Wake Me Up When It's Wednesday 

Soon, Soon, Soon: Wednesday can’t come soon enough.  Sure we’ll be living with the consequences of four years of Trump as neither he nor Trumpism are going to disappear overnight or maybe ever but at least the mad Fascist criminal, dictator wannabee will be gone from the Oval Office, replaced by Joe Biden who is neither sleepy nor hiding in his basement but is going to hit the ground running, unraveling a lot of Trump’s orders and implementing coronavirus mitigation policies on day one when he plans to return the US to the Paris climate accords, repeal the Muslim ban, extend nationwide restrictions on evictions and foreclosures and implement a mask mandate on federal property.  Leading by example, the President elect will also be exhorting everyone, everywhere to mask up for 100 days something that is unlikely to persuade Trump’s diehard fans, particularly the moronic thugs who exposed their faces during the January 6 insurrection.  That crowd which was overwhelmingly made up of Trump supporters including Republican party officials and political donors, far-right militants, white supremacists, off-duty police, members of the military and adherents to the Q Anon myth that the government is secretly controlled by “a cabal of Satan worshipping pedophile cannibals” are unlikely to comply, but then again, isn’t masking mandatory in prison? It’s going to take awhile for all the details about January 6 to come out, but they will come out. By now most of us have seen the horrifying video clips shared by the New Yorker photo journalist who embedded himself among the marauders as they rampaged through the Capitol, while screaming for VP Pence and Speaker Pelosi’s heads. It’s reported that one of those marauders may actually be trying to sell Nancy Pelosi’s laptop to the Russians.  In addition, the AP reports that members of Trump’s campaign played key roles in orchestrating the so-called rally.  It was hosted by a pro-Trump nonprofit called Women for American First which applied for and received the Park Service permits and at least three of the people listed on those permits were on the Trump campaign payroll, including Megan Powers, Caroline Wren and Megan Mulvaney, former Chief of Staff Mick’s niece, so forget about the idea that the rally was a grassroots effort.   The FBI is on the case, and with the help of all those pictures, tweet chains, Facebook postings, disgruntled former wives, estranged children, and phone location finders as well as a few creative Bumble and Tinder women who’ve turned in some picture posting charmers, the list of those getting arrested, put on no fly lists and/or losing their jobs continues to grow. As to what was apparently a huge security failure, Pelosi has tapped Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who led the military’s response to Hurricane Katrina to lead an immediate review of the security of the Capitol complex.  Of course, Trump fan boy Senator Lindsey Graham has already weighed in, in addition to  telling soon to be Senate Leader Chuck Schumer that he shouldn’t proceed with an impeachment hearing because it would be divisive, unlike Trump who he insists is trying to unite the country, the kowtowing South Carolinian blamed Pelosi, saying that it was her fault that the Capitol was breached because you know, she’s the Speaker.  Any chance we can get Graham to head out of town on Wednesday with Trump who is scheduled to leave in the morning after first “honoring” himself with a 21 gun salute?  Of course that will be after the much anticipated 100 or more pardons, which are due out Tuesday night.  And some of those pardons come with a price, apparently a bunch of lawyers have been charging a boatload of dough for getting clients into the queue.    

Impeach, Impeach, Impeach: It’s still unclear when the impeachment trial will start because Pelosi hasn’t sent over the Articles of Impeachment yet but once it does the plan will be for the Senate to split its days in two in order to make time to also confirm Biden’s appointments and to move ahead with his legislative agenda.  Rudy Giuliani who was seen in and out of the White House over the weekend insists that he’ll be leading Trump’s legal team though some of Trump’s advisors say that’s not happening but with the likes of Jay Sekulow and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone not interested in reprising their rolls, Giuliani may be the only one left.  Does anyone know if a co-conspirator can work a case?   By the way Giuliani’s defense plan includes proving that all that faux election fraud was real.  That’s something that puts him in cahoots with Mike Lindell, AKA the MyPillow Man who was seen at the White House on Friday.  Someone should probably tell Mr Pillow that holding easily readable notes calling for your fascist leader to continue with his insurrection/coup strategy, while declaring martial law, and installing Devin Nunes acolyte Kash Patel as the head of the CIA, is more bumbling Clouseau than suave 007.  As to Kash Patel, his name certainly gets bandied around a lot, apparently Trump tried to install him as CIA head Gina Haspel’s senior deputy after the election but she made it clear that she’d resign if he did.  Around that time, Haspel was seen having a highly unusual meeting with Senate Leader McConnell, maybe he put the kibosh on that plan, who knows? We also don’t know where Mitch stands on convicting Trump, if he votes yes, it’s thought that a lot of other Republicans beyond the more outspoken crowd of Romney, Murkowski, Collins, Toomey and Sasse might too, tipping the balance but don’t bet the farm on that.  Unfortunately no one was able to stop Trump’s Acting Secretary of Defense Miller from forcing the installation of another questionable character, Michael Ellis, as chief legal counsel at the NSA this weekend.  That move was done over the objections of NSA director Nakasone. Obviously Biden will replace him on day one, but given Civil Service rules doing so won’t be easy which of course was the point of forcing his installation.   It also won’t be easy to kick out some of those members of Congress who should be shown the door.  And I am not just talking about Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley, who was forced to cancel an Orlando Florida family oriented fund raiser scheduled for next month, by the way who takes their kids to Disney World during a pandemic?  Saying that they “are horrified and opposed to the events at the Capitol and all who supported and incited the actions,” the Lowes Hotel company kicked a defiant Hawley to the curb. Among the others who should be shown the door are Congresswoman Marjorie “QAnon” Taylor Greene who was suspended from Twitter for a measly twelve hours yesterday for spreading election misinformation and Glock toter, misinformation spreader, anti-masker Lauren Boebert whose communications director, a more mainstream Republican who had been assigned to show her the ropes quit over the weekend.  By the way Congresswoman QAnon plans to introduce a resolution calling for Joe Biden’s impeachment even before he takes office.  That’s just the tip of the Republican deplorable iceberg.  Remember when Ilhan Omar was the “worst” ever, well she still isn’t my favorite but she seems positively delightful compared to this crowd and she like the other members of the so-called Squad, including AOC and Ayanna Pressley had good reasons to fear for their lives last week given how the right has demonized them for everything and anything they’ve ever said and a lot that they haven’t. Sadly, protective vests and helmets are selling well in the halls of Congress, good thing that their costs are reimbursable for legislators that is.

Viral Musings: On the vaccine front, the news was mixed over the weekend.  After being told that the Federal Government was about to release their reserves, the states scheduled a lot more shots only to be told that the vaccine cupboard was dry causing a number of hospitals and facilities to cancel appointments late last week.  It turns out that the news while not great, isn’t as bad as that, this week’s allocations will be down but the supply is on its way as the manufacturers have been meeting their production targets.  On Friday, NY’s Governor Cuomo promised that all those scheduled for second doses will get them and over the weekend Virus Guru Fauci repeated that message while adding that the Moderna and Pfizer pipelines were reliable.  He also said that two more vaccines, from AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson are getting closer to approval, weeks rather than months away. Unfortunately the death toll continues to climb, at 398k it’s expected to cross through 400k sometime today.  

 Fifty two and one half hours