Josh Marshall
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A Few Quick COVID Booster Updates
As we noted last week, Pfizer says it plans to seek FDA approval next month for booster shots of its COVID vaccine. This is a third dose of the same vaccine many of us have already received two doses. The FDA and CDC responded quickly that for now a third dose was unnecessary. I think this was best interpreted not so much as a disagreement as a clear signal from the CDC/FDA that they will set national vaccine policy, not Pfizer.
Lurking in the background is the issue of cost.
Earlier this morning President Trump insisted that the January 6th insurrection actually amounted to a “lovefest between the Capitol Police and the people who walked down to the Capitol.” He also continued his effort to incite a lynch mob to take revenge on the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt and as she broke into the House Speaker’s lobby and demanded the release of all January 6th arrestees.
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The VA GOP, Larry Sabato and The Fall of The House of Bothsides
On Thursday the Chairman of the Republican party of Virginia asked the University of Virginia, the state’s flagship public university, to open an investigation into Professor Larry Sabato for violating the University’s code of ‘Professional Conduct and Ethics’ with his “bitter partisanship.” UVA responded telling the Virginia GOP, in so many words, to STFU.
The Low Drama of Work From Home
Work from home has been a boon or a loss for people across the US. Now it’s deprived just-fired former Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul of some what appears to be some much-desired drama. In their write-up of Saul’s firing, which didn’t note that TPM reported the news first but we totally don’t care about those things, the Post quotes Saul as saying he does not recognize the legality of his dismissal and plans to show up for work Monday morning like any other day.
That’s going to be pretty awkward when Saul shows up and presumably SSA personnel have to physically bar him from going to his office! And yet that’s not actually what’s going to happen. Saul plans to go to work Monday morning by logging in from his home in New York – Saul’s a big-time apparel industry executive and GOP donor.
I hear that Kilolo Kijakazi just got tapped by President Biden to be the new acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. She replaces Commissioner Andrew Saul who President Biden fired this afternoon.
Saul, who was appointed to a six year term in 2019, is out immediately, though he doesn’t appear to accept that he was fired. Deputy Commissioner David Black also appears to be out, according to notifications that went out within the agency today.
For all we’ve heard, videos like this capture what happened on January 6th in a way words simply cannot. It’s new video of officers being dragged out into the mob for what turned out to be severe beatings. We’ve seen other views of this. But this video was just released by DOJ under court order.
Jr’s ‘Annoying’ Girlfriend Guilfoyle Reportedly On The Outs With Trump
Personality cults and the political dynasties that come in their wake have a way of entwining all politics into familial politics. Policy and political disputes get played out through familial and entourage factions and those family and entourage dynamics in turn shape the politics. These amount to court factions, many woven into Trump’s immediately family, each seemingly with their own MAGA-themed super PAC and associated money gravy trains. Politico’s Playbook newsletter this morning reports that Guilfoyle is on the outs with Trump, who finds her increasingly “annoying.” The tension is centered on the fact that Guilfoyle has signed on with disgraced former Governor Eric Greitens of Missouri in his comeback bid to run for the Senate seat left vacant by the retiring Roy Blunt.
Boosters and Delta Vaccines
We got two key announcements yesterday in the on-going story of mRNA vaccine efficacy and the Delta variant.
Pfizer announced that it plans to seek regulatory approval in August for a COVID vaccine booster shot. A very preliminary trial (a couple dozen people) provided such clear evidence of increased efficacy from a booster shot that the company said it’s highly confident of what a more extensive trial will show. Specifically the announcement reported “high neutralization titers against the wild type and the Beta variant, which are 5 to 10 times higher than after two primary doses.”