Cognitive scientist, philosopher, and all-around smarty britches Daniel Dennett has a quote that is generally used against religion, but I think it’s apropos to today’s news. That is, and I’m paraphrasing here, there is simply no polite way to explain to someone that they’ve got their entire being invested in the silliest, most illogical bullshit. Like people who think the world is flat or Elvis is still alive, there is just no convincing some folks they’re rubes.
Now, I say all that because the electors chosen from the various states to cast the final votes in the 2020 United States Presidential Election met today and dropped the hammer on Trump. The final vote was 306 to 232, which means no one tried any “faithless elector” nonsense and what Biden won from the voters was carried on to make it official. Now all that remains is the votes are delivered to Congress to finalize the vote on January 6. On January 20, Biden’s inauguration will go down and that will be that. Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States of America and Kamala Harris will be the first woman and woman of color to hold the office of Vice-President.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the Trump faithful or the New GOP are taking reality without a fight. For one, the Arizona GOP had 11 yay-hoos call themselves electors and file made-up ballots for Trump and Pence. This was dumb for a number of reasons, partly because it might violate both state and federal rules, making it a felony, but mainly because no one who had any say in the matter cared. The 11 electors who met last month in an undisclosed location due to security concerns – yeah, keep that in mind – already chose Biden and did the voting today.
As did every other state. Mississippi sent a bunch of pasty white guys to vote for Trump while Georgia sent Stacey Abrams, probably GOP Public Enemy Number One. And some people had to worry about Trumpian nut jobs and do it in secret. Michigan, for example, saw credible threats made to their electors for their refusal to throw the election to Trump when he didn’t win.
Of course, the Base isn’t giving up and think they’re the spiritual successors to the Founding Fathers because they neither understand how elections work nor can they grasp that more people loathed their Dear Leader than they figured. Biden for his part is looking to move on and actually worry about shit that matters. For example, the U.S. rolled over 300,000 dead from COVID-19.
On the upside, Pfizer’s vaccine – which, remember, had nothing to do with Trump’s Operation Warp Speed – is in the pipe and all 50 states and the District of Columbia have the doses they’re going to get for the first go-around. Recall, Trump refused to order enough for everyone in the beginning for some dumbass reason, so we’ll have to wait until sometime in the Spring. Of course, some other vaccines are being worked on that look positive, so that might be moot.
There has been some discussion on who gets the vaccine first, though it’s generally agreed older folks and medical workers are first in line. There was a bit of a dust-up when it was revealed that the Trump Administration would be first in line considering they’ve been such shit-asses about the pandemic this whole time. On one hand, sure the president and what all, but on the other, that’s a lot of goddamn cheek. The administration says it reversed the decision and I’ll go ahead and believe that because why not. I won’t be shocked and dismayed to learn they lied, though.
And so much for all that. I want to squeeze in a couple of other things. First, U.S. Attorney General William “The Pope” Barr will resign before Trump’s term ends and good riddance. Apparently, there’s been some bad feeling between him and The Don after he said, quite rightly, there was no evidence of fraud in the election, thus joining the Deep State. Deputy AG Jeff Rosen will fill the role for the next month.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Indiana’s state government that would ban having both parents’ names on a child’s birth certificate if those parents are gay. Basically, Indiana argued that when “parents” were on the certificate, that meant the breeders even if the mother/father wasn’t involved. Which basically meant the baby was illegitimate, but this was more a case of Indiana’s solicitor general being a bastard.
Finally, the U.S. Treasury experienced a major hacking attack in the last 24 hours. The part of the government that cares about this sort of thing is pointing the finger at Russia. This is still a developing story so we don’t know the extent of the damage if there indeed was any. We’ll keep an eye on it, but apparently, Russians are the bad guys again.
Dear Y'all 