UNELECTED BARNACLE, IT’S A COUP, IMPEACHMENT?

Couple of valid entries on social media last week: “They should invent a January that doesn’t drain your will to live!” Sort of fits in with some of the other mopey posts in evidence. And a perfect companion would be this: “Anyone know which wine pairs with societal collapse?” That one may be more valid when we examine what is coming to pass in DC with King Donald and the unelected co-president Elon Musk. Steve Schmidt on his The Warning blog writes that the two, along with Musk’s goons, are locking government officials out of their computers, offices and buildings as they demand access to the governments payment systems, asserting powers they have no right to assert. To which Schmidt declares, “Heil Trump! King Donald has stomped and huffed and shaken things up.” One outstanding question: Has Musk taken an oath, like the federal workers he has plans to fire, to uphold the Constitution? Musk, an unelected barnacle (as Rolling Stone’s Nikki Ramirez calls him) to King Donald is now ensconced as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) despite lacking Congressional approval, being tasked by Trump to find ways to slash government spending, reduce bureaucracy, and do away with regulations. As Ramirez notes, DOGE has little legal authority to execute cuts, and no mandate to meddle with the Treasury, but his entanglement with the administration has him influencing every aspect of policy. According to The Washington Post, after Trump’s November victory, Musk and his thug team have been requesting access to payment systems under the Bureau of the Fiscal Service which controls distribution of more than $6 trillion in annual funds, such as Social Security, Medicare benefits, tax refunds, and federal salaries. Now he has crashed through the doorway with complete control.

Treasury official, Mark Mazur, told The Post, “This is a mechanical job, paying benefits, vendors, whatever. It’s not one where there’s a role for non-mechanical things, at least from a career standpoint — your whole job is to pay the bills as they are due. It’s never been used in a way to execute a partisan agenda. You have to really put bad intentions in place for that to be the case.” Which calls into question why Musk/DOGE are seeking access in Trump’s hard-right takeover of the government. According to Wired magazine, Musk has been able to place three close allies at the head of the Office of Personnel Management, who has sent emails to employees encouraging them to resign, offering them several months of paid leave, but as Rolling Stone reports, “While the administration is pitching the resignation offers as ‘a nice vacation,’ they could still be forced to work.” This resignation letter is quite similar to the one Musk sent to Twitter employees after he bought the social media platform — we saw how that all went down — or came down!  Musk is getting off on his newfound power, but word is circulating that Trump’s inner circle is getting frustrated with Musk’s abuses of his proximity to the president. One Trump ally said to Politico that abuse is clear, however the president has no leverage over the situation and Elon couldn’t care less. So, here we are with the world’s richest man whose companies have grown fat on US government contracts, and now he has a greater financial interest in how the government operates than your average naturalized immigrant. Rolling Stone’s Ramirez asks, “Is it a blatant conflict of interest to have the world’s richest man continue to profit off his investments while serving in a uniquely powerful and virtually unchecked role over US policy, regulation, government spending, and investment? Yes! Will Republicans do anything to stop it? Don’t hold your breath.”

Back in November, Musk and his then-partner in DOGE, Vivek Ramaswamy, laid out some of their ideas to the Wall Street Journal about their plans. First, mass firings were threatened to reduce employment by resignations to the minimum to accomplish the constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions, after which Trump could suspend worker protections to enforce a “mass head-count reduction across the federal bureaucracy.” In light of recent events, how many air traffic controllers does he think might be the absolute minimum? With help from the Supreme Court they hoped to usurp new power with would allow Trump to ignore Congress and not spend money, something called impoundment. A $500B cut in spending would target items like foreign aid and public broadcasting, already evidenced by Trump’s attempt to throttle federal grants. Some targets might have merit, such as examination of federal contracting and procurement, but when Medicare becomes a subject of discussion it gets scary, despite Trump’s pledge to protect safety net spending. As Senator Ron Wyden said, “I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems. Americans don’t want an unelected and unaccountable billionaire dictating what working families can and cannot afford.” Fears are heightened that Musk and Trump’s cronies are attempting to gain authoritarian control over the government by ousting or sidelining career civil servants and undermining Congress, which has the constitutional authority to decided how the government should spend its money. Representative Pramila Jayapal wrote, “Musk is rooting around in Social Security and Medicare payment systems. He’s reaching his hands into our pockets and firing anyone who tries to stop him. This reeks of corruption — it must stop.” Senator Elizabeth Warren called for this “alarming” news to be investigated by Congress.

The New York Times was told that no payments had yet been blocked and that the stated mission of DOGE is to review payments, not stop them. Musk suggested on X that he was only looking for inappropriate expenditures, but also that blocking funds might be appropriate. He went on to say that it was discovered that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments — they literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Former Treasury officials told the Times that funds are dispersed by a comparatively small staff who rely on the agencies that earmark the funds to vet them, and while there are certain automatic safeguards in place, it was not the role of Treasury to approve or reject specific payments. Lindsay Owens of Groundwork Collaborative wrote: “The Treasury system cuts the checks — Musk has infiltrated the system to stop payments. It’s a COUP!” Owens in an op-ed seen on MSNBC outlined three reasons why Musk might want to access the Treasury payment system: 1) Stop payments to certain programs in order to work around the courts’ block on the administration’s spending freeze. 2) Access list of blacklisted federal contractors in order to boost his own or friend’s companies and harm his competitors. 3) Reduce Social Security or Medicare payments as part of DOGE’s goal of cutting $2 trillion from federal spending. Owens notes that Musk isn’t “chasing these cuts for their own sake. He’s helping congressional Republicans attempt to pay for a new round of tax breaks for corporations and the ultra-wealthy — including himself.” A recent poll finding reveals that only around one-third of Americans approve of DOGE and that 52% disapprove of Musk. Olivia Rosane of Common Dreams offers, “If Musk is going to continue running the government like one of his failed businesses, perhaps someone should force his ‘resignation’ too,” and as Michael Phelan of Social Security Works says, “We need to raise holy hell to STOP this.” Asha Rangrappa of The Freedom Academy offers, “In the end, ending this insanity will likely be up to us, the people. Perhaps when people see that their own bottom line is under the control of an unelected, unconfirmed, foreign national billionaire who has no allegiance to the US government, it will spur action in the streets.”

The non-profit Free Speech for People is heading up a new nonpartisan campaign to solicit support for President Trump’s removal from office — ‘Impeach Trump Again’ — with a report that over 100,000 signatures have been obtained on their petition. The group is encouraging Congress to launch an impeachment investigation, claiming that their petition shows “widespread support,” and that the public is unwilling to accept a King Trump. “We need bold leaders in Congress willing to stand up and hold Trump accountable for his abuses of power and initiate an inquiry,” said director Alexandra Flores-Quilty. Sadly, we are in short supply of bold leaders. A post on Quora asks if Trump can be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, drawing this reply: “Last time I checked, it is explicitly illegal to bury someone anywhere who is still alive. However, former presidents CAN be buried there, though it could contaminate the ground, insulting every other human being interred in that sacred ground. Arlington is primarily for military veterans who served honorably, veterans who were decorated during their service; so since Trump is a cowardly, lying draft dodger who has insulted, demeaned, and degraded veterans, having his body anywhere around that hallowed ground would be a slap in the face to every veteran and their family who had ever served this country.”

At this writing, the country and the world, are reeling from Trump’s calamitous misadventure of implementing tariffs upon our three biggest trading partners: Canada, Mexico, and China, all of whom have promised retaliatory measures. Canada and Mexico said their responses would be implementation of their own tariffs against the US, with China saying it would file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization and enact “necessary countermeasures.” Like taking over the Pana-MAGA Canal? Trump gave a start date of last Tuesday, pronouncing the levies would remain in place “until the crisis is alleviated,” meaning the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants into this country. Tit-for-tat tariffs from this trio of trading partners could send prices soaring for consumers in the US and world-wide. A press conference by Prime Minister Trudeau indicated Canada would levy tariffs on Tuesday on $30B worth of US goods, with additional tariffs in the coming weeks “to allow Canadian companies and supply chains to seek alternatives.” Trudeau said the long history of the US-Canada alliance should lead to a better path without Trump’s punishment, while warning US citizens that this move “will have real consequences for you, the American people.” He also encouraged Canadians to opt for Canadian-made goods over American products, or changing summer vacation plans to stay in Canada. No comments were forthcoming from the White House.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum posted on X that she has instructed the implementation of Plan B, which has been standing by in anticipation of Trump’s tariffs. The plan includes “tariffs and non-tariffs in defense of Mexico’s interests,” but no details were announced. Sheinbaum slammed the tariffs, saying in her X post, “We categorically reject the White House’s slander of the Government of Mexico alleging alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any intention to interfere in our territory,” adding, “Mexico not only does not want fentanyl to reach the US, it does not want it reach anywhere. Therefore, if the US wants to combat the criminal groups that traffic drugs and generate violence, we must work together in a comprehensive manner, but always under the principles of shared responsibility, mutual trust, collaboration and above all, respect for sovereignty, which is non-negotiable. Coordination, yes; subordination, no.” Trump is probably still wrestling with his Webster’s to understand what she posted, or perhaps texting Elon for answers, but then again, he probably doesn’t care.

China’s filing a lawsuit with the WTO may have little effect since the US has blocked the appointment of appellate judges to the organization for years, which leaves it unable to mediate international trade disputes. Therefore, China’s action may only serve to gather international support against Trump’s tariffs. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement, “China calls on the US to correct its mistakes, work toward mutual understanding, engage in candid dialogue, strengthen cooperation, and manage differences on the basis of equality, mutual benefit, and mutual respect. Additional tariffs are not constructive and bound to affect and harm the counternarcotics cooperation between the two sides in the future.” Of course, none of those words and phrases are in Trump’s vocabulary and it’s way too late for him to implement any of them personally, or in his business practices, or in his destruction of the federal government. Both China and Mexico say they have taken steps to address the flow of fentanyl and to stem international flow of the precursor ingredients, so it’s up to the US to address its own domestic demand for the drug. The Chinese government may try to side-step a trade war, since it is still struggling to recover from the COVID pandemic, but pressure will likely mount, giving the Chinese government the impetus to respond, using a new December 1 law which gives it explicit authority to do so.

As for the tariffs, Trump says, “We will make America great again, and it will all be worth the price that must be paid, we are a country that is now being run with common sense — and the results will be spectacular!!!” No one knows exactly what the impact will be on American consumers, nor how long the tariffs will be in play, but if they should remain if effect for a long period, Trump’s “pain” will become a solid reality. Your next cup of coffee may be more expensive, with prices increasing after Trump and Colombia had a spat over deportation flights — the president reversed a 25% tariff on the country when an agreement was reached. So even though the tariff never happened, coffee markets were rattled by the aspect of tariffs, resulting in price increases in coffee futures. Coffee prices have been increasing over the past several months due to bad weather which has reduced growers’ yield, so Trump’s threat threw unexpected uncertainty into the global trade system which is racing to keep up with increasing demand. Producers will probably continue to gradually increase prices simply as a hedge against the possibility of tariffs, though companies such as Keurig, Starbucks and Nestle lock in prices years in advance which will make them immune, for awhile, to the dynamics of the Trump administration.

About Trump’s tariffs (“the most beautiful word in the dictionary,” he says) announcement, journalist SV Dáte wrote that Trump announced he has increased taxes on Americans by $297B a year. Conservative Bill Kristol said, “If only we had a body, with democratic legitimacy and powers conferred by a Constitution, that could overrule a president who seeks to impose arbitrary tariffs and to deport people who fled here to escape oppression. It could be called the Congress of the United States.” Economist Marc Lévesque chimed in, “So, it’s official. Trump just violated the Canada-US-Mexico Free Trade agreement that he himself signed.” Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called Trump’s tariffs “a self-inflicted wound to the American economy.” Trump posted, “We pay billions of dollars to subsidize Canada. Why? There is no reason. We don’t need anything they have. Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada…and NO TARIFFS!” To this post, Steve Schmidt says, “My friends, this is vile. In fact, it is evil. They are the words of a Putin or Xi. They are the words of international gangsterism and thuggery. These are the words of a Hitler. They are the words of the president of the United States, and they are repugnant. These are the words of expansionism and tyranny. These are the words of derangement.” Schmidt’s essay is lengthy, but poignantly he declares, “Why is this happening?…it is happening because the American Republic is collapsing. It is being destroyed from within, as Lincoln predicted in 1838: ‘…if destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher…'”

We might reflect on the words of Ronald Reagan who said, “Our peaceful trading partners aren’t our enemies; they are our allies. We should beware of he demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends — weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world — all while cynically waving the American flag.” Or perhaps as Steve Schmidt says, “Fascism has come to America and it is wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” And as Trump says, “Let them eat cake!”

With markets and businesses awakening on Monday morning to the advent of the tariffs, stocks fell, energy costs surged, but word of an agreement from Trump and Mexico’s Sheinbaum to delay tariffs with Mexico agreeing to place 10,000 troops at the border, securing it from migrants, seemed to calm nerves — for now. Same goes for Canada: a 30 day reprieve with promised border security. But don’t relax just yet! That sound of hammering and objects hitting the floor and doors being slammed? That’s Elon Musk and his goons chipping away at our government. Gosh, if only we had a body we might call the Congress of the United States!

ZORRO IMPERSONATOR, WHOPPER OVERLOAD, BEYONCÉ VICTORY

Has it been four years yet? That’s a question raised by a poster on X at the end of an exhausting week of Trump and his antics following his inauguration. It’s certainly a worthy query as many of us will agree. The Crazy Eight website evaluated it with, “In his inaugural speech Donald Trump called for a ‘Revolution of Common Sense,’ where apparently truth is stranger than fiction, and reality is more alarming than satire…His first priorities? Helping everyday Americans struggling to pay their bills by renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America AND profiting billions from his new cryptocurrency! Ain’t that swell?”

Buzzfeed selected a few of its favorite Tweets of the Week: “I don’t care who’s trans, bro — I want doctor’s appointments for $5”; “There’s not going to be lower grocery prices, you stupid slut”; “Being a person with a brain and someone who can read during this period of history is really, really difficult”; “Nobody is telling men they’re losers, and that’s the problem”; “I’d rather get a pap smear from Edward Scissorhands than watch any second of the inauguration”; “Melania’s looking like a smooth criminal”; Referring to the announcement that Trump’s inauguration would be moved indoors, one poster asks, “And, ya’ll want to invade Canada?”; “My BF keeps muttering to himself, ‘We had to get through Hoover to get to FDR,’ like it’s a prayer.” Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update anchor, Michael Che, showing a Tesla Cybertruck picture, said, “Musk can’t be a Nazi, because the Nazis made nice cars.”

The TV ratings are available for the inauguration, and Trump has to be disappointed that no Sean Spicer has stepped up to convince the world that records were broken. According to The Wrap, combined cable and network news totals amount to 24.59M, with Fox News unsurprisingly accounting for 10.3M, nearly half of the viewership, between 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Morgan Stephens of Daily Kos observes “that more people watched Beyoncé’s Christmas halftime show than the 47th president’s inauguration.” Trump’s viewer ratings are well below his own 2017 inauguration (and Joe Biden’s in 2021), garnering only 7.2% of the US population to see that he didn’t place his hand on the Bible and air-kissing Melania in her Zorro hat. Stephens attributes the dip in viewership to general apathy, despondency, Trump fatigue or his polarizing presence, combined with loss of appetite for his theatrics.

Trump made it clear that his second term will be more of the same, as he added to his collection of false and misleading claims, estimated by the Washington Post that during his first Oval Office occupancy he spewed 30,573 whoppers. One critic dubbed him “America’s Liar-In-Chief,” as he launched into his inaugural address about immigration, the economy, electric vehicles, the Panama Canal, his 2020 stolen election, and the January 6 insurrection. His brazen mendacity is not only habitual, but strategic as we see within the MAGA mob’s tactics. A former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, says, “It’s a continuation of Donald Trump’s brand. He knows that sunlight is the best disinfectant, so he’s going to continue to lie to mask what he’s doing. If you can undermine institutions and credible sources of information, you can get away with lying and deceiving people. We’re watching that mass delusion happen right before our eyes in the Trump administration 2.0.” During the following week with reporters, Trump continued to spew misleading assertions, wild exaggerations and blatant lies, culminating on Fox News with his explanation for the blanket pardon of the January 6 rioters and their attacks on police as “very minor incidents.”

CNN reports that Trump, in his attempt to rewrite history detailing the attack on the US Capitol, had a database detailing the array of criminal charges and successful convictions of the January 6 rioters removed from the Department of Justice’s website. That searchable database served as an easily accessible repository of all cases prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia — which declined to comment! Removal of the site coincides with Trump’s decision to pardon all convicted defendants, plus early release of 14 members of far-right extremist groups, including 10 convicted of seditious conspiracy, and a request to dismiss more than 300 unresolved cases. This ‘whitewashing’ of the mob attack wipes out cases against some of the most violent rioters who injured police, and was celebrated in particular by the pardoned Brandon Straka for his role on J6. Straka proclaimed it a “huge victory,” saying that the site was a “weapon of harassment” used by the government to make life impossible for its “targets from J6.”

Acting US attorney, Ed Martin, known for his organizing the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement and being involved in financing the 2021 Trump rally on the Ellipse, is given credit for removing the DOJ website. Straka had campaigned for the site’s removal because the information was available to potential employers, landlords, and social or business contacts, complicating the lives of the J6 participants. Details of the J6 cases are still accessible on the DOJ’s website in the form of press releases about charges and convictions, and are available through court records and services such as Pacer.

David Smith in the Guardian reports that even the White House website has been compromised, with a Trump biography claim that a 2024 “landslide victory defines the American success story.” Omitting the ‘big lie’ regarding the 2020 election, his victory came “a second time despite several assassination attempts and the unprecedented weaponization of law fare against him.” While fact-checkers attempt to hold Trump to account, Republicans are less willing than ever to correct his falsehoods in this now fragmented media environment, with MAGA influencers only too eager to amplify them. Kurt Bardella, Democratic strategist and media relations consultant, says, “If there’s any lasting impact from Donald Trump’s time on the political stage, it’s that we live in a world now where you can just make up your own facts, and truth is however you decide to bend it. There are content creators and content machines that exist solely for the purpose of laundering anything that Donald Trump says and making it true to a certain degree. It’s a play off the Richard Nixon quote: ‘If the president does it, it is legal; well, if the president says it, it’s true. That’s the world that we live in now.'”

Sara Boboltz of B writes, “as President Donald Trump settles into his second term and world leaders ponder what the next four years have in store, some British officials who have dealt with him in the past are sharing words of advice: ‘Expect chaos, but also laughs.’ Workers in the British prime minister’s office during Trump’s first term told Politico EU that small crowds of civil servants and advisers would gather to listen in on phone calls with Trump. ‘The calls were extraordinary — brilliant. Everyone was in there with tears of laughter because they were hilarious.’ Two listeners said that whatever agenda had been planned ‘would quite quickly fall by the wayside’ and the calls ‘were never what you wanted them to be about, broadly.’ Americans are already well-versed in Trump’s meandering style of speech, surprising gaffes and penchant for jumping between topics at whim, which he calls ‘the weave’ with his claims that he always ends up hitting his intended points in the end. One person contributed, ‘Yes, he will say some mad or unpredictable things, but there’s almost always an underlying argument or basis for a negotiation, and if the conversation goes south, Trump is always happy to discuss his UK golf courses.'”

British satirical magazine, ‘Private Eye,’ printed its latest cover with an apology to Donald Trump, headlined ‘Donald Trump: An Apology.’ The document reads: “In common with all other media organisations, we may in the past have given the impression that we thought Mr. Trump was a sleazy, deranged, orange-faced man-baby who was a threat to democracy and who should be in jail rather than the White House. We now realise, in the light of his return to supreme power, that he is in fact a political colossus, the voice of sanity, a champion of liberty, a model of probity and the saviour of the Western world. He is also slim, handsome and young. We would like to apologize unreservedly for any confusion caused by our previous statements and thank President Trump for his kind invitation to give him 94 million pounds to attend his inauguration event.” In smaller print at the bottom of the page, it reads: “This statement has not been fact-checked.”

James Austin Johnson, portraying Trump on Saturday Night Live said, “Just like my founding fathers, I am creating a new country as well. And just like them, we’re doing it very white-ly. Workplaces must go back to looking like the TV show ‘The Office.’ Mostly white people but with one funny Black guy who’s having a really bad time.” Johnson/Trump called his inauguration “a tremendous success,” being held inside “due to cold and fear. We got a lot of surprise guests, like Melania!” He pointed out the presence of his billionaire buddies, “Zuck, Bezos, and of course, Elon. We love Elon, but to quote some of his own children, ‘I do not want him in my life.” Johnson/Trump shared his views about only two genders, “one to work, and one to cook. We’re going back to common sense in regard to gender. No more makeup on men, unless you need it to be president.” On his cabinet appointees, he boasted, “We’re filling my cabinet with some of the best people. They’re all very good except for most of them. How great is Pete Hegseth? He said he’s going to stop drinking if he gets the job, and that’s all I needed to hear.” And, “Who would’ve thought it easier to get a cease-fire in Gaza than lower the price of eggs?” Satirist Andy Borowitz writes that Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman is asking Trump for a pardon out of ‘professional courtesy,’ claiming that he was a DC riot participant. Ready to turn over a new leaf, Borowitz says Guzman promises to stop selling drugs and focus on crypto, while acknowledging he is a controversial figure but, “I’m not some total maniac like Hegseth.”

Stephen Colbert of the ‘Late Show’ ripped into Republicans who showed absolutely no outrage with Trump’s pardoning of 1,500 January 6 rioters who attacked the US Capitol, some of whom assaulted several police officers. Colbert quoted House Speaker Mike Johnson with saying it was not his “place” to question Trump’s decision. “Not your place? They attacked the House of Representatives! That is literally YOUR place!” The Tonight Show host, Jimmy Fallon, says Trump’s granting of clemency took his allies by surprise, with one adviser revealing the president simply said, “Release them all.” Must have been too much trouble to read all those pages of names which would keep him away from his grifting. Fallon noted, “At this point the only prisoner Trump hasn’t released is Melania.”

President Joe Biden was given a sendoff by Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update with Colin Jost saying, “President Biden said that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks were one of the toughest negotiations he had ever experienced. The hardest part was convincing both sides that he was still president.” Jost’s co-host, Michael Che, reported that Biden, after delivering his farewell address from the Oval Office, “triumphantly rode off into the pavement,” showing older footage of him crashing his bike. Che added, “Biden defended his administration’s accomplishments by ending every sentence with, ‘You ungrateful bastards.'” Taking a potshot at incoming Donald Trump, Jost’s reaction to the newly released official inaugural portrait, a scowling takeoff on his Georgia booking photo, offered, “Trump is trying to look so hardcore in this photo, I’m surprised he didn’t add a parental advisory sticker and a durag.”

The Biden administration recently announced that the president had commuted the sentences of about 1,500 people, with pardons of 39 individuals convicted of crimes such as drug offenses. These acts follow the earlier pardon of his son, Hunter, which stirred quite a controversy. On his show, Stephen Colbert commented, “Wow! I didn’t know he had 39 sons. That’s impressive. What Biden did today is the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. I believe that is an emphatic and generous act of forgiveness and hope. That will be knocked out of the headlines as soon as Trump threatens to bomb Manila because he cut himself on one of their envelopes. You know that’s coming.”

James Carville in a video interview for Politicon says President Biden is the “most tragic” political figure of his lifetime, not because he pardoned Hunter, but because his dropping from his presidential candidacy came too late for Democrats to put together a competitive race against Trump. “I actually feel for Biden,” he said, knowing full well that he spoiled Harris‘ chances. “He wasn’t crooked, he didn’t pursue bad policies, he is the most tolerant, loving, caring, non-prejudiced person you can imagine, and this is what he’s faced with,” Carville remarked. Biden’s pledges to run for reelection and not to interfere in his son’s legal cases, both reversed, lead Carville to believe Biden’s wavering resulted in the Democratic loss despite a strong and admirable race. Unconcerned about Hunter being let off the hook, Carville rationalized the act by saying, “Ok, everybody’s going to do whatever they’re gonna do with their own children.” But he goes on to say that had Joe made his announcement to drop out several months earlier, the election result would have been different, arguing, “And it wouldn’t have been that close because we would’ve had so many talented frickin’ people running.” After which, he maintains, Biden could have left the White House “on a high note” as “the toast of Washington,” having landmarks named after him, with a future Democratic president pardoning Hunter.

“What’s so sad is it didn’t have to be this way. He brought it all on himself. All of this is self-inflicted. It’s tragic, it’s sad, and of course everything about him is…it’ll be six years before somebody comes back and talks about all of the stunning things Biden accomplished.” Carville’s deep respect for Biden made the election result even more devastating for him, and though he had predicted an unequivocal win for Harris/Walz, he admitted that the lack of primaries left many Democrats feeling they had been co-opted. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, last week on his The Last Word show, had an exclusive interview with the outgoing president, where he complemented Biden on his many accomplishments, many having received little fanfare during his tenure. To his regret, Biden admits he did “too little politicking” in communicating his achievements, while expressing his concerns about democracy as we move into the Trump regime.

Steve Schmidt writes on his The Warning blog, “The American people are fickle, and soon the majority will bear the economic, security and moral consequences of their vote.” He regrets that two long years await us before voters can cast ballots for or against the MAGA dominated governance. Schmidt sees Trump stepping into the Oval Office as a “political colossus, an angry, vengeful Caesar, who will tear down America’s institutions that have been in effect since FDR.” He points to MAGA as “a propaganda machine that depicted the most powerful nation in world history as a rotten hells cape, immoral, corrupt, failing and occupied by an ‘enemy within.'” This machine prevailed because it is stronger, more powerful and better funded than anything that exists in opposition, that has been building for 30 years to bring about a different America. Schmidt doesn’t hold back about Trump, pronouncing him as being a chilling choice of the voters, who is a man-child who has never worked an hour in his life, never succeeded at anything, whose life is a tabloid joke, and is as ignorant about the world as a person could conceivably be, a father who indulges his children in order of their nitwittery.

Schmidt decries the impending cruelty of MAGA in their handling of migrants, and Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ family separation policy — the cruelty being a permanent feature of MAGA culture. He maintains that MAGA has not been shy regarding its declarations that ‘might makes right,’ ‘the strong inherit the Earth,’ and ‘the rich have a right to rule over their lessers’ — as long as they are obedient to Donald Trump. Schmidt adds, “Donald Trump is going to create the most extreme and servile administration in history. It will be utterly lawless. It is going to smash every institution, collective security agreement and scientific agency it can. The first year of the Trump presidency will seed the catastrophe to come. At first the people will cheer, but then it will start to slip away each day. Trump will be undone by his overreach, arrogance and insecurities. Musk and Vance will destabilize the administration, and bring it to its tip-over point at a rapid pace. Trump has the ball, and it’s of the wrecking variety. He intends to use it.” He concludes, “Donald Trump is writing our future. It’s what we chose as a country. What a shameful act. The price will be immense.”

Economist Paul Krugman predicted on ‘The Daily Blast’ podcast, “A lot of people” who voted for Trump “are going to get brutally scammed” upon Trump’s return to the Oval Office, when he enacts his “really radical” and “terrible” economic policies. Raising tariffs and cutting taxes on high income earners will batter the working class, and the deportation of millions of immigrants will have an even worse effect on the economy. There are no Wall Street “heavyweights” to “steer him away” from his destructive instincts to redistribute income, and small business owners who are “the most fervent MAGA types out there” will suffer, just as small local businesses have been targeted for scams throughout Trump’s business career by not getting paid for their work.

So why do Republicans fall so quickly for ‘information’ that simply isn’t true? A problem with reality is that it’s just a bridge too far? Henry Morgan posted on Quora that the 1976 presidential election loss to a peanut farmer rocked their very souls, which led them to use focus group studies to put them on a winning track. The result was a decision to divide the country along the lines of religion, switching from fiscal conservatives to religious conservatives, fundamentally changing the nature of the party from a pragmatic group of people searching for workable solutions to the country’s problems. This new faith community believed the most important issues to Republicans were group loyalty and shared belief. A group centered on its beliefs as opposed to its goals quickly finds it is difficult to change beliefs if the facts don’t line up, and in particular if the beliefs are wrapped in religion — handed down by God! Solution? ‘Alternative facts’ — beliefs are important, facts are less so. The party was more willing to create facts that align with their beliefs, and then believing those ‘facts.’ Morgan calls this ‘cowardice,’ predicting ever worse disasters for the country, because policy has to align with real facts. Beliefs are not terribly important in politics — facts and aligned policies need to be the focus. The religious right has changed the way people discuss positions, with the Trump cult being an extension of this — con men making a profession of manipulating voters through their feelings and beliefs, with half the country under the spell of an imbecile. In conclusion, Morgan tells Republicans to remember that ‘whataboutism‘ is simply an indication that you are wrong, without a leg to stand on!

A few weeks ago, Stephen Colbert brought attention to what he called Donald Trump’s “farm-team of far-right weirdos” who are vying for attention in hopes of gaining a spot in his administration. One wannabe is ultra-conservative Christian nationalist, Oklahoma Education Superintendent Ryan Walters who has made headlines for attempting to push Christianity into the state’s classrooms, mandating Bibles be placed into classrooms along with lessons. Colbert said, “Yes, because Bibles always make places more holy. That’s why only wholesome stuff happens in motels.” Responding to news that Superintendent Walters was also demanding that students watch a video of himself praying for Trump, Colbert said, “OK, that’s a weird thing to force public school kids to watch. But you know what? I pray. I’ll even pray for Donald Trump right now,” and clasping his hands together, bowing his head, he asked, “Dear Lord. Do you know Donald Trump? God, help us.” In his monologue, Colbert pointed out that a paperback Bible can be purchased for $1.99, and that Walters spent “a whopping $60 apiece” on Trump Bibles, using money from the state treasury.

It is rumored that Trump will take the oath of office on one of his Trump Bibles — never hurts to do a bit of free telemarketing when you have a captive audience of billions. Perhaps the Bible, the guitar, the tennis shoes, the watches, and NFTs are old hat by now with market saturation, but never fear! Last week he announced a new grift by releasing a new meme coin. He TRUMPeted on social media, “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW. Have fun!” Republicans Against Trump immediately posted: “You’re nothing but a shameless grifter. Truly pathetic.” The coin features an image drawn from the July assassination attempt, blurring the line between his government role and the continued effort of his family to profit from his power and global fame. Getting into the game, Melania announced her $Melania coin later. This is simply a sign that the Trump Crime Family will be less hesitant in his second term to bend or breach traditional ethical boundaries, in particular because this coin is issued as cryptocurrency, which is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Anybody willing to take them to court on this? Probably not, since it was disclosed that he intends to name cryptocurrency advocate, Paul Atkins, to the SEC chairmanship.

President-elect Trump was royally roasted across social media after announcing that his inauguration would be moved indoors due to “very cold weather,” expected to be the coldest inauguration day in 40 years according to ABC News. Trump was eager to show a photo of the weather forecast, minus any suspicious black Sharpie marks, and revealing that “various dignitaries and guests” will be “brought into the Capitol,” adding, “This will be a very beautiful experience for all, and especially for the large TV audience.” Social media commenters pointed out that previous inaugurations took place outside in equally frigid weather, and that Trump was more fearful of a low turnout as in 2017, when Sean ‘Spicey’ Spicer had to cover for low crowd size without benefit of a black Sharpie. Political strategist David Axelrod pointed at Trump’s age as being a factor, but another responder added, “For an administration all about tough guy culture, they certainly don’t seem that tough. Guess he fears his cult followers won’t be that dedicated and that his hair will get messed up with a hat.” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz trolled by posting a photo of himself covered in snow flurries, writing, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.” It should be noted that Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman wore shorts, sneakers and a hooded sweatshirt, viewing Trump’s swearing-in ceremony from the front row of seats. Good clothing for the event! An out-of-country poster speculated that Trump didn’t wish to be cold, but with hotel bookings at a record low, the attendance was going to be pathetic. Trump also predicted a turnout of 200,000 to 600,000 to watch the inaugural parade, to be held indoors (in a venue that holds 20,000!), and it will be embarrassing to hear him make excuses for those unable to attend as he touts unprecedented ratings for online and TV viewers. This poster says other presidents have held ceremonies in the cold, but then other presidents have been mostly honorable men, with Trump being the most objectionable, unpresidential creature to squat in the Oval Office, and while the world laughs at Trump, there is grieving for the US.

Melania attracted much attention for her Inaugural Day outfit — a dark navy coat, matching navy hat with a white stripe, dark navy heels and black gloves. The hat drew the most attention, some calling it “stunning” and “classy.” Others were quick to point out that the first lady resembled the McDonald’s Hamburglar character, minus the mask. Another asked, “Why is she dressed like Michael Jackson? She looks Smooth Criminal era Michael Jackson at a funeral.” A VP Harris supporter added, “Melania is in mourning today. Four more years stuck next to this clown!”

Satirical writer Andy Borowitz in his The Borowitz Report says: “In an eleventh-hour decision on Sunday, the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump has been moved from the Capitol Rotunda to the interior of a Tesla Cybertruck. The change of venue, dictated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), means that only people with a net worth of over $100 billion will be able to attend. “There’s room for me, Zuckerberg, and Bezos, but, unfortunately, no JD Vance,” Musk said. “I usually don’t let employees work remotely, but JD will be allowed to call in.” The decision to hold the inauguration inside the electric vehicle pleased Trump, who estimated the number of people inside the truck at 4 million.”

Nations ’round the globe are perking up their collective ears with Trump’s spouting off about his territorial expansion wishes, prompting Seth Meyers on his The Late Night show to throw in a few comments regarding Greenland, which Trump has been eyeing since his first term. Meyers goaded Trump with, “I’d like to say something to Donald Trump about his threat to take Greenland by military force that might take some of our viewers by surprise — DO IT!” Continuing his encouragement to Trump, he said, “Go get Greenland, you coward…don’t show me your face ever again…I’m calling your bluff. Stop making these crazy promises. Do it. I want it. Go get it.” In a taunting tone, Meyers added, “Why won’t you get it? You afraid of Denmark, bro? You starting to remember they got those big-ass dogs,” as he showed a picture of a tough-looking Great Dane. Meyers joked that Trump will “keep downgrading” his threats to “smaller and smaller countries,” predicting that “Russia’s going to do whatever it wants while he threatens Peru with, ‘We’re coming. We’re going to get Macchu Picchu back where it belongs.'” To Trump’s suggestion that NHL legend Wayne Gretzky should be Canada’s new Prime Minister, Meyers argued, “I think Trump picked Gretzky because that’s the only Canadian he knows,” suggesting that Trump probably wants the Prime Minister to Ireland be the Lucky Charms mascot. Many readers were delighted when The New York Post ran a front page cartoon of Trump using a pointer on a world map with a renamed Greenland as ‘Our Land,’ Canada as ’51st State,’ the Gulf of Mexico as ‘Gulf of America,’ and the Panama Canal as ‘Pana-MAGA Canal.’

What started as the MAGA-in-Chief’s calamitously ignorant, and incredibly exorbitant 25% tariff threats to our allies has degraded into his hazardous expansionist dreams. Canada was quick to defy his bullying over a new tax policy proposal. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau immediately became a target for Trump who called him “Governor Trudeau” with a suggestion that Canada become the US’s 51st state. Trudeau had been under tremendous pressure to resign, and after deputy prime minister Freeland resigned under protest, and with concerns over Trump’s tariff increases threat, the calls for him to step down became too overwhelming for him to ignore, so he made his announcement to resign. Immediately, Trump launched into posts on Truth Social, proclaiming what a great nation could result from a US/Canada merger, with no tariffs, reduced taxes, and security from Russian and Chinese threats. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene proclaimed Donald Trump as ‘Canada’s liberator,’ accusing Trudeau of “tyrannical COVID abuse, destroying free speech, and being Zelenskyii’s biggest cheerleader. Trudeau RESIGNS!”

Elizabeth May, a Green Party member of Canada’s Parliament, recently held a news conference where she voiced a hard “NO…thanks, but no thanks,” to Trump’s proposal for Canadian statehood, citing his “monumental ignorance” of Canadian politics and the five different parties in their “sovereign nation,” which, by the way, has no need for “braggarts, bullies, or dictators.” “No one runs for Prime Minister in Canada!” she emphasized, referring to Trump’s Wayne Gretzky plug, and suggesting he borrow one of his grandchildren’s school books to brush up on his history. She proposed that perhaps California, Oregon and Washington might care to join their provinces where they have universal health care, safe streets, gun laws, and where women have health rights which are going by the wayside in the US…and that perhaps a Province of Vermont could be included? Also, no ‘Go Fund Me’ posts needed to rescue patients denied medical care by greedy insurance companies! May emphasized that the two countries, who have been good friends and allies, should continue to be trading partners, not combatants, since Canadian goods are a bargain for the US, based on the current exchange rates of their respective dollars, and that perhaps Trump might even prefer they join the EU! May goes on to say that if The Don’s 51st state proposal was a joke, it failed miserably, and that Trump is not acting as a president-elect should conduct himself with his disrespectful comments, and that she, for one, will not throw Mexico under his bus!

Trump has also used his threat to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico unless that country stops migrants and drugs from crossing into the US, suggesting that they are not currently cooperating to do so…a total lie particularly aimed at US voters. Mexico’s President Sheinbaum responded sharply with her claim that American gun trafficking to her country is fueling crime and violence among gangs who smuggle drugs into US markets. She noted, “Tragically, it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence resulting from meeting the drug demands in yours.” Sheinbaum suggests that the two nations’ interrelated national challenges underscore the need for cross-border cooperation rather than Trump’s insults and confrontational attitude. She uses US statistics to make her point that border crossings are down, since Mexico is acting to prevent travel across their own southern border, thwarting migrants who want to head to the US…hardly an “invasion” as Trump is claiming. As reported in both The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, the Mexican government security operations shuttle migrants back to the south and away from our border in what they call ‘El Carrousel.’ Experts see President Biden’s efforts at cracking down on illegal crossings as succeeding greater than any past efforts, all without tariffs.

However, Trump and his MAGA gang are ignoring the success, pretending nothing is being accomplished, while scamming behind the smokescreen of denial, a swindle that is focused on tariffs. Arianna Huffington wrote back in 2000 in her book ‘How to Overthrow the Government,’ “Our political landscape is so littered with duplicity and deceit, we’ve actually come to expect our leaders to lie. What once would have shocked us now barely registers. We’ve become inured to wrongdoing. So politicians mangle the truth — call it ‘spin’ — and the public lets it slide, too numb to care…it’s because, even though we don’t like it, we don’t consider it really damaging. Spinning sounds cute, almost constructive…something that should engender indulgent smiles rather than outrage.” Huffington said it should be termed ‘propaganda’ where the propagandist succeeds by claiming to be nothing more than the humble mouthpiece of ‘the people.’ The more the public is duped, the more its deceivers can claim to express the public’s will which only brings forth an orgy of euphemisms. “Humpty Dumpty would have been right a home,” Huffington declares, “when he told Alice, ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

Greg Sargent writes in The New Republic, “All this paves the way for larger deceptions later. Bank on it: The moment Trump takes office, the lower apprehension numbers will magically become real metrics. Fox News will start trumpeting them and he’ll start claiming the border has achieved pacification due to his strength. Indeed, Trump very well may credit his current threat of tariffs with ‘forcing’ Mexico to make the lower numbers of border crossings a reality.” During a recent conversation between Trump and Sheinbaum, she explained to him Mexico’s strategy to address the migration phenomenon, observing human rights, while not closing the border but instead building bridges between government and people. But we find Trump crowing that she agreed to close the border, taking credit for something in which he hasn’t even been a participant. No need to let a troublesome thing like ‘reality’ get in the way of building a house of delusions, eh?

Brad Reed writes in Raw Story that some MAGAs are eager to start launching military operations inside Mexico to take out drug cartel leaders, though experts believe it would do little to stop the supply of drugs coming into the US. Mexico has found this approach to be a failure, which only started an explosion of violence within the cartel, so killing off capos within the gangs is not new, only a failed strategy. One military veteran declared the strategy as being, “Iraq all over again. We’re not fighting an army. We’re fighting poverty. Let’s fight desperation. Let’s fight hopelessness. That sounds a whole lot like what we did in Afghanistan for 20 years unsuccessfully.”

During his 1976 campaign for US Senator from California, Samuel Hayakawa said of the proposed transfer of the Panama Canal from the US to Panama: “We should keep the Panama Canal. After all, we stole it fair and square.” It should be noted that a few years later, Senator Hayakawa helped win approval for the transfer; but now we find that president-elect Trump is railing for a reversal of the ownership. Trump feels the Canal authority is charging “exorbitant prices and rates of passage” on US naval and merchant ships, demanding that fees either be lowered, or give it back to this country. The US is the canal’s biggest customer and Trump’s fear is that the passage is in danger of falling under China’s control as the second-biggest customer. Failing to get much attention is the outstanding tax evasion case against Trump, Trump Panama Hotel Management LLC, and Trump International Hotels who are accused of not paying the required 12.5% tax rate to the Panamanian government. The lawsuit alleges the companies kept the money, “intentionally evading taxes” and leaving the new owner liable for millions. According to Malcolm Ferguson in The New Republic, a tax audit of the hotels submitted as evidence found massive inconsistencies in the case still pending in New York District Court. In 2018, Panamanian officials stepped in, stripping the Trump name from the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower.

Co-president-elect Musk, donning his own global expansionist/interference cloak, is asking whether the US should “liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government” as he launched into a series of X posts to call for the release of a jailed right-wing activist, and the imprisonment of a junior minister of the Labour government. The Tesla head-honcho is calling for the jailing of Jess Phillips, a member of Prime Minister Starmer’s cabinet, calling her a “rape genocide apologist” over her handling of investigations into organized gangs accused of systematic rape of young women. The Labour government says it is focused on enacting recommendations of a 2022 study, which were not implemented by the previous Conservative government, as Starmer rebukes Musk for grandstanding, taking advantage of an “utterly sickening issue” for his own advantage: “Those who are spreading lies and misinformation as far and wide as possible are not interested in victims, they’re interested in themselves.” A propagandist — neither more nor less?

Musk has spoken out for Islamophobic fascist activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who goes by his pseudonym, Tommy Robinson. Robinson, a member of the fascist British National Party was convicted of mortgage fraud and assault for stalking a female journalist at her residence, and is now serving 18 months in prison for repeating false allegations against a Syrian refugee. Musk disagrees with his incarceration, but MAGA-lover Nigel Farage of Britain’s right-wing Reform Party can’t abide Robinson. Farage’s outspokenness spurred Musk to call for his ouster as Reform Party leader. A few weeks ago, Musk meddled in German politics, endorsing the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, to which Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in an interview said he finds it “worrying that a man with enormous access to social media and large financial resources is so directly involved in the internal affairs of other countries.” So, it’s destined to be a complete Barnum & Bailey three-ringer — who’s next?

Dr. Jo posts on Quora that despite Trump’s appointment of a lot of real clowns to his cabinet, creating the most dangerous circus in the history of the world, it’s not a circus…not even close. To wit: appearance and apparent clumsiness hide the fact that real circus clowns are capable and competent; circus acts are carefully scripted; circuses have rules and mechanisms for safety. Trump has initiated a reality show, with supporters who have yet to cope with his narcissism, as he sees the whole of reality as reality TV, himself being the hero, consequently, many of his selections are sycophantic Fox News presenters. But, however self-indulgent, it’s not totally a reality show which can be arbitrary and bizarre, with many people behind the scenes to capture and edit any bad things before damage control is needed. In Trump 2.0, we find that the safety nets are absent, wild animals are free to roam, emergency exits are blocked, fire hazards are acute…equipment wasn’t checked because nobody cares, appointees/performers are hardly competent…existing just for show — the competent ones have left or are about to leave, or will be fired by Musk, and no script…which is done daily upon the whims of Trump.

Dr. Jo concludes, however, that the reality show is funny…or will be funny when the “legion of spiteful, vindictive” Trumpers in the crowd realize what is really happening. Sooner, rather than later, almost everyone who voted for Trumpy McTrumpface will be quite surprised. They are currently sharing in the reality-impaired delusion…until they get a drubbing. Repeatedly, the US will be managed into the ground, just like Twitter X, until there is nothing left of value, except that anything of value will be in the pockets of Trump and his gang. Time to grab your peanuts, popcorn and cotton candy and watch from afar, preferably from a parallel universe, because it ain’t gonna be pretty.

TV host Stephen Colbert on The Late Show last week, reported that President Biden was in California, “doing what presidents should do: pledging federal disaster support to a stricken state.” At a press conference, Biden also announced that he was officially the first sitting president to become a great-grandfather, as is eldest granddaughter gave birth to a baby boy. “And with under two weeks left, there’s still time for Joe to set more old-man presidential records,” Colbert suggested, such as “most Malt-o-Meals consumed at 4 a.m., most rubber bands collected in an old cigar box, first president ever to fall asleep at a picnic and be carried away by ants.” As Nietzsche asked, “Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?”

Well, it had to happen…Donald Trump’s election victory was certified by a joint meeting of Congress presided over by his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, a thirty minute tragedy that was only delayed for a couple of minutes by unhappy Blue Staters trying to crash the proceedings by breaking down the doors…naaahhh, that didn’t happen! But the peacefulness and decorum of the process was in stark contrast to that of the “normal day in DC” of 2020, as now described by MAGAs of course. Those charged with crimes during the storming of the Capitol are in Trump’s sights to avoid accountability with his pardons…as many as 1500 may avoid charges, slates wiped clean from the ugliness of that day. As Representative Jamie Raskin, a former member of the House Select Committee said, “This is an asymmetry we’ve been pointing out from the beginning that there has been relative accountability up until this point for the people who smashed the police officers over the head with Confederate battle flags or speared them with Trump flags or stormed the Capitol and so on — vis a vis the masterminds behind the whole process.”

Trump’s indictments for his role in seeking to block the peaceful transfer of power in Georgia have hit a snag, and Special Prosecutor Smith’s request to dismiss the J6 case without prejudice, leaves the door open for possible refilings in the future, but admittedly, the likelihood fades with the passage of time. Representative Zoe Lofgren, another House Select Committee member, adds, “Trump won the election…it is pretty pathetic that the officers who defended our lives are so disrespected and that the criminal who egged them on is now going back into the White House. You know, he has vowed to pardon the criminals who attacked the Capitol. People died. I always make a point of calling some of the officers who were injured on the sixth so they know it’s not the whole world that has forgotten their sacrifice.” Federal prosecutor Mary McCord, former acting head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division warns, “There’s no question that some of the defendants are currently still very empowered, and you have to imagine that they’re not going to be nearly as deterred from engaging in behavior that violates the law — particularly something that Trump may want them to do — in the future.” Former federal prosecutor in the US attorney’s office in DC, Rizwan Qureshi, declared, “I think the bedrock of a true democracy is a peaceful transition of power. That’s why those who engaged in actual violent conduct on that date need to be held accountable…because accountability and respect for rule of law are necessary to deterring violence and preserving our democracy that I think we take for granted every day.”

The rule of law was dealt a poke in the eye with a secretive Saturday night party at Mar-a-Lago, reportedly celebrating efforts to overturn the 2020 election…no publicity, no press invitations, just attended by the likes of John Eastman, Michael Flynn, Jeffrey Clark, Rudy Giuliani, and Peter Navarro as they watched a documentary film about Eastman. Attorney Eastman was delegated to pressure Vice President Pence not to certify the results of the presidential vote of 2020, to the praise of Trump’s introductory remarks on Saturday. “I’m a big fan of John Eastman. Y’know, he was right. He happened to be right. That’s why they changed the law and nobody wants to talk about that. They said he’s not allowed to do it, he’s not allowed to do it, and they convinced him he’s not allowed to do it, our vice president, then right after the election they changed the law so he can’t do it.” Hosts of MSNBC Weekend, in discussing it on Sunday, prompted Michael Steele to ask, “What was the sense in this room, what was the purpose of this gathering, is it just an in-your-face-moment or just a tale of things to come?” Vaughn Hilyard’s take is that it was clear from Trump’s guest list that it was no coincidence about the purpose. Symone Sanders Townsend tersely responded, “Let’s just put a finer point on it, this is sickening! This is sickening, I am sick. Navarro, Clark, the people that went to the Capitol to take up arms against the US government, because the president at the time lied to them, that’s what happened. Those are not patriots. What Donald Trump did last night is a disgrace to the country and Constitution, and the fact that they didn’t tell anybody about it lets you know that they knew what they were doing was untoward, and they wanted to do it anyway.”

Steve Schmidt writes on The Warning that many have called for President Biden to issue preemptive pardons for the likely targets included in Trump’s promised retributions in his abuse of presidential powers. Schmidt is against such action, calling the Constitution and our own dignity as our protectors. Accepting a pardon means admitting a crime, and the necessity of opposing Donald Trump is not a crime. It is necessary, and will continue to be necessary, he maintains. Opposition to Donald Trump doesn’t need explanation or justification, so fight against criminalization of matters of conscience under a regime that doesn’t tolerate criticism or dissent. The fear that Trumpers have instilled throughout America “isn’t just unseemly…it is disconcerting, pathetic at some level and cynical at another,” Schmidt says. The premise that Biden should issue preemptive pardons is “among the worst ideas ever floated. It is a gateway to banana republicanism through a side door.”

Andy Borowitz writes in The Borowitz Report, “In a series of scathing Truth Social posts on Tuesday, Donald J Trump lambasted President Biden for issuing a pardon without being paid for it. ‘Pardoning someone for free was an incredibly selfish act,’ Trump wrote. ‘This will lower the market value of every future pardon I give. The framers of the Constitution gave the president pardon power for one reason: to make money,’ Trump continued. ‘I have too much respect for the Constitution to pardon people for free.’ In perhaps the strongest denunciation of Biden’s actions, he added, ‘Any decent father would have made Hunter ambassador to France.'”

In response to Trump’s promise of pardons, bootlicking Republicans are sucking up to him in a time-honored and traditional way: by being cowards. And, all those Senators and Representatives who hunkered down for safety on January 6, 2021, are all lined up to show him they can roll over for him. Senator Lindsey Graham said, “We’ll see what he does. I mean it’s been four or five years (since J6). The ones that hurt cops, they’d be in a different category for me, but we’ll leave that up to him.” Trump’s charge that the House Select Committee destroyed evidence that would have exonerated him, and fantasizing Liz Cheney before a firing squad, all seem to be fine with the GOP. The detailed events in the 850-page report from the committee were terrifying, illuminating and damning, and most voters oppose Trump’s plan to pardon insurrectionists, but what most voters want has never been the Republican Party’s bag, writes Walter Einenkel on Daily Kos.

Author Charles Pierce, in discussing presidents of his lifetime, says they were not perfect men, but for the most part, “they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate for the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.” Looking at our current prospect, he moans, “And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House. The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides…Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut up even when it is in his best interest to do so…Watch him behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn’t he a funny man? Isn’t what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now.”

As if to echo Pierce’s words, the president-elect will be attending an interfaith prayer service in DC the day before he is inaugurated — his wealthiest supporters are invited if they write a big enough check. This news is reported by Religion News Service, which gathered the information from Trump’s inaugural committee which has a list of different tiers of ‘benefits‘ for the various donor contribution amounts. On January 18, donors can get tickets to a ‘Make America Great Again Rally,’ a cabinet reception and a dinner with VP-elect Vance, to be followed the next day with the “pay-to-pray” event, so dubbed by RNS reporter Jack Jenkins.

Humorist Dave Barry had the perfect summation of the 2024 election season in his 2024 yearly wrap:  “But what made 2024 truly special, in terms of sustained idiocy, was that it was an election year. This meant that day after day, month after month, the average American voter was subjected to a relentless gushing spew of campaign messaging created by political professionals who—no matter what side they’re on—all share one unshakeable core belief, which is that the average American voter has the intellectual capacity of a potted fern. It was a brutal, depressing slog, and it felt as though it would never end. In fact it may still be going on in California, a state that apparently tabulates its ballots on a defective Etch-a-Sketch.”

Well, the electorate has spoken — a mandate according to the MAGAts, putting the man from Mar-a-Lago back into the Oval Office! But wait! It turns out The Man at Mar-a-Lago is none other than Elon Musk hibernating in one of the cottages onsite! Is he president, co-president, vice president or VP-in-waiting? It’s all very suspicious in light of all the shenanigans being pulled by this “high status male” peering over Mr. Trump’s shoulder and whispering in his good ear. During the recent presidential campaign, Musk used his X social media platform to promote the theory that a free-thinking ‘Republic’ can only exist under the decision-making of “high status males,” excluding women or “low T men,” of course. The theory was derived from 4chan, first seen in 2021 on that social media site, posted by an anonymous user who suggested that the only people able to think freely are “high testosterone alpha males” who would be qualified to a run a “Republic” designated “only for those who are free to think.” “People who can’t defend themselves physically (women and low T men) parse information through a consensus filter as a safety mechanism,” says the anonymous poster. “Only high T alpha males and aneurotypical people are actually free to parse new information with an objecive ‘is this true?’ filter,” they add. “This is why a Republic of high status males is best for decision making. Democratic, but a democracy only for those who are free to think.” “Aneurotypical” is not a word but it is assumed the writer meant neurodivergent individuals.

This theory, and others similar, promote hegemonic masculinity, being criticized for being sexist, exclusionary, not realistic and “toxic,” all popular in alt-right communities. “Interesting observation,” said Musk of this post. Mr. Tesla views such controversial or offensive positions as ‘free speech’ and should be allowed on his own platform even if it holds false or misleading information. The 4chan site itself is a hub of internet subculture, influenced by hacktivist and political movements, such as Anonymous and the alt-right. Posting can be done anonymously, a mainstay of the site, which has resulted in harmful content from a toxic community, which is emboldened to post hateful and abusive messages without fear of reprisal, with burgeoning of cyberbullying, harassment, and illegal activities; indeed, incidents of violence and harm must be taken into account. But now, talk about “interesting observations,” president-elect Trump has chosen to put Musk in charge of a ‘government efficiency commission‘ to audit the entire federal government, implementing “drastic reforms,” bringing with him his track record of bristling against regulation and government intervention. His efficiency in running a business and his abysmal stewardship of X should raise a few red flags, as we examine his repeated employee pay cuts and mass layoffs which resulted in a sputtering and barely functional social media site. Millions of previous users have abandoned the platform which is now a cesspool of hate speech, disinformation, and propaganda…the main proponent being Musk himself. His confounding missteps and micromanagement style may eventually eat away at the successes of SpaceX and Tesla, which may suggest that his real motivation in accepting Trump’s invitation is to deconstruct government from the very center rather than saving it money to continue operating. But, what the heck…with a former reality TV star president with an erratic business record, what could go wrong?

Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, on his Countdown podcast, is afraid there’s nothing to stop Musk from buying his former, troubled cable news network, though it is not technically up for grabs. Olbermann asks, “Is there anybody to stop someone, Musk or not, from buying MSNBC and turning it into pro-Trump propaganda? Well, who stopped Musk from doing that to Twitter?” Musk suggested the idea after Donald Trump, Jr. joked that making that purchase would be “the funniest idea ever!!!” Olbermann’s comments about a degraded Twitter note that it is now basically a place for Musk to talk to bots and “fellow brain-dead tech bros.” Fidelity Investments estimates that X is now worth 80% less than when Elon got his mitts on it. Comcast has plans to spin off most of its struggling cable networks into standalone entities owned solely by existing shareholders, and may ultimately divest from cable completely. However, Musk is already spread incredibly thin with all his enterprises, so MSNBC is in no danger…yet…only our government should fear his clutches.

And the clutches of his designated partner, Vivek Ramaswamy, in the new non-agency called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)…not legally recognized as yet. The two co-leaders are making a list and checking it twice of government employees they intend to fire when Trump is sworn in to the presidency, actually two lists obtained from former administration workers. The first lists people who they served with who would make possible political appointees; the other list grades people they worked with, with an ‘A’ for those who should stay, and a ‘B’ for those who should be ‘blacklisted or fired.’ Typically, civil servants or career officials are protected from political raids at agencies, but Trump has claimed he can use Schedule F, an executive order that would make them fireable, and most certain to end up before the court. Many applicants are seeking work in the DOGE inquisition agency, but few who are willing to work for free, as are Musk and Ramaswamy. M & R are eager to start their new assignments as they goad their adherents to start cyberbullying government employees, calling their positions “fake.” Some may remember that in 2022, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, was targeted by Musk who charged Roth was endangering children, which led to a multitude of haters accusing him of being a pedophile and calling for his death. Roth was chased away from Twitter after the Musk takeover, and had to relocate for his safety after the billionaire’s cyber campaign, a sign of what may lie ahead with M & R’s ‘efficiency’ moves.

The two claim to have a mandate from the American people and the Supreme Court as they try to reshape the federal government. They are advancing legally questionable arguments on tactics, but as ‘outside volunteers,’ they have no authority to actually cut anything or fire anyone. Those powers lie with Trump, Congress, federal agency heads, or anyone with actual power to do so; yet, the two imply that they will take a much more direct roles to personally achieve their desired result. It is estimated that Musk spent in excess of $200M to buy Trump’s presidency, so in return Trump is giving Musk free rein to reshape federal agencies that regulate Musk’s companies by purging the civil service that awards him lucrative government contracts. According to odactionnews, DOGE is not aiming to eliminate a wasteful, lawless, and antidemocratic bureaucracy in Washington — it is hoping to become one. Conservative critic George Conway joked, “It’s weird to think that Elon Musk will end up having paid far less for the United States government than he did for Twitter.”

Musk has proven his power by killing a bipartisan government funding bill that was set to be voted on, avoiding a government shutdown. His over-the-top social media posting spree encouraging Republican members of Congress to vote against the proposed plan succeeded, and it took several days to get it back on track in the nick of time. Stephen Colbert wasn’t surprised by his action, saying that the billionaire has a history of blowing things up…“particularly on the launch pad,” he joked by showing a SpaceX rocket failure in Cape Canaveral. Colbert continued, “I’m sure the founders are spinning in their graves with joy at the way all of this is playing out. After all, the Constitution does start with ‘We the people do whatever rich boy tells us. Rich boy makes the big square truck! And we obey! We the people, obey rich boy.” He then pointed out that Trump weighed in on the bill’s failure, echoing Musk’s posts, which then spurred comments of “President Musk, and Vice President Trump.” “Woof, well, if he’s gonna be the guy running everything, I’m gonna have to work on my Elon Musk impression. Here goes,” as he jumped into the air in mockery of Musk’s jumping on stage during a Trump rally. Senator Bernie Sanders posted, “Democrats and Republicans spent months negotiating a bipartisan agreement to fund our government. President Elon Musk doesn’t like it. Will Republicans kiss the ring?”

Elon is facing accusations of political meddling not only in this country, but across Europe, including the German Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Britains’s Reform UK parties. “Only AfD can save Germany,” Musk has written on X, leading one senior German politician to remark, “Stay out, Elon.” It is reported that Musk is considering a donation of $100M to the anti-immigration Reform UK after meeting that party’s leader at his new digs in Mar-a-Lago. Wary politicians in Italy, Ireland, and France have told him “hands off” our domestic politics. Back in the USA, many are saying it’s Musk’s House now, with many Republicans proposing a Speaker of the House Musk, though he is backpedaling with Trump to make his actions on the funding bill appear to be Democrats‘ fault. Tiny cracks are beginning to appear in the GOP, stimulating calls for a Civil War within the party, which will make Trump a lamer duck than he desired to be. Trump wanted the world’s richest man as his sidekick, for the glamor and the fat wallet, and now it’s about to blow up on the launch pad. With Musk’s perceived clout, who owns the MAGA brand? Former MSNBC anchor and political analyst Chris Matthews called out Musk for tanking the funding bill by saying, “You’ve heard of a bull in a china ship — this guy is an elephant in a china shop.” Steve Schmidt on The Warning blog, speculates that, “Maybe we should call Elon ‘Daddy.’ I bet that’s what Trump calls him in private. Barron too.”

Satirist Andy Borowitz writes, “Elon Musk’s strenuous efforts to obtain power have dismally failed to make him an interesting person, a leading expert revealed. Professor Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, a scholar who has written the definitive study about tedious graspers, said that Musk has made ‘the classic misjudgment that many boring people make: believing that access to power would make them less boring. He is still the reason all his employees want to work remotely.’ In more upbeat news for the Tesla CEO, Donald J. Trump has tapped Musk to mastermind mass deportations, arguing, ‘Elon already got millions of people to leave Twitter.'”

TEMPORARY PARALYSIS, TRUMP’S WORLD, MUGWUMPS, ONE TRUCK

Last week from the Borowitz Report, dateline Paris: “The much-anticipated reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral on Saturday was ruined by the appearance of the Antichrist, observers said. Beelzebub, who had traveled form Palm Beach, was heard loudly complaining that he had come ‘all the way to Notre Dame and there was no football game.’ He late disrupted the ceremony by loudly hawking a shipment of $60 Bibles he had just received from China. French President Emmanuel Macron apologized to the world for inviting the Archfiend, but added, ‘At least he didn’t bring Elon.'”

Following the election of the Antichrist, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, said of the upcoming Trump administration, “This isn’t the end. I promise you, this is not the end. And we have to regroup, and we have to continue to fight, and continue to work day in and day out to create a better society for our children, for this world,” telling the studio audience, “…you just have temporary anxiety and paralysis that comes with disappointment and just a soupçon of despair…like we just looked down and realized there’s nothing beneath our feet,” ala the Roadrunner and Coyote at cliffside. Describing his own feelings about the election, he said, “In the joint custody agreement we now have in America, the kids are going to have to live with Dad for the summer and you just have to…eat it.”

A Fox News poll has reported that a majority of Americans are hopeful about the re-election of President-elect Donald Trump, they are divided when it comes to the top nominees he has named for his administration, with 47% approving and 50% disapproving. His handling of the transition period has a 55% approval rating, higher than was the case in his previous transition to the high office, but far behind the approvals experienced by other recent presidents according to CNN. A Marist Poll records 86% approval on the Republican side, a 72% Democrat disapproval, and among independents, 43% disapproval and 38% approval which indicates a wait-and-see attitude. Trump’s choices have been named at a faster pace than eight years ago, but setbacks are likely, with Matt Gaetz already being eliminated…rather quickly.

USA Today columnist Nicole Russell says, “Donald Trump is still only the president-elect, but global leaders already are treating the incoming 47th president as America’s top leader. That bodes well for the Trump administration for the next four years, but it also raises the questions about the capacity for leadership of the Oval Office’s current occupant. That’s Joe Biden, by the way. Remember him?” Russell says that Biden and VP Harris have all but disappeared since the November election, with a month to go before the regime changeover. Trump was in the spotlight in Paris at Notre Dame, with Jill Biden being practically ignored by world leaders who flocked to Trump. French president Macron and Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy held talks with him and the UK’s Prince William had a brief meeting, as Trump smilingly enjoyed the much-desired attention. His reception clearly shows that the sitting US president has been abandoned for his lack of leadership. Russell asks, “If Democrats are already so irrelevant despite holding the Oval Office, what happens to them after Biden has left the building? But within the Democratic Party, on Capitol Hill – and even within his own administration – it feels like he left the Oval Office weeks ago.”

“As we’ve seen with Trump’s rambling speeches and news conferences, more isn’t always better. But disappearing from the public eye and from accountability via media engagement also is a bad look,” Russell continued. She mentions Joe’s pardon of his son, Hunter, as a strike against his legacy and at a cost to the public’s trust. In her view, “Global leaders’ deference to Trump says everything we need to know about the perception the world holds about Biden’s strength versus Trump’s. That is a good sign for America’s future as we leave behind the failures of the recent past. Joe Biden is still president, but it’s already Donald Trump’s world.” Sad, but true?

Chris Lehmann of The Nation magazine writes, “The air is still thick with postmortems of the 2024 election, but there’s already another mystery of public opinion that deserves at least as much scrutiny as the dismal outcome of presidential balloting. Americans beholding the squalid, bottom-feeding composition of the Trump cabinet-in-waiting – a grim panoply of grifters, self-dealing hacks, and sexual assaulters – report that they like what they see. Fifty-three percent of respondents say they’re optimistic or excited about the prospects for a second term – a photographic negative of the initial dawn of the Trump era, where that same majority said that it scared or concerned them. These findings come in the wake of a series of objectively awful appointments and botched and corrupt follow-throughs…this is to say nothing, of course, of the woeful unpreparedness of cabinet nominees for the consequential posts they’re assuming.” Lehmann ponders the public embrace of government corruption in examining Trump’s “bad-boys-fixation,” as characterized by Axios’ Jim Van De Hei and Mike Allen, who theorize that the “cabinet picks are a hit with male supporters who rally to brash confrontation as a political virtue.” Still, The Don is quite popular with white women voters, even though “characters like Musk, Oz and Ramaswamy are hardly swaggering studies in traditional machismo.”

Lehmann feels that the appeal of Trump’s named team is the force that fuels Trump’s popularity: his frontal assault of the ideology of meritocracy, as he insists that the political and business establishments are rigged against the public interest. “If the foundations of public life were mobbed-up, Trump argues, the trick is to have a mobbed-up insider using his influence on behalf of forgotten ordinary Americans. The pitch was essentially a dumbed-down version of FDR’s pledge to govern as a traitor to his moneyed class, except that Trump has proceeded to cultivate cronyism, using the powers of the state to reward personal fealty and punish what he views as ungrateful betrayals of his beneficence,” Lehmann writes. He feels that the assault on meritocracy by Trump and his cronies is a vision of government by and for the mobbed-up, that John Ganz terms the gangster Gemeinshcaft – a rigged system devised to ensure that insiders clean up at the expense of everybody else. In a message to the Democrats, who still cling to the core precepts of meritocratic rule, Lehmann remarks that to pull voters back into their fold, “there is no mystic messaging strategy or savvy payback tactic that will get this done in a single campaign; instead, the party needs to take a long, hard look at its own massive and deliberate retreat from a vital working-class politics in its elite-driven repudiation of the Bernie Sanders movement. A party movement that lives by meritocracy can very easily die by it. Just ask the Mugwups.”

In the continuing adventures of 2020 Election Denier, cash-strapped Mike Lindell, of MyPillow fame: he has filed a lawsuit against a corporate payday lender who “deceived” his company into accepting a $1.6M loan with a 409% annual interest rate. Lindell claims not to have any money as he juggles three other loans through the courts. Eighteen corporate entitles, plus MyPillow, claim that Cobalt Funding Solutions, and Streamline Advance also being involved, engaged in racketeering by extending a high-interest merchant cash advance, taking advantage of cash-strapped businesses that needed funds quickly. In October, Lifetime Funding accused Lindell of defaulting on a $600,000 advance, and Shine Capital Group filed suit on a default of $2M from July. MyPillow borrowed $10M in 2022, later being dumped by lawyers for non-payment of legal expenses. Seeking cash advances can only mean that his situation has worsened, and as Lindell told NBC News earlier this year he “has no money and is down to his house and his truck.” Guess it means that the man who won the ‘Prove Mike Wrong‘ contest by proving that Mike’s evidence for the stolen election was useless won’t be getting his $5M payoff?

The Wall Street Journal has reported that president-elect Trump has been lobbying Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis to consider appointing his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump to finish the last two years of Senator Marco Rubio’s term should Rubio be approved for the secretary of state position on Trump’s cabinet. Lara resigned from her Republican National Committee position to be ready for any movement in that direction, saying the Senate seat is “something I would seriously consider.” Many Republicans have been pushing the idea – currying favor with The Don – because her main qualification is that she married into the Trump family. She is also noted for producing and hosting a pro-Trump video program for her father-in-law’s campaign, and as co-chair of the RNC, she directed donations for the Republican Party into Trump-oriented goals such as paying off his legal bills. Best forgotten is her attempt at a music career which was blown to smithereens by her cringey music video about firefighters. During the presidential campaign she claimed that Kamala Harris didn’t get her jobs based on merit, but only because she’s a woman, while saying, “Do me a favor. Don’t ever give me a position based on the fact that I’m a woman. Either I earned it, or I didn’t – and that’s it. That’s all I need.” Jimmy Kimmel joked on his show, “Well, may I introduce Senator Lara Trump, ladies and gentlemen: graduated with a BA in communications at NC State, studied at the French Culinary Institute. Get that lady in government right away. Maybe it’s Trump’s way of telling her to please stop singing. I don’t know.” On the bright side, Kimmel said that the Florida Senate seat won’t go to former congressman Matt Gaetz, since he starts hosting a show on One America News in January. He adds, “For those who aren’t familiar with OAN, it’s like Fox News but crazier and younger, which is just the way Matt Gaetz likes it.”

Our community is a sadder place this month…remember Bruce!

WE LET THIS HAPPEN, WE BROKE IT, WE FIX IT, STAY TUNED

Did you get yours? The Trump Inauguration invitation from the Trump National Committee 2024? The email is headlined “The Greatest Celebration in American History.” Imagine! The accompanying photo, beneath gold formal lettering reading “Join President Trump at his Second Inauguration,” shows a silhouette of Trump from the backside as he walks toward the podium on the viewing stand, with crowds of attendees stretching out across the Capitol Ellipse as far as the eye can see, and maybe farther than the eye can see! But wait! What’s this at the bottom of the photo…a link that says, “ENTER TO WIN.” You’ll have to scroll down, and squint, to read the tiny legalese in the paragraph at the bottom: “Contributions to Trump National Committee JFC are not deductible for federal income tax purposes, blah, blah, blah…It’s because of the commitment and support from real Patriots, like YOU, that we will SAVE AMERICA! Thank you again for your generous support.” And, the winner will get…it doesn’t say, no promises made, though the implication is that you will get to attend the the greatest inauguration…seated behind the podium?…or in the cow pasture beyond the Ellipse where even Sean Spicer will never see you? Just send money to find out!? Just remember that selecting that link puts you into the Grifting Arena!

Assuredly, it’s simply another grift! Remember all the previous ‘contests’ to win an onstage appearance with Trump at one of his rallies? Or dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the candidate? Or a flight to the RNC convention with the Trump Team? Just ask for a list of those winners (it’s already been done with zilch offered by The Team). It only took three weeks after Election Day (almost two months beyond the required October 1 signing)  for Trump to reach an agreement with the outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration to initiate the official transition of power, but he is NOT signing the agreement with the General Services Administration to unlock federal funding for the transition. In lieu of the government money, his changeover will be backed by private donors, operating as a “self-sufficient organization.” The so-called ‘memorandum of understanding’ between Trump and Biden will enable Trump and his team to access non-public government information, receive government briefings and deploy personnel inside the federal agencies and departments they will soon control. Trump has concern about the mandatory ethics pledge in the ‘memorandum,’ which was left unsigned, that included avoiding conflicts of interest in the White House; so instead, The Team announced it will use its “existing ethics plan for those involved,” which meets federal requirements and will be posted on the General Services Administration’s website. Questions still remain from the first Trump transition, with an accurate accounting of funds raised still hidden away from the feds…hard to believe, eh?

Trump’s vow to dispense with using taxpayer funding for the transition costs leaves his financial arrangements obscure, with donors being kept secret, despite a promise: “Donors to the transition will be disclosed to the public. Consistent with Transition policy already in place, the Transition will not accept foreign donations.” To date, Trump’s Cabinet nominees have not undergone FBI vetting, prompting Senator Elizabeth Warren’s response, “[the team’s announcement] fails to answer key questions about national security threats and FBI vetting of nominees, and increases concerns about corruption. There appear to be serious gaps between the Trump transition’s ethics agreement and the letter of the law. The reliance of private donors to fund the transition is nothing more than a ploy for well-connected Trump insiders to line their pockets while pretending to save taxpayer’s money.” In a November 13 meeting at the White House between Biden and Trump, Biden welcomed the president-elect and promised a smooth transition.

Trump’s refusal to accept GSA funds in the transition is a first, which means the GSA’s ability to ascertain transparency that individual donations don’t exceed $5000 or that foreign influences are kept at bay…a concern since there are no restrictions on international donations for transitions, as are in place for presidential campaigns. In shutting out FBI background checks, The Team is conducting private checking…call it ‘Trump gets a pass to pass?’ NBC News’s Chuck Todd has taken issue with Trump’s cabinet selections, questioning whether he has taken moral character into consideration…however a low-lifer might venture into that realm is yet another question…while suggesting that the picks are a “low-character crowd.” Todd says, “He knows he’s behaved badly over the years…he has civil judgements against him to prove it…in his drive to achieve fame and fortune. So, following that logic, nothing makes his success look more mainstream and acceptable than surrounding himself with people who have never let their moral compass get in the way of their own ambitions. No one is saying that someone who is accused of sexual misconduct but isn’t charged with a crime should be cancelled from society or be impacted in their ability to get a job.” He laments that ‘character’ shouldn’t be a partisan attribute, that there are many supporters in each party with good character, but that perhaps we have gone from being “a bit too puritan” to “a bit too permissive.” Continuing, he says, “The minute you start making an exception for character flaws on your side of the political fence, you’ll regret it, because one day it will be coming from a political opponent and not a political ally; and, wouldn’t it be a shame if the electorate decided that politics now belongs to the low-character crowd. This is the moment I fear we are now facing.” Jimmy Kimmel summed it up pretty well when he said on his show, “The President is a criminal. 34 times over, he’s a convicted criminal. Truth be told he’s not even looking for a cabinet…he’s looking for cellmates. Okay?”

“We’re a country of 330-plus million, with all that entails. But if we stop demanding or attempting to find high-quality character in our elected officials, then how are we going to become a ‘more perfect union’?” Todd asks. “And yet, does anyone believe the current political world is attracting the best and brightest into public service? We as a nation have taken this concept of ‘ends justifies the means’ and essentially turned the country’s North Star of ‘whatever it takes’ for our own success, not just ‘whatever it takes’ for our own survival,” he concludes. A questioner on the Quora website questions why the MAGA cult is still angry after success in the electoral process, even though they were warned what would happen as they feigned understanding.  Paraphrasing an answer by Tiffany Thomas, where she writes: “Because it has never been about actual policy or humanity for them. They’ve treated the fate of the country like it’s the Super Bowl…but they don’t even know who they’re cheering for. This is going to be a hard lesson for us all, but MAGA are going to be blindsided when they suddenly realize that the hate/vitriol/destruction they begged for is going to directly impact them too. No one gets a pass, no one has privilege in a fascist system…all will vanish right alongside the rest of us. Their guilt and accountability will be very difficult for them to embrace and accept. They’ve reached the ‘FIND OUT’ part of ‘FAFO’ and watching them search, ‘How can I reverse my vote?’ is a small consolation. There is nothing anyone can do now.”

So, they want to reverse their votes? Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling in the The New Republic wrote in mid-November that some Trump voters were having “a shocking bout of buyer’s remorse” with the reality of awarding him a second shot at the presidency. She writes that, “On Election Day and in the hours following, searches for ‘how to change my vote’ spiked in states that the president-elect won, according to Google analytics.The searches first surged the morning of Election Day before declining the day afterward. Interest in the phrase was not short-lived, though, with numbers climbing again on Monday…just shy of a week out from the election, and continuing to grow throughout the week. The apparent change of heart comes after Trump allies had admitted Project 2025 was the plan all along, and after women and girls became the target of an overtly misogynistic, far-right campaign claiming ownership of their bodies.” Google Trends registered the phrase at 100 on a scale of 0 to 100, which indicates the peak popularity for a search term. Trump’s significant win in Iowa also generated the highest number of state-by-state queries for the term, however, it is difficult to determine whether the searches were initiated by Trump or Harris voters. Once the voter drops the ballot into the box, a vote cannot be changed, a hard lesson to learn for those who sincerely had voting regrets.

Alton Frye writes in The Hill, “A majority has spoken. A disappointed minority may not admire the judgement rendered, but it must respect the right of the majority to express it. The election was clearly one in which voters’ perceived interests outweighed their professed values. Surely, not all of those supporting Donald Trump were applauding his character and the amoral values he represents. Close analysis of the promised Trump program suggests his voters may soon have second thoughts. Any new administration’s plans are subject to change, but if the next president is supported by the Republican-controlled Congress in executing the proposals set forth in the campaign, the hoped-for escape will lead to greater distress on several fronts. The multiple pledges of tax relief carry predictable consequences for national debt. Massive slashes in the federal work force would entail curtailments in public services. Politics breeds countless temptations, not all of them prudent.” In his wrap-up of the 2024 election, Frye says, “The dynamics invite diverse interpretations. One notable irony concerns the measurable movement of Hispanic voters toward support for Trump, despite his sometimes harsh stance toward immigrants. Some Hispanic commentators have viewed that movement as an importation of the frequent Latino gravitation toward a leader in chief, a ‘caudillo’ on the model of Juan Peron or Fidel Castro or Anastasio Somoza. Never mind that such caudillos have brought great grief to their peoples. Donald Trump has come to embody what one may call American machismo. The durability of that quality’s appeal will now be tested.”

Satirist Andy Borowitz, in a recent Substack post, writes, “In an advisory issued on Wednesday, the American Medical Association urged US patients seeking medical attention to go to Canada. ‘Commencing January 20, 2025, Americans should schedule even the most routine medical appointments north of the border,’ Dr. Harland Dorrinson, the president of the AMA, said. Dorrinson observed that recently announced changes to the nation’s healthcare establishment had already impacted Wall Street, with a boom for companies selling coffee bean extract, raspberry ketones, horse dewormer, and leeches. In the AMA’s gravest warning, he noted, ‘Rand Paul is now the most legit doctor in the US government.'” In a later post, Borowitz wrote, “Donald J Trump raised eyebrows in diplomatic circles on Saturday by naming the former drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman US ambassador to Mexico. Trump told reporters that the appointment of El Chapo was consistent with his policy of surrounding himself with ‘only the best people.’ When asked about El Chapo’s ten felony convictions, Trump said, ‘I wish he had more, but I still think he’s qualified.’ Trump’s plan hit a snag, however, when El Chapo turned down the post, stating that it would be ’embarrassing to serve in the same administration as Dr. Oz.'” Or serving in the same administration as Robert F Kennedy, Jr. who recently confessed to having a heroin addiction in his checkered past.

We can all echo Michael Moore’s final thoughts on November 2024: “Thank God, this month is over! We let this happen! We broke it. We fix it. Stay tuned.”

A LEOPARD MANDATE, TRANSITIONING, NO GUARDRAILS, HIDING SLAVERY

“I never thought leopards would eat MY face!” complains the voter who helped elect the leader of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party. This Twitter meme will simply be schadenfreude for the next four years for those who voted against Donald Trump’s third run at the presidency, enjoying every look of disbelief as the leopard takes a bite – you did this to yourself, America! Two bar patrons enjoying a beer are discussing politics when one says to the other, “Okay, you voted for Trump…convince me I’m wrong about my worst fears.” The MAGA-hatted companion replies, “Are you kidding?! I hope you’re right!!” Yeah, we’ll see about that when the leopards are loosed.

Trump and his MAGAts are crowing that the election victory is a mandate for his policies, but as it now stands, neither he nor Harris won even 50% of the popular vote; and while Trump narrowly won the popular vote contest, he had -2% winning margins in the key Blue Wall states…his victory being decided by a handful of people in a handful of states. Yet his reactionary followers still want him to blow up the government and impose the Project 2025 objectives on the whole country, while his other supporters outside the MAGA pale simply want lower prices and a secure border. If he is smart, Trump will be satisfied with inheriting the best economy in the world and a border that is reasonably secure, freeing him up to gloat on his victory and go play golf. He is not smart; he will be only be more resolute in his wish to impose tariffs, deport people, and exact revenge on his “enemies within” as he hacks away and runs roughshod over our civil liberties. As he moves quickly to appoint a regime of loyalty in his cabinet selections, which will allow him to operate autocratically, disillusioned supporters will find that expressing their displeasure only unlocks the leopard cage. Matt Kerbel writes on Wolves and Sheep on Substack, that Trump’s “driving rationale was dominance and inevitability” during his campaign, and that will permeate his second term. “Claiming a non-existent mandate for unpopular policies that harm his voters stands to weaken him politically, and can be used by the opposition to undermine the perception that he is strong. Trump’s MAGA base will never abandon him, and he owns the Republican party regardless of how much damage he does. They will always prop him up. But the way the rest of the country reacts to Trump will matter. We cannot end Trump’s presidency. But we can reduce Trump’s ability to use his presidency to end the republic,” Matt concludes.

Trump continues to flout ethics laws and norms ahead of his inauguration date, by accepting donations to fund the transition and refusing to sign ethics pledges or deliver an ethics plan mandated by the Presidential Transitions Act. The transition team also has not signed an agreement with the FBI allowing the agency to do background checks on Trump’s nominees. Deadlines were missed in September and October to sign memorandums of understanding with the Biden White House to facilitate the outgoing administration’s collaboration with Trump’s transition team, despite promises from Trump team leaders to do so. A New York Times story reports that the transition team has privately created an ethics code and conflict-of-interest guidance for transition staff, but those documents do not include the legal requirement of a statement regarding how Trump will handle conflicts of interest as an officeholder. Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to Biden’s staff saying, “This failure undercuts the fundamental purpose of presidential transition laws. In effect, president-elect Trump is undermining his administration’s ability to manage urgent national security threats, health and safety threats, and serious conflicts of interest starting on day one of his presidency.”

In the past, even in Trump’s 2016 transition, incoming administrations have signed an agreement to receive financial assistance from the General Services Administration which monitors the transition process. Acceptance of the funds, signing the agreement requires the teams to abide by conditions that would limit individual donations to $5000 and mandate transparency about donors. One concern with nondisclosure, is that of foreign influence, there being no restrictions on international donations to transition teams. Public policy Professor Heath Brown of John Jay College, and a presidential transition expert told the The Times, “When money isn’t disclosed, it’s not clear how much is donated, who is donating, and what they are getting in return for their donation. It’s an area where the vast majority of Americans would agree that they want to know who is paying that bill.”

The Trump transition team is conducting its own, private background checks with the excuse that the FBI is too slow and could disrupt Trump’s desire to get to work quickly. CNN has been told that Trump has privately questioned whether background checks are even necessary. Trump’s noncompliance with background checks, transparency rules, and ethics are simply groundwork for a corrupt administration worse than his first term, when he used his position to enrich himself and grant favors to his wealthy cronies. By not signing the transition agreement, Trump doesn’t have to work within the confines of the fundraising limits or disclose what interest groups are funding his transition to the Oval Office…the door is wide open. And we, the taxpayers, will pay for any favors that Trump bestows upon his generous benefactors.

The president-elect has made known his belief that at times laws can be ignored, even those in the US Constitution. And this dictum has now tainted the beliefs of his inner circle of aides, advisors, and the MAGA base. ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reported that one Trump adviser told him, “If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. The president gets to decide his Cabinet. No one else.” Here’s what The Appointments Clause in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution says: “…and [the President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law.” Not clear enough? The Senate advises and consents, not the MAGA mob! But can it hold up after a Trump takeover?

Following the defeat of the British, several attempts were made to arrive at a cohesive document to unite the new society to defeat the struggle for sectional supremacy. Benjamin Franklin’s 1775 draft presented to the Continental Congress to form a national government was ignored, as were attempts by several others. Three distinct societies had developed in the colonies, each one largely determined by the role of slavery in the labor force. Pennsylvania’s John Dickinson headed a committee that arrived at a plan in 1776 which was revised for seventeen months, becoming weaker with each revision before being presented in its final form in 1777. Because it was drafted during war, it had much to do with a mutual defense mechanism, but Southern states were put off because it made no distinction between slaves and white men in the apportionment of taxation. Slaves were property, not people, and Dickinson’s lack of awareness was offensive!

The inside cover blurb of Lawrence Goldstone’s 2005 book, ‘Dark Bargain: Slavery, Profits and the Struggle for the Constitution,’ reads, “On September 17, 1787, at the State House in Philadelphia, thirty-nine men from twelve states [Rhode Island refused to send delegates] signed America’s Constitution after months of often bitter debate. They created a magnificent, enduring document, even though most of the delegates were driven more by pragmatic, regional interests than by idealistic vision. Many were meeting for the first time, others after years of contention, and the inevitable clash of personalities would be as intense as the advocacy of ideas or ideals.” Over the next several months, that number of thirty-nine men would increase or decrease with the comings and goings of individuals, to a total of fifty-five participants debating the merits of their own wishes to rescue the states from the totally inadequate Articles of Confederation.

The text continues: “No issue was of greater concern to the delegates than that of slavery: it resounded through debates on the definition of treason, the disposition of the rich lands west of the Alleghenies, the admission of new states, representation and taxation, the need for a national consensus, and the very makeup of the legislative and executive branches of the new government. Goldstone provocatively makes clear, ‘to a significant and disquieting degree, America’s most sacred document was molded and shaped by the most notorious institution of slavery.'” Goldstone’s book chronicles the forging of the Constitution through the prism of the crucial compromises made by men both driven and repelled by slavery, and the needs of the slave economy. State House debates, backroom conferences in taverns and inns lasted until the wee hours, with the philosophical contributions of James Madison waning, gradually being usurped by South Carolinian John Rutledge, a lawyer and plantation owner. Madison was particularly perturbed at Maryland’s Luther Martin, a successful attorney and an antifederalist, who was seen by many as a drunken buffoon, especially after holding the floor with a two-day speech…though being praised by many, as well. Later in his career, Martin was retained by a Quaker in a land dispute, being asked “not to drink a drop” during the trial. The trial became stressful and Martin was afraid he would lose the case by remaining sober, so during a lunch break he purchased a bottle of brandy and a loaf of bread, pouring the brandy over the loaf as he ate it with a knife and fork. Promise kept! He then proceeded to win the case having fortified himself sufficiently.

After the participants had finally agreed on the final document and returned to their various regions, the next task was to convince their state governments to accept to the results of their work, convincing which included wining and dining, cajoling, arm-twisting, and even lying to get a consensus on an instrument which specified that growers’ importation of slaves would end in twenty years…we know how that turned out! Years later, Abraham Lincoln was quoted as saying, “Slavery was hid away in the Constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or cancer, which he does not dare cut out at once, lest he bleed to death.” Goldstone ends his volume in a chapter entitled ‘Supreme Law of the Land,’ in which he writes, “But, in the central role it played, the weight of evidence leads inescapably to the conclusion that the Constitution was drafted by highly pragmatic men who were pursuing limited and self interested goals. Philosophical concerns seemed to play only a minor role in the proceedings, and only then with but a few of the participants. Nonetheless, for all that, precisely because the delegates in Philadelphia were pragmatic, and were there to represent specific, parochial interests, they were able to draft a document that was workable, adaptable, and able to survive challenges that could never have been imagined in 1787. It is distinctly possible that had idealism dominated in Philadelphia, American democracy would have failed.”

Now, after standing fast, close to 240 years, we have a buffoon and his army who want to take an axe to the hard-won document, to make small changes like enshrining the right of billionaires and corporations to bribe judges and politicians, or insert the doctrine of corporate personhood, or simply throw the whole thing out and start over. At this point, 19 Republican-controlled states have signed on to a call for a convention under Article V, heavily funded by rightwing billionaires. In fact, we might consider that the Constitution is being rewritten already…consider the decisions of the six judges on the Supreme Court when they turned a law-breaking president into a king, ended rights of women to make decisions about their own bodies, gutted the power of federal agencies to protect consumers and the environment, and legalized bribery of politicians as long as the bribes are paid AFTER a vote…simply a ‘tip’ of appreciation, you see? The encore has in its sights gay marriage, contraception, pornography and banned books, union rights and religion in schools. The American public be damned in their overwhelming desire to see gun control, an end to gerrymandering, higher wages, money out of politics, climate action, fair taxation with enforcement for the morbidly rich and corporations, and SCOTUS term limits…and on and on.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes on her Lucid blog on Substack, “Before Bill Barr became Donald Trump’s third attorney general, he circulated a memo that was more or less an audition tape for the job he ultimately got. In it, Barr argued in favor of what had previously been a fringe theory of a powerful ‘unitary executive,’ – a president able to consolidate power at the expense of the other two branches as a very powerful leader…even Bill Barr would have never dreamed of arguing the president could use SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival and walk away with no consequences…now, the Supreme Court says it’s so.” Ruth calls Trump’s naming of Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget as context for the turn to the monarchical, away from the democratic, since Vought was the godfather of Project 2025 which will restructure our institutions. Though Trump claimed no knowledge of P2025 during his campaign, it is clear that was a lie, since he spoke at a Heritage Foundation conference in April 2022, where he told the audience that the groundwork was being laid with detailed plans for exactly what the movement would do.

Ben-Ghiat continues, “Project 2025 is a wrap. It’s locked and loaded, and ready to go. If you believe it’s about to disappear or that Trump won’t use any of it, I have some swampland in Florida for you.” She says that as recently as August, Trump had “blessed” the project and that it was ready to put into action, because British journalists secretly recorded him making such claims. “Now it’s clear that all of the horribles are on the table, everything from the end of the Department of Education to the discontinuation of the weather warnings NOAA provides,” she declares. As Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation said in July, ‘We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.’ The leopards are hungry and ready to perform their facials. The guardrails are down. We can only wait and see, as we put our efforts behind the Planning for a Better Day Party…

JOKING DOGES, ADJOURNING POWER GRAB, RESIGNATION, A CIRCUS

Comedian Wanda Sykes said on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week that though she “got her hopes up,” about a potential Kamala Harris win, she wasn’t surprised that Trump won. “I mean it’s so many reasons why you can say it happened. But, I think, you know, a lot of us aren’t, like, totally shocked, because sometimes America is just gonna America.” Not comfortable with the outcome, she asserted, “I’m a Black woman and a lesbian…how do you think I’m doin’? It’s like ‘Okay,’ you get your hopes up, you think you’ll move forward.” She pinned the blame for Trump’s victory with, “I blame those damn Cheerio commercials, showing all those interracial couples. You scared the [crap] outta white people. What are y’all doin’? Just sell the damn cereal…why you gotta be bringing us into this?”

HuffPost reports that eight years after a win in 2016, a defeat in 2020, The Don is now the next president-elect of the country, regaining “the seat of immense power with fresh grievances, threats of being a dictator on ‘day one’ and calling for retribution against his ‘enemies within.'” Don’t look for any respect for the rule of law…only the rule of one, “the greatest challenge to our democratic experiment since the Civil War.” HP says, “This is not a drill…now is not the time to cower or capitulate,” pledging to cover actions of the Trump administration “with the same rigor and honesty that we always have.” JoJo from Jerz posted on X: “How sad it must be believing that doctors, scientists, scholars, historians, economists and journalists are all lying to you, but a criminal conman, business cheat, reality TV game show host with a lifelong history of blatant, unapologetic, nonstop lying, is telling you the truth.”

In just the couple of weeks since the election, Trump’s old buddy Vlad Putin, is messing with his orange head. It took Putin two days to congratulate him, during a news conference, on his election success, which surely raised the former president’s uncertainty about the ‘friendship’ with his favorite strongman. Trump then claimed there had been a phone conversation with Putin, during which he warned the Russian leader not to escalate the war on the Ukrainians. Then came a poke in the eye from the Kremlin, denying that there was a phone call, which allows Putin to go ahead with plans to use North Korean troops to retake some occupied Russian territory, and move back into Donbas province. Will Trump learn a lesson about the limits of a misconstrued personal relationship as he is forced to consider our national interests early on? Naaahhh! Russia’s chief of intelligence, Nikolai Patrushev, made a comment in the Moscow newspaper, Kommersant, “The election campaign is over. To achieve success in the election Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.” Obligations to certain forces? This psychological punch is telling Mr. Trump that Russians now deserve payback for contributing to his election victory with their phony videos against Harris, and phoning in bomb scares to polling stations! Some are speculating that this is a blackmail threat by communicating that they have compromising information pointing to Trump or his staffers about colluding in these Russian ‘contributions.’

Throughout the campaign Trump made his wishes known that he wants a realignment with Putin, but Patrushev’s response simply reveals that Russia’s main goal is to sow chaos, breed mistrust, and weaken the bonds of democracy in the West, no matter who is president of the USA. Trump’s MAGAts are willing to go along with their leader for better relations with Russia as they seek to weaken China’s influence in the world. We can only speculate how Trump will proceed, whether he will change, or whether he even has the capability to change his standpoint as it becomes more apparent that Putin wants us to fail. Trump has a history of keeping private his conversations with Putin, the Washington Post finding at least sixteen private conversations…that we know about…during Trump’s first three years in office. A 2018 closed-door meeting in Helsinki is still a mystery, with Trump confiscating notes from his interpreter, ordering him to not disclose any details of the conversation. It’s notable that he told reporters ahead of the 2019 G20 summit in Osaka, Japan that his meetings with Putin were “none of your business.” The ambiguousness is alive and well today!

Trump, being true to form, continues to poke fun at his lackeys. Elon Musk was a victim last week when Trump accused him of hanging around Mar-a-Lago for too long. “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him…until I don’t like him,” he mocked his  billionaire buddy, addressing Republican lawmakers on the Hill at their first meeting following his election victory. Musk has accompanied Trump on the golf course, in the dining room, and sharing conversations with world leaders whom Trump has called. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell sees Trump’s comments about Musk before the assembled audience as an assertion of his dominance in front of a group that has to laugh along with him. O’Donnell says, “Everyone laughed. They laughed that uncomfortable laugh. But they laugh when Donald Trump makes a joke about someone on his team, a joke that everyone knows is true, a joke that paints that person as pathetic, as Donald Trump’s personal sense of superiority demands that he do.” O’Donnell believes that the new agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is a joke as well, a humiliating demotion, with co-leader Musk being responsible in a “fake job that holds little more power than that of a K Street lobbyist.” As an added insult, he was given a working partner in Vivek Ramaswamy…not even a billionaire! Lawrence pointed out that Trump’s other cabinet appointments have been for standing federal departments…DOGE is not. Tech journalist, Kara Swisher, predicts the relationship between the two egotistical, narcissistic and indomitable entities is destined to fail. Donald owes Elon, but if he garners too much attention…poof! It’s all over a la Steve Bannon. Swisher notes that “Trump goes through people like tissues, essentially…they’re going to clash at some point.”

The provocative Cabinet picks Trump has made are stirring up outrage and shock in DC, even among the GOP, triggering a melt-down just as the president-elect intends. Most outrageous has been naming Matt Gaetz as his attorney general. Tulsi Gabbard will be director of national intelligence if confirmed, and Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth is headed for the defense secretary position. Those three individuals pose questions about The Don’s motivations and the direction of his second term, not least because of their professional, ethical or experiential qualities, or lack of them, reports CNN. Their commonality is an unfailing loyalty to Trump, all avid proponents of the stunt politics he spearheaded on social media; and if his “retribution” is to be carried out they will obey his orders. Trump rocked the boat further with his naming of Robert F Kennedy, Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services, who it seems will be given free rein to carry out whatever he wants, should he pass muster with the Senate…unless…

Trump has no intention of seeking Senate permission! Fearing that even a GOP-controlled Senate might be hesitant to confirm his choices, it’s speculated that he will adjourn both houses of Congress under the never-used Article II, section 3 of the Constitution, enabling him to recess-appoint his Cabinet nominees. Can you say, ‘Power Grab?’ This move allow him to impose on the government, everyone he wants, no matter how corrupt, extreme, inexperienced or controversial they might be. If Trump attempts this, and can get away with it, he will effectively remove the Senate’s confirmation powers forever, a norm-shattering disruption of politics, governance, and presidential power. With certainty, a high-stakes face-off followed by litigation would erupt, with no guarantee about the result. Conservative legal activist, Ed Whelan, hopes the rumor to take this path is wrong, being appalled at the idea. “It’s a fundamental general feature of our system of separated powers that the president shall submit his nominations for major offices to the Senate for approval. That feature plays a vital role in helping to ensure that the president makes quality picks,” he says. Whelan points out that it would take cooperation of Speaker Johnson and the House majority, being far from clear whether Republicans in either chamber have the spine to stand up to this unprecedented wrecking ball.

Black sheep, blackballed, ex-Vice President Pence jumped into the conversation, albeit uninvited, to plead with Republicans to reject RFK Jr. as our next Health & Human Services secretary. As odacationnews says, “before you go wondering if Pence has suddenly found something resembling a moral compass, his reasoning is entirely predictable: Kennedy is pro-choice. Pence is most certainly not. RFK Jr.’s certifiably nutty views on vaccines and other conspiratorial musings aren’t the problem, mind you. It’s Kennedy’s unforgivable opinion that a woman should have the right to make important medical decisions for herself. Noted, Mike. Don’t you have somewhere irrelevant to be?”

The Meidas Touch Network on You Tube has a presentation by Francis M. Maxwell, sharing videos of global impressions of Trump’s election, many of which have invoked fear and laughter around the world. The Scottish First Minister was ridiculed by a parliament member addressing his colleagues, for “offering his congratulations on behalf of the Scottish government to convicted felon Donald Trump…words fail me.” On Tik Tok, both the Finnish and Norwegian female parliament members proclaimed “our American sisters are not alone.” Referencing the Musk super pac’s $200M fund for Trump’s election, Australia has introduced a new bill that will ban billionaire Elon Musk and others from buying elections in that nation to insure that what happened in the US does not happen in their country. French President Macron called the Trump election “a moment of acceleration,” as he sees the possible trade war between China and the US as a time for adjustment of power, both economically and commercially, within the European community. He asked, “Do we want to read history as written by others, or do we want to write our own history? Now is the time to defend national and European interests.”

California Attorney General, Rob Bonta, said his organization “will be there” if Trump attacks the rights of the state’s citizens, and will insure that California will remain “a steadfast beacon of hope and progress.” This tack is being taken up by attorneys general across the country to legally defend against Trump administration excesses. In Trump’s first term, states brought on a wave of lawsuits to block moves like his travel ban, and family separations, as we even now face threats of mass deportations and rolling back of environmental regulations. Democratic governors see the trifecta of the White House and Congress, and a more conservative judiciary shrinking the number of venues for advancing Democrat’s policies at the federal level. The actions of governors and state AGs can make a difference not only in their own states, but across the nation. Preparations for several months entailed monitoring comments from Trump and his colleagues, studying Project 2025, and scrutinizing the conservative Heritage Foundation’s framework for Trump II. Preparations include prewriting briefs needing only slight editing in preparation for filing as needed. Bonta says, “What we learned from the first Trump administration is that he can’t help but break the law. It’s part of his brand. It’s part of what he does.” Trump’s first go-around brought in a world of heightened AG activism, resulting in current legal officers “much more proactive in getting ready for challenges that don’t even exist.” As the Turkish proverb tells us: “When a clown moves into the palace, he does not become king. The palace becomes a circus.”

The New York Times reports that Special Counsel Jack Smith is said to be assessing how to wind down his two federal criminal investigations and prosecutions of Donald Trump, with plans to beat the president-elect’s threat to fire him “within two seconds” of taking office by resigning first. With the Justice Department’s long-standing policy of not prosecuting a sitting president, Smith has notified prosecutors and FBI agents on his team that they can begin planning their own departures.The Supreme Court’s ruling that presidential conduct can’t be prosecuted even after a president leaves office covers such a broad swath, that their decision that a “president is immune from being held liable for ‘official acts'” pretty much frees Trump from many of his actions, anyway. DOJ regulations require that Smith make a final report on his investigation, allowing him to lay out the case against Trump on charges related to his role in the J6 Capitol attack and the mishandling of classified documents. It’s a race against time to see if he can complete that report to be made public before Biden’s term ends, but his intention is to leave no “significant part of his work for others to complete.” Is that Bill Barr hiding in the wings? Both House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Representative Barry Loudermilk have requested that Smith’s office preserve all records in the Trump probes, signaling that a congressional inquiry is in the making, prompting Elon Musk to laud the move on X, posting, “Jack Smith’s abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished.”

Late Show host, Stephen Colbert charged that Trump, since his election, has “already managed to be way worse” than he expected, by bringing up the Matt Gaetz nomination. “During the campaign, I thought if Trump won, he would do the worst things I could imagine. Turns out, I don’t have much of an imagination,” he said. Colbert then directed his anger to Attorney General Merrick Garland for failing to prosecute Trump earlier, saying, “Are you sorry you didn’t speed up those Trump trials, you schmuck?” Can’t say he wasn’t warned!