can’t be impeached, noting that he was in office when he was impeached and that the precedent for proceeding with a trial is with them.  Trump’s lawyers, of course, beg to differ. Following the precedent set by his Kraken election legal beagles their brief begins with the misspelling of United States before going on to argue that it’s unconstitutional to impeach an out of office president and anyway the First Amendment gives Trump the right to say anything he wants, so there.  Likely because Trump demanded it and because, unlike the lawyers they replaced, the newest team is a bit more malleable as in complicit, they also “allude” to the legitimacy of Trump’s election fraud argument.  Trump’s lawyers’ brief is short and unimpressive, while the House’s is longer, thorough and more convincing but then again, as we know by now that won’t matter as the fix is in.  As to the events of January 6, though Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez survived the day, the now viral story of her experience is harrowing.  As a target of far right wingnuts she gets lots of threats on an all too regular basis, so she was particularly concerned that she might not survive the day, and to make matters worse, the experience triggered memories of a prior sexual assault.  She’s very luck that she managed to shelter in place with California’s Katie Porter, who it turns out isn’t just an effective hearing interrogator, but is also a calming influence, something she attributes to motherhood.  Unfortunately, slain Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick wasn’t so lucky which is why he was lying in honor in the Capitol yesterday, a victim of all that Trump “free speech.”

Politics as Usual:  Yesterday two of President Biden’s cabinet members, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas were confirmed.  The Mayorkas vote was close, following Mitch McConnell’s lead all but six Republicans, including Senators Collins, Murkowski, Sullivan, Romney, Portman and Moore Capito, voted against his confirmation, a preview of how most Republicans will vote on future efforts to fix the immigration quagmire.  Only thirteen Republican Senators voted against Buttigieg’s confirmation.  That list included the usual crowd of presidential wannabees, insurgents, and their followers including Blackburn, Cassidy, Cotton, Cruz, Hagerty, Hawley, Lankford. Marshall, Rubio, both Scotts, Shelby and of course, the clueless Tuberville.  The naysayers complained about Buttigieg’s lack of experience and his progressive ideas, you can read whatever you want into what they meant by “progressive.”  Though Judge Merrick Garland, Biden’s nominee for Attorney General is expected to get broad bipartisan support, his confirmation vote is still being held up because so far McConnell and new Majority Leader Schumer have not signed their power sharing agreement. Until they do the very spiteful, Trump fanboy Lindsey Graham remains chair of the Senate Judiciary committee and he’s made it clear that he’s in no hurry to bring Garland’s nomination to the floor, possibly as payback for the whole impeachment thing that he so opposes because it’s Trump’s rather than someone named Clinton.  So despite his unquestioned credentials Garland, who were it not for McConnell’s Obama era connivance would be on the Supreme Court, is still being tortured by Republicans.  Though the list of Republican Senators now on record dissing Qongresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to grow, QOP House Leader Qevin McCarthy is having a hard time cutting her from her committee assignments.  Last night he met with her and then held a meeting of his Steering Committee, the one that metes out committee assignments, but so far he’s taken no action.  Republican conscience Senator Mitt Romney put it best saying that “our big tent is not large enough to both accommodate conservatives and kooks,” he should be right about the kooks but then again has he looked at his party lately, and what big tent is he talking about?  Still his comment, which was echoed by others following McConnell’s lead, is totally offensive to Ohio’s Freedom Caucus representative “Gym” Jordan who insists that the real problem is Liz Cheney, that he wants to see her voted out of her leadership position before anyone even considers taking the Qongresswoman off of her committees.  Some action on both fronts is likely to be taken at some point today. And one more thing, with Mayorkas confirmed Biden unraveled some more of Trump’s immigration orders yesterday.     

446,885 Dead

32,780,900 shots in arms