Send in the Clowns

Turkeys and Menorahs: Last week before we went off to our Thanksgiving feasts we learned that it was okay for a teenager to play vigilante in Colorado even if those actions ended up with some dead bodies, that it was not so okay to kill a man for jogging while Black and that despite the FG’s assertion there weren’t good people on both sides.  Kyle Rittenhouse, that teenager, has now visited Mar a Lago, appeared on fish stick heir Tucker Carlson’s show, become a hero of the right and is on the receiving end of several internship offers from a number of members of the Republican House clown squad.  He’s also provoked a fun to watch fight between some members of the FG’s loon squad with lawyer Lin Wood, Michael Flynn, Rittenhouse’s mother and Sidney Powell all taking potshots at each other over money, Q and other issues. As for the jogging murder, it turns out that calling out jogger Arnaud Arbury’s unpedicured toes as evidence that he deserved to be gunned down was probably not the best defense strategy to employ.  Similarly and thank goodness Virginia jurors get that neo-Nazis extolling white supremacy and the like while running down Heather Heyer was something that deserved consequences, financial ruin while not enough is better than nothing.  With Thanksgiving behind us and only one Chanukah light lit, this year by second gentleman Doug Emhoff,  it’s time to focus on what’s to come before year end.  The Government still needs to get funded, the debt limit needs to be raised, and there’s still that Build Back Better legislation to get passed through the Senate.         

Viral Musings: Going into Thanksgiving the talk was mostly about increasing COVID positivity levels in cold places with the focus on getting people vaccinated and boosted to blunt the seasonal increase in cases.  That’s still a big problem but now we know it may only be the tip of the iceberg or in this case the spike because as we’ve been told since the beginning of the pandemic, viruses especially coronaviruses mutate continuously and that absent high worldwide vaccination levels we ran the risk that a mutation that was both highly contagious and evasive of current vaccines would likely evolve.  The fear now is that with Omicron we’ve got one of those evasive and contagious variants to contend with.  Despite all the panic and accompanying market drops and travel bans we don’t yet know enough about Omicron, we’re not even sure if it’s as lethal as its predecessor variants as very preliminary reports out of South Africa indicate that it may not be.  That said the suspicion is that Omicron is highly contagious, possibly more contagious than Delta, the previous king of contagion.  We also don’t know if its plethora of spike mutations will allow it to evade, or even render the current crop of vaccines less effective.  For now the experts who are quick to point out that they need a few more weeks to get a handle on Omicron’s evil powers, seem to believe that the current vaccines and boosters remain the answer, or at least they hope so.  To the extent that a tweaked vaccine is needed both Moderna and Pfizer appear to be on the case, asserting that they can have a new mRNA version ready early next year. And while we’re into not so good news on the virus front, it turns out that the Merck antiviral pill, one of the one’s that was supposed to be our ticket out of the pandemic, has a much lower effectiveness at preventing hospitalization than promised, 30% rather than the 50% originally billed. So for now stay tuned, wear a mask when indoors and in crowds and, if you haven’t already, get boosted!                    

Human Resources: Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, the gun toting high school dropout from Colorado put her foot in her mouth last week, going after Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar not over her positions which may be fair to criticize but over her ethnicity which is not.  Boebert more than suggested that Omar, who she referred to as a member of the jihad squad, was a terrorist.  The sad thing about Boebert is that little about what she said was all that shocking given who she is as she, like far too many members of the Republican caucus including the sanctioned Representatives Gosar and Margie Q and the Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz and North Carolina not so wonder boy Madison Cawthorn, are what they are, and still they were voted in by their constituents and in most cases will be again while run of the mill conservatives like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney suffer. Facing a lot of pushback and probably a call from her party’s sniveling House leader Kevin McCarthy, Boebert did issue a lame “apology” of sorts but it was clear that she had her fingers crossed behind her back and it was also clear that McCarthy who finally did say something meaningless about her hate speech only cares to the extent it damages his chances of becoming Speaker in 2022. Speaking of clowns, Sean Parnell who the Former Guy had endorsed in the Pennsylvania Senate race, pulled out after losing custody of his children to his estranged wife who has accused him of abuse but nothing to worry about as another clown appear to be entering that race since Dr. Mehmet Oz of Oprah Winfrey fame appears poised to jump in because who doesn’t need another quick cure peddling medicine man in the Senate?  On the state front, Matthew McConaughey who was toying with running for Governor of Texas announced that now is not his time but Texas being Texas, “big lie” insurrectionist supporting Congressman Louis Gohmert has thrown his hat into the ring for State Attorney General, threatening the current one, the indicted FG fan Ken Paxton.  George P Bush son of Jeb who refuses to ever criticize the Former Guy despite all those nasty things he said about his father and his mother’s ethnicity is also in the race.  As to the House, a large number of Democrats, have announced plans to retire, they’re mostly older and from safe seats, still their departure plans likely reflect their expectation that Kevin Q really could become Speaker after the midterms.  Ugh.       

 

Messaging

Politics Unusual:  The CBO report is in, the Build Back Better plan would add about $160 billion to the deficit over the next decade, nothing to sneeze at but a mere pittance when compared to the trillions that the FG’s tax cuts added.  In fact the CBO estimate was better than the administration expected.  A number of the hold out House Democrats are now on board and according to Speaker Pelosi she’s got the votes needed for passage and as hard as it is to believe, Biden and Senate Leader Schumer believe they also have the votes needed for Senate passage meaning that Senators Sinema and Manchin are on board too, well maybe.  The House vote was supposed to take place last night but didn’t because GQP Leader McCarthy took to the floor and spoke until 5:10 this morning to stall its passage.  The vote is now expected to take place later this morning.  As to Kevin most of what he said was garbled nonsense, a performance intended to impress the FG and his party’s extremist wing, part of his effort to ensure that he rather than Gym Jordan, or even the FG, Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz’s choice, gets the speaker nod when the Republicans retake the House; and just a reminder, given all that gerrymandering they are odds on favorites to grab it back in 2022.  Though the focus was supposed to be the Build Back Better legislation, Kevin was all over the place, at one point he attacked the Afghan pullout, saying Biden hadn’t taken in enough refugees only to later say we’d taken in too many so you get the gist.  He did manage to get into the record books for longest speech, beating Speaker Pelosi, who had held the previous record.  Frankly, it’s hard to care about his crazy speechifying, it’s the other stuff he’s done and will do if and when he becomes speaker that should concern us. Among other things he’ll likely give Representatives Gosar and Margie Q back their committee assignments while going after those of a few Democrats.  Likely targets will be Maxine Waters, Ilhan Omar and Eric Swalwell though Adam Schiff and a whole bunch of other names are also being bandied about.  As to Gosar, he’s now officially sanctioned; two Republicans, Kinzinger and Cheney, joined the Democratic majority in stripping him of his committee positions.  GQP Kevin expressed outrage because apparently threatening the life of a fellow Congressperson and harm to the sitting President is no biggie for him.  Gosar, who Kevin claims “apologized” to his Republican brethren for his heinous tweet, responded to the censure by retweeting the offensive anime and, of course, the FG announced that he’s endorsing Gosar for reelection. That’s the same FG who sent out a long incoherent statement on Wednesday, ramping up his attack of “Old Crow” Mitch McConnell, calling him “stupid” and a “fool” while accusing him of “incompetence” for facilitating the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill and allowing the debt ceiling limit to be lifted, albeit temporarily.  Having taken down a few House Republicans who didn’t vote his way,  the FG seems determined to do the same to the “Old Crow.” Those four years when Mitch consistently pushed through the FGs judges, forgotten.  As to the debt limit, which runs out again in the beginning of December, reports are that Senate Leader Schumer and “Old Crow” McConnell have been having behind the scenes talks to facilitate its passage.  That’s how things are supposed to work but don’t get too used to it.  If the Republicans retake the House after the midterms routinely raising the debt limit could be come near impossible given the heat those few Republicans who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill have gotten.

