FTA:

Trump has already signaled the kind of president he will be: revengeful, uncontrolled and unburdened by past norms and current laws. I won't go through the litany of awful things he's pledged to do, since that's been well-established with his words, Project 2025 plans and excellent analyses from authoritarian experts.

Looking into an even more destabilized future is not easy. If you're like me, you're already tired. The prospect of more drama is daunting. But authoritarianism isn't going away no matter the election results. So here's some thinking about ways to orient so we can ground ourselves better for these times ahead.

Ron Filipkowski
@RonFilipkowski

Trump didn't appoint RFK Jr because he believed he was the most qualified person to run Medicaid, Medicare, NIH, FDA, ACA, HRS, Children & Families, etc, with the largest budget in the govt.

He appointed him because he wanted his endorsement at a critical time.

That is it.

This is only reason why RFK Jr is being put in charge of public health in the US. Trump was desperate to get him to drop out and endorse him. That's why American health is in the hands of a kooky conspiracy theorist with a background even worse than Gaetz.

There Were Witnesses': Attorney for the High School Student' Matt Gaetz Is Accused of Having Sex with Calls for Release of Ethics Report

New definition of DEI under Trump and his good ole boy' network:

DEI = Didn't Earn It

Response to the above:

Alex Cole
@acnewsitics
This should be a lesson to all those groups who think they can "teach Democrats a lesson" by voting for the Republicans. He ------ around and he found out, and there's literally nothing Democrats can do right now to help him out.

"did u know that Palestinian Americans who voted for ------- are now begging Biden,... BEGGING... to do something before ------- and Huckabee take office?"

Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
"Uncommitted" Michigan delegate on CNN pleads with President Biden to do something about Netanyahu before Trump and Mike Huckabee complete an "ethnic cleansing campaign" of the West Bank and southern Lebanon

Give it up, STD. Gaetz is not a good guy. Everyone in Congress knows it. The question is whether they will stand up to Trump and nix his nominaiton or whetehr they will turn a blind eye and act like this nomination is business as usual.

We can see from this thread who the Trump sheeple are. Now we'll see which of the GOP Senators are Trump sheeple as well :

Here's the real deal: Matt Gaetz is the line for how we assess the Republican Party. If they are truly a cult of personality, beholden to Donald Trump in ways that we could not even imagine for a party that rejects cults and idol worship, they will approve this choice. But if they have a degree of independence, any kind of free thought, mindful of the fact that a presidency is four years but your career is forever, they will reject this choice so emphatically that it sends a very simple, straightforward message: you can be an absolute dirtbag wannabe pimp pounding dick pills and caffeine while you film your "girlfriend" twerking on the gram, or you can be a Republican. The choice is yours.

I may be missing something else but that case against him for sex with a minor was dropped due to lack of evidence. In other words people were lying.
#23 | Posted by lfthndthrds

You're definitely missing something.

Ben Domenech is Editor at Large of The Spectator and a Fox News Contributor:

Matt Gaetz is a Vile Sex Pest and Any Senator Who Votes For Him Owns That
Crush Some Viagra And Pour The Red Bull In Your Veins

Ben Domenech
Nov 14, 2024

I realize that we are occasionally given to hyperbole about the untoward nature of politicians, but let me be clear: Matt Gaetz is a sex trafficking drug addicted piece of ----. He is abhorrent. His eyes are permanently rimmed with the red rings of chemical boosters. In person, he smells like overexposed Axe Body Spray and stale Astroglide. The fact that he boasted on the floor to multiple colleagues in the House of Representatives of his methods of crushing Viagra and high test Red Bull to maintain his -------- through his orgiastic evenings is perhaps the least offensive of his many crimes against womanhood and Christian faith. The man has less principles than your average fentanyl addicted hobo. He likes them underage and he's not ashamed about it. Matt Gaetz isn't just your average extreme Florida MAGA Man, he's a hypocritical ass with the worst Botox money can buy, pursuing an ever-thinner nose and higher cheekbones at every opportunity like a Real Housewife gone mad for fillers. Every Republican in Washington has an opinion about Matt Gaetz, and 99 percent of those opinions are "Keep Matt Gaetz away from my wife/daughter/friend and anyone I care about." He is a walking -------, warts included as a bonus. If I was merely attempting to count the number of women I know who have had bad experiences with Matt Gaetz, I would run out of fingers and toes. If you vote for him to be the Attorney General of the United States, you don't just need your head examined, you need to be committed to a mental institution. The man is absolutely vile. There are pools of vomit with more to offer the earth than this STD-riddled testament to the failure of fallen masculinity.

