History of the Thanksgiving turkey pardon: When the White House began the long-held holiday tradition
The White House turkey pardoning ceremony, a long-held Thanksgiving tradition formalized 77 years ago, traces its origins back decades further. Since the 1800s, it has been customary for the sitting president to be gifted a turkey as a festive gesture, with several presidents hinting that the bird would be featured on their holiday menu. However, in recent decades, sitting presidents launched a new tradition of “pardoning” the bird, essentially sparing its life and ensuring it will spend the remainder of its time on a farm. The turkey is brought to Washington, D.C., during the week of Thanksgiving, gets a room at the five-star Willard Hotel and is eventually “pardoned” by the president. However, the history of exactly when the pardon began “gets tricky,” as described by the Obama White House archives. RETAILERS ANNOUNCE ‘INFLATION-FREE’ THANKSGIVING DINNER DEALS According to the George Bush national archives, former President Lincoln spared the life of the Thanksgiving turkey upon request from his son, Tad Lincoln. The White House turkey was again spared in 1947, when former President Truman began an annual tradition of the animal being gifted by the National Turkey Federation. However, the Truman Library and Museum said they have “found no documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs, or other contemporary records in our holdings which refer to Truman pardoning a turkey that he received as a gift in 1947, or at any other time during his presidency.” SANDRA LEE REVEALS WHY BIGGER THANKSGIVING TURKEYS AREN’T ALWAYS BETTER In 1963, former President Kennedy also decided to spare the life of that year’s Thanksgiving turkey, saying “we’ll just let this one grow.” Former President Reagan did it informally during the ceremony in 1987. Reagan was asked by reporters about potentially pardoning individuals from the Iran-Contra affair, but he pointed at the turkey and said he would “pardon him” instead. However, it wasn’t until 1989 when former President George H. W. Bush officially presented the turkey with a presidential “pardon,” an annual tradition that has been honored in the decades since. “Let me assure you and this fine Tom Turkey that he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table, not this guy. He’s granted a presidential pardon as of right now and allow him to live out his days on a children’s farm not far from here,” Bush said in 1989. Since Bush, every president has participated in the turkey pardoning ceremony as part of the White House Thanksgiving week celebration. President Biden has been pardoning two turkeys for the last three years. He participated in the 77th annual turkey pardon on Monday, the last one of his presidency, sparing “Peach” and “Blossom” in the Rose Garden on the South Lawn of the White House. “This event marks the official start of the holiday season here in Washington. It’s also my last time to speak here as your president during the season,” Biden said during the ceremony. “It’s been the honor of my life. I’m forever grateful that today my wife, Jill, and I will travel to Staten Island, New York, for a ‘friendsgiving’ with members of the Coast Guard and their families to demonstrate our gratitude for their service and sacrifice, like my son.” Some critics, such as animal rights group Farm Sanctuary, have called the tradition “little more than a photo op.” However, presidents and spectators have enjoyed the ceremony as a fun event for the holidays.
