A rule of law turned inside out The whole world will watch Donald Trump and his gang of thieves defenestrate the “rule of law” in Putinesque style. Michael Tomasky considers the implications of Trump nominating Kash Patel to run the FBI inside what Trump likes to call the Department of Injustice. Trump 2.0 aims to make the name a reality. Patel’s only real qualification is that he is a “one-thousand-percent Trump loyalist,” Tomasky writes: Etc., etc. For all the raising of alarms, the punditry is short on countermeasures. I’m reminded of the anti-nuclear movement’s Helen Caldicott and her rapid-fire, scare-them-straight speech about the horrifying effects of nuclear weapons. Even her allies grew weary of the scare tactics: “We knew it was past when someone interrupted the speech one evening, actually interrupted it, and said, ‘We know all that, but what can we do?’” From his remove in England, Brian Beutler recommends Democrats find some actual leaders, stat, while they still have time to define the incoming Trump regime.
Uncategorized
Hunter Biden was set to be sentenced and probably put in jail this week on a trumped up charge that was brought solely because he was Joe Biden’s son. He lied on a form about being on drugs and he paid his taxes late. He entered into a plea deal in which he would admit guilt and get probation, a fair sentence, and the prosecution blew it up in court. He could have faced years in jail for crimes that no one who hadn’t also committed much more serious crimes would have ever been prosecuted. Biden pardoned Hunter tonight and he did the right thing. There is a lot of discussion over on BlueSky decrying this saying that Biden has destroyed the argument that presidents shouldn’t use abuse the pardon power and Trump will now be able to say he can pardon all the J6ers. First of all, Trump doesn’t need any excuse to pardon his henchmen. He already pardoned Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and Jared Kushner’s father whom he just named to be the Ambassador to France! Even Dinesh D’Souza and Joe Arpaio! Roger Stone is his best friend. The others are close political allies and in laws.
Once upon a time there was a Trump toadie who wrote a fatuous children’s book about a good king being persecuted by an evil queen named Hillary Queenton until one day a virtuous wizard comes to his rescue and saves the day: One might not think too much of such a silly little project except the “writer” of those books, Kash Patel, has been nominated to run the FBI in the new Trump administration. The story is a thinly veiled narrative of Patel’s original claim to fame, working for former congressman Devin Nunes’s House Intelligence Committee investigation into the origins of the Russia probe back in 2016. They weren’t written to entertain kids. They were written to cozy up to Trump and demonstrate his loyalty by literally portraying him as a king. Trump hired Patel to join his National Security Council after the Nunes report came out where he quickly established himself as a direct conduit to Trump feeding him whatever he thought he wanted to hear. According to Trump’s Russia and Ukraine expert on staff, Fiona Hill, Trump even thought Patel was the man in charge of Ukraine in the White House when he had nothing to do with it at all.
Former Defense Secretary @MarkTEsper tells @kasie of Pete Hegseth: "It's one thing to have your political opponents attack you, but it's pretty damning when… a letter is uncovered where your mother is talking about your character and integrity and how you treat women." pic.twitter.com/zwuY0DcTRc — CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) December 2, 2024 Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper: “It’s one thing to have your political opponents attack you, but it’s pretty damning when… a letter is uncovered where your mother is talking about your character and integrity and how you treat women.” Over the weekend two bombshells hit the Pete Hegseth nomination for Defense Secretary. The first was that story in the NY Times revealing an email his mother sent to him a few years back castigating him for his grotesque treatment of his second wife and women in general. She has since repudiated it but admits that she sent it. And all the available evidence shows that she was absolutely right about her son’s lack of character and integrity. He’s a misogynist through and through.
The Trumpers think they’re a joke and that Biden has been a joke for adhering to them: Donald Trump and his incoming administration officials think Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are suckers. They’re not shy about saying it. Within the past month, Biden, Harris, and the current administration have repeatedly vowed an orderly, peaceful, fully cooperative transfer of power between Biden and Trump — a twice-impeached former president and convicted felon whom the president, vice president, and Democratic leaders regularly denounced as a “fascist” tyrant and clear threat to the constitutional order. It hasn’t just been the legal transfer and procedures to which Democrats have committed themselves. Biden has promised to attend Trump’s 2025 inauguration, even though Trump refused to grant him the same grace after the 2020 election. Of course, then-President Trump actively sought to overturn Biden’s 2020 election victory and even helped foment a violent coup at the U.S. Capitol as part of his monthslong effort to cling to power.
There are encouraging signs that Canada’s economy and labour market are improving after a period of stagnation brought about by the Bank of Canada’s aggressive interest rate hikes in 2022 and 2023. Newly released data for the third quarter of 2024 (July-September) shows the economy has continued to grow, albeit slowly. Consumer spending was the brightest light in the third [...]
I know I did this last week but all this footage came over the Xitter yesterday (pretty much the only feeds I follow there anymore…) and I enjoyed them so much I’m doing it again: Enjoy the rest of your long weekend folks!
Last Wednesday I wrote about Democrats fear of fighting back. I linked to a video from my friend Cliff Schecter. We’ve been talking about what fighting back looks like. I’m going to share some examples here next week with specifics. Today Cliff shares an example, Gavin Newsom. Yes we were all horrified by Trump’s win. But at some point we get back up and fight. Newsom’s response has been chef’s kiss. No Trump congratulations. You accept the results, but rip him to cameras, point out it was a puny win, he’s no king and still an asshole. You call a special legislative session to bolster legal defenses and garner media coverage of your message! You go to D.C., meet with Democratic reps and President Biden–not Trump. You know it’ll piss him off and he doesn’t deserve the photo op. The coup de gras? Newsom’s using a Trump threat to justify harming Apartheid Man-Baby’s business, which should help kick the inevitable Musk vs. Trump clash into gear. Watch the video for that one and all the rest, as we learn to fight the tyrants.
Give thanks Olivia Troye is now a regular guest on cable news networks not in the grip of the MAGA cult. Her experiences as Homeland Security and Counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Mike Pence during the Tump administration left her both changed and politcally homeless. Troye’s Thanksgiving message reminded me of another story of political transformation I once witnessed. View on Threads Troye writes: I’m especially grateful for the incredible gift of finding a new tribe. Taking a stand has often left me in political no-man’s land, but in that space, I’ve discovered something profound—a community of people like you. Your support, courage, and shared belief in doing what’s right have reminded me that I’m not alone. Together, we are building something stronger than partisanship: a tribe rooted in shared values, integrity, and hope for the future. Thank you for being my tribe. Gratitude is a powerful force, but its true strength lies in its ability to inspire us to be better—for ourselves, one another, and the country we love. That’s something we can all be thankful for. Before MAGA came the T-party.
Grievances about imaginary enemies Thanksgiving is over (even if leftovers may not be). It’s time to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get to resisting what’s coming. Spocko has gotten after that message with both ears. False narratives that sold half the country on Trumpism were not born yesterday. It took time, billions of oligarch money, and repetition, repetition, repetition. Propaganda succeeded, among other things, in convincing people that illegal immigration (a misdemeanor, first offense) was a “crisis” best dealt with by a career criminal with 34 felony convictions, dozens of other grand jury indictments (including for inciting an insurrection and theft of state secrets), and a civil penalty for sexual assault. Courts liquidated Donald Trump’s charitable foundation as a fraud, dismantled his “university” as a fraud as well, and banned him from doing business in the state of New York. How the hell could Americans hire that guy as chief executive of the United States of America? A second time? The answer, says Andrea Pitzer of the new Next Comes What podcast, is simple: propaganda works.