You’ve probably heard about Trump politicizing the U.S. Agency for Global Media which manages Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia by installing loyalist Michael Pack.  Pack has packed the board of the agency, as well as senior staff with other Trumpists, ideologues, and conservative activists.  Biden has already signaled a housecleaning and fumigation of the agency when he takes over in a few weeks, but Pack is not planning on going quietly.

In secret, Pack has unilaterally attempted to execute binding employment contracts with said Trumpists intended to block any Biden firings for two years.  When the career staff found out what Pack was doing, they said not no, but hell no, and blew the whistle.  Day before yesterday, they sent a four page letter to McConnell, Pelosi, and Senate and House leaders, the Inspector General, and the presidential transition team.  The letter was signed by over two dozen staffers including the editorial board, the editor in chief, and all the heads of the global regional operations.  In the letter, they made this statement:

When Pack took over last June (after a two year Senate confirmation battle), he made sweeping changes to the agency including dissolving all of the boards of the agencies under his authority and packing the boards and staff with a rogue’s gallery of religious fanatics, activists, ideologues and weirdos.  What’s particularly galling is that in October a Superior Court Judge in DC ruled that Pack had acted illegally in dissolving the board and seizing control of the Open Technology Fund which was established to help areas of the world access to open and secure internet access.  Pack has ignored the court order and to reestablish the boards he dissolved.

Pack is a bad guy who represents all that is truly odious about Trump who is continually trying to destroy our democracy.  Many thanks to those career staffers and true Americans who stood up to Pack and said NO.

They are the only thing right now standing between democracy and the Trump abyss.

The NY Times is reporting that Trump just signed the pandemic relief bill with funding for the federal government through September ’21.  To be continued.

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.

Trump is now in Mar a Lago for Christmas.  I can only hope they changed the locks on the White House and have started the deep clean and fumigation.  On his way out the door, Trump granted another 26 pardons, mostly for more of his allies, corrupt congressmen, and murderers who he really enjoys pardoning.  Included on yesterday’s list was Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Charles Kushner (Jared’s father) who plead guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, 1 of retaliating against a witness, and 1 for lying to the FEC.  Nice guy.  The congressmen were felons Steve Stockman (fraud and money laundering), Chris Collins (securities fraud) , along with Duncan Hunter along with his wife (misuse of campaign funds).  He also pardon George Papadapoulos and Alex Van De Swaan, snared by Robert Mueller.  He also pardoned the Blackwater mercenaries who killed 14 innocent Iraqis and wounded another 17.

During his time in office, Trump has turned the President’s pardon power on its head.  Envisioned by the Founders as a tool for mercy, to right wrongful sentences or false charges, the pardon power depends on the President actually using these powers for those purposes.  There have been some isolated abuses of this power, like when Clinton pardoned Mark Rich, but those instances are rare.  Trump has used the power almost exclusively to pardon his friends and fellow criminals, those endorsed by Hollywood stars, and criminals who committed their crimes against those who Trump doesn’t like.  They are overwhelmingly white and male.

These pardons are so corrupt that even a few Republicans have been able to stand vertically, sans backbones, to condemn them. Even conservative Been Sasse of Nebraska called these pardons to be “Rotten to the Core.”  That’s an understatement, way too little, way too late.

In an interesting twist, the NY Times is reporting that Trump’s longtime banker has suddenly resigned from her position at Deutsche Bank.  The banker, Rosemary Vrablic, and her associate, Dominic Scalzi, have both resigned.  Vrablic brought Trump to  the bank in 2011, convincing her credit committee to loan him over $300 million in multiple projects despite his long record of defaulting on loans, not paying his bills, and screwing his equity investors.  A real estate loan she arranged for Jared Kushner in 2013 is also under an internal investigation.  NYC DA Cyrus Vance has several civil and criminal investigations underway into whether Trump committed fraud in obtaining the loans.

Watch this space.

Since November 3rd, Trump has been childishly ranting about the election, obstinately refusing to accept the inevitable. For the most part, his enablers have played along with his claims of massive fraud and even amplified his claims.  There are now plans being circulated by Trump loyalists in Congress to actually steal the election from the voters on January 6th when both houses meet to tally the electoral votes and finally certify the election.  That effort will fail, of course, but the damage Trumpists will do to our democracy is incalculable.

Let’s consider how we got here.  One of these conclusions are true:

1. 1. Thousands of voting machines, run by Dominion Voting Systems, were manipulated by a server in Berlin to delete millions of votes for Trump and flip the votes to Biden.  Dominion has links to Venezuela and its dead former president Hugo Chavez.  Also, thousands of dead people voted for Biden, and thousands of volunteer vote tabulators added suitcases full of fake ballots, all in favor of Biden.  Republican vote observers were denied access to the counting rooms in counties where Trump lost.  Also, state legislatures violated the Constitution by making it easier and safer for legal registered voters to vote during an exploding pandemic.  Mysteriously, all of this massive voter fraud and unconstitutional action exclusively benefitted Biden.  While the election was being stolen from Trump, Republicans gained seats in the US House and kept control in most State houses.  To accomplish this fraud on Trump, the conspiracy was massive, requiring thousands  of politicians, career staffers, and volunteers all over the country to conspire to steal the election.  Then all of those involved in the conspiracy committed perjury or just remained silent to cover their crime.
   2. More people voted for Biden.

From Merriam Webster: