WATERGAETZ: In the most shocking of his appointments so far, Donald Trump announced that Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a man who’s been under a Justice Department sex trafficking investigation and a continuing House ethics query, is his nominee for attorney general The only qualification to be in the Trump administration is to be a member of the cult of Trump.

  Gaetz is under suspicion for having sex with underage girls. The NY Times reports that the House Ethics Committee was just on the brink of releasing its report about Gaetz

  Gaetz has called for the dissolution of both the Justice Department and the FBI.

  Even some Republican senators expressed shock in the halls of the Capitol when told the Gaetz news. “That shows why the advise and consent process is so important,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. 

  “I don’t think he’s a serious candidate,” said Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Ala

 The Justice Department chose not to prosecute Gaetz but if appointed he would be in control of the evidence collected about him and, of course, Donald Trump. Gaetz is a former member of the Florida House who’s been in the US House since 2017. He has never worked as a prosecutor.

  The president-elect also said he wants former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be his Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve who served in Iraq and has been a critic of the foreign policy establishment. She has criticized American involvement in “counterproductive regime-change wars.” Gabbard said in a statement that she joined the Republican Party “because of President Trump’s leadership and how he has been able to transform the Republican Party, bringing it back to the party of the people and the party of peace.”

  President Biden yesterday welcomed Trump to the White House for a meeting, a transition tradition the former president rejected when Biden was elected four years ago. Melania Trump spurned an invitation to visit with First lady Jill Biden. All her office said was that, “In this instance, several unnamed sources in the media continue to provide false, misleading and inaccurate information.”

MAJORITY RULE: More than a week after the election the Republicans have won  the House, giving them  full control of the federal government … the House, Senate, and The White House.

  With all the results still not in, Republicans have the 218 seats needed for control against 208 for the Democrats.

  “Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in front of the Capitol yesterday. “It was a decisive win across the nation.” And he said, “We’re going to raise an America First banner above this place.” 

MODERATION: Republican senators yesterday elected Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, to serve as majority leader in the next Congress to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The 63-year-old Thune is considered to be a more traditional Republican and not a Trump lapdog.

  Thune edged out Sen. John Cornyn of Texas 29 to 24. Florida’s Rick Scott, who had promised to give Trump everything he wanted if he was majority leader, was eliminated in early rounds.

ECON 101:  Inflation ticked up by .2 percent in October, reaching 2.6 percent but meeting economist expectations. The increase is not thought to be enough to dissuade the Federal Reserve from another interest rate cut in December. 

  Life is still more expensive. A new report from Oxford Economics says you need to earn at least $108,000 to be able to buy a home in the US. That’s nearly double what you needed in 2019 and only 36 percent of households make enough money now to buy a home.

BANNED: The Florida Department of Education released a list of 700 books removed from school libraries, an increase of 400 from their report last year. Many of the removed and banned books deal with sex and gender issues, but the list also includes “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “The Handmaid’s Tale”  Margaret Atwood, “Forever” Judy Blume, “Slaughterhouse Five” Kurt Vonnegut, and “The Lovely Bones” Alice Sebold.

INSIDE OUT: A CIA officer has been charged with releasing classified documents that appeared to show Israeli preparations for a retaliatory strike on Iran. Asif Rahman was arrested in Cambodia on and taken to the US territory of Guam, according to documents filed in US District Court in Guam. He is charged with two counts of violating the Espionage Act.

THE OBIT PAGE: Theodore Olson, a leading Supreme Court litigator for conservative causes during the 1980s and ’90s who then took up  traditionally liberal cases involving gay marriage and the children of undocumented immigrants, died in Fairfax, Virginia. He was 84.

  Olson was a founding member of the Federalist Society, which now feeds right wingers into the judiciary, and was a leading figure in conservative legal triumphs of the 2000s, including Bush v. Gore, which resulted in George W. Bush becoming President,  and Citizens United, which defined funneling money into politics as “free speech.”

THE SPIN RACK: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to revive a plan for a vehicle toll to enter Midtown and Lower Manhattan and get it into effect before Donald Trump takes office and tries to kill it. The original plan was for a $15 congestion toll but the new proposal is for $9. — Chinese authorities are erasing evidence of an incident in which a man drove his car into a crowd, killing 35 people. Authorities have removed flowers from the scene and are censoring online posts. — Police in Southern California responding to a call from an elderly woman who heard noises from under her house found a naked man living in the crawl space.

BELOW THE FOLD: Former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson at 58 returns to the boxing ring tomorrow against 27-year-old Jake Paul. Medical experts say this comes with neurological risk for Tyson, although his decision to fight again suggests he’s already got brain damage.

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