Posted: April 13, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics |
Jae Schalekamp, Oh Forsythia!
Good Morning!!
I’ve been stuck inside for the past few weeks with chronic pain difficulties. Yesterday, I got out for the first time in quite awhile, and I was happy to see that Spring has finally arrived in the Boston area. Forsythia is blooming along with cherry blossoms, and light green leaves are beginning to form on some trees. It gave me a good feeling, even though we still have some tough times ahead as a country. Still, we are rid of Trump and we finally have a president who is working hard to deal with the pandemic that has taken nearly 563 million deaths in the U.S. and 136.7 million worldwide.
Here’s the latest pandemic news and it’s not good:
The New York Times: U.S. Calls for Pause on Johnson & Johnson Vaccine After Rare Clotting Cases.
Federal health agencies on Tuesday called for an immediate pause in use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose coronavirus vaccine after six recipients in the United States developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within about two weeks of vaccination.
All six recipients were women between the ages of 18 and 48. One woman died and a second woman in Nebraska has been hospitalized in critical condition.
Nearly seven million people in the United States have received Johnson & Johnson shots so far, and roughly nine million more doses have been shipped out to the states, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
All for Forsythia, Cindy Mac
“We are recommending a pause in the use of this vaccine out of an abundance of caution,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the C.D.C., said in a joint statement. “Right now, these adverse events appear to be extremely rare.”
While the move was framed as a recommendation to health practitioners in the states, the federal government is expected to pause administration of the vaccine at all federally run vaccination sites. Federal officials expect that state health officials will take that as a strong signal to do the same. Within two hours of the announcement, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, advised all health providers in his state to temporarily stop giving Johnson & Johnson shots. New York State and Connecticut quickly followed suit.
Axios: The warning signs of a longer pandemic.
All the things that could prolong the COVID-19 pandemic — that could make this virus a part of our lives longer than anyone wants — are playing out right in front of our eyes.
The big picture: Right now, the U.S. is still making fantastic progress on vaccinations. But as variants of the virus cause new outbreaks and infect more children, the U.S. is also getting a preview of what the future could hold if our vaccination push loses steam — as experts fear it soon might.
Driving the news: The British variant is driving another surge in cases in Michigan, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has resisted reimposing any of the lockdown measures she embraced earlier in the pandemic.
- Variants are beginning to infect more kids, even as schools are on the fast track back to reopening, making the pandemic “a brand new ball game,” as University of Minnesota epidemiologist Michael Osterholm recently put it.
- New research confirms that our existing vaccines don’t work as well against the South African variant.
Between the lines: This is a preview of the longer, darker coronavirus future the U.S. may face without sufficient vaccinations — one that many experts see as pretty likely.
Although the pace of vaccinations is still strong, there’s a growing fear that it’s about to slow down. In some parts of the country, particularly the South, demand for shots has already slowed down enough to create a surplus of available doses.
Read more at Axios.
Flower Garden, Gustav Klimt
The trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd continues in Minneapolis, but that didn’t stop another Minnesota police officer from killing another black man. Here’s the latest on the shooting of Daunte Wright and the protests that have followed.
The Washington Post: Officer Kim Potter fatally shot Daunte Wright, police said. She’s a 26-year vet, served as union president.
Potter, 48, is a 26-year veteran and has served as her police union’s president, the Star Tribune reported. At an earlier news conference, where authorities played a nearly one-minute dash-cam recording of the fatal incident, Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said it appears that Potter intended to fire her Taser but instead made an “accidental discharge” from her gun.
Potter has been suspended pending the results of a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigation, the agency said. On Monday, Brooklyn Center leaders dismissed the city manager, potentially giving Mayor Mike Elliot the ability to fire the chief or officers in the department.
Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said he expects to complete a “thorough yet expedited” review of potential criminal charges in the case by no later than Wednesday, he told the Star Tribune.\“I’m hoping Wednesday, but I want to have the opportunity to give my condolences to his family and explain to them my decision,” Orput said. The suburban city of about 30,000 residents has been rocked by Wright’s killing as the Minneapolis area watches the ongoingtrial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer charged with murder after kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes.
The chain of events that ended with yet another fatal police shooting of a Black man in Minnesota began in what has become a typical tragedy — with a traffic stop for a minor infraction.
The man, Daunte Wright, 20, who died Sunday after a run-in with police in a suburb of Minneapolis, was driving an SUV with expired license plates, and he also ran afoul of a Minnesota law that prohibits motorists from hanging air fresheners and other items from their rearview mirrors.
“He was pulled over for having an expired registration on the vehicle,” Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said Monday. “When the officer went over, an item hanging from the rearview mirror was spotted.”
Almond Blossom, Vincent Van Gogh
It was after that, Gannon said, that the officers discovered that a “gross misdemeanor warrant” for Wright’s arrest had been issued.
Minutes later, a gunshot rang out, and Wright joined the ranks of other Black motorists who have died after having been pulled over by police, a group that includes Philando Castile, 32, who was fatally shot in 2016 by a Minneapolis police officer after he was stopped for a broken taillight. His final moments were recorded in a powerful video.
Gannon said Monday that he believes the officer meant to pull a Taser in Sunday’s shooting but instead pulled her service weapon.
Read more at NBC News.
Demonstrators clashed with law enforcement officers in Brooklyn Center for the second night in a row Monday following the fatal shooting of a 20-year-old Black man by a police officer.
Protesters had been on hand throughout the day outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department, but the scene escalated after the start of a 7 p.m. curfew across four Twin Cities metro counties instituted by Gov. Tim Walz.
About 300 people attended a separate, peaceful vigil for Daunte Wright earlier in the evening at the site of the traffic stop that ended with his shooting.
“Right now, this community, this city, this state, our nation, our country, our world is broken,” said the Rev. Jeanette Rupert, who also works as an ICU nurse and said she came to speak at the vigil before her night shift. “We have had the knees on our neck for so long.”
Piet Mondrian, Amaryllis
Coming amid the high-profile criminal trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in George Floyd’s death, Wright’s fatal shooting in the suburb directly north of Minneapolis also ignited a clash late Sunday between demonstrators and law enforcement officers.
By shortly before 8 p.m. Monday, police began to warn demonstrators, who still numbered in the hundreds, that they were in violation of curfew. Officers began to move toward the fence in formation and issued orders to disperse.
Authorities fired multiple rounds of tear gas, along with rubber bullets and flash grenades. Protesters dispersed from areas hit by tear gas were regrouping and retaliating by throwing water bottles and launching fireworks. Later, lines of police in riot gear pushed groups of protesters away from the station. At a strip mall near the police station, looters broke into several businesses, including a Dollar Tree store where flames were later spotted.
At a 12:30 a.m. Tuesday news conference, Minnesota State Patrol Col. Matt Langer said that 40 people were arrested Monday night at the Brooklyn Center protest. Some were booked into the Hennepin County jail, some cited and released, he said. Several law enforcement officers suffered minor injuries from thrown debris; no protester injuries were reported, he said.
Brooklyn Center leaders were poised to fire the city’s police chief Monday evening, following the police shooting of a 20-year-old Black man Sunday afternoon that touched off a night of unrest in the city.
At an emergency afternoon meeting, the City Council voted to give authority over the police department to the mayor’s office and to fire City Manager Curt Boganey, who’d been with the city since 2005, Council Member Dan Ryan said during a virtual council workshop….
Wright’s death triggered confrontations with police and looting in the city of about 31,000, where most residents are people of color. Mayor Mike Elliott, who took office in 2019, is the first person of color to serve as mayor.
Cottonwood Tree in Spring, Georgia O’Keefe
“We recognize that this couldn’t have happened during a worse time,” Elliott said at a news conference Monday. “We are all collectively devastated and we have been for over a year now by the killing of George Floyd.”
At a virtual council workshop, Council Member Kris Lawrence-Anderson said she voted to remove the city manager because she feared for her property and retaliation by protestors if she had voted to keep him.
“He was doing a great job. I respect him dearly,” she said. “I didn’t want repercussions at a personal level.”
In remarks Monday afternoon, President Joe Biden called Wright’s death “tragic” and urged “peace and calm.”
“There is absolutely no justification, none, for looting,” Biden said. “No justification for violence.”
Read much more at the link.
Those are the two biggest stories of the day. But much more is happening. I’ll add a few more links in the comment thread. What’s on your mind today?
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Posted: April 10, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Alligators, Boston Public Garden, CDC, coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19 vaccines, Donald Trump, Fox News, Matt Gaetz, Racism, Tucker Carlson, U.S. Marines, White supremacists |
Jean Metzinger, French, 1883-1956
Good Morning!!
Before I get to today’s news, here’s a little comic relief. This was in yesterday’s Boston Globe, but I can’t get past their rigid paywall. But I found the story at The Pest Control Daily: Boston Public Backyard used to have child alligators — sure, alligators — and other people fed them rodents. The “public backyard” is the Boston Public Garden, adjacent to the Boston Common. I had heard about cows grazing on the Common, but not about alligators in the Public Garden.
There are several newspaper articles from this period referring to the alligators who lived in a basin – or pond – near the entrance to Arlington Street amid a “magnificent” row of lilies. Reports vary, but for some time there were between three and four alligators on the site, strikingly complementing the many other exotic features of the public garden at the time.
A story in the September 19, 1901 issue of the Boston Post said three of the city’s alligators were given by “a Charlestown woman” who “became afraid of them and introduced them to the city of Boston.” The fourth alligator was given to the city by a man from Chelsea, though it’s just unclear why.
An article that appeared in an August 9, 1901 issue of the Boston Globe said the alligators – known as babies – belonged to William Doogue, the city’s superintendent for common and public reasons.
Doogue oversaw the public garden from 1878 to 1906, according to Friends of the Public Garden, a nonprofit advocating Boston Common, the public garden, and the nearby Commonwealth Avenue Mall and known for its exceptional green thumb….
The alligators have certainly rubbed some city dwellers the wrong way. But it wasn’t so much their presence that was annoying – people often huddled around the pool looking for them – it was how they were sometimes fed.
“Some objections to feeding live rats and mice to those in the public garden pond,” read the headline of the August Globe article.
The newspaper reported that in “warm weather” the alligators were put in the public garden and fed by park officials once a week….
“Live rats exposed to hungry alligators,” read a headline in the Boston Post on August 9, 1901. “The public garden exhibit attracts morbid interest from women and children.”
The article says, “The city doesn’t feed them in the summer … the city doesn’t have to” because “the alligators make their own living by entertaining the public”.
The story included an illustration of primitively dressed people gathered around a small pond-like structure and watched a man kneel to feed the alligators with the animals’ mouths wide open.
Apparently this was seen as a low-life activity. There is much more detail at the link about the feeding of the alligators. Apparently they were moved to the Franklin Park Zoo during the colder months, and their presence in the Boston Garden lasted for about 6 years.
White Supremacist News
Remember those neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us?” Fox News’ Tucker Carlson was trending on Twitter all day yesterday after he parroted a white supremacist conspiracy theory that liberals are trying to replace white people with immigrants.
Fortunato Depero, Elasticità di gatti (1936–1939)
Media Matters: Tucker Carlson, the face of Fox News, just gave his full endorsement to the white nationalist conspiracy theory that has motivated mass shootings.
For decades, white nationalists have invoked the specter of nonwhite immigration, multiculturalism, and declining birthrates to argue for the existence of a vast conspiracy aimed at eliminating white populations as a dominant demographic. On Fox News, Tucker Carlson is distributing the language, grievances, goals, and inherent call to action of the conspiracy theory to massive audiences.
On the April 8 broadcast of Fox News Primetime, Carlson offered perhaps his most explicit justification yet for the core belief of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory: that a wave of “Third World” invaders is coming to replace you and reshape your environment, and that you, the audience, should do something about it.
The Fox News host claimed that “what’s true” is that “the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World,” and no one should “sit back and take that.”
More from Media Matters: White nationalists praise Tucker Carlson’s full embrace of their “replacement” conspiracy theory.
After the Anti-Defamation League called on Fox News to fire Carlson for his remarks, white supremacist and far-right personalities were quick to make their approval known.
White supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes explained what Carlson actually meant in his statements, lamenting that Carlson wasn’t more direct and theorizing that he probably had to dial it back in order to avoid consequences at Fox….
Other racist and extreme far-right media personalities and social media accounts also backed Carlson, celebrating him for broadcasting “what nationalists have been talking about for decades” and defending him against criticism.
Matt Gaetz Updates
The Washington Post: House opens ethics investigation into Florida Republican Matt Gaetz.
The House Ethics Committee announced Friday it would investigate claims that Rep. Matt Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use and showed images of naked women on the House floor, opening a new front in the growing scandal enveloping the Florida Republican.
Jean Metzinger, Still Life with Cat and Fish, 1950
Gaetz responded hours later with a defiant speech before a welcoming crowd at former president Donald Trump’s Miami-area hotel and golf club, dismissing the claims against him as an attempt by the political establishment to silence his political views.
“Let me assure you, I have not yet begun to fight for the country I love, and for the nation that I know benefits from America First principles,” he said to cheers at an event sponsored by Women for America First, a group that sponsored the rally at the White House Ellipse before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. “I’m built for the battle, and I’m not going anywhere. The smears against me range from distortions of my personal life to wild — and I mean wild — conspiracy theories.”
The news of the investigation came a day after Gaetz’s friend, Joel Greenberg, who has been charged with sex trafficking of a minor among other offenses, signaled to a federal judge through his lawyer that he was negotiating a plea deal with prosecutors that could help them in an ongoing probe into whether Gaetz paid for sex or trafficked a woman across state lines for sex.
Click the link for more details.
Fred Grimm at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Scandal leaves Florida’s congressional provocateur with few friends.
His fellow congressional Republicans have risen as one to defend Matt Gaetz.
Oh, sorry. My bad. Make that two.
Jim Jordan of Ohio — Abbott to Gaetz’s Costello in their Capitol Hill clown act — came through for Matt. Sort of. After Gaetz denied allegations that he had been galivanting with escorts and even a 17-year-old girl, with allusions to orgies and illicit drug use, Jordan managed a four-word tweet: “I believe Matt Gaetz.” Which seemed an understated reaction from the likes of Jordan, whose usual outbursts have been unfettered by propriety, truth or the national interest.
You’d think the pugnacious Jim Jordan, of all people, would have come up with a more defiant defense of his fellow provocateur. But no.
Still life with cat and lobster, Pablo Picasso
Which left Marjorie Taylor Greene from Planet QAnon as his defender-in-chief. “Take it from me rumors and headlines don’t equal truth. I stand with @mattgaetz,” tweeted the Georgia congresswoman, a propagator of astounding untruths, slanders and conspiracy theories. Not sure that character references from the woman who suggested California wildfires had been ignited by Jewish space lasers can rehabilitate Gaetz’s mucky reputation.
Support was also slow coming from Mar-a-Lago, although Gaetz had been Donald Trump’s most outlandish congressional defender through two impeachments and an insurrection. Yet, the ex-president kept quiet in the week after The New York Times reported that the FBI has widened an investigation of former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg — who faces a slew of federal charges — to include his former best buddy and fellow philanderer. The Times said the FBI is looking into allegations that Greenberg and Gaetz arranged sexual trysts with paid escorts, including a 17-year girl. (Which Gaetz denies.)
It wasn’t until reports surfaced that, during Trump’s final days in office, Gaetz had sought a preemptive pardon for any federal charges that might come his way, that the ex-president finally said something. Not much, but something. His office issued a carefully worded, unTrumpian statement: “Congressman Matt Gaetz has never asked me for a pardon,” adding, like an afterthought, “It must also be remembered that he has totally denied the accusations against him.”
I just can’t get enough of Gaetzgate.
Coronavirus News
The Washington Post: Trump officials celebrated efforts to change CDC reports on coronavirus, emails show.
Trump appointees in the Department of Health and Human Services last year privately touted their efforts to block or alter scientists’ reports on the coronavirus to more closely align with President Donald Trump’s more optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to newly released documents from congressional investigators.
Still life with grey cat, Jean Metzinger
The documents provide further insight into how senior Trump officials approached last year’s explosion of coronavirus cases in the United States. Even as career government scientists worked to combat the virus, a cadre of Trump appointees was attempting to blunt the scientists’ messages, edit their findings and equip the president with an alternate set of talking points.
Science adviser Paul Alexander wrote to HHS public affairs chief Michael Caputo on Sept. 9, touting two examples of where he said officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had bowed to his pressure and changed language in their reports, according to an email obtained by the House’s select subcommittee on the coronavirus outbreak.
Pointing to one change — in which CDC leaders allegedly changed the opening sentence of a report about the spread of the virus among younger people after Alexander pressured them — Alexander wrote to Caputo, calling it a “small victory but a victory nonetheless and yippee!!!”
In the same email, Alexander touted another example of a change to a weekly report from the CDC that he said the agency made in response to his demands. The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, or MMWRs, which offer public updates on scientists’ findings, had been considered sacrosanct for decades and untouchable by political appointees in the past.
Two days later, Alexander appealed to White House adviser Scott Atlas to help him dispute an upcoming CDC report on coronavirus-related deaths among young Americans.
“Can you help me craft an op-ed,” Alexander wrote to Atlas on Sept. 11, alleging the CDC report was “timed for the election” and an attempt to keep schools closed even as Trump pushed to reopen them.
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Posted: April 8, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Anthony Fauci, British variant, CDC, coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19, fourth virus surge, Joe Biden, Michigan, Rochelle Walensky, Upper MIdwest, youth sports |
Ole Ring, Danish painter, 1902-1972, natural landscape,
Good Morning!!
I’m going to focus on Covid-19 news today, because–despite the fact that 110 million Americans have been vaccinated–it looks like we are headed into a dangerous surge of new cases. Here’s the latest:
CNN: Fauci says new Covid-19 cases are at a disturbing level as the US is primed for a surge.
Stat reports that Biden has so far declined to increase the number of vaccine doses available to Michigan, despite the precipitous rise in cases: Biden officials rebuff appeals to surge Covid-19 vaccine to Michigan amid growing crisis.
Amid Michigan’s worst-in-the-nation coronavirus surge, scientists and public health officials are urging the Biden administration to flood the state with additional vaccine doses.
Henri Lebasque, Summer Woman
So far, though, their plea has fallen on deaf ears. Instead, the federal government is sticking to a vaccine-allocation strategy that largely awards doses to states and territories based on their population. As a result, most jurisdictions are still receiving similar per-capita vaccine supplies, regardless of how many people there are getting sick — or how many excess vaccine doses they have.
Experts have cast a surge in Michigan’s vaccine supply as a critical tool in combating the state’s most recent Covid-19 crisis. The state is currently recording nearly 7,000 new cases per day, just shy of its all-time peak in December. Hospitalizations and deaths, which tend to lag a few weeks behind increasing case counts, are also on the rise.
“I would be surging a lot of vaccines to Michigan right now,” said Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “To me, this is a no-brainer policy, and I would be curious to hear why the Biden team hasn’t done this.”
During a media briefing on Wednesday, White House officials acknowledged that Michigan’s situation is dire. They gave no indication, though, that they would send additional vaccines there to help quell the surge, when STAT asked. They argued that it is too early in the national vaccine campaign to begin targeting supply based on case rates.
Read more at Stat.
From An Diamond and Fenit Nirappil at The Washington Post: ‘A moment of peril’: Biden sees infections climb on his watch.
More than 100 million Americans have gotten at least one shot of vaccine and more than 200 million doses have been sent to states, a dramatic acceleration of the bumpy vaccine operation it inherited. Virus-related cases and deaths, which peaked in January, have fallen by about two-thirds since President Biden’s inauguration.
Gustave Léonard de Jonghe
But the Biden White House is seeing new infections climb on its own watch — a potential crisis that could erase many of the hard-won gains of the president’s first 75 days, should the numbers keep rising. After railing for a year about the last administration’s response and vowing a more muscular strategy, Biden is encountering the limits of his own authority. The president can help secure and distribute supplies and medicines, issue guidance and urge caution — but like President Donald Trump before him, he has few tools when governors decide to lift coronavirus protections at the wrong moment, manufacturers botch vaccine production, or Americans refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated.
“We need you to spread the word,” Biden told faith leaders last week, saying he was worried about Americans becoming “cavalier” about the virus. “They’re going to listen to your words more than they are me as president of the United States.”
Biden also has no more sway than Trump over a mutating virus that scientists have only begun to understand. The Washington Post’s rolling seven-day national average of coronavirus cases is more than 65,000 new cases per day, an 19 percent uptick since the middle of last month, even as many states drop public health restrictions and new variants spread. More than 146,000 new cases were reported on Thursday and Friday, the highest two-day count in several weeks, according to state data tracked by The Post.
David Axe at The Daily Beast: There’s One Truly Alarming Reason to Worry About the Latest COVID Surge—Even With Vaccines.
…the [current] surge—driven by the spread of dangerous new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and a reckless rush by governors and mayors to end a year of mask mandates and social distancing rules—isn’t just an immediate threat to unvaccinated people.
It also represents a long-term danger to the whole country. More cases mean more opportunities for the novel coronavirus to mutate. And the more the pathogen mutates, the greater the chance it will evolve into an even deadlier variant—“lineage” is the scientific term—than even the ones we’re dealing with now.
It’s even possible that, given time and a certain critical mass of cases, SARS-CoV-2 could mutate into a lineage that can overpower our vaccines.
Nicolaas van der Waay
That’s the worst-case scenario—and potentially the biggest cause for concern as the spring surge spreads across the United States. “The greater the spread of the virus populations to new individuals, because of relaxation of social measures, the more the chances of new mutations,” Edwin Michael, an epidemiologist at the Center for Global Health Infectious Disease Research at the University of South Florida, told The Daily Beast.
If all this sounds like conjecture—it’s not. The steady mutation of the novel coronavirus over the 16 months since it first took root in China is a big reason America’s experiencing another surge.
Any given patient’s load of the virus mutates every two weeks, on average. Niema Moshiri, a geneticist at the University of California-San Diego, compared each case to a slot machine that an infection pulls twice a month. Jackpot is a new and deadlier lineage.
Now imagine tens of millions of Americans with active COVID infections, with each case pulling that handle every 14 days. The more gamblers, and the more time they have to gamble, the better chances of a big win for SARS-CoV-2. Our goal, Moshiri said, should be “to lessen the number of parallel slot machines we give to the virus.”
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Posted: April 6, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
Good Morning!!
I’m feeling a little bit safer today because I got my second dose of the Moderna vaccine yesterday morning. I didn’t even have any arm soreness after the shot, but by bedtime my whole upper arm was aching. This morning all my joints ache. It’s difficult to know if these are reactions to the vaccine or just my “normal” chronic pain symptoms. Whatever. It’s worth it to be fully vaccinated, especially since Massachusetts now leads the nation in cases of the Brazilian variant of Covid-19.
Now that most of us oldsters are protected, it’s time for people in younger age groups to get their shots. President Biden is now calling for states to make vaccines available to all adults by April 19. CNN:
President Joe Biden plans to announce Tuesday that he is moving up his deadline for states to make all American adults eligible for a coronavirus vaccine by almost two weeks.\
With all states having opened eligibility to the public or at least having announced when they plan to do so, Biden will announce that every adult in the country will be eligible to be vaccinated by April 19, according to an administration official, instead of Biden’s original deadline of May 1.
Biden announced last week that 90% of adults will be eligible to get a coronavirus vaccine by April 19, as well as have a vaccination site within five miles of where they live. Biden said the number of pharmacies participating in the federal pharmacy vaccination program was increasing from the current 17,000 locations to 40,000.
CNN has previously reported that all 50 states have announced when they plan to open vaccinations to everyone who is eligible, if they haven’t done so already. New Jersey, South Dakota and Nebraska have announced plans to expand eligibility to those 16 years and older before Biden’s new deadline, and other states currently plan to open eligibility by May 1. Biden is expected to credit the governors’ effort to meet his May 1 deadline for this change.
After a slow start, my state’s vaccination effort is going very well. In fact, according to Bloomberg, yesterday was a banner day for vaccinations across the U.S.: Day of 4 Million Vaccines Signals Sharp Turnaround for U.S.
Massachusetts’ vaccine effort is moving so quickly that almost 38% of residents have received at least one dose, and the massive new system for getting shots into arms has plenty of untapped capacity.
“We could double our vaccination rate without too much effort,” said Paul Biddinger, a physician and chair of the state’s vaccine advisory committee.
Almost half of U.S. states had opened vaccination to everyone 16 and older by the end of last week. That will rise to 36 by the end of this week….
Nationwide, vaccinations hit a seven-day average of more than 3 million a day last weekend, and the country logged a 4-million-shot Saturday. (On Monday, the daily vaccination count plummeted to 2.1 million, but the drop was an expected anomaly after a holiday weekend.)
“Quite a turnaround,” tweeted medical researcher and author Eric Topol. “Who would ever have thought that the same country that couldn’t even get a COVID test working and scalable for two months could vaccinate more than 4 million people in a day?”
It’s amazing what a competent government can accomplish.
Yesterday, Democrats in Congress learned that they can pass more bills using the reconciliation process. Vox: Senate Democrats can now officially pass more bills with 51 votes.
On Monday night, the Senate parliamentarian — an in-house rules expert — determined that Democrats would be able to do a third budget reconciliation bill this year, a massive development that gives lawmakers more room to pass legislation without Republican support.
Already, Democrats had the ability to do two budget reconciliation bills: one focused on fiscal year 2021 and one focused on fiscal year 2022. Unlike most other bills, budget measures can pass with just 51 votes, instead of 60, which means Democrats are able to usher through the legislation they want if all 50 members of their caucus are onboard. (With the American Rescue Plan, for instance, 50 Democrats were able to approve the $1.9 trillion package as part of the FY2021 budget bill, even though no Republicans backed it.)
