More DOGE uncovered fraud, Trump yanks security clearances for a lot of swamp creatures, the Democratic Party goes all in on antisemitism, good luck getting an MRI in Canada, Warner Bros Discovery is considering a sale that’s absolutely loony, and a member of the Very, Very, Very Heavy Brigade takes on a Tesla.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
For all the talk of trump not allowing a peaceful transfer of power, it’s lefty Biden appointees who are thwarting democracy.
On Friday, the Board of Directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace informed the group’s president, George Moose, that he was relieved of his duties. The same day, Moose’s replacement, Kenneth Jackson, arrived at the office for the congressionally funded nonprofit to assume his new role.
There was one problem: Moose refused to go.
A source intimately involved in the situation told The Daily Wire that Moose put the building on lockdown when Jackson and his team were en route. When they arrived, they were astonished to find that the doors were locked and they were unable to gain entry.
“They treated us, quite frankly, like criminals,” a person who was with the group shared with The Daily Wire.
Jackson encountered similar behavior on Monday. He was ultimately able to enter USIP with the help of the Metropolitan Police Department, and ordered all unauthorized personnel to leave — including Moose, who confirmed to The Daily Wire that he was escorted out by police.
When Jackson and the rest of his group were finally able to get into the building, they found things in turmoil. The shades were drawn, with white noise playing when they arrived. USIP employees were using walkie talkies to communicate within the building, according to the person who was with Jackson. As of Tuesday, none of the phone systems in the building were working, nor were the elevators, and the internet was down, The Daily Wire has learned.
“I’ve never seen something so broken,” the source familiar with the situation told The Daily Wire. Moose did not respond to inquiries into whether he and his colleagues tampered with these systems.
Colin O’Brien, the chief security officer at USIP under Moose, told The Daily Wire on Tuesday evening that the systems likely were not working because the building had been placed on lockdown at Moose’s orders, meaning that all the systems would shut down. O’Brien and other employees were told to exit the building, and he said he hadn’t been in contact with anyone on Tuesday, though he believes he is still employed by USIP.
O’Brien said that Moose ordered that members of DOGE were not to be admitted into the building, and that members of USIP were under the impression that there was an ongoing dispute with DOGE about who the leadership of the USIP was — “something that, in my understanding, was going to be litigated,” he said. He disputed the notion that DOGE had the authority to enter the building.
This story, based on accounts from individuals who were on the scene as Jackson attempted to gain access to the organization he’d been put in charge of, shows how federally-funded bureaucrats worked to sabotage operations to stop the Trump administration from taking control.
Moose, who allegedly “barricaded” himself in his office until police arrived, has told the media that members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) broke into the office without warning. But a review of events and internal emails show not only that USIP leadership blocked Moose’s replacement from entering the building, but that it was preparing to resist changes for weeks ahead of their arrival.
Elon Musk, the world’s most successful businessman and President Donald Trump’s top White House adviser, said this week that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has uncovered shocking cases of fraud within the federal government.
Musk made the remarks during a Monday meeting with the president and his cabinet secretaries.
“One case of fraud was with the Small Business Administration, where they were handing out loans—$330 million worth of loans—to people under the age of 11,” Musk said. “I think the youngest, Kelly, was a 9-month-old who got a $100,000 loan.”
“That’s a very precocious baby we’re talking about here,” Musk quipped.
SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler followed up Musk’s remarks by saying, “We’re tackling the fraud, waste, and abuse at the agency.”
“We’ve seen, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud go unprosecuted, so we’re taking that on,” she said. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for fraud, and we continue to crack down on it and make sure people are held accountable.”
Trump said that they have found “far too much” fraud, waste, and abuse in the government over the last couple of months.
“It’s pure fraud,” he said. “We like to use the words ‘waste’ and ‘abuse’ because they sort of sound good, but many of these things are pure fraud.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) said this week that the state was returning nearly $900 million to the federal government, something it tried to do repeatedly during the Biden administration.
“For years, Florida has been trying to return federal funds to the federal government due to the ideological strings attached by the Biden Administration—but they couldn’t even figure out how to accept it,” DeSantis said in a post on X.
The governor said that he met with Elon Musk on Friday and the rest of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team and was able to return the money.
“We got this done in the same day,” DeSantis said. “Other states should follow Florida in supporting DOGE’s efforts!”
The governor posted the letter that he sent to the U.S. Treasury Department alerting them that the state was formally returning $878,112,000.00 in taxpayer dollars to the federal government “as part of DOGE’s efforts.”
The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on Wednesday that non-permanent residents will no longer be eligible for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgages, National Review has learned, part of a broader effort by the administration to ensure that American citizens are prioritized under taxpayer-funded housing programs following massive flow of illegal immigration under former President Joe Biden.
FHA loans offer government-insured mortgages to ensure that lower-income individuals have access to home ownership. While illegal immigrants are technically ineligible to obtain FHA-backed home loans under U.S. law, HUD’s announcement will strengthen enforcement mechanisms to ensure that illegal immigrants are not abusing the program in the future. It is unclear how many illegal immigrants have obtained FHA-backed loans.
“FHA does not retain citizenship or residency data from the loan application and therefore does not maintain information on the number of non-permanent residents who have received FHA-insured loans under past policies,” General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing Jeffrey D. Little wrote in a March 26 mortgagee letter shared exclusively with National Review. “This update ensures that FHA’s mortgage insurance programs are administered in accordance with Administration priorities while fulfilling its mission of providing access to homeownership.”
The new policy will also prohibit government-backed mortgages for non-permanent residents moving forward. “Currently, non-permanent residents are subject to immigration laws that can affect their ability to remain legally in the country,” Little wrote in the March 26 memo. “This uncertainty poses a challenge for FHA as the ability to fulfill long-term financial obligations depends on stable residency and employment.”
HUD’s revised residency requirements for FHA-backed loans, which take effect on May 25, will apply to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients as well as individuals who are pending asylum or pending refugee status, according to HUD, since there is no guarantee that their residency status will be renewed under the current administration.
The new policy eliminates the “non-permanent resident” category entirely from the FHA’s Single Family Title I and Title II programs, and reverses a Biden-era policy which allows FHA loans for DACA recipients who provide a valid Social Security Number and work eligibility status.
I wonder if these programs were abused for helping illegal aliens buy homes in Colony Ridge.
Others named in the list are retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill, former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic Norman Eisen, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, and lawyer Mark Zaid.”
Can anyone really say America is less safe because the people on that list no longer have access to classified information?
What the support for Mahmoud Khalil, Hasan Piker and Rasha Alawieh really shows.
A few days after the anniversary of Oct 7, the New York Times reported that Columbia University Apartheid Divest officially endorsed terrorism against Jews and withdrew an apology by one of its members for threatening to kill Jews.
Over the past weeks, the paper and the entire Democratic Party, including 103 members of Congress, the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Jewish Democratic Council of America led by Kamala’s former foreign policy advisor, went all in on fighting for Mahmoud Khalil, a leader in CUAD who had defended terrorism, from being deported.
The signatories to a letter standing up for a Syrian national who had taken part in a pro-terrorist group’s harassment of Jewish students and faculty included half of House Democrats, not only extremists like AOC and Rep. Ilhan Omar, but Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking House Judiciary Democrat, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with multiple House Democrats of Jewish ancestry and those who represent large Jewish districts including Rep. Jerrold Nadler in New York, as well as Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove and Rep. Laura Friedman who holds down Sen. Adam Schiff’s old seat, in the LA area. The same Democrat politicians who had remained silent when Jewish students and faculty were being terrorized on campuses in their areas now rushed to the barricades for a member of a group that had openly celebrated the murder of Jews.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest is a front group for the college’s suspended Students for Justice in Palestine chapter which reacted to the first anniversary of Oct 7 by promoting a statement from a Maoist publication, “October 7th was Not ‘Barbaric’ or ‘Unfortunate’—It was Strategic and Anti-imperialist” and hailed the “moral, military, and political victory of the Operation”. This is what the Democrats who condemn Trump’s proposed deportation of a CUAD leader as “authoritarian” now support. Not just terrorism: but the mass murder of Jews.
Now, Democrats rallied once more in support of Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese Hezbollah supporter, traveling to America on a visa who was refused entry into the United States.
According to Customs and Border Protection, Alawieh (pictured above) had deleted Hezbollah materials on her phone, attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and claimed that she followed Nasrallah’s teachings “from a religious perspective.”
Hezbollah is not only responsible for the murder of Jews, but the barracks bombing in Beirut which killed 220 Marines, the kidnapping and brutal torture of Colonel William R. Higgins, who was castrated and skinned before his body was dumped near a mosque, and the vicious killing of Robert Stethem, a Navy diver, during an airline hijacking when, as a stewardess described, “They were jumping in the air and landing full force on his body. He must have had all his ribs broken… they put the mike up to his face so his screams could be heard by the outside world.”
“A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security,” the Department of Homeland Security warned. Democrats fundamentally disagree with that position.
Judge Leo Sorokin, a Clinton appointee, barred the Hezbollah supporter from being deported, and then demanded to know why she had not been allowed into the country. Instead of reporting that Rasha Alawieh had visited a terrorist group’s event responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans, the media claimed she had been visiting her family in her country.
Rep. Gabe Amo, along with other Dems, have stated that they intend to continue fighting for her
Brown University, which employed Alawieh and is under investigation for antisemitism, responded by urging foreign employees like her not to travel abroad because of “travel bans, visa procedures and processing, re-entry requirements” they might conceivably run afoul of if they support terrorists and the mass murder of Americans and Jews.
In the New Yorker, Andrew Marantz hyped Hasan Piker, a Muslim influencer on the video game streaming platform Twitch, as the best hope for the Democrats winning over “bros” and “young men” .Somewhere in the middle of the article, after mentioning his dog’s name and his support for ‘non-binary’ people, gets around to briefly mentioning his “soft-pedalling the brutality of Hamas, or the Houthis, or the Chinese Communist Party” and being named “Antisemite of the Year” as a minor detail before pivoting to a discussion about a possible Hasan reality show.
And to Democrats today, such things are minor details, less important than anything else.
Piker, has said, “it doesn’t matter if rapes f***ing happened on Oct. 7, like that doesn’t change the dynamic for me even this much” while holding up his fingers slightly apart. “The Palestinian resistance is not perfect.” And he’s been featured on CNN, invited to the DNC, and Democrats, from Rep. Ro Khanna to AOC to Sen. Ed Markey appeared on his podcast. Buttigieg has been trying to get on. Expect most other Democrats aspiring to run in 2028 to do likewise.
This week, the Texas Legislature took steps to strip power from the Texas Lottery Commission, possibly setting the agency up for abolition, and Las Vegas Sands’ casino plans suffered a setback in Irving at the hands of outraged citizens.
On Monday, State Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) laid out Senate Bill 1721 in the State Affairs Committee. It would transfer the administration of bingo games in Texas from the Lottery Commission to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
Snip.
When introducing his measure to ban lottery couriers operating in Texas, State Sen. Bob Hall (R-Edgewood) noted that on a hierarchy of administration complexity, bingo and lottery are at the bottom of the totem pole.
During a September 2024 Sunset Commission hearing, State Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo) noted that revenues to the state before and after the lottery was created remained flat. The state is not likely to lose money if the lottery goes away.
At two separate hearings this week in Irving, citizens showed up in force to oppose a planning variance to build a casino. Ultimately, Sands asked the city council to pull the language allowing the construction of a casino from the development request.
Sands currently operates no casinos in America and derives most of its revenue from China.
The mess at the Lottery Commission probably deserves a separate post…
In his lengthy announcement post on social media, McGregor voiced his opposition to the European Union (EU) Migration Pact, which the bloc has mandated that Ireland must ratify by June 12th, 2026. The pact would relax Ireland’s border security and make it easier for illegal aliens to claim asylum.
“Between now and 12 June 2026, several pieces of legislation have to be passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas and then signed by the President,” McGregor explained. “The next presidential election must take place by 11 [November] 2025.”
“Who else will stand up to Government and oppose this bill? Any other Presidential candidate they attempt to put forward will be of no resistance to them. I will!” McGregor declared.
He also said that, as president, he would pursue a nationwide referendum on the Migration Pact, allowing the people of Ireland to decide for themselves whether or not the country should be forced to abide by the deal.
