Joe Biden became the first US president to visit ‘Earth’s lungs,’ the Brazilian rainforest, Sunday, on his way to a G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. (White House photo) ... Biden later skipped the official G20 photo and refused to answer reporters' questions.
Bondi – President-elect Trump’s quick pivot from ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as his choice for attorney general to a “fellow loyalist” (Politico) from Florida, Pam Bondi, happened so quickly Thursday it seems like it has to have been planned this way all along. The remaining question is whether Gaetz might try to reclaim his House seat, as Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay predicted, or whether he might run for Florida governor when Ron DeSantis is term-limited out in two years.
If Gaetz wants to return to the House, that would reignite the Ethics Committee’s investigation. But even if he doesn’t, the committee still may release its investigation of him.
Bondi was Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019 when she defended Trump in his first impeachment trial. She reappeared with Trump on the campaign trail in the final days of this year’s campaign, according to Politico and in the interim has served as the co-chair of the America First Policy Institute’s law and justice division, an organization described as a “Trump administration in waiting.”
Trump reportedly picked Gaetz after a Trump jet flight in which the president-elect was unhappy with his AG choices, and the then-representative suggested himself. Was Bondi to be shadow-AG to Gaetz? Was all this folderol over the Gaetz pick some sort of television performance art worthy of The Apprentice? (Trump’s TV show, not the new movie about Roy Cohn and DJT.)
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Correction – Russia hit Dnipro, Ukraine, not with an intercontinental ballistic missile as reported Thursday, but with an “experimental” intermediate-range ballistic missile. Like an ICBM however, the “Oreshnik” (Russian for “hazel”) missile could carry a nuclear warhead although this one didn’t. Vladimir Putin described Oreshnik on Russian TV, according to NPR’s Morning Edition.
“This is an obvious and serious increase in the scale and brutality of war,” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on his Telegram messaging app.
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...meanwhile...THURSDAY 11/21/24
Gaetz Withdraws -- Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) he is withdrawing his name to become President-elect Trump's US attorney general, Reuters reports.
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ICC Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu – Alleging Israel has used starvation as a weapon and directs attacks against civilians, the International Criminal Court Thursday has issued an arrest warrant for war crimes for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant (per The Wall Street Journal). ICC prosecution drew praise from many countries, but outrage from the Biden administration and much of US Congress last May when it first sought the warrants. Several Hamas leaders who were also named in the ICC warrant have been killed by the Israeli Defense Force.
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ICBMs Hit Dnipro, Ukraine – Russia launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on Dnipro Thursday morning, Kyiv’s air force reported according to The Kyiv Independent. ICBMs are capable of carrying nuclear warheads – though obviously not in this case. The ICBM triggered a country-wide air raid alert.
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Gaetz Headed for Hearing – It looks like President-elect Trump’s choice for attorney general, ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is headed for a Senate confirmation hearing, as Republican members of the Judiciary Committee said he should be given the opportunity to address misconduct allegations (per CQ Roll Call).
“I fear the process surrounding the Gaetz nomination is turning into an angry mob, and unverified allegations are being treated as if they are true,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, top Republican on Judiciary. “I have seen this movie before.”
Meanwhile… Speaking of unverified, the House Ethics Committee will not release findings of its investigation of Gaetz for alleged sexual misconduct and drug use, committee Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS) announced. The committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) indicated a 5-5 split between Republicans and Democrats on whether to release the report. At least one committee Republican would have to vote with the five Democrats to break the tie. Wild said the committee will reconvene Dec. 5 to further consider the matter, per NPR.
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Speaker Backs Mace – Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has backed Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) in her efforts to keep the first transgender woman elected to the House of Representatives out of women’s restrooms.
“Transgender women should not use women’s bathrooms in the House,” Johnson said Wednesday (per Roll Call). “All single-use facilities in the Capitol and House Office Building – such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms – are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.”
Mace called for the restrictions earlier this week ahead of Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-DE), who will be sworn into the 119thCongress January 3.
