Posts Tagged ‘Social Justice Warriors’

Meet The New Boss, Eh/Same As The Old Boss, Eh

Monday, March 10th, 2025

Up in the 51st state leftwing Canukistan, Justin Trudeau is stepping down after nine long years in power in favor of banker Mark Carney.

Former central banker Mark Carney won the race to become leader of Canada’s ruling Liberal Party and will succeed Justin Trudeau as prime minister, official results showed on Sunday.

Carney will take over at a tumultuous time in Canada, which is in the midst of a trade war with longtime ally the United States under President Donald Trump and must hold a general election soon.

Carney, 59, took 86% of votes cast to beat former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in a contest in which just under 152,000 party members voted.

“There’s someone who’s trying to weaken our economy,” Carney said of Trump, spurring loud boos at the party gathering. “He’s attacking Canadian workers, families, and businesses. We can’t let him succeed.”

“This won’t be business as usual,” Carney said. “We will have to do things that we haven’t imagined before, at speeds we didn’t think possible.”

Trudeau announced in January that he would step down after more than nine years in power as his approval rating plummeted, forcing the ruling Liberal Party to run a quick contest to replace him.

“Make no mistake, this is a nation-defining moment. Democracy is not a given. Freedom is not a given. Even Canada is not a given,” Trudeau said.

Carney, a political novice, argued that he was best placed to revive the party and to oversee trade negotiations with Trump, who is threatening additional tariffs that could cripple Canada’s export-dependent economy.

Trudeau has imposed C$30 billion of retaliatory tariffs on the United States in response to tariffs Trump levied on Canada.

“My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect,” Carney said.

Yeah, Trump is not exactly known for giving in to demands for “respect.” And given that the United States makes up some 77% of Canada’s world trade, while the Canada only makes up some 13% of America’s $9 trillion in global trade, the power dynamic between the two countries is hardly equal. Canada is much, much more exposed to economic hardship in a trade war than the United States is. I expect Carney’s and Canada’s resolve to work about as long and well as it did in the South Park “Canada on Strike” episode.

Can we expect Carney to undo some of Trudeau’s most heinous policies?

Don’t get your hopes up.

  • Mark Carney: “While America engages in the war on woke, Canadians value inclusiveness.” So Canada’s government will continue the same woke policies that helped drive Trudeau (and Canada) down.
  • Jordan Peterson: “The inevitable Grand Pooba of the currently wretched, but still dangerously powerful, Liberals, one Mark Carney, is one of the world’s prime advocates of the insane inanities of Net Zero.”
  • JP: “He is a man who has planned, in writing, not least in his bestselling book Values, the complete destruction of the fossil fuel industry. Bye-bye Alberta.”
  • JP: “If that’s not bad enough, and it is, he’s also simultaneously an advocate of the same postnational view of Canada defined by Trudeau Jr and his moralistic minions.”
  • JP: “What are we, according to such good thinkers? Nothing. Nothing, but if anything, the oppressive, patriarchal, white-supremacist, identityless, colonial settler state defined by the progressive ideologues in the think tanks and elite dining rooms in eastern Canada.”
  • Dave Rubin: “If you live in western Canada, particularly where oil and natural resources are important, this man is basically trying to destroy your livelihood.”
  • Don’t expect anything to change until Canadian federal elections later this year.

    LinkSwarm For March 7, 2025

    Friday, March 7th, 2025

    The Supreme Court lands on both sides of the same case, more fraud uncovered by DOGE, the Russo-Ukrainian War continues despite the White House dustup, Mark Steyn catches a break, and strange cell(block) fellows.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • The Supreme Court giveth: “Supreme Court pumps brakes on order forcing Trump to shell out $2B in foreign aid.”

    Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts pumped the brakes on a lower court order that gave the Trump administration a midnight deadline Wednesday into Thursday to unfreeze $2 billion worth of foreign aid.

    Roberts paused the order Wednesday until further notice and gave plaintiffs suing the Trump administration until noon Friday to respond, marking the first time the Supreme Court has dealt with a case involving the president’s push to overhaul the federal government.

    The question at hand is the Trump administration’s 90-day freeze on US Agency for International Development spending amid a review to ensure the outlays were aligned with the president’s policies.

    District Judge Amir Ali, who was appointed to the bench by former President Joe Biden, temporarily mandated that the funds continue flowing while considering the case.

    Plaintiffs argued that the Trump administration did not properly unfreeze all of the money, which led to Ali giving the Trump administration a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to fully comply.

  • And the Supreme Court taketh away. “The Supreme Court has *upheld* a lower court’s order forcing USAID/State to immediately pay ~$2 billion owed to contractors for work they’ve already performed….The court in a 5-4 decision upheld Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order that had called on the administration to promptly release funding to contractors and recipients of grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department for their past work.”
  • Mexico Extradites 29 Cartel Drug Lords To US As Trump Not Backing Away From Tariff War.”

    The US Justice Department revealed Thursday evening that Mexico has begun extraditing dozens of high-level cartel leaders to the US, as President Trump reiterated that 25% tariffs on Mexican goods will take effect next Tuesday.

    “The defendants taken into US custody today include leaders and managers of drug cartels recently designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” the DoJ wrote in a statement, adding these terrorists are facing charges including racketeering, drug-trafficking, murder, illegal use of firearms, money laundering, and other crimes.

    Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office and Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection released this statement: “This morning, 29 people who were deprived of their liberty in different penitentiary centers in the country were transferred to the United States of America, which were required due to their links with criminal organizations for drug trafficking, among other crimes.”

    The tariffs are currently on hold. CNN has a list of who was exchanged, including Rafael Caro Quintero, Alder Marin-Sotelo, Andrew Clark, José Ángel Canobbio Inzunza, Norberto Valencia González, José Alberto García Vilano, Evaristo Cruz Sánchez, Miguel and Omar Treviño Morales.

  • We touched on this in a previous LinkSwarm, but here’s more details on Stacey Abrams EPA-backed multi-billion dollar slush fund.

    Three short weeks ago, a newly confirmed Lee Zeldin got to his office at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and hit the broom closet to start sweeping.

    Thanks to the previous braggadocious occupants and their already well-documented pre-exit shoveling of cash and grants out the door, he had an inkling there might be plenty of questionable transactions to uncover that hadn’t exactly been notated ‘on the books’ or done ‘by the book’ either.

    I mean, what were the odds?

    It didn’t take long for Zeldin to find himself a whopper of a honeypot hidden away that made quite a splash when he announced it, particularly as it was tied to an infamous Project Veritas video from December boasting about its very surreptitious creation.

    David covered the reveal.

    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.

    The massive scale of this scam–which as with so many things is SOP at government agencies–blows your mind. Pushing $20 billion out the door to friends of the administration with little to no financial controls, zero accountability, and lots of malice aforethought is only different in scale and not in kind.

    Snip.

    …It’s a green slush fund. $20B parked at an outside bank towards the end of the Biden administration, given to just eight NGOs…These NGOs were created for the first time, many of them just to get this money. And their pass-throughs…So the EPA entered into this account control agreement with these entities, Treasury enters into a financial agent agreement with the bank, and they design it to tie the EPA’s hands behind their back -to tie the federal government’s hands behind its back. So when the money goes through the NGOs to subgrantees, many of them also pass-throughs, we don’t know where it’s going. We don’t have the proper amount of oversight. And, as you pointed out, it’s going to people in the Obama and Biden administrations, it’s going to donors. It’s not going directly…to remediate that environmental issue…deliver that clean air…’

    This is just some stunning stuff. As Zeldin told the NY Post:

    …As Zeldin told The Post: “Of the eight pass-through entities that received funding from the pot of $20 billion in tax dollars, various recipients have shown very little qualification to handle a single dollar, let alone several billions of dollars.”

    He’s called for the EPA’s inspector general to investigate; who knows what other rank misuse that might turn up.

    Bondi and Patel are already on the case, and I hope someone from Scott Bessent’s Treasury IG thinks they should be as well.

    Crawl up their collective butts, the lot of them.

    No wonder Democrats continued to treat Abrams like a rock star despite high profile electoral flameouts. She’s evidently a vitally important nexus in their graft distribution schemes. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Victor Davis Hanson on the Trump Counterrevolution.

    At some point, some president was going to have to stop the unsustainable spending and borrowing.

    To have any country left, some president would eventually have had to restore a nonexistent border and stop the influx of 3 million illegal aliens a year.

    Some commander-in-chief finally would have to try to stop the theater wars abroad.

    But any president who dared to do any of that would be damned for curbing the madness that his predecessors fueled.

    And so none did—until now.

    Not since Franklin Roosevelt’s rapid and mass implementation of the New Deal administrative state have Americans seen such radical changes so quickly as now in Trump’s first month of governance.

    Americans are watching a long-awaited counter-revolution to bring the country out of its madness by restoring the common sense of the recent past.

    It is easy to run up massive debts and hard to pay them back. Politicians profit by handing out grants and hiring thousands with someone else’s money or creating new programs by growing the debt.

    Yet it is unpopular and considered “mean” to spend only what you have and to create a lean, competent workforce.

    1776, not 1619, is the foundational date of America.

    Biological men should not manipulate their greater size and strength to undermine the hard-won accomplishment of women athletes.

    Affordable fossil fuels, when used wisely, are still essential to modern prosperity.

    American education must remain empirical and inductive, not regress into indoctrination and deduction. If college campuses no longer abide by the Bill of Rights, then perhaps they should pay taxes on income from their endowments and guarantee their own student loans.

    If American citizens are arrested and arraigned for violent assaults, destroying property, and resisting arrest, then surely foreign students who break the laws of their hosts should be held to the same account—and if guilty, go home.

    Tribalism and racialism, and government spoils allotted by superficial appearances, are the marks of a pre-civilized society. Such racialism leads only to endless factions and discord.

    It is easy to destroy a border, and hard to reconstruct it. And it was not Trump who invited in 12 million unaudited illegal aliens, a half million of them criminals.

    Who is the real culprit in the Defense Department—the new secretary with the hard task of restoring the idea among depleted ranks that our race, religion, and gender are incidental, not essential, to defeating the enemy and ensuring our national security?

    Is it really wise to divert money from needed combat units and weapons to indoctrinate recruits with social and cultural agendas that do not enhance, but likely undermine, our national defenses?

    Who is the real callous actor—Elon Musk, who is trying to prevent the country from insolvency by eliminating fraud and waste, or those who bloated the bureaucracy in the first place with jobs and subsidies for their constituents, friends, clients, and fellow ideologues?

    No one likes to fire FBI agents.

    That certainly is an unpleasant job for the new FBI Director, Kash Patel.

    But again, who are the true culprits who so cavalierly turned a hallowed agenda into a weaponized tool to warp elections, harass political enemies, lie under oath, surveil parents at school board meetings, doctor court documents, and protect insider friends?

    Massive borrowing is an opiate addiction that needs shock treatment, not more deficits to break the habit. An unchecked administrative state becomes an organic organism that exists only to grow larger, more powerful, and more resistant to any who seek to curb it.

  • “DOGE reveals most savings at Dept. of Education with nearly $1B cut. DOGE claims to have saved the most money at the U.S. Department of Education out of any government agency through cuts in wasteful spending. DOGE launched an ‘Agency Efficiency Leaderboard’ that ranks government agencies based on how much wasteful funding has been cut, and the Dept. of Education is ranked in first place.”

    Campus Reform reported that DOGE has canceled nearly $900 million in contracts and training grants at the Department of Education.

    This includes “over $600 million in grants to institutions and nonprofits that were using taxpayer funds to train teachers and education agencies on divisive ideologies” such as critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), according to a press release from the department.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • DEI Was the Biggest Con of the Century.

    “Diversity” had already been around for many years, its hustler scratching at the university door. Not actual diversity, mind you, but the skin-deep diversity of noxious racialism tarted-up with fake Enlightenment discourse. This concept of “diversity, equity, inclusion” quickly metastasized until it was everywhere, and this was no accident. It was a bureaucratic initiative designed to anchor a new raft of social justice programs as an inescapable presence on the campus.

    It was no accident that it was violence and the threat of violence that opened the door for this effervescence of DEI. It sounded absurd. I knew it was absurd; I knew it was a con. Most people likely knew it was a con but then most people on the campuses also knew to keep their mouths shut in a time of hair-trigger tempers and performative chaos unleashed by well-funded activist groups. No college administration wanted the summer violence of 2020 overflowing onto the campuses. And so they opened the university to barbarian ideas rather than the barbarians themselves.

    This was the madness of crowds brought en masse onto the campuses, and it was wildly successful. It achieved this success with a superb combination of psychological factors—relentless hustling, a primitive ideology suffused with mysticism and “indigenous knowledges,” and the barely concealed violent urges of quasi-communist and terroristic revolutionaries. All of this shielded from criticism and even the mildest of questioning.

    You knew something was terribly wrong with it.

    Anyone on a college campus subjected to the mediocrity of a DEI hustler knew there was something wrong with it.

    It was not noble. It was not idealistic. It was not the many wonderful things its proponents said. It was one thing to the public, and it was another altogether when enacted on the campuses. It was weird and alien and hateful at its core, but the public is rarely exposed to any of this. It was the classic Potemkin village offering, with a façade masking a brute, racialist substance.

    In other words, it was a con. In fact, it was the biggest Con Story of the 21st century, with America’s universities the biggest suckers imaginable. And the crowning achievement of Western civilization—the modern university—tottered under the assault of mediocrity, racialism, and pseudoscience.

    I suppose that folks duped by the big cons will eventually retreat in their embarrassment at having been fooled by one of the shadiest Con Stories ever deployed. Even now, DEI is in retreat. As it plays out in its final act, I assure you that it will dissipate in a flurry of new acronyms and new labels designed to hide its failure.

    Its proponents will roll out new slogans to replace the vapid “Diversity is our strength.” Already, “inclusive excellence” is supplanting DEI as this trusty acronym becomes freighted with failure. The Con Story will morph and adapt. Reluctantly. Buzzwords will change, new slogans will be coined, but the underlying ideology will remain the same as it always has. It must serve yeoman’s duty for the Big Con.

    That’s from Stanley K. Ridgley’s DEI Exposed: How the Biggest Con of the Century Almost Toppled Higher Education.

  • A bill came up in the senate to block men from women’s sports and every Democrat voted against it. The social justice hive mind is still controlling the Democrat party.
  • California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, however, has broke ranks on men playing women’s sports. Sort of. Kinda. “Notice that at no point does Newsom add, ‘And thus, I will be pushing to repeal the 2013 law that gave students the right to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities based on their self-identification and regardless of their birth gender.’ He feels that those born male participating in women’s sports is unfair, but not quite strongly enough to do anything about it.”
  • In California, a boy pretending to be a girl won the triple jump by eight feet.
  • Guaranteed Income scheme once again fails to improve lives of recipients. “Receiving guaranteed income had no impact on the labor supply of full-time workers, but part-time workers had a lower labor market participation by 13 percentage points.” And recipients smoked more. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • In 2024, the EU spent more money on Russian energy than in aid for Ukraine.
  • Ukraine hits a refinery complex 1,500km inside Russia.
  • George Friedman thinks Russia has already lost the war.

    The first and most important question is whether Russia has lost the war. Wars are fought with an intent formed by an imperative. A prudent leader has to take steps to avoid the worst possible outcome, and Putin, as a prudent leader, prepared for the possibility that NATO would choose to attack Russia. He expressed this fear publicly so the only question was how to block an attack if it occurred. He needed a buffer zone to significantly impede a possible assault.

    That buffer was Ukraine, and he on several occasions expressed regret that Ukraine had separated from Russia. The distance from the Ukraine border to Moscow, on highway M3, is only about 300 miles (480 kilometers). Russia’s nightmare was that Germany could surge its way to Moscow. Three hundred miles by a massive force staging a surprise attack is not a huge distance. He rationally needed Ukraine to widen the gap.

    I predicted years before the war that Russia would invade Ukraine to regain its buffers. That Russia wanted to take the whole of Ukraine is confirmed in its first forays into the country. The initial assault was a four-pronged attack, one thrust from the east, two from the north and one from the south via Crimea. The two northern prongs were directed at the center of Ukraine and its capital, Kyiv.

    Details of the failure of that plan snipped since I covered that as it was happening.

    It is clear that the Russians intended to take all of Ukraine. They made minor gains in the east, but their northern penetration failed, as did any attempts to turn westward. It is true that they have gained territory in Ukraine, but it is far from what their initial war plan was designed for. Now their argument is that they never wanted more territory in other parts of the country.

    To call this a Russian success is false, and to call a failed war plan a defeat is reasonable. The war was meant to gain a buffer against NATO, and in that, Moscow failed. But it was also intended to be a demonstration that Russia was still a great power. After three years, a major commitment and, by most reports, close to a million dead Russian soldiers, Russia has little more than 20 percent of Ukraine. It also failed to demonstrate the power of the Russian army. Therefore, except for its nuclear capabilities, it is not a military threat or a great power.

    The issue now is whether Russia, assuming it agrees to some kind of negotiated settlement, can launch another war. Here it’s important to note that while Putin is powerful, he is not an absolute ruler. He cannot govern Russia the way, say, Stalin did. Under Stalin, Moscow ruled Russia down to the smallest homes in the smallest villages. He ruled not only through military and law enforcement but also through the rank-and-file members of the Communist Party who drew benefits from their membership in return for vigilance. They reported misdeeds, real and imagined, to the internal police, which was controlled by the party, which was controlled by the Politburo, which was controlled by Stalin. Later iterations would be slightly less deadly, but the instruments of oppression were always there.

    The collapse of the Soviet Union meant the collapse of the Communist Party. The structure of terror no longer functioned.

    Putin’s goal was to resurrect Russia. But with the Communist Party gone, the state structure was also gone. Putin had to find a new base. He had only one source of power: the oligarchs. Between Mikhail Gorbachev and Putin, the party’s assets were sold off to private citizens on the basis of their relationship with the government. The agreement was simple: Putin and his subordinates distributed vast industries and other things of value to the new oligarchs, who pledged to support the regime with money and deference, as well as a network of political and economic relationships that gave them significant influence.

    Putin handled the politics — and apparently was well paid. The oligarchs became fabulously wealthy, and for most Russians life improved, as the new arrangement ended the terror and created employment. Disagreement was no longer a capital offense, and the media was comparatively independent and reliable. It was not long before the new private enterprises started entering the global market.

    Putin was in charge at first, but in short order power was transferred to the oligarchs who underwrote the regime. They depended on access to European markets for their revenue, and many lived outside of Russia and expected Putin to facilitate trade. But when Putin’s initial invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 failed, many of the most lucrative markets closed their doors to the oligarchs and Western investment cratered. Putin ordered the oligarchs to return to Russia, which many did. However, some of the oligarchs were not happy with their former patron and left Russia permanently, or until the political and economic environment would shift. That this has gone on for three years has created serious problems for them. They wanted the war over and a settlement reached long ago.

    Snip.

    Putin must end the war and hope for the best. The best way to end a failed war is to declare victory and go home. Putin is declaring victory by saying he got all he wanted. But only Americans believe that. The Russians know they lost. The question is not how Putin will suppress dissent. It is how he will deal with the devils he created, and how the country responds if he doesn’t. A reign of terror might help, but there is no mechanism to carry it out now, and later is too late.

    U.S. President Donald Trump knows the game that is playing out. The one who blinks loses. It won’t be Trump. He will take every bit of power and every cent he can from Putin’s weakness. Like a good hedge fund manager, one moment he says he is Putin’s friend, the next moment he will walk away from the deal. Then, after the borrower really starts sweating, he will come back. Trump holds the cards in this business. And he wants some of Putin’s economic and geopolitical power.

    Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: Mark Tapscott at Instapundit.)

  • How SpaceX’s Starship could become a tremendous military asset.

    What SpaceX is building is more than just a rocket. Starship is a strategic weapon, not as a one-off but as a fleet. A fully reusable heavy-lift system capable of hauling 200 tons per launch per rocket is not just an engineering marvel: it’s a military revolution.

    Why? Because a fleet of Starships could land an entire armored division anywhere on Earth in under an hour and keep it supplied in the field.

    Just as the speed of tanks revolutionized warfare between the World Wars, this development changes everything. Forget C-17s and cargo ships: you might as well use horses and wagons. A fleet of Starships is not just an incremental improvement in logistics: it’s a fundamental shift in the nature of warfare. The ability to almost instantaneously create and reinforce a whole combat theater anywhere on Earth will give the United States overwhelming power, unlike anything heretofore seen outside of science fiction.

    And let me stress: we’re not just talking about the initial deployment. The bigger deal is the resupply. It took six months in 1990-91 for the United States to get its forces in position to invade Kuwait. Maintaining them in the field required a constant stream of slow-moving cargo ships from U.S. ports halfway around the world. A decade later, and for 20 years thereafter, a similar supply chain ran through Karachi, Pakistan, up a rail line, then on truck convoys over the Khyber Pass. Since that was often impractical (there were these pesky Taliban guys about), the military frequently had to rely on the only available alternative, a grueling 36 hours on a C-17 (including layovers). All of this depended on deals with shady, unfriendly countries, subsidies (bribes), and endless risk of attacks on our personnel.

    What if you could ship everything you wanted anywhere in the world straight from Texas? Or Florida? Or anywhere else? In under an hour?

    Wars are often won by those who can move the fastest, supply the best, and sustain their forces longest. A conflict in Taiwan or the Baltics could see adversaries complete their objectives before the U.S. military can even begin meaningful counter-operations.

    Starship negates all these timelines. Instead of waiting days or weeks for military assets to arrive by conventional means, forces could be on the ground on the same day as an invasion. No need for prepositioned stockpiles, forward operating bases, or painfully slow sealift capabilities. Those days are over.

    In a Taiwan crisis, Starship could land American armor and mechanized infantry before the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) finishes crossing the Strait. It would change the strategic calculus entirely. Every U.S. war game predicting Taiwan’s fall under a rapid Chinese assault assumes conventional response times. Starship forces a complete rethink, for both sides. It will allow American forces to arrive in time to fight the decisive battle, not the delayed counter-offensive.

    I think the Starship assembly timeline is a bit optimistic, but point-to-point global logistics really is a game-changer. (Hat tip: Mark Tapscott at Instapundit.)

  • So what are Maryland Democrats pushing to win back ordinary Americans? Condoms for elementary school kids and repirations for slavery.
  • French theater invites illegal aliens in for for free event. Illegal aliens promptly take over theater and refuse to leave.
  • Behold the modern Democratic Party’s id, where they refuse to applaud a teenage brain cancer survivor for fear of setting aside their Trump Derangement Syndrome for even a second.
  • California is getting the energy policy it deserves, good and hard.

    Back when I served in the California State Assembly from 2004 to 2010, California ranked 7th or 8th in the nation for electricity costs. At the time, the Democratic majority in Sacramento was pushing bill after bill mandating greater reliance on renewable energy, assuring everyone that these policies would make us look like “geniuses” when the price of fossil fuels inevitably soared.

    I warned that these laws, regulations and subsidies would instead drive up electricity costs for Californians, making the grid less reliable and California’s economy less competitive.

    Now, two decades later, the results are in. In 2024, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that California had the second-highest electricity prices in the nation for the second year running, behind only Hawaii. The Golden State’s misguided energy policies have steadily increased the price of electricity as green energy mandates, grid instability and regulatory burdens have taken their toll. Meanwhile, states with more balanced energy policies — natural gas, coal and nuclear power — have fared far better.

    What’s worse, California’s natural advantage in AI will be lost to Texas and other low-cost energy states. California’s industrial electricity prices averaged 21.98 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2023 vs. 6.26 in Texas, a whopping 251% price premium that no electricity-hungry AI installation or server farm operator is going to pay.

    The core issue is simple: California’s policymakers prioritized renewable energy mandates over affordability and reliability. Over the years, they have forced utilities to integrate ever-growing amounts of wind and solar power while discouraging natural gas, nuclear and large-scale hydroelectric projects. These decisions ignored the reality that intermittent renewables require extensive grid upgrades, costly backup power sources and expensive storage solutions — all of which drive up costs for consumers and industry.

    California’s high electricity prices are not an accident; they are a direct consequence of these policies. The state’s cap-and-trade system, restrictive permitting laws and mandates like the Renewable Portfolio Standard (which requires utilities to generate 60% of their electricity from renewables by 2030) have all contributed to rising rates.

    At the same time, bureaucratic obstacles have made it nearly impossible to build new natural gas plants or modernize existing infrastructure. From 2014 to 2024, California approved or built only five natural gas plants, four of which replaced older facilities for a total output of up to 4 gigawatts. By comparison, in the prior 10 years, California commissioned dozens of plants totaling more than 20 gigawatts of nameplate capacity.

  • “Union Prez On Gov’t Payroll Was Banned From Federal Buildings For Sexual Misconduct, Sources Say. Witold Skwierczynski was paid by taxpayers for 34 years without working a single hour for the government.”
  • Clueless Veep pick Tim Walz says he’s willing to run for president. I believe the whole Republican Party encourages him to run…
  • Could all of Biden’s evil be undone by the fact that he didn’t sign any of his own laws? Seems unlikely, but it’s worth a shot… (Hat tip: Charlie Martin at Instapundit.)
  • Follow-up: Remember the guy who opened fire at a band competition before being tackled by four band parents? He died in the hospital.
  • “Honors student sues Connecticut school district for not teaching her to read and write. Meet Aleysha Ortiz, a 19-year-old who graduated with honors from Hartford Public High School in Connecticut. It would seem congratulations are in order … except she says she’s functionally illiterate.”
  • A scandal at the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board suggest that dirty dirt politics are afoot…
  • Yo dawg, Serbian parliament is lit.
  • Christi Craddick, Don Huffines Announce Candidacies for Texas Comptroller” in 2026. This is after existing Comptroller Glenn Hegar resigned to become Texas A&M System Chancellor.
  • Convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried is sharing a cellblock with Sean “Diddy” Combs. If either of them have any of their money left when (if) they get released, the release party is going to be off the hook…
  • The punitive judgement against Mark Steyn in Mann vs. Steyn has been reduced from $1 million to $5,000. (Hat tip: Evil Blogger Lady.)
  • Which country has the world’s top four bestselling whiskies, America or Scotland? Neither. It’s India.
  • How a Greek fascist youth organization worked with the allies against the Nazis. Bonus: Their primary symbol is now used by lesbian feminists…
  • “FBI Investigation Shows Epstein List Shredded Itself.”
  • “Europe Pledges To Send Ukraine Their Entire Military Might Of 3 Panzer Tanks And A Nazi Motorcycle With A Sidecar.”
  • That is one happy, grateful dog.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’m between jobs again. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    Another Day, Another Democratic Activist Scam Artist

    Thursday, March 6th, 2025

    As Democratic activists never tire of reminding us while they lose election after election, not only are they smarter and better education that those inbred Trump-voting freaks of JesusLand, they’re simply better people than those greedy, money-grubbing peasants they look down on. Yet somehow, despite those giant piles of moral superiority, time and time again it turns out that they’re the ones committing fraud.

