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