Keystone Kash Patel’s jet-setting at our expense has got to end,
His frivolous flights are an abuse of power he can’t defend.
And it was a predictable disaster,
You’d expect from a second-rate podcaster,
Though we were surprised and amused to learn Kash has a girlfriend.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination has ignited the MAGA base,
Which responded with its usual measured calm and grace.
But really, there’s no need to be worried,
For ultimately, justice can’t be hurried,
And the Federal Bureau of Incompetence’s Bongino and Patel are on the case.
“Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be FBI director, was paid $25,000 last year by a film company owned by a Russian national who also holds U.S. citizenship and has produced programs promoting ‘deep state’ conspiracy theories and anti-Western views advanced by the Kremlin,” the Washington Post reports.
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By resigning as FBI director prior to the end of his 10-year tenure, Christopher Wray has thwarted Donald Trump’s plans to install the odious Kash Patel as FBI chief.
New York Times: “By stepping down now, as the conservative writer Erick Erickson observed, Wray has created a ‘legal obstacle to Trump trying to bypass the Senate confirmation process.’”
“Here’s why. According to the Vacancies Reform Act, if a vacancy occurs in a Senate-confirmed position, the president can temporarily replace that appointee (such as the F.B.I. director) only with a person who has already received Senate confirmation or with a person who’s served in a senior capacity in the agency (at the GS-15 pay scale) for at least 90 days in the year before the resignation.”
“Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s chosen successor at the F.B.I., meets neither of these criteria. He’s not in a Senate-confirmed position, and he’s not been a senior federal employee in the Department of Justice in the last year. That means he can’t walk into the job on Day 1.”
Word is that Kash Patel is a MAGA-mad, vindictive kook,
And getting him confirmed is going to be a real donnybrook.
But kids might be safer to have the guy
Running a vengeance campaign at the FBI
Than sitting down to write another children’s picture book.
“The only reason to nominate someone like Patel to run the FBI is to commit impeachable abuses of power. Trump makes no secret that this is, in fact, his purpose. Patel is similarly explicit on the point. Yet the Senate might very well confirm the man once Trump removes the incumbent FBI director and nominates Patel to replace him. … If it actually does so, would that constitute ‘consent’ to impeachable offenses?”
They say that power naps can be effective,
Especially for a busy chief executive.
So when Dear Leader Dozy Don
Nods out with a blink and a yawn,
It’s OK — when he’s asleep he’s not spewing racist invective.
“There are many items on President Trump’s agenda that are hurting the U.S. economy: the pointless trade wars, the socialization of the private sector, the mass deportations, and much more. … But in the long run, the most damaging policy of all might be one that’s gotten scant attention, at least from non-finance-nerds: Trump’s quest to crush the Federal Reserve. If Trump succeeds, he may doom the United States to high inflation for years, if not decades, to come.”
“To update Samuel Johnson, these days national security is the last refuge of a scoundrel. According to Donald Trump, anything he doesn’t like is a threat to national security. Question his clearly illegal tariffs? You’re a dark and sinister force trying to undermine America. When the New York Times reported on signs that age may be taking a toll on Trump’s stamina, he denounced the reporting as ‘seditious, maybe even treasonous.’ … But some of America’s allies — and many of us here at home — are becoming increasingly open about saying that the real danger is coming from inside the White House: Trump himself has become the biggest security threat facing the U.S. and, indeed, all the world’s democracies.”
“On paper, President Trump’s speech in Pennsylvania was supposed to be the opening night of a speaking tour on the economy, but spiritually, the rambling set felt more like the kickoff of a past-their-prime band’s farewell tour. … There was no set list, he played the hits when he could, and did crowd work with MAGA’s version of the Parrotheads, decked out in their finest Trump swag after following him around for years.”
A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 70% of Americans said they believe the Trump administration is hiding information about people tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s victimization of young women.
“The National Rifle Association is burning through its investment portfolio to pay its bills as legal perils increase and revenue from membership dues decline,” NOTUS reports. “In 2024, the 154-year-old gun rights organization liquidated nearly $40 million worth of stock, fixed-income securities and other holdings. By the end of 2024, the NRA’s investment portfolio had shrunk to less than $33 million, down from more than $72 million the year before.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration diverted more than $35 million in taxpayer funds — an amount far greater than previously known — as part of a brazen agenda last year to defeat two ballot amendments he staunchly opposed, a Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald investigation has found. Much of the state money was intended to assist needy Floridians, including children. Instead, it paid for political consultants, lawyers and thousands of advertisements that helped DeSantis and his supporters win at the ballot box.
The South Carolina measles outbreak is “accelerating.” At least 111 people have contracted the contagious viral infection in South Carolina since October, and more than 250 people are quarantined, according to the state’s public health department. Officials blamed the outbreak on “lower-than-hoped-for” vaccination rates: Of the 111 cases, 105 were unvaccinated, the health department said. Measles, which is most common among unvaccinated children, was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, but declining vaccination rates have led to outbreaks in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona this year.
A new AP-NORC poll finds just 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how President Trump is handling the economy. That is down from 40% in March and marks the lowest economic approval he’s registered in an AP-NORC poll in his first or second term. Overall, 36% of Americans approve of the way he’s handling his job as president, which is down slightly from 42% in March.