Archives for December 2020

Tuesday December 15, 2020 (10 days til Christmas)

Election Day -42

37 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Yesterday, we had a trifecta of boring news coverage. Not that the actual news wasn’t interesting and exciting in and of itself, but rather the video coverage was boring. How could it not be? 

One) the Pfizer vaccine started to roll out. What to show? A truck leaving a warehouse. A delivery man with his wheelie cart and some boxes on it. The climax? The money shot? A woman sitting in a big chair getting a needle in the arm. “How did it feel?”,”What did you think?” The denouement – let’s show lots of people in a room getting needles in the arm.

Two) The Electoral College representatives met in the states to cast their ballots. Cut to the shot of the black woman with a mask on, huddled over, speaking into a microphone. She was part of the California delegation that put Joe Biden over the top of 270 electoral votes. Not real spine tingling drama. The funniest thing about that was that it happened during Nicole Wallace’s show on MSNBC and she was interviewing Robert Costa when the actual vote and announcement happened. I got to hear the cheering in the background while Robert was talking. They missed the shot! 

More dramatic was the fact that several of the state delegations had to meet in undisclosed locations due to threats of violence. The Michigan State House was closed due to that. Which left some Trump supporters wandering around in front to the capital with their “Trump 2020” flags, yelling at the camera crews and trying to get in the shot of a TV reporter.  Talk about fake news. 

Also, a bunch of Republicans tried to go into the Michigan State House to cast ballots for Satan and were refused entry. This happened at several state houses. Also someone phonied up some document that claimed Trump won and sent it to the National Archives. It’s fun to remind these sore losers that if Biden is a loser as Trump suggests and he lost to Biden then what does that make him? (A double loser?) Also, Trump won Michigan in 2016 by 10,000 votes. He lost it by 154,000 this time. Again, what does that make him? (A ten time loser?) Then there is the “landslide” victory of 306 Electoral College votes for Trump in 2016. But what about 2020? Oh Biden won by 306 and by a ton more votes, so I guess it’s a landslide and a tsunami? 

Three) It’s been reported that Bill Barr is resigning. Well, he’s not. He’s “departing.” WTF? He can’t even write a proper resignation letter? “On December 23^rd I will depart.”

Depart where? This Earth? The room where it happened? 

Okay, in fairness to Billy-Boy maybe he didn’t write the letter. He wandered up to the White House spent some time yakking with Satan, left, and now he’s gone. I suspect that Trump did a Comey style ambush. Satan called Barr up. Barr showed up and Trump told him to do a bunch of illegal unconstitutional shit, which was even too much for his most loyal lapdog and so Trump said, “You’re Fired.” Satan probably had the letter all written because from what I understand the letter talks about the marvelous job Trump has done and throws in a last line saying “I will depart.”

I don’t know. I did have the opening to “Under The Boardwalk” in my head (“When this old world starts getting you down…” but now I’m more in the “I will survive” theme song mode.

I fully expect Barr to reappear at Justice in early January saying something like, “What? I didn’t resign. I just departed. I wanted to spend some time with my family. But I’m Back!”

He did mention in his letter that he had a few projects to finish up. Yeah? Like what? Inquiring minds want to know. Are you going to release the Hunter Biden notes? Oh that’s right, that’s what Donnie wanted you to do before the election. You idiot. That’s why he lost. If you had only released the October Surprise like he wanted.

Now, Satan will have to steal the election. This will of course bring our democracy to its knees. Will our institutions hold? Blah blah blah. 

It seems that the level of thievery and blatant attacks on our constitution, laws, and institutions is even too much for some of the Republicans. Not all mind you, I listened to an elected official saying that Joe Biden was not the president elect because the Electoral College has not met in Washington DC and said so. 

I hope – HOPE – that the representatives that signed on to that seditious court case brought by the Texas AG in hopes of getting a pardon will not be seated. The reason? Treason. Simple. Ask yourself “What would Newt do?”

In other news The White House says that The prez has decided not to have everyone in the White House jump the line and get vaccinated. Why? Bad optics. Apparently, the outrage was enough to invoke “shame”. Really? I find it hard to believe. I think it’s more a case of “Wouldn’t look good.” Not shame. (Correction. “Not most of the staff.”)

Mike Pence may get the shot publicly to show something. Maybe, for Mommy. “See, I’m a brave boy!” I don’t know. Oh to show support for the thing they’ve been denying? To show that “he’s a celebrity” and can skip ahead of millions? I hope that when he gets injected that the health care worker leans over and says, “They think you are getting the vaccine. Actually, it’s sodium pentathol. You will notice a tingling in your extremities as your internal organs begin to shut down.” 

