All hail the disrupters

 "Ho ho ho, who's got the last laugh now?" Ira Gershwin asked.  Mr. President Joseph Robinette Biden, that's who.  The White House holiday decorations have been packed away to be ignored for four years and the Christmas cards have been recycled, but a warm glow persists as the Medals of Freedom are handed out for the last time to People Whose Achievements Don't Include Groveling at Motel a Lago.  The Citizens Medals that angered the MAGAts (Liz Cheney!  Bennie Thompson!) were just a warm-up.  This group is driving the Hate Patrol into a green shit and I love it.

Number One in their shriveled little hearts:  George Soros.  Nikki Haley pronounced it "a slap in the face of America," while jailbird Steve Bannon demanded that the Leader rescind it "on Day One."  Moreover, he wants the White House exorcised after this "demonic individual" sets foot on the premises.  Chug some Immodium, Steve, it's just a medal.  

Joe wasn't done poking his finger in their...eye.  Hillary Clinton!  She won the popular vote in 2016, you know.  Michael J. Fox*, whose foundation has raised over $2 billion for Parkinson's research.  Is he even American?  Also not American:  Jose Andres, founder of World Central Kitchen, who show up at the scenes of natural and man-made disasters to feed people and ask no questions about their ethnicity, religion, politics or favorite football team.  Speaking of which, Lionel Messi, Argentinian football god and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.  Jane Goodall, how can someone who has spent her life among apes be as important as Rush Limbaugh?  Anna Wintour, who runs Vogue and has resisted all pressure to put "beautiful, classy" Melania Trump on its cover.  Bono, another founder of organizations which fight poverty and disease, especially AIDS and tuberculosis in Africa.

I don't quite understand Ralph Lauren but maybe Biden likes his clothes.  Earvin "Magic" Johnson started the Magic Johnson Foundation to support AIDS research; he acknowledged being HIV-positive back when that took courage.  Bill Nye, the Science Guy -- what better time, with science under assault from the incoming ignorati?  Denzel Washington, spokesman for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, also a fine actor.  George Stevens, Jr., who helped start the American Film Institute, the Kennedy Center Honors and the (probably under threat) National Endowment for the Arts.  Tim Gill, tech bro whose Gill Foundation supports marriage equality and LGBTQ rights.  David M. Rubinstein has given millions to all kinds of worthy causes; perhaps continuing to own the hapless Baltimore Orioles is his most charitable act.  

The rest were posthumous.  I can't believe no previous president thought of Fannie Lou Hamer, our latter-day Harriet Tubman.  Others included former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and former Michigan governor and HUD Secretary George Romney (his son Mitt is officially anathema to MAGA).  Biden is known to admire Robert F. Kennedy, SENIOR, whose bust is displayed in his office.  Junior did not accept on his father's behalf.

Watch the ceremony here.  Biden's opening remarks have to compete with a fussing infant.  His comment:  "Children RULE in this house!"  God, I miss him already.

Pope Francis was not impressed with the Leader's choice of envoys to the Vatican.  Today he retaliated by naming Cardinal Robert McElroy Archbishop of Washington, DC.  McElroy is as liberal as possible while still remaining a Catholic.  In 2017, during the Leader's first assault on immigrants, he declared, "We must all become disrupters."  Yesterday in St. Matthew's Cathedral he "celebrated African Americans, addressed the Hispanic community in Spanish, called for inclusion and stressed the importance of trying to understand the 'other.'"  His former diocese of San Diego stretches across the California/Mexico border.  "We are called always to have a sense of the dignity of every human person...plans that have been talked about of having a wider, indiscriminate, massive deportation across the country would be something that would be incompatible with Catholic doctrine."  When did John Fugelsang start advising the pope?  Wait, there's more:  McElroy sees "a profound sickness in the soul in American political life" and calls for defending our "core democratic consensus."  He was born in San Francisco and has a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford, two red flags for the first hate post from Troof Social.

Class:  Vice President Kamala Harris presided this morning at the certification of the electoral votes for the man who never stopped smearing and lying about her.  Two previous vice presidents, Richard Nixon and Al Gore, managed to perform what must be a deeply unpleasant duty.  (Gore was screwed in 2000 by the already corrupt Roberts Court, while Nixon could have demanded a recount in Illinois but didn't.)   Harris also swore in the new senators, and nasty-ass Bruce Fischer, husband of Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE), refused to shake her hand.  What's the opposite of class?  "They have no home training," commented Elie Mystal.  I think he meant "house training," as with puppies.

To the Leader, every fresh insult is "as never seen before," which suggests his short-term memory is shot.  Now he's whining about Biden making "the TRANSITION as difficult as possible...Lawfare such as never been seen before...Green New Scam and other money wasting Hoaxes...Fear not, these 'Orders' will all be terminated shortly, and we will become a Nation of Common Sense and Strength!  MAGA!!!"  No one trashed the Capitol today, so we're already one up on 2021.  Jeez, he really says "fear not."  Kraft durch Freude!

On a personal note, I cancelled my Washington Post subscription last night.  It was a combination of the censored cartoon and the news that Bezos's Amazon is producing a documentary about Melania.  The millions he handed over weren't enough, he decided this deeply uninteresting woman should get the Maria Callas treatment.  The director and producer is Brett Ratner, who hasn't made a movie since 2019 when he was accused by several women of sexual assault.  It's going to be a golden age for rapists.

*Like a disabled veteran, Trump wouldn't want Fox in the White House.  Biden helped to steady him while the citation was read.