Who Wins the Weasel Derby and Other Questions
Quivering on the precipice of 2025 and looking for answers
Inquiring Minds Want to Know
Who is a bigger Trump-wooing weasel — Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Mia Brzezinski/Joe Scarborough, Tim Cook, Bob Iger, Elon Musk, or Mark Zuckerberg?
Hmm. That’s a hard one.
Altman, with his AI kumbaya world tour in 2023, might make your skin crawl (and that of his sister). She claims Sam sexually abused her as a kid — which he and other family members deny. But the million dollars the CEO of OpenAI is tossing into the pot for Donald Trump’s second Inauguration is chump change in the billionaire boys club encircling the next President.
Bezos is a contender. The owner of The Washington Post, who once didn’t want “democracy to die in darkness,” might be excused for the paper suddenly declining in October to endorse a presidential candidate (the Kamala Harris nod had already been written). The argument by Bezos that endorsements “create a perception of bias” is true no matter how opportunistic it was.
He might also get a pass for standing by this month while Post leadership killed a cartoon that showed Bezos and other fat cats genuflecting to Trump (a decision defended by editorial page editor David Shipley). If Bloomberg News ran cartoons, would an image of then-New York Mayor Mike buying himself a third term be allowed to run on the Terminal?
But paying mysterious Melania $40 million for an Amazon documentary about her life is ridiculously shameless pandering.
Mia and Joe? Yes, watching the Morning Joe duo trying to low-crawl back into Trump’s good graces was painful and odious. But they’re not rich or influential enough to be top-tier weasels. Voles, maybe.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is digging into his own pocket to contribute $1 mil to Trump’s Inaugural fund, Axios reported, but his history of cultivating a cordial relationship with Trump lets him off the weasel hook.
Bob Iger agreed to shell out a total of $16 million of Disney’s money — and issue a public apology — to settle a suit brought by Trump over ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos allegedly defaming him by misstating the results of E. Jean Carroll’s rape case. (The civil jury found randy Donald had sexually abused her.)
Mouse House lawyers likely had a good shot at winning that one, even though George’s blunder was pathetic for someone who is supposed to be a pro. But perhaps Iger has tired of battling geriatric Palm Beach billionaires despite besting Trump buddies Nelson Peltz and Ike Perlmutter last spring when they started a proxy fight at Disney. Besides, isn’t getting Trump off his back worth the cost of repairing the Tea Cup Ride at Disney World?
Musk isn’t really a weasel. He’s more like a creepy replicant who wants to rule the human race.
That brings us to Zuckerberg, who has wrested the Top Weasel crown away from all the other slippery hands. In The Social Network, the marvelous Aaron Sorkin-written film about the origins of Facebook, Zuckerberg as played by Jesse Eisenberg is a mostly sympathetic nerd. He is also duplicitous and royally screws his co-founder. The movie didn’t purport to be biographically accurate, but the characterization of Zuck seems more spot-on than ever.
Last week, after years of assuring Congress and the world that Facebook, with more than three billion users, strives mightily to root untruths from its platform, Zuckerberg bent over for Trump and his right-wing horde. After meeting with Trump around Thanksgiving, Zuck on January 7 posted a video announcing that Facebook would no longer fact-check content — a boon to those who would spread falsehoods and misinformation — and would dispense with DEI policies. According to Semafor, he was back at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.
In addition, the cage-fighting aficionado — now sporting a Rand Paul coif as if to emphasize his libertarian bona fides — appointed Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White to the board of Facebook parent Meta. White is a Trump favorite: He spoke glowingly of his pal at the GOP National Convention and was one of the few non-family members on stage when Trump declared his election-night victory.
In an interview with Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg leaned out and effectively disavowed former Meta executives like ex-COO Sheryl Sandberg, a Democrat, and Nick Clegg. Sandberg stepped away from Meta in 2022, and Clegg, a British liberal and former Deputy Prime Minister, was replaced earlier this month as head of global policy by Republican Joel Kaplan.
Zuckerberg is now pleasing not just Trump but two right-wing tech billionaires who sit on Meta’s board: Trump adviser Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel, an early Facebook investor and JD Vance’s political godfather.
Musk and Zuckerberg were once scheduled to settle their digital-macho differences with a cage fight. Now Zuck is aping Musk’s embrace of Trump. That makes him not just a weasel but a weaselly copycat.
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Whatever happened to the platoons of MAGA lawyers poised to challenge the election results in all those blue (and some red) states with compromised voting systems?
Turns out there were no fakes voters in November. No lefties voting more than once. No poll workers dumping ballots in the local creek. No problems with electronic machines being controlled by Venezuela. No Fox News hosts calling for investigations. It was amazing. Miraculous even. Praise (the Christian) God!
Too bad about Fox News, though. It was unable to get a $2.7 billion defamation suit for allegedly lying about voting irregularities in the 2020 Election dismissed. The last trip down this road — the Dominion Voting Systems case — costs wrinkly Rupert and Number One Son Lachlan more than $787.5 million, which ticked the Old Man off so much that he got rid of prize puppet Tucker Carlson.
And poor Rudy. On Friday, Giuliani was held in contempt of court for continuing to defame two Georgia poll workers whom he said had cheated when counting votes in 2020.
On January 16, Trump’s onetime attorney and America’s broken mayor is scheduled to be back before a second judge who has held him in contempt for not handing over assets — including four Yankees World Series rings — to the workers, who won a $148 million judgment against him for defamation.
MAGA Nation can fill megachurches with hosannas for the Second Coming of Donald but talk about reaping what you sow. Rudy’s comeuppance is biblical. And as the NYT noted, no presidential pardon can save him from the verdict of a civil suit.
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Why was there no Democratic uprising on Jan. 6, 2025?
What? You missed it?
Well, you’re not alone. For some reason, this year’s attempt to obstruct the certification of presidential ballots and overturn the results of the Election of 2024 got nary a mention by the media. Maybe by now that’s a dog-bites-one-of-the-many-genders story, but still, not even a quick chryon?
However, that’s another reason why The Constant Tribune exists.
I mean, it’s not like we spent the whole afternoon hanging around outside the Capitol looking for trouble. But we did do an Uber drive-by, and here’s what we spotted:
Seven or eight Proud Trans Boyze arguing with a Capitol Hill police officer and threatening him with disapproval.
Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell pulling their shirts off and vowing to freeze themselves to death in the unusually cold D.C. weather if Donald Trump was certified as the 47th American President.
A bunch of Oathmilk Keepers getting all up in a National Guardsman’s face and carnivore-shaming him.
A tearful Doug Emhoff being comforted by an EMT who couldn’t stop him from repeatedly bawling: “I coulda been the first First Gentleman, I coulda been the first First Gentleman….”
Criticize the Dems all you want, but they sure know how to insurrect.