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Appointments News: You Win Some, You Lose Some
There are several interesting stories unfolding on the appointments front. Away we go:
- Pete Hegseth: Hegseth is an unqualified, alcohol-abusing rapist. We've read the police
report, and are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the claims made against him are true. Of course, he has not
been convicted, so he could claim we have defamed him by not writing "accused sexual assaulter" instead of "rapist" and
he could sue us. Such a lawsuit would have the effect of magnifying the claims against him, and would also bring the
question of "rapist or not?" into open court (as opposed to being buried, as is currently the case). These would be
positive outcomes, in our view. So, we'll stick with our phrasing.
Someone like that simply could not survive as nominee of a Democratic administration. And one week ago, it looked like Hegseth could not survive as nominee of a Republican administration, either. But then Don Donald told the caporegimes to turn up the heat on Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and others, and the nomination has taken on a second life. There's no good way to know, right now, how many "nay" Republican votes there are (if any), because no GOP senator would dare lay their cards on the table right now. They don't want their careers to end up swimming with the fishes.
As part of his "rebirth," Hegseth decided yesterday that when he said that allowing LGBTQ soldiers into the military was part of a "Marxist agenda," what he actually meant was that he thinks that LGBTQ soldiers are fine and dandy, and he's happy to have them on board. While we have repeatedly, and recently, written that political figures should be allowed to change their minds when presented with new information, Hegseth's 180 on LGBTQ troops and on women in combat rings very, very hollow. Surely the senators aren't fooled, although it's not terribly important if they are fooled. What matters is whether or not they think they have enough political cover to vote for him.
Apparently, Team Trump believes that getting Hegseth through is really important, because if they can do that, it will pave the way for the other controversial nominees, like Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It's possible, but it usually doesn't work that way. First of all, the folks who might oppose a Hegseth and the folks who might oppose a Kennedy are not the same exact folks. More significantly, however, is that, just like a president, senators have political capital. They can get away with defying a president of their own party on some number of nominees, but not TOO many. Point is, we suspect that many GOP senators will take the view that if they "give" Trump Hegseth, then they've earned the right to deny him Gabbard and Kennedy. - Kari Lake: Our long national nightmare is over; Kari Lake finally has a job (probably).
Donald Trump
is going to nominate her
to lead Voice of America (VOA), which is the radio service that broadcasts American news to a worldwide audience,
so as to model "democracy in action." It's kind of a propaganda outlet, just by nature of its stated mission. That
said, it's more like the BBC World Service than it is like RT (Russia Today), in that the propagandizing is more
implicit than it is over-the-top.
Anyhow, to the extent that the former newscaster Lake is qualified for any federal job, this would seem to be the one. Her appointment is not a done deal; it doesn't have to be approved by the Senate, but it does have to be approved by the bipartisan board that oversees VOA. Trump has previously been very hostile to VOA, including trying to shut it down, because it was not propagandistic enough (specifically, it wasn't anti-China enough for his liking). He lost that battle in court, so this time around he'll try to achieve his goals from inside. If Lake is indeed approved, they will have to strongly consider changing the name to Voices in My Head of America.
And the biggest news here might not be the future of VOA, at all. It may be the future of Arizona politics. In short, Lake has been a giant fly in the ointment of the Arizona Republican Party, and has helped them lose several elections they might otherwise have won. Consequently, her (pending) move to Washington has some Arizona GOPers dancing in the streets. For our part, we recognize that Lake was the face of crazypants Republicanism for numerous years in the Grand Canyon State. However, there is a pretty deep crazypants element in the Arizona Republican Party, as expressed in the careers of Joe Arpaio, Kelli Ward, Jake Hoffman and others. Getting rid of Lake would seem to be a case of treating the symptom, not the disease. - Christopher Wray: The demise of soon-to-be-former FBI Director Christopher Wray is eventually
going to create a slot for Donald Trump to fill, so we're putting the latest Wray-related news in this item.
To start, in private, Wray has let slip at least one reason he chose to resign rather than allow himself to be fired. In short, he is loyal to the Bureau, and he wants to do everything he can to keep it from being politicized (even if that ship is about to sail, big-time). To that end, he felt that falling on his sword would be better for the Bureau's image, as compared to allowing it to be dragged into an ugly partisan fight.
There is also a second potential impact to Wray's resigning rather than being fired, though it's not at all clear if it's part of his thinking, or if he's even aware of it, or if it really holds water. This was pointed out by right-wing talker Erick Erickson, and then by The New York Times' David French, although neither of them did a great job of explaining it. In short, the Vacancies Reform Act says that if a Senate-confirmed officeholder "dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office," then, until the Senate can approve someone new, the departed person has to be replaced by someone else who is Senate-confirmed, or else someone in the senior management of the agency that employed the departed person.
You will notice that the list includes "dies" and "resigns" but does not include "is fired" or "is removed." So, the argument that Erickson and French are making is that if and when Wray resigns, the Vacancies Reform Act immediately kicks in, and Trump would have to choose a (temporary) replacement with qualifications that Kash Patel does not meet (he is not currently Senate-confirmed, and he's not currently in senior management of the FBI). If Trump did not choose a temporary replacement, then Deputy Director Paul Abbate would be elevated, as the most senior remaining member of the FBI.
The only way this potentially matters, in any meaningful way, is if the Senate: (1) is unwilling to approve Patel, and (2) goes into recess. In that case, if Wray DID NOT resign, Trump could fire him and replace him with Patel and have Patel running the Bureau for up to 2 years. But if Wray DOES resign, then the Vacancies Reform Act takes over, and the recess appointment option is theoretically not available. We are not sure that Erickson and French have much of a point here, though, because: (1) the Senate is not likely to recess, and (2) Trump could probably fire Abbate and then appoint Patel. The Vacancies Reform Act does not specifically forestall that, though it does not allow it either, so the matter might well end up in court.
And that's the latest from us. We're working while you're sleeping. (Z)
Kissing the Ring, Part I: Who Needs Red or Blue When You've Got the Green?
We have observed, several times, that when you've got a president who is clearly open to bribes, people and corporations will find a way to get that done. We had an item on that very subject last week, as crypto entrepreneur (and banana lover) Justin Sun found a way to give the Trump family $16.5 million.
This is going to be another item on that very subject. One of the griftiest loopholes in American politics is the inauguration committees, wherein corporations and individuals are allowed to make large, poorly monitored donations to an incoming president. This particular opportunity is only going to present itself once, however, and so various entities suspected to be on Donald Trump's "enemies list" are hustling to pony up. Like, say, Amazon.
There are, of course, many ways that Donald Trump could hurt Amazon. There are even more ways that Trump could hurt Amazon's founder and biggest shareholder, Jeff Bezos, whose other company—Blue Origin—has contracts with the government, and aspires to have more. Yesterday, Amazon announced that it would be giving $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee, and would livestream the inauguration as well, a service valued at an additional $1 million. It should be noted, in the interest of completeness, that Amazon made the same offer to Joe Biden in 2020. After all, whether an incoming president is or is not grifty, it's still good to be on their "nice" list come January 20. Biden accepted the livestreaming, but did not take the money, due to a policy of not accepting donations from Big Tech.
Also writing a $1 million check to Trump's inaugural committee is Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Meta, and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, also don't want the President-elect to make trouble for them. In particular, they do not want ANY federal regulation of social media. Zuckerberg also has some personal skin in the game, as Trump has threatened to imprison him and Trump's acolytes have threatened to do even worse (e.g., force him to attend a Bears game and stay until the very end). Anyhow, in addition to the donation, Zuckerberg made a visit to Mar-a-Lago to dine with the emperor and bow before the throne.
Let us be clear here, we understand exactly why these people are making the choices they are making. We don't admire their lack of spine, and their determination to make certain that they will always have 10,000 times more money than any person could ever spend, but we do understand it. (Z)
Kissing the Ring, Part II: So Much for Editorial Independence
Yesterday, Donald Trump was named Time's "Person of the Year" for 2024. That means he is now a two-time member of a distinguished club that also includes Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Vladimir Putin.
Trump sat for an interview with the publication, which Time tries to do whenever possible. We read it, and we would say there are three interesting things about the piece:
- Trump explained that when he promised to bring grocery prices down during the presidential campaign, what he meant
was that he's probably not going to be able to bring grocery prices down. "It's hard to bring things down once they're
up. You know, it's very hard." Gee, who knew?
- Trump really wants to pass the throne to a family member, and really wanted Ivanka to be that person. However, he
told Time that he does not see that happening because "she's so family-oriented." Whether that is a backhanded
compliment or not, we aren't sure. Anyhow, he has apparently moved on to a new choice as his preferred successor, and
it's... daughter-in-law Lara Trump. We would be generally surprised if he was willing to throw his weight behind someone
who is not blood, and we'd also be surprised if he was truly willing to support a woman (even Ivanka) as successor. We'd
say the real message here is that he finds Eric and Don Jr. to be disappointments, hence his casting about for
alternatives.
- If Dunning-Kruger was a disease, and you wanted to know what the symptoms of a fatal case look like, then you would want to read this interview.
All of this said, Trump's answers were overall pretty sharp. It helps that the publication "lightly edited" his remarks for clarity. Also, we suspect they interviewed him early in the day, and not in the late afternoon or evening.
As you can see from the headline, this item is actually about editorial independence, or the lack thereof. Note that we are not interpreting the selection of Trump, per se, as an indicator of Time's being compromised. Recall, the point of the title is to identify the year's biggest newsmaker. In presidential years, it's almost always the winning presidential candidate. In fact, the last time it was NOT the presidential winner was nearly 30 years ago (1996), and even then, they made Bill Clinton a two-timer two years later (appropriately, as a result of his two-timing his wife).
Meanwhile, if Time had put the general rule of "it's the presidential winner" aside, who else could they have picked this year? Putin, or Bashar al-Assad, or Benjamin Netanyahu? Anyone who is cranky about Trump being picked isn't going to like those choices any better. Maybe Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but he was the pick 2 years ago. Maybe Taylor Swift, but she was the pick last year. No, Trump was the obvious choice.
The reason we are looking askance at Time is not because of the selection of Trump, but because of the response of the magazine's billionaire owner, Marc Benioff, on eX-Twitter:
Congratulations to President @realDonaldTrump on being named TIME Person of the Year 2024. This marks a time of great promise for our nation. We look forward to working together to advance American success and prosperity for everyone. May G-d bless the United States of America.
Needless to say, the political establishment and the fourth estate are not supposed to be "working together." If anything, it's supposed to be the opposite. We suppose that Benioff might have chosen his words carelessly, but that's not the explanation favored by Occam's razor, especially since he's enough of a writer to have authored four books.
Also, as long as we're at it, Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong continues to make a mockery of his newspaper. The latest development is that he reportedly quashed an editorial about the shaky quality of some of Trump's Cabinet picks. If the Times' editorial writers are required to handle even the rapist, the probable Russian asset and the vaccine kook with kid gloves, then they might as well just eliminate that section of the paper. How can anyone take the Times' opinion pieces (or its political reporting) seriously as long as Soon-Shiong remains as owner? There are some good people working there (and Z personally knows some of them), but the public isn't going to know it every time he mucks around in the paper's coverage, and so one just has to assume that his fingerprints are on everything. (Z)
Deportation Watch: Trump to Change Rules of the Game
Donald Trump is backing off virtually every pledge he made during the election, either substantially watering things down, or outright abandoning ship (see above for an example). The one area where he is still all-in, however, is deportations. Anti-immigrant xenophobia has been the foundation of his entire political career, and he's surrounded himself with anti-immigrant hardliners. He also continues to make very broad, very strong, statements about his deportation plans.
The latest news on this front comes from people in Trump's orbit who spoke to reporters off the record because they are not authorized to speak publicly. At the moment, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a policy of not arresting people at "sensitive locations"—churches, schools, hospitals, funeral parlors, wedding venues, etc. Reportedly, that policy will be sent to the shredder on Trump's first day in office.
There are at least two obvious reasons that this is part of Trump's plan (beyond the fact that the Heritage Foundation told him to do it). The first of those is that carrying off a deportation on the scale that the President-elect has promised is going to be difficult and expensive. The plan becomes at least a little bit less so if ICE is operating under fewer constraints.
Second, everyone knows how very much Trump likes photo-ops and publicity. Rounding up a bunch of undocumented immigrants in a strawberry field would probably get some attention, but not a lot of it. On the other hand, raiding a school or a church would be big news, and would dominate a news cycle or two. If it was a school, in particular, the administration could say, "See? We are stopping these immigrants from using up our precious education funds!"
There are also a couple of obvious downsides, though. The first is that raiding a school or a church would be big news, and would dominate a news cycle or two. There is no such thing as bad publicity, as the old saying goes, and Trump seems to be a believer in that philosophy. However, remember the pictures of children in cages from 5-6 years ago. Those pictures did not make the Trump administration look "tough" to most people; they made the administration look cruel and heartless. We can very definitely imagine that arresting people at school, or at a hospital, or at a church could backfire on Team Trump.
The second downside has to do with churches, in particular. If ICE hits a few of them, it not only runs the risk of upsetting evangelical voters, but it also brings up some thorny legal issues related to separation of church and state, sanctuary, and other such matters. It may not be well for the Trump administration to end up with years' worth of lawsuits from churches just to score a photo-op or two, where the benefits only last a few days.
Clearly, the incoming administration knows they are treading on thin ice here. That is why the comments to reporters are off the record. Either Team Trump is trying to keep this under its hat, or they're trial ballooning it to see what the reaction is. We will see if this plan goes forward—maybe, but maybe not. (Z)
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Dancing in the Dark
Last week's theme was a tough one. We ended up giving three hints: (1) "the Harry Potter Baking Championship was on TV while we were putting the theme together"; (2) "we will tell you that both 'Mike' and 'Johnson' work for the theme. So do 'Black' and 'Mirror,' though 'Black' is arguably a bit of a cheat"; and (3) "you need to 'try to understand, try to understand. Oh, oh, try, try, try to understand.'" It was the last one that did it for a lot of readers; here is the solution, courtesy of reader M.H. in Ottawa, ON, Canada:
The theme this week: Names or phrases starting with "magic".
- Trump Nominees: Hegseth Looks to Be a Dead Man Walking—"Magic Man," 1975 song by Heart
- Media Matters: So Much for Speaking Truth to Power—"Magic Power," 1981 song by (Canadian rock band) Triumph
- Does ANYONE Believe This?: Team Trump Says They Don't Have Their Eye on Revenge—Magic Eye, the popular autostereograms from the '90s
- News From the Backbench: Martin May Get the Keys to the DNC Kingdom—"Magic Kingdom," nickname for Disneyland. ("Magic Keys" is a board game which won the Kinderspiel des Jahres in 2024, so maybe that's the alternative?)
- I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Black Mirror—Magic Mirror, a major character in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
- It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Days 4: Mike Johnson—Either possibility works here! Magic Mike, 2012 Steven Soderbergh film starring Channing Tatum, and Magic Johnson, basketball legend
- This Week in Schadenfreude: DeSantis Comes Full Circle?—Magic circle
- This Week in Freudenfreude: Can You Spell I-M-P-E-A-C-H-M-E-N-T?—Magic spell
Actually, the other "dual" answer we intended was not "Magic Keys" but instead "Black magic." As we noted, that's kind of a cheat, because it doesn't follow the same pattern (e.g., word + magic, as opposed to magic + word). And obviously, "dark," from this item's headline, also fits. Needless to say, we apologize for allowing Canadian "culture" to invade the list; we had forgotten about Triumph's origins.
Here are the first 50 readers to get it right:
|
|
After solving the puzzle, D.D. in Carversville added: "And to celebrate, a pizza with mushrooms, after which, we will take a nap on the carpet and let our mind wand...er."
As to this week's theme, it relies on one word per headline, and it fits in the Trivial Pursuit category "Events." For a theme, we'll say that this week's puzzle is rather more similar to last week's than we would like; we were kind of hemmed in by the final headline today.
If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject "December 13 Headlines." (Z)
This Week in Schadenfreude: Lindell Can't Pay His Bills
On one hand, you hate to kick a guy when he's down. On the other hand, the guy in this case is MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell, who spent years harming individual people, as well as democracy in general, and who is now paying the piper.
That's metaphorically paying the piper, mind you, as Lindell does not have the cash to actually pay... well, anyone. His behavior over the past 4-5 years has alienated a huge number of potential customers for medium-quality-at-best pillows. And the problem is that big retailers—Walmart, Target, HomeGoods, etc.—aren't like cable news: They don't cater to just one political faction or the other. So, they dumped him, and Lindell's retail sales have dropped to nearly zero. His mail-order sales are catering to only a fraction of the electorate, many of whom have already bought as much MyPillow product as they can use.
Consequently, in a desperate attempt to keep his once-thriving business afloat, Lindell has taken out a series of increasingly predatory payday-style loans. The reason he was in the news this week is that he has sued to have his latest loan canceled. It's for $1.6 million, at an eye-watering annual interest rate of 409%. And no, we did not forget a decimal in there.
Lindell claims he was tricked by the lender(s), Cobalt Funding Solutions and Streamline Advance. We are skeptical of that claim, especially since Lindell is an inveterate liar. And while we are not experts in this area of the law (or any area of the law, for that matter), his odds of prevailing in the case do not seem great. Assuming he took out the loan in Minnesota, state law says that there is no limit on the interest that may be charged on loans of $100,000 or more.
In any event, you will note that we wrote that Lindell has taken out "loans" not "loan." There's one for $10 million, one for $2 million, one for $600,000, and then this one, for $1.6 million. And those are just the loans that happen to be publicly known because Lindell defaulted on them and the note holder sued. This is what a "death spiral" looks like.
And so, another shady Trumper is about to pay the price for his misdeeds, even if Trump himself appears to be bulletproof. Oh, and note, incidentally, that Lindell has sacrificed everything for Trump, and now that he (Lindell) is down on his luck, Trump is nowhere to be found. Seems like we've heard that story before... (Z)
This Week in Freudenfreude: Not Everybody Has Presidential Fathers
Yesterday, not too many days removed from pardoning his son, Joe Biden issued 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations. All of the pardons were for non-violent offenders, all of the commutations were for people who qualified for home confinement during the pandemic, and had served out their sentences.
This is being reported as the "biggest single-day act of clemency" in U.S. history. That is true, although it requires drawing a distinction between "clemency" and "amnesty." Acts of clemency are specific to the individual, which means that the White House released a list of 1,538 different names yesterday, treating each as a distinct case. Acts of amnesty cover anyone and everyone who committed whatever offense is being pardoned. For example, George Washington granted amnesty to several thousand participants in the Whiskey Rebellion, a whole bunch of presidents (John Adams, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Calvin Coolidge) gave amnesty to the deserters of various wars, Lincoln and Andrew Johnson both gave amnesty to various groups of Confederates, Gerald Ford gave amnesty to more than 20,000 Vietnam-era draft dodgers and Jimmy Carter extended that to more than 100,000 additional draft dodgers.
In any event, the United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. And if you just count Western, industrialized democracies, then the U.S. laps the field, with well more than double the rate in #2 Turkey, and well more than quadruple the rate in places like France, the U.K., Italy, Germany, and... Canada. This suggests to us that something is broken; either it's too easy to get convicted of a crime, or the sentences are too harsh, or both.
In any event, 1,538 people now get a clean slate—good for them. That said, they represent the low-hanging fruit, as most of them had already completed their terms. If Biden really wants to roll up his sleeves, he'll take a look at cases where a miscarriage of justice is strongly indicated. The White House promised that more pardons are coming; we look forward to seeing what that means. (Z)
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Day 8: Merry Christmas America, Part III
Last day of this question from reader T.B. in Powell, OH: "Imagine you were going to give a Christmas gift to the United States. Specifically, a law, institution, initiative, civic structure, or like commodity imported from some other nation. What gift would you bestow?"
We didn't have a chance to compile a list yesterday, so we're going with ten answers instead of six today:
- K.H. in Scotch Plains, NJ: I think my main one might actually be a UBI. Maybe $1,000 a
month to everyone 18 and over. I'm not anywhere near close to an expert on economics, but in this theoretical exercise
where I get to choose the gift, I think it's more than fair and could help people out immensely. This should not go to
people in the 1% or 0.1%, but for most other Americans, it would do a lot to even the playing field and reduce stress
and create opportunities as well.
In addition to that, I'd strongly consider doing something that mandates voting rights across the board for every
American citizen who is 18 or over, with no bullshit restrictions like so many states have, much of them added after
Biden won in 2020.
- K.J. in Challex, France: The metric system. It's about time for the U.S. to join the rest
of the world and adopt the metric system of weights and measures. Even the U.K. and Canada switched over several years
ago. Gone are the days when you would get extra miles when buying gas in Canada (they were using Imperial gallons).
Let's go metric!
- D.E. in Lancaster, PA: I wish the U.S. the fortitude and spine of the Australians, who, when faced
with a horrible and senseless mass shooting tragedy, found it in their national soul to actually do something about it by
passing reasonable and sane gun control laws.
A sane and not completely corrupt Supreme Court would be nice; but that's getting into "I want a pony" land. - M.D.K. in Portland, OR: One South Korean spine, for every American.
- M.T. In Linköping, Sweden: When I and another Swedish friend volunteered for the Obama
campaign in 2008, we started to talk about writing a book: 1000 Things the United States Could Learn from Sweden. We quickly
realized that the first chapter had to be about creating a mandatory population register, administrated by, for instance,
the IRS.
That way, a census every tenth year will be superfluous and could not be manipulated. You can't suspect anybody of voting more than once, since you only can vote where you live. And talking about voting: There would be no need to register to vote since, from the population register, you can tell who is eligible to vote and thereby send information about when, where and how to vote to all of them.
Our book, you want a copy? Well, we haven't had time to write it yet but we will notify you when it's available. We will have time any century, now... - S.S. In Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico: A 30-hour work week (with corresponding hourly pay
adjustment to retain workers' income levels), overtime pay for work over thirty hours, strong unions in every sector of
the economy to balance the power of corporations, and a minimum wage of $20. Confiscation and redistribution of any
personal wealth over one billion dollars wouldn't bother me either. Socialism, baby!
- E.K. in Amsterdam, The Netherlands: I wish the U.S. and the majority of its citizens a dose
of modesty to dilute the hubris.
- K.F. in Framingham, MA: The gift I would give the United States is a time machine built
inside a DeLorean. The U.S. can set the time machine to November 5, 1755. And after that baby hits 88 miles per hour,
you're gonna see some serious... er, stuff. That should give the country plenty of time to go back and convince the
Founding Parents to form the union the way it ought to have been set up from the start. Maybe, just maybe, this time
they would actually create something very similar to an actual functioning democracy.
- L.C. in Centennial, CO: A permanent endowment to support local press and investigative
reporting. (Re)growing the Fifth Estate from in the ground up is our best insurance against tyranny.
- A.G. in Scranton, PA: From Scandinavia, I would import a progressive and effective system
of corrections that:
- Corrects
- Doesn't punish through brutality
- Keeps abusive guards from deciding that their abuses are part of the punishment
- Treats criminals with the "kid gloves" that provide the conditions for miniscule recidivism rates and safer cities and towns.
Next week, the question is: What picture or image would you suggest appear on this year's Christmas (or Hanukkah) card from...
Make sure to send an image! Explainer text is welcome, but you can also let your chosen image stand on its own. And have a good weekend, all! (Z)
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