Week 81
By 
Is Jeanine Pirro afraid of being disbarred? She withdrew the felony indictment of David Hearn for damaging the beautiful, strong, strongly beautiful liner of the Reflecting Pool with a long apology and dump on the Department of Interior. Doug Burgum, Secretary thereof, quickly jumped in to demonstrate his fealty to the Maximum Leader’s theory of unseen vandals with boxcutters. Trump hasn’t fired her – yet.
Dr. (sorta) Rand Paul Joe McCarthy’d Anthony Fauci this week. “Are you now, or have you ever been, a supporter of wearing N95 masks in public?” Fauci took the 5th Amendment from the start, recognizing that Paul’s enunciated intention to put him in jail could be facilitated by anything he said. This allowed other Republican members of the committee to use Fauci as a punching bag for their unresolved fears from the COVID pandemic.
I was a little surprised at how easily many commentators connected the hearing to unresolved feelings about the COVID epidemic, particularly the fear we all felt in the beginning at an unknown virus, that we didn’t know how it spread, and at the many, many deaths. Donald Trump was president (which many seem to have forgotten) and, trying to carry on what he thought was a scientific conversation with Fauci and other advisors on television, suggested injecting bleach.
We haven’t dealt adequately with our emotional reaction, and Paul’s and other Republicans’ anger were obviously related to the helplessness we all felt. Another thing we need to deal with.
Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary for Senator in Michigan. Lots of stuff potentially to comment about on that, but I think I’ll stick with being pleased that he is a doctor and has worked in public health. We very badly need that in Congress. In contrast, another doctor, currently in the Senate, Bill Cassidy, now has approved of Donald Trump’s Roy Cohn for Attorney General, just as Trump wants, capping a career in which he also gave us RFK Jr as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
El-Sayed is good on his feet, too. His interviews go like this: Interviewer: “Let me try to get you to say something you’ll be sorry for.” El-Sayed: “The Republicans lie, and Trump is a disaster.” I’m impressed.
Here’s a longer and friendlier interview:
I’m feeling pretty good about things. It’s partly my personal situation, but it also seems to me that all the trendlines are good for November, and I don’t see a reason for them to change.
Today is International Cat Appreciation Day. Or something. Seems like we have at least a half-dozen of these a year, but that’s fine with me.
We had smoke here from the wildfires, although they’re on the other side of the mountains. It’s clearing today.
Follow the court-watchers for the details of the lawsuits. Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker. I haven’t seen any of them write about the Hawaii decision.
Let’s stay away from hypotheticals, as usual. Post your pets.
127 more weeks to go. What are you doing?
Previous weeks: Week 10, Week 20, Week 30, Week 40, Week 50, Week 60, Week 70, Week 80