Happy New Year! 

A lot of the usual yesterday.  Trump held another crowded mask free rally, this one in a virus laden area of Michigan.  He signed an executive order calling for the creation of a commission to rid the education system of  “left wing indoctrination,” promoting instead pro-American education, think lederhosen and Germany in the 1930s and you’ll get the idea.  Olivia Troye, a life-long Republican and senior advisor to VP Pence who served on the White House’s Coronavirus task force joined the parade of former Trump administration professionals endorsing Biden, while detailing how bungled Trump’s handling of the virus was from the get go.  She also revealed that he once suggested that COVID 19 might be a good thing because it would stop him from having to shake hands with “disgusting people,” you know those people who show up at his virus infused campaign rallies and march through Targets and Walmarts claiming face masks are unAmerican and infringe upon their personal freedom.  We learned that those widely criticized revised virus testing guidelines that were added to the CDC website last month, the ones that said that asymptomatic people needn’t bother to be tested even if they’d been exposed to COVID positive individuals, weren’t written by CDC scientists but instead were posted by HHS political appointees under direction of WH Task Force members because more testing means more disease, and who wants that?  Noting that USPS service changes were done in an intentional attempt to use the postal service for political purposes ahead of the November presidential election, a Federal judge halted any additional similar operational changes, a good thing but the damage probably has already been done. Testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee, FBI Director Chris Wray said that Russia is primarily interfering through "malign foreign influence in an effort to hurt Biden's campaign," Trump of course responded by tweet slamming “Chris” for not “seeing” activity from China, “even though it is a FAR greater threat than Russia, Russia, Russia,” while also dissing mail-in voting as a  “totally vulnerable Unsolicited (Counterfeit) Ballot Scam.”  The straight shooting Wray also said that though illegal acts by Antifa activists are a problem, their activities pale in comparison to white supremacist extremists, you know those good people on both sides folks.  And Joe Biden participated at a very socially distanced CNN town hall last night, drive in style.  He coherently and empathetically answered lots of questions, displaying a knowledge of details and complex concepts, leading Fox TV pundits to assert that he’d obviously been fed all the questions in advance.  Their logic being that he’s too addled to have actually sounded that intelligent without coaching but not so addled that he couldn’t memorize an hour or two worth of complex answers. Got that?         

But forget about all that for now and instead enjoy the weekend.  Wishing all who celebrate and those who don’t a happy, healthy, and sweet Rosh Hashanah. And if you’d like to start early, click on the attacked link of the Maccabeats singing in the new year with another one of their joyful renditions.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsWouCsbaQ