Indeed. There is something relaxing having our hands off the wheel and just watching the car drive off the road.
But I’m more (well, also) concerned about the people we aren’t hearing about. We know they are dumb but also masters of distraction. For instance, what is Stephen Miller doing? What corner is he sitting in, making what types of lists, to go after whom? What’s going to catch us by surprise because we are too focused on the Cabinet show?
Every time I read or hear someone describe Trump as smart or intelligent I want to fucking scream. At most, he's a convenient idiot puppet for evil, intelligent people with bad intent.
Mistaking the resourcefulness of a criminal for intelligence is a common error people who do not deal with criminals can make. Committing fraud doesn't require brilliance, it requires planning and a predatory disregard for other people.
I don’t know if he was ever intelligent, but he’s deviously charismatic from what I hear. Any one he condescends to talk to just falls all over him. His greed and duplicity make his iQ irrelevant since he’s obviously not the puppet master.
I am very worried about Hegseth and Gabbard. And I keep wondering whether Putin is involved with those picks.
What U.S. institutions would Putin want most to destroy? I think it’s the military and the intelligence community. Hegseth is just the kind of person who would be disruptive and who would hurt military cohesion and morale. And the intel community would never trust Tulsi Gabbard.
Maybe I am giving Putin and the Kremlin more credit than they deserve, but I can’t help thinking about how cozy Elon has been with Putin and Trump lately. I feel certain he’s passing communications between them.
He found out last time that he couldn’t use the military like his own private army men toys. So he’s been saying he’s going to investigate and charge the generals etc, who refused to obey him last time, and anyone else who dismisses his orders. He talks about wanting to do some really really sick things.
How much are these blood suckers paid as elected representatives? How can they behave like they do without threats of losing their position? The way DeSantis is planning who to fill the vacancy of Rubio & Paedo-Gaetz it’s like his own fiefdom. At tax payers expense!!!
As an Australian our elected parliament reps would never get away with this shit. The local media would crucify them & the voters would demand resignation, if not criminal charges!!
Yeah, concurring. Read HRC from last night, the 21st. The strategy seems to be to cut off the head of American Democracy by installing people who will destroy it from the inside out. How do we fight the right fight here, because he will never put in qualified people. At least not qualified or interested in the health and well-being of the people or creating a more perfect union. I am fighting for that.
Technically, he can go back to the new Congress he was just elected to and be sworn in on January 3rd, but then he runs the risk of the Ethics Committee investigation being reopened. So, if he is not sworn in, then the seat remains open to be filled by whatever process exists in Florida to fill an open House seat--possibly an opportunity for a another Blue seat!
“Congratulations to the Floridians being appointed to key positions in the Trump Administration: Senator Marco Rubio, Congressman Matt Gaetz, and Congressman Mike Waltz.
I've instructed Secretary of State Cord Byrd to formulate and announce a schedule for the upcoming special elections immediately.
I can’t for the life of me figure out this app. 🤦♀️ It won’t show full comments and I’m still figuring out the organization of replies. I’m going to try a browser. Sry about the confusion guys.
Ah, the Framers of the Constitution had a different idea. Vacancies in the House of Representatives have to be filled by election. Art. I, §2, cl. 4 (House Vacancies Clause). State law sets the procedure, for example, when special primary elections can be held, but Gaetz's successor will be chosen in a special election. And I'm not holding my breath hoping that the seat is flipped; Gaetz routinely beat the Democratic opponent by 25-30 points.
“At present, 45 states authorize their governors to appoint a Senator to fill a vacancy until a replacement is elected,” according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.
Here in the Sunshine State, there is some belief (expectation?) that Gaetz will run for governor in 2 years (DeSantis has hit the term limits wall). There's also some thought that, depending on who fills the last 2 years of Rubio's term, Gaetz would run for the Senate.
Yep that’s the belief for the little turd and now that his daddy is back in the FL Senate he has another “leg up” for it….he needs to go down and deep into the pits of prison for a long while and his daddy can follow him down that same pit…they deserve it.
Sigh. The rest of his horrible picks are a huge concern. Nobody with any experience wants to work for, in the immortal words of Rex Tillerson, a fucking moron.
And that’s all we will end up with, spineless morons determined to crash our democracy and grift off the remains.
Let’s hope in two years the clueless idiots who voted these magas in come to what little sense they have and vote them out of power. And that’s all we the Dems figure out HOW and WHAT to message to the voters.
I had a very rough day. I should have found something fun or relaxing to do. but I’m so anxious about losing momentum.I’ve been trying to spread political news and support to others.
I think self care days are so important. Sometimes that’s every day, sometimes your contribution is taking care of yourself and loving you’re framily. 💙
One of the key lessons to learn about fascism and authoritarian groups is that they reward loyalty over competence. That inevitably means that competent people leave (since they have no hope of advancement and are increasingly surrounded by idiots), and that the people who replace them are often incapable of actually performing the job well.
We saw this in Trumps first term, and it will be worse in the second: no one wants to work for a shitty boss, much less a sycophant for a tyrant, and as such critical roles in government will go unfilled and basic functions will break down. The mail will run slower, getting regulatory approvals will take longer, flights will be delayed and security screening unusually bad, and so on. It’ll suck - but make it that much easier to win Congress back in 2026 and the White House in 2028.
But how long do you think Trump will live? And if Vance is still alive out there maybe he’s more strategically competent. He can definitely please a crowd. He will politely change his story on a dime to make it sound like he agrees with the masses. Unlike DT he doesn’t believe his own lies.
The issue with Vance is he *is* deeply unlikable. NO ONE around him really likes him, largely because he is so transparently spineless and arrogant but doesn’t have Trump’s considerable charisma to make up for it. He *is* more competent, for sure, but he would struggle to hold a collation of power together - for a few reasons.
First, cults of personality and tyrannical governments rarely survive the loss of their figurehead: moving the cult of personality to a new leader is *hard*, and requires years of planning or the kind of rapid coup that really isn’t easy with how our government is organized federally. In any case the GOP has done none of the former, and is absolutely too fractured for the latter to be anything but a struggle. The party is barely holding together as-is, and the infighting after his death will only make that worse.
I believe the ultimate goal is the destruction of our government, fracturing our country and some sort of oligarch enjoying the chaos.
He’s placing people to dismantle our democracy and all of our institutions.
When he is gone those people will still be there, they might fight over his successor, obviously musk, but once he’s named himself grand king whatever, it’s going to be a long fight with low odds.
I agree it’s not going to happen over night, and things will take time to dismantle.
I know all of the fight from the bottom up stuff, and we need to, i just want to know if our representatives have given up. Why are they quiet? Do they have a plan or are we all sitting ducks?
whatever the case, MAGA haven’t made any huge moves that are obvious to the public. So we have that to cling to for now.
Anywaysssss.
[Stick together, stay strong, find something to live for, fight every battle and protect your neighbors!
We need regular ppl to join the school boards, flood our churches and sacred places, show up at town hall meetings. Or think big and run for local offices. There’s are more uncontested seats out there. Let’s show young ppl how to be empowered so they don’t feel scared and helpless.]
(If you made it here thank you for your time) 💕💙
I think AG or a guest mentioned “Run for something”, they look pretty cool and they are trying to fill seats at all levels. Let’s do this!
AG, I am curious, how does a position in an agency that currently is not formed, get paid and authority. And if that agency is basically is going to break up government agencies, 1. How do they get the power to do that? I am thinking this is so serious that the Agency at least have to be approved for a budget. 2. How is this a position for Musk and Ramiswarmy without any Government Oversight. What am I missing here?
I contacted my Dem House Reps. (NM) to pressure them to vote no on HR 9495 but the simple majority vote had us outnumbered. I don’t understand how the first vote required a 2/3rds majority, but then it seemed simple for the Repubs to simply reintroduce the same Bill a few days later and with an easier ceiling.
We realize that Gaetz strong-armed the removal of McCarthy from Speaker of the House position, probably as a favor to Trump. Since Mike Johnson is such a willing tool to accomplish Trump's bidding, somehow his placement must have been in the works. I am highly suspicious about "the little secret" Trump said he and Mike Johnson had that wouldn't be known until after the election--I think it was some form of having illegal votes fill in the losing gaps for the 7 swing states. There were SO many people found who had not voted before who voted for Trump and no one else down ballot...hundreds of thousands?
I still want a recount! they got their recounts with out any known election interference we had to put up with bombings violence, and voter suppression. All equal under the law right? So my concerns are at least as valid as theirs.
They could have got those votes in a lot of ways unfortunately. I’m sure many of them came from the false Harris adds musk funded. A poll worker who was very distraught said that at her location they allowed the families to vote together and it appeared the men had taken their wives and voting age children to make sure they give a vote for Trump. So that’s two groups right there. Then you got the crazy religious fundamentalists. And they got the people who were anti aca by running more fake Harris adds saying one of her main election goals was to make sure trans people in prison had access to healthcare. Specifically gender affirming surgeries.
You need to back up what you suggested happened. Where is that data published? If it were true and given the thin margins for DT is each swing state, I would expect the Dems to be investigating it and there is no indication they are preparing challenges in the Presidential result.
Indeed. There is something relaxing having our hands off the wheel and just watching the car drive off the road.
But I’m more (well, also) concerned about the people we aren’t hearing about. We know they are dumb but also masters of distraction. For instance, what is Stephen Miller doing? What corner is he sitting in, making what types of lists, to go after whom? What’s going to catch us by surprise because we are too focused on the Cabinet show?
S miller worries me too. Freaky evil.
He and Vance are funded by Theil.
Theil has a very perverse side, very evil.
I've read his last 3 boyfriends are unalive.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/peter-thiels-boyfriend-jeff-thomas-death-new-details-emerge/
Which "he"? Because Miller is married to a woman.
Paywall.
We should still see the report.
Every time I read or hear someone describe Trump as smart or intelligent I want to fucking scream. At most, he's a convenient idiot puppet for evil, intelligent people with bad intent.
Mistaking the resourcefulness of a criminal for intelligence is a common error people who do not deal with criminals can make. Committing fraud doesn't require brilliance, it requires planning and a predatory disregard for other people.
He's dumb as a rock, but he's a master con man, and lucky as hell to boot.
His father's money has kept him out of jail.
I don’t know if he was ever intelligent, but he’s deviously charismatic from what I hear. Any one he condescends to talk to just falls all over him. His greed and duplicity make his iQ irrelevant since he’s obviously not the puppet master.
None of his puppeteers could fill the auditorium at the local high school. Enough said.
It also requires accomplices
I am very worried about Hegseth and Gabbard. And I keep wondering whether Putin is involved with those picks.
What U.S. institutions would Putin want most to destroy? I think it’s the military and the intelligence community. Hegseth is just the kind of person who would be disruptive and who would hurt military cohesion and morale. And the intel community would never trust Tulsi Gabbard.
Maybe I am giving Putin and the Kremlin more credit than they deserve, but I can’t help thinking about how cozy Elon has been with Putin and Trump lately. I feel certain he’s passing communications between them.
Trump doesn’t play chess but Putin does.
He found out last time that he couldn’t use the military like his own private army men toys. So he’s been saying he’s going to investigate and charge the generals etc, who refused to obey him last time, and anyone else who dismisses his orders. He talks about wanting to do some really really sick things.
Does Putin drive a Tesla yet?
How much are these blood suckers paid as elected representatives? How can they behave like they do without threats of losing their position? The way DeSantis is planning who to fill the vacancy of Rubio & Paedo-Gaetz it’s like his own fiefdom. At tax payers expense!!!
As an Australian our elected parliament reps would never get away with this shit. The local media would crucify them & the voters would demand resignation, if not criminal charges!!
Yeah, concurring. Read HRC from last night, the 21st. The strategy seems to be to cut off the head of American Democracy by installing people who will destroy it from the inside out. How do we fight the right fight here, because he will never put in qualified people. At least not qualified or interested in the health and well-being of the people or creating a more perfect union. I am fighting for that.
Watching Gaetz nomination swirling around the bowl was expected, given the amount of pressure applied to the peerless in vacuous idiocy pick!
You’ve made an excellent case for the importance of resistance to all the insanity of the mooks years ahead! Thanks for all you do Allison!!
Technically, he can go back to the new Congress he was just elected to and be sworn in on January 3rd, but then he runs the risk of the Ethics Committee investigation being reopened. So, if he is not sworn in, then the seat remains open to be filled by whatever process exists in Florida to fill an open House seat--possibly an opportunity for a another Blue seat!
I was worried he would still take his seat, but you are right, atm the ethics committee still exists, and they still have that report.
Well crap… Ron Desantis gets to make the picks for the empty seats. 😑
Ahh, thanks!
I found it. Desantis posted on twitter last wk.
“Congratulations to the Floridians being appointed to key positions in the Trump Administration: Senator Marco Rubio, Congressman Matt Gaetz, and Congressman Mike Waltz.
I've instructed Secretary of State Cord Byrd to formulate and announce a schedule for the upcoming special elections immediately.
I can’t for the life of me figure out this app. 🤦♀️ It won’t show full comments and I’m still figuring out the organization of replies. I’m going to try a browser. Sry about the confusion guys.
Edit, much better! Thnx for putting up with that!
Thanks. I was worried De Santis had the pick. Its possible FL could got with a Dem.
Josh - seriously? The same voters that passed over Val Demings for Rubio in ‘22? …or voted Gaetz into office, repeatedly?
Ah, the Framers of the Constitution had a different idea. Vacancies in the House of Representatives have to be filled by election. Art. I, §2, cl. 4 (House Vacancies Clause). State law sets the procedure, for example, when special primary elections can be held, but Gaetz's successor will be chosen in a special election. And I'm not holding my breath hoping that the seat is flipped; Gaetz routinely beat the Democratic opponent by 25-30 points.
Here is the confusion:
“At present, 45 states authorize their governors to appoint a Senator to fill a vacancy until a replacement is elected,” according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.
Unfortunately true….boot licker RonDon DeDumDum is no more trustworthy than Donald and his little dics that follow him around.
Stormy would be offended. Go Stormy… (Weather inclement in both chambers). Still,”Release the Tapes!!”
Yes, I think he just showed himself right out the door.
Now that Gaetz isn't in Congress or a cabinet secretary, perhaps he'll dissappear into media & social media irrelevance.
If we're lucky, we'll only hear from his when he's done something extra foolishness in an attempt to become "someone" again
Fox News will possibly hire him?
Or when he’s indicted. . .
Here in the Sunshine State, there is some belief (expectation?) that Gaetz will run for governor in 2 years (DeSantis has hit the term limits wall). There's also some thought that, depending on who fills the last 2 years of Rubio's term, Gaetz would run for the Senate.
Yep that’s the belief for the little turd and now that his daddy is back in the FL Senate he has another “leg up” for it….he needs to go down and deep into the pits of prison for a long while and his daddy can follow him down that same pit…they deserve it.
Eewww. What is wrong with people. Gaetz should be in jail with his buddy
So like Trump in that his daddy launched him
Florida deserves him if the elect that scumbag
Not everyone in Florida votes for the MAGA.
Hey it’s hard living down here! It’s dumbfuckistan 2!
I liked the suggestion of Venmo spokesperson.
Sigh. The rest of his horrible picks are a huge concern. Nobody with any experience wants to work for, in the immortal words of Rex Tillerson, a fucking moron.
And that’s all we will end up with, spineless morons determined to crash our democracy and grift off the remains.
Let’s hope in two years the clueless idiots who voted these magas in come to what little sense they have and vote them out of power. And that’s all we the Dems figure out HOW and WHAT to message to the voters.
It’s going to be a rough two years.
You voiced just what I was thinking.
I’ve still been feeling a bleak hopelessness but this gives me some hope.
Agreed. Things as sloppy snd as full of holes as what t___p tries to assemble cannot possibly hold together.
I had a very rough day. I should have found something fun or relaxing to do. but I’m so anxious about losing momentum.I’ve been trying to spread political news and support to others.
I think self care days are so important. Sometimes that’s every day, sometimes your contribution is taking care of yourself and loving you’re framily. 💙
You are a master of understatement. Thank you. “ 3 D chess “/ trump . He has never seen a chess board much less know what can be done with it 🥴🤡
Thank you for reporting on one of many great news on the Trump campaign going downhill
One of the key lessons to learn about fascism and authoritarian groups is that they reward loyalty over competence. That inevitably means that competent people leave (since they have no hope of advancement and are increasingly surrounded by idiots), and that the people who replace them are often incapable of actually performing the job well.
We saw this in Trumps first term, and it will be worse in the second: no one wants to work for a shitty boss, much less a sycophant for a tyrant, and as such critical roles in government will go unfilled and basic functions will break down. The mail will run slower, getting regulatory approvals will take longer, flights will be delayed and security screening unusually bad, and so on. It’ll suck - but make it that much easier to win Congress back in 2026 and the White House in 2028.
But how long do you think Trump will live? And if Vance is still alive out there maybe he’s more strategically competent. He can definitely please a crowd. He will politely change his story on a dime to make it sound like he agrees with the masses. Unlike DT he doesn’t believe his own lies.
The issue with Vance is he *is* deeply unlikable. NO ONE around him really likes him, largely because he is so transparently spineless and arrogant but doesn’t have Trump’s considerable charisma to make up for it. He *is* more competent, for sure, but he would struggle to hold a collation of power together - for a few reasons.
First, cults of personality and tyrannical governments rarely survive the loss of their figurehead: moving the cult of personality to a new leader is *hard*, and requires years of planning or the kind of rapid coup that really isn’t easy with how our government is organized federally. In any case the GOP has done none of the former, and is absolutely too fractured for the latter to be anything but a struggle. The party is barely holding together as-is, and the infighting after his death will only make that worse.
I believe the ultimate goal is the destruction of our government, fracturing our country and some sort of oligarch enjoying the chaos.
He’s placing people to dismantle our democracy and all of our institutions.
When he is gone those people will still be there, they might fight over his successor, obviously musk, but once he’s named himself grand king whatever, it’s going to be a long fight with low odds.
I agree it’s not going to happen over night, and things will take time to dismantle.
I know all of the fight from the bottom up stuff, and we need to, i just want to know if our representatives have given up. Why are they quiet? Do they have a plan or are we all sitting ducks?
whatever the case, MAGA haven’t made any huge moves that are obvious to the public. So we have that to cling to for now.
Anywaysssss.
[Stick together, stay strong, find something to live for, fight every battle and protect your neighbors!
We need regular ppl to join the school boards, flood our churches and sacred places, show up at town hall meetings. Or think big and run for local offices. There’s are more uncontested seats out there. Let’s show young ppl how to be empowered so they don’t feel scared and helpless.]
(If you made it here thank you for your time) 💕💙
I think AG or a guest mentioned “Run for something”, they look pretty cool and they are trying to fill seats at all levels. Let’s do this!
https://runforsomething.net/how-we-help/
AG, I am curious, how does a position in an agency that currently is not formed, get paid and authority. And if that agency is basically is going to break up government agencies, 1. How do they get the power to do that? I am thinking this is so serious that the Agency at least have to be approved for a budget. 2. How is this a position for Musk and Ramiswarmy without any Government Oversight. What am I missing here?
I contacted my Dem House Reps. (NM) to pressure them to vote no on HR 9495 but the simple majority vote had us outnumbered. I don’t understand how the first vote required a 2/3rds majority, but then it seemed simple for the Repubs to simply reintroduce the same Bill a few days later and with an easier ceiling.
We realize that Gaetz strong-armed the removal of McCarthy from Speaker of the House position, probably as a favor to Trump. Since Mike Johnson is such a willing tool to accomplish Trump's bidding, somehow his placement must have been in the works. I am highly suspicious about "the little secret" Trump said he and Mike Johnson had that wouldn't be known until after the election--I think it was some form of having illegal votes fill in the losing gaps for the 7 swing states. There were SO many people found who had not voted before who voted for Trump and no one else down ballot...hundreds of thousands?
I still want a recount! they got their recounts with out any known election interference we had to put up with bombings violence, and voter suppression. All equal under the law right? So my concerns are at least as valid as theirs.
They could have got those votes in a lot of ways unfortunately. I’m sure many of them came from the false Harris adds musk funded. A poll worker who was very distraught said that at her location they allowed the families to vote together and it appeared the men had taken their wives and voting age children to make sure they give a vote for Trump. So that’s two groups right there. Then you got the crazy religious fundamentalists. And they got the people who were anti aca by running more fake Harris adds saying one of her main election goals was to make sure trans people in prison had access to healthcare. Specifically gender affirming surgeries.
You need to back up what you suggested happened. Where is that data published? If it were true and given the thin margins for DT is each swing state, I would expect the Dems to be investigating it and there is no indication they are preparing challenges in the Presidential result.
Any uptake on the formal request for a ballot count in those dicey states?
You are the best, Allison Gill. You are the best AG, AG!