Rand Paul's 'Festivus Report' exposes
$900B in government squander
Posted By: Moritz55, 12/22/2023 11:45:32 AM
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., released his annual Christmas "Festivus" report Friday for the ninth year in a row, outlining $900 billion in government waste. Among notable instances, the National Institutes of Health allocated funds to study Russian cats on treadmills, photos of Barbies were utilized as identification to obtain COVID relief funds, the Department of Defense lost $169 million of outdoor-stored military gear, $6 million went towards tourism in Egypt by the United States Agency for International Development, and the Small Business Administration provided over $200 million to "struggling" music artists such as Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne.
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Gen Z voters are growing increasingly concerned about President Biden's mental fitness and "retiree" lifestyle as his approval rating slips to an all-time low in a national poll ahead of the 2024 election. "I don't mean to rag on the president of the United States, but honestly, he's acting like a retiree," Kale Ogunbor, a Republican Gen Z voter, told "Fox & Friends First" Wednesday. "It's been reported that over 40% of Joe Biden's presidency has been spent on vacation. And I think a lot of Americans, including Gen Z, don't want a president who seems more like he's retired the next four years after 2024."
The decision this week by the Colorado Supreme Court (by a 4-3 vote) to remove Donald Trump from the state’s ballot is a decided loss for democracy, arguably a worse loss for Democrats, and ultimately a win for Donald Trump — for several reasons.
First and foremost, and most obviously, in the Republican primary, Trump’s argument has been that democracy has been undermined by the various investigations that he has faced and is currently facing. Now, before any of the major Trump cases — including the one related to his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, which was the reason Colorado ruled he was ineligible for the ballot — have concluded
Do feds have FISA evidence on Bidens?
Court memos suggest they might, and Congress
wants it 2 replies
Court memos suggest they might, and Congress
wants it 2 replies
Ever since Hunter Biden was captured in a recording calling his client, Patrick Ho, “the f—ing spy chief of China,” questions have swirled around the Chinese official who headed a U.S.-based think-tank that worked to advance the interests of CEFC China Energy and its now-vanished founder, Ye Jianming.
Court records from Ho’s case reviewed by Just the News show the FBI and Justice Department gathered evidence under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) from around the time when Hunter Biden and his uncle James were dealing with CEFC officials, including Ho.
Joe Biden also met twice with CEFC officials: once as vice president and once as a private citizen
Former President Barack Obama went to bat for Harvard President Claudine Gay amid backlash she received following her testimony on antisemitism before Congress. A confidential source familiar with the matter told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that Obama, a Harvard graduate, had privately lobbied on Gay's behalf following her congressional appearance about antisemitism and threats against Jewish students on the Ivy League campus. "It sounded like people were being asked to close ranks to keep the broader administration stable—including its composition," the source said of Obama's involvement.
As the House of Representatives goes into high gear in its impeachment proceedings (and possible contempt resolution against Hunter Biden), the Biden family legal problems continue to mount. In one week, it was revealed that President Biden’s brother James was caught on an FBI audiotape in a corruption investigation, while Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter, is now also facing demands for unpaid taxes.
James Biden is expected to appear before the House for questioning in the coming weeks. The appearance may solidify a new line of defense for the Bidens: that they are harmless grifters.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., released his annual Christmas "Festivus" report Friday for the ninth year in a row, outlining $900 billion in government waste. Among notable instances, the National Institutes of Health allocated funds to study Russian cats on treadmills, photos of Barbies were utilized as identification to obtain COVID relief funds, the Department of Defense lost $169 million of outdoor-stored military gear, $6 million went towards tourism in Egypt by the United States Agency for International Development, and the Small Business Administration provided over $200 million to "struggling" music artists such as Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne.
Will Partisan Lawfare Destroy Trump
6 replies
Trump Derangement Syndrome became Orwellian with the recent ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court.
It approved the erasure of Trump from the Republican primary ballot in Colorado, by invoking Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That ossified clause was intended to bar any ante-bellum federal officials who joined the Confederacy from again holding federal offices after 1865.
In no way is Trump’s conduct on January 6 comparable to calling for secession, much less prompting a Civil War that cost the country 700,000 lives.
Trump’s Country Party Roots
10 replies
Why is Donald Trump so resilient?
As 2023 draws to a close, the ex-president is on track to win the Republican nomination and beat Joe Biden next November.
If the election were today, Trump would get his second term.
Yet he's charged with crimes that run a gamut from election interference to mishandling classified information.
