Trump set to take funds from Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, etc. to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. More to follow.

Copy of document available at link:

Federal Inquiry Traced Payments From Gaetz to Women

A document prepared by federal investigators bolsters claims by women who say they were hired for sex by Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald J. Trump's choice for attorney general, who denies wrongdoing.

Federal investigators have established a web of payments among Matt Gaetz and dozens of friends and associates who are said to have taken part with him in drug-fueled sex parties, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. . . .

The document obtained by The Times was assembled by federal investigators during a sex-trafficking investigation into Mr. Gaetz, who is President-elect Donald J. Trump's choice for attorney general. It shows how Mr. Gaetz and a friend sent thousands of dollars through Venmo to dozens of people who, according to testimony that is said to have been given to federal and congressional investigators, were involved in sex parties from 2017 to 2020. . . .

Titled "VENMO TRANSACTIONS BETWEEN ALL INDIVIDUALS AS OF 09/14/20," the document uses thumbnail photos of Mr. Gaetz, dozens of women and several other men to show how payments flowed between them. Lines with arrows connect the men and the women, showing, among other things, how much Mr. Gaetz and his associates paid the women.

Okay, so I was off by a couple of weeks:

#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, Gaetz is likely to withdrawal his name from consideration. . . .
Posted by Gal_Tuesday at 2024-11-14

FTA:

Hospitals around the country are conserving critical intravenous fluid supplies to cope with a shortage that may last months. Some hospital administrators say they are changing how they think about IV fluid hydration altogether.

Hurricane Helene, which hit North Carolina in September, wrecked a Baxter International facility that produces 60% of the IV fluids used in the U.S., according to the American Hospital Association.

The company was forced to stop production and is rationing its products. In an update posted Nov. 7, Baxter said its North Cove facility had resumed producing some IV fluids. In an email to KFF Health News, the company wrote that customers will be able to order normal quantities of "certain IV solutions products" by the end of the year, but there is no timeline for when the North Cove facility will be back to prehurricane production levels.

Maybe Madison Cawthorn was right:

Congressman Madison Cawthorn under fire over claims of DC drugs and orgies

Asked if the Netflix hit House of Cards, about amoral Washington politicians and fixers, was anything like reality, Cawthorn said: "The only thing that isn't accurate about that show is that you could never get a piece of legislation about education passed that quickly."

The 26-year-old added: "I mean, being kind of a young guy in Washington, where the average age is probably 60 or 70--you know, I look at all these people, a lot of them that I've looked up to through my life--I've always paid attention to politics.

"Then all of the sudden you get invited to, 'Well, hey, we're going to have kind of a sexual get together at one of our homes, you should come.'

"I'm like 'What did you just ask me to come to?' And then you realise they are asking you to come to an ----."

The Republican also claimed: "You know, some of the people that are leading on the movement to try and remove addiction in our country and then you watch them do, you know, a key bump of cocaine right in front of you and it's like, Wow, this is wild.'"

This morning on Morning Joe. The method behind Trump's Cabinet appointment madness:

Ed Luce: You have a dismantling of the federal government in these picks

And just a reminder, as of yesterday, this is what the popular vote count looks like:

Updated popular vote count per Cook Political Report

Trump 76,666,332 (49.93%)

Harris 74,086,596 (48.25%)

*Did MSNBC's top brass sign off . . .

"That's the way countries like Russia, China, North Korea, Iran work."

Don't forget Orban's Hungary. That's the model that Trump and the GOP are following:

American conservatives embrace Hungary's authoritarian leader at Budapest conference

At a conference center plastered with slogans like "Let's drain the swamp," Republican after Republican endorsed harsh immigration policies, crackdowns on LGBTQ rights, and a battle against "woke ideology."

The scene could have been any recent GOP event--except it was taking place roughly 4,000 miles away from the US at the Conservative Political Action Conference's third annual gathering in Hungary.

The visiting GOP dignitaries' praise for Prime Minister Viktor Orbn and his authoritarian government showed how the small central European country has become an unlikely model for a potential Trump second term--despite what international observers have described as an alarming backsliding of democratic rights.

The American right's growing embrace of Orbn builds upon millions of dollars that his government has spent on lobbying in the US, and new connections between Hungarian and American conservative think tanks.

What do you think brought those two to Mar-a-Lago?
It wasn't their decision; it was the owners of MSNBC. An action like this is not taken unilaterally by 2 talking heads. It is a directive from higher up.

I think they went of their own free will and as the result of their own fears based on their previous experience with Trump as all the posts I made above demonstrate. The rift between Mika and Joe and Trump was personal after Trump accused Joe of being a murderer and called for an investigation into the death of Joe's dead staffer to be re-opened. Since it was Matt Gaetz who personally brought Trump the folder full of conspiracy material about the staffer's death that triggered Trump to start tweeting about Joe, the murderer, it only stands to reason that the nomination of Gaetz to be AG increased their fears regarding Trump's retribution against them.

