Well. Mehmet Oz, Linda McMahon? I got nothin’.
I’m going to call him Mehmet from here on out, because I suspect he hates it. If I’m remembering correctly, wasn’t he outraged to learn, when he ran for Senate, that the ballots in Pennsylvania would carry his full legal name, with no honorific? What? You mean I won’t simply be “Dr. Oz,” the way it is on all my branding? Yeah, well, fuck that guy sideways. Twice. He once had a reputation and a decent life, and he threw it away for money and quackery. He doesn’t deserve the title.
A woman of my acquaintance, who I suspect would generally be pretty conservative, is horrified by all this. One of her family members decided to “space out” her child’s vaccines, because Common Sense. Fortunately, the rest of the family piled on and got her back on track, but I wonder if that will even be possible in this new era.
“I feel like we’re on a roller coaster, an old wooden one that hasn’t been maintained and maybe the structure has been colonized by termites, and we’re going up the first hill and we can see springs and parts falling off the car, and we haven’t even started the ride yet,” I said.
“I pray for sanity,” she said. I always overdo my metaphors.
I recall that in his first transition, Trump offered stewardship of the Federal Aviation Administration to the pilot of his plane, because it seemed like a fit. The pilot, to his great credit, turned it down. Mehmet thinks he and RFK Jr. can run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services? That is a real job, not just a photo op. They will make a hash of it. I am on Medicare now. These motherfuckers are going to ruin it, just as I finally can collect on decades of investment.
As for McMahon, I’ll only point out that she’s the sort of very rich person who will not be harmed at all by the destruction of the agency she is charged with dismantling. Her grandchildren or great-grandchildren, or whatever generation is currently in play, will go to excellent private schools. It’s the rest of our offspring who will suffer.
All those kids who “got autism” from a vaccine and need IEPs in public schools will find themselves back on the shortbus.
Let’s see what today’s misery brings, eh?
Jeff Borden said on November 20, 2024 at 9:55 am
This all began with St. Ronald of Reagan, who ran on a platform scaring people by suggesting the scariest words in the English language were, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Conservatism then began a multi-decade effort to dismantle government by arguing for-profit, business-style approaches worked better. tRump couldn’t care less about Reaganism. He just likes to bust shit up and so each cabinet appointment is a bomb meant to detonate and destroy the agency his sycophants run. And with a craven, supine Congress abrogating its Constitutional role, he’ll likely succeed in doing grave damage. Nihilism is in. Aspiration is out. This is ‘Murica 2025. . .and beyond.
BTW, if you think we ducked a bullet by seeing Sen. John Thune chosen as senate leader over Sen. Rick Scott, think again. Thune is very much onboard with whittling away at Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
Well played, MAGAts, especially those of you struggling with higher bills and stagnant wages who receive government benefits such as food stamps or Medicaid. You just voted to slash your own throats.
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Deborah said on November 20, 2024 at 10:12 am
The leopards will be eating lots of faces.
Speaking of leopards, I read Nextdoor to keep track of what’s going on in our neighborhood in Santa Fe. A woman reported a large mountain lion near a park not far from our condo. We’ve had bears and a moose not that long ago. The wild are among us.
And in two and a half weeks we go back to NM for the winter. I think I’ll be hibernating.
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ROGirl said on November 20, 2024 at 10:25 am
On top of our dystopian national nightmare playing out in real time, my sleep has been fucked up since dst ended, and I keep on waking up too early.
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Dexter Friend said on November 20, 2024 at 10:51 am
an aside: My son-in-law now manages a fleet of airplanes stationed all over the USA, making every effort that when the call comes in for an executive jet, one is nearby. He still is a pilot, and with senior status, was offered to fly Trump a few times; Trump does not always fly the TRUMP jet; he utilizes the service my son-in-law’s corporation affords for shorter flights or when the TRUMP jet is being serviced. Steve has always passed on this offer, too much rigmarole, as I have posted here about before. And so, he is still with the job, and not head of the FAA. Yeah. And how crazy would it be for this to have happened?
