Revising History

Red Alert:  Well the vote to sack Liz Cheney went as expected.  The outspoken reliably conservative Liz was stripped of her leadership position by a voice vote allegedly for failing to stay on message about what a Marxist threat Joe Biden is but really because she keeps on speaking truth, saying that the Former Guy and his continued insistence that the 2020 election was stolen is the real threat. After the vote Liz, who is now freer than ever to speak her mind, said that she’s committed to making sure that the FG never makes it to the Oval Office again.  She plans to speak out wherever and whenever.  To that end she’s already given an interview to NBC’s Savannah Guthrie where she said that its inexplicable to her how the leaders of her party continue to embrace the FG, she repeated that keeping silent about that is not an option, confirmed her commitment to her party and continued to call for a January 6^th focused bipartisan commission, one that’s likely to reveal that some of her “colleagues” were insurrection complicit. GQP Leader Kevin McCarthy who has never been invited to sit for such an interview but will be someday if he succeeds in his life ambition and becomes Speaker in 2022 actually said “no one is questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election” even though we know that throwing shade on the election is his party’s line and that absurd Arizona election audit by the Republican endorsed Cyber Ninjas continues.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell mostly did what he does, speaking in circles, slamming illusory Marxists while trying his hardest not to say anything that would cause an enraged FG to pull a Liz on him. For his part the FG responded to Liz’s ouster by gloating on his blog that she’s a “bitter, horrible human being” just a smidgen more mature than North Carolina Congressman Madison Hawthorne’s “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye Liz Cheney” tweet. In that spirit, during an Oversight hearing on the events of the January 6^th insurrection other Republicans from the increasingly dominant wingnut side of the party spoke their truths as well in an attempt to rewrite recent events: Arizona’s worst ever Dentist/Congressman Paul Gosar defended the capitol rioters, calling them “peaceful protesters,” condemning that they are now under investigation by the DOJ; Georgia’s Jody Hice said it was FG supporters who lost their life on January 6, not FG supporters who were taking the lives of others; fellow Georgian Andrew Clyde just denied that the insurrection ever happened, saying that “to call it that was a bold faced lie.” The wingnuts did that while the FG’s last Acting Defense Secretary, Christopher Miller, the mid-level official who’d been promoted into that position over the heads of a number of more deserving and competent folks, tried to back off from some of the more FG implicating parts of his prepared remarks, hedging his bets in case Liz doesn’t succeed in her quest to make sure that the FG stays out of Washington DC forever. CNN threw shade on all of them by playing new body cam video of the brutal beatings of some of the Capitol Police during an interview with Officer Michael Fanone, one of those most physically and emotionally damaged by those friendly, nice insurrectionists.    

Building Back Better? Because speaking out of both sides of their mouths is what politicians, especially this crop does, McCarthy and McConnell walked out of a “bipartisan” meeting on infrastructure with President Biden with smiles or should I say smirks on their faces agreeing with Biden’s statement that they had a nice chat but adding that the two sides had not yet agreed on the definition of “infrastructure.” They doubled down on their refusal to revisit the 2017 tax cuts to pay for improvements.  Shortly after the meeting ended McCarthy sent out a fund raising text saying I just met with Corrupt Joe Biden and he’s STILL planning to push his radical Socialist agenda onto the American people.”  So much for bipartisanship.  By the way, while McConnell and McCarthy obstruct infrastructure funding, bridges are falling down, literally. Yesterday transportation officials closed traffic on and under the Hernando DeSoto bridge that crosses from Memphis, Tennessee to West Memphis, Arkansas after inspectors found a huge fracture in its span. Vehicle traffic is now being rerouted away from the major I-40 highway while barges are lined up waiting for learn whether it’s safe for them to proceed through the waterway. Repairs are expected to take months to complete.  On the positive side, the Colonial east coast pipeline has been turned back on so no cancel those plans to fill plastic bags full of gas.  Yes, some people really did that.

Viral Musings: Late yesterday the CDC rubber stamped the FDA’s approval for the Pfizer vaccine to be administered to the 12 to 15 year old set which is good given how many states had already jumped the jab. Websites were immediately inundated with requests for appointments, a trend that will probably ease once the most vax enthusiastic parents and tweens get their appointments locked in.   In other vaccine news, it looks like effectiveness of China’s Sinopharm vaccine isn’t all that impressive, a big problem for a lot of the developing world especially those countries relying on its effectiveness.  The vaccine which has made it into the arms of 55% of the vaccinated in the Seychelles, the most vaccinated country on the planet, isn’t doing as well a job at preventing COVID infections as hoped. To put its performance in perspective more people in the Seychelles have been vaccinated than in Israel yet the number of daily new confirmed COVID cases per million people in Seychelles is 2,613 compared with 5.5 in Israel.  As to Israel yesterday there were around 30 new cases of COVID, good news, but sadly the situation there remains out of control, not due to the virus but due to continuing escalation of the fight with Hamas.  Vaccines, good; rockets and missiles, painful to watch, worse to experience.  Biden has dispatched an envoy.  

Other News:  The NRA’s efforts to evade NYS Attorney General Tish James suffered a lethal shot after a Texas judge rejected their attempt to move to gun friendly Texas and file for bankruptcy protection.  Arizona joined the long list of Republican controlled states doing their best to suppress blue voters.  In all likelihood the only way that everyone who wants to will be able to vote going forward will be if the Senate passes some form of a voter rights bill. It’s fair to assume that won’t happen unless Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema sign on. Manchin at least may be starting to appreciate that the situation is dire, he’s signaling willingness to sign on to some protective legislation with or without the support of ten Republicans. Bye, bye filibuster for voting rights? Maybe.     

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264.7 shots into arms