Rabbit Holes 

Smoking Gun:  No tapes or transcripts of Trump pledging loyalty to Putin, well at least so far, but now we’ve got written proof of his plan to “solve” the coronavirus problem through herd immunity, something that the rest of us call mass murder.  Yesterday the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis chaired by South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn released some email correspondence finally obtained from the CDC; included were emails from Paul Alexander, a former HHS “science” advisor who pushed the White House’s “herd” agenda. Alexander had been hired by Michael Caputo, the former HHS  assistant public affairs secretary who took a leave of absence after blaming his faulty lymphatic system for his own erratic behavior some of which included accusing CDC scientists of forming a “resistance” unit against Trump.  Alexander’s emails to people like CDC head Robert Redfield reveal his advocacy for letting young and middle-aged Americans become infected with COVID to get the country to herd immunity without a vaccine; no exaggeration on my part, he actually wrote “we want them infected….there is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD." His misguided, lethal theory, the same one pushed by one time Trump advisor radiologist/faux virologist Scott Atlas was built on two faulty premises: the first, that older and other more vulnerable people could be isolated from all those stronger young ones and second, that the number of those younger/middled age folks getting really sick and/or actually dying wouldn’t be significant. Tell that to the families of the 308,143 who have died to date, the 3000 plus who make up yesterday’s record death count or the health care professionals staffing overloaded and makeshift hospitals.  Anyway, that the White House was pushing herd immunity and didn’t have much sympathy for those affected by their plan shouldn’t come as a surprise, Trump’s more or less been saying so ever since March and wasn’t it Jared Kushner who said early on that the virus wasn’t really a concern since only New Yorkers were dying? By the way, it wasn’t just Trump and Jared, apparently Ivanka and Kellyanne Conway called their educated advice into HHS and the CDC too.  Of course, yesterday being a day of the week that ended in “day” a few more prominent people, some of whom might really have bought into Trump’s herd logic have entered quarantine. Among those are Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who is now in quarantine, not positive, at least no so far, but recently exposed to an infected close associate, likely the reason why he and his wife failed to show up for one of their own spread-a-thon holiday parties; Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, who recently attended a function with a number of Trump staffers as well as Republican Senators Barrasso, Daines and Cramer and who found out about his diagnosis right before he was supposed to attend what hopefully was Trump’s last Cabinet meeting; French Prime Minister Emanuel Macron who announced his positivity early this morning; and, of huge concern, a member of President-elect Biden’s transition press corps, who is now in isolation.  That last positive shows how sneaky and insidious this virus is and explains virus guru Fauci’s insistence that Biden and VP-elect Kamala Harris get vaccinated as soon as possible.  Biden’s and presumably Harris’ vaccinations are now scheduled for early next week while current VP Pence and mother are scheduled to get theirs on Friday. All are planning to get their shots on camera to set an example, hopefully none of them will go anaphylactic on us. That side effect, while rare, occurred again yesterday in Alaska, the good news is that the affected individual is doing okay now. By the way, having passed on ordering more Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines in November, HHS Secretary Azar says that the government is now actively negotiating to get more and that Trump is or says he is, with him you never know, authorizing the fast tracking of some of the necessary components to get that order in place. 

Crazy Train: Yesterday while soon to be Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was expressing his affinity for trains and revealing that he’d proposed to his husband Chastain at O’Hare Airport, Republican Senator Ron Johnson, who is right there with Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Joseph McCarthy on that list of the worst Senators ever, went ahead with his Homeland Security Committee meeting.  Instead of focusing on a real issue, like that incredibly damaging invasion of all those key US government and corporate computer systems, he dwelled on election fraud.  His current position, one echoed by the other Republicans on the committee is that since so many people voted for Trump and so many of them believe that the election was stolen from him by all the Biden voters, a majority of whom the Trump echo chamber insists were dead zombies fresh off the apocalypse, illegal or both then there obviously must really have been fraud even if there’s no proof of that fraud.  That circular reasoning didn’t go over well with Ranking Member Gary Peters who called Johnson out saying “I don’t know what rabbit hole your running down,” or with former cyber head Christopher Krebs who was there to counter Republican assertions of rampant fraud.  Krebs urged all to “put baseless election disputes behind them,” warning that false conspiracy claims were fueling violent threats to election officials himself included.  As to the risk of violence, one of yesterday’s wildest news stories concerned the Texas van driver who was stalked for days until he was “captured” at gun point by a vigilante ex-policeman funded by a Trump friendly rich loony tune who previously tried but failed to get thousands of fraudulent as in people of color Texas votes disqualified.  The retired policeman accused the innocent van driver of transporting hundreds of thousands of purloined ballots.  Spoiler alert, the driver had only air conditioning parts in his truck and the former police officer is now in jail, a relatively happy ending to an escapade that could have easily turned out lethal. 

What Can Go Wrong?  No surprise here, but reports are that Trump is growing increasingly delusional, that he isn’t faking his belief that he really won the election just to raise money from his base, but that egged on by some of his most ardent supporters at Fox, OAN and Newsmax, he really believes he won.  One of those “anonymous” White House sources, probably someone named Ivanka or Mark Meadows, calls him “f-cking crazy.” Apparently, he’s even thinking about refusing to leave the White House come January 20, something that might please those Palm Beach residents who don’t want him taking up permanent residency in their neighborhood but isn’t really a good thing, though who among us wouldn’t want to see him dragged out in a tight fitting armhole-less white jacket?  As crazy as he is, he is focusing on important things, like pardons, a list that may now include his finance guy Alan Weisselberg, and getting rid of shower head and toilet bowl flow restrictions, better than tossing the football.  Oy. 

34 Days