I'm going to be annoying and ask again about Tulsi Gabbard. I'm just not sure how to begin casually researching "are the rumors that figure X is a Russian asset actually true and what is the evidence?" without spending way too much time on it. Advice on the meta-question of how to look this shit up is also welcome. I'm sorry!
I'm finding Gaetz darkly hilarious. Very dark, but also very hilarious.
Sort of like The Onion buying Infowars.
Clinton said Gabbard was a Russian asset years ago. I've never felt the need to doubt Clinton on something like that.
How much would it suck to be Mike Lee right now?
It matches with her parroting Russian foreign policy lines as far back as 2019 (on Syria).
Also, who facilitated her 2017 meeting with Assad?
RFK Jr. to HHS. This one is more scary than absurd, though it is that too.
Look at all these accountability sinks.
Some of my best friends are humans who use services and want health.
It's a reasonably big threat to my job. I've kind of priced-in this risk already. We've been scaling back.
I personally too have preferences that are going unheeded, federally.
Someone on X just said Trump'll put Cliven Bundy for Interior. Sounds right.
Everything is on-topic in an "... etc" thread, so let me pose a completely pointless question. Do you think either 2000 Al Gore or 2004 John Kerry could have beaten Trump? If so, under what circumstances? If not, how do you think they would have performed? (This is where my mind has been going lately thinking about Democratic candidates and gender.) You can decide whether this question is also "could Trump have won in 2000 or 2004?" or not.
Nope. Maybe? nope. I think Trump is more popular than W.
On the narrow topic, border stuff:
Trump announced on Sunday night that [Tom "they ain't seen shit yet"] Homan would serve as a White House "border czar" overseeing security and immigration enforcement. Vice President-elect JD Vance on Monday appeared to confirm that Stephen Miller, architect of Trump's restrictive first-term immigration agenda, would return as deputy chief of staff for policy, assuring the issue will remain central.
Links from here.
It'll be interesting to see the range of reactions when Trump chumps start realizing that they did indeed vote for concentration camps, more e. Coli outbreaks and $17 zucchinis.
I think they knew they voted for concentration camps.
16: I've been thinking about the (similar) question of whether a Walz/Harris ticket would have performed better than Harris/Walz. I don't think I'm a good judge, but I don't think that would have changed the result.
21: Yeah. The U.S. is running full speed at a brick wall. We just don't know where will hit first.
18: [Tom "they ain't seen shit yet"] Homan
NYT just ran an Astead Herndon interview of Homan from some time back for "The Run Up" but not aired back then. I know, would matter not a whit, but maybe nice to provide that info during the actual "run up."
Mike Huckabee on his new role: "I believe the scripture. Genesis 12: Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. I want to be on the blessing side, not the curse side."
25: He should take a glance at Amos and Hosea some time.
21: now I remember how much time I spent trying to gauge the strategy and planning involved in leaks to the press, and just how many there were, during the first term. That was pretty tedious. My naive reaction to the news, though, goes without saying ("sorry, everyone").
Also Genesis 12 doesn't say anything remotely like that.
It does contain God saying something like that to Abraham when he moves from Haran into Canaan, but it's very clearly about Abraham's offspring as a people and not about their claim to the land.