a tremendous honour

 

 Comrades,

What with a Pandemic on, little news coverage was given yesterday to the fact that DJ Trump! has awarded our very own Great & Glorious Leader, Scott Morrison, the Legion of Merit.

Oooh, I thought, that sounds good. Wow. The Legion of Merit, eh? It must be a tremendous honour for all the hard work that ScoMo has put into sucking up to the current Presidential Administration by alienating and antagonising China as much as he possibly can as he leads the chorus on finding out once and for all who to sheet the blame home to over the China Virus. And if ScoMo were not enough, that Mad Mr Modi Sir of rabid Hindu Nationalism fame and the former PM of Japan, Shinzo Baby - one of the DJ's many golfing buddies - were also gonged.

However, as it turns out, the Legion of Merit is as common as muck. If I were ScoMo (heaven forbid) I would be insulted and flick it away with "is that all I get?" - little wonder Scotty from Marketing has made no comment on the award and how honoured he must be to cop one. The Legion of Merit was established by Congress in 1942 on the basis that "the decoration is issued to members of the eight uniformed services of the United States, as well as to military and political figures of foreign governments" for "exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service". So, ScoMo just squeezes in for being "foreign". But as pretty as the LOM might look, it really is a shit medal.

It is seventh in the order of precedence in US military decorations, and is routinely awarded to anyone who achieves the rank of general officer, colonel, flag officer, or captain in the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force, and it can also be awarded to non-commissioned officers such as chief petty officers and quartermasters as a form of long service medal. And it can be awarded more than once, in which case you get an oak leaf cluster. Only the Air Force limits the awarding of the Legion of Merit to the same officer to four times. For everyone else, the sky's the limit.

Oh well, at least the two are best pals, and have a few things in common. The Donald has much sympathy with ScoMo over the most unfortunate Engadine Macca's Incident, as the current President of the United States himself has been known to regularly shit himself violently, filling his incontinence bag with partly digested cheeseburgers whenever he considers the prospect of the jail house awaiting him when he leaves the White House. Be that as it may, I personally can't wait to see the thing pinned to ScoMo's breast when he next enters the Parliament looking like a right tin-pot dictator, as Arfur would have made dead sure it's in the diplomatic bag by now in time for Xmas delivery...

 

 

the President is missing

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, a member of Arizona's Electoral College, signs a commemorative copy of the Arizona Presidential Electoral Ballot, after a meeting of the Arizona Electoral College Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, in Phoenix, Arizona.
Photo: Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press.

Comrades,

Of course it was pleasing to see the culmination and confirmation of  the Miracle of Democracy in its most idiosyncratic form with the meeting of the Electoral College casting their votes as per protocol in an orderly fashion with zero hanky-panky, a complete absence of brou-ha-ha, no low-down dirty dealing, and not even any "faithless electors" (there were seven of those the last time they met). Joseph R. Biden Jr becomes the 46th President of the US of A, and that's that. But what on earth is the 45th POTUS up to now that he's an official loser and lame duck? Whatever happened to his glib promise of a few weeks back that he would "respect" the vote of the Electoral College? Does it matter anymore?

Poor Donny - he's depressed and doesn't show up to work, by all reports. He's ceased going to the Oval Office, does not attend any meetings, and won't sign anything...instead he's welded by superglue to his Twitter phone for the now time-honoured, traditional ALL CAPS rants while manically smashing the buttons on a succession of the cable TV remote control channel changers. So where exactly is he? The President is missing. You know that there is something very seriously wrong when the perfect made-for-TV moment comes along and the DJ! is nowhere to be seen. Of course, he should have been the Master of Ceremonies when the first person in the USA got the jab with new Covid19 vaccine. If ever there was a good news success story to go out on, this would have had to be it. He could have trumpeted that without the massive Govt. subsidies he granted through Operation Warp Speed, Big Pharma would never have been able to come up with the world saving prophylactic. But no, he's just very peeky that they FAILED to come up with a vaccine BEFORE the election so he could have ridden home on its coat tails (and that would have been a genuine possibility). But, heck, he's never taken the disease seriously, so why start now? The Donald, given his previous form, will now sink further and further into the White House woodwork after his vile Attorney General quit on him (thereby denying the President valuable last minute advice on how and who to pardon), and he lost Congress (it's again worth pointing out that the President cannot spend a single penny of Federal money without Congressional approval) after that exceptionally ugly toadying Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided at long last to cast the Trumpotus adrift, finally congratulating Uncle Joe on his seven million vote victory. The Donald is all at sea. He doesn't have a friend in Washington, let alone a dog.

Speaking of Presidents who aren't interested in the job, all kudos must go to Sophie Germain who has assiduously maintained the Trump Golf Count website over the past four years, meticulously keeping tabs on when and where the Donald has been to play golf (most weekends), even down to the number of hours and minutes spent at the club, according to the records of the Secret Service who have to account for the whereabouts of the POTUS for every second of every day. What a champion effort, Soph. Never mind that the Donald seems to have shaken off his security detail and gone into hiding, he's probably played more golf in office than all the other 44 US presidents combined. The most slack-arse Leader of the Free World in the history of mankind, but that's hardly news, or even close to the worst of it...

https://trumpgolfcount.com/displayoutings

All Hail the Chief. 

any port in a storm if you've got a long enough anchor chain

 Comrades,

At long last we've arrived at Safe Harbor Day (US time) in the American Presidential election, which puts the final nail in The Donald's political coffin. Tap, tap, tap - in they go. Close 'er up ready to take that six foot drop into the democratic wormhole. Little wonder then that Madame Tussaud's - an institution devoted to good taste and always keeping up with the times - has already adjusted the DJ Trump! costume to one more suitable to the balmy climes of Florida. As I write, the US Supreme Court has just issued a one sentence judgement, throwing out all and any of The Donald's spurious objections to the clear cut result in the great state of Pennsylvania. It was pretty obvious from remarks made through back channels by the Chief Justice that he has no intention of getting involved in any of this foolish deluded chicanery - if anyone is more interested in protecting "states rights" then it's gotta be the Supreme Court.

And "states rights" is what it's all about here. Safe Harbor is simply a mechanism that guarantees that a state's Electoral College votes will be counted  when a joint session of Congress meets on January 6th to ceremoniously bring the Electoral College votes into the Capitol to have them counted by hand...one by one. And now it's safe to say that Uncle Joe has the numbers over the DJ!, 306-232. The Trumpotus of course will never concede defeat because, in his own mind and in the minds of millions of those who voted for the King of Buffoonery - he never lost. How could the Greatest and Most Beautiful President in the entire History of the World possibly lose an election unless there was a secret cabal of Left Wing Extremist Socialist Commies conspiring with the Deep State to rig the thing?? The Donald will go to his poor shallow grave forever screaming "I was ROBBED! They STOLE the election. EVERYONE knows that! ROBBED BLIND!" 

You might be thinking that the current exercise in the Miracle of Democracy in The States is "unprecedented", but that's where you'd be wrong, Safe Harbor day is enshrined in the Electoral Count Act of 1878, which was a legislative reaction to the complete & utter schemozzle that was the 1876 Presidential Election. Multiple states in a whole lot of goddamn political jiggery-pokery submitted competing 'slates' of Electoral College votes to Congress, which was so fully flummoxed that they had to appoint for the first and only time an Electoral Commission to sort out the result, which saw Rutherford B Hayes beating Samuel J Tilden to become the 19th POTUS, despite losing the popular vote in what became known as the Compromise of 1877 with a single Electoral College vote the difference between the winner and loser. In return, Hayes - to his credit - promised to serve only one term, and he delivered. And despite being a Republican, Hayes bears some eerie similarities to Uncle Joe, standing on a platform of "meritocractic government and the equal treatment of the people without regard to wealth, social standing or race".

Had to get the lil' history book down from the shelf and dust it off to be reminded that this election is not unsual by any means in the byzantine electoral system that the United States still insists on using, when back in 1878 they had the ideal opportunity to just abolish the Electoral College once and for all and make the whole shooting match an election decided by who's across the line first in the nationwide popular vote on the "one man, one vote" principal.  But nah, they didn't have the guts to yet again alienate the former Slave States who'd only recently been fucked-over good and proper in that small matter known as the US Civil War.

And there are other parallels too...poor ol' Uncle Joe accepting the ultimate in poisoned chalices - a hopelessly divided nation, a federal bureaucracy in smoking ruins, and the country being ravaged from sea to shining sea by a killer plague that's pushing all 50 states to the brink of another Great Depression. Never mind the 285,070 dead. Even now, the queues for food hand outs to the starving millions are literally miles long and the myriad of soup kitchens are doing their best trade in living memory. If it hasn't already, by the New Year the USA will have slipped back into the 'third world'. Cactus, by any measure.

I any case, Joe will give it all he's got left in him for the next two years and probably get nowhere. He'll then retire on 20 November 2022 at age 80, as he should, to his little pad in Wilmington, Delaware, spending his last remaining summers as his modest holiday house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. That way Kamala Harris becomes the 47th President by default and gets to campaign for the the next election for fully two years from the very considerable advantage and power of incumbency. You know it makes sense.

Legal action can continue after Safe Harbor Day, but it's pointless, as the Electoral College votes will be cast in the 50 State Capitols in six days time. And to make matters worse for The Loser, his attack dog in the Mad Bad Rude Boy Giuliani is now, thankfully, locked up in the hospital with a dose of Corona, and for all anyone knows, could be dead.

P'raps it's worth leaving the last word to the 2nd President of the USA, John Adams, who issued a precient warning to Uncle Joe all those years ago  "I came here expecting the worst, and it's worse than I expected."