To the Winner Goes the Spoils 🤡 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🤡 

It’s Not Over til It’s Over:  In 2008, it took eight months for Minnesota’s former Democratic Senator Al Franken to be seated in the Senate. Initial election results showed him trailing incumbent Republican Norm Coleman by 215 votes.  However, after all the ballots were counted, including some that had been wrongly disqualified, a recount, and some litigation, it was determined that Franken had beaten Coleman by 225 votes.  Franken was finally seated in July.  Franken’s path to the Senate is relevant today because though incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey currently trails Republican challenger Dave McCormick by just over 29,000, somewhere around 92,000 ballots, enough to swing the results of the election. have not yet been counted.  In addition, Pennsylvania law requires a recount when the difference between the candidates is .5% or less and currently the difference sits at .5%.  Though McCormick insists that he won, and at the end of the day he might have, the race isn’t over and is likely to head to a recount no matter who comes out on top after all the ballots have been counted. Of course, Republicans and right leaning media outlets like the National Review insist that Casey should concede now but we all know that if the shoe was on the other foot they’d be screaming bloody murder.  The House race isn’t over either, though at this point it’s just about a given that Republicans will maintain control, the issue is by how many seats.  Per CBS as of this morning Republicans lead Democrats 216 to 210 (other media outlets have slightly different counts).  With nine races still unresolved, Republicans need only two more seats to stay in control, or to stay barely in control.  That barely thing is even more of a problem now, because as of yesterday, Trump’s appointee list includes two Republican members of the House.  Though both are from safe districts, their seats will remain unfilled for months until special elections can be held for their replacement making passage of any bills that much more difficult.

🤡 Car:  Yesterday, Trump announced a slew of appointments.  The not so bad news is that a few of them aren’t awful, the bad news is that a whole bunch of them are truly awful, comical too but only in the most depressing of ways. First, the “normal” ones.  Trump announced New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik as his choice for UN Ambassador.  In the before times, Harvard graduate Stefanik was considered a “normie” Republican but since then she’s pivoted hard right to become one of Trump’s staunchest defenders. Many on the right don’t trust her because they believe that she’s just opportunistic rather than truly right wing. Whatever her true politics, she is articulate and bombastic, and since I am one of those who believe that the UN is a corrupt, biased institution that needs to be repeatedly called out, all things considered, she’s probably the right person for the job.  Like Stefanik, Florida Senator Marco Rubio was also once considered a “normie” who called out Trump for the dangerous man he is, however over time, Rubio who rivals Stefanik in his ambitions, saw the writing on the wall, tossed his soul aside and joined the Trump train. Yesterday, Trump announced Rubio as his choice for Secretary of State, again, all things considered, not the worst choice given the alternatives. From Trump’s perspective, appointing Rubio is a win-win,  if Rubio crosses him, he’ll dump him with a Truth Social post, in the meantime he gets someone with some competence and also gets a say in who replaces him, assuming Florida Governor DeSantis plays ball.  As to that replacement, the names include the usual Florida scoundrels plus Ron’s wife Casey and maybe even Eric’s wife Lara. Now to some of the bad and comical. The Department of Homeland Security has 240,000 employees, it’s the third largest after the VA and the Department of Defense.  In addition to border security and immigration, Homeland is responsible for cybersecurity and the Secret Service so naturally Trump has chosen South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, best known for shooting her dog, alienating her Native American population so much that they won’t let her on their lands, for getting her teeth remodeled gratis in exchange for providing free advertising to an out of state dental practice, for her “alleged” affair with Trump acolyte Corey Lewandowski, and for dancing aside Trump during his dance a thon campaign appearance. No management skills, but she looks good in front of a camera, that and her undying loyalty are key qualifiers for Trump. On the subject of on camera appearance, Trump has chosen Fox weekend host Pete Hegseth to run the Department of Defense.  Hegseth is a veteran and is telegenic, but his capabilities stop there. He’s in the middle of his second divorce, the result of fathering a child with one of his Fox coworkers which makes sense since that’s about all he thinks women are good for as he’s also on record saying that while it’s “okay” for minorities to serve in the military, women should not be allowed in combat, a wee problem not just for women in the service but for the military which is having recruitment troubles.  He also doesn’t believe that germs exist because if he can’t see them, they’re not there, his excuse for not washing his hands for ten years. The Defense Department employs millions of people, including 1.3 million in active service,  810,000 in the National Guard, and 750,000 civilians.  He is so not up for the task of managing them or of defending the country but again, he looks good on camera so there’s that.  Trump has also selected former NY Congressman Lee Zeldin for the Environmental Protection Agency, his chief qualification being that he doesn’t think the environment needs much protecting; Florida Congressman Mike Waltz, a China Hawk, NATO skeptic, and election denier who had his endorsement withdrawn by the Orlando Sentinel because of that denial as his National Security advisor; former Congressman John Ratcliffe who was the Director of National Security during the last year of Trump’s last administration as CIA director; and he’s appointed Nazi wannabee Stephen Miller who has never met an immigrant he likes except maybe Elon Musk as his Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, not surprising but very frightening.  He’s chosen Former Governor Mike Huckabee, father of Sarah, as his ambassador to Israel.  Huckabee is a long-time supporter of Israel which is nice for Israelis, not so good for Palestinians, but that support is rooted in his evangelistic belief that in the coming “end times” when the Messiah comes again, assuming of course that he’s been here once, Christians will rise up in the Holy Land.  At that point, Jews as non-believers will cease to exist. Just in case some Israelis find that philosophy hard to overlook, Trump has teamed him with one of his golf buddies, real estate guy Steve Witkoff who will be his special envoy to the Middle East. Today, Senate Republicans will be holding a vote to determine their next leader.  If Trump gets his way, that leader will be Florida’s Rick Scott unless one of the other candidates, John Thune or John Cornyn, agrees to put the Senate into recess immediately after it convenes in January. Doing that would allow Trump to get most, if not all of his appointees into their positions without subjecting them to confirmation hearings where their obvious incompetence and conflicts will come out.  Appointees like Stefanik and Rubio will sail through confirmation but a lot of the others, not so much.             

WTF: To cap off the evening, the Wall Street Journal posted an article detailing Trump’s plans to exert retribution on everyone in the military particularly the generals who have criticized him and who we are all relying on to refuse his worst orders. He plans a commission to “revamp” the military, by revamp think fire anyone with a conscience who takes the Constitution seriously.  That’s truly frightening, as in five alarm, holy crappola frightening.  Also not so good, Trump announced that Elon Musk, the guy who eviscerated Twitter for fun, and Vivek Ramaswamy who we’ve all been trying to forget, will be in charge of the currently non-existent, not yet funded Department of Government Efficiency to be known as DOGE, an acronym meant to signify Trump’s support for all things crypto because after all a whole bunch of crypto bros supported his candidacy bigly.  The mandate of DOGE is to come up with a plan to downsize government, one that includes the elimination of boatloads of civil service employees, and a few departments like Education because someone has to fund Trump’s planned tax cuts and who needs anyone to send out those Social Security checks, to manage Medicare, safety check food, water, and drugs anyway?  Elon and Vivek have 18 months to produce their recommendations which means that unless they act fast and they might, they’ll be recommending kicking constituents to the curb and cutting Social Security and all that other nice stuff just in time for all the members of the House and one third of the Senate to be running for reelection.  We better pray that the yutzes who missed Musk’s statement about his plans causing lots of hard times for many realize that he has them in his crosshairs before it’s too late, The wealthy can live without Social Security checks and maybe even health care and public schools and so on, others not so much.  I am not convinced that they get it or will get it only when it’s too late as one Trumper told me yesterday that they’re totally convinced that Trump will eliminate the taxes that they currently pay on their Social Security and after all that’s all that matters.  Of course, they also think Pete Hegseth will be a great DOD Secretary because he’s been fun to watch on Fox.  

Now would be a good time for President Biden to focus on his pardon list and if he hasn’t already, he should add Jack Smith and maybe his whole Biden family, all the Generals, Liz Cheney, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and so on.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow