Flying Bunnies and War Criminals

Pardon Me:  Last night Trump pardoned a slew of people:  three disgraced former Republican Congressmen, a Medicare fraudster, a few Mueller convicts and a bunch of war criminals and that wasn’t even the biggest story of the day because he also upended the combined omnibus spending/coronavirus relief bill.  The pardon crowd included coffee boy George Papadopoulos and Russian oligarch son in law/one time Skadden lawyer Alex van der Zwann, two of the Mueller convicts who lied for him.  On the Congressional front, Trump pardoned California’s Duncan Hunter, the representative who tried to blame his wife for flying their giant bunny with misspent funds; New York’s Chris Collins who called in some insider trades during Trump’s inauguration festivities and Texas’ Steve Stockman who was serving ten years for absconding with charitable funds, a crime very relatable to Trump and his children. It’s worth noting that former Congressmen Collins and Hunter were Trump’s first two House endorsers.  Possibly because he has an affinity for war criminals, particularly those associated with Betsy DeVos’ bro Erik Prince, Trump pardoned four former Blackwater security guards/mercenaries who were found guilty of wantonly killing fourteen civilians including two children in Iraq in 2007.  Less explicably he also commuted the sentence of Philip Esformes, a Miami healthcare mogul convicted in one of the biggest Medicare fraud cases ever. Though no one’s suggested a connection, it’s worth noting that Florida’s Senator Rick Scott, a big Trump fan and donor, once served as the CEO of a company that paid a $1.7 billion fine for its Medicaid and Medicare fraud.  On the legislative front, Trump who has been far too busy trying to upend the results of the presidential election to get involved in the nitty gritty of legislative negotiations surprised everyone by slamming the coronavirus relief bill, calling it a disgrace. Apparently missing that it was an already passed piece of legislation that combined funding to keep the government running for months more with coronavirus relief, he attacked it for including items unrelated to coronavirus relief and then insisted that it be rewritten to provide a $2000 rather than a $600 payment to  qualified recipients.  No word yet from Mitch McConnell and his contingent of stingy Senators, who only agreed to the meager $600 payment to help their two Republican Georgia Senators win their upcoming runoff elections, but Speaker Pelosi said sure, she’ll get her contingent to vote on upping the payments to $2000 because that’s what we wanted all along.  The bottom line is that the deal that took months to negotiate and only required Trump’s signature for checks to go out to the needy is now in Trump limbo.  Of course, Trump is still living in alternative reality land, handing out end of term pardons while still insisting that he won the election, that there were massive quantities of election fraud and threatening those like McConnell and Senator Thune for recognizing Biden’s victory while pressuring VP Pence to refuse to confirm any Electoral College votes for Biden come January 6 or else. 

Human Resources:  Dr Debbie Birx will be leaving government early in the year. Not even her impressive scarf collection could save her from her most recent hypocritical action, a three generational family get together that she hosted at one of her three homes because she unlike all the rest of us who she’s told to stay away from large family gatherings really missed her family and anyway she had to winterize her vacation home.  Birx who once had a stellar reputation is now just another victim of Trumpitis.  She may not be alone, yesterday son in law Kushner and Trump’s Deutsche Bank financiers Rosemary Vrablic and Dominic Scalzi submitted their resignations which could make it that much more difficult for Trump to refinance all that soon to mature debt. Vrablic said that, of course she’ll cooperate with any investigations into any activity that anyone wants to investigate.  Others in Trump world are still being rewarded as Trump has been handing positions on various government boards to a long list of his faves.  Last week he put Rudy’s son Andrew Giuliani and his body man Nick Luna on the US Holocaust Memorial Council where they’ll sit with former Ambassador/Director of National Intelligence for a minute Richard Grenell and yesterday he appointed aide/one time pants presser Hope Hicks to the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship board.  He also added former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi who once accepted a campaign contribution from Trump before conveniently dropping her investigation into Trump U to the board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointed Melania’s chief of staff/one time WH communications director Stephanie Grisham to the National Board for Education services.  Kellyanne Conway has already been given an Air Force board position.

Viral Musings:  This morning the US virus death count stands at 323,944.  Soon to be 80 years old Dr Fauci got his first shot yesterday as did Health Secretary Azar who is only 53.  A number of critics are up in arms about all those members of Congress, especially the younger ones, getting their first shots ahead of the pack.  Frankly, its not a bad idea to have some of them serve as an example to help convince the vax shy set but it does burn to watch deniers like Senator Joni Ernst who claimed that the virus was so not a bigly deal get hers ahead of health care providers.  As to the virus, so far the experts, including those at Pfizer and Moderna, continue to assert that the vaccinations will do their job despite the most recent virus mutations which Fauci says are probably already here in the US.  However, COVID tests might not be as reliable, not that they all are so reliable anyway, as they might not recognize the newly shaped “spike,” just one more reason to socially distance, mask and stay away from Birx type family gatherings. President-elect Joe Biden and his team are warning that it might take months longer for all of us to get vaccinated, their way of saying that Trump’s team of misfits is painting a rosier picture of the vaccine roll-out than is warranted.  As to Biden, yesterday he announced the selection of Connecticut’s Miguel Cardona to serve as Education Secretary and keeping with the Latin theme, California’s Governor Newsom picked his Secretary of State Alex Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, to serve out Kamala Harris’ remaining term.  If you haven’t seen it, check out Newsom’s zoom conversation with Padilla, one of those heartwarming moments we need more of right about now. 

The next 28 days are going to be crazier than ever and by crazy think criminally insane.  Trump isn’t going off into the sunset easily though he is expected to head to Mar a Lago for Christmas shortly because having thrown a wrench into the omnibus/coronavirus relief legislation he sees no reason to stick around to fix it.