NATIONAL JOE DAY UPDATES
I Shall Celebrate Later With A Snort – as It’s Also International Whiskey Day!
-Divers are looking for what they believe are six workers who were on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it was hit by a container ship and collapsed yesterday morning in Baltimore. The workers, who apparently are all Latin American immigrants, did not hear the MAYDAY that was sent after the ship reportedly lost power and thus its steering capabilities – though MD authorities did get the warning and shut the bridge down, preventing traffic from going over it and likely saving lives in the process. The wreckage must be cleared in order to begin repairs and resume shipping into Baltimore Harbor, one of the busiest in the country, leading some to fear a potential supply chain ripple effect that may dent the economy (and is likely one of the reasons the White House immediately announced it will pay for all costs of repair immediately).
-Unfortunately, we live in a world rife with conspiracy theories, and within hours of what by all accounts was a mechanical accident, MAGA World has exploded with stupid recriminations (Maria Bartiromo trying to link the Biden immigration policy to the accident), run-of-the-mill conspiracies (disgraced QAnon adherent Laura Loomer, while on human canker sore Steve Bannon’s podcast, trying to link computer issues with the same sort of ‘manipulation’ of the 2020 Presidential vote-tallying) (utterly whacko and WRONG) and the pure insane (sentient colostomy bag Alex Jones intoning that the accident was “THE START OF WORLD WAR III!”) to try to drum up rage and fear for political purposes.
-Are those political purposes so persuasive they could still win in 2024? Until Ex-President Trump (R-apist) LXXXVIII loses, yes – but arguments can still be made that a Trump win is going to be far tougher than before. The Biden campaign announced another record-breaking monthly fundraising haul - $53M in the shortest month of the year, February. Reports that scan Internet traffic note that right-wing and hard-right web sites are experiencing significant drops in traffic, particularly when compared to the 2020 Presidential ramp-up. And in the most important metric of elections, votes cast, last night an AL state legislative special election won by a Trump acolyte 53-47% two years ago saw that same acolyte destroyed by a 62%-37% margin, with Democrat Marilyn Lands running on a platform to defend in-vitro fertilization and abortion rights to do it.
-Is the Republican National Committee picking up on any of this? Maybe, but sadly for them, the Washington Post is reporting that interviewees are being asked point-blank if they believe the 2020 election was stolen. The election was NOT stolen – but that is the wrong answer to give if you want a job at the RNC. With numerous job openings thanks to a purge by Trump allies led by Trump failson wife Lara Trump, the fact that the political arm of the RNC is being filled with election deniers is … quite the thing, to be sure …
-Speaking of Trump, bets were being placed throughout the blogosphere about just how long it would be before he tested the gag order placed on him by Judge Juan Merchan in connection with the $130,000 paid to Stormy Daniels to keep their ten-minute stand quiet before the 2016 election … and, if you bet “18-24 hours,” YOU JUST MAY HAVE WON! This morning, at least three posts on social media by Trump continued to attack Judge Merchan’s daughter, who apparently is working with Trump nemesis Rep./Sen.-Likely-to-Be Adam Schiff on his Senate campaign. There is already a debate about whether attacking a judge’s daughter could elicit a threat or arrest or not, but it is likely not the last time the ever-juvenile Trump will gleefully attempt to test the envelope (perhaps in the hope his goading will lead to real-life violence? Who can say?!) …
-Trump also took some time to attack Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after RFK Jr. named 38-year-old attorney Nicole Shanahan as his “Vice Presidential” candidate. Sheridan is an extremely wealthy woman arguably best known for having an affair with Elon Musk, who underwrote RFK Jr’s controversial Super Bowl ad, and the attack by Trump may be an indication that his internal polls are showing that RFK Jr. is actually drawing more votes away from Trump than Biden. The Biden campaign, meanwhile, is working to go after RFK Jr. by, among other strategies, trying to keep RFK Jr. off the ballot and possibly using other Kennedy family members to campaign for Biden.
