Once again, thanks to everyone who has contributed so far to our annual Happy Hollandaise fundraiser. It’s reassuring to know that people value what we do here and want us to continue as we face the next year of difficult challenges. I am so appreciative of your continued encouragement and support.
As I contemplate the next year of covering politics, I can’t help but think about our probable new FBI Director Kash Patel’s famous declaration:
“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.” — Kash Patel, future FBI Director.
Trump just showed one of those tactics is already working with that ABC settlement of 15 million and a forced apology from Trump nemesis George Stephanopoulos. It’s ugly.
This morning he held a press conference and indicated that he expect to do more of this and it appears he thinks it will work:
Trump says he plans to sue Ann Selzer and the newspaper in Iowa that published her poll showing Trump losing just days before the election pic.twitter.com/ujSmW3GTTM
He has sued for defamation before and lost. But he seems to think, perhaps correctly, that he has the media on the run. This ABC capitulation sends a strong message that it’s best to play ball and you can imagine that plenty of corporate media leaders want their people to go easy right now. The zeitgeist seems to be that Trump is a colossus who must be appeased.
I suspect that independent media is going to be more important than ever. We’re looking at a period of tremendous stress on the information ecosystem with massive disinformation and propaganda programs, the right wing media encroaching on all public spheres, big money manufacturing Trump friendly press for its own purposes and the degradation of the kind of traditional media that might have operated outside all of this. The ability to find out the truth and make rational decisions for ourselves and our country as a democracy is very tenuous right now.
We’ll keep fighting the good fight here, spending our time seeking out the truth as we see it. There’s an awful lot to sort through these days but it is possible to do it if you have the time and the experience to cut through the bullshit. Here at Hullabaloo we’ve been at this a while and although we’re hardly perfect, we have pretty well honed BS detectors.
If you think it’s valuable to have independent analysis and a view of our politics from beyond the beltway, I hope you’ll throw a few coins into the Hullabaloo stocking if you can. But even if you don’t, please stop by from time to time. We are here seven days a week trying to make sense of this crazy world.
Democrats, especially when they’re feeling on the ropes as they surely are now, often get into these games of 20-dimensional chess with themselves about which issues are most important, which people care about, which can be used to gain political traction in a now uncertain and often bewildering political and electoral environment. What we too often forget is that certainty and consistency of belief are messages in themselves. Especially in a cacophonous and cluttered media environment. It’s worth considering the message it sends when a party loses a close and hard-fought election and then spends time debating what it should be for the next time.
Josh puts into words something that’s been rattling around in my head ever since the election. This very public self-autopsy in which Democrats have been flagellating themselves over their failure is another failure. It’s always worth considering what you could have done better. But the idea that the message about democracy and freedom and autonomy was a mistake because nobody cares when the price of eggs is so high is just wrong.
Sure they could have talked more about “kitchen table issues” and pretended that their economic program was an abject failure but publicly rejecting your sincerely held values is an act of self-immolation. No one can respect that. In fact, it makes you appear to have no values and all you’re left with is the price of eggs. Sorry, that’s not a winning issue either.
Don’t look for another cover like this one any time soon
In May of 2023, the world watched as Charles III was crowned King of England after his mother Queen Elizabeth II passed away at the age of 96. Very few people alive could have remembered her coronation almost 71 years before and most Americans’ only familiarity with that medieval ritual comes from viewing “The Crown.”
The UK Parliament prepared a detailed briefing on the history and protocol of coronations and it’s quite fascinating. Much of the ceremony is symbolic these days, but the intent is clear. It is designed to make it clear that the new king is the legitimate monarch, ordained by God. Back in the day this required that all the peers would pledge their fealty to the king one by one and it was apparently a long and tedious process. But since they abolished most of the hereditary peerage back in 1999, they shortened the process this time, with the Archbishop of Canterbury pledging to be “faithful and true” and Prince William kneeling before his father and saying, “I pledge my loyalty to you and faith and truth I will bear unto you, as your liege man of life and limb. So help me God.”
Then they called upon the people to pay homage and everyone in the Abbey said together:
God save King Charles. Long live King Charles. May The King live forever
Back in medieval times this would all be followed by a huge banquet and it was a given that to remain in the King’s favor nobles and vassals would need to offer the king a monetary tribute.
