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Home » To all those who say that Trump’s appointments are too radical …

To all those who say that Trump’s appointments are too radical …

The New Neo Posted on by

… I would counter by pointing to Biden’s appointments, equally radical in the opposite direction.

Elections do indeed have consequences.

Comments

To all those who say that Trump’s appointments are too radical … — 48 Comments

  1. I’m not at all worried they are too radical. I am a bit concerned at how competent some are, but that’s impossible to say until they’re in those positions, and the people just elected Donald Trump to make that judgement call.

  3. While strolling through the internet today, I encountered a post by Brad Torgersen from 2021, which is amazingly prescient about the trajectory of the political ideologues of the Left, especially under the tenure of Biden Inc.

    He puts into words the actions that have been memorialized in what’s sometimes called Musk’s Moving Center Meme aka Political Spectrum Meme.
    (the one that looks like 3 people on a teeter-totter).

    https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1519735033950470144

    The prologue is Old News, but you could substitute any number of names for the two given.

    https://bradrtorgersen.blog/2021/09/23/when-they-compassionately-defenestrate-you/

    Watching Rose McGowan and Nicki Minaj get raked across the coals of Leftist media reminds me of the fact that we’re seeing an ideological sorting hat at work: people can either be liberal, or they can be Woke, but they can’t be both. And if you’re a liberal you will be shoved onto the other side, along with conservatives, libertarians, and everyone else who just wants to not be bothered with 24/7 impassioned harangues, histrionic commandments, unconstitutional restrictions, and dogmatic doggerel.

    The attached web comic made the rounds this morning. It reminded me of my philosophical and political journey since 2001. I’ve been shoved over that line so many times on so many issues, I’ve lost count. The multi-headed hydra of Wokeness — which has been gradually manifesting in ever more hideous forms since the end of the 1990s — brooks no compromise. It’s a purely tribal thing. Admitting that a given topic or subject may be multifaceted or nuanced, or that there may be more than one accurate analysis of a specific problem, gets you ejected from the circle of correct thinking. And it’s gotten so aggressive across all arenas of life, people are being forced to make choices: stand up for your independence and your freedom to make up your own mind, or become a robot who simply regurgitates whatever madness the Left is churning out this week.

    I honestly can’t see how America survives this. There must be room for difference, or America isn’t America at all. Back in the counterculture 1960s the American Left devoted all its time to crying for space to do what it wanted to do, think what it wanted to think, and be what it wanted to be. And now that the American Left has all the cultural, economic, and political power it did not possess previously, the American Left is determined to stamp out disagreement — both real, and perceived — at every turn. We are not allowed to question. We are not allowed to arrive at our own conclusions. And if we resist being tamped down like square pegs in round holes, we are cast out. Cancelled. The people who hang their hats on caring and compassion behave like the worst, most despotic cretins imaginable.

    You don’t have to guess what they’re thinking. They tell you every day all day on Twitter, and from a menagerie of media outlets — who all toe and parrot the same political line.

    The Sovietization of American society may fail, however, if enough people simply decide they’ve had it. Been pushed too far. Are expected to swallow too many lies. Defenestrate too many friends. The chief strength of Wokeness is that it’s monolithic. But this is also its chief weakness. Because monolithic ideologies tend to crush an ever-expanding number of people who simply by dint of being individual human beings, cannot or will not abide the crushing. So one by one folks stand up. Refuse to be afraid. Cannot be made to cower. And when a critical mass of protestants (note the small p) is reached, the monolith crumbles. Because the monolith only has power so long as a majority of the population embraces that power.

    If enough people scofflaw — as I have pointed out in this space previously — the law becomes worthless. Ineffective. For any rule to function, people must cooperatively and voluntarily embrace it.

