Snow Day?

Mitch Has Spoken: Not long after Trump retweeted a message from Lin Wood, his favorite crazy conspiracy lawyer, calling for Georgia’s Republican Governor Kemp and Secretary of State Raffensperger to be arrested for failing to overturn the legitimate results of their state’s election, Senate Majority Leader McConnell took to the podium, lauded Trump’s awesome accomplishments and then did what he should have done weeks ago, recognized Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ victory.  He even commented on how neat it was that the country’s first female VP was coming from the Senate.  McConnell’s announcement wasn’t a surprise to Trump, according to Axios the turtle notified the White House in advance of making his remarks.  McConnell also gave a heads up to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, suggesting that he too should recognize that the election was a done deal, but with visions of becoming Speaker of the House in 2022 in the event that Democrats shed seats during the mid-terms, a thoroughly depressing but not totally unrealistic assumption, McCarthy’s sticking with Trump and his rigged election myth because he knows his base in nuts and he needs those nuts to stick with him.  Later in the day, McConnell told his Senators that he doesn’t want any of them to cause trouble when Congress meets on January 6 to confirm the Electoral College vote. Notably Wisconsin’s Senator Ron Johnson who for a while appeared willing to protest the vote has already gotten the message, yesterday he said that while he still plans to hold his planned election fraud Homeland Security hearing, he doesn’t plan to upset the election apple cart.  That’s good news, because absent a participating Senator the rogue Republican House members who still do plan to protest, won’t be able to do much more than yell.  Trump who had to be even more enraged after Biden reported that he’d had a nice conversation with his good friend Mitch to thank him is still yelling and planning nefarious deeds, overnight he retweeted another one of Lin Wood’s messages together with one from his former national security advisor/ pardon recipient Mike Flynn;  both tweets slammed “power hungry,” “not a patriot” McConnell because obviously he, like soon to be former Attorney General Barr, is now part of those deep state anti-Trump forces. As to Barr, he’s not gone yet but already his designated replacement Jeffrey Rosen is being pressured to assign a special counsel or two, one to go after all things Hunter Biden and another to investigate election fraud.  In addition NBC news reports, that as previously noted FBI Director Wray is holding on by a thread, that Trump wakes up every morning with plans to fire him but only hasn’t because the White House counsel’s office has advised him that firing Wray would raise concerns about loyalty tests and would bring about the same type of crisis that firing Comey initiated.  Frankly with his term ending, why would that stop him? 

Peaches: Trump also doesn’t appear to really care all that much about the upcoming Georgia election.  Sure he’s been sending out multitudes of fundraising emails, but much to the RNC’s dismay, instead of forwarding the money on to Senators Loeffler and Perdue’s campaigns, he’s been keeping 75% of the proceeds generated for his own account. Loeffler, the richest member of the Senate and Perdue, the Senate’s most active stock trader are running neck and neck with their opponents Ossoff and Warnock. Apparently only a few Georgians are turned off by pictures of Loeffler with KKK members and with reports of both of their profit gauging and many have bought into the Republican attacks on the Democratic duo, that they are both radical socialists, that Ossoff is too Jewish and that Warnock, a Reverend, hates religion.  At the end of the day, the election is expected to hinge on turnout, and so far a lot of Georgians are turning out, more of the early voters who turned out for the first day of early voting were Democrats but just like there was a red mirage in November that could just be a blue mirage, only time will tell, which explains why Biden was there yesterday trying to rally those who voted for him as well as those who split their tickets to go all in for Warnock and Ossoff.       

Rhodes to Roads:  Rumors that Pete Buttigieg was being considered for an ambassadorship were wrong.  Yesterday the Rhodes Scholar was put in charge of roads, Biden plans to nominate him to serve as Secretary of Transportation.  He may not be an expert on trains, planes and automobiles but he’ll definitely be an upgrade from Mitch’s wife Elaine Chao who was only interested in doing things to help her family’s ship company. Expect a few real infrastructure weeks next year.  Its also reported that Biden has picked former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to serve as his Energy Secretary.  Granholm who steered Michigan through its recovery from the 2008 recession is a long-time advocate of renewable energy.  Hopefully, she’ll also be a quick learner of all things nuclear, but it’s not like Trump’s first energy secretary, Rick Perry, who once advocated getting rid of the whole department,  knew anything about either subject when he was confirmed.

Viral Musings: Secretary of State Pompeo’s planned year end gala fizzled last night as most of the 900 invitees to the mask free festivity opted instead to heed the advice of virus experts by staying home.  As a result only 70 or so covidiots showed up.  Given that the COVID death count is now up to 304,683 the decision by many to stay home was wise.  Recent reports that herd immunity advocate/Florida Governor DeSantis is playing games with his death numbers, hiding them when it suits him and releasing them when he hopes no one notices makes it likely that the death statistic is understated.  By the way, DeSantis is one of those who’s still having a hard time acknowledging Biden’s victory because even though he kind of admitted that Trump lost, it’s not for him to recognize who won, or so he says.  One piece of good news, it’s highly likely that Moderna’s mRNA vaccine will be approved by week’s end, assuming the company can ramp up production, that will mean a lot more vaccinations in the coming months.    

Et Cetera:  The thought to be Russian cyber-attack on the Solarwinds software was even biglier than reported, lots of government departments and corporations were impacted. Still nothing from Trump but national security advisor Robert O’Brien who was on a boondoggle  European trip with his wife that involved a private tour through the virus closed Louvre has cut short his trip to head home to deal with the emergency.  Thanks mostly to the efforts of a bipartisan team of moderate Senators including West Virginia Democrat Manchin and Maine Republican Collins working with Speaker Pelosi and anyone else who would listen we may finally be getting a coronavirus emergency relief package, it won’t be perfect, it will be smaller than desired but it will be something, a placeholder until Biden tries for a bigger one.      

35 Days