Let's just deal with the facts. Did Matt Gaetz transport an underage woman across state lines with the stated intent of her having sex with him and his friends? Yes. Did he later claim to Tucker Carlson that this woman did not exist? Yes. Does this conflict with the fact that one of his closest friends was convicted of having sex with this underage woman for pay? Yes. Are Gaetz and his ---- friends attempting to destroy the records--images, videos, etc.--from this sex party to protect his political future? Yes. Does this matter to Republicans? Who can say? Donald J. Trump has the best judgment in politics, of course he would never name a sex trafficking drug addled lying philandering piece of ---- to be the Attorney General of the United States simply to avoid investigation. Or would he?

Leon and Vivek don't wan stupid people to apply:

Department of Government Efficiency
@DOGE
We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE. We don't need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting. If that's you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.

#7 I think that's right. Trump ias helping Gaetz get out of having the Ethics reports released by using the excuse he was going to be AG. AFter the Thanksgiving, Gaets is likely to withdrawal his name from consideration. . . .

I remember reading something at the time the charges were dropped that the woman who was 17 at the time
of her engagement with Gaetz wasn't cooperating and didn't want to testify against him, which they saw as a stumbling block to the case. We'll have to see if she coorperated with the House ethics committee's investigation and/or if they have other evidence without her testimony. The ethics committee was looking into other potential violations as well. It seems like they must have found something or why would Gaetz resign so aburptly in an attempt to keep the report from coming out?

what's your "magical " timeline ?

Did you honestly not know the investigation started under Barr? The GOP House ethics committe has been investigating Gaetz:

In June, the House Ethics Committee released a statement saying it was investigating a range of allegations against Gaetz, including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and bribery.

Multiple sources at the time told CBS News that four women had informed the House Ethics Committee that they had been paid to go to parties that included sex and drugs, and that Gaetz had also attended. The committee has Gaetz's Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women.

Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has called the committee's investigation a "frivolous" smear campaign.

Among those who have given testimony to the House Ethics Committee is a woman who says she had sex with Gaetz at a 2017 party shortly after he was elected to Congress. The woman was 17 at the time.

"She was a high school student and there were witnesses," her attorney said in a statement, urging the committee to release its report on Gaetz.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, called on the House Ethics panel to preserve and share the report, as well as "all relevant documentation" on Gaetz with his committee.

"The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz's resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report," Durbin said in a statement Thursday. "We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people. Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz's confirmation as the next attorney general of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent."

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told reporters Thursday morning he "absolutely" wants to see the House Ethics Committee's report on Gaetz.

"I think there should not be any limitation on the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated," he said. The Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be chaired by a Republican when the new Congress is seated in January, will conduct confirmation hearings for the nominee for attorney general.

Some of the allegations of sexual misconduct under review by the committee were also the subject of a previous Department of Justice probe into Gaetz. Federal investigators sought to determine if Gaetz violated sex trafficking and obstruction of justice laws, but no charges were filed.

The House Ethics Committee resumed its investigation into Gaetz in 2023, following the Justice Department's decision not to pursue charges against him.

The investigation of Gaetz started under Barr, ended under Garland:

The federal sex trafficking investigation that began under Attorney General Bill Barr during Trump's first term focused on allegations that Gaetz and onetime political ally Joel Greenberg paid underage girls and escorts or offered them gifts in exchange for sex.

Greenberg, a fellow Republican who served as the tax collector in Florida's Seminole County, admitted as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in 2021 that he paid women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other men. The men were not identified in court documents when he pleaded guilty. Greenberg was sentenced in late 2022 to 11 years in prison.

Josh Marshall
@joshtpm

Apropos of Elon & Vivek's excellent efficiency adventure, back in 1989 Bush sr set VP Dan Quayle up with something called The Council on Competitiveness. It was basically a backroom operation where corps cld toss in a few bucks and get a regulation killed. This will be the same.

The Senate doesn't need to approve of Tulsi, because Putin already has.

Kevin McCarthy on Matt Gaetz: "I'll give you the truth why I'm not speaker. It's because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old."

It was Barr's DOJ that started the investigation into Gaetz, and it's the GOP-lead House ethics committee that has been investigating him, but somehow this is all about Democrats yadda yadda yadda?

Imagine:

Joe Walsh
@WalshFreedom
Imagine if during the 2020 campaign, Mark Zuckerberg had come out & publicly endorsed Biden, used his social media platforms to push pro-Biden information and spread disinformation about Trump, then spent millions of his own money on pro-Biden PACS, and then campaigned his butt off for Biden. And then when Biden won, Zuckerberg became Biden's closest advisor, basically setting up camp at the White House.

Look, it's a free country, but I'm just wondering ... would Hannity and the rest of the right wing media world be upset? Would Trump's supporters be upset?

Here's a new word I learned today:

kakistocracy
/kak'stkr's"/

a state or country run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.

#79 Yep, you are connecting the necessary dots, Lamp.

Shore Lee you jest.

Trump doesn't want any Mike Pences anywhere near his Cabinet. He doesn't want any Mike Pences among the high ranking military officers either.

Carville thought Harris was going to win on the last interviews I saw of him before the election, so, no, folks are probably not going to listen to him now.