-Lasting approximately ¼ of a Scaramucci, Ronna (ROMNEY) McDaniel was relieved of her duties of prognosticating badly about politics on NBC after a number of high-profile MSNBC hosts (and, shockingly, Chuck Todd!) excoriated their bosses for hiring a fairly-well-known and possibly criminally-liable January 6 conspiratory. Naturally, MAGAWorld and Right-Wing-Media – who would not hire MccDaniel if she was actually good at her job (and HOO BOY did she SUUUUUCK) – spent a lot of air time yesterday attempting to attack MSNBC and its hosts as being out of touch and boring (unlike them, of course). Even Trump – whose social media abuse of McDaniel was relentless enough that it made McDaniel drop “Romney” from her name) – jumped on the MSNBC BAD bandwagon, not that they will bat their eyes.
-In what appeared to be good news, most observers believe the questioning in yesterday’s Supreme Court hearing sounded like even this SCOTUS seems very skeptical about the attempt to ban the ‘abortion pill’ mifepristone, with even hardcore lefties Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett very hostile towards the claim made by the defendants trying to ban the drug that they had any kind of medical authority whatsoever to do so (noting that the sponsoring organization, the “Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine,” includes several non-doctors, including dentists) – and possibly also very worried that yet another anti-abortion ruling could be even more catastrophic than it already has been (see “Alabama” above). FUN FACT: the attorney who argued to ban mifepristone was Erin Hawley, a rising ‘superstar’ on the hard right who just happens to be married to fisting coward election-denier Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO, resides in VA).
-We shall close by doubling back on that money issue facing Team Trump and a potential solution to get cash in coffers (that goes beyond the IPO stock put on sale yesterday by a shell company trying to feed Trump cash for his various fines and lawyer fees). Yesterday, amid the hullabaloo in various courts yesterday, found the time to release a video in which Trump cultists – er, voters (EYEROLL) – are given an opportunity to throw $59.99 to Trump to purchase a “God Bless The USA Bible!” The book, apparently created with the cooperation of Lee Greenwood, sacrilegiously combines a version of The Bible with the Constitution, all inside a faux leather cover with an American flag (amazingly not a Trump flag!) cheaply embossed underneath. Really, the only surprise is that it took this long for Trump to come up with this idea to milk more cash out of his punctuation-averting minions.
-Both Jesus and the Founding Fathers are vomiting in their graves with this one … so, ONWARD!
-On this date in 47bc or so, Cleopatra was reinstated as Queen of Egypt. On this date in 1915, “Typhoid Mary” was quarantined until her death in 1938. On this date in 1958, Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union. On this date in 1939, Oregon beat Ohio State to win the first NCAA Men’s Basketball championship tournament. On this date in 1975, construction began on the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline. And on this date in 1977, two Boeing 747s collided at Tenerife airport in Spain, killing 583 in the worst airline disaster in history.
-Debuts on this date: Fingerprints as evidence in a criminal trial (1905), cherry trees planted in Washington, DC (1912), SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952), TV Marti (1990), Viagra (approved by the FDA in 1999).
-Happy Birthday to Henry Royce, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Gloria Swanson, Budd Schulberg, Cyrus Vance, Sarah Vaughan, Anthony Lewis, Mo Ostin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Anne Ramsay, David Janssen, Cale Yarborough, Austin Pendleton, Michael York, Tony Banks, Maria Schneider, Andrew Farriss, Quentin Tarrantino, Randall Cunningham. Jaime Navarro, Talisa Soto, Maria Carey, Nathan Fillion, Fergie, Melissa “Baby M” Stern, Buster Posey, Jessie J., and Halie Bailey.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Kiichiro Toyoda, Yuri Gagarin, M.C. Escher, Diana Hyland, Aldo Ray, Ian Dury, Billy Wilder, Dudley Moore, Milton Berle (those three on the same day), Paul Zindel, Irving R. Levine, Adrienne Rich, and Howard Schnellenberger.