Cooler Heads

Matthew Buttler

Nov 22, 2024 — 4 min read

This is an AI image generated with the following prompt: Man with slicked black brown hair and pronounced forehead and insincere smile using a chainsaw to saw an ice block in half. He is sweating profusely. Retro cartoon style.

Cooler heads have prevailed and we finally have our first minor moment of clarity from the incoming administration. Sort of.

This week, it became vividly clear to nearly everyone in the world that Matthew Gaetz is not only extremely unqualified to be Attorney General, but he likely had sex with at least one minor, and likely paid them, and likely used drugs with/near them.

As a result, despite his pride, he is "withdrawing" his nomination. As of now, I believe he is technically unemployed.

I was originally going to write an entire newsletter post about him, speculating about what a party with him would be like, and how awkward it would be... Maybe thinking about a Thanksgiving meal with him if he your weird cousin or whatever.

However, the story is still developing, and likely to develop further, it should wait for another time, as apparently you can just access the Ethics report and I think it's likely we'll see it eventually.

I guess instead I'll talk a bit about Peter Hegseth and his dumb fucking tattoos.

Peter Hegseth showing his wacky chest tattoo that's like a big ass Jerusalem cross, and he's also got like an assault rifle with an american flag, that kind of vibe.

No, wait, not the Jerusalem Cross that makes him totally seem like an even-keel good Christian boy and not at all some weird Christofascist.

Holy shit what the fuck, it's Hegseth's fuckin' arm with Deus Vult written on it. Why the fuck would you get such a dumb tattoo?!

Yeah, the Deus Vult one, like what they (allegedly) said in the crusades as they like wandered all over Europe on behalf of the Pope doing some shit. Yet these guys are protestant, which just confuses me a tiny because– anyway. Not important.

There's a really excellent and often quoted blog post from the Medieval Academy blog that was written in response to Charlottesville that talks about this medievalist thing that these white boys all want to evoke, which is simply just not based in reality:

By using imagined medieval symbols, or names drawn from medieval terminology, they create a fantasy of a pure, white Europe that bears no relationship to reality. This fantasy not only hurts people in the present, it also distorts the past. Medieval Europe was diverse religiously, culturally, and ethnically, and medieval Europe was not the entire medieval world. Scholars disagree about the motivations of the Crusades—or, indeed, whether the idea of “crusade” is a medieval one or came later—but it is clear that racial purity was not primary among them.

(https://www.themedievalacademyblog.org/medievalists-respond-to-charlottesville/)

Or maybe he's not a christo-fascist like we all think just thinks he's a good Christian boy and showing that he loves God so very much, and we're just a bunch of mean old bigots. That's what this ding dong wants us to believe anyway:

Anti-Christian bigotry in the media on full display. They can target me — I don’t give a damn — but this type of targeting of Christians, conservatives, patriots and everyday Americans will stop on DAY ONE at DJT’s DoD

(https://x.com/PeteHegseth/status/1857567798974681562)

Anyway, let's get this out of the way.

He also, as you probably know, is being chased by sexual misconduct allegations.

The folks over at Medaite have done a really bang up job of obtaining the full police report filed by a woman who was (allegedly) date raped by our good Christian boy in October 2017 at a Republican women's conference.

Of course, our good Christian boy claims that he has consensual sex with the woman who, incidentally, was married at the time. Pete was, of course, between wives at the time, having divorced his second wife in August 2017, after having a child with a Fox exec, also in August 2017. He married that kid's mother in 2019.

I'm honestly not sure what to make of Pete Hegseth. I will be quick to admit that Fox News is not part of my regular news diet.

My last encounter with any kind of steady conservative media in my diet consisted of a game my friend and I would play involving trying to watch the Sun News Network as long as we could stand, or until the first commercial break. If we made it to the commercial break, we would call it a win, and then switch over to the Game Show Network or whatever. If we didn't make it to a commercial, we'd jokingly shout "CONSERVATISM WINS AGAIN!" and (allegedly) take a huge bong rip each and switch over to GSN regardless.

The point is, I guess, that you need to keep an eye out on these guys lest they sneak up on you. Look into these people. They're everywhere, even here in Canada. They're getting cozy with politicians and angling their dangles in every which way they can, while othering those who disagree, calling folks 'extreme' and 'far left' and threats to democracy. I mean, I feel the reverse is true, but I'm no expert. I'm just here just writing a newsletter.

Take care of yourselves,

Matthew