Under normal circumstances in a healthy political environment, the fact that an incoming president is poised to fire another FBI director without cause would be the basis for a major, presidency-defining controversy. Under our current circumstances, this is barely causing a ripple — and a GOP-led Senate is likely to confirm Trump’s radical and unqualified choice to lead the bureau.
He is the second director “driven out by Trump
.” The first was James Comey.
Patel, who would need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, has never worked at the FBI and only spent three years at the Justice Department earlier in his career in the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section. If confirmed, he has pledged to shut down the FBI’s headquarters building in Washington and drastically redefine the bureau’s role with intelligence-gathering.
Make no mistake, Trump is poised to assume office as an authoritarian who has molded himself after Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban. Wray just made that path a smoother one for Trump.
Most Trump nominees announced so far have been little- or un-qualified for the job they are supposed to assume. They’re wealthy, though.
Ambassador to China: David Perdue, multi-millionaire
Ambassador to France: Charles Kushner, father-in-law to Ivanka Trump and pardoned by Trump
Ambassador to Greece: Kimberly Guilfoyle, Fox News host
Ambassador to Turkey: Tom Barrack, billionaire
Ambassador to the United Kingdom: Warren Stephens, billionaire
Attorney general: Pam Bondi, former Florida attorney general
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator: Dr. Mehmet Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon and television personality
Counselor to the president: Alina Habba, personal lawyer
‘Crypto czar’: David Sacks, venture capitalist and multi-millionaire
Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Dave Weldon, Christian conservative and Florida physician infamous for his involvement in the Terri Schiavo case
Food and Drug Administration commissioner: Marty Makary, millionaire and ally of anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration chief: Jared Isaacman, billionaire
Secretary of Agriculture: Brooke Rollins, right-wing think tank president
Secretary of Commerce: Howard Lutnick, billionaire
Secretary of Defense: Pete Hegseth, FOX News personality, womanizer and alcoholic
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., millionaire anti-vaxxer
Secretary of Homeland Security: Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota infamous for shooting her dog as a youth
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Scott Turner, former NFL player
Secretary of the Interior: Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota, multi-millionaire and venture capitalist
Secretary of Labor: Lori Chavez-DeRemer, one-term U.S. Representative
Secretary of Secretary: Linda McMahon, billionaire
“Rockin’ around the Christmas tree At the Christmas party hop” – Brenda Lee
It’s a yuletide tradition on Capitol Hill.
An annual custom of rockin’ around a congressional Christmas tree
, festooned with hundreds of legislative ornaments, Advent appropriations and mistletoe modifications.
A political Polar Express chugs through the halls of Congress
nearly every December. It’s always the last piece of legislation huffing out of the congressional station.
“It’s another cram down,” fumed Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, the morning after congressional leaders released the bill. “Here’s what you get. ‘Do this or shut the government down.’ So, it’s very disappointing.”
Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., didn’t gift wrap his criticism.
“It’s a total dumpster fire. I think it’s garbage,” decreed Burlison. “It’s shameful that people celebrate DOGE coming, and yet we’re going to vote for another billion dollars to be added to the deficit. It’s ironic.”
Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., mocked his colleagues for talking out of both sides of their mouths when it came to spending.
“We keep on saying we want to take the deficit and the debt seriously. But we keep on voting to increase it. You can’t have it both ways,” he said. “This is irresponsible.”
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, lamented this was business as usual.
“I mean, the swamp is going to swamp, right?” proffered Roy.
“We have broken the Christmas omni. I have no intention of going back to that terrible tradition. There won’t be a Christmas omnibus,” Johnson declared Sept. 24. “We won’t do any ‘buses.’”
So, yours truly pressed Johnson about his promise after frustrated Republicans upbraided him during a House GOP Conference meeting.
“You said back in September there would be no more Christmas omnibuses. You were not doing anymore ‘buses,’” I asked. “But how is this not yet another Christmas tree at the holidays?”
“Well, it’s not a Christmas tree. It’s not an omnibus,” responded Johnson.
Johnson is technically right. In appropriations parlance, it’s not a true omnibus — even though outside observers and many lawmakers themselves might colloquially refer to the massive bill as an “omnibus.” An omnibus is where Congress gift wraps all 12 individual spending measures into one package. A “minibus” is where a handful of bills are bundled together.
Even so, I reminded Johnson of the opprobrium directed at this legislation.
“They called this cram down. They said it was garbage. Those are your own members calling it that,” I noted.
“Well, they haven’t even seen it yet,” said Johnson, even though the bill materialized the night before. “I’ve got a couple of friends who will say that about any end-of-year funding measure. This is not an omnibus, OK? This is a small CR (continuing resolution) that we’ve had to add things to that were out of our control.”
The legislation was stocked with a hefty price tag to cover the entire cost of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. A radioactive pay raise for lawmakers. Health care provisions. Language about concert ticket prices. Emergency aid for farmers. And $110 billion to help cover devastation from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
“It was intended to be, and it was until recent days, a very simple, very clean CR stopgap funding measure to get us into next year when we have a unified government,” said Johnson. “But a couple of intervening things have occurred. We had, as we say, acts of God. We had these massive hurricanes.”
But then Elon Musk
torched the bill. President-elect Trump demanded an immediate debt ceiling increase. Debt limit deals are one of the most complex and contentious issues in Congress. They require weeks if not months of painstaking negotiations.
This wasn’t as simple as presenting Santa at the mall a wish list of items for Christmas morning.
The bill began bleeding support just hours before the House planned a vote.
But to paraphrase Charles Dickens’ opening line in “A Christmas Carol” about Jacob Marley, “That bill was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever, about that.”
Democrats were flabbergasted at outside last-minute ultimatums. Especially since Johnson attended the Army-Navy football game last week with Trump. How could they not have discussed the contours of this bill?
“It was blown up by Elon Musk, who apparently has become the fourth branch of government,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., scoffed about the bill. “So, who is our leader, (House Minority Leader) Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., supposed to negotiate with? Is it Mike Johnson? Is he the speaker of the House? Or is it Donald Trump? Or is it Elon Musk. Or is it somebody else?”
Johnson and company then prepped a svelte 116-page bill to fund the government. But bipartisan lawmakers roasted that measure faster than chestnuts by an open fire.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., mocked Republicans for insisting that they adhere to their internal “three-day rule.” That allows lawmakers to ponder bills for three days before a vote. Yet Republicans were now racing the new bill to the floor faster than shoppers rushing home with their treasures.
“Have you printed it? How many pages is it? What happened to the 72-hour rule?” mocked Moskowitz.
The bill plummeted to an embarrassing defeat on the House floor. It only scored 174 yeas, punctuated by an eye-popping 38 Republican nays.
“The Democrats just voted to shut down the government,” Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, the vice president-elect, claimed. “They’ve asked for a shutdown, and I think that’s exactly what they’re going to get.”
By Friday, there was a third bill. And despite grousing, lawmakers finally passed the legislation. There was no need to go to “Plan Z,” popularized in “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.” The House approved the bill in the early evening. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., hit the Senate floor late Friday night.
“Democrats and Republicans have just reached an agreement that will allow us to pass the CR tonight before the midnight deadline,” said Schumer.
Critics of the third bill might characterize the entire process as a “railroad.” But it was an actual railroad that prevented the Senate from passing the bill on time. An unnamed Republican senator placed a hold on nominees to Amtrak’s board. But once senators resolved that problem, the Senate finally aligned with the House to prevent the shutdown around 12:45 a.m. ET Saturday, 45 minutes after the midnight deadline.
The slenderized bill included disaster aid and emergency assistance for farmers. But when it came to appropriations, the legislation simply renewed all current funding at present levels. It was definitely not a “Christmas tree.” It just kept the government running through March 14. So no holiday crisis.
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Scott Presler speaks exclusively with Breitbart News at Turning Point’s Americafest about his efforts to flip Pennsylvania for Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
Former porn star turned pastor Brittni De La Mora is calling on age verification laws to become “mandatory” to “protect children” as Florida is set to effectuate legislation on the matter in January.
Pornhub will soon no longer be available to Florida users after the Sunshine State instituted a new age verification rule for access to adult sites. Taking effect Jan. 1, 2025, the age verification rule is tied to the state’s HB 3
, a measure that aims to protect minors online.
Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, emphasized to Fox News Digital that it favors implementing effective age verification, just not specifically in the way Florida’s law was designed, saying other outlets have incorrectly reported it doesn’t support age verification at all.
“They’re deflecting accountability by saying that they don’t want to follow a simple law, which is age verification for pornography,” De La Mora said on “The Ingraham Angle
.” “I don’t know exactly what they’re doing with their money, but I do believe that they are not out to protect young children.”
“Fifty-eight percent of minors that have watched pornography for their very first time — they watched it by stumbling upon it through a pop-up ad and so forth. And they weren’t looking for porn — porn was looking
for them,” De La Mora said.
Per the bill, a website or application that “contains a substantial portion of material that is harmful to minors” will be required to verify the age of the user. Through an “anonymous or standard age verification method,” it must confirm the user is 18 or older to proceed with engagement.
In response to the specifications of the measure, Aylo elected to halt access to the adult site in Florida, saying in a statement that collecting “highly sensitive personal information” puts “user safety in jeopardy.”
“First, to be clear, Aylo has publicly supported age verification of users for years, but we believe that any law to this effect must preserve user safety and privacy, and must effectively protect children from accessing content intended for adults. Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide, including Florida, have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous. Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws,” Aylo told Fox News Digital in a statement.
The statement later continued: “The best solution to make the internet safer, preserve user privacy, and prevent children from accessing adult content is performing age verification at the source: on the device. The technology to accomplish this exists today. What is required is the political and social will to make it happen. We are eager to be part of this solution and are happy to collaborate with government, civil society and tech partners to arrive at an effective device-based age verification solution. In addition, many devices already offer free and easy-to-use parental control features that can prevent children from accessing adult content without risking the disclosure of sensitive user data.”
Florida residents still using the app ahead of the deadline are met with a countdown pop-up of how many more days they have access to the site.
“Did you know that your government wants you to give your driver’s license before you can access PORNHUB?” the pop-up reads. “As crazy as that sounds, it’s true. You’ll be required to prove you are 18 years or older such as by uploading your government ID for every adult content website you’d like to access.”
The pop-up also addressed how it supports minors not having access to the site, and said that preventing use is a “good thing.” It directed readers to alternative methods of blocking minor access, such as “Device-Based Age Verification.”
De La Mora continued: “I was in the porn industry
for seven years, and I would be paid extra money to do aggressive, abusive scenes.”
She expanded on how the “pulling hair, spitting and choking” acts often used in porn clips have become “sexual education” for young people.
After speaking with some young girls, De La Mora said many expressed not wanting to have sex again after their first sexual experience.
“I don’t blame the young boys. They are watching pornography, and this is what’s filling their minds, and this is what’s teaching them how to have sex,” she said.
“Protecting children is not a violation of your First Amendment rights in any way. I believe that our government has an obligation to protect children,” De La Mora said, arguing that adult content is “not created with children in mind.” “It is created for adults, and yet there has been no accountability for porn companies.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ communications office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Trump probably doesn’t realize it or understand it, but the goals of some of his policies conflict with each other. In fact, if some of his policies are put into effect, others will not be possible. Important parts of Trumps ideology include tariffs and deporting immigrants. Yet at the same time, he wants to cut inflation and spur economic growth. The first two policy goals are antithetical to the last two.
Trump also does not take into account that the American population is aging and many of the elderly need fulltime help. We are not replacing our population with our birth rates declining. To maintain our economy and production ability, we need immigrants. Skilled, H1B immigrants are particularly important. Asylum for immigrants from totalitarian states is also part of our tradition.
Raising tariffs on imported goods will raise prices for consumers and be inflationary. Trump thinks that the exporting countries will absorb the costs, but they will actually be borne by American consumers. As the prices increase, so will inflation. Trump also believes that the funds collected from tariffs will allow tax cuts (mainly for the wealthy). But there will not be adequate amounts of money generated with tariffs to significantly reduce taxes without increasing the national debt, which is already higher than it should be related to our GDP.
Deporting immigrants will also spur inflation and will not provide jobs for Americans which is another of Trump’s goals. Immigrants tend to have low-paying jobs in the agriculture sector, landscaping, construction and meat preparation and packing. They also work as home health aides. Aside from construction, Americans will not take the jobs that become available. However, the prices of agricultural products and meat will rise, landscaping and construction will become more expensive, adding to inflation and there will not be enough home health aides.
Tariffs as a means of raising revenue go back to the 18th century, which is probably where Trump would like to see America. Not only should Trump not cut taxes when our national debt is so high, he should raise taxes on his billionaire friends and plug tax loopholes. There should be no increase for the average taxpayer. Closing the border aside from legal immigrants is a reasonable idea and some deportation of immigrants with no skills may be worthwhile. But we need immigrants to make up for our population losses. Tariffs should also be restricted to specific cheaper items that will compete with American goods.
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Tags: 2024 election, American work force, deport immigrants, economy, immigrations, tariffs, Trump
Last month, Missourians voted to add the right to abortion until viability into their state constitution—making their state one of ten to enshrine abortion rights
President-elect Trump
announced on Saturday that he has tapped the creator of “The Apprentice” to serve a diplomatic role in the United Kingdom.
In a Truth Social post, Trump named Mark Burnett, a British-American TV producer who was born in London, as the next U.S. special envoy to the United Kingdom.
“It is my great honor to appoint Mark Burnett as the Special Envoy to the United Kingdom,” the president-elect said. “With a distinguished career in television production and business, Mark brings a unique blend of diplomatic acumen and international recognition to this important role.”
In addition to creating Trump’s former show “The Apprentice,” Burnett also created “Shark Tank” and led production of other programs such as “Survivor” and “The Martha Stewart Show.” In his Truth Social post, Trump said that the producer had created some of the “biggest shows in Television History,” and touted his achievements.
“He is the former Chairman of MGM, and has won 13 Emmy Awards!” the Republican wrote. “Mark will work to enhance diplomatic relations, focusing on areas of mutual interest, including trade, investment opportunities, and cultural exchanges. Congratulations Mark!”
No one is currently serving as a U.S. Special Envoy to the United Kingdom. Special envoy roles are typically temporary in nature and meant to fulfill a specific mission, though Trump did not specify the purpose of the role in his announcement.
Earlier in December, Trump tapped Warren A. Stephens
to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James, also known as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom.
“Over the last 38 years, while serving as the president, chairman, and CEO of his company, Stephens Inc., Warren has built a wonderful financial services firm, while selflessly giving back to his community as a philanthropist,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“Warren has always dreamed of serving the United States full-time. I am thrilled that he will now have that opportunity as the top Diplomat, representing the U.S.A. to one of America’s most cherished and beloved Allies.”
Burnett did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
