Finished business

 I don't want to go on about the protracted transition, but ending it would prevent lame-duck atrocities like these:

Trump wants to push through a regulation calling for federal executions to take place by firing squad.  Five executions are scheduled for the closing days of his term, and it's not clear that shooting would be any worse than lethal injection, but it tells us a lot about his rage and poisonous masculinity.  This is as close as he'll ever get to that Second Amendment Solution for all his opponents.

He also wants to let shelters deny admission to transgender homeless people, just to reverse an Obama policy.  Nothing personal.

Rudolph Giuliani is appearing at a shindig in the Wyndham Hotel, Gettysburg, to complain some more about the massive "fraud" in Pennsylvania.  Trump was supposed to attend but apparently didn't have the stomach for any more Giuliani lawyering.  (I understand Rudolph was planning to put underpants on his head and stick pencils up his nose this time.)  After Judge Brann tore him a new one you could drive a bus through, I'm surprised he came back to Pennsylvania at all.  

Speaking of buses, Brad Raffensperger was surprised to find himself under one.  I'm surprised he's surprised.  In USA Today he celebrated Georgia's "wildly successful and smooth election" which should be a source of pride even for those whose candidate lost.   "For those wondering, mine lost.  My family voted for him, donated to him and are now being thrown under the bus by him."  You should ask for your money back, Brad.  Joe Biden won Georgia by 12,670 votes.  You were supposed to prevent that. 

Although Georgia has only sixteen electoral votes (compared with Florida's 29 and Texas's 38), the Trumpers are obsessed with the only patch of blue in the solid south.  (Other states need to get their own Stacy Abrams.  You can't have ours.)  They want to "punish" their party by boycotting the January 5 senate run-off.  The election of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff will make for a 50-50 Senate, which means Kamala Harris will have to stick close to Washington to cast tie-breaking votes.  I guess that will teach...somebody.  Something.  As Brad now knows, party loyalty don't mean shit to these people.   It will be interesting to see if the post-Trump Republican party goes full QAnon/Boogaloo/Wolverine Watchmen/Randy Quaid or tries to return to its Goldwater/Reagan/Bush pretensions of seriousness.  

Could their future look like this guy?   Florida state representative (and blackface performer) Anthony Sabatini thinks teenage assassin Kyle Rittenhouse should be a Congressman, although he's not old enough to vote for himself.  In the past a simple FREE KYLE would have sufficed (and he is out on bail, believe it or not), but the Trump Party requires you to step up your crazy game.  Don't be surprised if Sabatini and Rittenhouse both get Medals of Freedom from their idol, when he's dealt with the crucial problems of pandemic, economy, climate change water pressure in his shower and toilet.

If David Perdue loses his Senate seat he won't have to worry about a paycheck.  He has done mysteriously well in the stock market since the pandemic began, so well that Justice Department may be curious about some of the details.  It doesn't hurt to chair the subcommittee on naval power while owning stock in a military contractor.  As Dylan says in "Idiot Wind," "I can't help it if I'm lucky."

Former Chester County (Pa.) sheriff and Trump fan Carolyn "Bunny" Welsh, who visited the White House more than Nancy Pelosi, has been charged with theft.  Strangely, her favorite president (him) failed to mention her when he phoned the "hearing" in Gettysburg to rant that the judges are part of the conspiracy against him -- even Matthew Brann, a paid-up member of the Federalist Society and the NRA.  Great Cthulhu, how far does this thing go?  Republican poll watchers were "swept into pens and using binoculars," after which the VIN number of Biden's Corvette was tattooed on their arms.  In short, they were "treated like a dog."  And so it ends as it began ("I moved on her like a bitch").  I'm going to miss this malarkey, for at least half an hour.