Five Days

Presidents:  One president at a time is the rule but right now we appear to have three.  It’s probably a good thing that the one who is supposed to be running the country gave up even before his bigly election loss.  He’s seething and when not releasing carefully scripted videos, the ones where he still refuses to acknowledge that he lost a fair election and that he had anything to do with last week’s violent insurection, he’s preparing pardons for an overlapping group of co-conspirators and family members and possibly even himself.  The second one is VP Pence who, instead of invoking the 25^th Amendment or convincing Trump to step down early, is standing in for him, heading up security meetings and overseeing whatever still needs to be done to keep the country running through Wednesday, while promising a smooth transition of power to the third, Joe Biden.  Biden is still only the president-elect and though it’s fair to assume he hasn’t sent any Flynn like emissaries to negotiate side deals with foreign powers, he’s saying and preparing to do the things that a president is supposed to do during a crippling pandemic and economic crisis.  Last night he outlined an economic relief package that will, to the extent he can get it through Congress, provide $400 billion to attack the pandemic, accelerate the vaccine rollout and safely reopen schools with another $350 billion going to financially desperate state and local governments, more generous unemployment benefits, federally mandated paid leave for workers and child care subsidies and a much heralded direct payment of $1400 to qualifying individuals, an amount intended to bring the previously approved $600 to $2000. Biden is still promising to get 100 million shots into arms during his first 100 days and though Senate Republicans are unlikely to be receptive to parts of his plan, even they should be on board with funding, fixing and accelerating the vaccine rollout. As to the rollout, Biden who called it a “dismal failure” is expected to announce today that he’s convinced Andy Slavitt, the former Obama official who received accolades for fixing the initially botched rollout of the Obamacare enrollment website to come on board to work his magic for vaccinations.  That’s bad news for those of us addicted to Slavitt’s awesome “In the Bubble” podcast and frequent lengthy but on point tweet streams but great news for the country.  Though the useless and pathetic Trump who disturbingly still controls the nuclear football is doing nothing presidential, his current plan is to stick around until Wednesday morning, when he’ll make a big deal about leaving to the applause of some paid actors as he heads to Mar a Lago before Biden is inaugurated.  That football will go with him but at noon on the dot, its secret codes will expire as another football with updated codes is handed to Biden who, following tradition, will have spent Tuesday night at Blair House, at the invitation of the State Department rather than Trump who couldn’t bear to formally extend the invitation himself.   

Impeach, Impeach, Insurrection:  Every day we learn more about the January 6 insurrection, all of it more horrifying.  Current and former policemen, members of the military, teachers and at least one Olympic gold medalist participated.  Even members of the Capitol police and Congress more than likely lent a hand making the brave actions of those who put their lives on the line to defend Congress that much more impressive, particularly when considering that the largely white crowd of insurrectionists hurled racial slurs at Black members of the Capitol force who at their peril were doing their jobs. FBI Director Chris Wray finally surfaced yesterday, speaking in a meeting hosted by VP Pence who, now that he is untethered from Trump, kept his mask on even when he was speaking.  Wray said that so far 100 Capitol maruauders have been arrested, another 200 suspects have been identified and much more is going on below the surface that he isn’t ready to share.  Additionally the FBI is wading through tens of thousands of tips.  He also warned about an “extensive amount of concerning online chatter,” including calls for armed protests leading up to the inauguration. He provided no good explanation for why the FBI did almost nothing about all the white supremacists on their watch list who made their way into Washington DC before the January 6 horror but did make it clear that this time around everything is being taken seriously.  He’s not the only one taking action, Delta has expanded its no fly list to include anyone and everyone responsible for last week’s events including the people who harrassed Senators Romney and Graham at the airport and in flight. In addition, following Delta’s lead most major airlines will prohibit passengers from putting weapons in their checked luggage, a major hindrance for those who can’t go anywhere without their pistols, Uzis, grenades, or Molotov cocktails.   

Human Resoures:  While most members of the White House staff have already cleaned out their desks, word is that the under indictment Steve Bannon is back, advising Trump possibly to remain first and foremost in his addled brain for one of those coveted soon to come pardons.  Bannon will be competing with Don Jr who has been called in by the DC Attorney General to talk about how he defrauded Trump’s tax-exempt inaugural committee out of $1 million.  Ivanka and Jared  are also facing some heat.  While it might not be a crime to refuse to allow your Secret Service protection contingent to use one of your six bathrooms, forcing them to instead hike to the neighboring Obamas or the Pences or maybe even the bushes, lower case intended, until a $3000 per month apartment can be rented just for the use of its toilet, it is totally sh-tty. That little nugget, or not so little nugget as the case may be, was reported in yesterday’s Washington Post.  On a more serious note, while most of us were focused on Trump’s coup attempt, the Supreme Court revived a restriction on mifepristone, more commonly known as the abortion pill, requiring that prescriptions be picked up in person even during the pandemic because why should women be allowed to control their reproductive destiny and anyway, that rather than insuring that Trump remain in office for ever, is the thing that motivates “his” Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch.  Lastly, get used to hearing these names:  Diana DeGette, David Cicilline, Joaquin Castro, Eric Swalwell, Ted Lieu, Stacey Plaskett, Joe Neguse, and Madeleine Dean.  These Democratic members of Congress will make up the impeachment team headed up by Maryland Congressman/Constitutional law professor Jamie Raskin once Trump’s impeachment trial begins. Also keep an eye on Alaska’s Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who called Trump’s second impeachment as well as the desirability of preventing him from ever serving in office again appropriate as she may well be one of the hopefully many Republicans that vote to convict him.   

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