“Cash” Patel for Director of the F.B.I? How bad a choice is that? In his first term The Don entertained naming Patel deputy director of the FBI. When Attorney General Bill Barr heard about this he confronted the White House chief of staff and said, “Over my dead body.” All I can say Bill, is I hope you have purchased a cemetery plot.
The choice of Patel is just another attempt to provoke outrage and a showdown with Republican lawmakers to see if they have the balls to defy him. By choosing him, The Don is declaring his intention to reinvent the FBI as something it has never been before: an instrument of personal presidential power, which will investigate (or refrain from investigating) as the president wishes.
Patel is a rabid MAGA sycophant and like the defanged Matt Gaetz, is foaming at the mouth, to take down the “enemy within.” Last year, on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Patel vowed that Trump’s enemies would be targeted if the former president returned to power. “We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media.”
Patel has also said: “I am going to go on a government gangster’s manhunt in Washington, D.C., for our great president.”
Patel has called for decentralizing the FBI and turning its D.C. headquarters into a museum, saying he would “shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.” Rumor has it that Patel will use the platform to enrich himself by keeping all the admission fees (with a 20% kickback to The Don of course) and selling lots of merch and bling. In production are “Joe Biden Voodoo dolls, and pinatas of soon-to-be-fired F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray.
Cash, like The Don and Dr. Oz, is a snake-oil salesman, a scammer to the core. He has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from his own business dealings with Trump-related entities. Like The Don, “Cash” has embraced online retail under the brand “K$H.” s He has hawked “Warrior Essentials”, anti-vaccine diet supplements, and pro-Trump T-shirts. Most unnerving is Mr. Patel’s line of children’s books, in which he portrays himself as a wizard, wearing a midnight blue robe covered with glittering stars and half moons. Mr. Trump, broad-shouldered and crowned, is known as “the King.” Wouldn’t it be cool that every time one is bought that it is accompanied by “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” (The story is about a grandiose king who has new clothes made but he winds up naked and pretends he has his new beautiful clothes on until a little boy connvinces him he is naked.)
Also, rumor has it that he and The Don are considering a joint business venture that will feature mugshot cards of every enemy Patel goes after. He and The Don are hoping that these cards will be the new baseball cards of our time. Cards will have different values. At this point, it is thought that Liz Cheney and Mark Milley will be the highest values.
With Patel rounding out the nominations, all eyes are focused on the Senate. The billion dollar question: are there four senators who will rise to the occasion to block the approval of some of his more awful and dangerous nominees? Will the vile Mitch MConnell vote No in order to stop Pete Hegseth from becoming the next Secretary of Defense, or will he bend a knee to The Don and vote Yes?
It should be a no-brainer but after all, an insurrection wasn’t a bridge too far McConnell to vote Yes (to convict.) Mitch, you were so outraged and disgusted with January 6th-it rocked you to your core- but rather than rid the nation of the Don, you decided to let the “law” take care of it. Funny thing happened: the evil sheriff has returned with a vengeance and he wants to remake the town in his name. This sheriff doesn’t give one hoot about the law or rules. The Supreme Court has given immunity to do whatever he wants.
Mitch, We know you hate The Don. He hates you as much. He probably has fantasies of putting you out in the public square and pissing on you. In the parlance of bro-land: Are you a wuss, or are you a man? Does the fact that Hegseth wants to get rid of generals who are not completely loyal to The Don and will support using the military against the “enemy within” keep you up at night? And if that isn’t enough, does Hegseth’s mother’s email push you over the top? Maybe not, as you said nothing after The Don was found guilty of sexual assault in the E. Jean Carrol case. You voted for him twice despite the Access Hollywood tape. You voted for him twice despite the fact that dozens of women have accused him of rape and sexual assault (you even voted for him again after he encouraged a mob to hang Mike Pence)? Did you even take the time to read the email, or are you playing dumb like all your immoral colleagues and telling reporters you’re just so busy you haven’t had the time to read it? Well if you didn’t, here it is. Read it slowly, Mitch.
Son,
I have tried to keep quiet about your character and behavior, but after listening to the way you made Samantha feel today, I cannot stay silent. And as a woman, and your mother, I feel I must speak out.
You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth, and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years), and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.
I am not a saint, far from it…so don’t throw that in my face, but your abuse over the years to women (dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, belittling) needs to be called out.
Sam is a good mother and a good person (under the circumstances that you created), and I know deep down you know that. For you to try to label her as “unstable” for your own advantage is despicable and abusive. Is there any sense of decency left in you? She did not ask for or deserve any of what has come to her by your hand. Neither did Meredith.
I know you think this is one big competition and that we have taken her side… bunk… we are on the side of good and that is not you. (Go ahead and call me self-righteous, I dont’ care)
Don’t you dare run to her and cry foul that we shared with us…that’s what babies do. It’s time for someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women.
What do you think Mitch? His own mother! Come on man. Oh, she says she wrote an email (that no one has yet to see) apologizing and retracting what she said. Wonder what made her change her mind? Maybe he threatened to expose his mother’s secrets and claim she was “unstable.” After all, what makes you think that his need for power and contempt of women wouldn’t apply to his own mother? The military is plagued with sexual assault of both women and men. Do you want this man, whose responsibility is to protect the members of the military, to be in charge of creating policies to mitigate sexual assault? Think about it Mitch.
That goes for you too, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Joni Ernst. Imagine having a son like that and allowing him to have such power.
Now comes the great test: is the American constitutional system as fragile as Trump hopes? Will Senate Republicans ratify Trump’s attack on the separation of law enforcement from politics? Will federal courts grant warrants to an FBI that seeks warrants and makes arrests because the president told it to? Will the tiny Republican majority in the House endorse or resist Trump’s attempt to create a personal police force? Will they enable the establishment of an autocracy out of fear of reprisal or being primaried by MAGA loyalist candidates? Is their desire to stay in favor and keep their job more important than our democracy? If we have learned one thing during the past 10 years, never underestimate the seduction of power to compromise one’s ethics and morality.
The above discussion is predicated on the role of the Senate to offer advice and give their consent on prospective nominees. It is one of the important powers the Senate has to influence the makeup of the government. However, there is a potential work-around that The Don and his cronies are champing at the bit to enact. The Don can skip the Senate process and make recess appointments.
A little history about recess appointments. Here’s the ultra-conservative former justice Anthony Scalia on recess appointments: “The whole point of the constitutional provision on recess appointments, adopted in 1787 in the era of horse and buggy, was that the Senate could not quickly be summoned to fill critical vacancies.”
Reading a summary of his opinion aloud (regarding Obama’s recess appointments) in the courtroom on June 26, 2014, Scalia said the power to make recess appointments “is an anachronism. The only remaining practical use for the recess appointment power is the ignoble one of enabling presidents to circumvent the Senate’s role in the appointment process which is precisely what happened here.”
But not so fast. There is the potential loophole. It has to do with the decision of congress to decide when it adjourns. When the House and Senate can’t agree on when to adjourn, the president can decide to adjourn them. The provision in the constitution reads “in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he (the president) may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper.”
Congressional adjournments require one chamber to consent when the other wants to take a break of more than three days. Under this view, the president could intervene only when one body of the legislature objects to the other’s adjournment plan. A potential firewall? It brings little comfort, as given the submission of Republican lawmakers to The Don, I could easily see the House objecting to the Senate’s adjournment plan. Potential reasons:
- The House wants to protect the members of the Senate from severe sun burns when they flock to Mar-a-Lago?
- Some senators and members of the house have a standing card game and they can’t get enough players if senators leave?
- If the House doesn’t vote to stop the senate from taking a break, “Cash” Patel will add House members who don’t support opposing the senate recess to his “enemy within” list?
4. In the Don’s world, seeking advice is for fools, as he knows everything and consenting to others is for idiots and losers.
The Grand Offal Party 