The View from the Hermitage, Day 252

Another pandemic week checked off--we're at 36 and counting. Noteworthy in the past week: The Lame Duck went golfing for the 303rd time in his term of office. The US had over 250,000 new cases Thursday. We passed 250,000 total deaths during the past week; keep in mind that this number is an undercount given people dying from things such as heart attacks that were the result of a covid-19 infection. We had over one million new cases in less than the past week. Finally (not really, but for the purposes of this blog, yes), there's been a fourth covid-19 outbreak at the White House, this one including The Junior Lame Duck and Andrew Giuliani, son of Rudy. As an aside, I read recently that Andrew is a frequent golf partner of The Lame Duck, who supposedly is, to Andrew, a bit of a father figure.  

Yes, The Lame Duck went golfing this morning rather than attend the virtual meeting of the G-20, "hosted" by his buddies in Saudi Arabia. The first session was on "pandemic preparedness," something we know The Lame Duck already knows. And he did participate in the greetings offered by each country attending. In his remarks, he noted that the US will "meet America's needs first" when in comes to distribution and administration of vaccines. He also noted that he looked forward to working with the G-20 for years to come. Really, Lame Duck? Really?

The Lame Duck's legal challenges to the results of the November 3 election continue to be dismissed. I remain pessimistic, though, that he will ever say that enough is enough and at the very least let the formal transition begin. The press secretary said that the transition The Lame Duck's people had gone through was very disorganized and not valuable. Interestingly, the way I remember it is that The Lame Duck's "team" did not realize that there would be a formal transition and scrambled to find people to take part in it. The sounds to me as if the disorganization was on their end. 

Speaking of the transition, Uncle Joe supposedly has picked his Treasury Secretary and is close to decisions on several others. One source said that announcements would start on Tuesday. For the picks requiring Senate confirmation, the lack of a formal transition means that the FBI cannot begin the background checks required for officials needing confirmation. Given the way that The Lame Duck has handled Cabinet vacancies, I wonder if Uncle Joe can name his picks as "acting" secretaries until background checks are complete.

Life distracted me, and I was getting ready for bed when it hit me that I had not posted this. Apologies for leaving any ending hanging. Better luck tomorrow, I wish myself.