He's under gag orders and lost a $5 million civil suit this year.
Why don't voters care -- or if they do, why are they rewarding Trump not punishing him?
A hint can be found in the work of a great historian who died last week, J.G.A. Pocock.
Billionaire Len Blavatnik has paused donations to Harvard University over its handling of President Claudine Gay's recent appearance before Congress. Blavatnik and his family foundation have donated more than $270 million to Harvard in the past, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. He is only the latest donor to pull back in protest after Gay refused to state that calling for the genocide of Jews would infringe on Harvard's rules against bullying and harassment.
The Mainstream Against Democracy
3 replies
Mainstream parties could have responded in one of two ways to the populist wave that began to sweep through developed nations on both sides of the Atlantic in the mid-2010s. They could either offer attractive policy alternatives that answered ordinary people’s anxieties and rallied them away from populist movements like Trump and Brexit, or they could try to use underhanded lawfare strategies to undo populist ballot-box victories.
They overwhelmingly picked the latter course of action. They called it “defending democracy.”
Democratic lawfare vs. Donald Trump
5 replies
The story of the 2024 campaign so far is the effort by Democrats and their appointees to use criminal charges and lawsuits to force former President Donald Trump out of the race for a second term in the White House. The name for such an effort is lawfare — that is, "the strategic use of legal proceedings to intimidate or hinder an opponent," to cite one law dictionary.
The latest development, of course, is the Colorado Supreme Court ruling disqualifying Trump from being on the state ballot. All seven members of Colorado's highest court were appointed by Democrats. The case was started by a Washington-based, aggressively anti-Trump activist group called CREW
Yielding to Temptation: Colorado’s Supreme
Court Blocks Democracy to Bar Trump on
the 2024 Ballot 6 replies
Court Blocks Democracy to Bar Trump on
the 2024 Ballot 6 replies
The Colorado Supreme Court has issued an unsigned opinion, making history in the most chilling way possible. A divided court barred Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 presidential ballot.
For months, advocates have been filing without success in various states, looking for some court to sign off on a dangerous, novel theory under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. They finally found four receptive jurists on one of the bluest state supreme courts in the land.
Even on a court composed entirely of justices appointed by Democratic governors, Colorado’s Supreme Court split 4-3 on the question. The majority admitted that this was a case "of first impression" and
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Weissmann: ‘People Died’ in the Civil
War So Leaders Like Trump Could Be Banned
from Ballot 37 replies
War So Leaders Like Trump Could Be Banned
from Ballot 37 replies
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Weissmann said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that Americans died in the Civil War, so leaders “who engaged in insurrection” like the Colorado Supreme Court found former President Donald Trump did, can not run for office.
Weissmann said, “This is not new. It is true that this provision of the Constitution is new to lots of people because we’ve never been in a situation where you would have somebody running for office who engaged in insurrection or a rebellion. What’s remarkable to me is that the story isn’t really, the unanimous finding in the Colorado case because you had no one dissenting on the issue
Former President Donald Trump has been asking allies and advisers for their thoughts about Nikki Haley as a potential vice presidential candidate, two sources familiar with the conversations tell CBS News.
The feedback from the MAGA crowd regarding putting Haley on the ticket if Trump wins the GOP nomination has been overwhelmingly negative, according to these GOP sources. Politico first reported that Trump allies are working to quash the possibility of a Trump-Haley ticket.
The former South Carolina governor has been gaining ground in recent polls, and a top Trump adviser tells CBS News one internal prediction is Haley might be a close third in Iowa to DeSantis, or
Former President Barack Obama was spotted looking relaxed as he played golf in his home state of Hawaii in the run up to the holidays.
The 62-year-old looked calm as he made his way around the course near Honolulu, wearing customized golf shoes and glove emblazoned with 44, representing his time as the 44th President of the United States.
Alongside his personalized glove and sneakers, the former president donned a Nike polo, white shorts and a cap for the outing. Obama was pictured playing alongside others at the Ko Olina Resort on the coast of Oahu.
Since vacating the White House in 2016, the former president has had more time
Former President Barack Obama went to bat for Harvard President Claudine Gay amid backlash she received following her testimony on antisemitism before Congress. A confidential source familiar with the matter told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that Obama, a Harvard graduate, had privately lobbied on Gay's behalf following her congressional appearance about antisemitism and threats against Jewish students on the Ivy League campus. "It sounded like people were being asked to close ranks to keep the broader administration stable—including its composition," the source said of Obama's involvement.
