Bunnies and Eggs

Barbarians at the Gaetz:  Things keep getting worse for Florida Panhandle’s errant Congressman Matt Gaetz.  Last night the NY Times reported that not only did he allegedly “buy” the “services” of a number of women, at least one of whom was the 17 year old teen he’s reported to have transported across state lines, but because he occasionally  paid for their time through Apple Pay and other cash apps there are receipts.  Moreover the NYT reports that Gaetz also shared and used drugs including ecstasy with his “dates.” His proclivities are not a surprise to his House colleagues because he’s shared nude pictures of his “girlfriends” with them and they all knew about his drug habits. Nevertheless, two of those colleagues Jim “Gym” Johnson and QAnon Margie, who introduced a bill to fire and/or stop paying virus guru Fauci yesterday, remain solidly team Gaetz, although, to be fair, most of the other members of his party want nothing to do with him and haven’t for some time because they never liked him to begin with, or so they say.  Citing the ongoing investigation by the DOJ, Democrats want Gaetz’s Judiciary Committee assignment revoked and it probably will be, eventually, but not until he resigns or is taken away in handcuffs to join his friend/partner in sex trafficking with whom he supposedly shared the 17 year old, former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg who is currently sitting in jail because he violated a parole violence.  In all likelihood Greenberg probably ratted Gaetz out. Remember Democrat Al Franken left the Senate for tushy pinching and some other far less serious antics and House Democrat Katie Hill was drummed out over a relationship with a female aide.  Gaetz continues to assert that he’s the victim, claiming that two guys, a former DOJ attorney and a former Air Force intelligence agent, were trying to extort $25 million from his father to help find and obtain the release of CIA agent Robert Levinson who went missing in Iran years ago and who was declared dead last year and that all of the sex trafficking allegations are payback for his father’s failure to cough up the dough.  The two Levinson seekers probably did approach Gaetz’ father for help, but they say they did so only to help improve Gaetz’s reputation, because finding the “dead” Levinson would help him beat those sex trafficking charges that are likely to drop soon.  By the way, though she hasn’t said much Gaetz has a fiancée named, Ginger Luckey who he met at Mar a Lago and so far their plans to get married in 2024 by an Elvis impersonator are still on. A few more things, Gaetz who has several DUIs had a college roommate who died under mysterious circumstances, another one of those things that his dutiful dad helped him deal with.  Also, curiously he is the only House member to have voted against an anti-human trafficking bill that provided more money for the fight against things like transporting minors across state lines for sex and drugs, proving once again that truth is way stranger than fiction.    

Breathing Lessons: Turning to a real tragedy, yesterday there was more heartbreaking testimony in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. Prosecutors walked Floyd’s girlfriend talked through their joint not so successful attempts to recover from their opiate addictions, a paramedic revealed that Floyd was already dead when he arrived on the scene and that none of the police present had tried chest compressions even though they all had to know how to do so, and most implicating for Chauvin a police supervisor said “When Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers, they could have ended their restraint,” that’s the restraint that went on well past the time of any resistance.  It’s increasingly clear that Chauvin’s, best and only hope is to convince one or more jurors that Floyd died from his drug use and that his death was unrelated to his knee.  There are no words to describe how incredibly sad everything about this case is.

Politics As Usual: On the voting front, corporate America appears to have finally pulled its collective head out of the sand, not because they wanted to but because they were pushed to do so by Black activists and 72 Black executives who said enough is enough.  Georgia based companies Delta and Coke are now on record criticizing that state’s voter suppression legislation,  too little too late but enough to enrage Georgia’s Republican politicians who are so furious with Delta that one house of the Georgia legislature actually voted to increase taxes on the company in retribution, sparing the hometown airline only because the other house went on recess before they could follow through. Texas Republicans plan to follow Georgia’s suppression lead out of fear that allowing everyone to vote could turn their state, where voting access is already limited, to be the next to turn blue.  Texas based companies including American, Southwest and ATT have spoken out as have a number of other corporations including Microsoft, Amex, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America, among others but its not clear that any Republican politicians care because they know when push comes to shove corporate America is likely to move on and still fund their campaigns. Voter “protection” bills are all the rage among the Republican set, not because of any real voter fraud but to help voters who believe the Former Guy’s big lie get past the concerns about voter integrity that he inspired. At the end of the day, these efforts could result in holdout Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema joining the rest of the Democrats in killing the filibuster because that’s the only way that the For the People Act voting rights bill that is intended to stop this suppression crap will ever get passed. Then there’s Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, he has come out against President Biden’s $2.5 trillion infrastructure plan, something to do with opposing any legislation that funds anything by raises taxes, especially those on the corporations who will probably end up ignoring voter suppression efforts to keep their taxes low but also some on plain old richer people.  Undertaker Mitch says that none of “his” Senators will vote for Biden’s plan even though Republican voters appear to really want new bridges, wireless, more Amtrak routes and the like which will leave it to Democrats to negotiate among themselves so that they can “build back better” through the lower vote threshold reconciliation method.  Worth noting that a lot of Democrats want the infrastructure bill to be way bigger and with no Republicans to placate that could happen.

Viral Musings: The good news is that ongoing studies indicate that Pfizer’s vaccine is really working.  Yesterday the company reported that is remains effective for at least six months against our prevailing variants including the one from South Africa.  The only reason that Pfizer is using that timeline is because the shot has only been in circulation for six months, in all likelihood it will protect for far longer.  In addition, vaccinated people are not spreading disease.  The bad news is that the virus is still doing its thing because we need at least another month or two of ramped up vaccination to stop the spread, particularly among the younger still unvaccinated set who seem to be doing their best to help it along.  Unfortunately, expectations are that fewer of those shots going into arms after next week will come from J & J, at least for a while, as they’ve run into production problems at one of their plants and as a result have had to ditch 15 million of their one and done doses. It’s also a good thing, or at least a good thing for the US, that our plans to vaccinate don’t rely on Astra Zeneca.  A number of countries are now only using their Astra Zeneca shots for the 60 and over set over concerns that the risk of getting a blood clot, though extremely low, isn’t worth it for anyone younger.  In the UK where the shot is being used widely, regulators upped their blood clot total to 30 from 5.  Overall they’ve administered 18.1 million doses so that remains a teeny tiny percent but still a concern to the shot wary.   

553,138

153,631,404 shot in arms

Happy Easter!