The Republican Agenda 2016 forward

[Thomas Veil]

AND…he resigned from Congress to go after the AG slot. 🫢 Can he reverse that? 😐

No…and Ron DeSantis has said he is not going to name him to fill the seat.

So who is Trump going to nominate in his stead? Oh wait, look—it’s a pretty blonde! 🤪

Pam Bondi - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Trump announces Pam Bondi as new attorney general pick hours after Matt Gaetz withdraws

(Edited because I freaking swear spell-check has learned how to misspell the words after I post them.) 😒

 

[Thomas Veil]

Yeah, this woman is not in the least bit interested in justice. Quite the opposite.

Hear Pam Bondi’s vow about the DOJ prosecutors who investigated Trump

How on earth is a diehard MAGA partisan qualified to administer the law in an impartial way? This is almost as much a joke of a nomination as Gaetz.

 

[lizkat]

As stated in an MSNBC interview, the orange bag is picking people for the highest position of the strongest country in the world and the only qualification is undying fealty to The Head Lying Moron. 😳

Some of them definitely seem to be part of a shell game for MAGA who soon lose interest in details. Meanwhile Axios might be getting out over its skis in proposing that Trump's actual cabinet picks portend a remodeling of the ideology of the Republican Party. On that I must suppress a guffaw. I don't know what will happen to the GOP but it's really a tossup now whether it dies in the longer term by implosion, explosion or irrelevance.

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/23/trump-liberal-cabinet-rfk-tulsi-gabbard-bessent

 

[SouprMatt]

Some of them definitely seem to be part of a shell game for MAGA who soon lose interest in details. Meanwhile Axios might be getting out over its skis in proposing that Trump's actual cabinet picks portend a remodeling of the ideology of the Republican Party. On that I must suppress a guffaw. I don't know what will happen to the GOP but it's really a tossup now whether it dies in the longer term by implosion, explosion or irrelevance.

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/23/trump-liberal-cabinet-rfk-tulsi-gabbard-bessent

Good lord, was that Axios article written by the folks at r/conservative? The ones who still insist that Musk is a liberal who “saw the light”? Nobody honestly sees Tulsi as a Democrat… come on. That might be one of the dumbest articles I’ve ever read.

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

Also, not to be the complete bearer of bad news, but it might be important to realize a particular point.

Gaetz resigned from the OUTGOING congress. He did win his seat in the NEW congress.

Could Matt Gaetz decide to keep his House seat? It's complicated

After former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration to be attorney general, questions still swirl about the ethics investigation into him and his political future.

www.nbcnews.com

Ever since Matt Gaetz resigned from the House — and subsequently withdrew his name from consideration to be President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general — questions have swirled about his political fate.

While Gaetz resigned last week from the current Congress, he was re-elected this month to represent his Florida district when the next session begins in January. That raises the question: Could he return?

Here's what to know.

Gaetz can't return to Congress this year​

When he submitted his resignation, Gaetz ended his official role in the current 118th Congress. He cannot reclaim his seat in the remaining weeks of this Congress.

According to what are known as the Deschler-Brown Precedents of the House, a resignation “becomes effective on its stated terms and ordinarily may not be withdrawn.”

So Gaetz is not coming back to the 118th Congress.

Could he be sworn in for the 119th Congress?​

It’s complicated.

In his resignation letter, read by the clerk on the House floor, Gaetz wrote: “I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress.” He wrote the same sentence in a letter sent to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, dated Nov. 13 and entered it into the Congressional Record.

DeSantis had to be notified because House vacancies are filled by special election as stated in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution: “When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.”

But a special election has not been organized or held yet.

The 119th Congress begins on Jan. 3. When Gaetz resigned, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., expressed hope that a special election could be held in time to fill his seat quickly.

The House Practice guide says members-elect “entitled to take the oath may decline it by resigning before taking a seat, because membership cannot be imposed on one without his consent.”

Gaetz did say he wasn't coming back. DeSatan has to somehow find someone even ( I'm sure ron is working hard on this ) shittier.

