Posts on Thursday, February 13, 2025
Vaccine Deep State Insanity
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You have all heard the term “Deep State.” (snip) we define the deep state this way: Deep state is a type of governance made up of potentially secret and unauthorized networks of power operating independently of a state’s political leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals.
(snip)
Like everything in the US Government, the structure of informal “Deep State” organization is parsed into silos based on subject areas and interests. Those making decisions about which governments are friends, which are to be treated as foes, and which should be targeted for “regime change” are not the same ones making decisions about what biological agents are potential threats,
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Thursday that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffers are now examining the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), warning against access to U.S. taxpayer data.
Democrats have sounded the alarm over DOGE and its leader, Elon Musk, attempting to overhaul the U.S. Agency for International Development and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and to gain access into the Treasury Department’s payment systems.
“My office is hearing that DOGE is now at the IRS. That means Musk’s henchmen are in a position to dig through a trove of data about every taxpayer in America,” Wyden wrote in a Thursday post on the social platform X, which Musk owns.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday her government was deciding whether to initiate a lawsuit against Google for renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on Google Maps.
"We are going to wait. We are already seeing, observing what this would mean from the perspective of legal advice, but we hope that they will make a revision," Sheinbaum said, according to Reuters.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Google.
(Photo) Google renamed the body of water after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to change it. Now, Google Maps users in the United States will see "Gulf of America" in the app,
President Donald Trump doubled down on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments about how the U.S. will bring about a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine during a Thursday press conference.While addressing an audience at a Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Brussels, Belgium, Hegseth that both Russia and Ukraine “must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective” and stressed that the U.S. “does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
You can almost hear a pin drop at the border.
Border crossings have plummeted to levels not seen in decades this month following President’s Trump’s swift crackdown on illegal immigration across the southwest, The Post can reveal. (Photo) So far in February, about 359 illegal migrants per day have been caught across the entire southern border — down more than 90% from February 2024, according to leaked Customs and Border Protection data.
That puts the US on track to have the lowest monthly border crossings in at least 25 years. If the trend continues, the number of illegal migrants coming into the US could hit a level not seen
JD Vance’s Strong Debut in Paris
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'Artificial intelligence is, we believe, going to make us more productive, more prosperous, and more free.” So proclaimed Vice President JD Vance at his first foreign speech, given to an AI forum conducted jointly by the French and Indian governments.
He outlined the reality that America is the current leader in AI and intends to remain so. He said the Trump administration’s view is that AI is good for economic growth, for worker productivity, and for discovering breakthrough tech, in not only the world of “bits” but the physical world as well, in medicine and manufacturing. He outlined broad principles that would guide America’s approach to AI tech. We will invest
A significant majority of federal government workers are complaining that they are being required to show up to work instead of being allowed to work from home, as they have been allowed to do for five years now.
A new article from Fortune via Yahoo News explains why private businesses are requiring employees to show back up at the office; the reasons are the same for government work, and are summarized below:
It is much better for young workers to show up in-person so they can learn from senior employees. It is also much better for social skills.
It is hard to coordinate work when the workers aren’t at the same location.
Dr. Lawrence Tabak, the former acting director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) who admitted to Congress last year that his agency funded risky gain-of-function virus research in China, abruptly resigned Tuesday, according to multiple reports.
Tabak, the No. 2 official at NIH, did not provide a reason for his departure in a notice to colleagues.
[snip]
Tabak led the NIH during part of the COVID-19 pandemic and faced scrutiny from congressional Republicans over federal grants provided to Manhattan-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance for bat coronavirus research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China – the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Newly Appointed Detroit Archbishop Suggested
‘Canonical Penalties’ for Trump Immigration Officials replies
‘Canonical Penalties’ for Trump Immigration Officials replies
In his first week since being nominated Archbishop of Detroit, Edward Weisenburger denounced Donald Trump’s immigration policies, and criticized the president’s plan to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Pope Francis nominated Arizona Bishop Weisenburger for the position on February 11; he is slated to replace outgoing Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron, who resigned from the post in 2023 after serving the diocese since 2009. An Illinois native, Weisenburger comes to Detroit from the city of Tucson, Arizona, where he has been since 2017.
Weisenburger wasted no time after being appointed to attack the Trump administration, taking issue with efforts to eliminate USAID spending.
Since his first day in office, President Donald Trump has swiftly delivered on many campaign promises. He has issued executive orders to end the foreign invasion at our southern border, eliminate racist DEI rules, and appointed Elon Musk to help root out waste and abuse in our federal government.
These are strong conservative reforms worth celebrating. However, Washington, D.C., isn’t the only swamp that needs draining. There are 50 swamps in the 50 state capitols, and they are spiraling out of control. Recent events have made this clear, and their actions should alarm all of us.
Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota won’t seek
reelection, with Walz and other Democrats
considering a run replies
reelection, with Walz and other Democrats
considering a run replies
ST. PAUL, Minn. — U.S. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota said Thursday that she won’t seek reelection, setting off a scramble by potential candidates in both major political parties to fill her open seat. Several Democrats said they would run or quickly signaled their interest, including Gov. Tim Walz, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, Rep. Ilhan Omar and Secretary of State Steve Simon. Democrats already faced an uphill battle in trying to regain control of the Senate, where Republicans have a 53-47 majority that has enabled them to confirm President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees. Smith’s retirement will deprive Democrats of an
About 15 years ago, my infant daughter and I went to Mass in the Washington, D.C. area at one of the oldest churches in the country. It wasn’t furnished with a cry room... [Snip] Unhinged women, like this woman at Mass, have been having a moment--like a 50-year moment. [Snip] The confirmation hearings for several of President Trump’s Cabinet picks have provided evidence that the era of shrieking women is coming to an end. [Snip] We’ve spent 50 years encouraging women and girls to be the most vicious and immature form of female. [Snip] Truly, America is being unburdened by what has been.
You've got to hand it to New York's bartender-turned-Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: She's consistent. Every time she opens her mouth - which she does a lot - something stupid comes out. On Thursday, though, we learned that it wasn't a statement from the congresswoman herself that was stupid, but rather an act from her office. It seems her Congressional office has hosted a seminar advising illegal aliens on how to evade repatriation:
The "Know Your Rights With ICE" virtual event was broadcast live on Ocasio-Cortez’s Facebook page, where migrant viewers were informed of how to deal with ICE search requests if officers come calling
The Department of Health and Human Services spent $22.6 billion on assistance to illegal immigrants from 2020 to 2024 as border crossings hit all-time highs, a new watchdog report shows.
The HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, a unit that lost track of 32,000 migrant children, distributed the bulk of the funds to nonprofit organizations during President Joe Biden’s term, according to a report from government spending watchdog Open the Books, first reported by the New York Post.
In fiscal year 2023 alone, the ORR doled out $10 billion worth of grants as the Biden administration expanded the number of illegal aliens eligible for assistance. HHS distributed obligated funds of
It appears President Donald Trump’s threat against Hamas might have worked. The terrorist group announced on Thursday that it would free Israeli hostages on Saturday, as was originally planned in an earlier ceasefire agreement. The announcement came after President Trump indicated he was losing his patience with Hamas and that there would be consequences if they did not adhere to the agreement.
While discussing the matter with reporters on Sunday, he commented on an earlier hostage release, saying Hamas’ prisoners “look like the old pictures of Holocaust survivors.”
The U.S. attorney in charge of federal prosecutors in New York City’s borough of Manhattan resigned on Feb. 13 after a directive to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams.
Danielle Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has stepped down, a spokesperson for the office confirmed.
Sassoon, a Republican, was elevated to the position on Jan. 21, the day after President Donald Trump took office.Bove said the timing of the charges threatened the case’s integrity because they came after Adams criticized former President Joe Biden’s administration over its handling of immigration. He also said the prosecution “has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention
Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the FBI, passed through committee on Thursday, setting up consideration from the full Senate, likely next week.
Patel blazed through the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 12-10 party-line vote. “So glad that @Kash_Patel has advanced out of the Judiciary Committee,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said after the vote. “He will now advance to the Senate floor, where we should confirm him as soon as our rules will allow.”
‘Calling Card’ for US Democrat Party
Found Along with Missiles, Rifles in Terrorist
Weapons Cache replies
Found Along with Missiles, Rifles in Terrorist
Weapons Cache replies
Packages from the United States Agency for International Development were found last year in a cache of weapons owned by the terrorist group Hezbollah, according to new reports.
The reports come at a time when USAID’s funding is under attack and the agency is being defended by Democrats such as Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, who called USAID “smart power,” according to Fox News.
The packages were found in Lebanon, an Israel Defense Forces soldier said, according to the New York Post.
“From the American taxpayer to Hezbollah, with love,”
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) pushed a bizarre explanation for why women might not pursue jobs in manufacturing.
Schakowsky made her remarks on Wednesday during a Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade subcommittee hearing entitled “AI in Manufacturing: Securing American Leadership in Manufacturing and the Next Generation of Technologies.”
Schakowsky suggested that perhaps the reason fewer women choose a career in manufacturing is that the term has the word “man” in it.
Schakowsky stated, “Yesterday, I met with a manufacturing company, but they also are engaged in getting young people more engaged in manufacturing. I asked them, ‘How many of those students that are signing up and want to do this, how many are women?'”
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said the quiet part out loud during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, revealing the Democrats’ true concerns about DOGE and Elon Musk.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Elon Musk on Tuesday announced DOGE will start looking into federal government workers who have managed to acquire tens of millions of dollars while working on the taxpayer dime.
“We do find it sort of rather odd that there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have essentially a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars
New York City Cries 'Highway Robbery'
After Secretary Noem's Clawback Leaves
Them Holding the Bag replies
After Secretary Noem's Clawback Leaves
Them Holding the Bag replies
New York City officials are accusing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of "highway robbery" after she ordered an illegal payment of $59 million targeted for illegal immigrant housing in posh hotels clawed back. [Disclaimer: this article is from Politico, so it is quite possibly funded by funds from some government; see Let's Untangle the Inappropriate Financial Deals Between the Federal Gov't., Politico, and Other Outlets – RedState.]
Top New York City officials are hitting back against the seizure of $80 million in funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander blasting the revocation as “illegal.”
One can't help but notice that, while politicians and political activists on the left are constantly whinging on about political violence and denouncing violent rhetoric at every turn, they sure don't put their money where their constantly-working mouths are. From Lee Harvey Oswald to modern times, the vast majority of political violence - actual violence, not a refusal to use preferred pronouns or wondering why people can't pay for their own sex-reassignment surgeries - has come from the left.
Here's yet another example, and from a sitting Congressman, at that: Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) called out another Congressman, Robert Garcia (D-CA), on Thursday for calling for "actual weapons"
Project Veritas dropped a shocker of a video back in December, in which an EPA manager was bragging that the Biden administration was metaphorically 'dropping gold bars off the Titanic.' They were shoving every dime they could out to their NGO buddies so they could harass the Trump administration and continue to suck off the taxpayers' teat for years to come.
We all know such things happen, but to have it so vividly described was revealing. Well, Lee Zeldin is retrieving those gold bars, and it turns out to be a lot of them. $20 billion, all sitting in the equivalent of a bank vault.
Policies have consequences, especially financial incentives -- and disincentives. Texas supplies plenty of the former, while blue states such as New York, Delaware, and Illinois provide overwhelming amounts of the latter. Corporate America has taken notice of the Lone Star State's favorable tax and business environment, prompting a significant number of companies to re-incorporate and relocate to Texas.
Now the stock exchanges are following suit. Texas had already encouraged some investors to set up a competing exchange in Dallas, given the corporate relocations and the desire in the financial industry to lower their tax risks. NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange are now rushing to fill the gap
President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a presidential memorandum laying out his plan to impose "reciprocal tariffs" on foreign nations.
"They charge us a tax or tariff and we charge them," Trump said during a press event in Oval Office. The president said that under the plan, the U.S. will treat other countries' non-tariff policies as unfair trade practices that warrant tariffs in response.
Those include value-added taxes, or VATs, and other practices that the office of the U.S. trade representative deems to be unfair trade limitations.
He also suggested that additional tariffs, including on auto imports,
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ramped up grants for migrants from 2020 to 2024 — which included cash assistance to buy cars, homes and even build credit for startup businesses, according to a shocking watchdog report that found taxpayers were left on the hook for $22.6 billion.
HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) — which came under fire last year for having lost track of 32,000 migrant kids in the US — handed out the high sum to a host of nonprofits, effectively acting as a “giant magnet” for those crossing the US border and claiming asylum, auditors from the money monitor OpenTheBooks revealed exclusively to The Post.
The US Army released its latest recruitment advert to promote the no-nonsense approach of the Trump era - and the differences between the Biden-era adverts were stark.
In the latest video released this week, a tattooed Special Forces fitness trainer performed huge feats of strength in the gym, including deadlifting 500lbs raw.
The clip also showed the burly trooper lifting a heavy yoke over his shoulders, before he says to the camera: 'Stronger people are harder to kill.'
Viewers quickly compared the latest advert to one pushed out by the military in May 2021, during the Biden administration.
A prominent Democrat is arguing that "there isn’t a constitutional crisis" happening right now with the Trump administration. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., reportedly made the remark to HuffPost on Wednesday, the same day White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared that "the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, where district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump's basic executive authority."
Current and former employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) sued Elon Musk and his cost-cutting operation, levying the novel argument that the world’s richest man should have been confirmed by the Senate before wielding such enormous power.
The Trump administration, Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have moved in recent weeks to stanch the flow of foreign aid, dismantle the agency responsible for administering it and dismiss thousands of people working for the agency at home and abroad.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said during an interview that Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) final vote against Tulsi Gabbard, the newly sworn-in director of national intelligence, indicates that President Trump’s “cult” can be “broken.”
“Mitch McConnell breaking yesterday with his Republican colleagues telling the truth to power, indicates that maybe the Trump cult, the intimidation and threats can be broken,” Blumenthal said during his Thursday morning appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“Our tools are limited. We’re in the minority. They control obviously both houses of Congress and the White House and indirectly the United States Supreme Court,” he added.
The Biden economic hangoverCase
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Former President Joe Biden left a terrible legacy: the border catastrophe, chaos and disorder abroad, increased crime, oppressive wokeness. But for today’s purposes, consider the damage done by Biden’s economic policies.
Inflation took away 20% of people’s purchasing power in a short period of time. Even when the rate of inflation slowed, it is still, right now, rising faster than economists — or anybody else — are comfortable with. This week there will be new numbers for inflation in January, and the message again will be that Biden brought inflation on but was unable to fully get rid of it. Now that is President Donald Trump’s job.
The House voted to crack down on high-speed chases near the southern border, marking the latest immigration-focused bill to be prioritized in the new GOP majority.
The Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act, named after a Border Patrol officer who died in the line of duty, passed the House in a 264-155 vote on Thursday. Gonzalez had been pursuing migrants on his all-terrain vehicle at the time of his death in 2022.
Under the bill, anyone who leads federal, state, or local police on a vehicle chase within 100 miles of the U.S. border would face up to two years in prison, a fine, or both.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris would be the Democratic front-runner for governor of California if she jumped into the Golden State’s 2026 race to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), polling shows.
Harris snagged support for a hypothetical gubernatorial bid from nearly 6 in 10 Democratic primary voters in California, 57 percent, according to a survey from Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics/The Hill.
Former Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), who left the House to mount an unsuccessful Senate bid last year, followed at 9 percent support.
Ex-Speaker of the California State Assembly Antonio Villaraigosa (D) and sitting Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalaki (D) brought in 4 percent each, and another 17
FBI Director-designate Kash Patel cleared a Senate panel in a party-line vote Thursday, setting up a final confirmation vote next week.
All 12 GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance Patel’s confirmation, while all 10 Democrats on the panel opposed it.
A former public defender, congressional aide and national security official in the first Trump administration, Long Island native Patel received firm backing from Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for having undergone “rigorous vetting” and being committed to rooting out “political bias” at the FBI.
Longtime vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy is now the nation’s top health official, after the Senate Thursday voted almost entirely on party lines to confirm him atop a department of nearly 100,000 employees that run 13 agencies.
The 52-48 confirmation vote brings to a close a contentious three-month confirmation fight that served as a significant test of the Republican Party’s loyalty to President Trump.
Only Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) cast a GOP vote against Kennedy’s confirmation, after previously bucking his party on Trump’s defense secretary and national intelligence director.
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith (D) will not run for reelection in 2026, opening up a seat in the solidly Democratic state, she announced Thursday.
Smith said in a video posted to the social platform X that she has “loved” her job as a U.S. senator but wants to spend more time with her family, as she has four grandchildren.
“This job has been the honor of a lifetime. For the rest of my term, I’ll work as hard as I can for Minnesotans and our country,” she said in the post. “Thank you so much, Minnesota.”
Smith has served in her Senate seat since 2018 when she was appointed to succeed
Thomson Reuters Corporation, the parent company that both owns Thomson Reuters Special Services LLC (TRSS) and the far-left propaganda arm Reuters News, has been funded by none other than the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).
Recent investigations have revealed that Thomson Reuters Special Services LLC was awarded a contract by the Department of Defense titled “Active Social Engineering Defense (ASED) Large Scale Social Deception (LSD).” [snip] The contract, identified as FA865018C7886, was awarded in 2018 with a value of approximately $9.1 million. You can view the contract details at USASpending.gov
Two nurses from Bankstown Hospital in Sydney, Australia, have been suspended after a video surfaced showing them making abhorrent anti-Semitic remarks and bragging about killing and refusing to treat Israeli patients.
The clip was shared by content creator Max Veifer, who was speaking with Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, both verified as health workers from Bankstown Hospital in Sydney’s southwest, according to ABC News Australia.
The Price of Eggs at CNN
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FT. WAYNE, Ind. — Sitting here at the bar/restaurant at the Ft. Wayne Hilton, a nice Midwest hotel located across the street from the gorgeous Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, I was forced to do something I don’t usually do. Watch CNN. Some rogue from hotel management decided to hold customers hostage to CNN that evening in this deeply Republican state. Not that long ago, I frequently watched CNN. It was a reliable, respectable news outlet. Liberal but serious. But sadly, the unfortunate folks at CNN went full Trump Derangement Syndrome circa 2017.
State attorneys general of nearly half the country have signed a secret resistance pact against a key facet of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.
“Of all the things in the world they could have picked — gas, groceries, protecting minorities, making sure kids can get their genitals chopped off, whatever else they claim is their top priority — instead, it’s birthright citizenship,” Mike Howell, executive director of The Oversight Project, told The Federalist. “It shows that the border policies were always political.”
People around here are used to the trucks that deliver paperwork to the old Pennsylvania limestone mine. Here, over 700 locals work as employees of the Office of Personnel Management processing the retirement papers of federal government workers.
Everyone around here knows of its existence. In fact, a lot of people around here either work there or have a family member who works there.Once upon a time, the mines and quarries around Boyers were filled with limestone and coal, which powered and built the country, like hundreds of places across Pennsylvania. Work in those mines provided families with a decent wage and a reason to stay rooted in the region.
Not a sentence said by a Democrat these days doesn’t have a subject, a verb and “constitutional crisis.”
President Trump wanting to halt spending while he reviews a government in massive debt is an “assault on Democracy,” a “circumvention of Congress” and, in typical understatement, an “executive coup.”
Balderdash. While Trump must jump through certain hoops to offer buyouts or pare down departments, it was never the Founders’ intention for career government employees to outrank the president.
As Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 70, “energy in the executive is the leading character in the definition of good government.”
Hamas announced Thursday that it would resume freeing Israeli hostages as originally planned — just days after President Trump warned he would “let hell break out” if the terror group didn’t honor its cease-fire deal with Israel.
The terrorist group had earlier said it was suspending the handovers — starting with those planned for Saturday — over what it claimed were Israeli violations of their agreed terms.
However, after repeated warnings from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas said Thursday it would go ahead with implementing the truce deal — crediting Egyptian and Qatari mediators for helping to “remove all hurdles.”
At least 20 people were injured, some seriously and others possibly fatally when a driver ploughed a car into a trade union rally in Munich, Germany on Thursday morning.
UPDATE 1200 GMT — 28 Injured, suspect is Afghan ‘asylum seeker’
Following Bild‘s earlier claim of internal police information that the man held by police over the driving of a car into a trade union demonstration was an Afghan, this fact has now been confirmed by the Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann. He said the Kabul-born Afghan “asylum seeker” was already known to police for drug crimes and theft.
Before the presidential election, many Democrats were puzzled by the seeming disconnect between “economic reality” as reflected in various government statistics and the public’s perceptions of the economy on the ground. Many in Washington bristled at the public’s failure to register how strong the economy really was. They charged that right-wing echo chambers were conning voters into believing entirely preposterous narratives about America’s decline.
What they rarely considered was whether something else might be responsible for the disconnect — whether, for instance, government statistics were fundamentally flawed. What if the numbers supporting the case for broad-based prosperity were themselves misrepresentations? What if,
Two nurses from Bankstown Hospital in Sydney, Australia, have been suspended after a video surfaced showing them making abhorrent anti-Semitic remarks and bragging about killing and refusing to treat Israeli patients.
The clip was shared by content creator Max Veifer, who was speaking with Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, both verified as health workers from Bankstown Hospital in Sydney’s southwest, according to ABC News Australia.
It is one of several videos on Veifer’s account featuring conversations with individuals from various parts of the world—primarily the Middle East—t
Swamp Apocalypse
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The Trump Team fooled everybody, including me. As last week’s various lawsuits sprouted restraining orders like early buds emerging all over the willow trees in springtime, most commenters expected Trump to take a necessary pause for defensive retrenchment. Surely, we all thought, it would take Trump’s anti-bureaucrats some time to clear the judicial logjam. But all of us were wrong. A brief pause to clear past the TROs wasn’t Trump’s strategy at all. No pauses! Instead, yesterday Trump tripled down, jamming the battle tank’s accelerator into overdrive and smashing ahead in a whole different direction.
Trump is Making FAFO Great Again
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MAGA. Everybody knows what it means. It is simple, direct, and patriotic. MAGA is not only a movement unto itself but also the parent to a family of exceptional complementary revolutions playing out at light speed: MAHA—Make America Healthy Again. DOGE—Department Of Government Efficiency. And the less-heralded, yet extremely effective FAFO—F*** Around and Find Out.
Laws are policies crafted, at least in theory, to secure constitutionally guaranteed freedoms for all Americans. Of course, there needs to be enforcement and accountability. Police and courts enforce the rule of law that ensures our freedom and that those who seek to avoid playing by the rules are sanctioned. Accountability.
Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, has asked his agency to launch an investigation into Comcast’s DEI policies — setting off alarm bells for other media conglomerates with diversity programs. On Tuesday, Carr warned Comcast CEO Brian Roberts that the FCC will be looking into whether the cable giant — which owns NBCUniversal — is breaking federal law, specifically the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, by running DEI programs, according to a letter obtained by The Post.
“Every single business that’s regulated by the FCC … I trust that they have now got the message that the time to end their invidious forms of DEI discrimination is now,”
President Donald J. Trump will give a full rundown on the waste and fraud that’s engulfed the capital. It’s a form of gift that’s been ongoing for generations. It’s nothing new, but he’s vowed to do something about it. He tasked Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to root out the cockamamie contracts that have bled taxpayers. The Department of Education and the Pentagon are next to be analyzed, with USAID already shut down. The president made this declaration during the swearing-in ceremony for Tulsi Gabbard as the next director of national intelligence.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth began a tour of Europe Tuesday, starting at the headquarters of US European Command at Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany. The newly minted SecDef has a heavy schedule in front of him, inspecting US forces in Europe and dealing with his first meeting with NATO. He is obviously trying to move beyond the controversies associated with his confirmation. He is also trying to lead by example and reverse the cultural rot in the US military by force of will.
