Wondering on Wednesday 11/13/24

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

It's been a while since I've published my mid-week Wonderings, but today seems like as good a time as any to get back in the saddle. Let's dive in!

Our once and future president (OAFP) visited the White House today to shake hands with President Joe Biden. Current presidents welcoming incoming presidents is all about putting our best feet forward and letting the country know there'll be a smooth transition between administrations. 

I don't wonder, at all, why Biden invited the guy to stop by, even though he was denied the same courtesy four years ago. After all, one of these men is a decent human being, and the other threw paper towels to hurricane victims he didn't even know were Americans. 

Why the OAFP showed up is open to question. I doubt he cares about the transition; I'm sure it was for the cameras, and nothing else. I wonder if we'll see him selling trading cards of him standing over Biden during their handshake. 

Speaking of a smooth transition, Congress passed The Presidential Transition Enhancement Act a while back; the law requires the Democrat and Republican nominees to submit, no later than October 1st of a presidential election year, Memorandums of Understanding with the government related to transition activities, including 

(1) ...an agreement that the eligible candidate will implement and enforce an ethics plan to guide the conduct of the transition beginning on the date on which the eligible candidate becomes the President-elect.

47's team has yet to sign the overdue documents, so while the OAFP is busy lining up his minions, no official transition stuff can happen. If you're wondering what the holdup is, reports point to the ethics requirements. Shocked? I didn't think so. 

Speaking of minions, the joke is he doesn't have a Cabinet, he has a junk drawer, so there's no wonder it's shaping up to be a doozy:

• NY Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has been tapped to be the next Ambassador to the United Nations.  She's not known for her reasonable, even-tempered demeanor, and she's made a name for herself in two ways: her unwavering attacks on anyone who speaks ill of Israel and/or supports Palestinians, and for sucking up to Trump. 

• Another New Yorker, former Congressman Lee Zeldin, has been tapped to head the Environmental Protection Agency. His most notable qualification for this role, it seems, is his 14% approval rating from the League of Conservation Voters. 

• Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is Trump's pick for Ambassador to Isreal. The first non-Jew to be chosen for this role, he believes that there's no such thing as 'the West Bank' and said that "of course" the annexation of that land is a possibility under the new administration.

• Fox News host (and husband of another Fox News host) Pete Hegseth has been picked to be the new Secretary of Defense. Now, he's not completely without qualification for the role - he is a veteran, after all. And he's got more than a passing familiarity with weapons of war, like these aromatic grenades.  How much of a shock was this, you might be wondering? Well, even his cohost was stunned. 

• Ethically challenged Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz has just been picked to be the Attorney General. This is so absurd, the only thing I'm wondering is if Rep. Jim Jordan turned it down first. 

• Also joining the administration from Florida are Secretary of State pick Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Mike Waltz, who's been chosen to be National Security Advisor.

• And moments ago, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who's also a former Democrat and a big friend of Russia, was tapped to be the Director of National Security.  

Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.  If this first round of appointments is indicative of what's to come, I can't help wondering whether our allies are laughing or crying right now.

On the plus side? Most of these appointments will require the advice and consent of the Senate. But there's a catch here, that the OAFP is already lobbying for: recess appointments. Given the Rs are now in control of the Senate,  it seems unnecessary - and contrary to the principle of the Legislative branch being separate from but equal to the Executive.

Other presidents have used this mechanism to get stalled appointments through, but the OAFP seems to be plotting to have this be the rule, not the exception, even demanding that whoever became the new Senate Majority Leader had to agree to this foolishness.  I wonder if all the voters who thought they were electing someone who 'believed in the Constitution' had any idea who they really voted for? 

Speaking of the Senate Majority Leader, say hello to Sen. John Thune, the gentleman from South Dakota. He might be the most reasonable announcement of the day.

What's got you wondering these days?

Sunday School 12/13/20

I decided that, in the interest of good behavior during a pandemic, I'd only visit one classroom today, and I decided, after seeing who was making the rounds, that CNN's State of the Union classroom was the place to be.  

Visiting with Tapper today?  Bill Gates, for one, who suggested that the next few months - four to six, he said - "could be the worst of the epidemic," with a forecast of another 200K+ deaths. We don't have to have that many, and we wouldn't if people would wear masks and not mingle with others.  He also said that he never thought we'd be seeing what we're seeing here; he thought we'd "do a better job handling it."

Tapper asked Gates how much credit the president and his Operation Warp Speed deserve for getting us vaccines in less than a year.

Well, the mRNA vaccines, which the first two are, our foundation and others have been backing for quite some time. Now, Pfizer teamed up with BioNtech, a partner of ours, and did not take government money. So, they went out on their own. Moderna got money before there was an Operation Warp Speed, back when it was the -- just called BARDA. And that money did help them take risks, because they're not a large company, and they got help on some of their trials work.  So, the U.S. R&D funding, which is -- had been there for pandemics well before this administration, that was a contribution greater than any other country.

And, Tapper wondered, what does Gates think about Trump's Executive Order on prioritizing Americans getting the vaccine over folks in other countries?

Well, I think we need to help all of humanity here. You know, we want the world economy be going. We want to minimize the deaths. And, you know, the basic technology is a German company. And so blocking international sharing and cooperation has been disruptive and a mistake during this entire pandemic. So, we need to ramp up the capacity of all the vaccines. There will be some additional ones approved in the months ahead that are easier to scale up the manufacturing. But the U.S. has benefited from other countries' work care, and we shouldn't be entirely selfish in how we go forward.

And, when Tapper asked, "So, in your view, America first, as the president might call it, not the right approach?"

Well, the extreme idea that everybody should die until we have the very last American vaccinated, that's hardly the appropriate response.

Gates also said the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines "look very similar" (in terms of efficacy) and he expects the others "are likely to be about the same." And, he thinks "we have a real communications challenge," given poll results showing only 60% of Americans say they intend to get vaccinated. 

...you have got to find out, who do people trust, make sure they have got the data. I hope, as people see it being rolling -- this vaccine rolled out, in reducing the death rate, reducing transmission to people you care about, that that 60 percent number will go up. For some jobs, like working in a nursing home, the government could decide that it's important for those people to be vaccinated, because that will save a lot of lives. And so the track record will be developed, and I think we will get over the 70 percent that should reduce the transmission dramatically.

He also said when it was his turn to get the vaccine, he'd take it publicly. He has no intention of moving to the head of the line, because 

It should be based on medical need, not wealth at all. After all, this epidemic has been awful in the way that it's exacerbated inequities. It's been worse for Hispanics, worse for blacks, worse for low-income service workers, multigenerational households, a number of things that mean that, in terms of picking who gets the vaccine, we better be using equity to drive all those decisions.

