In Case You Missed It (v64)

I had a back-to-normal week here, in terms of getting posts out of my head, through my fingers, and posted.  Here's last week in review. 

The Sunday School classrooms were full of Republicans, and there was a marked difference between the guys from Georgia and Louisiana and one from Indiana, in terms of how much of a grasp on reality they each had.  Here's a bit from the correct side of history. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger talked with George on This Week. Here's what he had to say about the Rs who refuse to accept the results of the election.

... at the end of the day we, as Republicans, didn't turn out enough voters. Our office, as secretary of state, is really just to look at what those vote totals were, and we report the results. And that's why it gets back to the state party didn't do their job, didn't raise enough money and didn't turn out enough people.

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who has said publicly that Biden won, talked with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.  Wallace asked if Trump's refusal to accept the results damages our democracy. Cassidy said Trump basically has conceded, since he ordered the GSA to begin the official transition process. He also said this.

Now, if you want to speak about how things are undermined, I think the president -- by the way, if there's fraud, it should be uncovered. But it should be uncovered in a way which a judge agrees. If the president is able to show that, then that's important. If they can't show, that's also important.  I'm hoping the American people would look and say, proven in a court of law, no, the court of law threw it out, and use that to base their faith in how the elections go. And so that's -- it's incumbent upon the president and his legal team to establish that. 

The only definition of 'incumbent' that Trump understands is the one that identifies him as the current occupant of the White House; any other definitions are secondary at best, and probably much further down the list that that.

In addition to the Rs being out in force, so were the medical experts, talking about our horrible performance in trying to bend the coronavirus case, hospitalization, and death curves downward. In addition to the experts, HHS Secretary Alex Azar was also wandering the halls, offering platitudes and little comfort. I touched on that in your Sunday School Extra Credit.

In his discussion with Chris Wallace, who asked about the president's continued refusal to follow his administration's guidance on mask-wearing, specifically including at the Georgia rally he held the night before, Azar said

Chris, our advice is always the same, wash your hands, watch your distance, wear face coverings when you can't watch your distance and be especially careful of those settings like overcrowded indoor bars and restaurants or multi-family household gatherings where you're going to let your guard down and take that face covering off. So, Chris, our advice is the same, regardless of the setting.

And, "regardless of the setting," Azar is incapable of saying anything negative about his boss. In another part of the interview, he directly contradicted Dr. Deborah Birx's advice, too. Great leadership from the secretary on that.

And speaking of "regardless of setting," the president held a little vaccine get-together (absent anyone from the Biden transition team, naturally), which turned into one of his famous open mic poetry slams. Here's a snipped of the OrangeVerse from the gathering, part of a stream on the election he just lost.

And if somebody has the courage, I

know who the next administration will be.

And I’ll tell you what: Life will be much easier

for this country because of what we’ve done

right now and because of a lot

of the people in this room.

The job you’ve done on the vaccine,

together with a lot of others,

has been a modern-day

miracle, and it’s really been

acknowledged as such.

And I want to thank you.

I want to give you my love,

and I want to give you my thanks

because you’re very special people.

The people who worked on the vaccine are special people; the folks who worked on getting manufacturing ramped up are special people; the folks who worked on the distribution plan are special people. The guy with the mic? Nah, not so much. 

The theme of coronavirus-pandemic-vaccines also made it into the Wondering on Wednesday entry last week. 

And speaking of yelling, I'm surprised there's been so little actual yelling from the Rs on news that the Trump administration turned down opportunities to get additional doses -- lots and lots and lots of additional doses - of the Pfizer vaccine, perhaps putting us in jeopardy of not having enough doses as fast as we need them.

While HHS Secretary Alex Azar says that Pfizer is "negotiating in the press" to sell more doses to the US, others aren't seeing it the same way. Including the president, who signed another (apparently) toothless Executive Order or, as the Guardian article linked above puts it,

... as with many headline-grabbing orders issued by Trump the decree did not appear to be impactful or enforceable, analysts said.

Not only that, but Moncef Slaoui, the head of Operation Warp Speed, said "Frankly, I don't know," when asked how the new EO was supposed to work.

Gotta love toothless Executive Orders, especially when Trump said he wasn't going to use them.  

Your TGIF entry was short, it had a picture, and the font was really big, for the folks in the back of the room. Usually that's where the "fake news" people are, but in this case, that's where the fake Patriotic Americans are. 

Everyone knew he lost.

And now, barring an act of sedition, 

we will be done with him.

And, finally, I had the great fortune to click on a tweet link and read Roger Ebert movie reviews - of 50 movies he hated, the article said.  As I read them I saw quite readily that many of his reviews could be applied to the Trump presidency, his slate of only the best people, and some of their situations.  Here's just one example where, with minor tweaks to the titles or portions of Ebert's comments, we've got a spot-on review of our current situation. My changes are in italics.

And it would be hard to talk about the Trump administration without mentioning our great First Lady Melania, who starred in 2017's Exit from Manhattan.

I'm sorry, but I just don't get Melania Trump. I've seen her in three or four movies now, and she generally has the same effect on me as fingernails on a blackboard. She's harsh and abrupt and staccato and doesn't seem to be having any fun. She looks mean...  What were your first thoughts when Melania turned up in the leather dominatrix uniform? Did you maybe have slight misgivings that you were presiding over one of the more misguided film projects of recent years?

That one was fun. And we all need fun, right? 

There you have it -- the full and veritable pastiche from last week.  Thanks for stopping by. I'll be back later with today's Sunday School. Have a great day!

I'll be back later with your Sunday School.