Cancelling Culture

Rockets and Pipelines: It was another good news, bad news weekend.  The hurling through space Chinese rocket debris landed in the Indian Ocean, a bit too close to land for residents of the Maldives but far enough away to avoid killing anyone….this time.  That said the Chinese plan to continue using similarly uncontrolled rockets to launch their satellites because they can and keeping the rest of the world in a perpetual state of concern about massive pieces of falling detritus hitting population centers is so on brand. On the bad news front, what appears to have been a Russian criminal gang launched an effective ransomware attack on the Colonial pipeline that provides 45% of the fuel consumed on the  East Coast.  Though the attack was done by a non-state actor it’s more than fair to assume that Putin was on board or at the very least is celebrating its effectiveness, and it was effective, as the pipeline is now shut down and gas prices are climbing, hopefully only temporarily, and who doesn’t need a gas shortage and higher prices going into the summer season. The Former Guy had nothing to say about that little pipeline “snafu” or the out of control Chinese debris probably because he was busy composing his response to the news that Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit failed a drug test. To that end he used his new “blog” to issue a bizarre statement equating the Derby mess with his “stolen” election saying "So now even our Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, is a junky. This is emblematic of what is happening to our Country. The whole world is laughing at us as we go to hell on our Borders, our fake Presidential Election, and everywhere else!"

Red Alert:  As weird as the FG’s misspelled and unhinged “junky” horse comments are they pale in comparison to what he’s successfully doing to “his” Republican Party. He’s got the NRCC so addicted to him that they’ve been sitting on polling data that show he isn’t as popular with “his” party  as he needs everyone to think he is.  Despite that damning data as far as his golf buddy Senator Lindsey Graham sees it tossing reliably conservative Republican House Conference leader for a minute more Liz Cheney under the bus is okay because the party can’t move forward without the Former Guy. He also said that he’s always “liked Liz Cheney, but she’s made a determination that the Republican Party can’t grow with” the Former Guy. “I’ve determined we can’t grow without him.”  House GQP Leader Kevin McCarthy sent a letter out to his caucus announcing that he’ll hold a vote to dump Liz on Wednesday.  The unctuous Kevin actually says ‘We are a big tent party, we represent Americans of all backgrounds and continue to grow our movement by the day and unlike the left we embrace free though and debate.”  Of course he said that while calling for the dumping of Cheney because of her refusal to kowtow to his and the FG’s party line, because she refuses to let go of her criticism of the “big lie,” she’s backing an investigation into the January 6 insurrection and she challenged him about hiding that negative FG polling data.  Not everyone in the Republican Party is on board with Graham and McCarthy’s obsequiousness, Mitt Romney tweeted yesterday that “expelling Liz Cheney from leadership won’t gain the GOP one additional vote but it will cost us quite a few” and even Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, a member of Senate Republican leadership and a stalwart FG supporter, sided with Cheney calling her ouster “cancel culture” but they’re the outliers, most in the party are either supportive of dumping Cheney, fearful of the consequences of publicly supporting her or have their heads in the sand.  The dump Cheney vote is likely to take place on Wednesday and even though it will be carried out by secret ballot, with the FG, McCarthy and second in leadership KKK curious Steve Scalise all calling for her to go and New York’s Stefanik campaigning for her position, Cheney is expected to lose.  In fact, with the FG determined to destroy her, it’s quite possible that she also loses a primary for her reliably Republican Wyoming House Seat. The face of the House Republican Party is now teen trafficker Matt Gaetz, gun toter Lauren Boebert, white supremacist dentist Paul Gosar and QAnon Margie and the policy of the GQP isn’t to gain votes but win by suppressing minority voting while continuing to question the validity of the 2020 election.  They are all in on more havoc, insurrections and Arizona like audits by the Cyber Ninjas  Getting back to cancel culture for a minute,  Bob Baffert, Medina Spirit’s trainer, who’s been caught drugging his horses before, blamed his current mess on “cancel culture” too and why not, it and denial appear to be in vogue. Look what’s happening to the Golden Globes. Wonder if Pia Zadora will join Tom Cruise in turning in her not so deserved globe?                 

Viral Musings:  New US COVID cases are trending down with daily levels now averaging about 40,000.  That’s a significant improvement over where they were during the peaks but at 647 per day, the number of deaths remain frustratingly high, especially given the wide availability of disease sparing vaccines. While not unique to the US, vax avoidance and vax laziness remain significant hurdles to that oft discussed goal of herd immunity, the level that experts say we’ll probably never reach because of all those vax avoiders, which accounts for why local leaders keep coming up with new incentives. Those incentives now include shots (jabs not bullets) in subway stations in exchange for free rides, a shot for an ice cream cone or with a free beer chaser, baseball tickets, cash payments or savings bonds, all to get the wary to hold out their arms for a jab or two.  As to eligibility, yesterday the FDA signed off on lowering the eligibility for the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine down to those twelve years of age.  The CDC is expected to provide final signoff today. The shot regimen and dosing for adolescents will be the same as for adults.  Moderna’s application which was submitted later than Pfizer’s is still pending.  In other vaccine news, facing production delays caused by resource shortages Novavax has pushed back filing for approvals for its anticipated less expensive, easy to distribute and store COVID vaccine.  Given our vaccine surplus that’s not a problem for the US, it is however a problem for the world as Novavax has pledged 1.1 billion doses to COVAX, the international vaccine sharing network, and its more easily distributed shots are desperately needed in the developing world.  We only get out of this mess when all of us get out of this mess.

582,162

268 million shots in arms