Mayor TBD

Politics as Usual:  Not a surprising day, just a disappointing one.  Only fifty Senators, all Democrats of course, voted to bring the broad sweeping For The People Act voter legislation to the floor for debate.  The good news, and there wasn’t much, was that Senators Manchin and Sinema voted with their Democratic colleagues, Manchin in exchange for a promise to bring up his more moderate voting legislation during the debate period that now won’t happen as a result of the failure to override the Republican filibuster and Sinema because her issue is the filibuster, she’s a supporter of the For the People Act.  The bad news is that as long as the filibuster remains intact, Manchin and Sinema’s votes were just symbolic.  It’s notable, and a sign of their huge hypocrisy, that no Republican, even those so-called moderates Murkowski and Collins, voted to bring The People Act to the floor for debate because Manchin’s alternative included a provision for voter IDs, something that Republicans have wanted for years and that, until now, few if any Democrats have supported and because in past years most Republican Senators, even Mitch McConnell  have supported some voter protection legislation. As to the filibuster despite yesterday’s defeat, neither Manchin nor Sinema appear willing to give it up, at least so far. In fact, Sinema defended it once again in a Washington Post op-ed where she argued that it’s the only way to promote moderation and that any legislation passed with only 51 votes (the Democratic Senators plus VP Harris)  could be too easily dismantled if or more likely when the Republicans regain control of the Senate.  She’s probably not entirely wrong about that, the overturn part rather than the moderation thing, but who doubts that Republican Leader Mitch McConnell won’t get rid of the filibuster when it suits him to do so? Afterall, he pushed through the FG’s tax cuts without Democratic support and look what he’s done to the Supreme Court. Also Sinema’s arguments fail to take into account that not standing up for voter protections now increases the likelihood that the Republicans regain control of at least one of the two houses of Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024 especially given that states like Georgia, Arizona and Texas have either passed or are likely to pass legislation that will make it harder to vote while allowing Republican controlled state legislatures to override elections results they don’t like. The Biden administration indicated that they have other solutions to dealing with the attack on voters rights, only time will tell if they do, in the meantime it will be up to the courts and if we’ve learned anything by now, it’s that court solutions take time and the current Supreme Court, which is due to release a voters rights decision shortly is unlikely to upturn any done by the states.  In other legislative news, the infrastructure debate goes on and despite claims that progress is being made, there’s also no police reform legislation.

Viral Musings:  The Delta (India) variant now accounts for about 20% of cases in the US, a big problem in parts of the country where too few are vaccinated.  Though the 7 day average of new cases in the US is now hovering around 12,000 with deaths down into the 300s, the statistics are misleading in that the under vaccinated parts of the country are experiencing significant upticks, just ask those folks in Manatee Country Florida where several of the unvaccinated died.  As to vaccinations, yesterday the Biden administration acknowledged that the country is unlikely to meet its “70% of adults with at least one shot” by July 4^th goal which isn’t to say that at 65.5% they haven’t made a lot of progress or that they’ve given up trying, it’s just that getting the vax wary to take the jabs is tough, particularly given that getting a shot is challenging for those in health care deserts and how people like Fox ratings king Tucker Carlson continue to throw shade on the safety and/or need for the vaccine. It shouldn’t be surprising that the FG who likes to take full credit for the vaccines, is now saying that it’s not appropriate for the younger set. He said that while also complaining about how he should have been able to get his Justice Department to stop those Democratic tools at SNL to stop making fun of him when he was in charge. Getting back to Tucker, the NY Times reports that despite his constant disparagement of the main stream media, he’s been one of their biggest anonymous sources, the go to guy for dirt about the FG. That’s the FG who early on in the coronavirus epidemic wanted to send infected people to Guantanamo Bay, possibly while he was nuking hurricanes as a distraction.

New York City:  No report yet as to who will be the city’s next mayor.  As of this morning, with 82% of the results in Eric Adams who has 31.6% of the counted first place votes is leading the Democratic list by a significant margin with Maya Wiley (22.3%) and Kathryn Garcia (19.7%) trailing behind in second and third.  Late last night Andrew Yang bowed out, saying that he knows math and the math tells him that there’s no way he’ll ever get to the 50% needed for victory.  He may know math but few of the rest of us understand how the ranked voting really works and even those who do probably don’t know who will emerge on top.  We’re being told that it could be weeks before we know who actually wins.  On the Republican side, not that it matters, Guardian Angel founder Curtis Sliwa trounced his opponent Fernando Mateo by 40 points.  It turns out that Mike Flynn’s endorsement didn’t help Mateo, who but everyone in NY would have guessed that?

 Footnotes:  CFO Allen Weisselberg still hasn’t flipped but former bodyguard, current FG executive Matthew Calamari may be in the fryer.  And journalists on the Florida beat are reporting that the investigation into all things about Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz has expanded to cover more Florida politicians.  Hmmm.