Week 46
By 
Another busy week!
They hold a North Korea style “cabinet meeting” for the declining President when he has a bad week, so that was part of the pre-holiday celebration. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wins a participation prize for her enthusiastic praise and action of rolling back Biden’s increases in aid to mothers and children.
Suddenly, it’s being generally recognized that the laws of war, going back to when people started to make war with boats, prohibit killing people who are shipwrecked. Further, even the New York Times had an “analysis” article pointing out that using the military to shoot random boats out of the water in the first place may also be a violation of those laws. Don’t let the legalisms being thrown around on this fool you – there is no excuse.
A special election in Tennessee validated the early November results that the Trumpian margins are melting away.
Special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met with Vladimir Putin for five hours. Putin maintained his stand that only total subordination of Ukraine to his will was acceptable. He later mocked them to an audience in, I think, Uzbekistan.
Trump is not looking well. He fell asleep in the laudatory “cabinet meeting” several times, and his eyes were close to shut at times when he was trying to appear awake. He moves slowly and has increasing trouble speaking. The bruise on his hand was worse this week. The speculation that it’s for some sort of infusion seems off base to me. A number of doctors have pointed out that for something like an infusion that requires time, other options are preferable. And I would note, having recently been subjected to anaesthesia administered through veins in my left hand, that doctors seem to prefer not using the dominant hand. Trump is right-handed. But the bruise is there and worse than the standard bruises that old people get.
Scott has been doing a great job of documenting RFK Jr.’s destruction of our public health system. His hand-picked vaccine committee recommended against hepatitis B vaccine for babies, condemining some of them to a lifelong infection that they will spread to others.
The Supreme Court anonymously endorsed Texas’s gerrymandering plan. Because plans like this spread Republicans around from where they are more concentrated, the 13-point increase in support for Democrats in Tuesday’s election can boomerang to Republican losses with these gerrymanders.
The National Security Strategy was released under cover of darkness Thursday night. There’s a lot that can be said about it, but it’s mostly not surprising: Europe must become more rightwing, they’re scared of China and don’t know what to do about it, lots of generally fascistic ideas including that only cishet white men should be in government, the US will be the strongest nation without actually doing anything. What was a little surprising was the emphasis on the Western Hemisphere. War to bring back business colonialism should be interesting.
Republican support for Trump is slowly falling away where once it was uniform across the party. Every break makes the next one easier. I wouldn’t say we’re at a turning point, but some of the conditions for a turning point are starting to show up. The infighting is beginning to get ugly. It will be worse.
Follow the court-watchers for the details of the lawsuits. Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker.
As usual, keep it to things that have actually happened, not hypotheticals. What is actually happening is bad enough.
Caring for yourself and loved ones is resistance too. Post your pets. I am finally starting to “get it” with these jazz sevenths. It’s been a struggle but is getting easier.
162 more weeks to go. What are you doing?
Previous weeks: Week 10, Week 20, Week 30, Week 40, Week 41, Week 42, Week 43, Week 44, Week 45