Two Degrees Of Cabinetry
By Mitch Berg
So, among Trump’s current Cabinet nominees:
- I’ve interviewed designated Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth 2-3 times.
- The wife of Doug Burgum (who by some reports has the inside track for Secretary of Energy) is a high school classmate.
- One of my dad’s students in Rugby, ND was an incredibly ambitious young guy named “Donnie” Gaetz. He won the state debate championship, went on to win the national championship in college, moved to Florida and became a Republican mover and shaker and eventually president of the State Senate, and was a somewhat frequent guest at my parents’ house through the seventies and into the eighties, and who went on to have a son you may have heard of.
So, Matt Gaetz for AG.
As happy as I am with all the other nominees, the only upside I can see to this nomination is it’ll get him out of the House, in time for him not to get confirmed…?
He’d be a reliable Trump ally, and he’d likely go at the DOJ with a blowtorch. Surely we’ve got better people for both jobs?
November 14th, 2024 at 7:46 am
Yeah, it’s darn shame Trump didn’t nominate a useless drone like Sessions or a corrupt, duplicitous member of the Deep State like Barr. I literally don’t understand this chin-stroking harrumphing from the Nice Right. I will also point out that neither this post nor the one linked to have any alternative suggestions for an AG that can do the job that needs to be done at DOJ.
November 14th, 2024 at 7:51 am
… sorry, I do understand the backbiting. It’s all about revenge for removing that Speaker of the House who didn’t do his job. My mistake.
November 14th, 2024 at 8:01 am
Sorry Mitch, going with what jdm posted. Trump learned (the hard way) during/after his first term; the Dems are ruthless. The days of playing nice are over. Yes, Gaetz is a bull in a china shop, but that’s what is needed to try to offset the Dem’s ruthlessness. Unfortunately, with Thune winning majority leader, the feckless GOP still don’t understand this. Say what you want about the Dems, to a person, they are united in how they vote, both in Washington and outside. The GOP, not so much…..
November 14th, 2024 at 8:05 am
Quite frankly, I’m way more concerned that Trump hating, Ukraine give away supporting, Samuel Alito bashing, McConnell lap dog John Thune was installed as Senate leader, by other anti Trump, uniparty scum via secret ballot. Now, why do suppose that was?
Further, a couple of closet anti Trumpers have introduced bills to essentially ostracize any GOP member that bucks the narrative. Hmmm. Where have we seen that before?
November 14th, 2024 at 8:20 am
In the words of Thomas Massie:
“Recess appointments…He’s the attorney general. Suck it up!”
https://x.com/haleytalbotcnn/status/1856806886819205280
November 14th, 2024 at 8:39 am
Fine with me…he’s off the click work is a little suspicious but I don’t see that he was convicted of anything, and the girls were are likely 18+. A little sordid perhaps, but…
November 14th, 2024 at 10:24 am
Gaetz officially resigned his House seat, so he’s at least gone from there (good riddance). Also, no way he gets confirmed by the Senate.
Some suggested this was a move to get Gaetz out of the way so Byron Donalds (huge MAGA guy) could run for Florida governor in 2026, something Gaetz pondered.
November 14th, 2024 at 10:50 am
My thought that this was a Trump favor for a friend, sparing Gaetz from being censured or ousted by the Ethics Committee investigation. Nominating him for AG – even knowing he’d likely not get confirmed – allows Gaetz to resign his seat to “pursue other opportunities” ahead of getting “fired”. The fact that Gaetz resigned his seat immediately without even waiting to see how the confirmation will go supports this.
Or it could be, as Fetterman said, “God-level trolling.”
November 14th, 2024 at 11:45 am
RINOs and Never-Trumpers are aghast at Trump’s nominations but we all know he’s not the only person with input into the decisions. He may not be able to play 5-dimensional chess but I wouldn’t be astonished if some of his advisors can.
Suppose Trump delivers all his nominees to the Senate on a silver platter with one bloody, hairy, severed arm stacked on top. The Senate recoils and refuses to confirm Goetz but after he’s removed, confirms all the rest. Gives Trump everything he really needs, gives senators political theater to show the public they won’t knuckle under, gives the media something to write about while behind the scenes work gets done. Goetz may be a fall guy, may be in line for something else, too soon to tell.
Trump is the front man, the guy taking bullets, figurative and literal. Cut him some slack and trust he learned a thing or two since his last term. There’s plenty of time to throw him under the bus for not being Mary Poppins – Practically Perfect in Every Way.
November 14th, 2024 at 12:08 pm
Per cosmic’s comment, my thought is that his “off the clock” activities and general lack of self-control would make him a walking target that would make the DOJ even more independent of executive control. Hard pass, IMO.
November 14th, 2024 at 12:14 pm
I’m still waiting to hear who “all these Republicans” that oppose Gaetz are that people on the Right are complaining about and who people on the Left keep mentioning.
The quotes I’ve heard from GOP Senators are nearly unanimously noncommittal on specific nominees. There is plenty of speculation that 4 or more GOP Senators will vote against him, but they haven’t gone public yet.
Brad is correct, I think. Gaetz won’t be confirmed. He’s got too many enemies of his own creation and too many skeletons that can only remain hidden for so long. If this nomination continues, that House Ethics Report will be made public.
I personally think that this nomination does a couple of things. It gives Gaetz an excuse to resign his seat less than 10 days after he just won reelection. It also provides a distraction from some of Trump’s other nominees such as Hegseth and that Democrat Apostate Traitor Tulsi Gabbard. The nomination also helps another Trump Loyalist, Speaker Johnson who Gaetz was agitating against.
Now maybe Gaetz would be a good AG a help Trump cleanup Washington. And maybe he’d just be the GOP version of Eric “Obama’s Wingman” Holder. Trump doesn’t need Yes Men in his Cabinet. Trump needs Competent Men that are loyal enough to be honest with him and smart enough to get around “resistance” within the Federal Bureaucracy that we all complain about.
If this is really just a sacrificial nomination, it’ll pad Gaetz’s resume among his biggest fans while protecting him from a damning ethics report.
But everyone should understand, Matt Gaetz is just the Republican version of those loudmouth Democrats we like to hold up to the swing voters. He costs other Republicans votes nationwide, possibly enough to swing a close election. There are alternatives that will vote just as “conservative” but without the extra baggage dragging his own Party down.
November 14th, 2024 at 2:04 pm
Neocons hate Gaetz as much as the democrats, which is exactly why he is perfect for the job. Trump was elected to kick the tables over, and he needs people in place to help him do that.
The Uniparty defenders of the status quo have been digging through Gaetz’s closet for 5 years now, looking for skelly’s. It’s the same bunch of scumbags that put Tusli Gabbert on the terrorist watch list. The got fukall.
He’s going to be confirmed, and he’s gonna be great.
November 14th, 2024 at 2:23 pm
I almost hope Thune does throw up roadblocks. Every GOP Senator that voted for him now owns everything he does. People expect big changes. They expect a huge reduction in the federal payroll. They expect the end of business as usual in all respects.
They tried to hide their votes, fucking cowards they are, which proves they are afraid of their constituents, and they should be. The list of GOP Senators that voted for Rick Scott is already out there and if you’re not on it, you’re on the bubble.
November 14th, 2024 at 4:22 pm
I heard that Elon Musk has promised that if any Republican senator attempts to derail the Trump agenda he will fund the primary campaign of that senator’s opponent. I’m trying to verify that. Has anyone seen a source?
November 14th, 2024 at 8:24 pm
Update on Burgum from Ed at Instapundit: he’s nominee for Interior.
November 15th, 2024 at 6:32 am
Gaetz pissed off the RINOs when he went after their fellow RINO, McCarthy and got enough support to remove him as speaker. Funny! He didn’t do it alone. Why aren’t the upset haters in the GOP not going after them?
Here’s an article that looks at the vendetta against Gaetz:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/11/breaking-public-murder-matt-gaetz-begins-deep-state/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily
Night;
I heard the same thing about Musk. Further, a pretty reliable source says that there are other incognito wealthy people that will do it, if Musk doesn’t.
I am also pretty concerned about war monger, Ukraine supporting Marco Rubio as SoS. Based on what he has spewed to the media, he never met a war he didn’t like.
November 15th, 2024 at 11:39 am
BH429, I am reading Trump has told Putin in return for ending hostilities, he can keep Crimea and the Donbass, and that NATO will not follow through with annexing Ukraine, which is all Putin ever wanted. In return, with those two exceptions, Putin is going to have to relinquish the considerable land Russia has captured, finance the reconstruction of the lost infrastructure, and the removal of the vast minefields from Ukraine’s breadbasket.
If there is one issue we can expect Thune to throw a tantrum over it is this. He is there to protect the neocon forever war grift and the ongoing profits of the defense industry that keeps them in office. Problem for them is, this is an issue tailor made for Trump. He will tear them a new asshole and the ‘cons know it. Besides, there is still a couple of buildings standing in Gaza, and they’ve just begun to level Lebanon. Plenty of profit to be made yet.
Hundreds of thousands of lives, the loss of an entire generation of Ukraine’s best young men (and women), hundreds of billions of dollars; wasted. What a shit show.
November 15th, 2024 at 12:23 pm
If Trump wants to do that with Ukraine, he simply does not understand Russia and Putin. Putin is a neo-Soviet, and if you give him an inch, he’s going to want a mile. He’s even called the re-unification of Germany a “colonization”; his view of what territory he’s entitled to control includes Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and really part of Hungary.
So it’s not about NATO at all. It’s about whether Putin can impose his will on Ukraine. Remember that Russia invaded first in 2014, long before any serious effort to join NATO, and that was when Ukraine decided not to rejoin the Russian orbit.
November 15th, 2024 at 2:10 pm
No. That is false.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, with Russian President Vladimir Putin recognizing the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) in eastern Ukraine”
Also
“James Baker reportedly told Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, that NATO would not extend “one inch to the east” beyond East Germany. Newly declassified documents suggest that multiple national leaders, including Baker, made similar assurances to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials”
These are historical facts.
November 15th, 2024 at 2:16 pm
None of that really matters at this point, though. Trump promised to end the Ukraine war, and he is going to do it. Sec Def elect Pete Hegseth is on board, and so will the new Joint Chiefs Chairman. You can take that to tthe bank
It’s a crime this couldn’t have happened two years ago, before Ukraine was devastated and so many Ukrainian men were killed uselessly.
November 15th, 2024 at 3:19 pm
Arthur, unless you think that the “little green men” were anything but Russian regulars, the fact of the matter is that the war began in 2014 when Ukrainians said to Yanukovich and Putin. And the fact that you’re arguing against this suggests that you need to find some news sources that aren’t totally pro-Russian.
Reality is–Georgia, Armenia, Moldova, Koenigsberg, Chechnya, various astroturf “pro-Russian” parties in neighboring nations–that the Russian FSB and Putin have been trying to re-establish Russian hegemony in neighboring states ever since Putin forced Yeltsin out of power in 1999. Yes, NATO has helped oppose this, but the alternative is the re-Sovietization of a huge portion of the countries between Russia and the old West Germany. No, thank you.
November 16th, 2024 at 1:26 pm
Bike, assuming you are correct about Russias desire to expand west, how many Americans should die to save Europe again?
Because that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? Either America sends troops or Europe falls.
The European nations don’t care enough to mount their own defense so it’s up to us again?
Maybe if we could stay all those military age Spanish speaking “new neighbors” the Biden administration let in. There’s a few million men we could spare.
November 17th, 2024 at 11:27 am
The European nations don’t care enough to mount their own defense so it’s up to us again?
Poland, Finland and the Baltics would like a word with you.
November 18th, 2024 at 8:36 am
Finland doesn’t put up with foreign aggression. Try anything funny and they’ll no no dance on your ass
https://youtu.be/JXKZrq66IN8?si=nyzChay_RQCgNAMB
November 18th, 2024 at 9:50 am
Excellent, then they don’t need us and can spend their own blood and treasure defending themselves. End NATO now.
And just in time, as the Deep State actors within the Biden administration try to start World War III. Putin has warned the world he’s not willing to pretend anymore. If the United States gives long-range missiles to Ukraine, technicians to maintain and operate them, and satellite targeting support to launch and guide them, then Russia will treat the attack as an attack by the United States instead of pretending it was the Ukes. That opens the door for Russia to attack US assets in retaliation which, of course, is exactly what the Deep State wants so they can back Trump into a corner: continue unlimited money laundering on the pretext of war with Russia or be impeached and removed from office as a traitor.
As for Poland, etc. talking smack after meeting their 2% NATO defense contribution, that’s like the teenager living in his mother’s basement bragging about his financial independence because he paid his car insurance. Not as impressive as one might think.
Look, I don’t want dreams of past glory to drag us into a major war. I don’t think the US economy needs one to recover. And frankly, I doubt we can win one, given the decay our armed forces and manufacturing sectors have undergone these past few years. History is replete with examples of global superpowers that aren’t even regional players any longer (looking at you, France). Get our own house in order before preaching to the rest of the world.
When faced with limited resources, every organization must prioritize or die. The incoming Trump cabinet should ask itself one question every single day: If not Americans First, then who?
November 18th, 2024 at 3:08 pm
Well, so far, I don’t know that any Americans have died in Ukraine, save some who volunteered for Ukraine’s army. So there’s that.
I think the basic reality that we need to act on here is that Putin is not risking the things that matter most to him to win this. He’s not instituted a draft that would tick off his power base in western Russia, and his theoretically “best” weapons systems–Armata tanks, SU-57s, etc..–are not being used there. More or less, he is learning the hard way that fighting against ~2% of NATO’s weapons is more than his army can handle, even with 30% of the economy going to the military.
He’s lost his access, mostly, to western technology, and he’s reduced to taking potshots at residential neighborhoods to maintain a level of terror–and then is surprised when Ukraine more or less says “if that’s how you act now, it’ll only get worse if we settle with you.”
And the end of the day, I think he ends up accepting a nice retirement dacha in some place like San Francisco Bay, like the one the Scorpions used for the video to “No one like you.”
November 18th, 2024 at 4:10 pm
Yeah, I see the ol’ pants shitter has left a steaming turd for Trump to clean up. But have no fear. It will take months to deploy these missiles (remember, it’s Obama’s DEI military we’re talking about here) and just about the time they’re deployed and ready to go, Trump is gonna pull the plug and have them shipped back. Putin will be patient; time is on his side, and so is the tide of war.
Russia has taken vast tracts of land in the past 3 months; land they don’t really want, for use as bargaining chips in the upcoming cease fire.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-took-196-square-km-ukraine-last-week-agentstvo-media-says-2024-10-29/ He’ll give these back, keep what he wants and everyone goes home.
Trump was elected to put a stop to these forever wars, and to position the USA to stay clear of any others NATO (or the neocons) decides need starting. Our military is numerically as weak as it has ever been, The feckless nitwits at the Pentagon cashiered dozens of Tier 1 operators (that cost millions and take years to train) because they refused the clot shot. They’ve tried to lure them back, but not many will take that bait. They can’t recruit new enlistees because they’re too baked, too fat, too many criminal convictions, too illiterate and the one’s that aren’t don’t want any part of it.
After supplying the Uke’s and fueling the genocide in Gaza, we’re critically short of munitions to blow up the people we might want to blow up. It’s unsustainable from all angles.
Part of Making America Great Again is getting America’s nose the fuck out of where it doesn’t belong.