Duck for Cover

The Red Cult:  It’s highly likely that by this time next week Liz Cheney will have lost her Republican leadership position.  That’s bad, not because Cheney’s views are all that admirable, she’s consistently among the most conservative members of the Republican party when it comes to almost everything, including social policies, but because her ouster provides additional proof that the Republican party has devolved into a cult of the Former Guy.  To be clear, Cheney’s not being ousted over her voting record, in fact her record is far and away more conservative than that of her likely replacement, upstate NY Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.  Cheney is being banished because she keeps speaking truth and writing op-eds about the 2020 election and the need to do a robust investigation into how the January 6^th insurrection came about, something that spooks the Former Guy and also freaks out GQP Leader Kevin McCarthy who fears being called to testify under oath.  Stefanik who voted against the FG’s tax cuts is being attacked by the Koch Brothers controlled Club For Growth PAC as they aren’t pleased that the reliably conservative Cheney is about to be replaced by that moderate, or at least previously moderate, New Yorker.  To counter the Koch attack, Stefanik who earlier told her constituents that she voted against certifying the 2020 election results because of those hundreds of thousands of “fraudulent” Georgia voters, appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast where she displayed her loyalty to the FG and his “big lie” by defending the faux “audit” in process in Maricopa County, Arizona.  That’s the audit being done by the Cyber Ninjas who in addition to subjecting ballots to infra-red lights and  destroying their integrity with blue ink are currently testing for bamboo content to “prove” that they were smuggled in from Communist China to ensure the victory of that Bolshevik Joe Biden.  While it’s easy to disregard the Cyber Ninjas as nutty extremists and the Maricopa audit as just another desperate act, both should be taken seriously, not because anything “uncovered” will be for real but because the audit fuels the myth that the election was stolen, something that far too many members of the Red cult already believe and that we’ve learned the hard way also encourages violence.  As to the FG, as a result of the recommendation of the “independent” Facebook board responsible for deciding who does and doesn’t get to post on the company’s site, he remains banned from the social media platform, however that ban may not be permanent as the board punted the final decision back to Mark Zuckerberg, giving him up to six months to weigh in on whether or not to allow the FG back. By the way, though the Facebook board’s decision to keep the FG banished was supposedly a secret until it was officially released, it’s probably not a coincidence that the FG launched his blog the day before the decision was announced, maybe he was given a heads up?  Of course the FG and his supporters in Congress and in right wing media are fuming about the Facebook decision, calling it out as a violation of the First Amendment, which it isn’t since the First Amendment isn’t applicable to the private sector. The FG is still and hopefully always will be banned from Twitter, but nevertheless his team spent part of the week trying to post his newly released blog which is really just a stream of long tweets to Twitter by using newly created Twitter personas, so far those efforts have been thwarted by the vigilant Twitter police. And, lastly if you’re wondering why the FG is so upset about being deprived of access to social media, its not because he misses posting pictures of Barron’s life moments, but because being  kept off Facebook and Twitter hits his bottom line, bigly, no posts equals less cashflow,

Red Alert:  While the Cheney banishment is diverting, the real news is that the Republicans are continuing to get voter suppression legislation passed into law.  Yesterday, Florida Governor DeSantis who bragged about how perfectly his state’s elections were run in 2020, signed legislation making it more difficult for his residents to get absentee ballots, vote via drop box, and get fluids while waiting on line.  He signed that legislation in front of Fox and only Fox, locking out all other networks. Similarly, despite last minute efforts by Democratic legislators, Texas, a state already known for having the most voter suppressive rules around, passed more of them early this morning. Texas Governor Abbott will definitely sign that bill, maybe at the same time that he signs another one making it legal for people to carry hand guns without permits. So voting, hard; carrying guns, easy.  Lawsuits were filed against the Florida law immediately after DeSantis signed it into law and likely there will be plenty filed against Texas but given that the FG and his one-time partner in suppression, Mitch McConnell packed the courts, it’s not clear how those cases will fare. Speaking of undertaker Mitch, he went ahead and said the quiet part out loud on Wednesday, vowing to block every piece of legislation that Biden proposes and promising that no one in his caucus will cross party lines.  Mitch might actually lose a few Senators for a few votes, but to pass anything substantive Biden will have to do so via the lower voter threshold reconciliation method and/or destroy the filibuster.  The White House is still going to go through the motions of holding bipartisan meetings but its fair to assume that those sessions are mostly for show, and that the real negotiation is between Biden and Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and that Mitch’s statement might have just made those negotiations a bit easier.

Viral Musings: Sadly while the situation in India and now also in some of its neighboring countries continues to worsen, things continue to improve in the US, more in blue states than in vax avoiding red, but almost everywhere.  Of course Fox pundit/Swanson fish stick heir Tucker Carlson continues to do his best to throw shade at the reason things are improving, the vaccine rollout.  Fishy Tucker is dissing shots, pointing out that some people who get vaccinated die.  To be fair people do die after getting shots, they also while crossing the street, they die on their couches, they die while running, while just breathing and even more of them die when they get old. Heck, he’ll probably die someday too.  Carlson, who may or may not have gotten vaccinated, is lying with statistics to spook his watchers because that’s what he does.  According to GOP pollster Frank Luntz, Carlson‘s deadly shtick is his way of positioning himself for an inevitable run for the presidency because we need Tucker in the Oval Office about as much as we need to be hit on the head by that out of control Chinese rocket that’s hurling to earth and due to land, somewhere, this weekend.  To counter Tucker’s anti-vax BS, a number of states and localities are proving incentives to the vax wary so if you haven’t been vaccinated yet but like baseball, head to Yankee or Citi stadium where you’ll get a voucher for a free ticket with your shot and once fully vaccinated you’ll be able to sit in a special crowded section with all your similarly protected friends and a whole lot of strangers. Though Canada has already approved the Pfizer shot for 12 to 15 year old’s, we’re still waiting for that expected FDA/CDC sign off. Pfizer remains busy, they announced this morning that they’ve initiated their application for full as opposed to emergency use authorization in adults.  That’s important because full authorization will facilitate vaccination mandates making it harder for Governors like Florida’s DeSantis, another presidential wannabee, to ban vax mandates by for example the cruising industry.  Don’t even get me started on why he doesn’t want to allow cruise ships to require that their passengers be vaccinated before getting on those floating petri dishes.         

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy: According to Politico, Rudy Giuliani is feeling financial pain.  Apparently facing mounting legal bills he’s started to lay off staff, he’s even down to only one part time driver.  What’s next?  The subway?  He’s also trying to pressure the Former Guy to help him with his legal bills, that’s the same Former Guy who doesn’t even pay his own lawyers.  Maybe Rudy should call California gubernatorial hopeful Caitlyn Jenner who was last seen sitting with Sean Hannity whining about her hangar side chat with another super rich person about how awful California has become.  Maybe one of Caitlyn’s friends will toss some of those state income tax dollars they’ll be saving by flying one of their private jets to Arizona or wherever it is that rich Californians fly to avoid seeing poor people.      

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252 million shots in arms