Week Four: No Rest for the Grifters
Posted By: FlyRight, 2/16/2025 4:48:15 AM
In the 1960s when my husband and I first worked in Washington, D.C., according to the Office of Personnel Management, there were about 1,808,000 (which includes military; non-Department of Defense was 761,000) federal employees. At the start of President Trump’s second term there were 2.3 million, of which about 775,000 were military and Department of Defense employees. This astonishing bloat in the federal bureaucracy is even more inexplicable when you consider that in this same period so many of the jobs being performed by these people have been made strikingly more efficient with the creation and improvement of computers and the internet, requiring fewer personnel to accomplish more.
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Week Four: No Rest for the Grifters
13 replies
In the 1960s when my husband and I first worked in Washington, D.C., according to the Office of Personnel Management, there were about 1,808,000 (which includes military; non-Department of Defense was 761,000) federal employees. At the start of President Trump’s second term there were 2.3 million, of which about 775,000 were military and Department of Defense employees. This astonishing bloat in the federal bureaucracy is even more inexplicable when you consider that in this same period so many of the jobs being performed by these people have been made strikingly more efficient with the creation and improvement of computers and the internet, requiring fewer personnel to accomplish more.
We’ve all heard stories about power-mad Federal Judges who had been told so many times by people who are required to be nice to Federal Judges they were all-powerful they actually started believing it but this one just might top them all!
A Federal Judge, Paul A. Englemayer, in Manhattan (of course) wholeheartedly complying with a request by attorneys general of 22 deep blue states, entered an order in the dark of the early morning hours of last Saturday banning - are you sitting down?- the Secretary of the Treasury from accessing the records of… the Treasury Department.
Just think about that for a moment or two;
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.
Pentagon Boots CNN, Washington Post, Others
from Workspaces to Make Room for Conservative Outlets 14 replies
from Workspaces to Make Room for Conservative Outlets 14 replies
The Trump Pentagon, in a memo Friday evening, announced it is kicking out CNN and three other news outlets from their desks inside the building to make space for conservative ones.
CNN’s workspace — an office from which they do live broadcasts — will now go to Newsmax. In addition, the Washington Post, the Hill, and military news blog The War Zone will lose their desks or whatever kind of workspace they have in the building.The changes are in addition to the ones made last week when the Pentagon announced they were kicking out the New York Times, NBC News,
CNN analyst Ashley Allison lost it on Wednesday night, launching into a tirade over DEI and essentially accusing CNN of racial discrimination.
The comments happened during an exchange with Scott Jennings, who was offering support for the Trump administration's dismantling of so-called "diversity, equity, and inclusion" initiatives. Allison responded by claiming that as a "black woman in this country," she does "not have the same opportunity" as the others at the table. Well, that's awkward because if Allison has "always been the least-paid person on payroll at every institution" she has worked at, that would include her current employer.
For years, the liberal media has been a dominant force in shaping public opinion; whether parroting the Democratic Party's talking points, attacking conservative figures, or downplaying major scandals that could harm their favored candidates, they had a virtual monopoly in the field of journalism. Things have changed. From the rise of conservative networks and independent journalists, people have more choices now, and it could spell the end of the liberal media. It’s not just me saying it. Jim VandeHei, the co-founder of the USAID-funded Politico, also believes the heyday of left-wing media might finally be over.
And not just because they’re losing the slush fund money.
Are Trump's Tariffs Really Tariffs?
7 replies
Hysteria has erupted here and abroad over President Donald Trump's threats to level trade tariffs against particular countries.
Both American and foreign critics blasted them variously as either counterproductive and suicidal or unfair, imperialistic, and xenophobic. Certainly, tariffs are widely hated by doctrinaire economists. They complain that tariffs burden consumers with higher prices to protect weak domestic industries that, shielded from competition, will have no incentive to improve efficiency.
Their ideal is "free" trade. Supposedly a free global market alone should adjudicate which particular industry in any country can produce the greatest good for the world's consumers, whether defined by lower prices or better quality, or both.
Authorities searching for missing airplane
carrying 10 people after it never landed
in Alaska 8 replies
carrying 10 people after it never landed
in Alaska 8 replies
Authorities are frantically searching for an airplane carrying 10 people that went missing on its way to Nome, Alaska, according to officials.
A Bering Air flight from Unalakleet to Nome failed to land as scheduled at 4 p.m. on Thursday, sending local and federal officials into a mad dash to locate the missing aircraft, the Alaska Department of Public Safety said.
Search and rescue crews from Alaska State Troopers and the National Transportation Safety Board are working to identify the plane’s last known coordinates, according to the statement.
President Trump fired Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub on Thursday in a move the Democratic official claims is illegal.
Weintraub, who has served as an FEC commissioner since 2002, shared the termination letter she received from the president on X and signaled that she won’t be leaving her post quietly.
“Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner & Chair of [FEC],” Weintraub wrote on the social media platform. “There’s a legal way to replace FEC commissioners-this isn’t it.”
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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears on Meet the Press to discuss his position toward ending the conflict with Russia. Within the conversation [04:11], Zelenskyy said, “I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine.”
President Zelenskyy represents the interests of the European Union, multinational corporations, various elements of NATO memberships, the World Economic Forum, the CIA division within the U.S. State Dept., western banks and a confab of various western intelligence operations. After that, he represents the interests of Ukrainians. This is why he will not permit elections. (Video)
Rubio defends Vance's Munich speech as
CBS host suggests 'free speech' caused
the Holocaust 31 replies
CBS host suggests 'free speech' caused
the Holocaust 31 replies
Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended Vice President JD Vance's speech in Germany slamming Europe's penchant for censorship on Sunday. Rubio clashed with CBS host Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation" after she suggested that free speech had been "weaponized" to bring about the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.
