The
counting goes on. And on. And on.
But Biden has won and so we can put that worry to rest.
And speculate about what old One-Term is
going to do in the almost two months of lingering shame that he is going to have
to suffer as, every single day, he is reminded that he has been voted out of
office and from the 2nd of January he will no longer be the
President.
We do have some evidence with which to
speculate. As Trump has shown himself to
be ruthlessly concerned with money and his own status before everything else,
we can expect him to continue placing his wealth and his public face in the
forefront of his concerns.
Prison is not a good look for anyone other
than a Nelson Mandela and, with the best will in the world, even his most
dedicated Swamp Base would not equate The Orange Monster with a South African
Freedom Fighter. If Trump is prosecuted
for a fraction of the crimes that he is alleged to have committed during his
time in the White House then he will be put away for a long, long time. Misuse of public funds, nepotism, cronyism,
bribery, simple corruption, tax avoidance, tax evasion, lying about virtually
everything, justice – where to start with his trashing of the justice system? -
and so on ad infinitum. To say nothing
of various dodgy financial pigeons coming home to roost to the tune of hundreds
of millions of dollars.
So, one of Trump’s first concerns is going
to be how to stay out of prison. Because
as soon as he is no longer the president and protected by the office various
court cases are going to be reactivated.
The great question is, “Can Trump pardon himself”? As far as I know, no president (even Tricky
Dickie) didn’t stoop to self-pardon. But
just because something hasn’t been done before, it doesn’t mean that No Shame
Trump won’t try it.
A more likely scenario
is one that I have mapped out before which is, Trump resigns, Pence becomes president,
pardons Trump, Trump becomes president again and hands over his trashed office
a free man.
Though, to have a pardon is
actually to admit that there is a wrong, so by pardoning himself, Trump will be
admitting that he is a criminal. But
that won’t worry him, not with what is already on his grubby, grubby little
hands!
What scope does Trump have to Sharpie-sign
yet more Executive Orders, because whatever mischief he can get up to like the
spoilt child that he is, he will.
Bolstered by 70 million of his fellow citizens who voted for him, he
will feel that he has a popular authority to do as he likes to make Biden’s
accession as difficult and as messy as possible.
Can anyone seriously imagine Trump graciously
hosting Biden in the White House?
It is
equally difficult to imagine Trump attending the inauguration, and one
commentator has suggested that it is more likely that Trump holds a rally at
the same time, so there will be a split screen of Biden and Trump and their
various crowds. Though that might mean
that Trump will not do it because he will be terrified that his crowd could be
smaller than Biden’s. Though, even if it
was, that would merely be an “alternative fact” which could be brushed away by
the Mendacious Monster.
This is surely one time when the “oxygen
of publicity” should be denied to Trump (and yes, I am well aware of the source
of that phrase and the poisoned outcome of its practical use) but if Trump continues to peddle lies
he should not be given a worldwide media platform to repeat them. But I also recognize the freedom of speech and
freedom of information elements that have to be considered. But .
. .
I am sure that we are going to have a damn
sight more than two months of pathetic interference in the political situation
by Trump and his minions, but with any luck they can be swept into the dustbin
of history. Fond hope!
I
am missing my swims. I check the booking
app that we were encouraged to download to book ourselves in for our activities
to see if they are accepting reservations and the first day that there appears
to be bookings waiting is for the end of this week – but they are not yet open
to be made real, so I will wait a while to see if reality matches appearance.
To compensate for my missed swim I am
extending my daily (electric)bike ride and so now I cycle the entire length of
Castelldefels and Gava Mar and while it is an impressively long distance for me, my fitness app tells me
that my journey is almost entirely on the level which, as it is beside the sea
is logical.
We
have started talking about Christmas and I am determined to put up my Belen (Christmas
stable scene, with added people) this year as well as having a small Christmas
tree. The tree will be decorated with
baubles made by SQB – just as soon as the parcel containing them gets here!
The Christmas meal is altogether more
problematical. Toni will be devastated if
he can’t see his family over the festive period and I think that we will have
to make a trip up to Terrassa even if it is only a fleeting visit to bump
elbows and then back again. But time
will tell just what we allowed to do.
Amazon is going to make a fortune, sorry,
an even bigger fortune this Christmas as everybody in the world decides (especially
if they have Amazon Prime) that it is worth getting the presents from Amazon if
only for the fact that postage will be free!
But we will worry about that much, much later.
In a bout of what might be described as
Gourmet Porn, I slathered my way through pictures of M&S hampers and noted
with something approaching wistful regret that many of the high price items in
some of the more expensive hampers are alcohol related. As I now do not drink alcohol (I say for
medical reasons, but what my doctor actually said was, “You can allow yourself
one small glass of red wine a day” – as if that was possible! Better to
recognize weakness in self-control and give it up entirely!) bottles of Champagne
and Vintage Port do not attract. Well,
they do, but as I am not going to drink them, it would be fairly pointless to
buy them and just look at them, or even worse, sniff them and retexture what
they taste could be like from past experience of drinking. And if that sounds like something I have
indeed done, then you would be right in so thinking.
My
new watch continues to please, though I have adjusted the always-on element of
the watch face to turn off for the hours of deepest darkness. My watch also startled me, by suddenly
playing music, not a ring tone, real music.
It took me a while to work out where the sound was coming from. If you had been watching me then you would
have seen me taking out my mobile and being confused by the fact the more I tried
to hear the music from it the more it wasn’t coming from it, and yet the music was
tantalizingly near. I am sure that my
confusion only lasted a couple of seconds but it was deeply disturbing. And frankly even more so when I found it
emanated from my watch as I had done absolutely nothing to encourage it. Honestly.
It turns out I have one tune on my phone
and I have little idea about how to put more there. I will leave downloading the full manual for
a sunnier day when I am feeling gadget strong.
I
have downloaded an app or something called The Fussy Librarian which is
supposed to provide a series of free or bargain downloads of books that you can
read on Kindle. My first choice of a Sci-Fi
novel turned out to be short story length and to be part 1 of 7, and I can’t
find the other six. I fear that yet
again, what appears too good to be true, is too good to be true. Though I will continue to investigate and
report back later.
Meanwhile
the writing, apart from this blog, is not going well. And the fact that some of the letters on the
keyboard are misbehaving is irritating.
And the fact that one of the worst behaving letters is the ‘e’ is even
more unbearable.
Cotton buds and wet wipes must be called
into play, because the cost of a replacement Apple keyboard is not to be
thought about this close to Christmas.
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