In celebrating the life of Tony Dolan, President Reagan’s chief speechwriter, the most remarkable fact is that he was executing a strategy he conceived to defeat the Soviet Union.
In numerous conversations in the speechwriting office—long before any foreign policy experts dared to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact, and the Soviet Union itself, Tony said that he knew how to defeat the Soviets.
As a young journalist in his hometown of Stamford, Connecticut, he had exposed organized crime that, he said, had entirely corrupted the city. Tony was relentless, ultimately breaking the mob’s power and becoming one of the youngest journalists to win the Pulitzer Prize. He said that the same method would bring down the Soviets, an entirely corrupt system, another form of organized crime. Tell the truth about them; expose them as evil; let everyone—especially those in power—hear them described as what they are. It was his conviction that President Reagan, by speaking with moral clarity about the Soviets, could hasten their collapse.
In his essay How the United States Won the Cold War, Warren Norquist identifies the rhetorical moral battle, “demoralizing the Soviets and generating pressure for change,” as one of seven crucial components in the US victory over the USSR.
Tony later wrote in the Wall Street Journal that for criminal regimes, there is “one weapon they fear more than military or economic sanction: the publicly-spoken truth about their moral absurdity, their ontological weakness.”
Snip.
The Reagan administration, internally, was a battlefield of competing visions that came to a head over presidential speeches. Once the president said something, it became the official policy—which made speechwriting a critical front in these internal struggles. The battle cry of conservatives in the administration was, “Let Reagan be Reagan.” In that struggle, Tony was unwavering. He would not wobble when West Wing power players tried to intimidate him. He was himself an exceptionally skilled political infighter—usually scheming, always charming, and with a spine of coiled steel.
From the outset of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Tony helped to chisel out the rhetorical space in which the speechwriters could give voice to President Reagan’s resolve that the outcome of the Cold War would be, “We win, they lose.”
And it was not only combative phrases. At times it was subversive speech, as in Reagan’s 1981 Univ. of Notre Dame speech drafted by Tony: “The West won’t contain communism; it will transcend communism. … it will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.”
Or his 1982 speech in London, the Westminster address, “… one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: of all the millions of refugees we’ve seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward, the Communist world. Today, on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east—to prevent their people from leaving. … What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term—the march of freedom and democracy, which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.”
California announces it will need another seven billion dollars in taxpayer money not to build a high speed rail. But I’m sure all the consultant graft will be channeled into the proper left-wing pockets… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Canadian woman gets a referral from her doctor to get an MRI to see if she has a brain tumor. So now she has an appointment for one. In 2026.
Carole Stewart Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn (to use all the names she was known under), former Democratic mayor of Austin, Republican Railroad Commissioner and Comptroller of Texas, has died. In a way her career was emblematic of a certain kind of moderate politician in Texas at the time, with a huge realignment from the Democratic to the Republican Party, a change that started with John Connally, picked up speed with Phil Gramm and Rick Perry, and continues into this day with Hispanic office holders still switching over. Speaking of Perry, she was one of two prominent female Republican moderate officeholders (Kay Baily Hutchinson being the other) who destroyed their careers trying to unseat Perry from the Governor’s Mansion.
Is Warner BrothersTime WarnerAOL-Time WarnerWarnerMedia Warner Bros. Discovery putting Loony Tunes for sale? What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
Guy who did the Vegas Tesla bomby/turns out to be a dirty Commie.
Annals of criminal genius: 5-foot-2, 449-pound drives his 4-wheeler into an Tesla. “Demarqeyun Marquize Cox was arrested after one of his alleged attacks was recorded by the Tesla he purposely ran into, police in Texarkana, Texas announced.” And yes, there’s video:
After spending a great deal of special interest money to hang on to his Texas House seat and stepping down from the speakership after getting so many of his allies slaughtered in the primaries, Dade Phelan has decided on his next battle: outlawing memes.
Posting a political meme could soon land you in jail—if State Rep. Dade Phelan gets his way.
House Bill 366 would make it a crime to distribute altered media, including political memes, without a government-approved disclaimer. Violators could face up to a year in jail.
The State Affairs Committee will take up the bill by the former speaker of the House on Wednesday, alongside a slate of energy transmission legislation. It is the first hearing of the committee on legislation this session.
The bill specifically targets political advertising that features an “image, audio recording, or video recording of an officeholder’s or candidate’s appearance, speech, or conduct that did not occur in reality.” This broad language includes media altered using generative artificial intelligence technology. The Texas Ethics Commission would have the authority to determine the specific format, font, size, and color of the required disclaimer.
Critics say the legislation raises serious First Amendment concerns.
Ya think?
Fort Worth attorney Tony McDonald, who specializes in First Amendment litigation, blasted the measure, saying, “It’s amazing that this ridiculous bill is the top priority of the Texas House’s most powerful committee. This bill is obviously unconstitutional. It would criminalize protected speech on the basis of its content.”
Notably, the legislation could have sweeping implications beyond political advertising.
For example, the “Drunk Dade” parody call-ins on Michael Berry’s radio program would seemingly be criminalized under the proposed law, as they involve audio recordings that portray an officeholder’s speech in a way that “did not occur in reality.”
Additionally, the bill leaves questions about enforcement and selective prosecution.
Courts have routinely struck down laws that regulate political discourse based on content, citing the First Amendment’s strong protections for satire and parody.
Indeed. I’m guessing that this is precisely the sort of thing Phelan wants to outlaw:
The bill reeks of the sort of censorious rules against insulting a member of the ruling party you see in communist countries like China or Venezuela. Hell, even the traditionally prickly French repealed their law against insulting the dignity of the French president. The “published, distributed, or broadcast” clause alone is too broad to be constitutional. Even forwarding or reposting a meme is theoretically a crime.
It’s so poorly written and unenforceable bill that Babylon Bee piece “Media Scrambles To Fact-Check Image Of Trump Riding Hero Dog Into Massive Space Battle” could quickly result in actual government prosecutions, at least if Dade Phelan’s fragile ego has anything to say about it.
This is a stupid, unenforceable and unconstitutional bill that deserves to die a quiet death in committee.
Feel free to share your best Dade Phelan memes below.
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.”
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?
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.
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!”
