In case the previous item was not depressing enough, we move on to a rundown of some of the bright and shining pillars of humanity who will be serving, or who likely will be serving, in the Trump administration for the next 4 years.
To start, it looks like DNI-designate Tulsi Gabbard might make it over the finish line after all. Yesterday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who is still "concerned" about some aspects of Gabbard's past, announced that she would nonetheless vote for confirmation. The Senator's explanation for her decision was, in a word, gobbledegook:
There are a lot of obvious issues. Her answers to the written questions were very hedged on [Section 702]. I know there's been a lot of reporting that she's changed her position. That's not how I read her answers. I read them as, "I'll take a look at the reforms and see if they meet my concerns."
What does this even mean? We've read it multiple times, and still cannot parse it. It seems that Collins' conclusion is, "Yeah, she kind of lied on her paperwork, but she might change her mind about things, and she might not, and that's good enough for me." In any event, the Senator has once again shown why she will not be appearing in the next edition of Profiles in Courage. And because Collins is not only one of the few Republican votes that can be considered at all swingy, but is also one of the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, her vote will go a long way to getting Gabbard over the hump.
Meanwhile, in the past few days, the White House has announced the appointment of some real gems to lower-level positions is the administration. First, there is new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy at the State Department Darren Beattie, who served in the first Trump White House until being fired for speaking at a conference of white nationalists. It would seem that, these days, that's no longer a problem. Of course, it's been 6 years since he was canned, so maybe he's turned over a new leaf? Ehhhh... not so much. This October, for example, Beattie fired up his eX-Twitter account to share this keen insight with the world: "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men." Beattie is also a crazypants conspiracy theorist. Whether it's deep states, or stolen elections, or Jewish space lasers, or any other nutty right-wing notion, he's on board.
And then there is Sean Parnell, who is a combat veteran, and who has run for office in Pennsylvania several times, and lost each of those elections. Most notably—and if the name rings a bell, this is why—Parnell was the Trump-endorsed candidate in the 2022 Senate race, until he lost custody of his kids following credible claims, in open court, that he had abused his ex-wife. Thereafter, Parnell had to drop out, leaving Mehmet Oz to lose to John Fetterman. But now, Parnell has a job; he will serve as assistant secretary and spokesperson for newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, another accused misogynist and spousal abuser.
There's also Andrew Kloster, who will be chief counsel for the Office of Personnel Management. Kloster is another "raging misogynist." Where did we get that description from? Kloster himself; he regularly uses that descriptor for himself on social media, since it'a apparently something to be proud of. Good luck if you are a federal employee, a woman, and you would like the OPM to consider a hostile workplace claim. Oh, and Kloster is another conspiracist, by the way.
As we put this item together, we could not help but visualize this, which you might call the Venn Diagram of MAGA:
Looked at through this lens, it's no wonder that the administration is ending up with a staff list like the one we describe above. (Z)