Spite and Shinola

 Revenge, it is said, is a dish best served cold, but if you have to move in two months, who has time?  Trump is certain he did an A+ superbo job handling the covid pandemic, which was totally caused by China, but treacherous pharmaceutical companies sat on their vaccines until after the election which, by the way, HE WON.  They will therefore be punished by being forced to charge Medicare no more than the rock-bottom prices paid by "comparably wealthy" countries with some form of national health service.  Imagine, Big Pharma thought they won the lottery when he put one of their lobbyists in charge of Health and Human Services.  There's no honor among thieves or Republicans, is there?  And lower drug prices, especially for pensioners, doesn't sound like a policy President Biden will be eager to reverse.

But revenge works both ways.  Federal Reserve nominee Judy Shelton is a Trump classic:  She isn't sure there should even be a Federal Reserve, she would abolish the FDIC, and she wants to return to the gold standard.  But her appointment was blocked in the Senate, with all the Democrats joined by Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and -- Mitch McConnell?  Can that be right?  Too mad for Mitch?  Not today, Judy.

I'm sure Lindsey Graham voted for her -- his theme song is "I'll Do Anything" from Oliver! and Trump is Fagin.  For one example the chairman of the Judiciary Committee may come to regret, he tried to get the long-suffering Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to throw out  legally cast absentee ballots in order to flip the state to Trump.  Graham denies it ("It was a perfect call"), but Brad had an aide listening in because he's not a fool.  (I'm going to call him Brad because I'm tired of typing Raffensperger.)  Brad and his wife are getting death threats -- shocking, right? -- from Trumpanzees more hands-on than Graham.  The recount in fact turned up about 2,600 uncounted ballots in Floyd County which broke 1,643-865 for Trump, hardly enough to change the final count but more idiot fuel for conspiracy theories and all-caps tweets.  

As if the Shelton vote wasn't bad enough, McConnell also denounced the plan to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq by the highly significant date of January 15, leaving Biden to deal with what even Republicans believe will be a New Year's gift to the Taliban.   But Trump isn't forgetting about the Middle East and its potential for disaster:  the New York Times says he had to be talked out of bombing nuclear facilities in Iran.  That would be the sites where they resumed enriching uranium after he shredded the 2015 agreement concluded by Obama, because it was concluded by Obama.  Meanwhile Biden is still not in the intelligence loop, although the principal obstacle, Emily Murphy of the GSA, is looking for a job for herself. 

The Times also says that Rudolph Giuliani, the Darrow of the mole people, demanded $20,000 a day to wrangle the Trump legal case against Pennsylvania up to the Supreme Court (or possibly Supreme Hoagies on Market Street).  Giuliani denies it, saying the deal was "we'll work it out at the end," and he's just dumb enough to take Trump's word on payment of a bill.  

I seem to remember the Surgeon General's name was Adams, but Scott Atlas has usurped the job of speaking on medical matters.  He's full of lousy advice -- masks don't work, asymptomatic people shouldn't be tested -- but the most sadistic concerns Thanksgiving:  Go ahead and hold big gatherings because "for many people, this is their final Thanksgiving."  I can just see the Hallmark Channel movie.  Moonlight and Covid, about the couple who find love watching Nana expire in the ICU.  

In the sequel, they have a wedding like this one, in lovely rural Maine.

I am so done with these people.