STATUS CHECK COMMENTARY- A TRUMP GOODBYE SPEECH IN THE WORKS?

WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The following is Monday’s status check of developments in the U.S. that can influence economic, health and political outcomes.

·        A Monday night to remember, when Joe Biden won the presidency, sort of. It was a time for Biden supporters to celebrate all over again. They didn’t but they could have. The extra satisfaction many of them were also enjoying because President Trump was fighting the idea of a Biden presidency also evaporated as he came as close as he might ever do to a concession message.

·        By now you probably know enough about the sequence of events that a repeat won’t be welcome. Too bad. Biden supporters need to relish the day. There was the way the two Republicans on the Michigan Board of Canvassers ultimately split, one voting to certify the state’s votes, the other abstaining. So much for those headlines about Michigan not expected to certify. A Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling knocked out a Republican challenge to the counting of 8,300 votes and the state was working on its certification into Monday night.

·         Finally, the biggie of the day. The General Services Administration letter from Administrator Ellen Murphy opening the door to a formal transition for the Biden administration, freeing up money, starting intelligence briefings,  security clearances, providing office space and more than that, settling on Biden’s shoulders the official mantle of legitimacy. History may not retain her plea to Congress not to put her successor in the impossible situation in which she found herself. She wasn’t told by the president to hold up the transition, she said. It was something she had to decide for herself as she did in choosing the moment to “ascertain.”

·         President Donald Trump, being who he is, was not about to be upstaged by a GSA administrator, having a tweet shot out so soon after her letter surfaced that it may have been written and prepared by someone else, held at the ready. That’s pure speculation but in any event, the tweet read, “I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same.” As she explained, her action was done “independently” which seemed to mean without prodding by the president. As said, history won’t care much. The small step that was necessary to definitively launch the Biden presidency was taken and all that went before seemed to become fleeting shadows.

·        The Trump tweet also said, “Our case STRONGLY continues, we’ll keep up the good fight.” More than 30 court challenges lost, withdrawn or settled seemed to suggest the good fight is finally over. But wait, there was Rudy Giuliani being interviewed, where else, on Fox News: “The fraud was rampant and out of control,” he said. And Fox was promoting an interview coming up Tuesday on the Lou Dobbs program with, who else, Sydney Powell, once Rudy’s sidekick, then disclaimed by Rudy, but still with a story to tell of how the election was stolen by an international conspiracy including Venezuelans and George Soros, the always available bogeyman. Dobbs Monday night was mocking “the little cute RINOS,” the Republicans In Name Only he said are caving now, congratulating Biden, among them Senators Kevin Cramer and Pat Toomey. The Washington Post, incidentally, is reporting Trump may be entertaining the possibility of a national address touting his achievements, not explicitly conceding but acknowledging what the inevitable future is for the Oval Office.

·        Meanwhile, a slew of new Biden administration names, to be formally announced Tuesday. But not before Biden’s own statement Monday night that said his crew will be examining how the Trump administration has tried to “hollow out government agencies.”That casts a new light on all those “acting” agency chiefs and suggests the Biden administration won’t be so forgiving after all. Biden had a big video conference with mayors in the afternoon.

·        The Biden team so far is diverse, also mostly familiar. Somehow Janet Yellen, a labor economist, was seen as a perfect match for Treasury. Lael Brainard, with a lot of Treasury experience, was seen as more suited to stay at the Federal Reserve with a hint that perhaps when the time comes, she can become chair. So Jay Powell will be having breakfast once a week with the person who headed the Fed while he was just a governor, aware he is apparently destined to be a former chair himself relatively soon. That’s if Yellen is confirmed, which seems very likely. Others on the team, like the next secretary of state, the next national security adviser, the next U.N. ambassadors will not need any introductions to one another. Making the next Department of Homeland Security an immigrant himself was one of those storybook developments that seemingly closes the book on years of keeping “rapists” out. John Kerry as environment czar or ambassador is as far removed from Trump policy as is imaginable.

·        Then there’s that other story of what’s killing an American every minute. Could that figure from the NBC Nightly News be correct? Let’s see, 1,440 minutes in 24 hours and actual deaths Sunday were 843, so not quite (NYT Tracker). But weekend counts are always low. The average is close enough to once a minute that no one is going to quibble. Eighty-thousand hospitalized. Yet, again on Fox, contributor Candace Owens was pledging Monday night to have a big crowd of extended family at her Thanksgiving dinner. The day’s announcement by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca that its third vaccine candidate initiates immunity with only half a dose before a second dose, that it’s 90% effective, that it requires only ordinary refrigeration and finally that it costs only three to four dollars a dose seemed to transcend the earlier good news from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. The Oxford vaccine, based on older medical technology, appears to be the one that can feasibly reach Third World destinations and may become the biggest lifesaver of all. But before that day arrives, in the U.S. the Thanksgiving killing  surge – or as Tony Fauci told the Washington Post, a surge superimposed on a surge –  that seems inevitable, based on all the airline and automobile travel under way now.

·        Upcoming economic data include the Redbook retail tally of same-store sales at 8:55a ET, the Case-Shiller House Price Index at 9a, the consumer sentiment reading at 10a along with the Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index.

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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com.

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