Landing the Plane

Stormy Weather:  If you think your new year has gotten off to a rough start consider the thousands of hapless souls who spent Monday night stuck in a 28 hour traffic jam on Interstate 95 outside of Washington DC.  Of course given how many of them work for the government, log jams are probably not as new to them as the experience of humongous snow storms like the one that paralyzed the highway.  The Former Guy who is ensconced in the gaudy luxury of his Mar a Lago home didn’t encounter any snow unless his oldest son had his alleged usual supply on hand but he did experience a hail storm of pushback about his plan to hold a press conference on January 6 to “celebrate” the insurrection.  Some of his nearest and dearest supplicants including Senator Lindsey Graham advised against the optics of doing so.  While it’s hard to believe that the FG really worried about their concerns, he did apparently care that most of the networks had no plans to cover his event and also may care about the damning contents of those Sean Hannity texts that were released last night so he’s cancelled for now though he still plans to give a speech about how the election was stolen from him during an upcoming trip to Arizona. As to those Hannity texts, the January 6 Committee appears to have gotten them from a number of other former White House staff members including from the stash that Mark Meadows shared before he stopped cooperating. The texts reveal that despite what he was saying on the air, Hannity, who was the FG’s shadow Chief of Staff for most of his term in office knew that the FG had lost the election and was trying to get him to face reality.  Hannity was unnerved about what he knew was a coup attempt, was aware that many in the Justice Department were threatening to resign en masse and wanted those around the FG, most notably Gym Jordan and Mark Meadows, to just get him to “land the plane” and by that he meant graciously depart to preserve his “legacy.” It’s becoming increasingly clear that though a few prominent conspiracists like Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and Mark Meadows aren’t cooperating, most of those asked have been and as a result the January 6 committee has compiled a compelling tick tock of the events leading up to and including January 6.  They’ve invited rather than subpoenaed Hannity to come in for a tete a tete and may also invite former VP Pence to do the same but it seems more and more that those invitations are more about being thorough than anything else, part of the Committee’s final preparation for the public hearings that are likely to take place during prime time in just a few weeks. One more thing on the January 6 front, Attorney General Merrick Garland who has been the recipient of lots of flack for not being more aggressive, or at the very least for not showing his hand, has scheduled a press conference for today to discuss some of his January 6 related activities. Tune in for details.  As to the FG’s kids, Ivanka and Don Jr who is reportedly now engaged to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s ex Kimberly Guilfoyle, might have to visit New York sooner than they’d like as New York Attorney General Letitia James has subpoenaed them to fill in some details about how their father low balled the value of his real estate assets for tax purposes while inflating their value to lenders.  No surprise that they and their lawyers are trying to squash those subpoenas, they probably won’t pull that off but they might be able to limit the scope of questioning and at the very least will delay the inevitable.  As to lawyers, remember White House fave Jay Sekulow,  he’s still around, he’s now representing Sean Hannity as he decides whether or not to show up for his sit down with the January 6 committee.           

Viral Musings: According to genome sequencing Omicron now makes up about 95% of new COVID infections in the US.  Around 1 million of those cases were reported yesterday, a number somewhat inflated by delayed reporting of cases that were picked up but not reported to official data collectors over the holidays. Some of those new positives are showing up on Capitol Hill.  According to the Capitol Hill’s physician the positivity rate there has gone from under 1% to over 13%, particularly notable given the Hill’s high vaccination rate.  By the way, the Supreme Court which is due to rule on vaccine mandates shortly, released a statement yesterday reporting that all of the Justices are now boosted.  Hospitalizations are way up too although it looks like a significant number of the cases that fall into the hospitalization count are being detected in patients hospitalized for reasons unrelated to their infection. To that end, the NY Times reports that 50% to 65% of admissions to NYC hospitals for other reasons are turning up COVID positive on routine tests.  Moreover, far fewer COVID positive patients are ending up in the ICU.  That’s good news and further proof that at least for the vaccinated without immune compromised health issues Omicron is less serious than Delta.  The bad news is that the sheer volume of admissions is staggering, and hospitals and health care workers remain and will remain under intense pressure for some time especially those in parts of the country with low vaccination rates.  Lastly, as expected, the FDA has approved boosters for the 12 to 15 year old set, shortening the qualification period to 5 months from last shot. 

Politics Unusual:  The FG who previously endorsed Brazilian strongman Bolsonaro’s bid for reelection has now extended a similar endorsement to his and Tucker Carlson’s likeminded buddy in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban.  To put it mildly, Orban is not nice.  He’s anti-immigrant, anti-gay, transphobic, anti-Semitic and no fan of the free press.  In other words, just the FG’s kind of guy. Apparently he is also the kind of totalitarian that the Conservative Political Action Committee, CPAC, loves as well.  Their Spring convention is being held in Budapest, an endorsement of Orban’s views and behavior.  Back at home, outlier Democrat Joe Manchin denies that he’s had any conversations with Biden’s team about Build Back Better.  He probably has but just doesn’t want to talk about it. For now the Biden team has shifted their attention to voting rights where they really need to accomplish something given the anti-Democratic activities underway in Republican dominated state legislatures.  Of course Manchin and Arizona’s Sinema and just about all Republicans in the Senate remain impediments to getting anything done there as well  By the way as of yesterday 25 Democratic House members have announced that they will not be running for reelection, some of them are running for other offices but still that’s a large number particularly when compared to the 12 Republicans who have also announced their departures. One of those is already out as Devin Nunes has exited, off to work for the FG’s new social media company.