On Christmas Eve, Joe and Jill Biden live-streamed calls into NORAD’s Santa Tracker, talking to kids about Santa, what they want for Christmas, and other kid friendly topics.  It was all in good fun, right up until a smart ass named Jared Schmeck of Oregon called in with his 4 kids; Schmeck was pleasant enough making small talk with the President, but when signing off, he thought it was a great idea to say, “Let’s Go Brandon.”  That’s right, Schmeck used a euphemism to tell the President of the United States, “Fuck Joe Biden.”  To make matters worse, he videoed himself doing it, then he and his wife posted it to their social media accounts.  That wasn’t smart.

The metaverse did what the metaverse always does – it exploded.  MAGAts gloated with glee at the the insult lionizing Schmeck’s disrespect, but also something else happened.  Normal people were shocked at the insult and responded to the Schmecks’ posts, flooding their accounts.  Then, netazins started researching Schmeck and his family.  What they learned, and then published, was not attractive.  Turns out he works for his father’s electrician company, which claims to be a “Christian owned” company complete with a code of conduct which included treating everyone “with respect”.  It also turns out that his father was a Navy Seal when he was arrested for his involvement in a gun trafficking ring back in the early nineties.  It goes on and on, but I won’t repeat all that here.

Schmeck also did what all MAGAts do when caught doing something stupid or cruel and then shamed for it – he blamed everyone else for “attacking” him for exercising “free speech”, and then lied saying his insult of Joe Biden was “just a joke” and “innocent jest”.  It most certainly was not a “joke” and he was not  “just frustrated with his policies.”  It was the normal lame excuses always spoken by the guilty.

Schmeck is now learning that free speech goes both ways.  Sure, you can say what you want in public, even posting a video of yourself personally insulting the President of the United States on a public livestream.  But if you do that, expect a full helping of response to that insult.  This is the problem with living in an echo chamber.  Schmeck thought it was hilarious to insult the President and his friends likely did, too.  Now he’s shocked at the response of normal people.  What he and others in his echo chamber don’t understand is that fully more that HALF of Americans disagree with his politics and most certainly his smartassed disrespect of the President.  He’s now learning that lesson.  Maybe he’ll think twice before doing that again.  On second thought, I doubt it.

Well, the results of the AZ GOP led Fraudit are in, and guess what?  Biden won again, but by a wider margin.  What is this, like 6 times?  By my last count of counts, recounts, hand recounts, audits, and now fraudits, Biden has won something like 720 electoral votes.  Of course, The Former Guy is not letting up, now convincing Mini Me Greg Abbott to “audit” Texas (where he WON, BTW) grasping at any little straw to throw to his base, which is starving for more lies so they’ll go buy more cheap Made-in-China TFG flags to add to the already overflown collection on their trucks.

Trump will never give up, and short of his major health problem or felony conviction, he’s the candidate for 2024.  Come On, Cyrus Vance.

The American Council of Bishops is strongly considering denying the Eucharist to Joe Biden. To understand the gravity of this, one needs to understand exactly what the Eucharist is. For centuries, the Catholic church have been the only group to believe in something called transubstantiation. Put simply, this is the belief that the host one receives actually becomes Jesus Christ.

Again, that’s pretty heavy stuff. However, it is also the thing which separates us from all of the other Christian churches. Sure, we have rules and regulations. All of them do. Sure, we have traditions. All of them do. We have idiosyncrasies that people believe about us that aren’t true. As a Catholic I get these questions all the time. They can become tiresome, but most people are asking innocently enough.

The Eucharist is the very center of our faith. It is the very reason why we go to mass. It is the thing I miss the most when I don’t go and it is the thing that has been a hole during the pandemic. The church offers a spiritual alternative for those that are unable to go, but that hardly measures up. So in short, it’s the whole ballgame.

Catholics are taught from a very early age that they are not supposed to receive the host if they have a mortal sin on their conscience. I’m certain this is where the bishops are getting their mojo to deny Biden. However, I have never witnessed any priest deny anyone the host that comes up to receive it. It is supposed to be a personal decision that is governed by the individual and their conscience.

While this rule has been in place as long as I’ve been a Catholic, the mechanics of it really have never made much sense. We are receiving God. We are receiving God’s grace. God’s grace is given freely to anyone that chooses to accept it. How are we as mere mortals supposed to decide who is worthy of that grace?

How do we decide that Joe is not worthy, but Sally over here is? We are all sinners. We all need God’s grace. Forget heaven for now. Sometimes, that grace is something I have needed to get through the week or even through the day when I attended daily mass. The president of the United States certainly can use God’s grace. He attends mass regularly. By most accounts he is a good and decent person. I’m still not sure what the problem is here.

Except we all know what the problem is here. Biden is politically Pro-Choice. Privately I’m not sure what he is exactly. That describes millions of Catholics across the country. It describes me. I believe in the sanctity of life. The funny thing is that this extends to the death penalty and wars of choice as well. Yet, those same bishops have no problem supporting politicians that support the death penalty and tend to be hawkish. Yet, they are somehow free to receive God.

I don’t know if being Pro-choice is a sin. It’s a complex situation that has any number of perspectives and theologians will certainly disagree. I do know that we can support people’s rights to choose what is right for them without necessarily agreeing with the choices they make. That extends to a whole lot more than just abortion. We can accept them. We can love them. I certainly believe my God does and I don’t think any human should say otherwise.

John Cornyn this week:

“The president is not doing cable news interviews,” Cornyn said on Twitter. “Tweets from his account are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional.”

That’s right – Cornyn’s not happy that Biden isn’t acting like a narcissistic screwball Trump.  I know that sounds stupid, but that criticism has gained serious traction along with the usual “Biden is feeble” and “who’s in charge?” insults.  This one, though, plays to only one demographic – Trumpists.  Trump is still the hijacker, holding the entire GOP hostage, even though his primary weapon, Twitter, has been taken away from him since January, and there are few chinks in his armor against challengers.

Also this week, the Washington Post published a report that Biden is doing exactly what he said he would do during the campaign, to not be continuously top of mind for Americans.  His calm demeanor and low key political style has calmed the waters in American political life. As measured by studies of Google searches, Trump is fading in the American consciousness and Biden has not replaced him.  Since the inauguration, the number of searches using the terms Trump and Biden have declined.

But even as the attention of the American people on the presidency has diminished, attitudes towards it are much different.  By a large margin, Trumpists and Trump leaners believe that Biden has made communication to the American people MORE negative than when Trump infested the WH.  They actually liked Trump’s loud, abusive, and confrontational style, and now criticize, like Ccornyn, that Biden is too normal and not bombastic enough.  A lot of that is the constant torrent of vitriol that they are fed by rightwing media and Republican politicians trying to keep the spotlight on themselves.  The other is that much of Trump’s base is actually attracted to over the top rhetoric along with the childish bullying and insults.  In short, Biden’s not a big enough asshole to suit them, and probably could never be.

The GOP is so subverted that just being normal is now viewed as weakness.  The Crazy Train to 2024 is already full and pulling out of the station.  It promises to be a weird trip.

UPDATED: Oh, this is good…

White House press sec. Jen Psaki: "We don't take our advice or counsel from former Pres. Trump on immigration policy." https://t.co/kdimldYgxN pic.twitter.com/ohsrECEXfZ

— ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2021

UPDATE: There have been questions who the reporter was.  It wasn’t an actual reporter, but one of the propagandists for Trump on OAN (One America News) which is not really news.  Her name is Chanel Rion (actually Chanel Nmi-Dayn Ryan. She changed her name when applying for credentials in the Trump WH).  Here’s the whole thing with the Rion video:

REPORTER: Americans are saying immigrant surges are happening under President Biden's watch

PSAKI: Who are the Americans?

REPORTER: The former president

PSAKI: Former President Trump?

REPORTER: Yes

PSAKI: We don't take our advice or counsel from former President Trump pic.twitter.com/I5d0utFNs9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2021

As JJ talked about on Saturday, Moscow Mitch voted along with 42 other Republicans to acquit Trump, which was expected.  What wasn’t expected was that after the vote, he got up in front of national television and then excoriated Trump for his incitement of the crowd to insurrection and even said that he could be prosecuted by state and federal authorities.  He also said that it was unconstitutional for the Senate to try him, since he’s already out of office.  Never mind that history, precedent, and over 200 legal scholars disagreed, this was the tree he hid behind to excuse his immoral vote to acquit.

We also have to keep in mind that McConnell always plays the long game, always focused on his own position and power.  He was never going to vote to convict because doing so would start a loud mutiny and he’d be ridden out of his minority leader spot in a nanosecond.  Also, politics comes first; everything else comes second.  Everything.  McConnell’s strategy is to create a political dilemma for Biden.  McConnell always had control of the process here.  He now says it was unconstitutional to try Trump after he was out of office, but HE’S the one who refused to take the case before the election.  He created the problem he says in unfixable.  That’s classic McConnell.  Second, he says that the criminal justice system should prosecute Trump – and guess who’s shoulders that falls on?  None other than Biden, who has already nominated Merrick Garland as AG.  The moment Garland would dare move against Trump, McConnell would rush to the microphone to decry “criminalizing politics” and “Biden “politicizing the DOJ,” which, by the way, Trump had already done.

It’s the long game.  It’s always the long game.