Legal challenges on administrative reach expected in Trump’s deregulatory scheme, experts say
Experts expect President-elect Donald Trump to take aim at federal agencies and Biden-era regulations after campaigning on deregulation of the administrative state. “The first thing is that on day one of [Trump’s] presidency, we’ll see a lot of executive orders, which will order agencies to review the administration regulations to determine whether they should be retained, amended or repealed,” Robert Glicksman, J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law at George Washington University Law School, told Fox News Digital. Mark Chenoweth, president of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, particularly pointed to Biden-era regulations, saying they could be on the chopping block once Trump takes office, telling Fox News Digital, “the Biden administration did a lot of things that lacked statutory authority completely.” ‘EFFICIENT AND ACCOUNTABLE’: GOP-LED DOGE BILL AIMS TO SLASH OUTFLOW OF FEDERAL DOLLARS Chenoweth noted that the Biden administration has already been the target of lawsuits over its regulations and said that if Trump were to take those regulations on, “I think they’ll enjoy a lot of success.” Trump has already been vocal about his intentions of cutting back on federal agency power and slashing the flow of federal dollars. The president-elect has also announced he has tapped Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The entity will act as an advisory panel, not a government agency, and will be aimed at suggesting ways to dismantle government bureaucracy and restructure federal agencies in order to save costs and improve efficiency, according to Trump’s transition team. Regarding DOGE, Glicksman stated the Trump administration will “certainly take seriously” DOGE’s guidance on “cutting back on regulations, streamlining executive agencies, possibly even eliminating some agencies.” Both Chenoweth and Glicksman said they can foresee labor regulations becoming a target come January. Glicksman said climate change and environmental regulations could also come under fire. COMER TO CREATE DOGE SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRED BY MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE TO WORK WITH ELON MUSK, VIVEK RAMASWAMY “In the labor area, because [the Biden administration has] been so radical, they really reached well beyond what the statutory authority that was given to NLRB or the Department of Labor with a lot of what they’ve done. So that’s one area that I could foresee,” Chenoweth said. Likewise, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn the Chevron doctrine in June of this year in its Loper Bright decision. The doctrine previously gave deference to an agency’s interpretation of a federal regulation. In its holding, the Supreme Court effectively scaled back administrative power in holding that “Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.” ELON MUSK SAYS ‘ALL ACTIONS’ TAKEN BY DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY WILL BE ONLINE: ‘TRANSPARENCY’ Chenoweth, whose organization litigated on the matter, applauded the Loper Bright ruling, saying it “goes back to empowering Congress rather than the administrative agencies.” “For the last 40 years, the administrative state has been burgeoning because of this ability to, kind of, write law and create law itself when there’s a gap or ambiguity in the statute,” Chenoweth said. “Now, they’re not going to able to do that so much. And so it’s going to throw it back to Congress if we need to have reform in an area or new legislation.” Glicksman, however, said Loper Bright could “boomerang” on the Trump administration instead. “Had Chevron remained in effect, it would be Trump administration initiatives that would get the benefit of Chevron deference, but that’s no longer the case,” Glicksman said. “And so it’s possible that courts will look more rigorously or apply greater scrutiny to Trump administration initiatives in administrative law issues in administrative ones than they would have done had Loper Bright not been decided.” Glicksman said he can foresee such legal challenges unfolding specifically in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which notably tends to lean conservative in its rulings. Likewise, Glicksman predicts Democrat-led challenges to appear in the Ninth and D.C. Circuits. “I think you’ll see blue states led by California challenging those regulations, starting off probably in the Ninth Circuit and the D.C. Circuit, which are more friendly to agency authority than the Fifth Circuit and some other circuits. So you’ll see a skewing of litigation,” Glicksman said. Chenoweth stated that because so many Biden-era regulations “are so lacking in authority,” the circuit in which the lawsuit is started may very well not make much of a difference.
