“The Simpsons'” Nelson Muntz has been getting a workout on Ethics Alarms lately, because the Trump Deranged and the Axis totalitarians have been falling flat on their faces in their own filth with hilarious regularity.
On a recent episode of “The View,” the all-woke, all Trump-Deranged, all-too-dumb-to-breathe panel attacked President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks and Matt Gaetz’s nomination in particular, as former prosecutor Sunny Hostin, who thinks that earthquakes and eclipses are proof of cliamte change, expressed horror that Trump could nominate the former Congressman with such damning “allegations” having been made against him. Wow, she must have been some prosecutor with that attitude toward unproven allegations!
Three minutes after Hostin’s unethical diatribe, Whoopi Goldberg interjected, “Sonny, you have a legal note.” You see, Donald Trump is suing ABC for defamation. It’s a doomed suit I think, but ABC’s lawyers, being lawyerly, don’t want to take any chances. They heard Hostin’s rant and quickly rushed on the air a legal disclaimer that–Haha!—Hostin was ordered to read. Which she did, with the facial expression and tone of a North Korean-held American prisoner of war being forced to read a “confession”:
“I do have a legal note. Thank you, Whoopi,” Hostin replied. She continued,
“Matt Gaetz has long denied all allegations, calling the claims, quote, ‘invented,’ and saying in a statement to ABC News that ‘this false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism. The DOJ investigation was closed with no charges being brought.”
Whoopi then sent the show into a commercial. I’m surprised the network’s lawyers didn’t make Hostin recite, “ABC also wants to assure readers that I am an idiot, and what I say, as with all the other members of ‘The View,’ should never be taken seriously.”
To be clear, the position here is not that Gaetz should be rejected as Attorney General because of the allegations against him, but because he is not only unqualified to be a U.S. Attorney General, he’s unqualified to be a member of Congress. He’s untrustworthy, and based on his legal experience as well as his mass of outrageous statements, I wouldn’t hire him for any legal task I can think of. Trump obviously intends the nomination to demonstrate his contempt for the Justice Department under Merrick Garland, a sentiment that is understandable and justified. If that is the message he wants to send, however, he should have just nominated a baboon and avoided any ambiguity.
Ethics Alarms 
I love this for her.
“If that is the message he wants to send, however, he should have just nominated a baboon and avoided any ambiguity.”
You are missing the point. The baboon’s personality probably wouldn’t cause enough people to quit.
Are there enough slots at firms around the country to absorb all the US Attorneys and AUSAs in the country?
I don’t know, but the Dems keep telling us that there won’t be enough people to mow their lawns and clean their toilets if Trump starts deporting people. I sense an opening in the job market for them!
You’d really trust lawyers with power mowers and power tools? The mow your yard and trim your bushes? Risky. Very risky. They’d injure themselves and then sue you for negligence.
Hold on there, OB. I am masterful with an edger and a weedeater. Hell, I can edge a yard on 54″ ZTrac zero turn John Deere mower like nobody’s business. I tell my long-suffering wife, “Dear, I can practice law and landscape at the highest levels of professionalism.” She simply weeps that she tied her future to so lowly as me!
jvb
Atta boy, John. I want you to know my brother and I got to race around the IH dealer’s back lot on brand new Cub Cadets as kids on Sunday mornings when my dad would take us down there to do some paperwork.
The crazy part of this is that DOGE, the “agency” to be headed by Musk and Ramaswami, will have less positions to fill once all of the resignations are in effect at DOJ, FBI, Treasury, and HHS. Those resignations alone will save the federal government tens of millions of dollars in salaries.
jvb
Good point.
Or, as our host has previously noted, Trump should have nominated Bozo the Clown to be Attorney General.
Funny how Trump nominating Gaetz is deemed “trolling” by the Axis. But Biden choosing Harris as his VP or Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation or that guy that looks like Ben Franklin in drag as the Surgeon General is commendable to the point of being historic.
Well technically assistant surgeon general.
Which makes the criticism of Robrt Kennedy a bit hypocritical. At least Robert Kennedy is quite physically fit.
other than a dead worm in h8s brain, I hear
Assistant Secretary for Health – the Surgeon General is Murthy – formerly of the Obama admin. Technically, the Surgeon General is lower down, since the position carries the three-star rank of Vice Admiral, the Assistant Secretary is a four-star or full admiral, if he or she chooses to be a commissioned officer in the Public Health Service. Not all do, and many have not been moved up to the four-star rank, but of course they pushed Levine into all of that. So far, the possible nominees for the post in the Trump administration are all ordinary men.
She looks more as if she got caught writing graffiti in the boys’ bathroom in elementary school and had to make a statement to the class. She’s definitely a brat. One of the cool kids. She does not take being corrected mildly.
Could the possibility be the new administration view as the possible way for President Trump’s daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, to be moved quickly into a position as a senator, then knowing Gatez would fail in a short manner of time then be dismissed promptly and President Trump would move an individual of his true choice into the position? This sure would ensure that whatever agenda this administration wanted voted in would stand a better chance of passing. I disagree with relatives being allowed into any powerful position of a current government official on any level because of this temptation to promote the relative’s agenda.
I am not sure if Laura Trump is a Florida resident. It looks like she is a North Carolina resident (at least until recently). I don’t know if Florida does the New York thing where they claim that their senators are ‘national’ and don’t need to be New Yorkers (e.g. Hillary Clinton). This would be up to DeSantis, who is a Trump rival. I would see DeSantis making the pick beneficial to himself before making beneficial to Trump.
I don’t know if Laura Trump wants to be a senator, but that is not the position Gaetz holds. He is a Representative, and I do believe the constitution mandates that vacancies in the House be filled by a special election to be held as soon as possible. Each state has its own rules for scheduling these elections.
Now Rubio is a senator from Florida, and he’s been appointed to be Secretary of State, wasn’t it? Senatorial vacancies are filled by the governor until the next regular two year election, which would have been why Nebraska had two senate seats up for grabs this year.
I actually think that Trump nominated Gaetz as a kind of sacrificial whipping boy, instead of gnashing their teeth at someone like Pete Hegseth, Gaetz’s nomination is designed as a lightning rod for all the performative resistance that some Senators are going to want to demonstrate. And I think there’s a better than not chance the nomination straight-up fails, because I think there’s a number of Republicans that aren’t eager to confirm him.
Which makes his choice to leave his house seat now all the more unusual.
Someone in the commentariat suggested he merely resigned his current position but could still return to office in the next Congress having won his election.
That sounds weird….but logical.
I have heard analysis that Gaetz is a sacrificial lamb to deflect attention on other cabinet choices/nominations but Trump doesn’t seem to the kind of guy who plays that kind of 3-D chess. Losing a cabinet position nomination would signal weakness on his part, which Trump would avoid like the plague or COVID-24/25. If Trump hates anything it is losing.
I also read that Gaetz put himself forward as a nominee so that he could step down from his current House position, thereby killing the ethics complaint/investigation. He won re-election, so he could step in January 2025 with a new slate. That seems more plausible.
jvb
I’m not on the House Ethics committee, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if Gaetz joins the new Congress that way, they might happen a cross a report of an ethics investigation done by the previous Congress.
You know, just in case anyone happens to file an ethics complaint against him (the line forms on the right).
Just saying.
I am most impressed by how efficient the ABC lawyers were and how on the ball they were.
I mean, this wasn’t something where she had to come back the next day and make a statement.
These lawyers watched her diatribe, composed a cya statement, and had it to her as a mandatory read all withing the same segment of the show!
That is impressive. I think we need to hire these folks to count the vote in Pennsylvania and California — they’d have it done within an hour of the polls closing…..
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Jack, if you remember the end of ‘Darkest Hour’, when Churchill is making his “We shall never surrender” speech, they show Lord Halifax looking like a man whose favorite dog has just passed away.
That’s what Hostin looked like when she read this statement.
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Tee hee