Tag Archives: MAGA

Patel to take FBI reins … God help us!

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, once revered and venerated for its professionalism, is now being run by a guy who thinks the agency has become a clown show staffed by crooks, charlatans and crackpots.

Kash Patel won Senate confirmation today by a 51-49 vote, hardly the type of mandate that previous FBI directors have traditionally received. The past three FBI directors were confirmed with at least 92 Senate votes.

Patel is about as unqualified and unfit as anyone I’ve ever seen for the job as head of the nation’s premier crime-fighting outfit. It is staffed with thousands of public servants who are dedicated to doing their job and fulfilling their mission to keep us safe from those who wish to do us harm.

Patel once said he intended to close the Hoover FBI Building and turn it into a museum of the “deep state.” He vows to hunt down and prosecute anyone who opposes Donald Trump. What the hell? He has declared war on the media, the only privately held institution in this country granted protection from government influence and interference in the U.S. Constitution.

And this is the dipsh** Trump selected to lead the FBI?

Of the handful of troublesome Trump picks to lead the executive branch, I declared Kash Patel to be the worst of the bunch. I stand by my earlier assessment of this moron’s world view.

Now I will merely pray he chickens out on his threats to weaponize his department.

Trump blames Ukraine for war … seriously

Donald J. Trump put his depravity on full display with a bizarre social media message that blames Ukraine for starting the war that began when Russia invaded its sovereign neighbor.

According to The Independent: In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump accused Zelensky, who he called a “modestly successful comedian” in a reference to his previous career as a sitcom star and entertainer, of having “talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start.”

I am utterly speechless. This guy’s incessant enfatuation with a known killer and goon — Vladimir Putin — is simply beyond description.

Geez, Louise! This clown has turned his back on a dependable ally in Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy. He has stood up to Russia’s immoral and illegal invasion for three years. Ukraine has inflicted stunning casualties against an enemy force that sought to enter Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv, just days after crossing the border.

President Joe Biden pledged financial support. He mustered full-throated NATO and EU support for Ukraine’s defense of its territory.

Now we have Donald Trump siding with his pal Putin.

Absolutely disgraceful for the new president to forsake our national pledge to help an ally defend itself against a tinhorn dictator.

Trump learned zero from first term

Strange as it might seem to many readers of this blog, I actually had harbored a hope — faint though it was — that Donald J. Trump had learned something about governance in the four years between this nimrod’s first and second terms as president.

He didn’t learn a thing.

The only evidence to which I can point is the character and the deep flaws of the men and women he has chosen for the Cabinet posts filled by the incoming POTUS.

Trump has been aided immeasurably the cowardice displayed by Republican senators who command a slim majority in the “world’s most distinguished deliberative body.” There’s not a damn thing distinguished about GOP senators rolling over and being steamrolled by the president.

The way the president has handled the firing of key FBI senior officials for merely doing their job is another example of a lesson ignored by Trump.

Why in the world didn’t someone, say, such as Melania Trump, take the nimrod aside and tell him to study just a little bit the fine points of the Constitution? Dude isn’t wired to study anything.

I keep hearing about bettors making wagers on when Elon Musk will bolt from the executive branch under Trump. It cannot possibly be too soon.

We are seeing a virtual re-run of the “chaos presidency” that Jeb Bush predicted we would get in 2016.  This time, the difference is frightening, given that Trump has no one close to him who can tell him the truth … that he is making a shambles out of the government he took an oath to “defend and protect.”

Conservatism turned upside-down

As I watch Donald Trump and his No. 1 suck-up Elon Musk, I am wondering how it is that the new administration can possibly describe itself as “conservative.”

The budget strategies being developed by Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency is slated to increase the national debt by $4 trillion. Yep, that’s “trillion” with a “t.”

DOGE members also are boasting about how they’re acquiring power normally reserved for members of Congress. Roll that around for just a second, ’cause that’s all it’ll take. Conservatives used to rail, rant and rage over consolidation of power. Now? Why, it’s cool, if you buy into the MAGA morons’ world view.

Conservatives formerly fought for the need to reduce the size of the federal government. DOGErs say they intend to reduce government’s size by putting millions of Americans out of work through layoffs, buyouts and firings. They are stretching the rules of legality by firing federal employees for — and this is rich — doing their jobs!

None of this is “conservative government” as I have long understood its meaning and application. It’s the reverse, for criminy sakes!

But … the MAGA goons who govern us now don’t know or care that they are redefining our government structure into something none of us recognizes.

Think of it as the ultimate conflation of ignorance and apathy.

Ex-governors relegated to obscurity

Texans elected two men to be their governor and they served, in retrospect, with considerable presence and gravitas.

George W. Bush and Rick Perry served back to back in the early 2000s. Bush got elected president in 2000 as Texas governor, then resigned to enter the White House. Perry, the lieutenant governor, succeeded Bush and served longer than any man in state history.

Let me be clear about one thing. I didn’t vote for either man. Looking back, though, I find them both to be men of considerable stature. What earned them this belated praise from little ol’ me? They both are right on immigration. They both have argued for reforming the nation’s immigration system. They have favored treating foreign-born Texas residents who entered the country as children as Texans. Perry and Bush both argued to allow those residents to enter Texas public universities as in-state students, thus, reducing their costs.

Both men espoused views on immigration that reflected their experiences governing a big, important border state. Perry ran for president in 2016 and was pilloried by the MAGA morons for actually speaking out in favor of the DACA program: Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals. This is an executive order from President Obama that granted amnesty from deportation for those who came here as children of undocumented immigrants, were raised in the United States and became de facto Americans who got educated, landed good jobs and paid taxes.

Perry did become energy secretary in Trump’s first go-round in the White House … and has said or done virtually nothing of significance ever since!

