Raw Story

Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) called for "naming everything American" after President Donald Trump ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed to the "Gulf of America."

In an executive order this week, Trump gave the secretary of the Interior 30 days to "take all appropriate actions to rename as the 'Gulf of America' the U.S. Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba in the area formerly named as the Gulf of Mexico."

He also said Danali would be named "Mount McKinley" and called for "taking back" the Panama Canal.

"I don't know what happened in the past, but President Trump is right for that, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America," Hunt told Fox News on Tuesday. "You know, I'm a patriot. I'm a combat veteran."

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"I love the idea of naming everything American, if you ask me," he added. "But these are the kind of issues, the culture issues that people want to see, putting our country first. That's exactly what he is signaling by some of these decisions."

Fox News host Steve Doocy joked: "He owns a bunch of golf courses. Maybe he was saying Golf of America, not Gulf."

Watch the video below or at this link.

A Catholic priest told CNN that he takes issue with President Donald Trump's claim that God saved him from an assassin's bullet so he could help "make America great again."

Father Edward Beck, chaplain at Manhattan University and CNN contributor on religious and spiritual matters, told host Kate Bolduan on Tuesday that Trump's inaugural comments on a day that happened to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, amounted to "hubris."

Bolduan played a clip of Trump saying Monday, "Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin's bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again."

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Beck began, "Well, I think the theology is problematic. So, did God not save MLK Jr.? I mean, a prophet, who is speaking about a vision for the country that we still revere to this day? Why was he killed and why was this president saved? So, does God have favorites? Is God partisan? What makes you think that that was God's intervention, other than hubris, which is condemned in the scripture and it lacks humility, and so it's not my theology. It's not the theology of the Judeo-Christian tradition that we have a kind of God who picks and chooses who he will save."

Evangelical Christians have long supported Trump's presidential aspirations, with many believing he is, in fact, "anointed by God" to save America. They justify Trump's past as an adulterer and convicted felon by claiming that God has used "imperfect individuals" for great things throughout history, such as King David and King Solomon.

Trump received widespread criticism for failing to place his left hand on the Bible while taking the oath of office Monday, as first lady Melania Trump stood by holding two Bibles for the purpose.

The president is expected to spend Tuesday morning at Washington National Cathedral for the national prayer service.

Watch the clip below or at this link.

President Donald Trump kicked off his first day back in the White House with executive orders directed to address what he calls an "energy emergency" — ostensibly to increase American production of oil and gas. This came after he campaigned on blaming inflation on the Biden administration's climate policies and vowing to save consumers money on their energy bills with increased production, even though U.S. oil and gas production under the Biden administration was stronger than in Trump's first term

But if you look at his energy policies closely, wrote Robinson Meyer for the Heatmap energy newsletter, you'll see that his goal isn't actually to lower energy bills for Americans, but to force them to buy and use more oil and gas.

The problem, Meyer wrote, is that while some of Trump's policies are about opening up new areas for drilling and fuel production, a lot more of them are about repealing various mandates and incentives to make homes, appliances, and cars use less energy — meaning people would actually be paying more in the long run because they have to consume more. And then there are his threatened tariffs on Canadian energy, which would make oil and gas more expensive but also shift the supply to more domestic sources.

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"When you look closer, what stands out about Trump’s policies is how few of them are designed to lower energy prices," said Meyer. "Instead, they aim to do virtually the opposite: shore up oil and gas demand. According to The Wall Street Journal, ensuring demand for oil and gas products — and not deregulating drilling further — is what the industry has asked Trump to do. That makes sense. The United States is, at the moment, producing more oil and gas than any country in world history. The fossil fuel industry’s problem isn’t getting gas out of the ground, but finding people to sell it to. By suspending fuel economy and energy efficiency rules, Trump can force Americans to use more energy — and spend more on oil and gas — to do the same amount of useful work."

The irony, Meyer noted, is that in particular, Trump's efforts to roll back incentives for electric vehicles — which his close ally Elon Musk has endorsed out of a belief it would stifle his competition — could be a blow to districts that voted for him last year.

"By kneecapping demand for electric vehicles, Trump will hurt the critical minerals industry more than any anti-growth hippie could fathom," wrote Meyer. "For the past few years, corporate America and Wall Street have invested billions of dollars in lithium and rare-earths mining and processing facilities across the country. These projects, which are largely in Republican districts, only make financial sense in a world where the United States produces a large and growing number of electric vehicles ... If Trump kills the non-Tesla part of the EV industry, then he will also mortally harm those projects’ economics."