“The Parliamentarian has advised that a revised budget resolution may contain budget reconciliation instructions,” said a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement. “This confirms the Leader’s interpretation of the Budget Act and allows Democrats additional tools to improve the lives of Americans if Republican obstruction continues.”
With the new decision from the parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, Democrats can now do a third budget reconciliation bill, which means they can push through more ambitious measures as long as they are related to taxing and spending. The decision is based on MacDonough’s interpretation of Section 304 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, which allows lawmakers to revise a budget resolution before the end of the fiscal year that it covers. Given her decision, Democrats can now edit the 2021 budget resolution they already passed, and include instructions for another bill.
That could mean finally addressing infrastructure. Read more at Vox.
There’s also some sad news today for Democrats. South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Congressman Alcee Hastings, after career of triumph, calamity and comeback, dies at 84.
Congressman Alcee Hastings, whose life was marked by perseverance, calamity and a comeback, has died. He was 84.
Hastings crusaded against racial injustice as a civil rights lawyer, became a federal judge who was impeached and removed from office, and went on to win 15 congressional elections, becoming Florida’s senior member of Congress.
He died Tuesday morning, a longtime friend said.
In late 2018, Hastings was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. For much of the ensuing two years, he continued public appearances between medical treatments, but more recently he hadn’t been in public. In recent days, he had been in hospice care….
From the early days of his career, Hastings was a fighter for Civil Rights and voting rights. Some early history:
As a newly licensed young lawyer, Hastings moved to Fort Lauderdale, where he partnered with W. George Allen starting in 1964. Broward was not a welcoming place for a young Black man in the early 1960s. When he arrived to join Allen’s firm, a motel wouldn’t rent him a room.
Alcee Hastings
During much of the ’60s and ’70s, Hastings has said, there were parts of the county where it wasn’t safe for Black people. The many civil rights cases filed by Hastings and Allen, who died in 2019, included lawsuits against a restaurant popular with other lawyers and judges — which wouldn’t serve them because they were Black — and desegregating Broward County schools.
Speaking at a national gathering of Black elected officials at the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Hastings recalled what it was like when he came to the community. “I couldn’t go to that beach that you all see now,” he said.
In the early days of his career, the justice system in which Hastings practiced was dominated by racists, Finkelstein said at the 2019 luncheon honoring him. Hastings was a “howling voice” attempting to change Broward from a “little cracker town that was racist and mean and vicious.”
Eager for attention for himself, his law practice, and the cause, Hastings made several unsuccessful runs for public office, most notably a candidacy for the 1970 Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. It wasn’t a race the 29-year-old expected to win. Rather, it was a campaign to show people of all races that a Black candidate could run for such an important job. It also brought him death threats.
Read more about Hastings at the link.
The Matt Gaetz saga continues. Here’s the latest.
CNBC: Former Matt Gaetz aide says FBI contacted him after sex-trafficking probe news.
One of Rep. Matt Gaetz’s former staffers said Monday that FBI agents contacted him last week, shortly after news broke that the Florida Republican was embroiled in a federal sex-trafficking investigation.
Nathan Nelson, Gaetz’s former director of military affairs, said two agents questioned him at his house after they had heard from members of the media that Nelson knew of Gaetz’s alleged involvement in illegal activities. The media tipsters told the FBI that Nelson resigned as a result of that knowledge, the ex-aide said….
Nelson said his departure from Gaetz’s office last fall was not related to the Department of Justice’s probe of allegations against the 38-year-old congressman. The investigation into whether Gaetz trafficked an underage girl began in the final months of former President Donald Trump’s term, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
In response to CNBC’s report on Nelson’s remarks, Gaetz slammed the FBI, claiming the agency is “literally running down false media rumors.”
The Daily Beast: Matt Gaetz Said His ‘Travel Records’ Would Exonerate Him. They Don’t.
When it first came out last week that Rep. Matt Gaetz was under investigation for his sexual involvement with a 17-year-old, the Florida Republican said his travel records would exonerate him….
What Gaetz knew—or should have known—is that there are no such public records, at least not when it comes to his private life.
There are, however, campaign filings. Among all the Matt Gaetz revelations last week was the news that the Justice Department is looking into the Florida Republican’s potential use of campaign funds for personal expenses. And the reality of those campaign finance reports is that they raise more questions than they answer about these alleged scandals.
“The spending surrounding the Gaetz campaign simply doesn’t say what he wants it to say,” Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a campaign-finance watchdog, told The Daily Beast. “One, the reports don’t offer specific information; and two, it’s not clear whether he’s even saying that his campaign filings will exonerate him. If he’s paying out of pocket, we won’t know the answers without a subpoena.”
As Gaetz knows, his campaign filings don’t have any sort of information that would prove he never participated in a sex ring or paid for the travel of an underage minor. What his filings do show, though, is that Gaetz had a close relationship with Joel Greenberg—the Seminole County tax collector indicted on sex trafficking charges.
Barry Blitt, The New Yorker
Also from The Daily Beast: Gaetz’s Accused Extorter Confirms, Denies $25 Million Shakedown.
Air Force veteran and “research consultant” Bob Kent verified to Sirius Radio personality Michael Smerconish that he had approached Gaetz’s deep-pocketed father, former Florida Senate President Don Gaetz, last month seeking a $25 million loan. The funds would ransom the release of Robert Levinson, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who disappeared in Iran more than a decade ago. Levinson’s own family believes him to be dead, but Kent has insisted he has evidence Levinson is alive and remains a hostage of the Islamic Republic, though credible experts have dismissed his claims.
Kent said he was aware at the time that Matt Gaetz might have “legal issues” and that he suggested that assisting in the mission would create “good will” toward the congressman. Although Kent didn’t say it outright, those issues seem to be the recently surfaced allegations that the lawmaker paid women for sex—including, possibly, an underage girl—and misused campaign funds.
“Matt Gaetz is in need of good publicity, and I’m in need of $25 million to save Robert Levinson,” Kent told Smerconish….
Despite having coupled his request for money with an allusion to the congressman’s alleged improprieties, and despite working on the project with serial Florida fraudster Stephen Alford, Kent maintained he had not sought to extort the Gaetz clan.
Kent appears to be every bit as nutty as Gaetz.
Orlando Sentinel: Former lawmaker says Gaetz fought ‘revenge porn’ law: ‘He thought that any picture was his to use as he wanted.’
While serving in the Florida Legislature, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz opposed a bill meant to stop people from sharing sexually explicit images of their ex-lovers because Gaetz believed that recipients of those images had a right to share them, according to the sponsor of the legislation.
Former state Rep. Tom Goodson, a Republican from Brevard County, spent three years sponsoring legislation to outlaw nonconsensual pornography — sometimes called “revenge porn.”
And Goodson said Monday that Gaetz was the chief opponent to that legislation. Goodson said he remembered a meeting in which Gaetz said that if someone sends an intimate image to their romantic partner, then that image becomes the partner’s property to use however they want.
“Matt was absolutely against it. He thought the picture was his to do with what he wanted,” Goodson said. “He thought that any picture was his to use as he wanted to, as an expression of his rights.”
A couple more Gaetz stories:
Politico: Trump and his allies abandon Gaetz. The congressman was a MAGA fixture. Now, engulfed in scandal, he’s persona non grata in Trumpworld.
Greg Olear at Substack: SCIF-laws: Matt Gaetz & his GOP accomplices committed a serious crime, endangering our national security. There were no consequences.
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
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Posted: April 3, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
Good Morning!!
The Matt Gaetz scandal keeps getting worse. It appears that his pal Joel Greenberg–who is already in deep trouble–is in the process of throwing Gaetz under the bus. I admit, I’m really enjoying watching this Trumpist creep go down in flames. Here’s the latest:
This is from the Daily Mail, so take it with a grain of salt:
Rep Matt Gaetz is expected to be indicted within the next few weeks as former Florida official and friend Joel Greenberg is believed to have turned on the congressman in the sex trafficking investigation against him, a source close to the probe tells DailyMail.com.
Greenberg, who was elected Seminole County Tax Collector in 2016, is currently in jail awaiting trial after being slapped with a string of charges last year including sex trafficking a minor between the age of 14 and 17.
Earlier this week Gaetz was revealed to be under investigation for allegedly engaging in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old – who on Thursday was reported to be the same girl Greenberg is accused of sex trafficking, according to The New York Times.
The Florida Republican, 38, has furiously denied the allegations, instead insisting they are part of an alleged $25million extortion plot led by former Justice Department official David McGee.
But sources familiar with the matter say Gaetz’s claims are just an attempt to divert attention from his connection to the Greenberg case as the investigation closes in on him.
‘The congressman impugned and damaged the reputation of someone who had nothing to do with this,’ the source told DailyMail.com.
‘Gaetz is a sleaze-bag who used a professional with a sterling reputation to divert the attention on a sex investigation focused on him.
‘Rest assured that Greenberg has been singing to the feds about his friend Matt Gaetz. That’s why Matt is so freaked out,’ the source added.
Gaetz’s arrest is said to be imminent after the alleged victim, who has not been named, testified before a Florida grand jury this week saying she had sex with the conservative Republican before she turned 18, DailyMail.com has learned.
From The Daily Beast, background on Joel Greenberg: The Strange Friendship That May Bring Down Matt Gaetz.
As The Daily Beast reported on Friday, it was text messages about Gaetz and Greenberg’s off-hours trips to a government office that alerted investigators to the congressman’s involvement in alleged crimes—and eventually led them to what they determined to be a criminal sex ring….
Like Gaetz, Greenberg is the son of a wealthy local businessman. Dr. Andrew Greenberg co-founded a dental company with 92 offices across the state. Joel, who holds a stake in that company, went on to establish his own advertising agency, DG3. For a time, he also hosted “The Joel Greenberg Show,” a sports-themed talk radio show on WRSO 810 AM. He sold the ad company in 2015 and ran the next year for Seminole County tax collector, defeating the 78-year-old who had held the office since 1988.
Once in office, Greenberg immediately took outlandish steps for what should have been a low-profile and boring job. He moved the agency out of its rent-free government offices. He hired his friends. He handed out questionable contracts to longtime associates. He used his tax collector “badge” to pose as law enforcement and pull over a speeder. He even tried to get some tax employees to carry guns.
But it was another type of alleged abuse of power that would eventually rope in his friend, Matt Gaetz.
Greenberg, whose government agency was tasked with shredding expired drivers licenses, was illegally creating fake IDs, according to investigators. And Gaetz was with him when the pair was caught on surveillance footage visiting the Lake Mary branch of the tax collector’s office on a weekend in April 2018, according to several people with knowledge of the incident.
There are many more details about these two frat boy creeps at the link above.
Gaetz’s Congressional colleagues are apparently rooting for his political destruction. HuffPost: CNN’s Dana Bash ‘Can’t Repeat’ What GOP Lawmakers Are Texting Her About Matt Gaetz.
CNN’s chief political correspondent Dana Bash on Friday indicated how some Republicans are currently feeling toward embattled Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
“New Day” anchor John Avlon observed that Republicans are hardly rallying to defend the Donald Trump sycophant, who is under investigation for alleged sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl. Gaetz denies the allegations.
“If you could see my text messages from some of his current and former colleagues, I actually can’t repeat what some of them say on morning television,” claimed Bash.
“It’s because he has not made himself popular with most of his colleagues,” she continued. “Again, we’re talking about his fellow Republicans, John. We’re talking about people who he has antagonized in the name of being … as beholden and as loyal to the former president, Donald Trump, as possible. In the name of being on conservative media, being on Fox News. Being the darling of that.”
The former occupant of the White House isn’t helping Gaetz either. The Daily Beast: Trump Isn’t Coming to Matt Gaetz’s Rescue—for Now.
In the days following revelations about the federal investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz’s alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, advisers to Donald Trump have consistently offered him a simple message: Please, please keep your mouth shut.
According to two people familiar with the matter, the twice-impeached former president has closely been monitoring the scandal engulfing one of his favorite allies on Capitol Hill. The ex-president has, in his typical fashion, casually quizzed several confidants about what they think of the situation and if there’s anything that he should do about it.
But multiple people close to Trump have flatly advised him to stay out of it—refrain from publicly defending Gaetz, they are telling him, at least for the time being.
The two sources said that, in all of the conversations they’re aware of, Trump has appeared to ultimately agree with the recommendations to keep quiet. One of the sources added that the former president has lamented that the whole thing seems “really bad” for Gaetz, while also mentioning that the allegations could be a “smear” against the Trump uber-loyalist.
More Gaetz stories, posted today:
From Arwa Mahdawi at The Guardian: The sleazy Matt Gaetz saga grows ever more disturbing.
The Matt Gaetz story increasingly reads like a script written by a pervert high on a cocktail of ADHD meds and MDMA. Even if you’ve been following the scandal-prone Republican congressman’s latest controversy closely it’s hard to keep track of what on earth is happening….
While the allegations against Gaetz are still being investigated, it’s worth noting that Gaetz has faced accusations of disturbing sexual conduct before. In January 2020 Chris Latvala, a Republican congressman, tweeted that Gaetz “created a game where members of the FL House got ‘points’ for sleeping with aides, interns, lobbyists, and married legislators”. Gaetz also reportedly bragged of his sexual exploits and showed other lawmakers nude photos of women he’d slept with. According to CNN, he showed his colleagues these photos while he was at work. Gaetz, by the way, was also the only lawmaker to vote against a bipartisan anti human-trafficking bill. A number of his colleagues have also spoken out about “love of alcohol and illegal drugs, as well as his proclivity for younger women”.
I don’t know exactly what Gaetz has or hasn’t done, but I do know he’s spent his career reveling in scandal rather than actually doing his job. He even joked with Elon Musk last week about how a scandal involving him would be called GaetzGate. The fact that this guy is a sitting member of Congress boggles the mind. It shows just how low we set the bar for our (male) politicians.
The Washington Post: Gaetz is said to have boasted of his ‘access to women’ provided by friend charged in sex-trafficking case.
Rep. Matt Gaetz repeatedly boasted to people involved in Florida politics about women he met through a county tax collector who has since been charged by federal authorities with sex trafficking of a minor, according to two people who heard his comments directly.
They said the Republican congressman, first elected in 2016, also showed them videos on his phone of naked or topless women on multiple occasions, including at parties with Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector for Seminole County. The women appeared to be adults, and could be seen dancing, hanging out by a pool and, in one case, using a hula hoop without clothing, the people said.
“Matt was never shy about talking about his relationship to Joel and the access to women that Joel provided him,” said one of these people who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. “What these videos implied was that there was something of a sexual nature going on with everyone.” [….]
Federal law enforcement officials suspect that Greenberg procured a number of women for Gaetz and are exploring whether they sometimes shared sexual partners, including at least one girl who was 17 years old at the time of the alleged encounter, a person familiar with the matter said.
In addition to the charge of child sex trafficking, Greenberg faces a host of other allegations. He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial this summer. His attorney declined to comment.
Gaetz is suspected of patronizing websites that allow men to set up dates with women in exchange for dinners or hotel stays, a person familiar with the matter said. It is not a crime to use such services unless money is exchanged explicitly for sex. Investigators have obtained witness testimony and other evidence suggesting Gaetz did so, a person familiar with the matter said. Some of that evidence was first reported by the New York Times.
Investigators also are exploring allegations that Gaetz and others used illegal drugs during some of their encounters with women, a person familiar with the matter said.
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