No evidence for his claims isn’t a bug: it’s the point

My friend and debate partner wasn’t done with his debate. A week ago Saturday I wrote about an essay by Trenz Pruca about the life cycle of capitalism and that it ends oligarchy. My debate partner asked what is Pruca’s relationship to reality? On Wednesday I addressed that question by discussing Pruca’s sources. My debate partner agreed that Pruca is credible. But is he effective? What is he doing to achieve the reform he says is so urgently needed? My debate partner (yes, he’s still a friend) pulled in Daily Kos, my primary source of news, and Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City. What are they doing to achieve effective reform? I’m going to leave Mamdani out of the discussion. He hasn’t started his term of mayor yet and we don’t know how effective he will or won’t be. I am aware that my friend has a much stronger tie to NYC than I do so he might be right that Mamdani might be thwarted at every turn. And my friend might be surprised. Back to Kos and Pruca. Kos is a news service that supports a community and Pruca is one voice in that community. That leads to a basic question: How effective is a news service supposed to be in prompting change? Do we expect that effectiveness from the Detroit Free Press or the Sacramento Bee (just pulled that one out of thin air), or the Washington Post? Yes, some opinion sections of newspapers and online news sources, grab hold of an important idea and make a lot of noise about it, loud enough to get significant public and political attention. But their job is to report the news and to spread ideas through the readers. Daily Kos does that too. The site spreads ideas through its progressive readers, making all of us aware of the things progressives should know. Some of that is “preaching to the choir” and it is also making sure the choir knows all the songs and can accurately sing them when away from the choir loft. Another aspect is that several prominent Democrats are readers (or at least have accounts). Essays like Pruca’s might be read by lawmakers. Also Kos has an activist arm. Every day they send out an email about how the reader can do something for democracy or the progressive cause. That included donating to a cause or suggesting how a lawmaker could be contacted. I got them for a while, but decided they were just filling up my email inbox. Kos is more effective than a visitor to their website might see. Is my own blog supposed to be effective? I didn’t begin it that way. Back in 2004 I started sending blurbs of important LGBTQ news to family, starting with Massachusetts legalizing same sex marriage. In 2007 a relative suggested I switch to blogging. My focus has shifted from LGBTQ issues into the nasty things politicians are doing. Through it all my purpose has been to spread what I see as important ideas out into the world (yes, it is the world, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China are at the top of viewer countries at the moment and the US is a distant 5th). In my friend’s email he mentioned the Trust Busting that happened between 1904 and 1919. He mentioned it because I had said I didn’t know how the US got through the age of Robber Barons, a time similar to now. My friend suggested I search for Trust Busting. I did, and learned a lot about Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Howard Taft applying an anti-trust law to break up big corporations. They did it by bringing cases through the court system to a Supreme Court willing to apply the law against corporations. Yeah, today we have neither a president willing to take on that fight nor a Supreme Court willing to go against their billionaire friends. In my friend’s discussion he mentioned Roosevelt’s efforts were backed by newspapers of the day. I’m sure my friend was saying see, here are newspapers being effective. But the websites I read, and I read several, said nothing about the role of newspapers. I hope I’ve shown Kos is more effective than my friend can see. As for Pruca, does he need to be the one to turn his ideas into policy or law, or is stating the ideas plainly enough for him to do, letting more appropriate people to take up the ideas? Also, I don’t know what Pruca does when he’s not writing for Kos. From his bio, which I quoted before, he does interact with government officials about government policy. Perhaps he has explained these ideas to them, about as effective as he can be. As always, dear friend, I’m open to the debate continuing. One more Trenz Pruca essay. His question is: Why are we so reluctant to tax the rich? Adam Smith, working in the 18th century, warned that insufficiently taxing the rich jeopardized democracy. But it also noted we admire those who strive with unrelenting industry, even if what they strive for is hollow. Pruca thinks in the last decade (and I think all the way back to Reagan and his tax cuts) there has been a shift from wealth affecting tax policies at the margins to a deference to wealth shaping the tax agenda. The wealth are portrayed as persecuted victims – of taxation, of regulation, of journalists, and of democracy.

