Matt Gaetz tapped for AG

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bunch of DOJ officials being quoted anonymously and being very critical of the MG nomination.

Ignoring the substance of their critiques this is simply highly unprofessional behavior. I don’t like the nomination either, but DOJ employees must be extremely apolitical and this kinda of thing pisses people off.

It is not and should not be political to say that a man who has barely practiced law and is currently under investigation for serious ethics violations by the House of Representatives and who until recently eas the subject of an investigation into sex trafficking and other crimes, and who has shown himself generally to be thoughtless, antagonistic, and straight up gross, should not be Attorney General of the United States.

Like if he were an actual lawyer without all of these ethics issues and the criminal investigation and the truly obnoxious public behavior, I would agree with you -- regardless of your opinion on his politics, rack and file at the DOJ should keep it to themselves. It's a political appointment and the President is entitled to his pick.

But this is an offensive, grossly unqualified, deeply compromised candidate. I have zero issues with people within DOJ expressing their dismay. This is a ridiculous pick.

The president nominates and the senate confirms or rejects. The civil service is supposed to be apolitical and in exchange the civil service is supposed to be in a privileged position insulated from politics.

There is simply no constitutional requirement that a nominee be “good”. So, yes, commenting on POTUS-elect’s picks is a political move, no matter how common sense the substance of the criticism may seem.

Think of it this way, if through some miracle MG is confined, he now has all the cover he needs to fire everyone at DOJ and/or every single official who commented should resign. There is a reason while all this criticism has been done anonymously.

This is the fundamental paradox of the Trump presidency: everyone in the “resistance” breaks political norms in their criticism of him and then they can’t understand why Republican voters elected a guy who shreds every norm that we’ve ever applied to the Presidency.

The standard for the civil service must be: “is it legal” not “do I agree with it.”

No. The standard for civil service is competence, ethics and, above all, LOYALTY TO THE CONSTITUTION.

That’s the problem with Trump selecting people who are loyal to him. You may not be aware, but civil servants swear an oath to the Constitution.

If you are American you should at the very least defend that standard.

I would not pick MG. But that isn’t the issue. Is there anything unconstitutional about the MG nomination? No, of course not. So they need to STFU and carry on their duties or resign.

But anonymously sniping in the press like scared, insecure little teenagers is precisely the kind of thing that makes people lose trust in our institutions. It is also the same exact mistake that the left keeps making with Trump. It has been happening for almost ten years now starting most prominently with the NYT declaring that institutional norms did not apply to Donald Trump because of the threat he posed. By ignoring institutional norms, the resistance exposes that it didn’t believe in them in the first place. It also makes them look small and petty. The net effect is to take some of the spotlight away from Trump’s bad acts thereby vindicating Trump and generating sympathy for Trump among his supporters.

Trump really is some kind of kryptonite to the left that leads them to make unforced, dumb errors that the left will later regret. “Gee, how come the right won’t vote to protect the institutional norms we ignore?”

Of course civil servants should refuse unlawful orders. But that isn’t the issue here. The issue is the nomination of MG.

The ethical issues are for the senate to consider at the nomination process or subsequently as part of an impeachment process. Each DOJ member is always free to resign.

The substance of the criticism is correct, but a group that wants to be insulated from politics shouldn’t be out there engaging in politics. Simple as that.

The problem is that with this pick and the things being said in public about trying to circumvent the Senate process and go after person who were part of prosecutions, says directly they are not being protected from politics. Nominating someone as ridiculously unqualified as Matt Gatez to be AG says something and if confirmed would smear the integrity of a whole slew of institutions from DOJ to FBI to ATF to etc. Quite frankly they should all be awarded for raising their voices to say Matt Gaetz is alarmingly unqualified.

Please quote the part of the constitution that says a cabinet nominee cannot be someone who will smear the integrity of the institution? Hint: it isn’t there. Again, it does not matter how common sense the critique is. Common sense isn’t the standard.

So now they are smearing their own integrity by engaging in politics. The real answer is to resign if you feel that strongly about it. But anonymous quotes in the paper are only going to be spun as the “deep state” settling in against Trump.

Trump: “The deep state is attacking me and resisting my election.”

The left: “But we had a good reason for it.”

