Post 293 - December 29, 2020

Day 293…

Walgreens already has their Valentine’s Day displays up.

Really?

We are only up to five golden rings. There are still technically seven days left of Christmas. And, there is still New Year’s Eve ahead of us.

On my daily walk yesterday, I made my way down through the park, through Rockefeller Center and into Times Square then down into Chelsea. It was a beautiful day, but the city feels as if it is still a bit groggy from the holidays.

In Times Square before Christmas, the giant 2021 that will sit atop One Times Square for all of next year had been sitting on the street below. People lined up to take their pictures in front of it.

Yesterday, it was gone - presumably it’s now up on top of the building where it will be revealed at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

This year, while there will be live performances from several stages in Times Square, there won’t be any spectators allowed in the area. Like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, we will all be watching from the comfort of our own homes.

I don’t think I have ever been in Times Square at midnight on New Year’s Eve. In recent years the crowds have been ridiculous.

The city has taken to setting up a maze of police barricades that funnel spectators into specific areas - getting them there through incomprehensibly roundabout routes. In many ways, the whole thing tends to look like my worst nightmare. I’ve always worried what would happen if some idiot shot off a gun or, god forbid, detonated a bomb. The barricades would simply ensure that nobody could get out safely.

At least this year, that is unlikely to be a problem. Will crowds be able to gather again, next year, I wonder? Will they want to?

At the pace we are currently going with rolling out the vaccine, it will take us ten years to get to the point where 80% of the population has been vaccinated. Only 2.1 million doses have been administered so far which is far short of the projected 20 million that the President’s Administration promised to have done by the end of the year.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody at all, there have been hiccups in distribution and storage. In the face of no federal guidance whatsoever, states and municipalities are trying to figure out how to accomplish this monumental task on their own.

500 doses of the Moderna vaccine had to be thrown away in Milwaukee after somebody forgot to put it back into the refrigerator.

Mass General in Boston employed an app for their health care workers to sign up to get it. It relies on the honor code and was meant to separate the people who signed up into different categories according to their need. It doesn’t seem to be working.

First the app crashed when too many people tried to sign up at the same time. Then, when it was working again, the slots filled up in minutes. Some of the doctors and nurses who have the most contact with COVID patients were working and completely missed the window when they could sign up.

A neonatal intensive care nurse said, "It turned into somewhat of a free-for-all. Those that work the most have had the hardest time getting an appointment because you can't always log on at that exact moment."

This Administration is clearly not up to this task. I can’t imagine that anyone really thought that they would be. Even with a more capable group of people coming in, it is going to take them a while to even start to try and get it all working properly.

‘Twice as much, twice as long’ is the mantra you need to plan on when you are doing a major renovation. Clearly, we are going to need to employ that for the vaccine rollout, too.

Both bills that were voted on by the House yesterday passed with the needed 2/3 majority.

The bill to increase the individual stimulus payments to $2000 passed with two Democrats voting against it but forty-four Republicans breaking ranks and voting for it.

The vote to override the President’s veto of the Defense Spending Bill was also passed with the help of the GOP. 109 House Republicans went against the President and joined Democrats in voting to nullify the veto.

As I am writing this, the Senate is debating whether or not to take up both bills and vote on them. The Senate Majority Leader has said that they will vote on overriding the Presidential veto tomorrow (although he did all he could to avoid saying it that bluntly), but he will not allow a vote on the increase in individual stimulus checks.

Democratic Senators - Chuck Schumer from New York and Bernie Sanders from Vermont among them - are standing up and pushing for it. They have called for a unanimous motion to bring it to the floor and the Senate Majority Leader has objected. For the call to bring the Defense Spending veto override to the floor, Senator Sanders has now objected.

To be clear, Senator Sanders does not object to overriding the President’s veto. He is only objecting to force the Senate Majority leader into allowing the increase in aid to get to the floor.

What we are watching this morning, is politicking - by its masters.

The Senate Majority leader is in an extremely precarious position. The two Republicans trying to win the Senate seats in Georgia have aligned themselves firmly with the President who wants these payments.

While the extra $1400 payments will truly help a wide swath of the American public, the difference between getting them and not getting them will also be somewhat negligible for many. For people in the hole, this won’t get them out of the hole, it will just mean that maybe they won’t be in quite so deeply - for the moment.

This battle on the Senate floor has all of the nail-biting excitement of a particularly grueling Lawn Bowls match or a Curling final. Popcorn’s on the stove.

From his golf course in Florida, the President is fuming. Not about the vaccine rollout. Not about the thousands of people who have died on his watch. Not even about potentially losing control of the Senate.

He is still just irate that he lost the election. He is incensed that Republicans have started voting against him.

“Republican leadership only wants the path of least resistance. Our leaders (not me, of course!) are pathetic. They only know how to lose! P.S. I got MANY Senators..and Congressmen/Congresswomen Elected. I do believe they forgot!”

When the bill to override the veto finally does get to the floor for a vote, and it will, it is extremely unlikely that his veto will stand. For the first time, the President is about to be told, “No”, by his own party, so, he is turning on them with a vengeance.

“Weak and tired Republican ‘leadership’ will allow the bad Defense Bill to pass. Negotiate a better Bill, or get better leaders, NOW! Senate should not approve NDAA until fixed!!!”

The end result of all of this, is that he is likely to leave the White House with far lower broad support than he had even a few weeks ago. As Republican Senators and Congresspeople start to separate from him, so will their more moderate constituents. He will be left with the basket of deplorables.

The President has abdicated whatever leadership responsibility he might once have had. I would love to know who cajoled him into signing the stimulus bill and how they did it, but he clearly has no interest, whatsoever, in anything other than his election loss. Instead, he golfs.

When I saw the Valentine’s Day chocolates and stuffed animals on display at the drug store yesterday my eyes rolled. What I realized, though, is that by Valentine’s Day, we will be nearly a month into a new Administration.

This President’s term will be in the past.

All of those red plastic, stuffed-plush, and chocolate hearts will mean something else this coming year. A new beginning. A new start.

I may actually need to do a bit of early Valentine’s Day shopping. We at least have the $600 to look forward to.

I'm happy to celebrate even the possibility that the clean-up is about to get underway.