"And Mitch McConnell is PT Barnum" - 12/17/2020

Today, we have a lot to get through on the last episode of Quick News Daily for the week. We discuss another allergic reaction to the COVID vaccine, the extra doses found in the vials for the vaccine, and French President Emmanuel Macron testing positive for the coronavirus. We also discuss Biden's latest nominee, why you shouldn't be worried about Republicans objecting Electoral College votes in the House, MacKenzie Scott, and more!

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Sources:

Alaskan has allergic reaction after getting Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine
FDA says Pfizer vaccine vials hold extra doses, expanding supply 
McConnell warns GOP off Electoral College brawl in Congress
Sales top 3 million for Barack Obama's "A Promised Land'
MacKenzie Scott Has Donated More Than $4 Billion In Last 4 Months
French President Emmanuel Macron tests positive for Covid-19
Biden expected to nominate North Carolina environmental official to run EPA

(Mostly Accurate) Transcript:

OPEN 

 

Today is Thursday, December 17th, thanks for listening once again. There were actually a ton of really interesting stories out there today, so it was tough to narrow them down. I tried to choose the ones that would be most relevant to our lives, just like the mission of this show is supposed to be, so you’ll have to let me know how I do with that. *WILLY WONKA EFFECT* There are some pretty hot takes in here, so it’s going to be a fun one. To amend those words of Willy Wonka, let’s get caught up right away. 

COVID REACTION AND EXTRA DOSES

 

So, here’s the deal: I’m going to talk about this first story because we all need to be informed and aware of the risks. That said, we should keep this in perspective. I’ll explain more about what I mean in just a second. 

 

The story I’m talking about is the news from Alaska yesterday that a health worker who received the COVID vaccine had a severe allergic reaction. It happened within minutes of getting the shot, they had to give him a shot of epinephrine, and then he was fine after that. The health officials there said that this reaction was similar to the ones in the UK last week. The only problem is that this patient did not have a history of allergic reactions, whereas the two from last week did. In that way, those made sense, and it’s why this one is scarier. It’s human nature to fear the unknown. It’s why we’re afraid of the dark. 

 

So the caution and perspective that I want to give is that I feel like all of these reactions wouldn’t be big stories if this was a typical disease instead of COVID. If we only heard about 3 severe reactions to even something like the regular flu vaccine, I’m sure doctors would be thrilled. The data isn’t real easy to find, but a study from 2009 showed thousands of really serious side effects from the flu vaccine, so I just want to emphasize that the actual news story here is that there are only 3 news-making allergic reactions. 

 

The other side of that coin is that millions of flu vaccines go out every year, whereas, realistically, there have maybe been a couple hundred thousand COVID vaccines that have been given to the regular public. That same argument I just made about “only 3” is the same one that the idiots used this spring to justify why we shouldn’t be in lockdowns. They always said “the flu kills more people per year” after like 2 weeks of knowing about the coronavirus. It’s comparing apples to oranges. I guess, what I’m trying to say is that we should acknowledge these cases, we should study them, we should be cautious, but don’t let this scare you out of getting the vaccine altogether. Talk to an actual doctor, don’t just take my word for it. 

 

But hey, let’s hear some good news about the vaccine, which is actually more of a story about how our pharmacists are pretty smart people. As early as Monday, and for sure by Tuesday, pharmacists nationwide began noticing that there was still quite a bit of vaccine left over in the vials that were shipped out. Originally, I talked about how there were 5 doses per vial of vaccine, and we went through all of that math. Well, to prevent against spills and other waste, the vials are always filled more than is needed. For example, if 5 doses is 5 ounces, then they probably fill the vials up to like 5.5 or something like that. In this case, the pharmacists are finding that there are 1-2 extra doses per vial, which experts say is unusual. I’m not sure what could make them overshoot the target so much, but it’s a lucky break for us. 

 

If we do some more quick math, 1 extra dose is 20% more, and 2 is 40% more. This means our expected vaccine totals could be as much as 40%, which would help tremendously with our supply problems. It could mean that shortage that’s coming in the spring might not be as bad. Not everyone will be at 40%, and temporarily, some places still have to strictly follow protocols, so they can only use 5 no matter what. Realistically, maybe we’ll be in the 25-30% range, which is phenomenal. 

 

I was just trying to figure out why they could have miscalculated so much, and the biggest things I thought of were: they didn’t know how much would be lost to spilling or the environment because no vaccine has ever had to be kept this cold, or they didn’t want their shortage problem to be even worse than they were already projecting, so they wanted to be damn sure there were 5 doses in there, or maybe because these are being so closely monitored in terms of their climate and having the GPS sensors and all that, maybe there’s a lot less waste because everyone’s watching them like hawks. Whatever it is, we’re lucky for it. 

 

Alright, last point here since it’s just my own hearsay at this point, but I guess I can sort of see why Trump supporters would think there’s some conspiracy against him these days. First, the vaccine effectiveness results get released the weekend after the election, all of these vaccines are super effective, they can be distributed in less than a month’s time, and then we find out that we can get up to 40% more and maybe our shortage problem won’t be as bad? Man, that is a very good stretch of luck, I have to say. 

 

I don’t believe in these conspiracies, but since my whole ending theme song is inspired by a movie where a guy takes down a fascist government that rose to power using a virus they created and a secret cure that they had the whole time, I’d be remiss not to mention it at all. In reality, humans are always looking to make these everyday events have special meaning. For some reason, we have this sense that there’s something bigger at play out there. Maybe it’s because we think we’re the only intelligent life that exists in our universe. Whatever it is, we try to make things make sense, and random luck just doesn’t add up for us like a good, old-fashioned conspiracy does. I’ll leave you with the best example: the JFK assassination. Nobody believes that a nobody, dumb guy like Lee Harvey Oswald could kill the beacon of hope for an entire generation and change the course of world history, but he probably did. Oh boy, I have to stop before we get too far into that, because even I believe something funny happened there. 

 

BIDEN EPA

 

Another day, another nomination for the Biden Administration. Today, the lucky nominee is Michael Regan, and he has been chosen to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Currently, he’s the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, and in the past he’s worked at the Environmental Defense Fund, as well as the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Apparently, Regan is only 44 years old, which is insane. He must have started working for Clinton right out of high school or something. Also, he looks like he’s in his late 30s, tops, which is impossible. I don’t know what his skin care regimen is, but it’s working. 

 

I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot, which is a good thing, but if he’s confirmed by the Senate, Regan will become the first Black American to lead the EPA. 

 

MACRON

 

Sort of coming back around to another story from last week, French president Emannuel Macron has tested positive for the coronavirus. He did it with style, which I respect. His motto was “go big or go home”, because in just the past few days, he’s met with a ton of other European leaders, so now they have to quarantine as well. 

 

Let me tell you what I mean. Here’s his schedule: 

Last Thursday and Friday, the European Council met in Brussels, and 25 of 27 leaders of EU nations were there. 
On Monday, he helped mark the 60th anniversary of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, where he met the Spanish prime minister, as well as the leader of the OECD. 
Tuesday, he met with the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. 
Then, just yesterday, he had lunch with the prime minister of Portugal, and he met with his own cabinet. 

 

The Spanish prime minister tested negative today, but he said he’s still quarantining until Christmas Eve, December 24th (honestly, if you didn’t get the coronavirus but were exposed, what better reason is there for taking the week off before Christmas? That’s a power move right there). 

 

European Council president Charles Michel said he was quarantining as a precaution. France’s prime minister also tested negative today but is still quarantining as a precaution, as is the President of France’s National Assembly, which sounds like their version of Speaker of the House to me. The prime ministers for Portugal and Spain also said they’d be self-isolating as precautions. 

 

Lastly, Macron’s wife, Brigitte, has proactively started her quarantine, but she has not had any symptoms so far. Since they say “proactively”, I’m guessing she’s still waiting for her test results. She has a little more to worry about than Macron since she’s 67 years old compared to his 42. That’s an interesting story between them, by the way. Look up their history together if you’re bored and have some spare time. 

 

Obviously, I wish President Macron well. Like I said last week, I have a soft spot for the guy, but I wasn’t thrilled with that police law he backed down from. Again, I’m hoping he can turn a corner and salvage his legacy. And all kidding aside, it was pretty crazy how he met with pretty much anyone who’s powerful in Europe while he was potentially contagious. It’s great that everyone so far is testing negative, and it gives me some confidence in basic COVID precautions like masks, social distancing, and hand washing. It’s a good thing they didn’t invite any Republicans, I’ll say that much. 

 

MCCONNELL WARNING

 

There has been some talk recently, at least in the media, that some Republicans are going to try to object to certifying at least some Electoral Votes, which the House is going to certify on January 6th. I went over this shortly after Biden was actually declared the winner in November, but to object, you need one Representative and one Senator to formally request it. I can’t remember exactly, but I think that the whole House then votes on whether to accept the votes, and if a majority does, they certify them anyway. Since the Democrats still have a majority in the House, the votes are all going to be certified. 

 

In a private teleconference with GOP Senators, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the leadership team warned Republicans against doing this because of the reason I just said: the House is never going to throw out these votes. Now, do I think that some representative and some senator are going to team up to do this? Of course I do; you can definitely find two clowns in a circus, and Mitch McConnell is basically PT Barnum. Not to mention the fact that the Republicans are all about the show and don’t actually care about results. It’s all theater for Fox News or OANN or Newsmax or whatever propaganda network is going to be the new leader. 

 

So, my guidance to you is to not stress out about this, even if there are objections on January 6th. Nancy Pelosi is still Speaker, and she’ll shut that stuff down right away. 