“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 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. 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.”
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…
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.
Purpose: “The integrity and expansion of our Nation’s energy infrastructure — from coast to coast — is an immediate and pressing priority for the protection of the United States’ national and economic security. It is imperative that the Federal government puts the physical and economic wellbeing of the American people first.”
Summary:
Directs agency heads to explore and enact any existing executive authority that will enable them “to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources, including, but not limited to, on Federal lands.”
Tasks the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head to approve emergency waivers for the 365-day sale of gasoline anywhere its supply is currently limited.
Expedites the permitting, construction, and completion of energy infrastructure projects, such as the Keystone XL pipeline, that have received previous approval.
Restricts the application of the Endangered Species Act in areas deemed to be unnecessarily burdening energy-related projects.
Creates an Endangered Species Act Committee tasked with reviewing designations under the law.
“Unleashing American Energy”
Purpose: “It is thus in the national interest to unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources. This will restore American prosperity — including for those men and women who have been forgotten by our economy in recent years. It will also rebuild our Nation’s economic and military security, which will deliver peace through strength.”
Summary:
Details the official American energy policy, which includes energy exploration on federal lands and waters; ramping up production of rare-earth minerals; grounding all related regulations in law; nixing the electric vehicle mandate and bans on certain kinds of consumer goods; and ensuring adequate public comment periods on energy-related regulations.
Withdraws the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords and eliminates the Green New Deal; terminates the American Climate Corps and the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases; and rescinds a multitude of President Biden’s climate-related executive orders, including the drilling ban on federal lands and waters and the application of regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Prioritizes permitting for liquefied natural gas exporting projects, such as on the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana.
Requires agency heads to remove regulatory barriers to the mining of mineral resources across the country.
“Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements”
Purpose: “It is the policy of my Administration to put the interests of the United States and the American people first in the development and negotiation of any international agreements with the potential to damage or stifle the American economy. These agreements must not unduly or unfairly burden the United States.”
Summary:
The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. will immediately notify the international organization that it will withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
Any financial grants given to the U.N. in conjunction with the Paris Agreement will be ceased.
Reports on the withdrawal and all the actions thereto shall be compiled to provide updates.
Any future agreements related to energy shall “prioritize economic efficiency, the promotion of American prosperity, consumer choice, and fiscal restraint in all foreign engagements that concern energy policy.”
“Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects”
Purpose: “This withdrawal temporarily prevents consideration of any area in the OCS for any new or renewed wind energy leasing for the purposes of generation of electricity or any other such use derived from the use of wind. This withdrawal does not apply to leasing related to any other purposes such as, but not limited to, oil, gas, minerals, and environmental conservation.”
Summary:
Approval of new leases for offshore wind power operations will be halted — similar to Biden’s directive on offshore oil drilling — and the current practices will be reviewed.
Agencies will assess the “environmental impact and cost … of defunct and idle windmills.”
Existing leases are not affected.
Trump is doing his level best to hit the ground running and clean up four years of Biden’s war on American consumer and energy producers via executive fiat in the name of pie-in-the-sky environmentalism in a single week.
Attorney General Ken Paxton has joined a legal challenge against the Biden administration’s recent regulation targeting gas-powered water heaters.
On December 26, 2024, the Department of Energy issued a final rule that would prohibit the sale of non-condensing instantaneous natural gas water heaters. Paxton and a coalition of attorneys general from multiple states contest the move is unlawful.
The lawsuit, led by Georgia, Kansas, and Tennessee, argues that this regulation disproportionately affects seniors and low-income households by limiting market options and potentially forcing consumers to use products that may require more energy for the same performance.
Paxton strongly criticized the rule, stating, “It makes no sense to ban better performing instantaneous water heaters in the name of ‘green energy’ and force consumers to purchase more expensive and less efficient models. Beyond being ridiculous, it is an unlawful abuse of power.”
He has vowed to continue opposing overreach by the Biden administration, adding, “Until the final second of Biden’s tenure in Washington, I will defend Texas from the chronic lawlessness of his Administration.”
With President-elect Trump set to take office in a few days, it remains to be seen how these ongoing legal challenges and regulatory disputes will be resolved.
Fellow states joining Texas in the suit are Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Plus a bunch of natural gas associations.
Hopefully today marks the end of federal regulatory overreach in the service of unlawful, pie-in-the-sky environmentalism and the beginning of an administration that actually cares about ordinary Americans.
The Biden economy is still sucking, the arsonist who helped set LA ablaze was (of course!) an illegal alien, a Tik-Tok triptych, Dan Patrick announces a staggering warchest, WaPo walloped, Stacey Abrams is busted, and Americans are told “no thanks” by Chinese RedNote users.
The bad news for American workers doesn’t end there. “1 in 5 postings on Greenhouse are ‘ghost jobs.'”
There were many reasons why they did it. Some did it for the same reason Biden’s administration did: To make their company look like it was doing better than it was. Some post them just in case there is a unicorn out there with magical qualifications.
But the most frustrating reason was the final one:
Some hiring managers even admitted they post fake jobs to keep their own employees on their toes, saying they want workers to feel ‘replaceable’ so they will work harder.
“LA County Arson Suspect is Illegal Immigrant Repeat Offender Protected By California’s Sanctuary State Policies.” Because of course he is. “The suspect, Juan Manuel Sierra-Leyva, is a Mexican national who has already been convicted of multiple crimes, but because California is a sanctuary state, he is unlikely to be deported, the New York Post reported.”
Just days after reports that she’d planned to can her fire chief, Kristin Crowley, after she publicly criticized the level of funding she’d received from the city, Bass is facing intense criticism yet again from a memo up on a city website, which shows that just months ago, the chief practically begged city hall to stop its budget-cutting spree on fire response.
The memo, which was dated Nov. 18, was written to the fire commissioners, according to the Washington Free Beacon. That’s a five-person board appointed by Bass.
In Crowley’s memo, she urged the commissioners to let Bass and the city council know how dire the situation was.
“In many ways, the current staffing, deployment model, and size of the LAFD have not changed since the 1960s,” Crowley wrote.
A federal judge in Texas has found that American Airlines violated both federal law and their fiduciary duty to their employees by using the company’s 401(k) plan to push ESG. Let a thousand lawsuits bloom.
