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