Still a Loser

Good, Bad and Ugly:  Good news, we’re friends with France again. President Biden and President Macron had their make-up call and France is sending its ambassador back to Washington.  Bad news, the mess at the border is bad.  Those pictures of Border Control agents whipping Haitian migrants with reins aren’t going to disappear though the offending agents are off border duty for now and have had their horseback riding privileges suspended, at least along the border where the Haitians are crossing.  The debt ceiling continues to loom with all those Republicans who had no problem running up expenditures while cutting taxes during the FG’s administration continuing to insist that default is an option even though they, or at least most of them, and a number of former Treasury Secretaries from both sides of the aisle who have contacted them, know it isn’t.  Late yesterday, a draft of the Cyber Ninjas audit report of Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 presidential results made its way into the hands of the press.  Guess what, it turns out that the FG is still a loser, in fact, the Ninjas found some additional Biden votes and fewer FG votes.  The final report which may or may not be released today still claims fraud and the like and makes recommendations for how to make it more difficult for likely Democratic voters to vote, of course it does.  Already the Twitterverse is full of complaints about the audit.  Expect the FG to issue a few more of his Twitter substitute statements slamming the Ninjas.  Curiously, Texas, where Republicans did better than expected in 2020, is now planning to embark upon a similar audit, and no that doesn’t make any sense at all but what makes sense these days anyway?  The FG who appears to have replaced a number of his “name” lawyers with a local Bedminster attorney named Alina Habba maybe because he’d grown tired of paying their rates and figures his new less experienced attorney will cost less is also upset about the subpoenas that the January 6 Select Committee issued for a few of his nearest and dearest aides and friends.  Among the subpoenaed are Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino and Kash Patel all of whom were with him during the lead up to the Capitol onslaught.  According to the new Woodward/Costa book Peril, days before the insurrection Bannon told the FG that “we're going to bury Biden on January 6th, f--king bury him” and admitted that he told the FG that they needed to “kill” the Biden presidency.  For his part, then Chief of Staff Meadows had his fingers in a lot of what was happening too, he made some calls to try to upturn the Georgia results, attempted to get loyalist Kash Patel who ultimately ended up as the Chief of Staff to Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, placed in a key job at the CIA, only failing because then CIA head Haspel threatened to resign. Prior to joining the FG administration Patel worked for and engaged in questionable behavior for Republican Congressman Devon Nunes, another FG loyalist.  The FG has been a particularly prolific issuer of statements this week, he’s slammed “RINO” former President Bush over his endorsement of his arch enemy Liz Cheney, he’s railed at the “lamestream press” for calling his ongoing election claims “baseless and unproven” and he’s attacked two allies, Senators Mike Lee and Lindsey Graham saying that they “should be ashamed of themselves for not putting up the fight necessary to win” because they failed to endorse his six point plan to upturn the election results. Despite the FG’s insanity, he appears to be outpacing Biden in the polls.  Yikes.     

Viral Musings:   You’d be excused if you weren’t quite sure whether or not you qualify for a COVID vaccine booster shot yet because the qualifier list which had contracted during the day expanded again after midnight after CDC Director Walensky added healthcare workers and other exposed workers back onto the list.  Boosters, or at this point Pfizer boosters, will be made available to that group plus those 65 and older, nursing home residents and those 50 to 64 with risky underlying health problems.  The extra dose would be given to those at least six months past their last Pfizer shot. More details are expected during the day but that list of underlying health problems is expected to be quite broad meaning a lot of people will qualify.  Those who received Moderna or J & J shots will qualify as soon as their booster shots go through the FDA approval process.  Worth noting that quite a few people have been getting Moderna boosters by certifying that they “need” a booster, and as far as I can tell, nothing has been done to close that possibility. Stay posted because things keep changing.

And….:  Despite the best efforts of a number on the left, the House passed funding for Israel’s Iron Dome yesterday by 420 – 9.  The 9 naysayers included 8 Democrats and 1 Republican.  Author Hillbilly JD Vance who is running for the Ohio Republican Senate nomination to replace outgoing Republican Rob Portman against a field that also includes frequent candidate Josh Mandel reiterated his support for the Texas abortion law by calling rape and incest inconvenient.  Vance’s campaign has gotten about $10 million from right wing tech guy Peter Thiel.  In case you are wondering, the very anti-immigrant Mandel, a grandchild of immigrants, is also anti-abortion.  Remember Maria Butina, the Russian red sparrow.  She just failed to win her bid to serve as a representative from Siberia in the Russian Duma, notable because she had Putin’s support and he, of course, won bigly.  She also had the financial backing of former Overstock CEO/conspiracist Patrick Byrne, one of her US boyfriends.  To put it mildly she wasn’t pleased.   

Enjoy the weekend.

Stay safe.