Elect a Clown, Expect the Circus

JohnInCarolina

Quite the lineup here:

dbCooper

The AG should have been offered to Rudi, if the president-elect had any empathy.  The poor guy can't even afford food.

@SGH - With the prosperity you've experienced post election perhaps you could send him a stipend?  My social strata is awaiting the pennies from heaven that won't be arriving, so we can't help him.

Canugghead

Santos should be pardoned and appointed as Secretary of the Treasury.

DoubleEgger

Canugghead said:

Santos should be pardoned and appointed as Secretary of the Treasury.

That’s Kid Rock’s position. 

scottc454

Who gets fired first?

DoubleEgger

scottc454 said:

Who gets fired first?

None of them have enough spine to get fired. 

JohnInCarolina

scottc454 said:

Who gets fired first?

If Wiles survives a year I’ll be astonished. She’s an adult and this is a made-to-order dumpster fire.

Botch

I had to ask her, Siri just told me marjorie "trailer" green did win her "new" district, last I saw she was fifth in a large repub field.  Apparently she did something wrong though, cheeto has been snubbing her right and left from what I've seen.  

lousubcap

And a Bloomberg perspective on the clown show cast shaping up:

While the US Senate rejected Elon Musk’s pick for Senate Majority Leader (Trump acolyte Rick Scott of Florida), going instead with John Thune of South Dakota, Trump himself shook Washington by nominatingformer Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who has appeared to defend Russiaover its war on Ukraine, for the nation’s most sensitive and powerful intelligence post. Trump also tapped an equally controversial Matt Gaetz, the Florida Congressman under investigation by the House over allegations of sex trafficking (the Justice Department dropped a related criminal probe), to be US attorney general. They are the latest in a string of Trump appointments of hardline loyalists, some with limited experience, to the most senior positions in government. The GOP on Wednesday cemented its sway over all three branches of government, as it is now projected to retain control of the House.

JohnInCarolina

RFK Jr. to head up HHS.  

We have realized Idiocracy.

I can't want to see who ends up being the new Secretary of Energy.  

DoubleEgger

JohnInCarolina said:

RFK Jr. to head up HHS.  

We have realized Idiocracy.

I can't want to see who ends up being the new Secretary of Energy.  

Communicable diseases won bigly today. 

dbCooper

Is always good to look for positives . . .  given the Department of Education is to be eliminated, Betsy DeVos will not return as Secretary of Education.  That's the best I got so far.

lousubcap

I just saw the RFK Jr nomination. The collective we voted for this $hit show and the sad part is there are some things that the Dumb$hits could undo that will have substantial impact downstream.  Double F' me.  

lousubcap

Time for any adults left in the R Senate caucus to roll-in and clean up this $**** show regarding approving the nominations.  Additionally don't declare a recess and let CHEETO use the temporary appointment loophole to get these unqualified but CHEETO loyalists into office.

JohnInCarolina

JohnInCarolina

lousubcap said:

Time for any adults left in the R Senate caucus to roll-in and clean up this $**** show regarding approving the nominations.  Additionally don't declare a recess and let CHEETO use the temporary appointment loophole to get these unqualified but CHEETO loyalists into office.

lousubcap

That is a chicken $h-t response.  No way Gaetz can reassure anyone of sane mind that he could even carry a water bucket to the DOJ.   Spineless f' tards.
Now I'm sure an even more hug and luv 'em response will be forthcoming regarding RFK Jr.  F 'me once more this evening.  

DoubleEgger

Trump’s having a hard time keeping it up.

That’s what she said. 

lousubcap

Just sent an email to both KY senators strongly requesting they don't cave to the recess appointment scheme that CHEETO is angling for.  Doubt it will do any good but it's about all I can do as a citizen.  

dbCooper

@lousubcap - Good on you for contacting your senators, engagement is important and not wasted effort.  Same holds true for your rep in the house for the areas they're responsible for.

Preaching to the choir here, just wish more saw the need to be informed and interact with the people who work for us citizens.

DoubleEgger

A history primer about tariffs and protectionism in the interwar period.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/protectionism

Spoiler: 

“For example, U.S. imports from Europe declined from a 1929 high of $1,334 million to just $390 million in 1932, while U.S. exports to Europe fell from $2,341 million in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade declined by some 66% between 1929 and 1934.

Smoot-Hawley marked the end of the line for high tariffs in 20th century American trade policy. Thereafter, beginning with the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, the United States generally sought trade liberalization through bilateral or multilateral tariff reductions. To this day, the phrase “Smoot-Hawley” remains a watchword for the perils of protectionism.”

Ike

what if the clown had big floppy shoes and itty bitty hands, would you laugh at him or feal sorry for acting lik a real Alpa?

JohnInCarolina

JohnInCarolina

DoubleEgger

JohnInCarolina said:

Hope they got extra onions.  

DoubleEgger

Did you notice the orange soda?

JohnInCarolina

Junior always reminds me of Ellis from Die Hard:



I think he was a cokehead too?

Legume

Looks like the kids table is behind the Jr's.

JohnInCarolina

Haha Musk is too much of a dbag even for Trump’s team.  

JohnInCarolina

Botch

JohnInCarolina said:

Haha Musk is too much of a dbag even for Trump’s team.  

Robert Reich's email from this morning went into detail (including personality flaws) about this:  
 

If you’re advising a president-elect, you don’t publicly push him to do what you want. That’s true of any president-elect. It’s even truer of Trump.

Friends,

The two finalists to become Trump’s Treasury Secretary — the person will have a major hand in cutting taxes for the wealthy and raising tariffs so everyone pays more — are Howard Lutnick, who’s CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and Trump’s co-transition chair, and Steven Bessent, the founder of the investment firm Key Square Capital Management.

Lutnick had been in the lead but a few days ago, according to the The Wall Street Journal, he heard from Trump’s allies that he might not get the nod.

So Lutnick turned for help to Elon Musk, who now calls himself Trump’s “First Buddy.” Bessent’s supporters also reached out to Musk to endorse Bessent, which tells you alot about the palace intrigue going on now in Mar-a-Lago, and how much power Musk is now wielding.

Yesterday, Musk, posted on his X that Lutnick would be a better choice for treasury secretary than Bessent:

“My view fwiw is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnick will actually enact change. Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another.”

I’ve spent quite some time around presidents and president-elects and even advised them about personnel decisions. The most basic rule of such advice-giving is you never make your advice public.

Doing so puts the president-elect in an impossible position: If he does what you’ve publicly urged him to do — even if he was going to do it anyway — your public advocacy makes it look as if you pushed him into it, so he seems to be your patsy.

If the president-elect is Donald Trump, who thinks mainly in terms of dominance and submission, you’re playing with fire.

Bad enough that Musk broke this basic rule. He went even further, publicly encouraging his nearly 205 million followers on X to weigh in, in favor of Lutnick.

So Musk has very publicly cornered Trump. If Trump names Lutnick, it looks as if all Musk needs to do from now on is publicly urge Trump to do this or that, with the implicit threat of getting his 205 million followers stirred up to follow suit, and Trump will do it. Musk becomes de facto President.

I don’t know what Trump will do but I’m sure he’s seething. The most likely outcome is Trump doesn’t offer the job to either Lutnick nor Bessent, and fires Musk.

Musk’s public advocacy of Lutnick because he will “enact change” rather than “business-as-usual” also signals Musk’s and Trump’s criterion for filling high-level positions (besides unbridled fealty to Trump): The picks don’t need to know anything or share any large vision of the public good. They just have to be bomb-throwers who’ll shake things up.

The worst that can be said of any candidate is he’ll govern as usual.

This will produce a government of nihilism and chaos.