This article is something that I have been saying would occur for the last 4 years. The issue you have is such a large contingent of republicans and the population that are 100% behind Trump. However the brand will never appeal to large mass group and will always tend to shy away from the moderates. Thus just like the election 4 years ago, and the midterms 2 years ago, Republicans will likely underperform again. However to get Trump out of the party will be extremely costly, because we know he will not go quietly.

On Wednesday, Christopher Wray told his F.B.I. colleagues that he would step down as director by the end of President Biden’s term. His statement was a perfect example of bureaucratic deference. “I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down,” Wray said. He wants to “avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work.”

But is something else going on?

By stepping down, 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. Trump will have to select someone else to lead the F.B.I. immediately, or the position will default to the “first assistant to the office.”

In this case, that means the position would default to Paul Abbate, who has been the deputy director of the F.B.I. since 2021, unless Trump chooses someone else, and that “someone else” cannot be Patel, at least not right away.

The bottom line is that the Senate has to do its job. Wray is foreclosing a presidential appointment under the Vacancies Reform Act, and — as I wrote in a column last month — the Supreme Court has most likely foreclosed the use of a recess appointment to bypass the Senate.

So a resignation that at first blush looks like a capitulation (why didn’t he wait to be fired?) is actually an act of defiance. It narrows Trump’s options, and it places the Senate at center stage. In Federalist No. 76, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the advice and consent power was designed to be “an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the president, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters.”

Patel is just such an “unfit character,” and now it’s senators’ responsibility to protect the American republic from his malign influence — if, that is, they have the courage to do their jobs.

More than 75 Nobel laureates in the areas of medicine, chemistry, physics and economics signed a letter urging senators not to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the next secretary of the Department of Health Human Services.


President-elect Donald Trump drew criticism when he named Kennedy — a longtime vaccine skeptic — as his nominee to lead the nearly $2 trillion agency charged with administering health-insurance programs for millions of Americans, approving medications and overseeing vaccine safety.
While the laureates — all whom are American or live in the United States — rarely engage with politics, Richard Roberts, winner of the 1993 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine, told The Washington Post that he and others felt “very disturbed by the possibility that RFK Jr. would become head of HHS.”
The letter states that Kennedy does not have the “credentials or relevant experience in medicine, science, public health, or administration” to lead the department.
Among the stated reasons for opposing Kennedy: his opposition to “many health-protecting and lifesaving vaccines, such as those that prevent measles and polio,” his criticism of the “well-established positive effects of fluoridation of drinking water,” his promotion of conspiracy theories about successful treatments for AIDS and other diseases, and his “belligerent” criticism of the nation’s health agencies.

Roberts, who organized the letter, said he doesn’t understand how any lawmaker who “cares for the health of their constituents can think that this is a good choice for the head of HHS.”

I tried to subscribe when prompted to the new btn plus changes and pricing recently. I received a msg that the bank would hit my account on Dec 5. On Dec 6 it had not. I eventually unsubscribed and received confirmation and the msg said they retained my info to make it easy to re subscribe. So, I tried to subscribe putting in my email, name, etc and get a msg that my email is already in use, and I thus I can not proceed. I've contacted btn plus and cleeng and of course cannot talk to a person, but just messaging and they do not understand my problem. I would like to have them remove all of my info, email address, name and bank info so that I can start over, but I've exhausted everything I can think of. Any ideas?

His announced lawsuit vs. Ann Selzer/The Register should probably be dismissed by the Courts as a nuisance lawsuit……under normal legal circumstances. But we all know the “transactional” attitude of the President-elect and I’m thinking if Trump can find a Judge who gives this case consideration, there is a reward in the near future for that justice.
I can’t believe how soft America has become when it comes to fighting for its Constitutionally guaranteed rights but in the current wave of creeping corporatism and the rise of American oligarchy, who knows?
Meanwhile, like the frog sitting in the pot do slowly boiling water, “we the people” are asking, “I wonder what’s for dinner?”

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Still fixing jimmi carter ****-ups 40 years later...just as some day someone will still be fixing jo bob's! >

Shit's out of control.

I believe both will show complete schedules tomorrow

Got some great stuff from Jaidyn, his mom and his head coach yesterday.

One of the top prospects in Iowa, Coon is looking for a family when he commits. In that respect, Fran McCaffery and the Hawkeyes have gotten off to a solid start.

STORY:

Spoke with one of Iowa's newest offerees, Tristan Beckford yesterday afternoon.

Details on his super recent recruitment with Iowa, his thoughts on what the Hawkeyes have to offer, what he's looking for in his recruitment, and we drop an evaluation.

STORY: