Barbarian at the Gaetz

Nestor’s Dad: Starting off with the weirdly bizarre this morning and by weird and bizarre, think Matt Gaetz, the Republican Congressman/Former Guy fanboy from Florida’s panhandle.  Sure there’s more substantive news but the Gaetz story is far more entertaining unless of course you are or know a 17 year girl.  So here goes:  early yesterday several media outlets reported that Gaetz was toying with cutting his stay in Congress short to go work for right wing Fox wannabee Newsmax as their answer to Tucker Carlson.  Not long after the Newsmax story emerged, the NY Times revealed that Gaetz was under investigation by the Justice Department over an alleged sexual relationship with a 17 year old and for paying for her to travel with him across state lines. The investigation into Gaetz predates the Biden administration, it was initiated when Bill Barr was Attorney General and the source of Gaetz dirt is likely another disgraced Florida politician, former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg who was indicted last summer for sex trafficking and financially supporting people in exchange for sex.  Gaetz, who you may or may not remember, shocked a lot of people a few year ago when he revealed that the young man living with him was his “pretend adopted” son Nestor, immediately refuted the sex trafficking story by saying sure he’s paid for girls to travel with him but they’ve all been of age while claiming that he and his father were helping the FBI investigate a former FBI Agent who was attempting to extort money from them, a story that sounds like it comes out of the Roger Stone playbook because it might.  Anyway, yesterday’s episode ended with Gaetz appearing on Tucker Carlson’s Fox show where he not so subtly implicated Tucker in his sexual crime-capades.  Stay posted, episode two is likely to be a dandy.  In other mostly irrelevant news, the Former Guy has launched his own web site, not the Twitter/Parler like application he’s threatened, but one that mimics Cameo, the go to site for hiring celebrities to deliver birthday and/or congratulatory messages to friends and family.  So if you want the Former Guy or his current wife to give your right wing friends a shout out or your left wing ones a fright, for a fee of course, now you know where to go.  The Former Guy needs the cash as his legal expenses ticked up yesterday after a NY judge ruled that former Apprentice Summer Zervos’ defamation case against him could move forward now that he’s no longer in office, because two Capitol officers are now suing him for the physical and emotional distress they suffered as a result of the January 6 insurrection and because it’s only a matter of time before Dominion Voting Machines, now suing Fox for mondo bucks, sues him too. By the way, Pillow Man Lindell, another character who refuses to crawl back into his hole, asserts that the Former Guy will be back in his “rightful” Oval Office perch by August, thanks to a “voter fraud” lawsuit that he’s pursuing with the pools of cash he’s amassed selling crappy pillows to the FGs base.

Out of Breath:  The Chauvin trial continued yesterday with some more damning and emotional testimony from a few more witnesses, including Darnella Frazier, the teen who took the now viral video of Chauvin kneeing George Floyd’s neck and her 9 year old cousin Judeah Reynolds who was with her at the time and who described the terrible event in easily understood, simple language by testifying “It felt like he (Chauvin) was stopping his breathing and it was kind of like hurting him.” Testimony was also provided by off duty firefighter/EMT Genevieve Hansen whose offers to help the suffering Floyd were strongly rebuffed by the police and mixed martial arts expert Donald Williams who, referring to Chauvin’s actions,  called 911 to report that he thought he’d just seen a murder.  So far we’ve only heard from the prosecution but its hard to believe that much can be said to defend Chauvin’s actions which is why the defense is expected to claim that Floyd’s death had nothing to do with the knee to the neck but was instead caused by his drug intake, an assertion contradicted by the coroner’s report.

Viral Musings:  We’re in a fourth wave, the only question is whether the race to deliver vaccines moderates its peak.  Right now that race remains focused on delivering shots to adults but to reach herd immunity children will also need to be vaccinated.  To that end the good news is that this morning Pfizer reported that its vaccine was safe and 100% effective against symptomatic disease in a study of 2200 children twelve and older making it likely that middle and high school aged students will be eligible for vaccination by the time schools open in the fall.  The right wing and anti vaxx set have found a new target, vaccine passports.  They’re up in arms about the concept that anyone will have to show proof of vaccination to do anything, of course they’ve forgotten that school children and travelers to certain regions have had to prove vaccination for eons.  Of note, Florida Governor DeSantis who has been playing fast and loose with his state’s morbidity and mortality statistics says he will ban passports in his state.  So depressingly on brand.

And, infrastructure day is here, again.  

550,996

147,602,345 shots in arms

50% of all seniors are now fully vaccinated

 

9 Minutes, 29 Seconds

Viral Musings: Yesterday President Biden announced another acceleration in the vaccine rollout timetable, saying 90% of adults will be eligible to receive theirs within three weeks.  At the same time he and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky warned that now is not the time to attend any Roaring Twenties parties as new cases increased 16% last week with the hospitalizations that typically lag new infections already up 4.2%.  Biden called on governors to reinstate mask mandates while Walensky who asked everyone to “just hold on for a few more weeks” to give the vaccine roll out more time to squash the virus said that current morbidity trends were giving her that “impending doom” feeling, again. Hearing that we could be following Europe into another surge is disconcerting to say the least, especially since we also learned yesterday that real world studies of the performance of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines show that they are really working, achieving 90% efficacy against disease here in the US two weeks after the administration of second doses, an indication that they are working against our current variants.  Biden and Walensky’s warnings are representative of the honesty that they promised to deliver and that we need to hear, beating the BS we got from the Former Guy who told us last year at this time that the country would be open by Easter.  As to the Former Guy he issued another one of his incoherent, nasty messages yesterday, lashing out at Drs Fauci and Birx who he called self-promotors with bad instincts.  His trash talk was in response to the scathing criticism of his actions delivered by several members of his coronavirus team during Sunday night’s CNN Covid Wars special.  Among other things we learned during the CNN special that the FG administration manipulated morbidity and mortality data and lied about the availability of COVID tests.  Most disturbingly Dr Birx, who prior to her stint at the Trump altar was actually a well-respected AIDs expert, said that while the first 100,000 COVID deaths were probably unavoidable, but in her view the 450,000 that followed could have been “mitigated” if only the Former Guy had listened to his experts, the real ones as opposed to COVID deniers like Rick Atlas and the team at Fox. Of course, a lot of what Dr Debbie had to say should be taken with a grain of salt as she was doing some self-promotion, trying really hard to resuscitate her own reputation, the one that she trashed when she praised the FG for his attentiveness to scientific literature and details and sat silently by while he advocated Lysoltinis. During the same CNN special, former CDC head Robert Redfield also pointed the finger of shame at former HHS Secretary Azar who did not participate in the CNN special, saying that he was the one responsible for manipulating data. Without any scientific evidence to back him up, Redfield also said his gut tells him that COVID -19 probably originated in a Wuhan lab, an assertion that the World Health Organization and most other scientists find highly unlikely.

Politics As Usual:  Eric’s wife Lara who is seriously considering a run for the Senate seat being vacated by North Carolina’s Richard Burr is now being paid for to appear on Fox because why shouldn’t Fox pay a Trump while also increasing her visibility in the run up to her announcing her candidacy?  It’s what they did for Sarah Huckabee Sanders who benefitted from their largesse before she announced her current run for Arkansas Governor. A number of other states with Republican led legislatures are getting ready to follow Georgia and Arizona into the voting suppression abyss because allowing for the overturning of “blue” election results while depriving long lines of wannabee voters of water and other sustenance is so much easier than actually appealing to more voters.  Civil Rights groups had hoped that corporate America would help out by speaking out for voter rights, however Instead of criticizing the recently passed Georgia legislation, in an internal memo to its employees, hometown airline Delta praised it saying it will provide for “fair and secure elections.” Though Coke, another Georgia based corporation didn’t praise the legislation their response was relatively anemic. Eyes are now on Major League Baseball, with civil rights groups calling for the moving of this year’s all star game out of the state.  The same groups are also calling for boycotts of Delta Airlines and Coke products. Absent the Senate passing some form of the ‘For the People’ voter protection legislation already passed by the House, efforts to suppress votes will continue because as the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her Shelby County vs Holder dissenting opinion “throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes (in voting laws) is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

Out of Breath:  Yesterday marked the beginning of the testimony phase of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis policeman who we all saw press his knee into George Floyd’s neck.  Just a reminder that Chauvin’s actions and Floyd’s death took place in response to Floyd allegedly committing the truly unforgivable and horrific crime of passing a counterfeit $20 bill to a convenience store owner.  We learned yesterday that Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, longer than had previously been reported, and that the police dispatcher watching the arrest unfold via a city surveillance camera was so disturbed by what she saw that she called her duty sergeant to report that something wasn’t right.  The pressure on Floyd’s neck went on so long that at one point she even thought her camera was frozen.  The prosecutor also revealed that a Fire Department employee wanted to help Floyd but was warned off by Chauvin who pointed Mace at her. Elsewhere in the world, two of the doctors who treated the now jailed Russian dissident Alexie Navalny back when he was poisoned by Putin’s thugs have died under “mysterious” circumstances and the ruling junta in Myanmar continues to shoot and bomb its own citizens.  

550,036

145,812,835 shots in arms    

15.8% Americans fully vaccinated

  

Matzo Balls

The Big Lie:  The Former Guy is gone from office and if we’re lucky he’ll stay there but the effects of his big election lie continue to reverberate because instead of working to widen their base by appealing to new voter groups, Republican politicians and party officials across the country have concluded that appeal isn’t the problem, that they lost the 2020 presidential election because too many Democratic voters, especially people of color, were allowed to vote. With that in mind officials in far too many red states have turned their focus to solving the problem of voter fraud, the fraud that the commission set up by the Former Guy and chaired by his VP four years ago never found largely because it wasn’t there to find and because the few times it does occur it’s too insignificant to impact election results and/or is committed by Republicans, like that North Carolina vote harvester who turned blue absentee ballots red.  So last night under the guise of preventing all that fraud that isn’t, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp hastily signed the new election “protection” just passed by his Republican legislators into law. That new law will make it harder for working people to vote by making it more difficult to obtain absentee ballots, limiting voting days, hours, locations and drop boxes, even making it a crime to give a bottle of water to anyone waiting on one of those hours long lines, the ones that are far more common in Democratic leaning urban districts while also making it legal for the state legislature to overturn election results that they don’t like, the way the Former Guy tried to do during the 2020 election cycle.  To drive the racist intent of the legislation home, Georgia capitol law enforcement officers arrested Georgia state Democratic lawmaker Park Cannon who had the temerity to try to knock on the door of the chamber where Kemp was holding his closed door signing ceremony because nothing says fair treatment under the law like a bunch of burly white guys with guns dragging a Black woman off to jail while a Republican governor signs away her constituency’s voting rights. The legality of the Georgia legislation will likely be resolved by the courts, maybe even ending up with the Supremes, the same crowd who facilitated this mess with their Shelby County v Holder decision that paved the way for states to pass restrictive voting laws.  In all likelihood only the passage of Federal voter protection legislation will solve the voter suppression and that toss out “inconvenient” election results problem  but that legislation isn’t going to get anywhere near the sixty votes needed to pass through the Senate and might not even get the fifty votes needed if the filibuster is junked. So that Big Lie reverberates while democracy dangles by a string.

Infrastructure!   In other news, President Biden held his much awaited first press conference yesterday.  He didn’t insult any one,  yell at any reporters for wearing masks or advocate Lysoltinis but according to Fox and the right echo chamber, despite all that, or maybe because of it the “senile old guy” did a horrible job.  They were particularly outraged that he referred to notes a few times because why would anyone use notes during a press conference covering a wide array of topics?  For the record, the Former Guy frequently referred to his “Sharpie” notes when talking to the press but apparently that was okay.  In reality, the consensus view is that Biden was well prepared and did a pretty good job.  Like most politicians he pivoted away to subjects he wanted to discuss when asked questions he didn’t want to address, amusingly his pivot was to infrastructure, the topic that a certain other guy was known to pivot to also, only Biden talked details, making it clear that he plans to, or at the very least hopes to, move forward with infrastructure legislation shortly. Biden started off by announcing that he’d revised his vaccination target up from 100 million to 200 million shots in arms during his first 100 days, a more aggressive but achievable goal given the large supply of doses coming down the pike. Surprisingly, the press corps didn’t follow up with any more virus related queries but did ask whether Biden planned to run again in 2024 and whether Harris would still be his VP partner if he did.  Biden who appeared amused that after complaining endlessly about his failure to hold press conferences anyone would waste their slot with such silly questions, scrunched his eyes and answered yes to both, but really why would he say otherwise at this point in his term and why would he ditch Harris?  And those Republican efforts to suppress voter turnout, Biden called them “sick” while also calling out the filibuster as a relic of the Jim Crow era.

546,825

133,305,295 shots in arms

 Hag Sameach. Happy Passover.            

 

Mines and Dealerships

Border Assignment: While other things like the state of the pandemic, the vaccine rollout, school rules and the risk of encountering an AK 15 armed shooter during a trip to the supermarket might be of more concern to you, the media universe, starved by the absence of the Former Guy’s tweets and impromptu pressers, has grown increasingly apoplectic over President Biden focusing more on getting things done than spending time with them.  Their pain is about to end as Biden will be holding a formal press conference today.  Expect lots of questions about the situation at the border, a real issue but one that probably concerns you less than your place on the shot line or the gun problem. As to that border “crisis,” while much of the media and all of the Republican Party continue to push the “record setting, infected, hordes of terrorists coming because Biden said the borders are now open” narrative, yesterday the Washington Post reported that “the current increase in apprehensions fits a predictable pattern of seasonal changes in undocumented immigration combined with a backlog of demand because of 2020’s coronavirus border closure.” In addition, members of the Biden transition team, the crowd that was held back from performing their jobs by the Former Guy and his OMB toady said despite the recognition in December that more border facilities were needed, then HHS head Alex Azar sat on plans to open new facilities until the last possible moment.  Of course he did. All that said, there is a problem at the border, one that originates in Central America, which explains why Biden is detailing VP Harris to be his point person on all things migrant. Her assignment, like it or not, will be to slow the flow of migrants by addressing the “root causes” that prompts them to come as well as “strengthening relationships with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries where the bulk of the migrants arriving at the border come from.” Maybe not what she had planned when she accepted the VP slot but no one said that her job would be easy. 

Insurrection Update: We keep learning more and more about the lead up to and the events of the January 6^th insurrection, none of it pretty.  It appears that some of the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys, who were also protecting Roger Stone, were working in cahoots. We’re mostly learning this through court filings provided by prosecutors seeking to keep some of those charmers in jail pending their trials. We also learned last weekend from former AG Barr appointee Michael Sherwin who until recently had been serving as the interim US Attorney for Washington DC that sedition charges are also being considered. His disclosure, made during a 60 Minutes interview, was unusual given that the DOJ doesn’t typically preview its plans on prime time TV.  It’s not clear what motivated Sherwin to speak out, whether he thought he was “cleansing” his Barr tinged reputation or whether he was trying to damage the investigation but he’s now in trouble with his bosses at the Merrick Garland run DOJ and with US District Judge Mehta who called an emergency meeting to make it clear that he’s not happy about Sherwin’s interview as he believes that he and by extension the DOJ violated the court’s rules and its own internal procedures to refrain from speaking about ongoing cases outside of court.  Sherwin is still working for the DOJ but may not be for much longer. Not particularly on topic but related to the District of Columbia, the push is on, at least by the District and the Democrats for it to be made the 51^st state something that really freaks out Republicans because with statehood comes Senators and DC’s would most definitely be Democrats.  The DC position is that its tax paying residents should count and that with a population larger than Wyoming and Vermont they’re entitled to state status. Wisconsin’s Republican Congressman Glenn Grothman however is far from convinced, he cited DC’s lack of mines as a reason that they shouldn’t be made a state, while Georgia’s Jody Hice insisted that that DC’s lack of car dealerships was the problem, absurd and erroneous, DC has three dealerships, and not in my copy of the Constitution.  The truth is that Republicans just don’t want DC to be a state because not only would its Senators be Democrats they’d probably also be people of color.  As to other people who don’t fit the Republican mold, yesterday with the help of Senators Murkowski and Collins, Dr Rachel Levine, the transgender pediatrician who previously served as the Pennsylvania Secretary of Health was confirmed as Assistant Secretary of HHS while Vivek Murthy, who served under Obama, was confirmed as Surgeon General.  And after Senators Tammy Duckworth and Mazie Hirono kvetch threatened that they wouldn’t confirm any more of Biden’s candidates unless he added more Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders to the mix, the Biden team promised to hire a special liaison officer to the AAPI community. Worth recalling that Biden tried to get Neera Tanden confirmed as OMB director but couldn’t due to those ridiculous concerns by Republicans and Joe Manchin about her tweets. One more thing, it looks like California Congressman Adam Schiff isn’t going anywhere any time soon.  Yesterday, California Governor Newsom named Yale College/Law School graduate Rob Bonta, as the state’s next and first Filipino American Attorney General, that’s the slot that Schiff hoped to use as his stepping stone to the Senate.   

Viral Musings:  Astra Zeneca is out with its study results, again. Released late last night those results indicate its Covid-19 vaccine is 76% effective at reducing the risk of symptomatic Covid-19, and 100% effective against severe disease.  That’s just a few points lower than the 79% they reported earlier this week, an insignificant difference but still a stupid unforced error on their part.  Biden is expected to announce some new, more aggressive vaccination targets during today’s news conference.  Those targets will rely on administering the Pfizer, Moderna and J&J shots as our initial stash of Astra Zeneca is likely to go to Canada and Mexico.

Et Cetera:  The results of Israel’s fourth elections appear to be even less decisive than the results of its prior three, an indication that while good vaccine rollouts are important they don’t necessarily trump indictments and divisiveness at least for some voters. In other news a ship remains stuck in and blocking passage through the Suez Canal and North Korea keeps launching missiles.

545,281

130,473, 853 shots in arms, a pace of 27.8 million per week                 

 

Kraken Chutzpah

Guns, Guns, Guns: Last month Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who along with QAnon Margie is a star of the Republican freshman class was interviewed in front of her bookcase, not so unusual as being shown sitting in front of curated bookcases is de rigueur in these days of Zoom interviews.  What made Boebert’s staging stand out was that hers wasn’t filled with scholarly tomes or any books, not even a few from current conservative fave Dr Seuss, instead it was chock full of unsecured automatic weapons.  Boebert is a proud gun owner who advocates gun ownership for all, the more the better.  Last night after ten people, including one police officer, were killed by an assault weapon wielding maniac in a Boulder, Colorado grocery store, Boebert’s campaign sent out a fundraising email encouraging her supporters to say “Hell No” to any gun control measures.  Three mass shootings in one week: one at a Philadelphia house party, one outside of Atlanta and now the one in Boulder, and that’s Boebert’s message. The majority of Americans support stricter gun control laws, and legislation limiting private sales and extending the time for background checks has twice made it through the Democratically controlled House, yet nothing so far from the Senate where Mitch McConnell refused to bring similar limitations up for a vote when he was in control. Senate Majority Leader Schumer plans to do so but despite the recent shootings getting the 60 votes needed for passage will be tough if not impossible.  Just another reason why so many Democrats hate the filibuster. Maybe McConnell and company should explain that to all the families of the fallen, starting with Colorado Officer Eric Talley’s now fatherless children, all seven of them or maybe with the families of the Asian women shot by the guy who bought his weapon shortly before his killing spree because he was just having a bad day.   

Theater of the Absurd: Last week after Russia’s Putin reacted angrily to President Biden calling him out as the killer he is, a number of right wing pundits including Sean Hannity as well as a few too many Republican politicians including Florida’s moronic Congressman Matt Gaetz weighed in on Putin’s side.  Yesterday, Putin who is a killer, issued a kill list of opponents, warning that his long arms will reach his enemies. Bill Browder, the ex-pat American who continues to successfully champion the passage and implementation of Magnitsky Act legislation around the globe featured prominently on that list.  The Magnitsky Act laws push world leaders to impose sanctions on foreign persons who engage in human rights abuses and corruption, a list that includes Putin’s besties. Message to Sean Hannity, Matt Gaetz and their clueless right wing followers, taking Putin’s side to own the libs makes, really?!?  Keeping with the absurd, yesterday Kraken lawyer Sidney Powell who is being sued by Dominion Voting machines over her assertions that their dead Hugo Chavez influenced voting machines flipped votes to Biden and away from the Former Guy during the 2020 election claimed in a court filing that since reasonable people couldn’t possibly believe that anything she said was factually true the case against her has no merit and should be dismissed. Her proof is that Dominion’s lawyers have said that her claims were “wild” and “outlandish.” The Kraken Chutzpah defense? Keeping with the chutzpah theme, yesterday Missouri’s one time Governor Eric Greitens who resigned from office after being indicted for invasion of privacy for threatening to release compromising pictures if the hairdresser with whom he’d been having an extramarital affair didn’t keep their relationship quiet announced plans to run for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat being vacated by outgoing Senator Roy Blunt. The privacy invasion wasn’t Greitens’ only problem, he also illegally used his charity’s donor list to identify potential political contributors.  No word yet from the Former Guy who has got to admire that charity list idea as to whether he plans to endorse Greitens, maybe that’s because he was too busy endorsing Congressman Jody Hice who plans to challenge Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in his bid for reelection.  Would it surprise you to know that the FG holds a grudge against Raffensperger because he refused to question the validity of the Georgia election results and that Hice is a staunch FG ally who stood up for him during his impeachment travails?  

Viral Musings:  With the vaccine rollout continuing apace, the end of the pandemic is tantalizingly close yet we appear to be trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Too aggressive reopening’s, more variants of concern, including one here in New York, combined with partying hordes appear to be leading to more new cases.  The Astra Zeneca vaccine is also facing some new troubles.  Just one day after the company released its impressive trial results, the US Daily Safety Monitoring Board expressed concern that the company may have “included outdated information which may have provided an incomplete view of its efficacy data.”  US officials are now “encouraging” as in demanding that the company work with them to review the data, ensuring that the “most up-to-date efficacy data be made public as quickly as possible. To state the obvious, this is a problem especially because AZ is trying to rebuild trust in Europe where concerns about its vaccine and blood clots, accurate or not, continue to plague its rollout.

542,949

126,509,736 shots in arms

A Wing and a Prayer

SNAFU: The Republican talking point amplified by much of the media is that the US border with Mexico is open and that anyone who wants to cross is being invited in and handed a first class bus ticket to wherever they want to go, especially to your backyard. Given that rhetoric, it might surprise you to learn that more than 70% of those trying to cross are being sent back.  The current “surge” is largely composed of unaccompanied minors, many of whom are trying to join relatives already here. It shouldn’t be a surprise that dealing with those migrants is a problem as it has been through various administrations.  The difference between Biden and the Former Guy, is that Biden is trying to deal with the problem with more humanity, but  getting slammed for doing so largely because immigration is a hot button, the infrastructure to deal with the numbers of minors crossing was never all that adequate to begin with, what was there was largely dismantled during the Former Guy’s reign, the current facilities are overcrowded and inappropriate and lots of the migrant children are emotionally distraught and who wouldn’t be given their circumstances.  So expect to hear more squawking from the press, who during a pandemic insist they should be allowed in to the facilities where the migrant minors are being held before they’re either united with family members or sent to more appropriate destinations.  Basically, it’s Situation Normal All F-cked Up and expected to stay that way as Republicans, even those who’ve previously endorsed immigration reform, are likely to remain unwilling to negotiate anything with Democrats because the “marauding diseased hordes” theme is too potent a campaign tool to let go of anytime soon, if ever, especially if as expected Biden’s vaccination plan continues to accelerate and the economy rebounds.  Passing legislation to deal with immigration, election protection and a number of other hot potato subjects, even the violence against women act, won’t happen without changes to the Senate’s filibuster rules.  Those rules, which require a 60 member supermajority to pass anything not involving judges or budget “reconciliation” items aren’t set in stone and aren’t written into the Constitution.  As they stand now they advantage small states, and though not all small states are represented by Republican Senators, more of them are, so as a result the filibuster rules advantage Republicans.  That’s why Republican leader McConnell is threatening bloody hell if Senate Leader Schumer modifies them, something Schumer will be able to do if and when he gets all 50 of his members on board.  Over the weekend, California’s Diane Feinstein, one of Schumer’s more traditionalist/moderate Senators said that she would be up for changing the filibuster rules if that’s what it takes to get more legislation passed. With West Virginia’s Manchin also showing some flexibility, and Republican legislatures across the country passing voter suppression laws, it’s only a matter of time before the filibuster, or at least the current form of the filibuster goes the way of the Edsel because, everything else aside, unless Democrats can pass some form of voter protection legislation, they will be back in the minority sooner rather than later.  

Former Guy Chronicles:  Over the past week, a number of news outlets including CNN and the Washington Post detailed the Former Guy’s legal problems.  The long list touches almost all legal trip wires: election fraud, financial fraud, underpayment of taxes, defamation and so on.  Former lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen  reports that NY prosecutors have interviewed him eight times, the last time late last week and in person.  Not to be outdone, Jennifer Weisselberg, the disgruntled former daughter in law of CFO Allen Weisselberg was all over the news last week talking about her discussions with prosecutors about the apartment that the Former Guy gave her and her husband to live in rent free during their marriage, the value of which was not included in their taxable income even though it should have been, an indication that pressure is being put on Weisselberg to play ball or see his sons suffer.  Cohen believes that NYC District Attorney Cyrus Vance will indict the Former Guy sooner rather than later, and though Cohen is frequently wrong and has been saying that for some time, he was right when he warned that the Former Guy wouldn’t be easy to get out of Washington so he could be right this time especially since it’s likely that Vance will want to get that indictment handed down before he leaves office at the end of the year. In other Former Guy news, Mar a Lago  where Lara’s mask free dog charity shindig was recently held is on partial shutdown due to a coronavirus outbreak; his gold plated 757 is sitting exposed on a tarmac in Orange County NY short one engine; and via his spokesperson Jason Miller, the Former Guy indicated that he’ll be announcing the formation of his own social media company within two months, maybe right after he releases his health plan. The FG is also working up his list of endorsements, a list that is likely to include long-time supporter Alabama Congressman/insurrectionist Mo Brooks who once again is planning to run for Alabama Senator, this time for the seat being vacated by the retiring Richard Shelby. On the retirement front, Upstate NY Congressman Tom Reed, the co-chair of the House’s bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, who’d had his eyes on Governor Cuomo’s office announced that he’ll be leaving the House at the end of his term with no plans to return to return to any campaign trail, at least for now.  He made his announcement while apologizing for some sexual misconduct of his own.  Cuomo is still hanging in, for now.

Viral Musings: While spring breakers in Florida are doing their best to elongate the pandemic, the state’s Governor Ron DeSantis who must be spending big bucks on a PR firm continues to take victory laps for a job well done, one that has involved undercounting mortality and morbidity statistics, firing statisticians, and sending a disproportionate number of vaccines to wealthy Republican donors.  Astra Zeneca should find out who is repping DeSantis, they could use better press as judging by this morning’s news their vaccine performs quite well. The results from US studies indicate that the AZ vaccine is impressively effective and is not linked to an increase in blood clots. The US studies show that the AZ shots are 79% effective in preventing symptomatic disease and 100% effective against severe disease and hospitalization. Astra Zeneca is expected to apply for emergency use in the US within weeks.     

542,343

124,481,412 shots in arms

 

Theatrics

Republicans Behaving Badly: Here we are, another week and a lot of really stupid things being said by Republican officials.  During a hearing on the increase in anti-Asian discrimination that had been scheduled even before this week’s Atlanta area spa shootings, Texas Congressman Chip Roy glorified lynching by stating “There’s old sayings in Texas about find all the ropes  and get a tall oak tree. You know we take justice very seriously, and we ought to do that. Round up the bad guys.” Who doesn’t think that pushing lynching during a discussion of ethnic discrimination is a good thing? While he had the microphone, Roy also bashed “Communist China” because why not bash China at a hearing on discrimination against Asian Americans? In response to criticism about his remarks, Roy doubled down, saying that he meant them. His remarks came just one day after Captain Jay Baker, the officer serving as the communications spokesperson for the investigation into the spa shootings dismissed the likelihood that the killings had anything to do with most of the victims being Asian by saying that the shooter was just a sexually frustrated guy “fed up” and having a “really bad day.” Proving a hate crime is difficult as figuring out a killer’s motive is tough but suggesting that the shooter was just having a bad day, as compared to what, his dead victims and their families?  By yesterday, Baker had been replaced as the spokesperson, maybe something to do with those pictures he had earlier posted on social media, the ones of him encouraging his friends to order the t-shirt he was wearing before it sold out,  that shirt called COVID an “imported virus from CHY-NA.”  To be fair, there’s no evidence that Roy is a registered Republican but given that he appeared to be echoing the Former Guy, that’s a fair assumption. Then there’s Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who vowed to follow a scorched earth policy if the Democrats get rid of or further dilute the filibuster.  That’s McConnell who promised to do everything he could to ruin President Obama’s presidency and then used his leadership powers to block the confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland when he was nominated by Obama for the Supreme Court, who tried but fell one McCain thumb short of getting rid of Obamacare, who eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court Justice confirmations so he could get three of his on the Court, who passed $1.9 trillion of corporate tax cuts circumventing the filibuster through the use of reconciliation and who bragged about being the grim reaper barring votes for almost anything other than conservative judge confirmations. McConnell seems really concerned that in addition to passing the types of socially progressive legislation that he abhors, the Democrats will get voting rights protections enacted into law, those are the rights that would make all those laws that red states are trying to get on their books to suppress voting by Democratic leaning minorities illegal, or would try to make them illegal until the Supreme Court that he stacked finds reasons to say that they aren’t. Of course, McConnell isn’t the only GQP leader up to no good, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy spent the week trying to get Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell thrown off the House Intelligence Committee. McCarthy who has no problem with Devin Nunes who served as a conduit for Russian propaganda serving as the committee’s ranking member is trying to paint Swalwell as a traitor because early in his career he had been befriended by a woman who turned out to be a Chinese operative.  Of course, unlike Nunes and quite a few others like Republican Senator Ron Johnson, when Swalwell was told by the FBI about his “friend’s” nefarious motives he did what he was supposed to do, he cooperated with intelligence officials and cut off his ties with the “spy” who tried to become his bestie.  Nothing like trying to punish someone for doing the right thing.  On the international front, Putin and Biden aren’t getting along, something about Biden saying Vlad who’s been known to poison and defenestrate his enemies a murderer and Putin responding by calling his US Ambassador home for a visit while snidely wishing Biden the best of health.  Likewise Chinese officials aren’t all that happy with Biden’s team, apparently frank talks don’t go over well with adversaries.        

Viral Musings:  When Biden took over he promised to get 100 million COVID vaccines into arms during the first 100 days of his administration.  At some point today, 58 days into his administration, that goal will be achieved, not remarkable since it was a fairly modest goal to begin with. What’s more impressive is the large supply of vaccines his team has secured, his promise that every adult who wants a shot slot will be able to get one in May and that we’re averaging 2.9 million shots today, a number that continues to grow, and will need to in order to meet that May promise.  Confident that the incoming supply of Moderna, Pfizer and J & J shots will be sufficient, Biden plans to send some abroad, starting with 4 million of the Astra Zeneca doses that we have in reserve but haven’t yet been granted US approval for emergency use.  He’ll be sending them to Canada and Mexico. Though not directly tied to getting help with the migrant surge, the not so subtle expectation is that Mexico will respond to Biden’s “vaccine diplomacy” by helping with the border problem, the “invasion” that Republicans are teeing up as the issue of issues for the midterms.  As to the AZ shot, yesterday the European Medicines Agency said that the “benefits of the vaccine in combating the widespread threat of COVID-19, which itself results in clotting problems and may be fatal continue to outweigh the risk of side effects.” They also said that the vaccine is not associated with an overall increase in the risk of blood clots in those who get it though it may be associated with a very, very rare risk of thrombocytopenia as in a low level of platelets that could result in clotting.  The bottom line is that though the risk to life from getting the AZ vaccine is infinitesimal, the clot occurrence as rare as it is, feeds into the fears of those looking for excuses to avoid getting their jabs, a problem that exists not just here in the US but in Europe and one that the Russians and their bots have been amplifying because that’s what they do. And, sadly they’re not the only ones putting stupid ideas into people’s heads.  Yesterday, during a Senate hearing, Senator Rand Paul, the eye doctor who should really know better but clearly doesn’t told virus guru Fauci that there was 0% that anyone who’d already had COVID or who has been vaccinated runs the risk of getting COVID and that Fauci wearing two masks is “just theater.”  Guru Fauci, who looked like he wanted to do to Paul what his neighbor already did, i.e. slam his head with something big and lethal, made it clear that masks are not theater, that until we stop giving the virus and its nefarious variants people to infect the danger will continue. By the way, Paul who went swimming in the Capitol pool back when he had COVID because he didn’t care about spreading the disease to his Senate colleagues or anyone else in the Capitol environs, refuses to wear a mask and is one of those people who has opted against getting vaccinated.  Paul isn’t the only one pushing stupidity, yesterday at a virus roundtable hosted by Florida Governor DeSantis, Scott Atlas, the Former Guy’s virus advisor/radiologist was back, claiming fear pushed by the media and misinformed experts was responsible for COVID trauma while suggesting that things like lockdowns, contact tracing, and masks, rather than the disease were the real concerns. One other piece of news on the health front, we now have a Health and Human Services Secretary, with the help of only one Republican, Maine’s Susan Collins, Xavier Bercerra was confirmed yesterday.           

539,698

115,730,008 shots in arms           

Shamrocks and Guinness

Russia, Russia, Russia: Yesterday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence now headed by Avril Haines released the declassified version of its report on foreign influence in the November election.  The report, which was completed while the Former Guy was still in office and had earlier been presented to the Congressional intelligence committees, details all the things that Putin did to try to insure that his buddy/useful fool the Former Guy would be reelected concluding that “Russian state and proxy actors who all serve the Kremlin’s interests worked to affect US public perceptions.”  Despite assertions by former Director of National Intelligence/Former Guy toady John Ratcliffe, including a December WSJ op-ed that hasn’t aged well and looks even more deceptive now than it did when it was published, that China had weighed in on behalf of Joe Biden, the report says that the Chinese thought about it but didn’t, that the player that was most active was most definitely Putin who did all the things we knew he was doing.  Those things included employing the nefarious skills of such familiar characters as Paul Manafort’s one time and maybe current associate/Russian agent Konstantin Kilimnik and Andrii Derkach, the not so charming Ukrainian who provided schemer Rudy Giuliani with all his falsely implicating Biden family garbage, including the nonsense that was used for right wing/conspiracy channel OANN’s expose on Biden “crimes.” Rudy’s not mentioned by name but is referred to in the report as one of those proxy actors used by the Kremlin to propagate their damaging lies. By the way, don’t feel bad if you missed the OANN program, most did.         

Viral Musings: A number of European countries including Italy the continent’s first coronavirus hotspot, are closing down again, facing another coronavirus wave thought to be caused by the onslaught of more contagious COVID variants, the slow acquisition and delivery of vaccines, and concerns that the vaccine that many of them have been dispensing, the one from Astra Zeneca, might be causing unusual blood clots in a very small number of people. The UK is still using the Astra Zeneca vaccine but as a result of those concerns thirteen members of the EU have suspended administering the AZ shots pending review.  Here in the US, where AZ has not yet been approved, our vaccine rollout is moving along at an impressive pace with a number of states announcing that they’re opening availability to all adults, a good thing because declines in both positive test results and hospitalizations have plateaued and are even rising in some parts of the country, likely due to the proliferation of more aggressive variants but also the result of far too many Governors dropping virus mitigation restrictions.  US medical experts remain hopeful, though far from certain, that given the pace of our vaccine rollout we’ll manage to avoid a Europe like wave something we should know soon, since our waves lag theirs by just a few weeks. If we do manage to avoid replicating the European experience, it won’t be with the help of Fox’s Tucker Carlson.  Even though he ran to the Former Guy early on to try to push him to take the virus more seriously, instead of encouraging vaccinations he continues to cast shade on the safety of all the vaccines particularly those using mRNA, a message that resonates with somewhere around 49% of Republicans, primarily white males, who say that they have no interest in getting vaccinated.  Of course Fox honcho Rupert Murdoch who limousined in early for his shot doesn’t mind that Tucker is pushing fake news, because ratings and revenues trump survival, right? As to the Former Guy, last night while once again blaming his election loss on rampant fraud and cheating Democrats, he told Fox views that he recommends getting vaccinated to “people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me.”  Of course he couldn’t stop there so with a nod to Tucker he added “but again, we have our freedoms and we have to live by that and I agree with that also.” In separate news Biden’s CDC has taken down some of the guidance posted during the FG’s administration, the ones that were edited by political hacks over the objections of the experts, saying that they were intentionally misleading.  Getting back to Astra Zeneca, the European Medical Commission which continues to say that the benefits of the AZ vaccine outweighs its risk is scheduled to meet on Thursday to review additional information, most notably whether the incidence of those blood clots which to date has been somewhere around 37 cases of the 17 million shot administered is any different than what would have occurred in a similar unvaccinated population.  

Redux:  Because some things never change and pent up demand almost always explodes, migrants, mostly children and teens are crossing the border in record numbers.  Biden’s crew hasn’t put any kids in cages but do appear to be overwhelmed by the numbers showing up and are having trouble moving children into appropriate settings quickly enough while also discouraging more from coming.  To “highlight” the problem, and by highlight think make a political statement about dangerous infected invading hordes, GQP Leader Kevin McCarthy went to the Texas border to call for a return to the FG’s policies and more wall while asserting that the children weren’t children but terrorists from such places as Sri Lanka, an assertion that might have been more credible if he’d been able to pronounce Sri Lanka and if the border patrol guys standing behind him didn’t look like they were stifling laughs behind their masks. And, to no one’s surprise the North Korean’s are threatening to do something evil too, like shoot off a new ballistic missile or explode something worse. Not good but it is what they do whenever a new president takes office.  Sadly, last night we learned once again that targeting minorities has lethal consequences after a shooter in Atlanta killed a number of Asians spa workers. On the hate front, we also keep learning about the anti-Semitic leanings of some members of the forces that were supposed to be protecting the Capitol on January 6^th.  Sporting a Hitler moustache, leaving your copy of the hate filled Protocols of the Elders of Zion, not good looks. That’s not to imply that all Capitol policemen are bad players, most aren’t, so the arrest of two who used bear spray on a few of them including Brian Sicknick whose death was likely caused by a reaction to that noxious substance, provides an indication of what the FBI’s been doing to track down the violent insurgents. It’s fair to assume that their efforts regarding January 6^th are genuine, not so much with regard to their investigation into Justice Brett Kavanaugh.  At least that’s what Senator Sheldon Whitehouse believes, he’s asked newly confirmed Attorney General Garland to look into whether anyone really did that background check on Kavanaugh.  Whitehouse who has been trying to get dark money out of politics, also wants to know who paid off Kavanaugh’s debts.  He’s not the only one who wants to know.  On a brighter note, New Mexico Representative Deb Haaland was confirmed as Secretary of the Interior with the help of a few Republican Senators including Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan.  There’s something very right about a Native American running the department responsible for the nation’s natural resources.  

536,922

110,737,856 shots in arms

11.8% fully vaccinated

Happy St Patrick’s Day

Doggie Doo

Not Okay:  Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson still hasn’t announced whether he plans to run for reelection in 2022 but it’s clear that if he does run, he’ll really need Trump’s base to show up in force because he’s doing nothing to broaden his appeal in Wisconsin, a state where Biden eked out a victory, which has a Democratic governor and where the other Senator is Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat. In recent remarks the conspiracist QAnon curious Senator said that he hadn’t felt threatened by those pleasant folks who invaded the Capitol on January 6^th because they were his kind of guys, and by his kind think white, but had they been Biden supporters, you know those BLM and antifa demonstrators, he would have been really worried. Ignoring medical recommendations,  Johnson added that he had no plans to be vaccinated because he’s already had COVID and really, why would he want to be an example of smart behavior for his followers.  In case you’re wondering, Republican leader Mitch McConnell is all in on Johnson seeking reelection.  Lara Trump, who’s father in law continues to advocate for her running for the North Carolina Senate seat being vacated by the outgoing Richard Burr, encountered some headwinds of her own this weekend after it was revealed that the Big Dog Ranch rescue charity that she’s linked to has spent more than $2 million hosting events at the Former Guy’s properties, including an event that took place at Mar a Lago this weekend. The Former Guy did an “impromptu” cameo at this weekend’s doggie doo during which he told a group of fawning overly made-up but very mask-less attendees  "I'm with you 100 percent. We had many meetings in the White House and the Oval Office having to do with saving and helping dogs!" As if.  Suggestions are now being made that while the Big Dog Ranch may genuinely rescue dogs, it might also be a right wing money laundering machine. It’s not clear how that will go over in North Carolina, another purple state with a Democratic governor.  Former national security advisor/QAnon advocate Mike Flynn may also be in trouble again too.  On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has finished a long-delayed investigation into his work advocating for Russian and Turkish entities, some of which was done while he was advising the Former Guy.  The report could result in some hefty financial penalties, a big problem for the cash strapped Flynn. For the record, kraken lawyer Sidney Powell is still representing Flynn.  That investigation had been put on hold due to its timing conflicts with the Mueller thing but was reupped with the approval of the Justice Department after Flynn was pardoned by the Former Guy. Remember Chris Miller, he was the not so qualified official that the Former Guy propelled into the Acting Defense Secretary position, moving him ahead of several more deserving people, during the waning days of his administration. Speaking about the events of January 6^th, Miller said that the crowd of Trump’s supporters, those white guys that Ron Johnson found so unthreatening, “would not have descended on the US Capitol if” you know who “had not delivered a speech just before the riot in which he decried the presidential election as stolen.”  Speaking about those “nice” white guys, upwards of 300 of them have been arrested so far, including more and more Proud Boys and Oath Keepers with the Justice Department now talking conspiracy charges.  And though it’s easy to talk only about those on the right, things aren’t looking good for New York’s one time hero Governor Andrew Cuomo. New York’s political set, including of course long-time foe Mayor Di Blasio and  Senators Schumer and Franken killer Gillibrand have lined up against him, citing those mounting accusations, especially the ones about him being a hostile work environment creating bully, not a secret to most voters, but something that’s now being deemed intolerable. That said two other politicians, President Biden, the one who really matters and former NJ Governor Christie, one who probably doesn’t, both say that NY should wait for the outcome of the ongoing investigations.    

Viral Musings: In the US the race between the virus and vaccinations continues, and it is a race as despite warnings from experts like Virus guru Fauci, Governors keep loosening restrictions while spring breakers ramp up their “Where the Boys Are” spread a thon thing, especially in Florida where Governor DeSantis appears to be trading vaccine slots for political contributions.  This weekend 3.2 million and 2.7 million vaccinations were completed on Saturday and Sunday respectively bringing the number of US shots in arms to 107,060,274.  While concerns remain that vaccinations in heavily impacted minority communities continue to lag due to a combination of vaccine wariness and availability, rates are climbing.  Absurdly enough they continue to  fall behind among white male Former Guy supporters, not just because of availability of appointment slots but because the Former Guy, who like his fan Ron Johnson had coronavirus but unlike him figured out that it was in his personal interest to get vaccinated, refuses to push getting a shot; he didn’t even participate in the pro vaccine PSA that included all the other living former presidents.  Outside of the UK, the vaccine picture in Europe has been far less impressive.  The EU prioritized negotiating lower cost vaccine contracts over quick delivery and as a result hasn’t managed to secure a steady stream of vaccines yet. Due to Brexit the UK negotiated its own deals so finally a benefit from its much disputed break with the rest of Europe. Moreover, though the UK continues to administer the Oxford University developed Astra Zeneca shots, a number of European countries including the Netherlands, Ireland, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Latvia have temporarily suspended its use while they look into some blood clotting incidents.  Although the US has a supply of Astra Zeneca vaccines, the two shot regimen hasn’t been approved here yet, not because of the blood clot issue but because to date the company hasn’t  completed satisfactory US based trials.  For the record Astra Zeneca says that there are no links between its vaccine and blood clots and Thailand, one of the first countries to suspend its use is now administering it again.  

Et Cetera:  The Bidens and the Harris/Emhoffs will be on  the road this week, talking up the recently passed stimulus legislation. In Washington and elsewhere the focus is now shifting to voter rights and, that all time favorite subject, infrastructure.  On the voting rights issue, Georgia Democrats have enlisted the help of their business community to help fight back against local efforts to limit voting.  And in case anyone thinks that Republican efforts to make it tougher to get absentee ballots, to cut back on voting days and to implement other “anti-fraud” provisions isn’t about voter suppression, all they have to do is listen to the words of Republican Arizona State Representative John  Kavanaugh who actually admitted as much when he said the quiet part out loud: “There's a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats value as many people as possible voting, and they're willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don't mind putting security measures in that won't let everybody vote -- but everybody shouldn't be voting."  For the record, as confirmed by such Republicans as former AG Bill Barr, the 2020 election was fair, fraud’s not a problem, except in the mind of Republicans who fear losing elections when all legitimate voters get to vote.

534,889       

 

Come What May!!!

Then:  More than a year ago the Former Guy promised all of us that he had the coronavirus under control saying it was one person, it’s going to be fine. He then want on to say that China is working hard to contain it, thanking President Xi for all he was doing, basing that statement on what we now know his then good friend Xi told him rather than the warning from his science and security experts that a pandemic was incoming.  As time went on, with his eyes firmly planted on the stock market and his own reelection prospects, the FG added that it would  miraculously go away in April because “my” administration is doing a GREAT job. And who can forget his assertions that it’s like the flu, that anybody who needs a test could get a test even though we have more cases than anyone else …. because we test more.  Or his suggestion that a spritz of Lysol down the trachea was a possible cure all, his aversion to life saving masks because who looks good in one anyway and that not so miraculous drug hydroxychloroquine. The prevarications and false promises went on and on. We have a perfectly fine tuned and coordinated plan. It’s up to the states, I don’t take responsibility at all. I’m hopeful to have Americans working again by Easter. This is going to go away without a vaccine but if we get a vaccine, it will be because of me, because I know science, you know my uncle was an MIT professor. It is what it is. And so on. 

And Now: That was then, this is now. The contrast is stunning. Last night President Biden, who doesn’t hit us with a daily barrage of emphatically capitalized tweets, but who does speak in a surprisingly gratifying, sleep inducing monotone took to his bully pulpit last night to do his patented thing, send compassion and sympathy to those who’ve lost family and friends during the year, this time adding in a shout out to those who’ve missed family celebrations and first dates.  Once he dispensed with the compassion, he dropped the really good news that his press office had strategically teased prior to his speech, probably to make sure that anyone droned into a snooze wouldn’t miss it: he will be directing the states to make all adults eligible to receive vaccines by May 1.  That’s MAY 1 in Former Guy speak.  Given Biden’s track record of under promising while over delivering and the administration’s success at ramping up vaccine production, supply and shots into arms, it’s not unreasonable to assume that eligibility will open up even sooner especially since not all adults, are expected to run to get their shot slot when they can.  By the way, if the person dispensing your shot looks like your veterinarian, it’s because they are but don’t be concerned, vets are good with needles and fun fact Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer is one.  Biden also said that it’s reasonable to assume that July 4^th will look and feel a lot more like Independence Days are supposed to look. Start making plans.  Now if we could only get those opening too soon to be more patient because while May is around the corner, the virus could care less, it is still out there doing its thing.    

Stay safe, stick with the mask, and don’t forget to spring your clocks ahead.

530,829

98,203,893 shots in arms

 

Seven Times the Charm?

Checks are in the Mail: Yesterday, short one Democrat and without the support of a single Republican, the House signed on to the Senate’s version of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief legislation.  That one Democrat is Maine moderate Jared Golden, considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in Congress and a target of Republicans who hope to pick up enough seats during the 2022 midterms to regain control of the House, something that could really happen given all the voter suppression legislation being passed throughout the country combined with the expectation that Democrats will lose seats through redistricting in Republican controlled states. Despite the bill’s popularity, it’s supported by more than 70% of Americans, most Republicans and the right wing media either went on the attack, calling it’s boosting of the social safety net proof that Biden and the Democrats are turning the country into a socialist nightmare akin to Venezuela,  continued to lament the demise of potatoes, eggs and ham, and/or pivoted to the “virus infested” masses of migrants crossing the southern border.  Well, that’s what most Republicans did, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker bragged to his constituents about how the legislation that he voted against would support independent restaurant operators with $28.6 billion of targeted relief, ensuring small business survival.  Who knew chutzpah was a thing in Mississippi?  Republicans have a point in that the relief legislation is all encompassing, extending far beyond simple virus related programs but in a lot of respects they’re responsible for Biden’s push to go big as they spent years complaining about how economic growth didn’t ramp up adequately enough under Obama, a result that’s attributed by many economists to  Obama’s decision to compromise on the size of the bailout he put in place to restore the economy after the Bush era economic disaster.  In other news, three more of Biden’s cabinet members were confirmed yesterday:  never to be Supreme Court Justice Merrick Garland by a vote of 70 to 30 as Attorney General, Congresswoman Martha Fudge by a vote of 66 to 34 as HUD Secretary and Michael Regan also by a vote of 66 to 34 as EPA Administrator.  Native American New Mexico Congresswoman Deb Haaland, one of Biden’s more controversial picks, at least controversial to those who would rather drill on park lands than hike through them, has won the support of Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, who needs the support of her Native American population to remain in office, as a result she appears to be on track to be voted in as Secretary of the Interior next week.

Viral Musings:  The vaccination rate is ramping up throughout the country; one in four adults, 18.8% of the population, have received a vaccine dose with 9.9% fully vaccinated.  Yesterday President Biden announced that he’s made arrangements to obtain 100 million more doses of the  J & J vaccine on top of the 300 million Pfizer doses , 300 million Moderna doses and the 100 million J & J doses previously ordered.  Those figures don’t include the amounts also ordered from Novavax and AstraZeneca for their not yet not approved for US use vaccines.  We remain on target to vaccinate all adults who want shots by the end of May, before the newly order J & J doses even show up.  It’s possible that they will be allocated to children and teens assuming the trials currently underway conclude that those populations can be safely vaccinated, used as second shots if that is determined to enhance effectiveness and/or sent overseas to help out countries in need because Biden unlike his predecessor gets that we only get out of coronavirus hell and squash the emergence of nasty variants when the rest of the world gets out too.  That’s the good news, the troubling news is that more and more Governors have concluded that going mask free and partying in the streets and bars is the way to go. Statewide restrictions go bye-bye in Texas today and about 300,000 motorcyclists are due to arrive in Daytona Beach shortly because why shouldn’t Florida get to have its own Sturgis super spreader party?      

FG Chronicles:  The Former Guy seems very upset that he isn’t getting enough credit for the success of the vaccine drive.  He still doesn’t have twitter, but he does have the ability to issue press releases which his enablers and the FG starved mainstream media post for him so yesterday he issued a statement taking credit for what he called the “China Virus” vaccine saying that if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have had a vaccine for another five years.  Sure his administration should get and does get credit for funding a lot of vaccine development through the warp speed program but Pfizer took no development money and other countries like China and Russia have developed vaccines too, so that five year assertion is bogus.  Moreover, the Former Guy’s administration never bought into the idea that the states would need help, lots of it, to get those shots into arms and that more shots were needed. Anyway, the FG, who continues to dominate the Republican party, glomming onto its financial resources and advocating for his kind of candidates may just be trying to divert attention from incoming from several other fronts.  Yesterday the Wall Street Journal released a tape of the six minute conversation that he had with Georgia’s chief election investigator Frances Watson who was responsible for Georgia’s signature match audit.  During the call he pushed her to find fraud because as everyone knows he really won the election that he really lost, telling her that “when the right answer comes out, you’ll be really praised.”  Why is it that all those Georgia election officials felt compelled to tape their calls with him? Notably, the FG managed to throw former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows under the bus, saying that he was making the call because Meadows told him to. In other investigative news, the WSJ also reported that NYC’s Cy Vance and NYS AG Letitia James are looking into the curious valuation of the FG’s Seven Springs Westchester property, focusing on how it was undervalued for tax purposes while wildly inflated to impress bank lending officers.  And to cap everything, one time FG lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen reports that he was called in for the seventh time to sit with attorneys in Cy Vance’s office.  As CNN Legal Commentator/former SDNY Attorney Eli Honig tweeted yesterday, “prosecutors don’t meet with witnesses ‘seven times’ for no reason.”   One more note, I have no idea what’s really going on with Governor Cuomo.  He either spent the better part of his terms groping and propositioning women or he’s the victim of a massive smear campaign.  Tish James’ office has its hands full.

529,203

95,721,290 shots in arms            

 

 

Run for the Exits

Party Politics:  Roy Blunt, Missouri’s senior Senator, not to be confused with Josh Hawley, the state’s fist pumping insurrectionist, announced yesterday that he will not be seeking reelection in 2022.  Blunt joins the ranks of four other Senators: North Carolina’s Richard Burr, Alabama’s Richard Shelby, Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey and Ohio’s Rob Portman, all Republicans who’ve decided to throw in the towel rather than run for reelection. Additionally, while he hasn’t announced his plans, there’s a good chance that Iowa’s 87 year old Senator Chuck Grassley whose term is also up in 2022 will follow suit and we’re still waiting to learn more about Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson’s plans. Although it’s hard to characterize any Republicans as moderate these days, all of the members of this crowd not named Johnson are considered rational, traditional conservatives, well rational and traditional by current Republican standards. While there remains a good chance that Democrats could pick up one or more of their seats, it’s too early to celebrate their departures as it’s also highly likely that a few of these “traditionalists” will be replaced by right wing Trumpists or worse yet, members of the FG’s family.  That’s certainly what the Former Guy hopes.  Yesterday, just days after his lawyers requested that the Republican party stop using his name and image for fund raising purposes, he sent out a press release telling contributors to direct their money to his Save America PAC instead of to Republicans who he called RINOS because “they do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base – they will never lead us to Greatness,” and by greatness he probably means that contributions to other Republican PACs won’t adequately line his pockets. Those pockets probably need a cash infusion to fund his mounting legal woes. Over the weekend California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, one of this year’s impeachment managers, announced that he is suing the Former Guy, Rudy Giuliani and some other members of the insurgency brigade “for the injury and destruction” caused by the deadly January 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection because they called for the violence, then watched approvingly as the building was overrun.” It’s not clear that Swalwell’s suit will go anywhere but the one brewing in Atlanta probably will.  Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis who is investigating whether the FG illegally interfered with Georgia’s election when he told Georgia’s secretary of state to find him enough votes to win has hired an outside lawyer who is a national authority on racketeering; that’s particularly problematic for the FG because Georgia’s election fraud statue is written broadly enough to include racketeering. Then there’s that phone call that’s been tracked from at least one insurrectionists to someone in the White House, the arrest of an Oath Keeper who was seen hanging with Trump buddy/convicted felon Roger Stone on insurrection day and the Montana man who was seen pushing a metal barricade into police offers during the siege who was just deported by Kenya where he was hiding back to the US. Any of those characters could conslude that ratting out others suits their future prospects. In other political news, Iowa’s Republican Governor Kim Reynolds just signed some restrictive voting laws and an even more restrictive, voter suppressing set is making it closer to the Governor’s desk in Georgia. The ones percolating in Georgia, the state that delivered the two Senators who swung the Senate to the Democrats,  are so problematic that the state’s Republican Lieutenant Governor boycotted their debate in his own state’s Senate in protest.  Switching parties for a moment, NYS Attorney General Tish James announced that she’s appointed Joon Kim, a former acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York and Anne Clark who has represented numerous plaintiffs in sexual harassment lawsuits to conduct the independent investigation into whether Governor Cuomo’s boorish behavior crossed the line into sexual harassment.  One more curious thing, Mitch McConnell, who was seen not too long ago sporting some serious unexplained bruises is pressing for the passage of new Senator succession law in his state of Kentucky, one that would move the appointment of an interim replacement Senator from the hands of the state’s governor, currently a Democrat, to the leaders of the departing Senator’s party.  Unless, he’s thinking that Kentucky’s other Senator Rand Paul’s neighbor is about to be beaten to a pulp again by his neighbor, that’s an odd request to make. McConnell who is 79, young by Senate standards, just won reelection.       

Viral Musings: One year into the pandemic, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter.  Yesterday the CDC issued new, much anticipated guidelines for people who’ve been fully vaccinated. Two weeks after getting their second vaccine or the one dose J & J vaccine, the vaccinated set can visit indoors with other fully vaccinated people without wearing masks or social distancing.  They can also engage in unmasked visits with people from another household who are not vaccinated as long as those people are at low risk of serious illness from the virus.  Don’t throw the mask collection out yet as they are still required when in public and when gathering with unvaccinated people who are at high risk of serious illness. To be clear, we’re not out of the woods, those nasty variants continue to multiply and concerns remain that some of them could effectively evade the vaccine versions that are being administered.  That said, as more vaccines make it into arms, the risk should diminish as the supply of vulnerable hosts decreases.  If current attitudes continue as vaccine delivery ramps up, more of those vulnerable hosts are likely to  be Republicans since for some absurd reason more of them remain in the “will never get a vaccine” camp.  If only a certain FG, the same guy who surfaced in NYC yesterday, had been more visible about getting his.

Et Cetera:  The migrant children crossing the border problem is back, well to be truthful it never went anyway, it was just artificially suppressed by the FG’s cages and the pandemic and solving it is one of those truly complicated things, especially during these viral days.  And, Biden pups Major and Champ have been shipped back to his Delaware home, the result of the younger rescue dog Major biting someone on the White House grounds. Yikes.  

