Whether it is the persistent denial phase of the 5 stages of Kubler-Ross grief, or whether it's a quick turning of the page on 2024 and beginning the rhetorical march to the 2026 Midterm Elections, most progressive Democrats in the Manhattan-Beltway bubble have yet to fully realize not enough people are willing to buy what they've been selling. 

Take CNN, for example. You might think they would bring on a panel of experts to do a little navel gazing, trying to figure out why their ratings tanked, why people trust Congress more than they trust media, and why the attempt to put all their collectivist weight on the scale this past election cycle didn't work. Maybe bring in Chris Wallace to chew it over. Oh, wait, I guess that couldn't work. CNN fired Chris Wallace on Friday.

The Republicans in the Senate gained a net four new seats, but there are a total of six members of the incoming GOP Senate freshmen class - Jim Justice of West Virginia, Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Tim Sheehy of Montana, Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania are ones you know about. But they're joined by John Curtis of Utah, replacing the retired Mitt Romney, and Indiana's Jim Banks, replacing the retired Mike Braun, who will make a wonderful new conservative governor for the Hoosier state. CNN, I'm sure, could have convinced one of them to come on and talk about the way forward, and the possible bumps in the road, over the next two years. Nope. 

SUNDAY: @AdamSchiff joins @JakeTapper on #CNNSOTU

Tune in on 📺 @CNN, 🌎🌍🌏 @cnni, @StreamOnMax, 🎧📻 @Audacy, @tunein, @SIRIUSXM Ch. 116 & 🖥️💻📲 https://t.co/FhaqYPemhI! pic.twitter.com/aPZ7jRydx4

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) November 16, 2024

That's the one thing about progressives. They're like weeds. You can pull them out by the root, you can attack them weekly with a weed whacker, you can spray poison on them so that nothing in that spot will ever grow again...except the weed when it comes back a few days later. Progressives are relentless. They never stop coming back at you, regardless of how bad a beating they just took in the last election. 

Here's the thing. I as a conservative Republican can look at the slate of nominations thus far to fill out cabinet and other senior positions in Donald Trump's forthcoming government, and I can wildly cheer the vast number of ones I like. I can also criticize the relatively few ones I think are either definite or possible mistakes. I have gradations of concerns about three of the President-Elect's picks to date. If CNN is now making the play to be the media outlet for the soon-emerging Democratic shadow government, there are certainly people on the left side of the aisle to challenge those picks and bring up a series of issues with which to challenge them. 

In the case of yesterday's State of the Union with Jake Tapper, one of the main points of discussion was the appointment of former Congressman Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. I can easily see why people on the left would think this is a bad pick. I'm on the right and I can see why this is a bad pick. But choosing whom you bring on to be the messenger to criticize the selection is a glaring CNN blind spot.

Among the raps against Gaetz, and that list is long, is that he's a narcissist, a habitual liar, and one of the least-respected members of the House of Representatives...until you compare him to former Congressman and now California Senator-Elect Adam Schiff. 

If there's anyone on the planet who might want to take a seat when it comes to talking about a person's character and fitness for office, it's Adam Schiff. One of my closest friends is former California Congressman John Campbell, who actually was my Congressman for about a decade when he represented the 48th, and then after redistricting, the 45th District. For the eight-plus years he was in office, he got to know very well the good and bad people in Congress on both sides of the aisle. He worked closely on the Financial Services Committee with former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank. Campbell used to tell me that although there was no one at the time who was further to the left, ideologically speaking, than Rep. Frank, if he told you he'd do something, he was a man of his word. You could trust him. You didn't agree with him, but you at least knew where you stood with him. 

Adam Schiff is a soulless person. Campbell has repeatedly explained in interviews, on podcasts we co-hosted, and when he would frequently guest host for Hugh Hewitt that Schiff is the biggest pathological liar in Congress, and whomever takes the silver medal is a distant second. Yes, CNN certainly has the right to question the selection of Gaetz for AG, but Adam Schiff has absolutely no moral standing to be that voice of dissent. And especially coming into a Senate that is going to have 53 Republicans votes, assisted by the Late Harry Reid killing the judicial and executive appointment filibuster, Democrats will have no say so whatsoever on these picks by President-Elect Trump. Whether they're confirmed or not will be entirely in the hands of the Republicans. Adam Schiff is the Senate's version of Mr. Irrelevant, the NFL's final draft pick each year. 

Another contentious nomination battle that will come up in the United States Senate is for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Donald Trump's choice to lead the Health and Human Services Department. I have concerns about him as well, being a pro-lifer. And public policy at HHS is an area where one's position on life/abortion actually matters. But there are some upsides to RFK at the department, too, provided he cleans house on the overly-bloated bureaucracy and hands out cane sugar packets along with pink slips to sweeten the severance packages. I fully realize people on the left are going to have a problem with him, too, being they view him as a traitor to the progressive cause. They may try to scuttle his nomination out of sheer spite. 

It didn't surprise me at all to see some attention on the weekend shows spent on this pick. But former Obama HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius? 



This woman was the architect and implementer of Obamacare. Remember how she led the gaslighting on how it wasn't going to be all the things we on the right promised it would be, and then it turned out to be exactly that? Remember her telling you how it was going to bend the curve downward finally on the cost of health care? Has anyone seen their medical expenses go down or their coverage choices vastly improved? This is another person that really has zero credibility after her time in office to critique anyone else up for the job. 