    The Democrat-backing multimillionaire founder of a “climate-friendly banking” startup — whose celebrity investors included Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom and Drake — was arrested by federal authorities this week for allegedly conspiring to defraud investors.

    Joseph Neal Sanberg, a 45-year-old Orange County, Calif. resident who billed himself as an “anti-poverty advocate,” was taken into custody on Monday after he was alleged to have cheated two investor funds out of $145 million, according to federal prosecutors.

    Sanberg’s arrest came after his alleged co-conspirator, Ibrahim Ameen AlHusseini, 51, of Venice, pleaded guilty to wire fraud after copping to receiving around $12.3 million in payments from the fraudulent scheme, prosecutors said.

    Sanberg co-founded Aspiration, a financial services company promoting sustainable and ethical banking practices. Among the backers of Aspiration are Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Cindy Crawford, the rapper Drake and Robert Downey Jr.

    Man, Drake is having a bad year, first being dissed at the SuperBowl halftime show, and now getting defrauded of what is likely a fairly tidy sum of money.

    According to the Open Secrets website, Sanberg has contributed thousands of dollars to various Democrat-aligned causes over the years.

    Sanberg has given money to candidates such as former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and others.

    Sanberg also founded CalEITC4Me, a program aimed at helping low-income families in California claim earned income tax credits.

    Somebody should audit that program as well…

    Prior to these legal issues, Sanberg was active in political and social advocacy, particularly focusing on anti-poverty initiatives and efforts to raise the minimum wage in California to $18 an hour.

    He had also been mentioned as a potential political candidate, considering runs for offices such as the US Senate and even the presidency, though he did not formally enter these races.

    AlHusseini has also been a prolific donor to Democrat causes — contributing money to various candidates such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as Moveon.org, End Citizens United and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

    An attorney for AlHusseini declined to comment. The Post was unable to reach a representative for Sanberg.

    The criminal case against Sanberg centers on the same $145 million transaction that led to the October arrest of AlHusseini.

    According to prosecutors, investors agreed to lend Sanberg money based on collateral in the form of Aspiration shares.

    AlHusseini had committed to purchasing those shares if Sanberg defaulted. However, Sanberg never repaid the loan and AlHusseini declined to buy the shares as promised, it was alleged.

    Classic confidence scam behavior. “Sure, I’ll bail you out of things go south!”

    In his plea agreement, AlHusseini admitted the financial statements were falsified and claimed Sanberg had orchestrated the scheme.

    “At Sanberg’s direction, defendant made untrue statements,” prosecutors stated in the filing.

    “Defendant and Sanberg knew that the falsified statements inflated the value of the assets in defendant’s accounts by tens of millions of dollars.”

    Authorities allege AlHusseini received $12 million for backing the loan, with portions of that sum wired to Saudi Arabia, according to the FBI’s complaint.

    Nothing says “progressive values” quite like wiring money to Saudi Arabia.

    Revelations about the questionable transactions emerged during a civil lawsuit in which lenders sued both Sanberg and AlHusseini in New York state court.

    The court ultimately ruled against them, issuing a $78 million judgment against AlHusseini and a $209 million judgment against Sanberg.

    AlHusseini was arrested at an airport on Oct. 7 and held in custody as a flight risk after allegedly transferring $300 million to Saudi Arabia to avoid the judgment.

    He was later released on bail in December, secured by prominent liberal figures such as CodePink founder Jodie Evans.

    New York, California, and Social Justice all the way down.

    On Jan. 10, a New York judge found AlHusseini in contempt for spending money on luxury items and political donations instead of settling his debt.

    The Daily Wire reported that charges against AlHusseini were dismissed on January 21.

    His attorney, John Lambert, stated that AlHusseini’s “record has been dismissed pursuant to court order and all records related thereto have been destroyed.”

    However, prosecutor McNally clarified that the dismissal was part of a broader cooperation agreement, stating, “The complaint against AlHusseini was dismissed to facilitate his cooperation in the prosecution of others, including Sanberg.”

    There’s just no honor among left wing scam artists.

    He added that AlHusseini had “pleaded guilty today to an information charging him with wire fraud for falsifying documents and information to assist Sanberg.”

    Documents unsealed Monday indicate that AlHusseini was under FBI supervision as of Feb. 25.

    He was also authorized by the government to contact Aspiration executives, including Sanberg and board chair Nate Redmond, according to federal prosecutors.

    “Our prosecutors and law enforcement partners have worked methodically to secure a guilty plea from one of the main offenders in this case and have now charged another member of the conspiracy,” Acting United States Attorney Joseph McNally said.

    “We will continue to ensure that markets and businesses receive an honest and level playing field in which to operate.”

    While the latest charges against Sanberg revolve around the $145 million loan, his cooperation suggests potential further legal actions.

    His financial services company, Aspiration, has drawn scrutiny for its business practices, with some comparing it to the now-collapsed FTX.

    Aspiration marketed “carbon credits” to corporations, offering a way to offset emissions. However, skepticism has emerged over the legitimacy of such transactions, as hype and ideological appeal may have influenced customers’ decisions.

    So it was a scam within a scam. Since DiCaprio is actually involved, I’d be remiss in not using the meme.

    Like FTX, Aspiration spent heavily on advertising, including a sponsorship deal with the LA Clippers.

    At the height of progressive enthusiasm in 2021, the company aimed to go public at a $2 billion valuation. There are indications it may have manipulated financial figures to support that valuation.

    A Bloomberg investigation in July found evidence that Sanberg had attempted to inflate the company’s worth through questionable financial maneuvers.

    Millions in reported income came from an LLC once registered to Sanberg, according to the report.

    Another deal suggested a nonprofit planned to pay Aspiration ten times its annual revenue, while a separate transaction involved a Colombian model making monthly payments of $50,000 to Aspiration, only to receive an identical sum from a Sanberg-affiliated entity.

    Bloomberg also reported that Aspiration’s auditor severed ties with the company.

    Aspiration’s attempt to go public through a SPAC collapsed in 2023, but not before raising $300 million from investors, including former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

    Alas, I’m at a loss to figure a logical way to wedge a “developers!” meme in here.

    In January, Bloomberg reported that the Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission were probing whether Aspiration misled customers about the validity of its carbon offsets.

    ProPublica previously revealed that the company exaggerated its customer base, claiming “5 million passionate members” when only 500,000 accounts were active.

    Aspiration also allegedly charged customers a dollar per tree planted to combat climate change, despite the cost being just a few cents.

    Andrei Cherny, Sanberg’s co-founder who was ousted from Aspiration in 2021, has remained silent.

    Cherny, a former advisor to Bill Clinton and Al Gore, later pursued political office. In December, he sued Aspiration for unpaid compensation but withdrew the lawsuit weeks later.

    All we need is a Biden to fill out a Big Name Democratic Connections bingo.

    Investing with someone based solely on sharing political leanings with them, without doing due diligence, is always a bad idea. Especially if the deal seems too good to be true and that there’s no way for you to lose.

    And investing with someone spouting left-wing talking points in addition to scammy businessspeak is just asking to have your money taken…

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

    LinkSwarm for February 28, 2025

    Friday, February 28th, 2025

    Pinkslipapalooza in BureaucratLand, more DOGE savings, the deportation machine gets cranked up, Apple invests in America. Plus some depths of human depravity.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “Federal Judge Rules In Favor Of Trump Government Layoffs.” “U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who was appointed by Barack Obama, ruled that the labor unions which filed the lawsuit against the government layoffs had to take their case before the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) rather than a federal court.”
  • USAID Funneled $122 Million to Charities Tied to Designated Terrorists.”

    The now-shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development has funneled at least $122 million in approved grants to terror-tied aid charities, including an evangelical Christian group that in 2014 facilitated a $125,000 sub-grant to a Sudanese terrorist organization linked to al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden.

    USAID has long been complicit in funding humanitarian aid groups associated with designated terrorists, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. This is just one egregious example of the waste, fraud, and abuse within USAID that the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency are working to uncover.

    “There’s a fox loose in the henhouse of our foreign aid system—a system intended to uplift lives abroad that instead has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to radical and terrorist-linked organizations,” Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum, said in his testimony before House Oversight’s DOGE Subcommittee on Wednesday.

    The Middle East Forum published these findings in a years-long study earlier this month, as DOGE head Elon Musk started targeting USAID and its wasteful, often ideologically-driven spending.

    One organization, World Vision, was given $200,000 in taxpayer funding to direct toward the Islamic Relief Agency a decade ago. Of those funds, a $125,000 sub-grant was approved by the Obama administration. A whistleblower came forward to reveal the improper relationship between the two groups.

    The evangelical non-governmental organization claimed in 2018 it had no knowledge of the al-Qaeda affiliate’s terrorism ties. In 2010, two members of Islamic Relief’s U.S. branch pleaded guilty to money-laundering, theft of public funds, conspiracy, and other charges. Six years earlier, the Treasury Department designated Islamic Relief as a terror-financing organization.

    Despite the scandal, World Vision obtained $200 million in approved grants from USAID last year. It has received an estimated $2 billion since 2008.

    Additionally, Helping Hand for Relief and Development received a $78,000 USAID grant in 2023 even after USAID’s inspector general launched an investigation into a prior grant. The group held ties to Pakistan’s Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, a designated terrorist organization that played a role in the 2008 Mumbai massacre.

    Helping Hand is partnered with the Unlimited Friends Association, a charity affiliated with Hamas and known for promoting violent antisemitism.

    Another Hamas-tied group, Bayader Association for Environment and Development, received its last USAID grant on October 1, 2023, just before the October 7 terror attack on Israel. Bayader previously featured senior Hamas officials, including the son of the late Ismail Haniyeh, who orchestrated the October 7 massacre.

    Other examples of aid groups involved in funding terrorists, sometimes knowingly, include the American Near East Refugee Agency, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, and Tides Foundation.

    Is there no evil in the world George Soros doesn’t have his fingerprints on?

  • Surprise! Trump’s policies are hugely popular…even among Democrats.
    • 81% of Americans, including 70% of Democrats and 80% of Independents, support deporting illegal aliens who have committed crimes.
    • 76% of Americans support a “full-scale effort” to eliminate government fraud and waste.
    • 76% of Americans want to close the border and add extra security.
    • 69% of Americans, including half of all Democrats, want to ban men from women’s sports – and a similar number want the government to declare that there are only two sexes.

    And yet the Left has spent the last month railing against ICE arrests and DOGE audits while stumping for the right to castrate kids and let boys in girls’ restrooms.

    Some more key findings:

    • 70% of Americans said government should hire people “strictly on the basis of merit and objective evaluations.”
    • 79% of Americans said the government should make sure that categories “like race, gender, and religion” are not used to discriminate against applicants.
    • 66% of Americans, including more than a third of Democrats, think Democrats shouldn’t oppose everything Trump is doing out of the gate and help Trump eliminate government waste.
    • 58% of Americans say Trump is doing a better job than Biden.
  • How republicans have been so successful with getting Trump’s cabinet picks confirmed.

    Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told Morning Wire that the Senate GOP “has not let up the pressure at all” on Democrats as Republicans ram President Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments through their confirmations.

    Senate Republicans, with their 53-47 majority, have cleared nearly all of the president’s most controversial picks after Kash Patel was confirmed to be the next FBI director in a 51-49 vote on Thursday. Mullin, who has gone to bat for each of Trump’s cabinet picks, told Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley that the confirmation process had gone smoothly thanks to Republican leadership that is laser-focused on supporting Trump’s agenda.

    “What you’ve seen is a new leader in the Senate with Leader [John] Thune. He is just 100 percent grinding the Democrats down from the get-go,” Mullin told Morning Wire.

    “And so once the president got confirmed and sworn into office on the 20th, what we did is we immediately started the clock on these nominees, and [we] haven’t stopped,” he added.

    The Republican senator from Oklahoma explained that the party didn’t wait for Trump to be sworn in on January 20 to push his nominees through the confirmation process. Since the new Republican-controlled Senate began on January 3, the GOP immediately went to work putting pressure on Democrats to speed up confirmations.

    Mullin said that Thune “has literally kept that clock running 24/7, seven days a week” on cabinet confirmations.

    After a cabinet nominee gets reported out of committee, “there’s a 24-hour soak,” followed by a 30-hour debate, he explained, adding, “On directors, like Kash Patel, when you invoke cloture on them, you have a two-hour debate. So while you still have a 24-hour soak, you only have two hours of debate on that person. So you can move those faster.”

    “Even when we’re not here, the Democrats will negotiate and say, ‘If you don’t make us stay over on the weekend, we’ll allow the clocks to run consecutively, even though we’re not here.’ So we’ll go ahead and invoke cloture on the next person,” Mullin told Morning Wire. “So when we get back here on Monday, we can confirm two people at once. That’s why we’re so far ahead — because Leader Thune has not let up the pressure at all, not one bit on the Democrats.”

    Sounds like Thune is a vast improvement over Cocaine Mitch…

  • “DOGE and EPA Work to Reclaim $67M in ‘Environmental Justice’ Grants.”

    The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working with the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cancel over $67 million in grants that had been issued by the Biden Administration.

    According to Fox News, the EPA is focusing on $77.1 million in spending that was earmarked by the Biden-era EPA for “environmental justice” grants, distributed to 20 different recipients. Although approximately $10 million has already been spent and is irretrievable, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency was able to successfully cancel $67.4 million in planned funding.

    “We will make sure every penny spent by EPA goes towards protecting human health and the environment, and Powering the Great American Comeback,” said Zeldin. “I am proud to partner with DOGE to restore fiscal responsibility and accountability in our government.”

