Pre-Dawn
The dogs were up early this morning – about 4:45 am. I’m not sure why Louisiana decided that 4:45 was a good time. He’s a “Southern Dog”; he doesn’t even eat breakfast until the sun is high and warm. He might have heard the neighbor headed to work – but there’s nothing like a big Lou lick on the lips to get you going in the cold, early, pre-dawn!
Once Lou was up, the rest of the pack got rolling as well. Unlike Lou, it was breakfast time for them, and snacks, and go out a couple of times. By the time that was all over there was no going back to sleep. So I read the “papers” (well, I read my phone with “All the News that’s Fit to Print” and “Democracy Dies in the Darkness”). And today it struck me: the dichotomy of our “new normal”.
The Old Days
The lead articles are about what we would have called the “old” normal. It’s about negotiations for the COVID relief bill. The House, not surprisingly, maxed out the relief package, including the $15 minimum wage (which I support). The Senate, evenly divided with several Senators straddling the middle ground, is serving the purpose the Founding Fathers intended. The “heated action” of the House is being “cooled in the saucer” of the Senate. The $15 minimum wage is off, to be debated another time. The direct relief, $1400 to each taxpayer, is now restricted to those making less that $80,000/year.
President Biden is talking to Senators, both his own Democrats and even some Republicans. More progressive members of the Senate are outraged, and more regressive Senators are making the staff read aloud over six hundred pages of the bill into the record. As Aaron Burr’s character sang in Hamilton, this is “…the art of the trade, how the sausage is made”. COVID relief will be passed sometime this weekend. The check is in the mail.
Competence
And Biden is demonstrating the one thing most Americans hoped for: competence. Not only is economic COVID relief coming, but the vaccine is coming as well. Instead of July or August, now we can look forward to every adult having access to “the shot” by May. And while Texas, Mississippi, and I’m sure Florida soon, may pay a price of infection and death for jumping the gun, we really might be able to get to a life more like normal this summer. I’m looking forward to the Fourth of July.
That’s what “old normal” should look like. It’s a government that doesn’t require us to watch every move and action. I can listen to Hamilton as I go about my day (or a lot of Steep Canyon Rangers recently), instead of locking into MSNBC to find out what tragedy or atrocity happens next.
The “New” Normal
But then there’s the “new normal”. Just yesterday: Elaine Chou was accused of direct conflicts of interest and may have committed crimes by favoring her family businesses. She’s the former Secretary of Transportation and Mitch McConnell’s wife. But the Trump Justice Department gave her a “pass”, in spite of an Inspector General’s recommendation for charges. Trump is being sued by Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) for inciting the Insurrection of January 6th. And he is under investigation five ways from Sunday in the State of New York.
The House of Representatives stayed up most of last night to finish the Police Reform and the Voting Rights Act. Why did they pull an “all-nighter” in the middle of the week? Because today is March 4th, the last day for the “fever dream” Insurrectionists to achieve their goal of overthrowing the duly elected government of the United States. There is enough “intelligence” to raise concerns by Congressional leaders, particularly after January 6th. And while the Capitol is as highly fortified as it has been since the Civil War, the House leaders didn’t see a need to serve as “bait” for a possible attack. They worked the late shift and went on home.
Rabbit Holes
Not to descend too far into the Insurrectionist “rabbit hole”, but March 4th is the original inauguration date established in the Constitution, and changed in 1933 by the Twentieth Amendment. Since insurrectionist “lore” claims that the United States hasn’t had a “valid” President since Ulysses S. Grant in 1875, they refuse to acknowledge the January 20th inauguration. The fact that Donald Trump would have been an “illegitimate” President under this theory as well doesn’t seem to bother them. They just know that the 2020 election was “stolen”, and they want it back. Today may be their last chance.
Add to that the disturbing testimony yesterday of District of Columbia National Guard Commanding General William Walker. He said that on January 6th, he had to wait three hours and nineteen minutes to get extra-ordinary permission from the Defense Department to send troops to defend the Capitol. He had his forces sitting on buses at the DC Armory, ready to go. But while vandals raged through the building, his troops were cooling their heels. They were waiting for “permission” from the Trump temporary appointees at the Pentagon. We don’t know what those appointees were waiting for. But it doesn’t seem too crazy to think they may have been hoping to see how “effective” the insurrection was.
And that’s the new normal, the one we got “used to” in the Trump Administration. Let’s hope we’re just tying up the loose ends of that era, and we can get on with “making sausage” and the business of government.
But meanwhile, the TV will stay on MSNBC today.