He thinks "Certainly, by the summer" we'll be much closer to normal, but that it could take longer. And how about trying to do all of this stuff during a transition?

 Yes, transition is complicating. But the new administration is willing to rely on actual experts, and not attack those experts. They're laying out clear plans. So, I think we will get through this in a positive way.

He said he's pleased with how Biden and his team are looking at things, working to retain key people like Dr. Fauci, how they're prioritizing things, and so on. Because of all of that, he thinks "the U.S. will not be one of the worst performers as the team comes into office."

Tapper asked him what he thinks about current administration's handling of things, the inaccurate statements, mistakes that were made, the undermining of the experts, and so on. He said it actually could have been worse, say if Trump had fired Fauci, or if Scott Atlas had been around longer. The postmortem, when it's all over, will go back further than Trump, back to 2015 when Gates and others sounded the alarm about a pandemic, what they could have done differently, and what they can learn from this one before the next one hits.

 And whatever that administration is, being smart about getting the testing up fast, allowing the CDC, who are the experts, to give the message to the public, not being afraid of bad news, so that we get people ready, it's pretty clear we're going to be smarter next time.

Tapper did ask Gates for his response to talk about the "Fauci-Gates vaccine" and how he wants to inject microchips into people.

Well, I'm surprised, and I'm not even quite sure how to react. Dr. Fauci and I believe in vaccines. Vaccines have saved millions of lives. That's what our foundation is all about. And so our expertise was valuable here in getting the scale-up of those things. You have got to be willing to speak out publicly, even if it's not always well understood. So, I do worry, will this make people not want to take the vaccine, or not believe in polio eradication and our other causes that I think are valuable.

And, thinking about how history will just our performance - 20% of the world's cases, 20% of the world's deaths, but we're only 4% of the world's population.

Well, the U.S. would have been expected to be the best. You know, we have the CDC. We have the most PCR machines. We have got the NIH, all this capacity. And, sadly, before the epidemic, in the first two or three months of the epidemic, we didn't get on top of it like many countries did. So, figuring out where we need to change things, these postmortems over the next year will guide us. But it's a tragedy that we weren't able to respond like we could have.

Ain't that the truth. 

Masks on; as Gates said, there's little downside to wearing one  - and we have to get through the next four to six months. 

See you around the virtual campus.

Wondering on Wednesday 12/9/20

Ready... Set... Wonder!

What's to wonder about today? Heck, what's NOT to wonder about? 

We learned today that the president plans on "intervening" in the Texas-and-other-states lawsuit to have the election results in states that are NOT part of the lawsuit overturned by the Supreme Court. It wasn't clear whether the president himself, or his campaign, or his our Department of Justice would be doing the intervening, or what that intervention would look like; as with much of what the president says, the devil is in the details and sometimes we find out there aren't even details. 

Who knows if that's the case here, but that's not even what I'm wondering about. Nope - I'm wondering which of the definitions of 'intervene' the president plans on pursuing? My money's on #3. 

Let's see, what else do we have... Oh, how about the lawsuit filed by Citizens for Ethics in Washington (CREW), the National Security Archive, the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the American Historical Association, to ensure that the outgoing Administration appropriately accounts for, and does not destroy, official White House records?  

The issue is a White House policy allowing folks to save just screen shots of messages, such as the ones that Jared used with the Saudi Crown Prince, instead of requiring them to keep the actual message including the metadata. And this is the second time that these groups, or at least a couple of them, have sued the Trump administration for this type of thing. The earlier suit involved deletion of the president's tweets, among other things. 

So, I'm wondering where are all of the 'lock him up' cheers? I mean, if destroying documents on a private server were worthy of FBI investigations, and you know, confessed liars leading chants at conventions and what not, I'm shocked - shocked! - that the Republicans aren't making the same noise about this?  Do you think they don't care? Or maybe they're too busy trying to not get questioned about who really won the election? 

Meanwhile, around the country, coronavirus protests are getting ugly - really ugly. This Twitter thread, from a county commissioner in Ada County, Idaho shows how bad things are. It recounts the protesters at her house (she wasn't there at the time) pounding on the door, shouting and otherwise scaring her children, who were home. It says, in part.

I am sad. I am tired. I fear that, in my choosing to hold public office, my family has too-often paid the price. Though I was born and raised in Idaho, I increasingly don't recognize this place. 

There is an ugliness and cruelty in our national rhetoric that is reaching a fevered pitch here at home, and that should worry us all...

I'm calling on Republican leaders who have politicized public health, who have amplified rhetoric, capitalized on it, tacitly endorsed it while holding hands with the most extreme factions in their party: take a hard look at what you've become. It's far past time to do better.

Yes, there is. And it comes from the top of the GOP food chain, as well as from the bottom, as we've seen throughout the pandemic, and of course, before and after the election. Coming on the heels of the statement by Gabriel Sterling, the election official in Georgia, I have to wonder this: when the hell are these people going to wise up, and knock their nonsense off, and call on their constituents to do the same? 

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,

...but 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.

And what am I wondering about on this, you ask? Not much, really - I mean, it sort of speaks for itself, right? Or, maybe, how many more days of this do we have? (You can check the countdown counter at the top of the right sidebar if you ever need to know.)

And finally tonight, let's take a moment to hear from Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, who's been celebrated on the floor of the Senate by many of his colleagues. as he nears the end of his time as a legislator. In a Twitter thread, CNN's Manu Raju shared the following info, to which I've added some emphasis.

Asked if Trump should concede after Monday, he said: "I think the votes are being counted, and states are certifying them and resolving disputes. And it's apparent when electors meet on Monday, Joe Biden is very likely to be the President-elect.

"And if he is, I hope the president will put the country first, congratulate Joe Biden and take pride in his considerable accomplishments, and help him off to a good start," he added. 

Alexander said: "It's especially important that we have an orderly transition if there's going to be one, because of the pandemic and the distribution of the vaccine. We don't need to lose one hour or one day in that distribution."

Now, I know that many of the Rs in DC and elsewhere are desperately afraid of the president, or they feel exactly the same way he does on every issue to the point where they won't ever call him out for anything. Or they're just spineless generally, I guess is a third option. But what I'm wondering here is, what on earth does Alexander have to lose by ditching the wishy-washy nonsense and just say that Biden is going to be president and that we need an orderly transition? Why can't he do that? Why can't any of them stand up to him? 

Are they waiting until January 19th or something?

Sunday School 11/22/20

Remember the polls that no one's talking about anymore, the ones that showed Joe Biden way ahead before Election Day, just like they showed Hillary way ahead in 2016?  They were right, insofar as they predicted a Biden win, but there was a lot that was wrong, too.