Texas Republican Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is loaded for bear. “Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick posted ‘over $33.5 million’ cash-on-hand for his re-election campaign in 2026.”
Ron DeSantis continues to drive the enemy before him and hear the lamentations of their women. “United Teachers of Dade, Florida’s largest teachers union, failed to meet the requirements of a new state law that requires at least 60% of union members pay dues.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been trying to give away the Chagos Islands, despite them being the home to vital U.S. military base Diego Garcia. Fortunately, someone has slammed the breaks on the deal until Trump is in office.
Big drone attack from Ukraine against Russia, with reportedly over 200 drones used.
“WaPo’s Pulitzer-winning cartoonist, who portrays Republicans as groomers and predators, arrested for possession of child porn. Washington Post cartoonist Darrin Bell arrested for possession of child pornography.”
But it’s not all bad news for Bezos! TDS sufferer Jennifer Rubin quit.
Remember Stacey Abrams, the black female Georgian Beto? The mediocrity whose fawning media profiles never turned into actual election victories? Well, “Stacey Abrams Group Hit with Largest Fine in Georgia History for Violating Campaign Finance Law.”
A Democratic advocacy group founded by former Representative Stacey Abrams and once led by Senator Raphael Warnock were fined $300,000 on Wednesday for breaking Georgia’s campaign finance law.
Georgia’s ethics commission found that the New Georgia Project and its affiliated action fund raised $4.2 million and spent $3.2 million to support Abrams during the 2018 election cycle when she ran for governor. The groups failed to disclose those partisan contributions in violation of state campaign finance law. Abrams ultimately lost to Republican Brian Kemp, who defeated her again in 2022.
The two entities agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty, the largest fine in the commission’s 38-year history, in two $150,000 installments for 16 instances of illegal activity. The punishment is aimed at the groups, not Abrams and Warnock directly.
The New Georgia Project failed to register as an independent campaign committee and failed to file campaign finance reports of contributions and spending in 2018, showing their support for Abrams and other Democratic candidates.
In 2019, the groups committed the same offense without disclosing $646,000 in contributions and $174,000 in spending to support a voter referendum for Gwinnett County’s citizens to join the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority system. Despite the nonprofit’s efforts, voters rejected the referendum.
Just like Beto…
You didn’t expect Ken Paxton to let Biden leave office without one last lawsuit. “Texas Sues Biden Administration Over ‘Unlawful’ Methane Tax. Along with 22 other states, Texas is seeking to bar the final rule from taking effect on January 17.”
Turns out Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin didn’t bother to tell the chain of command that he was having major surgery. Or that he was hopped up on goofballs afterwards…
Not the Bee: “Asked what he’ll talk about at Mar-a-Lago, John Fetterman says, “I demand that I need to be made Pope of Greenland.” Fetterman seems to be the rare Democrat with a sense of humor…
Much of this Prager U video on why California wildfires are burning out of control will be familiar to you, but this succinct six minute overview does a good job of hitting the highlights.
“In 2018 [government owned Pacific Gas & Electricity] spent $2.4 billion on renewables. By comparison, in 2017, it spent $1.4 billion on existing infrastructure.”
“The forests grow ever more dense [because California Democrats have all but outlawed logging].”
“Brush builds up because controlled burns are not permitted.”
“Developers build in wilderness areas.”
“The dominant power company chases its renewable energy mandate at the expense of nuts and bolts line maintenance.”
“PG&E is in bankruptcy, sued into oblivion, with no viable plan to fix the grid.”
“Instead of bringing vital infrastructure into the 21st century, California is voluntarily turning itself into a third world country. That’s what happens when progressives and environmentalists run things.”
“The Golden State isn’t going green, it’s going broke and it’s going dark.”
As the entire nation watched in horror at the devastation being unleashed on California by multiple wildfires, the American people were treated to a preview of what a Gavin Newsom presidency might look like.
As fires raged throughout Los Angeles and surrounding hills this week and forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. Gavin Newsom surveyed the fires as Americans saw firsthand what a Newsom presidency might look like.
“A flaming hellscape? Ok, good to know that’s what we’d have to look forward to,” North Dakota resident Mark Larsen said. “Add in rampant taxes, thousands of illegal aliens pouring across the border, and no prosecution for criminals? The country’s future has never looked brighter. Brighter because of fire.”
Many critics have linked the wildfires to Newsom’s governance, or lack thereof, and are grateful to know now what the entire country would look like if he were president. The governor was quick to defend his record.
“My results speak for themselves,” Newsom said to reporters. “And when I am president, I can assure every American that the United States will look exactly like California.”
Trump is sentenced to nothing, Los Angeles burns, the Rotherham scandal boils, Biden flips off the nation (twice) before leaving office, Trudeau to go, and Germany starts disarming people who disagree with the government. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
President Joe Biden will ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in more than 625 million acres of federal waters, the White House announced Monday, striking a final blow against domestic energy production just two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
The outgoing president is set to use his authority under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East Coast, West Coast, eastern Gulf of Mexico, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska from future oil and gas leasing.
Snip.
The move comes on the same day that Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris is set to be certified by Congress. Trump has vowed to increase oil and gas production on a simple three-word energy policy: “Drill, baby, drill.” Biden’s latest action, however, poses an obstacle to the incoming president’s energy plans.
Asked about the ban during a Monday radio interview, Trump told host Hugh Hewitt he would “unban it immediately.”
Established 72 years ago, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act governs energy leasing activities in submerged lands under U.S. jurisdiction that extend three miles beyond the shoreline. An open-ended provision in federal law gives a president the authority to permanently withdraw portions of the Outer Continental Shelf without providing a way for a succeeding president to reverse course.
Therefore, the solution may not be as simple as Trump signing an executive order on his first day in office to undo the action. Congress would need to take legislative action. Or if Trump decides to revoke Biden’s withdrawal, that action may prompt legal challenges.
Democrats seem bound and determined to keep Americas broke for the sake of their environmental virtue signaling.
Those 34 hush money “felonies” were so serious that President Trump was sentenced to serve no jail time.
LA wildfire toll: “10 Dead, 10,000 Structures Burned In Los Angeles Area Inferno As Fire Damage Could Exceed $150 Billion.”
