Tate’s a right wing star: Tech billionaire Elon Musk has voiced his support for Andrew Tate’s bid to become the UK Prime Minister, despite Tate’s controversial views and criminal allegations. Musk’s involvement in British politics, which includes criticism of Labour leader Keir Starmer and endorsement of far-right figures, has sparked significant debate. Conservative spokespersons have described Musk’s actions as irresponsible and dangerous. A video clip surfacing on social media shows Andrew Tate denouncing the “generational failure” of UK politics. Earlier this week, he referred to himself as the “unofficial Prime Minister of The United Kingdom” in a post and voiced support for Greenland being annexed into the US. What Andrew Tate is doing will be studied for many years. Even if he doesn’t win and become Prime Minister, his involvement will transform British politics & create an army of men demanding change.
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The DOGE is operating in complete secrecy, speaking only on Signal and guarding against leaks. The NY Times did get some information about it, however. It’s not good. But parts of the operation are becoming clear: Many of the executives involved are expecting to do six-month voluntary stints inside the federal government before returning to their high-paying jobs. Mr. Musk has said they will not be paid — a nonstarter for some originally interested tech executives — and have been asked by him to work 80-hour weeks. Some, including possibly Mr. Musk, will be so-called special government employees, a specific category of temporary workers who can only work for the federal government for 130 days or less in a 365-day period. The representatives will largely be stationed inside federal agencies. After some consideration by top officials, DOGE itself is now unlikely to incorporate as an organized outside entity or nonprofit. Instead, it is likely to exist as more of a brand for an interlinked group of aspirational leaders who are on joint group chats and share a loyalty to Mr. Musk or Mr. Ramaswamy.
Not these guys So the GOP California House delegation hurried to Mar-a-Lago this weekend for an audience with Dear Leader while fellow Californians were trying to get through an epic firestorm. But why not? Their constituents won’t care. It’s just a bunch of Los Angelenos. Let ’em burn. The rest of the world is not as callous: Here are some locals with more compassion than GOP leaders:
What-iffing Trump troops in the streets Donald Trump talks tough about deploying troops in the streets. Why? For the same reason he muses about “acquiring” Greenland and the Panama Canal. Trump, Alex Shepard believes, “is driven almost entirely by his desire to appear strong—or, more to the point, his fear of looking weak. This is why he picks senseless fights with smaller allies while avoiding brawls with the strongmen he so greatly admires.” Yes, Greenland may have significant resources, but as we pointed out last week, that’s not really why Trump wants it. That’s about Trump’s obsession with size (The New Republic): As is almost always the case with Trump, though, the cleanest and perhaps most persuasive explanation is the simplest and dumbest: The territory, like Canada, looks really, really big on the commonly used (and widely distorted) Mercator projection. Adding it would be a huge ego boost for a man who, hours after planes hit the Twin Towers, boasted that he now owned the tallest building in New York City.
Another one bites the dust Remember this? “That is a war that’s dying to be settled. I will get it settled before I even become president,” the Republican said during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday. If I win, when I’m president-elect and what I’ll do is I’ll speak to one, I’ll speak to the other, I’ll get them together.” “I know Zelenskyy very well and I know Putin very well. I have a good relationship and they respect your president, O.K., they respect me, they don’t respect Biden.” He said it over and over again: At a CNN town hall in May 2023, Trump said: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours.” We knew it was bullshit and his voters didn’t care. They’re fine with whatever Russia wants to do because he’s a strong white Christian man who makes them swoon. In any case, Trump will just say he actually did it and his followers will believe it so whatever. Back here on planet Earth: Shamelessness is such a powerful political tool.
Michael Tomasky wrote an excellent piece today about the unaccountable president, laying out the process by which he gets away with everything. No one expects anything of him and no matter what he says, the right wing media, the Congress and his allies in the judiciary will back him up. As an example he suggests that even if Trump were to be found to have given nuclear secrets to North Korea he would either claim it was fake news and the entire wingnuts apparatus would launch into gear calling it another hoax or he would admit it, saying it was a perfect move of a very stable genius and they’d all back his decision as necessary for national security despite its madness. That is not an exaggeration. I believe there is nothing that can make them abandon their support at this point. He writes: Trump will be a completely unaccountable president, then, for this very simple reason: The only three power systems capable of holding him to account—the right-wing media, Republicans in Congress, and the Supreme Court—have no interest in doing so.
They aren’t even waiting until their Dear Leader is inaugurated: Acres of orange fields sat unpicked in Kern County this week as word of Border Patrol raids circulated through Messenger chats and images of federal agents detaining laborers spread on local Facebook groups. The Border Patrol conducted unannounced raids throughout Bakersfield on Tuesday, descending on businesses where day laborers and field workers gather. Agents in unmarked SUVs rounded up people in vans outside a Home Depot and gas station that serves a breakfast popular with field workers. This appears to be the first large-scale Border Patrol raid in California since the election of Donald Trump, coming just a day after Congress certified the election on January 6, in the final days of Joe Biden’s presidency. The panic and confusion, for both immigrants and local businesses that rely on their labor, foreshadow what awaits communities across California if Trump follows through on his promise to conduct mass deportations. “It was profiling, it was purely field workers,” said Sara Fuentes, store manager of the local gas station.
I would post something about the animals and the fires but I just don’t have the heart. I put up some links last night if you want to check out some of the various organizations that are working in that area. The devastation is going to be immense for them just as it is for the humans. It’s all bad. Here are some zoo animals frolicking in the snow. It made me feel better, anyway.
Laboratories of election thievery In the District of Columbia this week, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Donald Trump’s demand to delay his Friday sentencing in the New York hush money case. But in Raleigh, North Carolina, SCOTUS’s Mini-Me court accepted the demand by Judge Jefferson Griffin to delay certification of the race he lost in November. Griffin’s team hopes to have the state Supreme Court election overturned by the state Supreme’s Republican majority. Basic fact: After multiple recounts, incumbent Associate Justice Allison Riggs (D) defeated NC Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin (R) by 734 votes. I’ve already briefed you on this saga here, here, here, here, here, and here. The New York Times contacted several citizens among the 60,000 whose votes the NC GOP proposes voiding in an “extraordinary effort“: “Anyone who is trying to invalidate my personal vote as fraudulent — that’s a direct attack on the voters,” said Mr. Clay, who voted for Judge Griffin, who now sits on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. “It’s inexcusable to contest these legal ballots. He’s a sore loser.
Can I get an ‘Amen’? Mega money doesn’t necessarily go with megalomania. But one can find plenty of evidence for a correlation. Josh Marshall unearths a fine example in “Donald Trump’s Greenland jones” originating perhaps with tech-bro Dryden Brown. When money goes to your head, what does it do there? In Brown’s case, convince you you can fly into a poor country unannounced and try to buy it. In Peter Thiel’s case, prompt you to send an essay packed with “just asking questions” conspiracy theories and get the august Financial Times to print it. Kieran Healy, a Duke University Professor of Sociology, read Thiel’s offering and commented: This Thiel Op-Ed is really nuts. I mean, truly. His focus of attention is like a pinball careening around in a machine where every bumper and paddle is a noisy, flashing conspiracy topic. I get more measured and carefully-reasoned emails on these topics every other week from mentally-ill cranks. It’s never clear just what Thiel’s point is.