Queens and Spawns

Politics as Usual: Here’s a shocker, those kabuki negotiations on infrastructure funding that were being spearheaded by West Virginia’s Republican Senator Republican Shelly Moore Capito have broken down largely because Capito and presumably the rest of the Republican caucus mostly want to shift money allocated to other things like COVID relief to infrastructure funding, wouldn’t support any new “pay for” taxes and Mitch McConnell really didn’t want the negotiations to succeed because who really needs infrastructure funding anyway especially anything that would make Biden look good. Still the performative dance goes on as West Virginia’s other Senator, the more well known Joe Manchin, is working up a “bipartisan” plan with Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. It’s likely that those negotiations will eventually fall by the wayside too which is why Democratic leadership is now working on a plan to pass as much infrastructure funding as the Senate parliamentarian will allow by reconciliation.  Of course, to pass anything by reconciliation Biden will need at least 50 Senate votes which means either that at least one Republican will have to cross the aisle or that Joe Manchin will have to get on board which is why Biden continues to tolerate Manchin’s footsie with Romney and Collins.  Manchin, the most watched and maybe the most important Democrat right now, also met with some civil rights leaders yesterday.  Their intent was to explain to him the filibuster’s racist origins and why he needs to support the all-encompassing For the People Act legislation that he will probably never support, not because he is against fair elections but because he likes being the go to guy, thinks the act includes too much other stuff like campaign finance reform, a concern shared by some other Democrats who continue to let him take the heat, and because it will get no Republican support.  As to the John Lewis Act, the other legislation that could save some of those voters rights under attack nationwide, Manchin would support it but wants it to pass with 60 votes, which won’t happen because to date the only Republican on board is Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and yesterday Republican leader Mitch McConnell said that even though he fashions himself as a supporter of voter rights, LOL, he won’t support it and will tell his caucus not to either.  So basically, politics as usual accept that we’re still being told that the police reform legislation being worked on by Senators Cory Booker and Tim Scott is almost done, maybe, and by a vote of 68 to 32 the Senate passed the US Innovation and Competition Act which aims to counter China's growing influence by investing more than $200 billion in American science and research because everyone, or at least a lot of people on both sides of the aisle agree that China’s ascension is a problem.  On the migrant front VP Kamala Harris is in Central America serving as a lightening rod on the immigration problem.  According to politicians and pundits on both the right and the left she’s failing miserably which probably means that she’s doing some things right.  Still her task is thankless and is probably doing little to advance her brand.  And anyway as she’s said, solving the migrant problem isn’t just a matter of waving a wand and building a wall.  For his part Biden is off to Europe where he’ll be meeting with new baby Lilibet’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth and the spawn of the devil Vladimir Putin.

Justice for All?  Republicans and their echo chamber continue to beat up on virus guru Fauci, examining and twisting all of his emails on the benefits of masking and the origins of the coronavirus so it’s probably only fair that Democrats have started to turn on Attorney General Merrick Garland.  Yesterday, a lot of them were in an uproar about the Justice Department’s decision to continue to support the Former Guy against  the defamation lawsuit filed by writer E Jean Carroll who argued that he slandered her when he said that her rape allegation against him was false in part because he would never have been attracted to someone like her in the first place.  Ouch.  During the presidential campaign Biden criticized the then Barr controlled Justice Department for defending Trump but he also said that his Justice Department would be allowed to act independently.  Well, it looks like Garland is now acting a bit too independently, taking the position that protecting the president even if the president is the FG is  the way to go.  Suffice it to say a lot of people, especially those of us who remain frustrated that the Teflon Former Guy gets away with everything, aren’t happy about Garland’s position.  This is another one of those issues that will ultimately be resolved in the courts as in those Justices that the FG appointed. As to the courts, finally, two of Biden’s district judge nominees were confirmed yesterday with some Republican votes.  One of the newly confirmed judges was New Jersey’s Julien Xavier who had first been nominated by Barack Obama but had been kept off the court by Mitch McConnell who had refused to bring any of Obama’s judge nominations up for a vote because he could and will do so again if he ever regains control of the Senate.

Viral Musings:  We continue to be a split country, not just when it comes to fealty to orange wannabee emperors but also with regard to virus mitigation.  The number of states reaching Biden’s 70% of adults partially vaccinated goal by July 4th is now at thirteen with a number of states, including New York at 68.9% soon to join the list.  However, the accomplished states are largely blue and/or coastal.  For example, redder than red Mississippi has partially vaccinated the least amount of adults of any state in the country with Alabama, Louisiana, and Wyoming also seriously lagging. In addition the usual cast of Governors continue to push back at policies that could advance vaccination rates with Texas Governor Abbot signing a bill banning vaccine passports and Florida’s DeSantis pushing, someone successfully, a ban on cruise ship companies requiring their passengers to be vaccinated because who doesn’t want to get both norovirus and coronavirus while having fun in the sun?   And why wouldn’t we want to help all those new variants survive and prosper?  

One More Thing:  The Former Guy is no longer blogging and has no access Twitter or Facebook but he still has a pulpit so his congratulations to Nigeria for indefinitely banning Twitter was widely distributed last night. The FG is super pleased that Twitter is in the Nigerian penalty box for deleting a particularly abusive and threatening tweet sent by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. Wonder if the FG has removed Nigeria from his list of sh-t hole countries?  

595,301