The Lizard of Oz, Etc.

Hello.

I am still traveling, so today’s post will be small but entertainingly bitter, like Cuban coffee served in one of those thimble-sized paper cups.

The newest two members of Donald Trump’s lunatic, loyalist picks for his cabinet are would-be department of education secretary Linda McMahon — the wrestling impresario and wife of the guy whose head Trump once shaved in a ring — and the Lizard of Oz, the slimy TV huckster doctor who peddled quack medicines and dispensed idiot medical advice. He once claimed that if women wore their cellphones in their brassieres they’d get breast cancer. Also, that apple juice contains toxic levels of arsenic. Dr. Mehmet Oz has been tapped to run Medicare and Medicaid. Trump once said he admired the celebrity TV doc because ““He’s on that screen. He’s in the bedrooms of all those women telling them good and bad.”

More than half of Trump’s picks so far have been accused of some nature of sexual misconduct, including both RFK and McMahon. We’re all waiting for Diddy Combs to be named postmaster general or director of the FBI.

Anyway, I am still In Charlottesville, where I found myself reading a paper copy of USA Today. Have you seen the newspaper lately? It’s about six pages long. When delivered, it no longer thuds down onto your doorstep — it sort of slowly settles, like a leaf.

Like virtually all media outlets, USA Today is fitfully trying to make sense of what the heck happened on election day — a matter of soul searching, tooth gnashing, etc. — but their problem is they seem to have only one columnist left, a conservative named Dace Potas. Mr. Potas, to be fair, is not a fan of Mr. POTUS. He does feel that Trump’s cabinet selections are nutso bonkers — but not just because they are incompetent, ass-kissing disreputable maniacs. Something seems to bother him more; apparently, they are not conservative enough. They don’t harrumph or favor the gold standard.

Potas sort of has a point. Both Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr., for example, used to be Democrats. Other designees seem to have no easily definable political views other than fealty to Trump. Potas wants officeholders to wear their reactionary credentials on their sleeves, like those 19th century sleeve garters:

So I just want to make one point to Mr. Potas and other conservatives: You had a chance to get conservatives in office. You simply had to vote for Kamala Harris.

She was definitely not prone to liberal capitulation. She campaigned with Liz Cheney. Nor was Joe Biden a committed lefty. He gave us Merrick Garland, the cautious man with steepled fingers who slow-walked every single lawsuit against Republicans just to be prudent, wise, ancient, and tepid as hell. Dems knew that they had to drift to the center, and were doing it.

But you might know that by now.

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Today’s Gene Pool Gene poll.

That’s it. Back tomorrow with a new Invitational Contest!

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