Jingle Bells

Pardon Me: Earlier this week when asked why he didn’t try to rein Trump in, Jared Kushner who tends to disappear whenever his father-in-law in chief is engaging in his most evil activities, said what can I do, he’s my children’s grandfather. Well we know now that the grandfather that Jared was really thinking about when he made those remarks was his father Charles, the charmer who, in addition to buying Jared’s way into Harvard, once hired a prostitute to entrap his sister’s husband in order to cover-up some financial crimes, an action that former NJ Governor/US Attorney Chris Christie who prosecuted and sent him to jail called “most loathsome and disgusting.” Last night Kushner’s dad got one of Trump’s pardons, a reward to Jared for abetting his father-in-law’s worst acts and maybe also for helping him set up a secret slush fund to pay for a lot of questionable “campaign” items like Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle and aide Jason Miller/child support evader’s salaries. Trump also pardoned one time campaign manager Paul Manafort and long term BFF Roger Stone along with a bunch of other characters, their pardons mostly as favors to their Republican benefactors a crowd that includes a former aide to Senator Rand Paul, someone with a connection to Conservative lobbyist Matt Schlapp, and Margaret Hunter the wife of the bunny flying Congressman Duncan who got his pardon in Tuesday’s dump.  Both Stone, whose sentence was previously commuted by Trump, and Manafort refused to cooperate with the Mueller Russia investigation so their pardons aren’t surprising, they’re gross and likely constitute obstruction of justice but we saw them coming and now, as a result, only Manafort’s one time side kick Rick Gates and Michael Cohen, the two who “ratted” out Trump, to use his preferred jargon, remain unpardoned. 

What Me Legislate? Before he launched yesterday’s pardon stream Trump vetoed the Defense Spending bill, citing it’s requirement that Confederate named bases be renamed but really because it doesn’t include a repeal of the provision that shields social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, a change that both Republicans and Democrats say is irrelevant to a military policy bill but that Trump wants because he is really pissed that both companies have been pointing out his lies, particularly those claims about the “rigged” election and what he calls his victory but what the rest of us call Joe Biden’s landslide. The defense bill was passed with wide bi-partisan approval, enough votes to override his veto, assuming Republicans have the cojones to vote against him, a bigly if.  If they don’t, our soldiers will get screwed and the beefing up of cybersecurity will to have wait a while longer, and really why would we want to do something about cybersecurity, we’ve already been hacked? Turning to the combined omnibus spending/coronavirus relief bill, that other piece of key legislation that Trump threw a wrench at on Tuesday, Democrats plan to vote in a provision for the $2000 payment that Trump now says he wants, but Republicans seem a whole lot less interested so instead House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who is still firmly on the Trump train, plans to propose cutting foreign aid, that’s the foreign aid included in the omnibus portion of the bill at the request of the Trump administration that Trump is now claiming he knew nothing about. There’s still a chance that Trump will sign the spending/virus bill as is because, among other things, without it the states won’t have the money to go forward with their vaccination programs, or at the very least that he won’t veto it, no one knows for sure.  Yeah, I get it, none of this makes sense but this administration and it’s Republican flunkies gave up on logic and sense many kids in cages ago when they traded in their souls for conservative judges. 

More Musings: Another 3400 of us died yesterday, bringing the death count to 327,123 but none of that seems of concern to Trump who, together with Melania, has decamped to Mar a Lago for now or forever no one knows for sure, especially those White House staffers who received an email yesterday instructing them on how to sign up for post-employment health care plans while telling them to start cleaning out their desks in preparation for their January departures only to have that email recalled moments later.  Did I mention that the US Navy recently sent a guided missile submarine to the Mediterranean and that Trump took time from his pardons and vetoes yesterday to have a “secret” lunch with some Republican Pennsylvania legislators, to discuss his overturn the election plans maybe and to tweet threaten Iran, he did that when he wasn’t encouraging his white supremacist fanboys to show up and protest in the District of Columbia streets on January 6, otherwise known as Electoral College confirmation day.  One more thing, Attorney General Barr exited yesterday, his replacement Jeffrey Rosen is now the Acting Attorney General and no one knows if he’s into guard rails or if he will do anything, and I mean everything Trump wants him to do. 27 Days.

Merry Christmas.  Enjoy the eggnog but avoid large gatherings! #WearAMask