The decline and fall of General Motors, which sees it heading toward liquidation from its status as arguably the most powerful corporation on earth more than half a century ago, is entering a new phase. The federal government's mandated conversion to electric vehicles is taking another big bite out of its organization. Ron Glon writes:
In 2022, General Motors gave Buick dealers across the nation a simple choice: invest a significant amount of money to prepare for EVs or opt for a buyout. Over a year later, the brand has reportedly lost nearly half of its dealerships
Former Chicago Alderman Ed Burke, one of the most powerful and longest-serving politicians in the Windy City, was found guilty Thursday of racketeering, bribery and attempted extortion after a six-week-long federal corruption trial.
The 79-year-old Democrat was convicted on 13 of the 14 charges leveled against him in a 2019 federal indictment accusing the veteran Chicago City Council member of using his position to steer business from private developers to his law firm. Prosecutors also alleged that Burke threatened to block a measure raising admission fees at Chicago’s famed Field Museum over its failure to grant an internship to the daughter of a former alderman, whom he had recommended.
The Secret Service has opened a probe into comments made by John Schneider, a former star of the television show ‘Dukes of Hazzard,’ after he suggested on platform X that Joe Biden is “guilty of treason” and “should be publicly hung.” Schneider also targeted Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in his statement.
On Wednesday, White House resident Joe Biden wrote on X attacking former President Trump.
“Trump poses many threats to our country: The right to choose, civil rights, voting rights, and America’s standing in the world. But the greatest threat he poses is to our democracy. If we lose that, we lose everything,” Biden wrote.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) promises war if New York passes a bill forcing Chick-fil-A to open on Sundays.
This week, Graham said he would withhold federal funding from any city or state government that enforces the proposed bill on the popular fast food joint. Last week, a bill was filed in the New York State Assembly that would require some Chick-fil-A locations to operate every day of the week, despite the restaurant's longstanding policy to keep its doors closed on Sundays for religious reasons.
"This is war," Graham wrote on X. "If this goes forward, I will be introducing legislation withholding federal funds
Chicago Residents Erupt During City Council
Meeting Over Migrant Crisis: 'Trump, Come
Clean This Up' 19 replies
Meeting Over Migrant Crisis: 'Trump, Come
Clean This Up' 19 replies
Chicago residents are desperately suffering from President Joe Biden's immigration policies that have caused cities to use all of their resources on illegal aliens rather than on their own residents. This week, a prominent Black activist gave a passionate speech during an all-Democrat city council meeting, calling on officials to handle immediately hand the immigrant crisis by "sending them all back."
George Blakemore condemned Biden's unwillingness to secure the border, urging former President Trump to "come in here and clean up this mess" as some of the poorest neighborhoods suffer from a lack of funding and city services due to the migrant crisis.
Back in the dark days of the Soviet Union (USSR), it was not unusual for foreign visitors, especially journalists and diplomats, to go home and tell everybody how clean everything was, how happy and well-fed the people all appeared to be and how all of them expressed undying love and devotion to the Communist Party.
They got those impressions because Soviet officials routinely took such visitors to "Potemkin Villages" — fake towns created specifically for the purpose of concealing from those visiting the USSR from outside of the Communist "paradise" the hellish reality of oppression, starvation and official brutality within it.
A Canadian journalist who pushed for people to get the COVID-19 vaccine and its million boosters suddenly died at age 33.
According to his family, controversial Canadian corporate media journalist Ian Vandaelle died after being hospitalized and “declared neurologically dead.”
He was known for advocating the use of vaccine passports and draconian mandates. He also called for the firing of anyone who refused the jabs.
Vandaelle argued people who defied the government’s orders should be arrested and taken away to concentration camps.
He worked as a business journalist and editor at the Financial Post. Vandaelle also worked as a producer at BNN Bloomberg for over a decade.
In one social media post, Vandaelle stated:
Andrew Cuomo is officially waiting (very quietly) in the wings, Page Six hears.
Insiders tell us that the former governor — who has been quietly polling on his chances of being elected mayor of New York City in the event the troubled Eric Adams craps out — is “leaning towards” a run at City Hall.
Adams is not only facing historically low approval ratings, but his office is also under investigation for its ties to the Turkish government.
Now we hear Cuomo — who himself resigned in 2021, after a string of sexual harassment allegations against him (which he has consistently denied) — is ready to run should the opportunity present itself.