Saturday, November 23, 2024

😷

Whooping cough cases up 5x this year 

100,000 global measles deaths - mostly in kids

H5N1 steamrolling towards pandemic status. Egg prices skyrocketing. 

The new administration had better have a strong infectious disease response plan- and had better ensure public health and vaccine confidence stays high. Or they’ll be distracted with outbreaks for 4 years this time instead of 1.

RFK Jr will assure us it’s all fake news by Big Pharma and people aren’t really sick. Based on Covid in 2019-2020, I expect a vocal minority to convince us he’s right. 

 

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Lindsay Graham Carries A Mouse In His Pocket

Then the mouse got so embarrassed it crawled away. Lindsay is so butch! On cable TeeVee, anyway.
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Three Fingers Pointing Back At You

In the meantime, law and money:
I think it's very worrisome for two primary reasons," Brown replied. "If the agreements aren't signed that means the key information that the incoming administration needs about the major threats, challenges facing our country are not going to be shared in the same way as if the agreements were signed." 
"That's a problem for all of these Cabinet positions and all of the sub -Cabinet roles to be ready for day one," he warned. "They need information and that's contingent to partner with federal agencies, and the agreements have to be signed to do that." 
"The second concern is that if the agreements aren't signed, we'll never know who's funding this transition," he added. "Those agreements establish caps on the amount of money that can be donated to the transition team as well as requiring public disclosure of who those donors are. If we don't see  those agreements signed, we'll never know that information and I think many people would worry about that."
"Follow the money” is one of the lessons of Watergate. But “get the information” is a matter of law. A “national security issue,” IOW. I mentioned that Elmo is going to find the restrictions of running a real advisory committee come January 20, 2025, more trouble than he wants (boys just wanna have fun). But Trump’s Cabinet of misfit boys won’t even be able to function. Trump will take his hand off the Bible (if it doesn’t scorch him) and order 10 million people deported and…absolutely nothing will happen, because he screwed the transition.

Despite the hysteria, it’s still a government of laws, not of men.  Trump should have learned that in 2020. But, as I’ve said, Trump never learned anything.

FAFO.
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So Far


 Funny thing is, all that’s happened since Election Day is, Matt Gaetz has set a new record for going from nomination to withdrawal (Gaetz withdrew publicly after Trump told him to privately. So much for Trump’s “mandate.” No wonder Trump is screaming so loudly to keep what he never had.). And yet, Republicans already say things are better. 

I’m sure the social scientists and political scientists will chew on this a long time, and ponder deeply over it. I think there’s a simpler explanation:  GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. Not just the poll (as dubious as any),  but, accepting the data as sound, what does it say about the people, except: “A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest”?

LBJ and Bill Clinton, in my lifetime, understood that better than most. And the pundits and pontificators who never won a campaign, tut-tut some more about how this proves the people are not rational. And how, once again, the Democrats need to be more like the Republicans, who must be rational because from time to time they win the White House. Sort of like Elmo must be smart, all evidence to the contrary, because he’s rich.

The fish still rots from the head. Trump still learned nothing from four years in office except how to be totally ineffective. I know he’s now threatening to fire everyone (lawyers, staff) who worked for Jack Smith. Whether he even can is an open question. But the effort alone will render DOJ so ineffective Trump won’t be able to go after his enemies, much less prosecute real crimes. Who’s he going to put in charge of the “probe of the 2020 election”? Jeffrey Clark? Oh, wait, he was disbarred. How many DOJ lawyers will seek other opportunities rather than face the fate of Clark and Giuliani? Not a good thing for the country, but just the threat of it will make Congress flip out. 

Look at what they already did to Gaetz.

No one needed a finished vote count to know Trump didn’t have a mandate. Or a clue.

And satisfaction with the state of the country? Ask Joe Biden how fragile, and fickle, that “standard” is.
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Because Being Rich Means They Must Be Better Than Us

Arguably the most glaring flaw of capitalism is sometimes some really stupid people make it really big, and then everyone assumes because they are rich they must be smart.
Which is really a flaw of American culture, not capitalism.
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Friday, November 22, 2024

“RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAH!”

🤣🤣🤣

(You can also read the responses for insight into Trump supporters. The main theme is: “So what? Trump won!” Missing the point entirely, that this complaint COMES from Trump! They really can’t see him for what he is. They are the ones still coping.)
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“Winning Isn’t Everything.”

"It’s the only thing.” —Vince Lombardi.
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The Falling Leaves 🍂

According to the report, "With some votes still being counted, the tally used by The New York Times showed Mr. Trump winning the popular vote with 49.997 percent as of Thursday night, and he appears likely to fall below that once the final results are in — meaning he would not capture a majority." 
That led Lynn Vavreck, a political science professor at UCLA to quip, "If the definition of landslide is you win both the popular vote and Electoral College vote, that’s a new definition,” before predicting, "I would not classify this outcome as a landslide that turns into evidence of desire for a huge shift of direction or policy.”
Must be autumn.🍂 

Again:
I would bet you anything that a ranked-choice vote would have put him below Kamala Harris in the final results. It was one of the things I liked about our ranked-choice system is that it would possibly prevent the last choice of a majority of voters winning the election as you get from the typical way of doing it. 
No one should be allowed to gain an office unless they get over 50% of the votes, there's nothing democratic about that.
💯 

🍂
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“LOCK ‘EM UP!” Is A Universal Standard

It’s just a matter of who you mean by “they,”

(As ew has pointed out, the investigation (always necessary prior to grand jury indictment, unless you just want kangaroo courts), was delayed by 5th Amendment challenges that took time to resolve. If everything had gone faster, do you really think Roberts wouldn’t have written his immunity opinion two years earlier? And since the voters didn’t seem to care that Trump is a convicted felon, and twice indicted otherwise, did you really want to see him walk out of jail into the White House? ‘Cause that’s pretty much what would have happened. There is no Constitutional amendment regarding Presidential candidates who are serving time.)
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“It’s The Economy, Stupid “

The share of Republicans who say that they’re worse off financially than they were a year ago is already down 15-points since the election.

Link. 

You still contradict them at your electoral peril. Politics is about persuasion. Contradiction is the opposite of that.

The lesson here is that people are not “rational.” By which I mean they don’t think like thee and me. And sometimes I’m not so sure about thee. 🤔 
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Elon Musk Is A Super-Genius Who Will Fix Everything Wrong With Government

Fidelity: X is now worth about $9.4 billion, less than a quarter of what Elon Musk paid for it.
Or, you know, not.
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How It’s Going

Obviously, a lot of the things that [former] Rep. Gaetz did was disqualifying, but I think the tide has changed a little bit," Scaramucci said. "I think there's been a shape shift by the Republicans in the Senate. You know, they see Trump as a lame duck. They know there's one more election that he can have lots of influence on, which is the congressional election in two years, and I think they are fortifying themselves to block some of the things that he's done in the past, and so the Trump season, you know, this is 'The Apprentice: White House Edition' season two. I think the cast members up on Capitol Hill are ready for Donald Trump this time. I don't think they were as prepared as they are now, and I think the messaging [to Gaetz] was, behind closed doors: 'You're not going to make it, don't embarrass the president and withdraw.'"
With co-host Scarborough bluntly stating he doesn't think Gabbard will survive scrutiny of her record by Republicans and Democrats alike, Kay claimed her reputation among insiders likely precludes her from landing the highly sensitive intel post. 
"It's interesting talking to people in the intelligence community certainly but also in the national security side, but you're right, Joe, it is Tulsi Gabbard that's provoking more concern actually than [Defense Secretary nominee] Pete Hegseth is," she reported. 
"Maybe because people feel at the Department of Defense can work around Pete Hegseth," she elaborated. "Maybe it's because you still have the Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a national security adviser who can mitigate what happens at DOD in terms of that position. But Tulsi Gabbard – from what I have been told is that one thing she's not particularly famous for is keeping secrets." 
"There's an irony of putting somebody who has that reputation at the head of the intelligence community," she added.
"Do you know what happens when you fire a general? You create a legend," Scarborough told his panel. "When you create a legend you start lawsuits, you start about a three-year war against this general or that general." 
"It all sounds great, everybody's got a plan until what does Mike Tyson say, 'Everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face the first time.' All of these things that people are flexing about, ''I'm going to go in, and I'm going to fire this' -- you know, you do that, you create a legend, you create a political opponent that has the entire country behind him and it makes things tougher."
Blood in the water. And a 1.7% mandate. 😈
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Thursday, November 21, 2024

Reading The Tea Leaves

Thought Criminal goes first:
Another big part of that is the little mentioned attempt early in the Biden-Harris administration to boost the minimum wage as part of their wildly successful economic recovery program, including direct payments to Americans, WHICH WAS BLOCKED BY REPUBLICANS AND ONE SENATE ALLY, AS I RECALL WITH AN ORDER FROM TRUMP TO DO THAT. Kirsten Sinema is a one-person reason that more Americans didn't directly experience what would have been one of the greatest boosts in personal wealth among the working poor and many in the lower middle class. But she couldn't have done it WITHOUT UNANIMOUS REPUBLICAN HELP TO THE BENEFIT OF TRUMP. 
Which brings us to a third most obvious reason that Trump won, he had the support of the mass media that makes up what most Americans seen to believe is what they know about the world and what they believe they experience. Now, this is something that could, actually be studied accurately because you can see and analyze what the mass media did, potentially you could even come up with an accurate generalization of what the most observed online media did during the election period in the hundred or so days that comprised the campaign of Kamala Harris against Trump. Though it would be a massive undertaking. But if such a study of such an observable, you might say studyable phenomenon as that is impractically complex, it only proves my point made above that doing so for something you can't directly observe is impossible. I would point out one big part of that observable, even quantifiable phenomenon is the amount of coverage to opinion polls comprised the content of that media during those crucial days.
Yeah, keeping people angry against the incumbent so they vote against it is classic political strategy. Even better is doing nothing for them when you win. Which brings us to our guest:
During the “Rich Men North of Richmond” controversy, certain columnists pointed a finger at liberal elites, urging deep introspection about why they have lost touch with the anxieties of people like Oliver Anthony. Now that Trump has been reelected while winning more working-class voters, including Latinos, we’re mired in another such debate. 
No one should deny the need for such introspection. It’s obviously not enough for Democrats and liberals to say, “Our policies are better for people like Oliver Anthony.” A reformed approach should include an agenda that’s substantially more economically populist; a clear-eyed look at why certain liberal policies alienate working-class voters; and a deep dive into why working people are skeptical that Democrats fight for their material interests these days. 
But surely it’s a sign of another profound problem, one that deeply afflicts our discourse, that a genuine effort by Democrats to lift the fortunes of millions of people struggling with low overtime pay—one blocked by a Trump judge and business elites—garnered almost zero media attention. This, even as a working-class anthem partly about that very problem captivated the media for weeks. 
That disconnect captures one of the cardinal facts about our times. While Trump has broken with pro–big business orthodoxy to some degree—on tariffs and trade, for example—broadly speaking, he will outsource much of his agenda to the GOP’s plutocratic wing. He is expected to deeply slash the safety net to pay for more tax cuts for the rich, and to roll back many Biden labor policies, ones that arguably constitute the most pro-worker agenda in decades, perhaps doing nothing on overtime as well. 
The media obsesses over Oliver Anthony and treats MAGA’s fetishization of him as sincere—but for all of its dutiful coverage of our policy disputes, it can’t seem to convey the larger truth about which party’s policies are actually pro-worker, and which are not. 
This deception runs deep in right-wing media too. Media Matters found that Fox News devoted hours of programming to hyping “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and the network also made it the topic of the first GOP presidential debate. At my request, Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for Fox coverage of the ruling striking down the overtime rule—and found zero such coverage. 
Yes, Anthony’s song was about more than just overtime pay. It was about a broader set of social afflictions. That helps explain all the press attention to it. But after this extended media fixation, Trump and fellow populist JD Vance faced no media pressure at all during the campaign to say where they stood on Biden’s effort to expand overtime pay to millions, or whether they’ll continue it. 
That’s absurd. It reflects its own form of elite dereliction—one that leaves people less informed about the larger forces shaping their lives, the very thing, we’re told, that makes so many people like Oliver Anthony feel powerless and adrift. This elite failure too deserves some serious introspection. Perhaps someone should write a song about it.
One point not included in that conclusion is missing in action from the opening:
You probably missed it, because it created barely a ripple in the media, but last Friday, a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump struck down one of President Biden’s most pro-worker policies: his effort to ensure that far more Americans benefit from overtime pay. Around four million salaried workers with lower incomes are the losers in this decision, yet it generated startlingly few news stories and no outraged missives from leading columnists. 
Watching this all unfold brings to mind a now-forgotten controversy. Remember when Oliver Anthony, the little-known folk singer, went viral in 2023 with his song lamenting the plight of working people imposed by the “Rich Men North of Richmond”? Donald Trump and Republicans claimed the bearded, red-haired Southerner as one of their own, a veritable bard of MAGA country who’d crafted the ultimate right-wing populist ballad of protest aimed directly at supercilious elites. “This is the anthem of the forgotten Americans,” gushed Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Media commentary endlessly analyzed the song as a cry of anguish straight from the blue-collar heartland, one that elite liberals should take to heart as a sign of how badly they’d failed regular Americans.
Media commentary followed the lead of MTG and Trump. When was the last time AOC set the national agenda? Biden was President and a pretty good operator of the “bully pulpit.” Certainly better than Trump, who relied on tweets and conspiracy theories and telling people to inject bleach. And yet media commentary hangs on Trump’s every word, and takes a buffoon like MTG seriously. (Compare and contrast the efforts of Nancy Mace to make it hard for the first trans Representative to be able to pee in the Capitol. Does anybody really care? Is the MSM blowing up with commentary? Is it because it’s not “Jewish space lasers”? Or because she’s not MTG?).

And, right on cue, Big Media Thoughts are about how Democrats have abandoned the working-class. Inarguably because Democrats embrace racial and cultural and gender diversity, when the real power is with white people. Barely. But that’s a damned inconvenient argument.
Finally, Edsall brings in Nick Gourevitch, a partner at Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling firm that worked for the Harris campaign (and countless others) who finally notes the point that Democrats just lost a national election by about a point and a half, and outside of the presidential race actually did reasonably well. Clearly, Democrats need to do better, but Gourevitch makes the pretty obvious and I think salutary point that you need to consider pretty carefully which parts of your coalition you’re going to toss aside if you’re coalition is still around 50%.
It was a vibes election, so it’s best explained by a vibes analysis, right? Certainly a vibe that takes all its cues from MAGA. After all, it’s the only objective thing to do. 🤷🏻‍♂️ 

(The perennial narrative accommodates any electoral outcome: if Democrats lose the White House, they need to be more like Republicans. If they win, they need to reach out to Republicans. Fair and balanced, donchaknow?)
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Does This Mean If He Runs For Re-Election He Wins?

Or is that another thing that only makes America great again? So it could happen? 😵‍💫
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Was It Something He Did?

So, does Gaetz return to the 119th? (He resigned from the 118th). Would that drive the House Ethics Committee to take it up again? Maybe even release a report?
Pretty sure Gaetz resigned, and withdrew, for the same reason. I’d also guess a district that elected Gaetz is not going to elect a Democrat. So his departure doesn’t affect the House much.
I think the hammer of justice just broke on the anvil of reality. Trump cut Gaetz loose before Gaetz’ announcement. And Trump is now a lame duck. He can be belligerent later, but it’s gone. He’s not scary anymore.

First chink in the armor. First cut of the thousands of cuts. Gaetz was going to be the heat shield that let everyone else through. Now there’s blood in the water.

😈
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Called It!

