We’ve lost a true auteur. This tribute by Kyle Mclaughlin is one of the best I’ve ever read: Forty-two years ago, for reasons beyond my comprehension, David Lynch plucked me out of obscurity to star in his first and last big budget movie. He clearly saw something in me that even I didn’t recognize. I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision.What I saw in him was an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him. He was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could get to. Our friendship blossomed on Blue Velvet and then Twin Peaks and I always found him to be the most authentically alive person I’d ever met. David was in tune with the universe and his own imagination on a level that seemed to be the best version of human. He was not interested in answers because he understood that questions are the drive that make us who we are. They are our breath. While the world has lost a remarkable artist, l’ve lost a dear friend who imagined a future for me and allowed me to travel in worlds I could never have conceived on my own.
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In an age of constitutional hardball In my post below, Michael Steele hammers Democrats for trying to play nice with his former political party. An exasperated Steele says Republicans are “gonna shove those [bipartisan] plowshares up your behind!” The MAGA GOP is playing “constitutional hardball,” clinically defined by Mark Tushnet of Harvard Law School in 2004 as: … political claims and practices – legislative and executive initiatives – that are without much question within the bounds of existing constitutional doctrine and practice but that are nonetheless in some tension with existing pre-constitutional understandings. It is hardball because its practitioners see themselves as playing for keeps in a special kind of way; they believe the stakes of the political controversy their actions provoke are quite high, and that their defeat and their opponents’ victory would be a serious, perhaps permanent setback to the political positions they hold.
For all the media folderol about Donald Trump’s triumphant return to the White House, new polling shows that most Americans are actually feeling pretty meh about the prospects for any of his grandiose plans. The AP Norc poll shows that Trump’s 41% approval rating is only a few points higher than it was when he was ignominiously rejected four years ago and most people don’t have any confidence that he’ll be able to accomplish most of what he’s promised. For a man who erroneously insists that he won a landslide and claims that he’s been given a mandate for massive change, it doesn’t appear that most Americans actually support his agenda (other than eliminating taxes on tips) either: Members of both parties say they want compromise but considering recent history it’s pretty clear that the Republican party simply is no longer organized to do that. They are in the grip of an extremist faction, led by Trump himself, that is immune to any kind of concession. From all the reports coming out of the new Congress nothing has changed on that count.
The worst of the worst rising to the top: Mr. Miller was influential in Mr. Trump’s first term but stands to be exponentially more so this time. He holds the positions of deputy chief of staff, with oversight of domestic policy, and homeland security adviser, which gives him range to coordinate among cabinet agencies. He will be a key legislative strategist and is expected to play an important role in crafting Mr. Trump’s speeches, as he has done since he joined the first Trump campaign in 2016. Most significantly, Mr. Miller will be in charge of Mr. Trump’s signature issue and the one that Mr. Miller has been fixated on since childhood: immigration. And he has been working, in secrecy, to oversee the team drafting the dozens of executive orders that Mr. Trump will sign after he takes office on Jan. 20. “I call Stephen ‘Trump’s brain,’” said Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker who credited Mr. Miller — a private citizen at the time — with helping to rally Republican lawmakers to insert a sweeping border crackdown into a spending bill in 2023. In the four years since Mr. Trump has been out of office, Mr.
Dems won’t win the 21st century with 20th-century politics Tons of respect for Democrats in Congress who have served honorably and bring years of deep experience in legislative arcana to their jobs, and a passion for improving American’s lives. I still want the Democrats’ gerontocracy to go home. You’re living in the past. Make room for younger leaders with 21st-century political and media skills. Former RNC chair Michael Steele says it better than I could. * Michael Steele: They think we’re playing the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill kinda kumbaya moment. ‘Yeah, we skirmish here and there, but in the end we’re gonna have a little toast with some bourbon or some good whiskey and call it even.’ No, that’s not what this is…. I very much respect Hakeem Jeffries, very much excited about his leadership, but you do not hand over the gavel and say we’re putting down our swords and picking up our bipartisan plowshares? They’re gonna shove those plowshares up your behind! The GOP has spent a generation plotting for this moment, Steele continues, trying to upend the structures put in place to try to govern.
They’ve moved the inauguration ceremony inside die to the cold weather. I’m sure he doesn’t want his pet oligarchs to be uncomfortable. I guess he doesn’t want to be the William Henry Harrison of our time? I’d guess both. He’s old and he’s terrified of a small crowd size.
Cling to reality, folks. It’s all we’ve got. And the reality is that Trump is no popular, he’s an idiot and so are most of the people around him. Not that he can’t do damage, of course. But he is no colossus.
I am just heartsick over the plight of the animals lost in the LA fires. People have lost their pets and many others have nowhere to live so are having to house them at shelters. And then there is the wildlife that live in the neighborhoods and foothills that were ravaged by the firestorm. There are many groups rushing in to help, some even having to evacuate shelters in the path of the fire. 🔗 Lost and found pets: Cleo&Hooman’s lost/found spreadsheet and @eatonfirefoundlostpets are helping reunite pets with their owners. BFAS has set up a volunteer interest survey for those interested in helping. Pasadena Humane / @pasadenahumane Due to overwhelming support, Pasadena Humane has no more capacity for material donations or fosters, and has put a pause on volunteer applications, but is in need of monetary donations. L.A. Animal Services / @laanimalservices You can sign up to foster or adopt for from one of 13 city and county shelters. This will open up space for new animals.
When President-elect Trump held a press availability as he was speaking to Republican Governors last week he rattled off a number of big names who’d made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of the new Don. He actually sounded rather surprised by it, saying, “they all came. Jeff Bezos came, Bill Gates came, Mark Zuckerberg came, many of them came numerous times, the bankers have all come, everybody’s coming. I haven’t had anyone say anything bad about me. I’m not used to it.” He believes they come because they are dazzled by the power and strength of his massive electoral victory (like nobody’s ever seen before!) but none of them are as dumb or as deluded as he is so that’s obviously not the case. I’m going to guess they’re dazzled by the richest man in the world’s proximity to him and they want a piece of that action. Elon Musk has opened the door to a new style of oligarchy, American style. The history of Russia after the fall of communism is instructive here.
There was a time not all that long ago when confirmation hearings were at least slightly meaningful. Sure, they were mostly just pro forma since the new president is always presumed to have the prerogative to appoint his own cabinet. And even judicial nominees, including those for the Supreme Court, only became contentious when the Republicans started nominating extremist judges. But things have changed. The Republicans have learned that there is no price to pay for appointing unqualified and unfit sycophants and far right ideologues and so that’s what they are doing. In this current round the nominees aren’t even meeting with the Democrats before their hearings as it’s assumed that only Republican votes matter and they know they have enough of those going in because they’ve successfully intimidated anyone who might have had an objection. Jane Mayer’s latest piece in the New Yorker is about the pressure campaign to confirm Pete Hegseth: At the Senate confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, on Tuesday, the most telling feature may be the voices from whom the senators won’t hear.