Potato Potahtoh

Spuds and Idols: A bushel of people showed up in Florida and whined incessantly about the sexuality of Mr. Potato Head, truly baffling to those of old enough to remember when the iconic toy was an edible Idaho spud rather than a plastic symbol of what passes for traditional family values these days.  They also pretended to be righteous Bible reading Christians, well mostly Christians, while taking pictures next to a Mexican made golden idol modeled after the former guy near a stage designed in a Nazi motif.  Their straw poll showed that the former guy remains their preferred candidate for 2024.  During his speech that former guy stuck to his usual anti-immigrant, anti-Democracy, big lie shtick, insisting that he’d won the last election but was no longer in the White House because of all those illegal absentee ballots cast by people he and his party don’t believe have the right to vote and because of all those rulings from the courts that he’d stacked with what he’d hoped were sympathetic judges. Of course, he also name shamed all of those who voted for his impeachment especially Liz Cheney who he also called a warmonger. Though it would be nice to dismiss the CPAC convention as a poor imitation of a Sacha Baron Cohen send up, nothing more than a sad parody filled with fringe characters and has beens and it is worth noting that the few remaining rational Republican leaders did not attend, what it represents shouldn’t be dismissed.  In a number of more serious moments, the attending leaders made it clear that they plan to do all they can to roll back voter rights over the next few months.  Democracy Docket and election rights lawyer Mark Elias note that Republican led legislatures in Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Texas have already started doing so with Arizona going so far as to propose legislation that would allow their state legislature to override the outcome of any presidential election that doesn’t go their way. Obviously January 6^th would have turned out far different if Republican leaders from states like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had been allowed to overturn their state’s election outcomes.  While Arizona’s tactic may be extreme, a number of states are following the traditional voter suppression rule book: limiting absentee ballots, imposing onerous voter ID requirements, and cutting back on early voting especially on Sundays, a shot targeted at Black churches where a lot of those Sunday voters originate.  Given Biden’s slim margin of victory in places like Arizona and Georgia, states where Republican legislatures are aligned with Republican governors this could be a big problem going forward, a problem that could result in the Senate and House turning red while also returning the former guy or a smarter 2.0 version to the White House.  As to January 6^th, somewhere around 300 violent insurgents have been arrested, and it looks like the FBI has singled out the person who killed Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick who as it turned out didn’t die from a head bash but from being attacked with bear spray.   

Biden Blue:  While Republicans were lamenting the fall of the traditional Potato family, without any Republican votes and short two from their own party, House Democrats passed President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue legislation. The bill now moves to the Senate, where a few adjustments will likely be made, most notably the $15 minimum wage provision will be removed though it may live to be brought back in another form.  If all goes according to plan, as if anything these days really goes according to plan, the stimulus legislation will be passed in time for checks to start flying to recipients before their unemployment insurance payments run out.  On Friday Biden also released the much awaited report on the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Though the report doesn’t have pictures of blood dripping from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s hands, it does say that there’s no way that Khashoggi would have been murdered and carved into pieces without his approval.  Biden is taking heat for not sanctioning the Crown Prince, but as his spokespeople have pointed out sanctioning someone who is the de facto leader of his country, a country that for better or worse, and in this case mostly worse, is still viewed as an important regional ally is not a great option.  For now Biden is ignoring the Prince,  directing his communication to the prince’s father, King Salman but the aging King’s not exactly the healthiest guy in town and is likely to go to that place in the sky or some place lower at some point sooner rather than later leaving the Prince in charge, murderer that he is. Similarly, Biden has gotten some grief for retaliating against Iranian sites in Syria, mostly from  other Democrats.  Turns out that navigating the international arena is one of those complicated things particularly when your party is made up of outspoken free thinkers.  That said, shouldn’t we be happy to have free thinkers willing to speak their mind rather than rubber stampers and idol worshippers?  On the governor front I don’t know what to say about Governor Cuomo right now, so I won’t say anything which isn’t to say that I am not distressed and baffled.   

Viral Musings:  We now have a third vaccine.  The Johnson & Johnson one shot wonder won unanimous approval over the weekend and will be on it’s way into arms shortly.  Though its still difficult to get one of those coveted vaccine appointments, as hard as it may be to believe, we’re actually doing better as a nation than most of our European counterparts and Japan is way behind all of us.  Between the ramping of the Pfizer and Moderna production and the introduction of J & J we could get to a point within a few months where anyone who wants a shot will be able to get one, where our challenge like Israel’s will be convincing the reluctant among us to roll up their sleeves.  As to supply it’s not just J & J, several other vaccines are finishing up their US studies, including ones from Novovax and Astra Zeneca, and are likely to be approved within the next two months.  As to the J & J shot, though its topline number is not as impressive as Pfizer’s or Moderna’s, virus guru Fauci pointed out again this weekend that all of the US approved vaccines, J & J included, prevent serious disease and death and the statistical comparisons between them don’t take into consideration that the J & J studies took place when more variants were out in the virus-sphere.  His recommendation is to take whatever shot you are offered as soon as you can.    

Sweet Potato:  My little guy developed an infection and ended up having more surgery late Friday.  He’s still in the hospital right now but the latest report is that he’s on the path to recovery (fingers and toes crossed) and assuming he stays on his current trajectory will be back home soon.  Good vibes welcome.

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75,236,003 shots in arms