Viral Musings:  The seven day average of new coronavirus cases is now tapping at the door of 100,000 with deaths stuck stubbornly above 1000.  Given the beginning of the holiday season, dropping temperatures in the north, waning vaccine effectiveness for those previously vaccinated but not yet boosted, and the number who remain unvaccinated the infection number is likely to climb a lot, sooner rather than later. On a more positive note, 10% of eligible 5 to 11 year-olds have already gotten their first shots, a faster jab uptake for the pediatric COVID shot than was achieved with the adult rollout. As to adults, 80% have gotten their first jab and though a handful of covidiots have sought to “undo” the effectiveness of their shots with borax baths, that’s just stupid and probably dangerous but not effective. Hopefully, those experts who say that the country’s vaccination rate will blunt the lethality of the winter COVID wave are correct. It’s still not clear whether the Biden vaccination mandates will withstand the legal challenges being pressed by Governors and Attorneys General from red states but those in place at the local level do appear to be working despite the borax idiocy.  The administration also reports that 31 million adults have gotten their boosters, good but not enough. Hopefully, expectations that the FDA will endorse both Pfizer and Moderna boosters for all adults today are true.  That endorsement should clear up confusion about who should get boosters getting the message out to all. Though the Pfizer COVID pill has not yet received emergency use authorization, that authorization is expected which likely explains why the US government has entered into a contract to purchase $5.3 billion, or 10 million courses of the drug. The government earlier ordered some of Merck’s pills as well.  Lastly, we keep on learning more about how hard the FG administration worked to muddy the COVID message over fears that admitting how much of a problem it was would “hurt” his economy and chances for reelection.  Crazy, that as a result we’re still fighting over vaccine effectiveness and face mask mitigation, particularly since he was the one who funded so much of the vaccine development.

One More Thing:  Though the news has been focused on inflation and the Republican party is stoking the “we’re about to turn into Argentina or worse” story it turns out the economic picture is actually pretty good.  Jobless claims are down under 300,000 and 531,000 new jobs were added in October.  Even more significantly,  prior months figures understated job growth missing more than 600,000 jobs that have now been added back in.  Retail sales and manufacturing output are both up.  The issue now may be more about how people, burnt out from the long COVID experience, feel about the economy rather than dire economic problems. If only messaging was something that Democrats were good at. 

Have a great weekend! Boost up.      

 

Flu Gap

Infrastructure Week:  The bipartisan infrastructure bill has been signed into law and President Biden is traveling around the country, standing in front of dilapidated bridges, trying to explain to voters why it’s a really good thing to fix our crumbling infrastructure.  Meantime, the FG and his cronies in Congress are still going after those “RINOs” who voted for its passage .  At this point it’s unlikely that any of the targeted will be censured although the Republican’s Freedom Caucus wants to see that happen.  GQP Leader McCarthy knows that punishing those who voted for it isn’t a good idea but he’s also afraid of losing support from his right as that could jeopardize him winning the speakership if and when the Republicans win back the House, an increasing probability given the success of all their gerrymandering. Of course Margie Q who no longer has any committee assignments is pushing hard for NYS Republican John Katko who voted for the law to lose his ranking position on the Homeland Security Committee.  The clueless Margie wants that position to go to an FG loyalist from a threatened border state.  Apparently she doesn’t remember 9.11, nor does she know that NY is a border state. And of course, while the FG stews about Biden getting an infrastructure law passed when he never could, and Republicans attack those who voted for the law, Alabama Representative Gary Palmer, one of those Republican “no” voters has already started bragging to his constituents about all the money that his district will be getting as a result of the new law.  He won’t be the last no voter to take credit.  Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer are now focused on their next hurdle, getting the Build Back Better reconciliation bill passed.  Holidays are upon us, the debt ceiling limit will be running out again soon and there’s not much time left in the year so we’ll see what really happens next.

Betrayal: Turning to the FG, Jon Karl’s Betrayal book is now out.  It’s chocked with a lot of new factoids about the destructive and dysfunctional last days of the FG administration.  My personal favorite is that son in law Jared Kushner refused to intervene to stop the FG’s insanity because he was too busy working on Middle East peace or maybe just getting funding for his new investment fund to worry about all that.  Then there’s wacko lawyer Sydney Powell not to be confused with that other wacko attorney Jenna Ellis the campaign lawyer who is best remembered for sitting alongside Rudy at his Four Seasons press conference.  The really odd Powell who was once a respected US Attorney, was so convinced that former CIA Head Gina Haspel had been kidnapped and injured while trying to get one of those “vote flipping” machines back from Europe that she together with an equally unhinged Michael Flynn attempted to get Defense aide Ezra Cohen-Watnick to send forces overseas to bring her back. Even Cohen-Watnick, an FG loyalist who had managed to get a position high up in the Defense department because of his relationship with Flynn knew that was nuts so he refused.  Flynn called him a quitter and the two haven’t spoken since.  For her part Ellis was busy working on VP Pence, force feeding him a memo detailing how he could flip the election back to the FG. By the way Ellis whose previous legal experience included working traffic cases is far from a  Constitutional law expert. Naturally, former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is implicated in a lot of this which goes far to explaining why he’s so afraid to testify in front of the January 6 committee. Then there’s Mitch McConnell, we may have him to thank for the FG boycotting the inauguration.  It turns out that Mitch didn’t want the FG there as he feared he would turn it into a sh-tshow.  When the FG found out that Mitch was working on banning him, he preempted the effort by announcing he wouldn’t attend.  Of course the FG is still out there being a disruptive force.  Last night he appeared with Pillow man Lindell.  He agreed with Pillow’s assertion that all voting machines used in 2020 should be burned and then went on with to slam his one-time VP again saying “It was very sad when Mike Pence gave those votes over. When you have more votes than there are voters, when you have other things that are so wrong.” Repeat the lie often enough…..

