First Week of the Last Month of 2024
Democrats, Trump, Weird Appointments, Ending the Hunter Hunt, Project 2025 Verified, Musk Hallucinogens

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Wisdom from our internet heroes:

• driftglass examines reasons Democrats often lose unexpectedly: too soft, too willing to compromise, not ruthless enough.

  Key middling:
  Breaking off bigger and bigger pieces of the promises you made to the people who actually support you, and feeding those pieces to the ghouls who hate you.

• At Juanita Jean’s, there is impatience at those of us taking a break from Trump‑news and at mainstream media, which is waiting for something bad to happen, like it’s not already happening.

  Key reprimand:
  Yes, it’s hard to watch, but it’s time to wake up and taste the bitter dregs. America really screwed the pooch this time, but we still need to pay attention, more so because this time we really dug ourselves a hole by electing an a‑hole.

  The other thing that seems to be new is the desire to be fair and impartial, especially after being treated to such over‑the‑top rhetoric before 11/5.

• Vixen Strangely reviews all the reasons President Biden should not have issued a pardon for son Hunter, and suggests that of course, he should have.

  Key purpose:
  If the power of the pardon is supposed to be for the sake of mercy–why not one’s own son? Is his son less deserving by virtue of blood? And if the father seriously believes that the son was persecuted and prosecuted for his political sake, is that not something he can at least do for him?

• In Nan’s Notebook, Joe Biden broke his word by issuing a pardon to Hunter, and Nan is glad he did.

• Disaffected and it Feels So Good points out that Hunter should not have been pardoned, especially if you are writing for the Wall Street Journal and you happen to be a former right wing Republican Congressional Representative, former for having been caught siphoning campaign funds to conduct multiple sexual affairs, pleading guilty to a single count, sentenced to prison, and then pardoned by then‑President Trump.

  Key standard:
  There is no such thing as degrees of difference
  Everything is the same but,
  It’s only wrong when a Democrat does it…

• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit provides a brief (3 sentences), accurate summary of the Hunter Biden and media coverage.

• Tommy Christopher has it about right on the Hunter pardon. MAGA folk can spin it as a big win if mainstream media misleads and, so far, media have done just that.

  Key example (from CNN legal analyst Elie Honig):
  Honig trashed the decision at length — then admitted in the fine print that “There is a reasonable argument that in some respects, Hunter Biden was treated unfairly.”
   
  That’s Honig-ese for “Hunter Biden was treated unfairly.”

• Infidel753 says the pardon of Hunter Biden makes for bad optics.

  The biggest error?
  Making a bad promise never to pardon Hunter.

  Key contradiction:
  Trump has repeatedly threatened to use his power to persecute people he considers enemies — and he brands people as enemies at the tiniest provocation. Where are the pardons for those at risk of prosecution for purely imaginary offenses, if Trump succeeds in packing the relevant federal offices with toadies who will go after anyone he tells them to?

• Julian Sanchez explains why the Hunter pardon gets more press attention than pervasive Trump corruption:
  

  Trump benefits, perversely, from being so comprehensively corrupt. In a normal administration, the president pardoning his own son SHOULD be a major story, because it absolutely is dodgy. Trump handed out corrupt pardons in bulk, so no one of them got similarly sustained attention.

  [image or embed]

  — Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) December 3, 2024 at 8:00 AM

  Julian finds an apt illustration:
  

  To paraphrase Stalin, one corrupt act is a scandal; a million corrupt acts is a statistic.

  — Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) December 3, 2024 at 8:04 AM

• Juliet at Decoding Fox News compiles a series of Fox segments insisting that reports from media competitors of Trump’s connection to Project 2025 is all based on lies:

  Juliet brings us the receipts, in the form of zany Trump nominations to key positions, as the connections to Project 2025 turn out to be even more intimate than were reported.

• News Corpse reports as Trump’s embattled choice to head the Defense Department is defended by his mom: who says Pete Hegseth has changed his women‑abusing ways.

  Key defense (from Mrs. Penelope Hegseth):
  We really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago.

  Unrelated reaction:
  

  Pete Hegseth has also promised that if confirmed he will stop sexually assaulting women. At Fox News where he works this is called a noncompete agreement

  [image or embed]

  — Domestic Enemy Hat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 9:08 PM

• Frances Langum brings us extreme conservative Newsmax host Greg Kelly with his own verdict: The Hegseth nomination is doomed:

• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has a question about those nominations. Now that Matt Gaetz is gone and Pete Hegseth is vanishing, who is next? He speculates that maybe it’s Tulsi Gabbard.

  Key additional RFK Jr. possibility:
  We’ll have to wait and see about Kennedy.

• At The Moderate Voice President-Elect Trump intends to float past laws against replacing Christopher Wray as FBI Director. MAGAFolk are delighted with the prospective appointment of Kash Patel. The FBI will now go after Trump enemies. Non‑MAGA consensus seems to be Patel is an angry conspiracy embracing kook.

  Key intent (quote from Patel)
  …we’re putting you (the media) all on notice, and this is why they hate us. This is why we’re tyrannical. This is why we’re dictators.

• Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson notes that Trump will send Charles Kushner as Ambassador to France. Charles is father to Jared, who is married to Ivanka, who is daughter to Donald.

  Charles was sentenced to prison for (from Wikipedia):
  illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering after hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother‑in‑law, arranging to record a sexual encounter between the two, and sending the tape to his sister.

  Then he was pardoned by then-President Trump.

  Comments James:
  

  On the other hand, if Trump was going to appoint Kushner the Elder to an ambassadorial post, wouldn't it have been smarter to pick a country with whom we don't have an extradition treaty?

  — James Wigderson (@jwigderson.bsky.social) December 1, 2024 at 11:45 PM

• From The Borowitz Report:
  It’s consistent with the rest of the prospective appointments, but Trump’s plan to appoint former drug lord El Chapo as Ambassador to Mexico hits an unexpected snag.

• Just as the incoming President is ready to again dismantle contingency preparations for the next epidemic, PZ Myers warns that the next epidemic has already started.

• In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the 19^th century start of Republican full blown support for industrialists and concentrated wealth, even as workers struggled to stay alive.

  This view became codified in writings from Yale sociologist William Graham Sumner in What Social Classes Owe to Each Other

  Key philosophy:
  Sumner concluded it was unfair that “worthy, industrious, independent, and self‑supporting” men should be taxed to support those he claimed were lazy.

  Key policy:
  Sumner called for a “laissez-faire” world in which those who failed should be permitted to sink into poverty, and even to die, to keep America from becoming a land where lazy folks waited for a handout.

  The same historical analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.

• From the DEA:
  Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that has some hallucinogenic effects.

  Sarah Cooper goes Musking as Elon explains that his frequent use of the hallucinogen is completely harmless, and quite useful. He knows he is not abusing ketamine because it never ever interferes with his important, always excellent, work.
   
  

• Let’s start this one with a key definition.

  Circumlocution:
  The use of many words where fewer would do, especially in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive.

  Jordan Peterson is a conservative psychologist, author, and media pundit who insists he is not a conservative
  (He only admits to psychology, authorship, and punditry)

  Dave Columbo illustrates what it must be like to be around the guy:
   
  

• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors brings us the apology by Dinesh D’Souza for getting it wrong in a film based on false claims of voter fraud.

  His admission has absolutely nothing, definitively nothing, nothing at all to do with a lawsuit against him.

  Key moral clarity:
  I make this apology not under the terms of a settlement agreement or other duress, but because it is the right thing to do, given what we have now learned…

• If pressed, I’m generally opposed to trans medical treatment for children.

  Kids are still developing mentally and lack experience that lends perspective to personal decisions. That is the basis of statutory rape laws.

  Should there be exceptions? Any exceptions? Any?
  Hell, I don’t know.

  Which hell-I-don’t-know is a pretty good reason to oppose legislative bans on this edgy medical category.

  Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group go to podcast on this week’s Supreme Court hearing as they decide whether Tennessee can ban gender‑affirming care for trans minors

• In Scotties Playtime gathers warm fuzzy good news from Blue Sky (Rising alternative to X, nee Twitter), mostly concerning arguments before the Supreme Court.

• Award winning author John Scalzi is already in the Christmas spirit:
  

  Last Christmas
  I gave you my heart
  Not really my heart
  Just somebody's heart
  This year
  If the cops should appear
  Please tell them that you don't know me

  — John Scalzi (@scalzi.com) December 4, 2024 at 5:45 PM

• @whiskeywhistle98 is in the traditional Christmas spirit:
   
  

• Right Wing Watch covers Nationalist Christian Pastor Joel Webbon on why Jews cannot be allowed to serve in public office.

  Key principle:
  Webbon believes that the American people are too degenerate, stupid, and cowardly to abide by the Constitution and must therefore be governed by a Christian dictator. This dictator, Webbon believes, must “rule with an iron fist” and force everyone to, at the very least, “pretend to be Christian.”

• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has a modest suggestion for those of us who follow Jesus: How about we get out of, and stay out of, other people’s bedrooms.

• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil reminds us, particularly those of us of a certain age, of the moral lessons we were taught in the 1950’s in the Gospel according to Superboy.

• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, atheist Bruce examines whether it is reasonable for atheists to ask Evangelicals for evidence, especially those Christians who claim their approach is scientific.

  In fact, Bruce goes further, suggesting in his own way that it might be best for the faith if we Christians would begin to behave as we were taught by Jesus.

  Key advice:
  In fact, a better approach to reaching people for Christ might be to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind, and to love their neighbors as they love themselves. Maybe the best evidence for transformative faith is good works.

  Key Problem:
  Sadly, most of what unbelievers see and experience from Evangelicals is anything but “good.” Eighty percent of Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump three times. Their “works” tell us everything we need to know about their faith.

  One departure as I see it:
  

  The temptation comes with any religion: lapsing from a search for spiritual truth to tribalism.

  Many of us seem to prefer Christianity without those pesky "teachings" from that bothersome Jesus character

  After all, what the hell does that guy know about Christianity?

  Besides
  Us v them is more fun

  — burrland01.bsky.social (@burrland01.bsky.social) December 5, 2024 at 7:31 AM

• The Propaganda Professor gives us a brief, basic, very basic primer on stats for creationists (and others of us) who get pure chance real wrong.

  Key other-hand:
  The New Agey notion that you are completely in command of your destiny, and can cause things to manifest just by sending out the right vibrations may be a total crock. But if it’s an illusion, it’s not an entirely useless one. The same for trying to elicit assistance to get what you want by petitioning a divinity. At the very least, both of these approaches (even if they both turned out to be self‑deceptions) help maintain focus, engagement and hope. And that’s not bad.

  Personal find that semi-fits (Shamelessly stolen from XKCD):

  

• The Journal of Improbable Research finds an attempt to apply the physics of molecules in liquid‑vapor state to social interactions of children.

  This helpful chart explains it all:

  

  Got that?

• The Strategic Studies Book Club reviews the views of HG Wells on the spectacular successes of Alexander and how much he may have owed to his tutor, Aristotle.

• At The Onion, the resentencing of the Menendez brothers is delayed as the judge learns that one brother always lies and the other always tells the truth.

• The quote has been so mangled over generations, the exact words have gone into obscurity.

  Legendary sportswriter Red Smith is said to have described his craft:
  Writing is actually very easy. Just sit at a typewriter and stare at a blank sheet until there appear on the forehead little beads of blood.

  In Happiness Between Tails, da-AL guest hosts Serbian writer Bojana Stojčić, who suggests thinking of the process as the personal vulnerability that may come with sharing intimate communication with strangers.

• SilverAppleQueen moves furniture in preparation for holidays while cats rapidly adjust.