Super Likes

Rinse, Repeat: The more things change the more they stay the same so the Senate still hasn’t agreed on police reform, the Republicans continue to play Lucy and the football with Biden’s infrastructure proposal, and for the most part they’ve concluded that setting up a January 6^th commission will make them look bad and anyway that insurrection thing was nothing more than a tourist stop.  You know Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, rampage the Capital and beat up the police.  There is one thing that the far right and the far left do appear to agree on so both sides are beating up Jews these days, and really what’s new about that?  QAnon Margie of Jewish space laser fame got scathing criticism and all the attention she wanted for equating mask mandates with yellow stars and gas chambers while Jews in New York, California and a number of other cities were beaten up by those who assert that just because they’re anti-Israel they’re not anti-Semitic. Hmm.  In other domestic news, Liz Cheney is still pursuing her fatwa against the Former Guy but proving that she’s far from a saint she told Jonathan Swan of Axios that she’s okay with all those Republican legislators passing voter suppression legislation because though she insists the Former Guy is lying about the outcome of the 2020 election, she has no problem with anyone rigging the next one so that Republicans other than him win.  By the way the election hopes of Wyoming State Senator Anthony Bouchard, one of the Republicans seeking to unseat Cheney, hit a snag over the weekend when he was forced to reveal that he had impregnated his fourteen year old “girlfriend” back when he was eighteen.  He said it was okay because it was a Romeo and Juliet relationship, and it was, the girl who he married but then divorced later committed suicide. He also said he was a good father though he’s estranged from their son because he disagrees with the lad’s life choices.  Speaking of Republicans and their affinity for the minor set,  Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz’ minor problems are becoming increasingly major, his one-time seventeen year old honey is reportedly cooperating with the FBI and the Justice Department.  And because today is a day ending in D A Y, some not so rogue Republicans having gotten approval to “audit” Fulton County’s election results, again.  On the international front, with what was no doubt tacit support from Vladimir Putin, Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko forced a Ryan Air plane carrying dissident journalist Roman Protasevich to land in Minsk while en route from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania.  Upon landing all the passengers were removed from the plane before being allowed to reboard for the rest of their trip, well that is everyone got back on except the journalist and some mysterious Russians.  It’s fair to assume that Protasevich is now getting the Belarussian version of Navalny treatment.  Ryan Air apologized for the inconvenience to their passengers but said nothing about the whole kidnapping of Protasevch issue.

Viral Musings:  With most of the news on Israel focused on hostilities, missiles, destruction and the left’s likely unsuccessful and not Biden or Blinken supported efforts to cut military aid, it would be easy to have missed that the country’s COVID levels continue to decline.  While Israel still hasn’t formed a new government the one they have, or at the very least their health bureaucracy, has been effective at squelching the virus.  Israel is expected to lift their remaining COVID restrictions shortly and may even stop requiring people to use their nifty green passports.  Here in the US new coronavirus cases are down too, but while lots of people are vaccinated, levels vary across the country with blue regions outperforming red ones for sadly obvious reasons. Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont have now given at least one dose of a vaccine to at least 70% of their adult residents. While New York and California haven’t made it to that level yet, positivity levels in both states are below 1.0%. Dating apps are now in on the action, providing perks like “super likes” to those who post that they’re vaccinated. OK, cupid, whatever it takes. Across the country 61.3% of adults have gotten at least one vaccine dose, the seven day moving average of new cases is down to 24,000, and the seven day death rate at just over 500. We also learned this weekend that results of a UK study indicate that the Pfizer vaccine is about 88% effective against the India virus variant.  

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