    The various and sundry overreaches of the past two decades, being capped by Covid Panic and all its excesses, may be the tipping point when sufficient numbers of free people conclude there’s literally no more benefit to going along with the totalitarian charade. How many rights must be curtailed or forfeited? How many people punished? How much red-pilling does it take for a society to simultaneously barf up the dog’s breakfast of Left-wing assertions, shibboleths, diatribes, and absolutely mindless samethink which has been shoved down our throats since the turn of the young century?

    The real tipping point turned out to be the continued persecution and warped prosecution of President Trump, including 3 assassination attempts, because, Orange Man Bad is Literally Hitler.

    Or, if you want a sharper point, the euthanization of a pet squirrel by The Bureaucrats. Which actually backs up Brad’s points about the totalitarian overreaching.

    Brad is a science fiction writer, but I’m not sure even he could have plotted a novel more absurd than the few years since he wrote this post.

  4. Part II on radicals.
    A commenter on Brad’s post cited a study by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority, ”which I think has been seen here before, and then discussed another study which pointed out that the success of a radical group can cut both ways.

    https://bradrtorgersen.blog/2021/09/23/when-they-compassionately-defenestrate-you/#comment-19720

    Reziac says:
    There’s also an interesting paper summarized here:

    freakonomics DOT com/2011/07/28/minority-rules-why-10-percent-is-all-you-need/
    and available in full here:
    sci-hub DOT st/https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.84.011130

    I’ve personally noted (based on observations of the ongoing spread of that ultimate example of an intolerant minority, Islam) that the tipping point is actually lower, around 4 to 5 percent, and by the time you reach 10% it’s too late to stop full conversion. Survey data (that seems tolerably balanced) presently puts the far-left minority in the U.S. at around 8% (probably 2-3x that in Europe, where all the conformists stayed home when the Oh Yeah? contingent left for America). We are very close to it being Too Late.

    So… if we want to tip things back toward sane, it appears we need to become that strident, implacable minority, to make it “easier” to just go along with us than to try to compromise or reason with us. Because we’re actually the solid majority, but we’re not convincing enough people fast enough to firmly counter that strident minority on the Left, and that means the Left gets to make the rules. Convincing people by ones and twos doesn’t cut it when they make it “easier” for whole swaths to go along with them than to fight back and get canceled. And if they win, we ALL lose.

    Because being the reasonable and tolerant ones clearly is not working, or we wouldn’t need to have this discussion at all.

    And I recall that when we were a nation of “intolerant, unreasonable” people who did not tolerate gross deviancy, we were also a lot more secure in our homes and persons, and the spectre of an armed divorce was nowhere to be seen. By being so tolerant and reasonable, we’ve actually encouraged the present situation into being.

    I should note that I used to be of the tolerant and opposite persuasion, that all should be allowed their individual choices and behaviors (so long as not actively criminal against others). I’ve changed my mind, and it’s their own damn fault.

  5. Michael Spicer hilariously captures the dilemma for any Labour minister who has previously called out Trump in no uncertain terms.
    Here is some humor from across the pond, where Steven Pineless, a Labour minister, tries to ignore his many negative tweets about Trump by stating that the UK will have a good relationship w Trump etc. It ends with a picture of the Labour minister’s profile photo. Hilarious!

    Also in Instapundit.IT’S SATIRE, BUT IS IT REALLY?

  6. Part III on radicals.

    One of the early posts about Musk’s Moving Center Meme took issue with the implication that all the movement has been to the left, with the rightist and the centrist staying put.

    I’ve seen some “political spectrum” charts which do in fact show that the distribution curve of the Right has had some movement, although not nearly so much as the Left, and not enough IMO to significantly change the displacement of the center point.

    But it’s only fair to let him have his say.
    https://www.newsweek.com/problem-elon-musk-political-spectrum-meme-1702094

    According to research published by the Washington-based think tank in March, Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than they had been at any time in the past 50 years, with Republicans moving further to the right than Democrats have to the left.

    The research – which used lawmakers’ roll-call votes to place members of Congress in a two-dimensional ideological space – found that both parties had moved away from the ideological center from the 1970s, with Democrats becoming on average more liberal and Republicans “much more” conservative.

    Please note that the poll cited by the author is specifically about votes in Congress, whereas it’s pretty clear that Musk is referring to the entire country.
    All that proves is that, so far, the more manic positions of the Left haven’t made it to a vote.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/

  7. Tulsi Gabbard is an Assad Toady!

    Is that worse than a Putin fangirl?

    Here is Glen Greenwalt talking about Bari Weiss talking about Tulsi on The Joe Rogan show. On display is a level of ignorance that makes one wonder how intellectually vacuous the left really is.

    She calls Gabbard an Assad toady and when Rogan asks her what a toady is she’s forced to ask her assistant to look up the definition. It gets worse after that.

    Joe Rogan EXPOSES Bari Weiss’s Baseless Smears Against Tulsi
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9-cAxykmw

  8. I too am not at all worried that they are too radical. As for their competency, time will tell. But one thing I think certain with an older and wiser Trump; while loyalty to Trump got them the job, he expects them to measure up and won’t hesitate to fire any who don’t. Hopefully, each appointee has been assigned an ‘understudy’ one who’ll be ready to step in for any who end up being shown the door…

  10. One thing not being mentioned is the absolute impossibility of getting a conviction against any Swampian in DC or any Blue area.

    Jurors claiming hero status for resisting MAGA attempts to prosecute the guilty will become standard MSM fare.

  12. @Brian E:Here is Glen Greenwalt talking about Bari Weiss talking about Tulsi on The Joe Rogan show. On display is a level of ignorance that makes one wonder how intellectually vacuous the left really is.

    Around here we think of Bari Weiss as one of “the good guys”. But we still have to be critical of what people “on our side” are trying to sell us. This is a fantastic example.

    Somebody told Bari Weiss to say what she said and she can’t remember what the rationale was, so after flailing for a bit and being unable to give the rationale, she had to bring up some other wrongthink from the past to discredit Gabbard with.

    Greenwald, of course, has to be treated in the same way: just because he sounds like he’s “on our side” right now doesn’t mean he’s not going to try to sell us a narrative, either, and he did a lot of that in the Bush years, I presume he still does.

  13. @ Niketas – we have to remember that Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, and many other Substackers who have been kicked out of the Democrat Party by the Left are NOT on our side; they are waiting for their side to become sane again.

    They exemplify the central person in Musk’s Moving Center Meme — they did NOT move right, they are marking time until the center comes back their direction.
    Some may be open to changing their mind on a few issues that they didn’t already share with the Right (center-right and center-left are squishy labels at best), but they are not suddenly agreeing with conservatives on the complete list.

    Check out this chart of the ideological spread of the country as a whole (rather than just Congress). It doesn’t show the movement over time, but as I noted in Part III on radicals, the leftward shift far outweighs the rightward one.

    https://x.com/_alice_evans/status/1857307842753044868

  14. @ Gringo > “Steven Pineless, a Labour minister, tries to ignore his many negative tweets about Trump”

    That was a beautifully done satire!
    Your link at The Poke says, “That could almost have been taken verbatim from actual interviews.”
    I interpret that to mean that the exchange as Spicer posted it was an AI-created avatar of the minister, even though the tweets and “his” answers are real.
    Who can tell anymore? But it’s only funny if they are.

    Curiously (and an Insty commenter saw it also), his Twitter/X “handle” is @SPineless.
    Perfect.

  15. @AesopFan and Brian E: The mention of Greenwald reminded me of the old blogging days when the internet was much smaller. In 2006 Glen Greenwald would get in fights with Patterico (remember him? his website is still around, 5 people who talk about how much they hate Trump) and Ace of Spades, and Greenwald actually had sockpuppets to back him up in the comments at Patterico and Ace of Spades.

    Hard to imagine that today.

  18. Niketas:

    I don’t think of any of those people as being on “our side.” I think of them as allies on certain issues and antagonists on others.

    For that matter, I don’t think of people on “our side” as being on the same page on all issues. I’ve seen way too much with which I disagree. It’s always just a matter of degree.

  19. I don’t think of any of those people as being on “our side.” I think of them as allies on certain issues and antagonists on others.

    For that matter, I don’t think of people on “our side” as being on the same page on all issues. I’ve seen way too much with which I disagree. It’s always just a matter of degree.

    –neo

    Quite so.

    A huge part of Trump’s win this time was its many-splendored nature. Not every one likes Trump. Not everyone lines up for conservatism or MAGA.

    But we’re all responding to something vital and, I would say, patriotic.

    As I read Bari Weiss, she is a fallible human on a journey. She’s coming from the left and I assure you that is a journey.

    We are all works in progress.

  20. Niketas– Trump has destroyed “our side”, if you mean the Bush/McCain Republican party. Or at least put it on life support. Down and out, the neocons, like Dracula never die. Politics is now and maybe always was transactional. Remember the Moral Majority? I think there was an interlude between Reagan and Trump that was more ideological.

    I listen to Greenwald off and on– I was interested in what the objection to Tulsi was regarding Syria.

    It was shocking that a so-called journalist could be so ignorant, both of language and the substance of her criticism of Tulsi. She obviously didn’t expect her accusation to be challenged, but how could she not be aware of Greenwald’s non interventionist leanings?

    Assad was a brutal dictator, providing the passthrough from Iran to Hezbollah as they worked there way through Lebanon, or should I say capturing Lebanon– while we did nothing.

    The charge against Tulsi amounts to having a conversation with Assad.

    I remember Patterico and couldn’t quite figure out whose side he was on.

    edit: I didn’t see Neo’s comment. Precisely.

  21. Youtube is filled with all sorts of women saying that they are now going to be part of the “4B movement” which originated in South Korea–vowing to stay celibate, not date, not marry, and not have children–some are also shaving their heads and/or wearing a blue bracelet.

    Seems to me that these women have self identified as women who it would be wise for men to steer clear of.

    Who wants to get involved with a women who has so much rage and crazy filling her head?

  22. Not sure where to put this…..Neo, can we have an Open thread for Sundays???

    Anyway, Clarice Feldman has a great column today.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/11/may_the_force_be_with_us.html

    If you skip down about halfway where she quotes Vivek about the foundation they are going to use in DOGE. It’s fascinating in that the recent Chevron decision opens up a plethora of eliminating many aspects. She quotes a great summary:

    “What he is saying is that the federal government will stop enforcing all rules that were authorized by the Chevron doctrine and that we’re going to shut down all federal administrative law courts housed in the Executive Branch. Huge. Yuge. Enormous. This is Martin Luther nailing the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg. This is the most transformational thing to happen in U.S. governance since Woodrow Wilson started the misbegotten “Progressive” era. The best thing is, they do not need Congressional approval to do any of this and challenges to their actions will fail in the federal courts because they are simply following SCOTUS rulings.”

    https://x.com/CynicalPublius/status/1856895372825711041

  23. How radical is a pick of a Supreme Court Justice that won’t nail down the most obvious distinction between a male and a female? Yet that sails through. Radicals are only those not on the Left to the Democrats and their Propaganda Ministry.

  24. @Brian E:It was shocking that a so-called journalist could be so ignorant, both of language and the substance of her criticism of Tulsi.

    It shouldn’t have been shocking, it should have been expected. Michael Crichton pointed this out in 2002, referencing a physicist who’d noticed it years before:

    Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

    In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

    That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.

    But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.

    Bari Weiss has a different slice of the market now, but she’s in the same business she ever was in, and she apparently still gets software updates from whatever hivemind issues identical narratives to the national journalists. She didn’t even know how to spell “toady”, much less what it meant, but she knew she was supposed to say Tulsi Gabbard is one.

    The term I’ve been wanting to use is “heel-face turn”, when a pro wrestler who’s been one of the “bad guys” suddenly becomes one of the “good guys”. We’ve been responding to leftists like Weiss, Greenwald, and Gabbard in exactly this way. But the people who enjoy pro wrestling know it’s a performance, and they’re one up on us there.

  25. SoP,
    If Will and/or Ariel Durant were writing today, they’d no doubt call it “The Age of Hysteria”….

  26. It’s the Wizard of Oz thing. Buttigieg and Raimondo and Granholm aren’t especially qualified for their offices, but they did get the stamp of approval from the media and did manage to get elected to office, Raimondo and Buttigieg also having the coveted Harvard/Oxford stamp of approval. Lloyd Austin had the approval of the military-industrial complex as well as the “first Black” card. You’d have to go back a ways to find knaves like Mayorkas and Garland in the cabinet, but Mayorkas had the approval of the media and the non-profits, and Garland got credibility as Obama’s supposedly moderate Supreme Court pick. Cowardly, foolish, and soulless they may be, but they have the testimonials that made them acceptable to the media.

    I’m not that keen on some of Trump’s picks so far. Mnuchin did a good job last time and would have been valuable, but I guess he has other toys to play with. It’s disappointing too, that Ric Grenell got lost somewhere. I’d trust him more than Rubio, and I’d trust Hegseth more if there were other experienced heads in the cabinet.

    Steven Pineless is a great name for a politician. Does he sign official documents “S. Pineless”?

  28. The crazy years as heinlein put it, but his view of what was crazy was limited by logic

    I long frequented pattericos blog and then he snapped around 2015 steve57 was a witness, it was like jeckyl and hyde

    Maybe he was always this close to snapping he was witj the tea party at least in spirit he was against crjminals and other malefactors maybe the kimberlin affair made him second guess himself in part

    I had my reservations about trump from 2009-15
    Largely stylistic

    you were there nc

  29. “Finding allies on some issues and recognizing antagonists on others is just common sense”— Me

    In the enthusiasm to dismantle the leviathan, where are the limits? People that still value integrity and honesty can form alliances. It is amazing that people across the political spectrum are recognizing that the country is in crisis and people we would never expect to find agreement with are responding to the election of Donald J. Trump.

    People like Bret Weinstein– Trump is our only option.

    Peter Boghossian is no fan of Trump. In 2016 he co-authored a scathing article criticizing Trump. Fast forward to 2024.

    Here’s what he’s saying:

    I’ve decided to throw my name in the hat for you a secretary of education if there even should be a Department of Education. I think I take the same approaches as RFK does with the FDA all these three letters [departments] see what works, see what doesn’t work, preserve what works, burn down the rest. There’s very little I see that works with the Department of Education and I think that they have a date which should not exist by and large; nonetheless they they do do things that are somewhat important– like direct public policy, special education.

    Boghossian is critical of those who didn’t speak out against the woke/DEI, but he’s also late to speaking out for Trump in this election. But Boghossian has been speaking out against the woke/DEI/transgender assault for many years.

    But he has a following in secular/liberal circles that would legitimize what President Trump has said about how the Education Department needs to be reformed/dismantled. And in several instances Boghossian would go farther.

    I was unaware that Trump had spoken with specificity and at length about how to reform the secondary education system.

    Is this an alliance worth forming? Boghossian is an atheist and in his purge of woke/dei/marxist philosophies from the university system, would he accept that our religious heritage– specifically Christianity should be respected.

    Leaving that aside, this video includes Trump laying out his plan for reforming the university system and how Boghossian would implement and in some case go farther.

    Whether or not he’s on Trump’s radar for Education Secretary, he can be an ally Trump can use.

    Breaking Down Trump’s Education Plans
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55FCS9sAkrc

  30. Like a python character probably no one really knew this sniveling twit before now the labour is the raving looney party and thats being charitable

    They are by their works and deeds the evil party, we see the events surrounding stockport their support of the ghulish hamas their support of criminals
    The mutilators and other malefactors

    With badenoch the tories might become the sensible party they have certainly signaled against sensible reform

  32. I agree with physicsguy in having a Sunday open thread. It’s easy with WP since you can schedule posts…. I never know whether to post on the last open thread or the last post. Oh well.

    Some character on X asked if the Jerusalem Cross was currently being used by Christians and asked to see some proof. He offered $5 for each example. The replies are amazing with everyone showing copies of their bibles, priests in vestments with the cross, and so on. I checked on the meaning of the crosses and the four smaller crosses are for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These four also have their own symbols – winged man, winged lion, winged ox and an eagle. I realized that the icon that hangs by my front door is a variation of the Jerusalem Cross in that it is a crucifix with the four winged images in the corners. It was made in West Germany.

    The best reply was a challenge to the guy to produce a picture of a white nationalist using the Jerusalem Cross. I don’t think he has responded to that request or to the many people asking for the money!

  33. Of all the “too radical” Trump nominees, Gaetz is the one that bothers me.

    I linked to the Domenech story, not in an effort to derail his nomination, but to highlight that Domenech was going full scorched earth on Gaetz– while others were skirting around the issues of moral failing. While there was no legal outcome to his behavior, it certainly raises issues of judgment.

    Would Domenech make up stories out of whole cloth? It’s an unfortunate fact of politics that he might stretch/distort facts to harm someone he was opposed to– but his story was so much more than that.

    Those that discount it, should remember that Domenech was the publisher of The Federalist and a pretty reliable supporter of Trump during his first term.

    He left The Federalist in 2022 and moved on from Trump– supporting DeSantis in this election.

    By 2023 he had this to say about Trump on a podcast with National Review writer Jane Coaston:

    jane coaston
    You’ve said that Donald Trump broke open a policy consensus on the American right that needed to be broken open. What was that consensus and why did it need to be broken open?

    ben domenech
    So I think that the consensus that he primarily broke was one that had a very top-down approach to policy that was very much out of touch on the American right. And to an extent, this kind of goes back to the “what’s the matter with Kansas?” question. Why do Republican voters, who seem to have these different experiences in the middle class in America, why are they voting for these politicians who seem to be more about big corporations or multinational global interests or things along those lines? Why aren’t they voting for more populist economic policies?

    And at the same time, why are they voting for people who basically have an open borders approach to immigration or a particularly neoconservative focus to foreign policy when those are things that basically, with rare exceptions, notably, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 or things like that, those are not typically the strains of the right. They tend to be very pro-military but tend to be reluctant about deployment of actual Americans overseas. They’re generally opposed to Wilsonian do-gooder foreign policy in a lot of different ways. Why does this happen?

    And that really depends on a consensus, a post-Cold War consensus advocated for by a lot of people that was not particularly representative of what your average Republican voter wanted. And I think that in breaking open that consensus, Trump performed a valuable act. The problem is, of course, that all that he really does is break those consensuses. He doesn’t offer really a coherent alternative, I think, in terms of his approach to governance because everything about him is this kind of animal motivation in different directions.

    His wife might have reasons to bear a grudge against Trump, but even she remarked on Halperin’s 2 Way, how shocking it was.

    But there is another element to the portion of the podcast that is important to the story of Trump. Domenech credits Trump with breaking loose from the “boomer Republicanism” and abandoning views that no longer represented the Republican base.

    I don’t agree with Domenech that Trump fails to offer an alternative vision– it might be Domenech just doesn’t like the vision Trump offers.

  35. Elections have consequences.

    President Trump was re-elected (for the SECOND time).

    He gets to nominate anyone he chooses for any Federal position.

    So far I think he’s done an excellent job!

  36. I’m hesitant about Gaetz. But I’m completely fine with every other appointment so far. Trump’s making it clear he learned his lesson from eight years ago. You can’t ‘drain the swamp’ with swamp creatures running most of the agencies.

  37. It is rather amusing watching all those thugs and criminals, liars and slanderers in the Democratic Party (and their Media confederates)—yep, the cutting edge of ethics and morality—shrieking FOUL!

    (One must at least try to feel amused if only to avoid being totally nauseated…)

  38. Tuvea, no one is questioning the President’s authority to nominate anyone and
    I agree the President should get a wide latitude from his fellow Republicans to confirm his nominees– given many of them voted to confirm some awful Biden candidates, but they aren’t appointed until the Senate agrees.

    Article II, Section 2, Clause 2:
    [the President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

  40. Amused / Nauseated…continued….
    Trigger warning: may induce extreme discomfort (even to the point of hospitalization…):

    “Pritzker Appoints Himself As Democracy’s Superhero”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pritzker-appoints-himself-democracys-superhero

    Opening graf:
    “It would be comically hypocritical if weren’t so tragically destructive. Illinois governor JB Pritzker last week appointed himself co-chair of a new group to save democracy.…”

    File under: Yuck…Yuck…Yuck…

  41. Gaetz has many enemies on both sides of the aisle. He revels in being a disrupter. His bio was titled “Firebrand.” He is not collegial.

    Trey Gowdy attached him tonight on his Fox News show. Trey’s usually kind of mild mannered. It’s clear he doesn’t like Gaetz.

    My mind is somewhat neutral on Gaetz at this point. He is hated by the left, and the sexual assault charges are just the sort of thing they will use to punish someone as combative as Gaetz is. We’ll see if there is any there, there.

    If Gaetz makes it to confirmation hearings (not a sure thing, IMO), I’ll certainly be watching. Guaranteed fireworks. Must watch TV.

    Of course, some of the other hearings will be brutal from the Democrat side. So, “advise and consent” also has a large element of educational entertainment.

  43. Gowdy proved him self a possum, during the Trump years never issuing any subpoenas, his Benghazi hearings were more kabuki

    judicial watch got more documentation even guccifer that free lance hacker who broke the pipeline to Hillary from deep state players, Murray and Drumheller which had agendas of their own,

  44. ‘Liz — the Flag of the Country of Georgia has a red Jerusalem Cross.’

    It’s similar but not identical; the central cross of the Jerusalem Cross is a ‘cross potent.’
    I wonder how much of the purported outrage is due to Hegseth simply having a cross tattoo of any kind.

  45. On the question of competence, I am not overly concerned. Trump is not afraid to replace someone who is not working out.

  46. *ahem* Trump has the right to nominate them, but nominations are not appointments. The Senate has not only the right, but the duty, to question them, debate them, and vote them down if the Senators think they must do so. It’s part of the Constitution.

    I remember a phrase from a book I once read; “Intelligence is wisdom beforehand.”

    Or as Will Rogers once said “There are two kinds of people; those who learn from the advice and experience of others, and those who have to piss on the electric fence for themselves.”

    Intelligence: “Uh oh! That sign says “High Voltage”! You better not piss on it, Wes!”

    Wes: “Go fly a kite, you libtard elitist! I’ll do whatever I want to! And I want to—YEEEAAGRH!”

    Intelligence: *sigh* “I’ll go get the first aid kit.”

    When the time comes to promote a cowboy to ranch foreman, the smart ranch owner picks Intelligence, not Wes (who’s still twitching from being electrocuted).

  47. @ Brian E > “The charge against Tulsi amounts to having a conversation with Assad.”

    That reminded me of when it was not only okay but patriotic and brave for an American to talk to Assad.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pelosi-defies-bush-meets-syrian-leader/
    “The Bush administration has rejected direct talks with Damascus until its changes its ways. But Democrats — and some Republicans — say the refusal of dialogue has closed doors to possible progress in resolving Mideast crises.

    Pelosi and a delegation of five congressional Democrats and Ohio Republican Dave Hobson met for three hours with Assad, including a lunch with him in Damascus’ historic Old City.

    The meeting brought no immediate change in Syria’s stances.”

  48. AesopFan, it’s amazing how a different letter behind your name can change the narrative bigly.

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