Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Remember this from the TIME interview with Trump?

Can I ask, Did Elon Musk meet with the Iranians at your behest? 

I don’t know that he met with them.

Reportedly he met with the Iranians.

I don’t know. He didn’t tell me that.

That was regarding the stories that were circulating about Musk meeting with the Iranian UN ambassador for an hour in New York and nobody knew exactly why.

Since Trump is a pathological liar it’s possible that he knew very well what Musk was doing and may have even dispatched him to do it. Or maybe not.

It looks like we now know why:

Last week, the journalist, Cecilia Sala, 29, was released from prison in Iran, and days later an Iranian engineer whom Italy had detained on an American extradition request was also freed. The engineer was accused of providing material for drones used in an Iranian-backed militia attack on a U.S. military base that killed three American servicemen.

Mr. Musk helped secure the release of Ms. Sala by reaching out to Iran’s ambassador to the U.N., Amir Saeid Iravani, according to two Iranian officials, one a senior diplomat at the Foreign Ministry, who are both familiar with the terms of the prisoner exchange. They asked that their names not be published because they were discussing a sensitive issue.

[…]

Ms. Meloni said at a news conference last week that Ms. Sala’s release was the result of a “complex work of diplomatic triangulation with Iran, and obviously also with the United States of America.” Her office and the Italian Foreign Ministry declined to comment for this article.

A senior Biden administration official said the American government had not been consulted about the negotiations, had not been given advance word about the releases, and disapproved of the deal. John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said that the deal had been “an Italian decision from soup to nuts.”

Meloni says she didn’t know anything about Musk’s role either. Sure. Musk is backing far-right parties like Meloni’s all over Europe and is also pushing his own business interests:

Italy, for example, is currently exploring a potential deal with Mr. Musk’s SpaceX to provide secure communications for government and military officials through Starlink.

According to the Times the whole thing was orchestrated by the journalist’s boyfriend who happened to know that Musk has an inside track with the Iranians (he does?) and he’s also close with Trump.

This whole story stinks to high heaven. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse if Trump and Meloni didn’t know anything about it or if they did. Is he just operating as a rogue agent doing anything he wants or has Trump been running back channels to Iran while out of office?

Regardless, Musk is now known to have secured the release of an Iranian terrorist who is responsible for the deaths of three American servicemembers. You don’t even want to think about what a hue and cry this would raise if it had been done off the books by a buddy of Joe BIden.

Charlie Kirk just exuding that “masculine energy” Mark Zuckerberg is going on about.

You won’t believe this but that is Trump’s official inauguration portrait.

“Trump went with the mugshot aesthetic for the new Presidential Portrait. Trump chose violence,” YouTuber Benny Johnson posted on Elon Musk’s social media site, comparing the two images. “President Trump’s new presidential portrait has been revealed. BADASS,” conservative political commentator Nick Sortor posted. “This goes HARD. Total mugshot vibes.”

“Love it!!” MAGA talking head Laura Loomer added. Over on Instagram, one person hailed the image as the “supervillain pic of the year,” while another person added: “That look mean it’s going down.”

Has lead in the water caused massive delayed adolescence?

The Wall St. Journal’s Callum Borchers wrote about the new moves among corporations to end their DEI programs. It seems like it’s coming in an avalanche — McDonalds, Walmart, Meta and many others have announced in recent days that their commitment to making their workplaces more diverse and equitable is over.

But that means mediocre white guys no longer have any excuse:

I wondered how these self-described DEI casualties are feeling. So, I spoke this week with the aggrieved engineer and seven others who contacted me with stories about doors allegedly closed on them because they were the wrong race or gender. Most feared for their jobs and insisted I not name them publicly. 

They generally believe they’re more likely to get hired or promoted in an environment where Donald Trump is president, Robby Starbuck’s name-and-shame threats loom over corporate America, and Mark Zuckerberg heralds “masculine energy” on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Their optimism isn’t unbridled, however. Some told me they worry about a bro renaissance going too far and harming women and people of color. 

And a few are mulling an ego-rattling possibility: What if I’ve pinned my failures on diversity, only to discover that the stumbling block is…me?

They say the retreat of corporate DEI removes a barrier for them—or, perhaps, an excuse they’ve used to rationalize life’s losses.

A 26-year-old chief of staff at a New York software startup suspects his college and career prospects were dimmed because he doesn’t advance diversity goals as a straight, white man. He remembers his high-school guidance counselor telling him he wouldn’t get into the Ivy League for this reason, and in subsequent years he has chalked up professional disappointments to the effects of DEI.

Now he’s considering whether diversity was a boogeyman.

