JV Last at the Bulwark discusses the fact that lefty influencer/podcaster Cenk Uyger (with whom I once had a passing acquaintance back in the early blogger days) seems to be cozying up to right, specifically Elon Musk. I won’t attempt to question what his motives might be — it could be any number of things. But Last makes an observation with which I totally agree out of hard won experience: You know about horseshoe theory, right? It’s the idea that the political spectrum is not a straight line but a U-shape, where the far left and far right end up nearly touching. Usually when people talk about horseshoe theory, it’s in terms of policy preferences—how the policies of the far left and far right can start to overlap. But I think it’s driven much more by temperament. If you are the kind of person who tends toward conspiracy theories, you will gravitate toward the far end of the horseshoe. The same is true for people who are driven by grievance. And also for populists.
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This is what people are saying on Fox News in the wake of Mike Johnson passing a law that bans transgender Rep. Sarah McBride from using the women’s bathroom: I can’t properly convey how horrified I am by this grotesque bigotry. It is reminiscent of what I heard people say about Black people living in the south in the 1960s. And frankly, I don’t think anyone would have said this out loud on Fox News even a few months ago. Their evil is unleashed. I fear for the safety of Sarah McBride, right there in the US Capitol. They’ve lost all sense of humanity.
It’s all part of the show Season 2 of “The Apprentice Goes To Washington” will be filled with characters whose major qualification is television experience. In Season 1, Donald Trump hired only “the best and most serious people” for his administration. And them he fired them one by one. See, it’s not good TV to fire them all at once. You have to build the suspense, keep the audience coming back week after week to see who goes next. That’s how you keep your ratings up. For Season 2: “Trump Unbound,” the aging actor elected to play a president on TV hopes to bring higher production values to the show by casting more television veterans (The New York Times): President-elect Donald J. Trump, whose rise was fueled by reality TV stardom, is once again turning to television to recruit the key cast members of his new administration. The latest was Dr. Mehmet Oz, the former syndicated TV host, who was picked by Mr. Trump on Tuesday to oversee Medicare and Medicaid. Dr.
Catch-2025 This I learned from 35 years working in the corporate world: Employees who start hearing “shareholder value” had best update their resumes. Layoffs are coming. The same could be said for “efficiency.“ Season 2 of “The Apprentice Goes To Washington” will feature not only the firing of cabinet officers and West Wing advisers from “central casting,” but the wholesale purging of federal employees who have dedicated their lives to serving the American public no matter which president’s photo hangs on the office wall. Except the Project 2025 team isn’t using euphemisms to signal the coming purge. They submitted a bill under the pretext of dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the Dismantle DEI Act on Wednesday. Sen. J.D. Vance’s June announcement alleges his bill means to “restore merit” to government hiring practices, and to ensure only “the most qualified candidates” get hired. “We’ve got now a World Wide Wrestling Executive who’s gonna run education,” said recently reelected Rep.
There’s some early polling on Trump’s inane cabinet choices, Rubio. Gaetz, Gabbard, Hegseth and Kennedy: The Yahoo News-YouGov poll, which asked people to indicate whether they viewed these individuals favorably, also included questions about businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who were asked to run an external cost-cutting group; and South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Only Rubio, Kennedy and Gabbard were viewed with approval by at least 4 in 10 Americans. None of the eight individuals was viewed favorably by a majority of respondents; three — Hegseth, Gaetz and Noem — were viewed favorably by only 3 in 10 Americans. Why are their numbers so high? They are all jokes who have no business being anywhere near power. Not that it will matter. I’m going to bet that they will all be confirmed without too much trouble when all is said and done. I guess there’s a chance that Gaetz might be defeated because his own people loathe him but I actually doubt it. We’re going to have to wait for Trump to fire them.
“When we fight, we win!” – Kamala Harris. So, what do we do when we fight & lose? Never Give Up! Never surrender! People admire that about a leader and a cause. We don’t just fight the fights we can win. You fight the fights that need fighting!” Martin Sheen, The American President (1995) We expect people to follow the norms of losing. Like we do. Accept the loss. Don’t flip the board over. And when we WIN? We are supposed to accept the win. So we stop fighting. We reach out to the losing side & shake hands. We follow the norms of winners. Say, “Good luck! It’s great to have a strong opponent!” We aren’t supposed to be a sore winner! Don’t spike the football. Don’t mock them for losing. Don’t brag about the win everywhere. “Don’t get cocky kid!” I’m getting into too many sports and movie metaphors here, so I want to talk about a specific win and why when we fight & win against RWers we must keep fighting, because the norms of winning aren’t enough against today’s RW.
You asked for it, America President-elect Donald Trump signaled in a Truth Social post on Monday that he means to declare a national emergency as a component of his plans for mass deportations (CNN): CNN reported over the weekend that Trump’s team is evaluating a national emergency declaration to unlock Pentagon resources and tailoring that declaration to pave the way for expanding detention space. In his first term, Trump declared a national emergency on the border with Mexico to circumvent Congress and use Pentagon funds for his border wall—a move that was faced with numerous lawsuits. The incoming administration’s sweeping immigration plans are beginning to come into focus, sources previously told CNN, including implementing strict border measures, striking down Biden-era policies and kicking off the detention and deportation of migrants at large scale. People close to the president-elect and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise, including reviewing metropolitan areas where capabilities exist.
Trump’s failed Truth Social company (DJT) brought in a little bit more than 2 million dollars this year and lost about 20 million but is nonetheless valued at over $7 billion. With a B. It’s has nothing to do with the company and everything to do with Trump in whom people apparently want to invest their money. Now DJT wantsto buy a crypto exchange. Why??? Here’s a bit of an explainer from JV Last: Crypto exchanges exist in a murky regulatory space. Some cryptocurrencies are considered by the government to be securities, and as such they fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC. Markets that function as clearinghouses for such crypto securities are similarly subject to SEC regs. If a crypto exchange could guarantee that it would not be investigated by the SEC or become subject to any new SEC regulations, that would be a valuable asset. Raise your hand if you think there is any chance—any chance at all—that under President Trump the SEC would dare to so much as look in the direction of a crypto exchange owned by DJT.
This piece by Roxanne Gay in the NY Times spoke to me. I‘ve included a gift link for the whole thing but here’s an excerpt: Mistakes were made in the Harris campaign because mistakes are always made in presidential campaigns. Democrats are now reflecting on those mistakes and figuring out how to manifest a different outcome next time, if there is a next time. The recriminations have been numerous — too many celebrities, echo chambers, ignoring the economy, no alternative to the conservative media ecosystem, too much embracing of conservative politicians, too much identity politics, too big a tent, the price of eggs. But to suggest we should yield even a little to Mr. Trump’s odious politics, to suggest we should compromise on the rights of trans people, for instance, and all of the other critical issues we care most about, is unacceptable. It is shameful and cowardly. We cannot abandon the most vulnerable communities to assuage the most powerful. Even if we did, it would never be enough. The goal posts would keep moving until progressive politics became indistinguishable from conservative politics. We’re halfway there already. Mr.
Capitalism’s race to the bottom There is an interesting story about how the chicken of the 1930s (on the left) became the chicken of the 21st century (on the right). It’s not just a tale about how antibiotics created bigger chickens (presumably even your organic, no-antibiotics, free-rangers are a product of that selective breeding), but about how monopsony makes prices higher by eliminating competition, not among manufacturers but among buyers upstream of consumers (the Tysons and Perdues, and the ADMs and Walmarts, etc.) Bloomberg’s three-part “Beak Capitalism” podcast explains how chicken farmers became Uber-style independent contractors before there was an Uber, and how Big Chicken learned to outsource its risk. Uber was late to that party. Consolidation among chicken processors meant farmers had fewer places to sell their birds (um, the processors’ birds, actually) and had to become all-but employees of Big Chicken. Chicken farmers these days raise the birds as contractors.