The Buck Stops Where? 😢 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 😢  

✈️ 🚁:  On January 20, Mike Whitaker, the head of the Federal Aviation Authority resigned, forced out by co-president Elon Musk who was furious that Whitaker had imposed fines on Musk’s Space X company for endangering commercial air space and flights with exploding debris from its Space X rocket tests. Also, on January 20, Trump froze the hiring of federal employees including air traffic controllers, a group who also received those possibly illegal buyout offers that Trump’s team emailed out this week, despite a 2023 Inspector General report that concluded that due to budgeting decisions and government closure threats made by House Republicans, air traffic control facilities have been understaffed for years.  On January 22, Trump notified members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee that they were being eliminated and fired the heads of the Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration. Yesterday, in the absence of an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (the “NTSB”), Trump whose Trump Air failed and who lost the crew and passengers on one of his helicopters when it crashed in 1989 but who fashions himself to be an expert in all things avionic took to the podium to blame Presidents Obama and Biden and DEI (diversity), specifically some combination of incompetent Black people, women, and “dwarves” hired by the last Transportation Secretary, that gay guy Pete Buttigieg, but made no mention of the budget pressures that led to the airport’s control tower being understaffed and may have contributed to the horrific midair collision between a military Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines plane which left sixty-seven people dead. How long before he renames the Black Hawks? President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said: the buck stops here.  Trump might as well have one saying: “Not my fault, ever.”  We don’t know if understaffing and the recent firings caused Tuesday night’s crash and won’t know until the NTSB completes its investigation, but it’s fair to assume that Trump will make sure that the report exonerates him, his decisions, and his congressional abettors. By the way, recognizing the optics of not having one, on Thursday Trump appointed a new FAA Director, because maybe we need one?

Confirmation Hearings: Most of yesterday’s news focused on the air crash, but that didn’t stop the calamity of confirmation hearings from rolling on. DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director nominee Kash Patel and HHS nominee RFK Jr all testified.  There were too many intentionally deceptive answers and outright lies to mention but a few stood out as particularly ridiculous and even criminal.  Patel who mostly denies much of what he’s been recorded saying about having an enemies list and wanted to turn the FBI’s DC office into a museum, also denied knowing Stew Peters, a right wing, conspiracist who’s had prominent neo-Nazis on his podcasts.  The problem is that Patel who speaks to Peters frequently,  appeared on eight of his podcasts, things that Peters confirmed on social media after the hearing.  That’s perjury for anyone who’s cares. Gabbard who is the most likely to get dinged if anyone of these awful candidates does get dinged, got twisted in knots obfuscating answers about her support for Edward Snowden, the controversial national secret leaker who now resides in Russia where he’s protected by Putin. Then there’s RFK Jr whose answers depend upon who’s asking.  He’s for vaccines except that he’s not, he’s pro-choice except when he’s adhering to Trump’s party line, he may or may not cancel the approval of mifepristone,  he doesn’t appear to know how Medicaid works and in my favorite answer of the day he told Maryland’s Senate newbie Angela Alsobrooks that because people like her, as in Black people, have more antigens they don’t need as many vaccines. RFK based that screwball conclusion on “reports from Poland.” The Poland he was referring to isn’t the country, but a Mayo clinic research doctor who has repeatedly requested that RFK keep his name out of his mouth while pointing out that RFK continues to misrepresent his work because neither he nor his co-authors have concluded or believe that Black people should be getting fewer or lower dose vaccines than everyone else.  Then again, science isn’t one of RFK’s strong points, maybe because he’s not a scientist but also maybe because of the brain worm and years of heroin addiction which earlier in the week he said was easier to kick than all those anti-depressants he opposes. The sad thing is that both RFK and Patel will likely be confirmed, and it’s too early to rule out Gabbard because Trump threats are effective.  By the way it isn’t just Elon who’s threatening to fund primary challenges against vulnerable Senators who oppose Trump’s candidates, RFK’s former running mate Nicole Shanahan is doing the same, targeting Georgia’s Raphael Warnock in particular who she said she funded during his last election.  Warnock isn’t up for reelection until 2028 so her threat, while notable, is probably worthless.     

Crazy, Stupid and Scary:  For now, Trump has rescinded his “defund everything” order but because his Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt foolishly said that the order “rescission” memo he issued wasn’t meant to indicate a change in his policy but instead was intended to convince the courts to drop the cases filed against the defundings, one of the Judge’s involved said that he’s keeping the case alive.  Remember how many press secretaries Trump blew through last time? A few more statements like that and Leavitt may soon find herself hiding in the bushes with Sean Spicer or maybe on Dancing With Stars. The Trump team’s ultimate objective is to have the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act that was passed by Congress in 1974 in response to some of President Nixon’s misdeeds taken up by the Supreme Court. The Act says that presidents cannot temporarily or permanently withhold Congressionally passed funding, which is what Trump and Rusell Vought the Project 2025 author who is likely to be confirmed to be his OMB (budget) director are trying to do.  Trump’s hope is that since the currently constituted Supreme Court thinks he’s a king they’ll also opine that any law that prohibits him from acting like one should be ruled unconstitutional. Switching back to the FBI, the Wall Street Journal reports that its current interim leadership was kind of appointed by accident, something to do with an erroneous posting on the White House website about who has which position.  Rather than correct the posting, the White House decided to go with the posting mistake flipping the assignments.  Oopsie.

Fog:  Yesterday, Hamas together with their co-terrorists Islamic Jihad released Israeli hostages Agam Berger, 20, Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Moses, 80 as well as five Thai nationals: Thenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakham, Sriaoun Watchara, Seathao Bannawat and Rumnao Surasak. The release of Arbel Yehoud and Gadi Moses was particularly frightening to watch. They were both passed through a chaotic and crushing crowd of gun toting, threatening militants before making their way into the Red Cross cars, that’s the Red Cross which failed to visit any of the hostages during their captivity and who is really only acting in the capacity of Uber drivers for the releases. Once in their “Ubers” the hostages were further subjected to danger as the militants slowed their departure to a crawl while also jumping on the car roofs. In response to the horror show, Israel delayed releasing the 110 militants they had promised to release in exchange but did release them by the end of the day. Hamas announced that tomorrow’s scheduled hostage release will including Yarden Bibas, Ofer Kalderon, and American-Israeli national Keith Siegel.  There is still no official news about Bibas’ wife or two young red-haired children.  Hamas reported earlier that they were dead, but they’ve lied about the status of some of the other hostages so at least for now, the status of the rest of the Bibas family remains unknown.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

 

Hardship Incoming 🤬🤯✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🤬🤯

🤬🤬: It turns out that Elon Musk wasn’t lying when he said that a lot of Americans would face "temporary hardship" if Trump won the election and appointed him to government.  If anything, Musk was soft pedaling what would happen because by temporary, Musk, Trump and their Project 2025 kindred souls likely means years and by hardship they mean living without health care, no food for the needy, no heat and rent subsidies, polluted air, no food inspections, cuts in education and school loan programs, loss of jobs, and well, you get the picture.  Yesterday, the Trump administration issued an order “temporarily” freezing $3 trillion of funding for 2600 programs across government.  The list of programs was so comprehensive that per a list published in the NY Times it included virtually every federal initiative that distributes money, even some parts of Medicare and interest on some government debt, two things that are supposed to be untouchable.  The bull 💩 justification for the “temporary” freeze, was to give Trump’s MAGA minions time to rout out anything that advances “Marxist equity, transgenderism and the Green New Deal social engineering policies,” but really, it’s about shrinking government to free up money for tax cuts to the wealthiest. Agencies were actually sent questionnaires that asked whether their programs promoted “gender ideology,” whatever that is.  During the day, the federal financing portals that states and other grant recipients routinely access for essential payments for payroll and services were closed, leaving Medicaid reimbursements and payments to health care providers, including hospitals, nursing homes, and doctors, and education programs like Head Start in the lurch. Grant-receiving organizations, basically all organizations that receive any federal funds,  started cancelling patient appointments and classes, telling patients and students that without money, they couldn’t serve them.  To be clear, that meant the cancellation of things like medical tests and pre-school classes, so no diabetes care and nowhere for the kids to go when parents are due at work.  The pushback was loud and somewhat effective so naturally Trump’s people lied about what was impacted, saying that they never meant to shut down the Medicaid payment portal, even though their plans had been in the works for some time and to be fair, not that they ever are, their shutdown order was poorly written and unclear maybe because abject loyalty rather than academic excellence was a hiring criteria.  Trump’s spokes-liar Karoline Leavitt, this term’s Sarah Huckabee/Kellyanne Conway chimera, even asserted that those claiming that the portals were down were lying, a bit of a problem when some of those timid red state Governors from places like Louisiana meekly noted that they too were affected, not all that surprising since red states get more government funding than blue states.  The “temporary” aid shutdown also affected overseas programs, including the wildly successful PEPFAR program started up by George W Bush.  PEPFAR provides AIDS medicine to countries in Africa but apparently preventing the spread of AIDs and the emergence of new strains is a Marxist and/or gender ideology thing?  The pushback to the avalanche of 💩 was somewhat effective.  By the end of the day, the Medicaid portal was going back online, the State Department had agreed to continue providing HIV drugs, and in response to legal action by blue state officials and affected organizations, District of Columbia Federal Judge Loren AliKhan had temporarily blocked the effort to freeze the federal grants and loans affected by Trump’s action pending a hearing to be held on February 3.  And as if the stripping of government services wasn’t enough trauma for one day, taking a page from Musk and his X (Twitter) escapade, the Trump administration is trying to convince as many government employees as possible to voluntarily resign in exchange for eight months of severance though it’s not clear that the offer or the promise of severance is legal, there are no plans to replace any of those providing critical services and as you may recall, Musk reneged on a lot of his severance promises when he dismantled X.  Probably worth noting, that X having service outages is a minor inconvenience, but Social Security checks stuck in the ether together with tax refunds and Air Traffic Control going dark, a whole lot more concerning.  Also, after banning open transgender soldiers from serving in the military, Trump went one step further, banning all gender affirming care, including hormone treatments for anyone 19 or under.  With suicide hotlines among the organizations being unfunded the consequences are going to be awful to watch. Keeping with that theme, the VA also said that it was freezing its outreach programs to homeless vets because they also target LGBTQ ones.  Welcome to Trump 2.0, meaner than ever, lots of chaos, topped off with extra servings of evil intent and lots of lawsuits.  And lastly, if you are wondering where the Democrats are in all this, it looks like they’re finally mobilizing.  Expect to hear a lot more from them, and, among other things, expect them to take a page from the Tommy Tuberville playbook, locking up the Senate in procedural delays the way he refused to allow military promotions and by voting against far more of Trump’s cabinet picks.   

The Kennedy Chronicles: The usually reticent Ambassador Caroline Kennedy has had enough of her cousin Bobby and doesn’t want the rest of us to have to live through her family’s trauma.  Yesterday, she told members of the Senator that he’s a predator and a liar, even talking about how he pushed some of her other cousins, already traumatized by the loss of her father JFK and theirs, the real RFK, into drug addictions, some of which led to some of them dying from overdoses.  She also noted that though he profits financially from warning of the “dangers” of vaccines, he’s had his own kids vaccinated.  Cousin Bobby’s Senate confirmation hearings begin today, as do hearings for Howard Lutnick for Commerce Secretary and one- time interim Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler for the Small Business Administration, one of those departments that was impacted by yesterday’s grant and loan freeze. In other Senate news, Michigan’s well respected Democratic Senator Gary Peters surprised many by announcing that he won’t run for reelection in 2026.  Among the names being bandied about as a possible replacement is former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg who resides in Michigan! Governor Gretchen Whitmer says she’s not interested probably because she’s more focused on running for president in 2028.   

And More 💩: Even Iowa’s Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is questioning the legitimacy of Trump’s firing of eighteen Inspectors General.  Grassley, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter also signed by ranking Democratic member Dick Durbin, to Trump noting that he failed to provide the legally required thirty days-notice and that he is also supposed to provide substantive rationales for each dismissal, something other than he just doesn’t like them because they’re members of the Deep State, not that anyone expects Trump to care about such a letter. More lawsuits are incoming.  Pete Hegseth is now Defense Secretary.  We don’t know if he downed a six pack to celebrate his confirmation, but we do know that he’s stripped former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley of his security detail, revoked his security clearance, took down another one of his portraits, and is now threatening to take one the retired General’s four stars away.  Retribution much?  As to Pete Hegseth’s confirmation, the Wall Street Journal reported that Danielle Hegseth, Pete’s former sister-in-law who provided a sworn statement about his habitual drinking and abusive behavior had been encouraged to do so by North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis who had assured her that her statement could result in a critical mass of Republican Senators voting against Hegseth’s confirmation.  Not only did that not happen but Tilles voted for confirmation, essentially throwing Danielle Hegseth under the bus while also exposing her to incoming hate and threats from legions of Trump and Hegseth MAGA supporters. Remember that when Tilles’ Democratic opponent, whoever that turns out to be, is raising funds for the 2026 campaign.

Fog:  Hamas has formally notified Israel that eight of the 26 Israeli hostages to be released over the coming weeks are dead. Hamas’ list of the dead confirms with Israeli security’s intelligence but the names of the dead whose bodies will be returned and will count towards the required hostage return for the first part of the ceasefire have not been publicly released.  Two Israeli women, Arbel Yehud and Agam Berger, both citizens rather than soldiers, are scheduled to be released tomorrow along with a third unidentified hostage. Israeli hospitals are also preparing for the additional release of ten Thai nationals who may be released in a side deal.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

 

 Floodgates 🤮 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🤮

The Deluge: Well, last week wasn’t fun, and sadly it was just the beginning.  Pete Hegseth, the accused rapist who promises not to drink anymore but probably will, was confirmed and is now the Secretary of Defense.  Three Republican Senators including Maine’s Susan Collins, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, and Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell voted against his confirmation requiring that JD Vance, who was waiting in the wings, cast the tie breaking vote. North Carolina’s Thom Tillis who is up for reelection in 2026 pretended to give serious consideration to voting against Hegseth but in the end voted for him, bowing to threats from Trump that he’d be primaried if he showed some gumption.  Tillis followed the example set by Iowa’s Joni Ernst who also put her personal political interests over those of the country.  As to McConnell, he deserves no credit for doing the right thing given that we’re in this mess in the first place because when he could have torpedoed Trump he didn’t.  South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem was confirmed as Homeland Secretary much to the relief of her state’s tribal population who are happy to see her go but kind of a twisted joke for the rest of us.  Confirmation hearings are set for FBI nominee Kash Patel, the one with the enemies list and a not so funny cartoon depicting some of those enemies being decapitated which is circulating on social media;  the totally unfit for the job RFK Jr, who didn’t just encourage Samoans to avoid getting measles vaccinations but did that so he could “study” the impact on the deluded population because what’s a few dozen deaths and a lot more illness in the interest of perverse science; and Tulsi Gabbard, the DNI nominee who few outside Trump world trust with top secret information with the exception of deposed dictator Bashir Assad and Vladimir Putin. Word is that Gabbard’s nomination is the one most in jeopardy but with Trump threatening to kneecap anyone who opposes her confirmation, even she might pass.  For his part, Trump who has announced plans to spend his weekends golfing at Mar a Lago, when he’s not on the road with the likes of the pardoned Oath Keeper Steward Rhodes by his side upping promises about tariffs, tax cuts and egg prices, got into a shxtting match with the president of Colombia (not Columbia despite that being Trump’s preferred spelling) this weekend after he sent a military flight full of shackled migrants their way.  Sending undocumented migrants back to their home countries isn’t unheard of, both Biden and Obama did as well, it’s the way that Trump shipped the migrants that Colombia’s leader found so offensive but then again with Trump it’s all about playing strong man and bragging about it so he threatened to impose high tariffs on Columbian goods like coffee and flowers, a good move in the run up to Valentine’s Day, before the two leaders reached an agreement. How long before Colombia starts cozying up to China?  Also, would it surprise you to learn that shipping people like they’re cattle on military planes is way more expensive than sending them home commercial? That DOGE efficiency stuff only matters when it’s our health care on the chopping block.  As to health care, in addition to “temporarily” turning off the spigot of health statistics that informs the medical community about circulating diseases, Trump, or more likely the DOGE and Project 25 people he’s delegated decision making to have also frozen and/or cancelled a lot of NIH’s disease trials leaving quite a few desperately ill patients in the lurch while also delaying or jeopardizing future medical breakthroughs.  As to hiding data about diseases, remember when Trump wanted to stop COVID testing in order to hide how much of the deadly virus was circulating and killing people and when he stopped CDC official Nancy Messonnier from making public statements about the incoming COVID pandemic, that’s apparently his plan for bird flu because if we don’t know it’s there, it won’t hurt us and RFK Jr’s anti-vax position won’t really matter.  Right?

More:  Don’t let Trump’s anti-DEI actions fool you.  He isn’t “just” doing away with policies and programs that promote diversity, he’s trying to eliminate history and set back civil rights to the Jim Crow days. Likely in response to the announcement that anyone who failed to turn in anyone hiding DEI stuff or ferret out anything that remotely looked like DEI would be fired, the Air Force announced they would no longer show videos about World War II’s Black Tuskegee Airmen or pioneering women pilots to new recruits. The good news is that those plans to erase history have been scotched but only because Alabama Senator Katie Britt objected. Her objection wasn’t because she’s for diversity, but because Tuskegee is in Alabama. The bad news is that someone ever thought erasing history was okay but then again Trump’s mentor Musk spent part of his weekend telling Germans it’s okay for them to forget about the Holocaust.  Trump is also talking about eliminating FEMA, forcing each state to assume the cost of their own disaster relief, a concept that would severely impact hurricane and tornado impacted “red” states that rely on “blue” states anteing up when they’re suffering but goes over big with the Republican crowd when “Marxist” California is the state that is suffering.  Getting rid of FEMA would take congressional action so it’s not likely to disappear though privatizing it, whatever that really means, is on the Project 2025 wish list. Trump also fired 18 Inspectors General this weekend despite legislation requiring that the inspectors only be fired for cause and that thirty days’ notice be provided but then again, kings get to do what they want and eliminating them is another one of those Project 2025 mandates, so he did.  Also, in a move that affects fewer people but is very petty and cruel, the State Department, now led by Marco Rubio, will no longer issue or renew passports to anyone who doesn’t identify as male or female and he’s put a halt on most foreign aid, another thing that falls into China’s hands.  By the way egg prices are still up.  

Fog:  Four female Israeli hostages were released by Hamas on Saturday.  Unlike during the first release, they didn’t appear to go through a threatening gauntlet on their route out of Gaza, however they were put on public display alongside a too large for comfort group of Hamas terrorists in military uniforms.  All four of the released hostages were soldiers even though the truce deal between Hamas and Israel required that at least one of them be a civilian. That matters because of the “swap math” which requires that Israel release thirty Palestinian prisoners and detainees for each female civilian but fifty prisoners, including some serving long sentences for things like blowing up buses and murder, for each female soldier. Israel’s response to Hamas’ shenanigans was to put a hold on allowing Gazans to return to their homes, or the little that’s left of them, in the north.  For a while it appeared that the fragile truce was in jeopardy, but Hamas has now committed to releasing Arbel Yahoud, the female citizen who was supposed to have been released last Saturday.  Yahoud is now supposed to be released together with two other hostages on Friday. Adding fuel to the fire, Trump who has lifted former President Biden’s hold on the delivery of 2000 pound bombs to Israel called for Egypt and Jordan to “take in Palestinians.”  That suggestion, which in addition to be destabilizing for Jordan, a regional ally that we shouldn’t want to see destabilized, didn’t go over all that well with either country or the Gazans trying to go back to their homes.  Note to all those voters, especially those from Dearborn, Michigan who either stayed home or voted for Trump, are you happy about that now?    

#BringThemAllHomeAliveNow

 

 
The Ugliest American 🤮 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🤮

Pathological: George Conway, the conservative lawyer who used to be married Kellyanne, provides a convincing case that Trump is a pathological narcissist.  I have no training in psychology, but Conway seems spot on since among other things narcissists are grandiose, lack empathy, think everyone else is stupid, have difficulty accepting criticism and are manipulative, all traits that aptly describe Trump, and as to the pathological part, he does appear to be compulsive, obsessive and dangerous. To that end, after the very articulate and soft-spoken Washington DC Episcopal Reverend Marianne Edgar Budde asked Trump to show mercy to LGTBQ people and immigrants during the Inaugural Prayer Service, Trump who should have turned the other cheek instead lashed out calling her a “nasty” “radical leftist” who owed the public, and presumably him too, an apology.  To her credit, she remained unbowed, instead doubling down on her message, saying that she “wanted to emphasize respecting the honor and dignity of every human being, basic honesty and humility,” she called for “mercy and compassion and understanding," all foreign concepts to narcissists even those who profess to adhere to Christian values.  In an interview with his favorite Fox abetor, Sean Hannity, Trump defended his decision to pardon all of the January 6 felons, once again calling them heroes while repeating for the umpteenth time that he’d won the 2020 election, repititon of lies being one of those manipulative strategies that narcissists frequently employ. That strategy worked well for Trump during his 2024 campaign where far too many ignored or believed his lies about everything from the 2020 election to tariffs to his promises about bringing down the cost of groceries and interest rates while also immediately ending the Ukraine-Russia war and leaving their health care benefits intact.  Yesterday speaking remotely to a group of businesspeople and economists attending the World Economic Forum he again threatened tarriffs while demanding lower interest rates and oil prices. The attendees who, despite Trump’s assessment, aren’t stupid, know he can impose those tarriffs, but they are also are smart enough to know that tarriffs despite “genius” Trump’s claims will raise prices and interest rates because despite his grandiose pronouncments, Trump can’t make either go down with an edict or his sharpie.  The ultimate Ugly American is back and it is hard and embarassing to watch him in action especially since his plan is to bring us back to a time when women and people of color knew their place, when health care was available only to those who could afford it, when older people were either supported by their families or lived in poverty, few vaccines were available, cars didn’t have safety belts, and burning pollution causing oil, like smoking cigarettes, was a good thing. The good old days?

Cabinetry:  John Ratcliffe is now the new CIA Chief, 74 Senators voted to confirm him.  He joins Marco Rubio as the second member of Trump’s team to be easily confirmed.  If things go according to Trump’s plan, Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth will join them tonight. During yesterday’s preliminary vote Hegseth, whose second wife says “drinks” more often than not, got no Democratic votes but received all but two Republican ones.  The Republican naysayers were Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. In addition to focusing on his lack of experience and bad management history Murkowski expressed concern about his abuse of women.  Collins mostly limited her stated concerns to his serious lack of professional experience. It’s highly likely that despite his obvious failings, including the $50,000 payment he admitted to making to the woman who accused him of rape, Hegseth will be confirmed tonight but his opponents haven’t given up the fight yet.  Last night, after the preliminary vote, an unprecedented third FBI report detailing more of his misconduct was shared with leadership of the Senate Armed Services committee.  In addition, Rachel Maddow’s legal analyst Lisa Rubin uncovered the non dispargement agreement that he entered into with his second wife Samantha as part of their custody agreement.  The terms of that agreement go far to explaining why Samantha has been reluctant to speak out about her marital experiences, the ones that led her to need a “safe” word, hide in a closet, and flee her house.  Putting aside Hegseth’s abusive behavior, as if that should ever be put aside, I don’t get why Trump  is so adament about having a frequently inebriated Defense Secretary with so little experience by his side and why his Senate supporters agree.  You’d think that he and they would want his Defense Secretary, perhaps his most important appointee to be smart, sober and experienced, so maybe it’s that pathological narcissism again.  Who needs competence when you think you are the smartest guy in the room, who needs no advisors but does like to be surrounded by bootlickers?  You’d also think that Trump would want a Director of National Security who was smart, experienced and fairminded but instead he’s nominated Tulsi Gabbard who apparently didn’t just meet with former Syrian Dictator Assad back when he was the current dictator, but met with him twice and lied about it.  As to health care, Trump’s nomination of RFK Jr is another one of those things that’s setting him up for failure and us up for high levels of morbidity and mortality. Trump can stop the CDC from issuing health reports, and yes he’s now done that, but he can’t stop people from getting sick and dying and having RFK out there dissing vaccines when another pandemic could be in the offing is not a winning strategy. That’s RFK, Jr whose finally filed financial paperwork reveals that he is still getting and will continue to get payments from his law firm, related to a vaccine lawsuit. By the way, birds continue to die from bird flu and a few people have too.  The last remaining Long Island duck farm has just had to cull its entire flock because of the illness.     

Birth and Other Rights:  The first federal court has spoken, and at least for now Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship is suspended.  A Federal Judge nominated by Ronald Reagan held no punches. He said it boggled the mind to think that any member of the bar would claim that Trump’s order was constitutional.  No doubt Trump’s team is appealing, and despite the 14^th Amendment and case law, specifically 1898’s US v Wong Kim Ark case where the Supreme Court ruled that because Wong was born in the US and his parents “were not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China,” the 14th Amendment made him a U.S. citizen, Trump’s executive order is likely to make it to SCOTUS and who knows with this crowd how they’ll rule.  We know how they should rule but?  While being born in the US makes you a citizen, keeping security protection even if your life has been threatened is not a given if you’ve ever said anything bad about Trump (pathological narcisism in action again?).  In addition to stripping John Bolton of his protectors, Trump has now stripped former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, because who really cares about those Iranian threats to kill him. We’re also watching the free press deteriorate.  It’s reported that CNN management warned its commentators to refrain from referring to Trump’s impeachments or prior bad acts during their coverage of the inauguration.  Additionally, CNN has just shuffled its schedule, taking away frequent Trump critic, the highly rated Jim Acosta’s morning time slot, offering him instead one at midnight.  It’s also been reported that Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, has held internal talks about settling a lawsuit filed by Trump.  That’s the one where Trump called 60 Minutes editing of their Kamala Harris interview illegal election interference.  Apparently, Paramount fears that Trump will stand in the way of its sale to Skydance Media if they don’t make nice to him.

Four more hostages are due to be released by Hamas tomorrow. Let’s hope all goes well and that they aren’t subjected to the dangerous gauntlet that last week’s hostages experienced.

#BringThemAllHomeAliveNow  

 

The Worst is Yet to Come 🤮 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🤮

Shock and Awe 🤯🤯:  As promised Trump has issued a slew of executive orders, too many to cover them all here which is probably the point of the deluge. Some address the policies that he promised to implement, others reflect his pettiness, others are downright dangerous, and many are already being litigated.  Protecting the environment is out, as are incentives to buy electric vehicles but tail pipe emissions are in. Top secret security clearances without background checks are being provided to members of the White House staff but not for Trump’s former National Security Advisor turned opponent John Bolton who in addition to losing his is also losing his protection detail despite the credible Iranian threats against him. Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization and is also rescinding Biden administration orders to lower prescription drug prices for people on Medicare and Medicaid. Migrants, even those seeking to enter legally who’d been on line to receive interview appointment slots, are being left stranded at the border and scheduled flights to the US for Afghans who’d served the US and had been promised transport and visas, have been canceled, leaving them and in some cases their unaccompanied children in the lurch.  No more birthright citizenship even for children born to those legally in the US on legitimate visas, a surprise to many in technology and assuming stare decisis still matters, a violation of the Constitution and case law. He’s eliminating all federal diversity and environmental justice programs, letting federal contractors know that they better do the same if they want to keep their contracts. Also, going forward there will be only two recognized sexes an indication that he and many others in his administration weren’t paying attention in biology class and never read Jeffrey Eugenides Pulitzer Prize winning novel Middlesex which I highly recommend.  Also, transgender people had better stay on the straight and narrow because there will be no protections for them in Federal prisons, a policy that likely will result in a few deaths but isn’t that the point? And though JD Vance and Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi both said that pardons for the convicted January 6 thugs would be provided on a case by case basis, almost all of them, including those who beat the crap out of the Capitol police, have been granted pardons or had their sentences commuted, including former head of the Proud Boys Enrigue Tarrio and head of the Oathkeepers Stewart Rhodes, who were serving 22 and 18 year sentences, respectively.  Included in the pardoned crowd is the guy who wore the Auschwitz t-shirt and the painted one with the horns on his head.  A number of those pardoned charmers have posted plans to immediate augment their gun collections and Congressman Lauren Boebert has offered them tours of the Capitol, useful for their next insurrection. The Fraternal Order of Police, the large group that had endorsed Trump but apparently missed his oft repeated promise to move forward with the pardons is shocked and “deeply discouraged.”  Keeping with the Auschwitz theme, Elon Musk did the Nazi salute during his speech at Trump’s inauguration rally, something that got him lots of appreciation on social media from the Neo-Nazi set who know a Sieg heil when they see one but that others insist was just Elon being his socially awkward self.  For his part Elon who didn’t deny his salute was a Sieg heil wants the rest of us to just get over our Hitler thing and sadly the Anti- Defamation League appears to have jumped the shark because they, or at least their leader, seems to agree.  Lastly, Trump also slipped in a few orders that will facilitate his retribution plans, which likely explains why outgoing President Biden felt compelled to issue his last-minute pardons to January 6 committee members and some members of his family. The next four years will be long and ugly.  

Cabinetry: Former Senator Marco Rubio who received thumbs up votes from all of his Senate colleagues is now Secretary of State. The first member of Trump’s cabinet to be confirmed, he could also be the first to be fired (FIFO 😊), given that when he is not kowtowing to Trump, he is somewhat rational.  More cabinet members, some qualified, others not, including Kristi Noem, Doug Burgum, and Scott Bessent will likely be confirmed soon, but Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth’s process has hit a bit of a speedbump.  Yesterday, a copy of a signed affidavit from his former sister-in-law was provided to Senators. We’ve heard the allegations about his excessive drinking and poor behavior before but now those allegations are officially on the record with some gnarly embellishments.  The lap dance while in uniform is icky and hardly befitting a military officer or cabinet member as are the many times he passed out drunk out but the allegation that one of his former wives felt compelled to use a “safe” word that she had previously shared with her sister to escape him is far more concerning.  The Republican Senators who have already voted Hegseth’s nomination out of committee will probably dismiss these accusations as just hearsay recollections of a vindictive former sister-in-law because that’s what they do 🤯🤯.

Silkworms:  In addition to pardoning the January 6 marauders, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, an underground website that the FBI called “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the internet.” Silk Road was where people went to buy and sell illicit drugs, weapons, poisons, and services such as computer hacking.  It was also a good place to go for those seeking to have their adversaries permanently eliminated; prosecutors implicated the site in at least six murders.  Only untraceable crypto payments were accepted something that the crypto crowd loved. Ulbricht who had been serving an arguably too long, life sentence wasn’t just a darling of the crypto crowd but was also loved by many Libertarians. Trump, who purports to hate drugs and who continues to blame Biden for all the fentanyl in the country had promised to pardon Ulbricht in exchange for Libertarian Party support.  Though he didn’t get the party’s endorsement he did get a lot of their votes, so the pardon should surprise no one however, his accompanying message where he called the DOJ and FBI out as “the scum that worked to convict him" is rather despicable, though totally in character.  Also not surprising, Trump has been demoting and forcing out lots of those “scummy” people at the FBI, not for their prosecution of Ulbricht but for participating in the prosecution of him. His message is clear, if you are at the FBI and want to continue with your career, cross me at your peril.

RIP Cecile Richards

#BringThemAllHomeNow 

The Kleptocracy is Here 🤮 🤢 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🤮 🤢  

And So It Begins: To quote Martin Luther King Jr, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." At noon today, on Martin Luther King Day, Trump will be inaugurated, ringing in an extreme time of challenge and controversy.  Our job is to stand up to it as best we can.  It won’t be easy, but the alternative is worse. Herr Trump will take his oath of office inside the Capitol rotunda instead of outside because though he wants to make Canada the 51^st state and covets Greenland, today’s cold weather is too much for him to bear. Worth noting President Kennedy took his oath outside coatless on a colder day.  Few if any of those “lucky” enough to make it into the Capitol for today’s now space constrained swearing in will be wearing masks but since COVID, the Flu, RSV and the current version of the norovirus will  among them it could be a superspreader event because it’s not like vaccinations or other disease prevention practices are de rigueur for many of Trump’s closest, including HHS nominee RFK Jr. As to nepo man, his fellow attendees, including all the right-wing leaders from abroad including from Germany’s anti- immigrant and anti-Semitic AfD party would be wise to demur if he offers a sip from his flask, because raw milk, but then again why shouldn’t bird flu be given a seat at the table? Joking aside, the NY Times reports that during the height of the Covid pandemic, when thousands of Americans were still dying every week, RFK Jr formally asked the FDA to revoke the authorization of all COVID vaccines. His petition demanded that in addition to rescinding authorization for the lifesaving shots that most of us greeted with enormous sighs of relief and a few tears of happiness, that the FDA refrain from approving any covid vaccines in the future. If confirmed as HHS Secretary RFK will be in charge of the FDA.  

Day One: As promised, immediately upon being sworn in, Trump will start issuing the executive orders he’s promised.  Punchbowl News reports that they will fall into three categories: energy, government reform and immigration-border security.  He plans to halt the funding of all Biden’s “green new deal” and climate-related actions; speeding energy permitting and the construction of pipelines; opening tens of millions of acres of federal land, including offshore areas, to oil drilling; and declaring a national energy emergency not that we’re actually facing one but he did promise all his fossil fuel energy donors that he’d “drill baby drill,” environment be damned. As part of the onslaught on the environment, Trump also plans to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, again. Trump intends to make it easier for government agencies to fire workers especially insubordinate ones, as in those who don’t tow his party line, and will rescind all DEI and gender-related directives from the Biden administration. On the immigration and border security front his plans include classifying drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations” to justify declaring an emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border and to possibly legitimize raids by the US military into Mexico. He also plans to reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy; end “catch and release”; and more generally restrict entry into the country even though crossings are currently down by a lot. Last time many of Trump’s orders were poorly written and didn’t pass legal muster, but Kommandant Stephen Miller has likely learned from his prior mistakes and the Supreme Court, now made up of many more Trump appointees, is expected to be more cooperative.   

Tick Tock Tik Tok:  Last time he was president, labeling Chinese owned Tik Tok a risk to national security, Trump called for it to be sold to a US based company or be banned from doing business in the US.  Those security concerns were legitimate which is why despite the objections of legions of loyal Tik Tok users, Congress, on a bipartisan basis, passed a law mandating Tik Tok’s sale. In a unanimous decision the Supreme Court upheld the law, ruling that concerns about national security trumped free speech. The wrinkle in this tick tock, is that Tik Tok’s Chinese owners, abetted by at least one of its billionaire US investors, handed over buckets of money to Trump during his campaign so naturally he’s now pro-Tik Tok. Over the weekend Tik Tok, shut down its US service posting the following message: “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.  Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”  Then after their savior and beneficiary Trump said that he would issue an executive order giving Tik Tok a lifeline, the app miraculously came back up, with a note thanking Trump, of course.  Trump is now suggesting that it would be okay if Tik Tok’s Chinese owners sold only half the company to US investors, but that wouldn’t satisfy the law or solve the problem because the Chinese government would still control Tik Tok’s mind bending algorithm and would still have access to user data, the concerns that spurred Congress to act in the first place.  The Tik Tok saga will continue. Maybe Trump will get his minions in Congress, aided by some pro-tech bro Democrats to lift the ban, it’s hard to know at this point, but one thing is for certain, Trump’s for sale and money, especially money that ends up in his coffers, ethics rules be damned, talks.  And lots of money has been making it his way. Reports are that his recently issued crypto meme coin made him around $11 billion, so much loot that Melania is following up with one of her own. As to tech bros, Vivek is departing DOGE, apparently Elon Musk didn’t thing he was pulling his weight.  He won’t be Ohio’s next Senator, that plum is going to the state’s Lt Governor Husted, but does plan to run for Governor.  Good luck with that Ohio.

Fog:  On Sunday, the Gaza ceasefire went into effect.  Lots of hockey sticks in the air with Trump’s team crediting him for all of Biden’s efforts.  The reality is that the ceasefire was an unusual and laudable example of a team effort, with Trump’s representative working with Biden’s negotiators, helped by Trump putting pressure on Bibi Netanyahu while also threatening Hamas to get with the program or else.  Lots of celebration but let’s not get ahead of ourselves because so far only three Israeli hostages have been released in exchange for 90 Palestinian “detainees/terrorists” and not without a few hitches.  Hamas violated the terms of the deal by delaying the release of the names of the three women who were ultimately freed until after the deadline for the sharing of their identities, putting the ceasefire in jeopardy, and then despite their promises otherwise, subjected the three women and their caravan to a harrowing ride to freedom. Probably no surprise that Hamas made the released women pose for “smiling” pictures holding “goody” bags before their release. The deal is for 33 of the remaining hostages to be dribbled out over 42 days in this first Phase, each exchange for an increasing number of Hamas terrorists.  In theory, more hostages will be released in Phase 2 and bodies will be released in Phase 3, a process that can take months if not years. There will be many opportunities for the deal to implode, hopefully it won’t but given history it’s not a stretch to think that it might.

PARDONS and Equal Rights: Among his parting gestures President Biden declared the Equal Rights Amendment to be the official 28^th Amendment to the Constitution.  It’s not clear that his announcement will stick but some think it’s kosher because the Amendment which says that no one can be denied equal rights under the law based on their sex was passed in a sufficient number of states but with a few hiccups on the way. Just another thing to litigate.   And since I sent the first version of this out Biden issued preemptive pardons to retired Gen. Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, and the lawmakers and staffers from the House committee that investigated the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. Those lawmakers include former GOP Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; and California Sen. Adam Schiff .

#BringThemAllHomeNOW

Oligarchy of America 🔥 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🔥 

Confirming Chaos:  The confirmation hearings continue to amaze and not in a good way, watching them is like watching a slow moving trainwreck, you know the disaster is coming but there’s nothing that you can do to stop it. Pam Bondi, who Trump nominated after the outrage about his first-choice, teen rapist Matt Gaetz, proved too much for a handful of Republican Senators to bear, is in many ways scarier than Gaetz.  Having served two terms as Florida’s Attorney General her experience lends her a patina of respectability.  However. despite that appearance, it’s clear that she’s a Trump loyalist to her core and won’t stand in the way of his worst plans, no matter how outrageous and illegal. During her hearing, she refused to say that Trump had lost the 2020 election and, though she said there will be no enemies list in her Department of Justice, she also made light of the list that FBI nominee Kash Patel’s has repeatedly discussed and written about having as well as his statements that judges, lawyers, journalists, and members of Congress like Liz Cheney should be prosecuted for their investigations of Trump. She went so far as to assert that “she doesn’t believe that Patel has an enemies list” adding that he is the “right person at this time for the job.”  And Trump’s statements about this being his retribution term, she probably missed those too because selective hearing and memory is a thing among her crowd. She’ll be easily confirmed, as will all the other Trump nominees who appeared before Congress this week because Republicans don’t really care if the incoming Treasury Secretary doesn’t know what Medicaid is and believes that tariffs are awesome, or if the incoming Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and EPA Head Lee Zeldin want to “drill baby drill” and so on because if Trump wants them, then they must be okay? Marco Rubio, Trump’s Secretary of State nominee, is Trump’s most normal pick, he’ll easily pass muster with lots of Democrats voting for him, but odds are that if he ever asserts himself, he’ll be the first cabinet member that Trump fires.  He’d be wise to stay away from airplane toilets. Adding to the absurdity of the moment, yesterday Trump appointed Mel Gibson, Jon Voight, and Sylvester Stallone as his “special ambassadors to “a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California” to be “his eyes and ears to the moviemaking town.” No doubt Trump’s Hollywood cronies are invited to next week’s hell freezing over inauguration, which will also be attended by his tech bro buddies, a crowd that now includes Shou Chew the head of Tik Tok in addition to Elon, Zuck and Bezos who will all be seated on a prominent dais.  The bros have all written bigly checks for their seats and have also eliminated all those DEI policies that Trump hates so much because who cares about grocery prices when you can eliminate wokeness whatever that is.  As to Tik Tok, it’s hard to tell what’s happening there.  The Supreme Court hasn’t issued its ruling yet and Trump as well as various politicians on both sides of the aisle, are now calling for it to be allowed to continue operating even if SCOTUS rules that the legislation that mandated it be sold or closed down is kosher.  The oligarchy is here. Biden is right.  

Politics Unusual: Lara Trump will not be the next Florida Senator.  Yesterday Governor DeSantis announced that he’s selected current Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.  Moody is a charmer, she’s supported lawsuits to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, advocated against restoring voting rights to felons despite Florida voters approving that those rights be restored, and she joined in the Texas lawsuit that sought to contest the results of the 2020 election.  In other words, she’s perfect for her new role. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine still hasn’t announced who he’ll be picking to replace VP elect JD Vance but he’s being pressured by Trump to pick Vivek Ramaswamy, the one-time presidential candidate/current DOGE co-chair and what could be more perfect than Vivek in the Senate 🤮 🤢.  Until now it had been expected that the term limited DeWine would choose his Lt. Governor Jon Husted.  We should know later today if DeWine, a conservative who in the past has shown an independent streak but who recently made a pilgrimage to Mar a Lago and also met with Vivek, will be caving to Trump’s command. Proving that he jumps when Trump whistles, yesterday Speaker Mike Johnson announced that he’d taken the unprecedented and rather “shocking” step of ousting Congressman Mike Turner from continuing on as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, replacing him with Arkansas’ Rick Crawford.  Turner’s sin, he’s been a traditional Republican hawk, meaning that he’s been supportive of the intelligence community and has stood up for Ukraine. As committee chair, he’d been a member of the Group of Eight, in on all of the key intelligence reports, including those revealing Russian efforts to influence US politics and bolster Trump. Demoting him while staffing intelligence roles with the likes of Tulsi Gabbard and replacing the heads of the FBI and CIA with his other flunkies, allows Trump to erase the past while creating a new “reality.” The House Intel move might sound like inside politics, but it’s not, it affects all of us, because it further ensures that Trump’s second term team will all walk to the beat of the same drummer or else. Not in the same league but also an indication of the types of people who hang with Trump, Rudy Giuliani has apparently struck a deal with Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, the election workers whose lives he ruined with his smears and lies.  He gets to keep his NY apartment and Florida condo as well as his World Series rings and though we don’t know what the two ladies got in return, it’s likely that they got some cash, hopefully boatloads of it. That’s good for them, but since Rudy claimed he was down to his last penny, it does beg the question of where that money is coming from?  

Fog:  Assuming the deal holds, a ceasefire will go into effect between Hamas and Israel and some of the live hostages that Hamas is holding will be released on Sunday in exchange for thousands more Israel held Hamas prisoners/terrorists. Under the six-week first phase of what’s supposed to be a three-stage deal, Hamas will release 33 Israeli hostages, including all women (soldiers and civilians), children, and men over 50. The remaining men and bodies of the dead are to be released in the later stages. Holding my breath in anticipation and trying to put aside my fears about the hostages due to be released later making it home alive.            

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

 

Bizarro Secretary Pete? 🔥 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🔥 

Confirming Crazy: Pete Hegseth is an accused rapist, he’s a serial cheater on his third marriage, he’s got a drinking problem, he’s seriously mismanaged the funds of two small non-profit veterans organizations, he appears willing to deploy the US military against US citizens, he’s a Christian Nationalist, he questions whether women should serve in the military and he couldn’t answer questions about important international alliances yet he’s on a glide path to becoming the next Secretary of Defense. Hegseth was combative, evasive, and snide during yesterday’s Senate confirmation hearing but wowed Iowa Republican Joni Ernst, who could have derailed his confirmation but instead announced last night that despite her earlier reservations she’ll be voting for him.  Ernst, a veteran who has talked about her own experiences as a victim of sexual assault, refused to meet with Hegseth’s accuser and didn’t seem at all concerned about the FBI’s failure to meet with her either or their failure to return phone calls from at least one of his former wives because she’s way more focused on her 2026 reelection prospects and Trump and his team made it clear to her that those prospects would be jerked away if she didn’t stay on board the Hegseth train. By the way, Hegseth refused to meet with Democratic Senators because of course he did.   Confirmations for a few other of Trump’s nominees, including North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, former Congressman Doug Collins and one-time Democrat Tulsi Gabbard have been delayed a bit allegedly due to document issues but there’s no reason to believe that they, even Putin’s favorite Tulsi, won’t be confirmed as well because Trump, has mastered the art of intimidation and most, if not all, Republican Senators with the possible exception of Lisa Murkowski, live in fear of his retribution. The schedule for RFK Jr whose confirmation requires sign off from both the Senate Health and Finance Committees is still up in the air, perhaps because in addition to his other failings, RFK played fast and cute with his financial disclosure forms, failing to note that he’d earned in excess of $1 million from his anti-vaccine organizations. However, it’s way too early to count RFK out because Trump is determined to own the libs, even if that means making a lot of us sick again.       

Legal Morass: Not that it matters because come January 20, Trump will be back in the Oval Office serenaded in by Carrie Underwood, Kid Rock and his favorites of YMCA fame, The Village People, but the January 6 part of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report was released on Monday night.  Smith believed that his case against Trump was rock solid and that had Trump not been reelected his prosecution would have succeeded unfortunately we’ll never know. In summary, Smith reported that Trump did not cooperate fully in the investigation and that, as we all saw firsthand, he used his influence and social media to intimidate witnesses.  Smith denied Trump’s claims that he’d pursued the charges against Trump for political reasons, saying that anyone who knows him knows that accusation to be “laughable.” He said that Trump knew his allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 were false. Smith is also confident that despite the Supreme Court’s Trump friendly immunity decision he would have been able to move forward with a successful prosecution.  Trump, of course, is furious that the report, or at least the January 6 related part of the report has been released but we’re the ones who are entitled to be livid because Trump is suffering no consequences for his actions and we’re about to be subjected to four, maybe even more, years of a worse version of him.  Naturally, because we live in a world of false equivalencies, David Weiss the Special Counsel who conducted the Hunter Biden investigation released his final report too.  Weiss slammed President Biden for pardoning his son and politicizing his prosecution. If venting makes Weiss feel better, great for him, but Hunter isn’t going to be our next president so he’s not the one that keeps me up at night.  One last wrinkle, the Arizona Attorney General has requested a copy of the Department of Justice’s full January 6 case file to help her with her ongoing prosecution of some of Trump’s co-conspirators.  Her request has the added benefit of helping to preserve files that Trump’s incoming regime might be inclined to destroy.

🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥:  House Republicans are threatening to tie California relief to the debt ceiling, using it as a cudgel to get Democrats on board to their plans.  The 🤡 🤡 position is that those California “Marxists” brought the fires upon themselves, so they apparently deserve to live with the consequences. Funny, how tying up relief is rarely an issue when the victims live in red states like Florida. For her part, Georgia’s Margie Q wants to know why those incompetent California Democrats aren’t seeding clouds or otherwise using their Jewish Space lasers to force fire drenching rainstorms. The Supreme Court is due to issue its opinion on whether or not Tik Tok can continue to operate in the US as a Chinese owned entity. However, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, among others, report that China is preparing for a sale forcing decision by exploring selling Tik Tok to Elon Musk.  Elon has already turned Xwitter into a vehicle for hate speech and bigotry so why not see if he can do more of the same with Tik Tok?  The Washinton Post continues to go up in smoke, Jennifer Rubin who was once their conservative commentator, but over the past few years has become a vocal anti-Trumper, has jumped ship.  She’s launching an online publication called The Contrarian with former ethics czar Walt Eisen. A long list of familiar writers and commentators including Andrew Weissmann, Andy Borowitz, Asha Rangappa, Barbara McQuade, George Conway, Harry Litman, John Dean, Jon Alter, Joyce Vance, Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Steve Vladek have already announced that they will be contributors.

Lots of talk about a ceasefire and partial hostage release deal being “finalized” whatever that means but still nothing concrete to report.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Confirming Crazy 🔥 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🔥 

🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥:  The California fires are still burning, the wind is still blowing, the death count is climbing but none of that has stopped the recriminations and blame game from taking off. Frustration from people who’ve watched their homes go up in flames is understandable but from the uninformed and frequently biased peanut gallery not so much, especially when a lot of the accusations are based on conspiracies rather than confirmed facts and a lot of it is because California is a largely blue state led by a charismatic Governor who Republicans love to diss. By the way Canadians, and Mexicans, two other groups Trump and his crowd throw shade at, have been helping to put out the fires.  Fueling political ones, Wyoming Senator John Barrasso who is third in Senate Republican leadership, more than suggested on Sunday that any aid sent to California would have strings attached because obviously all those fires are total the fault of liberals and have nothing to do with any of that climate change mishigas (insanity for the Yiddish impaired). Barrasso who is responsible for whipping confirmation votes for Trump’s appointees also explained away the need to push back director of national security nominee Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearing by saying that her paperwork was lost somewhere in the Office of Government Ethics which is the like saying that your homework was eaten by your dog when you don’t even have a dog. On Friday, the chair and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee finally received a copy of the FBI’s Hegseth background check report.  Word is that Hegseth benefited from a “hold my beer” Brett Kavanaugh style lite review, one which intentionally omitted potentially harmful interviews. His hearing is scheduled to begin tomorrow. On Sunday, The Washington Post Editorial Board, or what’s left of it, ran through a list of Trump’s nominees, pointing out that though few if any of them would have been their choices and that many had little in the way of credible qualifications, four stood out as being beyond the pale. Their no-go list includes Gabbard, Hegseth, Health and Human Services nominee RFK Jr, and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) nominee Russel Vought. Vaccine opponent RFK’s failings are well known by now but Vought, who unfortunately will probably make it through confirmation, is a truly frightening character.  He served in Trump’s first administration, was the architect of the Project 2025 playbook and plans to defund projects that have already been funded by Congress, a violation of the Impoundment Control Act. That’s a realistic concern given that Vought held up funding to Ukraine during Trump’s last administration and then “defied” a congressional subpoena about doing so, an indication that he has no qualms about breaking the law to impose Trump and co-president Elon Musk’s will.  Turning back to Hegseth, even the rightwing National Review, is concerned about his qualifications and suitability, they are now calling him a dead man walking. Confirmation hearings begin this week, and if Republicans stick to form, most if not all of them will fall in line, confirming even the worst of the bunch.   

Make America Sick Again: Sticking to form, House Republicans are reverting back to their 2016 playbook.  Their plan is to fund the renewal and some expansion of Trump’s first term tax cuts, largely for the wealthy, by going after Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and Medicaid funding while also seeking to cut back on SNAP (food stamps).  In 2016, 20 million people, got their health insurance coverage through Obamacare, that number is now up to 45 million with the largest share of this year’s increase coming from red states so theoretically those cuts shouldn’t fly but then again with Trump and Elon threatening any House and Senate members that don’t adhere to their party line, none of that will matter.  In addition, the work requirements that Republicans want to impose on those receiving health coverage through Medicaid haven’t done much when tried largely because most recipients who can work already do but when cutting taxes is your goal, imposing harm on the neediest isn’t really a problem and really why do people need to eat or preserve their health anyway?  Republicans many of whom have never bought into the health care as a right position may get a little help from the Supreme Court which has agreed to hear a case, from where else but Texas, where plaintiffs are seeking to eliminate provisions of the ACA that require full coverage of preventive health services. The Texans are particularly upset about the requirement that plans fully pay for things like cancer, hypertension and diabetes screenings, vaccines, contraceptives, and PrEP, the highly effective preventive treatment for HIV and AIDS.  The last two services are particularly concerning for the religious crowd who apparently believe that denying birth control and AIDS prevention drugs will eliminate all of what they consider to be immoral behavior.  On the subject of AIDS, RFK who doesn’t believe in germ theory also doesn’t believe that HIV causes AIDS so that’s another thing to look forward to, should he be confirmed. 

Legal News: Trump is officially a felon, one who only had his wrist slapped because his sentence was just an unconditional discharge.  Rudy Giuliani has been found in contempt of court for continuing to hide his assets from Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, not that he seems to care.  Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is officially a history burger at least until FBI Director to be Kash Patel seeks to prosecute him for treason.  Smith resigned at the end of last week leaving the fate of his two-part report in the hands of Attorney General Merrick Garland, SCOTUS and President Biden who could just release the entire report because didn’t the Supreme Court Justices already rule that presidents are kings, a ruling that should apply to presidents not named Trump too? Tik Tok could be on its way out as well. During last week’s oral arguments, SCOTUS didn’t appear receptive to arguments made by Tik Tok’s lawyers that the recently passed law that calls for its Chinese owners to sell it to a US entity was an unconstitutional violation of the company’s First Amendment rights.  Instead, the Justices appeared to agree with Congress that national security concerns trump First Amendment rights, ironic since Trump, having received bigly bucks from a major Tik Tok shareholder, is now okay with Tik Tok’s majority owner being controlled by the Chinese government.  Should SCOTUS, as expected, rule against Tik Tok, the APP won’t immediately disappear from the US, but it will or should be removed from APP stores; already downloaded versions will start to deteriorate since no updates will be passed on to users.  In any case, the expectation is that a new US based investor group will ultimately buy Tik Tok. The new investors will need to create their own addictive algorithm and, judging by the potential investors who’ve been mentioned, the new algorithm will likely be as lethal to users’ collective brains as the Chinese owned version.  On the subject of brain damage, it appears that Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is now fully on board the Trump/Musk train.  Facebook will no longer be banning misinformation or hate and has thrown its DEI folks under the bus.  

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 
Earth Wind & Fire 🔥 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🔥 

🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥: Disastrous events bring out the best and worst in people so while firefighters are doing what they bravely do, putting their lives on the line, and while some ordinary people, many facing their own unimaginable losses, have been reaching out to help others and President Biden has promised lots of resources and funding, Trump, and a number of his MAGA adherents, are instead fueling the flames. Snidely calling Governor Newsom, “Newscum,” Trump attacked him on Truth Social for failing to sign a nonexistent “water restoration declaration” that he falsely claimed would have flowed more water towards Los Angeles.  He also asserted that the Governor’s protection of smelt fish and other components of the state’s ecosystem had led to a lack of water for fire management and lied about reservoirs not being filled to capacity before the fires broke out.  The reservoirs were full but were quickly drained, overwhelmed by the unprecedented need and the challenge of getting water to the flaming hills which also impacted fire hydrant functionality. Naturally, conspiracist Alex Jones also weighed in with an Xitter post, “liked” and amplified by Elon Musk, claiming that the fires were caused by globalists as in those of “us” with space lasers, seeking to destroy America as we know it. Also untrue, assertions that the inability to quickly extinguish the fires is due to DEI, that other scapegoat of the right. There’s more, but I think you get the picture, the worst people including the soon to be president acting out in the worst of ways. The likely reality is that the fires were caused by some combination of manmade or naturally occurring sparks stoked by a historically dry year, that last part likely due to global warming combined with a water system that hasn’t kept up with overdevelopment.  “Drill baby drill” Trump who doesn’t acknowledge the reality of climate change nor the dangers of relying on fossil fuels for energy won’t do anything to help fund the hugely expensive improvements to the infrastructure that are needed (remember all those infrastructure week that weren’t), nor would his benefactor/co-president Elon Musk sign off on any such expenditures because he’s too busy trying to shrink government or at least shrink the part of government that doesn’t subsidize his businesses.  As to Elon, yesterday he admitted that he and his DOGE team have concluded that they won’t be able to cut $2 trillion from the US budget so they are shrinking their savings target to $1 trillion, not that they will be able to achieve that either.     

Legally Yours:  Trump’s hush money/election interference case non-jail sentencing will go forward this morning.  Last night, five members of SCOTUS, the three liberal Justices together with Chief Judge John Roberts and occasional swinger Amy Coney Barrett rejected Trump’s lawyers’ argument that as president-elect he is entitled to full immunity from both prosecution and sentencing.  Justices Kavanaugh, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito, who Trump had a questionable sidebar with this week and who should have recused himself but of course didn’t, would have granted Trump’s request.  Shortly after the announcement of the SCOTUS decision, a Federal appeals court overturned Judge “loose” Cannon, ruling instead that the Justice Department can publicly release the entirety of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election as well as the section concerning his purloined Mar a Lago classified documents. For anyone keeping count that’s the third time that one of pocket judge Cannon’s pro-Trump rulings has been overturned. However, the Appeals Court left Cannon’s short stay in place which means that Trump and his legal team, most of whom will soon be joining him in the White House, have three more days to appeal to SCOTUS and since stalling until inauguration day is their strategy, they will appeal. Attorney General until January 20 Merrick Garland has already said that he will not be publicly releasing the Mar a Lago part of Jack Smith’s report because he believes that doing so would be unfair to co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, not that the two have much to worry about since Trump’s DOJ will stop their prosecution and/or Trump will pardon them soon enough.  Garland does plan to release the classified documents part of the report to a few “key” members of Congress so there’s a chance it will eventually see the light of day, well maybe.  That’s especially important because it’s believed that the report includes information that proves that Trump’s FBI Director nominee Kash Patel lied when he said that Trump declassified documents that he did not really declassify.      

Day One: According to the NY Times, Trump’s minions, most notably Stephen Miller, are trying to identify a disease, preferably a really contagious and lethal one carried by migrants, to justify calling a national health emergency in order to justify Trump closing the border with Mexico.  The problem is that they have been unable to identify any. The irony here is that if RFK Jr, whose confirmation 17,000 US doctors have signed a letter opposing, is confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services and moves forward with his anti-vaccine plans, contagious disease will flourish on the US side of the border which could cause disease wary Mexican leadership to block us from crossing into their country.  As to all those undocumented migrants that Trump wants deported, quite a few of them will likely be needed in California to help with rebuilding destroyed areas not that Trump cares all that much about California.  Trump is also considering declaring a national economic emergency to justify imposing tariffs, another problem because the economy keeps humming along.  In other ridiculous news, son Don Jr is in Greenland, testing the waters for his dad’s land grab. It turns out that the “crowds” who greeted him warmly at the airport weren’t really fans, rather they were a few dozen mostly downtrodden types paid to show up and and provided with red MAGA hats to make them look like genuine Trumpers.

Please consider contributing to one of the many reputable charities accepting donations for California relief. 😊  

#BringThemAllHomeNowAndAlive