“I’m sure there have been times that I attributed too much to DEI when I didn’t get an opportunity,” he says. “Maybe I didn’t come across well in an interview and I could do more introspection.”

Somehow I doubt there’s going to be much introspection among most white bros who aren’t making it. Long before there was anything called DEI, they were finding ways to blame others for their shortcomings.

I’d start looking for another three letter acronym Boogeyman now that CRT and DEI have done their work. There must be some other program designed to help women, LGBT and people of color they can demonize. I guess there’s always the disabled.

Here's the flag flying at half-staff over Nixon's 1973 inauguration, in honor of the late Harry Truman who had died a few weeks earlier.

Jazz artist Ethel Ennis sang the national anthem. pic.twitter.com/ucviCbrqHd

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) January 14, 2025

That pig Donald Trump demanded that they raise the flags that are lowered for Jimmy Carter for him and his submissive pet Mike Johnson saluted smartly and said yes sir. They will be raised for Dear Leader.

You can bet Nixon didn’t think much of Truman. But even he didn’t deign to disrespect him the way Trump is disrespecting Carter.

A clear and present danger

After the obligatory niceties and review of his accomplishments in office, President Joe Biden’s farewell address from the Oval Office got to the nub of it: America is at risk. That is, from “the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people.”

Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead. We see the consequences all across America. And we’ve seen it before.

More than a century ago, the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts. They didn’t punish the wealthy. They just made the wealthy play by the rules everybody else had. Workers want rights to earn their fair share. You know, they were dealt into the deal, and it helped put us on the path to building the largest middle class, the most prosperous century any nation the world has ever seen. We’ve got to do that again.

The ultrawealthy and their enablers among the Republican Party have made no secret for decades that their goal is eradicating post-New Deal America and returning to the McKinley era of robber barons.

William Greider warned two decades ago:

The movement’s grand ambition—one can no longer say grandiose—is to roll back the twentieth century, quite literally. That is, defenestrate the federal government and reduce its scale and powers to a level well below what it was before the New Deal’s centralization. With that accomplished, movement conservatives envision a restored society in which the prevailing values and power relationships resemble the America that existed around 1900, when William McKinley was President. Governing authority and resources are dispersed from Washington, returned to local levels and also to individuals and private institutions, most notably corporations and religious organizations. The primacy of private property rights is re-established over the shared public priorities expressed in government regulation. Above all, private wealth—both enterprises and individuals with higher incomes—are permanently insulated from the progressive claims of the graduated income tax.

They reactionary rich were patient, Grieder continued, methodical. They “understand that three steps forward, two steps back still adds up to forward progress. It’s a long march, they say. Stick together, because we are winning.” And well-funded. Extremely well-funded.

Biden the D.C. long-hauler might not have seen it in 2003, but he sees it now:

You know, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us that about, and I quote, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.” Six days — six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well.

Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.

Just as the GOP teamed up with the religious right to usher in the Reagan era, the oligarchy greasing palms in Donald Trump’s America has teamed not only with Christian nationalists, but with autocrats, white supremacists and, as I’ve argued, rump-royalists who would rather be subjects than citizens. Not in McKinley’s America from the end of the 19th century, but in the Old South at the end of the 18th. (Someone must have drawn up a Venn diagram.)

@msnbc

Rachel Maddow reacts to President Biden’s final remarks from the White House, calling them “stark and sober” and saying they put a shiver down her spine. “This was a love letter to America for a outgoing president who is very worried about what he describes as oligarchy,” she added. #joebiden #presidency #oligarchy #donaldtrump #elonmusk #democracy #politics #news

♬ original sound – MSNBC

This is serious, and it’s not as if any of it is new. Biden twice argued that to undo the new Gilded Age that the ultrawealthy must again be made to pay their “fair share” in taxes.

Though of lesser international stature than Biden, historian Rutger Bregman made the same case five years ago, not into a camera but into the very faces of the world’s economic elite.

I just have one question….

Give Trump’s cabinet nominees this much: they were thoroughly coached for their confirmation hearings.

Whenever a Senate committee member this week asked Fox News weekend co-anchor Pete Hegseth (nominee for secretary of defense) to answer allegations of drunkenness or whatever, his default answer was “anonymous smears.” Over and over. Despite senators telling him to his face that the committee has documents naming the people, including Fox co-workers, who made those allegations.

Kelly: "Which is it — have you overcome personal issues, or are you the target of a smear campaign? It can't be both. It's clear to me that you're not being honest." pic.twitter.com/u3ofsH4VJQ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 14, 2025

When Democratic senators on Wednesday asked Pam Bondi (nominee for attorney general) if she agreed with positions taken by her prospective employer (Donald Trump), the former Florida attorney general defaulted multiple times to variations on “I’m not familiar with the statement.”

To date, no Democrat has as I suggested asked any Trump nominee if they had reason to doubt their qualifications for the job, and if they did, why they accepted anyway.

But another question that came up a couple of times in Bondi’s hearing was whether she would admit that President Trump lost the 2020 election. Hegseth and other Trump supporters have similarly refused to say so.

Bondi claims she is not familiar with Trump's statement describing January 6 criminals as "hostages" pic.twitter.com/SNPsNms1DG

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 15, 2025

It must appear to the casual observer, and especially to MAGA Republicans, like a “gotcha” question, a trap to draw Trump’s ire. Everyone knows that Trump refuses to admit he lost. To salve his bruised ego, he still claims the election was stolen. Trump considers it a sign of fealty and obeisance, like kowtowing to the emperor, that his subjects agree. To the likes of Hegseth and Bondi, the question must feel like an anti-inquisitor’s demand to renounce the MAGA faith. But for people pursuing the responsibility for upholding the U.S. Constitution and the republic it is more meaningful than that.

Asking a Trump cabinet nominee — yes/no — whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 election is not a “gotcha” question. It’s a test. Do you have the spine, the personal integrity, to disagree with your future boss when he’s wrong or demands you do something improper or illegal?

Pam Bondi doesn’t have a spine. Nor does Pete Hegseth, though he may have faced bullets in combat.

Bondi, Hegseth, MAGA Republicans in elected office, and the foot soldiers at Trump’s rallies have mistaken bluster for courage. The more they double down on the former, the more obvious it is that they lack the latter. And they’ll never admit it. They’re lying to themselves and to us.

Their refusal marks them as subjects, not citizens. They have no business serving in a democratic republic. But then, that’s not Donald Trump aim for this country, is it?

This has been a public service announcement.

Of course:

Oil executive Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Energy Department, has argued that climate change has not fueled more frequent and severe wildfires — a claim at odds with the scientific consensus.

Wright’s arguments drew scrutiny from Senate Democrats during his confirmation hearing Wednesday, as deadly wildfires continue to ravage the Los Angeles area, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 25 people.

In a 2021 appearance on the PetroNerds podcast, Wright criticized mainstream media outlets for drawing a connection between wildfires and warming. Wildfires are “a major thing in the news now,” he said. “‘It’s climate change. It’s climate change.’ … The short answer: It is not.”

Wright, head of the fracking company Liberty Energy, has also disputed this connection in more recent LinkedIn posts, according to a review of his comments conducted by the environmental group Evergreen Action and shared with The Washington Post.

In the summer of 2023, as smoke from Canadian wildfires engulfed the East Coast, Wright wrote on LinkedIn that “the hype over wildfires is just hype to justify” harmful climate policies. He linked to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish political scientist and author who contends that experts have overstated the negative impacts of climate change.

I haven’t heard climate denier Bjorn Lomborg’s name bandied about in a while. (Granted, I may just not have been reading the right stuff.) And I can’t say that I expect anything less of an oil man.

But still. I’m very worried about the kids. I’m not going to see the very worst of this but they are. It’s just devastating that we can’t seem to do what’s necessary to at least slow this process down. People like this corrupt liar obviously don’t love their own children. There’s no other way to explain it.

What do Trump voters really want: the perennial question.

The Pew poll asked the question. They also asked what they really think. Let’s just say, it’s not reassuring:

They are also liars, at least to themselves:

That is nuts. He was clear as mud about everything but immigration and tariffs. The rest was just the usual bluster and bullshit.

Utter nonsense. They will meltdown like the wicked witch of the west if he shows even the slightest concern for the Americans who didn’t vote for him. Luckily for them, he’s never going to do that.

Israel and Hamas have agreed to a cease fire and the release of at least some of the hostages:

The cease-fire was set to take effect on Sunday, Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani of Qatar, a mediating country, told reporters on Wednesday evening. He added, though, that both sides were still working on concluding some of the logistical matters…

Mr. Al Thani said the first phase of the cease-fire deal would see Israeli forces withdraw to the east, away from populated areas. Some 33 hostages would be released over the course of the 42 days, he said. He did not say how many Palestinian prisoners would be released.

[…]

Mr. Biden said that in addition to the hostage releases, Palestinians will be able to return to their homes and will have access to a surge of humanitarian supplies.

“Too many innocent people have died; too many communities have been destroyed,” he said in a speech at the White House. “In this deal, the people of Gaza can finally recover and rebuild.”

• What’s in the deal: The cease-fire deal in Gaza is broadly similar to a three-phase framework publicized by President Biden in late May, according to several officials familiar with the talks. Under that May proposal, Israel and Hamas would first observe a six-week cease-fire in which Hamas would release women, older men, and ill hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinians jailed by Israel, and 600 trucks carrying humanitarian relief would enter Gaza daily.
• Right-wing opposition: In Israel, some hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have also voiced opposition to the deal. But on Wednesday, Mr. Saar said he believed that a majority would sign off on an agreement if it came to a cabinet vote.
• Hostage talks: The deal on the table comes after months of shuttle diplomacy to end the war in Gaza, which began when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage. Since Israel began its military campaign in response to the October 2023 attack, at least 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health officials there.

Some people are not happy. Not happy at all:

Ooopsie!

Meanwhile, the press is doing its usual thing.

Reporter: How much credit do you give to the Trump team for this deal?

Biden: This is the exact framework of the deal I proposed. We got the world to endorse it. I told my team to coordinate with the incoming team to make sure we are all speaking with the same voice pic.twitter.com/DG2jVG3BsV

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 15, 2025

Reporter asks about who get credit for this, "you or Trump?"

President Biden: "Is that a joke?" pic.twitter.com/7u6AMuNhMG

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 15, 2025

Regardless of American politics, this is good news for Gaza and the families of the hostages. I don’t doubt that Trump’s impending inauguration had something to do with it but I sincerely doubt that he had some magic pixie dust that made it happen. It just makes sense to get it done now before the new regime. Nobody thinks this can go on forever.

Kelly: "Which is it — have you overcome personal issues, or are you the target of a smear campaign? It can't be both. It's clear to me that you're not being honest." pic.twitter.com/u3ofsH4VJQ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 14, 2025

There was a time not all that long ago when confirmation hearings were at least slightly meaningful. Sure, they were mostly just pro forma since the new president is always presumed to have the prerogative to appoint his own cabinet. And even judicial nominees, including those for the Supreme Court, only became contentious when the Republicans started nominating extremist judges.

But things have changed. The Republicans have learned that there is no price to pay for appointing unqualified and unfit sycophants and far right ideologues and so that’s what they are doing. In this current round the nominees aren’t even meeting with the Democrats before their hearings as it’s assumed that only Republican votes matter and they know they have enough of those going in because they’ve successfully intimidated anyone who might have had an objection.

Jane Mayer’s latest piece in the New Yorker is about the pressure campaign to confirm Pete Hegseth:

At the Senate confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, on Tuesday, the most telling feature may be the voices from whom the senators won’t hear. The Trump transition team has waged an intense, and in many ways unprecedented, behind-the-scenes campaign ahead of the hearing to intimidate and silence potential witnesses, aimed at keeping Republican senators in line and in the dark.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will be holding Hegseth’s hearing, told me, “I’m deeply concerned by an apparent pattern of intimidation and threats, whether it’s legal action or reputational harm. They’re playing the hardest of hardball. It’s harder by several orders of magnitude than in almost any other confirmation.” Senator Elizabeth Warren, another Democrat on the committee, said the pressure tactics “seem designed” to insure that witnesses “don’t speak up.” Blumenthal said that “it’s been pretty unnerving” for Senate Republicans, “because this nominee is so deeply unqualified and unprepared,” yet they fear political retaliation from Trump if they vote their consciences.

Referring to reports that Hegseth, a former National Guard major and Fox News weekend host with minimal civilian management experience, has been accused of drunkenness on the job, sexual impropriety at work, and other kinds of professional misconduct, Blumenthal said, “Someone who is inebriated, or self-dealing, or managerially incompetent in this position could put the whole nation at risk. My Republican colleagues are unsettled,” he added, “and some genuinely feel scared and intimidated.”

This is not normal politics by the standards we used to have but I think it’s the new normal with a convicted criminal as president, the richest man in the world willing to use his fortune to enforce his will and millions of violent cultists ready to attack. To say this changes the calculation is a monumental understatement.

Hegseth is manifestly unfit and unqualified to lead the Pentagon. Most Republicans know this. Many don’t care because they have no respect for government anyway. Some do but are afraid of the mob. And many of them just see this as the price they pay for power and are more than willing to go along. None of them are willing to take a chance on losing their seats over it. Real profiles in courage.

Meanwhile, today, we have this grotesque display from what will certainly be the new Attorney General of the United States:

Bondi claims she is not familiar with Trump's statement describing January 6 criminals as "hostages" pic.twitter.com/SNPsNms1DG

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 15, 2025

Perhaps that’s just practice for her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. After all, those GOP nominees all lie under oath as well.

Confirmation hearings are a farce in this hyper partisan age but never more than now. Their shamelessness knows no bounds. I’m just waiting to see how many Democrats decide that it’s in their personal interest to go along with it.