Fairfax County vaccine status – Violence in Myanmar – Trump idol worship – Division among Republicans – Evening statistics
There is more news about vaccine distribution in Fairfax County. Even though the scheduling of persons who registered on January 18th for vaccination has continued for three weeks, over a third of them remain to be scheduled. When this amount is add to the numbers of people who signed up on the 19th, 20th, and 21st, there are about 50,000 who are to be scheduled before those who signed up on the 22nd, as I did, will be able to make appointments. Shipments for the new vaccine will begin tomorrow, which may accelerate the rate at which vaccines are being administered.
The tension in Myanmar has escalated and the long-feared violent outbreak has begun. At least 18 people were killed and 30 more injured by police of the militia firing at protesters against the coup. It is difficult to obtain details. There are reports of firing into crowds at Yangon, Dawei, Mandalay, Myeik, Bago and Pokokku, as well as the use of tear gas, flash-bang and stun grenades, but these claims, although they sound plausible, have not been independently verified. Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s UN ambassador, made an impassioned plea at the UN General Assembly for international action that would overturn the coup; not surprisingly, he has since been removed from his position. One of the victims was Nyi Nyi Aung Htet Naing, Internet network engineer. Only one day earlier, he posted a question on Facebook: “How many dead bodies before the United Nations takes action?” He was one of five people killed today in Yangon.
The Conservative Political Action Conference was held this week in Florida. One of the attendees, incidentally, was Ted Cruz. One wonders whether he found as many diversions in Orlando as he had hoped to obtain in Cancun. Among highlights of the CPAC was a fiberglass statue of Donald Trump, over six feet tall, dressed in a suit jacket, white shirt, red tie, American-flag shorts, sandals, and a magic wand (a reference to Obama’s disdainful remark that Trump didn’t have a magic wand to bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States). It is painted in a gleaming garish gold hue, and onlookers were not slow to make analogies to this ingenious machine – art it is not – and the Golden Calf. There are photos of people bowing before it – presumably tongue-in-cheek, but it is difficult to be certain.
Biden thus is the beneficiary of a schism that few presidents have enjoyed: the party in opposition to his own is so deeply divided that members of its splinters are too busy abusing each other to pay much attention to him. Consequently he is having a somewhat easier time in getting his resolutions passed than most presidents in their first few months. The CPAC demonstrates clearly that Trump has by no means exhausted his appeal among the Republican Party. Trump himself made a speech at the closing of the event today, in a manner one might expect: repeating the claim about the election being rigged, calling out for the elimination of those who voted against him during the impeachment, and launching into multiple tirades about mail-in voting, voter ID laws, and the Supreme Court ruling rejecting his election challenges. Just before this speech began, he won CPAC’s presidential straw poll with the support of 55 percent of the more than 1,000 conference attendees asked about who they support for the GOP’s 2024 bid. There is a contingent within the party that is strongly resistant to Trump and is attempting to combat his influence, but its members are clearly a minority.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 114,674,302; # of deaths worldwide: 2,542,556; # of cases U.S.: 29,255,344; # of deaths; U.S.: 525,776.