TGIF 1/11/19

Well, happy Friday, everyone! How's your week going?

NY's junior senator Kirsten Gillibrand seems to be having a good week - she's hired some new folks and rented some new office space, and she's also traveling to Iowa, we've heard. Based on all of  this, it seems the senator is staring at 2020 on her calendar. Even though, we remember, she made it clear during her 2018 campaign that she had no designs on a presidential race. "I will serve my six year term." she said.

But if she's planning on serving her full Senate term, maybe all of her work now is really just to get her better name recognition for 2024? Of course, at that point, she might be joined in the race by our Sonofa Gov Andrew Cuomo - he's also not running in 2020, he's assured us, but he sure sounds like he's running sometime soon.

Staying in New York,  I really can't tell if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is having a good week or a bad week. She seems just fine being in the public eye for, well, for being in the public eye. Giving as good as she gets when people say something about her, whether it's an attack from the right or a nudge from the left; whether it's a response to an interview, an attack on her college dancing, even pictures of naked legs (that aren't hers) or just someone deciding to talk about all of the attention she's getting. Which generates more attention, which generates more responses, which generates more attention, and so on.

I'm going to get yelled at for this, I'm sure, but I'd love for her to be getting attention for her work in Congress, not because she is in Congress. And yes, I know it's early, and I know this new class of Dems is the loudest bunch of folks the media has seen since, well, that orange cur rode the escalator, but the proof is not in the press, it's in the pudding.


California and Puerto Rico could be having bad weeks - if not now, soon - if the president sticks to his little pistols, declares a national emergency for his home-made crisis, and takes money designated for California flood control projects and rebuilding projects on the island, to build the wall/fence/steel barrier across the southern border. There's just something about taking 'blue' money that makes Trump's 'red' heart just throb, I guess. See, it's more than just the wall projects - he's also threatened to pull FEMA money for mudslide and wildfire prevention from California, presumably until they sweep the forest floor.

Federal employees who got net zero paychecks today are having a horrible week/month/year, as the ridiculous and totally unnecessary government shutdown continues unabated. But fear not -- mortgage lenders will be able to continue functioning, and making their profit, because the Trump administration has declared that IRS income-verification folks are suddenly 'essential employees.' Pretty much everyone who's not in Trump's inner circle or the mortgage lending business thinks this is ridiculous and proves (as if we needed more proof) that the administration is not working for us, it's working for their friends.

And finally, we'll go to Iowa, just like Gillibrand, where dinosaur Rep. Steve King is in hot water - again - for his racist views. This time, he was wondering how terms like "white supremacist, white nationalist and Western Civilization" became offensive. But that's not all, oh no siree.  There was also this, from the Times:

Reflecting on the record number of black people and women in the new Congress, he added: "You could look over there and think the Democratic Party is no country for white men."

I hope that soon, there's no Iowa for Steve King. That would go a long way for making a better week for all people of color, and for all Americans who understand and appreciate how offensive his legacy of comment really is.

TGIF, everyone.