Prosthetics! 🌻 🌻 🌻

 

💰 💰 💰 Forget about COVID, the pathogen to worry about is the woke virus.  At least that’s the position being pushed by Fox and their Republican echo chamber. Naturally, their position is that Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed because their managements’ intense focus on wokeness distracted them from managing the business of banking.  To be clear, it wasn’t about having a mismatched investment portfolio, a concentrated depositor base made up of an unusually high percentage of accounts having large uninsured balances, or in the case of SVB, no risk manager for the better part of a year, it was all that wokeness and in Senator/Running Guy Josh Hawley’s words, a confidence that they were “too woke to fail.” There’s plenty of blame to pass around, but when the dust settles and the investigations are over, I am confident that the reason for the two banks’ failures will have nothing to do with too much wokeness, whatever wokeness is, but probably a lot to do with some combination of poor management, bad decisions, weakened regulations, a failure of oversight by some regulatory authorities, and a loss of confidence spurred on by a group of quick to run venture capitalists.  Wokeness, not so much.  As to those loosened regulations, the ones rolled back by a then gleeful Trump who marketed himself as the anti-regulation guy, he didn’t act alone, 17 Democratic Senators joined 50 Republican ones in supporting the regulatory rollback legislation, those Democrats mostly because of their reelection concerns. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, never one of those 17, is now pushing hard for the regulations to be put back in place but with the Republican led House, that’s not going to happen anytime soon.  By the way, the debt limit still looms. 

 

🌻 🌻 🌻 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who depending on who you ask is either the Republican’s Trump replacement or just the flavor of the month made it clear yesterday that he’s no fan of Biden’s Ukraine policy by telling Fox pundit/Vladimir Putin fanboy Tucker Carlson that “while the US has many vital interests….becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.” Worth noting that’s a different position from the one he took back when he was a member of Congress advocating for more aid for Ukraine but that was before he was running for president and trying to lure away Trump’s base.  Putting aside that DeSantis’ comments bolster Putin while jeopardizing Ukraine and the NATO alliance, they aren’t shared by all Republicans. Several Republican Senators led by usual hawks Rubio and Graham but also including Wicker, Cramer, Thune, Tuberville, Kennedy, and Rounds criticized DeSantis’ remarks, calling them way off the mark with Graham saying the “Neville Chamberlain approach to aggression never ends well.”  Even Trump criticized him because though DeSantis’ position is the same as his, he doesn’t buy that it’s anything more than a craven attempt to glom on to his voters.  Trump is also going after Ron DeSanctimonius for calling for cuts in Medicare and Social Security, not that Trump cares about either but he does understand that his voters rely on both.  No comment from Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, probably because he’s out of the loop right now, no longer in the hospital but now in rehab recovering from a concussion and broken rib.  When not throwing shivers down the necks of Ukrainians fighting for their lives, DeSantis, a fierce opponent of that dire woke virus, continues to transform Florida into his personal Hungary.  Yesterday his office announced plans to revoke the Hyatt Regency Miami’s liquor license because management allowed a Drag Queen Christmas show to go forward in the presence of some minors. All of those minors were with their parents, but since DeSantis wouldn’t expose his little darlings to the horrors of Drag Queens and their “prosthetic female genitalia” they’re not allowed to either. To be clear, the Republican position is that regulation is bad unless it’s about eliminating things like wokeness or restricting reproductive rights which may explain why 25 South Carolina’s Republican lawmakers are proposing that the state’s criminal code be changed making anyone who gets an abortion eligible for the death penalty.  They plan to do that by redefining “person” to include a fertilized egg, giving it at the point of conception equal protection under the state’s homicide laws.  

 

2024 Preview:  One politician counting on DeSantis not being able to go the distance is Virginia Governor Glenn Younkin who has been meeting with big donors, trying to source 💰 for a potential run.  Youngkin positioned himself as a moderate while running for the governorship but immediately started pivoting right once in office because moderation doesn’t sell well with the wider Republican base.  Virginia governors can’t serve two consecutive terms, he has ambitions and will need another job at the end of his term so why not president or vice president? Pennsylvania Republican Doug Mastriano lost his 2022 gubernatorial run to Democrat Josh Shapiro by 15 or so points but that was then, and this is now so election denier Mastriano is gearing up to challenge incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey who is up for reelection is 2024.  Despite his poor performance in the statewide election Mastriano is leading another likely opponent, the more mainstream Republican hedge fund guy David McCormick who ran last time but lost to Mehmet Oz, by 18 points in the first Republican primary poll because Republican primary voters are who they are.  That’s a bummer for Mitch McConnell who can’t be happy because to retake the Senate, Republicans need more acceptable candidates and Mastriano is not one of them. And of course, George Santos, who is now also being investigated for masterminding a credit card crime scam that snared one of his former colleagues while also getting him deported back to Brazil, has filed for reelection.  Santos probably isn’t really running but for campaign finance purposes he had to announce the run or give back some fundraising proceeds he probably already spent.