Last Infrastructure Week

He wants a parade.  A goddam military parade.

 

Meanwhile, policy advisor and pillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell was seen entering the White House to discuss (squints) MARTIAL LAW.  (They don't know CNN has the technology to enlarge their notes.  Or they want us to read their notes.  False flag!)

There is no federal reserve of coronavirus vaccine.  HHS Secretary Alex Azar knew this three days ago when he promised to begin releasing it to the states.  But that happened in December, the better to hobble the incoming administration.  Joe Biden is putting retired Gen. Russel Honore in charge of both organizing future distribution and finding out why security at the Capitol was so compromised.  Gen. Honore sorted out the mess in New Orleans after Katrina and after Brownie did a heckuva job.  I imagine he will use the thousands of National Guard already on active service in Washington and every state capital, because this is not America anymore.

With the economy in tatters (except for undertakers and crematoria), the hospitals beginning to practice triage and climate change not just ignored but accelerated, Trump wants a red carpet, a military band and a twenty-one gun salute before he drags himself up the steps to Air Force One for the last time.  Maybe a cheering crowd, if it can be assembled.  Maybe he'd like some of these:

He has yet to say Joe Biden's name in public, much less concede his election.  The First Escort, who was supervising a photo-shoot during the riot at the Capitol for her coffee-table book about White House tchotchkes, has not received Dr. Jill Biden or shown her around the house.  (To be fair, she might fear verbal or physical abuse.)  Visitors seem to be departing with government property -- allegedly.  It's possible the bust of Lincoln was made by Barron in art class.  The photo of Trump with Xi, toted away by a grinning Peter Navarro, looks like something the National Archive might want.  

"...We are just temporary occupants of this office.  That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions -- like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties -- that our forebears fought and bled for...it's up to us to leave these instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them."  That's what Barack Obama wrote four years ago in the now-traditional letter to one's successor.  Trump liked it so much he carried it around like an autographed Roger Maris card and showed it to people, probably because he considered it a unique encomium to his specialness.  Clearly he didn't understand it.  Unlikely he'll be writing to Biden, unless it's an obscene rant.

Orderly succession is the difference between liberal democracy and dictatorship.  When Putin dies, nobody knows what will happen to Russia and nobody is allowed to speculate.  If Jair Bolsonaro or Victor Orban loses the next election, will he pack up and go?  If not, will there be scenes like last Wednesday?  

Almost unnoticed, Monday is a national holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.  If there's anyone left in the West Wing who can use a computer and a thesaurus, no doubt we'll see the usual boilerplate about civil rights and brotherhood, and maybe a specious parallel with the insurrection.  Some numpty already compared the murderous thugs inside the Capitol to Rosa Parks.  Because smashing your way into the Capitol intent on murder and being shocked that there might be consequences is exactly like refusing to vacate a bus seat in the certainty of being arrested.  These men understood:

I'm all out of hope.  I want to close by quoting Christopher Krebs, fired for saying the election was secure from cyberattack:  "We are on the verge of what I fear to be a pretty significant breakdown in democracy and civil society here."  The Trump legacy.