Covid-19 cases are on the rise again

Covid cases are on the rise again in the US, fueled by a new variant known as JN.1. Since many people now test at home, health officials are using wastewater to get measures of its prevalence.

The variant is linked to about 60% of new cases, according to CDC data. A member of the omicron family, JN.1 is descended from the BA.2.86 variant. Its most notable new mutation changes the spike protein that latches onto cells, enhancing its ability to evade our immunity. But even if JN.1 is more skilled at dodging antibodies from previous infections and vaccinations, it is not entirely resistant to them.

A recent study of disease spread found that length of exposure was the biggest factor in transmission. A team led by University of Oxford researchers found that 82% of cases were acquired from exposures that lasted longer than one hour.

Despite COVID’s omnipresence, the chance of hospitalization and death is unmistakably lower than in previous years. The number of people in California hospitals with COVID grew to about 2,000 by the end of December, half of last winter’s peak, and just a tenth of the record high.

But the nebulous threat of developing what is known as long COVID remains, and millions across the United States have already experienced it.

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The further adventures of Kristina Karamo

You may recall my post of about two weeks ago about the Michigan GOP where a bonkers QAnon-supporting election denier Kristina Karamo and her followers took over the leadership of the state party just a year ago and promptly made a mess of things so that the party is on the verge of bankruptcy. This resulted in efforts by even those who once supported her bid for the leadership to try and oust her and yesterday, they managed to do just that.

But if you think that ended that saga, then you still haven’t understood today’s MAGA GOP. They never accept an election result unless they win. Karamo herself has still not conceded that she got trounced in the race for Michigan secretary of state back in 2022 claiming (you guessed it) that the election was rigged.
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What the hell is going on in the Michigan GOP?

Michigan is a so-called swing state that neither Democrats nor Republicans have a lock on. Serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) won the state in 2016 and then lost it to Joe Biden in 2020. But then SSAT went on his delusional bender about how the election was stolen, pointing to this state as one that he actually won. Many of his supporters picked up on that and the state GOP went all in on the lie. Following SSAT’s defeat, the party leadership swept out all the old guard at all levels and put in place the most extreme election deniers.

But while the voters of Michigan may not be firmly in the Democratic camp, it appears that they were not that enthused about the Big Lie and, in the 2022 elections, Democrats won big and the proponents of the Big Lie lost. Currently the Democrats control the State House, the Senate, the Governor’s Office, and most of the Congressional seats, leaving the GOP in the most marginalized situation in 40 years.
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True and false remorse

Yesterday, two major figures in the extreme right wing white nationalist Proud Boys movement that played a major role in the attacks on Congress on January 6th 2021 were sentenced to lengthy prison terms, after having been found guilty earlier.

A leader of the far-right Proud Boys has been sentenced to 17 years in prison, one of the longest terms yet handed out over the US Capitol riot.

US Army veteran Joe Biggs, 38, was an instigator of the storming of Congress on 6 January 2021, prosecutors said.

The former Infowars correspondent was convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges in May.
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The sentence, handed down by US District Judge Timothy Kelly, is below both federal sentencing guidelines and the 33 years sought by prosecutors.

Another Proud Boys member, Zachary Rehl, was sentenced on Thursday to 15 years, also on a charge of seditious conspiracy.

Rehl, a former US Marine and leader of the Philadelphia branch of the Proud Boys, was seen on video spraying a chemical irritant at officers outside the Capitol during the riot.

Biggs was convicted of a slew of charges in May, including seditious conspiracy, intimidation or threats to prevent officials from discharging their duties and interference with law enforcement during civil disorder.
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Another prominent participant in the riot, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in May.

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I saw this coming way off

As soon as I saw the sad news story that Tafari Campbell, the personal chef of the Obamas, had drowned last Sunday while swimming near Martha’s Vineyard, I knew that conspiracy mongers would seize upon it, since any tragic event connected to the Obamas or Clintons is like catnip to them. And sure enough, they have.

The death of Tafari Campbell, a Barack Obama employee whose body was recovered near the former president’s home on Martha’s Vineyard on Monday, has sparked a wave of entirely unverified conspiracy theories online.

A number of prominent right-wing accounts, some with hundreds of thousands of followers, have questioned the official version of events. One described Campbell’s death on the Massachusetts island as “strange” and asked “what do you think really happened?”
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Liz Crokin is a Trump supporter and advocate of the QAnon conspiracy theory that says America is secretly being run by a cabal of satanic child molesters. She asked, “what did he know?” referring to Campbell.
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The Carrie loves America Twitter account, which has 102,000 followers and a picture of Trump as its headed image, wrote: “Tafari Campbell isn’t the only person who has died inexplicably in Obama’s orbit.

