WORLD QUALITY DAY UPDATES

Remember, When The World Is Not Full of Quality, YOU Should Maintain YOUR Quality!

-There seems to be a momentary respite from the ongoing foundational spiral of suck being laid by the incoming President - none more hard-sucking or head-reeling than the announcement of MAGA Standard-Bearer Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. This space will not go through the litany of reasons why this appointment is the American equivalent of Caligula appointing a horse to the Roman Senate because (a) most of you likely know, (b) one of the apparent catalysts for the appointment, the issuing of a report from the House Ethics Committee that was readied for release tomorrow (Friday the 15th), may or may not have been made public by the time you read this Substack (since Gaetz resigned from Congress yesterday, the report could technically be buried, but it's DC and Gaetz is so loathed even Ted Cruz hates him), and (3) the prospect of an empowered Gaetz demanding mass resignations in the Department of Justice while potentially issuing arrest warrants against all who prosecuted Trump in his impeachments is deeply terrifying since that is something even Gaetz can figure out how to do.

-No, this focus is on the new Republican Senate and their newly-enshrined leader, South Dakota's John Thune. Thune has been waiting for the odious Mitch "The Corrupt Turtle" McConnell to retire to ascend to his seat for over a decade, and a first ballot needed to be completed so MAGA loyalist Rick Scott could be beaten for Thune to win - but by dropping the Gaetz nomination after Thune won his election was an unmistakable signal that Dear Leader Trump sees Thune's job is to come to heel along with the rest of the Republicans even when someone like Gaetz (and, to be honest, Defense Secretary nominee Pete "Maybe Next Time It Will Be YOU, Peter Doocy!" Hegseth or National Security Advisor nominee Tulsi "Does This Hawaiian-Russian Accent Make Me Look Less Like A Lunatic?" Gabbard), Trump stomped and left-leg-dragged over Thune's moment, presenting a deep and important if also somehow astonishingly degraded and stupid move before what is supposed to be The World's Most Deliberative Body.

-Even if somehow enough Republicans (we're talking four, five tops) were to vote NO on Gaetz (and as we all know, "NO" is the least of how they should vote), Trump and his minions are promoting a scheme by which Congress would be 'suspended' from meeting long enough for Trump to be able to shepherd his Star Wars Cantina into Congress without so much as an oath to be taken, much less testimony. Certainly columnists including Heather Cox Richardson and Jennifer Rubin have written about old-school Republicans at least paying lip service to advice and consent against Trump and how bending over would sacrifice America's role in the world order and how their room of egos might even find the massive one Trump is lumbering around with a bit too big ... but, after last week, one should presume and prepare for the worst while hoping for the best, so ... let us hope.

-At least Gaetz also creates headaches in the House side. Republicans had been declared the winners of the 2024 elections earlier in the morning to numerically clinch what all experts acknowledge will be a 'majority' as narrow as if not even narrower than this year's Congress - but Gaetz' resignation throws that projection out the window, and that along with two other special elections for potential Trump appointments means House Speaker and Trump lapdog Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Jay-EE-Zuz!, LA) has to manage a notoriously fractious majority that may, depending on timing and total number of Democrats, even allow a temporary transfer of power to Democrat Hakeem Jeffries (though two special elections have been called in FL for the two slots open in that state).

-Of course, also on the House side you have the most rock-ribbed MAGAts eager to supplicate themselves to their victorious Dear Leader. Witness that after Trump met with House MAGAts early yesterday and "joked" that he would stay in power through 2028 "unless you think I did a good job!," Trump supplicant Troy Nehls - who became a Congressperson after losing his job as a police officer in Texas for being too violent - forcefully and eagerly said that "If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch our heads, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads and that's it!"

-Hopefully at least Eddie Van Halen cringes in his grave ...

-Speaking of supplicating to fascists, President Biden is taking some well-earned criticism for being a little too cozy and comforting to Trump when Trump visited him yesterday. Despite Trump looking like he was not enjoying a single second of the visit, and despite Biden wishing to show that one Party can accept an election loss and transition power as the Constitution warrants, several commentators were left frustrated after Biden met Trump and then with Dr. Jill Biden took photos with Trump (Melania didn't make the trip)(go figure!) and wondering how all the rhetoric about threats to the Republic were and, if true, why on Earth would Biden be so chummy after all that. It is a detail likely to be left in the dust, but it is worth noting nonetheless.

-One piece Democrats are doing prior to January is to confirm as many judges as they can before Trump gets his wee tiny fisties on more Heritage Foundation legal bots. Up to 17 more judges can be approved as of this writing, and at least on that level the Party is doing what they can to buttress the system as much as possible from the destroyers about to come into the systems. There is also a push to bring a bill to the floor which would extend several physical and legal protections to journalists, and a bill that would have given the President the power to declare any nonprofit organization an enemy of the state did not get the required number of votes to pass.

-The BlueSky social media program hit some turbulence today under the spike in new users post-election. Reports of slow upload speeds and difficulties in posting (some of which took place with yours truly running into some of those problems) hit starting around noon, and while most agree that the volume of new users on the platform is likely the reason for the slowdown, it is an example of the continued deconstruction of the Twitter platform, which was revealed to have adjusted their algorithms to favor pro-Trump content since July when their loopy owner, Elon Musk, endorsed Trump. Too bad so sad for him.

-Enough of this - there is joy, today, and WOW what joy! In a story seemingly conceived for the site itself, the satirical newspaper The Onion - with the full support and knowledge of the Sandy Hook parents - won a bankruptcy auction to obtain all the assets of hate-caster Alex Jones, including the media assets like web sites and addresses associated with InfoWars. There will only be one sponsor for the revised site - the nonprofit board working to end gun violence in classrooms - and Onion editors hint that the new site will be a repository to battle online scams and other false information online.

-Or, in the first bit related to the act, fictitious Global Tetrahedron CEO Bryce Tetraeder stated that they intend to end all of Jones' sales of the kinds of food supplements and 'strength' additives Jones was fond of selling and will "collect the entire stock of the INFOWARS warehouses (and empty them) into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar-sized omnivitamin that one executive (I will not name names) may eat in order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal."

-May Global Tetrahedron grown exponentially in the months to come. We will need all the help we can get - especially as THIS JUST IN: as dreaded, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will indeed reportedly be nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

-The respite, alas, ended ..

-On this date in 1889, journalist Nellie Bly began a trip around the world in an attempt to beat Jules Verne's fictional 80 days (and she did - it took her 72 days!). On this date in 1960, six year old Ruby Bridges became the youngest African-American student to go to school in what until then was an all-white school. And on this date in 2002, Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to lead a Congressional party, being voted to lead the Democrats in the House to replace Richard Gephardt.

-Debuts on this date: MOBY DICK (1851), a horse-drawn streetcar (1832), BBC daily radio broadcasts (1922), SUSPICION (1941), train trips using the England/France Channel Tunnel under the English Channel (1994), NETWORK (1976), computer-generated facial morphing (as seen in Michael Jackson's "Black or White" video, 1991), THE BLACK ALBUM (2003), Gwen Stefani as a solo artist (2004).

-Happy Birthday to Claude Monet, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mamie Eisenhower, Aaron Copland, Louise Brooks, Astrid Lindgren, Barbara Hutton, Sherwood Schwartz, Brian Keith, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Veronica Lake, McLean Stevenson, Jimmy Piersall, Ellis Marsalis, Wendy Carlos, Freddie Garrity, Sacheen Littlefeather, Buckwheat Zydeco, P.J. O'Rourke, King Charles III, James "J.Y." Young, Alec John Such, Sandahl Bergman, Stephen Bishop, Yanni, Jack Sikma, Bryan Stevenson, Laura San Giacoma, J.R. "Reverend Run" Simmons, Patrick Warburton, Nina Gordon, David Lindsay-Abaire, Josh Duhamel, Lawyer Milloy, Adam Walsh, Travis Barker, and DeVonta Smith.

-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Booker T. Washington, Robert E. Sherwood, Eddie Arcaro, Robert Trout, Gene Anthony Ray, Glen Larson, Jane Byrne, Nick Bockwinkel, and Gwen Ifill.

-Feed the Worms: Joseph McCarthy, Condoleezza Rice, and Curt Schilling entered Earth on this date.