No one should doubt these men’s Republican credentials. Now, they’re considered RINOs — Republicans in name only — for reasons that baffle me.

Explain this to me … please

Almost every aspect of today’s political climate requires an understanding that I apparently do not possess.

We used to seek and expect the best among our political leaders. Today we are settling for, well, clowns, misfits, felons and numbskulls. How can this happen to us? Why are we letting it happen?

Donald Trump, the felon in chief, is close to getting a Cabinet he selected that fits the description I have just laid out there. Americans elected this guy despite the felony convictions, two impeachment trials, multiple scandals, a defeat at the polls four years earlier and litany of lies that cannot be compared to any other in U.S. political history.

I will concede this point. Which is that we have witnessed the most astonishing political comeback in recorded history … in my view.

I just cannot fathom how this guy managed to pull this off.

And now he is setting about doing what he vowed to do and then some. He seeks to dismantle the federal government and has brought on board an unelected zillionaire guru to take the government apart piece by piece.

I am seriously frightened.

Gabbard as DNI? Ugghhh!

Tulsi Gabbard, the one-time “far-left Democrat” who switched parties and then backed Donald Trump’s candidacy for POTUS, is the new director of national intelligence.

It’s fair to ask: What would Republicans think of her had she been nominated as DNI by a Democratic president? Today she garnered 52 of 53 GOP votes in the U.S. Senate, with only Mitch McConnell of Kentucky showing a semblance of courage in bucking his party.

Yep, make no mistake that the MAGA wing of the Republican Party — led by the aforementioned POTUS — has taken complete control of a once-great political organization.

Gabbard has no business leading the 18 intelligence-gathering agencies under her command. She cozies up to dictators, such as Vladimir Putin, despite the Russian thug’s illegal and immoral war in Ukraine. She once called whistlebower Edward Snowden a traitor but now wants him pardoned for his treasonous acts.

She is as unreliable a Cabinet official as one can imagine. What’s more, her unreliability puts all of us — you and me — in dire peril.

Today was a dark and dangerous day with Gabbord’s confirmation.

Stunning Oval Office image

The optics from Tuesday’s Oval Office event were stunning in their delivery.

You had Donald J. Trump, the incumbent president of the United States, sitting at the Resolute Desk. To his right was Elon Musk, the billionaire high-tech guru who’s taken on the role of co-POTUS.

Musk pontificated for several minutes about the need — in his mind — to slash billions of dollars from the federal budget. With him was one of his 11 children, sitting on Musk’s shoulders, playing around and acting like a charmiing little boy.

All the while, Trump sat there silently, letting Musk prattle on about what he intends to do to make government more efficient.

Wait just a second, shall we?

Who in the world was elected president in November? It damn sure wasn’t Musk, a foreign-born richest man on Earth. Trump got more votes than his opponent.

And yet … the incumbent president sat at his desk, acting for all the world like a bit player in a scheme to restructure the nature of our democratic republic.

Of course, we need to understand that Musk has Trump’s blessing to take center stage. Still, the Oval Office image is beyond weird.

It scares me sh**less!

Judiciary under attack

Our nation’s founders had this notion that today seems rather quaint that lifetime appointments to the federal judiciary would shield judges from the kind of political pressure that dogs members of the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

The concept worked quite well. Then came the MAGA movement, Donald Trump and now the actual threat of impeachment of federal judges who rule against the Trumpian view of the world.

Holy crap!

A federal judge in Rhode Island has ruled that Trump must unfreeze federal money appropriated by Congress. His actions to stop payments violate the U.S. Constitution, said the judge. The MAGA response? Well, we’ll just see about that, they say. MAGA morons are reportedly lobbying their allies in Congress to impeach the judge because he had the stones to speak truth to the morons who think they can ignore the Constitution at will.

The first three articles in the Constitution dealt, in order, with legislative power, executive power and judicial power. The founders seemingly believed that Congress deserved top billing, thus delineating its authority in Article I. Therefore, when Congress authorizes the expenditure of public money, that authority cannot be challenged by tinhorn politicians.

Trump is seeking to rewrite the Constitution by flouting the authority it grants to Congress … and to the courts. The Rhode Island judge noted specifically that Trump has ignored earlier court rulings and said point-blank that he must be found in contempt of the court. Indeed, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts noted in his year-end review of the court said that any effort to defy the courts must be stopped.

You want a constitutional crisis? I believe we might have them on several fronts, each of which would make Watergate and the Trump-incited insurrection look like a game of horseshoes.

We are the ‘United States of America’ … yes?

While listening to congressional Republicans preen and prance over the conditions they demand for disaster aid to California fire victims, I am reminded of a speech delivered in 2004 by a young upstart politician from Illinois.

State Sen. Barack Obama delivered the Democratic Party convention keynote speech in Boston. He told conventioneers that this nation doesn’t comprise “red states or blue states,” but said “we are the United States of America.”

So it should always be, particularly when Americans are in dire peril recovering from disasters such as those wildfires that have ravaged southern California. Recall, too, that when hurricanes destroyed much of North and South Carolina, and Florida — all regions that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 — Democratic President Joe Biden didn’t hesitate in sending disaster aid to those states.

Such magnanimity isn’t on display these days as Republicans led by Donald Trump attach conditions to disaster aid aimed at helping Californians who live in a state that voted heavily for Biden in 2020 and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.

Is this a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats seemingly put partisanship aside when the call goes out for aid to all Americans regardless of whom they support at the ballot box. Republicans, though, seemingly make up conditions for aid to deliver to those Americans who vote the other way at election time.

Barack Obama had it right in 2004. We’re supposed to all live within the United States of America.