Beware… politics!
Yesterday, December 14th the electoral college formally certified Joe Biden’s win. There was no monkey business -though there were attempts!- and the process moved smoothly.
In the evening, Joe Biden, who has been remarkably restrained to this point, gave a speech following the electoral college win becoming official wherein he pointed out the fact that this was it.
It is.
Remarkably, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, hardly a friend of the United States, formally congratulated Joe Biden on his win.
Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy, the head of Republicans in Congress, and Mitch McConnell, the head of Republicans in the Senate, have yet to do so.
In-freaking-credible.
(POST-SCRIPT: Today, in the morning and the day after the electoral college made it official, Mitch McConnell finally announced and congratulated Joe Biden’s win. I suppose he’ll justify this delay by saying he was waiting for when the electoral college results were “official” but one wonders why he couldn’t do it yesterday, before Vladimir Putin. I guess its one of those things, right? On the plus side, for the most senior member of the Republican Party and head of the Senate to make this declaration all but puts the final nail in Trump’s re-election fantasies)
Further, Bill Barr, the head of the Justice Department and a man who has, in the opinion of many, disgraced himself for his multiple instances of seeming to be a defender of the President rather than a neutral party to justice, was either fired or resigned from his post, effective December 23rd.
Rats abandoning ship?
Given that Joe Biden won’t be officially the President of the United States until January 20th, I have to admit while it pleases me Bill Barr is gone, one worries about who may follow and what monkey business Trump will try to engage in with what will surely be another sycophant.
Given all that’s occurred to date regarding Barr, one wonders if maybe his resignation/firing might have been due to not wanting to do whatever new bizarre things Trump wants.
Trump, many suspect, is terrified of the day he loses power. He knows that when his Presidency is over, the floodgates may well open and he will be facing his many past transgressions, from shady financial dealings to possible tax dodging to rape.
While he can issue pardons -and there are those who expect a flurry of them- its unclear if he can pardon himself. Further to that, some of the legal issues he faces, particularly the financial/tax issues, are coming from New York and would be state charges. Presidents can issue pardons for Federal Charges, but not State Charges.
Needless to say, I think it’ll be an interesting month to come.
I think Trump will keep flailing and I suspect there will be those who will continue to try to help him out.
But come January 20th -which can’t come soon enough in my opinion- all that nonsense stops.