Family Values

Law and Disorder:  The Former Guy’s Teflon shield took a few more hits yesterday, to the extent that matters.  First, shortly after pulling out of the NYS Governor’s race, NY State’s Attorney General Tish James “requested” that the FG stop by on January 7 for a deposition under oath as part of her ongoing civil investigation into potential fraud at his real estate company. In all likelihood, the FG will take her to court to avoid showing up so don’t mark the date in your calendar just yet. Then, later in the day,  a three judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously rejected the FG’s claim that he had the right to prevent his January 6 related documents from being shared by the National Archives with the House’s January 6th Committee saying that he “has given this court no legal reason to cast aside President Biden's assessment of the Executive Branch interests at stake, or to create a separation of powers conflict that the Political Branches have avoided.”  In other words, elections have consequences, despite his big lie claims, the FG’s no longer the president and the guy who is, has chosen not to invoke executive privilege. Again, don’t expect to see those documents released just yet, as the Appeals Court also granted the FG’s legal team two weeks to appeal their decision to the Supreme Court and it’s fair to assume that they will because though most legal pundits don’t think he’ll win, in fact most don’t even think that SCOTUS will take the case, he did appoint three of those Justices and the wife of a fourth, Clarence Thomas was herself involved in those January 6^th shenanigans.  As to what, the FG is so desperate to hide, we got a sense of some of it from the thousands of communications that his last Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has already shared with the January 6^th Committee.  Those files include a Power Point presentation detailing the steps to be taken to overturn the 2020 election results, kind of a guide to how to end American Democracy.  They also include texts and emails from Meadows who unlike the FG is a prolific texter, about sending “alternate” electors to Congress, part of a strategy that was intended to facilitate the extension of the FG’s presidency for another four years, or maybe even longer. In one of those texts, Meadows professed “love” for the alternate elector plan. Meadows, who according to Politico, is currently in discussion with the National Archives about “fixing” his failure to “properly” turnover presidential  records that he was required to turnover to them pursuant to the Presidential Records Act, is still refusing to testify in front of the January 6^th Committee which plans to vote on citing him for criminal contempt of Congress on Monday night.  Worth noting that the administration that got into power by making Hillary Clinton’s emails an issue committed far worse infractions while trying to stage a coup, something that she never did. Speaking about Hillary, remember those absurd claims by the QAnon set about her and a number of other prominent Democrats abusing kids in the basement of a Washington DC Pizza Parlor, the so-called Pizzagate nonsense which was of course total and complete bunk.  Surprise, surprise, they were focused on the wrong party as it turns out that Josh Duggar, an outspoke conservative Republican who complained loudly about liberal values,  as in values that he didn’t share, and who was an Executive Director at the evangelical Family Research Council was the guy they should have been hounding.  Yesterday Duggar was found guilty of receiving and possessing some extraordinarily gruesome child pornography. For those not up on the Duggar’s, Josh previously admitted to molesting some young girls including a few of his sisters. His father Jim Bob who is running for a seat in the Arkansas State Senate broke his silence yesterday to say that he’s praying. No comments from the rather large number of former and current Republican officials including former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, father of current gubernatorial candidate/former press secretary Sarah, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Sarah Palin who all gladly posed for pictures with Josh to get some of that all-important evangelical vote. As far as I can tell the Q set also has nothing to say.

Viral Musings:  Though a lot of the focus right now is on the Omicron variant, it’s the Delta strain that’s causing the current seasonal and holiday surge and almost all of the cases and deaths here in the US.  That’s truly sad because we know that the current crop of vaccines work on Delta and it’s largely the unvaccinated who are jamming up hospital ICUs and even dying.  One of those recent unvaccinated COVID casualties is Michigan’s William Hartmann, the Wayne County canvasser who tried to hold up the certification of Michigan’s presidential election results.  Hartmann who died from COVID this week had accused Democrats of needing mask and vaccine “panic” to “screw up” election results. Getting back to Omicron, the current view remains that the best defense is to get vaccinated and for vaccinated people to get boosted when they become eligible, six months after getting their second mRNA shot or two months after their J & J jab.  Yesterday, the CDC expanded that recommendation to the 16 to 17 year old set, a group that it previously did not cover. Another study out of test case country Israel where boosters were administered first, confirms that they really do extend protection by reducing  both illness and death dramatically. The Israel study focuses on Pfizer shots since that’s the vaccine that has been given to most Israelis but it’s fair to assume that the results pertain to Moderna and the other non mRNA vaccines.  One caveat, the Israel study took place before the Omicron variant was in circulation, so at least for now we’ll have to rely on the emerging lab studies that show that boosters increase protection against Omicron too.  

And:  It looks like Representative Lauren Boebert, who recently posed for one of those charming Christmas cards showing all four of her very young sons holding their Christmas gifts which naturally were automatic weapons, may be the next Republican to lose her committee assignments.  Not because of the holiday card which the Colorado Department of Children Services should be looking into but because of her anti-Muslim statements.  Also, Salon reports that left leaning watchdog group Accountable US has sent a letter to the House Oversight Committee asking them to look into questionable ties between certain Brazilian investors and the FG’s new social media company.  The assertion is that the FG may have been pitching his company to the Bolsonaro crowd back when he was still in office.              

7 Day average of new cases:  118,000

7 Day average of deaths:  1295