During the fire, hydrants ran out of water because nobody in the Democrat-dominated state could be bothered to fill the reservoir.
How badly does Los Angeles Democratic mayor Karen Bass suck? Just look at this timeline. She thought it was more important to jet off the Ghana than stay around when LA was faced with wildfire weather.
It gets better: A man apprehended setting fires with a blowtorch around LAwon’t be charged with arson. Because I guess burning people’s homes is social justice or something.
Canadian Prime Minister and all-around tool Justin Trudeau is resigning, though not until his successor is chosen in general elections. Canadian citizens enjoyed rough per-capita GDP economic parity with U.S. citizens when he took office. Now? “The gap between the Canadian and American economies has now reached its widest point in nearly a century.” And workers in Canada earn less than workers in even the poorest U.S. states. Heck of a job, Justin!
After an Elon Musk tweet brought up the Rotherham child gang rape scandal again, Keir Starmer’s Labour government went into full denial mode.
Gangs of predominantly Pakistani men have been raping and torturing vulnerable underage girls over the past three decades, with several independent inquiries having indicated systemic failures to investigate the crimes (because it would be ‘racist’). Three separate reports, published in 2013, 2014 and 2015 revealed that local politicians and police covered up the rapes.
Of note, foreigners are three times as likely to be arrested for sex offenses vs. British citizens.
In response Elon Musk launched an attack on Starmer, accusing him of failing to properly investigate and prosecute the gangs, which he called a “state-sponsored evil,” and alleging that Starmer was “complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN.”
And as The Telegraph notes, the state “had to bury the story.”
Denial about the extent of the problem is rooted deep in Britain’s political system. At times, it appears that the government’s approach to multiculturalism is not to uphold the law, but instead to minimise the risk of unrest between communities. Confronted with gangs of predominantly Pakistani men targeting predominantly white children, the state knew exactly what to do. For the good of community relations, it had to bury the story.
In Rotherham, a senior police officer told a distressed father that the town “would erupt” if the routine abuse of white children by Pakistani heritage men became public knowledge. One parent concerned about a missing daughter was told by the police that an “older Asian boyfriend” was a “fashion accessory” for girls in the town. The father of a 15-year-old rape victim was told the assault might mean she would “learn her lesson”.
Islamist MP Naz Shah just stated outright that raped girls should “shut their mouths for the good of diversity.” Just as with Democrats and illegal aliens, a little child rape is considered a small price to pay for all that glorious multiculturalism…
So, British MPs have voted against making a national inquiry into grooming gangs, in a 364-111 vote.
Man, when the “ruling class” of public servants don’t want something discussed, they really let us know about it. Big shots in England, who have no problem discussing American issues of governance, and even were fine with some of their citizens coming over the pond to campaign during our last election, are really, really annoyed that Americans are beginning to talk about the “grooming gangs” (read rapist gangs) who have operated in Rotherham and elsewhere who have been doing their thing for years, and with seeming impunity.
They’re really very annoyed about the American intrusion, you know. So much so, some are saying if the Americans don’t shut up about it, England should come cold all over its relationship with the USA.
Well, that’s gobsmacking, isn’t? It’s basically saying, “Shut up, stop talking about all the raping we did nothing to address or nip in the bud, or we won’t be your friends, anymore. We’ll take our soccer ball and go home, we will!”
I shouldn’t be so surprised. I’ve seen, and noted, in the past that for some there are two classes of sexual abuse/rape victims. The justly and properly acknowledged victims of priests, ministers, rabbi’s and religious — anything that involves church-centered abuse) and then the abused and raped people whose victimhood appears to be a lesser ken: Non-minor vulnerable adults; victims of public school teachers and staff; victims in state-run facilities. And now, apparently, English girls.
Fortunately, here in the U.S., the rule of law still actually means something. “Federal Judge Blocks Biden Administration’s Title IX Rewrite Protecting ‘Gender Identity.’”
Meta is immediately ending its DEI programs days after enacting sweeping changes to promote free speech on its platforms ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Meta vice president of human resources Janelle Gale sent an internal memo Friday announcing the company’s decision to terminate its DEI programs, Axios first reported, making it the latest large corporation to put an end to progressive workplace initiatives.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed Axios’s reporting when NR asked for comment. NR has reached out for additional comment.
“The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” Gale said in the memo, echoing the justifications given by other companies in walking back DEI.
“The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI,” the memo adds.
“The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”
Meta is getting rid of its DEI team and changing the role of chief diversity officer Maxine Williams. Additionally, Meta is ending its equity and inclusion programs, and its supplier diversity goals.
“We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams made up of world-class people from all types of backgrounds,” Gale said.
Likewise, Meta is abandoning its diversity hiring approach and its corporate representation goals to prevent the impression that the company is hiring solely based on demographic characteristics.
“It’s important to us that our products are accessible to all, and are useful in promoting economic growth and opportunity around the world. We continue to be focused on serving everyone, and building a multi-talented, industry-leading workforce from all walks of life,” the memo concludes.
Earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company will be replacing its fact-checking program with a “community notes” style approach mimicking Elon Musk’s X. The “community notes” feature on X allows for crowdsourced fact checking and demonetizes posts that get slapped with a note for misleading information.
Zuckerberg conceded that the fact-checkers Meta partnered with following the 2016 election were too politically biased, a nod to a longstanding complaint among conservatives. Meta is also reducing its “content moderation” policies to allow for greater freedom of speech on Facebook and Threads on controversial topics such as immigration and gender ideology. On that note, Meta is bringing back its promotion of political posts and moving its content moderation teams to Texas to prevent political insulation.
Well, Austin, anyway…
In August, Zuckerberg admitted that Meta was wrong to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story and criticized the Biden administration for pressuring Facebook into suppressing certain content related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Online censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story and skeptics of stringent Covid-19 policies was a priority for congressional Republicans in their investigations over the past two years.
He also went on Joe Rogan and added UFC head Dana White to Meta’s board. If Zuckerberg is a weather-vane, the MAGA winds must be very strong indeed…
Biden’s letting 11 terrorists out to fly to Oman because of course he is. All 11 are Yemanis. At least he’s not letting Khalid Sheikh Mohammad go. Yet…
Remember how in The Prisoner, one security device was a giant rolling ball? China evidently took inspiration from that, but there version is made out of metal.
Meanwhile, in Germany: “Saxony-Anhalt begins disarming AfD members. AfD members in many German states are stripped of many of their rights, including the right to privacy and lawful gun ownership.” You know, I get the feeling I’ve seen this movie before… (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
How car theft rings are stealing exotic cars by posing as legitimate car transport companies.
I don’t often cover New York sports teams or link to ESPN, but this story about how the “New York Football Giants” (to use Dwight’s preferred nomenclature) went 3-14 puts the fun in dysfunctional, including asking their starting cornerback to take a pay cut…right before a game.
Because I had to get out my book catalog last week, I’ve been as busy as Kathleen Kennedy on Ruin Star Wars Day, so this is another two-weeks crammed into one LinkSwarm. It’s just been a packed two weeks, with so many major stories breaking up not going to tease them up here, so let’s jump right in.
A new report has revealed that 21 George Soros-linked district attorneys across the United States have been replaced by “tough-on-crime” prosecutors. The report also noted that four have left office, either through recall efforts or other means.
Among those listed by the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund were former Portland District Attorney Mike Schmidt, who lost a May election to Democrat challenger Nathan Vasquez, Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez, who lost her reelection bid to Kalki Yalamanchili, and Kim Foxx, the former Cook County State’s Attorney who in 2023 announced that she would not seek reelection.
For those who were removed from office, there is Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, who in November was indicted on federal bribery charges, and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, who was recalled last month after serving just 18 months in office, per The National News Desk.
Replacements also noted by the report were Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who lost to challenger Nathan Hochman in last month’s election, and former Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who lost the 2022 Democratic primary election to Ivan Bates. Since her election loss, Mosby has been found guilty of one count of mortgage fraud.
All of them need to go.
Speaking of Soros tools: Subway Samaritan Daniel penny found not guilty on all charges. Just like Kyle Rittenhouse, he never should have been charged in the first place. Soros tool Alvin Bragg needs to be impeached and removed from office.
Christopher Wray steps down as FBI head. This shouldn’t keep the Trump Administration from prosecuting for his manifest interference in the political process.
More Democratic Party fundraising fraud. “ActBlue, the massive online fund-raising platform for liberal causes, has informed Congress it did not automatically block donations made with foreign-bought gift cards until recently.” Almost like the entire party is a giant money laundering scam…
Busted. “Georgia Court Removes Fani Willis from Trump Case over Relationship with Special Prosecutor.”
An appellate court removed Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis (D) from the racketeering case against President-elect Donald Trump over her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
Georgia’s court of appeals ruled Thursday that Willis will be removed from the case because of the appearance of misconduct surrounding her relationship with Wade, but did not throw out the case all together.
“While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety is generally not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the three judge panel ruled.
Left unstated is that her lawfare attack on Trump was both illegal and unconstitutional.
He also handed Iran access to $10 billion, because promoting terrorism, plotting to destroy Israel, and trying to build nuclear weapons are activities that Democrats seem eager to reward.
Winning. “ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos have reached a settlement in a defamation suit brought by President-elect Donald Trump, which requires the network to apologize, contribute $15 million to a ‘Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff,’ and pay Trump’s legal team $1 million.”
The battle lines are now drawn between West Coast liberals, Bernie Sanders-socialists and moderate technocrats in the Midwest, who insist the party has completely lost touch with the average American voter.
But first, there is one thing that all sides seemingly agree on: The current political establishment must be chased out of national politics for good. A reckoning is coming.
‘The people that are responsible for this s**tshow are the Obama people. They’re just grifters,’ a well-connected Democratic donor exclusively told Daily Mail. He singled out Jen O’Malley Dillon, who went from Biden 2024 campaign chair to serve in the same role for Harris’s camp, and David Plouffe, an ex-Obama 2008 campaign manager turned top Kamala adviser.
“Trump sues Des Moines Register, pollster for ‘brazen election interference’ over faulty polling in presidential race.” I think it’s very unlikely that Trump will win this lawsuit, thanks to First Amendment protections and the “absence of malice standard.” Plus pollster Ann Selzer can always just claim “I just sucked at my job.” She retired after the election.
Israel pounded Syrian army bases on Tuesday in strikes it says aim to keep weapons from falling into hostile hands, but denied its forces had advanced into Syria, toward Damascus, beyond a buffer zone at the border.
Regional security sources and officers within the now-fallen Syrian army who spoke to Reuters described Tuesday morning’s airstrikes as the heaviest yet, hitting military installations and airbases across Syria, destroying dozens of helicopters and jets, as well as Republican Guard assets in and around Damascus.
The rough tally of 200 raids overnight had left nothing of the Syrian army’s assets, said the sources.
The Israeli Air Force has carried out over 300 airstrikes in Syria since the collapse of the regime, destroying advanced weapons and other capabilities.
Strikes reportedly carried out by Israel in Damascus’s Barzeh area completely destroyed a defense ministry research center, AFP correspondents reported on Tuesday. Western countries including the United States struck the facility in 2018, saying it was related to Syria’s “chemical weapons infrastructure.”
Plus they sunk the entire Syrian navy.
Speaking of pounding the snot out of things:
According to a US official, the US used B-52 bombers, F-15 fighter jets and A-10 aircraft to strike ISIS leaders, operatives and camps in central Syria. pic.twitter.com/QreZe4ATau
“Palantir CEO Alex Karp Eviscerates Democrats: Voters ‘Do Not Want To Hear Your Woke Pagan Ideology.'”
Alex Karp, the co-founder and CEO of Palantir, said late last week that Democrats lost the 2024 election because they did not understand the fundamental human desire to feel safe.
Karp made the remarks during a panel discussion at the Reagan National Defense Forum while talking about what Americans expect out of the U.S. government.
“Americans are the most loving, God-fearing, fair, least discriminatory people on the planet,” he said. “They want to know that if you’re waking up and thinking about harming American citizens, or if American citizens are taken hostage and kept in dungeons, or if you’re a foreign power sending fentanyl to poison our people, something really bad is going to happen to you and your friends and your cousins, and your bank account and your mistress, and whoever was involved.”
He continued, “When Americans are spending a trillion dollars on ‘defense,’ what I want and what I think my peers want is: why are these people keeping our citizens as hostages, torturing our people, attacking our allies, maligning us in what was once called the United Nations — basically a discriminatory institution against anything good? We need to stand up and those people need to be scared.”
He said that it was critical for the U.S. to dominate because “we have the best products in the world, and we can not have parity.”
“Our adversaries do not have our moral compunction,” he said. “If it is even, they will take advantage of our niceness, our kindness, our desire to be at home in Nebraska and New Hampshire or wherever we live, in our peaceful environments.”
“They need to wake up scared, and go to bed scared, and if you give that to the American people, the American people will go back and say — and honestly, I probably shouldn’t say this, this is why I thought the Democrats were going to lose the election, and why they did, because people want to live in peace,” he continued. “They want to go home. They do not want to hear your woke pagan ideology. They want to know they’re safe. And safe means the other person is scared. That’s how you make someone safe.”
Democrats are now, finally, pissed at Obama. “There are people there are people who are now multi-millionaires as a result of the Harris campaign, and we know exactly who they are. And I just want to say that half a billion dollars in advertising went to just four well-heeled Democratic firms. This whole thing is deeply incestuous.”
“Ozy Media Founder Carlos Watson Sentenced To Hefty Prison Term For Defrauding Investors. [He] was sentenced to 116 months, or nearly ten years, in prison for conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in an unusual case that briefly captivated the media world.”
More of that voting fraud Democrats swear doesn’t exist. “2020 Carrollton Mayoral Candidate Admits to Mail Ballot Fraud. Zul Mohamed pleaded guilty Monday to 109 voter fraud felonies.”
“After Donald Trump flipped his county for the first time in a century, longtime Democratic Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina has announced he is switching parties to the Republicans saying that “the [Democratic] party left me, and the people of South Texas behind.”
Three U.S. Army soldiers have been arrested in Texas on criminal charges relating to smuggling illegal aliens.
The three soldiers were based at Fort Cavazos, which is near Killeen in Central Texas.
Fort Cavazos is The Fort Formerly Known As Fort Hood. I might have been a little more worked up over the name change if Hood hadn’t been such a shitty general.
U.S. Border Patrol agents made an initial traffic stop of a suspicious vehicle in the city of Presidio, located in West Texas on the Rio Grande. As an agent approached the vehicle’s passenger side, the driver sped away—hitting a second Border Patrol vehicle and injuring the agent inside.
The vehicle was eventually stopped by local law enforcement officers who detained four individuals in the car. Three were illegal aliens, and one was identified as U.S. Army soldier Emilio Mendoza Lopez.
The driver of the vehicle was reported as being another soldier named Angel Palma, who fled on foot from the vehicle but was located in Odessa a day later.
Presidio is nearly 500 miles away from where the soldiers were stationed.
“Mendoza Lopez and Palma allegedly traveled from Fort Cavazos to Presidio for the purpose of picking up and transporting undocumented noncitizens,” announced the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas. “A third individual, Enrique Jauregui, is alleged to be the recruiter and facilitator of the human smuggling conspiracy.”
Three Texas teachers made news last week over charges of child pornography—also known as child sexual abuse material, as the images and videos depict sex crimes being committed against minors.
The educators worked in Dallas, Leander, and Wall Independent School Districts. Two of the three taught band.
On December 13, Dallas Police arrested Sean Turner, 34, and charged him with possession of pornography featuring a child younger than 10 years old—a first-degree felony.
Snip.
Retired principal Curtis John Locklear was arrested December 12 and charged with felony possession of child porn.
Locklear was arrested by the Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable’s Office working with the Houston-area Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force.
Snip.
Also on December 12, a federal judge sentenced Joshua Carroll to 30 years in prison for possessing and producing child porn.
Carroll was an assistant band director in Wall ISD from January 2022 until his crimes were discovered earlier this year.
Texas Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw got dinged by the Internet for insider trading. So then Crenshaw attacked the Internet. It didn’t go well for him.
Google on Monday introduced a new chip called Willow, which solved in five minutes a computing problem that would take a classical computer more time than the history of the universe.
Tech companies are chasing quantum computing in hopes of developing systems that perform at speeds far faster than traditional silicon-based computers.
The building blocks of quantum computers, called “qubits”, while being fast, are error-prone, making it hard to ensure quantum computers are reliable and commercially viable.
The more qubits used in quantum computing, the more errors typically occur. But Google said on Monday it found a way to string together qubits in the Willow chip so that error rates decline as the number of qubits rise, adding that it can also correct errors in real time.
My understanding of how quantum computers work is limited to popular explanations, but D-Wave is evidently still in business, so maybe they work?
The trailer for James Gunn’s Superman dropped. I’ve never seen a Superman film in theaters, and this will not be getting me in. But you’ve got to give Gunn credit for thinking way outside the box and including Krypto the Superdog and Hawkman, two characters that absolutely no one in the greater viewing public was clamoring for.
A federal judge has blocked a Biden-Harris administration rule that required health insurance coverage for those brought across the border illegally as children.
Texas and 18 other Republican-led states sued the federal government over the rule, which allowed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to enroll in a federally run health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act.
DACA is an Obama-era program that delays the deportation of those who arrived in the U.S. illegally as minors.
The 19 states argued that the Biden rule encourages illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. and forces legal citizens to contribute funds for their health care.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor agreed with the states and halted the rule, citing federal law that prohibits giving public benefits to those who are not legal citizens.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, whose office spearheaded the lawsuit, called the decision “a big win for the rule of law.”
“Congress never intended that illegal aliens should receive Obama care benefits,” Kobach posted on X. “Indeed, two laws prohibit them from receiving such benefits.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded the decision on social media.
Just as ObamaCare was a Trojan Horse to enable government takeover of health care, DACA “dreamers” were a Trojan horse to soften American opposition to the Democratic Party’s policy of importing illegal aliens in America. Of course, the Obama holdovers decided they didn’t need popular opinion on their side and just opened the floodgates to every illegal alien gang-banger who could make it across the border.
One by one, the illegal rules enacted by the Biden Administration to decontrol the border and normalize and subsidize illegal aliens are falling by the wayside. Let’s hope Trump47 kicks that process up into overdrive.
(@NOELreports) 