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WEDNESDAY 11/20/24
Billionaires, TV Stars – Donald J. Trump’s appointee for Commerce secretary, chief of investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald Howard Lutnick, is the billionaire. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the television physician with nine daytime Emmys and a history of promoting quack medicine, whom the president-elect has chosen to lead the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (including the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare) is the latest on the growing list of TV stars.
Oz is best-known politics-wise as the Republican Senate candidate for Pennsylvania who lost to Democrat John Fetterman in the 2022 midterms..
Linda McMahon bridges both descriptions as a retired pro-wrestler who with her husband, Vince, founded Titan Sports, which became World Wrestling Entertainment – better known as the WWE. McMahon, who ran the Small Business Administration for Trump from 2017-19 is his choice to become what Newsweek says “may be America’s last Education secretary.”
Trump also has named his first term’s national intelligence director, John Ratcliffe, to become head of the CIA,
As for the elephant in the elephant’s room, there is much speculation among the punditocracy that Trump’s chosen attorney general, ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, is actually, in political animal terms, a “sacrificial lamb” meant to divert the Senate’s attention from Trump’s other choices. Theory goes that were a few Republican senators to join Democrats in defeating Gaetz’s nomination, he would move on to run for Florida governor in a couple of years.
But Trump has made it clear he wants Gaetz to be his AG, which seems more a case of the president-elect testing how far he can push things – his “mandate,” or agenda. Or as Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project nonprofit formed to defend Trump against criminal charges against him told The Washington Post at Mar-a-Lago: “It’s a hostile takeover on behalf of the American people.”
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TUESDAY 11/19/24
On the 1,000th Day – Ukraine on Tuesday fired six US-made ATACMS – Army Tactical Missile System – missiles at Russia’s Bryansk region, sparking a fire but with no initial damage or casualties, Russia’s defense ministry said, according to the AP. The attack comes on the 1,000th day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and two days after President Biden eased restrictions of Ukraine’s use of American-made weapons, which in turn prompted Dictator/President Vladimir Putin to lower the Kremlin’s threshold for using nuclear arms (per The New York Times).
The Biden administration “strongly supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the lame-duck president told leaders at the G20 summit in Brazil.
United Russia Minister of Parliament Maria Butina said Monday that the US is “actually pushing the world to a very dangerous red line,” (per the BBC). Yes, that’s the same Maria Butina who five years ago pleaded guilty before US District Judge Tanya Chutkin to conspiracy charges for infiltrating conservative groups, including the National Rifle Association, for the goal of advancing Russian interests.
Meanwhile… President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented in an address Tuesday to Ukraine’s parliament a 10-point plan for “internal resilience,” The Kyiv Independent reports.
“Ukraine may need to outlive someone in Moscow to achieve all the goals,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy was criticized earlier this autumn, before Donald J. Trump won the November 5 presidential election, for presenting a victory plan that focused primarily on requests from external parties while lacking domestic reform, according to the Independent’s report.
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Another Fox Celeb for Trump’s Cabinet – President-elect Trump has named Fox Business’ The Bottom Line host Sean Duffy to be his transportation secretary (per The Hill). Duffy was US representative for Wisconsin from 2011 to 2019, where he was a loyal supporter of Trump during his first presidential term, according to his Wikipedia page. Duffy began his television career in a slew of MTV reality shows; The Real World: Boston, Road Rules: All Stars and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons. He is married to Rachel Campos Duffy, co-host with Trump’s choice for Defense secretary Pete Hesgeth on Fox & Friends: Weekend.
Meanwhile… Senate Republicans and “people around Trump” say the president-elect has been told that former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has “little chance” of confirmation as attorney general, Politico reports, adding that the GOP senators are “privately hoping” Trump “doesn’t make them walk the plank.”
ICYMI… Trump has nominated Chris Wright, CEO of the Denver-based fracking company Liberty Energy to be his Energy secretary; former US Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) from 2015-23 to head the Environmental Protection Agency; and John Ratcliffe, Trump’s national intelligence director from 2020-21 to head the CIA.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa