Can’t have TikTok? RedNote looks like a nice replacement. Brilliant.

Should someone have raised the red flag when TikTok first came out? Seems to me it was mentioned that the app was Chinese owned. They walked in through the propped-open front door in the middle of the pandemic, when people were hungry for connection. There might have even been a neon Welcome sign. And now 170 million people here are exposed to Chinese snooping while the app doesn’t even exist, or is unavailable, in China.

Is RedNote any less invasive, or dangerous? Is there any less of a risk of personal information being compromised? Why are people falling over themselves to move to this new platform? Seems the cat’s out of the bag either way—whether TikTok survives or people flock to RedNote.

I must be missing something here.

Trump usually gets what Trump wants, and sheep all over the country fall over themselves to placate.

With his big day upcoming, Donald decides it’s unacceptable to have the flag still flying at half mast in honor of Jimmy Carter, even saying that we the American people should all find this unacceptable. So, several Republican governors and other officials rush to assume the position and kiss his ass.

Of course this need smacks of disrespect, and childishness, and insecurity, and in normal times would likely be a non-issue. Some might even dare think better of Trump if he just decided to let this one go. But of course that won’t happen, because he’s a toddler who will soon be sworn in as #47.

With the flag flying high, just the way he wants it.

I wish I could be more eloquent and descriptive, but what comes to mind is a foundation cracked just enough to let in all manner of vermin and snakes.

Or how about they all just scurry and slither in through the front door?

Hegseth, Bondi, Patel, the OMB guy… it seems the hearings will be mere formalities, with Trump-pleasing Republicans all falling in line behind the nominees while Democrats harp too heavily on excessive drinking and sexual impropriety, talking to the hand and screaming into the void and coming close to ignoring these nominees’ ulterior motives and, with the possible exception of Marco Rubio, astounding lack of experience.

It reminds me of hearings held for Supreme Court justices—to some extent partisan questioning and posturing, and every nominee sitting in the chair and saying what he or she thinks people want to hear, trying to never give too much away.

It all makes me wonder about Project 2025: does it have any teeth, or is it just the Dems engaging in their own brand of fear mongering? I’m leaning toward the former, and it looks like we’ll be finding out soon enough, one way or another.   

The thought of Donald Trump standing with his hand on a Bible taking the oath of office for a second time is… depressing. Ugh. I wish I could think of a more forceful word, but it’s not coming.

After the last go ’round with him behind the wheel, how can we possibly be here again, and with a bit more of a mandate to boot?

There are, already and unsurprisingly, indications that he’s back-peddling on the whole “price of eggs” schtick, not to mention his obviously unserious yet dangerous gaggle of nominees for important jobs in his administration.

As Ms. Maddow put it the other night, the transition has been outright “shambolic,” which, as it turns out, is an actual word for disorganized and mismanaged. Let’s throw chaotic in there, because that’s what we’re gonna get.

Four years of chaos, dullness, and ineptitude. Comin’ right up!

So, federal aid to California is contingent on… what? Having to disown its blueness? Wildfire relief withheld from suffering citizens because Congress is controlled by Republicans who detest the whole Hollywood vibe and Gov. Newsom’s attitude?

Yes, please tie the release of aid to the debt ceiling somehow. That’d be big of you. And it sheds glaring light on your massive dysfunction besides!

Mike Johnson may be walking a tightrope, but in the end, will he have the courage to sway hearts and minds and offer what’s needed to give the people of greater LA at least a bit of hope? Some of the fire victims may very well be entitled cake-eaters and bleeding heart liberals who built their gaudy habitats in the wrong places, but that’s beside the point in these days of unfathomable loss and bewilderment and not knowing which way to turn for help.

I’m glad the DOJ has released the report from Jack Smith. We need to trust that it will be archived and preserved, and thus available to read for ourselves or at least accurately reported and sufficiently shared.

In one sense, it’s not enough for Smith and his staff to have worked for over two years only to be stymied by the long “tradition” of not prosecuting a sitting President or President-elect. But this report will, hopefully, expose Trump for who he is and what he tried to do, as well as magnify the irony and the travesty of re-electing a person so lacking in scruples, intellect, and competence.

Smith may be a marked man going forward, but he should be able to sleep at night knowing he did his job. And well. In this unsettling reality where up is down, the true patriot may be the one punished, while the real scoundrel gets to loiter in the White House for another four years, unbothered by conscience, where he can tend to the only thing he’s ever been good at: making a mess of things.