Human Resources:  A few more Democrats are throwing in the towel. Yesterday Vermont’s 81 year old Senator Patrick Leahy, the senior most member of the Democrat’s Senate contingent announced that he will not be seeking another term.  His decision isn’t all that surprising as he’s hardly a spring chicken and he had a serious health scare this year, one that could have ended up turning the Senate back to Mitch McConnell as Vermont has a Republican governor.   Peter Welch, Vermont’s lone Congressman, a Democrat, is eying Leahy’s seat.  If Independent Bernie Sanders endorses him, he’ll probably get the nod but nothing is certain right now.  On the Congressional front, California’s Jackie Speier also announced her plans to retire from her reliably Democratic seat.  She’s only 71, young by House standards, but she’s apparently ready to move on to spending time with her husband and probably something else closer to home. Speier, a Pelosi acolyte, survived the Jonestown massacre, not as a member of the cult but as an aide to Congressman Leo Ryan who was killed during the related airport siege so January 6^th was particularly resonant to her.  She isn’t going away quietly, she’s co-sponsoring a resolution to censure Republican Congressman Paul Gosar for threatening the life and limb of Biden and AOC.  In other news, the Wyoming Republican party has ousted the state’s one member of Congress, Liz Cheney, from their party.  The reliably conservative Congresswoman’s crime,  failing to kowtow to the FG’s forces. Beto O’Rourke announced that he’s running to be Texas’s next governor and everyone appears to be running for the Democratic nomination to be NYS’s next Governor.  That crowd includes current Governor Kathy Hochul, AG Letitia James, former NYC public advocate Jumaane Williams, and maybe even ousted Governor Andrew Cuomo.  As a reminder on the Republican side, it’s Suffolk County Congressman/FG supporter Lee Zeldin vs Rudy son Andrew which means it’s Lee Zeldin who must be enjoying the Democrats duking it out and hoping that the most progressive candidate emerges from the pile so that he can seal up the upstate, eastern Long Island votes. Also, with Letitia James focused on the governorship, yesterday the impressive Daniel Goldman, no relation, who represented the Democrats in one of the FG impeachment cases, announced that he’s running for NYS AG.    

Viral Musings:  Expectations are that the FDA will approve boosters for all adults by the end of the week, a recognition that the effectiveness of the vaccines wane after six months for everyone not just the elderly or the immune suppressed, that almost anyone can get them anyway, that many states and localities have already jumped the gun and that boosters raise effectiveness back up into the 90 plus percent area.  In other news,  Pfizer has submitted an emergency use authorization application for its COVID anti-viral pill Paxlovid.  Taken over several days the pill, appears to have an efficacy of just under 90% at preventing severe disease and death when taken within three days after the start of symptoms.  Merck already has it’s EUA application in for its drug which is about 50% effective and already approved for emergency use in the UK.  US COVID cases are trending upward again mostly among the unvaccinated and in colder areas but also among those who got their shots early and haven’t yet been boosted.  Depressingly flu cases are up too with something new on that front:  apparently there is now a partisan divide when it comes to getting flu shots with 68% of Democrats saying they’ve gotten one or plan to and only 44% of Republicans saying the same.  In past years that differential, 58% vs 54%, fell within the margin of error.       

 

Religious Establishment

Teflon: Since we all need some good news, here’s some.  American journalist Danny Fenster who had been sentenced to serve eleven years in a Myanmar jail for acting like a journalist was freed this morning.  Details are still coming out but it looks like his release was due to the work of former US Ambassador Bill Richardson.  Not so lucky is Steve Bannon who was finally indicted on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress.  Unfortunately his case has been assigned to an FG appointed judge so Teflon Bannon who is due to turn himself in today could end up skating, again.  That said his indictment probably caused some anxiety for former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who failed to show up for his scheduled testimony on Friday.  Word is that that Meadows may now be trying to see if he can provide written testimony, likely because he believes it would allow him to avoid an indictment while making it harder for him to get caught lying.   Of course the  FG responded to Bannon’s indictment by calling the country a “radicalized mess” though naturally he didn’t mention that he was the source of that radicalization nor did he have anything to say about his other BFF, Michael Flynn who told his fans that “if we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God and one religion under God.” So much for the First Amendment and that whole prohibition against establishing a religion thing.  Bizarrely enough, Josh Mandel who Jewish and is running and at least for now leading the pack of those seeking to get the Republican nomination for the Ohio Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Rob Portman, responded to Flynn’s statement by tweeting “we stand with General Flynn,” because when you are vying for the FG’s endorsement why not sell your soul to the devil?  Mandel’s more well-known competitors for that coveted FG endorsement are the Peter Theil funded author of Hillbilly Elegy fame JD Vance who appears to be flailing and Jane Timken former chair of the Ohio Republican Party but it’s one of his lesser known ones Mark Pukita who got a lot of attention last week after he defended some ads where he asks “Are we seriously supposed to believe the most Christian-values Senate candidate is Jewish?” by saying “all I did in an ad was pointed out that Josh is going around saying he's got the Bible in one hand and the constitution in the other. But he's Jewish, everybody should know that though, right.”  Let me repeat he’s attacking Mandel for being Jewish.  There are lots of reasons to go after Mandel, that shouldn’t be one of them.  Getting back to Bannon, the indictment doesn’t appear to have crimped his style, this weekend he told his podcast listeners that all Hell would break loose this week after the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict comes in.  That  exhortation probably goes far to explaining why Wisconsin’s Governor announced plans to call out the National Guard. 

Politics As Usual:  As to the FG, ever self-centered he called Chris Christie around the time the former NJ Governor was suffering with COVID and getting last rites to make sure that he wouldn’t be holding him responsible for catching the virus.  Though it would be nice to ignore the FG, that would be foolish as he continues to do all he possibly can do to be a disruptive force. Anyone who doesn’t think that he is working to return to the Oval Office is delusional, probably as delusional as his pillow man Mike Lindell and one religion only Flynn, who undoubtably would end up back as National Security Adviser or in an equivalently important position if the FG gets his wish. Over the weekend, the Mango Maniac called for "good and SMART America First Republican Patriots to run primary campaigns against Representatives Tom Rice, John Katko, Don Bacon, Don Young, Fred Upton (challenge accepted), Andrew Garbarino, Peter Meijer (challenge accepted), David McKinley (challenge accepted), Nancy Mace, Jaime Herrera Beutler (challenge accepted) and Chris Smith?"  Their crimes, they either voted for the infrastructure legislation or something equivalently awful in his eyes.  He also once again attacked Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski who he called the “disaster from Alaska.”  Murkowski, who is expected to be one of the few Republicans planning to show up today for Biden’s signing of the bipartisan infrastructure bill because it’s popular in her state, announced that she’s running for reelection over the weekend.  Biden needs the good press that maybe, just maybe he’ll get at the signing as the main stream media is focused on inflation and his sinking poll numbers. VP Harris could use better press too.  CNN’s weekend hit piece was nasty and odd. Odd because the contents seemed like more of an indictment of the Biden team than of her but the headline slammed her.  Shifting back to inflation, Larry Summers who’s been talking up inflation ever since the passage of the cash infusing virus recovery legislation, is bullish on both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the as yet unpassed Build Back Better legislation.  He says neither will contribute to inflation but both will achieve long term improvements.   That’s a message that he needs to share with West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, who appears to be getting cold feet, again.        

Viral Musings:  While he still sees a light at the end of the COVID tunnel, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warns of a post-holiday spike in new COVID infections and with the 7 day average of new cases already above 80,000 his warning may already be a reality.  To that end a number of states, including California, Colorado and New Mexico have already made boosters available to all adults.  From a practical matter boosters are available to most who want them right now since the categories for who qualifies are so broad, still officially opening up getting a booster to all combined with better messaging is one way to keep new cases down. It working in Israel where cases remain low.   

Inflation, Inflation

Stalling Tactics:  We’re not going to see all those implicating January 6 files that document the coup efforts of the FG and his cronies, at least we’re not going to see them yet.  Yesterday, as expected, the Court of Appeals for DC granted a temporary injunction while it considers the FG’s request to hold off the files’ release pending his appeal of a lower court’s decision.  The Appeals court judges fast-tracked oral arguments setting a hearing for November 30.  Two of the three judges on the randomly selected panel are Obama appointees with the third recently appointed by Biden, not that any of that is supposed to matter except that sometimes it does.  The expectation is that they’ll rule in favor of releasing the information and that the FG’s lawyers will again appeal, requesting a full court review and then that “his” Supreme Court get the final say.  Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice still hasn’t done anything about the Steve Bannon contempt issue which is why former chief of staff Mark Meadows is unlikely to show up to testify in front of the January 6^th committee because unless someone suffers some serious consequences for refusing, why would he bother?  As to the courts in general, some really strange stuff is happening at the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who shot three, killing two in Kenosha, Wisconsin and in the trial against the three Georgians who are being tried for murdering jogger Arnaud Arbury.  The Rittenhouse judge seems more interested in adopting the teen than seeing justice done, and also seems to think that it was perfectly normal for him to cross state lines with a military style weapon he shouldn’t have had to play vigilante in Kenosha.  It’s even been reported that the judge’s phone played the FG’s campaign theme when it “accidentally” rang during the trial.  Then there’s the bizarre racially tinged comment he made about Asian food yesterday.  On the Arbury front, referring to the presence of Al Sharpton who was sitting with the victim’s family, a Defense attorney complained about too many Black pastors being present in court and how that could influence jurors, not just odd because of the race reference but also strange since there’s only one Black person on the jury as the defense team excluded all others from the jury, something the judge hearing the case allowed even as he noted it wasn’t all that Kosher. It got even worse when the Defense counsel  added that no one would be happy if his side invited a bunch of people dressed like Colonel Sanders in white masks. What? And because odd things are also happening outside of court, in another one of his Twitter alternate statements the FG announced that he had sent his “Envoy Ambassador” Ric Grenell to the Kosovo-Serbia border to promote “peace.”  To state the obvious former presidents don’t have or get to send ambassadors anywhere.  As if that isn’t bad enough, today’s NY Times reports on how Don Jr and Steve Bannon have been working hard to help Brazil strongman Jair Bolsonaro get reelected. The FG recently took to his Twitter alternate platform to endorse Bolsonaro’s reelection, not surprising given how the two have so much in common and by that think their similar responses to the “fake” coronavirus pandemic and their ongoing criminal enterprises.  Sadly, with inflation now the story of the day, we could end up with the FG and all of his best and most corrupt buddies in charge again because nothing spurs voter dissatisfaction more than increasing fuel prices and inflation fears.  What’s a lot of hate mongering, death threats, pollution and the like if the alternative is more expensive gas at the tank?  One more thing, reports are that NJ Republican Ciattarelli plans to finally concede that he lost his race by about 74K votes.  

 

Viral Musings:  So after all those reports came out about actor/possible Texas governor candidate Matthew McConaughey not vaccinating his kids, he responded by making it clear that he’s not opposed to vaccinations, just nervous.  He added that he, his wife and  his 13 year son are vaccinated but that he’s taking it slow with his younger kids which is sort of relatable so credit to him for clarifying his position. Perhaps the experiences of the 1 million or so 5 to 11 year-olds who have gotten the shot so far will help him through his angst.  On the COVID front, spurred on by those who remain unvaccinated, rates are rising again in too many places.  Let’s hope that those experts who insist that the incoming wave won’t be as bad as last winter’s because so many are vaccinated are correct.  Notably two anti-vax leaders have cancelled their plans to attend their own planned anti vax events.  One of them a North Dakota lawmaker is missing his North Dakota rally because he’s sick with COVID, the other white supremacist/anti vax advocate Nick Fuentes is “sick” with a mystery disease that sounds awfully like COVID and won’t be able to go on with his plans.  Horse paste anyone? Singapore where the inappropriate disposal of chewing gum can get you into bigly trouble has had it with people like Fuentes, they announced plans to stop covering the hospital medical bills of those who remain unvaccinated by choice. 

759K: US COVID deaths

74K: 7 day average of new cases  

 

All Right, All Right, All Wrong

Papers May Fly:  Late last night, US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected the FG’s attempt to keep his January 6 papers secret saying that “presidents are not kings and the plaintiff is not president.”  Her ruling means that the documents and visitors’ logs that the FG desperately wants kept hidden could be released by the National Archives by the end of the week.  But, and it’s a big but, the FG is appealing her decision so who knows if they’ll really be released soon or ever.  The Justice Department still hasn’t acted upon the Steve Bannon contempt referral that it received from Congress so it’s not clear that congressional subpoenas are worth much these days but that hasn’t stopped the House January 6^th committee from issuing more of them.  Monday the committee subpoenaed lawyer John Eastman who wrote the six point roadmap for how the FG could overturn the 2020 election, former NY police commissioner/one time convict Bernie Kerick, campaign manager/NJ Bridgegate guy Bill Stepien, campaign adviser/child support scofflaw Jason Miller, wacko one time national security advisor/Q Anon advocate Michael Flynn and the lesser known Angela McCallum, a campaign assistant who called around trying to get some states to send FG friendly alternative delegates to be included in the final Electoral College count.  Yesterday the committee added ten more names to that list, including one time press secretary/Fox commentator Kayleigh McEnany, Immigrant foe/speech writer Stephen Miller, VP Pence’s security advisor Keith Kellogg and FG body man/WH personnel chief John McEntee.  It’s fair to assume that absent any real indication that there are consequences for refusing some, if not all, of these characters, particularly the better known ones whose legal bills are being subsidized, will either refuse to cooperate a la Steve Bannon or will follow the Jeffrey Clark playbook meaning they will show up to testify but refuse to answer any questions. Clark is the Justice Department lawyer who told the FG that Pence could refuse to certify the Electoral College vote while trying to get everyone senior to him in the Justice Department fired so he could be appointed Attorney General.  Because it’s November another FG era tell all book is about to be released.  This one is from journalist/ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl.  Some of the tidbits that he’s added to the depressingly high pile of FG excrement include that the FG was “morose in defeat and eager for revenge,” that he threatened to leave the Republican Party, forming one of his own with his hugely valuable list of donors, and that McEntee, the one time body man who was fired by then Chief of Staff John Kelly because he couldn’t pass a security check only to be rehired and promoted to White House Personnel director after Kelly was escorted out the door became the Deputy President during the waning days of the administration.  McEntee who at least one other WH aide referred to as a “no-name idiot” rooted out anyone who wasn’t 100% loyal,  got someone punished for liking a Taylor Swift tweet, hired too young women for their looks rather than their competency and then worked real hard to overturn the election results. He appeared to be a follower of the East German Stasi model of management.

Politics Unusual:  As to the FG, he’s still furious that “sleepy” Joe Biden has gotten infrastructure legislation signed into law so naturally he’s attacking everyone associated with it.  Yesterday he released a statement whining “Why is it that Old Crow Mitch McConnell voted for a terrible Democrat Socialist Infrastructure Plan, and induced others in his Party to do likewise, when he was incapable of getting a great Infrastructure Plan wanting to be put forward by me and the Republican Party?” By the way, since “old crow” McConnell is only four years older than the FG what does that make him? Following the FG’s lead, the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party’s House caucus, which these days is most of them are now pushing GQP Leader Kevin McCarthy to strip committee appointments from the thirteen House Republicans who joined Democrats in voting for the infrastructure legislation and of course those members are now getting death threats.  That’s not normal, nor is it normal that at least so far McCarthy who quite likely will be speaker after the 2022 midterms has ignored Arizona Congressman/Dentist Paul Gosar’s violent twitter posting in which he depicts an Anime version of himself killing Congresswoman AOC while also attacking President Biden.  Notably no one in the Republican party is talking about stripping Gosar of his committee memberships though many Democrats and all of his siblings believe he should be kicked out of Congress altogether. Though just about every political pundit expects Republicans to take control of the House in 2022, the Senate situation is less predictable which is why Republicans had been counting on New Hampshire’s popular Republican Governor Chris Sununu running against incumbent Maggie Hassan, considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for reelection. Well, they’ll have to count Sununu out, yesterday without giving anyone in party leadership advance notice, he announced that he will be running for another term as governor rather than running to become a Senator. Apparently, running a state is a lot more fun than blocking legislation and voting for judges and also, assuming the FG fever ever breaks, gives him, a more normal run of the mill conservative, a better platform if, more likely when, he runs for president.   

Viral Musings:  COVID 19 is surging again in Europe and as we have learned by now, what happens in Europe doesn’t stay there so don’t toss those masks just yet.  Highly vaccinated parts of the US will probably be spared the worst of the next wave but still its notable that rates are creeping up again even in vaccinated states including New York and California.  To help blunt that rise yesterday Pfizer said that it’s seeking to expand its booster emergency use authorization to include everyone over 18 who received a shot at least 6 months ago. On the vaccine front, the CDC reports that so far 360,000 under the age of 12 are now partially vaccinated, a good start but only a start given that there are 28 million in the now eligible age category.  By the way, none of the vaccinated kids belong to possible Texas Gubernatorial candidate/actor Matthew McConaughey.  He opted to get vaccinated in part because he lives with an immune suppressed parent but is doing his own “research” on vaccines for kids and teens even those his children also live with that grandparent.  That other independent researcher QB Aaron Rodgers and his team have been fined by the NFL for their reckless vaccine shenanigans but the fines are a relative pittance given their wealth.  That’s okay with State Farm, the company is sticking with Rodgers, kind of. They’re keeping him on as a spokesperson but running fewer of his ads, having it both ways?               