President-elect Donald Trump apparently wants MAGA fans to watch Monday's inauguration on TikTok so much that he promised "no liability" to any company who gets the social media platform back up and running before he takes office.

TikTok, owned by Chinese company Bytedance, officially went dark on Sunday after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld lawmakers' ban on the platform in the name of national security.

Trump took to his own social media platform, TruthSocial, to float his idea Sunday.

"I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order," Trump wrote.

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He continued, "Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations."

Trump then proposed a business deal: "I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up. Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars - maybe trillions.

"Therefore, my initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose."

Earlier, Trump posted, "SAVE TIKTOK!"which angered some in his MAGA base.

So far, legal experts haven't weighed in on Trump's proposal or whether it would pose any liability to TikTok or Bytedance, itself. Once Trump becomes president, however, he will have the power to pardon federal offenses once a formal application is received by the Office of the Pardon Attorney.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) lashed out at CBS News host Margaret Brennan, accusing her of not "fairly" reporting about FBI director nominee Kash Patel's so-called enemies list.

During a Sunday interview on Face the Nation, Brennan noted that former Attorney General Bill Barr said Patel had "virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world's preeminent law enforcement agency."

"Was Attorney General Barr wrong then and wrong now?" Brennan wondered.

"Yeah, he was wrong then," Graham ranted. "He's wrong now. And I take my advice on Kash Patel from Trey Gowdy, a dear friend from South Carolina who worked with Kash."

"Well, OK, but he's got a list," Brennan asserted. "He's got a list he's published. Kash Patel has. He published it in a book of enemies."

"I mean, do you take him at his word here that these are an enemies list, and you're going to put him in a law enforcement role to go after him?" she asked.

"I believe the hearing will expose him to be a very qualified man of the law," Graham shot back. "He'll have to answer questions about what's in the book. But I'm ready to vote for him because I know him, too. So you never asked me about the Russia hoax that he exposed."

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"Lindsey Graham, this is a far cry from the question about Kash Patel," Brennan said as Graham's answer turned into a rant about Israel. "You took me all the way to Israel from Kash Patel."

"OK, ask him about going after journalists, which he's also said," she added. "I'm interested in the answer to that."

"I'm sure Democratic friends will ask him," Graham quipped. "You shouldn't worry about Kash Patel."

"You should worry about reporting the news fairly, which you don't do when it comes to everything Trump!" the senator exclaimed.

"Lindsey Graham, you're a guest on this program because we wanted to hear you out," Brennan pointed out.

Watch the video below from CBS or at the link..

Ex special counsel Jack Smith may have dropped his cases against President-elect Donald Trump, but Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) claimed he wasn't done yet with the special counsel.

After Trump won the presidency in November, Jordan's Oversight committee sent a letter to the Justice Department telling Smith to "preserve your records" related to the Trump election interference case and the classified documents case.

CNN's Dana Bash asked Jordan Sunday, "When you and I spoke in November. I asked you if you would call Jack Smith to testify. You said that you hadn't decided, but it was on the table. Now his report has been released. He has stepped down. Will you call him to testify?"

"We're still looking at all that," Jordan answered. "One of the things we are going to check into is, one of his lawyers — I mean, this is just one of the many issues I think we need some answers to — but Jay Bratt, one of the guys who worked for him, went to a lawyer who was who was representing one of the defendants in the case, representing Walt Nauta, said to that lawyer, 'We didn't know you were a Trump guy. We thought you were interested in this judge position.' You can't do those kind of things! So we're going to investigate that. We're going to look at a number of things Jack Smith didn't include in his report, like something that's happened since I was here in November — the 26 confidential human sources who were there on January 6th, 2021, seventeen within restricted space, four in the inside the Capitol — "

Bash interrupted, "So you're not done?"

"— two were tasked to be there by the FBI —"

"You're not done with this?" Bash pressed.

"Yeah, because I think there are lots of answers, lots of questions that the American people want answers to," Jordan said.

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Smith's report on Donald Trump's alleged election interference was released to the public last week. In it, Smith wrote, "Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”

Republicans have long contended that the DOJ was "weaponized" against Trump and committed "election interference" by pursuing criminal charges against him.

Watch the clip below via CNN or at the link.