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92,898,852 shots in arms

Skins vs Royals

Weekend Warriors: Forget Dr. Seuss, the modern Potato Head family, Andrew Cuomo and even the American Rescue Plan “stimulus” legislation, last night’s story was Oprah’s Megan and Harry interview.  Wow, if that “how dark will their babies’ skin be” story is true, and who thinks it’s not, that’s totally tacky, beyond ugly and thoroughly racist and not in that order.  And refusing to assist Megan when she said that she was having suicidal thoughts, far from a pretty look especially given that mental health is supposed to be a priority for Harry’s bro William.  Now moving on to the news that affects this side of the pond, a slightly modified version of Biden’s fund everything imaginable but the kitchen sink $1.9 trillion stimulus passed the Senate on Saturday by a partisan vote of 50 to 49.  VP Harris was spared from having to cast the tie breaking vote only because Alaska’s lesser known Senator, Republican Dan Sullivan, was absent due to a death in his family and with no chance that they’d be able to topple the legislation, Mitch McConnell let him go home. The passage took a little more time than expected, the result of a dust up with West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin about the size and taxation of the legislation’s expanded federal unemployment benefits. Ultimately the weekly benefit was lowered from $400 to $300 but extended through the first week of September with the first $10,200 non-taxable but only for families making less than $150,000.  Given the parliamentarian’s ruling that raising the minimum wage to $15, or to any level for that matter, couldn’t be included in the legislation because it is being passed through the lower margin, only “majority required“ reconciliation method, it’s not surprising that the minimum wage provision was stripped from the bill.  However, Senator Bernie Sanders forced a vote on the issue anyway so we now know that eight Democrats including Manchin, Arizona’s Krysten Sinema, Montana’s Jon Tester, Delaware’s Tom Carper and Chris Coons, New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and Maine’s Independent Angus King are all opposed to the increase something that for reasons known only to her, the eccentric Sinema emphasized by prancing her vote in and waving her McCain thumb down.  That antic looked so much like a let them eat cake moment that she later clarified her decision, saying her concern was with overriding the parliamentarian, not about opposing raising the minimum wage which she says she supports.   She shares that view with the other Democrats who voted no; most, if not all of them, are on board for an increase of some amount but didn’t want to force one through by overriding the decision of the parliamentarian as they continue to support maintaining the filibuster or at least maintaining some form of the filibuster, the provision that requires that most legislation be agreed to by at least 60 members of the Senate, almost impossible to achieve for significant legislation given party polarity these days.  As to the filibuster which progressives uniformly hate, well hate when Democrats control the Senate, Senator Manchin, the man of the moment, made news while hitting the Sunday morning talk show circuit, saying that he’s open to reforming it.  His suggestion is that the filibuster go back to its “talking” roots, think Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  That would mean that minority, i.e. opposition, party members would have to sweat their opposition, staying on the Senate floor, “talking” through their objections, then after they are done, no matter how long it takes, a vote at a simple majority threshold would be allowed.  Of course that would mean more long winded, painful speeches by the likes of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, but it could also lead to the passage of some important legislation that would otherwise never be considered. Getting back to the stimulus legislation, the revised plan now goes back to the House for final signoff where, though she will probably lose votes from a few of her left wingers like Michigan’s  Rashida Tlaib and New York newbie Jamaal Bowman, Speaker Pelosi is expected to get enough of her contingent on board to send it on to President Biden’s Desk.  She’d better because Biden’s already been taking victory laps.  As has Majority Leader Schumer, who appeared to have short circuited Republican Senator Tom Cottons efforts to slow down the vote on AG nominee Merrick Garland’s confirmation after most Republican Senators left the chamber on Saturday night.   

Viral Musings:  The Mayor of Detroit first refused to accept but then did accept J & J vaccines.  His concern was that J & J’s one shot wonder wasn’t good enough for his city, apparently he’d focused in on the top line effectiveness number, failing to note that the trials for J & J had taken place at a time when more evasive variants had already emerged  and that the shot quite impressively prevents really serious illness and death.  For different reasons, some Catholic Bishops are recommending against J & J over what they say is the “moral permissibility of using vaccines developed, tested, and/or produced with the help of abortion-derived cell lines.” Curiously enough, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and a lot of other drugs are also beneficiaries of those cell lines and the Pope is pro vaccine.  Anyway the priority should be saving lives during a pandemic, right? Their concerns aside, a record number of vaccines, including the J & J shot, made it into arms this weekend.

Et Cetera:  The Former Guy sent a cease and desist notice to three of “his” party’s organizations including the RNC and the Republican Senate and Congressional campaign committees, telling them to stop using his name or likeness for fundraising purposes.  He’s angry that some of the money they’ve been raising is going to those who’ve spoken out and/or voted against his interests and probably a bit agitated that he’s not getting adequately compensated.  As for seeking retribution, he once again said that he’s planning to support any Republican candidate who primaries Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski during her 2022 reelection bid, a statement that isn’t going over well with quite a few of her colleagues.  Wyoming’s Republican Senator Barrasso, who previously made it clear that he remains team Liz Cheney, made it clear over the weekend that he’s also team Murkowski.  As to 2022, GQP Senator Ron Johnson who is also up for reelection in swingy Wisconsin now says he’s not running  but anything he says should be taken with a grain of hydroxychloroquine.

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90.351,750 vaccines administered

      

Green Eggs on Mulberry Street

Q Flop: Although a few of the Qsters showed up yesterday they left disappointed as their idol the Former Guy was not sworn into office.  That left some Senators in their party of choice including Marco Rubio and Marsha Blackburn focused on more important issues, like the horror of President Biden calling decisions to eliminate virus mitigation rules Neanderthal thinking. Right wing media and members of the same crowd also remain highly agitated about Theodor Geisel’s estate’s decision to pull some of his Dr Seuss books from publication, the ones that used ethnic slurs and engaged in the types of racial and ethnic stereotyping that should never have been and are now no longer acceptable.  The removed books don’t include any favorites, Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat and the Hat remain in circulation, but nevertheless the right went bananas spurring sales of Seuss’ books, the inoffensive ones. It turns out that removing the offensive ones was a shrewd marketing move by his estate. As to the real issues of the day, after the Senate voted to move forward with their version of the coronavirus relief legislation by a straight party line vote with VP Harris casting the tie breaker, Senate staff spent the night reading all 600 plus pages of the coronavirus relief legislation out loud on the Senate floor at the insistence of Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson because why not waste time during a pandemic.  Republicans are expected to stall the passage of the relief legislation as much as they can but at the end of the day it will pass, probably without any Republican votes as Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski the most likely flipper appears to be succumbing to her party’s pressure to stay on the R side of the aisle.  It’s not clear why impeding and voting against legislation that’s popular with more than 70% of voters makes for good politics but so be it.  In other news, dissatisfied with Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland’s lack of “adequate” answers on guns, immigration and the death penalty, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, best known outside of Arkansas for his NY Times pro-martial law op ed, is doing his best to slow down the one time Supreme Court candidate’s confirmation.  Garland will still get confirmed with the support of a number of Republicans including leader Mitch McConnell, it will just take a little longer.    

Image Control? Though we didn’t get insurrection, part two yesterday, concerns about the Capitol’s safety remain so the National Guard will be sticking around for a few more months as the investigation into the events of January 6^th continues. CNN reports that the FBI is investigating records of communications between members of Congress and the pro-Trump Capitol stormers, looking into whether some lawmakers helped the insurrectionists, that’s likely part of the investigation that’s also looking into the tours allegedly given by some of the same lawmakers to curious sorts the day before the attacks.  Additionally, last night Politico reported that a former Former Guy State Department aide named Federico Klein, who also worked on the FG’s 2016 campaign, was arrested on charges related to the January 6 attack. That marks the first, though probably not the last, time that someone with ties to the prior administration has been arrested in connection with the January 6 “festivities.”  As to the Former Guy he appears a bit agitated these days.  He doesn’t have access to Twitter but that hasn’t stopped him from releasing a series of statements attacking his Republican critics.  He’s added Karl Rove and the WSJ to the list of offenders that already includes Mitch McConnell and his favorite target Liz Cheney, among others. By the way, in case you’re wondering the Former Guy lost Georgia and its two Senate seats because of Rove and McConnell’s incompetence, it had nothing to do with him, because nothing is ever his fault.  Likewise CNN reports that son in law Kushner and Trump are on the outs either because Kushner is trying to distance himself from January 6 and impending criminal cases and lawsuits or because the Former Guy is also laying the blame for his election loss on his son in law. Of course that report is probably just Javanka spin, an effort to clean the duo’s image.

Viral Musings:  Though the supplies of the J & J vaccine remain modest in comparison to the much larger supply of Moderna and Pfizer, its Janssen COVID vaccine is now being injected into arms and since the one shot wonder packs a punch, it takes half as much of it to achieve immunity, a little goes a longer way. Unfortunately, more Governors appear to be celebrating their Neanderthal roots, Alabama’s Kay Ivey plans to let her state’s mask mandate expire on April 6, Montana and Iowa have lifted theirs and Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee, have never had statewide mandates. That lack of adherence to what really has been and continues to be an effective virus mitigation tool is one of the reasons that the CDC remains concerned that despite progress being made on the vaccine front, we could face a fourth wave. 

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82,572,848 shots in arms with almost 110 million distributed

Stay safe.  #WearAMask