TGIF 11/20/20

Wouldn't it be fun to blog like the woman in charge of the GAO tweets?  GSA Administrator Emily Murphy's now-deleted tweet from Wednesday (you can see it here) - the first one she had sent since the election - inspired me to compose the following very important and very confusing sentence.  

Had;j aow4ith pa984ty;;o gnz;dkfn.

Maybe someone good at creating codes could make it mean something - you know, like those tattoos on Jane Doe's body on Blindspot all had some deeper meaning awaiting discovery? 

In addition to that weird tweet, Administrator Murphy has gotten attention from members of the House, some of whom sent this request. They're looking for an "immediate briefing" on Murphy's "ongoing refusal" to give the Biden-Harris team the access - and funds - they're afforded under the President Transition Act. And, they're interested in some recent actions by the president, too. 

We also have questions about last-minute actions taken by the White House related to GSA leading up to the election. On September 2, 2020, president Trump issued an executive order modifying the-longstanding order of succession within GAS to place the General Counsel as fourth-in-line to perform the duties of Administrator after you, your Deputy, and your Chief of Staff. 

And then, less than a week before the election, Trump installed a new GSA General Counsel - imagine that! So, it would seem, there is no limit to the lengths to which he will go to interfere in, well, pretty much anything and everything. 

Speaking of interfering, it seems former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon is again more interesting in his post-White House life than when he was there. This time, the FTC is interested in hearing from him regarding the Cambridge Analytica data breach from a while back. 

The Federal Trade Commission has asked a federal court to force former Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon to testify under oath as part of the agency's investigation into Facebook's Cambridge Analytica data breach.

Seems they want to interview Bannon as part of a probe into whether he should be found personally liable for his involvement in the breach, for which Facebook was fined $5B and two of the firm's executives settled with the FTC

And, speaking of "only the best people," there's the president's 40th 4th press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, who's made so many recent campaign appearances and 'personal' appearances on Fox News, I'm sort of shocked that she even remembered where the White House press briefing room is. But she did, and she was in full campaign mode today, seemingly trying to convince people that there wasn't an orderly transition of power in 2016. Which is a bald-faced lie, except that it can't be a lie, because she said she'd never lie. So now, I don't know what to think (OK, seriously - of course I know what to think, and you do too, right?)

Also, on the not knowing what to think front, I wonder why we're not :hearing from the folks who are always complaining about bail reform...I mean, Kyle Rittenhouse, who gave someone money to purchase what was described as an assault-style weapon, then got a ride from his home in Illinois to neighboring Wisconsin, where he used the gun to kill two and injure another man, has been released after posting a $2M cash bond.  Why is he out on bail? Why aren't people outraged by that? 

I'd put Bannon, McEnany, and Murphy on the bad week list, but Rittenhouse, with the help of the millions of dollars raised for his legal defense, definitely had a good week.

Also of note this week:

• Rudy Giuliani, who found the right place to hold his press conference, and then wilted under pressure (bad week);
• the president, who claimed (again) that he won the election, boasting of his 74 million votes; too bad he lost (bad week):
• Dolly Parton, who donated a million bucks to coronavirus efforts, and ended up helping to fund the Moderna/BioNtech vaccine (good week);
• BioNtech, the German company I've heard pronounced four or five different ways in the past several days. They've got a bit of an uphill battle on that front, I think (mixed week);
• SpaceX, and NASA, and especially the four astronauts who very smoothly went from earth to the International Space Station (great week); and
• Staff Sgt. Phillip Gray, who wrote 270 notes for his daughter - one for each day he'd be deployed - which his wife put in his daughter's lunchbox. (GREAT week!)

I hope it's easy for you to tell what kind of week you had.

TGIF, everyone.