    In response, the official X account for DOGE lauded the EPA cuts as “good work.”

    Among the canceled grants was a $4.2 million grant to San Diego State University Foundation, which planned to use the money to bring “environmental justice” to “tribal, indigenous, and Pacific Island communities.”

    Under Zeldin, the EPA has revealed that the previous administration’s EPA was freely giving at least $20 billion in taxpayer dollars, with the spending being determined solely by eight agency entities “at their discretion.” Among this spending was a $2 billion grant sent to Power Forward Communities, a far-left non-profit with ties to failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

    We’re very fortunate that those on the left were too greedy and incompetent to keep rigging elections…

  • Tiffany Henyard, the crooked, free-spending mayor of Dolton, Illinois, got slaughtered in a Democratic primary this week. “[Jason] House won the primary with 3,896 votes (87.91%), compared to Henyard’s 536 votes (12.09%).”
  • “Whistleblower: There’s a Trans Cult Inside the NSA.”

    Christopher Rufo: Tell me about this culture and how it’s been spreading through the NSA. And talk to me about what it was like, even a year ago or a few months ago, before Trump reentered the White House.

    NSA Whistleblower: About ten years ago, they started doing the “employee resource groups”: African-American, veterans, Pride. It was just a meeting here and there, almost like a potluck—culture, food, a speech. Then it started to get more and more. Instead of just one day a month, it was one week a month, or the whole month. You could be hired as a mathematician, a staff officer, or system engineer, but you would spend your time going to these events and having meetings all day about it. They got themselves into position to help craft policy and started pushing the idea that if you want to get promoted, you have to participate in these events.

    And then everything became Pride. You would go to a training, and it would be about “privilege” and “how to be a better ally.” A lady would give classes on how to talk “gender-neutral” to people. You had analysts that didn’t want to do the reporting they were supposed to be doing because they were going to have to report on somebody’s “dead name.” They were having this crisis of conscience about reporting the adversary’s actual name because they thought it was their “dead name,” and they didn’t want to disrespect the person. It was like a cult that was hellbent on pushing gender ideology.

    Rufo: It seems like this is a clique of very activist male-to-female transgender agents. Tell me about this community.

    Whistleblower: There is a very small number of them, but they wield an enormous amount of power. And outside of the sick stuff, you also see a prevalent Marxist philosophy going on with these people in their chat rooms. They hate capitalism. They hate Christians. They’re always espousing socialist and Marxist beliefs.

    I know several people at the agency brought that up, like, “Hey, we’re here to fight for the U.S.A. and go after the adversaries.” And they just got hammered. They would just start coming out with “transphobe” and “homophobe” right away or calling you a “racist.” And that’s why a lot of folks are still hesitant to say anything, because you still have people at these agencies in those key spots. It infected everything.

    If this is true, intelligence head Tulsi Gabbard needs to purge the Puzzle Palace of all transculters and commies with a pink slip machine gun. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ. )

  • Bill Clinton advisors saying Democrats are screwed is nothing new, but this time it’s not James Carville.

    “It’s very hard to be optimistic about the Democrats,” the advisor to President Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign, Douglas Schoen, tells The New York Sun. The party is “totally off base.” Lacking a message, strategy, or leader, the pollster says President Trump may defy expectations in next year’s midterms.

    In a telephone interview, Mr. Schoen likened Mr. Trump to the boxing legend, Mohammed Ali, at his peak. He’s “moving so quickly, he has the Democrats totally unnerved,” he said. “They can’t hit him. They can’t find him. He’s way ahead of them.”

    Mr. Schoen, “exaggerating” for illustration, said the Ukraine War “could be settled and resolved before the Democrats develop a coherent position.” They’re “MIA,” with “no interesting voice.” He suggests governors take the lead, rather than Senator Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

    “There is nobody making policy,” Mr. Schoen said. “There is nobody with an overarching strategy.” That weakness is reflected in his Schoen Cooperman Research surveys. It “sort of tells you how off base the Democrats are” that their favorability is 31 percent versus Mr. Trump’s 53 percent.

    “The Democrats spent $2 billion on Kamala Harris,” Mr. Schoen said, “and her percentage was lower than where she started. It’s an inescapable conclusion that $2 billion bought Democrats nothing at all.” Mr. Trump dodged every uppercut, jab, and haymaker.

    Mr. Schoen said that Mr. Trump “gets the public mood” that “people are frustrated with government and angry about immigration.” The president also gets that Americans “want plain speaking and somebody outside the system.”

    Democrats, in Mr. Schoen’s view, aren’t counterpunching against these strengths. He sees them as “off-putting and scolding,” whereas on the other side, “people love” Mr. Trump. “His rallies and his approach were entertaining — and, in their own way, positive.”

    Mr. Schoen cites as another misfire the way Democrats went after Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees on “personal stuff rather than policy.” He adds: “It wasn’t, ‘We disagree with you on this,’ etc. It was all, ‘You had an affair, you were drunk, etc.’”

    In a flip from Mr. Schoen’s time in the Clinton White House, voters now judge Democrats, not Republicans, as focusing too much on “social issues” and personal lives. “Abortion,” Mr. Schoen said, “may be good in a midterm. It’s not going to win a presidential election.”

    Even modest gains next year could give Democrats control of one or both chambers of Congress, but Mr. Schoen has doubts. “I worry about 2026,” he said, “because I don’t see a message, a strategy at all — and the Republicans have a message and a strategy.”

  • “Apocalyptic environmentalism by Maryland’s far-left Democratic leadership in Annapolis has plunged the state into a severe energy crisis, with power bills doubling in some cases and 20% of households in Central Maryland now behind on payments.”
  • Soros DAs seem to love illegal alien criminals a whole lot more than they hate “gun violence.” “Two men arrested in a Feb. 5 gun and drug raid at a New York City auto repair shop were later released on reduced charges that may not lead to prosecution, according to police and court records – despite being suspected members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, which has been spreading violence across the country. Jose Tamaronis-Caldera, 27, and Richard Garcia, 33, were taken into custody after authorities seized a Glock handgun, two imitation pistols, and a significant amount of drugs.”
  • Obama IRS Targeted Conservatives, Biden IRS Leaked Taxpayer Data.” Of course they did.

    A new disclosure by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to the House Judiciary Committee reveals that, under the Biden administration, the IRS leaked the taxpayer information of more than 405,000 Americans–including President Trump.

    Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, began an inquiry into the leaks last year and with this latest disclosure has found that the scope of the leak was much larger than the Biden administration initially led the public to believe.

    The scandal began in late 2019 when an IRS contract worker named Charles (Chaz) Littlejohn, illegally accessed and stole tax returns and return information for President Trump and other wealthy Americans and then leaked that information to news outlets.

    Littlejohn pled guilty to the unauthorized disclosure in Oct 2023 and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

    In April 2024, the IRS issued letters of notification to victims whose data had been leaked but the notifications prompted deeper questions into how many people’s data may have actually been disclosed.

    One month later, an IRS spokesman stated that “more than 70,000” taxpayers had been affected by the leak.

  • Turns out that when you put warfighters in charge of the Pentagon rather than social justice weasels, recruiting problems disappear.

    After years of struggling recruitment numbers — in 2022, the Army faced a shortfall of 15,000 recruits — the service celebrated record-breaking enlistment in December 2024 with nearly 5,877 recruits joining up.

    “@USArmy: @USAREC had their most productive December in 15 years by enlisting 346 Soldiers daily into the World’s greatest #USArmy!” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote in a post on X.

    A Navy spokesperson tells National Review the service has contracted 4,000 more sailors and shipped 5,000 more sailors to boot camp at this point in the fiscal year, which began in October, than the year prior. (Navy officials said last month it will take three years of meeting recruiting goals to recover from the Navy’s current 20,000 operational gaps at sea.)

    Hegseth and Senator Tom Cotton praised the “Trump effect” for the rise in recruiting numbers, though the trend does pre-date Trump’s election.

    “Army’s recruiting started getting better much earlier. We really started seeing the numbers, the monthly numbers, go up in February of 2024,” former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told Fox News. “We were seeing sort of in the high 5000 contracts per month, and that accelerated, you know, into the spring all the way into August, when the Army really hit a peak.”

    Still, the record-setting December is nothing to sneeze at, and regardless of who would go on to win the 2024 election, the boost began as Biden prepared to exit the White House.

    Veterans tell National Review they feel confident the recruitment wave is here to stay, with prospective service members feeling more confident in our current commander in chief.

  • Hegseth is also purging the tranny lunacy from the ranks.

    The Department of Defense is giving the military branches 30 days to identify service members who identify as transgender in order to remove them from the armed forces.

    Pentagon senior leadership were notified in a Wednesday memo that they must begin setting up mechanisms for finding troops with gender dysphoria by March 26th to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order barring transgender-identifying people from the military.

    “The medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service,” defense undersecretary for personnel Darin Selnick said in the memo…

    The Department of Defense recognizes the two sexes, male and female, and will only allow service members to be subject to standards based on their biological sex. Pronoun usage and access to facilities will be determined by biological sex, ensuring that males will not be allowed into female spaces for sleeping, changing, or bathing, the memo clarifies.

    Were it not for social justice madness, these essential truths wouldn’t even need to be explicated…

  • “Trump tops 50,000 migrant removals including fugitives who evaded justice for 20 years.”

    When immigration agents were first ordered to deport Ivan Oramas and Santos Maradiaga-Villalta, President George W. Bush was in the White House and the iPhone was a distant dream.

    That was over two decades ago—yet both men were arrested this week, according to federal data reviewed by DailyMail.com.

    They were among over 50,000 illegal immigrants removed so far, a Department of Homeland Security official revealed to DailyMail.com.

    News of their arrest was circulated Thursday in an internal immigration memo noting recent enforcement actions made by President Donald Trump’s administration.

    Oramas, 61, is a citizen of Cuba with a rap sheet including convictions for sexual battery and aggravated assault.

    His sexual battery case caused serious injury, according to his charges in the file.

    ICE Houston nabbed Oramas this week, enforcing a deportation order first handed down in October 2003—21 years overdue.

    Maradiaga-Villalta, a 40-year-old alien from Honduras, has convictions for smuggling aliens into the U.S. He was arrested recently by ICE in Phoenix. His first deportation order dates back to January 2006, a 19-year lapse in action.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Democratic Policies At Work: ‘Almost Half’ Of Seattle’s Homeless Population Is Not From Seattle.”

    A new study from the Discovery Institute’s Fix Homelessness reveals the devastating consequences of Seattle’s failed policies, which have not only failed to address homelessness but have actively worsened the crisis, according to 770 KTTH.

    Driven by progressive ideology rather than practical solutions, city leaders have fostered a system that attracts homeless individuals from outside the region while keeping them trapped in cycles of addiction, crime, and dependency.

    Rather than tackling the root causes, these policies have invited more homelessness, turning the issue into a manufactured disaster rather than a problem to be solved.

    The study reveals that nearly half of the city’s homeless population became homeless outside of Seattle or King County, drawn in by the city’s permissive policies—free tents, open-air drug use, and a refusal to enforce encampment laws. An overwhelming 86.6% were born elsewhere, and 80.2% didn’t even attend high school in the area.

    As in Austin, homeless programs in Seattle are not designed to solve the homeless problem, they’re designed to provide conduits of graft to the far left.

  • First drone intercepted with a laser in Russo-Ukrainian War.
  • Texas Joins Coalition Lawsuit Against New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act. The New York law seeks to penalize energy producers for emissions dating back to 2000.”

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with a coalition of 22 states and several industry groups, has initiated legal action against New York over its Climate Change Superfund Act.

    “New York’s law is nothing more than an unconstitutional shakedown of vital American energy industries that form the bedrock of our national economic independence,” said Paxton.

    The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the act, which seeks to impose significant financial burdens on energy producers for past greenhouse gas emissions.

    New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, signed into law in December 2024, aims to collect approximately $75 billion over the next 25 years from oil and gas companies to fund “climate change adaptation” and infrastructure projects within the state. It retroactively holds energy producers accountable for emissions dating back to 2000, regardless of whether the companies operate within New York.

    New York is quite ambitiously stupid to cram two different unconstitutional provisions into a single law, adding a lack of jurisdiction cherry on top of an ex post facto sundae…

  • Transsexual madness is alive and well in the Democratic Party. “Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers introduces budget recommendation that replaces ‘mother’ with ‘inseminated person.'”
  • Jeff Bezos made liberal heads explode with an editorial shift at the Waswhington Post.

    Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is overhauling the paper’s opinion section and shifting its editorial stance towards defending personal freedom and free markets.

    Bezos emailed Washington Post employees Wednesday morning to inform them of the dramatic change and told them contrary opinions could be found elsewhere.

    “I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages,” Bezos wrote. “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars can be left to be published by others,” Bezos added.

    “There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.”

    Bezos’s announcement, which he posted on X after emailing it to Post staffers, also revealed that opinion editor David Shipley opted against staying on in the role given the section’s new direction.

    I think Bezos has figured out that WaPo has a bad infestation of social justice, and the cheapest way to get rid of it is to publically announce policy changes that encourage the SJW termite to quit…

  • Apple to invest $500 billion in America.

    The latest onshoring trend, spurred by President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports, has led to a major announcement from Apple. The company has embraced “Make America Great Again” with plans to hire 20,000 US workers to manufacture high-tech AI servers in the Heartland and invest hundreds of billions of dollars in new factories.

    Bloomberg reports Apple plans to unleash a tsunami of investments in the US, upwards of $500 billion over the next four years, including a new AI server manufacturing plant in Houston, Texas, and a supplier academy in Michigan.

    This disclosure comes just days after President Trump announced that Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to relocate manufacturing operations from Mexico to the US.

    He’s investing hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump said after his meeting with Cook at the end of last week, adding that the executive is ramping up US investments because he wants to avoid tariffs.

    Earlier this month, Trump imposed a 10% US levy on Chinese imports, where Apple manufactures most of its iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other products. In a tit-for-tat effort, Beijing announced retaliatory tariffs on US goods shortly after.

    Apple’s $500 billion investment and promise to add 20,000 new US jobs over Trump’s second term is more evidence that corporate America is more willing to participate in onshoring efforts this time.

    I live less than a mile away from Apple’s Austin campus, so it would be nice if they could open some technical writer recs there…

  • On the other hand, somebody on Apple’s programming team needs firing for their shenanigans.
  • Connecticut puts a cannibal back on the streets.

    A man accused of cannibalism and murder has been granted conditional release, according to the Connecticut Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB).

    The board granted Tyree Smith’s release after a careful review of his clinical progress, officials said.

    He’s currently at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. Smith is accused of hacking a man to death with an axe in Bridgeport and eating part of the victim’s brain and an eyeball….Smith stood trial for the murder of Angel Gonzalez with an axe and consumed parts of the victim’s brain and eyeball in 2011. He was found not guilty because of insanity in 2013 and ordered confined to Whiting Forensic Hospital for 60 years.

    I apologize if you find this story…

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    (⌐■_■)

    unappetizing.

  • “East Texas Teacher Charged With Child Porn and Bestiality.”

    An East Texas teacher and her boyfriend have been arrested on child pornography charges.

    Authorities allege the couple had child sexual abuse images and video of her performing a sexual act on a male dog on their phones.

    Hillary Danielle Williams, 33, was arrested Saturday in Lufkin and charged with bestiality and possession with intent to promote child pornography.

    Her partner, 37-year-old Michael Scott McCary, was charged with possession of child pornography.

    Texas public schools seem to have let some real filthy degenerates teach kids…

  • “New Caney ISD Teacher, Coach Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison for Sex With Student. Samantha Cummings had sex with a 17-year-old female student at New Caney High School.”
  • Liberals are staging a boycott today in a vain attempt to prove they matter, so now would be a good day to buy something from Amazon or Walmart. In fact, today I went to Walmart for the first time in, I don’t know, probably over a year…
  • What happens when a Detroit water main breaks during a deep freeze? This.
  • The difficulty of restoring Se7en.
  • A drag race between a Koenigsegg Jesko and a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport. Just in case you were wondering which multi-million dollar hypercar you should buy…
  • Golfer 1, Gator 0.
  • Federal Judge Declares Constitution Unconstitutional.”
  • “Congressional Gridlock After DOGE Fires Only Government Employee With Key To Capitol.”
  • “Trump Claimed, Without Evidence, That 2+2 Makes 4. Not So Fast, Experts Say.”
  • Gobble, gobble/Gobble, gobble/We accept you!/One of us!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’m between jobs again. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    Houston Judge Bonds Out Accused Cop Killer

    Thursday, February 27th, 2025

    I’ll take “things that never used to happen for $800,” Alex.

    A capital murder suspect charged in the killing of a Harris County sheriff’s deputy was released on bond Tuesday even though prosecutors had requested that he be held without bond last year.

    According to records from the Harris County District Clerk’s Office, Judge Hilary Unger of the 248th District Criminal Court set bonds for Dremone Eugene Francis, age 27, at $500,000 for Capital Murder and $500,000 for Tampering with Evidence.

    I know you’ll be shocked to learn that Unger is a Democrat.

    Francis is one of two suspects in the murder of Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Fernando Esqueda that took place in July 2024. Esqueda and several other officers responded to an incident at a pizzeria where suspect Ronnie Palmer was reportedly angered that his food did not look like its advertisement and had allegedly pistol-whipped an employee before fleeing.

    Police tracked Palmer using Flock cameras, but as Esqueda sat in an unmarked vehicle observing Palmer and another suspect, he was ambushed and killed. Investigators found 41 spent casings at the scene. Both Palmer and Frances were charged with Capital Murder.

    Palmer is being held without bond.

    Records indicate Francis had been given “unsatisfactory termination of probation” in 2022 for charges related to the manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance. Unsatisfactory terminations have at times been awarded to suspects in Harris County even if they have not complied with the terms of their probation.

    So not only was the accused cop-killer walking around as free as a bird, he had done so despite not meeting the terms of his parole. He was out there drinking or drugging or whatever, the Harris County criminal system just went “Nah, it’ll be fine.”

    The Harris County Deputies Organization lambasted Unger in a social media statement and said, “We are outraged that Dremone Francis, a man charged with Capital Murder in the death of Deputy Fernando Esqueda, has been given bond.”

    “He has a criminal history of breaking parole conditions and is free.”

    Rafael LeMaitre, a spokesperson for new Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare and formerly employed by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, blamed former District Attorney Kim Ogg. He said that prosecutors had failed to follow through on a request for no bond with a hearing, “so the court could not lawfully hold him at no bond.”

    Teare, of course, is a full-blown Soros-backed radical leftist DA.

    Ogg told The Texan that her office always filed motions asking for a hearing but that it was up to the judge to set the hearing and a trial.

    Harris County’s bail bond practices were featured in a recent Texas Senate committee hearing on bail reform measures introduced by Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston).

    Huffman cited research indicating that since 2021 there had been 162 homicide cases filed in the county for which the defendant was out on bond at the time of the murder.

    So 162 people are dead because Harris County’s SJW-infected court system feels more sympathy for criminals that check the right “diversity” boxes than it does law-abiding citizens or policemen.

    Back in The Bad Old Times, accused cop killers rarely even made it to court to get bonded out, just about all coming down with terminal cases of He Reached For A Gun. (In Homicide, David Simon talks about a police officer being ostracized by fellow cops for letting a cop-killer surrender.) In the Not Quite So Bad Times before social justice, a normal judge would never even think about bonding out an accused cop killer absent some pretty extreme circumstances.

    Then again, up until the last decade or so, “Defund the Police” would have been as an insane idea outside the fever marches of the far left. But the social justice fever marches now control the Democratic Party (thanks to George Soros and Barack Obama), so a Harris County judge feels no compunction about letting an accused cop killer bond out.

    The Glorious Purge At MSNBC

    Wednesday, February 26th, 2025

    Among the many, many delights that Trump47 has heaped on that giant pile of Winning™ is the rapid collapse of the Trump Derangement Syndrome MSM. A whole lot of outlets that insisted their radical, social justice-infected TDS blatherings were on “the right side of history” now find that they’re on the wrong side of voters, profit/loss statements and their billionaire owners’ willingness to lose money year after year on their lefty virtue signaling.

    And no MSM outlet got further out over their skis than MSNBC, who are pink slipping members of “The Resistance” faster than P Diddy’s associates can plead the Fifth.

    First came the Joy Reid firing.

    MSNBC liberal mainstay Joy Reid’s show has been canceled as part of a major overhaul by the network’s new president Rebecca Kutler, according to a report.

    The 7 p.m. program hosted by ardent Trump critic Reid, 56, will be replaced by a new panel show featuring co-hosts Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, and Symone Sanders Townsend, the New York Times reported, citing insiders.

    Snip.

    In December, Nielsen Media Research revealed that Reid had lost almost half her viewers since the election of Donald Trump, with MSNBC seeing a whopping 53% drop in primetime viewership following the Nov. 5 result before rebounding somewhat in the four weeks following the presidential inauguration.

    Her ouster is an attempt to make the network more appealing to conservatives.

    The firing of Joy Reid and the cancellation of her far left MSNBC show may have been in the works for over a year in anticipation of the massive shakeup now rattling through the flailing cable news network.

    During contract negotiations last year, NBCUniversal executives had only signed Ms. Reid, a liberal firebrand known for her inflammatory rhetoric about MAGA conservatives, to a one-year extension, according to a report from Status News, an independent newsletter helmed by former CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy, who wrote that such short-term deals are a stopgap measure to “buy time.” Most talent contracts in network news run three to five years.

    “[H]er fate had been all but sealed long ago,” Mr. Darcy writes. “Last year, when her expiring contract was renegotiated, MSNBC brass only signed her to a one-year extension, I’m told—a clear sign that network executives were keeping their options open rather than making a long-term commitment.”

    Ms. Reid has recently seen a decline in her show’s ratings, with only 973,000 total viewers in February, down 28 percent from the same month in 2024. But her decline generally tracks that of MSNBC’s other evening programs.

    However, compared to her MSNBC co-stars, Ms. Reid has had a high number of controversial moments in recent years. After the presidential election in November, she declared that Black women had lost interest in “saving America” after news broke that White female voters turned out in high numbers to elect Mr. Trump. Just last month, she compared Mr. Trump’s policies and efforts to deport illegal immigrants akin to Hitler’s Germany.

    Ms. Reid continues to be dogged by old blog entries from her past that resurfaced in 2019, where she made homophobic and other offensive comments. She claimed, without evidence, that she’d been “hacked” and said she was involving the FBI to catch the perpetrator. Her career was saved when MSNBC’s biggest star, Rachel Maddow, who is openly gay, weighed in with her support.

    Reid is a classic example of not only Trump Derangement Syndrome, but also a graduate of Dunning Kruger University, constantly picking losing fights with figure on the right obviously far smarter than she. If MSNBC really wants to “appeal to conservatives” (a goal that’s probably not possible short of hiring someone like Ben Shapiro to run the network), then she certainly needs to be one of the first to go.

    Given her falling ratings, what did Reid’s SJW fans attribute to her firing? That’s right: racism.

    Reid may have been the first pink slip domino to fall, but she was hardly the last.

    MSNBC host Jen Psaki will slide into a new primetime slot as part of a massive shakeup that includes the ouster of President Trump-bashing anchor Joy Reid, the embattled network confirmed Monday.

    Psaki, the former press secretary for President Joe Biden, will take over the 9 p.m. duties Tuesdays through Fridays from current host Alex Wagner beginning in late April, the network said.

    Making Liar in Chief Psaki the face of the network hardly seems a way to “appeal to conservatives.” Indeed, the revolving door between Democratic operatives and MSM sinecures like MSNBC are one of the many, many problems that have driven viewership away in drives.

    The overhaul at the left-leaning network by new president Rebecca Kutler also includes axing weekend shows hosted by Ayman Mohyeldin, Jonathan Capehart, Katie Phang and Jose Diaz-Balart.

    I’ve never heard of any of these people, but given it’s MSNBC, I’m just going to assume they needed firing.

    If MSNBC really wanted to “appeal to conservatives,” then leftwing fossil Rachel Maddow would be the next to get the axe, but alas not, she’s still the face of the network. However, a bunch of her staffers are being let go.

    MSNBC has reportedly informed a majority of staffers who work on Rachel Maddow’s primetime opinion show that they are being let go as part of the network’s restructuring that resulted in the cancellation of Joy Reid’s program as well as those of other hosts.

    The Comcast-owned, left-leaning channel told Maddow staffers, who also worked on the other canceled shows including “Alex Wagner Tonight,” that they have the option of applying for new roles at the network or accepting a severance payout, according to the news site Guardian.

    Maddow, MSNBC’s most prominent anchor and top-rated host, will retain her executive producer, Cory Gnazzo, along with several senior producers, the Guardian reported.

    However, the rest of her team, along with producers from other recently canceled shows — including those hosted by Alex Wagner, Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart, Ayman Mohyeldin and José Díaz-Balart — will need to find new jobs either within the network or at a different company, according to the report.

    A network insider reached by The Post denied that the move constituted layoffs. The network insists that the shakeup was a reallocation of resources to support the network’s evolving priorities, according to the source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    Also, as long as we’re on the subject of MSNBC and Maddow, they just settled a big defamation lawsuit.

    NBCUniversal is settling a $30 million defamation lawsuit brought by a doctor at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center, Mahendra Amin, after MSNBC’s biggest stars aired false accusations that he was a sinister figure known as “the uterus collector” who performed mass, unnecessary hysterectomies on migrant women.

    A court filing on Friday said that NBCUniversal and Dr. Amin, had reached a settlement of his defamation lawsuit.

    The terms of the deal were not immediately clear as the filing said the parties were “diligently working” on the settlement agreement, and they “expect to effectuate the settlement in the next several weeks.

    Mr. Amin became the subject of what a judge ruled were “verifiably false” statements by some of MSNBC’s top talent, such as Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, after NBC News’ “immigration reporter,” Jacob Soboroff, interviewed in 2020 a disgruntled nurse who’d filed a whistleblower report about the ICE detention facility.

    The ‘uterus collector’ report also aired on ‘All In With Chris Hayes.’ Via MSNBC

    The nurse, Dawn Wooten, who worked at the facility, claimed Dr. Amin had performed “mass hysterectomies” that were often botched. She also said he was known as the “uterus collector.”

    Mr. Soboroff, son of the former Los Angeles Police Department Commissioner Steve Soboroff, published an article on NBCNews.com on September 15, 2020. The report, written with two other NBC News reporters, Julia Ainsley and Daniella Silva, claimed that the “uterus collector” moniker was whispered fearfully by female detainees at the facility. In an interview with the network, Ms. Wooten claimed that a migrant asked her if the doctor was “collecting all of our uteruses.”

    The discovery process in Dr. Amin’s lawsuit disclosed internal communications at NBC News, which inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza works in concert with MSNBC, despite claiming to the public that they are separate operations. Emails and texts handed over to Dr. Amin’s legal team, along with statements made in depositions, disclosed that NBC News’ editorial standards department had serious concerns about the veracity of the story — yet allowed it to be published.