I couldn’t but think of all this as I read about all the billionaires and foreign leaders making the pilgrimage to Donald Trump’s golden palace down in Mar-a-Lago. The coronation (or what we used to call the inauguration) hasn’t happened yet, but he’s already being feted like a medieval king. And unlike the British monarchy, which has eliminated the paying of tribute to the king, here in America, where we supposedly cast off such practices in our revolution, our new president is busily collecting payments and demanding fealty from his liege lords and foreign allies. And he’s making it very clear that he will not be happy if they don’t come across with plenty of lucre to fill his royal coffers.
We have, of course, observed every Republican who can get his or her hands on some formal wear rushing down to pledge their undying loyalty. And we saw the unpleasant spectacle of the Canadian Prime Minister being treated like a vassal by Trump who declared that if Canada doesn’t like his tariffs they can become a state and he could be a Governor, as if that would be a much greater privilege. He also met with his fellow far right autocrats Argentine President Javier Milei and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and has reportedly invited several foreign leaders to the inaugural, including Chinese premiere Xi Jinping (who has declined the invitation.) No head of state has ever attended the inauguration according to State Department historical records because the United States used to pride itself on its peaceful transfer of power not being like a coronation in which foreign leaders paid tribute to the president. That’s a very quaint idea today.
But nothing compares to the media moguls and corporations who are racing to outdo each other to get into Trump’s good favor or spare themselves from becoming the object of his anger. We all know that the man who never leaves his side these days is Elon Musk, who spent over a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump get elected. He has a great deal of business with the US Government and an apparent burning desire to turn the country into the same grotesque shadow of its former self as he’s done to his social media company, X. Trump is clearly thrilled to have the richest man in the world acting as his major domo.
It’s possible that Musk’s closeness to Trump has inspired other billionaires to try to get in on the action. The Wall St Journal reported on this embarrassing phenomenon last week under the apt headline: “The Week CEOs Bent the Knee to Trump.” It describes the scene as Trump went to Wall St to celebrate his Person of the Year Time Magazine cover:
Gathered behind red velvet ropes were senior executives at Visa, Meta Platforms, Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab and Citadel, according to people who were present. Real-estate and aerospace magnate Robert Bigelow was spotted in the crowd, as was investor Bill Ackman…
Titans of the business world are rushing to make inroads with the president-elect, gambling that personal relationships with the next occupant of the Oval Office will help their bottom lines and spare them from Trump’s wrath.
As the Journal reports, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, both billionaires who own media companies made ostentatious trips to pay tribute to the new president after having been on his enemies list in the first term. They each pledged a million dollars to Trump inaugural (which is basically a personal slush fund with virtually no ethics requirements) as has OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
In fact, media owners and corporations are making many grand gestures to curry favor with the new president. The owner of the LA Times effectively took over its editorial board insisting that it be more Trump friendly. And in one of the most egregious examples to date, over the weekend, ABC settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump in which he had sued them and anchor George Stephanopoulos. Legal observers say there was no chance in hell that Trump would have prevailed on the merits and, in fact, has failed spectacularly in similar lawsuits. They agreed to pay 15 million dollars to his (as yet non-existent) library fund and forced Stephanopoulos to apologize.
Day after day, Trump holds banquets at his Florida palace where wealthy, powerful people come from all over to pledge themselves to him. They clearly believe that it is not in their interest to oppose him in any way, instead they are giving him huge gifts and throwing themselves at his feet in what is surely a vain hope that he will return their loyalty. But they don’t really understand the dynamic. They are there to serve the king not the other way around. If it pleases him to dispense his favor then he may do it. But it’s all about him, not them.
The real question is why these vastly wealthy people are so eager to be subjects? You would think with all their money they could afford to have some pride and integrity. But maybe that’s really the one thing that money can’t buy.
From his first cabinet picks, Donald Trump demonstrated a bully’s intent both to stick a stubby finger in the world’s eye and a need to surround himself with a thick posse of wingmen to do his fighting for him. It’s working. He’s already succeeded in getting ABC News to capitulate to him for daring to use the R-word.
The most litigious president in U.S. history is just getting warmed up (New York Times):
The legal threats have arrived in various forms. One aired on CNN. Another came over the phone. More arrived in letters or emails.
All of them appeared aimed at intimidating news outlets and others who have criticized or questioned President-elect Donald J. Trump and his nominees to run the Pentagon and F.B.I.
The small flurry of threatened defamation lawsuits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage. Before and after the election, Mr. Trump and his allies have discussed subpoenaing news organizations, prosecuting journalists and their sources, revoking networks’ broadcast licenses and eliminating funding for public radio and television.
Or maybe he’ll just order troops to shoot news executives in the legs. At the very least, Trump transition copiers must be eating up reams of paper printing NDAs with non-disparagement clauses. And that’s just for Trump’s “friends.”
A bad precedent
Litigation, or the threat of it, is among Trump’s weapons of choice. The $15 million ABC settlement sets a bad precedent and whets Trump’s appetite for more. The grifter will see it as another profit center. If he can’t void the First Amendment by royal fiat, he’ll threaten enough legal action that the fourth estate self-censors. Or else make money suing them.
Media lawyer Elizabeth McNamara expects more of the same in the current political environment:
“There’s been a pattern and practice for the past couple of years of using defamation litigation as a tactic to harass or test the boundary of case law,” said Ms. McNamara, who represented ABC News and Mr. Stephanopoulos but was speaking in general. (Her law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, has also represented The New York Times.)
Over the past several weeks, lawyers for Mr. Trump and two of his most high-profile nominees — Pete Hegseth, the potential defense secretary, and Kash Patel, whom Mr. Trump has picked to run the F.B.I. — warned journalists and others of defamation lawsuits for what they had said or written.
Freedom was a theme (and a theme song) for the Harris campaign. But freedom of speech, like loyalty, only works one way in authoritarian cults.
And if lawsuits don’t work to “cancel” the libs, there are always flying MAGAs.
It’s almost impossible to believe he exists. It’s as if we took everything that was bad about America, scraped it up off the floor, wrapped it all up in an old hot dog skin, and then taught it to make noises with its face.
I mean in its own way it’s a miracle. Sure, it’s the most tragic kind of miracle and it may very well cause the death of the American experiment. But still, if you step back and behold it with cosmic indifference you cannot help but be almost awestruck.
It’s like the inverse feeling of standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon. In both cases you’re struck numb. “How can this thing be‽ It is incalculable.” But rather than a soaring sense of awe, you feel an equally powerful well of dark gravity, your soul being eaten by despair.
We survived the four years since the thread above first hit the Net. We’re only a few days from the longest, darkest day of the year. Don’t despair. Things get brighter from there.
A former member of a secretive Hawaiʻi religious sect is warning members of Congress about the potential dangers of confirming Tulsi Gabbard as President-elect Donald Trump’s next director of national intelligence.
Anita van Duyn says she spent 15 years inside the Science of Identity Foundation, a fringe offshoot of Hare Krishna that was formed in the 1970s and has been described by defectors as a cult.
She has sent the letters only to Democrats so far, so I don’t know how effective that will be. And as the article acknowledges, Senators are loathe to criticize anyone for their religious beliefs(well, unless the person is a Democrat in which all bets are off.) Most DC types seem to think they should really go near this issue.
But Gabbard hasn’t been nominated to be the head of Housing and Urban Development she’s been tapped to be the head of all the Intelligence Agencies and she’s a lifelong member of a cult! And it’s a real one:
The van Duyn letters outline what she says are Butler’s long-standing political ambitions and the ways he groomed and supported his disciples, Gabbard included, in their pursuit of public office while promoting his own ideologies, which include a long history of espousing anti-gay rhetoric.[…]
“Everybody is thinking her allegiance is to Trump, but in reality her allegiance was already given away to her guru,” van Duyn said in an interview with Civil Beat. “You can’t just go in and out of that. That’s a lifetime commitment.”
Gabbard has been vague about her own experiences in the group and in 2017 told a reporter for The New Yorker magazine she’d never heard Butler say anything mean or hateful about anyone. “I can speak to my own personal experience and, frankly, my gratitude to him, for the gift of this wonderful spiritual practice that he has given to me, and to so many people,” she said.
Both her former and current husbands are lifelong members of the cult and remain involved as do her parents. So is she:
Science of Identity members have donated to her campaigns, sign-waved on her behalf and even staffed her most ambitious political endeavors, most prominently her run for president. In some cases, these followers were simply volunteering their time and efforts. In others, they were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Gabbard has always been very weird. And this is likely the source of most of it. She’s a member of a strange religious cult and she is following the agenda of its leader. That’s not an acceptable thing for someone going into the position for which she’s been nominated.
I realize that may seem odd considering the fact that Trump himself is the leader of a massive cult that has distinctly religious overtones. But at least we know what we’re dealing with with him and can fashion some kind of resistance. We don’t have a clue what Tulsi and her guru are all about and there is no way that she should be anywhere near a national security job.
Having said that, I suspect she’ll be confirmed. Trump wants her and the GOP wants what he wants. Let’s just hope that if there is indeed a “deep State” that they can exercise some of their apparent magical powers to thwart anything nefarious.
And the mainstream press could be paying more attention to this too. Whether they will, I don’t know. The big bosses seem intent upon gifting Dear Leader with whatever he wants these days so who knows?
…In 1977, Butler splintered from the Hare Krishna movement to start the Science of Identity Foundation. He began to further deemphasize traditional Hindu texts and practices, and began to expound his own controversial views.
Butler taught that homosexuality is evil, using virulent homophobic rhetoric, and that public schools and the outside world were not to be trusted. Children of followers were homeschooled, and some — including Gabbard — were later sent to schools the SIF created in the Philippines.
The SIF amassed a tightly-knit community of around a thousand followers in Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. Among them were Mike and Carol Gabbard, who would name one of their daughters after “tulasi,” the Sanskrit word for the holy-basil herb that appears in the Bhagavad Gita as an offering to the Lord.
Tulsi Gabbard and her siblings were raised as Hindus and vegetarians, she told the Indo American News before her first run for Congress. She grew up largely among fellow disciples, singing or chanting sacred Hindu songs on the beach, the New Yorker reported.
Gabbard met both her first husband and her current spouse, freelance cinematographer Abraham Williams, in SIF, according to New York Magazine.
While Gabbard has described her experience growing up in the group as one that was seemingly positive, some other ex-members have described themselves as survivors of a cult.
“I was raised to believe Chris Butler was God’s voice on earth, and if you questioned him or offended him in any way, you were effectively offending God,” someone who identifies as a former member of the SIF wrote in a 2017 Medium post. “Questioning the leader was spiritual suicide, which was seen as worse than death.”
Another former member told New York Magazine that Butler was vulgar and vindictive, excoriating people for small slip-ups like driving poorly or failing to clean water cups properly.
Butler has denied these claims, and Gabbard told the New Yorker that these experiences didn’t chalk up to her own: “I’ve never heard him say anything hateful, or say anything mean about anybody,” Gabbard said. “I can speak to my own personal experience and, frankly, my gratitude to him, for the gift of this wonderful spiritual practice that he has given to me, and to so many people.”
Both Butler and Gabbard also said the foundation is a resource, not a religious organization, though Butler acknowledged that he does have “disciples” as “Jagad Guru,” or “teacher of the world,” the New Yorker reported.
Gabbard has often downplayed the influence of Butler, telling the New Yorker that she has “had many different spiritual teachers, and continue[s] to.” But she acknowledged that he had shaped her Hindu identity, referring to him as her “guru dev,” or spiritual guide. Gabbard also told the New York Times in 2019 that Butler and his work still guide her.
Once again, many, many thanks to those of you who’ve contributed this year. I am so grateful, There are so many options out there for people to subscribe to good writing and great analysis so it really warms my heart to see that some of you are choosing to support the work we do here. I’ll never have a paywall — I want people who have limited ability to pay to be able to read us too — and I don’t want to go back to featuring ads, so I really appreciate those of you who have the means and the desire to donate.
I don’t know how many of us have the stomach to be dissidents. I certainly don’t know what I will do if I’m forced to ask myself that question. But it’s probably something we should all think about at least a little bit ahead of time. With people like Tom Hohman saying they plan to arrest people who “harbor” undocumented workers and Trump and his henchmen threatening to jail everyone in sight, it’s not completely out of the question that we might be confronted with some unpleasant choices before too long.
In the 1970s, the writer Andrei Amalrik characterized the secret power of his fellow dissidents in the Soviet Union: “They did something simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people.”
Recent examples of people acting out of this same humble presumption—and being slapped down for it—are abundant. In just the past few weeks, a 75-year-old Algerian novelist was detained for expressing opinions that were thought to be “endangering the nation”; a Thai human-rights lawyer had two years added to his existing 14-year prison term for writing a letter to the king that apparently violated the country’s “royal defamation law”; the police in Belarus, ahead of the presidential election in January, held 100 relatives of political prisoners out of fear that they might speak. And we haven’t even gotten to Iran, Russia, or North Korea.
These contemporary dissidents share a mindset, what Václav Havel once called an “existential attitude.” They did not wake up one day and decide to take on the regimes of their countries. They just allowed themselves to be guided by their own individuality—an Iranian woman who decides to no longer wear a hijab, a Uyghur teacher who tries to share his people’s history—and collided with societies that demanded conformity and obedience. Dissidents are born out of this choice: either assert their authentic selves or accept the authoritarian’s mafioso bargain, safety and protection in exchange for keeping one’s head down. Those rare few who just can’t make that bargain—they transform into dissidents.
The equation is simple: The more authoritarianism in the world, the more dissidents. And we are undeniably in an authoritarian moment. According to a report last year by the Varieties of Democracy Institute at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, when it comes to global freedom, we have returned to a level last seen in 1986. About 5.7 billion people—72 percent of the world’s population—now live under authoritarian rule. Even the United States, vaunted beacon of democracy, is about to inaugurate a president who openly boasts of wanting to be a “dictator on day one,” who regularly threatens to jail his opponents and sic the military on the “enemy within,” and who jokes about his election being the country’s last.
You don’t need to believe that Donald Trump is planning Gulags to see why those who resisted the repressive regimes of the 20th century, as well as those who fight all over the world today, might be worth paying attention to. When Havel talked about an existential attitude, he was describing a fervent sense that certain fundamental principles matter, and that even if a society begins to degrade and devalue those ideals, abandoning them, for these people, is not an option. Many Americans understand today what political exhaustion and complacency look and feel like. But the dissident is the one who hopes against hope.
I’m certainly not convinced that we’re there but I do see the possibility. And it’s not the first time. I’ve written a lot about the parallels between this time and the red scares, particularly in the 1950s, and even more recently in the wake of 9/11. I’m sure I don’t have to even mention the century of Jim Crow as an example of repressive government. But there is something different now in that the democracy itself is under threat in a way that I don’t think we’ve experienced. The authoritarians are turning on the rule of law in a much more explicit way.
I think there will be plenty of people who come into the crosshairs of this new regime. If Trump has his way it will be in the millions as they launch their raids on immigrant communities. And it might not stop there. Once they get a taste for it, these types tend to want to keep going. So we’ll see. But it pays to stay alert, think things through and be prepared for anything.
We’ll try to keep you informed as best we can about the various goings on over the next few years. Obviously, we can’t catch everything but we’ll do our best to synthesize the news in ways that are useful to you. And if we can keep a little bit of humor (gallows?) we’ll do that too. So I hope you’ll continue to stop by, even if you are generally avoiding the Great Cacophony in service of your sanity. We’ll do our best to keep it real.
If you would like to put a little something in the old Hullabaloo stocking to help us keep it going, I’d be so grateful. We’re all in this together.
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) December 15, 2024
Recall this?
Nov. 10, 2010 — An effort by Pennsylvania schools to get students to eat healthier is coming under fire from Sarah Palin.
The proposed new guidelines would limit the amount of sweets in classroom parties and reduce the number of holiday and birthday celebrations.
On the proposed regulations, Palin called Pennsylvania a “nanny state run amok.” In protest, she brought 200 sugar cookies to a Bucks County school fundraiser Tuesday.
“I had to shake it up a little bit because I heard there is a debate going on in Pennsylvania over whether most schools condemn sweets, cakes, cookies, that type of thing,” Palin said. “I brought dozens and dozens of cookies to these students.”
Instead, parents would be encouraged to serve healthy snacks, such as fruits or vegetables.
But hey, the two Sarahs never said you shouldn’t serve raw meat, raw egg yolks and raw milk to kids, amirite? Perfectly legit.
It should be noted that Huckasanders is specifically talking about denying food stamps recipients the ability to buy unhealthy food. What she wants is for those people to be restricted in their choices to punish them for being poor. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she and others want to reduce the subsidy since they won’t be allowed to buy candy or chips or soft drinks anymore. It’s not like she really wants them eat healthy. The rest of her state, however, which currently has a 40% obesity rate, the third highest in the nation, is free to indulge in whatever they want, of course. This is America, goddamnit!
This drone story taking the country by storm is almost certainly nothing nefarious. People are all over the internet with videos of what are obviously airplanes shrieking about drones the size of SUVs. It’s possible that there’s something going on with drones in New Jersey but with Fox News screeching about an “Iranian mothership” launching them off the Jersey shore we really have reached full Idiocracy. ABC News broadcast about a mysterious orb in the sky.
With enormous respect to ABC News, this is Venus.
Folks at home – you'll see Venus shine brightly (-4.13 magnitude, which is makes it the second-brightest celestial object in the night sky) after sunset over the coming nights.
That should be all you need to know but just in case you’re curious:
1. Project Blue Beam is a conspiracy theory that alleges a secret plan by entities like NASA and the United Nations to establish a new world order through advanced technological manipulation. Here’s a detailed breakdown of what the theory claims:
2. Objective: The primary goal is to implement a new global religion that would serve as the ideological foundation for a totalitarian world government. The theory suggests this new religion would use a simulated second coming of a religious figure or an alien invasion to discredit existing religions and unify humanity under a single belief system
3. Steps: Step 1: Breakdown of Archaeological Knowledge – This involves staging events like earthquakes at specific locations to uncover “new” archaeological findings that would contradict traditional religious doctrines, aiming to destabilize faith in existing religions.
Step 2: Gigantic Space Show – Utilizing technology like satellites with laser projections, holograms would be displayed in the sky, creating spectacular visions of religious figures or alien invasions visible to people globally. This would be done to manipulate people into accepting the new religion.
Step 3: Electronic Telepathy – The theory suggests the use of technologies like extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves to simulate telepathic communication, making individuals believe they are receiving messages directly from a divine source or an alien entity.
Step 4: Supernatural Manifestations – This step involves creating scenarios where supernatural or paranormal events are faked, potentially leading to mass hysteria or acceptance of a new world order out of fear or awe.
4. Controversies and Criticism: The theory was popularized by Canadian journalist Serge Monast in the 1990s, who later died under circumstances some conspiracy theorists claim were suspicious. However, there’s no credible evidence supporting the existence of such a project. Critics argue that the logistics of such an operation would be nearly impossible to execute on a global scale without detection, and the technology described often exceeds current capabilities or understanding.
It’s often cited in discussions around UFO sightings or other unexplained aerial phenomena, with some believing these are “tests” or “early stages” of Project Blue Beam. However, these claims remain speculative and unsupported by concrete evidence.
Cultural Impact: Project Blue Beam has gained traction in various conspiracy theory circles, often mentioned alongside other New World Order theories. It has appeared in various forms of media, from books to podcasts, reflecting a cultural fascination with grand conspiracy narratives.
The theory has been widely debunked by experts, with no substantial evidence found to support its claims.
People are starting to shoot at airplanes thinking they’re alien drones. I’m not kidding.
We are living in very, very strange times. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) December 15, 2024
This won’t stop. The ignorance of the general population on what airplanes look like, combined with @mtgreenee and @RepTimBurchett and @realDonaldTrump inciting the people to shoot down drones is going to get someone killed.
That’s just the most high profile. They bought themselves cabinet sets. The Big CEOs are all donating at least a million to the inauguration and ABC settled a totally bogus lawsuit for 15 million to be donated to Trump’s “presidential library and foundation” which doesn’t exist. They threw in George Stephanopoulos being forced to apologize as a sweetener. (That was probably worth more to Trump than the money.)
I expected Republicans to bend the knee. That’s not unusual. Even a few Democrats following suit doesn’t surprise me. But the media and the business community totally capitulating, bringing gifts to the baby Trump like they’re the three wise men wasn’t something I expected. Those guys have so much money I assumed they’d never have to curry that kind of favor. It appears to me they want to. Maybe it’s just a matter of not wanting to be left out of the Mar-a-Lago party.
But this is definitely happening and it’s very, very worrying.