Today, on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, we heard from Nate Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, on what might have impacted the polls this time around.  Silver said that "the margins were pretty far off in a lot of places," even if they correctly called the presidential race in all but two states - Florida and North Carolina. The biggest problems were in the Midwest, he said. And he pointed to the coronavirus pandemic as a contributor, saying that "if people are changing their living pattern...that might affect how they respond to polls..." And, he noted a partisan impact, too.

Democrats have been more likely than Republican voters to embrace social distancing... In fact, research has shown poll response rats form Democratic voters shot up once the pandemic hit in March, increasing from 12% to 16-17%. That's enough to potentially skew the numbers. 

And remember that only 37% of jobs can be performed at home. A lot of those are white collar, knowledge sector jobs held by college-educated professionals, a group that mostly votes for Democrats these days.

And while he says COVID was a factor, it probably wasn't the only one. But he says, "knock on wood," there won't be a pandemic to mess things up in 2024. I'm curious as to the other issues he thinks were in play - the pandemic was the only one he mentioned.

Moving down the hall to the State of the Union classroom in the CNN wing,  Jake Tapper talked with my favorite Republican, Maryland's Gov. Larry Hogan, who had been on the show two weeks ago, when he said he thought the president would do the right thing and concede, Tapper wondered if he still had confidence that Trump would do the right thing. Hogan said he's confident that "the president-elect is going to be sworn in" but he's not confident that the president will do the right thing.

Look, I thought the pressuring of the legislators to try to somehow change the outcome with electors was completely outrageous. And, quite frankly, I mean, we used to go supervise elections around the world, and we were - we were the most respected country with respect to elections. And now we're beginning to look like a banana republic.

It's time for them to stop the nonsense. It just gets more bizarre every single day. And frankly, I'm embarrassed that more people in the party aren't speaking up. 

On why he thinks so few of his fellow Rs are stepping up, "willing to demonstrate even basic integrity and honestly here," as Tapper put it, Hogan said what I've been thinking for the past four years: 

I just don't think that there are a lot of profiles in courage, frankly... I mean - we all know how vindictive the president can be, how powerful his Twitter account is, and how he can really pressure Republicans and go after them. Very few of us are willing to stand up.

But that's changing, he said. Governors, senators, House members - it's "slowly growing every day." And there are others, the ones who are giving the president advice - except he's ignoring them.

Hogan said the Executive Committee of the National Governors Association met (virtually) with Biden and Kamala Harris, talking about the pandemic, and he appreciated that the two reached out to the NGA set up the meeting. He said they were "mostly in listening mode" and asking the govs what was going on.

He said he was concerned there was a "smooth handoff," because "we have the current administration and the new administration not even speaking to one another while lives are at stake."

And it's the - it's kind of one of the worst things about this current situation we find ourselves in, with no communication and no transition.

He also said that 90% of Marylanders said they're not travelling for Thanksgiving, "a dramatic change." People are listening, and following the guidelines. Imagine that!

And finally, a quick drop-in on the Face the Nation classroom, where Margaret Brennan talked with former national security advisor H.R. McMaster. She asked him "how corrosive" Trump's actions are to our national security. Very corrosive, he said, and what concerns him is that "the president's kind of playing into the hands of our adversaries." He said that Russia doesn't care who wins "as long as a large number of Americans doubt the legitimacy of the result."  We need to "demand better from our political leaders," he added, so that we don't get even further divided. 

McMaster also said that, while Trump's firing of Chris Krebs, the DHS guy who said the 2020 election was the most secure ever, Krebs "overstated it" when he said the Giuliani/Powell/Ellis legal team's press conference was "the most dangerous hour and 45 minutes in American TV history, and possibly the craziest."

"We should be confident," McMaster said, while acknowledging that it was a "travesty" that Krebs got fired, and that Krebs was a big part of the efforts to improve election security.

But hey, Margaret, it's Thanksgiving week. We should be thankful for the framers of our Constitution because they designed our form of government based on what they saw as worst-case scenarios, worst-case scenarios based on the bloody wars in England in the 17th century...  

He added that the president doesn't have a say in the transition. Although, it's clear that not saying something about the transition - you know, releasing the funds and allowing departments to talk to the newcomers - can be just as impactful, of not more so, than actually saying something.

Wear your mask. Keep your Thanksgiving celebration small. Obey your local pandemic guidance. You know - do the right thing... Be a Marylander. 

See you around campus. 

Thoughts on Winning

I got a message from a friend today, offering up a way that our national post-election nightmare can end and America can win, Biden (the winner) can win, Mike Pence can win, and the president (the non-winner) can win. And how we can all be tired of all the winning because there'll just be so much of it, we don't be able to stand it anymore.

I have to say, initially I thought his idea was kind of whacky, but then, it started to grow on me. Like moss, on a stone that's not rolling, or something.  No, really, that's not fair - it's kind of an interesting idea. 

First and foremost, we know that the president hates to lose - at anything - and that his first thought - always, right before threatening or actually taking legal action - is to deny that he lost. 

We also know that he doesn't like anything President Obama did, and wants to beat President Obama no matter what. And we've seen, over the past several months, that President Obama doesn't seem to be interested in retiring from public life. And neither does AOC, it seems - and we know that the president doesn't like her and would love to beat her at something, almost as much as he wants to do stuff that Obama is not capable of doing. 

We also know the president is a student of history. I mean, he's told us over and over that he's the best ever at so many things - fighting terrorism, producing jobs, building, attracting crowds, not being racist, developing resorts, owning clubs,  making fragrances, writing 140-character sentences, and more. And he's definitely up there on the list of best presidents ever, maybe even the best president ever, certainly the best president since Abraham Lincoln, he's determined that with certainty. 

Given his best-ness, and his better-than-Obama-ness, and the wanting us to get tired of all the winning - you remember that, right, back in 2016 at a speech in Iowa?

We're going to win so much that you're going to get sick and tired, you're going to say, "Please, please Mr. president, we're sick and tired of winning Please let us have at least one loss. It's no longer exciting to win" and I'm going to say, "No way, we're going to keep winning and I don't care if you like it or not." We have to win.

Well, here's how everyone wins, as we have to, as we are destined to.

First: the president retires, before the end of his term. He doesn't quit - that's what a loser would do. He retires, at the top of his game, as a winner: the guy who defeated ISIS and the caliphate, Antifa and monument-busting protesters, the coronavirus and Communist China; the man who put his slippery leather shoes in the DMZ between the Koreas; the man with ambiguously legitimate Israeli housing units named after him; the man who gave us covfefe and Happy Meal celebrations; the man who gave Rush Limbaugh the Medal of Freedom. 

Second: upon the president's retirement, Mike Pence becomes the President-lame duck, #46, who will guide us through the rest of the counting of the illegal Democratic votes and the ignoring of all the perfectly legitimate Republican votes on the same ballot as the illegal Democratic ones. He's got just the right temperament, and an uncanny ability to talk at length and never answer any questions. And, he's a horrible Tweeter, which will be good for us he tries to heal the nation, right up until January 5, 2021 when people run around all over the state of Georgia trying not to be members of a minority, and then again until 11:59AM on January 21, 2021, at which point no one will ever hear of him again.

Third: Before riding off into the sunset, Pence #46 can offer pardons to everyone: #45, Mrs. #45 (those Christmas decorations. That Rose Garden, (ahem) renovation. That green jacket. #BeBest...), the children of #45, the girlfriends and spouses of the children (after all, the best is yet to come), the swamp monsters, and more. He could even pardon Hunter Biden's laptops, which would go a long way towards the healing and winning we need. And, instead of releasing the Kraken (hey - he could pardon Rudy Giuliani, too!), he could release the transition funds, which would allow for the peaceful transition of power that's supposed to be happening. 

And, finally: At noon on January 20, 2021, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. will become the oldest President ever. And then, shortly after that, Pamela Camela Carmella Kamala Harris will become the firstiest Vice President ever. The first woman, the first black, the first Indian American, the first Chucks-wearing, the first rain-dancing, and, probably, the coolest Vice President since Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. jogged around the White House with Barack Obama.

It's a perfect plan, right? It plays to everyone's strengths, and it lets us get back on track with having someone run the country, not ruin it on their way out. 

Teddy Ballgame hit a home run, and retired. Eli's brother, Peyton 'Omaha!' Manning, won a Super Bowl and retired. Donald Trump, just 'won' the election, so he, too, should retire at the top of his game.

Let us begin to get tired of the winning. We're ready.

Wondering on Wednesday 11/18/20

Ready... Set... Wonder!

What's got me wondering tonight?  I'm glad you asked.

At what point, I wonder, will it just be said that the current crop of Republicans is the biggest, weaseliest bunch of scaredy cats that have ever been elected? 

I mean, I could see there being a handful of them who are weaselly and sneaky, and a handful of them who are scared to death that the mean orange man will turn on them and find people to primary them or worse, tweet about them day and night for the next four years, or even worse, sic their uneducated, deplorable constituents on them (the self-identifying uneducated deplorables, of course) and have them storm their maskless town hall meetings and yell at them that they're weaselly scaredy cats, but to have THIS many of them, all being weaselly scaredy cats at the same time, in unison?  What the actual hell did we do to deserve that, I wonder?

Seriously. I mean, I wonder if any one of them would begin to be able to explain to me why they are allowing what's happening to happen? Or, should I say, why they're allowing what is NOT happening to NOT happen? They're not willing to explain it, to me or anybody else -I'd be willing to bet they aren't even willing to be honest with themselves when they look in the mirror in the morning, but I'm pretty sure I'm not wrong on that. 

But pretend for a second that any one of them would offer up anything other than a "he has a legal right to be a baby," what's the explanation for sitting back and being silent as the orange man refuses to allow his administration to participate with the incoming administration? What possible explanation is there for that?  Is it one of these, I wonder?

• We don't want to upset him by telling him he's a loser?
• We don't want him to think that we're happy he's a loser?
• We need him to help us not be losers when they vote again in Georgia in January?
• We don't know what he will do if we tell him the truth?
• We don't actually give a rat's patootie about the country, we're only interested in staying in office?
• He has the nuclear codes?
• He might try and fire us? (Can he do that? He can't do that, can he?)
• No one wants to go first, but boy, once someone does, we'll all fall in line?
• Is it over? 
• We might be able to convince him, but he's got those two boys, and they're worse than he is?
• Did I say he's unstable and scares the crap out of me?
• I'm plotting my place for 2024 and I don't want to screw it up by angering him?
• It's not treason or anything, what he's doing, and he's already been impeached, so what can we do?
• It's not like we're not going to have a peaceful transfer of power on January 20th, so what's the harm in letting him play his little game of keep-away?

What's the harm, you wonder, you scared little weasel? LOOK AROUND! While you're so hell-bent on allowing the orange man to express his ever-loving loser soul, look at what's happening in the world!

There's still a global pandemic; there's still Brexit, the first crack in the EU; there's still Russia and China and North Korea and the Middle East (no matter how many villages or condos they name after the orange man); there's still all of the same problems that there were on Election Day, and the day after and the day after that. And the incoming administration is NOT getting briefings on any of that from anyone still in the current administration. 

LOOK AROUND! We've got vaccines coming, and somehow they have to make it to all the distant and disparate corners of the globe. by the way, but for us here, the incoming administration is not allowed to engage with the current Task Force or the Operation Warp Speed vaccine team. How can anyone think that's helpful? But, boy, don't you forget (because the orange man won't let you), those vaccines were developed on his watch, so it's all good, right? Never mind that the deaths of over a quarter of a million Americans from COVID-19, those deaths happened on his watch, too. And I can't help wondering, how many more will happen that don't need to, because he can't get out of the way and let the people who need to be talking to each other talk to each other?

Look around... All across the country, states are in the worst shape, pandemic-wise, since the beginning of this whole mess! How're things going in your hometown, Republicans? Everyone working? No hardships? Your hospitals still have plenty of rooms?  Your towns and cities all doing great with all of their COVID-related expenses?  Lucky you, if that's the case, but I'm having a hard time here, wondering whether I should believe a word of what you're telling me. 

LOOK AROUND! Just LOOK at the mess the orange man is making, the frivolous lawsuits, the lies, the lack of evidence, the constant assault on our principles, our processes, our people, including members of YOUR OWN PARTY attacking members of YOUR OWN PARTY! What the heck is wrong with you??

And, I have to wonder why you think doing nothing, including doing nothing about the orange man doing nothing about a transition, is more important than doing something about the state of things for the people in your state, your district, your hometown, and people all over the country who are NOT doing as well as you are, and who are NOT interested in your self-preservation - they're interested in their own survival, the survival of their towns, businesses, families, educational system, and more.

I couldn't care less about your self-preservation either, truth be told. I care a helluva lot more about our country and how we move on from a loser to the next guy, and I care about silly traditions like making it possible for the incoming team to be successful, and for the country to be successful. I don't have to like the person who's leaving, although sometimes I have. I don't have to like the person who's coming in, although sometimes I have. I don't have to like our traditional processes for shifting from one president to the next - but we have to have a process and we DO have a process, and we should be FOLLOWING the process, and YOU should be a part of ensuring that we DO JUST THAT.  He's YOUR guy - you've made that clear over and over and over.

Your job? I don't have to wonder about that at all. YOUR job is to make sure that YOUR guy gets with the program, for the good of the country. If you can't do that, then you don't deserve to be in office. You don't deserve the time of day from me or anyone else. You can get your weaselly scaredy cat fanny the heck out of Washington and go back to where you came from.

And hey -- wear a damn mask!  That you're STILL not doing that, at this stage of the game, is reason enough you should pack your bags and go home.

Sheesh.

Trump in Transition (v15)

It's been awhile since I've done a Trump in Transition (TiT) post - mostly because he hasn't really shown any signs of 'transitioning' into anything.

He plays golf every weekend at his own courses; he tweets like a crazy man; he takes credit for things that he shouldn't when he's happy and parcels out blame that he shouldn't when he's unhappy, and he has his daughter officially at his side. No transition there, right?

But then, he went and launched cruise missiles, five dozen of them, at an airbase in Syria, telling us what he did after a nice dinner with members of his club, the President of China, and members of his administration and family (even some who aren't both).

Tonight, I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield from where the chemical attack was launched, It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons. There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council.

So, does this mean he's transitioning, pivoting, becoming more presidential? He certainly pivoted, no doubt about that.  America should not get involved in Syria, Trump famously warned President Obama  four years ago, the first time Assad did this.

We should stay the hell out of Syria, the "rebels" are just as bad as the current regime. WHAT WILL BE GET FOR OUR LIVES AND $ BILLIONS? ZERO

He clearly understood at the time the risk of taking any action:

What will we get for bombing Syria beside more debt and possible long-term conflict? Obama needs Congressional approval.

And boy, did he understand how that swampy thing worked, or what?

The president must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria - big mistake if he does not! 

But, again, we don't always follow our own advice, do we?

We're America. We lead, and often don't even worry whether others will follow, because we have the military power, we have the moral high ground, and because it we don't do it, no one will, right? And Assad used chemical weapons on his own people, again. It's important that he did it again, since the last time he did it, our friends in Russia helped ensure that he got rid of his stockpile of the damn stuff, so he couldn't use it again. That was the outcome when Congress didn't AUMF, or authorize the use of military force, when President Obama asked for it back in 2013.

Congress agreed with Trump then, that this was the wrong thing to do. Just ask lying sombitch Mitch McConnell:

A vital national security risk is clearly not at play, there are just too many unanswered questions about our long-term strategy in Syria, including this proposal is utterly detached from a wider strategy to end the civil war there... Either we will strike targets that threaten the stability of the regime - something the President says he does not intend to do - or we will execute a strike so narrow as to be a mere demonstration. 

Even Orrin Hatch, the songwriting senator from Utah, advised us then

What is clear is that launching a few missiles will do nothing to end Syria's civil war, and is neither a real strategy to stop the deployment of chemical weapons in Syria nor a guarantee that chemical weapons won't be used in the future by the Assad regime. That is not a plan for the region.

I am leery of America getting more involved in someone else's war, without having a clear plan and a defined reason for doing so. I'm particularly leery of this man, this administration, doing that. There is absolutely zero consistency, and I think, no core belief from this president; there is no 'Trump doctrine" that we can look to, because it changes with the weather.

He's told us over and over and over we are not the world's policeman, we will always be America first, we are no longer going to go it alone without our allies, we don't belong in someone else's war, we have nothing to gain....  and he's right about one thing. No one deserves what happened last week, but neither should America be dropping inconsequential bombs on another country in response to children dying (if that's even the reason why we did this), at the same time we refuse them safe passage because they guy who ordered the bombing thinks the children and other refugees deserve a wall or a dome or an underground shelter or something out of a bad movie.

They should build a safe zone. Take a big piece of land in Syria and they have plenty of land, believe me. Build a safe zone for all these people, because I have a heart, I mean these people, it's horrible to watch. But they shouldn't come over here. We should build a safe zone. 

We made a safe zone for the Russians by giving them a heads up so they could get their people and materiel out of the way. And of course, the Russians would have extended that notification to the Syrians. We made a safe zone for Bashar al-Assad by allowing the same airfield to be used within hours to launch missions against the same town hit in the chemical attacks.

What did we accomplish? What are we doing? Which America are we? What's the plan? Who is in the Oval Office with Trump helping make the decisions?

Bueller? Anyone?

Trump in Transition (v14)

It's been a tough week for the president, don't you think?

President Trump, who famously told us "healthcare is an unbelievably complex subject, nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated."

Who knew?  We all knew it could be "so complicated" -- we've been hearing about it for seven years now, as of yesterday. It went all the way to the Supreme Court, for heaven's sake. Where was the president when all of that was going on?

Heck, the only thing that's not uncomplicated about it is all of the votes the Republicans took during the Obama administration to repeal it.

Who knew health care could be so complicated? Well, now he knows for sure.

We were very close, and it was a very, very tight margin.

Oh boy. The president probably lied again. According to many estimates I've seen, there were more than 30 Republicans who were going to vote against the American Healthcare Act, and that number was growing, not shrinking, as the day went on Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan needed all but maybe a dozen of their own party to pass the bill, so they probably missed by more than a "very, very tight" margin.

We had no Democrat support. We had no votes from the Democrats. They weren't going to give us a single vote, so it's a very difficult thing to do.

Yes, it is a very difficult thing to do, trying to pass something with little or no support from the opposition. It shouldn't be so hard, thought, when your party holds the White House and the House of Representatives and the Senate.

A lot of people don't realize how good our bill was because they were viewing phase one. But when you add phase two -- which was mostly the signings of Secretary Price...and you add phase three, which I think we would have gotten - it became a great bill. Premiums would have gone down and it would have been very stable, it would have been very strong. But that's OK. 

Governing is not like the business world, where a billionaire developer can get people to give him something, phase one of something, because the full package is so great, even though people often know that when a wheeler-dealer developer makes a promise for phase one, phase two, phase three, they'll be lucky if phase one even gets finished.

So what would be really good, with no Democrat support, is if the Democrats, when it explodes -- which it will soon -- if they got together with us and got a real healthcare bill. I would be totally up to do it. And I think that's going to happen. I think the loser are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because now they own Obamacare.  They own it -- 100 percent own it.

And this is not a Republican healthcare, this is not anything but a Democrat healthcare. And they have Obamacare for a little while longer, until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future. And just remember this is not our bill, this is their bill.

Um, not sure how the American Health Care Act, the Paul Ryan Health Care Act, the one that Ryan said the president helped write, is the Pelosi-Schumer bill?

I want to thank the Republican Party. I want to thank Paul Ryan -- he worked very, very hard, I will tell you that. Tom Price and Mike Pence - who's right here, our Vice President, our great Vice President. Everybody worked hard. I worked as a team player and would have loved to have seen it passed.

But you're not going to pin this sucker on me, oh no you're not! This was Ryan's bill, I was just a team player, I was not the ringleader (Paul Ryan), I was not the guy who worked very, very hard (Paul Ryan), I would have loved to have seen it passed but I'm not the one who failed (Paul Ryan).

So I want to thank everybody for being here. It will go very smoothly, I really believe. I think this is something -- it certainly was an interesting period of time. We all learned a lot. We learned a lot about loyalty.

And we learned a lot about the people in my party, the Freedom Caucus, who are not loyal at all to me.

We learned a lot about the vote-getting process.

Because all this time, I thought the party whip was just a whip, and I don't think people know that's not the case. Did you know the whip was a person? Did you know Abraham Lincoln was a Republican? I don't think most people know that either, do you?

We learned a lot about some very arcane rules in, obviously, both the Senate and in the House. So it's been -- certainly for me, it's been a very interesting experience. But in the end, I think it's going to be an experience that leads to an even better healthcare plan.

So thank you all very much. And I'll see you soon.

Trump in Transition (v13)

President Trump is opening his administration with a flurry of photo op signings of Executive Orders and memorandums, most of which are not surprising based on what he said he was going to do on Day One, a bigly huge list of things that he was going to solve immediately.

While the 'immediately' thing didn't happen with all of them, he's moving a quick clip as long as staffers and advisers are there to keep him on track and get his mind off his losing the popular vote, or having the biggest Republican Electoral College victory since Ronald Reagan, except for the biggest one since Ronald Reagan which belonged to George H.W. Bush (and which dwarfed the Trump win), or the size of his Inaugural crowd which is the biggest one ever, except that it's not, or millions and millions of 'illegals' voting, which to me is not the same as millions and millions of 'illegal votes' but that might just be splitting hairs.

What he did say today, however, when he signed documents to get things moving again on the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access pipeline, both of which have been on hold and are now "subject to renegotiation by us" whatever that means, is that things are going to be American.  (Um, as an aside, is 'bigly' bigger than 'XL'? Because if yes, then they really should rename the Keystone thing.)

A memo to the Secretary of Commerce requires an approach to using American steel in pipelines, follows:

The Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with all relevant executive departments and agencies, shall develop a plan under which all new pipelines, as well as retrofitted, repaired, or expanded pipelines, inside the borders of the United States, including portions of pipelines, use materials and equipment produced in the United States, to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law. The Secretary shall submit the plan to the President within 180 days of the date of this memorandum. 

Further, it specifically defines what constitutes made-in-America steel.

 "Produced in the United States" shall mean: (i) with regard to iron or steel products, from the initial melting stage through the application of coatings, occurred in the United States. (ii) Steel or iron material or products manufactured abroad from semi-finished steel or iron from the United States are not "produced in the United States for purposes of this memorandum (iii) Steel or iron material products manufactured in the United States from semi-finished steel or iron of foreign origin are not "produced in the United States" for purposes of the memorandum.

I have no concerns with requiring American made steel on projects - great idea! I'm not sure how many companies in the US can meet the requirements in the memo, or if they have the capacity to produce enough steel to meet the demand created by this type of order, which I anticipate will also come into play with Trump's infrastructure plans, for example. I suspect if this is a problem, it's one the e steel industry will relish solving.

Also unknown is if only American steel companies -- not the foreign companies that have American subsidiaries, but truly American-owned companies -- will be allowed to participate on pipeline projects and infrastructure projects.

Similarly, it's unknown how far to take the requirement for "equipment" to be made in the US. Does that mean heavy equipment, such as the cranes used to set pipes into place? Does it include the equipment used to weld the sections together? And does it include everything in between? If not, it should.

And are only American workers going to be allowed to work in the plants that are manufacturing the steel and the "equipment" and are only American workers going to be allowed to work on these projects and all of their related components?

Because that would be really taking #BuyAmericanHireAmerican to the fullest extent, right? American-owned companies hiring American workers to build American products used on American projects built by American workers...

The problem with taking this to its logical end - all American, all the time - is that we have American workers working for foreign-owned companies right here on American soil. And I can't tell yet whether that's OK because those are American jobs, or if it's bad because those are foreign companies that drove American companies out of business, even though they're employing American workers. (And yes, as I write this, I can see one of the cats chasing her tail in the other room.)

Another question I have is whether it would be OK to build shiny new American-owned factories, using American labor and American materials, in right-to-work states where the wages are lower and don't provide "good, solid, middle class wages" or if the factories need to be built in the Rust Belt states where unions come into play and drive up the labor costs and product costs and are to blame (according to some) for the mess in American manufacturing today?

Or would it be un-American to dictate where the factories get built in America, as long as they're built somewhere in America, by Americans, and pay some kind of wages to American workers?

Lord, this is going to be confusing.

Size Really Doesn't Matter, Mr. Trump

Dear President Trump,

We know you think size matters, bigly.

We know you have yuge hands, and we know that there's no trouble down there in the nether regions - because you told us so yourself, and you also told us you'd never lie to us, so it must be true.

We know you're a billionaire ten times over, you have the biggest pile of money, because you told us so.

We know that you have yuge ratings, because you told us so, when you tweeted to let us know that the TV show that brought you to prominence got better ratings when you were on it than it does with the new guy.

We know you have a yuge ego, because even though you're the executive producer, you had no qualms about bashing your own product to let us know how much better it was when you were there than it is now that you're President.

We know your movement like nothing anyone in the world has ever seen is yuge, because you told us so, and that anyone or anything that disagrees with you is fake news, because you've let us know repeatedly that all news you don't like or doesn't like you is fake news.

We know the problems of our country are so huge, and so horrid, that only you can fix them, because you told us so, repeatedly.

We know the crowd at your inaugural is the biggest one ever, because you told us so. We know the TV ratings for your inauguration was the biggest one ever, because you told us so.

We know that the whole world is conspiring against you to make it look like everything you think is bigly yuge is not, because you told us so.

We know that everyone who disagrees with you is bigly over-rated, yugely not funny, biglyyugely not as big as you in whatever way they might think they're bigger or you might think they're smaller.

We know that you're not the bigly most unliked president ever inaugurated, because you told us the polls lie, like the election was rigged until you won, and then it was the best biggest most impressive election ever and there was no rigging. We get that, because you said so.

Yes we know all of this because you show and tell us, every day, often many times a day, bigly, and yugely, like David Gest telling us how he was beaten by Liza Minelli over and over and over.

We get it -- size matters to you. Bigly.

But you know what really matters?

You are the freaking President of the United States.  

You are no longer the host of the Celebrity Apprentice. You are no longer the darling of the Access Hollywood Bus. You are no longer the Talk of the Town. You are no longer a great guest on the Howard Stern Show.