 

Comrade Big Bird 

The Week That Was:  Finally, after enduring a rough election week, the barely Democratically controlled Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, the one that was previously passed by the Senate. The bill includes new money for transportation projects, the utility grid, the replacement of some lead pipes and the building out of broadband, all those things that the FG pretended to promise but never delivered during his many so-called Infrastructure Weeks. Congress didn’t take a vote on Biden’s larger Build Back Better bill, but did go forward with a procedural vote with a plan to bring Build Back Better up for a vote “within two weeks” once the Congressional  Budget Office releases its scoring report. Seeing that score was a requirement of many members of the Democrats more moderate, as in vulnerable for reelection, caucus. The Bipartisan Infrastructure bill passed by a vote of 228 to 206 with thirteen Republican ayes and six Democratic nays.  The Republican crowd included Katko, Bacon, Van Drew, Young, Upton, Kinzinger, Gonzalez, Fitzpatrick, Reed, Gabarino, Malliotakis, McKinley and Smith of New Jersey, a mix of soon to be retirees and swing district representatives. If Van Drew’s name sounds familiar it’s because he is the odd NJ Congressmen who switched parties during the FG’s reign when it looked like he would be primaried from the left.  Given that the bill had already passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis it wasn’t surprising that some Republicans stepped up to vote for it but it was notable that Pelosi needed their support to get the bill through as she had to offset the nays from her six cranky progressives. That crowd which included the usual suspects of AOC, Omar, Bush, Bowman, Pressley and Tlaib, mostly voted no to stand by their promise that they wouldn’t vote for the bipartisan plan unless the Build Back Better bill was also put up for a vote.  Their position appears to be all or nothing even if nothing takes down their moderate colleagues.  If that sounds like a familiar strategy, it’s because it is, it’s the one employed by the Republican’s Freedom Caucus who routinely held up legislation when Republicans controlled the House, leaving their party’s leadership to rely on Democratic help the few times they actually tried to get something passed. As to the Build Back Better bill, the second leg of Biden’s infrastructure plan, though many aspects of it have been nailed down, its final content remains in flux.  One thing that is in, at least for now, is an increase in the amount of state and local taxes that will be deductible to $80,000.  To the extent the SALT fix remains in, it will be a big win for representatives from high tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.  Oddly enough, even though some of them are from high tax states that’s one of the provisions that the uber progressives like AOC aren’t fond of as they view it as a giveaway to the rich.  The passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill like the many positive economic indicators that were released last week should be good news for Biden but given the topsy turvy world of politics these days, who knows if it will help his and the Democratic party’s ratings as the mainstream media continues to push and amplify narratives about dissension and the unhappiness of the electorate.  And of course the FG  is still out there.  No surprise that his response to Biden’s infrastructure success was to denounce Senate Minority Leader McConnell and the House Republicans who voted for the bill saying it was “very sad that the RINOs in the House and Senate gave Biden and Democrats a victory on the 'Non-Infrastructure' Bill.”  Of course he did.      

 

Viral Musings: While kids lining up for the vaccines should be the biggest story right now, over the weekend their was more press coverage about Texas’s Senator Ted Cruz having his shorts in a knot over “Six year old” Big Bird’s announcement that he had gotten his child sized jab.  Cruz uttered something about Big Bird being a communist after the much loved character announced he’d been vaccinated.  Of course Cruz ignored that Sesame Street have always used their platform to encourage vaccinations.  Texas sending us only their best?  Also front and center was the continuing discussion of Cheesehead quarterback Aaron Rodgers and his lie about having gotten “immunized.” He called out the woke press for harping on his lie while revealing that that he takes his health advice from conservative radio host Joe Rogan. Like Rogan, QB Cheesehead has now gotten an infusion of monoclonal antibodies and is taking horse dewormer because spending thousands of dollars on an infusion and going the Mr Ed route is so much better than just taking a proven $20 shot. A Wisconsin health care group has ended its long term partnership with Rodgers for fairly obvious reasons.  Though US covid cases and deaths appear to still be trending down, the direction is not uniform and may not be sustainable. In crowded New York City, where getting vaccinated is the norm, positivity rates are just below 1.00% but upstate in some far less dense rural counties where vaccination rates are embarrassingly low, positivity rates are over 10%. As to mandates, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the same group of judges who sustained Texas’ bounty abortion law, temporarily halted President Biden’s vaccine mandate on larger businesses while the mandate winds itself through the courts. That mandate wasn’t due to go into effect until January, hopefully providing time for this nonsense to get rationally resolved.        

 

Blondes and Milk

Punditry: The pundits are punditing away about Tuesday’s elections with many bemoaning the dire implications of the results of the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races.  I get it, losing Virginia, while not unexpected, was a bummer and the New Jersey race was closer than expected but still a few things are worth noting.  First,  though the final vote tally isn’t in yet in New Jersey as of this morning Governor Murphy didn’t squeak through, he leads by  more than 56,000 votes or 2.3%, numbers that are likely to grow as much of the uncounted votes are from blue leaning areas.  By contrast Youngkin won Virginia, where voter turnout was higher, by 80,000 or 2.5% of the vote, only a slightly higher margin.  As to that voter turnout, it’s likely that seeing polls that indicated Murphy was going to cruise to victory, too many New Jersey voters stayed home. One more point, the last time the president’s party held on to even one of those two states the year after his election was when President Reagan was in office.  So while Democrats should remain very concerned about next year’s midterms and do need to hone their message and get legislation passed, maybe citing the NJ and Virginia results as an indication of national tumult is an overreaction, at least for now.  As to legislation, Speaker Pelosi’s team spent yesterday whipping votes and according to all the news reports are ready to bring both the infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better “reconciliation” bill up for a vote today, hopefully a good sign since Pelosi rarely takes votes she can’t win.   One more thing, you may have heard a lot about milk yesterday.  That’s because CNN’s Brianna Keilar interviewed someone who complained that their grocery costs had skyrocketed in part due to the extraordinary increase in the cost of their weekly purchase of 12(!) gallons of milk.  Putting aside why someone would buy that much milk, the prices quoted in the segment were off substantially. Prices of milk have gone up in during the past year but by 15% rather than the 40% cited.  CNN, always quick to fact check others has some explaining to do.        

Justice?  On the legal front, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office has convened a new special grand jury focused on things FG.  The old one is due to expire shortly so it’s not clear whether the new one was created for procedural reasons or because, as some legal beagles surmise, prosecutors are now focusing on the FG’s alleged finagling of asset valuations. Barr/FG appointee John Durham has also been busy.  He’s obtained a few indictments for lying against Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst who contributed to the Steele Dossier.  The New York Post would like us all to believe that those indictments prove that the whole Russian investigation was a lot of Hillary Clinton invented bunk but since the FBI’s and Special Counsel Mueller’s investigations relied little on the dossier, that’s not the case; still Durham’s actions are providing a lot of fodder for those on the right who think that the FG was an innocent victim of left wing propaganda. In other legal news, the FG’s attempt to prevent some of his papers and records from being released continues to meander through the courts.  Based on her comments, it doesn’t sound like Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan is buying his lawyer’s arguments.  She’s expected to rule shortly but hers won’t be the final word as the FG is expected to appeal until he gets to “his” Supreme Court.  In other legal news, a lot of weird stuff coming out of both the Ahmaud Arbury and Kyle Rittenhouse cases these days. Arbury is the Black Georgia jogger who was shot and killed by vigilantes. Defense attorneys have managed to select a jury with only one Black voter as even though the judge noted “intentional discrimination” he let that slide.  Rittenhouse is that other vigilante, the one who is being tried for shooting three and killing two Kenosha Wisconsin demonstrators.  There, Bruce Schroeder, the presiding judge has forbidden prosecutors from referring to the unarmed victims as victims, he also went of on a rant yesterday giving the jury a law school class on the hearsay rule which “veered off into a discussion of a New Testament passage on the trial of Paul.” As to the jury, one of them was dismissed yesterday, something about making a tasteless joke about Jacob Blake, the Black man whose shooting  triggered the protests and accompanying riots.  On the January 6^th front, Texas real estate agent Jenna Ryan who flew to DC on a private jet and bragged that she would never be jailed because she’s white and blonde was sentenced to serve 60 days for her participation in the invasion of the Capitol. We’ll know how blonde she really is in a few weeks assuming she actually serves her full sentence.   

Viral Musings:  It turns out that vaccine mandates work which explains why vaccination rates have gone way up among municipal workers where they’ve been imposed.  So while vaccination rates among NYC firefighters still lag behind 92%, the rate of the rest of the NYC municipal workforce, with 80% of firemen jabbed, the 40% of fire houses that were going to be forced shut by quitting firefighters, not happening. The Biden administration which had earlier signaled vaccine mandates announced that they will go into force on January 4.  Workers in companies with 100 or more employees will be required to be vaccinated or get tested weekly at their own expense for the tests not the shots if their employers don’t want to foot the bill.  Workers in the health care field will not have the testing option, they’ll just have to get jabbed.  Of course Florida’s DeSantis is suing.  On the virus front, concerns are that at 75 to 80k the US decline in cases may be stalling, the result of colder temperatures in the north, waning vaccination effectiveness particularly among those due for their boosts and absurdly low vaccination rates in places like Wyoming. Montana and parts of Colorado.  On the anti-viral front, the UK has approved Merck’s as yet to be approved in the US new drug Molnupiravir for use in people with mild to moderate COVID-19 and at least one risk factor for developing severe illness, such as obesity, older age diabetes, and heart disease.  Also on the anti-viral front, this morning Pfizer announced that its experimental Covid-19 pill Paxlovid reduced hospitalizations and deaths in high-risk patients by 89%, The company is no longer taking new patients in its clinical trial “due to the overwhelming efficacy” and plans to submit the findings to regulatory authorities for emergency authorization as soon as possible.  That’s good news for all of us but maybe a little late for the Green Bay Packers and their quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers who earlier said he was “immunized” wasn’t vaccinated but instead got some kind of faux homeopathic treatment.  He’s now COVID positive and in a ten day, or possibly longer, quarantine. He didn’t follow all of the mitigation procedures that unvaccinated players are supposed to follow, like face masking when indoors, so he’s also exposed others on his team.  Hard to feel too sorry for management though, they knew his status because they had earlier rejected his faux treatment.  Unfortunately Rodgers isn’t the only one newly positive, apparently a Biden aide and some of those who were near him or her tested positive before boarding the return flight from Scotland.  They’re now in quarantine in Scotland awaiting confirmatory results.  We’re told that Biden was not near the aide and that he tested negative on Tuesday.  Of course it is now Friday so maybe we’ll hear about another test shortly.

 

Not So Beloved

Elvis, JFK Jr and Q:  First the good news, the FG wasn’t reinstated yesterday, disappointing to those hundreds of Q Anon crazies who showed up in Dallas to welcome him back together with his “new” vice president, the still very dead JFK Jr.  Now the not so good news by 50.7% to 48.6 % Republican Glenn Youngkin beat Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia.  Youngkin’s win wasn’t all that surprising.  However, what’s happening in New Jersey, the other state that held a gubernatorial election yesterday, is.  There incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy who was widely expected to comfortably win reelection is locked in a neck and neck, too close to call battle with Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli.  As of now Ciattarelli is leading Murphy by about 1200 votes with thousands of votes yet to be counted. Though Ciattarerlli’s performance caught a lot of people by surprise, it probably shouldn’t have given that NJ’s Democratic governors rarely win reelection.  No doubt the FG will weigh in shortly taking full credit for both of these candidates’ performances but it’s worth noting that these Republicans did better in part because he wasn’t on the ballot, that absence left some of those who showed up in 2020 just to vote against him home.  Nevertheless, Democrats should be very concerned, whether it’s Biden’s declining popularity, the failure of Democrats to get their Build Back Better legislation passed, concerns about inflation, fears of a gift-less Christmas, the “horror” of “critical race theory” being taught in schools or Beloved on their kids reading lists, yesterday’s results should serve as a wakeup call because they, together with the Republican party’s masterful messaging, could portend a shellacking in next year’s mid-terms, one that could hand the House back to the Republicans and that could erase Democratic hopes of not only gaining Senate seats but of even maintaining their control. And all of that could encourage you know who to run for reelection, or as his followers would say, returning to his rightful place in the Oval Office with or without JFK Jr. 

Guns and Roses:  Keep an eye on the Supreme Court.  On Monday the Justices heard arguments about the Texas abortion “bounty” case.  Two of the more conservative Justices, Barrett and Kavanaugh, seemed to buy into a concern that allowing abortion bounties to continue could empower anti-gun locales to pass laws that would allow activists to turn on AR 15 owners, something that wouldn’t make the pro-gun ownership twosome and the rest of the Conservative Justices all that happy.  Keep in mind that the conservative newbies will have the opportunity to overturn the Roe and Casey precedents next month when they hear arguments in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization over an abortion restricting Mississippi law, so while they may vote to overturn the bounty law now, reproductive rights remain on the chopping block.  As to gun rights, the Court is also hearing arguments on New York’s restrictive gun permit law to determine if the limits it places on carrying guns in public violates the Second Amendment.  The law’s not new but the make-up of the court is so the concern is that SCOTUS will rule against the law resulting in more guns on the streets of places like NY and Los Angeles because we really do need guns in subways, airports, bars, churches and other places where lots of hotheaded people gather?  In other legal news, apparently special counsel John Durham, the Barr/FG who was appointed to “prove” that the Russian investigation never should have happened wasn’t all that forthcoming when he got that indictment claiming that attorney Michael Sussmann lied to the FBI about the much disputed Russian Alfa Bank communication with the FG company’s servers. A number of the computer technologists involved in the case claim that they concluded that there really was something to the assertions that those communications between Alfa and the FG company took place. And of course, the FG is still fighting to hold back as many of his call logs and notes from January 6 as possible.  To that end the National Archives says that they will release the relevant information by the end of the week unless a court tells them they shouldn’t.     

