OrangeVerse LVII: Everyone, to a T

The president spoke three times yesterday: once before getting on Marine One for a trip to Air Force One; once before getting on Air Force One to fly to Texas, and once at the border between McAllen, Texas and Reynosa, Mexico.

There was a little bit of poetry there, natch. And, of course, within that poetry was Trump's usual 'not me' method of taking accountability, and the non-specific "everybody" which we know mostly means 'nobody"

South Lawn

As far as this is concerned, 

we want no violence.

Never violence.

We want absolutely no violence. 

And on the impeachment

it’s really a continuation 

of the greatest witch hunt 

in the history of politics. 

 It’s ridiculous.  

It’s absolutely ridiculous. 

This impeachment is 

causing tremendous 

anger, and you’re doing it, 

and it’s really a terrible 

thing that they’re doing.

For Nancy Pelosi 

and Chuck Schumer 

to continue on this path, 

I think it’s causing tremendous

danger to our country 

and it’s causing tremendous anger. 

I want no violence 

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Joint Base Andrews

Prince George’s County, Maryland 

I think that big tech is

 doing a horrible thing

 for our country and

to our country. And

I believe it’s going to

be a catastrophic mistake

 for them. They’re

dividing and divisive,

and they’re showing

something that I’ve been

predicting for a

long time. I’ve been

predicting it for a long time,

and people didn’t act on it. 

But I think big tech

has made a terrible

mistake, and very, very

bad for our country. And

that’s leading others to do

the same thing, and it causes

a lot of problems and a lot of

 danger. Big mistake. They shouldn’t

be doing it. But there’s always

a counter move

when they do that.

I’ve never seen

such anger as I see right

now, and that’s a

terrible thing.

Terrible thing.

And you have to

always avoid violence.

And we have — we have

tremendous support.

We have support probably

 like nobody has ever

seen before. Always have

to avoid violence.

So if you read my speech

— and many people have

done it, and I’ve seen it

both in the papers

and in the media,

on television —

it’s been

 analyzed, and people thought

that what I said was totally

appropriate. And if you

 look at what other people have said

 — politicians at a high level —

about the riots during the summer,

the horrible riots in Portland

and Seattle, in various other —

other places, that was a real problem

 — what they said. 

But they’ve analyzed

my speech and words

 and my final paragraph,

 my final sentence,

and everybody,

to the T,

thought it was

 totally appropriate.

Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Mexico-United States Border

Reynosa -McAllen, Texas

And now I'd like

to briefly address

the events of last week.

Millions of our citizens

watched on Wednesday

as a mob

stormed the Capitol

and trashed 

the halls of government.

As I have consistently

said throughout my

administration, we believe

in respecting America's

history and traditions,

not tearing them down.

We believe

in the rule of law,

not in violence or rioting.

Now is the time

for our nation to heal,

and it's time for peace

and for calm

Respect for law

enforcement and the

great people within

law enforcement -

so many are here -

is the foundation

of the MAGA agenda.

And we're a nation

of law, and

we're a nation

of order. That

is why we're here today,

to talk about

what we must do

to uphold the

rule of law in America

and how we must

continue to support our law

enforcement heroes,

which is exactly what you are.

Do you feel like a hero?

Yeah I think you do.

Right? (Applause)

You do and you are.

Worth noting? 

It took the 'law and order' president, owner of the MAGA agenda, supporter of our law enforcement heroes, three days to lower the flag to half staff in honor of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who was murdered during the MAGA attack on the seat of our democracy. 

Does he feel like a hero? 

Yeah, I think he does. 

Right? (boos, jeers, rotten tomatoes, raspberries, Bronx Cheers, and more.) 

He does, and he's not.

Sunday School 1/10/21: Extra Credit

For your Extra Credit this week, we're taking a look at the panel discussions in the classrooms Sunday, and distilling them down to one quote per person. 

First up? The gang at This Week with George Stephanopoulos, which included regulars Chris Christie and Rahm Emanuel, along with the CEO of Democracy For America Yvette Simpson; and Sarah Isgur, a veteran of the Trump administration Justice Department who's now a political analyst for CNN and The Dispatch.

George started the panel discussion by asking Rahm Emmanuel what he thought about impeaching Trump a second time.

 Yeah, George, the way I look at this is two parts, in a kind of bifocal way. One is there was a crime committed; two, we have a cancer in our society. And you have to address both with everything you have. On the crime side, I definitely think, whether it's impeachment -- you know, the other day I said go to censure because it would be quick. That's how we handled Joe McCarthy. But you need a moral judgment quick that the institution of Congress, on behalf of the United States, speaks about the crimes that were committed, not just by the president -- I would also go a little further and discuss also those who were instigating and part and parcel, not just the people they're arresting around the country that should be arrested and brought to trial, but other people in the institution that were part of this. There's ways to hold them accountable... Second, on the cancer, Joe Biden has a role, but the Republicans who call people names and call people socialists, you're creating an environment that creates a cancer here. Everything in American history is about inclusion versus exclusion. And we have a big, long-term, generational fight of bringing people who have been excluded economically, politically, culturally, society-wise, legally, into our country. And when we bring inclusion and have an inclusive effort, America is strengthened. So, yes, on whether it's impeachment, censure, but a moral judgment and a legal -- and consequences that actually bring a voice to what happened here, because it is unprecedented. And then, second, deal with the cancer in our society in a generational fight for inclusion.

Regarding impeachment, Chris Christie said

 -- I think if inciting to insurrection isn't, then I don't really know what it is. But I will say too that the Democrats, by what they did earlier on Ukraine, have kind of cheapened this a little bit, too. And I think that these are the type of actions which this mechanism was put into -- was put into place for...What I have heard from fellow Republicans is that they have had enough, and that the president's conduct, quite frankly, since then has gotten them upset. I mean, it is a national disgrace, George, that the flag at the White House is not at half-staff for that Capitol Hill police officer, Sicnick, who gave his life in protecting one of our institutions of democracy. If we're having a fit of pique, and that's why we're not putting a flag at half-staff, it's just another example of why people think that these decisions are not being made on the merits; these decisions are being made purely with an idea of what's in my own personal desire at the moment on the part of the president. And so, it's just wrong.

Sarah Isgur noted that there's no one around this time like Howard Baker, back in the Nixon days.

There is no one who the president listens to. He is fundamentally different than Richard Nixon. In his farewell address in 1974, Richard Nixon said: I'm not a quitter, but I have to put the country first. That is not fundamentally who Donald Trump is, or else we wouldn't have had January 6. He incited an insurrection against the legislative branch. Mind you, our Declaration of Independence was to overthrow a tyrant who excited domestic insurrections amongst us, is what it said. Our entire Constitution is built to prevent tyranny from the executive branch against our seat of government. And like others have said, if this isn't an impeachable offense, I don't know what it is. But the idea that Donald Trump at this point will be convinced to resign by anyone in the Republican Party, he was the one telling folks in that crowd to go after his own vice president. He continued to do so when his vice president was in danger in the Capitol, as they chanted, "Hang Mike Pence." It is disgusting. But I don't see this president doing what Richard Nixon did, which is somewhat funny, because we consider Richard Nixon, I -- most likely, the worst president of the 20th century. And yet Donald Trump is making Richard Nixon looks like a statesman.

Yvette Simpson agreed with George that the more we hear, the worse it gets.

Absolutely. I mean, I think the question about whether this was coordinated, whether this was planned is not a question. I mean, there was clearly -- we're going to continue to hear about what happened with Capitol Police and the fact that you see folks being ushered in, you see people being walked out, you see people being helped down. The Capitol Police, their chief has stepped down. We know that there was a rally ahead of time. We know that the president of the United States asked these people to go to the Capitol. I believe that you're going to find a lot of evidence that this was coordinated, that, actually, we escaped a much more horrifying result because of the bravery of the individuals who protected the members of Congress. And I think that, to add to the conversation that we are having today -- and I love that we're all in agreement here, George. We need to do something, and we need to do something really, really -- right now, and something that shows that this is -- this is an extreme situation. People continue to say that we don't have enough time. I want to remind folks that Senate GOP facilitated one of the fastest nominations of a Supreme Court justice after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So, to say that we can't do this in a week is ridiculous. And, again, if we don't do it now, how do we ever in the future of this country say that we're going to hold someone accountable, anyone, especially a president, if we don't do this and do this right now?

And, here's some of the conversation with the group on Fox News Sunday, where Chris Wallace was joined by Mitch McConnell's former chief of staff and president of Cavalry Consultants, Josh Holmes; Marie Harf, executive director of the Serve America PAC, and Jonathan Swan from Axios.

Wallace asked Swan how Trump is taking his Twitter ban, and what he's heard about Trump's mood in his final days. Swan noted that Trump has told him several times that Twitter is

his most powerful weapon, it's his most powerful tool, and he believes that.  He may not be wrong, by the way. I mean he -- it's the way that he communicates directly with the American people. He goes around the mainstream media. He can speak to -- I think his combined audiences at least 150 million, may be more than that. His Twitter audience was something like 88 million and it's an incredibly intense following. There's people who just are addicted his Twitter feed. So he will see this is a huge blow to him... I know inside the White House right now they're trying to turn their attention for the next few days on how they can fight back against these social media companies. So, I wouldn't be surprised -- I know that -- I mean one person last night said to me, 'everything's on the table.' I don't what that means policy-wise. I said are we talking executive orders? They said, everything's on the table.

Josh Holmes, in response to a question about Twitter's responsibility as a private company to police their site, that

they certainly have the ability as a private company to do anything that they'd like to do, and that includes platforming every conservative if they'd like to. I think the larger problem here is any effort, historically-speaking, to stifle free speech ultimately has resulted in making the problem that you're trying to cure much, much worse because ultimately all of this speech gets funneled down into smaller silos, to more extreme sects, to further radicalize and push away sort of mainstream thought. And I think you can see that already happening here. I'm less concerned about this in terms of what it means for Donald Trump's Twitter account. I'm more concerned about the precedent that it sets for conservative speech going forward. And I think that is what most Republicans and conservatives are looking at as a real problem for what Twitter has done here.

 Marie Harf offered this on Biden's legislative calendar and priorities.

Well, Chris, I think, number one has to be getting his team in place. And that involves dealing with everything from COVID to the economy and jobs to national security. And so I do think that there's a strong sense that confirmations have to happen immediately. And then paired with that is the question of additional COVID relief for Americans. He has talked about the $2,000 checks, getting more relief to small businesses, getting unemployment relief to people. I think that will be a first priority as well...

But I actually think that this is an opportunity for senators like Joe Manchin, Chris Coons, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, the folks clustered around the middle of both parties, to come together to help Biden get things passed like infrastructure for example, things passed like tweaks to our health care system. You know, Joe Biden did not campaign on huge, radical change, he campaigned on working across the aisle to address things like prescription drugs. And so I think that once we get through this initial period of time where he gets his team in place and works to really attack the coronavirus issue, those are the kinds of things he's going to look at.

Final word goes to Swan, on the role in national politics for Trump after Biden's inauguration. 

Well, he does have a base that will follow and support him. It will be the height of naivety to think that he doesn't. And, in fact, I think people drastically overstating the extent to which Donald Trump is a diminished figure after this. Yes, he's a -- of course he's a -- he -- there's no doubt he's lost some -- and Josh probably has a better read on this than I do, some number of Republicans. He's certainly lost quite a few elected Republicans. But I don't -- I haven't seen any evidence yet that he's lost a huge proportion of the Republican base who, you have to remember, was -- and we know this both from data, like hard, quantitative data, but also from focus groups and from anecdote and from activists in the field, that he had an incredible bond with the Republican base. A very intense bond that I've seen firsthand at many Trump rallies and there are some things -- I'm not convinced that goes away at all.  So I think people should be very wary of dismissing Trump; he's somebody who has serious power, his own type of power outside of Washington going far beyond January 20th.

On that, I couldn't agree more. And honestly, impeaching him is only going to make him that much more adored by his bas. 

See you around campus. Wear your mask, and do your research. Read whatever you can about what happened last week, and compare sources from all sides. It's the best practice, if also the most painful.

Sunday School 1/10/21

Let's dive in to today's classrooms, shall we? 

First up? Former Trump Chief of Staff (etc. etc. etc.) Mick Mulvaney, who talked with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. Let's see if Chuck redeemed himself after last week's embarrassing scrum with Sen. Ron Johnson. 

Mulvaney said he doesn't know about the president's current state of mind, but he said the Trump of eight months ago or so would have dealt with things differently.

I thought that we'd never be here. I thought the president would be presidential. Clearly, that system has broken down. And whether or not the president is different or the people advising him are different or both, I don't know what's going on inside the Oval Office now, and I don't know what's going on inside the president's head.

And he said that policy differences or differences in style, personality traits you don't like, those are all

different than what happened on Wednesday. Wednesday was a fundamental threat to the United States. It speaks to what makes us American. It's an existential type of thing. It's not, it’s not superficial. It's deep and it's real and it's different, which is why you saw so many resignations this week, and didn't see them over the course of the last couple years. Wednesday changed everything.

Chuck played some of Trump's quotes, using "character is destiny" as the framework, and wondered how Mulvaney and others could say they never saw this "version of Donald Trump," and he wondered how this wasn't the inevitable ending. Mulvaney's response was, well, perfect Trumpeter.

Yeah. And I know it's, I know it's easy for folks now who've never liked the president or always disagreed with his policies or really disliked him as a person to say, “Why didn't everybody see this coming?” But keep in mind, so many of us that worked with him every single day didn't see him through a filter. In fairness, you saw him oftentimes -- you've had some face to face with him -- but most people saw him through the filter of a media that didn't like him very much. We saw him every single day. The reason that I wrote in The Wall Street Journal six weeks ago that I thought the president would leave presidentially is because I had evidence to that end. I had stories. I had background. I had seen that type of president, and I never thought I'd see what I saw on Wednesday. Yes, the rhetoric was very high and very fiery. You and I both know, however, that American politicians do this on a regular basis. I can pull you similar clips of Maxine Waters telling people to take to the streets. It's different though, when as you said in your entry, that people took him literally. I never thought I'd see that. I never thought I’d see a day in our country where people from any side of the political spectrum would storm the Capitol in order to intentionally stop the Constitutional transfer of power, which is part of what was happening on Wednesday. That's what's different, Chuck, that the country is different than I expected. 

