Beer and Donuts

On the Road Again:  As most bloggers, including me, know getting people to go to your blog site isn’t easy but then again most of us aren’t former Oval Office denizens whose tweets previously went viral.  Yesterday, embarrassed by his relatively anemic readership the Former Guy had his spokesman, deadbeat dad Jason Miller, announce that the From the Desk of the FG Blog was no more.  While it’s true that far fewer people were going to the FG’s site than had followed him on Twitter,  he still had a lot of readership as far too many, particularly main stream media reporters, tweeted out his posts/rants but that wasn’t what he wanted and besides blogs, unlike individual tweets, require too much effort so the blog is officially dead.  Anyway, the FG appears to have bigger plans, he’s still teasing that a more robust social media platform is in the works even though we know that’s not true and more significantly he believes that he’ll be back in the Oval Office by August.  Of course we only know about those August plans because of an article published in the NY Times by FG whisperer Maggie Haberman who seems to really miss her days as the White House’s go to reporter.  Maggie reported that the FG believes that the still ongoing Arizona election audit like a few more that he believes/hopes will follow will uncover so much fraud that the country will have no choice but to conclude that he rather than Biden belongs in the White House.  Yesterday, Pillow Guy, Mike Lindell took full credit for the FG’s August delusion, saying that he’s the one that assured him that he’ll be back in office by the end of the summer.  While the FG’s other buddy, one time national security advisor Mike Q Flynn, remains all in on the FG returning to his “rightful” place, he spent a good party of the past few days walking back his suggestion that the US would benefit from a Myanmar style coup.  Apparently someone informed him that former generals  receiving military pensions could get into lots of trouble and possibly even lose their freedom and/or government income for advocating violent military takeovers.  Getting back to the FG, good news for his fans but not so much for the rest of us, he plans to start up his rallies again shortly. He’s either really bored or needs to fill his diminishing coffers with some more campaign contributions because as his sons Eric and Don Jr have been loudly kvetching, mounting defenses against all of those “frivolous” and “politically” motivated “witch hunt” lawsuits is costing bigly bucks and eating into their inheritances.

Politics as Usual:  While Democratic “moderates” Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema  still appear to be committed to the maintenance of the filibuster, Biden appears to be losing his patience with their position.  Though he didn’t mention them by name, he more or less singled them out when he said that though the Democrats control the Senate they have the slimmest majority complicated by a few Senators who vote like Republicans. For the record Sinema and Manchin typically vote with the Democrats on key legislation but only after they, especially Manchin, influence what’s in that legislation. Biden acknowledged the importance of getting some form of voter protection legislation passed sooner rather than later or never, and has now assigned Vice President Kamala Harris to lead that effort because solving the migrant crisis isn’t enough of a Sisyphean task for one person.  In other political news, Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced her plans to challenge Republican Doug Ducey for Governor, her ActBlue account is already up and running  In Florida, as expected, Democratic Agriculture Commissioner/pot advocate Nikki Fried has thrown her hat into the Governorship ring challenging Ron DeSantis’ continued reign though first she’ll have to get past current Congressman/former Governor current Democrat/former Republican Charlie Crist who previously announced his run. As to DeSantis, he’s all in on the culture wars so in addition to saying that cruise ships docking at Florida ports can’t mandate proof of vaccination for their employees and travelers, he’s now banning transexual girls from competing on sports teams because while that’s not really a problem of any magnitude it’s one of those things that keeps his ardent base up at night. DeSantis has hit one speed bump, his nemesis Florida data expert Rebekkah Jones, who accused him of pressuring her to manipulate the state’s coronavirus data and was then fired for her outspokenness has been designated an official whistle blower by the state. In other Florida news Politico reports that Teflon panhandle putz Matt Gaetz is now also being investigated for obstruction of justice.                       

Viral Musings:  Twelve states including Vermont, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, NJ, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maryland and California have all crossed the 70% of all adult vaccinated threshold with overachievers, Vermont and Hawaii exceeding 80%.  Several more states including New York, Virginia, Washington, and state wannabee Washington, DC,  are closing in on Biden’s July 4^th goal.  Notably all of these high vax states are coastal and/or predominantly blue maybe because watching Fox, especially Swanson fish stick heir Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham who in addition to besmirching guru Fauci continues to hawk faux preventative hydroxychloroquine, comes with consequences.  Nationwide the average is 62.9%. To encourage vax laggards to do their part to get the country to Biden’s 70% goal, Bud producer Anheuser Busch has offered to buy all of us over 21 a round of beer or one of their non-alcoholic beverages on Independence Day but only if we make the goal.  By the way no need to chug your Bud with one of those free Krispy Crème donuts previously offered, but go for it if that’s your thing.  Not to be outdone by the Bud guys West Virginia has upped the ante, they’ve added guns to their giveaway list for the vaxxed which in addition to adding another death enhancer to the mix  goes a long way towards explaining Joe Manchin’s balancing act.  While new COVID cases and deaths continue to decline here in the US, large parts of the rest of the world aren’t so lucky.  In particular, despite its relative wealth, Japan has really mucked up their vaccination roll out and as a result the future of the already postponed once summer Olympics remains in jeopardy with local newspapers and the medical community calling for its cancellation.       

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