    Left wing liars gonna lie.

    There’s long been a glut of Trump Derangement Syndrome in America’s media landscape, and it’s only logical that a network that’s in free-fall would want to change directions. But asking “who gets their news from a cable news network” in 2025 is like asking “Who gets their news from Time and Newsweek” in 2010. MSNBC is both a TDS seller in a buyer’s market where no one is buying and an aging media dinosaur with high fixed costs and little to no upsides in the the current media landscape. These much needed corrections are probably far too little, far too late to turn it into a profitable venture.

    Prediction: MSNBC will be the first network to go to an All-AI Generated format by 2030…

    Paxton Sues NCAA Over Transsexual Deception

    Monday, February 24th, 2025

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed another lawsuit, this one against the NCAA over “deceptive trade practices,” namely pretending that NCAA women’s sports are, in fact, limited to women, despite carving out a huge loophole for men pretending to be women to drive through.

    Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking legal action against the National Collegiate Athletic Association, seeking a temporary injunction to halt what he claims are “deceptive trade practices” as the organization’s athlete eligibility policy could allow men to compete in women’s sports.

    Paxton alleges that the NCAA’s recently amended policy—presented as aligning with President Donald Trump’s executive order to “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports”—is actually a misleading “illusion of change” that still allows biological males to compete in women’s sports.

    The legal move follows Paxton’s December 2024 lawsuit against the NCAA, which accused the organization of false advertising by promoting sporting events as exclusively “women’s” competitions while permitting biological males to participate.

    According to the temporary injunction filing, the NCAA’s amended Transgender Eligibility Policy (TEP), effective February 6, 2025, is inconsistent with Trump’s executive order and does not prevent biological men from competing in women’s sports.

    Paxton’s application for a temporary injunction highlights key areas of disagreement with the NCAA’s current policy:

  • Definition of sex: The lawsuit states that the NCAA determines a student-athlete’s sex according to “birth records” and designations “assign[ed]” by doctors, rather than biological makeup “at conception.”
  • Changeable vs. immutable: The suit alleges that the NCAA treats sex as changeable rather than an immutable characteristic
  • The attorney general’s filing also raises concerns about the NCAA’s enforcement mechanisms, specifically pointing out the lack of sex-screening procedures for student-athletes.

    Paxton argues that this absence allows biological males to “surreptitiously participate” in women’s sports categories, citing the example of Blair Fleming, a biological male who played on San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team for two years without initially disclosing his biological sex.

    With the 2024-25 Women’s NCAA March Madness basketball tournament approaching, Paxton asserts that the NCAA’s deceptive practices are causing confusion among consumers and potentially harming female athletes.

    Paxton is asking the court to order the NCAA to immediately begin screening the sex of student athletes and prohibiting biological males from participating in women’s sports categories.

    Social Justice Warriors pushing a radical transsexual agenda have been controlling decisions at the NCAA, making them rule in direct opposition to the clear language of Title IX, the wishes of female student athletes, and the will of the American people and their elected government. There are two biological sexes, male and female, and retroactively changing a birth certificate from male to female doesn’t actually change a person’s sex.

    Men shouldn’t be allowed to compete in women’s sports. That this common sense proposition even needs to be argued for is a sign of how illogical social justice madness has infected our institutions.

    Let’s hope that the NCAA can be made to see the error of their ways well before this lawsuit even gets to trial.

    LinkSwarm For February 21, 2025

    Friday, February 21st, 2025

    Another deep freeze week here in Texas, with temperatures below freezing most of the week, but the state grid seems to be holding, and I haven’t seen any widespread power outages. I did lose power, but only for five minutes.

    This week: More waste and corruption exposed by DOGE, the Secretary of Defense gets a spite audit from the IRS, and Texas rolls out plans for securing cybersecurity and nuclear power futures. Plus an unusual amount of stories about China, AI, Chinese AI, airlines, Canada, and an airliner in Canada.

  • Judge says that DOGE can access student financial aid data. “US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan has denied an emergency filing to block DOGE’s access to federal records and government layoffs – saying in a 10-page decision that the 14 states who brought the lawsuit have failed to meet the burden of proof to prove ‘imminent, irreparable harm.'”
  • “A judge who blocked President Trump’s federal spending freeze is Chairman Emeritus of a nonprofit that will continue to receive millions in government funding as a result of his ruling, in an apparent conflict of interest seen as a second cause for the judge’s impeachment. On Wednesday, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) announced articles of impeachment against federal Judge John McConnell on the grounds that he overreached his authority and engaged in partisan activism by blocking Trump’s executive order freezing federal funding while Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) searches for wasteful spending. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Doug Ross has chosen 20 of the best examples of waste and fraud DOGE has discovered “Stacey Abrams/Power Forward Communities $2 Billion Grant (2025). DOGE uncovered $2 billion in taxpayer funds allocated to Power Forward Communities, tied to Stacey Abrams via Rewiring America, from a $20 billion EPA grant in April 2024. With $100 in revenue, it’s under scrutiny for potential fraud.”
  • Victor Davis Hanson: How To Commit Democratic Party Suicide.

    The Democratic Party is polling about 31 percent approval, a near-historic low.

    Despite enjoying a huge lead in fundraising, legacy media favoritism, and incumbency, in the 2024 election, Democrats lost the White House to Donald Trump. Ever since, they have offered nothing new, no novel agenda, no innovative policies—nothing other than screaming that they are loudly against everything and anything that the president is for.

    In the past, what did they accomplish by following their prior two impeachments with attempts to de-ballot Trump? Who thought sending an FBI swat team to raid Trump’s home or waging five lawfare civil and criminal suits and issuing 91 felony indictments against him would win over the public?

    Was conducting a media barrage of Hitler-Trump invectives, or lowering the bar of demonization that likely led to two assassination attempts of Trump a good way to win an election?

    Apparently not, given the Democrats have now lost the presidency, the House, and the Senate. The Supreme Court is conservative. They have no power to subpoena anyone; they cannot block any nomination. Much of their old administrative state control is eroding. All the main issues—the economy, energy, border security, illegal immigration, crime, DEI/woke, and foreign policy—poll against the Democrats. The more they shouted that biological men must be able to compete as transgendered females in women’s sports, the more that 80% of the public disagreed, women were turned off, and the absurd idea was exploded by Trump.

    The power of the administrative state, the legacy network news, print media, and Silicon Valley’s social media and search engines, the billions that poured into the Biden and Harris campaign all went for naught.

    The efforts of moderators to warp debates, of network news to edit out unfavorable Harris or Biden comments, of leftists to cancel, deplatform, ostracize, censor, and shadow ban their enemies have failed. More likely to succeed now are numerous lawsuits against leftwing media for chronic defamation and censorship.

    Given that collective meltdown, what would a sane Democratic Party do?

    If they were stable, then they might renounce political suicide and perhaps return to something akin to the Clinton efforts of 1992 and 1996. Then the once self-destructive Democrats finally gave up on disastrous out-of-touch McGovernism, Carterism, an Dukakism. Instead, they began to embrace legal-only immigration, secure borders, balanced budgets, support for law enforcement, and meritocracy.

    The result?

    After twelve years in the wilderness (1980-1992), the Democrats regained power for the next 16 of 24 years—only in the second term of Barack Obama to go full radical Jacobin and soon lose it.

    The current self-destructive obsessions with DEI/woke racialism, bi-coastal talk-down elitism, boutique transgenderism, and nonstop America Lastism all came to fruition during the Biden years. A shameless conspiracy to use an enfeebled John Biden as a prop to masque an otherwise unpalatable radical, neo-socialist agenda ensured the MAGA counterrevolution.

    But instead of postmortem autopsy and introspection, since Election Day, the Democrats have doubled down on their veritable collective self-destruction.

    On immigration, after wiping out the border and allowing in 12 million illegal aliens, including more than 500,000 suspected felons, they seem deliberately to be alienating public opinion even further.

    So, thousands of leftists swarm and block the freeways of Los Angeles to protest the deportations of criminals. And how exactly?

    By enraging middle-class commuters, while burning the flag of the country that they demand must allow them to stay, while chauvinistically waving the flag of the country to which under no circumstances they wish to return?

    New Jersey Democratic governor Patrick Murphy idiotically virtue-signaled that he would defy the law, as he bragged that he was harboring an illegal alien living above his garage.

    Then, when apprised that such performance-art showboating was a felony, in theory entailing a long prison sentence, the now buffoonish governor changed his narrative that the occupant of his garage was not really illegally living above his garage.

    Democratic governors and mayors vie, bragging that they will be foremost in breaking the law by impeding the efforts of the federal immigration services to find and deport illegal aliens—for now, half a million criminals. Other activists are tipping off criminal illegal-alien gang leaders to avoid US government efforts to apprehend such dangerous criminals.

    Is that the way to win back the working classes? By ensuring that the felons of M-13, Norteños, Sureños, and Tren de Aragua can flee and put in danger fellow American police officers?

    Elon Musk has been appointed by Donald Trump to create a new government agency, DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), to find waste, fraud, and abuse in the government spending of taxpayers money.

    He and his young team of tech standouts have exposed shocking waste and fraud, but mostly insanity, in the USAID’s $50 billion of foreign aid grants.

    Why are Americans paying for overseas drag shows or gay and trans advocacy in culturally imperialist fashion in traditional and conservative societies abroad? Why are we paying eight percent of the budget of the hardcore left-wing BBC? Is that a way back to the White House?

    Do Politico, the New York Times, or the Wuhan gain-in-function virology lab and birthplace of COVID-19 really need millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars?

    Do Democrats really think the middle class will hate Elon Musk for exposing that their government may well have handed the communist Chinese the necessary cash to birth a manufactured killer virus that took one million American lives?

    Is that a winning strategy—to scream in Congress that Musk is a Nazi, a dictator for showing that Biden’s USAID under leftist Samantha Power was a clearing house to enrich and empower well-off leftist organizations that only weakened their own country abroad?

  • The Democratic Medical Complex has a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.

    On December 6, 2024, a federal judge ordered the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release documents related to the emergency use authorisation of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. These documents had been hidden from public view.

    The legal battle traces back to September 2021, when attorney Aaron Siri filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on behalf of the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency. The plaintiffs sought access to the vast trove of documents the FDA relied on to approve Pfizer’s vaccine.

    Initially, the FDA proposed a slow release schedule. In November 2021, the agency stated it would release just 500 pages per month—a pace that would have stretched the full disclosure process to 75 years.

    However, in January 2022, District Judge Mark Pittman of Texas rejected the FDA’s proposal, ordering the agency to expedite its release to 55,000 pages per month, aiming to complete the disclosure of all 450,000 pages by August 2022.

    As the documents trickled out, researchers began uncovering glaring gaps that prevented a systematic review of the data. These gaps fueled suspicions about what else the FDA might be withholding.

    It became evident that the FDA had withheld records directly tied to its emergency use authorisation of Pfizer’s vaccine, estimated to be over one million pages.

    These documents, which the FDA had full knowledge of, were excluded from earlier disclosures, effectively misleading the judiciary and undermining public trust.

    People need to go to jail.

  • Trump and Musk’s attempts to cut federal waste are super popular.

    In recent months, Democrats have manufactured an elaborate narrative around Donald Trump’s push to streamline government operations and eliminate waste, branding it as a “constitutional crisis.” This exaggerated portrayal overlooks a critical reality: many Americans, particularly those who are politically moderate, actually support Trump’s initiatives aimed at reducing the size of government.

    A recent focus group composed of Arizona swing voters, including those who previously backed Joe Biden, revealed a striking consensus on this issue: they overwhelmingly approve of Trump’s agenda and Elon Musk’s efforts with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to make government more efficient. “Every Arizona swing voter in our latest Engagious/Sago focus groups said they approve of President Trump’s actions since taking office — and most also support Elon Musk’s efforts to slash government,” reports Axios.

    Every. Single. One.

  • Dear Instant Internet Audit Experts: That’s not how audits work. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Vice President J. D. Vance tore into Europe’s leaders for their retreat from free speech.

    Vice President JD Vance confronted European leaders at the Munich Security Conference on Friday over their support for authoritarian restrictions on speech, putting the assembled dignitaries on notice that the Trump administration expects the continent to revive its commitment to Western values.

    “The threat that I worry most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values,” Vance said. “When I look at Europe today, it’s not clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners.”

    The vice president recited a litany of examples, taken from across Europe, in which governments cracked down on politically disfavored ideas.

    In Brussels for example, officials notified citizens that they would shut down social media platforms “during times of civil unrest” if users post so-called hateful content. Vance also cited examples taken from Germany, where “police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online”; Sweden, where a judge recently explained to a man accused of participating in a Koran burning that he does not have “a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief,”; and the United Kingdom, where citizens can be arrested for silently praying within 200 meters of an abortion facility.

    “In Britain, and across Europe, free speech, I fear is in retreat,” Vance said.

    The vice president lamented Europe’s abandonment of other democratic values, such as border security, he said, adding that Europeans should work with anti-immigration factions to address the record-breaking influx of illegal immigrants into Europe.

    “While the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, [we] also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense,” Vance said.

    A majority of French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Portuguese citizens believe that their countries should have stricter border security measures to curb illegal immigration, according to a poll conducted by the nonprofit EU-US Forum and the Tyson Group. Most respondents from France, Italy, Portugal, and the Netherlands also agree that “I am more worried today than I was a decade ago about government censorship of my ideas,” according to the same poll.

    Vance connected the massive flow of migrants into Europe with recent terrorist attacks, such as the one carried out this week in Munich by a 24-year-old Afghan migrant. The man has an Islamist motive, police said, and he plowed a car into a crowd of people blocks away from where the Security Conference is being held, injuring at least 30.

    Another Saudi migrant rammed a car into a Christmas marked in central Germany last December, injuring hundreds, and killing five.

    “Over the span of a decade, we saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city,” Vance said.

    European leaders responded with a large bout of pearl-clutching and a chorus of “Well, I never!”

  • Senate confirms Kash Patel as FBI Director. Let the Augean stables cleansing commence.
  • “Trump Orders Firing of All Biden-Era U.S. Attorneys.” Good.
  • Nothing says class quite like the outgoing Biden Administration targeting incoming Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth with a spite audit and demanding $33,000.
  • “Legislators File ‘Atomic Texas’ Act to Spark Nuclear Power ‘Renaissance.’ With the advent of small modular nuclear reactors, the nuclear industry feels bullish on a revival of nuclear power. Gov. Greg Abbott called for forging a “nuclear power renaissance” in Texas during his 2025 State of the State address, two legislators have filed legislation intended to make the concept a reality. State Rep. Drew Darby’s House Bill (HB) 2678 would create the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Authority and a low-interest loan fund to go with it, and is the companion bill to state Sen. Tan Parker’s (R-Flower Mound) Senate Bill 1105.”
  • Ukraine hits another oil refinery. I’m ignoring the news about U.S. Russian talks, etc., because Trump does a lot of persuasion bracketing, and it’s fruitless to place too much import on it at this stage.
  • New York governor Kathy Hochul says she might remove new York City Mayor Eric Adams from office, now that trump’s Department of Justice has dropped charges against Adams. My working assumption is that since Adams is a New York Democratic politician, he’s guilty as sin, but it’s funny how Hochul only started paying attention to Adams’ alleged misdeed when he started cooperating with Trump on deporting illegal aliens…
  • With DOGE busting their scam, is the Soros operation relocating to Europe?

    With the Trump administration cutting off billions of US taxpayer funding for the USAID international slush fund, formerly flush NGOs are now begging woke EU nations for money to continue operations, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

    “WARNING! Our fears have come true: the globalist-liberal-Soros NGO network is fleeing to Brussels, after President Trump dealt a huge blow to their activities in the US,” Orbán wrote in a Tuesday post to X. “Now 63 of them are asking Brussels for money, under the guise of various human rights projects. Not going to happen! We will not let them find safe haven in Europe!”

    “The USAID-files exposed the dark practices of the globalist network. We will not take the bait again!”

  • “A series of by-elections were held for local government seats on Thursday, with Nigel Farage’s [Reform] party storming to victory in Trevethin and Penygarn in Torfaen, Wales, gaining 47% of the vote from a standing start. Labour plummeted a whopping 49.2% to just 26.6% of the vote, down from 75.8% last time. Two independents then came in third and fourth, with the Greens in fifth on 2.6%.” The Tories didn’t even run a candidate.
  • Gov. Abbott Lists ‘Texas Cyber Command’ as Emergency Item for State Legislature. The Texas Cyber Command is planned to be located in San Antonio.”

    Gov. Greg Abbott delivered his State of the State address several days ago, outlining his priorities for the 89th Legislative Session and listing his emergency items, which included an unexpected addition — the creation of a Texas Cyber Command.

    “We must deploy cutting edge capabilities to better secure our State,” Abbott declared.

    Minutes after the proclamation was made, information from the governor’s office on the new proposition was circulated, detailing the necessity of a Texas Cyber Command to increase the state’s ability to protect critical infrastructure from cyber threats and hostile foreign adversaries like China, Iran, Russia, and “other rogue outlets” around the world.

    The governor’s plan is to have the new venture be headquartered in San Antonio — a city with a large presence of cybersecurity experts, including the University of Texas (UT) at San Antonio, which is a member of the United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) Academic Engagement Network.

    Austin has at least as many cybersecurity firms as San Antonio…

  • “Attorney General Paxton Launches Investigation Into Chinese AI App. Paxton expressed concerns that artificial intelligence company DeepSeek could be violating the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act.”
  • “Four Times-Deported Illegal Aliens Arrested With 350 Pounds of Meth in Colony Ridge.” You may remember Colony Ridge from such hits as “We secretly built an illegal alien city inside Texas.”
  • Speaking of foreign cities inside Texas, take a look at an Islamic City being built northeast of Plano.
  • In Houston: “22-year-old Chilean national arrested with device that disabled communication between arresting officers.”
  • “Transgender migrant featured in NYC Pride Parade charged with raping 14-year-old boy in public restroom.” “A migrant transgender woman [man] wanted by federal immigration officials allegedly stalked and raped a boy in Manhattan this week, The Post has learned. Nicol Suarez allegedly followed the 14-year-old into the bathroom of a bodega across the street from Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem Tuesday and attacked him, police and sources said.”
  • Chinese foreign investment declines 99% in the last three years. That’s what happens when you’ve got dirty commies being jerks of the world…
  • “Lebanon: IDF Strike Eliminates Top Hamas Operative Planning Terror Attacks on Israelis Abroad.”
  • Dear Margaret Brennan: No, National Socialist Germany was not an example of “weaponized free speech.”
  • Leftwing racism is reaching its inevitable conclusion: “Desegregation was a mistake.”
  • “Delta flight that crashed at Toronto airport was operated by Endeavor Air, which loves to brag about all-female crews.” (Flashback.)
  • Suddenly, failed presidential candidate and incompetent Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is pretending he’s against DEI. As if the son of a Marxist academic who specialized in the work of Italian communist Antonio Gramsci would ever give up cultural Marxism.
  • Accidents will happen. “Trump Administration Un-Fires Hundreds Of Nuclear Weapon Workers.”
  • California’s one party Democratic rule is so incompetent and burdensome that weed dealers can’t make money selling pot to Californians. “California’s legal cannabis market has hit another grim milestone: There are now 10,828 inactive and surrendered pot licenses in the state and only 8,514 active ones, meaning dead pot licenses now outnumber active ones.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Jihad terrorism is still very much alive in Africa. “70 Christians Decapitated in Church in Democratic Republic of Congo. DRC also faces violence from the Rwanda-backed armed group M23.”
  • “Trump Administration Pulls Approval of NYC Congestion Toll.” “The congestion toll came into effect last month, imposing a $9 charge on drivers entering Manhattan below 60th street. The tax will increase by $3 increments in 2028 and 2031 as drivers adjust to the program, if it remains in place.” London’s “carbon tax” is widely unpopular with drivers as well, so I imagine New York drivers are just as livid.
  • Kentucky Fried Chicken is moving its headquarters to Plano, Texas. That’s gonna leave a mark
  • Why Canada’s housing costs so much more than that in the U.S.
  • Air Canada has to honor refund policy invented by a chatbot. Live by AI, die by AI…
  • Fungus Turns Cave Spiders Into Zombies.” I get the feeling your spellcaster should have fireball ready before facing these…
  • Teacher gives anti-Trump tirade. Student: Calm down. Teacher: DETENTION. Result: Teacher suspended.
  • “Canadian Hockey Fans Boo Their Future National Anthem.”
  • “Delta Adds A Little Hanging Tennis Ball To End Of Runway For Female Pilots.”
  • I’m between jobs again. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm For February 14, 2025

    Friday, February 14th, 2025

    Happy Valentine’s Day! Or, as I call it in my house, “Passover.” DOGE uncovers more infuriating waste and fraud, another job number revision downward, a bit on the Russo-Ukrainian War, a Second Amendment ruling, and the Babylon Bee offers up a double-shot of Tolkien.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “HHS Spent over $22 Billion on Giveaways to Illegal Immigrants over Past Four Years.”

    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 $2.6 billion in 2020, $2.3 billion in 2021, and $4.2 billion in fiscal year 2024. Over that time period, the Biden administration allowed record numbers of illegal immigrants to cross the southern border and remain in the country.

    Some of the ORR money went towards a program that helped illegal immigrants save for car and home purchases, while another program distributed business and personal loans to help migrants build credit. Additional funds were allocated toward providing migrants with “legal assistance,” “cultural orientation,” and “emergency housing support.”

    “ORR is part of a troubling trend of using nonprofit groups as ideological proxies. Vast sums are being outsourced to evade accountability and prop up an immoral, exploitive system that is hurtful to both American citizens and people in other countries who are longing for a better life,” Open The Books CEO John Hart told the Post.

  • Heh: “Terrified staff left hysterical as ‘well drilled’ DOGE nerds storm hyper ‘woke’ Department of Education.”

    Elon Musk’s nerd army stormed into the Department of Education on Tuesday and saved over $900 million.

    Musk’s DOGE lieutenants Akash Bobba and Ethan Shaotran, both 22, already have access to the department, NBC News reported.

    And as many as 16 DOGE team members have entered the premises as the agency begins to be ripped apart.

    Rep. Melanie Stansbury, (D-NM) described the terror agency staff are feeling after Musk’s team entered to ‘actively dismantle’ the institution.

    ‘They are in the building, on the 6th floor, canceling grants and contracts,’ she said in an interview with HuffPost.

    The Department of Education was targeted by Donald Trump during his campaign, He is keen to dismantle the so-called ‘Deep State’ constantly working against conservatives.

    Most Republicans believe the department employs some of the most activist liberal bureaucrats in the federal government.

    Trump plans to sign another executive order on Tuesday to order all agencies to work with DOGE, according to Semafor, including with the ‘workplace optimization initiative.’

    Snip.

    The department has already terminated 89 Education Department contracts worth $881 million.

    And over 29 training grants for DEI have been eliminated saving $101 million, according to the DOGE X account.

    President Donald Trump campaigned on shutting down the Department of Education and sending the funding back to the states to fund their schools as they see fit.

    Gooder and harder. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • If you’re not already furious enough with the Biden Administration: “USAID Sent Over $18,000,000,000 to Islamic Terror States.

    Over the last two years, USAID had funneled $2.3 billion in “humanitarian assistance” to [Ilhan] Omar’s native Somalia. Last year it reported a request for $1.6 billion in aid and even with the Biden administration on the way out the door, it sent an additional $29 million in December 2024.

    USAID support for Somalia had doubled under the Biden administration and with $3.3 billion from USAID allocated in the last 5 years, the end of the USAID gravy train for the Islamic terrorist state of Somalia must have been a painful blow for Omar, who is very close to the Somali regime. Former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Khaire had reportedly celebrated that “the interest of Ilhan are not Ilhan’s, it’s not the interest of Minnesota, nor is it the interest of the American people, the interest of Ilhan is that of the Somalian people and Somalia.”

    It’s unknown if any of Omar’s Majerteen clan members benefited from the billions in American money, but considering the prominence of the clan in Somali politics, it’s likely to be the case.

    Somalia, along with other Islamic terrorist entities, including the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza, were among the top beneficiaries of USAID cash.

    USAID boasted of having sent $2.1 billion to Gaza and the West Bank since the Hamas attacks of Oct 7. In 2024 alone, $917 million was programmed for the terrorist areas occupying Israel.

    USAID provided over $3.7 billion to Afghanistan since the Taliban took over with $832 million in the previous fiscal year alone. The money was so unaccountable that USAID refused to cooperate with the U.S. Government’s Afghan War watchdog tracking money going to terrorists.

    Even while the United States of America was at war with the Houthis, the Iran-backed Islamic terrorist group firing on US Navy vessels, USAID continued to direct billions of dollars to Yemen.

    In 2024, USAID announced a $2.7 billion aid request for Yemen and allocated $753 million. In the last 5 years, USAID provided an estimated $3.4 billion in aid to an enemy terror state.

    Other Islamic terrorist states that have heavily drawn on USAID include Pakistan which harbored Osama bin Laden, but benefited from $600 million in the last 5 years. While some American towns and cities lacked clean drinking water, USAID labored to build plants for Pakistan’s majority Muslim population even while it engaged in the persecution of Christians.

    USAID spent over $700 million on Iraq during the last 5 years even though the country has long since been governed by Iranian puppets whose militias have been firing on American soldiers.

    $3.4 billion was directed to Syria over the past 5 years by USAID even as it was caught in a civil war between Shiite Islamists aligned with Iran and Sunni Islamists aligned with Al Qaeda.

    USAID allocated $1.1 billion to spend on Lebanon even as the country was run by Hezbollah.

    While USAID is unable to function in Iran, between Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, over $8 billion was sent to Iranian puppet regimes even without counting the money spent on Gaza.

    In total, USAID had spent some $18.5 billion on Islamic terror states over those 5 years.

  • And even more looting of taxpayer money for leftist causes.

    PA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a video released on Wednesday night that his agency has discovered an unprecedented scheme that was utilized by the Biden administration to funnel money to far-Left activist groups.

    “An extremely disturbing video circulated two months ago featuring a Biden EPA political appointee talking about how they were ‘tossing gold bars off the Titanic,’ rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before Inauguration Day,” Zeldin said.

    He continued, “The gold bars were tax dollars, and tossing them off the Titanic meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it.”

    Zeldin said that he has contacted the U.S. Justice Department and the inspector general to launch investigations into the $20 billion that was transferred to an outside financial institution for the purpose of doling out funds to leftist organizations during Biden’s final days in office.

    “Fortunately, my awesome team at EPA has found the gold bars,” he said. “Shockingly, roughly $20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA.”

    “This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposely designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight,” he continued. “Even further, this pot of $20 billion was awarded to just eight entities that were then responsible for doling out your money to NGOs and others at their discretion with far less transparency.”

    He said that the financial agreement with the bank needs to be instantly terminated and the funds need to be returned to the government.

    Let the prosecutions begin.

  • More USAID fraud uncovered.
    • $2M sex change surgeries in Guatemala
    • $20M to increase tourism in Egypt
    • $520M for consultants to teach people in Africa about climate change
    • $4.5M to teach people in Kazakhstan to fight back against internet trolls
    • $15M for condoms to the Taliban
  • “Trump Draining Pool Of Money From Which Leftist Activists Drink.”

    People need to understand what Trump is doing, whether it’s intentional or not, but he is cutting off the flow of money to the pool from which a variety of left-wing groups and activist groups around the world and in the US drink.

    So imagine a pool that’s being filled with money. A lot of that money comes from the programs that have been cut off by his DEI orders, Federal funding.

    But a lot of it came from USAID, which is essentially an international development and development agency of the government, which has a massive, tens of billions of dollars, budget. And now we know what has been happening.

    It has been like a fire hose filling up the same pool that the DEI funding filled up, and they all drink from that, and he’s cutting off that flow.

    This has the potential to be absolutely devastating to the DEI and left-wing industrial complex.

    We always think of it as being George Soros and people like that, and, and it is, but they all are feeding into the same pool. And Soros doesn’t have enough money to replace what the US government spends on this stuff.

    That’s why they are apoplectic. That’s why they are losing their minds. That’s why they are senators are trying to break into buildings. That’s why there’s a lawsuit after lawsuit because they know if Trump is successful in cutting off the various spigots that fill the pool from which left-wing activist groups drink, they are in big trouble.

  • The evil that the Biden Administration did lives on in so many ways. “January Jobs Report: 2024 Employment Revised Down by 600,000.”
  • “Federal Judge Blocking Spending Freezes Has History of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

    The federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze all funding pauses while federal spending is being assessed, has a history of anti-Trump and woke activism.

    Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island can be seen in video footage from 2021 accusing Trump of being “a dictator” and claiming that “racism is a white people problem” and that “we all have racism inside of us.”

    Judge McConnell certainly has stupidity inside him…

  • Newly confirmed Trump Attorney General Pam Bondi is suing Letita James along with other New York Democratic politicians for refusing to help deport illegal aliens.
  • Polls show Trump and his policies are deeply popular.
  • American voters have decisively rejected wokeness. So how do Democrats respond? By doubling down on reparations.
  • GOP senators are terrified over the prospect of facing primary challengers funded by Elon Musk if they stick their necks out by opposing President Trump’s agenda.” Good. Get-along go-along Republicans have played a key role in letting the federal budget deficit grow to Brobdingnagian proportions. They can atone but letting Trump balance the budget and crush the left or they can get the hell off the stage. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Russia has launched a drone attack against the Chernobyl radiation containment sarcophagus. Way to convince Europe you’re ready for peace, Vlad…
  • Suchomimus has a video roundup of Ukraine strikes on Russian oil facilities.
  • A Ukrainian Su-27 pilot describes the changing nature of the air war, including the desperate early days.

    Viking was not at his normal base in the Zhytomyr region when the war started, he was in Kyiv. His race to Zhytomyr was frustrated by a lack of rail services out of the capital and ended with a walk between 25-30 miles to get to the air base, still in civilian clothes. Once there, he was very quickly in the thick of action, and from Feb. 25 on he flew air defense missions that he described as “deterrence,” first flown in daylight and later at night, over the Kyiv region.

    “We held them back,” Viking explained. “If their aircraft had come here and worked freely, everything would have been completely different.”

    Viking and his fellow 39th Tactical Aviation Brigade (39 BrTA) pilots faced a significant disadvantage in terms of radars and missiles compared to the Russians. While Ukrainian fighters could occasionally track enemy aircraft, getting within missile-launch range was rarely possible.

    The Ukrainian Air Force began the war with around 32 Su-27s operational within two brigades, the 39 brTA at Ozerne in the Zhytomyr region of northwestern Ukraine and the 831 brTA at Myrhorod in the Poltava region of central Ukraine. At least 15 Ukrainian Flankers have been visually confirmed as destroyed but, in the meantime, additional examples have also been returned to airworthiness after overhauls. The aircraft are also regularly moved around between different operating locations, some of them austere in nature, making it harder for the Russians to target them.

    Snip.

    In these early days, Viking’s available intelligence on Russian air defenses was scrawled on a piece of map that he’d torn off, with information vital for survival being exchanged by word of mouth between pilots. The map simply showed the best route into a given area, with circles showing the approximate engagement ranges of hostile air defenses.

    The primary job at this time was attempting to blunt the advance of Russian tactical aircraft flying from Belarus. “We were the only ones here, to put it bluntly. We were the first line of defense, and they were constantly trying to sneak their Su-34s and Su-35s in at night, at extremely low altitudes.”

    Complicating their job was the fact that, according to Viking, the avionics and missiles of the Ukrainian Su-27s, at this time, were “two generations behind” those of the Russians. Within these parameters, “the battle was reduced to trying to get closer to [the Russians].” But even if that was possible, the Ukrainian Su-27 pilots were rarely able to get within the launch parameters of their missiles, with the Russian jets always having the opportunity to launch weapons first.

    “Even though our [missile] launches had short ranges, we still tried something, we launched missiles, we held the Russians back, and we repelled these attacks every night,” Viking explains. “Almost every pilot flew two, sometimes three sorties each night.”

    Also a lot of interesting discussion about how western munitions (HARM missiles and JDAMs in particular) have improved their chances.

  • Another day, another public official arrested on fraud charges.

    Pearson, Georgia is a small town, with a population of 1,821 per the 2020 census. Robert “Buster” Johnson is the mayor.

    “Buster” was busted yesterday.

    I’m just going to quote the list of charges here:

    • Criminal Attempt to Commit Hindering or Apprehension or Punishment of Criminal
    • 3 counts of Influencing Witnesses
    • Criminal Solicitation to Commit False Statements and Writings
    • Criminal Solicitation to Commit False Official Certificates or Writings by Officers or Employees of a State and Political Subdivision
    • 2 counts of False Statements and Writings
    • Criminal Attempt to Commit Theft by Taking
    • Conspiracy in Restraint of Free and Open Competition
    • 4 counts of Conspiracy to Defraud State and Political Subdivision
    • Theft by Deception
    • 3 counts of Bribery
    • 2 counts of Theft by Taking
    • Fraud, Forgery, and Theft in Connection with Registration of Title to Land
    • Filing False Documents
    • 4 counts of Violation of Oath of Office by Public Officer

    Given Andy Ngo’s highlighting of Johnson’s posts charging racism, I think I’ll go out on a limb and guess he’s a Democrat…

  • “On January 30, the Fifth Circuit decided Reese v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives, holding that the federal Gun Control Act’s prohibition on the sale of firearms to persons under 21 years old, as applied to adults aged 18 to 20 years old, violates the Second Amendment. The law effectively banned handgun sales, as it has an exception for rifles and shotguns, which may be sold to persons 18 and older.”
  • Object to not deporting illegal aliens? Expect a beating from those “mostly peaceful” protestors.
  • Harris County Comes Up Short on Funds For Planned Flood Control Projects. One set of projects for subdivisions may face a shortage of nearly $140 million.” Is there anything in the article that indicates where the real problem lies? Why yes, there is: “The framework, which has been slightly revised since then, shifts from targeting areas with the most damage to adding consideration of the Social Vulnerability Index and areas with lower incomes.” There’s no institution so robust that adding social justice to it can’t beat it out of whack…
  • “Blind director of watchdog group funded by George Soros testifies that he does not see widespread evidence of government waste.”
  • Crazy story out of Columbine High School (yes, that one) in Colorado.

    A friend of the student’s mom, Heather McCormick, accused a female teacher of grooming the teen girl at school. According to the allegation, she then worked with the school to secretly change the girl’s status to “homeless” so she could legally move out of her parents’ home … and into the teacher’s home.

    The unnamed mom discovered thousands of phone calls and texts between the two, which revealed that the female teacher had, at the minimum, been making out with the student.

    When the student’s mom went to the principal to let him know that a predator teacher had been sexually grooming her daughter, this is how the principal reportedly responded: “Ms. Kearney takes interest in helping kids navigate their sexuality.”

  • “French Far-Left Leader Mélenchon Openly Calls For Great Replacement In Shock Speech.”

    In two speeches given less than 24 hours apart in the French city of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Mélenchon delivered some of the most shocking yet brutally honest words from a European politician, openly calling for the older French to be replaced by a “Creole” generation of mixed races and cultures.

    The leader of France’s far-left LFI is calling outright for replacement of White French people, conjuring up the Great Replacement term that has been demonized as a conspiracy theory by the left for years.

    “In our country, one person in four has a foreign grandparent. 40% of the population speaks at least two languages. We are destined to be a Creole nation and so much the better! May the young generation be the great replacement for the old generation,” said Mélenchon.

  • The Senate confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Let the reckoning begin.
  • They also confirmed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary.
  • They also confirmed Brooke Rollins as Secretary of Agriculture.
  • 40 Massage Parlors Closed in Texas Since Passage of Anti-Human Trafficking Law.”
  • “Department of Education Urges NCAA to Restore to Female Athletes the Records Stolen by Men.” This is obviously the right thing to do, so expect them to drag their heels on it.
  • Stolen from Sarah Hoyt:

  • “Burrows Promises Trump: Texas House Will Pass School Choice. Both the House and Senate budget proposals currently allocate $1 billion for education savings accounts.” Color me skeptical. The Democrat-backed cabal backing burrows has made killing school choice a priority in the past
  • A US Navy aircraft carrier has collided with a merchant ship off the coast of Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea, a US Sixth Fleet spokesman revealed Thursday. The collision involved the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and the merchant vessel Besiktas-M at around noon local time on Wednesday.” Fortunately there was no lose of life, but there’s a whole lot of stupid to go around for this one. At 189 meters, or over 620 feet, the Besiktas-M certainly isn’t small, but the Harry S. Truman is over 1,000 feet long.
  • Facebook lays off 4,000 workers, some of whom say they had glowing performance reviews last year.
  • Good news! Trump rescinds Biden’s plastic straw ban! There seems to be no end of the woke making your life more difficult to display their own climate virtue…
  • Microsoft Drops USAID-Funded NewsGuard After Ted Cruz Starts Digging. Microsoft has dropped NewsGuard, a left-wing fact checking organization they partnered with that has helped the advertising industry justify blacklists for independent conservative media sites such as ZeroHedge.” Good.
  • Target faces class-action lawsuit for misleading investors about DEI initiatives.

  • Critical Drinker says that Captain America: Brave New World is exactly as bad as we thought it would be.
  • And here’s my imitation of Jonah. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Democrats Furious Republicans Trying To Control Government Just Because They Won Election.”
  • Soros-Funded Judge Vows To Keep Billionaire Influence Out Of Politics.”
  • “Sauron-Appointed Judge Rules Frodo Must Return Ring To Sauron.
  • “Government Retirement Files Ruined After Miners Dig Too Deep And Unearth Balrog.”
  • “RFK Jr. Sworn In On Raw 32-Ounce Ribeye.”
  • I have no idea what you’re talking about, so here’s a video of a dog riding a pony:

  • I’m between jobs again. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    Tren de Aragua Sex Trafficking Ringleaders Arrested In Houston

    Thursday, February 13th, 2025

    Arrest by arrest, the Trump Administration and Republican governors are rounding up the illegal alien criminals that the Biden Administration deliberately let into the country.

    Federal authorities recently completed two separate operations in Houston targeting criminal illegal aliens.

    The first operation targeted illegal aliens indicted for their role in a Tren de Aragua sex trafficking scheme, while the second operation resulted in the arrest of illegal aliens and the seizure of drugs and a gun. Both took place this week.

    At least two of the suspects apprehended in the first operation are accused of promising women in Venezuela a good life in the United States and then forcing them into prostitution.

    The arrests are part of a case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office targeting a multistate sex trafficking ring with Tren de Aragua members accused of intimidating victims into compliance.

    Eight people in total are charged for their roles in the sex trafficking ring.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Wildasin wrote to Texas Scorecard: “All of the defendants are Venezuelan. All are in the United States without any legal status. All are in federal custody with ICE detainers. For security reasons, we do not share where people are being detained.”

    According to Wildasin, two of the suspects arrested in Houston are defendants Ariannys Beatriz Gutierrez-Carrillo and Endrik Alexander Morales-Rivero.

    Defendants Frankyanna Del Valle Romero-Rivero and Jesus Enrique Castillo Rodriguez were arrested in Dallas, and Yuribetzi Del Valle Gomez Machuca was arrested in San Antonio.

    After the first operation was made public by FBI Houston on Tuesday, a second operation conducted a day later was revealed. Two illegal aliens were arrested in that operation, and drugs and a gun were seized.

    Snip.

    Tren de Aragua was designated a foreign terrorist organization by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last year.

    “Tren de Aragua gangsters are like cockroaches,” said Department of Public Safety Director McCraw at the time.

    “They multiply quickly; small intrusions into communities become infestations if not aggressively pursued. These Venezuelan thugs are highly combative, violent, and certainly adaptable. They’re always involved in situations that first start with human smuggling. Then they are involved in the extortion, kidnappings, rape, assaults, and sex trafficking of migrants.”

    Earlier this month, Abbott directed the Texas National Guard and DPS to work with federal authorities to arrest and deport illegal aliens.

    It’s impossible to fathom the leftist mindset that finds letting women be inducted into sexual slavery as a small price to pay for theoretically improving the electoral chances of the Democratic Party via illegal alien amnesty somewhere down the line.

    Arrest by arrest, the evil work of the Biden Administration’s open borders policy is being undone.