These picks by Trump are unbelievable, even for a nevertrumper like me who knew some of this was apt to occur. And it has with bells whistles ribbons and a free open bar. Gaetz gaining strength with Trump…this tactic worked for Trump, will it work for Gaetz? I am thinking that even with a lot of senatorial horror from the Republican side, it may, even though every talker on cable are saying this is a ruse and Trump has a real full-fledged nazi fuck backstage to eventually designate for confirmation to DOJ.
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SusanG said on November 20, 2024 at 11:11 am
The Kennedy nomination is the most dangerous. He’s a pied piper taking crunchy granola mothers’ over the cliff. Hundreds, if not thousands of children will die before public outrage turns on him.
FYI-his kooky diet? Raw milk, McDonald’s fries in beef tallow. Straight out of Weston Price Foundation https://www.westonaprice
https://www.amazon.com/Nourishing-Traditions-Challenges-Politically-Dictocrats/dp/0967089735
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nancy said on November 20, 2024 at 11:26 am
You are so right, Susan. I hear these 30something moms talking about how “he will fix everything,” and all I want to say is, did you sleep through every single civics class? These are the women who used to party and do drugs, and then stop when they’re 28 or so and adopt a super-clean lifestyle, which makes them feel better, and they credit it entirely to stuff like organic food or yoga. No, it’s because you’re 28 and in the prime of your life, and you stopped hoovering cocaine and chugging margaritas four nights a week.
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nancy said on November 20, 2024 at 11:33 am
And now we have an answer to my final question: Matt Whitaker as NATO ambassador. You might remember him as the man who tried to patent the toilet for guys with big ol’ hogs.
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Deborah said on November 20, 2024 at 11:59 am
For those of you here, who might be interested in Cormac McCarthy, here’s a fascinating article about his relationship with his 16 year old muse when he was in his 40s https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/cormac-mccarthy-secret-muse-exclusive
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Heather said on November 20, 2024 at 12:07 pm
I keep hearing “food is medicine” and criticism of Western medicine from the one anti-vax type in my friend list. Funny how when people ate organic, local, all-natural food for thousands of years, not many of them lived into their 70s and 80s. And you bet those people are running to ERs full of Western medicine when they get really sick.
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Dexter Friend said on November 20, 2024 at 12:08 pm
..never heard of Whitaker, but hey, where do I get a toilet for men with big ol hogs? Asking for a friend.
How much will Vince have to do with blowing up Education?
Gaetz should be in prison. Did I ever tell ya about the 18 year old high school kid from here with a girlfriend, 10 days shy of 18? She told her mother about the true love she knew she had found, in detail, and the mother threw a fit and turned the boy in to county services. End of story: convicted of rape, sentenced to 4 months in prison south of Columbus. Felony . They take this 18 year old law seriously here, or did, when this story was in the news here.
Gaetz, banging a kid of 17, witnesses, testimony against him…skates away like Trump, and this is why Trump loves him. Goddam these bastards!
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nancy said on November 20, 2024 at 12:29 pm
The Masculine Toilet.
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nancy said on November 20, 2024 at 12:23 pm
When people tell me food is medicine I reflect that in the 18th-19th century, everyone ate organic food. They still died of vaccine-preventable diseases, too.
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alex said on November 20, 2024 at 1:14 pm
Maybe Trump should hire someone who actually succeeded at getting something patented and is raking in the bucks — like whoever it was that came up with dick-heeled shoes.
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Jason T. said on November 20, 2024 at 2:14 pm
I am not an “accelerationist” — someone who believes that we will be able to construct a better and brighter socialist (or libertarian) paradise by encouraging the current order to self-destruct. I am old enough to remember what happened when the Soviet bloc self-destructed, and a lot of it (Yugoslavia, anyone?) was horrific.
But as I reluctantly move toward acceptance of our unfolding U.S. catastrophe, I find myself saying, “This is what 49.9 percent of America wanted. This is what they voted for. This is what they’re going to get. Let’s see how they like it.”
Unfortunately, as any flight attendant will tell you, the back of the plane goes to the same place as the front of the plane. We’re all on this plane together, going to the same place, whether we want to or not, but why is the plane suddenly turning into a handbasket?
If I were optimistic, I would think, “maybe out of the ashes, there will be a revival in collective action, good citizenship and civic-mindedness.”
… I am not optimistic.
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Deborah said on November 20, 2024 at 3:13 pm
Another aggravating aspect is the 49.9% of the vote is not anywhere near 49.9% of the eligible population to vote. For example according to Google in 2023 the population of eligible voters was 262,083,034. Trump got 76 million something this election. That’s 28.99% of the total. I get that people who don’t vote get what they get and it’s their fucking fault, but Trump’s totals do not express a mandate. Compare that to what Biden got in 2020 which was 81 million, more than any president so far, 51% of the total. Would I call Biden’s total a mandate, no actually I would not, a majority for sure but not in the mandate category in my book. Did Biden get things done that needed to be done like inflation reduction and infrastructure improvements, yes, resoundingly so. I rest my case.
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Sherri said on November 20, 2024 at 4:25 pm
I’m camped out in an office in a random building at Microsoft with my husband, not the building my husband works in, but one of the buildings on campus that happens to still have power and internet. A bomb cyclone in the Pacific gave us a massive windstorm yesterday, so lots of trees are down and power is out for over 640k in the Puget Sound area. We lost power around 11 pm last night after flickers all afternoon and evening, and there’s no estimate as to when power will be restored.
Last time we had a wind storm like this, it was 4 days before we had power. Wheee! But, we didn’t have any trees fall on our house, we can heat a couple of rooms without electricity, and we have hot water. We also have access to Microsoft and friends with a generator, so we’re fine, just inconvenienced.
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Deborah said on November 20, 2024 at 4:38 pm
Sherri, I read about that windstorm, does that happen often there? Seems crazy.
If any of you read the story in my link and found that the account of Cormac McCarthy’s muse, while revealing a fascinating woman in McCarthy’s life, the Vanity Fair piece unfortunately also had a lot of overblown prose in it by the author of the article. Here’s another writer’s response to that prose https://defector.com/can-someone-please-write-normally-about-this-fascinating-woman, you have to subscribe to read the critical article but it’s free.
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Sherri said on November 20, 2024 at 5:10 pm
Windstorms are not uncommon here, especially in November and December, but this is the second one of this magnitude we’ve had since we moved up here. The last one was in 2006.
Windstorms are common because we’ve got the ocean right there and then we sit between two mountain ranges, the Olympics and the Cascades. It makes the weather here interesting and difficult to predict.
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Deborah said on November 20, 2024 at 7:08 pm
Wind in Abiquiu, NM has gotten way more fierce in the last few years. We are convinced now that fire isn’t the biggest threat to our cabin there, but wind is. We had a structural engineer involved in our cabin design and we had it built to withstand 90 MPH winds even though there wasn’t anything found in our research from decades previously that was over about 45, as I recall. But last year winds were clocked there at 70. So it’s accelerating fast. Climate change is real, it’s happening at a pace that is scary and we need to pay attention.
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ROGirl said on November 21, 2024 at 4:23 am
My posting, from Today in nn.c history 2016:
At what point will he start trying to retaliate against those who don’t obey his wishes? Can he sign executive orders? Will he sic the rabid attack dogs on them? Who will roll over and play along to curry favor? Who will resist?
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Mark P said on November 21, 2024 at 10:19 am
Some National Park Service employees are resisting. They started with Trump’s first administration and are back at it now. They use an image that looks like Smokey Bear with “RESIST” on the hat. They are on Facebook.
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Mark P said on November 21, 2024 at 11:06 am
I forgot. Look for alt National Park Service.
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Dexter Friend said on November 21, 2024 at 12:11 pm
Bomb cyclone, Netanyahu being issued an arrest warrant:
“Nov. 21, 2024, 11:58 a.m. ET5 minutes ago
Live Updates: Netanyahu’s Arrest Sought by International Criminal Court” (NYT headline)
people dying in droves in Gaza, climate change reeking havoc worldwide, and me? Whining like a little spoiled toddler over another damn flat tire.
I never before, in nearly 59 years of driving , have had such a rash of flat tires. It surely is coincidental, but now I kind of expect it to happen every time I drive. I am overly aggressive at replacing worn tires , probably way too soon, too. Little things mean a lot I guess. I should be grateful. But I whine. Like a damn toddler.
