Just keeps getting worse

You think it can't, but it always does.

Matt Gaetz will be Trump's Attorney General.

WTactualF?

JFC.

Perhaps this had something to do with Trump's decision.  

He was being investigated for sex trafficking, illicit drug use,  accepting favors, and obstructing investigations into his behavior.  The House Ethics Chair said they only have jurisdiction over sitting members, so they're forced to close the case.  Why the hell was it taking so long in the first place?  They've been investigating since 2021!

So he owes Trump big time now.  Although he's the kind of slime who'd do whatever Trump asked even if he didn't just get saved from a "highly damaging" report.

Two key centrist members — Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) — expressed shock and surprise, with the Alaska Republican panning the choice for its lack of seriousness.

  The Hill

Who listens to those two any more? They're essentially just background noise.

Ever since Trump’s electoral romp last week, Republicans have been calling for a swift confirmation of his nominees to the Cabinet.

But some members slammed the brakes on that talk after the nomination of Gaetz, known as a prominent rabblerouser who orchestrated the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), to become the nation’s top cop.

[...]

Among the main concerns for some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and senators writ large will be the Department of Justice’s years-long investigation into allegations that [Gaetz] had sex with an underage girl. The investigation was closed last year and Gaetz was not criminally charged. He has denied any wrongdoing, but a House Ethics Committee probe is still ongoing.

[...]

“[Trump] goes from the light hearted meeting with House Republicans to a love fest with Jill and Joe at the White House. It’s this wonderful normal thing — and then he essentially gets on the plane and nukes Washington,” one Senate Republican aide told The Hill, summing up the afternoon.

And what were you expecting?

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), fresh off his defeat in his run for leader, flashed a surprised expression across his face like he just bit into a sour lemon when reporters asked him to react to Gaetz’s nomination. The senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee looked so flummoxed that it prompted a wave of laughter from the gaggle of reporters surrounding him.

[...]

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another member of the Judiciary Committee, said just because Gaetz is nominated doesn’t mean he’ll get the votes to be confirmed, predicting that not a single Democrat will vote for him.

“It’ll just be interesting to see what his organic base is,” Tillis said of the nominee. “At the end of the day, Congressman Gaetz, he’ll have a hearing but I’m all about counting votes and I would think that he’s probably got some work cut out for him to get a good strong vote.

This is why Trump wants the Senate to go on recess.

UPDATE 11/14/2024:

Don't cry for these Republicans.  Cry for the United States.  The Republicans have known for years what they were getting with Trump.

Attorney Ken White's assessment:

"Gaetz is a buffoon. He has absolutely no qualifications to run the Department of Justice. Can he wander around firing everyone? Yes. Does he understand how the Department of Justice works in a way that would allow him to maximize its potential for abuse? No. Is he smart enough to figure it out? Also no. Is he charismatic enough to persuade insiders to help him use it effectively? Very much no. Gaetz as Attorney General will do petty, flamboyant, stupid things in clumsy ways. Some of those things will be very bad. But clown shoes are preferable to jackboots. We’d be in much more trouble if someone evil in a smart and competent way who understands how the machine works — say, Jeff Clark or Ken Paxton — took over. That would be terrifying."

All true, but Gaetz is only the start.  Trump will appoint and then fire people with regularity.  The next guy - Paxton (I thought it would be Paxton - no one more evil out there) or Clark (who already had a turn that was thwarted only by the civil servants at DOJ) - will only have to get Trump's ear and feed him a line that appeals to his ego or villainy, and then they'll have the job.

But White makes another excellent point:

All of these people are ostentatiously evil and shame the institutions they will lead and are a disgrace to the Republic and so forth but do they have the skills or patience to achieve their weird goals? Institutions are very difficult to change. The populist sentiment “send in an outsider and have them clean house” requires an outsider smart and disciplined enough to overcome the fact they don’t understand what they’re changing. Otherwise the inside stubbornly and passive-aggressively thwarts the outsider. You can burn the institution to the ground but that doesn’t leave you with an institution you can use effectively as a weapon.

[...]

Do you think Matt Gaetz is going to work the hours necessary to not just learn DoJ but run it in detail? All of the interns are college graduates. Does Kristi Noem strike you as someone who handles stress well? Does war crimes enthusiast Pete Hegseth have the people skills to manage the viper’s nest that’s the Pentagon?

[...]

The people he picks tend to be a grab bag of personality disorders who squabble and fight for power, he tends to screw them over when they annoy him, and they’re all quite annoying.

I’m not saying that things won’t be bad. As I’ve said recently, I expect things to be very bad for a long time, possibly a generation, as a result of America’s choice. What I am saying is that [... t]his is a time to cherish every hope and embrace every ally. Trump and Trumpists are dysfunctional weirdos and that fact is our ally. Cold comfort is still comfort.

  The Popehat Report

Of  course they did.

UPDATE 11/15/2024:

UPDATE 11/18/2024:

UPDATE 11/19/2024:

Trump is headed back to the White House, and is already running a transition that’s a master class in how to normalize corruption, immorality, and narcissism. Bill Clinton said during his 1992 campaign that his cabinet would “look like America,” and he delivered. Trump wants one that looks just like him—and by God, he is trying to deliver.

[...]

Trump isn’t interested in the challenge or reward of Abraham Lincoln’s disputatious team of rivals. He wants a team of outlaws: likeminded pals who ignore laws, boundaries, ethics, norms, civility, respect, and plain manners. People whose unforced missteps, mistakes, and worse are now a badge of honor; a mark of achievement; a prerequisite for the job; and a permission slip to bend 330 million people to their will as part of a Trump administration—or from outside it, as we’re already seeing with co-president and diplomatic kibitzer Elon Musk.

[...]

Only to Trump could RFK Jr. look like the ideal candidate to head a department committed to “enhancing the health and well-being of all Americans” and “fostering sound, sustained advances” in medical science.

[...]

The anti-vax delusion is part of a much larger web of conspiracies that would guide RFK Jr.’s tenure as an HHS secretary instructed by his boss to “go wild.” We have used science to create a safer world. RFK Jr. would make it more dangerous for everyone, especially frail or immunocompromised people of all ages. A 2020 study by the news organization Tortoise found that he was the No. 1 superspreader of misinformation on social media, while the Center for Countering Digital Hate included him among the Disinformation Dozen in 2021.

[...]

THEN AGAIN, ONLY TRUMP could look at Pete Hegseth—a Fox News host who cheated on two wives and now is married to his third, who was accused of sexual assault and investigated by police, who denied the assault but paid off the accuser, who has said it’s not rape if a woman is unconscious, who says women should not have combat roles, who urged Trump to pardon or reinstate troops accused or convicted of war crimes, and was pulled from national guard duty at Joe Biden’s inauguration because a security manager had flagged him as a possible white nationalist “insider threat”—and deem him perfect to lead the Department of Defense and the nearly 3 million member U.S. military.

Only Trump could look at former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard—who spouts Kremlin propaganda, sympathizes with Vladimir Putin, calls Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky corrupt, and met secretly with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad—and see an ideal director of national intelligence, one who would be privy to all U.S. secrets and oversee eighteen intelligence agencies across the federal government.

Only Trump could look at former Rep. Matt Gaetz—investigated by the Justice Department for alleged sex crimes and by the House Ethics Committee in connection with allegations of “sex parties,” illicit drug use, and sex with a minor—and see an attorney general.

  The Bulwark