Boo

Theater of the Absurd:  Facebook has a new corporate name, it’s now called Meta, largely because name changing is so much easier than rooting out disinformation, hate and conspiracy theories.  One person on Twitter pointed out that “meta” means death in Hebrew and while the pronunciation might not be a perfect match, that’s indicative of how Zuckerberg does or doesn’t think and maybe also how Rupert Murdoch’s mind works.  After publishing an op-ed/whine by the Former Guy that was chock full of lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, the Murdoch owned Wall Street’s Journal Editorial Board then published one of its own that started by trashing the “progressives who were a flutter” about them giving the FG a platform to spread his venom before saying that they know that almost everything in his op-ed was “bananas” but since he’s an ex-president  and quite possibly a future one they had to publish it because his “monomania is news and it reflects his fitness for 2024.”  It’s not clear whether they always intended to follow the FG’s op-ed with their own editorial or felt compelled to do so in response to the scathing pushback they received from reporters on the “news” side of the paper. Clearly there’s a lot of “fluttering” going on inside the WSJ these days because though they generally trash all things Biden especially his efforts to get his Build Back Better plan to fruition, earlier in the week the editorial board supported the contempt citation against Steve Bannon, celebrating the bravery of the nine Republicans who voted with the Democrats to hold him in contempt. By comparison, that other Murdoch owned media outlook, Fox, doesn’t even pretend to have even a pea sized conscience.  It’s now running ads for a three part series called “Patriot Purge” created by its leading hatemonger and conspiracist Tucker Carlson.  The series which is due to air on Fox News’ streaming service Fox Nation, calls the January 6^th insurrection a “false flag” operation created to demonize the political right.    

Finally, Maybe: As to the now downsized to $1.75 trillion Build Back Better/reconciliation legislation, it appears to be done, well almost done though it’s not entirely clear what’s in it and progressives are still waiting to wade through the written details and see sign off in blood from Senators Sinema and Manchin before they’ll agree to vote on its partner legislation, that bipartisan infrastructure package that passed in the Senate what feels like eons ago.  According to the Washington Post, the Build Back Better legislation includes $555 billion for transformative clean energy investments.  Additionally, it will fund universal prekindergarten, subsidized health care coverage for low income Americans stuck in the Medicaid coverage gap, it would shore up the Affordable Care Act, expand the child tax credit but not provide the parental leave that Biden and the progressives wanted to see included.  All of this would be paid for with a 15% minimum tax on big companies, multinational corporate tax reform and a surtax on individuals making over $10 million per year but not by that tax on billionaire’s unrecognized gains that was bandied about earlier in the week.  And lastly, while the FG still has faced no criminal penalties for all his many alleged attacks on women, yesterday evening former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo was charged by an Albany County sheriff’s department with a misdemeanor complaint for groping one of the women who has accused him of harassment.  Of course, immediately after that complaint went public, the Albany District Attorney, not to be confused with the sheriff, said he was surprised about its timing, as was the woman involved who wasn’t notified that it was coming.  In other NY news, Tish James, NY’s Attorney General who gets the credit for taking Cuomo down is expected to announce that she’s running for Governor but then again that’s not all that surprising.

Viral Musings:  Check with your pediatrician, though the COVID vaccine for the 5 to 11 set  hasn’t been approved yet, some doctors may already be giving out appointment slots as it appears that those shots will start going into arms at the end of next week.  Depending on where you live, the shots will be available at doctor’s office, pharmacies, and/or some of those group sites that delivered the adult shots.  Also on the COVID front, a study of 1500 patients in Brazil convincingly showed that the relatively inexpensive anti-depressant fluvoxamine is effective in treating high risk COVID patients. Assuming the study results pass muster with the NIH and the WHO, expect to see fluvoxamine added to the COVID arsenal.  At $4 per dose it’s way more affordable than Merck’s experimental anti-viral molnupiravir which will cost about $700 per course.  That said, don’t write off the Merck drug yet, it may be that since the two drugs work differently and neither is completely effective they will ultimately be used in tandem.

Happy Halloween