Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) rise to Trumpy stardom is largely tied to his defiant stance against public health measures during most of the pandemic last year.

This lovefest between Tucker Carlson and Viktor Orbán is fascinating on a number of levels.

One thing that a number of us have been saying for some time is that increasingly over the last decade-plus, the GOP has continued to present itself as a center-right party of government while increasingly operating as a rightist revanchist party on the European model. This intentionally conspicuous hobnobbing with Orbán is part of that story. Obviously, Carlson isn’t formally representing the GOP. But in practice he does. He’s far more influential in conservative politics than any elected official currently in office.

A few weeks ago in my off-air brainstorming I had thought about simply paying people $100 to get vaccinated. It’s almost certainly a good investment for government. I mean, we’ve paid many thousands of dollars to individuals to maintain the economy through the stresses of COVID and other outreach efforts cost significant amounts of money too. The idea had occurred to me when reading articles about how many people have not gotten vaccinated simply because it requires taking time off work or having the risk of a couple days downtime from side effects. So I was excited to see that people at the White House were thinking along the same lines.

It is a good reminder that the vaccine ‘hesitancy’ issue is really two different issues, and they’re not even both hesitancy.

An essay on building a small sailboat by hand.

For your weekend reading pleasure ‘History’s Heroic Failures‘, stories of kings from the distant past who rescued their kingdoms in historic victories only to lose everything to new foes, leaving the earlier triumphs all but forgotten.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) was one of the first Republicans to point the finger at the amorphous “antifa” as the true culprits behind the Jan. 6 insurrection.

His tone hasn’t changed much since.

We’re now getting more information about what new data was behind the CDC’s revised guidance on COVID-era masking. An internal power-point presentation was shared with The Washington Post and the CDC will apparently be making a public presentation today. One key datapoint seems to be an apparent super-spreading event on July 4th in Provincetown, Massachusetts which suggests very efficient spread of COVID among vaccinated people. As you know, I have followed the emerging data very closely. There’s so much conflicting data on transmissibility and even what constitutes transmission and infection (more on that later) that it’s really, really hard to know what’s happening. I would say the more you dig into the data the more confusing it gets, not less. With all that said though it’s clear that Delta COVID is much more transmissible than earlier versions and that available vaccines, while still very effective, are not as effective as they appeared to be and likely were even a couple months ago.

That sucks. But here we are.

As the Jan 6th investigation committee gets down to work we are learning each day how many members of the House GOP caucus are at best witnesses to key events tied to Jan 6th and perhaps in some cases perps. Rep. Jim Jordan got asked again about what conversations he had with President Trump on January 6th. The questions were from Taylor Popielarz who covers the Ohio delegation for Spectrum News. You have to watch the video to appreciate how caught off guard Jordan seemed to be by the question and how flustered and tense he got when pressed on details.

Here’s the video.

Turning Point USA is pushing anti-vaccine talking points as part of its fundraising efforts.

Yesterday, Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, went on CNBC to discuss a new study which suggests that the Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy drops from about 96% against hospitalization to about 84% after six months. Bourla said that these results match with data emerging out of Israel. “We have seen also data from Israel that there is a waning of immunity and that starts impacting what used to be what was 100% against hospitalization. Now, after the six month period, is becoming low 90s and mid-to-high 80s.”

The good news, says Bourla, is that this can be solved with a booster shot. This all sounds plausible and it’s good news inasmuch as people can get booster shots and get back to higher levels of protection. But study is funded by Pfizer and remember that Pfizer is currently in a tussle with the CDC and the FDA over whether booster shots are actually necessary. A few weeks ago Pfizer announced it was moving ahead with seeking authorization for a third shot and the CDC and FDA, quite curtly, issued a joint statement saying, in so many words, not your call.