All the King's Miscreants 🤡 🤮 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Where to Begin?  Trump began the holiday weekend with one of those nasty social media posts that we’ve sadly grown accustomed to, wishing a “Happy Thanksgiving to all, including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country, but who have miserably failed." Things went downhill from there as he announced a series of appointments, some comically awful, others just awful. Among the comically awful, he announced that Ivanka’s father-in-law, Charles Kushner, another sex crimes criminal, was his pick to serve as Ambassador to France. Charles Kushner, who Trump pardoned at the end of his first administration, was prosecuted and convicted by then US Attorney for New Jersey Chris Christien for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering after hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, arranging to record a sexual encounter between the two, and sending the tape to his sister. So basically, the kind of guy we all want representing us abroad.  Trump then moved on to the FBI, announcing his plans to replace Chris Wray, the FBI Director that he previously appointed who theoretically has three years remaining on his ten-year term, with the truly awful Kash Patel.  Patel is so ill suited for the position, that when Trump floated appointing him as Deputy FBI Director towards the end of his first administration, former Attorney General William Barr, told then Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Patel would only get the job over his dead body. Barr went on to write that Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency” and that “the very idea of moving Patel into a role like this showed a shocking detachment from reality.”  Patel is a known conspiracist, a pusher of lies about the 2020 election and a Steven Bannon crony who has promised to jail journalists.  In a very early chapter of the Trump saga worked for former Congressman Devon Nunes who now runs Trump’s Truth Social company.  He’s on record saying that the FBI should be gutted as punishment for its participation in investigations of Trump and his cronies.  He’s all in on retribution and investigating the investigators.  In a near normal universe Patel wouldn’t be nominated for a position that requires Senate confirmation, but normal left the station a long time ago and given how many of Trump’s nominees are frighteningly awful, it’s inevitable that most of them, possibly even Patel, will make it through the confirmation process because even if four Republicans join all the Democratic Senators in voting against some of them, there’s no way that those Senators will all be willing to expend the personal capital needed to vote against all of the miscreants and sexual deviants nominated and with Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr, and Pete Hegseth heading up the list of deplorables, there are so many. Worth noting that in 2018 during one of his divorces, Pete Hegseth’s mother sent him an email in which she called him despicable and abusive for his awful treatment of so many women which of course makes him a perfect candidate to run Trump’s Department of Defense.  On a more comical but still absurd level, while promoting some of her beauty products, Cheryl Hines AKA Mrs. RFK Jr shared a video of her naked husband showering this weekend as one does when one’s husband has been nominated to be in a president’s cabinet.  Last night Trump announced his plans to make other daughter Tiffany’s father-in-law Massad Boulos, his Senior Advisor on Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs. Boulos helped Trump gain votes in the Arab communities in swing state Michigan so the appointment should surprise no one except those who thought that Trump was all in on Israel.  And anyway, why should Ivanka be the only daughter whose in-laws benefit from nepotism.  Late yesterday, President Biden, and yes, despite all of Trump’s actions and threats, he is still president, pardoned his son Hunter.  Given all of Trump’s threats of retribution that pardon was totally expected and count me as one who is relieved that Biden didn’t stick by his promise not to pardon his son.  Naturally, Trump expressed outrage and now is likely to follow through on his campaign promise to pardon the January 6 “tourists,” you know those nice guys who called for the heads of Pelosi and Pence while beating the shxt out of a bunch of Capitol Police. 

Remarkable Economy?   Before the election, Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal said that the winner of the 2024 election would be inheriting a remarkable economy.  Naturally, Trump, aided by his oligarch buddy Elon Musk and his DOGE buddy Vivek Ramaswamy, is doing what he can to damage that economy.  It’s not just Trump’s tariff plans, which despite Wall Street’s best hopes, he keeps promising to impose, it’s also the plans to deport many of the migrants who fuel the country’s economic engine because a lot of the farming, factory, and construction jobs they fill aren’t all that desirable to many citizens especially in our current high employment environment.  To state the obvious, commercial real estate brokers squeezed out of their jobs due to declining commercial real estate values aren’t going to start picking lettuce, packaging Oscar Meyer hot dogs, or dangling from skyscrapers. Some of Trump’s plans involve the elimination of the temporary worker visas that farmers rely on to obtain the workers to pick the fruit and vegetables that we buy in our local supermarkets.  Last time he was president the retaliatory tariffs imposed by angry trading partners, so financially damaged farmers, including those in red states and districts, that the Trump administration compensated them for their lost income at the expense of taxpayers who paid for that largesse.  Those payments contributed to the rising debt that Republicans mostly complain about during Democratic administrations but that tend to rise by more when they’re in charge.  Get ready for more financial mismanagement because though we are almost done with this election, there will be another one in two years and a whole lot of Republican legislators will demand that their voters be kept happy.  As to the 2024 election, it’s not quite over yet.  The current House count is 220 Republicans to 214 Democrats with one race leaning Democrat but not yet called.  Though Republicans will have the majority, it will be slimmer than ever as the count will likely be 217 to 215 until the seat that Matt Gaetz vacated and the seats to be vacated by New York’s Elise Stefanik and Florida’s Michael Waltz are filled through special elections.  Passing anything in the House will be almost impossible without Democratic buy in and won’t be that much easier once those three seats are filled.

Fog:  While most eyes remain focused on Israel, Gaza, and the Lebanon ceasefire Assad’s Syria is going through some things.  Rebels have taken over Aleppo. It turns out that Vlad Putin, an ally of Syrian leader Assad, has been using up a lot of resources in Ukraine and hasn’t been as helpful as usual. That doesn’t mean that he and Syria’s other friends in Iran won’t redouble their efforts on behalf of Assad, they will with more fighting and violence to follow.  Has anyone checked in on Tulsi Gabbard, another of Assad’s friends, for her views?  They matter because if she’s confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, she’ll be the one whispering in Trump’s ears.        

#BringThemAllHomeNow