Sane Washing 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

56 Days:  Happy Monday to all those who didn’t buy their disturbed children or any of their children an AK 47 like weapon for Christmas.  It’s mind blowing that the father of the Georgia school shooter thought, even after he was told that his son was posting threatening messages on social media, that such a “gift” was appropriate for his then 13-year- old, but then again it’s nuts that there are at least two members of Congress, Lauren Boebert and Thomas Massie, whose annual Christmas cards include pictures of their kids adorned with weaponry and that there are dozens more who routinely don NRA rifle pins as a sign of gun ownership solidarity.  Misinformed childcare strategies are the rage with Republican politicians which could explain why Trump’s answer to a question about childcare, an issue foreign to him, at the Economic Club of New York was that “childcare is childcare” and that his solution is tariffs, with some insane word salad about his billionaire daughter Ivanka and Marco Rubio. Putting aside that Trump has no idea how tariffs work, it should be obvious that he cares nothing about helping working parents meet their childcare needs, after all his Project 2025 manifesto defunds education and proven programs like Head Start. His partner in stupidity, JD Vance is all in on childcare but thinks that working mothers, a concept he doesn’t endorse, should forget about government assistance of any kind, and instead demand that their mothers babysit, and if those grandmothers are not available maybe get help from some of those cat lady aunts who he routinely disses.  Forget about compensation, the grandmothers and aunts should be more than willing to clear their schedules for free.  Circling back to the Economic Club, the attendees mostly greeted Trump’s misinformed and absurd remarks about tariffs being a cure-all with applause either because they’re equally ignorant about basic economics or more likely because they just want their income taxes lowered, no matter what the consequences, and likely also because the specter of a Black woman who is also a Democrat as president, the woman who Trump is now calling Komrad Kamala, is too much for them to take.  Sadly, the Economic Club attendees are not alone.  Despite Trump’s call for “bloody” mass deportations, an economic plan that will increase the deficit by way more than any of “Komrad” Harris’ plans,  his weekend threats to jail people “involved in unscrupulous behavior” related to voting in the upcoming election, his promise to pardon all the January 6 rioters, and all his other insane rants, polls indicate that the outcome of the November election remains too close to predict. All eyes and ears are now on Tuesday night’s debate.  Kamala’s team says she’s been preparing, Trump’s says he hasn’t been because he’s a superior being. They lie, he’s been practicing too with the help of his bombastic acolytes Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard.  Get ready for the press to dissect and critique every word that comes out of Harris’ mouth while “sane washing” everything that Trump utters because that’s what they do.                 

Fog, Vaccines, Crazy:  The March of Dimes’ original mission was fighting polio, the sometimes-paralytic disease that disproportionately impacts children and young adults. They redefined their mission to preventing birth defects after polio vaccines dramatically lowered, almost eliminated the worldwide incidence of polio. Unfortunately, there’s been an uptick in polio mostly attributed to the World Health Organization’s well-intentioned but, as it turns out, bad decision to remove one of the three polio strains previously included in the vaccine used mostly in third world countries.  This brings me to Gaza and to the US.  Hamas is evil but they get the value of vaccines so even under their rule, Gazans have been good at getting their children vaccinated.  Before October 7 polio vaccination rates there were around 99%.  However, given the war, that polio vaccines are given in four doses starting at two months, and that the WHO’s new vaccine is inadequate, there have been cases of polio in Gaza.  The good news is that Israel has provided WHO with polio vaccines and those vaccines are being administered. The war is still raging, the process is fraught, but Gazans are lining up for vaccines.  Contrast their eagerness to get their children vaccinated despite the dangers of war with the current situation in the US where polio and also MMR vaccine rates are dropping, now down to the low 90s which is below the ideal threshold for disease prevention, not because of war but because of our lunatic anti-vaccine movement.  Then consider that Trump, the presidential candidate of one of the two major parties has aligned himself with RFK Jr, a charismatic anti-vaxxer who is on record saying that he’s never met a vaccine he likes, not just COVID vaccines, but all the childhood vaccines. Worse yet, Trump has announced that RFK Jr will be on his transition team where he will focus on health issues, not just on vaccines but also on women’s health. Make America Sick Again?   

Legalities:  Juan Merchan, Trump’s New York hush money case judge, has pushed off sentencing him until after the election.  That’s disappointing but not all that surprising because while Trump shouldn’t be treated differently than any other defendant, it’s hard to not treat him differently and sentencing him now could energize his voters even more than they already are.  There is some activity however in the January 6 case being overseen by Judge Tanya Chutkan who has chosen to ignore as irrelevant Florida Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon’s ruling that Special Counsel Jack Smith was illegally appointed largely because he wasn’t. There will be no trial in DC until long after the election, if ever, but there could be some releases of incriminating evidentiary documents in the coming weeks.  In other legal news, Hunter Biden has plead guilty to the tax charges that he’s been fighting.  Nothing about Hunter’s case makes a lot of sense since usually people who, like Hunter, pay what they should have paid in the first place are treated less harshly prosecutors so it’s hard not to see his case as politically motivated. Hunter said he changed his plea so that his family wouldn’t have to go through the pain and expense of a trial.  Joe Biden previously said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter but then again that was before he pulled out of the race.  

#BringThemAllHomeNow