It's time to get your big hair and your big hands and your big tie and your big ego and your big ratings and your big popular vote loss and your big electoral college win focused on being the leader of the free world - no matter how many people aren't watching.

Stop worrying about your goddam ratings and who draws bigger crowds.

Get over it, already.

My Middle-Aged White Lady Perspective: Inauguration Day

Today marked the peaceful transition of power from one presidential administration to another.

It did not, however, mark a making of peace in the United States between the fervently Trump and the fervently Clinton, or between the #NeverTrump and the #Setasideyourpersonalbeliefs #forthegoodofthecountry or whatever the opposite of a #NeverTrump would call themselves. And, it appears, it also didn't mark the understanding of the difference between a protester and a rioter, as far as I can tell.

I did not watch the inauguration live - I chose to spend the day doing something enjoyable, rather than to spend it doing something I knew would be a frustrating, depressing exercise (at best). And, I admit, I was deeply fearful of what was going to happen. Not because of the promised protests, but because of comments from Tom Barrack, chair of the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

What we've done instead of trying to surround it with what people consider A-listers is say what we're gonna surround it with is the soft sensuality of the place. So we have all of that, but it's in a much more poetic cadence than having a circus-like celebration that's a coronation, and that's the way this president-elect won.

Um, "the way this president-elect won" was with in an aura of soft sensuality and a poetic cadence?  I mean, I put his words into verse on occasion, but the groper-in-chief-in-waiting and soft sensuality in the same sentence? In the same universe? As I said, I was deeply fearful...

What happened instead? Several hundred thousand people showed up, a reasonable percentage of them participating in peaceful protest; a few dozen instigators performing acts of violence under the cover of the legitimate protests. In all, around 220 people were arrested at the last report I saw; six police officers were reportedly injured, where none should have been.

Our future first lady displayed a perfect blue-collar coat today, and the new president delivered his American Carnage report in, I guess, a poetic cadence. Because carnage, doom and darkness remain this President's current vision of America; that has been constant since the convention in Cleveland.

Here are excerpts of his address to the assembled dignitaries, Americans, and people of the world.

For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

Remember, this is a message delivered by a billionaire who has his products made outside of the United States, whose daughter's company has her products made outside the United States, and who 'does deals' and develops properties around the world which are ridiculously out of reach for most people who voted for him. But that doesn't matter.

At the center of this movement is a critical conviction, that a nation exists to serve its citizens. Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. These are just and reasonable demands of righteous people and a righteous public.

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge, and the crimes and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

This, from the man who hires foreign workers on special visas to make the beds and clean his properties and to make and serve drinks to the wealthy guests who go to them; who perhaps doesn't acknowledge that the country is almost at full employment; who ignores the fact that factories in the Rust Belt were replaced by factories in the Sun Belt paying employees much less than the factories they replaced; who, I think, honestly believes that anyone coming out of public school truly is "deprived of all knowledge" which is why he chose a public education foe to head the Education Department, and a man who, with the help of his multi-millionaire daughter, came up with a child care plan that if implemented the way it was presented, precludes single mothers trapped in poverty from benefiting from his child care tax credit plan.

One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world. 

But that is the past. And now, we are looking only to the future. 

We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in ever hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first.

Every decision on trade on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.  

This, from the man who brought in billionaire Wall Street executives and billionaire businessmen, who, at the very least, come from the world where moving jobs overseas, or from north to south, or completely getting rid of them, or taking people's homes away is 'just doing business' we're told; some may have participated in these activities. Either way, while the wealth of the middle class has been ripped away, Trump cabinet members have not suffered anything remotely similar, nor has Trump himself, nor have any of his family members.

Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength. I will fight for you with every breath in my body and I will never let you down. 

America will start winning again, winning like never before.

We will  bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.

Winning is not everything. Winning at any cost is not winning. What, even, does this man think winning is?

At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America. And through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.

I'm not sure where the 'registries' fit into that loyalty to each other?

We have seen, over and over during the campaign, how greatly divided we are between 'patriots' who wrap themselves in the flag and claim it as their own, nary a star nor a shred of stripe to share with anyone who is different: poor, or a person of color, or a person of a different religion, or a person of a different sexual or gender identity. A person who thinks differently, has different strongly held beliefs, or a different vision for our country. There is no room at the inn, so far, for anyone who does not agree with the Trumpian mantra of #MakeAmericaFillintheBlankAgain. Instead, there is prejudice in spades.

Together, we will make American strong again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And yes, together we will make America great again.

My middle-aged white lady perspective?  America is about so much more than wealth, and having a giant military, and protectionism, and nativism, and marching in lockstep with each other and with our leaders. We are so much more than that. And I don't think this president has a clue.

This is, in fact, the beginning or introduction of system, policy, or period. But is it the period of a president more blessed with natural gifts than any other before him? A man who will be so busy doing great things that he cannot take time to answer his critics?

He is just a man, this president. Just a man - one who, if he worked for my employer, would have been fired any number of times for his prejudices, his proclamations, his attitude, his whole shtick.

I remain #NeverTrump, and will continue to do so, until I have any sense that he is different from the person he presented to us all those months on the campaign trail, and all the weeks since he won the election.

It is not time for me to abandon my beliefs and join him out of a sense of patriotic duty; the ball is in his court.

Wondering on Wednesday (v75)

I'm so torn. Should I watch the inauguration, or no?

Don't laugh, I'm serious.

I'm as #NeverTrump today as I was in the beginning, from the Escalator Ride last June, throughout the whole insulting, name-calling circular firing squad that was the Republican primaries; through the gloom and doom Republican National Convention, the Democratic National Convention and its sharp contrasts with the Clamor in Cleveland; the presidential debates, the lies, the tweets, the absurdity, the outcome of the election, and the transition.

To watch, or not to watch, I wonder? Normally there wouldn't be a question. But this is not a normal inauguration, on many levels.

This Friday, inauguration day, will mark ten years since my Dad passed.  Regular readers may remember that my Dad was a teacher, an American History teacher. He and I played the current events game my entire life, it seems. I 'voted' with him, in 1968 when I was ten; I marked the multiple choice parts of his tests many times, and read essay submissions, the good ones and the ones laden with opportunities for improvement. And we talked, and we talked and we talked about news and politics and the process of news and the process of politics.

I remember the first inauguration he missed, the first one that I couldn't share with him.

Obama's inauguration, on the second anniversary of your death, was another trigger, as if it being January 20th weren't enough of one. That you missed this was almost unimaginable. The teacher in you, the democrat in you, the grump in you and the comedian in you would have had a blast with this whole campaign. It's kind of like people who died and never saw the Red Sox win the World Series or SU win the NCAA basketball tourney.