Starting “day one”? I don’t think so.
Trump will also need facilities that have yet to be built, staff yet to be hired, and the compliance of foreign nations willing to accept the millions of people he's planned to deport — and who may not grant it, Lind argued. 
Such serious problems plagued deportation efforts mounted in the 1930s and the 1950s that purported to remove masses of people but, according to Lind, relied on public relations to create the illusion of success. 
"Both entailed horrific conditions for those caught and deported, and the tearing apart of families with claims to both the United States and other countries," Lind wrote. 
"But in both cases, the federal government ultimately took credit for 'deporting' some people it never actually laid hands on — those who had been pressured or terrorized into leaving."
Yeah, we’ve been down this road once or twice before. Trump will deport “millions” the way he built his wall.

Emptywheel used to call people who reposted Trump’s lies “data mules.” The same criticism can be leveled against taking Trump’s schemes at face value and fretting about “autocracy.” This isn’t Russia; we don’t have the culture of Tsarist Russia that propped up Stalin and now Putin.

Instead of wringing your virtual hands and whinging about election outcomes, do something helpful:
This is also why Lind urges those who condemn Trump's campaign of mass deportation do what they can to support undocumented people in their local communities. 
Document cases when the government breaks the law, pressures local officials not to collaborate, objects to armed forces being deployed in the states and support legal representation for immigrants, Lind urged. 
"[It] starts with a committed and cleareyed understanding of what is actually happening, and a willingness to treat abuses of power as a rupture and an aberration — something that can, and should, be fought," Lind wrote. 
"This work will require, particularly for those who are not themselves immigrants, a promise not to let pessimism do the Trump administration’s job for it."
Trump’s “border czar” says he’s going to punish sanctuary cities. How? Give him the middle finger. It’s our right and duty as Americans! (Seriously. Trump threatened that last time. He literally couldn’t do a thing about it.)
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If He’s So Rich, He Must Be Smart

I still say we should cut rocket contracts with private vendors. NASA knows how to build rockets that don’t blow up, and can carry heavy payloads. They also did it without destroying the once pristine area of Boca Chica on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Here, I’ll save you the trouble of reading the article:
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Self-Examination Is The Hardest Work Of All

In a sense, it is in the deep chords of distrust where Americans seem most united,” the authors of the report wrote in their introduction. 
The findings from the study, conducted before the election by researchers at Louisiana State University, the University of Maryland and the University of Chicago, led Schmemann to believe that Donald Trump’s victory was not the surprise many found it to be.
Trump achieved his highest vote count. And yet his margin of  victory was 1.7% of votes cast.

“Deep chords of distrust” is a little overwrought. Lots of seeking after an overarching grand unified theory, when the ground level granular analysis hasn’t really yet begun. 

How much of this outcome is just “same as it ever was,” but God forbid we even consider that. There’s more than a little “we were better than this but the Yahoos snuck into camp while our guard was down” explaining away going on. Which isn’t divisive because, you know, they’re the ones being divisive. Sort of a “those white people are messing it up for us white people” argument.

Same as it ever was, IOW. It’s not that we have to examine our culpability, whoever “we” is. It’s more that we have to examine our assumptions. Change the facts, change the outcome. Now, what do we think the facts are?

Addendum: regarding the comment below: 💯 
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Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Why I Really Need Advent To Get Here

George Conway:
Not to ruin the wonderfully positive vibes on this site, but is anyone else here concerned that American society, politics, and culture have become morally and psychologically addled?
Do you mean before 1965? Or after?

(Yeah, I’m getting tired. I have Advent posts stacked up to Xmas Eve. I’m ready to move on. Time I started….)


I don't know what the various Protestant lectionaries do but this pre-Advent season concentrates a lot on Revelations in Catholicism. I'm trying to follow it divorced from the action-comic reading that you get if you don't read it allegorically. I've found reading what Luke Timothy Johnson says about it in The Writings of the New Testament An Interpretation is helpful. I should pay more attention to the Common Lectionary. It's helpful since there's no church in our town, anymore.
I wish the RCL gave more space to Revelation, but the comic book readings of it that pervade Protestant culture would overwhelm most sermons. By the time you explain what it doesn’t say, your time’s up or you’ve lost everyone. Of course, I used it for funerals (Chapter 21), but nobody really listens to funeral sermons. 

Revelation shows up for the Last Sunday of Pentecost for one year of the cycle, IIRC. And maybe once in another year, in the long grind of Pentecost.That always excited me because it was my only chance to exegete the text. But because it was my only chance, the excitement soon faded.

Maybe I should try to work it into a Xmas exegesis… 🤔 
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“The Mass Of Men [sic] Lead Lives Of Quiet Desperation”

This is just sad.
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This’ll Happen…

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) revealed this week that Republican senators had developed a plan to confirm President-elect Donald Trump's nominations, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as attorney general, before the new president is sworn in. 
During a Wednesday interview on Real America's Voice, Tuberville vowed to overcome the objections of Democrats despite sexual misconduct allegations against Gaetz and Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. 
"We're in charge, and if we back up, it's like this Matt Gaetz and Pete Hexeth, all these people that are being nominated," Tuberville said. "Hey, it should be a no-brainer. Prove to me he's a criminal. If you do, I won't vote for him. But until then, he's in." 
Host Steve Bannon argued that Republican senators had to be ready to confirm Trump's nominations before his inauguration. 
"And then on the 20th, you hit them with a third wave of flood the zone with executive orders and everything the president's going to do," Bannon opined. "Would you be supportive of that to get the confirmations of at least these frontline big things starting right after you guys are sworn in?" 
"Oh, yeah. That'll be done. We've already planned that," Tuberville replied. "We're sworn in January 3rd, but I think it's a couple of days after that. But we should have the sec def, the attorney general, the secretary treasurer."
And then this'll happen. Tuberville is the dumbest man in D.C. Even when Trump is there. I’m beginning to worry about Ron. 

These clowns can’t do what they threaten to do. Why act like they can?
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A Lot Of Us Are In The Real World…

And we’re wondering: “Who gives a shit about this?” Or is all this posturing and “principles above party”preening really just about tribalism?

Whether you buy a membership at MAL or spit on the ground every time Trump’s name gets mentioned is all one to me. But quit acting like God died and left you in charge.
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Put It All Together It Spells “Train Wreck”

Somebody’s gonna have to explain to Miller what “recess” means. Because he seems to think Principal Trump is going to send the Senate to the playground for an hour.

Tell me again how much Trump has learned since last time. And how he’s surrounding himself with people (Linda McMahon; Hegseth; Gaetz; RFK,Jr.; Dr. Oz) who know how government works. Because honestly, this is veering away from fascism and tyranny into farce and chaos II: electric boogaloo.
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But…But…But! Recess Appointments!

Both sources claim that the MAGA "transition team is quietly preparing a list of alternative defense secretary candidates should Trump abandon Hegseth." 
One source emphasized, "It's becoming a real possibility."
Yeah, it’s all gossip. But that’s pretty much what news is. 

As for the “Trump now has absolute control” narrative: yeah, right.
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An Inconvenient Truth

An under covered story is how GOP politicians fear their physical safety if they defy Trump agenda. A high level MAGA person told me: “They should be afraid. They didn’t win the election. Trump did.”
Gabriel Sherman

But Joe and Mika! They should fight because I don’t have to!!
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Behold The Awesome Power And Competence Of A Trump Who Now Knows What He’s Doing!

Rule by Twitter is the only effective rule in America!🇺🇸 
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Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Trump Is Going To Get Soooo Much Done!

Even Dan Patrick gave up on that issue. "The only thing we have to fear is … fear itself!” Although it’s a lot easier to say “Let’s you and him fight!” Urging other people to stand up for your principles is…pretty weenie.

If Joe and Mika think Trump is that dangerous, that’s their business. I prefer not to see people feed his megalomania, which is pretty much what the on-line critics of this weekend visit are doing. Most of the critics act like they’re daring Trump to come after them. But they aren’t even keeping the elephants away. 🐘
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Going Down Smooth

"It's interesting Trump didn't apparently really call any senators before he made these nominations," Nichols said. "He's making these calls after he's already sent them, so not a whole lot of advising in the advise-and-consent part. Two, we have to see what the senators actually say when they get pressed and pushed by Donald Trump. We talked to Sen. [Kevin] Cramer (R-ND). He said Trump is very persuasive, but you know, everyone at the table knows senators don't like being told what to do."

"They like their prerogatives and they want to see the report, to see the contents of that ethics report," Nichols added, "and they say they want to give Gaetz a fair hearing, but they want to know what's actually in there, and it's pretty clear whether or not it's the entire report or just the contents of the report, that a lot of the details will come out and then it's just up to the senators. Are they willing to defy the president that just handed them the majority?"

Is the Senate going to immediately recess for two weeks after Trump's inauguration? I seriously doubt it.  It takes a vote of the Senate to recess, which again means Trump can't lose any votes.  If he tries to force it, the Senate could just return to session the next day and tell Trump they'll see him in the D.C. court.  Maybe Chutkan's court.

Wouldn't that be ironic?

 Senate Republicans are rejecting a proposal floated by some advisers to President-elect Trump to take the job of conducting background checks for high-level nominees away from the FBI and give it to private investigators.

Doing so could make it easier for some nominees to win Senate confirmation, but GOP senators say the FBI should retain its leading role in conducting background checks. They argue its agents have access to criminal information that private investigators simply can’t match.

Obviously not every last GOP senator; but enough to make a difference?  With a three member majority, it wouldn't take many.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that the FBI has access to information gathered by law enforcement on the federal, state and local levels that private firms don’t.

“If you wanted to supplement it with a private firm, I’d say OK. But the FBI does have access to information that probably a private firm wouldn’t have, even a really good savvy one,” he said.

Cramer said a private firm could help the FBI in its background investigations, but he “sure wouldn’t leave it” entirely outside the FBI’s hands.

I'm just citing the arguments, not drawing conclusions.  But if Senators take their responsibilities seriously, it will only take a few to force Trump to follow the usual rules.  It's clear Trump doesn't like what the FBI finds, and so doesn't want it found.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) argued “it’s just been routine” for the nation’s top law enforcement agency to handle background checks for high-level appointments.

“It is important to do these background checks, and the FBI has done this” for decades, she noted. “It’s just been routine that they have been the one that has handled it. You don’t go to an outside private investigator, right?

“It’s not just for the [executive branch] positions. If you’re a Senate staffer seeking to get that security clearance, you go — we all go — through that same process,” she said.

“I get there is distrust by some of different agencies, and the FBI is not immune from that, but I do think it is vitally important, particularly from a national security perspective, that you have a level of vetting that is thorough,” Murkowski added.

“What agenda does the private investigator have?” she asked.

