Six Weeks

Consequences:  Elections have consequences and we’re still suffering from the consequences of the one that took place in 2016.  Yesterday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a law banning abortions after six weeks; for those counting that’s just two weeks after a missed period when a lot of women wouldn’t even know that they were pregnant.  The so-called “heart beat” law doesn’t provide exceptions for rape or incest, only for medical emergencies, and since Texans or at least Republican Texans don’t like big government officials expect the general citizenry to help with enforcement by turning in anyone who helps to facilitate any abortions. Given that Roe v Wade as narrowed by Planned Parenthood v Casey, remains the law of the land, the Texas law won’t go into effect right away but that doesn’t mean that it won’t go into effect at some future date as the Supreme Court, currently stacked with the Former Guy’s three justice picks, has agreed to take up the legality of a very restrictive Mississippi abortion law. The Mississippi decision could cut deeply into the provisions of Roe. Unfortunately, at some point likely before the mid-term elections, we will soon know if Senator Susan Collins was right to believe Justice Kavanaugh when he promised her he would support precedent on issues related to reproductive rights.  Sadly, I am fairly certain that Collins who promised us that the Former Guy had learned from his first impeachment trial is not the best judge of character.  As I said, elections have consequences.  On the topic of elections, last night the Former Guy sat for an interview on OANN, the network that no one except his most diehard fans watch. Of course he reiterated his claims about the 2020 election being stolen while chastising Republicans for not speaking out on behalf of those Cyber Ninjas who are still conducting that bogus Arizona election audit that he believes will prove that the election was stolen, ultimately getting him back into the Oval Office. #Delusional.  He is however pleased that he’s managed to get his lapdogs, Qevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell to oppose the bipartisan legislation to set up a commission to investigate the January 6^th insurrection.  About 30 House Republicans voted for the commission legislation which easily passed in the House, but prospects for passage in the Senate remain poor because there don’t appear to be ten Senators who share either Lisa Murkowski or Mitt Romney’s courage to vote for anything the Mango Maniac opposes.  We’ll know more next week when the legislation comes up for a Senate vote.  To be clear, if the commission legislation fails to pass, there will still be an investigation by one or more Congressional committees but a commission would be better.  Worth noting that one of the House Republicans who voted against the commission was Indiana Congressman Greg Pence, brother of former VP Mike Pence.  Say what you want about Chris Cuomo who is currently in trouble for advising his brother Governor Andrew Cuomo on how to deal with all those investigations into his behavior but really, shouldn’t a brother want to help his  brother by voting to investigate who ordered his brother’s lynching?  Indiana is definitely different from New York. Talking nooses, the one around Former Guy CFO Alan Weisselberg continues to tighten and according to some just released court filings, the Feds seized 18 electronic devices from Rudy Giuliani during their raid on his home and office; that raid was requested by a grand jury that has been in session for over a year so not a Biden era request, but one initiated during the FG era.       

Viral Musings:  The nation, or at least the media remains hung up on the how the CDC’s new masking recommendations were rolled out.  If current trends continue, maybe just maybe it won’t really matter. While still not low enough, daily cases were down to 27.8 thousand yesterday with hospitalizations and deaths also down. That’s the good news, unfortunately, the declines are more impressive in pro vaccination locales, mostly blue states.  To that end Maryland’s Larry Hogan and NYS’s Andrew Cuomo have jumped on the lottery bandwagon started by Ohio’s Mike DeWine.  Anyone getting vaccinated in NYS next week will get a lottery ticket for a $5 million drawing with even better opportunities to win some of the smaller but still significant prizes.  In Maryland there will be a $40,000 drawing everyday for the vaccinated.  Do I think it’s crazy that people need incentives beyond COVID protection to get a jab or two? Yes.  Do I care that they are getting an incentive that I didn’t get? No. It’s a small price to pay to get us closer to herd immunity.  On the jab front, vaccine manufacturers are now saying that we might need a booster somewhere around twelve months after our last shot while a number of medical experts are saying though that’s possible, not so fast, we don’t know yet and won’t know for certain until we see the results of ongoing studies on the longevity of our COVID antibodies.  Getting back to masking, the wackadoodle anti vax contingent in the House is in an uproar about Speaker Pelosi’s insistence that everyone keep their masks on inside her House.  She’s sticking with the masking requirement because at last count while all the Democratic Congresspeople say they are vaccinated only 95 of the 212 Republican ones will admit to having gotten a shot.  Mask requirements for the vaccinated in the Senate have been waived because all Senators except for Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Indiana’s Mike Braun have gotten their shots.  Johnson and Paul are hold outs because they both claim infection immunity and they’re both bizarre.  Braun is thinking about it but is holding out over concerns related to fetal research which means that he may have gotten a shot but doesn’t want to admit it to his anti-abortion supporters.  By the way Republicans don’t have a lock on wackadoodle-ness, Representatives Cori Bush of Missouri, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts all voted against expanding funding for the Capitol Police with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman of New York, along with Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, just voting present.  Apparently funding the guys who protected them from the violent insurgents goes against their whole defund the police thing.     

Peace?:  The bombs and missiles have stopped flying, for now, over Israel and Gaza.  Everyone’s declaring victory though no one won.           

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