 

OBAMA BOOK SALES

 

Just because Donald Trump is an avid listener of Quick News Daily (maybe...I really have no idea), I want to mention that former President Barack Obama’s first presidential memoir has already sold 3.3 million copies in the US and Canada in just one month. That’s already 3rd best for presidents, and that’s total. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are basically tied since they each have sold between 3.5 and 4 million total, so Barack basically caught them in a month. 

 

For history nerds, Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs are most likely the best-seller of all time for presidents, but the records just aren’t good enough to know for sure. We can make a pretty good guess though since those have been in publication for like 130 years, and when they were originally sold, there were hundreds of thousands of verified sales (and there were a heck of a lot fewer people on Earth back then). 

 

But you just know that this really makes Trump mad, don’t you? He knows he’ll never have a book that successful. Even his claim to fame, The Art of the Deal, has only sold about a million copies. 

 

Honestly, I’d be surprised if he lives long enough to get a memoir out. With his legal troubles, all of that debt, and I think it’s clear that he’s pretty far into cognitive decline, so when he doesn’t have the presidency to protect him, I think he’ll go downhill quickly. If you gave me the option of betting on if he’d be running again in 2024 or that he won’t even make it to 2022, I’d take that second option in a heartbeat. 

MACKENZIE SCOTT     

 

I want to end on what I think is a good, positive note. It’s the news that billionaire MacKenzie Scott has given away more than $4B in the last 4 months alone. First of all, if you’re not quite familiar with who Mackenzie Scott is, she’s the ex-wife of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. As part of their divorce, which went final last year, she got 4% ownership of Amazon, which was worth $37B at the time. That was in Amazon stock, which has taken off even more this year, meaning she could be worth a lot more than that. That same 4% is worth $62B these days. 

 

She explained part of her reasoning for this in an op-ed on Medium, saying "Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, for people of color, and for people living in poverty. Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires." 

 

She and her team chose 384 organizations to give this money to, and she even designated these funds as unrestricted gifts, meaning the organizations who got them didn’t even have to agree to any conditions, which is where they can get you sometimes. 

 

By July of this year, she had already given away about $1.7B to a bunch of different causes, but focused mainly on historically black colleges and universities, and women’s and LGBTQ equity organizations. 

 

For these last few months, she asked her advisers to figure out ways to give away more money faster so that she could help with the COVID fallout. She says “They took a data-driven approach to identifying organizations with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital.” 

 

By the way, can you imagine having a whole team who’s entire job is to vet these organizations that you’re going to give billions too? That is a goal. 

 

The CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, told Bloomberg that Scott's nearly $6 billion in donations this year "has to be one of the biggest annual distributions by a living individual", and the director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies wrote that "She still has a long way to go in her stated intention of giving away all the wealth. But she's now made two bold moves, putting to shame the other 650 U.S. billionaires who haven't figured out comparable ways to boldly share”. He’s referring to the Giving Pledge that she signed last year, which is a promise that she’ll give the majority of her wealth to charity. Oddly enough, Jeff Bezos didn’t sign the pledge, although he did commit $10B to fighting climate change earlier this year. 

 

I’ll admit, it feels a bit strange to be praising these billionaires so much for giving the rest of us some help, when regular people helped build those fortunes. At the same time, when you have one person giving away $6B in just one year, and the experts on the subject are saying that’s a record and puts other billionaires to shame, I think it’s newsworthy and shows that some people can handle that much wealth fairly responsibly. 

 

I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that she is a she. Maybe we don’t keep track of every billionaire’s donations to charity, but I think it’s definitely notable that she’s new to being a billionaire and is giving away her wealth at this rate.  Here comes another opinion, but it seems like the people who suddenly gain such an insane amount of wealth are the ones who realize how fortunate they are and how lucky they had to be to get to that point, whereas the people who built their wealth by starting a business or something are more likely to keep it. 

 

END

 

Alright everybody, and that’s the way it is. Like I mentioned yesterday, there won’t be a new show tomorrow. I realized that I never played you Joe Biden’s victory speech after being certified by the Electoral College on Monday, so I think I’m going to send that out as the show tomorrow, so you’ll be able to hear that wherever you’re listening right now. It’ll just be like when I played their victory speeches when the race was called by the media back in November. 

 

As for next week, I plan on having at least one show on Monday or Wednesday. I have a sneaky suspicion that folks might be taking a break from listening to podcasts next week, but I’m not sure. All the big podcasts seem to take the week off, which I’m always hesitant about. I’m thinking about putting together a mini “best of” show, but now I’m thinking maybe I should save that for the week after and make it like a “year in review” show. Who knows, it’s just an idea I’m playing around with. 

 

I’d mention I’m still designing new merchandise, but I’ve been saying that for the last couple weeks, so I’ll just let you know when it’s actually available at this point. 

 

Anyways, that’s the lay of the land. Stay safe, and I’ll see you on the next episode.