When he jumps up wild eyed I hope the health care worker gives him a big smile and says outloud, “See you in 19 days for your second shot.”

Maybe a little eyebrow raise? Not like “Yo, what’s up?” More like, “Yaah, Chicken Little. Let’s see you step up.”

PS “Say What?” Figurative head in the Museum at Palenque. Probably Pakal.

PPS It is rumored the Melania wants to go home. Where home is is unclear. Having built that tennis pavilion I guess her work here is done. I wonder if the Donald will drag his morbidly obese ass out there to whack a few balls? Maybe Baron. My money is on Baron.

Friday December 11, 2020 (14 days til Christmas)

Election Day -38

41 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

The other day I read a brief article about the guy who started Overstock. Apparently, he’s a Trump supporter and he was going on about something. Something that was nuts. It made me wonder, “Do these people start out this way or do they develop into it?”

Remember Ross Perot? Yeah, he had a company EDS. Everyone said how successful he and his company was. How before that he had been a top salesman for IBM. How he was an Eagle scout. I had to work with EDS back when I was at AT&T. My impression of that company was that they kept changing the rules, kept doing different things, kept moving the goal posts. I got the impression that was the way Mr. Perot was. It seemed to play out in his bid for the presidency. He started out and seemed sort of normal. Then he dropped out, blamed it on some fellow who was threatening his daughter and her wedding. Then he got back in. Then he dropped out and ended his campaign dancing with his wife. This is not normal behavior. 

There seem to be a lot of these sorts of people around. Satan is a personification of this sort of unhinged lunacy. They see conspiracies where maybe there are none, or maybe there is one? Who knows? The thing that scares me is that more and more of these sociopathic type people are running things. 

In other news, we are having a 9/11 death toll everyday now. Rudy got the treatment Satan got – very expensive and very scarce. He seems unaware at one level and very aware of that fact at another. He claims he has “celebrity” status. More like “infamous,” but who’s paying attention? 

The other day I saw a headline that a factory had mixed up the packaging of an anti-depression drug and an erectile dysfunction drug. Why I wonder couldn’t such a mixup happen to Rudy? I don’t know what the result would be or if we’d even notice.

The Pfizer vaccine got approved by the FDA advisory board and now we are waiting on the CDC to okay it. Moderna is next week. 

In a stunning development of “Art of the Deal” proportion it turns out the Trump administration turned down, or didn’t respond, to a proposal to buy a lot of the Pfizer vaccine this summer. Way to go! What did you expect? I mean there will be enough vaccine for Jared, Ivanka, and the rest of that bunch. They got theirs; you get yours. Man, would I like to see it come out that there was a mixup at the factory and they got shot with a mixture of anti-depressant and erectile dysfunction. (“Hey Ivanka, Tits Up!”)

We still don’t have a stimulus bill passed. Mitch wants companies absolved from any responsibility and that seems to be a sticking point. That and the fact that he and Mnuchin want to screw the average person with a pittance. 

Meanwhile an eviction crisis is looming. Look for millions of people to be thrown out on the street January 1^st. Happy New Year.

To stop this McConnell would have to do something for people. Seeing as he hasn’t done that his whole career I doubt he’ll start now.

The AG of Texas has filed a law suit asking four states to overturn their election results and give their electoral college results to Satan instead of Biden. The case has no merit or legal precedent. Seventeen state AGs have signed on as have 106 Republican lawmakers. To make the case more farcical Ted Cruz was asked by Trump to argue the case in front of the Supreme Court. He said he’d do it. The Texas AG is under Federal criminal investigation for doing the same crooked things he did before. You don’t think he’s angling to get on the pardon band wagon do you? (Kind of like the last flight out of Saigon, I’d say.)

We are in a time of madness where the inmates are not only running the asylum but the whole country. It’s a mashup of Kabuki theater gone awry with a Clockwork Orange / Lord of the Flies thing going on. However, it’s not young boys or youthful ruffians but old morbidly obese men and crazed elderly middle aged women backed by rich mean spirited who gives a f*ck I got mine you get yours interests, who seem at their core to be crazed.

I was going to say we had entered The Twilight Zone but baby we’ve blown right through that.

I see hope at the end of two tunnels. Or is it one tunnel and one hill? Over the hill is a new administration that has sane people on board. A vaccine or vaccines are on the way if we can get the train to come through the tunnel… I hope that we don’t make the mistake of thinking we can go back to “the good old days.”

I, being the mild mannered calm person that I am, think the people in office now should be driven from those offices and should get a “go directly to jail” card. Whatever we do let’s not make the mistake that we can reach across the aisle and expect any sort to deal making because the people over there are lunatics.

Oh yeah, how’d you like the video of the police breaking down the doors of the empty houses that had squatters in them? Or the woman’s house that was reporting the real numbers of cases of Covid in Florida?

“I need a pain killer, and I need it right away!” Blue Cheer.

Actually, I don’t need a pain killer. I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.

PS Ready to fight the good fight. My sword and my shield protect me.

Photo Credit: dean jordan.

Thursday December 10, 2020 (15 days til Christmas)

Election Day -37

42 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

A quick investing note, I knew Pfizer’s vaccine is to be approved today and thought that would give their stock a boost while depressing for a moment the second vaccine from Moderna which is due to be approved next week. So the smart thing to do would be to wait for this to happen then sell a little Pfizer and buy a bit more Moderna on the dip as it would shoot up next week.

The Moderna stock started to shoot up a few days ago so I bought a little more worried I had missed or was missing the boat. Then Moderna went down and Pfizer went up. What is the lesson here Grasshopper*? 

The lesson is that things don’t happen when you think they will.

Yes, I know. There are other lessons one could draw:

You can’t time the market. Etc.**

*If you don’t know the Grasshopper reference you are young. (Look up “Kung Fu” TV series.)

** I put this in the same category as Tim Allen’s comment about not swimming within an hour of eating. (i.e. If he let his daughter go in the pool within an hour of eating and if she did in fact get a stomach cramp there would be a phalanx of mothers blocking him from saving her saying, “I told you so!”)

Patience is a hard thing to do. Procrastination isn’t. However, doing nothing can look like either one. Don’t mistake one for the other. (Wow, that sounds pretty erudite.)

Criminality – As we watch the president commit more crimes and insults to our democracy we also get to watch the Republicans do nothing and/or go along with it. We now get to see some authoritarian actions reminiscent of the Brown Shirts of the Nazis and Mussolini, Peron, Pinochet, etc.

What will happen? I’ll tell you. Pence will get together with the cabinet and a majority will decide that Satan is unfit for office and Mike will become President. He’ll appoint all of Biden’s picks to start running things so we don’t get anymore screwed up then we are and that will be that.

One problem. 

He’s a friggin’ lying whimp. As Melania noted when Donnie picked him. (She said that he would not go against her husband, but the others he was considering would.)

Speaking of Melania isn’t it wonderful that there is a tennis pavilion on the South Lawn? It was just completed. How nice. Does she play? Does Baron? Who the F is going to use that in the closing days of this administration?

Covid is running rampant in this country and it’s about to get worse, a lot worse. Hospitals are full. In Nevada they reconditioned a parking lot to make a Covid ward: two levels, negative air, the whole bit. They had to hire extra security because of some idiotic claim that it was something else, I guess some deep state secret lab or something.

Meanwhile, the current commander and chief is being reported as completely absent from any responsibilities. He is reportedly watching TV, playing golf, continuing to make baseless claims about the election, and stuffing his cronies into jobs.

Kelley Ann Conway has been appointed to the board of The Kennedy Center.

The AG of Texas, a man under investigation for Federal crimes, has filed a law suit asking four other states to reverse their election and appoint Trump folks to the Electoral College. The fact that the date when all the election results are certified and locked in “The Safe Harbor Date” has passed, and the fact that it’s weird for one state to try and tell another state what to do (unless you can show your state was harmed, which I guess Texas can claim they were harmed by the election of Joe Biden?) is very weird. This means, as far as one can speculate, that this isn’t about reversing the election but getting the AG of Texas a pardon.

What can we hope for? Andrew Weismann provided some needed relief. He said that a pardon can not forgive future crimes. That Trump and his children will still have to file tax returns, etc. Is it possible that a family where “cheating is a way of life” can stop themselves from ever doing it again?

I don’t think so.

Same for the Texas AG. He’s been caught before doing the same thing. His whole staff wrote a letter saying he was doing it again. I forget exactly, selling/taking bribes for letting cases go? I can’t remember. Something like that.

We are now at the point where we are losing more people every day to Covid than we did on 9/11 or at Pearl Harbor. What does the president say about this? “Terrific.”

There are rumors that Billy Barr may be leaving his AG job. Why? I don’t know. I guess he thinks he’s done enough damage and boot-licking? Or is it that he finally will not do what Donnie wants? I mean Satan is only asking him to commit crimes, go against the Constitution, and I don’t know – grovel? There’s always a cruel twist with a sociopath I am told.

The discussions have now turned to who will end up getting disbarred. It should be quite a list. 

Normalcy is gone. What will replace it is hard to imagine. 

PS “It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day.” Lyrics to “Felling Good” Michael Buble sang it.