Once again, thank you everybody for your kind generosity. I am so incredibly grateful and feel more motivated than ever to keep forging ahead. We’re facing some stiff political headwinds but I believe that with all of you at our backs we’ll be able to come through even stronger on the other side.
The MAGA cult is feeling its oats right now but reality is going to bite very soon. We’ll be here to document the victories and the atrocities and I hope you’ll all stop by frequently to see what we’ve dug up, analyzed or otherwise just observed with dismay or delight. Barring a round-up to the camps we’ll be here 7 days a week doing that thing we do.
I’m going to leave this up until New Year’s just in case there are any stragglers. And thank you again, from the bottom of my heart.
What more can one say about President Jimmy Carter? I lack the words. Let me borrow a few from Jonathan Alter, biographer of “a formidable, complex man” writing at Washington Monthly:
He was the first American president since Thomas Jefferson who could reasonably claim to be a Renaissance Man or at least a world-class autodidact. At various times in his life, he acquired the skills of a farmer, naval officer, electrician, sonar technologist, nuclear engineer, businessman, equipment designer, agronomist, master woodworker, Sunday School teacher, land-use planner, legislator, door-to-door missionary, governor, long-shot presidential candidate, U.S. president, diplomat, fly-fisherman, bird dog trainer, arrowhead collector, home builder, painter, professor, memoirist, poet, novelist, and children’s book author—an incomplete list, as he would be happy to point out.
That’s when Carter wasn’t defending democracy around the world or working to eradicate the Guinea worm and river blindness, Brian Klaas reminds us:
The Carter Center, the NGO that he founded in 1982, has been a crucial force for good, known primarily for its work on successfully promoting democracy and providing high-quality election monitoring across the globe. It deserves that reputation.
I’ll spare you the description of infection by the parasite. But Carter’s success at eradicating infections were dramatic:
Before Carter got involved, Guinea Worm was prevalent in 21 countries, infecting at least 3.5 million people per year. Today, that figure is down to just 13 cases per year. It’s a reduction of 99.99% in just a few decades, making it one of the most successful public health interventions in history.
[…]
Similarly, the Carter Center has done tremendous work at tackling onchocerciasis, or river blindness. That disease comes from black fly bites, and it’s prevalent in 31 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Again, it’s a largely neglected disease, despite the fact that just shy of 20 million people are currently infected, with about a million of them having lost their vision due to the infection.
The Carter Center has provided hundreds of millions of rounds of treatment for river blindness, drastically alleviating avoidable suffering. It doesn’t generate headlines, nor is it usually mentioned as a core part of Carter’s reputation in American political discourse, but had Jimmy Carter not decided to devote his efforts to these programs, millions more people would have been needlessly blinded by a devastating parasite.
I’ve bristled for years when conservatives sneered at Carter and his legacy in office. Those sneers speak volumes about their values and little about Carter. He was a lucky man but an unlucky president, his accomplishments obscured by what might have been, writes James Fallows, a veteran of the Carter White House:
Probably only a country as near-impossible to lead as the United States of that time could have given someone like Jimmy Carter a chance to lead it.
Despite it all, Carter had broader support during his first year in office than almost any of his successors, except briefly the two Bushes in wartime emergencies. Despite it all, most reckonings have suggested that Carter might well have beaten Ronald Reagan, and held on for a second term, if one more helicopter had been sent on the “Desert One” rescue mission in Iran, or if fewer of the helicopters that were sent had failed. Or if, before that, Teddy Kennedy had not challenged Carter in the Democratic primary. Or if John Anderson had not run as an independent in the general election. What if the ayatollah’s Iranian government had not stonewalled on negotiations to free its U.S. hostages until after Carter had been defeated? What if, what if.
Carter claimed for years that he came within one broken helicopter of reelection. It’s plausible. We’ll never know.
But perhaps one lesson from the Carter presidency Democrats (and Joe Biden today) have yet to learn is that humility is a negative on the national and world stages. Bluster draws eyeballs and inpsires undeserved confidence. Competence and caring? Not so much.
In his newsletter today, Professor Timothy Snyder offers a new glossary of terms to use in the coming next few years:
1. Mump regime. Musk plus Trump. Mu…mp. The real centibillionaire and the fake rich person in the proper order.
2. Mump oligarchy. The regime is an oligarchy, rule by the wealthy few. Trump is the oligarchs’ spokesman. He might stay or go. The oligarchs will remain.
3. Mump as illness. Physical illness: we are made sick and scammed blind (think of RFK Jr and Ramaswamy). Mumps is one of the diseases that will return without vaccines. Mental illness: Musk’s idea of prosperity is that he hurts you and you thank him. See my work on sadopopulism.
