Trump's creature cantina
I think it’s great that Pensacola Prince Andrew, aka Matt Gaetz, has gone from Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general of the United States to making videos on Cameo for $500 a pop.
It’s reassuring.
Eighteen days after the election, and 56 days before the inauguration, it remains the case that anything is still possible in America.
Congratulations, Matt, and let me just say that the whole country will be watching what you decide to do during prom season.
Gaetz, the defenestrated victim of terminal affluenza that turned him into the second most puerile punk to ever serve in the House of Representatives across 118 congresses — behind George Santos — has been replaced with an agent of the Qatari government. Pam Bondi has said she believes that the prosecutors who charged Trump because he broke laws should be retaliated against and investigated because they enforced the law in a system of government where the rule of law is supreme.
The position of Senate Democrats must be a hard no with a hard dose of political menace built in. It may not be in their nature, but playing the Qatari card is essential. Qatar was the home of Hamas while Bondi was cashing the checks. It’s utterly disqualifying. Maybe a Saudi agent for DIA or NSA?
Pam Bondi is an immense national security risk. She is at least on par with those represented by the absurdist nominations of Tulsi Gabbard and the accused rapist with Christian nationalist tattoos stamped on his chest, the handsy Fox News morning host Pete Hegseth.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words…
The job is national intelligence, not national vapidity director.
When I first saw this photo, I wondered if I was looking at a promo for a new Bravo show, a reboot of “Highway to Heaven” with a Fox News twist and a dash of dark conspiracy from The Federalist.
Try this on for the promo:
She’s a product of indulgence and nepotism: a mean girl bully with a persecution complex. She’s the congresswoman turned Russian useful idiot and Assad stooge who belongs to a yoga cult. Together, they’ll do something stupid.
You like?
More?
The pilot is called “Jersey Devil,” and in this story, the devil — Kellyanne Conway — does good for the first time in a long time. There’s a cameo by Tina Brown, and The Washington Post, where democracy dies in darkness, er, I mean the white hot sun of billionaire anxiety and indifference, with acts of capitulation to power and menace.
Ms. McCain, the daughter of John McCain — whom she voted for in the 2024 election via write-in, as is her right — has endorsed Tulsi Gabbard for a life and death job she is not remotely qualified to hold. That is something that should matter to all of us.
Vivek Ramaswamy believes that the Bush administration attacked America on 9/11 — not Al-Qaeda. It is the case though that the intelligence agencies didn’t stop it, and they helped lead America into two failed wars at a cost of $4 trillion. At least 408,000 civilians died directly as a result of the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The Iraqi civil war killed a million people, and made Iran a regional hegemon from Tehran to Gaza to Beirut to Damascus to Baghdad that is waging war against the United States, our interests and allies, including Israel.
Gabbard’s psychological, intellectual and character defects are disqualifying, and so is this absurd endorsement, which is both untrue and irrelevant:
First, Tulsi Gabbard is not on active duty. She is a reserve lieutenant colonel and a civil affairs officer.
Her military service makes her as qualified to be the national intelligence director as a massage therapist’s certification makes him prepared to do brain surgery.
It’s a farce.
More than that — and here is the key point — Ms. McCain’s father, John, would have opposed the Gabbard nomination furiously, ferociously and effectively.
He would have gone ballistic and used every ounce of his power, influence and bully pulpit to stop it and to warn the country about her imponderable flaws for a position for which she cannot be trusted to hold for many reasons — one of which is that she is the type of person who gets lost in the maze. She wakes up in a riddle and searches for clues like a squirrel gathering nuts. Everywhere there is a swirl, a pattern that only she can see. Her yoga cult, The Science of Identity Foundation, gives her the power to see real truth, according to Chris Butler, its leader. Maybe it explains how the Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii joined MAGA after white-washing the crimes of the mass murderer Bashar al-Assad.
Tulsi Gabbard isn’t smart enough to be a Russian spy.
She isn’t “compromised,” which may be the second dumbest word bouncing about the opposition lexicon, next to “normalization.”
She’s a dupe and a fool.
Tulsi Gabbard’s problem is that she is easily manipulated. She can’t tell what is real and what isn’t. It is how she fell into league with a cult and a legitimate cult leader that she calls her spiritual guide.
I want to be clear about something. There must never be a religious test applied to government service. It is unconstitutional and un-American. That’s not what this is, and cults don’t count as religions. It is entirely about Tulsi Gabbard’s judgement. For the record, since she has been in two cults (Lifespring and MAGA), I think Clarence Thomas’ wife, the seditionist Ginni Thomas, would be doubly disqualified.
Everyone and everything has a narrative.
This includes nations like the United States and Russian Federation. There is a tremendous competition that has played out between our countries over 80 years around who is telling the truth, and which vision for humanity’s future is better, that of America or Russia.
China’s rise has made them very much part of this dialogue, and of course the democracies of Europe, the Middle Eastern autocracies, and every other nation, big and small, has a story to tell.
Some narratives are poisonous and completely delusional.
Some are overly simplified, while others are overtly simplistic. Some are defined by omissions, while others are defined by acts of evil that can never be outrun or spun. All have their hypocrisies and mythologies, but that does not change in the main the righteousness of the vision that embraces human dignity and freedom above all other considerations.
The old saying “different strokes for different folks” applies here.
When Tulsi Gabbard processes what is happening in the world, in this moment, her conclusion is that what is being said on Russian state media is what is closest to what is happening in the world.
It suits her world view, it seems.
She thinks that NBC News is gaslighting the world, while Russian state news is illuminating it.
Vladimir Putin’s core vision of reestablishing the Russian empire across the Soviet sphere of influence makes sense to her as necessity caused by American and NATO aggression.
Tulsi Gabbard lives in an out-of-touch world where she believes that every problem is caused by America. And, that if only America stopped doing what it has been doing then everything will be better. It is absurd and almost child-like.
When she speaks her world view is aligned with that of Moscow, not America. This doesn’t make her enlightened. It makes her a dupe. Traditionally, the word has been “useful idiot.”
Why does she have this affinity?
In part, because that is what misinformation campaigns are designed to achieve, and the Russians are very good at it.
Secondly, she is inclined to reject what is in front of her eyes as a conspiracy, while searching for hidden truths. It’s a gateway to madness and marks her as singularly unqualified for her job as Gaetz was for his, Hegseth is for his, Kennedy is for his, and Noem is for hers.
No president has ever assembled a team as disordered, accused, unqualified, unfit and batshit crazy as what Donald Trump has unveiled since Election Day.
The consequences will be staggering at the exact moment when North Korean troops are about to go into battle on Ukrainian soil in the heart of Europe for the first time, days after the Russians launched an intercontinental ballistic missile at Ukraine.
Tulsi Gabbard’s hearings will demonstrate that she is unsteady, unready and unable to perform the job.
There are thousands of political appointments that Trump gets to make.
If there is room for Sebastian Gorka, who wore a Nazi medal to Trump’s first inaugural and is a member in good standing of the far-right Hungarian group known as Historical Vitézi Rend, a fascist order on White House staff, there is a stool in the creature cantina for Gabbard, just not as DNI.
The sooner that Gabbard is filming in a tree house with Hegseth and Gaetz, the safer the world will be. The political opposition can turn its attention to stopping RFK Jr. from making America healthy again by bringing back polio and smallpox.
MAGA is feeling flush and powerful. It may not seem like it, but politically, they are already past apogee. The falling has already begun.
There should be a single goal ahead. Take back the House, and win at least one Senate seat.
Meghan McCain is a stain on her father’s legacy. She is married but trades in her married name for her father’s. I wonder what her mother, Cindy, thinks of her behavior? Tulsi Gabbard, like most of the orange stain’s nominees should not be allowed anywhere near the levers of government. I feel there is reason to believe that she has committed espionage against our country. I guess that would fit in with the incoming administration. The CIA should recall all its operatives around the world before January 20. Their lives are at risk because of the orange stain and Gabbard. It is imperative that the Democrats in the Senate sharpen their knives and go after every nominee.
I fear we haven't heard the last from Matt Gaetz. I suspect he will be chosen for some Justice Department commission to "investigate" perceived slights against MAGA-dom. As for Meghan McCain, she's just another person to jump on the MAGA train. The only comfort we have is that Trump & Company will overreach themselves, and probably sooner rather than later.