Some kind of week

 I saw him once.

It was probably the end of his career, after he broke The Record.  My dad took me to an afternoon game at Shea Stadium, when those still happened on weekdays.  The Mets were ahead when he pinch-hit in the ninth.  Didn't reach base, but I remember the "oooooh" that rolled around that unlovely ballpark, not booing but nervous respect as Number 44 came out of the Braves' dugout.  So I saw Hank Aaron on a late summer afternoon.  America lost a hero today.  

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Aaron grew up in the apartheid South.  He said he felt free in Milwaukee, and has been credited with helping John F. Kennedy win the Wisconsin primary in 1960.  He was very unhappy when the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966.  Imagine how he felt when Georgia elected its first Black senator this year.  And in the wake of the attempted fascist takeover of the Capitol, imagine how Senator Raphael Warnock felt:  Video has surfaced of his arrest there in 2017, with a delegation praying for the survival of the Affordable Care Act.  So there is Capitol security, sometimes.

Anthony Fauci isn't the only person who seems a little giddy these days.  People are also having fun with Ted Cruz, who tweeted, "By rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, President Biden indicates he's more interested in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh."  It's hard to know where to start.  Does he think the Agreement somehow makes us part of France?  Does he think Pittsburgh is still the steel-milling, coal-burning place it was in 1948, when the Donora smog killed twenty and sickened thousands in the Monongahela Valley?  Does he think?  

Over on Fox News, Harris Faulkner is livid about the Time cover by Tim O'Brien depicting an Oval Office covered in litter and fast-food containers while Joe Biden gazes out the window.  "That's not real!" she said.  "That picture isn't real.  Don't we care -- I thought we are a nation that cared about the facts."  Ms. Faulkner, this is what we call satire.  The artist has represented visually the chaos left behind by Trump -- even before we found out that his vaccine distribution plan does not exist.  Please remove those enormous fake eyelashes and look at O'Brien's cover from April 23, 2018, in which Trump is seated behind the desk, waist-deep in water.  Also not real.  Are you familiar with a publication called The New Yorker?

Yes, there's no plan.  Not even a bad one.  Not even Have All Americans Line Up In Alphabetical Order.  But instead of grabbing his phone and tweeting blame and abuse, the president has a plan of his own to have FEMA open a hundred mass vaccination sites within a month.  And invoke the Defense Production Act to mass-produce vaccine, syringes, masks and other necessities.  It's amazing what a signature can accomplish -- it can save lives or it can pardon criminal scum.  

Biden accomplished this and more under the shadow of impeachment.  You hadn't heard?   He's being impeached by "Cuckoo for Coco Puffs" Marjorie Taylor Greene for stuff he did years ago, like being related to Hunter Biden.  And still not a single rage-tweet.  The man's self-control is impressive.  No doubt the Q Qontinuum is eager to sign on, like Andy Harris (Q-MD) who tried to bring his gun to work yesterday, and Lauren Boebert (Q-CO) who helped the rioters case the place on January 5 and kept them updated on the Speaker's location.  I don't see this one making it out of committee, but they'll keep trying as long as Biden spreads "disunity" by refusing to do whatever McConnell and McCarthy want.

Lest we forget, there are still 5,000 National Guard troops stationed in the Capitol.  Today Dr. Jill Biden brought them cookies.  They were baked in the White House but not by her.  The woman is a monster.  

What's the traditional gift for a sixteenth wedding anniversary?  How about spite?  The Trumps shared a heaping bowl on Wednesday.  They fired the Chief Usher Timothy Harleth and sent all the butlers home early so there would be no one to admit the Biden family, who waited on the steps of the White House for ten seconds before someone (who must have been watching television) opened the door.  Beautiful and classy.