I can't help laughing when people indignantly tell me that Maxine Waters and the president of the United States are on equal footing. Honestly, I can't not laugh at that.

Final question? "Should Trump be ostracized from the Republican Party as you know it?" Mulvaney said that's going to happen, but he thinks "the ideas will live on." And, he added,

But I think if you have any role at all in what happened on Wednesday, that you sort of, you don't deserve to lead the party anymore. The ideas are bigger than the people. But I think, I think the voters will take that into consideration... I can't tell you the number of people who've supported me for a decade who’s saying that Wednesday was a bridge too far. They love Trump, they love the policies, they were really pleased with the successes of the first four years, but he lost them on Wednesday. And I think that's, I think that's the right thing. I think people need to know that what happened on Wednesday is just different.

Next, we have DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, who talked with Margaret Brennan on CBS' Face the Nation. The first question was whether DC is prepared for the inauguration and what comes after that. Brennan did note that a public emergency has been declared, and that there will be several thousand National Guard troops in the city.

Bowser admitted that preparations for the inauguration "has to be different than any other inauguration," and that she's engaged DHS and asked that they take extra steps, and she's also going to be asking the president to declare a "pre-emergency declaration" that'll allow for more federal participation.

She said she doesn't know who planted the pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC, and that the FBI is looking into it.

Who we saw charging the Capitol building were trained people in many cases, former military, former law enforcement. I think we may find other- other trained people, trained at marching and surging and sieging buildings. So, we have to take it seriously. We too, have to take seriously how we're spreading our resources. That's why we're very focused on making sure that the federal government is providing enough coverage for federal facilities, including the- the Capitol, but many federal buildings across the district so that other law enforcement, our- our law enforcement can focus on other threats across the district's eight wards.

Brennan questioned a letter she had sent on the 5th to the Pentagon and Justice Department discouraging "any additional deployments without immediate notification and consultation with the police if such plans are underway." Brennan wondered if that might have "played a role in the underreaction."  Bowser said no. Rather,

that letter calls attention to the federal government or other federal policing agencies and asks the federal government to coordinate with us if they were going to be on DC streets. That letter has nothing to do with the Capitol or other federal facilities.

Obviously, that letter was a reaction to the federal government's over-reaction last June to the Black Lives Matter protests; the law enforcement presence then, and their actions, have been compared to what was around last Wednesday, and to say the differences are striking is a gross understatement. 

And, I'll close with House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who talked with Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union. Clyburn said he was doing well, and he praised his security detail, while saying that "the shame is the fact that the leadership above them did not give them the right kind of directions. And, therefore, they were not able to be -- effectively doing their jobs throughout."

Tapper changed the subject to impeachment, wondering if articles would be submitted on Monday. Clyburn said they papers would be drawn up or finished on Monday, and possibly there'll be action Tuesday or Wednesday, but he thinks it will be this week. He congratulated  Rep. Jamie Raskin for "a job well done" on the article that's been drafted, saying that.

...he brought into that article the issue that concerned me. And that is whether or not we would ignore what the president did regarding the vote down in Georgia that is the presidential vote in Georgia. We heard him on the phone talking to the secretary of state, in fact, almost ordering him, begging at one time and ordering at the other time, and threatening him with criminal action to overturn the vote, to find him 11,700-some-odd votes that he needed in order to be declared the victor. That is impeachable. And I think it should be brought into the discussion. Now, I know the state laws were -- are applicable, as well as local laws. But I think that we in the House of Representatives has got a responsibility to maintain the integrity of a federal election. We tell the people all the time that your vote is your voice. Well, our vote is our voice. And we must voice disapproval of what the president did.

Tapper noted that an impeachment trial in the Senate could start as early a 1PM on January 20th, but noted "it could distract the Senate from considering any Cabinet nominees for Joe Biden, passing coronavirus relief."  Do you have any concerns that Congress will be distracted if this trial goes forward, instead of focusing on the Cabinet and coronavirus?

Clyburn said both he and Speaker Pelosi have concerns, and then he turned on Mitch McConnell.

Mitch McConnell is a pretty good legislator. And he's doing what he thinks he needs to do to be disruptive of President Biden. But I would say to Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi is smarter than that. We will take the vote that we should take in the House. And she will make the determination as to when is the best time to get that vote and get the managers appointed and move that legislation over to the Senate. It just so happens that, if it did go over there for 100 days, it could - let's give president-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running. And maybe we will send the articles sometime after that.

I'm getting stressed just thinking about that possibility, aren't you? Hurrying to get the article(s) done, and they'll not be bipartisan to any degree, and then waiting to send them over to the Senate? It's like Deja vu all over again, right?

Tapper turned to suggestions Clyburn made that there might "be some Capitol Police officers who aided the rioters, who were complicit in the attack," and that "something else was going on untoward here." He asked what evidence there was to support the statements. Clyburn said he has an 

unmarked office that you have got to know exactly where it is. It is where I spend most of my time doing my work... And that office is where I do most of my work. And for some reason, these people showed up at that office. But the office where my name is above the door -- or on the door and my position above the door was not disturbed. So, I'm just saying, they didn't go to where my name was. They went where I usually hang out. And so that, to me, indicates that something untoward may have been going on.

And the final question has to do with race, and Nancy Pelosi's comment that the insurrectionists "have chosen their whiteness over democracy."  Tapper wondered if Clyburn agreed was what happened on Wednesday.

Oh, many of them, absolutely. I can't tell you how many times in my life I have heard people say to me, to my teeth, so to speak, that that is what is paramount with them. Why would anybody be going there with this so-called Confederate Battle Flag? I have been telling people all the time there is something else about that flag that people don't focus on. That has never been the Confederate Flag. And when people tell you it is all about heritage, it is not about heritage. That flag was never adopted by the Confederacy. They always rejected that flag.  Nathan Bedford Forrest put that flag out here when he was forming the Ku Klux Klan, or when he was running it, though he said he didn't found it. But the fact of the matter is, that flag has been adopted by skinheads and white supremacists in Germany. You can't -- it is illegal for the swastika to fly in Germany. So, they took that flag. So, when that guy walked in there with that flag, he wasn't talking about the Confederacy. He was talking about his whiteness. That flag is the flag of white nationalism and the flag of white supremacy.

Tapper left it there, and so will I. 

See you around campus. Wear a mask. Stay out of crowds. And if you know anyone in the videos from the attack on the Capitol, the FBI would love to hear from you. 

In Case You Missed It (v68)

What a week las week was...  I only managed to get three posts out of my head and onto the interwebs. Here's your week in review. 

For Sunday School, I highlighted the so-called interview that Chuck Todd conducted with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Meet the Press. As I noted in the post, Todd has a history of going off the rails when he talks with Johnson, especially since he got so much credit for being 'tough' in a previous interview. In this one, he made himself out to be a fool, in my opinion. 

This portion of the interview came after Todd accused Johnson of being one of the arsonists who lit the fire of baseless voter fraud allegations, and Johnson accused Todd of the media being the arsonists because of their bias, and more. Johnson's words are italicized so you can tell them apart. 

So you believe -- It's not quackery -- You believe in -- It's not conspiracy theory ---You believe -- It's what's going to be required. Let me ask you this. Then why didn't you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? There's plenty of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job. So you're basically saying is -- I mean, Chuck -- if there's enough people who believe a conspiracy theory -- I could have held hearings on all kinds of things. I held hearings on -- If there's enough people who hold -- what I figured was the most relevant issues -- Are you going to do a -- how about the Moon landing -- And obviously this election -- Are you going to hold hearings on that?

And then he said that, while there are all kinds of things he'd like to have hearings on, but that you have to pick your battles.

Right now, we have this election. We've got tens of millions of Americans that think this election was stolen. We need to get the bottom of it. Again, what's explained, we need to explain it, get that off the table. We also have to acknowledge there were some real problems here --

Yup, we do. This interview being one of them.

I didn't offer you a Sunday School Extra Credit las week - I mean, the whole week was an Extra Credit post, wasn't it? And I sure hope you were - and are - paying attention.

There was more than enough fodder carried over from the week before to give us a Trump in Transition post on his 18th phone call to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's Republican Secretary of State. This one, Raffensperger answered, and legally taped. The audio and transcript were released when the president lied about the nature of the call and Raffensperger fought back. 

I had thought about pulling some OrangeVerse out of the transcript, but Trump clearly was in full-blown crime boss mode, so I decided to take it more seriously.  Anyway, here's a slice of that, where Trump responds after hearing Raffensperger's first rebuttal.

"Well, Brad." That's what the president said next. "Well, Brad." And then, after talking about other states, and saying "we have all the votes we need," he went back to his favorite theme: he won. He won, and he proved there's way more votes than needed, but he only had to show one more than 11,779 because that's how many he lost by in the bad count from "Well, Brad."

Not only that, but

...what's the difference between winning the election by two votes and winning it by half a million votes. I think I probably did win it by half a million. You know, one of the things that happened, Brad, is we have other people coming in now from Alabama and from South Carolina and from other states, and they’re saying it’s impossible for you to have lost Georgia. We won. You know in Alabama, we set a record, got the highest vote ever. In Georgia, we set a record with a massive amount of votes. And they say it’s not possible to have lost Georgia.

And I could tell you by our rallies. I could tell you by the rally I’m having on Monday night, the place, they already have lines of people standing out front waiting. It’s just not possible to have lost Georgia. It’s not possible. When I heard it was close, I said there’s no way.

He went on, and on, again. But here's where Well, Brad steps up his game.

Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. 

That's just one of the president's challenges - they are many.

My last post of the week offered up My Middle-aged White Lady Perspective on last Wednesday, and some of what's transpired since. I maintain that what we saw is who we are. The totality of it - not just the incitement and the storming and the violence and the destruction, but also the reactions, the calls for retribution, and excusing and accusing... all of it, whether we like it or not, is who we are.  

Here are a couple of reasons why we were all present on Wednesday.

We are without irony (1). We riot, we storm the Capitol, to "take back our country" and do so carrying a pole with two flags - the one bearing the name of a man above the Stars and Stripes. We riot, we storm the Capitol, to "defend our constitution" and support those who are literally trying to bypass the Constitution. We protest things being stolen from us by trying to steal the same thing from others. We lash out at perpetrators - those who do exactly what we want them to do, what we encouraged them to do - and then vote the way they want us to. What is wrong with us?

We are without irony (2). We saw protests, and rioting, around the country last summer; in some places it went on for weeks. We have a hard time separating protests from riots, and we have a hard time being consistent in our distaste for either or both: it all depends on the reason, the voice, the message. We will tolerate 'protests' if we agree with the reason, but tolerate them much less if we don't. We will tolerate rioting, argue that it's OK if a few people lost their businesses because it's for the greater good, but we won't tolerate rioting if the 'good' is not great enough in our eyes. We appreciate 'our rights' but the rights of certain others, less so. Rights red and blue. Protests red and blue. Riots red and blue. Irony red and blue.

Comments are always welcomed on any post. Have at it. 

And, that's it - you're up to date on the week that was.  I'll be back later for Sunday School, in one form or another.

My Middle-aged White Lady Perspective: Yes, This IS Who We Are.

I don't really even know where to start trying to describe what I was feeling as I watched the drama that was Wednesday unfold. Here's a sampling of what I remember blurting out while watching the news from various outlets including Fox, CNN, and CSPAN: 

Can someone please tell the Trumps to #STFU? I am SO sick of listening to them... What the actual hell?! What is going on? They're storming the Capitol??  Where are the police? Where the hell are the police? They're letting them walk through? This is insane! Honey - you're not going to believe this - it's a nightmare! Holy cow - this is nuts! I can't believe this! Someone's going to try and blame the Dems for this, I can hear it already. Good lord...!  We know who caused this. Can't wait for them to try and deflect... So much for our moral upper hand, right? This is SURREAL...

There was more, probably - this is what I remember saying, and thinking, and much of it is still rattling around in my head. I was happy that someone jumped on a family chat group that we have open for things both silly and important and reached out - it was good to know that we weren't watching alone here, and that others were on the same sort of emotional rollercoaster I was (my husband doesn't get as invested as I do; he wasn't even watching most of the time).

Anyway, here we are, the official duties of the House and Senate finished, our votes confirmed and "accepted." And now, we deal with the aftermath. 

From my middle-aged white lady perspective, as I posted yesterday on social media, what we saw Wednesday was who we are. Some have disagreed with me, but to me, taken in its totality, Wednesday was in fact who we are.  

We are angry. There are a whole host of reasons why, too numerous to mention. I'd suggest some folks are angry simply because it gives them the opportunity to roar, nor because of any personal impact by anything that's happening, or because of any ideological or ethical reasons - it's just noise, going along with noise. That's the most dangerous kind, right? Our faces are red with anger, and similarly blue.

We are followers. A strong voice, a 'way with words,' someone who 'speaks our language' and down the primrose path we go. A path to salvation (however that's defined in this minute, in this moment, in this time.) We have salvation in spades, and legions of 'preachers' ready, willing, and able to guide us to our salvation of choice, whether it's keeping poor people out of our neighborhoods, or guaranteeing religious freedom for the right religions, or lowering taxes for the folks who can most afford to pay them, or giving free education to people, and free health care, and so on. Some of the salvation is promised by actual preachers (as opposed to people of faith), but much of it comes from false prophets, using love of country as the foundation, saying what we want to hear, whoever we are, whatever our redness or blueness, preaching from pulpits of our televisions, our statehouses, our Capitol, our White House.

We are without irony (1). We riot, we storm the Capitol, to "take back our country" and do so carrying a pole with two flags - the one bearing the name of a man above the Stars and Stripes. We riot, we storm the Capitol, to "defend our constitution" and support those who are literally trying to bypass the Constitution. We protest things being stolen from us by trying to steal the same thing from others. We lash out at perpetrators - those who do exactly what we want them to do, what we encouraged them to do - and then vote the way they want us to. What is wrong with us?

We are without irony (2). We saw protests, and rioting, around the country last summer; in some places it went on for weeks. We have a hard time separating protests from riots, and we have a hard time being consistent in our distaste for either or both: it all depends on the reason, the voice, the message. We will tolerate 'protests' if we agree with the reason, but tolerate them much less if we don't. We will tolerate rioting, argue that it's OK if a few people lost their businesses because it's for the greater good, but we won't tolerate rioting if the 'good' is not great enough in our eyes. We appreciate 'our rights' but the rights of certain others, less so. Rights red and blue. Protests red and blue. Riots red and blue. Irony red and blue.

We are without irony (3). I saw a rant on social media, that we are one country, we have the same color blood, and we need to come together as a country, if not for us, for our children and grandchildren. The poster will not support anything the Democrats stand for.  (Come together, right now... oh, never mind.) Some commented on the rant that they don't care which party is in power as long as their investments do OK.  (Go Country! We're all in it together!  Except the people who aren't in the market.) And the mainstream media and social media are evil (but not their media, and not the people they follow on social media). Look at us, coming together, red white and blue, for our children and their children. My head hurts from the shaking. This conversation happens when we are talking just as it does when they are talking. It happens every single day.

We are reactive. Look at my reactions above. Look at your own reactions to what you saw. Look at the reactions of your friends and family, even the ones who blame Antifa and BLM and fascists and socialists and communists and the deep state pizza gate Satanic pedophile shadow government and the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. Well, not Santa Claus, because we saved Christmas. We know who did this, we know who was behind it, and dammit, we are right! Watch the news, listen to the words we used: sedition. Insurrection. Storming the Capitol. Attacking our democracy. Stealing the votes. Stealing the country from us. Patriots. Defenders of our democracy. Special people. Strong supporters. They are just angry and afraid of being left behind. We know we are right, and they are wrong. We know that, both sides of 'we' know that, without having to wait an instant. We don't need proof, they don't need proof; we are immediate, and we are right. That we can't tell who the real believers are and who the opportunists are equally doesn't matter, for we are busy reacting. I am we and you are we and we are all together in our weness - aren't we?

Many people with convictions lack courage, or people with courage lack conviction. The speeches. The agony. The angst. The fiery defense of good (throwing out votes, defending the Constitution, defending the American Republic). The fiery condemnation of evil (throwing out votes, defending the Constitution, defending the American Republic.) Strong - dare I say harsh - words, for the president and those who would be his replacement, they think (we know better). Promises that there will be swift handling of him (impeach him now! 25th amendment NOW!) and them (sanction; censure; expulsion or similar). Heads will roll! Firings will occur! Resignations will be demanded!

What do we want? Retribution! When do we want it? Immediately after we get the hell out of dodge, go home, and start our memoirs, or start drafting legislation so that nothing like this will ever happen again, or just hide until "it's over."

Promises made, promises not kept. The Senate is in recess until January 19th. The House is in  recess until after the Inauguration. Shouldn't they have stayed there? Rolled up their sleeves and helped clean up the literal and figurative messes? And even if they get retribution, what's going to happen? Are wounds going to be healed? Will the country wake up the next day thinking everything's OK? Of course not! 

The list of those abandoning the president's ship is long and growing longer; it seems his words are, finally, untenable. All of the offenses against American ideals, against our allies, against human beings, against those shithole countries. All of the angry rhetoric, the disparaging remarks (yes, that includes the racist stuff), the public humiliation, the boycotting of American companies for offending him or damaging his daughter's income, all of the lies, the adulation of dictators, the assaults on the Constitution, on the rights of people who don't agree with him - all of that was fine. 

But Wednesday? That was, finally, "too much."  Or, worse, far worse, "they didn't know he was like this, and boy if they had, they wouldn't have ever worked for him." They knew. Every single one of them knew. They watched him fire people on Twitter, they know that one so treated found out on television that he had been fired. Did they leave then? 

Hell no, they didn't. They were the 'we' and the targets of the president were the 'them' and It. All. Was. Fine. And still, they applaud him on the way out the door. 

I know, now, that you're a simpering child and a flaming jerk and un-American and unpresidential, but boy, I'm proud of what we accomplished. And since I'll be out of a job in two weeks anyway, I'll take my leave now, and take credit for that, thank you very much. And I hope you buy my book.

And I'm not just talking about current and former members of the president's cabinet. I'm talking about all of the members of the Republican Party, including party chairmen, and elected officials at all levels who have hitched themselves to his bandwagon, those who have defended him, and those who have ignored the worst of him because they could justify it. I'm talking about the ones who want to replace him, the ones who helped fire up the protesters and incite the rioters. Too much? Too little. Too late. Nice try, though.

And now, when they have one last chance to do the right thing - to make the president suck it up, shove his ego in his pocket, pull up his big boy pants, and show the world that we are Americans, that we are bigger than what happened Wednesday, that we are America, and we can do this? 

They, and we, are cheering the president's nonparticipation in the ceremonial transfer of the presidency, for different reasons. They, and we, are accepting the president's final temper tantrum, as we have accepted every single one of them since his inauguration, and before.

Yes. This IS who we are. We are us and them, and those people, and we are right and everyone else is wrong and the only way to move forward is to make sure this never happens again!

How do we do that, when we can't even agree on what 'this' is, this thing from which we need protection? How do we do that, when collectively we look at the exact same thing, and I see a giraffe and you see a zebra and someone else sees a warthog and someone else a flamingo and yet another person sees a poison dart frog? And I know I'm right - it's a damn giraffe. 

Everything we saw and heard on Wednesday, and everything we've heard since then, is exactly who we are. 

Nothing will change unless we agree on that.

Trump in Transition (v49): Maybe the 18th Time'll Be a Charm?

By now you're likely heard the news from the Washington Post about the president's insane phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

The WaPo released the full transcript and audio of the call, perhaps due to suggestions it had been selectively edited, but I hope more because it needed to be released. The American people deserve to hear his words, and those of the others on the call, not the words he wants us to hear. 

It's beyond shocking (to normal folks, anyway) that he made the call at all, this late in the game - but even more shocking was what he said on the call, knowing as he must have that it was being recorded. I mean, the thought that anyone would have a phone conversation with him and not record it (where it's legal, of course) is beyond me.

Also shocking? That this was the 18th time the president reached out to Raffensperger. Just imagine that - picture the mental state, picture the desperation, and picture the president of the United States being that desperate, that deranged...  I was going to say 'situationally' deranged, but I don't see any benefit pretending that it isn't widespread derangement, do you?

Also shocking? The possibility that we wouldn't even had known about it, had the president not tweeted his dismay that his efforts to redirect the outcome had failed, and had he not disparaged the folks in Georgia in the process. "The truth will come out," Raffensperger tweeted in response. And the truth did come out, didn't it? 

And the truth notwithstanding, the president will likely want us to agree it was a perfect call, a beautiful call. And that there's nothing wrong with the call, it's just perfect and beautiful and he did nothing wrong. The only people who did things wrong, he'd have us believe, are all of the Republicans involved in the election process in Georgia. He'll be telling us that any minute, I'm sure. Maybe after a quick trip to his golf course or something.

The call happened last Saturday afternoon. From Trumpworld were Mark Meadows and a couple of attorneys I'd never heard of - no Rudy, no Kraken, no Lin Wood, and certainly none of the famous ones who defended Trump in his impeachment. The deputy secretary of state and his office's general counsel joined Raffensperger.

There's so much material in the transcript, it's hard to pick out highlights. But here's some of it, including the president's contention that he couldn't have lost.

...I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia. You even see it by rally size, frankly. We’d be getting 25-30,000 people a rally and the competition would get less than 100 people. And it never made sense.

Because, as we know, voters don't vote, rally-goers vote. That's in the Constitution somewhere, right? Where's Jonathan Turley when you need him?

After listening to the president describe his truth, which included hundreds of thousands of alleged irregularities, amounting to many more than the 11,780 votes needed to win, Raffensperger had the chance to respond.

Well, I listened to what the president has just said. President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. We don’t agree that you have won. And we don’t — I didn’t agree about the 200,000 number that you’d mentioned...

He went on to describe all of the time they've spent rebutting Trump's numbers in lawsuits, and with the state Senate, the state House, the US Congressmen from Georgia. And he mentioned the recounts, which gave Georgia to President-elect Joe Biden again. And again. 

"Well, Brad." That's what the president said next. "Well, Brad." And then, after talking about other states, and saying "we have all the votes we need," he went back to his favorite theme: he won. He won, and he proved there's way more votes than needed, but he only had to show one more than 11,779 because that's how many he lost by in the bad count from "Well, Brad."

Not only that, but

...what's the difference between winning the election by two votes and winning it by half a million votes. I think I probably did win it by half a million. You know, one of the things that happened, Brad, is we have other people coming in now from Alabama and from South Carolina and from other states, and they’re saying it’s impossible for you to have lost Georgia. We won. You know in Alabama, we set a record, got the highest vote ever. In Georgia, we set a record with a massive amount of votes. And they say it’s not possible to have lost Georgia.

And I could tell you by our rallies. I could tell you by the rally I’m having on Monday night, the place, they already have lines of people standing out front waiting. It’s just not possible to have lost Georgia. It’s not possible. When I heard it was close, I said there’s no way.

He went on, and on, again. But here's where Well, Brad steps up his game.

Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen, and they were surprised. 

And he gave the example of some guy from Trumpworld and his 5,000 dead people - and Well, Brad said they've proven there were two votes cast by dead people. Which - although Brad didn't say this - is one less than the number of dead people votes cast for the president in Pennsylvania.  

There was a lot of talk about the video supposedly showing a woman putting what Trump said was 18,000 ballots through the machines - 100% of them for Biden - three times, Trump said. Or maybe it was 56,000 ballots, or 20 hundred bazillion ballots, who knows. 

Here's part of the response from Well, Brad.

... I think it’s extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context. 

After more babble from Trump, Well, Brad continued.

We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.

The president attacked the law enforcement folks, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations and the FBI, who have been investigating the allegations, the "law enforcement president" did. 

Well, there's no way they could - then they're incompetent. They're either dishonest or incompetent, okay?

There's only two answers, dishonesty or incompetence There's just no way. Look. There's no way. And on the other thing, I said too, there is no way. I mean, there's no way that these things could have been, you know, you have all these different people.

Later, after more allegations from Trump -most of them coming from Qanon and other conspiracy outlets - Well, Brad had to chime in again.

Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they - people can say anything. 

The president's response is hilarious.

Oh, this isn't social media. This is Trump media. It's not social media. It's really not; it's not social media. I don't care about social media. I couldn't care less. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side, you know. I don't even know why you have a side because you should want to have an accurate election. And you're a Republican.

He "couldn't care less about social media?" Isn't that why he vetoed the NDAA, the military spending bill, for not including the removal of protections for social media companies that are flagging all of his tweets about election fraud? What the actual hell?  

I don't know about you, but I'd bet my ballot that Trump media is way more bigly less trustworthy even than social media.

More back and forth, more "you must be wrong because you won't show us anything" from the Trump side. After all, they had experts look at stuff and determine that the official certified counts are all wrong - even though the Trump team admittedly doesn't have the records they need to prove that their own numbers are right. Got it? 

And when Well, Brad's team explained that the Trump team isn't entitled to all of the records they want, for privacy reasons among other things, here's Trump. 

Well, under law, you're not allowed to give faulty election results, okay? You're not allowed to do that. And that's what you've done. This is a faulty election result. And honestly, this should go very fast. You should meet tomorrow because you have a big election coming up, and because of what you’ve done to the president — you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam — and because of what you’ve done to the president, a lot of people aren’t going out to vote. And a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative because they hate what you did to the president. Okay? They hate it. And they’re going to vote. And you would be respected. Really respected, if this thing could be straightened out before the election. 

And once you work on those numbers? 

Because I know, Brad, that if you think we’re right, I think you’re going to say, and I’m not looking to blame anybody, I’m just saying, you know, and, you know, under new counts, and under new views, of the election results, we won the election. You know? It’s very simple. We won the election. 

So, the Rs are going to vote, and they're not going to vote, and they're going to vote negative, and they're going to vote. Word.  

And for some reason, after a lot of back and forth between others on the call, Trump decides this is the time to  play And Now for Something Completely Different.

And Stacey Abrams is laughing about you. She’s going around saying these guys are dumber than a rock. What she’s done to this party is unbelievable, I tell you. And I only ran against her once. And that was with a guy named Brian Kemp, and I beat her. And if I didn’t run, Brian wouldn’t have had even a shot, either in the general or in the primary. He was dead, dead as a doornail. He never thought he had a shot at either one of them. What a schmuck I was. But that’s the way it is. That’s the way it is.

I hope Brian was alive when he voted, I really do. It would be horrible otherwise. And speaking of voting, Trump also said he wanted everyone to meet, quickly

because I think we should come to a resolution of this before the election. Otherwise, you’re going to have people just not voting. They don’t want to vote.

Except, as we know, they do want to vote. Negatively, maybe, but 'they' don't like Well, Brad. Except for the ones that do. Dear lord, my head hurts.

They hate the state, they hate the governor, and they hate the secretary of state. I will tell you that right now. The only people that like you are people that will never vote for you. You know that, Brad, right? They like you, you know, they like you. They can’t believe what they found. They want more people like you. So, look, can you get together tomorrow? And, Brad, we just want the truth. It’s simple. And everyone’s going to look very good if the truth comes out. It’s okay. It takes a little while, but let the truth come out. And the real truth is, I won by 400,000 votes. At least. That’s the real truth. But we don’t need 400,000 votes. We need less than 2,000 votes. And are you guys able to meet tomorrow, Ryan? 

Well, sure, Mr. president, you need "less than 2,000 votes." Except that we all know you need 11,800 votes: one more than President-elect Biden's margin of victory. How stupid is he with this math stuff, anyway?

And how stupid are we? 

Sunday School 1/3/21

Want to play a game? It's called "invite a Republican to your classroom." 

It seems Chuck Todd remembers how much fun it was, and how much praise he got for doing his job and stuff that time back in 2019 when he interviewed Trump-loving Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI). Johnson is notorious for (a) spending a Fourth of July in Moscow, and (b) being a particularly bad interview. Here's an example of the latter from August when Dana Bash made a valiant effort at trying to get him to answer a question.

Today, Todd and Johnson had another go-round. It started with a question on why Johnson is now on "the side of questioning the results of this election." Johnson said he and the others are not acting to "thwart" our democratic process, they're trying to "protect it."

The fact of the matter is that we have an unsustainable state of affairs in this country where we have tens of millions of people that do not view this election result as legitimate. We've just come off of four years where the other side refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of President Trump. And here we are again. And what we're saying is we need transparency. And you do not -- when you're trying to investigate wrongdoing in elections, you don't have very much time. And so what we're suggesting is let's set up a commission, as they did -- I know it's a long time ago, 1877 -- but let's take a look at it, a bipartisan commission, to organize all the allegations -- certainly what I did in my hearing.

Johnson's hearing was "three-and-a-half-hour hearing" in which they "barely scratched the surface." 

Let's put out -- take off the table the ones that have been explained but also acknowledge the problem areas that have not been explained so that we can restore confidence in our election system. This is an unsustainable state of affairs right now. And that's all we're saying is, as long as someone's going to be objecting to this and we're going to be taking a vote, let's propose a solution in terms of, you know, transparency, investigation with a commission.

OK, so, there are obvious differences, that anyone can see, between Trump/Clinton and Trump/Biden, but the Rs love to pretend that what's happening now is the same as what happened then. And they love to ignore the fact that, by his own words and deeds, Trump proved himself to be an illegitimate president, all on his own.

Todd next suggested that by making an allegation of widespread fraud without evidence, and demanding an investigation, Johnson is "the arsonists."

You've started this fire. And now you're saying, "Woah, look at this. Oh my God. All these people believe what we told them," because you didn't have the guts to tell the truth that this election was fair.

Johnson, though, reached back into the history books, saying that the fire started back when Trump took office when "people like Mark Zaid" tweeted "The coup has started. First of many steps. Rebellion and impeachment to follow ultimately."  (Who is Mark Zaid?  I had no idea - had to Google him. He's a DC attorney, it seems, and I can assure you, no one outside the beltway knows - or cares - about his tweets.)

Who else started the fire, according to Johnson? 

This was started when the mainstream media stopped, dropped any pretense of being unbiased and actually chose sides during this election. This fire was started when you completely ignored, for example, our investigation of Hunter Biden. You know, no evidence of wrongdoing there. And now we find out after the election, no, there is a fair amount of evidence to the point that we have a real FBI investigation. So --

And here goes Chuck, wearing his new "I'm interviewing Ron Johnson" tie or something, getting all up in arms about criticism of the media. Chuck is standard font, Johnson is italicized. 

Senator. All right, I've had enough -- It’s the bias of the media -- of hearing this. All right. No, listen. I've had enough of this, too. No, Senator. It is -- It’s the bias in the media that has created a situation -- You've spent, you have spent the last two years -- where Republicans and conservatives do not trust -- No -- the mainstream media. And that is what, that is what has destroyed the credibility of the media and our institutions and really -- Right, no, the destruction of the institutions -- shaken confidence in this election result. So I didn't start this.

Say what you want about media bias, but literally no Republicans and conservatives - at least, not the kind Johnson is talking about - watch the mainstream media. Just ask the president - he'll tell you. He's the one who told them to stop watching Fox and turn to OAN and Newsmax.

Back to the classroom. Todd suggested that Johnson has been "carrying a lot of this crazy conspiratorial water" - blaming Ukraine for election interference, voter fraud, and what not - and he wondered why Johnson was doing it. 

You're not trying to overturn the election, you just said. Are you simply trying to curry favor with constituents of the president? Is that what this is all about, is this a cynical political ploy?

Johnson said he was trying to be "transparent," and he said (as an example of transparency, I guess) that the allegations of voter fraud "kind of fall into three categories."  Todd interrupted to point out that an allegation doesn't mean it happened. And, he said, "you don't get to make these allegations that haven't been proven true."

Here's what I don't understand. You understand how our government was set up. The reason we have a judiciary is because partisans like yourself weren't going to be trusted by the public to decide who won or lost an election. Let me ask you this: Who carried the state of Wisconsin?

Johnson said that Biden won by 20,000 votes, but that "there are also issues in Wisconsin." He said he didn't criticize the Dems back when they were concerned about voting machines, 

But now it's quackery? Now it's conspiracy theory? That's the problem, Chuck. There's a double standard here, and we are not being transparent, and we are dismissing the concerns of tens of millions of Americans. Again, I didn't, I didn’t light this fire.

Cue the Billy Joel song.  The fire was lit years ago, Johnson said, 

And we've destroyed the credibility, you have destroyed the credibility of the news media by your bias. And of course people like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan destroyed the credibility of the FBI and our justice system as well. We have an enormous problem in this country. It's unsustainable. And the only way you solve it is with information, and transparency, and hearings, and investigations --

Here comes the sparring again.

So you believe -- It's not quackery -- You believe in -- It's not conspiracy theory ---You believe -- It's what's going to be required. Let me ask you this. Then why didn't you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? There's plenty of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job. So you're basically saying is -- I mean, Chuck -- if there's enough people who believe a conspiracy theory -- I could have held hearings on all kinds of things. I held hearings on -- If there's enough people who hold -- what I figured was the most relevant issues -- Are you going to do a -- how about the Moon landing -- And obviously this election -- Are you going to hold hearings on that?

And then he said that, while there are all kinds of things he's like to have hearings on, but that you have to pick your battles.

Right now, we have this election. We've got tens of millions of Americans that think this election was stolen. We need to get the bottom of it. Again, what's explained, we need to explain it, get that off the table. We also have to acknowledge there were some real problems here --

There was another splashy exchange.

You've got to ask yourself, when you tell people a million times that something was stolen or something was fraud and then they believe it, I think you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself why so many people believe this. Well, Chuck, you need to look at your mirror because you carried the Democrats’ water on - Senator Johnson, I've got to go. I appreciate you coming on -- the whole Russian collusion with the Trump campaign hoax -- I’ve let you, I’ve let you say plenty of -- That is what you did in the media. You carried that water for years. You destroyed the credibility of the press -- You can -- Senator Johnson -- not me.

So, what did we learn in today's interview? That, when it comes to interviewing Sen. Johnson, Chuck Todd brings his A-game, and when it comes to everyone else, he brings his "Both Sides Now' game. But I'm just a Sunday School teacher. What do I know?

