OUR PICKSA New Energy-Security Paradigm | Kneecapping the Nation’s Cyber Agency | Trump’s Bizarre National Security Nominees, and more

Gaetz and Gabbard, Adjournment and Recess (Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare)
Will the Senate even get to vote on Trump’s bizarre national security nominees?

Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense was not on my bingo card.
Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence was really not on my bingo card.
Matt Gaetz as attorney general was most emphatically not on my bingo card.
And not on my bingo card either was a scheme to breathe life into a never-before-invoked provision of the Constitution by way of installing these disastrous nominees by recess appointment.
The nominees themselves should not have surprised me. They all typify certain classes of people who seem to wander in off the street and surround the president-elect. Hegseth represents Trump’s inability to distinguish people who talk about things on television from people who actually do those things and know about them. Gabbard represents the weird attraction to Trump among folks on the left and right—and the weird spaces where the two meet—who identify with America’s enemies and who mysteriously all seem to spout Russian propaganda. And Gaetz represents the Jacobin wing of the Republican party—the people who at once accuse their political foes of weaponizing the justice system against them and openly aspire to weaponize it against their foes.
All three are all dramatically underqualified for positions not merely of honor and trust but of enormous coercive power. And the choice of all of these nominees are all conscious or subconscious efforts on Trump’s part to troll the agencies they have been named to lead.

The Sanewashing of RFK Jr.  (Benjamin Mazer, The  Atlantic)

Let’s call a crank a crank.

Immigration Is the Glue Holding the MAGA Coalition Together  (Julian E. Zelizer, Foreign Policy)
Ronald Reagan used anti-communism in the same way, but that story ended unexpectedly.

The New Hatred of Technology  (Json Kehe, Wired)
Tech critics are more sophisticated than ever. They’re still wrong.

What Would It Cost to Kill Coal?  (Economist)
The price of shutting down coal power, and what would be gained.

The National Security Imperative for a Trump Presidency (Kori Schake, Foreign Affairs)
How his administration can shore up the foundations of American power.

A New Energy-Security Paradigm  (Christopher Barnard, National Affairs)
Faced with growing geopolitical tensions and serious environmental concerns, America needs policies that will strengthen domestic energy production, bring prices down, and protect national security, all while reducing emissions and ensuring that our energy sources are sustainable. We must chart a vision for a new energy-security paradigm that can take on each of these challenges.

Pete Hegseth’s Path from Campus Provocateur to Fox to the Pentagon  (Marc Fisher, New Yorker)
No decision more clearly reveals Donald Trump’s disdain for his country’s armed forces than his selection of the TV host as his Secretary of Defense.

Rand Paul Has Plans to Kneecap the Nation’s Cyber Agency  (Maggie Miller, Politico)
The incoming chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee has pledged to severely cut the powers of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency or eliminate it entirely.