Amazing how prices have suddenly turned around ever since the election and everything is more affordable now, isn’t it? I guess the whole thing happened in just the last three weeks. We sure didn’t hear about it before November 5th. Imagine that. I heard on Tv that the TSA says that this Thanksgiving will be the biggest travel day in history. Also, that the top ten travel days in history all took place in 2024.
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“Gaslighting of Trumpian proportions” It’s infuriating. The media narratives post-Nov. 5 focus on what Kamala Harris did wrong in her upbeat, mere three-and-a-half month presidential campaign. What did Democrats do wrong? How did they lose this group, that group, etc. How must they reinvent themeslves after a sufficient period of sackcloth and ashes? “Democrats Lost Their Base and Their Message,” declares the New York Times’ Nate Cohn. Trump’s reelection means “the end of the Democratic Party as we knew it.” Really? Millions face violent deportation, Ukrainians face losing their country, Gazans face continued slaughter, and the world faces the collapse of NATO and the rise of fascism American-style because Democrats have a messaging problem? And the 77 million Americans who chose those outcomes (by a “landslide” of 1.6 points)? Their hands are clean? Mehdi Hasan is not buying it either.
Will the press play ball? Trumpflation is coming. Better buy your knee pads before Donald Trump’s tariffs kick in after Jan. 20. He’ll expect us all to kowtow, dontcha know. Greg Sargent’s Daily Blast features Margaret Sullivan, former public editor for The New York Times, regarding Trump’s recent demand that the paper apologize for unspecified bad coverage. “He actually thinks [the Times] should grovel and show submission to him now that he won,” says Sargent. Bad coverage being any story that doesn’t fluff his stuff: Sargent: I want to read a key part of Trump’s rant about the times. He said, I don’t believe I’ve had a legitimately good story in The New York Times for years, and yet I won in record fashion, the most consequential presidential election in decades. Where is the apology? Now, it wasn’t in record fashion, but either way, Margaret, this neatly captures how Trump understands the media. He actually thinks it should grovel and show submission to him now that he won. I don’t think he accepts on the most basic level that the press’s role is to challenge power.
Pam Bondi is right out of Central Casting Many Americans were sorely disappointed this week when Special Prosecutor Jack Smith decided to drag up and withdraw the January 6th indictment and the appeal of the classified documents case dismissal against Donald Trump. Smith said in his filings that the government stood by the charges but because of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel’s rule that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, he had no choice but to drop the charges.The judges in the cases acceded to his requests and dismissed them both without prejudice although the idea that anyone will bring these cases in 2029 when Trump is 82 years old is fanciful. It’s over. He got away with it once again. It’s not that we didn’t know it was coming one way or the other. In fact, from the moment the Supreme Court issued their shocking opinion about presidential immunity, the writing was on the wall that Trump would face no accountability even if he didn’t win the election. It went without saying that if he won, he would order the cases dismissed and that would be that.
A few years back on Thanksgiving eve I ran this recipe for Pumpkin Cake and received a very nice note from journalist Karen Tumulty saying that she’d been tooling around the web for something to bake and tried it and liked it very much. Ever since then I’ve called it Karen Tumulty Cake. It’s easy even for non bakers and it really is very good. And while that pan is lovely, you could easily bake it in a regular bundt pan or regular cake pans. Karen Tumulty Pumpkin Cake For cake * (3/4 cup) softened unsalted butter.* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting pan* 2 teaspoons baking powder* 1 teaspoon baking soda* 1 teaspoon cinnamon* 3/4 teaspoon ground allspice* 2 tablespoons crystalized ginger, finely chopped* 1/2 teaspoon salt* 1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin* 3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk * 1 teaspoon vanilla* 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar* 3 large eggs Icing * 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons well-shaken buttermilk* 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar, * 1/4 cup chopped walnuts* a 10-inch nonstick bundt pan Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter bundt pan generously.
58% say he isn’t honest and 54% say he doesn’t care about people like them. 65% don’t think he’s a good role model. And yet he is the president. I guess Biden being seen as senile and Trump calling Kamala Harris an idiot a couple of thousand times made him seem mentally sharp and that was the deciding factor? Oy.
You’re kidding… This was obvious before the eleciton but Trump’s promise was such music to people’s ears that I guess eveyrone decided to just let his stupid demagoguery hang out there unrefuted: U.S. oil and gas producers are unlikely to radically increase production under president-elect Donald Trump as companies remain focused on capital discipline, a senior executive at Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), opens new tab said on Tuesday. “We’re not going to see anybody in ‘drill, baby, drill’ mode,” Liam Mallon, head of Exxon’s upstream division, told the Energy Intelligence Forum conference in London. “A radical change (in production) is unlikely because the vast majority, if not everybody, is focused on the economics of what they’re doing,” he said. What he means by “focused on the economics” is that there is a thing called “supply and demand” and they aren’t going to boost production to lower the price and cut into their profits. It’s ridiculous and always was.
Rolling Stone is reporting today that Trump and Co have revived their plans to invade Mexico. I’m not kidding: Within Donald Trump’s government-in-waiting, there is a fresh debate over whether and how thoroughly the president-elect should follow through on his campaign promise to attack or even invade Mexico, as part of the “war” he’s pledged to wage against powerful drug cartels. “How much should we invade Mexico?” says a senior Trump transition member. “That is the question.” It is a question that would have seemed batty for the GOP elite to consider before, even during Trump’s first term. But in the four years since, many within the mainstream Republican centers of power have come around to support Trump’s idea to bomb or attack Mexico. Trump’s Cabinet picks, including his choices for secretary of defense and secretary of state, have publicly supported the idea of potentially unleashing the U.S. military in Mexico. So has the man Trump has tapped to be his national security adviser. So has the man Trump selected as his “border czar” to lead his immigration crackdowns.
I just saw a great video from my old friend Cliff Schechter on his new YouTube channel, Cliff’s Edge. Is It Time to Start FIGHTING Dirty Against Donald Trump? After I watched it, I liked, subscribed and joined the channel as a paying member. I’d like folks to do the same. Then I called Cliff to talk about it. I’ve known Cliff for years and we talked about “fighting” on camera on RW media, and the opportunity for a lefty billionaire to buy a media outlet like CNBC and MSNBC. I hope it happens. If it DOES happen, we need to understand the fear of funders on the left to fighting back and what to do about it. One thing that I’ve seen is that people who consider themselves journalists in the mainstream media don’t see “fighting back” as their job. That’s the job of activists. That’s the job of Democrats. Many see their role as reporting the facts. (Or “documenting the atrocities” as Atrios would say.) I’ve written about what happens to journalists when they do report the facts, do the “both sides” bit, and talk to experts. They get threatened. Accepting death threats IS NOT part of the job!