So Much Winning 

And Again:  So Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won again yesterday when, as expected, the Biden/Harris team received 306 electoral college votes to Trump/Pence’s  232.  That’s the good news, the not so good news is that quite a few too many delusional, diehard TrumpPublicans scattered across the country haven’t thrown in the towel yet.  Yesterday, they threatened Democratic electors, tried to force their way into several state houses to disrupt Democratic electors from casting their votes for Biden and went so far as to send alternative pro-Trump electoral college slates from states like Michigan and Arizona on to Washington. Republican Michigan state legislator Gary Eisen actually showed up on a radio show to brag about plans to disrupt the Michigan vote, plans that he casually said to an astonished radio host might have a violent outcome.  Fortunately his plan got squashed and he was stripped of his committee positions but only because of his stupid on air bragging, not because the plans weren’t real.  The alternative electoral slate shenanigan is meaningless but not surprising as it was heralded by Trump’s nefarious advisor Stephen Miller who appeared on the Fox & Friends morning show to announce that “the only date in the Constitution is January 20. So we have more than enough time to right the wrong of this fraudulent election result and certify Donald Trump as the winner of the election." To that end, as of now a number of Republican Congressmen are still planning to be as disruptive as possible on January 6 to delay the inevitable.  At least one Republican Congressman has had enough with his party’s behavior, saying that “it is unacceptable for political candidates to treat our election system as though we are a third-world nation and incite distrust of something so basic as the sanctity of our vote,” Michigan’s Paul Mitchell announced his “disaffiliation” from the Republican Party, nice but he’s also on his way out of Congress so big whoop di doo for him. Where was he when the kids were caged or better yet, the impeachment vote?  With the electoral college vote in the bag a number of Republican Senators including Ohio’s Portman, Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, South Dakota’s Thune and West Virginia’s Moore Capito begrudgingly acknowledged that Biden is the President-elect, of course none of them are named Mitch McConnell though there’s a chance he’ll recognize Biden’s victory during his scheduled Tuesday press conference, just don’t count on it. For his part South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham played both sides, saying he’s spoken with Biden and likes some of his cabinet nominees but still thinks that Trump has a teeny weeny chance to pull out a victory so for now he’ll just call Biden “Joe” rather than “president-elect.”   

Bye Bye Barr: Moments after California’s vote put Biden over the 270 vote threshold needed for victory but before Biden got a chance to take to the podium for a scheduled victory speech, in an attempt to steal back the limelight, Trump tweeted Attorney General Barr out.  Literally, he tweeted Barr out of his job saying that though their relationship has been a very good one and he’d done an outstanding job, he was being kicked to the curb or was kicking himself to the curb and would be gone by Christmas.  At least for now, Barr is being replaced by his deputy Jeffrey Rosen.  For his part Barr had nothing but wonderful things to say about his awesome experience working for Trump.  Neither Trump nor Barr mentioned that Barr had fallen out of favor for failing to “uncover” massive election fraud and for failing to broadcast the Justice Department’s investigation into all things Hunter Biden when it might have helped Trump’s election prospects.  It’s not clear whether Barr’s departure also reflects a refusal or two on his part to do anything else illegal or inappropriate that Trump wants taken care of ASAP. We’ll know that soon enough if some new evil action is announced by the Justice Department or if the newly anointed Acting AG Rosen ends up on the curb too because though there are only 36 days remaining until January 20, there’s still plenty of time for a Nixonian like Saturday Night Massacre.  As to Biden’s speech, he’s clearly had enough with Trump and the TrumpPublican party’s antics.  In an unusually animated and pointed speech he detailed their shenanigans and laid into their failure to acknowledge that the election was over and that he had won, by a lot in the popular vote and by as many electoral college votes as Trump got during that landslide 2016 victory that he likes to brag about.  Biden’s speech was great but he also coughed a bunch of times, causing my Spidey senses to go into overdrive.  Please someone get that man a vaccine and wrap him in a hermetically sealed cocoon, pronto.   

Viral Musings:  In a move that couldn’t have made publicity hungry Trump happy, yesterday morning the equally camera friendly New York Governor Cuomo stole the vaccine limelight by hosting the country’s first vaccination in Queens, New York.  It’s great to see those shots going into arms, except it would be a whole lot nicer if those shots weren’t being accompanied by such dreadful news on the virus front.  Yesterday, the US death count rose to 301,438 and a record number of 232,000 new COVID cases were diagnosed, sadly that’s an indication of far more deaths to come and we haven’t even gotten to what is likely to be a post-Christmas surge.  HHS Secretary Azar asserts that by the end of February it will be as easy to get a COVID vaccination as it currently is to get a run of the mill flu shot, not that he’ll be around when that date passes and we’re still waiting. 

Et Cetera:  In a move that couldn’t have pleased his puppet, Vladimir Putin sent his congratulations to Biden last night. Nice but unfortunately that’s not the only holiday gift he has delivered.  Apparently his techno wizards have been frolicking around inside and by frolicking think stealing secrets and other sensitive information from the State Department, Homeland Security and the Pentagon, among others, the result of a way too successful attack on  Solarwinds software. US Cyber experts rate the Russian computer incursion as an 11 on a scale of 10, a combined goodbye present to Trump and welcome on board gift for Biden?  Of course, so far no condemnation from Trump who may still hope to secure Putin’s signoff for his Moscow Trump Tower, maybe as soon as January 21.  And sadly, while Rudy Giuliani and Ben Carson were beneficiaries of Trump’s miracle cure drugs, it appears that Crede Bailey, the White House Director of Security was not. He’s been in the hospital for months and though he finally appears to have turned the corner, he lost a few body parts during his illness.  Short of cash to pay his rehabilitation bills he’s been raising money through a GoFundMe account. I could be wrong but I’m guessing that since he’s only raised $30,000 so far no one named Trump or Kushner has anted up, yet if ever.