Posts

Trump Ends The Week By Announcing Even More Major Cabinet Picks

/6 Comments/in , /by

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday announced several key appointments for his upcoming administration, including the people he wants as his treasury and labor secretaries.

In a series of announcements, Trump appointed several new cabinet selections and key administrative positions, including key roles for the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Labor, and his national security team. Trump said his nominees have the expertise and commitment to dismantle bureaucratic overreach, restore fiscal responsibility and promote prosperity.

Trump appointed Russell Thurlow Vought as the director of the United States Office of Management and Budget. Trump highlighted Vought’s contributions during his first term, where he implemented significant regulatory cuts.

“Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People. We will restore fiscal sanity to our Nation, and unleash the American People to new levels of Prosperity and Ingenuity. I look forward to working with you again, Russ. Congratulations. Together, we will Make America Great Again!” Trump said in a statement. (Read more from “Trump Ends The Week By Announcing Even More Major Cabinet Picks” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

The GOP Establishment Is A Greater Threat To Trump’s Agenda Than Democrats

/0 Comments/in , /by

Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for attorney general on Thursday. It was an early setback for President-elect Donald Trump that confirms the greatest threat to his agenda isn’t Democrats, but establishment Republicans.

Apparently there were at least four GOP senators staunchly opposed to confirming Gaetz as attorney general: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and John Curtis of Utah. Assuming all Democrat senators voted against him, that would have put Gaetz one vote shy of confirmation.

The corporate media, along with a cadre of Never Trump commentators on the right, boasted about the defeat of Gaetz’s nomination, citing widely discredited sexual allegations against him as evidence that he was unfit to lead the Justice Department. Never mind that those allegations have always been comically thin.

Indeed, as my colleague Mollie Hemingway laid out in these pages recently, the entire campaign to smear Gaetz as a “child sex trafficker” was from the outset a giant psy-op and fraud. After an 18-month investigation by the Biden Justice Department, no charges were filed against Gaetz because the two central witnesses in the probe had serious credibility problems.

But that didn’t stop House Democrats from launching an ethics probe that relied on these same sources and their unsubstantiated claims about Gaetz. They dragged their probe out for more than a year as part of an ongoing effort to sideline and silence Gaetz, who had been one of the most effective voices in Congress calling out the corruption of the Justice Department. (Read more from “The GOP Establishment Is A Greater Threat To Trump’s Agenda Than Democrats” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

The Trump Economic Boom Is Already Beginning

/0 Comments/in , /by

If the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory on Election Day feels joyous and tranquil, you are not alone.

American households and businesses are much more serene and hopeful this time around. Polling released by Pew Research on Friday shows that 70 percent of Americans are very or somewhat confident that the transition to the Trump administration will go smoothly. Similarly, a majority of Americans say they have a positive evaluation of Trump’s post-election conduct.

A 53 percent majority of Americans say they approve of the president-elect’s plans for the country. When asked if they approve of Trump’s conduct post-election, 53 percent answer affirmatively. That’s better than the 40 percent who said they approved of Trump’s cabinet choices in November 2016 and the 41 percent who said they approved of the job he had done in explaining his policies and plans for the future.

Of course, there are the usual partisan differences in how people are reacting to the election. As recently as October, just 10 percent of Republicans said they were satisfied with the state of the country, according to Pew. Now, 35 percent are satisfied. Democrats have seen their satisfaction slip from 38 percent to 24 percent. (Read more from “The Trump Economic Boom Is Already Beginning” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

“No Excuse”: Trump Fumes on Truth Social After Senate Confirms Biden Judges — Thanks to GOP Absences

/5 Comments/in , /by

Republican senators are urging some of their colleagues, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, R-Ohio, and Donald Trump’s Secretary of State pick Marco Rubio, R-Florida, to get back to the office and block Democrats from confirming judges during the lame-duck session while they still have the majority and the White House.

After their absences helped Senate Democrats to confirm several of President Joe Biden’s nominees, Republicans fumed about Vance, Rubio and others during their weekly caucus lunch and to reporters. “I’m not going to bubble wrap it,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “There’s no excuse for that, it’s our job to be here and vote.”

“We want to see [Vance] and some of our members back because of these votes we’re having,” Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told reporters. “Particularly on some of the circuit court judges.”

Trump himself issued marching orders on Truth Social on Tuesday. “The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door,” Trump declared. “Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!” he wrote, just a few hours after he invited several GOP senators, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to witness a SpaceX launch while the rest of the chamber was voting. (Read more from “No Excuse”: Trump Fumes on Truth Social After Senate Confirms Biden Judges — Thanks to GOP Absences” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

The Police Report About Pete Hegseth’s Alleged Sexual Assault Vindicates Him of Criminality

/8 Comments/in , /by

[WARNING: article contains graphic language and details.]

. . .What you’re going to hear now and in the coming days from the national media is that there are “graphic” details in a police report related to an alleged sexual assault involving Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming nominee for Defense secretary. It’s certainly graphic, but the media will bet you won’t bother reading the report, which in reality looks really bad for the alleged victim and effectively clears Hegseth of criminality.

The 22-page report details an incident from seven years ago when in 2017, Hegseth, then a Fox News celebrity, attended an event for a Republican women’s group as a featured speaker. The way the media have relayed the event so far is that a woman in attendance has accused Hegseth of drugging her at an afterparty before raping her in his hotel room. Outside of the alleged victim’s admittedly incomplete recollection, none of the testimony or evidence included in the police report supports that claim. In truth, all of it indicates that the accuser lied to her husband, who was in her hotel room, while she galavanted at night with Hegseth and other attendees before voluntarily joining him in his room to have consensual sex.

The report’s events took place in early October 2017, and it includes multiple eyewitness testimonies and text message evidence of what took place before and after the alleged assault. The alleged victim is identified only as Jane Doe. After a night of moderate drinking, during which Doe says she at some point felt she may have been surreptitiously drugged, Doe said she remembered few details but that she recalled inexplicably finding herself in Hegseth’s hotel room, that he ejaculated on her body, and that she thereafter went to her own room to join an unnamed person in bed. Text messages she shared with police indicate the person was her husband and that there were other parties in the room, likely children. . .

The rest of the report is an overwhelming refutation of that version of events. Included are text exchanges with her husband, wherein she repeatedly mentions Hegseth, but omits that she was spending time with him at the after-parties; testimonies from other women in attendance who said Doe never appeared overserved and in fact seemed completely coherent throughout; surveillance video footage that showed Doe and Hegseth walking around with locked arms; and a hotel staff member who recalled engaging Doe and Hegseth by the pool, at which time Hegseth was belligerent and Doe guided Hegseth away from the conflict.

The report ends with Hegseth’s version of events, in which he admits he only initiated sex with Doe after she took him to his room and says that the two of them repeatedly expressed reservations about the intimacy. He said that the two of them agreed the affair needed to remain secret. If there’s one corroborated piece of Doe’s story, it’s that Hegseth also recalled that she asked him if he had a condom. (Read more from “The Police Report About Pete Hegseth’s Alleged Sexual Assault Vindicates Him of Criminality” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Trump Picks Former Florida AG Pam Bondi to Replace Gaetz

/3 Comments/in , /by

President-elect Donald Trump went from one Floridian to another Thursday, announcing that former Sunshine State Attorney General Pam Bondi would be his new pick to lead the Justice Department, hours after former nominee Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration.

“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans – Not anymore,” Trump, 78, said in a statement on Truth Social. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again. I have known Pam for many years — She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!”

Gaetz, 42, was announced as Trump’s attorney general-designate Nov. 13, but withdrew earlier Thursday after failing to persuade a majority of Republican senators to support him. (Read more from “Trump Picks Former Florida AG Pam Bondi to Replace Gaetz” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Rumored Trump FBI Candidate Mike Rogers Has History Of Feeding Into Russiagate, FISA Spying

/1 Comment/in , /by

Former Congressman Mike Rogers, who is reportedly in the running to be Donald Trump’s FBI Director pick if Chris Wray is fired, has a history of propagating Russiagate and supporting FISA surveillance.

Rogers, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is reportedly a leading contender to replace Wray as head of the FBI. He served as a Republican representative from Michigan until January 2015, when he transitioned to media work and hosted a CNN program called “Declassified,” which focused on American intelligence issues. Since leaving Congress, he’s worked with various groups friendly with the intelligence community and which perpetuated the Russiagate scandal against Trump.

Rogers ran for Senate in 2024 and narrowly lost to Democrat Elissa Slotkin. While he attended President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign rallies and even received the former president’s endorsement, Rogers was not always a stalwart supporter. He was even an advisor to a group that promoted the Russian election interference narrative.

Rogers ran for Senate in 2024 and narrowly lost to Democrat Elissa Slotkin. While he attended President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign rallies and even received the former president’s endorsement, Rogers was not always a stalwart supporter. He was even an advisor to a group that promoted the Russian election interference narrative. (Read more from “Rumored Trump FBI Candidate Mike Rogers Has History Of Feeding Into Russiagate, FISA Spying” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

MSNBC Guest Who Went After Pete Hegseth Facing Backlash From All Sides

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Earlier this week, President-elect Donald Trump selected Pete Hegseth to serve as his Secretary of Defense. The reaction was swift, with the criticism in many cases downright nasty and ugly. MSNBC, which has been taking Trump’s win pretty hard and has suffered from plummeting post-election ratings, had on multiple guests who threw Hegseth under the bus by accusing him of being a “white supremacist.”

During “All In with Chris Hayes,” Sherrilyn Ifill, a lawyer and professor at Howard University, who also served as the former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, made such a claim.

Ifill also focused on Hegseth’s role as a Fox News host, with Hayes jumping in to clarify that he was a “Fox & Friends Weekend” host, which Ifill called “an important distinction,” rather than mention how Hegseth is also a decorated veteran. “This is someone who, you know, is known to be a white supremacist, known to be an extremist, whose platform, whose book is basically about his opposition to the advancement of black officers to the top brass,” she claimed in a clip that has been circulating. She would later go on to acknowledge that Hegseth is a veteran, but claimed that that “is simply inefficient.”

That book, “War on Warriors,” which came out earlier this year and which we had a chance to review after interviewing Hegseth, specifically addresses the dangers and concerns of a woke military. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) have raised such concerns. The lawmakers’ report also noted that the military is less extreme than the population.

There is also one particularly memorable chapter of Hegseth’s book that focuses on the care and concern he had for his fellow National Guardsmen who were black and were targeted by violent mobs shouting racial slurs while they were defending Washington, DC during the 2020 riots.

(Read more from “MSNBC Guest Who Went After Pete Hegseth Facing Backlash From All Sides” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Trump Transition Team Compiling List of Current and Former U.S. Military Officers for Possible Courts-Martial

/9 Comments/in , , /by

By MSN News. The Trump transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officers who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and exploring whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the plan.

Officials working on the transition are considering creating a commission to investigate the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, including gathering information about who was directly involved in the decision-making for the military, how it was carried out, and whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as serious as treason, the U.S. official and person with knowledge of the plan said.

“They’re taking it very seriously,” the person with knowledge of the plan said. . .

Matt Flynn, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for counternarcotics and global threats, is helping lead the effort, the sources said. It is being framed as a review of how the U.S. first got into the war in Afghanistan and how the U.S. ultimately withdrew.

“Matt Flynn has nothing to do with the Trump transition team, much less leading any review concerning military justice matters,” said Mark S. Zaid, Flynn’s attorney. In a statement Zaid said that “no one has sought out Mr. Flynn’s views on this hypothetical legal scenario.” (Read more from “Trump Transition Team Compiling List of Current and Former U.S. Military Officers for Possible Courts-Martial” HERE)

______________________________________________

Bureaucrats Say Trump’s Plan to Destroy Administrative State Might Trigger Mass Exodus

By Breitbart. Federal bureaucrats might leave their jobs early out of fear that President-elect Donald Trump will follow through on his promise to purge the government of rogue and corrupt actors within the administrative state.

The potential abandonment would greatly help Trump’s incoming cabinet secretaries clean up Washington. Trump transition adviser Mark Paoletta asked members of the administrative state on Wednesday to “leave” the bureaucracy or “be fired.”

The term “administrative state” specifically describes the phenomenon of unaccountable and unelected administrative agencies, including the national security apparatus, exercising power to create and enforce their own rules. The administrative state uses its rule-making ability to essentially usurp the separation of powers between the three branches of government by creating a so-called fourth branch of government not formed by the Constitution.

Many unelected bureaucrats within the administrative state also use their position to inflict their own agenda on citizens. For instance, before the “laptop from hell” story broke in 2020, 51 intel officials signed a letter that insinuated Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation. The letter was peddled by Politico under the title “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” The 51 signatories, however, seemingly knew the Politico story was false at the time because the FBI had the laptop that Hunter abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. President Joe Biden cited the story during a 2020 presidential debate with Trump to discredit the laptop’s contents. The story was reportedly planted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken for Biden to use during the event.

(Read more from “Bureaucrats Say Trump’s Plan to Destroy Administrative State Might Trigger Mass Exodus” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

VIDEO: ‘Trump Dance’ Celebrations Explode Across the NFL: Lions, Titans, Raiders, 49ers Join In

/0 Comments/in , , /by

The “Trump Dance” appears to be exploding across the NFL. It started with the 49ers’ Nick Boas last week, who celebrated sacking the Dolphins quarterback by performing a little Donald Trump dance. But now, players on three other teams have joined the dance craze.

First up was Bosa, who performed his take on Trump’s hilarious little double-fisted low pump after he sacked the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Baker Mayfield in the 49ers win. . .

Early in the NFL’s Sunday schedule, Las Vegas Raiders tight end Brock Bowers did his version of the Trump dance as he celebrated a third-quarter touchdown. . .

The Detroit Lions’ Za’Darius Smith and Malcolm Rodriguez also broke out in the Trump dance on Sunday:

The Tennessee Titans’ Calvin Ridley and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine also jumped to their feet to perform the Trump dance after making a touchdown Sunday:

(Read more from “VIDEO: ‘Trump Dance’ Celebrations Explode Across the NFL: Lions, Titans, Raiders, 49ers Join In” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr