Hear Ye, Hear Ye! The Circus Has Arrived
Ironic Reality Becomes a Thing in Trumpland
I’d like everybody to learn a new word that you’ll find helpful in discussing the fate of the nation over the next four years:
Kakistocracy: A Nation run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens
Thanks for tuning in.
***
I have some good news to start this column today: InfoWars, the source and sustainer of conspiracy theories, has been sold at auction to The Onion, a satirical publication. The new owners have expressed concern recently about their ability to remain relevant in an era where the Trump administration continues to pump out outrageousness.
Too good to be true? It’s a real deal, according to the Associated Press:
The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform’s website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive. The sale price was not immediately disclosed. The Onion said its “exclusive launch advertiser” will be the gun violence prevention organization Everytown for Gun Safety.
“Everytown will continue to raise awareness on InfoWars’ channels about gun violence prevention and present actual solutions to our nation’s gun violence crisis, including bipartisan, common-sense measures and public safety initiatives backed by Everytown,” The Onion said in a statement Thursday.
The sale is part of fulfilling obligations of over one billion dollars by conspiracist Alex Jones, who lost a lawsuit charging him with defamation and emotional distress for repeatedly saying on his show that the deaths of 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control.
Here’s Parker Molloy:
Infowars, the site that has spent years peddling lies about everything from mass shootings to water that supposedly “turns the frogs gay,” is now under the control of The Onion. In a twist that’s almost too perfect, satire has literally swallowed the very absurdities it once parodied, creating a loop of irony that could short-circuit reality itself.
***
Now that I’ve got that nugget out of the way, let's turn to the latest in the firehouse of Trump pronouncements and nominations for government posts.
There are two theories about how Trump 2.0 will play out.
One says the MAGA takeover of government will rely on self-censorship by intimidated individuals and agencies. Kidnap 150,000 migrants and many will flee, along with the public perceiving a diminished threat. I think this point of view places (too much) faith in the so-called guardrails of democracy to slow destruction of the administrative state until the next general election.
The other, which I believe is more likely, is the shock-and-awe, bull-in-a-china shop approach.
With the most outrageous of his cabinet nominations, the next president is seeking to negate any oversight or resistance by the legislative branch of government.
House members were told that opposition to administration-backed bills would result in Elon Musk financing challengers in the next election. Senate confirmation hearings, once considered a check on the executive branch, will either be neutered by procedural tricks or eliminated by acceptance of the promised recess appointments.
Trump’s choice of former Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general will be a test of whether the Senate will be loyal to the Constitution or whether it will bend the knee to Donald Trump. And, of course, the outrage coming from quarters inhabited by seemingly sane people is the sort of thing keeping MAGAts fired up.
The Florida Congressman was on the president-elect’s plane flying between Florida and DC and successfully put himself at the top of a list that he wasn’t even on prior to take off.
Gaetz immediately resigned from Congress just two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on releasing a “highly damaging” report. Now the committee no longer has jurisdiction, and hopes for a leaked document are rising.
The Attorney for a minor Gaetz is accused of having sex with has called on House Ethics to release it's report:
Mr. Gaetz's likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.
A Trump advisor told The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo:
“None of the attorneys had what Trump wanted, and they didn’t talk like Gaetz. Everyone else looked at the Attorney General position as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bullshit. Gaetz was the only one who said, ‘yeah, I’ll go over there and start cuttin’ fuckin’ heads.’”
One publication is saying the reactions to the Gaetz appointment have been so negative that the nomination may already be sunk.
Via Politico Playbook:
‘NEVER TRUMPERS’ LICK WOUNDS — A prominent group of “never Trump” conservatives, including GEORGE CONWAY, MICHAEL LUTTIG and BARBARA COMSTOCK , gathered in Georgetown last night to lament the election results and warn about the dangers of Trump’s early personnel moves, our Josh Gerstein reports. Mention of Trump’s selection of Gaetz to be AG triggered audible gasps and snickering from the crowd. Trump is naming a Cabinet of “Putinists and pedophiles,” Comstock said to laughter and groans.
***
Trump's nominations of Fox and Friends Weekend host Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Defense) and former Congresswoman turned MAGA celebrity, Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence) have also triggered expressions of outrage
Former senior military commanders called the Hegseth pick "ridiculous" and "an effing nightmare,." according to CNN's Jim Sciutto.
At The Guardian, columnist Margaret Sullivan observed: "Any line of separation between Fox News and the US government is about to vanish."
Based on numerous interviews, Hegseth’s top priority for the Pentagon and the more than 2 million people serving under its command will be to purge “wokeness.”
Via ABC News:
"I think our biggest threat is internal. I think we're committing cultural suicide, and we've lost complete focus on the basics and building blocks of what made Western civilization in America exceptional, fruitful, prosperous, strong, free," Hegseth said on the podcast.
Hegseth has proposed a wholesale purge of military officials who have supported DEI policies, urging a "frontal assault right back at what's been done to this military from the top and to the bottom."
It should surprise nobody that, accompanying the campaign to take us back to before the civil rights movement, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest there’s a dose of Christian Nationalism headed the military’s way.
Via a New York Post account, focused on Hegseth’s many tattoos:
Hegseth’s most well-known tattoo is probably the large Jerusalem Cross on his chest.
The symbol made up of one large cross with four small crosses around it dates back to the Crusades, but has more recently been linked to problematic Christian nationalists.
The ink made headlines in 2021, when Hegseth was one of several National Guard members ordered to stand down from Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Tulsi Gabbard’s future post has more than raised eyebrows, both on Capitol Hill and in the intelligence services.
Via Politico:
The possibility of Gabbard as DNI also drew alarm from those outside the U.S.
One Western intelligence official said it could lead America’s allies to curb how much information they share with Washington. “I imagine even Israel will have serious qualms — America’s main intelligence partner on terrorist threats,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
“Worse still, what some allies share may now be shaped by political goals rather than professional intelligence sharing,“ said the official.
Here’s Jeff Stein at SpyTalk:
Gabbard’s nomination to be DNI “alarmed some former U.S. intelligence officers and researchers of Russian propaganda, who recalled extensive Russian [social media] support for her during the 2020 presidential primaries,” The Washington Post reported Wednesday. “It’s crazy,” one former Russia analyst at the CIA told The Post.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia) said that he’s “got real questions” on whether she is too sympathetic to Russia. He had other Democrats, and maybe some Republicans who remain hawks on Ukraine, can be expected to lace into Gabbard as a security risk in her confirmation hearing—again, should she get one and not be made a “recess” or “acting” appointment.
***
Ratings for CNN and MSNBC have cratered since the election, with Fox News picking up some of the slack. Here’s Chuck Todd, being optimistic:
"These confirmation hearings may just save cable TV for the short term,"
***
News You Outta Know
***
How to Live with an Abuser and Thrive: November 2024 by Jennie Young at Burned Haystack Dating Method
Many women who have lived with abusers—some for decades—are able to identify the moment they quietly shifted into some other gear. It’s a subtle “click” that can be felt more than heard. Once you feel that shift, it becomes impossible to see the situation as anything other than what it is, which is abuse. It forces you to confront the reality that your partner is not only not on your team but actively engaged as your enemy; he is working against you to hurt you. This is diabolical, to knowingly harm the person you’re supposed to love and support, so it’s difficult to accept, but if you don’t accept it, the only option you have is delusion.
We can’t afford more delusion; delusion paved a path to installing a sociopath in the White House. Twice.
I keep a note on my desktop that says, “In life, the person with the strongest reality wins.” Keep yourself grounded in reality. There’s a dignity in calling a situation what it is, even if that situation really sucks. On a personal level, this prepares you for what you’ll need to do next; on a national level, it renders us able to participate in an eventual restoration of democracy. We’re never going to be able to fix anything if the whole country has a collective case of Stockholm syndrome.
***
‘Fund the Police’ Backfired—and Gave Trump More Power Than Ever by Jerry Lannelli at The Appeal
It shouldn’t have taken losing another presidential election in embarrassing fashion to teach Democrats that Republican voters simply want to vote for Republicans. Or that half-conservative measures don’t work when the other party is happy to outflank you from the right. But here we are. Rolling over whenever conservatives whipped up a new crime panic did not reward Democratic candidates. It instead taught voters that Republicans’ racist, dubious, and malicious narratives about crime were the only ones that mattered. While it’s hard to pinpoint the exact reason a presidential candidate lost an election, it is incontrovertible that “support for law enforcement” was a key principle of one of the least popular administrations in recent history. As such, there is nothing to lose in standing against a violent policing system that will never help Democrats anyway.
Of course, many Democratic Party dead-enders are financially invested in not seeing reality. Police reform opens up the door to other questions about class, inequality, corporate power, and capitalism that the modern Democratic Party quite literally cannot afford to discuss. But if there are any people left within the party’s governing coalition interested in clawing the country back from Republican rule, they ought to ask themselves what’s been gained by alienating the millions of people who have marched in the streets since the advent of the modern Black Lives Matter movement 12 years ago. “Funding the police” has done little other than tell those people to sit home—while funneling money and weapons to a police state happy to help Trump carry out a second term.
***
Mind-Blowing Discovery: Scientists Discover That Memories Are Not Only in the Brain by New York University via SciTechDaily:
The results showed that these cells could determine when the chemical pulses, which imitated bursts of neurotransmitter in the brain, were repeated rather than simply prolonged—just as neurons in our brain can register when we learn with breaks rather than cramming all the material in one sitting. Specifically, when the pulses were delivered in spaced-out intervals, they turned on the “memory gene” more strongly, and for a longer time, than when the same treatment was delivered all at once.
“This reflects the massed-space effect in action,” says Kukushkin, a clinical associate professor of life science at NYU Liberal Studies and a research fellow at NYU’s Center for Neural Science. “It shows that the ability to learn from spaced repetition isn’t unique to brain cells, but, in fact, might be a fundamental property of all cells.”
The researchers add that the findings not only offer new ways to study memory, but also point to potential health-related gains.
“This discovery opens new doors for understanding how memory works and could lead to better ways to enhance learning and treat memory problems,” observes Kukushkin. “At the same time, it suggests that in the future, we will need to treat our body more like the brain—for example, consider what our pancreas remembers about the pattern of our past meals to maintain healthy levels of blood glucose or consider what a cancer cell remembers about the pattern of chemotherapy.”
