Trump blew out of town on Christmas Eve, headed for Hide-a-Lago to thrash the little white ball and wait out the subpoenas to start pouring in from New York.  On the way out the door, he released yet another weird video, this time calling the joint appropriations and coronavirus response bill “a disgrace” for its spending and $600 per month relief payments to Americans, calling for $2,000 per month, which is what the House Republicans proposed IN MAY.  The problem?  Trump’s WH, through Steve Mnuchin, demanded the $600 per month and wouldn’t budge.  Like most things Trump, what’s going on now doesn’t make any sense unless you look at the world through Trump’s ME ME ME lens.

McConnell, as usual, was the cause of the months-long delay in a new relief bill.  Like Trump, McConnell really doesn’t care if you live or die, and is always happy to use you and me as hostages for no other reason than another political win that is only important to him and his circle of criminals. The one constant with McConnell is that he ALWAYS plays brinksmanship, holding legislation until the very last second, using those who need help as leverage to extract concessions from the Democrats and exact pain on the American people.  This time, though, McConnell may have outsmarted himself by waiting so long.

Historian and Boston College history professor Heather Cox Richardson posted a very interesting piece yesterday on Facebook about she believes is going on.  Her premise is that Trump is exacting revenge against his perceived enemies, including all of us as Americans for voting him out.  He’s also furious with McConnell, Thune, and other Republicans who have recognized Biden as the legal and official President Elect.  Apparently he actually did believe that he could bend reality and the courts and his party to his will to illegally seize power outside of any Constitutional authority.  When our fragile democracy held (at least so far), he has determined to burn down as much as he can, including throwing boxes of nails out of the wagon on his way out of town.

How did McConnell outsmart himself, you ask?  Richardson posits this:  Under the rules, during a Congressional session, the President has 10 days (not counting Sunday) to sign or veto a bill.  However, at the end of a session, though, if that 10 days runs beyond the end date, the bill just dies, called a “pocket veto”.  The current congressional session closes on January 3rd.  Richardson believes Trump received the bill to sign on the 24th, so that gives him until January 4th to sign.  If Trump doesn’t sign by the 3rd, the bill dies, the government shuts down, and millions of Americans suffer.  Millions.

This is the likely end game now for Trump.  The voters said no; the states said no; the Electoral College said no; the courts, including the SCOTUS, said no; the military said no; and the Congress has said no (so far).  If Trump burns it all down, there’s a fair chance that the Dems take the Senate by winning the Georgia runoffs.  The mess he leaves behind will take years for Biden to fix, if ever.  Trump’s stated plan is to run in 2024, and he’ll use the disaster of his own making as the reason to re-elect him to “fix” it.  Our only chance, short of Republicans growing spines, is Trump being convicted of a felony in New York or having one of his thousands of scandals finally stick.

These will be the only things (short of his physical health problems) that can stop him.

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick shot off his mouth and said that he would pay one million dollars Texas cash money to anyone who found and reported legitimate election fraud.  Back when Trump was coming up empty finding voter fraud, Big Britches Dan made an offer.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday he is offering up to $1 million to “incentivize, encourage and reward” people for reports of voter fraud in Texas, even as there’s been no evidence of mass voter fraud and experts say it’s rare.

Well, knock knock, Dan. Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman is at the front door with three cases of election fraud and he wants his money.  All of them involving Trumpians.

Patrick said election fraud around the country.  His counterpart in Pennsylvania found it and now wants to collect.

Fetterman keeps reminding people that Dan Patrick is the dude that said people over the age of 65 should be willing to die of Covid to protect the economy. Yeah, and Patrick didn’t die either so he’s not a man of his word.

I hope Fetterman sues him.

Here are some really nice people who maxed-out contributions to Senator Loeffler of Georgia.  And she promptly reported them to the ethics commission. But …

She forgot who they were and what they do for a living. Take a look:

Click here to see them big.

Now, you’ll notice that they all have the same last name. Oddly enough, if I just type their last name and put a dot com after it, I get this.

But then, you might not want to disclose contributions from a company that paid millions of dollars in fines for exploiting undocumented immigrants and discriminated against Black American workers.

She [Loeffler] also introduced a bill with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., in August that would allow judges to hold undocumented immigrants in contempt if they fail to show up to their immigration hearings and give judges the ability to issue warrants for their arrests.

“I will always put American citizens first & hold illegal immigrants accountable,” Loeffler tweeted along with an article about the bill.

And she probably didn’t want to draw attention to a company who discriminated against Black American workers in  … you guessed it, Georgia.