Viral Musings:  The big news on the vaccination front is that the CDC signed off on the shot for 5 to 11 year-olds.  Those shots will start going into arms today though it probably will take a few more days before providers are fully ramped up so most who want them won’t start getting their shots until next week.   In New York, vaccination rates among civil service workers continue to climb.  Despite all those stories about thousands upon thousands of them planning to quit, as of yesterday only a few dozen have actually pulled the trigger and most of those were probably going to retire soon anyway.

 

Brandon Who?

Failed Action:  Over the weekend the Washington Post provided frightening detail about the overwhelming amount of intelligence that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies saw and then failed to act on in the run up to the January 6^th insurrection.  Among that information  was a December 20 tip to the FBI that supporters of the FG were discussing online how to sneak guns into Washington to "overrun" police and arrest members of Congress, social media postings specifically targeting Mitt Romney for his impeachment votes and posts calling on the FG’s supporters to “please be in DC armed on the 6th. You might have to kill the palace guards.  Are you okay with that?” The WaPo article is particularly chilling because it shows how close the FG and his mob supporters and came to succeeding with their violent coup. Sadly, its becoming increasingly obvious that FG isn’t going away anytime soon. Over the weekend he attended a World Series game in Atlanta.  It was  bad enough that he and co-conspirator Melania enthusiastically participated in the offensive “tomahawk chop” chant and that he lied about being there at the invitation of Major League Baseball (he wasn’t) but what’s really concerning is that his appearance was less about baseball and more about showing his support for Herschel Walker who is likely to be the Republican’s candidate to run against incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock for Georgia Senate. As a result of the FG’s support, Walker, the one-time football star who initially appeared to be a weak candidate given his history of spousal abuse, his questionable business dealings and questions about his Georgia residency, now has the support of a lot of mainstream Republican politicians including Mitch McConnell who at first wasn’t supportive of his candidacy but now has come back in line with the FG’s line as he always does.  Clearly, Walker is only in the mix because the FG figures it will take a Black guy, one with a football pedigree, to peel off enough votes to beat another Black guy and sadly he may be right.  While the Georgia Senator race will be a 2022 event, the Virginia gubernatorial race between super rich Republican Glenn Youngkin and former governor/Democratic stalwart Terry McAuliffe takes place tomorrow. The election is expected to be a nail biter.  Youngkin has been trying to have it both ways, he’s avoided appearing in public with the FG but with a wink and a nod wants the FG’s supporters to know that the two are really quite simpatico.  Virginia may seem to be more blue than red these days but the state has a habit of “pendulum swinging,” meaning that they tend to vote in governor candidates whose party is not in control in Washington; that history combined with Biden’s slip in popularity bodes well for Youngkin and not so good for things like reproductive and voting rights. Also not so good for reproductive rights, the far too conservative Supreme Court is due to hear arguments about that restrictive Texas abortion law today.

Human Resources:  Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Congressman who together with Liz Cheney has been one of the Republican party’s few to speak out about the FG and the danger he poses to Democracy will not be running for reelection.  As a result of redistricting, his seat is expected to be combined with the seat of another incumbent Republican.  Given Kinzinger’s outcast position in the party, despite his reliably conservative voting record, he faced an uphill battle winning a Republican primary in the newly shaped  district.  Though he’ll be around to continue to work on the House’s January 6th committee through the end of 2021, Kinzinger’s departure from Congress provides another indication of how powerful right wing/FG forces have become and of continued polarization.  On the Democratic front, Press Secretary Jen Psaki will be working from home for the next ten days or so.  Last night, in a detailed press release, she revealed that she’s tested positive for COVID.  The fully vaccinated Psaki says that she learned that she’d been exposed to one or more “positive” family member earlier in the week which is the reason that she didn’t travel with Team Biden to Europe.  She’d tested negative ever since before coming up positive yesterday.  She also reported that the last time that she saw President Biden was Tuesday and that the two were outside, fully masked and separated by more than six feet. CNN reports that Biden, who is regularly checked tested negative this morning.  Brandon Brown is a NASCAR driver, but that’s not why his name is now on the lips of a lot of Republicans so when you hear “cheers” accompanied by fist bumps from people saying “let’s go Brandon” they aren’t thinking NASCAR but instead mean for you to “hear” FU Biden. Americans jeering presidents is nothing new, but what is new is that a number of Republican politicians who wouldn’t say FU in public have joined in the hate revelry with at least one wearing a “let’s go Brandon” facemask on the floor of Congress.  No surprise that Ted Cruz is one of those Republicans jeering, but a lot more surprising that Mitch McConnell’s press secretary has retweeted the message as well.  Also quite disgusting and alarming, a Southwest Airlines pilot broadcasted the phrase at the end of one of his flights, something that is now being looked into by the airline only because of all of the attention that it received rather than concern that one of their pilots showed such poor judgement.    

Viral Musings:  On Friday, the FDA gave emergency use authorization to the Pfizer COVID vaccine for 5 to 11 year-olds.  The CDC is expected to follow suit tomorrow.  After that it will be all about logistics, getting the vaccines and children sized needles into the hands of providers around the country.  That process is expected to take a few days so while some shots could be going into kids arms midweek, in most places the jabs won’t be available until next week.  On the vaccine front, the news continues to highlight all those municipal workers who refuse to get jabbed but the real story should be that many have responded to the mandate. In NYC over 90% of municipal workers have gotten at least one shot, including 84% of the NYPD.  Unfortunately fire department numbers are lower in part because their anti vax union head has been out encouraging members to defy the mandate. That said, the NYFD says that reports that they are shuttering lots of fire houses over staffing shortages are not true.  Politics and anti vax sentiment aside, some of the reticence to get vaccinated may come from the belief that prior infection provides adequate protection from another case of COVID.  Bad news, it does not.  A report from the CDC published on Friday shows that, contrary to some wishful thinking and an earlier anecdotal study out of Israel, COVID vaccines provide much more protection than natural immunity. People who had COVID are 5.49 times more likely to get another case of COVID than vaccinated people who were not previously infected.  That’s an important message to share with anyone you know who thinks that a prior early infection is protecting them from getting sick.