Like I said, she doesn't have to persuade anybody else.  She just has to stand on her concerns.  Three more like her, and the appointment fails.  Or stalls until the background check report is delivered.

I still don't give Trump as much credit as the Cassandras do.
Will all the GOP Senators turn into Susan Collins? It could happen. Of course, Wall Street is already concerned about tariffs (and so who the Sec. of Treasury will be).  The military industrial complex is surely not excited about Hegseth. And there's blood in the water for Gaetz.

We'll just have to see.
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Keeping Calm And Carrying On

Read the tweet, and “We’re done for! We’re done for!” Read the passage in the images, and: we’re not.

Even if Trump and Johnson try to force the Senate into recess, as the interview notes, the Majority and Minority Leaders can call the Senate back into session the next day. Unmentioned is NLRB v Canning. This long quote gives some insight into how ambiguity in the Constitution is handled.
The Supreme Court ultimately adopted a relatively broad interpretation of the Clause in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning. With respect to the meaning of the phrase Recess of the Senate, the Court concluded that the phrase applied to both inter-session recesses and intra-session recesses. In so holding, the Court, finding the text of the Constitution ambiguous, relied on (1) a pragmatic interpretation of the Clause that would allow the President to ensure the continued functioning of the federal government when the Senate is away, and (2) long settled and established [historical] practice of the President making intra-session recess appointments. The Court declined, however, to say how long a recess must be to fall within the Clause, instead holding that historical practice counseled that a recess of more than three days but less than ten days is presumptively too short to trigger the President’s appointment power under the Clause. With respect to the phrase may happen, the majority, again finding ambiguity in the text of the Clause, held that the Clause applied both to vacancies that first come into existence during a recess and to vacancies that initially occur before a recess but continue to exist during the recess. In so holding, the Court again relied on both pragmatic concerns and historical practice.
Note that, per Canning, a recess of less than 10 days is too short to trigger the recess power. Sure, Trump could challenge that; but it wouldn’t get his appointees in office any sooner. Or any surer, for that matter. Mostly he’d just waste time and resources, and piss off Senators when he needs every one of them on-side.

Trump wants to talk like a dictator. That still doesn’t mean he’ll be able to act like one.

Pro tip: there is always “ambiguity” in the law. That’s what allows for justice. Just because a statute or clause is not “iron clad,” doesn’t mean it’s a wet noodle. Keep calm and carry on.

Bottom line: Trump is still the same ignoramus who thinks there was a Clinton “socks case” that gave him the right to whatever he wanted on the way out the door the first time. The PRA actually established the opposite of that (and Judicial Watch lost the “socks case”). IOW, he may make more threatening noises than last time, but he’s still clueless. And government is not a chew toy; although the ignorant think so.

Take a breath. Maybe think about Xmas. Or at least Advent.
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“What Have We Done To Xmas?”🎄


Black Friday started before Halloween this year. No longer the day after Thanksgiving, it’s a state-of-mind/marketing gimmick that has fully devoured “ ‘X’ shopping days until Xmas.” (Remember that? Quaint now, isn’t it?)  We no longer countdown to Xmas. 🎄 we hustle it on stage in October, and won’t let it go until it showers us with benisons.

The seasonal lights went up at the local mall sometime since Hallowe’en. That’s not unusual timing. What is unusual is that they used to stay dark until Black Friday, when there would be a “lightning ceremony” to promote the beginning of the Xmas shopping season. With no fanfare whatsoever, they lit up sometime last week. We can’t be bothered with preliminaries anymore. Besides, the “shopping season” starts in October now.

I’ve even seen inflated Xmas decorations on front lawns. That I can forgive. A) it’s probably new to the household this year; B) given the times, we can be forgiven for having to construct something upon which to rejoice. Blame it on our Puritan heritage. Xmas is the closest we as a society get to rejoicing.. Is it really any surprise we’re so hungry for it?

Still, we’ve turned our cultural seed corn into candy corn, and we’re rapidly devouring it. It’ll make us sick, 🤢 but we can’t help ourselves. I don’t even care about the “commercialism” anymore (another quaint term from a bygone era). But hammering everything special out of the season as it is to “airy thinness beat” the better to stretch over two months, and soon three, does not make the season golden; it’s not even brass. It’s more like tin. A dull-colored alloy, not something nearly pure.

And it increases our cultural race towards the future; the pell-mell plummet to a goal we never reach because when we do, we’re already disappointed and racing on to the next thing coming, expecting that to set everything aright. If we can finally just make the right purchases (policies; ideas; narratives; politicians; things) beforehand.

What have we done to…our culture?


In our neighborhood Halloween decorations (mostly giant skeletons) quickly morphed into Christmas ones by adding a red scarf to said skeletons! Not even a nod to the next holiday of Thanksgiving. sigh
Those giant skeletons are expensive! And hard to put up! Gotta get your money’s worth out of ‘em, huh? 😹💀
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😳 ⚡️⚡️😱

Kind of wild the CW persists that most voters paid attention to “legacy” news rather than to their own feelings.

Because the objective evidence is that inflation was never that high, nor affected food prices disproportionately. Yet Trump kept insisting that, just as he’d built a border wall he never built, inflation was the worst under Biden in national history.

And apparently enough people bought it to elect him.

But if the MSM had just done a little more reporting on the speculative implications of his promises to deport 20 million people (a promise even Trump’s people are backing away from. What, you thought Mike Johnson was speaking out of turn?) before the election, that would have kept someone from stepping on the butterfly?

🦋 

We really need some new narratives. The old ones have just led to the shock and awe of post-election despair. And shock and awe is keeping us from seeing clearly what happened, and what it means.

Mostly, it doesn’t mean Trump gets to do whatever he wants for four years. Or that a vast majority of the country has embraced fascism (which is apparently still fascism only when it scares white people; but not when it’s the 600 year old practice of oppressing non-whites). Or, more ludicrously, that Trump is now President for Life.

Whole sight, or all the rest is desolation.
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Monday, November 18, 2024

Likeliest Outcome

Trump declares he deported 50 million people (just like he declared he built the entire border wall he promised. And why not inflate the numbers?).  MAGA cheers. Trump takes a fake victory lap.

The alternative is: it blows up in his face, and his head explodes in an apoplectic fit.

The only problem there is: then we get JD Vance.
Deportation Potemkin village, coming up. As I have said before, It and its followers will be satisfied with tv of frightened deportees. Expect telegenic stuff that really doesn't do anything. If it did, a lot of agriculture ans construction oxes would be gored and that's not going to happen. I could be wrong but if they push this through , invest in ammunition,
The “tell" is that Trump says he’ll do this on Day One. Without an SOD? Yeah, right. Even if he could get the Senate to recess the day of his inauguration, they’d have to be out 11 days before he could start to make recess appointments. He can take his hand off that Bible and start signing orders there on the platform, it still doesn’t mean anything gets started for months.

If he declares a “national emergency,” somebody with standing can sue and throw it into court (and an injunction) instanter. Trump responds…how? Waiting for the Gaetz hearings?

Or he waits several months while Department heads get confirmed and figure out where the bathrooms are. (Cheney and Rumsfeld knew what they were doing and it took them how long to organize the invasion of Iraq and suppression of dissent?  Trump is picking FoxNews hosts who don’t have the first clue how government works, much less how DOD  and DOJ function. If he gets his way, he’ll have people ready, willing, but…able? Yeah, right.). So, yeah, Trump is gonna Potemkin village the whole thing. He’s got to keep telling us how “strong” he is, because the minute it’s obvious he isn’t…the house of cards collapses.

Trump won’t be effective or scary. He’ll be too busy keeping all the plates in the air. Which is why I disdain all the Cassandras yelling about how bad this is. Trump is powerful because Trump says so, not because he’s got a team of Cheneys and Rumsfelds behind him. The Cassandras keep telling us how powerful Trump is, so be afraid ! Be very afraid! 😱 

Whose side are they on, again?
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WHAT?!? LYING WORKS??!!??

OMIGAWD!!! Momma never told me there’d be days like this! To have lived almost 70 years and just now find this out!

Well, all I can say is, Thank God for Twitter! Where else do you get life lessons like this?
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Cassandra Rubs Her Hands With Glee

“The Trump administration is going to plunge America into a cross between The Hunger Games and The Celebrity Apprentice, unfortunately at great expense to the future of our democracy and the humanity of millions of Americans who will suffer at the hands of this gallery of degenerates," she added. "The American electorate f---ed around and now they’re going to find out.”
Accountability for thee, but not for me!

Trump  is going to round up 10, 20, 30 million people (the number varies depending on what day it is in Trump’s head). And put them where? Congress would have to allocate funds for camps/centers first, and those will take time to build. And where do they go? Public lands? Hello, law suits! Environmental impact alone could tie it up long enough for Congress to change hands and cut funding. 

And who does the rounding up? The military?  Posse Comitatus Act has entered the chat. Yes, Trump thinks he can use the military. But he’s getting his legal advice from Tom Fitton:
Fitton had written on November 8: "GOOD NEWS: Reports are the incoming @RealDonaldTrump administration prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program."
Using the Insurrection Act requires a bit more than: “SCARY BROWN PEOPLE!” Farm and construction laborers are not exactly an existential threat to civil order.

Even if the courts allow the military to engage in law enforcement (a HUGE “if”), you still need places to put them until their court hearings. Deportation requires a court order. Congress has to authorize the additional courts, the new judges, and the funding. Or you can wait on the bottleneck that is the immigration justice system now. Trump will be dead and forgotten by then.

Delays, delays, delays… Not to mention the suits challenging all the procedures Trump will try to use. Strap in, indeed.

And now the farmers enter the chat:
The idea of mass deportations is frightening and scary, just on a humane level," dairy farmer Jennifer Tilton Flood reportedly said. "With regards to our community, mass deportations could affect our entire dairy industry throughout the U.S." 
About 950,000, or nearly 45 percent, out of an estimated 2.2 million farm laborers in the U.S. are undocumented immigrants, Newsweek reported. 
Flood argued businesses and churches should expect a "catastrophic nightmare" to come as U.S. Customs and Border Protection came under Trump's control. 
"There is a great chance for families to be broken apart," said Flood. "A lot of my team are raising Americans at home, and so it's tough. There is a lot of concern and there's a lot of panic." 
Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign national press secretary, has reportedly said her boss' administration will dedicate itself to "the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers and human traffickers in American history." 
Experts warn such a mass deportation effort could come with a hefty price tag of up to $315 billion, according to the report. 
Restaurant owners say they're afraid of the cost to their businesses. 
"If these workers are deported, restaurants will close, leading to massive losses in revenue and a significant downturn in the economy," Sam Sanchez, a National Restaurant Association board member, told Newsweek.
I don’t assume all of these people voted for Trump, or deserve what could happen. This will hit all of us with the force of a slow-moving national natural disaster. Except farmers are second only to seniors in getting the attention of Congress. Even Ted Cruz would listen to farmers and ranchers who don’t want to lose their workers. Just the threat of it will be enough to make Congress close the purse. I’m old enough to remember when W had “political capital” (his term) and was going to use it to privatize Social Security. Remember when that happened? Yeah, because it didn’t. There was not even so much as a hearing in Congress.

