Fried French

Not so Easy:  It turns out that being president is hard even when you’ve got lots of experience working the gears of government, something to do with Haitian migrant surges, a persistent pandemic, vaccine “hesitancy,” disgruntled allies, ending endless wars, a big tent party, an opponent who still insists he won and the like.  As to that pandemic, while the press is pushing the narrative that President Biden was out over his skis with his “booster for almost all” promise, it’s not all that clear that he was that far out.  True, the Pfizer’s booster shot won’t be approved for everyone six months out from their second but it will be made available to a fairly large group:  those 65 and over, those in high risk professions, and those with a rather long list of health issues, in other words almost all of the people who received their shots early in the vaccine roll out.  That’s a lot of people, the same group who would have been prioritized for appointments.  Additionally as time passes and Moderna and J & J get their approvals, its widely expected that the groups eligible to receive shots will grow as well.  On the ally front, the French appear to be truly peeved over the Australia nuclear sub deal, likely because of their embarrassment at losing out on what they hoped was a done deal for their equipment but also because of the revenue loss.  They’ve pulled their ambassador for now but it’s hard to believe that the situation won’t be resolved soon enough, we’ve had tiffs with the French before.  Does anyone remember when French fries were renamed freedom fries?  Those arguing that that the FG was more diplomatic and didn’t “offend” our allies as much when he was in charge probably are engaging in some selective memory loss because I seem to remember that his ongoing threats to pull the US out of NATO, his Ukraine games and his embrace of Putin left our European brethren quite shaken. 

Another Letter?  As to the FG, he still hasn’t given up his 2020 fight.  He actually sent a letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Friday.  Citing newly discovered “large scale voter fraud” he again insisted that Raffensperger decertify the 2020 election.  Worth remembering, that legal authorities in Georgia are currently investigating the FG’s earlier attempts to influence Raffensperger on this subject. The FG’s continued harping about election fraud would be funny if he still didn’t have such an outsize influence on the Republican party.  Though it’s unlikely he’ll succeed apparently he’s also trying to get Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell replaced with someone more loyal to his cause.  Apparently he’s miffed that McConnell is pushing back at his efforts to run less or possibly even unelectable candidates for Senate seats that the Republicans need to retain or gain in order to take back the Senate leadership.  States of immediate concern to both parties include Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, Arizona and even Alaska where the FG is backing Lisa Murkowski’s primary opponent. One piece of somewhat bright news is that Washington DC didn’t going up in flames this weekend as the heavily policed rally for the January insurrectionists turned into a big nothing despite the FG endorsing its purpose.  That said, it was truly moving but sad to see clips of those 670k white flags set out along the National Mall to memorialize those who’ve lost their lives to COVID, a group that includes far too many who didn’t get vaccinated for mostly irrational and unfathomable reasons. On the vaccine front, early this morning Pfizer that their vaccine is safe and effective for 5 to 11 year-olds bring vaccination closer for that important group.  Regarding the Washington DC corridor, time to focus on Virginia where Democrats are fighting to hold on to the governorship.  Voting starts this week for the November election between former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe and Republican rich guy/FG fan/anti-reproductive rights candidate Glenn Youngkin. Polls are closer than you’d hope.

Politics as Usual:  The big tent Democrats continue to do what they do, disagree over everything they can because while the current Republican party is fairly awful, when it comes to unity they are much better than the Democrats even if that current unity is awfully despicable right now.  The final votes over both parts of Biden’s infrastructure plan are hung up over a disagreement about the size of the partisan reconciliation bill.  Over the weekend, once again wielding his outsize influence, Senator Joe Manchin suggested that the vote should be put off for a while, which would be especially problematic both because of optics and substance.  Obviously after a rough couple of weeks Biden needs the win but also because Mitch McConnell is on record saying that he won’t support the raising of the debt limit and Democrats may have to fold it into reconciliation bill to get it raised. Miserly Mitch is playing hardball over an issue that shouldn’t even exist, the debt limit is backward looking and as the rest of us know, if you charge stuff on your credit card, you have to pay the bill when it becomes due unless of course you think default is an option.  Because the Senate approved large expenditures and tax cuts during the joint reign of the FG and McConnell, the debt limit needs to be raised to bay that bill or else.  One other thing to watch, the Democrats have all lined up behind a voters rights bill, one that includes compromises proposed by Manchin.  He’s been trying to line up ten Republicans Senators to vote for the bill.  He’s probably not going to be able to get any Republican support which could, just maybe, mean that at some point he agrees to join his Democratic colleagues in modifying the dreaded filibuster just for voters rights, not for anything else.  One more thing that is likely to remain unresolvable for now, is immigration reform.  Late last night the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that Democrats can’t include it within their reconciliation bill.  Not surprising, but sad especially for those up in the air Dreamers.