Despicable Jims 

Politics Unusual: Infrastructure legislation remains up in the air and there is a reason that the oft promised police reform legislation hasn’t come to the Senate floor.  On the infrastructure front, as expected all Republican Senators, even the ten or more who have been part of the team working on the so-called bipartisan form of the legislation voted against bringing it up for floor debate.  That doesn’t mean that the bipartisan legislation is dead, or at least dead yet, it’s still being negotiated, well maybe, we should know more next week.  Similarly, up until last month we’d been hearing a lot about all that progress that the bipartisan team of Senators Cory Booker and Tim Scot were making on criminal reform legislation, but despite their efforts the party divide over qualified immunity remains. It’s also fair to assume that with crime rates up, or at least getting huge coverage in the news, Republicans just don’t feel that there’s much urgency in reform, especially since they plan to use those crime rates, which actually climbed during the Former Guy’s term, as a campaign issue against those “defund the police,” inflationist, socialist Democrats during the midterms.  On the insurrection front, Speaker Pelosi rejected both of the Jim’s that GQP Leader Kevin McCarthy tried to foist upon the House January 6^th committee concluding that both “Gym” Jordan and the lesser known Jim Banks had little interest in getting to the bottom of the causes of the insurrection and that both would be highly disruptive participants. It wasn’t just that the two opposed the certification of the election, don’t believe that there was an insurrection and that Banks has hung with one or more of the insurrectionists, but they are also on record blaming the Capitol invasion on Pelosi’s failure to call up the National Guard, even though doing so wasn’t something she could do. Then there’s that added wrinkle that Jordan along with McCarthy could actually be called in to testify in front of the committee.  McCarthy responded to Pelosi’s diss by pulling all of his appointments and blaming her for taking such an unprecedented, anti-democratic action. Of course he didn’t mention that he’d previously voted against setting up a truly bipartisan commission.  Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney backed up Pelosi’s decision to eject her fellow Republicans, pointing out that McCarthy is “despicable” while adding his lack of “commitment to the Constitution” should disqualify him from being House speaker if the GOP wins in 2022.” McCarthy, third in line for the presidency, oy.  Word is that Pelosi is now considering adding that other relatively rational Republican, Adam Kinzinger, to the committee and that she is also considering asking former Virginia Congressman Denver Riggleman to become an advisor.  Riggleman, who may or may not still be a Republican, lost his House in 2020 seat after he was successfully primaried from the right, punishment for officiating at the same sex wedding of two friends.

Viral Musings:  It’s hard to believe but here we are, three emergency approved highly effective vaccines available with one even available to those as young as twelve but still facing a raging pandemic, not because the shots aren’t working but because too few people are getting jabbed. Daily new COVID cases hit just under 64,000 yesterday.  Cases are on the rise throughout the county but especially in Missouri, Florida and Texas which account for 40% of new cases. The good news is that the vaccinated are holding their own; while breakthrough infections occur, most are asymptomatic positives caught due to regular testing with few of those positive testing folks getting sick enough to require hospitalization.  Unfortunately, the unvaccinated are not faring as well so we’re back to hearing horrible stories about wards filled with the sick and dying. The NFL is Team VAX, they announced plans to have a full season and are pushing teams to get all their players and staff vaccinated. Going forward, teams with unvaccinated positive cases will face consequences in the form of forfeits and fines. Despite rising COVID positivity in Japan and more positives among participants, the Olympics starts this morning. Will we actually get to see Simone Biles’ awesome moves, who knows.  Though the CDC continues to resist more mask mandates for the general public, a lot of municipalities are pushing them for everyone, largely because those who aren’t vaccinated aren’t following recommendations that they should be wearing masks. It’s kind of crazy that the adults wearing masks in stores and other inside venues are actually more likely to be vaccinated than those who aren’t. And with kids still not able to get shots, school districts, at least rational ones are likely to follow the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that children where masks in school.

Have a good weekend.