See you around campus. I'm looking forward to seeing all of the new masks you all got for Christmas and Kwanzaa.

In Case You Missed It (v67)

Got a cuppa? Time to settle in for a review of last week's posts.

Your Sunday School included visits to the CNN State of the Union classroom by Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and incoming Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO).  Here's a bit from Kinzinger's interview, with Dana Bash sitting in for Jake Tapper.  Among other things,

Kinzinger also laments the president purposefully conflating the COVID bill and the omnibus spending bill, which is money that would have been spent "whether we had COVID or not."

But to then say that we're giving money to other countries in the COVID bill is disingenuous. And it totally conflates two different issues. But -- and it doesn't do a service to the American people to explain what's going on and how these things are different.

When it comes time to officially accept the Electoral College results, he expects "there will be a little chaos," and said "This is a scam, though." The election can't be overthrown, isn't going to be overthrown,

...And so all that's being done is, certain members of Congress, the president, et cetera, and like -- quote, unquote -- "thought leaders" on Twitter are getting retweets, they're getting followers, they're raising money on this scam. It is a scam.

It's refreshing to hear an R point that out, isn't it?

Moving to Monday, and your Extra Credit, My Favorite Republican (MFR) - Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan - was on This Week (Jon Karl hosted). Hogan appeared after That Guy From Vermont; they both were asked about the incoming administration. Here's Hogan on that, and another hot topic - the danger of the waning days of president Trump. 

I know your previous guest probably would like him to move more -- more to the left, but I've been pushing to try to keep him, you know, in a more moderate place where he's willing to reach across the aisle and work together with Republicans.

On what kinds of "damage" president Trump can do in the next three weeks or so (Karl mentioned the ridiculous pardons as one example), MFR says he "gave up guessing what he might do next." The veto of the NDAA has been troubling, he said, but the fooling around on the stimulus bill "really bothers" him.

He'll tell you how bothered he is, don't worry. 

I took a little road trip, away from politics and the news of the day, and focused on holidays and technology, two fun topics (for very different reasons). I explored the question of one of those one-named tech assistants 'taking down Christmas' in  Could Alexa Even Handle the Decorations? 

And what about the memories? 

Will she smile at each Santa as she gently puts them to bed until next year, remembering which came from where, or who, and why? 

Will she know which of the cast iron ones I got years ago in one of the first booths we visited at a massive antique show, and carried in a knapsack for hours as we wandered around a field of 1,000 dealers? Will she hear My Sweet Baboo cursing my foolishness that day?  

How could she possibly know which was the very first one he gave me, or the most recent? Whether it was from our first Christmas, or our second? The tenth? Twelfth? Does she even know this is our 18th Christmas this year? Could she actually put the decorations away without knowing our history, our Christmas history?

How do you think She'd do with yours?

I did the annual look-back to identify 2020's Top Ten posts, based your pageviews. The list included a rant or two, and some Trump in Transition posts, and even a couple posts where I offered up my middle-aged white lady perspective. But the top post of the year was an Irony Board entry, a response to Rev. Franklin Graham's ludicrous statement that God was missing from the Democratic National Convention - and that, in comparison, somehow, God is present wherever Donald Trump can be found.

I had a hard time with that. I still have a hard time with that. And I had evidence on my side, which I shared in the post.

And finally, we closed out the week with the first TGIF of the new year, one in which I tried to be positive and upbeat, as is norm when we start from scratch each January. Here's an excerpt.

Our reasons for eagerly awaiting the arrival of 2021 surely include wanting to get past the worst of the pandemic - that one's shared by just about everybody. Others? Wanting to see the end of the Trump administration, or the start of the Biden Administration. The potential end of Mitch McConnell's reign of terror. A return to normalcy. The thrill of having the Buffalo Bills in the playoffs, and the Patriots watching on TV. They are endless, the reasons one wants to see the dawn of the new year - but even in times as divisive as these, most of us will agree we're glad 2020 is over, and we're looking forward to better things in 2021. 

And just like that, you're up to date!  See you later for Sunday School.

TGIF 1/1/2021

How about we go all celebratory for this week's entry?

Cheers to the end of the current Congress on Sunday. The next Congress, the 117th, begins at and the beginning of the next one, also on Sunday. There are 45 new Republican members of the House, and 15 new Dems. That the Dems lost so many seats, at a time when they were hoping for a 'blue wave,' is not a good sign, but we'll see how things go.  There are also two new Dem Senators and six new Rs, with two seats to be decided in Georgia on Tuesday.  

Cheers to the Georgia runoffs. Voter registration was sky high, turnout has been high, and the polls are tight - not that anyone dares pay attention to polls, right? It is fun to look at the push me-pull you aspects of the race, where Trump-supporting extremists are still saying the November election was rigged and so there's no reason to vote in the runoffs, while the at the same time the president, the president-elect, and many others are going to Georgia to drum up voter excitement and drive turnout. I expect we'll see two red wins, but you never know. I think maybe what we all should be rooting for, regardless of our politics, is an early decision, so we can get over our bad selves and move on. It's long past time that we put the 2020 election to bed.

Cheers to progress with vaccines. I don't think we were even close to hitting the promised 20,000,000 vaccines by 12/31/20. And we're hearing horror stories about distribution plans - or the lack thereof, vaccines sitting in warehouse undistributed, and of course there's the by now par-for-the-course finger-painting coming from a certain guy with a really popular Twitter account.  And we had a fired hospital pharmacist arrested for purposefully tainting vaccines by leaving them out for too long, and we had some folks who received injections of Regeneron - a treatment, not the vaccine. And even given all of that, I believe that things are going to start falling into place, that we'll get the logistics and the arguing worked out so that folks will get the shot in their arm that we need in the country's arm. I believe it's going to get better sooner than later, and I hope you'll add your optimism to mine.

Cheers to Brexit. I've got no compelling personal interest in the UK's decision to leave the EU; I kind of think it was a bad idea, but I don't know enough to comment intelligently. I do, however, appreciate that they managed to get a deal done, finally, and that things both sides can move forward. This, too, is something we'll have to watch to see what the impact will be on the US and the rest of the world, and whether the folks who voted to leave will be happy with their victory. And, we'll have to wait and see if others (Poland, perhaps?) will be emboldened to have a 'leave' vote of their own.

Cheers to 2021. Rarely have so many, who disagree on so much, shared such an appreciation for the passage of time. The turning of the page on a calendar. The dropping of a crystal ball in Times Square. Fireworks over iconic landmarks around the world. Weird performances by musicians some of those watching have never heard of, or hope to never hear from again. 

Our reasons for eagerly awaiting the arrival of 2021 surely include wanting to get past the worst of the pandemic - that one's shared by just about everybody. Others? Wanting to see the end of the Trump administration, or the start of the Biden Administration. The potential end of Mitch McConnell's reign of terror. A return to normalcy. The thrill of having the Buffalo Bills in the playoffs, and the Patriots watching on TV. They are endless, the reasons one wants to see the dawn of the new year - but even in times as divisive as these, most of us will agree we're glad 2020 is over, and we're looking forward to better things in 2021. 

Cheers to us, and TGIF, everyone.