Former Biden White House Comms director Jen Psaki was one of the panelists on Meet the Press complaining about the RFK selection on the grounds that he's not got any experience governing in the healthcare field. Fellow panelist Lanhee Chen from the Hoover Institution quickly reminded her of the current HHS Secretary in the present administration for which she used to work, Xavier Becerra, who was California's Attorney General, and had no experience whatsoever in the field for which he was chosen, outside of suing entities participating in it. 



Former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is another controversial pick by Donald Trump. She has been tapped to lead the Office of the Director of National Security, and while I believe her to be an incredibly smart woman, her recent position advocating on behalf of Syrian strongman and genocidal maniac Bashar al-Assad has me concerned. If she has moved to the right in her view on the world, I'm very open to welcoming her. But I sure want to hear a conversation during her hearing about whether her views have shifted or not, and why they have or have not. Again, the left is valid in wanting to poke holes at this nominee, but not by former CIA Director John Brennan.



This f'ing guy. Former CIA Director John Brennan is the most nefarious and insidious person we've had in government at least since the Nixon era. He's the Nosferatu of the American establishment elite. If not taking up residence in the 9th circle of Dante's Inferno upon his eventual demise, he'll be in the catbird seat in the 8th level with a clear view below him. The list of controversies involving Brennan are long and storied, but none perhaps as recent and damaging as his role in fomenting the hoax of the Steele dossier to invent a Russian influence scandal around Donald Trump that was made up out of whole cloth. He's a rotten, loathsome man with exactly zero moral high ground on which to sit in judgment over Tulsi Gabbard. 

Jake Tapper on Sunday's edition of State of the Union on CNN at least brought on House Speaker Mike Johnson for a conversation...about Trump's nominees. 



Who wants to tell Jake that the House doesn't actually have anything to do with the confirmation process? What's going into reconciliation bills, how he'll lead with a slim majority, whom might run in special elections, all that is fair game. But asking Mike Johnson about judicial and/or presidential appointment confirmations is like asking me about who Taylor Swift is wearing on stage in concert these days. She's still a thing after backing the wrong horse in the election, right? This part of the interview was just a waste of time meant to bait Johnson into a trap. 

After the Gaetz nomination for Attorney General, Republican in the Senate are not going to proceed with the idea of breaking so that the President can do recess appointments. The issue of whether the House would break or not is moot. 

The worst of the worst when it comes to regime media not just putting their thumb on the scale, but their entire body mass on behalf of the Democrats is CBS News. On 60 Minutes last night, Scott Pelley demonstrated that with the exception of Donald Trump, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. 



If the only place you get your news is from CBS, you might believe that Donald Trump has only made five selections for his cabinet in the last week, and they're all horrible and controversial. The President has actually made around 25 picks to date, and the vast majority of them are stellar picks, truly controversial to no one on either side of the aisle other than Democrats trying to slow walk them just because Trump is Trump and these picks are Republicans. Personally, I think Democrats and media are walking into a trap with Pete Hegseth going to Defense. My guess is they'll try to cut him up during the hearing, but he'll be more than ready for anything they've got to offer. 

But Pelley lumping in Florida Senator Marco Rubio as controversial? My gracious. If there's one pick Donald Trump made that will get the most confirmation votes, it's Rubio. He'll receive well north of 80 votes of his colleagues in the upper chamber by the time it gets to final confirmation. 

Jen Psaki did offer up a truth bomb during her time yesterday on Meet the Press. She said the Democrats are without a true leader right now, and they're in the wilderness. 



I'm not sure if she realized how prescient she was, considering that the actual President of the United States, Joe Biden, popped up in front of a podium and assembled press corps to announce it's just fine now for Ukraine to light the fuse of long-range ballistic ATACMS missiles against Russia. Biden took no questions in response, and literally wandered off into the Amazon Rain Forest. 

Biden, who just authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles, takes no questions and retreats back into the Amazon rainforest pic.twitter.com/xy7xr6qYPZ

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 17, 2024

Some Democrats may be starting to realize they have to shed the craziness from their ranks before the American people trust them with the levers of power again. Rep. Dean Phillips from Minnesota's 3rd District did the unthinkable earlier this year - run a primary challenge in the Democratic Party to Joe Biden for president. The party squashed him like a bug, but in the wake of the election, has found his voice again. After a tweet from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continuing with her antisemitic dislike of the American Israel Political Action Committee, Phillips fired right back. 

BREAKING: Democrat Congressman Dean Phillips calls out AOC and her antisemitism. pic.twitter.com/pHOIGVWq6r

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) November 18, 2024

Phillips seems to have looked around at the room, meaning America, and gets it, but most Democrats, like New York Governor Kathy Hochul, definitely aren't, yet. She's trying to implement a highway user tax, or congestion fee as she likes to call it. Her original plan was to charge $15 a day to drive the Empire State's highways and byways, but upon further review, decided the new daytime rate would only be $9, a 40% savings. Keep in mind, the current fee is $0. But she's going to save everyone, beginning in January, up to $1,500 a year after paying, again checking notes, $0 presently. 

I heard this bit back in 1983 when Gallagher, the watermelon-smashing comedian, was doing a bit on women during a Showtime special. 

If only Gallagher were alive to this this now. What was once the punch line to a joke is now public policy in New York. Governor Hochul is saving you money on taxes you never had to pay in the first place until January. 

Democrats clearly cannot read the room of how tired of big government people are. I kind of hope they never figure it out. It's good for business in the radio and podcast world in which I live. Republicans would be well-served to also read the room and realize the window they've been given to capitalize on it is small and will slam shut in November of 2026 unless they make a lot of progress in a lot of areas in a hurry.