If the wealthy are victims, then taxing them is cruelty. If they are persecuted, then oversight is tyranny. If they are heroes of capitalism, then regulation is sabotage.

No, the wealthy are not victims. They are not persecuted. They are not heroes. The middle class identifies upward, awaiting their ascent. Taxing the rich feels like taxing their aspirations. Tax law feels like an attack on “success.” The nasty guy has promoted the shift from billionaires influencing tax policy to authoring it. The government becomes a service provider for wealth, to remove “burdens.” The IRS is an inconvenience, regulators become enemies, and public spending becomes a threat. Pruca concluded:

Taxation, regulation, oversight, and enforcement have all been reframed—not as civic obligations, but as moral trespasses. And in that transformation, the democratic project itself has been bent. The task before us is not merely raising taxes on the rich—though that remains necessary. It is dismantling the cultural machinery that convinces us that the wealthy are fragile, persecuted, and unimpeachable. Smith would tell us plainly that our sympathy, however understandable, is misplaced. The wealthy do not need our protection. Democracy does.

Last week I reported that several senators released a video reminding those in the military that rejecting illegal orders is their duty. One of those senators was Mark Kelly of Arizona. On Monday this week Oliver Willis of Kos reported that the Pentagon announced it is now investigating Kelly. That may include recalling him to active duty for a court-martial. In response Kelly said he won’t be silenced by bullies. A reminder who Kelly is:

Kelly served as a captain in the Navy and flew 39 combat missions in the first Iraq War. He then went on to a distinguished career as a NASA astronaut and was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame before successfully running for Senate.

The rest of the post is a review of the case. On Tuesday Emily Singer of Kos reported that polls show the public is siding with Kelly. Yesterday Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit discussed the incident behind Kelly’s notice to the military and the recent revelation from the Washington Post. The incident was back on September 2, the first time the nasty guy used the military to strike a boat in the Caribbean. The nasty guy and his goons claimed the boat was carrying drugs to the US and the people on board were members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang of Venezuela. The nasty guy and his goons provided no evidence either of the drugs or the connection to the gang. Hartmann wrote:

If these men had truly been high–value cartel operatives, Trump would be parading names and photos across every rally stage in America. The silence tells its own story.

Since that first strike there have been “more than 20 other missile strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 80 people.” Now to the WaPo revelation. The first missile ripped the boat apart and set it burning. Two men clung to the wreckage.

They were unarmed. They were wounded. They were no threat to anyone. They were simply alive; inconveniently alive for a man who had allegedly already given the order that there be no survivors. And so, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the strike, the Special Operations commander overseeing the operation ordered a second missile. It hit the water and blew those two men apart.

Congress was told the second missile was to “remove a navigation hazard.” That’s an attempt to rewrite history. An order to kill wounded and unarmed survivors is defined by the Geneva Conventions as a war crime. Civilized states do not execute helpless people.

This, too, has been part of the authoritarian playbook since ancient times. Pick a foreign or criminal “other,” paint them as subhuman monsters, and then declare that the normal laws of war, morality, and basic decency no longer apply. ... The fact that the administration has produced no evidence for its claims isn’t a bug: it’s the point. When the government fabricates an omnipresent threat, it gives itself permission to kill whoever it wants.

These senators calling to disobey illegal orders makes sense. This was an illegal order. That the nasty guy called for their death also makes sense. The nasty guy (or at least his goons) know the order was illegal.

If Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody,” he must be removed and prosecuted. If U.S. commanders falsified reports to mislead Congress and the public, they must be held accountable. And if Donald Trump approved or encouraged these actions, then impeachment and criminal referral are not optional: they’re required to defend the rule of law. America doesn’t have many chances left to prove to the world, and to ourselves, that we still believe in the value of human life and the restraints of democratic power. This is one of them.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin called Hegseth the “Secretary of War Crimes.” Dworkin starts with an excerpt of that WaPo article, which I’ll let you read. In the comments Lady Haha posted a cartoon by Jeff Danzinger showing two generals talking:

First: OK... Here’s what the secretary wants you to do: Go through Mark Kelly’s records and find anything we can use to court-martial him. Understand? Second: Yes, General, but that sounds like an illegal order.

In the main body of the post Cliff Schechter of Blue Amp talked about the nasty guy’s theory of politics. I think Dworkin’s summary at the start of the quote is good enough, I’ll stick with that.

Trump's never been guided by ideology — only ego. His one rule's simple: flatter him, you’re in; don’t, you’re done. From Pence to Putin, it's the real theory that explains every move he's ever made.

After all that this next detail is a bit of a toss-off. Willis, working from a segment on NPR, reported that Hegseth has prepared a draft memo that would pull the Pentagon’s support form Scouting America, formerly known at the Boy Scouts. His reason is the group is “detrimental to national security.” That phrase is important because the law compels the Pentagon to support scouts unless there is a security risk. The reason behind this is that scouting has become too woke. They are now genderless (girls and gays can join) and they support diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys,” Hegseth’s memo alleges. He also argues that the scouts contribute to “gender confusion” and no longer “cultivate masculine values.”

If that memo becomes policy the military would no longer provide support for the National Jamboree and US military installations would be banned from hosting scout meeting. Many bases host the scouts because that’s a place of familiarity to boys whose parents move from base to base.

The vote was 427-1

This topic has been in the news all week, but only today have I caught up enough in my reading to discuss it. On Monday Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported:

President Donald Trump fired off an angry Truth Social post on Sunday in which he said Republicans should vote for the House bill that would force him to release the Epstein files, yet continued to maintain that the files are a "hoax"—his favorite term for an issue that makes him look bad.

This switch comes after months of pressuring Congressional Republicans to not release the files. I heard over the week several commentators ask why doesn’t the nasty guy just tell his Department of Justice to release the files? Does he want a way to record which Republicans voted for release so he knows who to target? Alex Samuels of Kos wonders why Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to rebrand herself. She has been a stalwart MAGA flamethrower over the years she’s been in the House. Samuels provides many examples. But then she called for the Epstein file release and the nasty guy called her a traitor. Since then she has apologized for her previous nasty comments. She says she won’t use harsh language again now that she knows how damaging it can be. Samuels concluded:

Whether Greene is actually breaking from MAGA or simply navigating a particularly messy public rupture remains an open question. What’s clearer is that the man who once empowered her is now targeting her—and Greene is discovering that stepping away from Trumpism can be far more dangerous than embracing it.

Kos of Kos also looks at Greene’s change of heart and came to a different conclusion.

More importantly, we’re once again watching a conservative discover a moral principle only after it landed directly on her own head. This is the defining pattern of modern conservatism: Empathy arrives only when the pain becomes personal. ... In the end, Greene finally found the right answer: dial down the hate, tone down the threats, stop treating politics like a blood sport. But she arrived there due to the only reason her party’s movement ever changes—because it finally hurt her. Empathy wasn’t the revelation. Self-preservation was.

On Tuesday Singer reported:

The House on Tuesday finally voted to force President Donald Trump to release the Epstein files—the culmination of a monthslong effort by Democrats and a handful of Republican lawmakers who want the public to see the evidence the government had on now-deceased accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The vote was 427-1, with Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana voting against it, after Trump reluctantly dropped his opposition to the legislation and gave his blessing to his GOP minions to vote yes.

That tally means that Speaker Mike Johnson, after keeping the House closed for two months to prevent a vote, voted for it.

However, Johnson on Tuesday said that while he was going to vote for the bill, he is hopeful the Senate will amend the legislation that passes in order to allow the Trump administration to continue to hold back documents or evidence that would implicate anyone in Epstein's crimes.

This guy needs a spine transplant immediately! This Associated Press article posted on Kos is a good summary of where things stood as of late Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday Singer reported the Senate passed the bill without revisions. I was a bit surprised that Singer didn’t mention how the Senate passed the bill. So I turned to NPR. Later Tuesday afternoon host Scott Detrow talked to reporter Claudia Grisales. Here’s a bit of what Grisales said:

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer got unanimous consent to pass the bill automatically after the House sends it over.

Which sounds like as soon as the House officially turned the bill over to the Senate they responded with “We declare it passed.” I don’t know exactly how that works but it means nobody in the Senate felt the bill had to go through committees, have hearings, have a chance to be amended, or even have a formal vote. Nobody wanted to hold it up. All of them wanted it out of the Senate’s hands as quickly as possible. And Johnson’s wish the Senate would save him from himself and from the nasty guy was ignored. On Wednesday Singer reported:

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday refused to commit to releasing all of the Epstein files, giving a cagey answer that suggests it may be a long time before we ever see the documents related to the accused child sex trafficker.

An AP article posted on Wednesday evening reported the nasty guy has signed. The article also pointed out that he could have released the files months ago. And as he announced he had signed he blamed Democrats. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included some late night commentary that explains the situation quite well:

"Donald Trump lost his months-long battle to stop the release of the Epstein files on Tuesday, when Congress passed a bill forcing the Justice Department to make them public. So now Trump's doing a 180: he says he'll sign the bill that forces him to release the files that he could've released on his own but wouldn't, thus requiring a bill to force him to do the thing he didn’t want to do, which he will now be forced to do because of the bill he was against that he will now sign." —Seth Meyers

I’ve seen lots of speculation on various ways Bondi could avoid releasing the files. One of them is withholding files (or certain files) because they are a part of an ongoing investigation. Conveniently, just before the nasty guy changed his mind on releasing the files he asked Bondi to investigate which Democrats are in the files. There are ways Bondi could comply with the law but still not release all the details. One that I heard was to hire a company that could scrub the document. I also heard that enough DoJ lawyers have seen the files they will know if something is missing. The victims, increasingly stepping forward, will also verify it’s all there. Bondi has 30 days from Wednesday. Keep your popcorn popping. The show isn’t over. I’ve heard the sentiment: I don’t care if Democrats are in the files. If they are, they should go down too. That’s quite the contrast to Republicans trying to protect themselves and each other. Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy said to CNN when he was asked if he was concerned if Democrats might be implicated in the files.

So what? I mean, yeah, I'm sure that there are Democrats in those files, there are Republicans in those files, there are, you know, Wall Street executives who have no political affiliation. What we want is to understand who was involved in this. I mean, I don't think the president's so selfless that he was, you know, stopping the release of these files for so long because he was protecting his friends. I just think it stands to reason that he's very much connected to this scandal, and we may or may not know the extent of that, because it could be that the president is going to try to find a way to redact any information connected to him from those files, but to me, it just doesn't matter—the political affiliation. The law’s the law. They need to release the files.

Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

During a NewsNation segment on Monday, Mark Epstein said that his brother, Jeffrey Epstein, “had dirt” on President Donald Trump, alleging that the FBI is involved in a cover-up. During disgraced former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s show, Mark discussed the controversy surrounding his brother. “He didn’t tell me what he knew, but Jeffrey definitely had dirt on Trump,” he said. “You could see in the emails, Trump could deny it all he wants, but it’s pretty clear everything Trump says is a lie.”

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Mychael Schnell:

A House vibe check from @SpeakerJohnson: "I would like us to get back to normal Congress, it’s just no one knows what that looks like anymore." "There’s never a dull moment around here, is there." And members have only been back for 2 weeks since the shutdown...

Ben Jacobs responded:

This is actually an understated issue with Congress. There are less than 30 members who have served in a Congress that passed all 12 appropriations bills on time and a vast majority (including Mike Johnson!) have no experience of the House before Trump.

Jonathan Larson of Blue Amp wrote about a complicated scenario involving far right Venezuelan expatriates and Sidney Powell, the “Kraken” of the 2020 Big Lie. I think this complication comes down to these people feeding info to the nasty guy, info that has been refuted by intelligence agencies. The info is what is pushing the nasty guy towards war with Venezuela. The funding of these expatriates is also looking mighty sketchy. In the comments are several interesting memes most posted by exlrrp. The first few are based on two senators, one of them Mark Kelly, reminding soldiers they have a duty to ignore illegal orders. In response the nasty guy called for their arrest and execution. Mark Kelly is a former Navy combat pilot ant astronaut.

[Press secretary Karoline] Leavitt: They are encouraging service members not to follow lawful orders! Reporter: They’re talking about illegal orders. Leavitt: They’re suggesting the president has given illegal orders, which he has not. Every single order given is lawful.

Greg Sargent responded:

Keep doing this Dems. Make the White House keep denying that Trump is giving the military illegal orders. Force a big debate over it. Because there are strong grounds for believing that Trump *actually is* giving illegal orders, particularly with the boat bombings.

ChrisTheBarMan added:

Using the military to police U.S. cities? Not legal... Using the military to commit murder by destroying boats in international waters? Not legal... These are just two examples of illegal orders.

A meme from The Resistance:

Dear MAGA, please help us make sense of something: Why would Trump and his administration object to soldiers being reminded by lawmakers “not to obey ILLEGAL orders” ... unless Trump and members of his regime plan on issuing illegal orders to them? And why would he call for their arrest and execution?

Heard on Fox News:

Stephen Miller: It is insurrection, plainly, directly without question... These lawmakers should honestly resign in disgrace, and never return to public office again, for even daring to think, let alone say these words and say them proudly.

A response from Melanie D’arrigo:

If Republicans are upset that Democrats are telling the military to refuse illegal orders, then Republicans are admitting that they are asking the military to break the law. Republicans are telling on themselves.

Skyleigh Uhrich added:

This is the law. Passed down from our Founding Fathers, to ensure our military upholds its oath to the Constitution – not a king. You should buff up on the Uniformed Code of Military Justice Stephen. It’s a soldier’s duty to disobey an unlawful order.

A meme from Josh Rogin (yeah, I’m quoting him):

Trump spends two days with a dictator who kills all political dissidents and suddenly suggests he can do the same thing.

In honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance (which was yesterday) Liberal Jane posted a few memes. One of them:

Trans people are not the reason your life sucks.

And toonerman posted a cartoon of the result of a young Michelangelo building a snowman. It’s a nice takeoff on his creation of Adam.

Authenticity and performative masculinity

I’m finally caught up in reading the news. I saw various notices about Senate confirmation hearings of cabinet nominees. Committees scheduled several of them at the same times. I didn’t watch any of them (though links are posted), though I read summaries that I saw. The big hearing over the last few days was of Pete Hegseth, nominated for Department of Defense. On Tuesday, the day of his hearing Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that Republicans are covering up his disqualifications. They accepted an inadequate FBI report, which “didn’t interview people who have accused Hegseth of improper and even illegal behavior.” They also planned to limit questioning that would mean not all of his alleged bad behavior will be discussed. And when Hegseth did his rounds of individual meetings with senators Democrats were left off the schedule. Republicans said Democrats had scheduling conflicts. Democrats said, no we didn’t. Singer wrote:

Democrats are aghast at their GOP colleagues for ramming through Hegseth’s confirmation hearing while ignoring that Hegseth is completely unqualified for the job.

Singer’s article got into some of the questioning by Democrats on the Armed Services Committee hearing. Sen. Jack Reed listed many reasons why Hegseth is unqualified. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi defended Hegseth on accusations of sexual assault by saying most of the people making those accusations are anonymous. Singer described more of the hearing in a second post. Republicans ran defense or asked easy questions. So Democrats asked the tough ones. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia didn’t buy the idea that anonymous sources meant there was nothing to the allegations. Kaine noted many accusers are bound by nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements. He also got into the sordid details of wives (there have been three) and mistresses. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a veteran who lost her legs in combat, asked Hegseth basic questions about the military. Hegseth could not answer. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona asked about the drinking and sexual misconduct.

"Which is it—have you overcome personal issues, or are you the target of a smear campaign? It can't be both. It's clear to me that you're not being honest with us or the American people because you know the truth would disqualify you from getting the job,” Kelly said. “And just as concerning as each of these specific disqualifying accusations are, what concerns me just as much is the idea of having a secretary of defense who is not transparent.”

Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan said Hegseth has talked about raising the minimum standards (in an attempt at disqualifying women from combat?). Peters asked:

Do you think that the way to raise the minimum standards of the people who serve us is to lower the standards for the secretary of defense, that we have someone who has never managed an organization more than 100 people?

Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Elizabeth Warren focused on Hegseth’s misogynistic comments that have changed since his nomination. As an example of defense Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma asked how many senators have shown up drunk for a vote? How many senators have gotten a divorce for cheating on their wives? They aren’t asked to step down. Singer responded that senators doing that does not “render Hegseth’s alleged actions meaningless.” And those senators were not nominated for Secretary of Defense.

Ultimately, Democrats laid bare how unqualified Hegseth is to lead the Pentagon. But Republicans are set to confirm Hegseth anyway, kowtowing to Trump’s demand that they all roll over and accept his deeply unprepared and corrupt nominees.

Alex Samuels of Kos reported that Sen. Jodi Ernst of Iowa now says she will support Hegseth.

Part of what makes Ernst’s raving endorsement notable is her history as a combat veteran and sexual assault survivor who previously raised concerns over Hegseth’s ability to lead the Pentagon. In December, she cited unease over Hegseth’s past opposition to women serving in combat roles, though he walked this back during Tuesday’s hearing.

There is a lot of speculation about what prompted her to change her mind. Perhaps it was pressure from the Republican base.

After meeting with Hegseth in December and voicing doubts about whether she’d vote in his favor, she was relentlessly bullied by hardcore MAGA adherents. Not only did some of Trump’s most ardent supporters run ads in Ernst’s home state of Iowa, but they also questioned her conservative bona fides on social media. Mega-billionaire Elon Musk also pledged to bankroll primary challenges to Republicans who went against the president-elect.

Yeah, that could do it. With Ernst ready to approve, confirmation of Hegseth is quite likely. In Wednesday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare:

You can see in it so many of the central tenets of Trump’s approach to governance: the contempt for expertise and traditional qualifications; the insistence that the only real qualification is authenticity—and that authenticity is somehow wrapped up in performative masculinity; the belief that sounding tough and being tough are the same thing; and the conviction that complexity necessarily reduces to weakness. It’s all right there in the nomination of a proudly unqualified individual [Pete Hegseth] who frames his lack of qualifications as qualification of a different, more authentic, variety that reflects what he calls a “warrior ethos” America has somehow lost in its infatuation with equity. And this idea has the apparently silent assent of all of the Republican members of the committee and a few, at least, enthusiastic takers.

In today’s roundup Dworkin quoted Holly Berkley Fletcher of The Bulwark:

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) raised a subject relevant to Hegseth’s character, personal stability, and potential vulnerability to blackmail: Hegseth’s repeated adultery and other sexual indiscretions—including sleeping with someone (who alleged assault) two months after his child was born to his mistress with whom he cheated on his second wife. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) then rose to Hegseth’s defense. Mullin, who is a member of an evangelical Pentecostal church, began by thanking the third Mrs. Hegseth, present in the hearing room, for “loving him through that mistake.” Mullin went on, “The only reason I am here and not in prison is because my wife loved me, too. ... I’m not perfect, but I found somebody that thought I was perfect ... but just like our Lord and Savior forgave me, my wife’s had to forgive me more than once, too.” He then gave Hegseth the opportunity to awkwardly gush about how smart, capable, and beautiful his wife is. Mullin’s mini-sermon was a lasagna of problematic messaging—the lauding of a woman for sticking with an abusive man, more generally giving women responsibility for men’s redemption, and calling longstanding patterns of behavior a “mistake.” Oh, and there was also the obligatory reference to poor Jesus—whom Hegseth also repeatedly invoked to get out of every jam free. (I seem to remember a commandment about not taking the Lord’s name in vain.)

I’ve been thinking about the nasty guy’s infatuation with Greenland and the possibility he might invade to take it. Might the military refuse? Might the Joint Chiefs of Staff simply tell him that’s a bad idea and we’re not going to do it? Then I got to be thinking with Hegseth in charge of the Pentagon the possibility of refusing has gone down. Hegseth weeding through reluctant generals is also likely before the nasty guy calls for invasion. On to another nominee, this one is Pam Bondi for US Attorney General. She was part of the nasty guy’s legal team to attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that at her hearing she claimed to know nothing about it. And other responses were lies. Not surprising. Singer also reported on the hearing, noting that Bondi wouldn't say who won the 2020 election, only saying Biden is president. Singer concluded:

It’s no surprise that Bondi refused to say Biden won. Trump demands total loyalty from his Cabinet picks, and admitting that Biden was the victor goes against Trump’s narcissistic delusion that he didn’t lose in 2020. But it’s terrifying that Republican senators are set to confirm an attorney general who not only can’t admit basic reality, but will readily lie to stroke Trump’s fragile ego.

On Wednesday Samuels reported there is a deal to end the Israel/Gaza war after 15 months of destruction in Gaza. Since Samuels’ post the Israeli security cabinet has approved the deal, though the far right members threatened to pull out of the cabinet and perhaps even the coalition government, meaning elections would have to be called. Last I heard the full Israeli cabinet is in the process of approving it. Back to Samuels’ post: Shortly after the deal was announced the nasty guy tried to take credit for it, that it only happened because he won in November. Of course, that ignores (as the nasty guy frequently does) that Biden laid out the basic terms of the agreement at the end of May and has been working steadily for its acceptance since then. Agreeing to the plan became necessary for Hamas when Israel made a deal with Lebanon and the Syrian regime collapsed. Is the nasty guy taking credit simply because he said “all hell will break loose” if a deal wasn’t done by his inauguration? In Thursday’s pundit roundup Chitown Kev quoted Hamilton Nolan of his How Things Work on Substack. Nolan wrote about the estimated cost of the Los Angeles fires and that in 2024 disasters around the world caused $320 billion in damages. Also, 2024 is the hottest on record and we have exceeded the 1.5C level of warming that is said to be a hard limit by climate scientists. And CEOs of America’s most powerful finance companies announced they are withdrawing from the climate coalition. Then Nolan wrote:

For Americans, the hardest part of what is coming is going to be giving up on the grand American myth of infinite material abundance. The classic vision of the American dream—the house, the yard, the driveway with a big car for everyone—is going to have to go away, by necessity. It will not go quietly. Americans regard these things not as temporary byproducts of a particular age of global capitalism that cannot last, but rather as human rights. Much of the confounding Trumpian tendency to celebrate big trucks and more oil drilling and other things we know are bad for us is simply a child’s gut reaction to being told that we cannot have that lollipop, after all. Politically speaking, we are in the tantrum phase of the climate transition. This is understandable, on an emotional level; the sweet promise of abundance has long been the thing that soothed the public’s disgust with inequality. But we can’t allow ourselves to linger in this period. The longer we wallow in resentment and denial, the longer we put off the hard work of adaptation, and the more difficult and costly the adaptation becomes. Every time you see a politician telling voters they can damn well have a big McMansion with icy air conditioning and a Ford F-450 and cheap gas and a new highway to reach their new suburban development, take a moment to imagine how those voters will feel when the AC bills skyrocket, and the gas prices soar, and the heat kills the grass, and the overloaded electrical grid flickers, and the defunded public services mean that there is no one to come save them when the trees catch fire. We are not doing anyone any favors by denying reality.