of the naughty with spice. Gonna find out who’ll pay his price. Gropey Paws is coming to town.
But look who’s checking it twice (hopefully), the U.S. Senate with help from the Media, FBI and Santa himself.
They see you when you’re slipping. They know you’re on the take. So you better be good for now for DOTUS’ sake.
Attribution: Cabinet Nominees Santa’s Naughty List by John Darkow, Columbia Missourian
President-elect Trump’s support for his Defense Secretary nominee may be teetering as Pete Hegseth’s colleagues at Fox News say he frequently showed up drunk at work, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is working to gain influence in Trump’s incoming administration, and Stephen looks into the wild details of an attempted coup by South Korea’s president.
this year’s suggested gift for the newly nominated from their closest friends and relatives:
Just in case you were wondering about the Beef Wellington that Gordon Ramsay serves Santa in the commercial: It’s ready in under an hour so shouldn’t slow down the jolly old elf by too much.
Gordon Ramsay Beef Wellington
Interesting article on the fears of broadcasters in the coming Trump era, specifically MSNBC.
The Sound of Fear on the Air
Joe and Mika went nuts just now over that article, Jamie. Went on and on at length swearing they’re not afraid of Trump and FOX, telling critics: “Grow up”. When you’re explaining you’re losing.
Joe and Mika regularly go nuts at length unnecessarily. I like their guests, but I’ve been mad at them ever since they helped to tank Hilary with the long, giggly Trump conversations and the “But Her Emails” at the top of every block.
If they go away, no skin off my nose as long as they keep the groups.
Seems like Morning Joe is in meltdown:
https://x.com/Mediaite/status/1864645023268024677
And now the puzzle fits, integrity sold for access.. NBC: “Donald Trump agreed to sit down with NBC News’ Kristen Welker in an exclusive interview airing on Meet the Press on Sunday, Dec. 8, his first network interview since winning the election.”
Trump’s nominations are dreadful. Why are Democrats silent?
Trump’s Cabinet choices are dreadful. Why are so many Democrats in Congress quiet?
I say Keep Going. Liz Cheney and Jack Smith too! Politico reports Biden may pardon Dr. Anthony Fauci to protect him from future federal investigation and prosecution.
There may be a pattern here:
A pardon normally requires and admission of guilt. How do you plead guilty to a maybe prosecution?
Must be cold here – there’s ice across the West Fork River. We dodged the clipper – got rain and a bare dusting.
Poobah, what I took from Joe’s rant is that NYT’s piece was disingenuous because their reporters do the same thing that he and Mika did when they went to MAL to talk with dumbass. I don’t know that there is a right or wrong in this instance, but I can see Joe’s point. On the kerfuffle over Mika’s comment that Frum’s “joke” that if his drinking was too much for Faux it had to be a lot of drinking probably was too broad and shouldn’t be attributed to Faux as a whole I see as silly, and to the extent that WaPo and NYT based articles on Mika’s comment claiming it showed that MoJo was afraid of Dumbass, I don’t get it. As far as them going to MAL, I could argue that either way, but what’s the point?
As to pardons, I say pardon the shit out of everyone Dumbass has threatened and I want to see Patel’s enemies list and urge Joe to pardon anyone who is on it or (since he certainly won’t divulge it) anyone Joe thinks might be on it. Dumbass is going to pardon whoever the fuck he wants regardless of what Joe does, and I don’t give a shit that Joes pardons might appear to his base as cover for Dumbass’ pardons.
Well, Adam Kinzinger was on The View this week and was asked isn’t he afraid to keep speaking about Orange Adolf. Nope. He called him weak. Ha!
https://www.today.com/health/news/blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-rcna182990
“Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield says it won’t cover anesthesia after certain time limits in 3 states”
“A leading anesthesiologists’ group called the change “a cynical money grab.”
*Heads up if you live in NY, CT or MO, you’re gonna need to tell your surgeon to be quick like a bunny.
today’s meme…
From WaPo’s live feed on the Hegseth joke of a nomination: Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s embattled pick to be defense secretary, wrote Thursday on X that the next person to lead the department should be someone who has his kind of experience. “Maybe it’s time for a @SecDef who has … Led in combat. Been on patrol for days. Pulled a trigger. Heard bullets whiz by. Called in close air support. Led medevacs. Dodged IEDs,” wrote Hegseth, who served in Iraq while in the Army and in Afghanistan when he was in the National Guard. Would someone tell this idiot that (1) the SecDef is a CIVILIAN leadership position, and while prior service experience is not disqualifying, and of course is probably valuable, that the system is set up to prevent military control of the Defense Department and (2) the sitting SecDef has all those qualifications? Austin had the awesome responsibility of sending soldiers into combat, and Austin had to get a waiver of the time period following his active duty service to be considered for the post. Clueless git apparently is unaware the serving Secretary of Defense “was awarded the Silver Star for his leadership of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Seven years later, he would assume the duties of Commanding General of United States Forces – Iraq, overseeing all combat operations in the country.” (Source – Austin autobiography at defense.gov website). Austin’s military bona fides in Iraq and Afghanistan are… Read more »
meme #2…
Renee
I want those flags.
Just before I moved my neighbor, who bought pallets of amazon return items, gave me a telescoping flag poll. I put it in the front yard of my current house and fly a regular flag along with seasonal appropriate flags beneath. I might replace my American flag with a Klingon one. um, it’s an idea. ;-0
Jack
Pogo
Hegseth, was a major in the national guard, according to Google’s AI, a major supervises at most 200 people. The good ones go on and get promoted. by the time the reach the higher ranks they become very good at managing large groups of people. But someone who got out as a major has no skill or training in running a large bureaucracy, that a General does have. While a member of the national guard gets trained for his duties at the time, they aren’t as highly trained as regular army.
But none of his training qualifies him to run the largest bureaucracy in the world.
That said, I do think his comments need to be listened to. In the forever war that the war on terror has become, we have sent our military member into harm’s way without proper consideration of the consequences. Often treating them as they were the president’s personal toy. To be used at his pleasure. This has been going on for over 20 years now. But this is a civilian leadership problem, that mostly falls on the elected member of Congress and the President.
Jack
https://abcnews.go.com/US/gabbards-views-russia-shaped-part-kremlin-propaganda-outlet/story?id=116430097 “Three former aides said Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022, regularly read and shared articles from the Russian news site RT — formerly known as Russia Today — which the U.S. intelligence community characterized in 2017 as “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.” “That Gabbard’s views mirror Russia’s narrative and disinformation themes can but suggest naïveté, collusion, or politically opportunistic sycophancy to echo whatever she believes Trump wants to hear,” London said, adding, “none of which bodes well for the president’s principal intelligence adviser responsible for enabling the [U.S. intelligence community] to inform decision-making by telling it like it is.” This past September, the State Department wrote that it had evidence that “RT moved beyond being simply a media outlet and has been an entity with cyber capabilities.” The U.S. also issued fresh sanctions against executives at RT, including its editor-in-chief, who the U.S. accused of engaging in a “nefarious effort to covertly recruit unwitting American influencers in support of their malign influence campaign.” The Justice Department also indicted two RT employees in September for their alleged role in what the DOJ called a scheme to pay right-wing social media influencers nearly $10 million to “disseminate content deemed favorable to the Russian government.” Experts say RT and other Russian state-controlled news agencies have frequently capitalized on Gabbard’s public comments to support the biolab conspiracy theory and other disinformation, recirculating clips in which she repeats the Kremlin propaganda as evidence backing the false claims — effectively engineering an… Read more »
Jack, I don’t disagree, but my beef with Hegseth is his apparent dismissal of Lloyd Austin’s experience, as if he would be the first SecDef with combat experience. His apparent view of his military qualifications as being something unique to the SecDef seat carries the same untethered-to-reality arrogance as Trump.
jack, Klingon flag for sale at Walmart for $12.99 and $13.88 at Amazon
Mika and Joe show is one reason, an early reason, I stopped watching MSNBC. As each Progressive person was replaced by a republican I had fewer reasons to watch it. A few years ago I realized I was no longer watching, even on weekends. I started watching Mika on CBS Up To The Minute, UTTP. When she went off air for her pregnancy, the online universe was small enough that I asked the UTTP producer if they would send out email updates. which was agreed to.
Is there an MSNBC to be salvaged and sold off for use? I don’t think so. MSNBC was an experiment by MicroSoft and NBC. It is over now. Time for a new experiment now. NVIDIA talking head, like Max Headroom? No need for left or right politics.
Jack…. here’s one for you…
Dr. Fauci is a hero. Today is the fourth anniversary of my daughter’s Covid passing. I will never forget.
Pantone presents color of the year for 2025. It is PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse. In earlier life my father would have called it brindle brown. It is almost like the color team had been inspired by dirty diapers.
Ivy – I’m so sorry for your loss.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/healthcare-industry-rethinks-risk-after-murder-unitedhealth-exec-2024-12-05/
“Health insurance companies are reassessing the risks for their top executives after the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday in Manhattan, with both UnitedHealth and rival CVS Health (CVS.N), opens new tab removing photos of their leadership teams from their websites after the shooting.”
Maybe just pay for care instead of focusing on profiting from withholding care from sick folks.
Single payer, NOW!
ps – Elon is delusional. He posted that the world couldn’t function without CEOs, blaming the laziness of middle-management and their staff. Their staff? Ya mean the folks who actually do the work. What a putz!
Thank you, BID. I hope Joe issues blanket pardons for every official and other persons who might be targeted by the depraved trump administration for simply doing their job.
Ivy, my condolences. Yours is a loss I hope never having to bear.
Dick Van Dyke on Kimmel tonight. Wholly schitte. He’s still a hoot.
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