#johnbuss-bsky-social — Public Fediverse posts

Finally Friday Reads: He Said, She Said

“It might happen sooner.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s one of those days where I really wonder if I should actually get up, even though today Temple and I beat the garbage collectors to the street for a walk. We usually manage to shadow the postman. I saw a question on C-SPAN’s Facebook page that’s really worth asking. “Are you better off financially today than a year ago?” The answer for everyone I know is absolutely no. Our democracy and ability to get justice are getting worse by the minute, also.

So, yesterday, Hillary Clinton testified in a closed session about her complete lack of a relationship with Epstein, which she framed as a basic waste of everyone’s time and money. She stated that, to her knowledge, she’d never even met the guy, then told them to ask Bill. Meanwhile, we’re getting more calls for an investigation into Trump’s obvious associations. This headline from Bill Sher writing at the Washington Monthly says it all. “It’s Time for the Media to Press Trump on Allegations of Abusing a Minor. The president should be scrutinized with the same intensity as others in the Epstein Files.”

I was skeptical that the Jeffrey Epstein files would implicate President Donald Trump in illegal sexual abuse of a minor. It’s not that one cannot imagine Trump being untoward; on the contrary, a jury found him to be liable for sexual abuse. But Trump committing sex crimes against underage girls seemed dubious.

Yet inconclusive but tantalizing evidence exists in a 21-slide presentation, apparently created last summer by two joint Federal Bureau of Investigation-New York Police Department task forces, summarizing four “Jeffrey Epstein Investigations.”

A “Timeline” slide of developments in the case, from July 24, 2006, to July 22, 2025, spanning the initial Epstein investigation through Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction and appeal, indicates that the presentation was created after that date. To put it in context, the allegations against Trump appear to come from a single witness and don’t include physical evidence, such as notes or texts.

One slide titled “Prominent Names” dishes allegations against several famous people and leads with two regarding Trump:

1. [REDACTED] stated Epstein introduced her to Trump who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out. (date range 1983-1985, [REDACTED] would have been 13- 15)

2. [REDACTED] remember Epstein introduced her to Trump saying “This is a good one, huh” and Trump responded “Yes”. (date range roughly 1984, [REDACTED] would have been 14)

An email thread from July 24, 2025, circulating in the FBI’s New York field office, appears to include a draft of the “Prominent Names” slide text. The Trump text, which has a typo, is identical to what is in a slightly different, probably draft, slideshow.

When the latest Epstein files were released on January 30, the allegations against Trump immediately drew attention. For example, that same day, the progressive MeidasTouch Network posted the email thread on X and CNN’s Jake Tapper, among others, highlighted an email thread covering August 6 and 7, 2025, about “NTOC Names,” which refers to tips collected by the National Threat Operations Center, the bureau’s hub for receiving and vetting public tips regarding federal crimes. The thread includes Epstein-related tips and, in some cases, how federal authorities responded. One emailer notes that in one document, some rows have “yellow highlighting … for the salacious piece,” which appears to refer to the “Prominent Names” slide. (An emailer in July asks for “a sentence or two” for each of the names with “salacious statements.”)

Several tips mention that federal authorities were unable to follow up with the tipsters or verify their stories; those items were not on the “Prominent Names” slide. But one entry on Trump tracks what’s in the slide:

[REDACTED] reported an unidentified female friend who was forced to perform oral sex on President Trump approximately 35 years ago in NJ. The friend told [REDACTED] that she was approximately 13-14 years old when this occurred, and the friend allegedly bit President Trump while performing oral sex. The friend was allegedly hit in the face after she laughed about biting President Trump. The friend said she was also abused by Epstein.

The table’s “Response” column notes, “Spoke with caller who identified [REDACTED] as friend. Lead was sent to Washington Office to conduct interview.”

Some media outlets, including The Mirror, The Telegraph, The Daily Beast, and Mediaite, covered the allegation. But most reporters elided the bit-penis-hit-in-the-face allegation in favor of vague references to multiple unsubstantiated claims while the Justice Department sought to inoculate the president by stating, “Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump.” The media’s attention gravitated to other famous names mentioned in the Epstein files, regardless of whether the files contained evidence of sexual misconduct. Several prominent figures have since resigned from their positions due to their associations with Epstein.

Then, starting on February 15,  Roger Sollenberger, the independent journalist, pieced together information indicating that the FBI interviewed the accuser four times in 2019. Sollenberger suggests this means that the FBI found her “credible.” Furthermore, records of three of those interviews were not in the Epstein Files release. He also found a “Jane Doe 4” in a lawsuit against Epstein with similar biographical details, making similar allegations against an unnamed Epstein friend. Jane Doe 4 was deemed ineligible for the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program, but the suit nonetheless appears to have led to a settlement for her from Epstein.

Bolstering the case that the FBI found the accuser credible, Nina Burleigh and Katie Chenoweth, the independent journalists, noted that, uniquely, her redacted name is routinely followed by the phrase, “PROTECT SOURCE,” which is “typically used for high-risk informants such as mafia rats.”

There is so much more to this story that I hope you take the time to read it all. The Guardian also has more information on the claim. “Epstein files contain explicit but unsubstantiated claim that Trump abused minor. Department of Justice did not release FBI memos when it uploaded millions of pages of files beginning in December.”

Three memos that describe four interviews conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2019 contain explicit but unsubstantiated claims that Donald Trump sexually abused a woman when she was a minor in the early 1980s with the assistance of Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Guardian review of those documents.

The Department of Justice did not release those records when it uploaded millions of pages of files related to Epstein beginning in December. The existence of the missing documents was first reported by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger and subsequently confirmed by NPR, causing outrage in Washington and sparking an investigation from congressional Democrats.

The Guardian obtained the missing FBI Form 302 reports, which memorialize 25 pages of agents’ notes from the four interviews conducted in the summer and fall of 2019. The notes describe how the woman came forward to tell agents she recognized Epstein from a photo sent by a childhood friend. Only the first session, in which she did not name Trump, made it into the public release. The Guardian has chosen not to publish the woman’s name.

All we know about the Hillary Testimony comes from Clinton herself. This is from the New York Times and reported by Annie Karni. “In Tense Deposition, Hillary Clinton Denies Knowing Epstein or His Crimes. After resisting testifying for months, the former secretary of state entered the session defiant and grew irate after a Republican leaked a photo from inside the room.”

In a lengthy opening statement her aides distributed in advance, Mrs. Clinton accused House Republicans of using her as a prop in “partisan political theater” and excoriated their investigation as “designed to protect one political party and one public official, rather than to seek truth and justice for the victims and survivors.”

“You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,” she said.

She added: “You have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files,” noting that not a single Republican had attended a closed-door session last week in Ohio to depose Leslie Wexner, the retail billionaire and prolific G.O.P. donor who helped Mr. Epstein build his wealth.

In a day’s worth of questioning that she later called “repetitive” and unproductive, Mrs. Clinton told the committee that she did not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein and “never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices.”

“I don’t know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein,” she told reporters after the session had ended. “It’s on the record numerous times.”

The deposition briefly went off the rails when, as Republicans questioned her, Mr. Johnson’s post of the photograph showing Mrs. Clinton’s testifying while wearing a weary expression prompted an eruption in the room. Her lawyers vociferously objected and called for journalists to be allowed inside to document the proceedings. House Democrats noted that Republicans had refused to grant the Clintons’ request for a public hearing.

“We are sitting through an incredibly unserious clown show of a deposition,” Representative Yassamin Ansari, Democrat of Arizona, said, claiming Republicans were “more concerned with getting their photo op” than with holding anyone accountable.

This is from the Washington Examiner.  It’s reported by David Zimmermann. “Clinton says she was asked about UFOs and Pizzagate at ‘unusual’ Epstein deposition.”

After exiting her deposition on Thursday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested some members of Congress were more concerned with UFOs and Pizzagate instead of Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell in their questions.

The high-profile witness called the House oversight committee deposition “quite unusual” as it concluded.

“I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about Pizzagate, one of the most vile bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet, that was serving as the basis of a member’s questions to me,” Clinton said in Chappaqua, New York, where the closed-door deposition hearing was held.

It’s unclear why Clinton was questioned on extraterrestrial life, as UFOs have nothing to do with the late convicted sex offender’s crimes. Last week, President Donald Trump said he would start declassifying government files related to the existence of aliens.

The Pizzagate conspiracy theory refers to a child sex ring linked to members of the Democratic Party, and it went viral during the 2016 presidential election cycle when Clinton was running against Trump for president. At one point, a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., named Comet Ping Pong was caught up in the right-wing conspiracy theory.

Clinton did not name the member who asked the unusual questions, nor whether the lawmaker was a Republican or a Democrat.

The hearing was disrupted earlier when Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) shared a photo of Clinton with conservative commentator Benny Johnson, who then posted the image on social media. As a result of the stunt, the hearing was paused for about 30 minutes. Closed-door hearings forbid unauthorized photography as it could violate House rules and confidentiality agreements.

Clinton denied she ever met Epstein and claimed to never have “any connection or communication” with the convicted sex offender, although she admitted knowing Maxwell “casually as an acquaintance.”

She criticized the GOP-led committee’s decision to reject her and her husband’s bid for public hearings.

“It was disappointing that they refused to hold a public hearing, so I wouldn’t have to be out here characterizing it for you. You could have seen it for yourself,” she told reporters. “We had asked for that. We think it would have been better for the committee and its efforts to gather whatever information they are seeking.”

The former Cabinet secretary also slammed oversight committee Republicans for skipping the recent deposition of former Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner, whom the FBI labeled a co-conspirator of Epstein. Chairman James Comer (R-KY) did not attend that deposition due to an already scheduled medical procedure.

Despite her criticisms, Clinton noted the “best exchange” came toward the end of the hearing, when Comer asked a “series of significant questions” related to the investigation’s focus.

Since I’ve already mentioned polls, I think I’ll share the results of an interesting one analyzed by G. Elliott Morris in his Substack, Strength in Numbers. “New poll: Democrats’ real problem isn’t being too liberal — it’s being seen as too weak. Americans, including swing voters, see the Republican Party as 20 points more extreme than Democrats — and the Democrats as weak and ineffective. So why would the *Democrats* moderate?”

In our February poll, we asked voters whether each of 10 adjectives describes the Democratic and Republican parties. Each person was asked to rank how well each word — such as “extreme”, “elitist”, “tough”, and “weak” — described both parties on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 indicating the word described the party very well.

The Republican Party’s defining traits in voters’ minds are extreme (60% agree), elitist (57%), tough, (56%) and cruel (51%). The percentage of Americans agreeing with descriptions of positive traits is comparatively smaller: just 41% say the party is competent, 41% say principled, and only 31% — less than a third — say the GOP can be considered empathetic.

The average American sees Democrats in a much different light. The top descriptors of the party are empathetic (54%) and principled (49%). Comparatively few people think of it as “tough” (31%), and nearly half the country calls the Democrats weak (48%) and ineffective (47%). Democrats’ competence rating is 46% — five points higher than the GOP’s — but it’s the weakness and ineffectiveness labels that dominate voters’ impressions and national discourse about the party.

The chart above is ordered by the gap between the percentage of Americans who say each descriptor applies to each party — and these gaps are revealing. Democrats lead on empathetic by 23 points (54% versus 31%) and on principled by 8 (49% versus 41%). The GOP leads on exactly one positive trait: toughness (56% versus 31%). That’s it.

Being seen as tough is an advantage in a politics where voters want parties to deliver for them no matter what, but it’s likely not worth being called cruel and elitist. In our poll, Democrats lead the Republicans on the U.S. House generic ballot by 10 percentage points among registered voters. At least in the short term, that’s a worthwhile trade.

But the Democrats’ weakness problem stands out as a particularly strong signal of intra-party dissatisfaction. When we look at how each party’s own identifiers rate their own party, the weakness gap for the Democrats really jumps out. Just 53% of Democrats call their party tough, compared to 80% of Republicans. And 31% of Democrats say their own party is weak — almost three times the 13% of Republicans who say the same about theirs.

On most traits, partisans rate their own party similarly. Democrats and Republicans are within a few points of each other on being competent, principled, and cynical. But on toughness and weakness, Democrats are far more self-critical. That matters electorally: a party whose own base doubts its strength will struggle to turn out its base. And in an era of close elections, that is not a loss a party can afford.

Those results were not much of a surprise to me. Today, it’s Bill Clinton’s turn to testify in the Epstein Investigation. NBC News has live updates on its website. “Trump administration live updates: Bill Clinton testifies in House Jeffrey Epstein probe. Clinton is the first sitting or former president to testify before members of Congress in more than 40 years.” This is reported by Rebecca Shabad.

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said this morning that Democrats have “real questions that deserve serious answers from former President Clinton” during his closed-door deposition in Chappaqua today.

“We have said from day one that Democrats want to talk to anyone, whether they are a Republican or a Democrat, no matter how powerful they are, whatever position that they’ve been in,” Garcia told reporters ahead of the deposition.

Garcia said that they don’t want to see another “sideshow” today like what happened during Hillary Clinton’s deposition yesterday, in which he said Republicans asked her about UFOs and conspiracy theories.

Because “Republicans have now set a new precedent, which is to bring in presidents and former presidents to testify,” Democrats are again demanding that Trump testify before their panel about his relationship with Epstein, Garcia said.

Trump appears in the Epstein files “almost more than anybody else,” Garcia said.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and authorities have not accused him of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

They’re also reporting that lots of Diet Cokes have been brought into the building for the former President. I guess we’ll see what happens.

That’s about all I’m good for today. The entire Epstein show is getting old.  I do have a local source from WDSU, the news station I watch here in New Orleans.  At least a few of these sick, powerful pedophiles are feeling a bit of justice.  “Here’s who has faced fallout from the Epstein files. Since Congress and the Department of Justice released the Epstein files, several high-profile people have been burned by past links to convicted sex-offender.” Please note the word several. I guess that’s a start though.

Several individuals in government, private companies and universities have faced fallout over alleged links to convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The Get the Facts Data Team has created a timeline of reports on individuals who have faced professional or reputational consequences or legal action since Epstein’s arrest in 2019.

Among those who faced professional or reputational consequences were CEOs who resigned or sold their companies, faculty who were suspended and public figures who issued apologies.

You may read the list and the ‘consequences’ at the link.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpUYjpKg9KY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=590&h=332]

Finally Friday Reads: The Turn of the Screw

“Meanwhile, at Mars-a-Lago… Donold’s training pays off..” John Buss, @repeat1968,@johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

With its tumultuous and ineffective leadership, the aptly named chaos caucus again plays a game of brinkmanship that risks American lives and the economy.  I’m getting way too old for this kind of torment. The Republican-led Congress has completely forgotten its role in governance and its duties, ensuring the stability required for all the entities that rely on that and the rule of law to function. They only seem to air grievances and feed their raging ids.  This year’s version comes with a dangerous twist.  The prime chaos factor is the richest man on earth who was not elected or officially appointed to anything.  His claim to fame is funding the Trump campaign and those of other Republican elected officials, and he has no clue about our system of government, our institutions, our Constitution, or, for that matter, anything.  He’s also bugfuck crazy.

President Eject Incontinentia Buttocks is huddled down in Florida doing God knows what, and J Dank has gone missing.  Milk cartons will soon have to show his picture and ask, “Have you seen this vice president?”  Bayou Moses looks to be the next biggest loser of the House Speaker’s Gavel. The country looks like some twisted version of The Mouse That Roared. How are we to deal with a Cabal of Billionaires empowered by an angry crew of religious nuts, bigots, and know-nothings?  They appear to own the house and the Supreme Court at the moment.

Meanwhile, back in the world of the same old shit, we get Mitch McConnell suddenly lecturing everyone and seemingly trying to protect the old magic ways of the US Senate. McConnell thinks he can swiftly change roles from Macbeth to King Lear. The Democratic Party is appointing the same old group that hasn’t been able to do anything to stop this to leadership positions.   I cannot be the only one who doesn’t see any of this ending well.

So, how on earth did Elon Musk blow up a bipartisan deal on the budget?  This is from Sam Stein writing at The Bulwark. “Elon Killed the Budget Deal. Cancer Research for Kids Was Collateral Damage.  Advocates were celebrating the inclusion of money and provisions to help fund pediatric research. And then the tweets started.”

THE DECISION BY REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP to scuttle a bipartisan funding deal on Thursday night has left lawmakers scrambling and others anxiously bracing for a government shutdown.

For a host of issue advocates, however, the prevailing mood in Washington, D.C. was one not of chaos but utter devastation.

The initial deal that congressional leaders had agreed to included a number of key priorities that, in the course of hours, were jettisoned by GOP leaders looking to calm Elon Musk’s pique and satisfy Donald Trump’s demands. And though the slimmed-down bill that Trump endorsed in its place failed to pass the House, few people expected that the initial deal would make a comeback—meaning that many of its components were likely gone for good.

The list of provisions left in the dust heap was lengthy. The initial compromise bill included language to ensure that providers of internet service to rural areas weren’t ripping off customers, to protect consumers from hidden hotel fees, to secure semiconductor supply chains, to restrict U.S. outbound investment in China, even to prohibit deepfake pornography. All those were all gone in the successor bill.

But some of the hardest cuts to swallow involved medical research. In particular, advocates say, the revised funding bill delivered a devastating blow to the fight against pediatric cancer.

The slimmed-down version was stripped of language that would have allowed children with relapsed cancer to undergo treatments with a combination of cancer drugs and therapies. (Currently the Food and Drug Administration is only authorized to direct pediatric cancer trials of single drugs.) The bill also didn’t include an extension of a program that gave financial lifelines, in the form of vouchers, to small pharmaceutical companies working on rare pediatric diseases. It was also missing earlier provisions that would have allowed for kids on Medicaid or CHIP—that is, poor children—to access medically complex care across state lines.

And, of course, Trump wants to ensure that there’s a two-year extension of the Debt Ceiling so that he can give away the Treasury to his Cabal and grift off the nation without having to take on the burden of once again landing the Federal Budget into record-setting red zones.  He seriously believes that the voters will blame all these shenanigans on Biden, who is trying to Trump-proof things and get Federal judges appointed to the bench.  Musk is on a rampage to replace the governments that once fought NAZIs with NAZIs all over the world and evidently has the money to attempt it.  This is from New York Magazine. “Musk Pauses Torment of GOP to Praise German Extremists.”  Nia Prater has the analysis.

Elon Musk has spent the better part of this week working to derail Congress’s attempt to fund the government, but he found time early Friday morning to express support for the politics of Alternative für Deutschland or Alternative for Germany, the country’s most prominent far-right political party.

“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote on X early Friday morning.

The comment was in response to a video posted by Naomi Seibt, a German far-right activist, that criticized Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative party Christian Democratic Union of Germany. Recently, Merz has been leading in the polls to become the nation’s next chancellor next year. The caption for Seibt’s video read, “The presumptive next chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is horrified by the idea that Germany should follow Elon Musk’s and Javier Milei’s example. He staunchly rejects a pro-freedom approach and refuses any discussion with the AfD.”

The AfD is a nationalist and anti-immigration party that has seen its popularity steadily grow over the last several years. In September, the party won its first state election, becoming the first far-right party to win an election in Germany since the Nazis, per CNN. AfD’s candidate in that race, Björn Höcke, is a controversial figure who has been fined for using a Nazi slogan and criticized for a speech many denounced as antisemitic.

Olaf Scholz, the current chancellor of Germany, was dismissive of Musk’s words when asked about them during an unrelated press conference with Estonian prime minister Kristen Michal on Friday. “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multibillionaires,” Scholz said, per Bloomberg. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain good political advice.”

This is not the first time that Musk has indicated support for AfD. Last year, The Guardian reported that Musk shared a pro-AfD post that criticized Germany funding charity groups that operate ships that rescued migrants, referring to the migrants as “illegal immigrants.”

“Let’s hope AfD wins the elections to stop this European suicide,” the post read.

Musk, who intends to play an starring role in Donald Trump’s second term, has similarly shown an affinity for other conservative leaders in Europe. He’s been pictured with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and Nigel Farage, a British politician who leads the right-wing populist party Reform UK. In recent days, there’s been speculation that Musk might be considering a massive multimillion-dollar donation to Farage’s party, prompting worries among watchdog groups.

Musk has such a manic schedule, given he’s also trying to give parts of Ukraine to Putin, threatening to oust the Canadian PM, and blowing up the US economy today.  Canadian TV had this headline last week. “Elon Musk calls Justin Trudeau ‘insufferable tool’ in new social media post.”  Musk is channeling his inner Lex Luther!

Billionaire Elon Musk is calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “an insufferable tool” in a new social media post on Wednesday.

“Won’t be in power for much longer,” Musk also wrote about the prime minister on “X.”

Musk was responding to a video posted of Trudeau, in which the prime minister described Kamala Harris’ U.S. presidential loss as a setback for women’s progress.

“We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult sometimes, march towards progress. And yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president,” Trudeau said during a speech at the Equal Voice Foundation Gala in Ottawa on Tuesday night.

Trudeau also said women’s rights and women’s progress are “under attack overtly and subtly,” and that he “always will be a proud feminist.”

Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and founder of space company SpaceX, has been tasked to co-chair U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency. He was also a prominent figure in Trump’s election campaign.

Wednesday’s post is Musk’s latest swipe at the prime minister since Trump was re-elected in November. Responding to a user on “X” on Nov. 7 asking for Musk’s help to get rid of Trudeau, Musk wrote “He will be gone in the upcoming election.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he let Trudeau know his comments were “not helpful.”

Ford, who with the rest of Canada’s premiers, met with the prime minister and several of his cabinet ministers on Wednesday to discuss how Canada would respond to Trump’s tariff threats.

“Donald Trump was elected democratically,” Ford said, adding that the premiers made sure Trudeau “got the message loud and clear.”

Musk’s post also comes during a tense time in Canada-U.S. relations.

Trudeau has been facing social media jabs from Trump following the prime minister’s visit to Mar-a-Lago nearly two weeks ago to discuss Trump’s tariff threat. Last month, Trump threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian imports on his first day in office unless Canada addresses his border security concerns.

Following that meeting, U.S. network Fox News reported Trump joked during the dinner in Florida that if the potential tariffs would harm the Canadian economy — as the prime minister conveyed to him — perhaps Canada should become America’s 51st state(opens in a new tab).

Days later, Trump posted an A.I.-generated image to social media that depicted him standing next to a Canadian flag(opens in a new tab) and overlooking a mountain range with the caption “Oh Canada!”

Evidently, since he managed to buy the US Presidency and dupe enough dolts into voting for the Dotard, he thinks he can do it with Canada and a good portion of Europe.   He’s also being all kissy-face with the UK’s Nigel Farage.  The AP characterizes all these shenanigans thusly. “Musk ascends as a political force beyond his wealth by tanking budget deal.”  Is the legacy media going to sleep through all of this and cover it like mundane news?   Thomas Beaumont has the analysis.

In the first major flex of his influence since Donald Trump was elected, Elon Musk brought to a sudden halt a bipartisan budget proposal by posting constantly on his X megaphone and threatening Republicans with primary challenges.

The social media warnings from the world’s wealthiest man preceded Trump’s condemnation of a measure negotiated by GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, which effectively killed the stopgap measure that was designed to prevent a partial shutdown of the federal government.

Washington was scrambled a day after Musk’s public pressure campaign. Trump on Thursday first declined to say whether he had confidence in Johnson. But later in the day, Trump praised him and House leaders for producing “a very good Deal,” after they announced a new plan to fund the government and lift the debt ceiling.

Before the new deal was reached, Congressional Democrats mocked their GOP counterparts, with several suggesting Trump had been relegated to vice president.

“Welcome to the Elon Musk presidency,” Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California wrote on X.

What was clear, though, is Musk’s ascendance as a political force, a level of influence enabled by his great wealth. In addition to owning X, Musk is the CEO of Tesla and Space X.

Since the Supreme Court decided Citizens United, unelected billionaires have bought Supreme Court Decisions and Justices. That’s taken a while to ferret out because the crooked Supreme Court Justices haven’t reported their spoils, and they have no ethics standards. We know they’ve got lobbyists that hand out checks, but most of them do not want to be caught in the act of kleptocracy. Musk has the audacity of a Bond villain.  It’s just out there for all to see and the press to cover.

House Speaker Bayou Moses has yet another agreement to put forward as the clock ticks to midnight EST. This is from The Hill. “Johnson says he has plan C to avert shutdown, vote expected.” I’ll believe it when I see it, frankly.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he has a plan C to avert a shutdown and the House will vote Friday morning on the legislation — but Republicans indicated there is not yet widespread agreement.

“Yeah, yeah, we have a plan,” Johnson said Friday morning as he entered the Capitol. “We’re expecting votes this morning, so you all stay tuned. We’ve got a plan.”

He did not say what it entails. And lawmakers leaving meetings in Johnson’s office Friday morning indicated that there was not yet an agreement on a path forward.

“Anybody who’s telling you there’s an agreement is just a little bit ahead of themselves,” Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), chair of the Republican Main Street Caucus, said as he left the Speaker’s office later Friday morning.

Lawmakers have little time to avoid a shutdown: Government funding runs out when the clock strikes midnight late Friday.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said on CNBC on shortly after Johnson’s comments Friday morning that he thinks Washington will probably avoid a shutdown since “we’re pushed up against Christmas here,” saying a “clean” funding extension is likely.

“There’s a chance today a clean CR [continuing resolution], short-term clean CR — it may be for two, three weeks,” Mullin said. “That was something that was discussed, you know, late last night, you know, even some discussions this morning. I’m not going to say that’s going to happen, but you know, that’s really the option that’s on the table.”