“Did you know that the woman who verified the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate, Loretta Fuddy, was the only person to die in a plane crash in Hawaii in 2013. Everyone else survived,” the Carrie loves America account added.

Fuddy was responsible for approving the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate in 2011. In December 2013, the 65-year-old was the only fatality when a light aircraft crashed off the coast of Hawaii, which an investigation attributed to “catastrophic engine failure.”

The Fuddy story illustrates the weird logic of these people The fact she was the only person who died in the crash is seen as the clue to it being suspicious. Somehow we are asked to think that the people who wanted to kill her and engineered the plane crash were able to arrange it so as to make just one person die. Surely it would have been easier to kill them all or, if they had some scruples about doing that, to just kill her on land in a car accident or something, rather than this far more complicated plan? But it is the convoluted nature of the plans that is appealing to conspiracists. Something that is straightforward is simply no fun for them.

Even a cult leader’s death does not kill the cult

Two years ago I wrote about a particularly bizarre cult surrounding John F. Kennedy Jr. that believes that he faked his own death and would be returning as serial sex abuser Donald Trump’s (SSAT) running mate for 2024. A large crowd of believers of this cult congregated at Dealey Plaza (where JFK was assassinated) in November 2021 on the 58th anniversary of his death thinking that both father and son would appear there. Spoiler alert: They did not appear.

The leader of this particular QAnon subcult was someone named Michael Protzman who also went by the label Negative48.
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The case against Trump

The indictment against Donald Trump that was presented in court yesterday charged his with 34 counts, each of which consisted of “falsifying business records in the first degree” that were taken “with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise”.

The indictment itself did not specify the evidence that was used to arrive at these charges but they consist at a minimum of the payment of $130,000 made to Stormy Daniels to prevent her speaking out in public about her affair. Note that it is not the payment itself that is illegal. One question is what was the intent of the payment. If it was meant to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, then that would be a violation of campaign finance law since it could be considered a campaign contribution that exceeds the allowed amounts.
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Teens and social media

There has been considerable discussion recently about the damaging effects of social media on young people, giving many feelings of inadequacy as they compare themselves unfavorably with their alleged peers, even though some of those peers may be presenting a false image of themselves as having it all together and living the good life. This is especially the case with so-called ‘influencers’, those who go to great lengths to market themselves in the best possible light, almost making it a full-time job. The people who have something positive to say about their lives will usually talk more about it than those who are not having it so good, and so it would be easy to fall into the trap of feeling that everyone is having a better time that you

Kevin Drum has an thought-provoking post about the role of the internet in creating this problem. At least, it provoked my thinking enough to feel the need to comment on it.
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Biden’s State of the Union speech

I did not listen to Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech because I find these kinds of set-piece political theater to be long-winded and not that interesting. It appears that the SOTU events are becoming more like the UK’s Prime Minister’s Questions time in parliament in that members of both parties behave boisterously and give loud cheers and groans as they feel like. At Tuesday’s event, Republicans shouted “Liar!” when Biden said that they were trying to cut Social Security and Medicare and that goes much further than what is heard in parliament. A far as I am aware, British MPs are prohibited from making personal attacks and if they do the Speaker can force them to withdraw their remarks under threat of ejection from the chamber.

This is not the first time that such a charge has been yelled at the president. Some may remember the occasion when a Republican congressperson Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” during president Obama’s address in 2009. That outburst was met with disapproval and Wilson later apologized to the White House. However, things have deteriorated since then and there is no chance that Greene and her fellow crazies will apologize to Biden. Being ignorant and obnoxious is their brand.

But it seems like Biden got good reviews like this one for his performance, perhaps because people did not expect much from him.
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Such a whiner

Congresswoman and nutcase Marjorie Taylor Greene has been whining about how hard it is for her to live on her government salary of $174,000.

Earlier this week, the Republican representative from Georgia appeared on journalist Glenn Greenwald’s podcast and expressed concern about her congressional salary, which according to public records is $174,000 annually.

Greene told Greenwald: “Becoming a member of Congress has made my life miserable. I made a lot more money before I got here. I’ve lost money since I’ve gotten here.

“It’s not a life that I think is like something that I enjoy because I don’t enjoy it,” added Greene, who had previously owned a CrossFit affiliate gym in Georgia before being elected to Congress in 2020.

Additionally, Greene complained about the amount of time her congressional work consumes, saying: “The nature of this job, it keeps members of Congress and senators in Washington so much of the time, too much of the time … that we don’t get to go home and spend more time with our families, our friends … or maybe just be regular people because this job is so demanding. It’s turned into practically year-round.”

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