Former FBI and CIA Head Pushes Senate to Reject Two Trump Nominees

The only person to be in charge of both the CIA and FBI wants everyone to know that Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel don’t have what it takes to do the job.

William Webster, who is literally 100 years old, took the time to write a letter to the Senate to outline just how bad Patel and Gabbard would be as FBI head and director of national intelligence, respectively.

“His record of executing the president’s directives suggest a loyalty to individuals rather than the rule of law—a dangerous precedent for an agency tasked with impartial enforcement of justice,” Webster said of Patel.

He went on to say that Gabbard had “a profound lack” of experience with the intelligence community.

“Effective management of our intelligence community requires unparalleled expertise to navigate the complexities of global threats and to maintain the trust of allied nations,” Webster penned. “Without that trust, our ability to safeguard sensitive secrets and collaborate internationally is severely diminished.”

“I urge you to weigh the critical importance of nonpartisan leadership and experience,” he concluded. “The safety of the American people—and your own families—depends on it.”

Webster headed the FBI from 1978 to 1987 and the CIA from 1987 to 1991.

The online beef between Donald Trump’s Silicon Valley backers and the more traditionally conservative MAGA base has culminated in Elon Musk allegedly using X to censor his fellow Trump supporters.

Laura Loomer, Gavin Mario Wax, ConservativePAC, and Owen Shroyer all had their X verification badges removed Thursday night after criticizing Musk’s stances on labor and immigration earlier in the day.

“All of our influencers have now lost verification status, as well as our own page,” the Trump-supporting ConservativePAC wrote. “Our brand did nothing. We spoke out against HB1 visas and it appears that @elonmusk intentionally shut us down? Is this the new status quo from America’s ‘most free’ social media platform?”

“I mean right after @elonmusk called me a troll today, my account verification was taken away, my subscriptions were deactivated and I was banned from being able to buy premium even though I was already paying for premium,” said Loomer. “Clearly retaliation.”

“My verification badge is now under review. Weird! Didn’t change anything,” said Gavin Mario Wax, another vocal critic of H-1B visas.

This all comes after Musk and fellow Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy engaged in some post-Christmas infighting with conservatives about whether Asian immigrants on H-1B work visas or pure corn-fed Americans would make better SpaceX employees.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy said in a long, rambling post Thursday on X. “A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers.”

Musk expressed similar sentiments, noting that “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” before soon getting into a fight with his own followers about the issue.

And apparently, the oligarch has thin skin when it comes to his critics.

“Insane that blue checks are being removed from accounts that have been vocal in their criticism of the H1B racket. Horrible look,” conservative influencer Wax said in a separate post. “I’ve supported Elon and X. Anyone who was at the @NYYRC gala can attest that I dedicated a large portion of my speech to praising Elon. Sad!”

This racialized internal strife has yet to be commented on by President-elect Trump, and may spell trouble for the future of DOGE, Musk, and Ramaswamy.

The president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, is not happy with Donald Trump’s accusation that Chinese troops are stationed in the Panama Canal, calling the claim “nonsense.”  

“Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday as part of a barrage of unhinged posts on the holiday. As one might expect, Mulino was not happy with the false charge. 

“There is not a single Chinese soldier in the canal,” Mulino said to reporters Thursday, adding that there is “absolutely no Chinese interference.” 

Trump told a crowd of supporters in Arizona Sunday that “the fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, highly unfair,” saying that if shipping rates were not lowered, “we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, quickly and without question.”

Why Trump is choosing to attack Panama right now isn’t clear, although it could have something to do with the outstanding tax evasion case the president-elect faces in the country. It stems from 2019, when the owners of a Panama City hotel tower that was previously managed and operated under the Trump brand accused the Trump Organization of pocketing money meant to pay taxes. According to a lawsuit, Trump’s companies simply kept the money, “intentionally evading taxes” and leaving the new owner liable for millions.

Trump’s threats to Panama in recent days are accompanied by his renewed desire to buy Greenland from Denmark, an idea he floated during his first presidential term that was met with widespread derision. It seems as though the president-elect is bringing back the belligerent threats and bizarre attention-seeking antics that were a hallmark of his first presidential term, with even less restraint than before.

Right-wing influencer and Donald Trump gadfly Laura Loomer is attacking Elon Musk, seemingly over his desire for more immigrants to work and study in science and technology fields in the United States.

In several posts on X Thursday, Loomer railed against Musk and his influence on Trump. She attacked Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” project with Vivek Ramaswamy, calling it a “vanity project” on Wednesday before accusing it as a smokescreen for “the pet projects of tech bro billionaires” on Thursday. She also claimed that there would be a falling out between Musk and Trump soon. 

In response, Musk accused Loomer of being a troll and said she should be ignored. Loomer continued her attacks unabated, calling the tech CEO a pawn of China, resorting to homophobic and racist insults, and accusing Musk of having “bought his way into MAGA.”

“Remember when you voted for Biden and propped up @GovRonDeSantis and you said Trump was too old? We all know you only donated your money so you could influence immigration policy and protect your buddy Xi JinPing,” Loomer wrote in one post, and in a follow-up, she called Musk “a total f****ing drag on the Trump transition.”

“He’s a stage 5 clinger who over stayed his welcome at Mar a Lago in an effort to become Trump’s side piece and be the point man for all of his accomplices in big Tech to slither in to Mar a Lago,” Loomer posted.

Loomer, renowned for her Islamophobia, racism, and conspiracy theories, appears to be opposing Musk for those very reasons, as her virulent racism drives her anti-immigration views. Her attacks on Musk are flavored with that racism, from her invoking of China to repeated attacks on people from India.

On a related note, Musk’s DOGE sidekick, Vivek Ramaswamy, also got piled on Thursday by MAGA for his own immigration views after making the glaring mistake of claiming there were shortcomings in American culture, fueling racist attacks from the far right. It seems that Musk and Ramaswamy are already wearing out their welcome in Trumpworld, and soon might anger the big guy himself.

Vivek Ramaswamy thinks that tech companies are choosing foreign-born workers over American ones because our culture is too chill, too mediocre, and doesn’t uplift dorks like him enough.

The former Republican presidential candidate and upcoming Department of Government Efficiency co-lead offered his two cents on the discussion surrounding the future of “American-born” labor in Silicon Valley.

​​”A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote in a lengthy post on X.

“More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of ‘Friends.’ More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.’ … ‘Normalcy’ doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.”

“A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness. That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence,” he concluded.

Ramaswamy, who is Indian American, was immediately lambasted by the left and the right for this pitiful, presumptuous take.

“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley replied. “All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”

“Vivek you’ve accomplished a lot but it’s ok to just say you don’t understand American culture,” one conservative replied, going on to remind him how racist much of the MAGA base is. “Neil Armstrong, greater than any Indian to ever live and product of American culture, chose the less academic Purdue over MIT because he liked the football team.”

“‘Us’, ‘our’, ‘we’. No. YOU are going back,” another MAGA supporter replied.

“Ivy leaguer trying to sell ‘math Olympiad over prom queen’ to the maga base amid intense educational polarization is wild,” said Harvard professor Matt Blackwell.

“Vivek trashing sports achievement (‘a culture that celebrates the jock over the valedictorian’) is surely going to go down well with his audience. Everyone loves a Yale guy talking about why American culture sucks,” wrote Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson.

Ramaswamy’s views, which seem to be in misalignment with the majority of MAGA, may potentially put his power as DOGE co-lead in jeopardy. It remains to be seen how President-elect Donald Trump will respond to these talking points, if at all.

In response to Russia allegedly downing an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet, a Republican congressman thinks Russia should be given what it wants regarding Ukraine.

Representative Ryan Zinke was asked on Fox Business Thursday about the plane crash, and he largely dismissed the gravity of the attack, saying that if the reports are true, it’s not the first jet Russia has taken down. He then went on a tangent about the situation in Ukraine.

“It’s a sitting melting pot without an answer unless we have clearly defined objectives. What’s our plan? You know, my position is I don’t think Ukraine is ready for NATO, they’d have to do a massive political reform that they’re not willing to do, and the Crimean peninsula has been a sticking point,” Zinke said.

“Look, it’s the only warm water port that Russia has, and quite frankly, there’s been 14 wars fought over that Crimean peninsula. I don’t think you’re going to wrest it out of the hands of Russia anytime soon, and I don’t think you should be going to NATO,” Zinke added.

Early reports indicate that Russia’s air defenses attacked a civilian plane entering its airspace, and then its electronic warfare systems disrupted the plane’s communication abilities, resulting in a grievous error at best and a heinous crime at worst. But Zinke’s first thought appears to be how to hand Russia what it wants in its war in Ukraine.

In any case, it’s another example of Donald Trump’s Republican Party seeking to appease Vladimir Putin’s Russia rather than oppose its attempts to control Ukraine and seize territory from the country. Zinke’s word salad is probably what a lot of Republicans are thinking: a misunderstanding of the conflict coupled with a lack of solutions to real problems.

New Hampshire Democratic Representative Annie Kuster is making her feelings known on her way out of Congress.

The longtime congresswoman fired shots at President Joe Biden, President-elect Donald Trump, and everyone in between in an exit interview with The Boston Globe published Thursday.

Kuster’s answer as to why she is retiring from Congress was twofold. The first reason was the issue of gerontocracy. 

“I’m trying to set a better example,” Kuster said. “I think there are colleagues—and some of whom are still very successful and very productive—but others who just stay forever.”

Her second reason was that she’s not the best “gladiator” as Donald Trump returns to office. 

Kuster, who announced her retirement in March, suspected that Trump would win the election. “Just in my heart, [I] reached the conclusion that this would be a very challenging campaign for [Biden], and to put himself out there for another four-year term was going to be a struggle.”

“I was one of the last members of Congress in the gallery on Jan. 6, and as it turns out, we have the security footage that shows it was only 30 seconds from when I was able to evacuate that the insurrectionists were in that hallway hunting for us with zip ties and bear mace and who knows what else,” Kuster said in a similar interview with Roll Call on Monday. “I just felt like, he tried to kill me once. I’m not available for it again.”

Kuster still sees the whole of her time in Congress as a success, even with the recent tilt toward the GOP. 

“Twelve years is a good amount of time to put your shoulder to the wheel and try to make a difference on these issues,” she said. “I can’t say we solved them, but I think we made a difference, not just in changing policy, changing funding, but changing attitudes.”

During last week’s negotiations to avert a government shutdown, Congress quietly slashed $20 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.

Republicans have long targeted the tax agency, and their cuts will hurt its efforts to go after rich tax evaders and improve the IRS’s functionality. It’s their second successful cut from President Biden’s $80 billion funding boost to the agency in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, as the GOP took away an earlier $20 billion in a 2023 budget deal.

The latest cuts to the IRS will come automatically thanks to the 2023 deal, as the language was repeated in last week’s bill. The Biden administration said the cuts would end up adding $140 billion to the national debt, as they hurt the tax agency’s ability to audit big corporations and the wealthy.

Specifically, the White House said, the IRS will conduct 400 fewer major business audits each year, and 1,200 fewer audits of rich individuals. Customer services for taxpayers will also be hurt, according to Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo. Last month, he warned that by 2026, the IRS will only have the resources to answer two of every 10 phone calls to its helplines, with wait times increasing to an average of 28 minutes.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s boost to the tax agency helped relieve a long backlog of tax filings, and created a well-liked free tax filing pilot program. All of that is on the chopping block now, fitting in with Donald Trump and Republicans’ plans to weaken the IRS. The president-elect plans to appoint anti-tax extremist Billy Long to take over the agency next year, who repeatedly tried to abolish the IRS as a member of Congress.

These cuts combined with Long’s planned appointment mean that tax season next year will almost certainly result in headaches for the average taxpayer and windfalls for the wealthy and powerful. A ballooning national debt is also on the horizon. The question is whether Trump and the GOP will be able to get away with all of it.

“New age guru” to some, center-left crank to others—former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has thrown her name into the hat for the next Democratic National Committee chair. 

“I’m proud to announce I’m running for Chair of the DNC. In order to respond to the challenge of this moment, the Democratic Party needs transformation,” Williamson, who is 72, wrote Thursday in an X post linked to a longer statement. 

“I am announcing I’m running for DNC chair because I feel that I can bring a level of expertise to the process of lifting up this possibility of victory over the next two and four years in a way that will not occur if we are only looking to traditional means of politicking in order to make that happen,” the former spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey said in a video announcement on YouTube. 

She joins former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, Minnesota Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, New York State Senator James Skoufis, and former Maryland Senate candidate Robert Houton in the race to succeed outgoing Chair Jaime Harrison.  

This upcoming DNC chair election may be a pivotal moment in time for the direction and ideology of the Democratic Party. Its sweeping defeat in November has resulted in a renewed energy to redefine the party towards the working class.    

“I’ve traveled extensively throughout this country, and I’ve seen how much pain there is out there,” Williamson said in her announcement. “I’ve been up close and personal with people who didn’t have health care, who couldn’t survive on just one job, who were so depressed about so many of the conditions in their lives that were, in fact, at least indirectly due to bad public policy, and too many of them didn’t feel like the Democratic Party had their back.… We need to understand what it is that has made people emotionally and psychologically disconnect from a sense that the Democratic Party was part of a great legacy in American history.”

Williamson has an eclectic range of both progressive and questionable views. She’s on the record supporting Medicare for All, abortion access, and reparations for Black Americans. But she also views vaccine mandates as “draconian” and referred to cancer and AIDS as “physical manifestations of a psychic scream.” She also chimed in with an awful aside about Haitians while President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance were spreading horrendous lies about them eating pets. 

​​“Continuing to dump on Trump because of the ‘eating cats’ issue will create blowback on Nov. 5,” she said in a now deleted post on X. “Haitian voodoo is in fact real, and to dismiss the story out-of-hand rather than listen to the citizens of Springfield, Ohio confirms in the minds of many voters the stereotype of Democrats as smug elite jerks who think they’re too smart to listen to anyone outside their own silo.”

Expect more strangeness from Williamson as the DNC chair race heats up.

Donald Trump’s inaugural fund is set to break the fundraising record the president-elect set in 2017. 

The fund is not restricted by campaign finance law and is made up of donations by businesses and executives, raising questions about corruption and influence peddling in the next Trump administration. Seven years ago, Trump’s first inaugural fund raised $107 million, and this time, corporate leaders will shatter that amount, with pledges already exceeding $150 million. 

For example, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have each pledged $1 million to the fund. Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin has said he’ll donate $1 million, and Uber and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, plan to donate $1 million each. Automakers General Motors, Ford, and Toyota are also donating $1 million apiece, with Ford reportedly donating a fleet of vehicles as well.  

Some companies on the donation list, according to The Wall Street Journal, are scrubbing their websites and corporate policies of anything that could be perceived as pro-Democrat or hostile to Trump, including, in the case of hardware manufacturer Stanley Black & Decker, criticism of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The company is donating $1 million to the fund, up from the $25,000 it donated to Trump’s 2017 inauguration. 

The donations come with immediate perks: Anyone who donates $1 million or raises $2 million from other donors will get six tickets to pre-inauguration events, including a black-tie ball, a candlelight dinner with Trump and his wife, Melania, and a reception with Cabinet nominees. 

Trump celebrated last week, posting, “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” on his Truth Social profile. More likely, all of these businesses and executives don’t want to run afoul of the president-elect’s trade policies or deal with anger from his supporters. Trump’s tariffs, if they go ahead, will upend the economy and hurt several U.S. industries such as automobiles. CEOs will be hoping for exceptions and carve-outs, and the way to Trump’s heart is through his wallet.