This is the usual way for them to avoid the problems.  Just keep kicking that can.  This just prolongs things.  This process has historically been messy and difficult. We may see a technical shutdown tonight, and that does not bode well, given the current antics and players.  This is from The Hill. “NY Democrat: ‘Elon Musk has Donald Trump in a vise.”  Joanne Haner has the lede.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) on Thursday suggested Elon Musk is the one directing the Trump administration, not President-elect Trump, pointing to the tech entrepreneur’s leading position in opposing the government funding stopgap measure.

“Elon Musk has Donald Trump in a vise,” Goldman said on MSNBC on Thursday. “And it is very clear that Elon Musk is now calling the shots.”

Musk made several social media posts Wednesday criticizing the spending measure deal unveiled by House Republicans this week. He called the more than 1,500-page measure a big “piece of pork” while calling on GOP lawmakers to oppose it.

Trump later in the day also called for the bill to be dismissed, suggesting instead that Congress pass a clean continuing resolution with a debt hike increase. That proposal was rejected Thursday night, and Congress is now working on a plan C with less than 24 hours to go before the deadline.

“We need to face the reality: Right now, we have President Elon Musk. And Trump? Maybe he’s vice president, I guess,” Goldman said. “Vice presidents don’t do much, so that makes sense. He might be the chief of staff. I don’t know what you call him, but he is not calling the shots.”

Goldman is not the only Democrat saying Musk is the one calling the shots in the administration; a number of Democrats have made similar arguments, while the White House has said Trump and the GOP are doing the bidding of billionaires.

 Meanwhile, the government is making plans for a shutdown.  This is from the Washington Post.

House Republicans are discussing the latest plan from leadership to fund the government and avoid a shutdown before a midnight deadline. Several Republicans said the Rules Committee will meet to send two separate bills to the floor, which would need a simple majority to pass. They are: A clean extension of current fiscal levels until mid-March that includes an extension of a farm bill that requires reauthorization, and a $110 billion relief bill to help natural disaster survivors and aid farmers. Republicans had no plans for an immediate vote on suspending the debt limit, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s repeated demands. At the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre lashed out at Republicans who had agreed to a bipartisan deal and then abandoned it. “This is a mess that Speaker [Mike] Johnson created, that is his mess to fix,” she told reporters at the daily briefing, adding that there was “still time” for Republicans to “do the right thing.” The Office of Management and Budget alerted federal agencies Friday morning to prepare for an imminent government shutdown.

The budget fiasco isn’t the only thing threatening the US and the Global Economies.  Trump is just not giving up on his ignorant view of tariffs. This is from CNBC. Trade negotiations are not subject to the art of the Deal.  They are gamesmanship on an entirely different level. “‘Tariffs all the way’: Trump says European Union must buy U.S. oil and gas in trade ultimatum.” He thinks he looks like a tough guy, but anyone who knows about economic policy knows he just looks like an idiot.

Trump has made threats of sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners including China, Mexico and Canada a signature part of his presidential campaign — and he’s continued the narrative as he prepares to enter office, despite economists warning of risks to domestic inflation.

Analysts say there is high uncertainty over the extent of the tariffs Trump will be willing — or able — to follow through with, and how much of his rhetoric is a starting point for striking deals.

His latest comment comes after EU heads of state held their final meeting of the year on Thursday, during which the topic of Europe-U.S. relations was discussed.

“The message is clear: the European Union is committed to continue working with the United States, pragmatically, to strengthen transatlantic ties,” European Council President António Costa said following the meeting.

Enrico Letta, former prime minister of Italy and dean of the IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday that the EU needed to be prepared to retaliate to Trump’s threat.

“I think it is a transactional approach, we have to respond to this transactional approach. [Trump] mixes together energy and tariffs on goods, manufacturing and so on. I think it’s incorrect because the two topics are completely different,” Letta said.

“If the deal is proposed by Trump — such an asymmetric deal on topics that are not linked one to the other — I think we have to do the same.”

“Considering that the most asymmetric part is the relationship on the financial side, we have to start considering that maybe replying on the financial side could be a solution,” he said.

Ahead of the U.S. election in November, EU officials spent months preparing for a lurch toward U.S. protectionism and for a more confrontational relationship with the White House, in the event of a Trump victory. The EU has also made moves toward strengthening its relationship with the U.K., which left the bloc in 2020, as a guard against potential clashes over trade and defense.

It’s disturbing that many folks and the media are acting like Joe Biden is already out of the picture. However, Republican dysfunction could also deal the final blow to the Republican Party.  Jeffries has control over his congress critters.  It’s obvious Johnson doesn’t.  You may remember that John Boehner threw up his arms and retired over the many chaotic factions. It hasn’t improved since then. Digby has an interesting view in her Salon column. “Elon Musk just killed Donald Trump’s honeymoon. We are seeing is an emerging crack in the GOP coalition.”

The activist base that had recently fashioned itself as the Tea Party after Obama’s election in 2008, quietly reinvented itself as the MAGA movement and lost all interest in fiscal austerity the minute Trump came on the scene. But there has always been some restiveness among the right-wing ideologues in the House and Senate who really want to massively cut discretionary spending and the so-called entitlements to the bone. They’re true believers in the idea that government should not help people, period. They were relegated to the back bench during Trump’s first term and spent most of their time tilting at windmills because Trump was happily spending like the treasury was his own credit line at Deutsche Bank.

He had no appetite for big spending cuts that might hurt his chances for re-election. After all, he didn’t run as a budget-cutting deficit hawk. He always claimed that he didn’t need to drastically cut spending because the debt would disappear with tariffs and unprecedented growth. He said the same thing during the 2024 campaign, insisting that it would even pay for government-funded child care, the worst of all possible worlds.

He pays lip service to cutting spending but he doesn’t really care about it. He’s told people he’s not worried about a U.S. debt crisis as he’ll be out of office by then. And he’s got stuff he wants to spend a lot of money on, like deporting millions of immigrants!

That’s never been clearer than this week when Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., presented the bipartisan continuing resolution to fund the government until March and all hell broke loose in the House. Those rascally, backbench Tea Party/Freedom Caucus ideologues finally got the leader they’ve been waiting for and his name is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world.

It was a given that the Freedom Caucus gang would not vote for the bill. They vote no on everything. It had been negotiated by the bipartisan negotiators in both chambers with the knowledge that the Senate was still in Democratic hands and the tiny GOP majority in the House required a bipartisan compromise. Everyone knew that the screamers in the House would have a fit and call for Mike Johnson’s head (which is why they changed the rule raising the threshold from one member to nine.) And since the speaker knows better than to go to the john without getting Trump’s permission, you can be sure that Trump was kept informed of all of this. They all agreed that they would get rid of this hot potato, adjourn quickly and go home for the holidays.

That didn’t work out the way they planned it. Trump thought he had cleverly boxed Musk out of real power by creating a powerless “commission” for him and his sidekick Vivek Ramaswamy to come up with enormous spending cuts to reduce the federal government by as much as a third, which he knows won’t happen. However, Trump has essentially empowered Musk to speak for him by having him by his side every minute for the last three months. And seeing as he’s the richest man in the world who owns a major social media platform, he has plenty of power all on his own.

I have actually heard several talking heads think that Trump’s disinterest in the actual work for the job is worse this time around.  The suggestions that he just ran for office to stay out of jail and that he would just be a figurehead may come to fruition.  His dementia has worsened. He disappears from the public a lot.  He doesn’t appear to have a craving for attention or energy. It may be that Doddering Don will be happy for everyone else to do his work as long as he can cuddle up to foreign dictators. I’m surprised Musk got this much press coverage and went rogue on the budget negotiations.  The Donald that stalked Hillary wouldn’t have liked that.

But, who am I but a mostly retired economics professor who sometimes would just rather play the piano or guitar all day than think about this and have to unravel it for students.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocial #Repeat1968JohnBuss #BayouMoses #ElonMuskIsANAZI #FederalBudgetAndDeficit #HouseSpeakerMikeJohnson #PresidentEjectIncontinentiaButtocks

Finally Friday Reads: Your Cassandra Daily

Nothing says Thanksgiving to me more than the WKRP Turkey Drop! Thank you, John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

My first short story remains in my scrapbook in its purply blue mimeograph ink. It has my drawing of Cassandra and my interpretation of my favorite Greek Character, who was dedicated to the Greek God Apollo but was fated to make true prophecies no one ever believed.  I was drawn to her in my 5th-grade mythology class.  I remember my mother listening to me once and starting to question me before she interrupted herself by telling me this. “I don’t know why I question you; you’re almost always right.”  I usually don’t believe everything I read, but I remember it. Prognostication is less godly and more mathematical these days, but when you know what’s likely to happen when you do that S-VAR model based on solid theory and a new hypothesis, you don’t always want to welcome the results.

I’ve been running around with my hair on fire since the Orange Demon started obsessing about tariffs again.  He tried them during his last Reign of Terror and nearly drove our farmers out of business.  Congress had to rescue them with huge subsidies that paid them for not selling their crops or livestock. Trump started a Trade War with China. He needed a visit from Herbert Hoover’s Ghost and to listen to the huge chorus of economists who warned him, but he persisted.  Luckily, it didn’t take out the U.S. economy, but it ran up the deficit and jeopardized the Agriculture sector.

This warning is from the AP. “Trump’s tariffs in his first term did little to alter the economy, but this time could be different.”   Trump’s misunderstanding of tariffs could wreck the economies of North America.  This analsyis comes from Josh Boak.

Donald Trump loved to use tariffs on foreign goods during his first presidency. But their impact was barely noticeable in the overall economy, even if their aftershocks were clear in specific industries.

The data show they never fully delivered on his promised factory jobs. Nor did they provoke the avalanche of inflation that critics feared.

This time, though, his tariff threats might be different.

The president-elect is talking about going much bigger — on a potential scale that creates more uncertainty about whether he’ll do what he says and what the consequences could be.

“There’s going to be a lot more tariffs, I mean, he’s pretty clear,” said Michael Stumo, the CEO of Coalition for a Prosperous America, a group that has supported import taxes to help domestic manufacturing.

The president-elect posted on social media Monday that on his first day in office he would impose 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico and Canada until those countries satisfactorily stop illegal immigration and the flow of illegal drugs such as fentanyl into the United States.

Those tariffs could essentially blow up the North American trade pact that Trump’s team negotiated during his initial term. But on Wednesday, Trump posted on social media that he had spoken with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and she had agreed to stop unauthorized migration across the border into the United States.

Trump also posted on Monday that Chinese imports would face additional tariffs of 10% until Beijing cracks down on the production of materials used in making fentanyl.

President Sheinbaum immediately denied Trump’s characterization of their conversation.  This headline from HuffPo says it all. “Trump Mocked After Mexico’s President Blows Up His Brag About Their Call.” Josephine Harvey reports on the response.

Donald Trump seemed to offer alternative facts on Wednesday about his recent call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and was swiftly rebutted by the leader herself, prompting mockery on social media.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, the U.S. president-elect declared that Sheinbaum had “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.”

Shortly afterward, Sheinbaum shared a Spanish-language message about the conversation, writing, “We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders, but to build bridges between governments and communities.”

Both leaders characterized the call as positive. The two spoke after Trump on Monday threatened to impose a 25% tax on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico as soon as he takes office. Trump said, “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” He also threatened to put an “additional 10%” tariff on goods from China.

This week’s news was somewhat reminiscent of Trump’s claim ahead of the 2016 election that he would make Mexico pay for “100%” of a proposed wall at the U.S. border. Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico’s president at the time, disagreed. Mexico did not pay.

Social media users sarcastically celebrated Trump’s fictional victory this week.

“All it took was one call. Donny deals,” journalist Sam Stein posted online.

Mike Nellis, a former aide to Vice President Kamala Harris, said, “Trump thinks he convinced the President of Mexico to stop all migration across the border LOL.”

Olivia Troye, who was a White House official in Trump’s first term, offered a “Translation” of the president-elect’s comments about Mexico.

Just had a conversation with the President of Mexico who didn’t allow me to bully her, which left me confused about my charm…she pointed out that this is very bad…very bad for me if I do these tariffs…” Troye wrote.

China and Canada were also blunt about DonOld’s mischaracterizations of his conversations with their leaders.  USA Today‘s Kim Hjelmgaard reported it this way. “‘Counter to facts and reality’: China, Mexico, Canada respond to Trump tariff threats.”

Officials in China, Mexico and Canada criticized Tuesday a pledge made by President-elect Donald Trump on social media to impose new tariffs on all three of the United States’ largest trading partners on the first day of his presidency.

Trump said the move, which appears to violate the terms of a free-trade deal Trump signed into law in 2020, is aimed at clamping down on drugs − fentanyl especially − and migrants crossing into the U.S. illegally.

The president-elect said he would sign an executive order immediately after his inauguration introducing a 25% tariff on all goods coming from Mexico and Canada and a 10% tariff on goods from China.

Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

“Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, a platform he owns. “It is time for them to pay a very big price!” He accused China in a separate post of failing to block smuggling of U.S.-bound fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.

There was quick pushback to Trump’s comments from all three countries.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said: “No one will win a trade war or a tariff war” and “the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”

Mexico’s finance ministry said in a statement the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a trade pact Trump sponsored during his first term, provided “certainty” for investors. “The response to one tariff will be another, until we put at risk companies that we share,” Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said, naming General Motors and Ford, among others. Sheinbaum said her comments, read aloud in a press conference, were sent in a letter to Trump.

Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said the tariffs would be “devastating to workers and jobs” in both the U.S. and Canada.

A tariff is effectively a tax imposed by one country on the goods and services imported from another country. Oil is the top U.S. import from Canada, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The largest category of goods imported to the U.S. from Mexico is cars and components for cars. The U.S. imports a significant amount of electronics from China. Some goods are exempt from tariffs because of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Businesses are already responding to the tariff threats.  This will not be good for American Consumers. NBC News reports: “Here’s where consumers could feel the price pain if Trump’s tariffs go into effect. Trump has made threats about tariffs in the past. Businesses are nevertheless taking the latest threats seriously.”  This guy hasn’t even taken the oath of office, and he’s already acting like he’s sitting in the Oval Office.

An estimate from The Budget Lab at Yale shared Wednesdaywith NBC News found that the cost to consumers from Trump’s proposed tariffs could reach as much as $1,200 in lost purchasing power on average based on 2023 incomes, assuming retaliatory duties on U.S. exports are put into place.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has already warned that any new tariffs imposed by the U.S. would be met with retaliatory ones by her country. Canada is similarly considering its own options, including possible tariffs on U.S. goods, according to The Associated Press.

America’s biggest import from Canada is oil — and any increase in energy prices would likely be felt throughout the economy.

“Another way to think about this is it’s 4 to 5 months of a normal year’s inflation in one fell swoop,” Ernie Tedeschi, The Budget Lab’s director and the former chief economist under the Biden administration, said in an email.

The three countries Trump has selected for a new round of targeted tariff proposals — China, Mexico and Canada — represent nearly half of all U.S. import volumes.

While Trump has insisted other countries end up paying the cost of tariffs, most economists agree those costs wind up getting passed on to shoppers. And at a time when rising prices remain a top concern, the types of goods that could see higher costs are the ones consumers interact with every day.

Some companies are warning that particularly import-heavy parts of the economy could be hit hard. Best Buy CEO Corie Barry warned Tuesday that any added costs on U.S. imports “will be shared by our customers.” Electronic goods account for the largest share of U.S. imports from China as of 2023.

“There’s very little in [the] consumer electronics space that is not imported. … These are goods that people need, and higher prices are not helpful,” Barry said.

This is what happens when morons vote for a moron.  David R. Lurie of Public Notice has this analysis on other Trump plans. These endanger our National Security.  “Tulsi Gabbard and Trump’s scheme to gut the intel agencies. It’s hard to envision a less suited intelligence chief. That’s a feature, not a bug.”

Donald Trump has selected Tulsi Gabbard, former congresswoman and notorious Putin stooge, as his nominee for director of the office of national intelligence.

It’s difficult to imagine a candidate less suited to carry out the DNI’s mission, and that’s very likely just the reason that Trump chose her. Gabbard has virtually none of the experience or expertise required to competently assume DNI’s weighty responsibility of marshaling the information and analyses gathered by the nation’s intelligence agencies and coordinating their work.

Gabbard’s longstanding association with a shadowy rightwing cult, her history of suspicious uses of campaign funds, her habitual conspiracism and advocacy for the interests of bloodthirsty dictators (including Syria’s Bashar al-Assad as well as Putin) all raise a multiplicity of red flags.

But, as Donald Trump made clear during his first term in office, national security is hardly at the top of his list of priorities. In fact, hobbling the nation’s intelligence agencies is one of his principal goals.

Donald Trump has selected Tulsi Gabbard, former congresswoman and notorious Putin stooge, as his nominee for director of the office of national intelligence.

It’s difficult to imagine a candidate less suited to carry out the DNI’s mission, and that’s very likely just the reason that Trump chose her. Gabbard has virtually none of the experience or expertise required to competently assume DNI’s weighty responsibility of marshaling the information and analyses gathered by the nation’s intelligence agencies and coordinating their work.

Gabbard’s longstanding association with a shadowy rightwing cult, her history of suspicious uses of campaign funds, her habitual conspiracism and advocacy for the interests of bloodthirsty dictators (including Syria’s Bashar al-Assad as well as Putin) all raise a multiplicity of red flags.

But, as Donald Trump made clear during his first term in office, national security is hardly at the top of his list of priorities. In fact, hobbling the nation’s intelligence agencies is one of his principal goals.

Marc Zuckerberg perfects his role as Surrender Monkey by dining with the Dotard at Mara Lardo. This is from the BBC.  “Mark Zuckerberg dines with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.”  It was definitely a Baboon butt moment.

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has visited Donald Trump at his resort in Mar-a-Lago, further evidence of the apparent thawing in their once frosty relations.

The president-elect already has a close, high-profile relationship with another of the leading figures in tech, X owner Elon Musk.

Historically, though, there has been no such closeness between Trump and Mr Zuckerberg – with Trump barred from Facebook and Instagram after the Capitol riots, and Trump threatening the Meta boss with jail if he interfered in the 2024 presidential election.

However, there has recently been evidence those strained relations are improving, culminating in Mr Zuckerberg dining with the president-elect at his Florida mansion.

“Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming administration,” a Meta spokesperson told the BBC.

“It’s an important time for the future of American Innovation,” the statement added.

The Detroit Free Press featured an Op-Ed by the AG of Michigan, Dana Nessel.  It is difficult not to notice the incredibly large number of Sexual Predators Trump has been appointing to his Cabinet and other leadership positions.  It seems like a feature and not a bug, “Michigan AG Nessel: Trump cabinet picks show disdain for victims of sex assault.”  We continue to see a parade of the stupid and the lawless.

Every 68 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.

Only a third of the estimated 440,000 victims over the age of 12 each year will ever report, often due to negative emotions such as guilt, shame, and self-blame.

Survivors feel they won’t be believed, so why bother reporting, opening themselves up to ridicule, judgment and shame?

So what is it we are telling victims of these brutal, life-altering crimes, when our President-elect seeks to elevate alleged fellow perpetrators to cabinet positions and other high levels of power in our government?

To lead the Department of Defense, Trump has nominated Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, who settled an accusation that he raped a woman and entered into a non-disclosure agreement with the victim. To lead the Department of Health and Human Services, he nominated Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has been accused of groping a young woman who worked for him as a babysitter on several occasions.  For Secretary of Education – responsible for ensuring the schooling of our nation’s children – he nominated Linda McMahon, who has been sued for criminal negligence for enabling the grooming and sexual abuse of children by employees of her organization.  And as the nation’s top law enforcement officer, he nominated former Representative Matt Gaetz — who withdrew from consideration last week — the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation, following accusations he paid minors for sex. And Trump still has more nominations to make.

With these nominations, we are telling survivors of sexual assault that they don’t matter, that their trauma is meaningless and that they should stay silent.

And they will.

The American Prospect calls them “The Rape Gang.”

The presumptive Secretary of Education is married to a man whose former employee alleges he forced her to perform sex acts with his friend for an hour and a half after he defecated on her head. The presumptive Commerce Secretary preemptively sued his former assistant in 2018, after her lawyer threatened to publicize “not pretty” 2 a.m. text messages she’d received from him and his wife. The presumptive Health and Human Services director’s explanation for forcibly groping a former nanny’s breasts while holding her hostage in a kitchen pantry was that he “had a very, very rambunctious youth”; he was 46 at the time. The White House efficiency czar, currently a defendant in a putative class-action lawsuit filed by eight former employees who accuse him of perpetrating an “Animal House” work environment of “rampant sexual harassment,” and paid a quarter of a million dollars to a flight attendant who says he got naked and asked her to touch his erect penis in exchange for the gift of a horse.

And of course the presumptive Defense Secretary was accused of raping a woman who was tasked with monitoring what she described to police as his “creeper vibes” after a Republican women’s conference at which he was a keynote speaker, just a month and change after the birth of his fourth child with a woman who was not his wife at the time. (Reader, she married him.)

The aggressive rapeyness of the second Donald Trump administration is so tyrannical it’s almost enough to make a girl wistful for Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman who withdrew his name from attorney general contention yesterday (to make way for the despicable Pam Bondi) amid an orgy of leaks from two investigations into his sexploits with a 17-year-old procured by a convicted sex trafficker friend. Multiple witnesses testified that Gaetz did not actually know the 17-year-old was underage, you see, and that he ceased having sex with her when he found out.

We definitely have a kakistocracy coming our way.  We can see the incompetence, the total lack of knowledge of policy, and the complete inappropriateness of every candidate for Cabinet.  It comes from the ultimate dotard.  The only thing we have going for us now is our resolve and the fact that the Republican Majority in both Houses is narrow. Both houses have also had lots of experience in gumming up the works for Trump. Trump’s so-called mandate is a bald-faced lie.  The LA Times asks, “As Trump’s lead in popular vote shrinks, does he really have a ‘mandate’?”  Of course, Trump will be oblivious to all that, so he’s relying heavily on executive mandates that may or may not be legal.” Jenny Jarvis has the details.

• Though Trump overwhelmingly won the electoral college vote, his tally in the popular vote is hardly a landslide.

• In the last 75 years, only three other presidents had popular-vote margins that were smaller than Trump’s.

• When Trump exaggerates his presidential mandate, he is not an outlier but drawing from bipartisan history.

In his victory speech on Nov. 6, President-elect Donald Trump claimed Americans had given him an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.”

It’s a message his transition team has echoed in the last three weeks, referring to his “MAGA Mandate” and a “historic mandate for his agenda.”

But given that Trump’s lead in the popular vote has dwindled as more votes have been counted in California and other states that lean blue, there is fierce disagreement over whether most Americans really endorse his plans to overhaul government and implement sweeping change.

The latest tally from the Cook Political Report shows Trump winning 49.83% of the popular vote, with a margin of 1.55% over Vice President Kamala Harris.

The president-elect’s share of the popular vote now falls in the bottom half for American presidents — far below that of Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson, who won 61.1% of the popular vote in 1964, defeating Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater by nearly 23 percentage points.

In the last 75 years, only three presidents — John F. Kennedy in 1960, Richard Nixon in 1968 and George W. Bush in 2000 — had popular-vote margins smaller than Trump’s current lead.

“If there ever was a mandate, this isn’t it,” said Hans Noel, associate professor of government at Georgetown University.

There is a slim majority margin in the US House of Representatives.  There is no mandate radical change there.  This is from Politico, “Where the slim House margin might matter most.”  The analysis is by Anthony Adragna.

Republicans are vowing an all-out war in the opening days of the next Congress against Biden administration regulations in areas as varied as energy, financial, housing and education policy.

They’re hoping for a redux of 2017 and 2018, when Republicans used their unified control of government and the powers of the Congressional Review Act to ax 16 regulations. With a coming 53-47 majority, GOP senators say they’re again primed to use the CRA, one of their most potent tools to undo Democratic policies — and one that tends to unite the often fractious Republican conference.

But — and it’s a major but — an extremely narrow House margin could make things hard to pull off, at least for the first couple of months of the Trump administration. While the GOP could lose as many as three votes in the Senate with Vice President-elect JD Vance (R-Ohio) casting tie-breakers, the House very well be at a one-vote margin until early April (more on that math below).

Still, that hasn’t dampened Republicans’ enthusiasm around the CRA.

“We’re going to want to go and evaluate everything that fits into the jurisdiction” of the 1996 review law, incoming Senate Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told Inside Congress. Invoking it involves passing simple-majority votes in both chambers plus a presidential signature, no filibusters allowed.

President Joe Biden’s administration recognized this looming threat and prioritized early completion of rulemakings to shield them from congressional challenge. Still, dozens of regulations were finalized after Aug. 1, 2024, leaving them vulnerable to the CRA, according to Public Citizen, which closely tracks the potential use of the law. (That corresponds to the date identified by the Congressional Research Service after which rules might be vulnerable to revocation.)

Barrasso’s hardly alone with vows of aggressive use of the tool, which had only been successfully used once before Trump’s first term.

“We’ll do every possible regulation we can get to,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said. “It’s a wonderful tool for undoing the bureaucratic excess of the Biden administration.”

“On some of these crazy policies we ought to just get rid of them as fast as we can,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who said he’d instructed his staff to find regulations that may be good targets for challenges.

“This is the only time the Congressional Review Act actually has teeth, otherwise it’s a messaging vehicle,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said, referring to the first months of a new trifecta, since using the CRA effectively requires one party to control the presidency and both chambers of Congress, a relatively infrequent occurrence in modern politics.

Hopefully, this turns into a Can’t Do Anything Congress.

Have a good weekend!  Hope you had a great day for feasting! I’m off to eat a turkey sandwich!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocial #Repeat1968JohnBuss #DonnyDotardAndTheChaosCult #TrumpCabinetRapeGang