4. In Mumptopia, Americans spend our time in front of screens, instructed whom to hate and worship by algorithms curated by immigrant software engineers. We die pointlessly young on an overheated Earth with the word “Mars” on our lips. The Mump mage performs a ritual rocket dance, leaping a few inches over our graves.
5. Mump not MAGA. The MAGA folks somehow did not realize that they were giving power to a an illegal immigrant South African centibillionaire. This is not their regime.
6. Mumpers. South Africans, Russians, and others close to power. Musk, Putin, Thiel, Sacks, Trump (today), Vance (tomorrow) and their closest circles.
7. Mumpery. Behavior typical of the Mump regime. Gaslighting, theft, scams, tax avoidance, disinformation, Putinism, dictator worship, threatening U.S. allies, submitting to U.S. enemies, persecuting Americans, suppressing speech with threats of violence and lawsuits, promoting pollution and global warming, ending public services.
8. Mumpets. Those who choose to submit to Musk. For example, senators who ignore their constitutional responsibilities and vote for Trump’s Cabinet nominees, whose buffoonery and fascism are meant to weaken the state so Musk can profit. Compare: puppet, pet.
9. To mumpify. To become a mumpet. Nouns can be formed from this verb. For example: “Senator Fetterman is pretty far along in his mumpification.” Or adjectives: “Yep, I’d say he’s mumpified by now.” Compare: zombify, zombification.
10. Mumpy, or mumpish. People influenced by the Mump regime, or actions that tend towards a mumpified world. “That’s mumpier than I would have expected.” “She’s gone all mumpy on me.” Supersedes: trumpy.
Works for me. I have been asking for suggestions on social media about what we might use other than the word “fascist” which I think sounds too old-fashioned, overused and academic. It’s perfect but I was thinking of something along the lines of “woke” which started out as Black vernacular that they appropriated to use as a sweeping pejorative for anything that smacks of progressivism and civil rights.
The best one I saw was “red-pilled” which is defined by Google AI as:
The term “red-pilled” is a political metaphor that originated from the 1999 film The Matrix. It’s used to describe someone who has become aware of what they believe to be political biases in society, and has developed an oppositional consciousness against those biases.
In the film, the main character must choose between taking the red pill and accepting an illusory reality, or taking the blue pill and remaining ignorant. The term “red-pilled” has been adopted by a variety of groups, including men’s rights activists, conservative conspiracy theorists, and far-right and white supremacist groups.
It seems to me that we should be able to make that into a pejorative along the lines of “woke” but it would take a massive effort on the part of the opposition. Since I am a nobody, I assume this will go nowhere. But I thought I’d throw it out there anyway.
However, Timothy Snyder is an icon and “mumps” may just be something that catches on.
The House committee charged with helping the U.S. confront China risks losing momentum and falling into irrelevance amid partisan infighting on the panel, legislative dysfunction and signs of significant disagreement with Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
The House China Select Committee — established two years ago to craft strategies and shape legislation to fend off Beijing — has had a rare reputation for bipartisanship and getting bills passed. That reputation may not last much longer.
Already, partisan agendas have started to affect which legislation the group tries to push through. And the incoming Trump administration, while pledging to be tough on China, is expected to bring different priorities — making it difficult for the panel to get Trump-friendly Republicans on board with its proposals.
As we saw with the continuing resolution chaos before Christmas, the problem was getting the Freedom Caucus rebels to vote for a bill that had been negotiated with Trump’s blessing (even though he pretended that he didn’t know about it) all because Elon didn’t like it.
Now we will see that the Musk-Trump followers are looking to break up the consensus on this bipartisan committee as well:
President-elect Trump, by contrast, has said Taiwan needs to do more for its own defense and pledged during his campaign to “save TikTok.” And his close adviser Elon Musk has business interests in China that some lawmakers and former officials say could prompt him to push Trump to soft pedal U.S. security concerns to maintain good ties with Beijing.
“Trump’s statements on China and Taiwan and his relationship with people like Musk who have interests in China say it all,” in terms of his sympathies and possible policies after he takes office, said committee member Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.).
If the China hawks all capitulate to the Musk-Trump business interests we will know that the corporate wing of MAGA really is firmly in charge of foreign policy. The big question is if Trump will muck it all up with his ignorant loose talk and insistence on throwing his weight around to look tough when the truth is that nobody really takes him very seriously — it’s clear all you have to do is kiss his feet and he’ll do whatever you want. Xi Jinping ate chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago and feted Trump like a medieval prince when he visited the country making him believe they were buddies, just as Vlad is. I’m fairly certain that’s not true.
So who knows where all this is really going? We’re led by imbeciles, weirdos, fascists and greedheads. Anything can happen.
The legal beagles Mark Joseph Stern and Dahlia Lithwick at Slate fielded a question from a reader asking if Trump could really run for a third term as he often hints at doing? Bannon made some news the other day proclaiming that he was going to.
Lithwick points out that the clear meaning of the 22nd Amendment says no. It says:
“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
It seems pretty clear to me. Of course if everything goes completely sideways, he stages a successful coup and the constitution is no longer relevant, who knows what he could do? Stern addresses one scenario the reader had posed:
Tracey does point out one potential loophole in her letter: I think it’s clear that Don Jr. could run for president in 2028, with Donald Trump as his vice presidential candidate. And if they win, at 12:01 p.m. on Jan. 20, 2029, Don Jr. can resign and Donald Trump will become the president. There is nothing, to my mind, in the 22nd Amendment that forbids that. I mean, we can do a pragmatic, functionalist reading, and we can say it goes against the spirit of the amendment. But it doesn’t go against the text. As long as Donald Trump is not elected as president for a third time, he could be elected vice president and then become president. And I do not believe there is any limitation on his power to then serve the remaining three years and 364 days as president if that occurs.
I guess anything could happen. But as Stern also points out, what is the likelihood that people would vote for that freak Don Jr no matter what the clever plan? I’d think Vance would be more likely but Trump could never be sure that Vance would give up power. Anyway, that’s all extremely far-fetched.
More importantly, Trump will be 82 in 2028. He’s losing it now and I would guess we’ll see even more serious degradation over the next four years. He’s pretty much turned over the presidency to Elon Musk and Project 2025 and is concentrating on casting, personal profits and vengeance. He spends his days on the golf course and his nights DJing at Mar-a-Lago. There’s no way he can run again in 4 yrs and I doubt he even wants to. Every day he’s more of a spent force.
That’s not to say he isn’t going to inflict great damage. But he’s a very lame duck and while we have no choice but to fight him every step of the way, we also need to keep our eyes on what they really have in store for us next and it isn’t likely to be Donald Trump.
The tech entrepreneur and close adviser to Donald Trump Elon Musk has taken a stunning new public step in his support for the far-right German political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), publishing a supportive guest opinion piece for the country’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper that has prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.
The commentary piece in German was launched online on Saturday ahead of being published on Sunday in the flagship paper of the Axel Springer media group, which also owns the US politics news site Politico.
Musk uses populist and personal language to try to deny AfD’s extremist bent and the piece expands on his post on the social media platform X that he owns, on which he last week claimed that “only the AfD can save Germany”.
Translated, Musk’s piece said: “The portrayal of the AfD as rightwing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!”
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has classified the AfD at the national level as a suspected extremism case since 2021.
Shortly after the piece was published online, the editor of the opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, used the US tech mogul’s own platform to post on X that she had submitted her resignation.
Welt am Sonntag is a very conservative paper so the opinion editor resigning is telling. She included a link to Musk’s op-ed in her post so there’s no question about the reason.
A relatively young political party, the AfD was born in 2013 after the financial crisis as a group that protested Germany’s efforts to economically bail out southern countries in the European Union.
Yet while its platform initially focused more on the economy, it seized on the issue of immigration following the 2015 refugee crisis, when Germany took in more than one million refugees from places including Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This was a roughly 1.2 percent increase to Germany’s population of 81 million people at the time — but it marked a stark jump in the number of refugees than the country had welcomed before.
In recent years, the party has both driven and capitalized on rising backlash toward refugees and immigration.
[…]
As part of its answer to addressing the rise in immigration, the AfD has increasingly embraced a xenophobic and anti-Muslim platform — due to the Middle Eastern origins of many earlier refugees — with the purported goal of preserving German identity and nationalism. “Islam does not belong to Germany,” reads the party’s 2016 manifesto. “Burkas? We’re more into bikinis,” read one AfD tagline from 2017. “Unser Land zuerst,” which translates to “Our country first!” adorned AFD campaign banners in 2022.
“The party has radicalized a lot since 2013,” Jakob Guhl, a researcher focused on the far right at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in Germany, told Vox. As it did, the party grew its base in the more socially conservative regions in eastern Germany, which has typically lagged other parts of the country economically as well.
[…]
In addition to its focus on immigration, AfD has homed in on two other policy areas: climate change and Ukraine aid.
As Germany’s only political party that’s embraced climate change denial, AfD has capitalized on the discontent a fraction of voters feel toward existing environmental policies. Specifically, a law that requires many German residents to swap out their existing fossil fuel-based boilers for heat pumps that run on clean energyhas raised many people’s ire due to how costly it could be for homeowners.
AfD has said that it would back the ongoing use of fossil fuels for not just home boilers, but also the German economy writ large. “AFD said the government has no business in how people heat their homes. Their main message … on climate change [is] that we can just keep on living life as they have before. We have the right to pollute and the right to continue doing so,” says Endre Borbáth, a professor at the Institute of Political Science at Heidelberg University.
AfD has also embraced a pro-Russia position, and urged Germany to abstain from sending Ukraine more aid, a stance that both taps into the country’s commitment to pacifism after World War II, and the sympathies that some in eastern Germany still have with the Kremlin after the USSR’s control of the area following the conflict.
[…]
A common thread across these policy positions and the party’s general branding is that AfD claims it’s defending some Germans’ existing way of life, and that it’s there to push back against any and all attempts to infringe on their rights, even the most mundane.
Last fall, for example, an AfD leader vehemently said she was defending people’s right to eat wienerschnitzel, a fried veal dish, as a greater proportion of the German population has embraced plant-based diets both for health and climate reasons.
“I won’t let anyone take my schnitzel away from me! No one touches my schnitzel,” said Alice Weidel, an AfD leader.
It’s Germany. What could go wrong?
I have thought that this last election was a vestige of the pandemic trauma that was never fully processed. Clearly, that’s wrong. This goes back a lot farther than that. In fact, I have to wonder if the resurgence of the international far right is really just the dam bursting after the cold war held them back during the post WWII world. In historic terms this period is just a blip in time. I shudder to think what’s going to happen as climate change —which they fatuously deny is even happening — turbo charges refugee migration. Yikes.
As for Musk, he’s ignorant about most things outside his own expertise but because he’s so rich he’s a megalomaniac who thinks that he is entitled to a greater say in politics around the world than anyone else. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t really understand economics or how all of this is interconnected in ways that could easily affect his own interests and those of the country. But his influence is huge at the moment and he’ll be a part of this conversation for some time to come. Unfortunately.
Sununu: [Musk is] so rich he’s so removed from the potential financial influence
Donald Trump sold himself as so rich that he couldn’t be bought. He would spend $600 million of his own money to win the presidency. “I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich,” he told ABC in 2011. And in the fullness of time, the man sold NFTs of himself and Trump sneakers and Trump Bibles and Trump scents.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) reassures CNN’s Dana Bash that Elon Musk is incorruptible like that. He’s got both hands in the Trump 2.0 administration, sure. But he’s not “doing it for the money.” He’s not into making money for the money but for the betterment of all mankind. Musk loves mankind from which “he’s so removed.” It’s people he can’t stand. How dare we ask him to pay more in taxes to benefit them?
BASH: One of the concerns is that Elon Musk has billions tied up in govt contracts. You don't see a conflict of interest?CHRIS SUNUNU: Everyone has a conflict of interestBASH: But that's a pretty big oneSUNUNU: He's so rich he's removed from the potential financial influence
Elon Musk doesn’t think visionaries like him should pay taxes the way little people do. After all, why hand over his money to dull bureaucrats? They’ll just squander it on pedestrian schemes like … bailing out Tesla at a crucial point in its development. Musk has his sights set on more important things, like getting humanity to Mars to “preserve the light of consciousness.”
Billionaires, you see, tend to be surrounded by people who tell them how wonderful they are and would never, ever suggest that they’re making fools of themselves.
But don’t you dare make fun of Musk. Billionaires’ money gives them a lot of political clout — enough to block Democratic plans to pay for much-needed social spending with a tax that would have affected only a few hundred people in a nation of more than 300 million. Who knows what they might do if they think people are snickering at them?
[…]
What I suspect, although I can’t prove it, is that what really drives someone like Musk is an insecure ego. He wants the world to acknowledge his unequaled greatness; taxing him like a “$400,000-a-year working Wall Street stiff” (my favorite line from the movie “Wall Street”) would suggest that he isn’t a unique treasure, that maybe he indeed doesn’t deserve everything he has.
Sununu should be embarrassed to make this argument in public. Should be.
Before we issue a sure-to-be-ignored word of caution to MAGA, let’s set the scene. I get that, with the reelection of King D, MAGA types just might be feeling their oats about taking back America from, you know, THOSE PEOPLE.
The Daily Show‘s Ronny Chieng discourses on patriotism and education. He was born in Malaysia (like you’d care), but how would you know?
A Colorado man is facing possible bias-motivated charges for allegedly attacking a television news reporter after demanding to know whether he was a citizen, saying “This is Trump’s America now,” according to court documents.
Patrick Thomas Egan, 39, was arrested Dec. 18 in Grand Junction, Colorado, after police say he followed KKCO/KJCT reporter Ja’Ronn Alex’s vehicle for around 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the Delta area. Alex told police that he believed he had been followed and attacked because he is Pacific Islander.
Forty miles.
Egan, a taxi driver, pulled up beside Alex at a Grand Junction traffic light and allegedly shouted, “Are you even a U.S. citizen? This is Trump’s America now! I’m a Marine and I took an oath to protect this country from people like you!”
Egan followed the reporter to the station and chased Alex to the door, demanding to see his identification.
Egan then tackled Alex, put him in a headlock and “began to strangle him,” the affidavit said. Coworkers who ran out to help and witnesses told police that Alex appeared to be losing his ability to breathe during the attack, which was partially captured on surveillance video, according to the document.
According to the station’s website, Alex is a native of Detroit. KKCO/KJCT reported that he was driving a news vehicle at the time.
Let’s hope that in 2025 few MAGA zealots behave like that jerk in Colorado.
Maybe do something more patriotic. Do your homework for your country. Learn math.
A friend with an Arabic name and look lives in Vermont. Someone asked him once if he ever felt threatened there. Not really, he said. Okay, now and then some a-hole will shout “Go back to where you came from!” His shrugging response is, “You want me to go back to North Dakota?”
An old friend here looks Korean. Naturally. His parents are from South Korea. My friend was born and raised here.
One would think Mr. “I’m a Marine” might have figure out during his service that not all Americans look like their parents hail from Jolly Olde England. One would think that, with all that manly Marine training, Colorado Man might not be so easily threatened by the mere presence of an AAPI-looking guy from Detroit driving alone in a marked news vehicle.
Forty miles?
There’s no indication that Mr. Egan asked to see Mr. Alex’s H1B visa.
All is quiet, on New Year’s Day. Except for this mixtape (you may adjust your volume per hangover conditions New Year’s morning). Cheers!
“This Will Be Our Year” – The Zombies – Starting on a positive note. Lovely Beatle-esque number from the Odyssey and Oracle album.
You don’t have to worry All your worried days are gone This will be our year Took a long time to come
At least…we can always hope, right?
“Time” – David Bowie – A song as timeless as Bowie himself. Time, he’s waiting in the wings/He speaks of senseless things…
“1999″ – Prince – Sadly, it’s a perennial question: “Mommy…why does everybody have a bomb?”
“1921” – The Who – Got a feeling ’21 is gonna be a good year. OK, back to the drawing board …let’s make ’25 a better one.
“Time” – Oscar Brown, Jr. – A wise and soulful gem…tick, tock.
“New Year’s Day” – U2 – I know… “Edgy pick, Captain Obvious!” But it’s still a great song.
“Year of the Cat” – Al Stewart – Old Grey Whistle Test clip. Strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre, contemplating a crime…
“Reeling in the Years” – Steely Dan – A pop-rock classic with a killer solo by Elliot Randall.
Encore! Fantastic live version from 2002. Randall and the backup band are on fire.
“New Year’s Resolution” – Otis Redding & Carla Thomas – Ace Stax B-side from 1968, with that unmistakable “Memphis sound”. Speaking of which… check out my review of the Stax music doc, Take Me to the River.
“Same Old Lang Syne” – Dan Fogelberg – OK, a nod to those who insist on waxing sentimental. A beautiful tune from the late singer-songwriter.
Bonus track!
Not a “New Year’s song” per se, but an evergreen new year’s wish (now more than ever).
This is from Robert O’Brien, Trump’s former National Security adviser:
There’s a little mutual defense alliance in Europe called NATO. Denmark was one of the founding members in 1949. In the modern world that’s how we are supposed to defend ourselves against threats. We aren’t supposed to just seize territory for our own purposes. But it sounds like those are now quaint ideas and we are now in the business of territorial expansion again, to hell with our allies.
Is that what people voted for? I don’t remember it coming up during the presidential campaign and I was paying pretty close attention.
By the way, I’m sure you’ll recall that Trump always says that we should have just taken the oil in the middle east. Well:
MineralsGreenland has large reserves of minerals such as copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, rare-earth elements, titanium, zinc, iron ore, coal, and graphite.
Oil and gasThe Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland estimates that Greenland’s west coast contains about 18 billion barrels of oil. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there may be double that volume in crude and natural gas in the east.
Rare earth elementsGreenland has one of the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of rare-earth elements outside of China. These elements are used in many products, including cell phones, wind turbines, and electric car
But I’m sure that has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