Utah senator coaches GOP aides on strategy for streamlining Trump’s agenda through Congress
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah is convening training for Republican congressional staffers aimed at preparing them to smoothly steer segments of key parts of President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda next year through Congress – specifically by mastering a crucial procedural tool known as budget reconciliation. Republicans are expected to use budget reconciliation to pass much of Trump’s tax and economic policies because it is not subject to the legislative filibuster and its 60-vote threshold. This means Republicans will be able to move it along with their Senate majority alone. On Nov. 18, Lee hosted the first of several trainings with the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) that featured presenters such as EPIC’s Director of Budget Policy Matthew Dickerson, Executive Vice President Brittany Madni and President and CEO Paul Winfree. SENATE GOP MOTIVATED TO RAPIDLY CONFIRM TRUMP NOMINATIONS AHEAD OF PARTY TRIFECTA IN WASHINGTON A GOP senate aide told Fox News Digital that the trainings for staffers are meant to familiarize them with the budget reconciliation process, which they noted can be complicated. In order for provisions to be included in reconciliation, they must meet the Senate rules governing the process. In order to be done through reconciliation, policies must be budgetary in nature, usually having to do with spending or the debt limit, for example. ‘CONVEYOR BELT OF RADICALS’: GOP SLAMMED OVER SENATE ABSENCES THAT HELPED BIDEN SCORE MORE JUDGES IN LAME DUCK In the past, Republicans have criticized their Democratic counterparts for stretching the interpretation of what can be included in reconciliation in order to pass their policies without 60 votes. However, the GOP has also signaled that they may look to find a way to include other conservative policies in the procedure now that they will have control of Congress. The GOP will have a 53-seat majority in the Senate in 2025 and 2026. They will be able to pass some policies through the reconciliation process, namely an extension to expiring parts of Trump’s signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from 2017. However, if Republicans are unable to fit other policy priorities into the budget reconciliation because they don’t meet the requirements for inclusion, they will need to attempt to get some Democrats on board in order to beat the legislative filibuster for normal bills. DSCC HOPEFUL GILLIBRAND SAYS DEMS SHOULD HAVE PUT IMMIGRATION FIX ON TABLE ‘2 YEARS AGO’ The first training was attended by 116 Republican congressional staffers representing more than 70 offices on Capitol Hill, per the Senate Republican Steering Committee. There will be additional events with different groups co-hosting as well. The aide explained that Lee and the committee wanted to make sure staff were prepared to take on reconciliation and pass Trump’s policies as fast as possible. GOP SENATOR DEBUTS BILL TO ABOLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT FOLLOWING TRUMP CAMPAIGN PROMISE This effort by Lee and the committee is also to make sure that the resulting budget reconciliation process represents a wide swath of congressional Republicans and not just leadership. By equipping staff with the knowledge and understanding they need about it, priorities of Republicans across the board can be considered and their input acknowledged.
Reps McGovern, Massie urge Biden to pardon Julian Assange to ‘send a clear message’ on press freedom
U.S. Reps. James McGovern, D-Mass., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote a letter to President Biden calling on him to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to “send a clear message” that his administration will not target journalistic activity. Assange, an Australian publisher, pleaded guilty in June and was sentenced to time served as part of a deal he reached with the U.S. Justice Department to end his imprisonment in London over charges for publishing classified U.S. military documents leaked to him by a source. Assange had spent years attempting to avoid extradition from the U.K. to the U.S. “We write, first, to express our appreciation for your administration’s decision last spring to facilitate a resolution of the criminal case against publisher Julian Assange and to withdraw the related extradition request that had been pending in the United Kingdom,” the lawmakers wrote to Biden. “This brought an end to Mr. Assange’s protracted detention and allowed him to reunite with his family and return to his home country of Australia.” Before his plea deal, Assange, 53, was facing 17 counts under the Espionage Act for allegedly receiving, possessing and communicating classified information to the public, as well as one charge alleging conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The agreement helped him avoid the potential of spending up to 175 years in an American maximum security prison. WIKILEAKS’ JULIAN ASSANGE SAYS HE PLEADED ‘GUILTY TO JOURNALISM’ IN ORDER TO BE FREED The charges were brought by the Trump administration’s Justice Department over WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of cables leaked by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, and the Biden administration had continued to pursue prosecution until the plea deal. The cables detailed alleged war crimes committed by the U.S. government in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, as well as instances of the CIA engaging in torture and rendition. WikiLeaks’ “Collateral Murder” video showing the U.S. military gunning down civilians in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists, was also published 14 years ago. The lawmakers told Biden, who is set to leave office in January, that they are “deeply concerned that the agreement that ended the case required Mr. Assange to plead guilty to felony charges under section 793 of the Espionage Act,” highlighting that the decision to prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act “set off alarms” among members of Congress, as well as advocates for freedom of expression and freedom of the press. In 2013, the Obama administration decided not to indict Assange over WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of classified cables because it would have had to also indict journalists from major news outlets who published the same materials. President Obama also commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence for violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses to seven years in January 2017, and Manning, who had been imprisoned since 2010, was released later that year. “Put simply, there is a long-standing and well-grounded concern that section 793, which criminalizes the obtaining, retaining, or disclosing of sensitive information, could be used against journalists and news organizations engaged in their normal activities, particularly those who cover national security topics. This risk reportedly informed the Obama administration’s decision not to prosecute Mr. Assange,” McGovern and Massie wrote. JULIAN ASSANGE SECURES FREEDOM FOLLOWING PLEA DEAL WITH US, SENTENCED TO TIME SERVED Assange had been held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since being removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy on April 11, 2019, for breaching bail conditions. He had sought asylum at the embassy since 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden over allegations he raped two women because Sweden would not provide assurances it would protect him from extradition to the U.S. The investigations into the sexual assault allegations were eventually dropped over lack of evidence. He was the first journalist to be charged under the Espionage Act. “The terms of Mr. Assange’s plea agreement have now set a precedent that greatly deepens our concern,” the letter reads. “A review of prosecutions under the Espionage Act makes clear that Mr. Assange’s case is the first time the Act has been deployed against a publisher.” The congressmen said they share the view of Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists, who reacted to the plea agreement by saying: “While we welcome the end of his detention, the US’s pursuit of Assange has set a harmful legal precedent by opening the way for journalists to be tried under the Espionage Act if they receive classified material from whistleblowers.” “We therefore urge you to consider issuing a pardon for Mr. Assange,” the lawmakers wrote. “A pardon would remove the precedent set by the plea and send a clear message that the U.S. government under your leadership will not target or investigate journalists and media outlets simply for doing their jobs.” Last year, as Assange was still in prison in London fighting extradition to the U.S., McGovern and Massie led a letter to Biden signed by a bipartisan group of congressional colleagues urging the president to drop the case against Assange. Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, is returning to Washington, D.C., in January as part of a campaign calling on Biden to pardon the WikiLeaks founder before leaving office. JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS FOUNDER, REACHES PLEA DEAL TO AVOID PRISON IN US Shipton and Assange’s wife, Stella, have asked Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who before the plea deal had called for an end to Assange’s prosecution and said he had raised the case with Biden, to urge the president to issue a pardon in his farewell phone call with the outgoing commander in chief. As a condition of his plea, Assange was required to destroy classified information provided to WikiLeaks. During his sentencing hearing in June in federal court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific, U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona noted that the U.S. government admitted that there is no evidence that WikiLeaks’ publications put anyone in harms way. “The government has indicated there is no personal victim here. That tells me the
China launches corruption probe against Defence Minister Dong Jun: Report
Investigation is part of a broader probe into military corruption that unseated Dong’s two predecessors. China has launched an investigation of Defence Minister Dong Jun due to suspicion of corruption, according to reports. Citing current and former US officials familiar with the situation, British newspaper The Financial Times said on Wednesday that Dong is the latest official to be caught up in a broad crackdown on corruption in the country’s military. For the meantime, the report is unconfirmed. Chinese officials failed to respond to requests for comment or confirmation from news agencies on Wednesday morning. China’s military has undergone a sweeping anticorruption purge since last year, with at least nine People’s Liberation Army (PLA) generals and several defence industry executives removed from the national legislative body to date. Dong would be the third Chinese defence minister in a row to fall under investigation for corruption, unnamed US officials told the FT. ‘The trust of the party’ Dong, a former PLA Navy chief, was appointed defence minister in December 2023. He is responsible for China’s military diplomacy with other nations. He oversaw a recent thaw in US-China military ties, with both nations holding theatre-level commander talks for the first time in September. Dong’s predecessor, Li Shangfu, was removed after seven months into the job, and then expelled from the Communist Party, for offences that included bribery, according to state media. He has not been seen in public since. Li’s predecessor, Wei Fenghe, was also kicked out of the party and passed on to prosecutors for alleged corruption. A Communist Party statement at the time said the pair “betrayed the trust of the party and the Central Military Commission, seriously polluted the political environment of the military, and caused great damage to … the image of its senior leaders”. They were found to have received huge sums of money in bribes and to have “sought personnel benefits” for others, the statement said. According to experts, this is a blow to the party and the role. “It’s certainly a blow … because one would imagine they will be super careful to have someone very clean in this role,” Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, told the AFP news agency. “Graft probes are very commonly targeted at the military because of the long historical ties between the business world and the PLA,” he said. At least two other high-ranking officers connected to the Rocket Force, a relatively new unit of the Chinese military, have also been removed for corruption. Victor Shih, an expert on China’s elite politics, told AFP that Dong “likely had authority over tens of billions in procurement per year” during his time in the navy. “The problem is that competition for top positions is so fierce that there might be some mutual recriminations between officers, which would lead to endless cycles of arrests, new appointments and recriminations,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Celebrations and heavy traffic as Lebanon ceasefire begins
NewsFeed People in Lebanon celebrated and thousands of cars filled the roads to return home after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. Published On 27 Nov 202427 Nov 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Is Russia poisoning Namibia’s water in its hunt for uranium?
Windhoek and Leonardville, Namibia – Impo Gift Kapamba Musasa holds a hose pipe in one hand and gestures to a garden of cabbages, onions and turnips with the other. He is a teacher in the crumbling village of Leonardville in rural Namibia, where water is becoming scarce. The vegetables, grown for children at the primary school where he teaches, are watered from one of the largest aquifers on earth. The groundwater nourishes tens of thousands of people and is the lifeblood of the Kalahari Desert, which stretches across Namibia, as well as neighbouring Botswana and South Africa. Around Leonardville, 386km (240 miles) from the capital, Windhoek, scrubland meets ochre-coloured dunes known as the “red fingers of the Kalahari” for the way they reach out across the vast desert. Leonardville is a village of cattle farmers subsisting off meagre government handouts and homegrown vegetables, but it also sits on top of vast deposits of uranium – the fuel for nuclear reactors. That has brought the village of a few thousand people some unlikely attention in recent years. Impo Gift Kapamba Musasa grows vegetables for schoolchildren in Leonardville, Namibia [Tom Brown/Al Jazeera] On shop windows and village waypoints, posters appear, bearing the name and logo of a foreign company: Rosatom – Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, one of the world’s largest uranium companies. Rosatom has spent years attempting to set up a mine in eastern Namibia after the country lifted a temporary ban on uranium mining in 2017. The isolated African village has since seen an influx of investment from companies linked to the Russian government. A Rosatom subsidiary, known as Headspring Investments, in 2011 proposed to use a controversial drilling method to extract the uranium, known as “in situ” mining, which involves injecting a solution that includes sulphuric acid down into the aquifer. While Australian miners frequently use the drilling method, it has never been attempted in Africa, and is not usually done around aquifers, mining experts said. While the prospect of financial reward has some locals supporting a potential mine in the area, Rosatom’s proposal has also raised concerns among others in the country. Calle Schlettwein, the minister of agriculture, water and land reform, told Namibia’s National Assembly on February 29 that Headspring’s activities could “endanger the groundwater” in Namibia, South Africa and Botswana, “destroying the economic basis for the entire region”. Additionally, because of the need to cool down equipment during uranium mining, the process is also one of the most water-intensive operations. Namibia is becoming hotter and drier because of climate change, leaving residents more dependent on aquifers to grow their food as rainfall decreases. With the prospect of a uranium mine and its effects dangling over their heads, local farmers worry their livelihoods will disappear – for good. “Pollution is going to change people’s livelihoods,” says school teacher Impo, looking at his crops. Some local landowners have even started campaigning against the planned uranium mine, asking the government to consider the risks to their water supply. “Should uranium mining be allowed, it could render the water in the southeastern region of Namibia unfit for human and animal consumption, effectively bringing agriculture to a total and permanent standstill in the area,” said former Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU) president, Piet Gouws, speaking to the Namibian Sun in 2022. Just as it seemed that Rosatom was on the cusp of achieving its goal of building the uranium mine, the Namibian government cancelled the drilling permits in November 2021, citing non-compliance with the licence terms. Many farmers hoped this was the last they would hear of Headspring. But Rosatom doubled down – on the ground in Leonardville and by trying to win supporters through softer means. The inauguration of the Rosatom-funded school kitchen in Leonardville, Namibia [Justicia Shipena/Al Jazeera] Trips, truck and influence operations Since 2021, Rosatom has been accused of running an influence campaign in Namibia, sponsoring trips for government officials and reporters to visit Russia, Al Jazeera has found. In April this year, Rosatom subsidiary Uranium One invited Namibian Minister of Health and Social Services Kalumbi Shangula to Sochi, Russia, to attend Atomexpo 2024, a nuclear industry event organised by Rosatom, where he spoke about rising cancer cases in his country. Uranium One had earlier donated a four-wheel drive to the Namibian Ministry of Health. Pijoo Nganate, the governor of the Omaheke region where Leonardville is located, has also visited Russia multiple times in trips he confirmed were at least partially funded by Rosatom. Nganate at first refused to answer whether Rosatom sponsored his trips to Russia. “Let them make those claims,” he said when informed via phone of accusations that the leadership in the region was aligning itself with the Russian-state entity, adding: “That’s immaterial, you lose the bigger picture.” He went on to tell Al Jazeera that it was Namibian ministries that had requested some donations in the form of food and medicine from Rosatom, not the other way around, and pointed out the severe unemployment and poverty in Omaheke. The Omaheke region has the smallest population in Namibia, but one of its highest poverty rates, at 51 percent of the population. Other government officials are listed on travel documents, seen by Al Jazeera, as attending multiple sponsored trips to Russia and Kazakhstan between 2022 and 2023. Namibian government officials appearing on these documents include Governor Nganate; Obeth Kandjoze, the director of the National Planning Commission; Hardap regional Governor Salomon April, who said he could not attend; and the chairperson of the parliamentary standing committee on natural resources, Tjekero Tweya. Phone calls to Kandjoze and Tweya by Al Jazeera, seeking their response, went unanswered. Responding to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on the accusations of the company trying to gain influence through donations and sponsored trips, Rosatom spokesperson Riaan van Rooyen said: “It is disheartening to see and hear that there are those cynical people that label Uranium One’s community upliftment efforts as ‘greenwashing’ and even ‘bribery’.” “Those privileged ones have had numerous opportunities and time
LoP Rahul Gandhi demands Gautam Adani’s arrest after his indictment in US, accuses government of ‘protecting’ him
Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said when hundreds of people are arrested on “tiny” charges in the country, why is Adani not in jail?
Amid tussle over CM face in Maharashtra, BJP hints at its firm stand on Fadnavis’s name, says, ‘no commitment made…’
Amid the suspense over the Chief Ministerial face in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has hinted at its firm stand on Devendra Fadnavis’s name, adding that there is no question of replicating the “Bihar formula” for the top post in the state.
Trump hit for hiring loyalists like Pam Bondi: Doesn’t every president do that?
