Thorn: Fool me once…
In The New York Times’ “77 Days: Trump’s Campaign to Subvert the Election” — an exhaustive look into Trump’s post-election efforts to overturn the results — Mitch McConnell is portrayed as an innocent, naive bystander, who was fooled by The White House into believing Trump “was only blustering” and not a clear and present danger to democracy, the U.S. Capitol or the lives of McConnell’s congressional colleagues. The story also makes clear that McConnell only cared about using Trump to help win the two Georgia runoff elections and protect his own position as Senate majority leader. This part checks out, but “McConnell the dupe” doesn’t pass the smell test. As Jonathan Chait wrote in New York Magazine, “McConnell has always fashioned himself the canniest man in Washington. His desire to broadcast his own savvy has frequently led him to counterproductively blurt out of his own cynicism…McConnell is now casting himself as a dupe because it is the only escape. He has been implicated in a historic crime.”
Absurd: Fool me twice…
McConnell is being lauded, thanked, praised… whatever, for his scathing condemnation of Republican-conspiracy theorist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. “Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality,” McConnell said of Greene. If you think McConnell’s principled statement has to do with anything other than trying to regain control of his party and the Senate majority in two years, shame on you.
Rose: Louisville Guardian of the galaxy
Get all the laughs out about the U.S. Space Force, the newest branch of the nation’s military… it’s real. And who else would Louisvillians want protecting us than one of our own? As reported by The Courier Journal, retired-Air Force Captain Richard Yetter, graduate of Atherton High School, is now a Space Force Guardian (“guardian” is the actual nomenclature for Space Force service members). Coincidentally, as of last fall, Yetter’s alma mater needs a new school mascot, as Atherton retired its longtime mascot (the “Rebel”), which was originally a Confederate soldier, before being changed to a Revolutionary War soldier in the ‘70s. This is a sign sent from above… The Atherton Guardians. Go Guardians! And congrats to Guardian Yetter!
Rose: A shot in the arm
On Tuesday, Dr. Sarah Moyer, director of Louisville Metro Health and Wellness, said the federal government is sending shipments of vaccination supplies to local pharmacy chains as part of a nationwide initiative. A few hours later, a White House spokesperson confirmed the shipments to 6,500 stores in the U.S. will begin on Feb. 11. Although supply remains an issue, it seems like the logistics are falling into place. And every one of these announcements secures a little more hope.