But technically...

I'm just saying, I think we've learned NOT to take any of these people at their word. If matt thinks the repubs will squash that report, I'm sure he'll twist logic more than ( choose any sexually inappropriate innuendo that involves the under age here ) to justify returning to that seat. We can only hope he's read the room enough to realize that his co workers all hate him ( except for some butch blonde ) and he gets 45 to put him in some other gov't job that doesn't need congressional approval.

 

[lizkat]

Good lord, was that Axios article written by the folks at r/conservative? The ones who still insist that Musk is a liberal who “saw the light”? Nobody honestly sees Tulsi as a Democrat… come on. That might be one of the dumbest articles I’ve ever read.

Yeah I dunno about Axios. They still get pegged as slightly left of center but they were sought after in 2021 by the CEO of Axel Springer SE, the German multinational media behemoth based in Berlin. The guy that owns 22% of that and is its CEO, Matthias Dopfner, is no center-leftist.

When Axel Springer SE bought out Politico in 2021, it was secretly and in parallel at that time also trying to buy Axios, which media aficionados will remember was co-founded by a couple guys including Jim van der Hei who had founded Politico and then bailed to start over.

The problem and eventual cancellaton of the Axios piece of Axel Springer's double-deal (pun intended) was that Matthias Dopfner proposed to Jim van der Hei (as extra incentive to make the deal) that van der Hei would be eventually be installed as head of the merged Politico-Axios entity, but that this would be kept secret until the Poliitco buy was locked in and announced, and then the Axios piece of the deal would be consummated and the management change at the merged outfit would be announced.

Van der Hei balked at the impracticality (due to ongoing bitterness at Politico over exit of guys who founded Axios) and at the "sneaky" approach to the deal. He said "It's not how we do business here" and subsequentliy pulled out of the deal. The piece cited below (unlocked) is long and in some parts very telling about Axel Springer's alleged problems with, as the NYT headline had it, "Sex, Lies, and Secret Payments". Leaving that aside, the piece does detail some of the lean of the late Axel Springer, the founder of the company bearing his name, and the lean of Bild, a keystone publication in the company's holdings today.

At Axel Springer, Politico’s New Owner, Allegations of Sex, Lies and a Secret Payment (Published 2021)

A high-flying German media giant is ahead on digital media but seems stuck in the past when it comes to the workplace and deal-making.

www.nytimes.com

To get a feel for the German company now emerging as a major player in American, and global, media, it’s important to understand the man for whom it was named, a towering figure in postwar media.

Axel Springer was a fierce anti-Communist and supporter of Israel, and his papers were hostile to the student leftists of the 1960s and 1970s. The Red Army Faction bombed Axel Springer’s offices in Hamburg in 1972. In 1974, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Heinrich Böll published “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum,” about a woman whose life is ruined by an aggressive reporter for a Bild-like paper after she has an affair with a left-wing militant.

Bild’s politics are now center-right, but have grown sharp-edged under Mr. Reichelt, a former war correspondent. The tabloid initially welcomed Syrian refugees, then turned bitterly critical of immigration (though it is also hostile to the far-right AfD party). A Washington correspondent for Bild complained, in internal Slack messages that subsequently leaked, of a slant toward Donald Trump in the coverage of the 2020 U.S. presidential debates. The paper has also attacked the German government’s Covid restrictions and its main public health expert.

Axios, having refused the Axel Springer deal, eventually then sold itself instead in 2022 to Cox Enterprises, a sprawling privately owned conglomerate sometimes showing evidence of confusion about its direction, particularly in its subsidiary Cox Media Group, e.g., having once sold off a bunch of Ohio newspapers and then buying them back, etc. Go figure. The idea of Axios being umbrellaed under an entity that sometimes looks like it's trying to get out of the media sector makes everything about Axios even hazier than back when Axel Springer was trying to fold it into its own still growing ownership of American media properties.

Here is Axios' self-reported account of the Cox deal. They seemed to make a point of being up there with Politico and The Athletic in terms of media deals valued over $500 million (just in case Politico was feeling superior for having arrived in that category?).

https://www.axios.com/2022/08/08/axios-agrees-to-sell-to-cox-enterprises-for-525-million

Penultimate thought: van der Hei once said he figured to try to make Axios into a cross between The Economist and Twitter.

That, to me --even before Musk made Twitter into Xitter-- would peg Axios as aspiring to be more center-right than center-left.

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

I've seen this posted on both Bluesky + xit, and it perfectly nails Johnson & Friends.

 

[lizkat]

I've seen this posted on both Bluesky + xit, and it perfectly nails Johnson & Friends.

If confirmed, bank on Pam Bondi pursuing Hunter Biden's g'damned laptop to the ends of absurdity, even if we thought we'd already been there. Gotta love how the orange felon prattles on about de-weaponizing the Department of Justice. His whole 2nd administration looks wired for retribution against his nearly endless list of the authors of his personally perceived or conveniently invented grievances.

And yet all these nominees seem unfazed by the truth that Everything Trump Touches Dies.

So tedious we all get to endure the "reveals" along the way. He didn't get a mandate for anything but another f'g series of soap operas.

And to my mind the media got to vote a hundred thousand times over and over again for exactly this outcome. I don't know how else they could have handled it, exactly, but their protestations now when they're criticized remind me of one of my younger bros sitting in the bottom of Mom's closet with an open box of chocs and a whole lot of empty chocco wrappers and chocolate smeared all over his two year old face, crying "No, no, I didn't eat them! I didn't do it!" 🔥💥

 

[SouprMatt]

If confirmed, bank on Pam Bondi pursuing Hunter Biden's g'damned laptop to the ends of absurdity, even if we thought we'd already been there. Gotta love how the orange felon prattles on about de-weaponizing the Department of Justice. His whole 2nd administration looks wired for retribution against his nearly endless list of the authors of his personally perceived or conveniently invented grievances.

And yet all these nominees seem unfazed by the truth that Everything Trump Touches Dies.

So tedious we all get to endure the "reveals" along the way. He didn't get a mandate for anything but another f'g series of soap operas.

And to my mind the media got to vote a hundred thousand times over and over again for exactly this outcome. I don't know how else they could have handled it, exactly, but their protestations now when they're criticized remind me of one of my younger bros sitting in the bottom of Mom's closet with an open box of chocs and a whole lot of empty chocco wrappers and chocolate smeared all over his two year old face, crying "No, no, I didn't eat them! I didn't do it!" 🔥💥

They didn’t need to cover him, at all. Instead they kept him in the news every day after he left office. They covered every single rally. They are addicted to him, because they think he leads to more clicks and more money for them.

 

[lizkat]

They didn’t need to cover him, at all. Instead they kept him in the news every day after he left office. They covered every single rally. They are addicted to him, because they think he leads to more clicks and more money for them.

And they may be right, even if they're skittish now wondering if there's such a thing as permanent Trump-fatigue.

Politics is a blood sport and the coverage of Trump by the NYT and WaPo is like breakfast cereal to some, especially in the Beltway and on the two coasts (along w/ the LA Times when it gets a word in). If you don't have the political reporters' take on his latest social media post by time you get to your congressional aide's desk or your spot on the trading floor, you're just hopeless. It's not that you believe it or think it matters, it's just if you don't have it, it's like you left your house without putting your pants on or something.

The great game in Europe was the impossible permanent conquest of Afghanistan. We learned nothing from that and went there to fix it, The geat game in the USA is one-upping your friends on what Trump just said. We don't know how to quit doing that yet either. It must not hurt enough yet.

But where are we supposed to get the non-Trump-related news of the world around us? From the pink slime stuff that private equity groups are spreading around what is otherwise local news deserts now? Half of them don't even take the wire services any more. Reuters makes you register now to read it bare, and the AP is gettin' ready for paywall I think.

 

[SouprMatt]

Part of the agenda is to force Christianity on people. Best way to indoctrinate is to start when they are young!

Texas approves Bible-infused curriculum for public schools | Houston Public Media

Schools will not be required to use Bluebonnet Learning materials, but the state will offer financial incentives to districts that do.

www.houstonpublicmedia.org

Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, testified earlier in the week that he's not opposed to teaching religion in schools, but the Texas curriculum over-emphasizes Christianity over other religions.

"Not only is it taught in such a way that's going to promote some religions over others, but in many cases it even just gets the basic facts wrong," he said.

The same people who scream about supposed indoctrination at colleges… are violating the Establishment clause of the constitution they claim to revere…. To indoctrinate 5-year-olds into their warped version of Christianity.

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

This is some weird obsessive shit with conservatives / repubs & their hard on with trans people.



The twist?

I'll let you read the rest of the comments yourself.

 

[P___X]

I'll let you read the rest of the comments yourself.

Mommy, is the mons pubis still under the bed?

 

[lizkat]

Another insane pick by Trump... Kash Patel to head up the FBI. Don't think the Senate will buy this one. Just knowing he used to work for Devin Nunes should disqualify him. Even if one agrees the FBI needs close supervision and assurance that their intel is integrated with that of other intel agencies, what Trump and Patel have in mind for it is inappropriate, e.g., among other things having only Trump loyalists vetting appointments and running hyperpartisan investigations.

What to know about Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI

Kash Patel has called for radical changes at the FBI and was a fierce and vocal critic of the bureau’s work as it investigated ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

apnews.com

 

[SouprMatt]

Another insane pick by Trump... Kash Patel to head up the FBI. Don't think the Senate will buy this one. Just knowing he used to work for Devin Nunes should disqualify him. Even if one agrees the FBI needs close supervision and assurance that their intel is integrated with that of other intel agencies, what Trump and Patel have in mind for it is inappropriate, e.g., among other things having only Trump loyalists vetting appointments and running hyperpartisan investigations.

What to know about Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI

Kash Patel has called for radical changes at the FBI and was a fierce and vocal critic of the bureau’s work as it investigated ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

apnews.com

Start out by nominating the clowns, then replace them with Nazis who are meant to look not as bad in comparison? Or… his brain is addled and all he knows is what he sees on Fox News. Because all his picks are what an old, lonely Fox addict would pick.

 

[P___X]

Start out by nominating the clowns, then replace them with Nazis who are meant to look not as bad in comparison? Or… his brain is addled and all he knows is what he sees on Fox News. Because all his picks are what an old, lonely Fox addict would pick.

sounds about right.

 

[Thomas Veil]

At first I was surprised no one's mentioned this yet, but I guess we're already getting Trump Craziness Burnout.

(Correction: I see @lizkat mentioned it last night.)

Trump's decision to tap Kash Patel for FBI director sends shockwaves through Washington

Democrats and some former Trump officials criticized President-elect Donald Trump's announcement that he wants Kash Patel to be FBI director.

www.cbsnews.com

Patel, a 44-year-old who served in intelligence and defense roles in Trump's first term, is a controversial figure even within Trump's world, and a former U.S. official described him as "by far the most dangerous pick" Trump has made.

"There is no 'there' to him," the official told CBS News. "He'll literally do anything."

John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Trump's first term and was Patel's boss, compared the nomination to Joseph Stalin's secret police chief.

"Fortunately, the FBI is not" Stalin's secret police, Bolton said. "The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0."

Trump, of course, just likes this guy because he imagines he's done nothing wrong and it's the FBI that's corrupt. He wants Patel to go after any politicians and journalists who had any part in bringing charges against him.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on NBC that he will vote no...

"Kash Patel's only qualification is because he agrees with Donald Trump that the Department of Justice should serve to punish, lock up, and intimidate Donald Trump's political opponents...."

Most dangerous pick, indeed. Unlike Gaetz, this guy is not going to withdraw, so I hope the Senate has the spine to reject Donald's chosen instrument of revenge.

 

[SouprMatt]

At first I was surprised no one's mentioned this yet, but I guess we're already getting Trump Craziness Burnout.

(Correction: I see @lizkat mentioned it last night.)

Trump's decision to tap Kash Patel for FBI director sends shockwaves through Washington

Democrats and some former Trump officials criticized President-elect Donald Trump's announcement that he wants Kash Patel to be FBI director.

www.cbsnews.com

Trump, of course, just likes this guy because he imagines he's done nothing wrong and it's the FBI that's corrupt. He wants Patel to go after any politicians and journalists who had any part in bringing charges against him.




Most dangerous pick, indeed. Unlike Gaetz, this guy is not going to withdraw, so I hope the Senate has the spine to reject Donald's chosen instrument of revenge.

I wish all these weirdos were out snipe hunting for election fraud instead of being nominated for jobs receiving our taxpayer dollars.

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

At first I was surprised no one's mentioned this yet, but I guess we're already getting Trump Craziness Burnout.

(Correction: I see @lizkat mentioned it last night.)

Trump's decision to tap Kash Patel for FBI director sends shockwaves through Washington

Democrats and some former Trump officials criticized President-elect Donald Trump's announcement that he wants Kash Patel to be FBI director.

www.cbsnews.com

Trump, of course, just likes this guy because he imagines he's done nothing wrong and it's the FBI that's corrupt. He wants Patel to go after any politicians and journalists who had any part in bringing charges against him.

Most dangerous pick, indeed. Unlike Gaetz, this guy is not going to withdraw, so I hope the Senate has the spine to reject Donald's chosen instrument of revenge.

It may not matter whether spines are finally discovered or not.

 

[lizkat]

This is the guy I wonder about. His pick for DEA head is a Florida sheriff.

Trump picks Florida sheriff Chad Chronister for DEA administrator

President-elect Donald Trump announced he will nominate Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration. In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump said that Chronister -- who has served the Tampa, Florida, area for over 32 years -- will work with his...

ca.news.yahoo.com

What I want the Senators to ask about is what are his views on, and affiliation with, if any, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA). That group is a bunch of extremist county sheriffs who assert that they and they alone decide which laws are constitutional and so deserve enforcement. Some of them have encouraged formation of associated local militias to back them up.

The formal members and fans of CSPOA mostly fly under the radar in news reporting. The formal, public membership is fairly sparse, but apparently there's a lot of approval by county sheriffs in red states around the country, including in New York State. We have some in upstate watershed areas who sometimes at least in casual banter do seem to cultivate local contempt for EPA's watershed rules protecting NYC's drinking water reservoirs.

The New Yorker did run a profile on CSPOA in 2018.

The Renegade Sheriffs

A law-enforcement movement that claims to answer only to the Constitution.

www.newyorker.com

Anyway my concern is for human rights in the USA if this Trump pick for DEA hooks up with Stephen Miller to "police" the border and/or "police" behavior of immigrant agricultural workers even if they have H-2A visas. Trump is all about showing red meat to his fan base and anyone's fair game if a sheriff says so. They are usually elected and past that report to no one really. Mini kings, some of them. Think back on the notorious Joe Arpaio...

The AP ran an investigative piece and found that while there was support in some quarters for the ideas of the CSPOA (which among other things when they talk about the Constitution they mean the Bill of Rights, so not the amendments past that which include acknowledgment of more civil rights), there are other sheriffs who distance themselves from the CSPOA and note their job is to enforce the laws and not to interpret them or decide which to ignore.

A right-wing sheriffs group that challenges federal law is gaining acceptance around the country

A national group of sheriffs that claims the top law enforcers in American counties are not bound by federal law has successfully spread its doctrine to dozens of states in recent years.

apnews.com

Edit: Hmm, looks like the Rs are eating their own on this nomination, Some MAGA Rs don't like the DEA pick because during peak covid era he arrested a pastor of a church that was defying lockdowns to have in-person church services. Go figure.

Chad Chronister, Trump's DEA pick, faces MAGA backlash

The Florida sheriff once oversaw the arrest of a pastor accused of defying Covid-19 lockdowns to host church services.

www.newsweek.com