Dear Everybody,
It’s Veterans’ Day, the day we’re supposed to honor our troops, which you wouldn’t think would be all that hard for a political party that spends all its time bloviating about war and patriots and stuff, but instead they spent the day disrespecting the troops:
–Pete Hegseth and his entourage got yelled at by an Arlington Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier after one of them started laughing loudly at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The guard shouted, “ALL VISITORS WILL MAINTAIN AT ATMOSPHERE OF SILENCE AND WILL PAY RESPECT AT ALL TIME!”
–The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is the most sacred place at Arlington. It contains the remains of an unidentified soldier killed in World War One, one killed in World War II, and one killed in the Korean War. An Honor Guard stands guard 24/7 at the tomb in all weathers. The Honor Guard has a standing order to make just such a statement to anyone who shows disrespect to the fallen at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
–The video is all over TV and the internet, except for Fox, which hasn’t mentioned the incident.
–GOP Republican Committeewoman Angie Wong leaped to defend Hegseth and attack the guard: “I mean, talk about ‘paying respect.’ You have the war secretary lay a wreath on Veterans’ day and then to be yelled at…he’s the most effective War Secretary that we’ve had.”
–Dem Rep Jim McGovern: “Pete ‘Secretary of War Crimes’ Hegseth is a disgrace.”
–Simon Rosenberg: “This is so incredible on so many levels.
–Louis Charles: “That alone is enough to impeach him.”
–Charlotte Clymer: “Today Pete Hegseth got yelled at by a Tomb Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for laughing and carrying on in front of the Tomb. This is, of course, not the first time Team Trump has been accused of disrespect at Arlington.”
–Note: On one occasion Trump’s thug Stephen Cheung verbally abused an Arlington guard and pushed her after she tried to prevent them from taking photos and video in an area where recent American casualties were buried. Trump then took smiling, thumbs-up photos of himself at the off-limits grave.)
–sharks44: “The fact that a junior enlisted soldier had to yell at Hegseth because he and his party defiled the sanctity of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is beyond sad. The SecDef, more than any other cabinet member, should understand the solemnity and honor of the position and the people he oversees.”
–CharlesGetsCovered: “The perfect metaphor for Hegseth and the entire Trump administration’s disgusting disrespect for literally everything.”
–The Worst part of this is that Pete Hegseth is absolutely going to have this guard punished for daring to interrupt the secretary’s phone op.”
–Trump celebrated the day by telling a story about a soldier in the jungles of Afghanistan. (Note: Afghanistan has no jungles.) At the end of the speech, he waved his fist in the air in triumph several times, but that didn’t get as much attention because Pete Hegseth completely upstaged him in classlessness.
The other big story of the day is that Republicans’ actions clearly show what they intend to do now that they’ve lost:
–Daily Kos: “If you thought the absolute drubbing Americans handed the GOP on November 3 would be a wake-up call for the party to forge a new path and end their subservience of President Donald Trump, well, you thought wrong. Not a single thing Republicans have done since their brutal losses suggests they understand why voters threw them out of power.”
–It’s perfectly clear now that Trump and the Republicans are going to dig in their heels and “fight like hell” to continue doing the things that lost them the election.
–Here’s the proof:
They chose Jim Jordan as House Minority Leader:
–Jordan is a man who not only remains in contempt for refusing to appear when subpoenaed by Congress but someone who stood by as his wrestlers were sexually assaulted, did nothing, and then lied about it, throwing the victims to the wolves.
–Eric Jay: “Republicans chose Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan…after an election that amounted to a humiliating repudiation of Trump and the MAGA movement, you chose the guy who has made defending Trump and going after Trump’s enemies central to his entire identity? The same performative shitweasel who has been pandering to the MAGA for years? And with the same kind of petulant rhetoric and culture war propaganda that Americans overwhelmingly rejected a week ago today?…Holy shit, you’ve learned NOTHING!”
–Dak: “Jim Jordan also helped orchestrate January 6 with Trump. He should be in jail, not Congress.”
–Marc Elias: “None of the NYT, WaPo , or Politico mention Jim Jordan’s role in trying to help Trump overturn 2020 in their stories today on Jordan becoming House GOP leader.”
Not a single Republican voted to impeach Pete Hegseth except Thomas Massie, who was the one who introduced the articles of impeachment:
–They all hate Hegseth and have been trying to convince Trump privately to fire him, and they know Hegseth and his actions played a major part in their defeat, but they still couldn’t bring themselves to actually vote against their Dear Leader.
–The vote narrowly failed, and everyone is blaming 11 Democrats who were absent from the vote (including Democrats, who are absolutely wonderful at conducting circular firing squads, even when they just won) but the vote wouldn’t have succeeded anyway. If the Dems HAD been there, Mike Johnson would have simply held the vote open till he got the necessary Republican votes (even if it took till the end of time.)
–If it had passed, the impeachment would have gone nowhere because the Republicans are still in power for two more months. The Dems will introduce the articles again as soon as they gain power, and then they will have a decent chance of holding hearings and actually convicting him.
–A bunch of the Dems who were missing were at an event away from the Capitol, which is why Johnson held the vote when he did. BUT they were on their way back in a bus, trying to get there for the vote, when there was a traffic “incident” and they were caught in traffic. (I immediately thought of the movie BREACH, the true story about the Russian spy Robert Hanssen. In it, there was an incident when Hanssen was on his way back to his office, where an FBI agent was in the middle of searching his office for proof of his being a spy, and the FBI arranged a traffic jam to slow him down. I know that sounds conspiracy-ish, but given the other stuff the Republicans are doing right now, and the fact that Kash Patel is in charge at the FBI, anything is possible. Just sayin…)
Trump appointed Stephen Miller as his Chief of Staff:
–Even though one of the main reasons Trump’s Republicans lost the election was their hatred of ICE, Trump appointed the architect behind it and the man who is determined to get rid of every single immigrant in the country, a direct slap in the face to every Democrat and an action even Republicans couldn’t believe.
–Trump is also wearing a hat that says, “VETO,” claiming the election is rigged, posting violent memes about beating up and deporting reporters, and going full speed ahead against judges’ orders to build his arch and his private golf course.
–Axios: “Trump, with the clock ticking and Congressional investigations closing in, plans to govern even more imperially, hell-bent on stretching executive power, targeting those on his enemies list, pardoning allies, and daring the courts and Congress to slow him down.”
–Clinical psychologist Dr. Vince Greenwood: “President Trump is motivated by a will to dominate and to win in all areas of life…Trump will not be stopped by the midterms or other attempts to contain his behavior.”
AG Todd Blanche and GOP Rep Tom Emmer declared war on the Democrats:
–Attorney General Blanche threatened the newly-elected Democrats, saying that if they held investigations (which is Congress’s job) he would come after them and prosecute them.
–Roger Stone cheered Blanche on: “Many Democrat lawmakers are going to find themselves under indictment and fighting conviction. Watch!”
–The Trump’s White House counsel Will Scharf has formally warned Dem Rep Robert Garcia, the incoming House Oversight Committee chair, in a letter that some of the new majority’s investigations could cross the line into criminal behavior.”
–GOP Rep Tom Emmer, surrounded by other Republicans, shouted, “Come January 3, 2027, you will regret ever putting your name on a ballot.”
–JCL: “Threatening incoming representatives elected by the People. This is barbaric. The crazies still want to be in charge. Hell NO!”
–Rich Reimis: “Spoken like a true bully…These are monstrous people posing as leaders. it will take resolute opposition to end their tyranny.”
–Mruske: “Label this video EXHIBIT A for the next special investigation, hopefully by Jack Smith, because it sounds like he’s threatening another insurrection.”
Trump and Grassley are breaking all the rules to get judges illegally confirmed before they lose power:
–Senator Chuck Grassley overrode common norms to ram their court picks through before January 3. Under the regular rules, no candidates could be confirmed before the end of this Congress.
–The panel’s bipartisan practice of holding hearings no closer than two weeks apart was jettisoned, and they’re violating the 28 days rule between submitting a candidate’s questionnaire and their nomination hearing, sending them in 14 and 10 days after submission, which means the committee has no time to vet the nominees.
–James Sullivan lost his election to the Texas Supreme Court on Tuesday. Wednesday his paperwork for a lifetime federal judgeship was submitted to the judicial panel in Congress.
–Senator Ted Cruz nominated Elliot Geiser the day after the midterms. (Both immediate nominations show they had them all ready to go in the event of a loss.)
–Dem Senator Dick Durbin: “What we are seeing here is an effort to resurrect defeated candidates in Texas and other states to fill positions on the federal district court before the new Congress.” Durbin told Grassley he’s making “a serious mistake by violating the committee’s rules just to help Trump. When you have to live with it under a new Chairman, I’m sorry to tell you, but you asked for it.”
Dem Rep Adam Kinzinger: “The good news for Democrats is that Republicans have spent the last seven days proving that they have learned absolutely nothing from getting their asses kicked on Election Night. Not a single lesson. Not even an attempt.”
In good news, the great news still keeps pouring out from the midterms:
–In Mississippi, CNN is projecting that Scott Colom has won and is the new Senator from Mississippi. (I can’t believe I’m saying that.)
–In Alaska, Mary Peltola has pulled ahead. She added to her lead yesterday and is getting closer to the 50% she needs to win without going through the ranked choice vote procedure.
–Even though the count is final and Scott Colom has been declared the new senator from Mississippi, Cindy Hyde-Smith is refusing to concede so Colom can’t attend the Senate orientation.
–Montana banned corporate money in state elections.
–Nevada and Virginia codified abortion rights.
–Washington kept its millionaire tax and Chicago passed one.
–Several of the Republican officials most responsible for advocating for restrictive election laws will enter 2027 with far less power or none at all.
–Ron Filipkowski: “Another thing this election showed is when their hate, fear, and division playbook doesn’t work, Republicans don’t really have a Plan B.”
–Winston Churchill, on the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa; “Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Over in the fever swamps:
–Fox has found something new to bitch about. They are incensed by how handsome some of the winning Democrats are–Talarico, El-Sayed, Ossoff, and Mamdani–and are telling everyone that’s why the Dems won–because they had a teenage crush on them.
–On Fox and Friends this morning they were making fun of Democrats for thinking Talarico was “masculine.” (They tried through the whole campaign to paint him as gay and/or trans.)
–Fox’s chyron: “The left swoons over heatwave of New Democrats.”
–The Fox host said, “We have an actual supermodel that’s First Lady, and she can’t get on the cover.”
In The Kids Are All Right news:
–Shashank Madala, a teenager who has a cousin who’s autistic built an app that helps parents and caregivers read the emotional cues of autistic children. The app suggests possibilities of what the autistic child means by certain movements, sounds, and expressions, but does not claim that it definitely knows what the child is thinking.
In historical news:
–In 1620, the Pilgrims, who had landed at the wrong place, made a decision to stay where they were even though they weren’t authorized by England to do so. They signed the Mayflower Compact, signing it “Saints and Other Strangers,” and then all 102 of the settlers stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock.
In science news:
–On this day in 1572, Tycho Brahe discovered a nova in the constellation Casseopeia and named it “De Nova Stella.” The new star became brighter and brighter over the next few days, eventually surpassing Venus and then becoming visible in broad daylight.
–I got really excited a couple of years ago when it sounded like Betelgeuse (in Orion’s Belt) might go nova, It was dimming and brightening like a flickering light about to go out–or explode, and I got really excited that I might actually get to see a supernova in my lifetime. However, it turned out to be dust that was obscuring the star, then drifting away to produce the flickering effect, but I haven’t given up hope yet. I mean, how cool would a supernova be?
In other news:
–Alexander Darchiev, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, died suddenly in Moscow at the age of 66. The Russians gave no cause for his death. (Gee, that sure does happen a lot.)
–Border Patrol Tom Homan accidentally admitted that Biden won the election in 2020 while making the untrue claim that enormous caravans are heading toward the border.
–Secretary Scott Bessent moved onto a military base, claiming he was worried about security threats from the Iranians. He’s not the only member of the administration to do that–Stephen Miller is already there and so are Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth. (Are they afraid of Iranian terrorists or American protesters?)
In good news:
–The blue tsunami wiped out ten of the worst anti-trans people in the House and the Senate: Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, Roger Marshall, Tim Moore, Ashley Hinson, Darline Graham, Jen Kiggins, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Derrick Van Orden and Jeff Van Drew.
–The only openly transgender member of Congress, Dem Rep Sarah McBride, won re-election by a landslide.
–Democrat Ahmed Moon has announced he intends to primary Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who has been voting with the Republicans and alienating everyone in the Democratic Party. He was expected to defect to the Republican Party after the election, but no one’s quite sure what he’s going to do now. But he’s definitely going to get primaried.
Best comment of the day, for this Veterans’ Day, from John Doolittle: “America’s veterans have served their country with the belief that democracy and freedom are ideals to be upheld around the world.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
