Live Long and Prosper

Human Resources:  Captain Kirk wasn’t the only one who saw his dreams come true this week, former FBI Acting Head Andrew McCabe did too. McCabe, one of the Former Guy’s favorite punching bags who was fired just hours before he would have earned his full pension, is getting his benefits restored, his legal fees paid and his firing expunged from his record, the result of a settlement of a lawsuit with the Justice Department over what was clearly a politically motivated firing.  Steve Bannon who was once fired by the FG but is now currently back in his good graces remains in a hot seat of his own choosing.  Yesterday, after his lawyer reiterated that Bannon would not honor their subpoena or cooperate with their investigation, the House January 6^th Committee announced that they would recommend that he face criminal contempt charges. Bannon’s position is that even though he was not working for the White House at the time of the January 6th insurrection he is protected by the FG’s executive privilege.  That’s bunk, he knows it and the FG knows it but they’re playing for time, hoping that they’ll be able to stall a final court resolution until the end of this Congress and the beginning of one run by Republicans and sadly that strategy might work. By the way Bannon is still doing the FG’s bidding.  He’s been campaigning in Virginia for Glenn Youngkin, the FG endorsed Republican candidate.  Though polls indicate that Youngkin is currently trailing Democratic candidate and former Governor Terry McAuliffe by a few points, the spread is within the margin of error, truly disturbing given Youngkin’s positions on things like reproductive rights, the big election lie and vaccination mandates. For his part the FG appears to be sending out conflicting messages.  On the one hand he called into a rally for Youngkin, the one where participants were asked to say the Pledge of Allegiance to one of the American flags used by the January 6^th insurrectionists, and encouraged his people to get out and vote.  On the other hand, earlier this week in one of his Twitter replacement missives he told Republicans not to vote in upcoming elections unless the “fraud” of the 2020 elections is “thoroughly and conclusively documented.”  Why not?  That message worked so well for him and his party in Georgia, didn’t it?  Snark aside, the FG’s message is reverberating around the country not necessarily with his die hard supporters who probably will show up and vote but with Republican state legislators who continue to press for “audits” of the 2020 results even in states where they won. In other news, though we only learned about it last night, while nonagenarian William Shatner was spinning through space former President Clinton was on his way to a California hospital for an unspecified but not COVID related infection.  The 75 year old Clinton, who is still hospitalized, appears to be doing well which is more than can be said for any of those women in Texas who were hoping to get an abortion this week.  Last night by a vote of 2 to 1, the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals said that it will allow the Texas law that bars abortions after six weeks to stay in force while it considers an appeal of a judge’s order blocking it.   

Viral Musings:  Yesterday, the FDA’s vaccine advisory board voted unanimously to recommend emergency use authorization of a half dose Moderna booster shot for the same relatively broad categories of people who previously were authorized to receive their Pfizer boosters. Pending CDC signoff and instructions to pharmacies and other jab delivery sites about the booster dosage, those shots should be good to go as early as next week.  The panel is set to discuss J & J boosters today.  Since they are also expected to discuss an NIH study that found that J & J recipients benefited more from either a Pfizer or a Moderna shot than from a second J & J shot it’s not clear what they will recommend.  Though trends aren’t consistent across the country, overall COVID cases are down to a seven day average of  86k with the seven day average of deaths, a lagging indicator, down to around 1600.  Still too high but heading in the right direction, for now. It’s great that we’re making progress on the virus front, but sadly we don’t seem to be doing much about misinformation and hate.  Yesterday, a truly disturbing tape of a school administrator in Southlake, Texas was released.  In it, during a “training” session, she advises teachers that if they have a book about the Holocaust in their classrooms, they should also have a book with an “opposing” perspective in order to comply with a new Texas law that requires teachers to offer divergent perspectives when discussing “widely debated and currently controversial issues.” What more can I say than #WTF.