Kevlar Vests

Rudy!  I wasn’t planning on writing today but then Rudy Giuliani happened, Joe Biden went with an ab lib about deer in Kevlar and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who earlier spoke about all the times he was stopped for driving while Black, said that there was no systemic racism in America so here goes.  On the Rudy front, America’s one time mayor had a Michael Cohen kind of day and not in a good way.  The Former Guy’s former lawyer’s New York apartment and office were raided by FBI agents searching for information about his Ukraine activities.  The G Men left with electronic equipment including a few phones and maybe even one or more of those Hunter Biden’s “laptops.”  Notably Southern District of New York prosecutors have been trying to get their hands on Rudy’s cache for a while but had been stymied or should I say obstructed by former Attorney General Bill Barr and his henchmen.  It’s probably not coincidental that the Rudy raid took place right after Merrick Garland’s second in command Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco was finally confirmed and sworn in.  She seems to have hit the ground running, managing to sign off on the Rudy raid between investigations into police shootings.  Rudy who had a replacement sit in for him on his usual radio show gig yesterday sent son Andrew, the Former Guy’s former paid golfing buddy, out to defend him.  Unsurprisingly, Andrew who sounded like one of those mobsters that Rudy used to round up, may not have been the best spokesman unless of course cartoonish thugs are your thing. Rudy is scheduled to appear on Tucker Carlson’s show tonight, what but everything could go wrong?

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs:  If last night was a drinking game and the word jobs was the shot trigger we’d all be nursing wild hangovers this morning.  President Biden, who had clearly practiced and practiced again before stepping to the podium, made sure to mention that everything on his legislative wish list would results in lots of jobs, more jobs and job training for everyone, regardless of their ethnicity or party affiliation.  Whether you’re all in on his ambitious agenda and those potential tax increases or not you have to give him credit for the tone of his speech and its delivery, a refreshing change from the Former Guy’s Stephen Miller scribed annual doom and gloomsplaining. Though Biden mostly stuck to the script, he did include a few ad libs, including my favorite when he advocated for gun control by saying “talk to most responsible gun owners and hunters — they’ll tell you there’s no possible justification for having a hundred rounds in a weapon. What, do you think deer are wearing Kevlar vests?”  That comment didn’t go over well with Colorado Congresswoman/gun enthusiast Lauren Boebert whose whole body especially her trigger fingers looked to be twitching uncontrollably, good thing she hadn’t been able to bring some of her advanced weaponry to the speech, but it did inspire some good Twitter memes of deer in vests.  As to the rest of Biden’s speech, some Republicans actually applauded a few things he said, agreeing for example that being tough on China is a good thing but most went with the traditional for parties out of power silence/sit on hands routine even when he hit some really populist notes.  For example they didn’t even applaud when he talked about ending child hunger.  One pleasant surprise, Ted “Cancun”  Cruz who spent much of the speech sleeping actually applauded when Biden said everyone should get vaccinated.

The Official Diss:  That Tim Scott was chosen to give the official response wasn’t surprising because how better to convince white soccer moms that you’re not the party of white supremacists than to send out your one Black senator.  Unfortunately, Scott who has actually been getting some accolades from some Democrats for his efforts to hash out bipartisan police reform legislation stuck to the party line delivering a speech that could have come from some of his whitest, most insurrectionist colleagues like Utah’s Mike Lee or Arkansas’ Tom Cotton.  In addition to denying that anyone in his party or the country had a racist bone in their body, he slammed Biden’s socialist agenda and called the Democrat party, as opposed to all those Republicans who participated in the January 6^th insurrection and who still don’t think that the 2020 election was legitimate, divisive. He also had the chutzpah to claim that Republicans were all in on voters’ rights.  He pretty much said that Georgia’s new voter suppressive legislation was really the best thing since peach pie, way better than anything from the Big Apple.  He’s not wrong in pointing out that New York State’s voter legislation isn’t all that accommodating, the state only recently started allowing early voting.  However, he intentionally failed to mention that Georgia’s new law would allow its Republican legislature to undo legitimate election results they don’t like. To that end Georgia’s one time Senator Kelly Loeffler who still hasn’t gotten over her loss to Raphael Warnock is now calling on Georgia’s top law enforcement official to investigate Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the Republican who despite his party affiliation defended the legitimacy of his state’s election results, for his handling of the 2020 election.   

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235 million shots in arms