And now, as we prepare for the inauguration of Donald Trump, I'm wondering if it would be more respectful to him to watch, to pay attention to the spectacle in DC, or more respectful to something else entirely, something that he would appreciate more.

Would he watch, I wonder?

I don't have any idea what he would have done during this campaign. I've mentioned that a couple of times in these pages, wondering what he would have said about the New York primary, much less about the results of November 8th. Had he still been teaching, I think he would have quit; some family members agree.

Still, I wonder, this Wednesday, what I should do on Friday. I have the day off. I'm prepared (I think) to watch the inauguration, to talk to my Dad throughout the whole thing, to hear his guidance coming through, however that works... but I'm equally prepared, I think, to do something else.

I'm #NeverTrump, but I'm always #myfathersdaughter.

Should I watch, Dad? Would you watch with me? Or should we do something else?

Trump in Transition (v12)

I'm using a slightly larger version of the f-bomb picture for this post, because he's dropping an even larger one than usual on the country.

Donald Trump has thought it funny, all along, that Russia was hacking Americans to try and influence the election.

He asked them to hack Hillary Clinton's private email server, or suggested they had, or maybe he was just being sarcastic.

Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press... By the way, they hacked -- they probably have her 33,000 emails. I hope they do. They probably have her 33,000 emails that she lost and deleted because you'd see some beauties there. So let's see.

When it was brought up during the campaign that Russia was hacking us, Trump said it could have been anyone.

I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK? You don't know who broke into DNC.

Russia hacked America, specifically the DNC and the Gmail account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's ill-fated campaign chair. They did not hack Hillary Clinton's private email server. We asked them to stay out, we sent back-channel warnings, President Obama spoke personally to President Putin, and they did not listen.

When asked about the Russian hack and the news that we were getting close to announcing a response, Trump offered his, ahem, nuanced take on technology.

I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on.

We announced sanctions, and took who knows what other actions behind the scenes that we were not told about. The actions by the Obama administration were praised, albeit backhandedly, by Congressional Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Ryan noted

While today's action by the administration is overdue, it is an appropriate way to end eight years of failed policy with Russia. And it serves as a prime example of this administration's ineffective foreign policy that has left America weaker in the eyes of the world...Russia does not share America's interests. In fact, is has consistently sought to undermine them sowing dangerous instability around the world. 

Similarly, McConnell also complained about the lateness of the action.

Sanctions against the Russian intelligence services are a good initial step however late in coming. As the next Congress reviews Russian actions against networks associated with the US election, we must also work to ensure that any attack against the United States is met with an overwhelming response. 

Donald Trump's response? Again, we have more important things to worry about.

It's time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation.

Aw, shucks, Mr. #NotMyPresident, thanks for thinking about me, and for worrying your pretty little head about America, and please don't let getting those facts disturb your #MAGA mission or your #BAHA mission or your #TakingCreditforStuffYouDidntDo mission.

Those little slogan-thingys are bigly important I'm sure, so we wouldn't want you to lose focus over having to, you know, take an intelligence briefing or anything, or get acquainted with the facts of something like an attack on our country, no, we surely wouldn't.

And, aw shucks, we're sorry that you're so busy chatting up your friend Vlad on social media, and we hope this won't put a dent in your little bromance, we really hope it won't.

Yes, that's right.

America announces sanctions against Russia, and Trump tweets a proudly fawning message when Putin responds by saying he won't do anything now, but will wait to deal with Trump.

I don't know what you'd call that, but in my book, that's a big ole f-bomb to America right there. 

Trump in Transition (v11)

The Apprentice transition team has moved south for the winter, operating out of Florida now for the holidays.

Yesterday the team communicated a communication about the new White House Communications team from Palm Beach. The short announcement was chock full of communicators who will be handling communications for the President.

There will be at least four official communication people who are also all Assistants to the President: Sean Spicer, press secretary; Hope Hicks, Director of Strategic Communications; Jason Miller, Director of (regular) Communications, and Dan Scavino, Director of Social Media.

Noted the POTUS-elect,

Sean, Hope, Jason and Dan have been key members of my team during the campaign and transition I am excited they will be leading the team that will communicate my agenda that will #MAGA.

(As I write this, Sean Spicer is doing an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show which digressed into a talking-over-each-other-almost-shout fest,driven in part by Lauer's horrible interview style, to be sure. And I'm thinking to myself, that's exactly what we need in the White House press office -- a calming influence to help settle fears when administration members shoot off their mouths, shoot from the hip, shoot themselves in the foot, and all of those other Second Amendment-style metaphors, right?)

There's been some concern from media types, including the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), as to how the Trump administration will handle the press. Based on the campaign, it's not unreasonable to think that some media outlets would be kicked out of the briefing room, at least temporarily, until they act bigly nice to the notoriously thin-skinned Trump.

And, of course, there have been signals, maybe trial balloons, that the daily White House briefing may have outlived its usefulness, or at least that a shake-up may be needed. For example, incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus noted earlier this month that they might do away with the assigned seating in the briefing room, after stating that the seating charts came about during the Obama administration.

This was the first front row assigned seat issue, as I understand it, started in the Obama administration. In the Bush administration, you just took a seat, and I guess there were a couple of people that have had reserved seats. But for the most part, the more formalized reserved seating piece came in over the last eight years.

Except, of course, like so many things the leaders-to-be have said, this was incorrect.

The WHCA assumed responsibility for assigning the seats in the briefing room over the last two decades at the request of both Republican and Democratic administrations,w ho were mindful of the potential appearance of playing favorites if they assigned the seats themselves.

Perhaps we need one more person on the Communications team - the Assistant to the President and Director of Accurate Communications - who can come in behind the rest of the people in the administration and tell a little truth?

Priebus also noted

Look, I think that many things have to change, and I think that it's important that we look at all of those traditions that are great, but quite frankly, as you know, don't really make news. And you know, even looking at things like the daily White House briefing from the press secretary, I mean, there's a lot of different ways that things can be done, and I can assure you we're looking at that.

Spicer echoed that 'doing things differently' message in his interview on Today, pointing out that that Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are important as the administration wants to have more Americans involved in the process, like Trump's 40 million combined social media followers. And, of course, those are media platforms on which Scavino and Trump can communicate without having to have any interactions with reporters.

Trump, who hasn't held a press conference since July, didn't announce whether there will be an Assistant to the President and Director of Telephonic Communications with Fox News on the team, but I assume he'll continue using that as a key piece of his communications strategy.

Also not clarified was who will be the Assistant to the President and Director of Banning the Media, and if that person will also fill the role of Assistant to the President and Director of Determining Who in the Media Has Treated the POTUS Fairly and Nicely. or if the latter will need its own full-time person.

I'll have to go check Trump's Instagram account to find out.