Ham Sandwich

State of Play:  Not much has happened on the legislative front but something big that could complicate the Former Guy’s golf schedule did happen. At the risk of hiding the lede, first, the legislation.  Senators Cory Booker and Tim Scott are still hashing out the terms of police reform legislation, hung up on qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that shields police officers from civil lawsuits, with Booker and the Democrats wanting the immunity to go away while Scott and the Republicans want the protection to stay in place. Of course those are the same Republicans who have lined up against the creation of a January 6 Commission, because their concern about police ends when it comes to investigating an insurrection where officers died and a lot more were killed.  So far the only Republican Senators on board are Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski, with Susan Collins doing her usual pearl twisting charade.  The terms of Biden’s infrastructure plan is still being negotiated, though it’s not clear if it is being negotiated with Republicans or with Senators Manchin and Sinema who if, or more likely when, the Republicans walk away will be the ones he needs to convince.  As to Manchin and Sinema, the two Democrats most vociferously defending the filibuster that cedes so much power to Minority leader Mitch McConnell and his crowd, they issued a joint statement yesterday pleading with Senate Republicans to "work with us" on establishing a January 6^th commission imploring their Senate Republican colleagues “to find a path forward.” Good luck with that.  Now, the big news, yesterday evening the Washington Post broke the story that New York District Attorney Cy Vance has convened a grand jury that will be shown evidence about a number of all those Former Guy crimes we keep hearing about.  The grand jury will decide whether to indict the Former Guy, other executives at his company like CFO Weisselberg, Donny Jr, Eric and/or Ivanka or the business itself. The plan is for the grand jury to meet three days a week, wrapping up its work within six months, which coincides with when the retiring Cy Vance will be leaving office.  Last night a series of experts, or those who say they are experts, pointed out that by practice Vance generally doesn’t go the grand jury route unless he’s both certain that he can get an indictment and confident that he can also get a conviction.  Given that old adage put forth by former NYS chief Judge Sol Wachlter who said that district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich,” the indictment should be easy, but getting a conviction will be much harder as there is no precedent for convicting a former president. By the way Wachtler knows about indictments, he was indicted and pleaded guilty for threatening a former girlfriend.  As to the Former Guy, he too has some women problems hanging over his head, but the Cy Vance investigation has to do with manipulation of real estate values, insurance and bank fraud, and untaxed compensation.  No surprise, the FG responded to the grand jury news by blogging that it’s the continuation of the greatest witch hunt.  Here’s hoping that this time the hunt finds some witches and warlocks.             

Viral Musings:  Fifty percent of all US adults are now fully vaccinated for COVID, a huge accomplishment especially when you consider that in January only 1% of adults had gotten their shots.  Not surprisingly rates vary significantly across the country with more than half of all adults fully vaccinated in just 25 states, DC and Guam but far less across the south especially in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas which have administered the fewest doses per 100,000 adults.  To be fair those red dominated states aren’t all that into providing any form of health care. The highest rates are in Vermont, Massachusetts, Hawaii and Connecticut.  In a few weeks, those aged 12 to 17 will have another vaccine option as Moderna has submitted the results of its tween to teen study to the FDA for review.  The company reports that their mRNA shot is 93% effective in the 12 to 17 year old set after the first dose rising to 100% two weeks after the second dose, with no cases of COVID-19 reported among vaccinated participants. Sadly, William Shakespeare, not the playwright who has been dead for centuries, but the first Brit to get jabbed has died.  The 81 year old Shakespeare who’d been living in a home for the frail did not die from COVID, nor did he die from the shot, he died because that happens to elderly frail people.  Lastly, there’s been a lot of noise over the past few days about the origins of COVID 19 spurred by reports that three workers from China’s bat virus lab were hospitalized for a pneumonia like disease back in the Fall.  The question isn’t whether or not the Chinese created the virus for nefarious reasons, that still remains highly doubtful, but whether or not it escaped the lab while they were studying it. With US involvement, the WHO is trying to figure out the origin story, but to no one’s real surprise the Chinese aren’t being all that cooperative. The Former Guy of course has weighed in saying that he always “knew” it was due to Chinese malfeasance, of course that’s the same Former Guy who once told us we had nothing to worry about because  President Xi swore to him that he had contained the virus.

More Politics:  The Cyber Ninja guys are back to “auditing” votes in Arizona, getting ready to spread their conspiracy wings to Fulton County Georgia. Republicans in Arizona, where former astronaut current Democratic Senator John Kelly will be up for reelection in 2022, are on their way to passing legislation to strip Democrat Katie Hobbs, the current Secretary of State, of her ability to defend election lawsuits, a partisan retaliation for her sharp criticism of the party's Ninja audit and also something that should make it easier to throw out the results of future elections that they don’t like, and to be clear they won’t like any election that doesn’t result in a Republican victory.  In Florida Governor DeSantis isn’t only all in on voter suppression and the like, but he’s now weighed in on social media platforms.  The Former Guy mini me/presidential aspirant signed legislation prohibiting tech platforms from suspending or banning political candidates in the state, of course since he wouldn’t want to stress out any of his potential corporate donors, at the last minute a provision exempting websites of theme park operators was added.  The entire law, with or without the Mickey Mouse exemption. is likely unconstitutional but that’s not the kind of thing that concerns DeSantis who is really just all in in doing things to “bolster” his image at the most FG guy other than the actual FG. In other Florida news, it looks like the Democrats are coalescing behind Orlando area Congresswoman Val Demings who plans to challenge Marco Rubio for Senator in 2022.  Though it’s taken four days, House Republican leadership has finally spoken out about Margie Qs anti-Semitic statements and tweets, the ones that equate the Holocaust to face masking and vaccinations.  Their statements, especially the ones from Whip Scalise and Cheney replacement Stefanik are fairly weak because Q Anon Margie is a big fund raiser and that anti-Semitic stuff doesn’t really bother them all that much.  But to be fair, the statement from Senator Elizabeth Warren wasn’t all that terrific either.  She said “Antisemitism has no place in our country or world. Neither does Islamophobia.  She’s right about Islamophobia but couldn’t she have just stopped with the first part, don’t Jews deserve a dedicated defense?  Anyway, Margie Q is still at it, now also going after her Republican critics, because that’s what she does and she’s enjoying all the attention.   

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