The Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend provided lots of concerning examples of just how dystopian Republican fearmongering around the COVID-19 vaccine has become.
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A week ago I noted that Donald Trump’s Sarasota campaign rally demand for freedom for indicted insurrectionists signaled the central theme of the 2022 midterm campaign. Trump also demanded retribution against for the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt as she broke through the final line of defense protecting fleeing members of Congress. The subsequent week has only confirmed that prediction as Trump has escalated his demands and fine-tuned his rhetoric.
Trump returned to the theme twice yesterday, first in an extended interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News and then in a speech to CPAC in Dallas. With Bartiromo he declared the insurrection “a lovefest between the Capitol Police and the people who walked down to the Capitol” and repeated his demand that “they have to release the people that are incarcerated.”
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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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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.
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.