New Holiday Alert

Joe and Vlad:  Joe Biden spent yesterday finalizing preparations for today’s much anticipated meeting with outside adversary, autocrat, election disrupter, enemy poisoner Vlad Putin while his Attorney General Merrick Garland spent part of his day speaking about our internal enemies, those Q adherents, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and the like, some of whom organized and participated in the January 6^th insurrection in an effort to upend the results of the 2020 election. Both men have their hands full, Russia is far from an economic powerhouse, but though its economy is in bad shape Vlad’s got nukes, is wily, hits above his weight and cyber warfare is relatively cheap.  Fortunately unlike the Former Guy, Biden knows what he’s up against and isn’t groveling or seeking favors to get an eponymous Moscow tower built in his name.  Garland’s tasks aren’t all that simple either.  In addition to dealing with the Qs who the FBI warns are growing increasingly dangerous and desperate, he’s got to clean up the mess at Justice, and what a mess it is.  Yesterday the House Oversight Committee released transcripts of some of the email conversations that took place between the Former Guy’s White House advisors and leadership at the DOJ after the November election.  Those transcripts reveal how hard the FG, with the help of then chief of staff Mark Meadows, were working to get the election results in those swing states he lost thrown out during the waning days of his administration.  Even before Attorney General Barr had fully exited, the FG team started pressuring his replacement Jeffrey Rosen to join those wacko suits challenging the legality of election results especially in Michigan and Georgia. The email strings show that Rosen had his staff do some follow up on some of the requests but mostly didn’t take them seriously since he viewed them as largely absurd, especially the suggestion that the Italian military had employed some super weapon, maybe one of those Soros inspired Jewish laser beams to cause US based voting machines to flip votes to Biden.  The released correspondence also appears to confirm earlier reports about the efforts of then Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, a FG loyalist and fellow conspiracy theorist, to get Rosen pushed out so that he could take over his position. Though we know that Rosen, who remained in office until the administration changeover, successfully resisted those nefarious efforts we still don’t know the full story behind the demise of BJ Pak, the US Attorney for Georgia who resigned suddenly likely because he was being asked to take some questionable actions he refused to take.  Former Chief of Staff Meadows is knee deep in this sinkhole but nevertheless he was seen dining with some Republican colleagues in the Senate yesterday and why not, it’s not like any members of the FG’s political team have suffered lasting consequences for their actions. Well at least, no one other than Michael Cohen that is.  As to Cohen he may be getting closer to getting some revenge.  Yesterday it was reported that NY District Attorney “may” charge the FG’s CFO Allen Weisselberg for some tax crimes this summer; with summer beginning on Sunday that could be soon.  That indicting Weisselberg is being so publicly discussed is probably an indication that Weisselberg hasn’t turned on the FG but hope springs eternal.   

Human Resources:  Yesterday by a vote of 53 to 44 with Senators Murkowski, Graham and Collins joining with the Democratic contingent, Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to fill the seat on the Washington DC Appellate court vacated by former judge/current AG Merrick Garland. That’s an important slot; the confirmation tees Jackson up as a top nominee if or when a seat opens up on the Supreme Court.  As to the Supreme Court, Minority Leader McConnell is already assuring his crowd that should he become Majority Leader again he won’t bring any of Biden’s judicial nominees up for confirmation, not a surprise but still pretty awful for him to say the quiet part out loud.  The pressure on 82 year old liberal Judge Stephen Breyer to step down at the end of this court session, already intense, is building as no one on the left wants to see another Ruth Bader Ginsburg situation.  A 6-3 split is bad, a 7-2 split would be substantially worse.  Biden nominated a number of people to serve as Ambassadors yesterday. Given that the Middle East remains a tinder box, last night Hamas launched fire balloons at Israel and Israel responded with missiles, it’s good that Biden has finally nominated his Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides.  He also nominated former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to serve as Ambassador to Mexico and hero pilot “Sully” Sullenberger, the former Republican who endorsed him for president, to serve on the international aviation council.  Reality Winner, the former NSA contractor who received a harsh sentence for  leaking about Russian government efforts to penetrate a Florida based supplier of voting software and the accounts of election officials ahead of the 2016 presidential election was released from jail to home confinement, not special treatment but a reward for good behavior.  Winner was spot on about the problem, but unfortunately for her leaking is illegal. Georgia Congresswoman Margie Q publicized her recent performative visit to the DC Holocaust museum and now acknowledges what we all know, that the Holocaust was real and shouldn’t be mocked.  She hasn’t turned a page though as she and 20 of her like-minded Republican colleagues including Representatives Gaetz, Gosar, Biggs, Gohmert and Moore, voted against awarding members of the Capitol Police medals for their bravery in defending them during the insurrection, because January 6^th was just a tourist stop and as the FG’s new spokeswoman Liz Harrington says just a peaceful one, and who gets medals for serving as tour guides on peace missions?   

Viral Musings: Though the CDC COVID tracker that I generally cite still shows the US COVID death count at under 600,000 yesterday a number of other sources said that we had crossed through that barrier, sad proof that COVID still results in hospitalizations and deaths mostly among the unvaccinated.  The good news is that in some parts of the country more and more people are getting vaccinated.  Yesterday New York and DC joined the 70% of adults at least one shot vaccinated list and both California and New York have now eliminated most of their COVID restrictions.  That said, even states with high vaccination levels have frustrating disparities with minority populations remaining far behind.  In NY about 70% of Black residents have not received even one shot, that number is at 61% for the Hispanic population.                               

And we are close to having a new Federal holiday.  Yesterday by a voice vote the Senate voted to add June 19, the Juneteenth National Independence Day, to celebrate the end of slavery in the US onto the list. The House is expected to follow suit.