For once, the over-the-top criticism of a Trump decision is completely justified, and maybe even understated. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), just nominated by the President-Elect to be his Attorney General, has no legitimate qualifications for the job at all, which requires managing a 115,000-person agency. He has no management experience. He has no prosecutorial experience. He is a licensed lawyer, but has very little legal practice experience. No previous Attorney General, going back to Edmund Randolph, Washington’s first AG, had such a sparse legal resume. Randolph had been governor of Virginia.
I am more qualified to be the Attorney General than Matt Gaetz, and I can think of many personal friends and colleagues who are more qualified for the job than I am. If I threw a rock into a cocktail reception at the D.C. Bar, I would hit a more qualified lawyer.
Oh, I get it. Trump ran through six Defense Secretaries in four years (a record) and had an adversary relationship with the Pentagon. As with so many other Departments, entrenched resistance to Trump’s leadership flourishes there, and there are cultural issues as well.
The sort-of new President has learned a hard lesson, and wants a loyal outsider to tackle the Defense Department. Harry Truman once described the department as a feather bed where you punched a problem in one part of the bed and another problem would pop right up.
DOD is huge, a labyrinth of interlocking bureaucracies, and managing it requires superb leadership skills, diplomacy, organization and more. There is no reason to believe that Pete Hegseth possesses any of these.
For the second time in two days, Medium, to which I apparently have a minimal subscription to that allows me to read “public” articles, has sent me a “What are we going to do? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO??” piece in response to Trump’s election. It was titled, “Responding To The Reality Of Another Trump Presidency.”
As with the other one, I just got the beginning and was informed that “The author made this story available to Medium members only. Upgrade to instantly unlock this story plus other member-only benefits.” Yeah, bite me. As I did in this post, I tried to see if the article was available elsewhere. It began,
Well, it’s happened again. This time though, Trump’s election victory wasn’t the stunning upset it was in 2016. It’s still caused incredible shockwaves across America and the world though as we all ponder what it might mean.
So, strap yourselves in folks; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
As the world comes to terms with how the next Trump Presidency might impact us all, much has already been written about the best way to respond. I have to confess to probably going a bit over the top with some of my emotional responses. When someone as divisive as Trump comes along, emotions can be pretty overwhelming.
Whatever our reactions and thoughts though, now is a time of great opportunity, an opportunity to bear witness to the Gospel loud and clear. Not the dualistic gospel that says you can get to heaven when you die if you just believe the right things; nor the same gospel that says you’re going to hell if you don’t believe those things.
I’m talking about the actual good news of Jesus, the one who came to inaugurate God’s reign of love, justice, peace and compassion right here on earth as it is in heaven. I’m talking about the good news that another world is possible and another…
When we last left American University Allen Lichtman, he was smarting from his obviously incompetent and biased prediction that Kamala Harris would defeat Donald Trump proving to be spectacularly wrong. On Wednesday after Election Day, Lichtman told USA TODAY, “Right now after a very long night I am taking some time off to assess why I was wrong and what the future holds for America.” That was enough for me to enshrine him in the “Bias Makes You Stupid” Hall of Fame.
So Lichtman thought and he thought, and he reviewed his over-hyped formula that had delivered 9 out of 10 correct predictions in races that anyone could have predicted with no formula at all (Lichtman’s: go with who looks like the obvious winner, and when in doubt, pick the Democrat), and he applied his training and skills as a an American Presidential historian, and guess what he figured out! No, really, guess. I’ll give you time to think…
Ready?
On his YouTube channel, Lichtman that voters were not “rational” or “pragmatic,” succumbed to “disinformation” and Trump’s promotion of “xenophobia,” “misogyny” and “racism”!
Gee, the Ladies of “The View” came up with that, and they’re all biased, Trump Deranged morons. The voters were stupid, the brilliant Democratic message was muted by social media lies, and half of all Americans wouldn’t vote for a black woman as President because of bigotry.
I think the professor should have “assessed” a teeny bit longer. But it probably wouldn’t have done any good.