Federal contractor Asplundh Tree Expert Co. has agreed to pay $55,000 in back wages after a routine compliance evaluation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) found alleged systemic hiring discrimination violations at its Macon, Georgia, facility.

So, the next time Loeffler needs to know where these people work and what they do there, it’s simple. They are professional self-employed hypocritical crooks.  Just like she is.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.

Post Christmas Thoughts from Nick Carraway

“I’m sure many of you have pets. We have three in the Carraway home. One is a 100 pound Rottweiler. Another is a 10 pound tabby cat. The third is what might be called an extra fluffy 15 pound ginger cat. As you might expect, they don’t always get along.

We even consulted an animal behavioral specialist when injuries were involved. Of course, the set up to this tale might conceal who the injuries belonged to. As it turns out, the smallest cat is the aggressor. She bit the other cat and also indirectly caused his paw to be broken.

The Rottweiler is also deathly afraid of her. A ten pound cat has cornered him on more than one occasion. Two things strike me as odd. First, the orange cat stands his ground against the dog but not against the smaller cat. Secondly, the cats don’t seem to be inclined to work together for common cause.

I’m sure there is a lesson in there somewhere. I’m sure those of you that frequent these parts have your own. The pet shrink even called the orange cat the “victim cat.” As long as we’ve had him, he’s been our largest cat and the least brave. Sometimes we don’t know our own strength. Interacting with the dog has helped him actually. Maybe pet psychology and human psychology are not all that different.”

Nick

.

Christmas from Elizabeth Moon …

Christmas bothers some people and makes others happy for divergent reasons.  Non-Christians resent its popularity (and so do some Christians, for whom it should be, they say, a purely religious occasion.)  But retailers of all religions (or none) know it’s “good for business” as they stock up on the best selling merchandise for gifts, feasts, and other celebrations. Store clerks exhausted by longer hours and thoughtless shoppers nonetheless look forward to better year-end bonuses if the stores are crowded.  Families look forward to traditional celebrations and getting together, and dread them, with equal intensity.  Musicians count on the income from all the celebrations and arrive cheerful for the midnight service Christmas eve, brass and strings in hand… hoping this last of the holiday opportunities for a gig will carry them through bleak January and the bulk of Lent.

I remember my mother working late in the hardware store on Christmas Eve, when almost all the stores on Main Street stayed open until the last customer deciding between a fishing lure or new hammer for Dad, or cookie cutters or a hand mixer for Mom (or, in other stores, a pair of shoes or shirt or toys, or books), went home.  Until the last gift bought at the store was wrapped and crowned with a colored ribbon bow that I’d helped make back in the summer (back before you could buy prepared bows with stickum on the reverse.)  I remember the other merchants in those last days, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, smiling as they left the stores, locked the doors, and went home.

It all seemed simple and peaceful, those late Christmas Eve nights, and early Christmas mornings, when I woke early and found that “Santa” had decorated the tree overnight and there were candy canes in the stockings, and would wake my exhausted mother up early to tell her.  But of course it was no simpler then than now…my child’s understanding was the simple part.  In those years, after WWII, war was still being waged one place and another: Peace on Earth was a long way away, though we didn’t have a TV to bring it into the living room.  Tidings of Comfort and Joy mingled on the radio with tidings of danger, disaster, threats of nuclear war, threats of blizzards, forest fires, earthquakes, and everything else.

We’re still in that same old sucking mudhole, with the fresh air and beauty above, and the sense of depthless stinking filth below: we live on the unstable surface of reality, rising with bubbles and sinking when they burst.  And it’s Christmas in a year when a lot of us feel the pandemic, on top of the stinking mess still being created by this Administration is way over the top too much. Not much Ho, Ho, Ho and Holly Jolly Santa, not enough Heavenly Peace and Tidings of Comfort, either. Plus no choirs, no trumpets lifting the packed-in congregation at the midnight service into “O Come All Ye Faithful” and sending it away with “Joy to the World.” 

And yet…above us, on a winter’s night, despite clouds, far beyond our satellites and the ISS, the stars still shine in their beauty.  On the twig tips of leafless trees and shrubs, buds hold promise of another spring to come.  In central Texas, below the dead summer grass, the winter grasses are greening up a little and a few tiny lavender flowers were out yesterday.  Flocks of robins and cedar waxwings make the mornings musical (or at least loud.)  The horses, furry in their winter coats (one of them with mud-lumps in his mane) munch contentedly on their extra hay.

Take a breath.  And another.  Yes, we have difficulties before us, but right now, take that breath, that moment to realize that there is a universe full of wonder outside us…and in each and every human mind and heart.  Be merry, just for a moment.  Be at peace, just for a moment.  Have that comfort and joy, just for this brief time before you have to step away.