Best Coup Ever!?

Contemptible: Last night the House voted to hold former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress.  Unlike the earlier Steve Bannon contempt vote, this time around only Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger voted along with all the Democrats. The ball is now in Attorney General Merrick Garland’s hands.  Though it’s clear that Meadows is contemptible, the decision to seek an indictment is more complicated this time given that Meadows, unlike Bannon, really was a member of the FG’s administration.  That said, given the tidbits he revealed in his recent book and the subjects covered in those thousands of texts and emails that he already shared with the January 6^th committee Meadow’s argument that he’s protected by the FG’s claim of executive privilege and that the House Committee isn’t playing nice appears to be chock full of holes.  As to all those texts, they include some from as yet unnamed members of Congress, from Fox TV hosts Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade, and even one from son Don Jr, who instead of going straight to his father asked Meadows to get him to “condemn this sh-t as soon as possible,” and by sh-t son Don was referring to the violent invasion of the Capitol rather than a visit by a nice group of tourists.  That son Don didn’t go straight to his father could fill pages of psychology text books but it’s the Fox hosts who, if we weren’t living in an alternative media universe, would have lots of explaining to do.  As they were imploring Meadows to get the FG to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol they were busy presenting a totally different narrative to their viewers blaming the insurrection on antifa and the like rather than the FG and his fans, a story they and their comrade in mendacity, Tucker Carlson, continue to push nightly to their depressingly large, gullible viewer base. Though we still don’t know for sure which members of Congress were texting pro-insurrection messages to Meadows, we now have a clue as late yesterday the January 6^th Committee subpoenaed the phone and social media records of some of the likely suspects including: Margie Q, Muslim hatemonger Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, Madison Cawthorn, Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Louie Gohmert, Scott Perry and Jody Hice.  Of course they could and likely will follow the example of FG lawyer John Eastman who is now suing both Verizon Wireless and the House January 6^th Committee to protect his phone records from prying eyes, a tactic that probably won’t succeed but could slow things down.  In any case we are likely to learn more about which Congressperson said what in each of those messages that were read aloud during the speechlets that preceded last night’s vote soon enough.

Follow the Money:  In other legal news, yesterday a federal judge ruled that it was okay for the Treasury Department to share the FG’s tax filings with the House Ways and Means committee.  Those are the records that were requested more than two years ago.  Of course since a two year delay isn’t long enough, the judge then gave the FG’s team two weeks to appeal his decision, something the FG has already announced he will do. Because the FG’s cases are keeping quite a few courts busy these days we also learned that Donald Bender, an accountant from the Mazers USA firm who helped prepare the FG Organization’s financial statements recently spent some time testifying before a NY Grand Jury looking into the extreme valuation disparity technique that the FG employed to pay less in taxes while convincing lenders that his assets were worthy of large loans.  Additionally, Manhattan District Attorney lawyers also met with some current and former Deutsche Bank team members including Rosemary Vrablic, the private banker who used to handle the FG account.  Completing yesterday’s investigation trifecta, the FG’s finances were also on the agenda in Scotland where the country’s highest court was hearing arguments on whether it was the Scottish government’s duty to use an Unexplained Wealth Order to investigate suspected sketchiness behind the FG’s 2014 purchase of the Turnberry Golf Course and by sketchy think possible money laundering, a plausible explanation of how more funds keeps getting pumped into the money losing facility.

Viral Musings:  Omicron is expected to take over the London scene even sooner than previously predicted.  Likewise it continues to make serious inroads here in the US, a further indication that it really is more contagious than the Delta variant.  The current view remains that Omicron results in less severe disease than the Delta strain but not as much less severe than had previously been hoped. As to vaccine effectiveness, a new study from Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest private health provider, shows that two shots of the Pfizer vaccine, which provided more than 90% protection against the original COVID virus, is only 33% protective against Omicron infection although full vaccination continues to provide 70% protection against severe disease.  The consensus view continues to be that boosters are the way to go as they do appear to prevent far more disease than the two shot regimen, especially as the effectiveness of those two shots wane over time. On the therapeutic front, Pfizer reports that it’s anti-viral Paxlovid reduced the risk of hospitalization or death in high-risk adults by 89% if given shortly after the onset of symptoms, confirming the first set of data that Pfizer released last month.  Pfizer also reports that their drug works is effective against Omicron.  It’s likely that Paxlovid will be approved in the US and available for limited use by the end of the year which means very soon.  But, tell your friends, especially the unvaccinated to the extent you know any, that jabs, including boosters, remain the first line of defense as prevention is the better way to go.  Preachy but true.