Since he’ll be Trump’s AG now, I guess the investigation into him (allegedly) paying for sex with underage girls is really going to be dropped.
When you want to show what your administration is really going to be like, making Matt Gaetz Attorney General is one way to do it. I hope the DoJ is stocked with sufficient copies of the Constitution in their law library, since Gaetz will be wiping his ass with it every fucking day.
Coming soon to a newspaper near you:
“I think Matt has learned his lesson and I look forward to him enforcing the rule of law at the Department of Justice.” — Susan Collins
Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence seems like a restrained pick in comparison.
Aziz, light!
Pederasts of a feather stick together.
Baud
Headline reveals no negative info for normies. Good job.
No Nym
“Senate Republicans alarmed by Gaetz pick.”
Seriously? At this point, why?
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Sadly for them it won’t keep them out of the camps.
hrprogressive
If Senate GOP is so alarmed, they can reject him.
They won’t, and the corprofascist media is doing a fine job normalizing creepy Fascist sex predators with those headlines.
Elizabelle
“Provocative.”
Fuck the fucking Vichy Times.
Splitting Image
As I mentioned in the previous thread, this likely means that a lot of the lawsuits against the Catholic church are going to get dropped too. I am assuming that this is what Timothy Dolan was discussing with the orange thing before the election. Evangelicals, Mormons, and Amish have their own scandals too.
Sexual assault in general, I think, will be off the radar for the next four years. And by “off the radar”, I mean far more common, not talked about, and institutionally protected.
@mistermix.bsky.social
It will be interesting — and by “interesting” I probably mean “disappointing” — to see what Collins and Murkowski do about this appointment.
Archon
Does Trump have any pets? If he does he should make his dog FBI director. Sure, liberals concerned about competency and rule of law might have some issues but that ship has sailed and you gotta admit that would make for some good television. Fido in a doggy FBI jacket lifting up his paw to greet his new FBI underlings? Priceless.
America wants the carnival and a part of me is here for it.
zhena gogolia
@Archon: He doesn’t have any pets.
Baud
@Archon:
Right. I understand why people care, but they need to stop. Oppose Trump, certainly, but it’s not our responsibility until the voters change their minds.
Jackie
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I posted this at the end of the dying thread, but it fits better here:
With the deeply concerned furrowed brow.
JaySinWA
I thought he was famous for not having any animal pets. Lindsey Graham (and a whole bunch of other submissives) however…
ETA I wonder if they will start showing up in dog collars, leashed and on all fours.
MattF
It’s a test for the Senate. Will they all roll over? Will the adults be separated from the non-adults? Will they get their tongue all the way in? We shall see.
Jackie
@Archon: TCFG hates pets.
Baud
Our own Tom L. Is on the same page as me
sab
I am a CPA and we have ethics rules on what to do when you think your boss is fucking up. They are quite mild.
For attorneys it is stricter. I passed the bar and got licensed in1980, decided law wasn’t for me and bailed as quickly as possible (four years) but I cannot believe, despite Federalist Society, that their ethics have vanished altogether. Every attorney is an officer of the court. There is a limit to how much they can fuck around without penalty, regardless of what their boss wants.
People in DOJ are either respectable law-abiding lifers, or guys hoping to make a name and move-up. Neither of those types of people will jump on board with obvious bad law moves that will damage their post Trump career or even their law license. There may be a few stray idiots, but probably not many. Aileen Cannon has a lifetime appointment (on the Federal bench, not at DOJ.) DOJ lawyers do not, and they will want to keep their law licenses intact.
Lobo
I have to admit this made me laugh when I first saw it. Still waiting for the other shoes to drop. I wonder how the Onion is doing? Where is Van Jones to say, “This is the day Trump became President!”
CatRadio
If there is a plus to this (hint: there isn’t), it’s that Gaetz won’t be our congressman for much longer.
grumbles
I think “Provocative” works, just not in the sense the Times meant it.
Gaetz and the Fox freak are meant to flush out any remaining pockets of independence or self-respect among Republican Senators so those folks can be targeted and flushed.
JaySinWA
@sab: Bob Barr would like to have a word.
No Nym
@Jackie: “I was shocked at the nomination. This is why the Senate’s advice and consent process is so important. I’m sure that there will be many, many questions raised at Mr. Gaetz’s hearing.”
It is good to see the Senators fight for their “process,” I guess, but does anyone believe for a minute that he won’t be confirmed?
Archon
@Jackie: Dang, I guess a part of me is hoping Trump goes full Caligula.
eemom
@Archon:
No animal would get within a mile of trump.
cmorenc
@hrprogressive: Trump will use the “Acting” (agency head) tactic with Gaetz, as with many of his picks who may be too objectionable even to enough R senators to block confirmation. IIRC he can keep someone as interim “acting” head for up to a year bf having to replace his original candidate with choice #2 as acting head. For AG especially, it’s guaranteed to be someone equally or more repulsively inappropriate than Gaetz, hard as that is to imagine.
different-church-lady
@Jackie: And as I replied on that same thread: “Goddamn, that woman is a fool.”
OlFroth
Gaetz will be carefully reviewing all of the kiddie porn evidence compiled by the DOJ over the past several decades.
NotMax
We’re gonna need a bigger clown car.
//
different-church-lady
@Archon:
Well, there’s Mike Lindell…
different-church-lady
@OlFroth: Reminds me of that joke that ends with, “I got 10 Our Fathers, 10 Hail Marys, and 3 good leads.”
Shalimar
Future headline: FBI surveillance network repurposed to prioritize upskirt cams
oldgold
Did Trump do this to give cover to his other questionable nominees and the Republican Senate?
PIGL
Well, every cloud is a silver lining. These events pretty much establish that the deep state does not exist.
Splitting Image
@oldgold:
I doubt it. If anything, it’s to draw attention to the fact that he’s now gotten away with his own escapades with teenage girls and this is his version of “your body, my choice”.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@PIGL: Trump will just tell his cultists that he fixed it. They’ll believe anything.
bbleh
I am increasingly convinced this is a pure WWE strategy. Over-the-top mediagenic carnival that gets the rubes cheering. It has nothing to do with governance — not that the Orange Thing cares about governance — except insofar as it sabotages it.
My question now is, for how long will the mainstream media play along? They love the spectacle of course, and they’re all in ass-covering-and-ingratiation mode now, but when things have settled down, and the inevitable flagrant chaos continues, which way will they fall? Will they stick with the entertainment, come what may, or will they decide that chaos! OMG! Nation In Peril! is a better story?
Not saying the MSM is the touchstone of politics, but they DO have a BIG effect on the
stupidslow-information voters, and those were the margin of victory this time.Lobo
Forgot to add the DOD pick has a history with far-right militias and tattoos indicating Nazi sympathies.
Again, how is the Onion going to survive?
Jackie
@different-church-lady: And Lindsey…
NotMax
Le sigh. The stupid, it burns.
cmorenc
@sab: Speaking of Aileen Cannon, the realistic possibility that Justice Thomas may use sometime the next 2 years while Trump had an R senate to retire at a moment when his replacement will be like-minded RW. Since Trump is transactional, she will immediately jump to the top of his list of nominees, especially since it would be a huge FU to all who attempted to prosecute Trump for his criminal behavior.
Baud
@NotMax:
No wonder Trump won.
scav
A government of all the Incitatus.
Sister Golden Bear
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Susan Collins is “very concerned” once again. Won’t stop her from voting for Gaetz in the end.
hrprogressive
@sab:
CPA’s are charged with not fucking up rich people’s money, so of course, ethics and other standards for them are more routinely upheld.
They could fuck up someone who *matters* taxes or tax evasion!
Baud
The fact that every Dem will vote against Gaetz just proves how out of touch they are with working class Americans.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
They will do nothing.
When people said there would be no guardrails with Hair Furor 2.0, I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Now I do. These picks make DeVos seem like Arne Duncan…just because I wanted to slip Arne Duncan in there.
In all seriousness, this is insane. Every one will sail thru the Senate because our institutions are broken.
JaySinWA
I doubt it, Thomas doesn’t have anything personally to gain by retiring and the gratuities would likely stop cold.
Baud
@JaySinWA:
He could get paid to retire. John Oliver tried it.
Leto
@sab: @JaySinWA: Former Acting Assistant U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Clark would like to have a word as well. He’s in the process of disbarment atm.
K-Mo
I’m keeping an eye on Peltola in AK. If nobody gets 50% it will go to a run off which could benefit her.
cmorenc
@Jackie: IIRC, Collins’s seat is up for election in the 2026 mid-terms. Hopefully her faux-conscience concern troll schtick will have worn too thin this time to win reelection, but my hopes are tempered by her success in pulling it off to win a come-from-behind re-election battle in 2020 against a seemingly strong, well-financed D opponent.
Baud
@K-Mo:
Oh good. I thought she was toast.
Shakti
I am now trolling right wingers (Ukrainian-Canadian-American married to a Russian-American ) with the idea that Tulsi Gabbard is director of national security. Of course, this person enthusiastically dismissed the idea that Trump trying to shake down Zelenskyy in exchange for weapons was bad, think that NATO is useless, and thinks that Trump would better.
Is it productive? No.
Is it nice? No.
JaySinWA
Not just concerned, but “Shocked”, shocked I tell you.
JPL
@Baud: It doesn’t matter because the republicans could end up with 54 seats in the Senate. It will take decades to pare that back.
eclare
@Archon:
No. TCFG does not have any pets. Thank gawd.
JaySinWA
@Baud: John Oliver tried to buy Thomas’ retirement and failed. But arguably bid too low.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Archon:
Incitatus is far more qualified than all of these people.
And for those of you who haven’t seen one of the greatest performances in TV history, please watch this, especially the “typical” part:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUHYlYgXOS8
JPL
Calling all the front pagers to ask IMMA to do a summary of Article II, section 3 of the constitution. I guess trump found a loophole that allows him to call a recess of Congress.
Shakti
Bumping this b/c Elissa Slotkin, incoming freshman senator from Michigan, spooked the hell out of an oppo tailer/stalker by sweetly asking how his dogs were doing by name and managed to scare the hell out of him:
https://balloon-juice.com/2024/11/13/department-of-wank/#comment-9430391
Baud
@JPL:
Will of the voters.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
She’s down 3%. If Begich stays under 50%, then it’s ranked choice.
And in great irony, the repeal ranked choice is ahead.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Oh, I kind of liked their ranked choice system.
RaflW
Team of Preening Egoists: The Political
GeniusIneptitude of Donald Trumpby Doris Kearns Goodwin
mrmoshpotato
@Lobo:
Van Jones can still go fuck himself.
bbleh
@JaySinWA: @cmorenc: @comrade scotts agenda of rage: lol. There MAY be SOME pushback from the Senate on a FEW of the more ridiculous things, but for the most part I expect very little. Look for example at the “actions” of that Paragon Of Western Christian Virtue, Senator Mitt Romney. Note the Principles on which he has Stood Firm, and the noble ways he has expressed it! Really! I’m sure there are quotes out there somewhere! Just Google it!
What will get them restless is IF the nitwit Orange Thing actually manages to have implemented some of his more ridiculous economic “ideas,” and they have their inevitable effects. The
Stupidslow-information voters may not find out about it — or understand if they find out, or care if they understand — but the Donor Class certainly will, and Republican Senators will hear about it.Otherwise, hah! Maybe we can start a betting market on the Degree of Furrow of Susan Collins’s Brow.
Jackie
@K-Mo:
I thought her defeat was a done deal! I’m happy to be wrong!
Ken
Matt Gaetz’ brother-in-law is Palmer Luckey, a billonaire tech bro. That’s the only reason he was chosen for this position. I remember it took me until September of 2017 to realize this admininstration was going to be a joke. Now we have Gaetz, Vivek, Noem, Fox new hosts.. I can see it already. But we’re still screwed over the courts.
mrmoshpotato
@eemom:
One of Biden’s dogs might – to go for the orange shitstain’s flabby, orange, fascist throat.
sab
OT : An aspect of Al Gore’s doing whateverthefuck he thought was sensible to shrink or whatever the national government was to put radio station licenses up to bid and my beloved 50 year old classical music station had to move from Cleveland to Lorain, Ohio, well beyond the reach of my tiny radio. I have hated Al Gore ever since and I haven’t gotten over it yet.
I met my husband in line voting in 2000 and he talked me onto the Gore ledge. That was quite an accomplishment then.
Decades later our classical radio station finally got back to town (a couple of years ago, of course I subscribed.)
A huge miracle now for me is that however bad the news is I finally have amazing classical music to listen to.
They have a jazz station also but me and my radio don’t agree enough to find it.
ETA The classical station that Gore dumped was for some sports assholes.
Kelly
Matt Gaetz Attorney General is only the worst cabinet pick so far
Gin & Tonic
@JPL: I haven’t seen him here in months.
Quinerly
@Lobo:
And he was removed from Biden’s Inauguration because of his tattoo.
Hegseth ” was not allowed to work security at President Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration, supposedly because of a tattoo that military higher-ups believed might have been an extremist symbol.”
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/trump-defense-secretary-pick-removed-231102424.html
PPCLI
Deleted: Same joke already made several times.
AM in NC
As soon as I saw this I called Sen Tillis at his DC office and a local NC office and left messages at both with my name, phone number and gmail address asking for a call back from someone who could answer whether Sen Tillis supports this AG pick.
I also made the point that THIS is exactly what all Trump supporters voted for, including Sen Tillis. So this must be what he wanted, right?
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: I know. I just thought with someone with his email address could ask him, to share a tad of his knowledge with us.
different-church-lady
@bbleh:
All of it, Katie.
cain
@Baud: 💯💯💯
I’ve emotionally distanced myself from the whole thing and will work on protecting myself from the feds.
Good time to really get involved in state politics.
df
@Shakti: I saw that! It was amazing. There was some hack local news article about it, too, about it being “threatening”, as though some man following you around and harassing you constantly weren’t threatening. I’m glad she set him straight.
Citizen Alan
@Archon: Sadly, Trump has no pets. He seems to hate and fear all animals. Probably because they can sense and react negatively to sociopaths.
different-church-lady
@Shakti:
I admire your consistency.
sab
@sab: Also too Al Gore put a bottleneck or whatever the term is to make it hard for medical school graduates to get residencies. Like we have too few doctors. So you leap through all the hoops to even get into med school, and you then get through med school, and Al Gore decided too many medical expenses. Cut those young doctors training spots and that will save us government money.
The mind boggles. Never again ask me why it was hard to vote for Gore over Bush Two. I didn’t know Bush was so incompetent he would have to start a mideast war to get reelected.
Jay
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-wont-get-to-unperson-terrorist
Full List of Democrats Who Voted for Bill That Gives Trump Admin More Power
https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-republicans-voted-give-trump-treasury-more-power-1984733
You know, if any of you want to do some cathartic screaming into the void over your Reps phone lines.
gene108
Trump has stated throughout this election he values yes men more than competence.
I was expecting the bottom of the barrel to staff his administration.
On a side note, since the somewhat competent people who served in the first administration quit or were fired, and the Bush, Jr. administration ended 15 years ago, there are no subject matter experts or competent people left in the Republican to fill out jobs in the Executive branch.
This is what a cabinet in any future Republican administration will look like.
PPCLI
I do hope that Trump tries to do the recess appointment thing, so that we can have the pleasure of watching Alito, Roberts and Thomas write “OK, we did say in Canning that recess appointments are an unacceptable anachronism when Obama tried it, but obviously the Framers of the constitution meant it to be OK for a Republican.”
Mai Naem mobile ¹
Now would be a good time for the Dems to throw away some norms and release the raw investigative info on Mr. Bigly Forehead.
cain
@Archon:
We do have one but if power and that is to trigger Trump. Make him make bad decisions or actions like accelerant.
eclare
@Jay:
Good, my rep isn’t on the list. I have enough to scream about. Thanks!
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@PPCLI: i think Usha Vance gets a SCOTUS seat when they force Thomas to resign.
Shakti
@df: I approve of this energy. I would 100% do the same thing in her shoes. Supposedly it’s a violation of the norms around trackers — but Trump et al and the rw michiganders blew right through them and how they treat press members and rally attendees as a long time ago.
It’s more innocuous than what George Allen did to the Indian American who was a tracker at his rally. That guy called him a slur and pointed him out to the crowd in a hostile way.
RaflW
@grumbles: I have no great faith that the GOP won’t just collapse into Trumpism. But, a guy like John Cornyn (who is a right wing jerk and not anyone I respect) has been a US Senator for 22 years, and he’s there thru 2027 unless he quits (which, maybe he will – it was pretty much his life’s work to take over from McConnell and got shafted.)
But there are other long-timers, too. They’re not all idiots like Tuberville. And they have very big egos and I don’t think they’ll all give in to this test. They too know that being a doormat and allowing recess appointments will take even more power away from the Senate. They may not do much with their power, but hoarding it is still a motive, I think.
eclare
I’m glad that I have a trashy reality tv show to watch tonight. I need a break from this reality.
cain
@bbleh:
They will play along as long as they get their dopamine hits.
That’s why it is really important that we do not as a group read or participate in discussions involving the nyt and the washpost.
Time to break patterns.
eemom
@sab:
You could throw in his dumbshit wife Tipper’s laughingstock censorship campaign against rock lyrics in the 1980s. I’ll always remember the glorious disgust with which Frank Zappa told her to kiss his ass.
IMO it is therapeutic to recall past political funny shit at this horrible time.
Citizen Alan
Didn’t Susie’s “well-financed D opponent” inexplicably end that campaign with several million dollars still in the bank, or am I misremembering?
artem1s
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
oh crap. remember when TCF tried to have the military parades. Jeebus 2.0 is going to be so much worse.
RaflW
@Citizen Alan: The amount of money that flooded into the Dem challengers in Maine and Kentucky (among others) was absurd.
Sure, fund challengers. No seat goes uncontested, and we should never put forward anything as absurd as the GOP did with Royce White in MN.
But McGrath raised $88M. After, I dunno, $30M, maybe $40M is it doing a lick of good? Imagine if just half of her $88M had been able to be directed to swing state legislative races. 440 races funded with $100K extra each (over local fundraising, I mean) woulda been amazing.
m.j.
I’m wondering if Trump understands the absurdity and is just going with seeing what he can get away with and in the process humiliate the entire Senate of the United States.
Oh.
And fuck the country.
tam1MI
@zhena gogolia:He doesn’t have any pets.
Except for Lindsay Graham, ba dum tish.
RaflW
@eemom: We used to mock Tipper on our weekly campus radio show. Her Parents Music Resource Center was dubbed the Pregnant Mother’s Revolutionary Council.
A bit silly, but then we were the Saturday night weirdos with the only two hours of rock/new wave/punk on an otherwise all classical and jazz station.
eclare
@Citizen Alan:
I think it was between $5M and $10M, which she then donated to sorta charitable orgs rather than other Dems. Steep was all over that.
tam1MI
@cain:I’ve emotionally distanced myself from the whole thing and will work on protecting myself from the feds.
You and I have butted heads on some things in previous threads, but on this we are in 100% agreement.
Radical Apathy, baby. Learn it, live it, love it.
YY_Sima Qian
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Murkowski claimed to have been shocked by the Hegseth nomination for SecDef, but refused to say whether it was positive shock, negative shock, or neutral shock.
Not one of them will do a thing on any of Trump’s appointment. They will take any scalps at the beginning of Trumps’s term. Not that they would ever undermine Trump.
Gloria DryGarden
i wish this might be wrong. Cuz if it’s accurate, sheesh, even less resistance or guardrails.
i just forgot all my swear words.
YY_Sima Qian
@Ken: Palmer Luckey runs Anduríl, a defense tech startup looking to gorge at the trough of weapons procurement in this new age of Great Power Competitions, along the likes of Palantir. The guy is a techbro grifter getting fat off tax payers’ money.
Gloria DryGarden
@YY_Sima Qian: who is they, and whose scalps might they take?
sorry im kinda slow…on this , anyway. I think I missed something.
Eta
time zone check. It’s 6pm mountain, 8 pm est. I’m guessing you are 12-16 hours ahead. Am I close? Lunchtime? I’m only used to converting for Europe.
karen marie
@Mai Naem mobile ¹: No fucking way that happens. Trump has already disappeared Vance. He’s certainly not going to give the couch-fucker’s wife a permanent seat on the Supreme Court and then have to ask her for favors.
YY_Sima Qian
Gloria DryGarden，
“They” being R Senators, “scalp” being finding excuses to block cabinet appointments of a new president. Recall Tom Daschel at the start of Obama’s 1st term.
Sorry, it should have been “they will not take any scalps at the start of Trumps’s term”.
Jinchi
If only there was something Senate Republicans could do about it……
Dan B
@Lobo: Pete Hegseth has a fine physique and has displayed it, along with the horrifying tattoos, in tight short shorts at the 9/11 Memorial. He also got his girlfriend pregnant while married to wife number 2. Girlfriend is now number 3. It seems he wants to defund the VA.
All around good guy. /s
And upstanding. /s /s, etc.
Kayla Rudbek
@sab: the problem is that they are going to rewrite the rules so that it isn’t an ethics violation to do as they please. As a lawyer I am infuriated. I tell the joke “there are only three lawyer jokes and all the rest of them are true” but that’s not supposed to be a true statement.
Jinchi
It sounds like people are just following setup instructions literally.
The rest of us are just a pack of irresponsible rule-breakers.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@YY_Sima Qian: Apparently read The Lord of the Rings and didn’t take any lessons from it, just cool names. Sigh.
Quaker in a Basement
Are there no schools within 150 yards of DOJ headquarters?
Peale
I’m guessing that the GOP will cave and go into recess to avoid having to vote for these guys. Look, I know that they would anyway and the only thing the Democrats could do is vote No and Lose. But since the GOP Sens probably don’t want to be on record as voting “yes”, they’ll just let him have what he wants.
YY_Sima Qian
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): You assume they read it, rather than just saw the Peter Jackson trilogy, but your point would still stand.
sab
We have a locally grown but now internationally famous baroque music ensemble that I used to see with my mother. I haven’t attended since Mom died. Just inertia and tired and tied up from eldercare with Dad.
I turned on the radio yesterday and they were announcing that that baroque group ( Apollo’s Fire) was having a singer I hugely admire but have never seen in person. Tickets were available! So I called up and got season tickets. Yay! Huband will not see a countertenor (excuse: he doesn’t actually like classical music.) So I called his sister, a remarkable soprano in her own right.
I had forgotten that I just realized that I can know longer actually see very well while driving at night. Had ro tell husband, yes he peobably has to come along.
I bought three tickets: You drive, I drive, or your sister drives and I donate the third to a hopeful student.
At this point he is pondering how much sister and my safety is worth balanced against him and tv.
Warm fuzzy feelings here.
My unmusical dad drove my mom to concerts for sixry years unril my husband sufgested that Dad shouldn’t have to go to concerts he hated. So Dad stopped and I took over. Thanks, spouse. I loved the concerts with Mom, but have issues with failure of spousal duties.
I cook for you every night. You can damn well sit through a concert four times a year that I love and slightly bores you.
Ksmiami
@YY_Sima Qian: he made his money off Oculus first.
bbleh
@cain: right, and so the question is, will they get a bigger dopamine hit from continuing to play along, or will that finally pale — remember, homeostasis, the same stimulus produces a decreasing response — and the balance will finally shift so they get a BIGGER hit from the NEW stimulus of OMG CHAOS CORRUPTION OMG!!
(Assuming, of course, they’re still allowed to do so.)
bbleh
@YY_Sima Qian: srsly? Wadda buncha dweebs. Also it’s Andúril not Anduríl. Basic stuff.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: Senator Murkowski could end up voting against Hedgseth, but she can’t knock him out by herself and I don’t think she’ll get the others. I think she’ll need 3 or 4 .
I expect most if not all of Trump’s Cabinet nominations will be easily confirmed. I wonder about Tulsi Gabbard’s, though. That one I can see failing.
Gabbard has been in the national news for a few years now, but not like she will be now. If she has any skeletons in her closet they will likely tumble out. I expect members of the security establishment will let journalists know where to find them, and maybe tip Senators off as well.
Gabbard is an especially concerning pick because of the nature of the job. We’ll know most of what Attorney Gaetz and Secretary of State Rubio are up to, but it will be a very different story with respect to DNI Gabbard. And the DNI can shape policy by managing information including the information Senators receive. So I think they’ll look long and hard at this one.
cmorenc
Sen Chris Murphy said on the Chris Hayes show tonight that the reason Trump chose Gaetz as his AG nominee is as a litmus test for how far the R Senate majority will roll over for him, no matter what he asks for. IMO that’s a correct take on Trump’s motivation to pick Gaetz, even beyond that he thinks Gaetz will be a loyal yes man as AG to whatever Trump asks. Gaetz is not well-liked among most of his R colleagues, but are there 3 R Senators besides Murkowski who are willing to resist and vote no?
RevRick
@RaflW: Democratic donors are prone to giving to candidates running against Republicans we hate without regard to their actual prospects. Think about the insane amount of money poured into hopeless campaigns against MTG.
I give to candidates who we need to protect or have a chance of success. I also give to the DNC/DSCC/DCCC/DLCC who can support candidates in more obscure, but important races.
RevRick
@Geminid: In order to tank Trump’s nominees it would likely take at least ten GOP no votes. No GOP Senators want to be the sole deciding vote. Collins, Murkowski and Romney can all vote no, and everybody will shrug and move on, but being the 49th, 50th, and 51st no votes become problematic. They know that Trump would not be above directing some stochastic terror at them.
LevelB
Thank you so much for your posts, and other front pagers as well. Not much of a social media participant, but I am going to give Bluesky a shot.
catclub
@cmorenc: yep. how much they will roll over, and then they will be complicit
Geminid
@RevRick: I don’t believe that. But we’ll find out for sure next next January and I’m not gonna argue predictions.
Gretchen
@Shakti: Hilarious! So he’s spent weeks following an ex-CIA officer around and is surprised at how much she knows about him?
Ramalama
@sab: Boo husband! What’s the cost difference between taking a cab or Uber to and from the concerts vs a third much-resented ticket? You’ve probably already figured that out. Too bad you don’t know any music students who can drive you who’d love that third ticket.
Gloria DryGarden
@sab: i agree with I cook for you every day, you can go to a concert 4 times a year.. hope that works out as a negotiation point.
the altérnate choice might be cooking the least favorite most boring meals for an interval.
i think I’ve seen YouTube of Apollo s fire. And a countertenor. You must go. I’m rooting for you.