I’m not saying things won’t be bad. I’m just saying they won’t be apocalyptic. But apocalypse sells, so expect to hear a lot more about it this December. Fitting, actually, since Advent is the closest thing the liturgical calendar has to a season about the revelation.
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So, About That $2 Trillion

The new Gilded Age:
Elon Musk's SpaceX is preparing to launch a tender offer in December to sell existing shares at a price of $135 per share, two sources familiar with the matter said. 
The tender offer would value SpaceX at more than $250 billion, according to the sources. 
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. 
Musk, the world's richest person, is expected to wield significant influence in Washington to secure favorable government treatment for his companies, including SpaceX, after Donald Trump's victory for a second presidency. 
Musk's dream of transporting humans to Mars could also become a bigger national priority under Trump, Reuters reported earlier this month. 
NASA's Artemis program, which aims to use SpaceX's Starship rocket to put humans on the moon as a proving ground for later Mars missions, is expected to focus more on the Red Planet under Trump and target uncrewed missions there this decade.
We could start with cutting those SpaceX contracts. After all: 
"Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another."
Right, Elmo?
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Sunday, November 17, 2024

It’s The Symbolism, Stupid

The Speaker of the House leaning over a seat to get into the picture though he’s not at the table. He just wants to let you know he was there.

Like the little brother hanging out with his older brother’s friends. And not at all like the third most important officeholder on the plane and, at the moment, the only officeholder.
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🎶 So Much Resistance From Behind 🎶

"Everybody look what’s goin’ down…”

I’m seriously wondering how much push back Trump gets trying to attack the top ranks of the military. If Johnson isn’t sure Trump can deport anyone he pleases and isn’t sure about tariffs, what are the odds there’s not much support for wrecking the military.

I know the popular sentiment is that Trump will burn everything to the ground, but one helluva lotta people have to get out of the way/go stone crazy for that to happen. And aside from the fringes (MTG; Troy Nehls; people, i.e., with no “people”), what happens when the rubber actually meets the road?

I don’t expect the GOP to all turn into Democrats; but let the waffling begin as they figure out Trump meant what he said. Owning the libs is one thing. Wrecking national security and the military? Yeah, I don’t think that flies.

But we’ll see. I mean, what else can we do?

(Just by way of explanation:
I’m sure he speaks for…several anonymous people on Twitter.)
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Government Inaction

Not sure whether the Elon/Vivek "DOGE" frolic is going to raise more Anti-Deficiency Act issues (by doing stuff) or Federal Advisory Committee Act issues (by proposing stuff). But it'll sure be a litigation bonanza, either way...
Steve Vladeck on Blue Sky.

The GAO on the Anti-Deficiency Act:
This act prohibits federal agencies from obligating or expending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation, and from accepting voluntary services.
The Department of Government Efficiency is, or rather, will be, an advisory group to the OMB. If it is covered by the Anti-Deficiency Act, Elmo’s search for “volunteers” is null and void. If it’s an advisory committee, it’s covered by FACA (Federal Advisory Committee Act), which imposes a laundry list of requirements. Just the kind of thing I’m sure Elmo will complain is “inefficient.”

I predict serious boredom setting in almost immediately, as Elmo finds out he can’t play with his new toys. Sooner, even, as he finds out there aren’t any toys, just lots of bureaucracy and record keeping. You know, the kind of stuff government actually functions on. 🧸 

So is Congress going to repeal all these laws and regulations, in between recessing so Trump can do whatever he likes?
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Gaetz: “I Am An Innocent Man!”

"Or at least not really all THAT guilty! Hell, she looked 16!”

I hope the Judicial Committee allows the cameras in.
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Kamala Was The Wrong Candidate And It’s All Joe Biden’s Fault

Kamala Harris has, as of this writing, the fourth-most votes of any presidential candidate in U.S. history, the most by any woman, and the second-most by any Democrat, ever. She’s won about 4 million more votes than Barack Obama in 2008, 7.2 million more votes that Obama in 2012, 7.3 million more votes than Hillary Clinton, and 10.1 million more votes than Donald Trump in 2016.
And yes, it’s still a matter of turnout (the most amusing and ignorant counter to this tweet in the responses is that the number of voters “grows” each year. Uh, no. And irrelevant, since this is about raw numbers, not percentages):
We’re now down to 5.3 million fewer voters, and shrinking. In 2020, 158,429,631 Americans voted. As of this writing 153,103,472 Americans have voted. We will probably finish this cycle with a couple million fewer votes than 2020, and the pandemic year was a wild one — lockdowns and social distancing and masking requirements, massive unemployment, George Floyd, a late Supreme Court vacancy — and the intense and turbulent times likely spurred higher turnout than usual.
So it’s all return to status quo, except the status quo rests on a knife edge. The change is a long time coming. But it’s still coming.
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