Forty years ago, a radio personality coined the phrase “jump the shark” in reference to the episode of the sitcom “Happy Days” in which the character Fonzie (Henry Winkler) jumps over a live shark on water skis. The term is often applied to dying franchises that turn to sensational language or scenes to try to revive the fading interest of the public. More often, you jump the shark and land in utter obscurity.
This week, the Democratic Party jumped the shark.
For years, Dems and their allies pushed the absurd claim that democracy was about to die if Joe Biden or Kamala Harris was not elected president. The public wasn’t buying it.
We’ve been reading so much about all the rampant waste in the federal government, from USAID to the Education Department to FEMA, that Elon Musk and DOGE continue to uncover at a staggering pace.
But sometimes you wonder, who are the beneficiaries of all this fraud and waste—where’s the money going? I mean, besides to terrorists, social justice warriors and the like.
Your questions may soon be answered. Grab the popcorn and fluff the couch pillows because Donald Trump told reporters at a briefing in the Oval Office Wednesday afternoon that he plans to name names at a press conference scheduled for Thursday. Responding to a reporter's question, he charged:
Following widespread backlash to their establishment antics, Florida’s legislative leadership came to a compromise with Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday to advance legislation assisting with President Donald Trump’s deportation of illegal aliens.
“Florida always leads. We have a responsibility to enact policies that will help end the illegal immigration crisis once and for all, and our Republican leaders have been working tirelessly to do just that,” DeSantis said in a statement announcing the deal. “With the enactment of these policies, Florida will help the Trump Administration to deliver on the President’s historic mandate to end illegal immigration.”
The Orange Colossus straddling the world stage can no longer be anticipated – nor contained.
Basically the entire world had responded to his genuinely earthshaking call for Gazan resettlement by reflexively rummaging up and running the moldered “two-state solution” playbook. (Although that wall could be crumbling a bit with King Abdullah’s equivocation.)
But Donald J. Trump not only hasn’t retreated – he continues to napalm decades of mal-diplomacy by doubling down on a negotiating gambit (which is how it must be understood) so momentous, consequential, farsighted, far-reaching, unorthodox and previously unthinkable that every such adjective in the thesaurus couldn’t begin to describe its impact.
The fun just never ends here in these early days of the Trump 47 era, does it?
President Trump has surrounded himself with some remarkable people in this administration, which is in stark contrast to what happened back in 2017. I know that a lot of people like to blame all of the chaos of his first administration on external factors that were beyond his control, but that's a real stretch. He made some absolutely garbage personnel choices his first time around. It was understandable too — the difference between the upper echelon of the private sector business world and politics is a big one.
In a big win for the Trump administration, the U.S. Senate voted Wednesday morning to confirm former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as the next director of National Intelligence. The final vote was 52-48, with Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., siding with Democrats in opposition.
“Director Gabbard was targeted by the intelligence community for objecting to the corrupt Biden-Harris regime. Now she oversees the weaponized agencies that went after her and other innocent Americans. Accountability is coming, and the American people have long awaited its arrival,” The Heritage Foundation wrote in a Wednesday tweet.
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) is circulating a petition for his supporters to sign to deport a fellow member of Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
Gil had previously called on Omar to be deported, arguing she is more loyal to undocumented immigrants in the United States from her native Somalia than to the United States. The petition and an email circulated by Gill were first reported by Axios.
Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000 after fleeing her native country due to civil war. The Minnesota representative has been the target of Republican insults following her staunch criticism of President Trump during his first administration.
In the brief time when Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team had access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, they discovered that the government’s bookkeeping is so sloppy they can’t say where checks are going or why. That the government sends money to people on “do not pay” lists. And that some $100 billion worth of entitlement money goes to people with no Social Security number or temporary ID.
“This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately,” Musk posted on X after a federal judge blocked his access to the system.
Musk is right about this being insane.
Every so often, I get reminded that I'm old, and I've been programming for almost 60 years, which is a long time. But 60 years in the business means I've seen a lot of things that young naïve programmers have never seen.
This comes up often when people talk about DOGE and the Wizards Academy Musk has put together to help investigate fraud, abuse, and, probably most of all, bureaucratic stupidity.
One of the things I see people — technical people, but young — saying about things like Social Security and the IRS is things like "just dump the whole database into Hadoop."
What’s happening right now is that Democrats, having been thrown out of power by American voters in a landslide victory for Trump, have decided they’re going to deploy a widely-used tactic from Trump’s first term to thwart the president’s agenda: use the federal judiciary. Under the false pretext that the lower federal courts are part of a “coequal branch of government” with the executive, they’re aiming to shut down Trump’s reform efforts with a fusillade of preliminary injunctions.
In recent days dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration by Democrat attorneys general and various left-wing groups.
When our kids were growing up, my husband and I practiced something called "reality discipline." The term was coined by psychologist Kevin Leman, who posited that children need to experience the "natural consequences" of their behavior. (Snip) Leman's advice came to mind as I watched Elon Musk and the DOGE boys reveal the tsunami of government pork that has sent our federal deficit into a death spiral. All but the most partisan left-wing Americans are asking, "Why is the government spending money on this crap?"
One thing no one's talking about, but perhaps we should, is how much we're spending on AIDS/HIV programs.
President Trump’s approval rating among black men has climbed to 42 percent, according to new polling from Cygnal.
This should make Democrats wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats. Trump won the White House with less support than that from black voters in November. He is going up in their estimation, despite everything that Democrats and the media are trying to use against him.
Democrats have had an ongoing problem with male voters. This polling shows that their problem is not improving, it’s getting worse.
Paul Bedard writes at The Gazette:
President Trump announced he will be holding a press conference tomorrow to release a list of names of entities and people involved in government fraud and abuse.
This comes one day after Elon Musk said DOGE was investigating how government workers mysteriously accrued millions of dollars.
“We do find it sort of rather odd that there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who who have essentially a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars, but somehow manage to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” Elon Musk said on Tuesday.
Has there ever been a more child-friendly administration than Donald Trump’s?
There was Elon Musk in the Oval Office Tuesday with his adorable 4-year-old son, “little X,” on his shoulders as he took questions from the media about how DOGE will cut $1 trillion from the deficit, while the president looked on benignly from the Resolute Desk, occasionally commenting on the child’s “high IQ.”
Meanwhile, the three small children, aged 7, 4 and 2, of Vice President J.D. Vance and wife Usha are accompanying their parents on dad’s first official visit to Europe.
They were spotted walking off Air Force Two sleepy-eyed in their pajamas and posing for photographs
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced Wednesday that he’s found $20 billion in taxpayer money that the Biden administration “parked” at a financial institution — in an apparent effort to prevent the Trump administration from cutting grants to “far-left activist groups.”
Zeldin, 45, explained in a video posted on X that the Biden administration’s obfuscation was unprecedented and he demanded the unnamed financial institution to immediately return the funds to the EPA.
“Shockingly, roughly 20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA,” Zeldin said. “This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposefully designed
Outraged upstate New York parents took over a school board meeting this week — demanding to know why their elementary school children were exposed to an “LGBTQIA+” book that included depictions of naked people and bondage enthusiasts.
A large and animated crowd of parents gathered in a Monroe County auditorium on Tuesday and voiced their concerns to the superintendent and Penfield school board about their young children having access to the book “The Rainbow Parade: A Celebration of LGBTQIA+ Identities and Allies.”
In a video announcement shared to social media Wednesday evening, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin revealed that approximately $20 billion in taxpayer funds have been discovered laundered into external financial institutions during the Biden administration.
Zeldin underscored the urgency of accountability, declaring, “One of my very top priorities at EPA is to be an excellent steward of your hard-earned tax dollars. There will be zero tolerance of any waste and abuse.”
The controversy goes back two months when a video of a Biden EPA appointee referring to taxpayer funds as “gold bars” being “tossed off the Titanic” went viral.
“The gold bars were tax dollars, and tossing them off the Titanic