Revenge Tour

Bye Bye Matt:  Hope you had a better Indigenous Peoples Day than Matt Amodeo who saw his million dollar plus winning streak end. Judging by his tweets, Matt seems to be handling his loss well which is much more than can be said for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.  Malevolent Mitch wants everyone to know that though he got some members of his contingent to join Democrats in raising the debt limit,  raising it until December that is, he won’t do it again because Senate Leader Chuck Schumer was mean to him and he’d rather see the country default than endure a few harsh words. Assuming Mitch isn’t bluffing, Democrats will have to pass the next increase by themselves through reconciliation at the same time that they pass their multi trillion dollar infrastructure/wish list package, the one that they’re still trying to get Senators Sinema and Manchin to sign off on. The pressure is now on Democrats to put away their differences and get something done to save Biden’s presidency, at least that’s seems to be the view of the media who find the “disarray” in the Democratic party as opposed to the FG led Republican destruction of democracy the most compelling story of the day.  The media spent the weekend focusing on a truly depressing Quinnipiac poll that showed Biden’s popularity down to 38%, ignoring that most of the other polls that they usually cite show him in the upper forties or even at 50%, not great but not yet a disaster. Speaking of disasters, or potential ones, the FG spent his weekend campaigning in Iowa for the presidential run that he hasn’t yet announced. With octogenarian Senator Chuck Grassley who previously criticized him but is now fully in his camp because he needs his endorsement for his run for reelection standing with him, he did his thing and got covered by all the media outlets including, somewhat inexplicably, CSPAN.  When he wasn’t campaigning or sending out missives, the FG found the time to tape a birthday wish for “martyr” Ashli Babbit, the insurrectionist who was shot while trying to break into the Capitol on January 6^th.   We are now being warned by a diverse bipartisan group of former FG administration including Cyber guy Chris Krebs, Russian expert Fiona Hill and press sec Stephanie Grisham that should he win again the FG will be a vengeful maniac and that he will staff his administration with all the “broken toys,” people like Mike Flynn and Seb Gorka, that he surrounded himself with last time but with none of those so called adults.  As to those “broken toys,” three of them, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, one time defense official Kash Patel, and social media guy Dan Scavino who was finally served, appear to be engaging with or pretending to do so with the House’s January 6^th committee in response to the subpoenas that they received, but one, Steve Bannon, refuses to cooperate at all.  Though the law isn’t on his side, he wasn’t on the White House staff during January 6, time is, so its quite likely that if someone like his fugitive Chinese billionaire friend Guo Wengui is paying his legal bills Bannon will continue to fight in the hopes that the next Congress will be led by Republicans with no interest in investigating January 6.   

Loon Star State:  Texas continues to be Texas. With the help of the very conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the ban on abortions was reinstated pending an appeal by the DOJ. Last night the DOJ filed that appeal but even though Roe v Wade is still the law of the land, it’s quite possible that the 5^th Circuit, given its leanings, will leave the ban in force while the case makes its way to the Supreme Court because they can.  In other Texas news, last night Governor Abbott who is facing a primary from his right, banned COVID vaccine mandates by private companies based in his state.  His action will likely do little to affect all those Texas base airlines who are now required to get their employees vaccinated as they are subject to Biden’s federal mandate which should prevail.  Nevertheless it allows Abbott who is vaccinated to appeal to his right flank, the flank that his Republican competitor Allen West, an anti vaxxer who is currently hospitalized with COVID pneumonia is going after.  By the way, West who attacked COVID vaccinations as something pushed by money sucking pharmaceutical companies received some $2000 Regeneron antibodies over the weekend. Don’t try to make sense of his nonsense because it makes no sense.   Also, despite insistence on the right that Southwest Airlines’ high rate of cancellations this weekend were due to those vaccine mandates, the airline and the Pilot’s union say they weren’t, rather they were due to weather and the challenges of ramping up capacity to pre COVID levels.

Viral Musings:  US cases are declining in most places though continued vigilance and more vaccinations are required to keep the trend going as people will be moving indoors to virus friendly environments soon in the northern states.  Right now the 7 day average US case count is still high, at around 90,000 while the 7 day average death count is 1600 plus. On the regulatory front Merck has applied for emergency use authorization for its COVID anti-viral pill, the FDA will be meeting on Moderna and J & J boosters this week and the kid shot meetings are still on the schedule for later this month.  The FDA is also expected to address, though not necessary sign off on, the mixing of shots this week.