“I think two things this year, and maybe going forward, broke this premise of a rational, pragmatic electorate, and these are trends that are not new but have exploded this year beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. First is disinformation,” this clown said. “Always had disinformation, but we’ve never had anything remotely on this scale, where billionaires — I don’t know how much Elon Musk is worth, I’m sure more than a hundred billion dollars — who control critical sources of information for the electorate. I mean, Elon Musk owns X, and I’ve seen reports that his disinformation that he’s put out, has been viewed by two billion viewers, vastly more influential than New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CBS… the incredible explosion of disinformation…makes it very difficult for a rational, pragmatic electorate to operate.”
“Then add to that that we’ve seen Trump and his allies exploit, far more than ever before — even 2016 and 2020 — trends that run deep into American history and still resonate at this time: xenophobia, fear of foreign influences … We have never seen, in recent history, xenophobia to this level, and it digs deep into a trend in American history. It’s not something brand new, and it’s not just white people, you know?” Lichtman said. “People of all races and ethnicities can be subject to xenophobia. And finally, there’s racism, one of the deepest, most pervasive trends in American history. And we have seen, just as Trump and his allies have brought misogyny and xenophobia to a new level, he’s also brought blatant racism to a new level … So we see then the explosion of disinformation and these three dark trends from American history, and that calls into question the whole premise behind the keys of rationality and pragmatism.”
Wow. What a hack!
If I had a son at American, this would be sufficient to have me seek another school to send him to, because such a complete lack of perception, analysis and accountability shouldn’t be permitted on any faculty, in any department.
“Experts” like Lichtman will now validate the fact-free rationalizations of the current Trump-Derangement victims and Democratic Party leadership seeking ways to duck responsibility for running a terrible candidate (whom everyone paying attention knew would be a terrible candidate before she was “selected). He blames Elon Musk? Did Musk magically make Harris sound like an evasive, babbling phony who couldn’t function without a script or a teleprompter? That’s a neat trick! Isn’t part of a college education to learn the life skill of recognizing when you’ve screwed up and learn from the mistake? Clearly Lichtman won’t teach his students that.
Small wonder that Lichtmas thinks Harris was the “rational” choice for President: he’s almost as much of a phony as she is.
Three anti-Trump-biased post-election pieces came to my attention today and yesterday. I guess “philippics” doesn’t exactly apply to all three of them, but I seldom get to use the words, it’s my blog, and so there. One is disappointing, one is disinformation and deflection, and the third is certifiably deranged.
She never sufficiently buried Biden’s ghost, severely hamstringing her ability to sell voters on the idea that hers was the turn-the-page candidacy. It happened, simply, because Harris refused to make a clean break from the last four years when voters indicated that’s what they wanted. Worse, she hesitated to draw any daylight between herself and her boss on Biden’s biggest vulnerability — his stewardship over the economy — nor identify any specific way her presidency would be different from his tenure beyond naming a Republican to her Cabinet.
Is this denial or deliberate dishonesty? Either way, the authors, Christopher Cadelago and Holly Otterbein are covering for Harris, Walz and their party rather than providing truthful analysis to their readers. Harris’s problem wasn’t strategy. Her problem was Harris (and to a lesser extent, Ol’ Knucklehead). No strategy ever devised can make a metaphorical purse out of a metaphorical sow’s ear, and that’s what Harris was as a potential President: a pig’s ear. And not even a very impressive pig’s ear. She was unpopular and generally ignored as Veep, her past positions were radical if not insane, and she literally cannot speak coherently without a script or a teleprompter. To anyone who has a grain of knowledge of psychology, her manic cackle is a tell: she’s insecure, not exactly a quality we seek in our leaders. The primary (well, I shouldn’t use that word because she never offered herself to voters in a primary) persona she projected to the public, other than an empty suit, was that of a chameleon. She presented her position on the Gazan war diametrically differently to Jewish and Muslim audiences. She was pro-fracking and anti-fracking, she was 100% behind Joe Biden and everything he did, and a candidate of change. She was a law and order candidate who opposes “over-incarceration.” She said there had to be consequences for illegal immigration, then said those consequences should be citizenship.
Harris didn’t follow a bad strategy. She was a bad candidate and ran a terrible campaign. That’s why she lost the election. As Harris would say, “Let’s be clear.” Yes, let’s.
If the administrators at the insanely expensive school (the parents of 1,700 students pay tuition for all grades of $65,540 a year) are not embarrassed by that headline, they should be. Morons.
The school told families this week that “students who feel too emotionally distressed” after the election can get excused from classes, and—I find this incredible—psychologists will be available during the week to provide counseling for the tender souls who have presumably been told by their teachers and parents that they will be sent off to work camps and their parents will be executed in Trump wins.
The message to parents “acknowledges that this may be a high-stakes and emotional time for our community. No matter the election outcome will create space to provide students with the support they may need.” Excused absences will be allowed on Wednesday or whatever day the election results are announced for those students who are unable to “fully engage in classes.”
Any student who doesn’t immediately recognize this as a “Get Out Of School Free” ticket is too dim-witted to be in school.
The National Mall is supposed to contain unifying and patriotic memorials and monuments and to be a place of pride for all Americans. It is certainly not a venue for partisan grandstanding and electioneering, or, at least wasn’t designed to be. Never mind, though: as part of the Biden Administration’s effort to try to snatch victory from the maw of the most utterly deserved defeats in American Presidential election history, the National Park Service provided a permit for an ugly, satirical, attack on Donald Trump and his supporters (they are garbage, after all) on the Mall, neatly timed to coincide with the last ditch “anything goes” assault on traditional election campaign civility and fairness because, well, “saving democracy” justifies anything.
The bronze sculpture features a pile of Dairy Queen-arranged shit on the desk of ex-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, complete with nameplate. The elegant plaque reads,
“This memorial honors the brave men and women who broke into the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 to loot, urinate and defecate throughout those hallowed halls in order to overturn an election. President Trump celebrates these heroes of January 6th as ‘unbelievable patriots’ and ‘warriors.’ This monument stands as a testament to their daring sacrifice and lasting legacy.”
“…And that’s the millionth reason I’m fervently hoping and desperately praying that Harris prevails. I believe Biden to be a good man who has done much good for us…”
—Long-time progressive NYT pundit Frank Bruniin one of the “Harris must win, Trump is terrible” stories and columns in the Times today.
I counted 11 of the latter. Twelve. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! Whatever would make you think that?
Bruni has been a member of the Times staff and editorial board for 25 years. Res ipsa loquitur. The Times has at least one (they have, in truth, many) columnist who had a regular platform to spread his biases and misconceptions, and he thinks (or says he thinks) Joe Biden is a good man. Right. There are few politicians of such longevity who have ever left such an unambiguous record of not being a good man, woman, or public servant. Since I’m not writing a book, I’ll just list the bits of Joe’s biography that stick out for me at the moment:
The baseball season ended last night with the Los Angeles Dodgers overcoming a 5 run deficit to win the World Series over the New York Yankees four games to one. Good. It is especially good because the night before, in the only game that the Pinstripes managed to win in the short series, two jerks in Yankee jerseys interfered with the game, the Series and Dodgers star Mookie Betts as he tried to catch a foul fly ball at the Yankee Stadium wall.
In the bottom of the first inning in Game 4 with the Yankees losing 2-0, NY lead-off hitter Gleyber Torres hit a high pop-up into right field foul territory. Dodgers right fielder Betts caught the ball with his glove, but Capobianco, with the assistance of his pal John Hansen, grabbed Betts’ glove with both hands, opened it, reached inside with his right hand and knocked the ball back onto the field. This was on national television for all to see. The umpires ruled fan interference and Torres was called out.
It was a competitive field to be sure, but O’Donnell, who once aspired to be a respected and trustworthy journalist, displayed how far she has fallen with her despicable performance on today’s “CBS Evening News.” You want bias? You want disinformation? You want unprofessional and unethical conduct? You want Trump Derangement? Norah had it for you. CBS should suspend her, or at least send her to a spa to calm the hell down. CBS, however, is a hack organization now employing hack journalists in complete lock-step with the Axis of Unethical Conduct. No, neither Norah nor CBS are quite as corrupt as MSNBC, but that is faint praise indeed.
Ethics Alarms 