JUST WHEN YOU THINK THE REPUBLICANS HAVE RETURNED...

 Let me start with the current most-despised person in the USA.  Donald Trump usually has a stranglehold over this dishonor.  As the pandemic is today more important than anything else, the individual who today holds this title is Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers.  His lying about being vaccinated has forever tainted him.

But returning to Trump, one wonders, as we reach the end of 2021, why he is not in court facing all those charges and how he is still representing the leading face of the Republican Party?  They keep saying the 2021 presidential election was rigged and that nothing much happened on January 6.  But there is that 5% of Republicans and Independents who actually care, and this is the group that will make a difference in 2022 and 2024.

Donald Trump's most substantive deliveries were all those federal judges, plus justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the most by any president since Ronald Reagan, who in two terms appointed four.  Ironically, the seed for derailing Republican control of the White House and Congress now rests in the hands of the Supreme Court.  

If the Supreme Court this year into next substantially weakens abortion and gun rights laws, a sizable number of Independents will lean in the direction of Democrats.  I show again the graphic from last week:

44% of Americans are independents, many who will vote for Democratic candidates if the Supreme Court overwhelmingly changes the constitutionality on a wide range of issues.

On a related matter, Maureen O'Dowd editorialized on Wokeness Derails the Democrats.  The term wokeness is so new that my computer does not want to accept it.  It means a state of being aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality.  You would think, especially during this time of Donald Trump, that Democrats would win this battle.  But here is what O'Dowd said:

•  Only 44,000 votes in Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia saved Biden from an Electoral College tie...and therefore loss.
• While the Democrats wallow in a family food fight, Americans are still stressed and exhausted from the whole Covid ordeal, confronting high gas prices and stymied from getting the appliances and Christmas toys they want.
• And if the Supreme Court were to outlaw abortion and approve open carry on guns, that could scramble the equation all over again, sending moderate suburbanites back into the arms of Democrats.
• Asked on Friday if the Democrats could not get out of their own way, Speaker Pelosi smiled dryly and replied, “Welcome to my world. This is the Democratic Party.”
• There is a feeling, many Democrats say, that things are a little out of control — the Afghanistan departure, supply chains, crime, violence, Biden not being able to pass what he wants to pass or even pressing for the votes when he went to the Hill before he left for Europe.

I would argue that O'Dowd chose the wrong title.  Sure Democrats, led by President Biden, are doing almost everything wrong.  But this has nothing to do with WOKENESS.  They are aware and awake to the social issues.  They just are not working together as a well-oiled machine.  If they can get their act together, and benefit from Supreme Court rulings and the continued travails of Donald Trump, all is not lost.  I would even still be optimistic to suggest that Democrats will continue to preside over both houses of Congress on November 8, 2022.

Speaking of Biden and Trump, now that Alex Baldwin is unavailable, Saturday Night Live has a newcomer playing both Biden and Trump.  Go ahead, click on both and be entertained.  

32-year old James Austin Johnson is good.  Very good.  You've seen him around on TV and in films for a dozen years, but no doubt never before noticed him.  He is now a star.

I'll end with Jill Biden and heroes being vaccinated.  Franklin Sherman Elementary School  in Virginia were the first students in 1954 as healthy American children to be vaccinated as polio pioneers.    Senator Mitch McConnell, incidentally, contracted polio when he was two and today still walks with a slight limp.

So anyway, Jill and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy visited that school and she is quoted to have said:  

          You guys are leaders, so thank you for being so brave.

Further to parents:

         This vaccine is the best way to protect your children against Covid-19.  It's been thoroughly reviewed and rigorously tested.  It's safe.  It's free, and it's available for every child in this country.

67 years ago parents did not question the government about their children being vaccinated with an experimental shot.  Jonas Salk, who was responsible for this drug offered that it gave "freedom of fear."  Americans were a lot more patriotic then.  Of course every student who got injected at Franklin Sherman with the polio vaccine also got ice cream.  6th grader Everett Munson, who introduced Biden and Murthy, after doing some research on that day in 1954, suggested that clinics such as this COVID one also provide ice cream to brave students.  Apparently none was served.

Aaron Rodgers could redeem himself by doing just that.  Come by to express his shame, while passing out ice cream.

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