Brennan highlighted Vance's speech to the Munich Security Conference in Germany last week, which criticized European allies for adopting a "soviet"-style approach to censorship.
Not Many Americans Are Going to Tolerate
What These Federal Workers Had to Say
Last Night 28 replies
What These Federal Workers Had to Say
Last Night 28 replies
CBS News was a dumpster fire on Sunday. Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan thought the Nazi Holocaust occurred because there was too much freedom of speech and the press in Germany. Then, 60 Minutes decided to produce a segment about Germany waging a total war on freedom of speech, taking offenders away…on a train ride. Finally, there is this pity segment on government workers who are lost after getting fired.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, rejected an offer by the Trump administration to relinquish half of the country’s mineral resources in exchange for U.S. support, according to five people briefed on the proposal or with direct knowledge of the talks.
The unusual deal would have granted the United States a 50 percent interest in all of Ukraine’s mineral resources, including graphite, lithium and uranium, as compensation for past and future support in Kyiv’s war effort against Russian invaders, according to two European officials. A Ukrainian official and an energy expert briefed on the proposal said that the Trump administration also sought Ukrainian energy resources.
Rush: Four Years On
23 replies
Four years ago today, just about this time, I was pottering about getting ready to guest-host The Rush Limbaugh Show when the telephone rang. It was Kraig Kitchin, his longtime friend (and head of the network that distributed his show), calling to break the news that Rush had died earlier that morning.
Post-Limbaugh talk radio seems smaller to me than it once did - not just because Rush had a big personality, but because he managed to fit the flotsam and jetsam of the news cycle into the big picture.
David Hogg Took Just Days to Wear Out
His Welcome at the DNC As He Makes It
All About Himself 21 replies
His Welcome at the DNC As He Makes It
All About Himself 21 replies
You know how the Democrats have been whining about the youthfulness of the Department of Government Efficiency staffers, claiming that Elon Musk’s DOGE team couldn’t possibly understand what they’re doing because some are in their early twenties and at least one is in his late teens?
Yeah, well that same bunch voted in early February to make 24-year-old liberal activist David Hogg the vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Hypocrisy, much?
As our friends at PJ Media reported, Hogg’s already wearing out his welcome because he seems to be using his new position as a giant personal piggy bank:
Well, this is interesting. What a surprise. Dirty Judge Jack McConnell, who believes he was recently elected US president, halted President Trump’s current spending freeze. But Judge McConnell is not some innocent bystander. Judge McConnell’s organization has received $117.6 million in government funding in total (ending in 2023). Maybe that’s why he wanted the money to keep flowing. He’s expecting several more million this year!
Canadian hockey fans booed “The Star-Spangled Banner” — setting off a brawl-filled game that ended with a US win Saturday night.
The game of the NHL-run 4 Nations Face-Off tournament could have been mistaken for a boxing event — with three fist fights breaking out between American and Canadian players following the widespread booing of the US national anthem by over 20,000 angry fans.
As soon as the singer, Royal Canadian Air Force member David Grenon, began belting, “Oh, say, can you see,” the crowd at the Bell Centre in Montreal let out an aggressive and booming chorus of boos that nearly drowned out the anthem entirely.
Jessica Tarlov, one of the liberal voices at Fox News, made a hilarious claim on a podcast last week that I couldn’t help but laugh at. According to her, the “chaos” of the Trump administration is already turning off his voters.
Her proof? She shared a conversation she supposedly had with a 20-year-old college student from the Midwest who comes from a conservative, pro-Trump family. The student, who had previously reached out for career advice, recently emailed Tarlov to express his changing perspective on Trump.
“I’ve really appreciated hearing what you have had to say the past week on ‘The Five’ and your podcasts with Scott,”
In determining citizenship, the United States has a very unusual approach. You’re a citizen if you were born here. (You’re also a citizen if you were born abroad under certain circumstances, but that’s a different issue.)
That’s a bit crazy, because it means that if a woman (aren’t you glad we don’t have to refer to them as “child-birthing persons” anymore?) makes it into the United States, legally or illegally, in time to give birth – right on the north bank of the Rio Grande, for example – her baby is an American citizen.
The mother doesn’t magically become an American citizen by giving birth in America,
Rachel Maddow Criticizes Trump, Musk Over
$400M Tesla Contract—But It Was Under
Biden's Watch 18 replies
$400M Tesla Contract—But It Was Under
Biden's Watch 18 replies
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has once again found herself in hot water after making false claims about President Donald Trump giving Elon Musk a $400 million contract to buy armored Teslas. The liberal pundit, known for her questionable takes and liberal meltdowns, fabricated this narrative despite no evidence to back up the allegation. This latest misstep only adds to the growing list of inaccuracies from Maddow and other left-wing media figures attempting to distort the truth to discredit Trump and Musk.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer declared his willingness to deploy British troops to Ukraine “in harm’s way” to deter Russian aggression hours before he is set to join an ’emergency summit’ on the matter in Paris on Monday.
The United States and Russia are meeting to discuss the Ukraine war in Saudi Arabia this week, but European leaders have not been invited to send delegations. Apparently prompted by being left behind in this regard, and likely too by the Trump White House’s suggestion that European nations actually decide what they are actually capable of doing on Ukraine, European leaders are meeting in Paris today for an “emergency summit”.