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Deborah said on November 21, 2024 at 1:03 pm
We’ve all heard about Gaetz, right? But now who’s gonna get the AG nomination?
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Jakash said on November 21, 2024 at 1:28 pm
Though I’m off-topic here, the current post *does* refer to an outhouse. Coincidentally, the 2011 post from the Wayback Machine is titled “Create the problem, sell the cure” and features a product called “POO-POURRI.”
These days, a new contender for the “create a problem” category is evidently “Whole Body Deodorant.”
I’d heard about this and seen a couple print ads, but we just saw our first commercial for it yesterday. (Uh, we watch very little live TV, which came in handy with regard to avoiding “She’s for they/them. He’s for you” ads!)
So we’re way behind the times, needless to say, as this article is from May, but it includes a paraphrase of NN’s pithier 2011 title. “‘They’ve manufactured a problem so they can sell us a product to fix it,’ says Best.” Though I think this line is funnier: “‘Nobody’s being fooled into thinking that you’re a citrus fruit,’ added Everts.”
https://www.vox.com/even-better/24156471/whole-body-deodorants-lume-axe-sweat
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Dexter Friend said on November 21, 2024 at 1:56 pm
Gaetz should have served time by now for rape. Here in Ohio, every week men and a few women are sentenced to jail or prison for similar offenses. Now he will just go off and get a high 6-figure salary somewhere and continue his perversions. I was taught the USA is a classless society, and India’s class system is evil and cruel. We were fed bullshit stew. I would be happy not to ever see that Wolfman face of Gaetz again. Gaetz, now go get your shinebox!
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Deborah said on November 21, 2024 at 2:00 pm
Actually Jakash, your comment about scents reminds me of LAMary because she commented about perfumes (not full body deoderents) from time to time and I always liked reading those comments. I don’t remember hearing from LAMary recently. I hope everything is OK.
Now back to the previous subject. Does Gaetz get his congressional seat back? Since he won his re-election and then resigned for a nomination, does that entitle him to resume where he left off? Has this ever happened before?
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David C said on November 21, 2024 at 2:22 pm
If we lived in a just world, the only job Gaetz could get would be renting his forehead out as a billboard. We don’t live in a just world.
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ROGirl said on November 21, 2024 at 2:43 pm
He can go back to his old job playing Butthead.
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Julie Robinson said on November 21, 2024 at 3:17 pm
If I recall, our esteemed Governor has to set a special election for the Congressional vacancy. He gets to appoint a replacement for Marco Rubio’s Senate seat, should he be confirmed and resign. So it’s entirely conceivable that one way or the other Gaetz will be back in DC next year.
Hoping you all get my meaning behind esteemed.
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Dorothy said on November 21, 2024 at 3:36 pm
On the topic of organic foods and their like – in 1984 I was a young mom with a nursing babe. I attended a local Le Leche League conference and everyone brought food for the communal table. My husband rightly pointed out that the carrots on the table that were raw and not really cleaned were noticeably sitting there untouched. So even though many of these moms were extreme in their beliefs and practices about what they ate, when push came to shove no one really wanted to eat the gross looking carrots.
The Gaetz news came across as we were eating lunch today and I nearly choked, I was so happy to shout HOORAY!!! Or something like that. But now we have to wait and see the next odious person he moves up the ladder to that position. I guess we can be pretty sure it won’t be Rudy Guiliani. The pool of candidates for all these cabinet positions has to be pretty shallow. So many people criticized him and told the truth about what a crap President he was, so who’s left?
My next hope is that he keels over before the inauguration of a massive heart attack or stroke. If that really did happen, what would happen on January 6? Do they have another election? Does Vance get it? I’m honestly not sure what would happen.
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tajalli said on November 21, 2024 at 3:51 pm
Guess we’re getting an early start on the revolving door of appointees that we experienced the bumble butt’s first term.
My major concern is a bill that passed the house allowing NPOs to lose their non-profit status if they are labelled “terrorist” without the provision of any proof to the allegation. The ACLU, NAACP, environmental groups, you name it.
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susan said on November 21, 2024 at 4:00 pm
Here’s what Elie Mystal says about Gaetz:
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