It’s spat out like a dirty word. Donald Trump – take a deep breath – is hiring loyalists. The president-elect – can you imagine?? – is nominating people he knows will support him. He’s used plenty of curse words, but nothing said by the media is more disdainful than loyalists. TRUMP DROPPED MATT GAETZ AFTER COMPLAINING ABOUT HIGH POLITICAL COST OF DEFENDING HIM Now stop and think: Doesn’t every president hire loyalists? Didn’t Joe Biden surround himself with folks who had been with him for decades? Ron Klain, Steve Richetti and Tom Donilon created a protective bubble around the president. But few, if any, prognosticators dismissed them as loyalists. Why? The press generally approved of Biden’s picks, including Tony Blinken; the non-communicative Lloyd Austin (who didn’t tell the boss about his cancer surgery), and the equally non-communicative Janet Yellen. The only person who stood out for great TV skills was Pete Buttigieg, the former presidential candidate and outgoing Transportation secretary. It’s hardly a recent development. George Washington took a team-of-rivals approach, naming Thomas Jefferson secretary of state and Alexander Hamilton as treasury secretary. So did Abraham Lincoln, with Salmon Chase as treasury secretary and William Seward as secretary of war. But if Trump picks people he expects to support him, the knee-jerk media reaction is that they’re dangerous to the country and will run roughshod over the rule of law. Trump didn’t make much use of his Cabinet in his first term and I doubt he will this time, except for a handful of top positions. Besides, he runs the show. Any Cabinet member who strays off the reservation can get fired, “Apprentice”-style. Serving at the pleasure of the president and all that. HACKER OBTAINS HOUSE ETHICS TESTIMONY ON MATT GAETZ AS TRUMP MAKES CALLS FOR AG NOMINEE For what it’s worth, Trump wound up with an ideologically balanced Cabinet. The first wave – from Marco Rubio as secretary of state to a spate of current and former members of Congress – is generally impressive. But then there was the fiasco over Matt Gaetz, now charging hundreds of dollars for Cameo videos, and such controversial nominees as Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. And also Dr. Oz. Not to mention animosity toward pro-union Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer as labor secretary. It’s quite obvious that the president-elect likes people he’s seen on TV, and he watches a lot of Fox News. But consider: Jen Psaki and Symone Sanders-Townsend were both CNN contributors when they joined the Biden campaign and then held top jobs in the White House. Now they’re hosting or co-hosting shows on MSNBC. Nobody bats an eye because they’re viewed as good guys joining the right team. From Fox, Trump has picked Army combat veteran Hegseth; ex-Congressman Sean Duffy, a FOX Business co-host, and two frequent medical commentators. What’s fascinating is the way many in the media have turned on Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and career prosecutor who possesses the experience Gaetz lacked. TRUMP, DEFYING MEDIA PREDICTIONS, MAINLY PICKS SEASONED CAPITOL HILL VETERANS SUCH AS MARCO RUBIO Sure, Bondi has said plenty of partisan things over the years, such as “prosecuting the prosecutors,” then quickly adding, “the bad ones.” She was part of Trump’s first impeachment legal team and then ran the legal arm of a pro-Trump PAC. Bondi was passed over in the first Trump term because she accepted a $25,000 campaign donation from Trump’s foundation while her office was conducting a probe of Trump University (itself a mess). In 2013, Bondi accepted a $25,000 campaign donation from Trump’s foundation at the same time her office was conducting a fraud investigation into Trump University. “Her acceptance of the donation coincided with her decision not to bring fraud charges against Trump University,” says MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade. No evidence of a quid pro quo emerged. And a Florida ethics panel cleared her of any wrongdoing. But that’s old news now. “Bondi has shown a taste for vengeance herself — at the 2016 Republican National Convention, Bondi embraced chants of ‘lock her up,’” McQuade says. “Even joking about jailing a political opponent is an insult to the rule of law.” But wait – didn’t Barack Obama’s AG, Eric Holder, describe himself as the president’s “wingman”? There’s clearly a different standard for Democrats. Rachel Maddow producer Steve Benen says Bondi “falsely accused then-special counsel Robert Mueller of leading a ‘corrupt’ investigation that was “worse than Watergate.’” On the other hand, Dave Aronberg, now state’s attorney for Palm Beach County, lost his race to challenge Bondi as AG, but she hired him anyway as drug czar. “She’s someone who believes in the rule of law..I do not believe she will be Matt Gaetz 2.0. She is not going to burn it all down.” I suppose it comes down to a question of trust. The pro-Kamala media refuse to give many Trump nominees the benefit of the doubt. Bondi has criticized the weaponization of the DOJ. You might even call her a loyalist. But she will be the new attorney general, and that will be the ultimate test.