Did MSNB sign off on their visit and even encourage it? I'm sure they did, because Joe and Mika aren't the only MSNBC hosts to be threatened with retribution:

Bannon: Gaetz DOJ coming for media

Steve Bannon, President-elect Trump's onetime White House adviser and a conservative media personality, said if confirmed to be attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) would go after media outlets.

Bannon singled out MSNBC, the cable news channel owned by Comcast, a company Trump himself has threatened to investigate over what he says is "treasonous" critical coverage of him.

The American people weighed in measure, and you were inundated for years. [Andrew] Weissmann, you were on TV with MSNBC and all the producers, MSNBC. Preserve your documents. Ari Melber and all you hosts. Preserve your documents. All of it," Bannon said on his "War Room" podcast.

you first three are gonna have to do better than that.
--I could have written that same old shvt for you.....
#5 | Posted by shrimptacodan

I did better, much better, which is why you cowardly Trump cultists will ignore my posts.

And here is Matt Gaetz's contribution to the "Joe Scarborough is a murder story"

"The View" star confronted 'scary person' Matt Gaetz at White House, says he gave Donald Trump docs accusing MSNBC host of murder

Alyssa Farah Griffin says she urged Gaetz not to present Trump with the "printed out conspiracy theories" about Joe Scarborough.

The View cohost and former Donald Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin revealed that she once confronted the president-elect's attorney general pick, controversial politician Matt Gaetz, about a conspiracy theory she said he introduced to Trump.

Griffin remembered asking him [Gaetz] what was in the folder, and its alleged contents shocked her.

"He shows me these printed out conspiracy theories that Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe and former congressman had murdered his staffer," Griffin alleged. "I said, 'Please do not show these to the President of the United States.' Then, days ensued of Donald Trump tweeting false, malicious claims about Joe Scarborough. The family of the woman who died--there was no foul play, it was a tragedy--begged Twitter and the White House to take it down, so that speaks to his character, integrity, and judgment."

Also from the transcript:

And I think that's very important. And I think it's also obviously very important. There are a lot of people that are very scared by the selection of his attorney general selection. . . .

But we spoke at length just about what Jonathan said. A lot of people are scared right now. They're scared about the threats of political retribution. They're scared about the threats of, of retribution against media people. They're scared that some potential picks have actually said they are going to arrest members of the media or go after them civilly. All that does is make people martyrs. And that's something that we said You know, you go after your political opponents, you turn 'em into martyrs, you make 'em the next president of the United States. So again, a lot of people are scared, a lot of people are nervous.

Morning Joe Hosts to 'Restart Communications' with Donald Trump After Revealing They Visited the President-Elect

'Morning Joe' hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have had fraught histories with Trump, who previously falsely accused Scarborough of murder

In May 2020, Trump even accused Scarborough of being a murderer " implying on X that the former member of the House of Representatives in Florida was to blame for the 2001 accidental death of one of his congressional aides, Lori Klausutis. This prompted the news host to pause his live show and ask Trump to stop watching "for the sake of America" and himself.

"When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida. Did he get away with murder? Some people think so," Trump wrote on social media. "Why did he leave Congress so quietly and quickly? Isn't it obvious? What's happening now? A total nut job!"

From Morning Joe transcript:

Okay. So here's where we are. Over the past week, Joe and I have heard from so many people, from political leaders to regular citizens, deeply dismayed by several of President-elect Trump's cabinet elections, and they are scared. Last Thursday, we expressed our own concerns on this broadcast and even said we would appreciate the opportunity to speak with the president elect himself on Friday. We were given the opportunity to do just that. Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago, to meet personally with President elect Trump. It was the first time we have seen him in seven years

Now. e talked about a lot of issues including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets. We talked about that a good bit and it's gonna come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show, has watched it over the past year or over the past decade that we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of issues. And we told him. So

What we did agree on was to restart communications. My father often spoke with world leaders with whom he and the United States profoundly disagreed. That's a task shared by reporters and commentators alike. We had not spoken to President Trump since March of 2020, other than a personal call Joe made to Trump on the morning after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. In this meeting, president Trump was tearful. He was upbeat, he seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues. And for those asking why we would go speak to the President-elect during such fraught times, especially between us.

CNN contributor Scott Jennings mocked the left's constant messaging to their supporters that Donald Trump is a fascist, only to turn around and quickly start kissing his ring following the election.
The sudden normalization of the president-elect began when Joe Biden hosted Trump for a cordial White House meeting, shaking hands with the man he's called an "existential threat to democracy" for what seems like years.
Things rose to the level of absurd when yesterday, MSNBC's "Morning Joe" co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski admitted to visiting Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
Jennings could hardly stifle the laughter when joining a CNN panel to discuss the sudden shift.
"I'm amazed. I did not expect Hitler to get so many meeting requests," he quipped. "First from Joe Biden, now from Mika and Joe. It's amazing that Literal Hitler is getting all these meeting requests."
#31 | Posted by shrimptacodan

You people don't get it. Joe's motivation is probably similar to Mika and Joe's--he's hoping that Trump won't go after him or his family members, especially Hunter. It's because people know Trump is immoral, unethical, a revenge freak and as president is beyond the law, that they are trying to curry favor or at least some consdieration from "America's Hitler" (JD Vance's term, not mine).

Brian Stelter
@brianstelter.bsky.social
New reporting: According to two sources with direct knowledge, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration.

George Conway
@gtconway.bsky.social
Sadly, Brian's reporting is correct. Over the past week I heard from two entirely separate very reliable sources, with some vivid detail, that they are absolutely terrified of Trump.

It actually isn't, but when all things are amped up to 11 on a knob that tops out at 10, ANY kind of simple civility is deemed horrible.
#10 | Posted by BellRinger

Their visit to King DonOLd aka Herr Fuhrer wasn't about civility or low ratings. They are scared -------- that they are on Trump's enemy list:

FTA:

Trump and his team are announcing a complete reworking of the American government. They claim a mandate, although as final vote tallies are coming in, it turns out that Trump did not win 50% of the vote, and CNN statistician Harry Enten notes that his margin comes in at 44th out of the 51 elections that have been held since 1824. He also had very short coattails"four Democrats won in states Trump carried"and the Republicans have the smallest House majority since there have been 50 states, despite the help their numbers have had from the extreme gerrymandering in states like North Carolina.

More Americans voted for someone other than Trump than voted for him.

Does this sound like a mandate to you? It doesn't sound like a mandate to me:

New @CookPolitical: Trump has fallen below 50% of the popular vote. With 152.7M votes counted, he leads Harris 49.99%-48.22%

Posted by truthhurts

If you haven't done so already, you might consider joining Blue Sky or at least stopping by for a visit. If you do, you'll realize the reistance still exists and is informed.

Jfc tuning out will achieve nothing and is exactly what ------- wants
People need to prepare for what he is unleashing.
People need to pay attention and unite in opposition.
Look at who ------- is appointing and KNOW this is what ------- wants and what he will be pushing for.

Yes, we can unite in opposition, but many people will not see what their vote has gotten them until it hits home. So now we have Muslims realizing the mistake they made. When an undocumented family member gets deported, Latinos who voted for Trump may wise up. When Trump bans the morning after pill, women who thought he wouldn't do anything more on abortion, will see what their vote has brought them. When he gets rid of the Dept of Education and the ACA without a workable replacement, more people will understand the miscalculation they made and so on and so on. In that way, I welcome the Republican overreach that is about to happen. They are reading the election results as meaning that their policies across the board are are what the American people want. I don't think that is the case, but we'll find out.

Link for the above:

With every Cabinet pick and policy proposed and enacted ask yourself one simple question: Who benefits? In many cases the answer will not be the American people.

PS I for one don't think the resistance is faiding. I think it is resting, regrouping, waiting to see what Trump actually does in terms of policy. Or to put it in a way that Trump and MAGA voters will understand, the resistance is standing back and standing by.

Latest popular vote count:

Trump
76,453,640

Harris
73,755,129

That is not a massive electoral mandate, and acting as if it is will likely spell big trouble for Republicans in in the coming months.

Noonan's point is you're not going to defeat Trump by letting him troll you into expending all your energy chasing after everything he says and does. That's how he wears people down, and ultimately defeats them.
#6 | Posted by sentinel

There is truth in what you are saying. I don't think most people individually can expand all their "energy chaing after everything he says and does." I know I can't. 4 years is a long time. Most of us will need to pick our battles. But there are tens of millions of people who voted against Trump, so there will be plenty of people to cover all of the battles, including the ones I chose to sit out. Good advice from an article I linked to in another thread:

Under a Trump presidency, there are going to be so many issues that it will be hard to accept that we cannot do it all. I'm reminded of a colleague in Turkey who told me, "There's always something bad happening every day. If we had to react to every bad thing, we'd never have time to eat."

An elder once saw me trying to do everything and pulled me aside. "That's not a healthy lifelong strategy," she said. She'd been raised in Germany by the generation of Holocaust survivors who told her, "Never again." She took it personally, as if she had to stop every wrong. It wracked her and contributed to several serious ongoing medical conditions. We can accept our humanity or suffer that lack of acceptance.