This is exactly what Carville meant about preachy females. Like the rich girl from Greenwich viscerally screaming on the Yale quad at the dean that she only wanted to talk about her trauma. Or the ABC journalist nitpicking Vance about whether a handful or all apartment complexes in that Colorado town were under the control of criminal immigrant gangs. It is like the left just wants to confirm most of what Trump accuses them of with zero thought to how it looks to the rest of the country. The guy really is the world’s greatest troll.

This isn’t hard, guys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bunch of DOJ officials being quoted anonymously and being very critical of the MG nomination.

Ignoring the substance of their critiques this is simply highly unprofessional behavior. I don’t like the nomination either, but DOJ employees must be extremely apolitical and this kinda of thing pisses people off.

It is not and should not be political to say that a man who has barely practiced law and is currently under investigation for serious ethics violations by the House of Representatives and who until recently eas the subject of an investigation into sex trafficking and other crimes, and who has shown himself generally to be thoughtless, antagonistic, and straight up gross, should not be Attorney General of the United States.

Like if he were an actual lawyer without all of these ethics issues and the criminal investigation and the truly obnoxious public behavior, I would agree with you -- regardless of your opinion on his politics, rack and file at the DOJ should keep it to themselves. It's a political appointment and the President is entitled to his pick.

But this is an offensive, grossly unqualified, deeply compromised candidate. I have zero issues with people within DOJ expressing their dismay. This is a ridiculous pick.

The president nominates and the senate confirms or rejects. The civil service is supposed to be apolitical and in exchange the civil service is supposed to be in a privileged position insulated from politics.

There is simply no constitutional requirement that a nominee be “good”. So, yes, commenting on POTUS-elect’s picks is a political move, no matter how common sense the substance of the criticism may seem.

Think of it this way, if through some miracle MG is confined, he now has all the cover he needs to fire everyone at DOJ and/or every single official who commented should resign. There is a reason while all this criticism has been done anonymously.

This is the fundamental paradox of the Trump presidency: everyone in the “resistance” breaks political norms in their criticism of him and then they can’t understand why Republican voters elected a guy who shreds every norm that we’ve ever applied to the Presidency.

The standard for the civil service must be: “is it legal” not “do I agree with it.”

No. The standard for civil service is competence, ethics and, above all, LOYALTY TO THE CONSTITUTION.

That’s the problem with Trump selecting people who are loyal to him. You may not be aware, but civil servants swear an oath to the Constitution.

If you are American you should at the very least defend that standard.

I would not pick MG. But that isn’t the issue. Is there anything unconstitutional about the MG nomination? No, of course not. So they need to STFU and carry on their duties or resign.

But anonymously sniping in the press like scared, insecure little teenagers is precisely the kind of thing that makes people lose trust in our institutions. It is also the same exact mistake that the left keeps making with Trump. It has been happening for almost ten years now starting most prominently with the NYT declaring that institutional norms did not apply to Donald Trump because of the threat he posed. By ignoring institutional norms, the resistance exposes that it didn’t believe in them in the first place. It also makes them look small and petty. The net effect is to take some of the spotlight away from Trump’s bad acts thereby vindicating Trump and generating sympathy for Trump among his supporters.

Trump really is some kind of kryptonite to the left that leads them to make unforced, dumb errors that the left will later regret. “Gee, how come the right won’t vote to protect the institutional norms we ignore?”

Of course civil servants should refuse unlawful orders. But that isn’t the issue here. The issue is the nomination of MG.

The ethical issues are for the senate to consider at the nomination process or subsequently as part of an impeachment process. Each DOJ member is always free to resign.

The substance of the criticism is correct, but a group that wants to be insulated from politics shouldn’t be out there engaging in politics. Simple as that.

Clearly the people at DOJ believe Gaetz is a threat to the Constitution. Having themselves sworn to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, they should speak up. But, they should also put their names to their concerns.

The bolded is precisely the problem! The standard is not “is he a threat to the constitution?” That is contained nowhere in our laws because that is such an impossible standard. Everybody is a theoretical threat to the constitution and thus it is an impossible standard. The standard is whether it is constitutional or not. If by some miracle he is confirmed then absolutely, when he orders something they is illegal they should refuse and/or resign. But “he might threaten the constitution” is a very, very silly reason to torch institutional norms.

Putting their names to the criticism would be more honorable and defensible.

DP. It really isn't. Trump, for example, is a threat to the constitution because he has demonstrated that (J6). Gaetz is just a common criminal, so maybe not so much a threat to the constitution as just a loser AG. As for torching institutional norms, isn't that what Trump was elected to do? So everyone else is just helping him along. It's a good thing. Amirite?

[Anonymous]

I really did believe that Obama was amazing at triggering Republicans into stupid, unforced errors.

Our only job is to make sure there is no second Obama term” was just to mind Numbingly stupid. Same thing with the birther thing. Obama put on a masterclass holding onto his birth certificate allowing the right to make themselves look like idiots.

But Obama was an amateur compared to Trump’s ability to trigger and troll the left. Really smart people are going to study that part of Trump and incorporate it into the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really did believe that Obama was amazing at triggering Republicans into stupid, unforced errors.

Our only job is to make sure there is no second Obama term” was just to mind Numbingly stupid. Same thing with the birther thing. Obama put on a masterclass holding onto his birth certificate allowing the right to make themselves look like idiots.

But Obama was an amateur compared to Trump’s ability to trigger and troll the left. Really smart people are going to study that part of Trump and incorporate it into the future.

Troll-in-chief was not actually why Trump was elected. Tbh I think that part of his last presidency was erased from people's memories because it was so annoying and stupid. But here we are, back again.

Although Gaetz-as-AG is not trolling the left but rather trolling the right.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:You will never go broke counting on Congressional Republicans to bend over for Trump:

Anyone who wouldn't at least publicly question this appointment is a spineless coward. Anyone who'd just instantly accept and believe Matt Gaetz's "reassurances" is a moron.

[Anonymous]

People are idiots if they do not realize that AG Gaetz will start enforcing the Comstock Act nationwide.

Legal abortion in all 50 states will be gone by next summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really did believe that Obama was amazing at triggering Republicans into stupid, unforced errors.

Our only job is to make sure there is no second Obama term” was just to mind Numbingly stupid. Same thing with the birther thing. Obama put on a masterclass holding onto his birth certificate allowing the right to make themselves look like idiots.

But Obama was an amateur compared to Trump’s ability to trigger and troll the left. Really smart people are going to study that part of Trump and incorporate it into the future.

I think there is a very real chance that this "trolling the left" governing philosophy will backfire spectacularly. Because there are a lot of people out there of the mind to let the American public get what it voted for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a fan of this pick. At all. But it’s the only pick I absolutely loathe far. I hated a lot of Biden’s picks too.

As long as Elon’s on board, I have faith.

In time Elon will be discarded by the malignant narcissist-in-chief.

Idealize -> Devalue -> Discard. The end.

+1 Elon is not making past the first half of 2025.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:You will never go broke counting on Congressional Republicans to bend over for Trump:

So let's get these senators some Red Bull. Where's jazzercise when you need it? Energy, people! Energy!

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:You will never go broke counting on Congressional Republicans to bend over for Trump:

In other words, they know Trump isn't serious about governance and is just waiting out his Presidency like the rest of us. Every day that goes by is one day closer to the finish line for the lame duck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bunch of DOJ officials being quoted anonymously and being very critical of the MG nomination.

Ignoring the substance of their critiques this is simply highly unprofessional behavior. I don’t like the nomination either, but DOJ employees must be extremely apolitical and this kinda of thing pisses people off.

It is not and should not be political to say that a man who has barely practiced law and is currently under investigation for serious ethics violations by the House of Representatives and who until recently eas the subject of an investigation into sex trafficking and other crimes, and who has shown himself generally to be thoughtless, antagonistic, and straight up gross, should not be Attorney General of the United States.

Like if he were an actual lawyer without all of these ethics issues and the criminal investigation and the truly obnoxious public behavior, I would agree with you -- regardless of your opinion on his politics, rack and file at the DOJ should keep it to themselves. It's a political appointment and the President is entitled to his pick.

But this is an offensive, grossly unqualified, deeply compromised candidate. I have zero issues with people within DOJ expressing their dismay. This is a ridiculous pick.

The president nominates and the senate confirms or rejects. The civil service is supposed to be apolitical and in exchange the civil service is supposed to be in a privileged position insulated from politics.

There is simply no constitutional requirement that a nominee be “good”. So, yes, commenting on POTUS-elect’s picks is a political move, no matter how common sense the substance of the criticism may seem.

Think of it this way, if through some miracle MG is confined, he now has all the cover he needs to fire everyone at DOJ and/or every single official who commented should resign. There is a reason while all this criticism has been done anonymously.

This is the fundamental paradox of the Trump presidency: everyone in the “resistance” breaks political norms in their criticism of him and then they can’t understand why Republican voters elected a guy who shreds every norm that we’ve ever applied to the Presidency.

The standard for the civil service must be: “is it legal” not “do I agree with it.”

No. The standard for civil service is competence, ethics and, above all, LOYALTY TO THE CONSTITUTION.

That’s the problem with Trump selecting people who are loyal to him. You may not be aware, but civil servants swear an oath to the Constitution.

If you are American you should at the very least defend that standard.

I would not pick MG. But that isn’t the issue. Is there anything unconstitutional about the MG nomination? No, of course not. So they need to STFU and carry on their duties or resign.

But anonymously sniping in the press like scared, insecure little teenagers is precisely the kind of thing that makes people lose trust in our institutions. It is also the same exact mistake that the left keeps making with Trump. It has been happening for almost ten years now starting most prominently with the NYT declaring that institutional norms did not apply to Donald Trump because of the threat he posed. By ignoring institutional norms, the resistance exposes that it didn’t believe in them in the first place. It also makes them look small and petty. The net effect is to take some of the spotlight away from Trump’s bad acts thereby vindicating Trump and generating sympathy for Trump among his supporters.

Trump really is some kind of kryptonite to the left that leads them to make unforced, dumb errors that the left will later regret. “Gee, how come the right won’t vote to protect the institutional norms we ignore?”

Of course civil servants should refuse unlawful orders. But that isn’t the issue here. The issue is the nomination of MG.

The ethical issues are for the senate to consider at the nomination process or subsequently as part of an impeachment process. Each DOJ member is always free to resign.

The substance of the criticism is correct, but a group that wants to be insulated from politics shouldn’t be out there engaging in politics. Simple as that.

So many useless words to tie yourself into a knot about this terrible pick. Complaining about the new boss is the quintessential American past time, nothing different here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bunch of DOJ officials being quoted anonymously and being very critical of the MG nomination.

Ignoring the substance of their critiques this is simply highly unprofessional behavior. I don’t like the nomination either, but DOJ employees must be extremely apolitical and this kinda of thing pisses people off.

It is not and should not be political to say that a man who has barely practiced law and is currently under investigation for serious ethics violations by the House of Representatives and who until recently eas the subject of an investigation into sex trafficking and other crimes, and who has shown himself generally to be thoughtless, antagonistic, and straight up gross, should not be Attorney General of the United States.

Like if he were an actual lawyer without all of these ethics issues and the criminal investigation and the truly obnoxious public behavior, I would agree with you -- regardless of your opinion on his politics, rack and file at the DOJ should keep it to themselves. It's a political appointment and the President is entitled to his pick.

But this is an offensive, grossly unqualified, deeply compromised candidate. I have zero issues with people within DOJ expressing their dismay. This is a ridiculous pick.

The president nominates and the senate confirms or rejects. The civil service is supposed to be apolitical and in exchange the civil service is supposed to be in a privileged position insulated from politics.

There is simply no constitutional requirement that a nominee be “good”. So, yes, commenting on POTUS-elect’s picks is a political move, no matter how common sense the substance of the criticism may seem.

Think of it this way, if through some miracle MG is confined, he now has all the cover he needs to fire everyone at DOJ and/or every single official who commented should resign. There is a reason while all this criticism has been done anonymously.

This is the fundamental paradox of the Trump presidency: everyone in the “resistance” breaks political norms in their criticism of him and then they can’t understand why Republican voters elected a guy who shreds every norm that we’ve ever applied to the Presidency.

The standard for the civil service must be: “is it legal” not “do I agree with it.”

No. The standard for civil service is competence, ethics and, above all, LOYALTY TO THE CONSTITUTION.

That’s the problem with Trump selecting people who are loyal to him. You may not be aware, but civil servants swear an oath to the Constitution.

If you are American you should at the very least defend that standard.

I would not pick MG. But that isn’t the issue. Is there anything unconstitutional about the MG nomination? No, of course not. So they need to STFU and carry on their duties or resign.

But anonymously sniping in the press like scared, insecure little teenagers is precisely the kind of thing that makes people lose trust in our institutions. It is also the same exact mistake that the left keeps making with Trump. It has been happening for almost ten years now starting most prominently with the NYT declaring that institutional norms did not apply to Donald Trump because of the threat he posed. By ignoring institutional norms, the resistance exposes that it didn’t believe in them in the first place. It also makes them look small and petty. The net effect is to take some of the spotlight away from Trump’s bad acts thereby vindicating Trump and generating sympathy for Trump among his supporters.

Trump really is some kind of kryptonite to the left that leads them to make unforced, dumb errors that the left will later regret. “Gee, how come the right won’t vote to protect the institutional norms we ignore?”

Of course civil servants should refuse unlawful orders. But that isn’t the issue here. The issue is the nomination of MG.

The ethical issues are for the senate to consider at the nomination process or subsequently as part of an impeachment process. Each DOJ member is always free to resign.

The substance of the criticism is correct, but a group that wants to be insulated from politics shouldn’t be out there engaging in politics. Simple as that.

Clearly the people at DOJ believe Gaetz is a threat to the Constitution. Having themselves sworn to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, they should speak up. But, they should also put their names to their concerns.

The bolded is precisely the problem! The standard is not “is he a threat to the constitution?” That is contained nowhere in our laws because that is such an impossible standard. Everybody is a theoretical threat to the constitution and thus it is an impossible standard. The standard is whether it is constitutional or not. If by some miracle he is confirmed then absolutely, when he orders something they is illegal they should refuse and/or resign. But “he might threaten the constitution” is a very, very silly reason to torch institutional norms.

Putting their names to the criticism would be more honorable and defensible.

DP. It really isn't. Trump, for example, is a threat to the constitution because he has demonstrated that (J6). Gaetz is just a common criminal, so maybe not so much a threat to the constitution as just a loser AG. As for torching institutional norms, isn't that Trump was elected to do? So everyone else is just helping him along. It's a good thing. Amirite?

If your side torches institutional norms in order to protect institutional norms, then don’t be surprised when the other side doesn’t care for institutional norms. If you want to prep text institutional liens the best thing to do is abide by them even if the other side is attacking them. Same concept as peaceful resistance.

I would recommend dropping the J6 thing which is also a perfect proxy for this whole conversation. The left invested four years and a ton of political capital into J6 and the country held a national referendum about it a little over a week ago … and the issue flopped.

A whole lot of Americans saw J6 (or a large subpart of it) as a riot, not as an insurrection or “the darkest day in the history of our democracy” or whatever horrible thing you called it. In the process of the shrill overreaction to J6, you put people in a frame where they were defending/sympathetic to the J6 rioters and and you looked like overreaching tyrants. Just a horrible persuasion technique all around. But the problem with the DC bubble is that since everybody agrees inside the bubble you lose sight of how things look out in the territories. Also see the fable of the Emperor’s new clothes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really did believe that Obama was amazing at triggering Republicans into stupid, unforced errors.

Our only job is to make sure there is no second Obama term” was just to mind Numbingly stupid. Same thing with the birther thing. Obama put on a masterclass holding onto his birth certificate allowing the right to make themselves look like idiots.

But Obama was an amateur compared to Trump’s ability to trigger and troll the left. Really smart people are going to study that part of Trump and incorporate it into the future.

Troll-in-chief was not actually why Trump was elected. Tbh I think that part of his last presidency was erased from people's memories because it was so annoying and stupid. But here we are, back again.

Althoughw Gaetz-as-AG is not trolling the left but rather trolling the right.

This 1000%. Trump isn’t trolling the left, as they already see him for what he is and don’t expect anything good from him. Trump is trolling those who voted for him and thought what he said was an act that would someone not impact them because he cared about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are at least a dozen Senate Republicans who now wish they had convicted Trump in the 2nd impeachment. They aren’t going to rubber stamp his unhinged Cabinet picks. They just need to authorize FBI background investigations of the nominees and let that play out.

We wish they had too. Alas!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a fan of this pick. At all. But it’s the only pick I absolutely loathe far. I hated a lot of Biden’s picks too.

As long as Elon’s on board, I have faith.

In time Elon will be discarded by the malignant narcissist-in-chief.

Idealize -> Devalue -> Discard. The end.

+1 Elon is not making past the first half of 2025.

I'm not so sure. The tech billionaires like Musk and Peter Thiel are so close to power. And with their lackey Vance as VP, it won't be clear who is discarding who. I think there are fairly high odds the 25th amendment will be invoked sometime in the next two years. Which is why Trump is seeking to protect himself with super-loyalist cabinet members like Gaetz.