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:
The ongoing DOGE revelations prove that leftists feel absolutely no compunction about stealing money from taxpayers. Given that, and the revelations of where all those #BlackLivesMatter dollars ended up, perhaps it’s not surpirsing that more and more obviously feel no compunction about stealing from their own organizations.
A prominent diversity, equity, and inclusion nonprofit declared bankruptcy this month after its board accused its founder and top employees of stealing millions of dollars, a Daily Wire investigation found. Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey are set to keynote a conference run by the alleged thief, apparently through his for-profit firm, next month.
The National Diversity Council filed for bankruptcy on March 17 after its board said in a lawsuit that its founder R. Dennis Kennedy “improperly paid himself millions of dollars from NDC’s donor funds.” The suit said Kennedy “paid himself a grossly excessive salary” while using the nonprofit as a front for his for-profit diversity consulting business called Diversity & Leadership Inc (D&L).
The group’s 2020 IRS disclosure said Kennedy was paid $450,000 for 10 hours of work per week.
Nice work if you can get it.
In 2022, at the height of corporations’ DEI hype, Kennedy, chief executive officer Ángeles Valenciano, and chief financial officer Jason deGroot also “unilaterally decided that they were owed almost $3 million in ‘back pay,’ and then paid themselves more than $1 million of donor funds,” the lawsuit said.
Working the levers of the White Guilt Machine is evidently labor so grueling that it requires no less than a million bucks to perform.
As board members became suspicious and determined that there was no basis for the payments, Kennedy systematically moved the nonprofit’s trademarks and web domains into his own name, and essentially created a fake organization with the same name that would trick people into paying him directly, the suit indicated.
“Kennedy, Valenciano, and deGroot conspired to protect their scheme and ill-gotten gains by attempting to destroy NDC and move its resources and partnerships to another organization where they could continue exploiting donors’ funds and the organization’s resources with minimal oversight,” it said.
The suit said the trio’s conduct “gives rise to criminal liability…at a minimum, a third degree felony.”
NationalDiversityCouncil.org now leads to a website of an organization that purports to be the National Diversity Council, listing Kennedy as its founder and no board. Dawn Hooper, an accountant who is managing the bankruptcy for NDC’s board, told The Daily Wire that the site is “not operated by the National Diversity Council.”
In addition to the for-profit D&L Inc., Kennedy ran two Texas-based nonprofits, the Texas Diversity Council and the California Diversity Council, which were used to double-dip on salaries for the trio and siphon off consulting revenue from NDC, while using NDC staff and resources for all the groups’ expenses, the lawsuit said.
According to tax disclosures, in 2021 Kennedy was paid $787,000 in salary by the national nonprofit and $351,113 from the Texas one; Valenciano was paid $460,000 from NDC and $133,000 from Texas; and deGroot was paid $460,000 from national and $123,000 from Texas. The IRS filings claim Valenciano and deGroot worked 40 hours a week for the Texas nonprofit while also working 35 hours a week for the national nonprofit. They also claim Kennedy worked 40 hours a week for the Texas nonprofit, which would leave little time for his many for-profit ventures or the national nonprofit.
75 hours a week! “Jason deGroot was a graft-driving man…”
A tax form provided to help attendees pay for conference tickets indicates that the payment would go to D&L Inc. According to Texas business filings, D&L Inc.’s corporate registration was revoked in March 2023 for failure to pay taxes, but was reinstated two months later.
The fake NDC website says “The National Diversity & Leadership Conference celebrates its 25th year as one of the largest and most prestigious events dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and beyond. This year’s conference will feature an inspiring keynote address by Oprah Winfrey.” The conference site says that Bill Clinton, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, and left-wing professor Cornel West will also keynote. Conference-goers can meet them for $4,999.
In 2024, in what was advertised as the conference’s 21st year, Hillary Clinton, Magic Johnson, Castro, and Eric Holder spoke.
Most of those names are long-time grifters, but you wouldn’t think that Oprah or Magic would need the money.
For $8,900, participants could “take photos with each keynote speaker listed on the Speakers page except for Hillary Clinton.”
Man, the cost for these photo ops has radically increased in my lifetime. These things used to be $50-100 bucks. Also, just how much egoboo does a picture with Eric Holder get you?
And nearly ten grand and you don’t get a picture with Hillary. Just how special does she think she is these days?
Or maybe it takes several glasses of wine for her to get through these things, and she’s simply in no condition to stand around with the grubby peasants.
For the diversity industry, it’s grift all the way down, all the time…
The purity spiral on the left continues. Bernie Sanders was asked what he thinks Trump has done right. Here was his reply.
I think cracking down on fentanyl, making sure our borders are stronger. Look, nobody thinks illegal immigration is appropriate, and I happen to think we need comprehensive immigration reform, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for people to be coming across the border illegally.
(Set aside, for the moment, the question of why Sanders never bothered to speak up against the Biden Administration’s open borders agenda while it happening, because we all know the answer to that one.)
Seeing far-left icon Sanders call open borders a bridge too far led online commenters to wonder if the Democratic Party had indeed drifted too far left, and called for reappraisal of Biden’s open borders policies.
Ha! Just kidding! They called for Sanders’ death.
Asmongold offered up a Whitman’s Sampler of deranged online comments on Sanders daring to deviate from the Party line:
“I think illegal immigration is appropriate…and actually doesn’t exist b/c people aren’t illegal and borders aren’t real.” Proving yet again that no leftwing talking points lifted off a plastic yard sign are too banal or naive to be defended as Holy Writ by the terminally online.
“Nazi.”
“imagine selling out your entire base just to cosign Trump’s racist policy. bernie you bald spineless fraud shut the fuck up” The online left continues to display the fine capitalization, punctuation and grammar we’ve come to expect from them.
“Kill All Bernies.”
“The ‘moderate’ wing of fascism”
“Bernie Sanders is the racist freak and i wish he died”
As the Democratic Party becomes more radical and shrill, it shrinks, and as it shrinks, it becomes more radical and shrill. As those with any free-thinking or moderate tendencies flee the party, those remaining double-down on making even the most unpopular far-left talking points sacred catechisms that cannot be deviated from. That Bernie Sanders, a figure who was considered so far left that the DNC rigged two successive presidential primaries to deny him the nomination, can now be branded a heretic for opposing open borders indicates just how smothering the woke mind virus orthodoxy of the left has become.
After years of train wreck anticipation, Disney’s live-action Snow White has finally opened to notably tepid business, earning a projected $45 million in box office, which puts it on par with the disasterous 2019 Dumbo remake.
Inevitably, the Critical Drinker has reviewed the movie, and, incredibly, he found it actually worse than he expected (which was plenty bad).
“The Snow White live-action remake was, without a doubt, one of the worst ideas in the whole history of entertainment, possibly the most predictable of all failures. A project conceived for all the wrong reasons, starring all the wrong people, pushing all the wrong messages, and telling the entirely wrong story.”
“Now that I’ve finally suffered through nearly two hours of Snow White, I can confidently tell you that, yes, this film absolutely lived up to all my worst expectations, and in some cases even exceeded them.”
“A bloated, overstuffed turkey of a production, weighed down by hammy acting, cheap costumes, horrendous CGI and vomit-inducing cinematography that bungles most of the elements it steals from the original animated movie, abandons its classic ideals of self-sacrifice, heroism and true love and, injects a lethal dose of The Message, which is so redundant and thematically contradictory that it just gets abandoned by the end.”
“It’s also laughably obvious where they’ve had to reshoot and rewrite big chunks of this movie in response to all the backlash. Entire subplots characters and setups are introduced and then abandoned without explanation, and the ending is so wildly anticlimactic and jarring that it makes World War Z look like a model of cinematic efficiency.”
“After wandering alone for a while, she runs into seven dwarves that I can only describe as the kind of thing that Cthulhu probably has nightmares about. I’m not kidding. Man, the brief glimpses that you got of these things in the trailers are absolutely nothing compared to the existential horror of actually witnessing them on the big screen. These are nightmares made real.”
Knowing the history of this movie and the Drinker’s coverage of it, you might be surprised that the one person he praises the most in this fiasco is none other than Rachel Zegler. “Credit where credit’s due here: She actually isn’t terrible as Snow White. I mean, her outfit looks like it cost like $100 off Amazon, her haircut makes Anton Chigurh like a cutting-edge trailblazer, her performance is a bit over-the-top and theater kid at times, and her American accent comes and goes depending on whether or not she’s in a re-shoot, but I do get the impression she’s at least trying to do her best with the material, and she can absolutely belt out the musical numbers, which is pretty much what you’d expect from a trained vocalist.”
“The same cannot be said for Gal Gadot, however. It genuinely pains me to say this, but I think we all need to come to the acceptance that that girl cannot fucking act. It takes a special kind of charisma, presence, and dramatic range to play a good Disney villain, and, well Gal Gadot doesn’t have it. Her delivery somehow manages to be wooden and scenery chewing at the same time, and when she has to deliver a big musical number, you can pinpoint the exact moment where they swap out her voice with someone who can actually sing.”
“The color scheme ranges from bleak washed out gray castles and towns that look like Zack Snder directed it to a kind of over-the-top golden yellow piss filter for the CGI woodland scenes that’s so excessive it actually makes your eyes start to hurt after a while. It’s funny as well, because there’s like one scene that was filmed on location in a real forest, and the contrast between that and the CGI fantasy version is so jarring I actually thought the action had shifted to a whole different country.”
“I couldn’t help wondering what is the film even trying to show us here. Snow White as a character seems to be all about equity and shared responsibility rather than privilege and greedy self-interest, but when it comes to the crunch, she ends up having to do basically everything herself, which negates the very point the movie’s been trying to make for the past two hours.”
“It’s this fundamental inability to understand what it’s even trying to say, beyond the crushingly tired princess who saves herself trope that’s now become the very cliche it works so hard to overturn, that proves to be the film’s real undoing.”
“In short, Snow White is a modern-day mess, a film that’s basically been a disaster from start to finish, and now that it’s finally out there and I’ve reviewed it, it’s something I’m very much looking forward to tossing on the ash heap of history.”
“Do yourself a big old favor, save yourself some time and money and go watch the original instead.”
More DOGE revelations, more leftwing violence, more pervert school teachers arrested, Baltimore builds a ghost city, astronauts get rescued, DVDs rot, and a bunch of fierce togers with a gentle mom.
Muslim charity with links to Hamas was awarded more than $7.2 million in taxpayer cash, which has now disappeared, according to a watchdog group.
An “immediate investigation” needs to be launched into The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) California chapter’s use of funds, according to the watchdog, who sent a complaint to the Department of Justice Thursday.
According to the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN), a California-based, non-partisan advocacy group, the money was given to the chapter to help re-settle impoverished immigrants in California between 2022 and 2024.
In what appears to be a sleight of hand, the money – $7,217,968.44 — was sent to CAIR-Greater Los Angeles and not to CAIR-CA, which was the only group eligible to receive it, according to the complaint.
The Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Muslim organization, which is not a registered non-profit and not eligible to handle charitable donations, received the entire pot of money according to the complaint, viewed by The Post.
I think we all know where that money went: Leftwing pockets and murdering Jews.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday shuttering the Department of Education, fulfilling a long-standing conservative wish to do away with the agency.
Trump’s order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take the “necessary steps” to close the $268 billion agency and transfer its authority back to the states. The order does not immediately shutter the agency, and it will require programs and services to continue uninterrupted.
“Everybody knows it’s right,” Trump said moments before signing the order, which he said was 45 years in the making. “We have to get our children educated.”
The long-expected executive order will likely face significant legal challenges over whether Trump has the authority to dismantle the agency. Fully closing down the Department of Education will require congressional approval.
Since the days of President Ronald Reagan, Republicans have sought to eliminate the Department of Education, created in 1979 under former President Jimmy Carter, for its role in promoting left-wing ideology and encroaching on state authority. The Education Department’s responsibilities primarily consist of allocating grant money, administering student loans, and enforcing federal civil rights laws
Trump has long promised to terminate the agency and empower states to run their own education systems without federal interference. Shuttering the Education Department was a bullet point on the 2024 GOP platform.
National Review seems to think Trump’s plan is more flawed than the previous Republican Presidential attempts to shutter the Department of Education by not doing a goddamn thing…
The Department of Education has a budget of about $280 billion dollars per year. Less than 25% goes to educating our students.
It goes to a bureaucracy. It goes to a consultant. And that consultant then donates money back to the Democrats. And then it goes to a different consultant. And then it goes to an NGO. It is money laundering and money churning at its absolute best.
It appears that the entire point of both the Biden and Obama Administrations was to turn the entirety of the federal government into a giant graft machine for the radical left.
“Paxton Opinion States District Courts Cannot Order Sex Changes on Government ID.” State district courts can no longer direct state agencies to change a person’s sex on government documents.”
For years, the left has advanced utter untruths for cheap partisan purposes that it knew at the time were all false. And now when caught, they just shrug and say they were lying all along.
Once it was known that the first COVID-19 case originated in or near a Chinese communist virology lab engineering gain-in-function deadly viruses—with help from Western agencies—the left went into full persecution mode.
They damned as incompetent, racist, and conspiratorial any who dared follow logic and evidence to point out that the Chinese government and its military were both culpable for the virus and lying.
A million Americans died of COVID. Millions more suffered long-term injuries. Still, the left-wing media and Biden administration demonized any who dared speak the truth about a lab origin of the deadly virus.
The lies were designed to protect the guilty who had helped fund the virus’s origins, such as Doctors Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins.
The Biden government also tried to use the lab theory to ridicule a supposedly pro-Trump “conspiracy.”
Western corporate interests deeply invested in China did not want their partner held responsible for veritably killing and maiming hundreds of millions worldwide.
Almost as soon as Joe Biden was inaugurated, the left knew that he was physically and mentally unable to serve as president.
Indeed, that was the point.
Biden’s role was designed as a waxen figurine for hard-left agendas that, without the “old Joe Biden from Scranton” pseudo-moderate veneer, could never have been advanced.
His handlers operated a nightmare administration: the destruction of deterrence abroad, two theater wars, 12 million illegal aliens, a weaponized justice system, hyperinflation, and $7 trillion more in debt.
By 2017, the public knew three truths about the so-called Christopher Steele dossier.
One, it was completely fallacious—fabricated by a has-been, ex-British spy Christopher Steele. He childishly had cobbled together lurid sex stories, James Bond spy fictions, and Russian-fed disinformation to destroy the Trump candidacy and later presidency.
Two, it was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. She hid her checks behind the Democratic National Committee, the Perkins Coie law firm, and Fusion GSP paywalls.
Three, the FBI under James Comey hired Steele as an informant. It helped disseminate his concocted files and was also instrumental in trying to subvert the Trump campaign and later administration.
No sane person ever believed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was the work of “Russian disinformation.” Its contents a year before the 2020 election were verified by the FBI, but it kept mum about its confirmation.
The pornographic pictures, the evidence of prostitution and drug use, the electronic communications implicating Joe Biden in his family’s illicit shake-down operation of foreign governments—all were never challenged by anyone who was associated with the laptop’s contents.
Yet future Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, along with former interim CIA Director Mike Morrell, sought to fabricate a colossal lie to arm their candidate, Joe Biden, with plausible denial in the last presidential debate before the 2020 election.
They rounded up a rogue’s gallery of 51 now utterly discredited former intelligence authorities to lie to the nation that the laptop was likely fake.
All knew the FBI had verified the laptop. But they also knew that their titles would empower their lies that the Russians likely invented the laptop to aid the sinister Trump.
The question of whether federal judges can review alien deportation orders under the Alien Enemy Act has already been decided in Ludecke v. Watkins. “The Alien Enemy Act precludes judicial review of the removal order.” Pp. 163-166. (Hat tip: Grim’s Hall.)
Sanity: ” New York’s Highest Court Blocks NYC Law Allowing Noncitizens to Vote. ‘Instead, it is plain from the language and restrictions contained in Article II that “citizen” is not meant as a floor, but as a condition of voter eligibility.'”
You may not have heard in another packed news week, but once again Recep Tayyip Erdogan is doing Erdogan things in Turkey.
Ekrem Imamoglu, Istanbul’s mayor and a high-profile member of the opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was arrested along with dozens of others Wednesday, state-run media reported, in what critics said was a significant escalation of the government’s crackdown on dissent.
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The chief public prosecutor’s office ordered the arrest of about 100 people Wednesday, saying Imamoglu and others faced allegations including membership in criminal organization, bribery, aggravated fraud and unlawful acquisition of personal data. More than 80 people had been detained so far, according to local media reports.
Imamoglu, a popular politician and member of the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, became mayor of Turkey’s largest city in 2019 and won reelection last year in high-profile races where he defeated candidates from Erdogan’s ruling party. He was expected to be selected as the CHP’s candidate for president in the party’s primary elections scheduled for this weekend. The mayorship of Istanbul is seen as a political stepping stone: Erdogan once held the role.
Over two decades in power, Erdogan has tightened his control over state institutions and deepened restrictions on speech and expression, including within the judiciary, bringing charges against and imprisoning opponents. He has also exerted widespread control over the media, universities and other institutions.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi released a statement overnight, calling the “violent attacks” on Tesla showrooms, service centers, Supercharger networks, and vehicles “nothing short of domestic terrorism.”
“The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism. The Department of Justice has already charged several perpetrators with that in mind, including in cases that involve charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences,” Bondi stated in a press release.
She continued: “We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.”
The latest domestic terrorism attack on Tesla occurred at a service center in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning.
ver the next few days you’re going to see an organized progressional protest effort at Tesla stores put together by a group called Indivisible.
George Soros foundation has given Indivisible nearly $8 million dollars for their “activism”.
They’re calling these “Tesla takedown” events and they’re doing it in the midst of a domestic terror spree targeting Tesla and Tesla owners. They have these planned across the entire country. These images are just six examples.
How can this not be seen as encouraging more violence and terrorism? I personally think that any violence occurring near locations they’ve chosen should result in Soros, his foundation, Indivisible and their founders being held criminally accountable as co-conspirators.
The indivisible founders are Ezra Levin and his wife Leah Greenberg. They became “resistance” figures during Trump’s first term and their work is celebrated by elected Democrats. So yeah, it’s clear to me that the Democrats and their typical thugs are organizing this insanity.
There’s reportedly even a form protest leaders can fill out to receive “reimbursement” payments for their protests.
Meanwhile, Musk’s SpaceX Dragon crew compartment was busy returning stranded astronauts to earth, a path I’m assuming the Biden Administration didn’t pursue because there was no way to rake off leftwing graft from the rescue mission…
Plus Trump says they’ll get overtime, even if has pay it out of his own pocket:
BREAKING: Trump says he will pay the astronauts who were stranded in outer space overtime out of his own pocket.
DOOCY: They didn't get any over time. $5 per day per diem, that's $1,430 in extra pay. Can the administration fix this?
People called up North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’ office to express polite disagreement with his policies. Ha, just kidding! They threatened to kill him and his family.
“Two Texas Universities Investigated by U.S. Department of Education for ‘Race-Exclusionary Practices.'” That would be Rice University and North Texas University.
New York Times is now saying that lab leak theory is now plausible, after years of attacking anyone who mentioned it as “conspiracy theorists.” And yes, Not The Bee used the Hot Dog Guy meme.
“Federal Prosecutors Secure Convictions for 2022 Human Smuggling Event that Killed 53.”
Federal prosecutors announced the convictions of two of the human smugglers responsible for the horrific 2022 mass casualty event wherein 53 people were killed and 11 injured after being locked into a tractor-trailer and left in the Texas heat.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) described the tragedy as the single deadliest human smuggling case in U.S. history at the time. Four men, all Mexican nationals, were charged in connection with the crime: 30-year-old Riley Covarrubias-Ponce, 28-year-old Felipe Orduna-Torres, 37-year-old Luis Rivera-Leal, and 53-year-old Armando Gonzales-Ortega.
Fast forward, and the DOJ confirmed in a press statement that Orduna-Torres and Gonzalez-Ortega were convicted for their roles in the alien smuggling conspiracy that led to the deaths.
Japan’s “evaporated people,” who completely abandon their previous life, family and friends to move to slums anonymously. Some similarities with American homeless or China’s “lie flat” movement, but I get the impression a big difference is that evaporated people are primarily motivated by shame of failure.
Baltimore offers tax incentives to inner harbor development project, only to create a ghost city.
Kotaku gets a defamation lawsuit by former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. Some people are calling it “Gawker 2.0.”
A music bigwig who helped launch Nipsey Hussle’s career and was lauded as rap’s “godfather” has been accused of running a “Mafia-like” criminal enterprise involving murder, human trafficking, robbery and extortion on the streets of Los Angeles.
Eugene Henley Jr. — known as “Big U” in the entertainment world — was one of 18 members of the Rollin’ 60s Neighborhood Crips street gang charged in a sprawling federal racketeering complaint, the US Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.
Henley has “maintained the image of an entertainment industry entrepreneur running a music label and of somebody who gives back to the community here in Los Angeles,” US Attorney Joseph T. McNally said while announcing the indictment.
Amazon driver goes ballistic, cussing out woman’s doorbell camera for “buying all this shit.” Turns out the woman is in a wheelchair. Pink slip ensues.
New Yorker art critic Jackson Arn fired for “making ‘inappropriate overtures’ at some of the party guests and appeared to be drunk.” I hold no water for Arn (a lefty who used to write for The Nation) or Conde Naste (Teen Vogue), but “getting drunk and making a pass” at a holiday party used to be a forgivable sin in corporate American, but the woke religion of social justice is incapable of offering forgiveness or redemption. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
A simplified description of how your brain actually operates. I wouldn’t take it as gospel, but I’m regretting that I never actually read Marvin Minsky’s The Society of Mind…
Rick Beato interviews Hans Zimmer. “The job is not to listen to the director telling you what the music is he wants, because if if he knows what music he wants, then he can do it himself. My job is to sort of listen to him tell me the story and then do the thing that he can’t even imagine.”
The lefty sorts running my alma mater these days are at it again. Despite pushes at the state and national level to rid universities of poisonous racist policies, DEI/CRT is still alive and well at the University of Texas at Austin.
A new report shows the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Education is riddled with critical race theory and other leftwing ideologies.
Last year, a state law took effect that requires universities to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices and eliminate discriminatory hiring and training programs. It does not apply to instruction.
Sounds like an oversight to me. Governor Abbott should appoint people to the board of regents who are willing to completely hack DEI out of the system, root and branch.
Nonprofit research organization DeepAudit analyzed 450 UT education syllabi using a machine learning algorithm and identified courses with the highest concentration of CRT and DEI material.
Seven of the ten courses ranked most ideologically-driven fall under the university’s curriculum and instruction department.
DeepAudit’s algorithm scanned for courses that emphasize “equity, diversity, social justice, critical pedagogy, critical consciousness, [and] identitarian political activism.”
According to the nonprofit’s website, its machine learning tool “can help institutions comply with state and federal mandates by using semantic analysis” to assess meaning and context beyond simple keyword searches.
“A reporter investigating DEI and CRT in schools of education would typically have to review every course individually,” reads the report. “Such a process is a barrier to analysis as many schools offer hundreds of education courses.”
“While many have heard reports of critical race theory in schools, few realize how widespread the problem is,” Jonah Davids, a founder of DeepAudit told Texas Scorecard. “These ideas are rarely expressed so openly, and instead are often hidden under labels like ‘culturally-responsive teaching’ and ‘social-emotional learning.’”
“Most legislators, parents, and taxpayers who fund universities have no idea this is happening,” Davids said. “We only looked at one college in one university—who knows how much is out there?”
Foundations of United States Schooling, the UT course that contained the most leftist bias, is required for education majors. It touches on the “development of public schooling in the United States in the context of processes of settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and contests over the meaning of democracy.”
An online summary of the course also says it “examine[s] the politics and policy of education, with special attention to the consequences for students of color, Indigenous students, LGBTQIA students, immigrant students, and students with disabilities.”
Required course readings involved transgender advocacy, decolonization, and critical pedagogy.
According to DeepAudit, the ten UT Austin education courses most infused with CRT are:
EDC312 Foundations of United States Schooling
EDC319 Qualitative Inquiry and Education for Social Change
EDC385G Seminar Program Development and Research
EDP382G Cultural Diversity and Individual Differences
EDC380F Sociocultural Foundations
ELP354S Social Awareness and Critical Consciousness in Student Affairs
EDC395T Learning Technologies
ELP354D Equity and Diversity Issues in Education
EDC395L Language and Literacy Studies
EDC391G Gender and Race in Education
While sunlight is the best disinfectant, when it comes to UT and other top university systems, the state political establishment has frequently declared “We like our cozy corruption just fine, so please take your disinfectant away and put back the rock.” Such was the case when UT Board regent Wallace Hall uncovered an admissions scandal, and his reward was Joe Straus trying to indict him.
Despite the overwhelming opposition of the voters and elected leaders at the state and national level, many colleges (UT Austin included) still seem to feel that their primary purpose is to indoctrinate students in the victimhood identity politics of the radical left. Universities, UT Austin included, need severe cuts in funding and heavy supervision until they finally stamp out woke indoctrination on their campuses.
80 inmates per each cell, no mattresses, no sheets, a communal toilet, and a communal bathing basin.
A remote mountain location with multiple checkpoints before you even get to the prison itself.
Nine meters of concrete walls topped with electrified fence.
“The director tells me the inmates, once they’re inside one of the sectors, they never leave.”
23.5 hours a day, they stay in the cell.
Inmates who get violent get put in solitary, with one tiny light hole in the ceiling.
As I noted in the LinkSwarm, these very effective control measures would, quite correctly, be considered cruel and unusual punishment if applied to American citizens.
The second topic is the violent Tren de Aragua gang, which we’ve covered here, here, here, here, and here, among other places.
So what’s combining these two stories? Trump’s crackdown on and deportation of criminal illegal aliens. Well, guess what prison Trump is deporting Tren de Aragua scumbags to?
The Trump administration ignored a temporary court order to halt deportation flights of accused Venezuelan gang members — and is vowing to take it up with the highest court in the land.
“This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we’re going to win,” a senior White House official told Axios.
During an emergency hearing on Saturday, US District Judge James Boasberg issued a 14-day restraining order to prevent the administration from evoking the 1789 Alien Enemies Act as justification for deporting illegal immigrants convicted of crimes without hearings.
I know you’ll be shocked to learn that Boasberg was nominated to his current district court seat by Obama.
“Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States however that is accomplished,” Boasberg wrote, according to the Washington Post.
However, a day later, the first flight carrying more than 250 Venezuelan gang members left the US bound for El Salvador, where they were escorted off the plane by heavily armed commandos and brought to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
The flights included 238 members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, as well as 23 members of MS-13, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, revealed Sunday morning.
A second official told the outlet that the administration’s justification for ignoring Boasberg’s order was that the ruling didn’t apply because the flights were being flown over international waters, and that his edict came too late to turn the planes around.
Snip.
President Trump shared a dramatic video of the prisoner transport on Truth Social Sunday evening, showing shackled men being roughly led from the planes onto armored troop transport vehicles.
“These are the monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats. How dare they! Thank you to El Salvador and, in particular, President Bukele, for your understanding of this horrible situation, which was allowed to happen to the United States because of incompetent Democrat leadership. We will not forget!”
Naturally, Democrats are appalled that Trump is deporting their precious illegal alien criminals.
Four Democratic senators on Monday called Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act for immigration enforcement an “unlawful and brazen power grab.”
“All of us, including the courts, must continue to hold this administration accountable, and prevent the Trump administration from taking us down a dark and dangerous road,” Senators Dick Durbin, Alex Padilla, Cory Booker, and Peter Welch said in a statement.
That’s some clever, out-of-the-box thinking by President Trump, getting gangbanging scumbags deported, deterring other criminals by making clear they’ll end up in much worse prisons than those in America, and getting Democrats to, yet again, jump on the wrong side of an 80-20% issue.
Good job, Mr. President!
* I don’t know if this is actually the world’s worst prison, but it’s the worst one I know about. There are probably prisons in China or Afghanistan that are worse…
Government leftists at USAID call to break the law to cover their tracks, DOGE uncovers still more outrageous examples of government waste, Democratic bagman john Podesta showered billions on newly created NGOs, billions in LA homeless funds are unaccounted for, Syrian jihadis slaughter civilians, more pedo teachers get caught, lobbyists rake in big bucks, and the heart-stopping thrills of a man…baking.
A senior USAID official on Tuesday ordered the agency’s remaining staff to report to their now-former headquarters in Washington DC for an “all day” group effort to destroy documents, many of which contain sensitive information, Politico reports.
The materials marked for destruction include “classified safes and personnel documents” at the Ronald Reagan Building, according to an email sent by USAID’s acting executive director, Erica Carr.
“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” read the email instructing staff to label the burn bags with “SECRET” and “USAID/B/IO” (which stands for “bureau or independent office”) in dark sharpie.
Again, how is this not breaking the The Federal Records Act and other laws against destroying evidence?
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that late last year, Brent Efron, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) special advisor implementing Biden’s climate agenda, made many controversial statements during an undercover video about the agency’s actions in anticipation of a potential Trump administration.
Efron reportedly told Project Veritas that the EPA was rapidly distributing billions of dollars in grants to nonprofits as an “insurance policy” against Trump winning the election. He described the situation as “throwing gold bars off the Titanic,” referring to the urgency with which the agency allocates funds.
Now the Trump Administration has followed those gold bars. An exclusive report by the New York Post indicates the trail of those bars led back to Deep State Obama/Biden minion, John Podesta.
The story began in September 2022, when Biden named Podesta to helm the $375 billion climate fund, which resulted from the Inflation Reduction Act, a 2022 law that was basically “Green New Deal” poison hidden beneath a wrapper of sweet economic promises.
Here is how The New York Times announced the 2022 fund creation:
As a senior adviser to Mr. Biden on clean energy innovation, Mr. Podesta will shape how the government disburses billions of dollars in tax credits and incentives to industries that are developing wind and solar energy, as well as to consumers who want to install solar panels, heat and cool their homes with electric heat pumps or buy electric vehicles.
..In an interview, Mr. Podesta described his new job as “throwing the weight of federal government policy behind a cycle of investment and innovation that we haven’t seen before in the United States, and that is almost unique in the world.”
There was absolutely no questioning by The New York Times as to where these monies would go, or how the funds would be used to help either our climate or energy industry.
On the other hand, the New York Post has a map of the gold bar trail. Apparently, billions went to “Non-Governmental Organizations” that were founded after the fund was created.
The Biden administration funneled at least $20 billion dollars into environmental groups, most of which had only recently been founded, The Post has discovered.
In one case, former Vice President Kamala Harris handed over a check for nearly $7 billion to Bethesda, Maryland, based group Climate United Fund, which does not appear in the IRS’s charities database, and has no federal filings.
The non-profit fund had only been incorporated in Delaware on November 30, 2023, according to public records, five months before Harris handed over the cash in April 2024.
The Climate United Fund then announced “the historic investment” in a press release, noting the group’s work “delivers benefits like cleaner air…and increased energy security.”’
However, because the company is so new, there is no publicly published accounting of how it plans to spend the $7 billion.
Climate Fund, which received nearly $7 billion in Biden Climate Gold, was just one of eight similarly set-up entities. Others are:
Coalition for Green Capital: Received $5 billion
Power Forward Communities: Received $2 billion
Opportunity Finance Network: Received $2.29 billion
Inclusiv: Received $1.87 billion
Justice Climate Fund: Received $940 million
Appalachian Community Capital: Received $500 million
“Exposed: Secret Pact Between 14 Blue States, Left-Wing Groups, and NYC Law Firms.”
Well, well, well. It’s hardly a surprise to discover that the wave of lawsuits against Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is no coincidence. The Oversight Project at the Heritage Foundation has obtained a copy of a secret agreement outlining a coordinated legal offensive—an alliance between 14 blue states, left-wing activist groups, and prominent NYC law firms—all targeting DOGE and Musk himself.
What is surprising, however, is that they actually formalized their nefarious intentions.
Signed less than a month after DOGE began operations, this agreement is yet another example of the Democrats’ “whatever it takes” brand of political warfare.
The document begins:
This Common Interest Agreement (“Agreement) is made and entered into by and between the States of New Mexico, Arizona, Michigan, Califomia [sic], Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington and State Democracy Defenders Fund (the “Parties”). The Parties have agreed that they have a common interest in developing legal strategies to challenge the creation and actions of the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE) and the actions of Elon Musk as a special government employee and a common interest in existing or future investigative, regulatory, administrative, and judicial actions or inactions, including but not limited to any administrative or judicial proceedings related to or arising from those legal strategies (“Matters of Common Interest”).
“The Democrats are on the wrong end of an 80-20 issue, fighting tooth and nail to block a federal government audit that has already uncovered more than $105 billion in fraud, waste, and abuse. A recent Harvard/Harris poll shows that 76% of voters support DOGE’s efforts, yet Democrats—whose job is to represent the interests of their constituents—have gone to extraordinary lengths to obstruct it, even putting their opposition in writing.”
1. Billions in “Dark Money” Outpacing Political Parties
Arabella’s network raised $2.4 billion in the 2020 election cycle, dwarfing the combined fundraising of the Democratic and Republican National Committees. This tax-exempt cash, hidden from public scrutiny, fueled anti-Trump campaigns and progressive agendas, all while average Americans had no clue their tax system enabled it. It’s a shadow operation that makes traditional political spending look like pocket change.
2. Fake Grassroots “Pop-Ups” Everywhere
The Sixteen Thirty Fund, an Arabella spoke, spins up temporary “pop-up” groups like Floridians for a Fair Shake or Opportunity Wisconsin, which vanish after their mission—say, attacking a senator or pushing a ballot measure—is done. These tax-exempt fronts, funded by anonymous donors, masquerade as local movements while redirecting millions to sway elections, leaving taxpayers blind to the manipulation. It’s a conveyor belt of synthetic activism, exploiting 501(c) loopholes.
3. Funding Supreme Court Protests
Demand Justice, birthed by the Sixteen Thirty Fund, spent millions opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation, complete with costumed activists and aggressive ad blitzes. This tax-exempt war chest didn’t just influence public opinion—it tried to bully the judiciary, all subsidized by a tax code Americans fund. Most folks never connected the dots to Arabella’s puppet strings behind the chaos.
4. Zuck Bucks’ Election Meddling
Arabella’s New Venture Fund funneled $25 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which then got $350 million from Mark Zuckerberg to “administer” 2020 elections—read: juice Democratic turnout in swing states. Tax-exempt dollars turned local election offices into partisan tools, and the public was none the wiser about this backdoor power grab. It’s a masterclass in using charity status to rig the game.
5. Foreign Billionaires Pulling Levers
Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has pumped at least $208 million into the Sixteen Thirty Fund since 2016, exploiting tax laws that let foreigners bankroll U.S. political causes through “dark pools.” This foreign cash—untouchable by direct campaign finance rules—shapes American policy, yet taxpayers footing the system’s bill don’t even know his name. It’s a loophole so big you could drive a Swiss bank vault through it.
he report painted a grim picture of Los Angeles’ homeless program managed by Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), which was established in 1993.
“Repetitive information gaps, coupled with a lack of accurate and complete data and documentation, posed significant obstacles to this assessment,” the report states.
“Insufficient financial accountability led to an inability to trace substantial funds allocated to the City Programs. Fragmented data systems across LAHSA, the City, and the County and inconsistent reporting formats made it challenging to verify spending and the number of beds or units reported by the City and LAHSA, track participant outcomes, and align financial data with performance metrics.”
The report also cites a paucity of uniform data standards and real-time oversight, which limited the ability of the auditor to fully assess the true impact of homeless programs and raised concerns of resource misallocation.
A&M found that key stakeholders failed to monitor homelessness programs, and that LAHSA was unable to identify relevant service provider contracts and expenses. It also found gaps in documentation.
Of course there are gaps in documentation. That’s to hide the graft disappearing into leftwing pockets…
Crimea, Sevastopol, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk — these are regions of Russia. They are written into the constitution. This is a given fact,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. That amounts to one-fifth of Ukraine’s legitimate, internationally recognized pre-war territory. Putin demands that Ukraine permanently renounce any claim to these territories.
Ukraine must disarm itself of any NATO weapons. Of course, the top suppliers of the Ukrainian military are the United States with $69.7 billion worth of weapons systems and ammunition since the start of the war, Germany with $13.7 billion worth, the United Kingdom at $10.8 billion worth, Denmark at $8.1 billion worth, Sweden at $5.1 billion worth, Poland at $3.9 billion worth, France at $3.8 billion worth, and Canada at $2.8 billion worth. (All figures from the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine support tracker, converted from Euros to dollars, and as of December 31, 2024.) All those countries are NATO members, and thus, under the Russian demands, Ukraine would have to give up all weapons systems received from those countries. This amounts to a unilateral disarming of the Ukrainian military, in exchange for a promise from a former KGB lieutenant colonel that he will not start the war again.
Putin also demanded that Ukraine cap its military size. Previously, Putin had demanded Ukraine limit the size of its army to 50,000 troops. As of January, the Ukrainian army is 880,000 troops, meaning that Russia wants the Ukrainian army to be reduced to less than 6 percent of its current size.
According to CNN, “Putin also suggested that Ukraine halt mobilization and any training of its troops, and that other nations stop supplying weapons to Kyiv during the ceasefire.” Halt any training of troops.
Putin insisted no foreign peacekeepers can enter Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine must abandon the idea of NATO membership. While the Trump administration had already made this concession before negotiations began, note that Putin is establishing a system where he gets a veto over which countries NATO can accept.
The U.S. must return six diplomatic compounds that Russia contends were seized illegally by the United States between 2016 and 2018.
All Western economic sanctions upon Russia are illegal and must be lifted.
Bob [Robert B.] Laughlin, who’s a physics professor at Stanford, he got a Nobel Prize in Physics 1998. And he suffered from the extreme delusion that once he got a Nobel Prize in Physics, he’d be free to look at anything he wanted to. And the area of science that he went after was: he was convinced that most scientists, even at a place like Stanford, weren’t really doing very much work, weren’t doing very much science, were stealing money from taxpayers…This was a more this was a more taboo question, more taboo topic, than just going narrowly after climate science, or, you know, or any of these things. And obviously, he got promptly defunded and his grad students couldn’t get PhDs anymore. [My] sort of hermeneutic of suspicion is that if there’s a topic you can’t discuss, if there ideas you aren’t allowed to articulate, my shortcut is they’re just true.
Remember all the way back in 1986, when the New York Times blithely asserted as fact that evangelicals are “more easily led than other kinds of voters?” Well, just last we they asserted that “a majority of gun owners are white, conservative, male and from rural areas.” The first three are probably true, and the fourth definitely not, and no one who was even passingly familiar with gun culture would make that mistake…
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz pinned the massacre on the country’s new leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group, which was an offshoot of Al-Qaeda and was close to ISIS.
“Al-Julani took off his [robe], put on a suit, and presented a moderate facade,” Katz wrote in a post on X that included a video of scores of people who had been massacred. “Now, he has removed the mask, revealing his true face: a jihadist terrorist from the Al-Qaeda school, committing atrocities against the Alawite civilian population.”
Murdering members of other religions is never far from the average jihadi mind.
Just a day after the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had seized Damascus, and Bashar Assad had fled to Moscow, Assad’s army crumbled into dust, with soldiers ripping off their uniforms so as to avoid being killed by vengeful, and now triumphant, rebels. Those soldiers left largely unattended huge quantities of weaponry. The IDF seized the occasion to improve its defensive posture against Syria. There was a brief window of just a few days, between the fall of Assad and the regime in Damascus stabilizing and taking control of those abandoned weapons, during which the IDF did two things. First, it moved Israeli soldiers into Syria, where they established two new military outposts, one on the Syrian side of Mt. Hermon, and one extending further into Syria from the pre-existing buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian troops on the Golan. Now the IDF controls the commanding heights that extend into Syria; the Israelis have a clear unimpeded view of Damascus — now literally in their sights — far below.
The second undertaking, which began just as soon as Assad had left for Russia, was the IDF’s systematic destruction of the Syrian army’s weaponry. The Israelis knew exactly where the weapons were located; they had long been preparing for a possible war against Assad, and had their target bank ready.
The IDF announced on December 10 that its air force and navy had conducted over 480 strikes in Syria in the span of 48 hours, 350 of which targeted airfields, anti-aircraft batteries, missiles, drones, fighter jets, tanks, and weapon production sites, destroying between 70% and 80% of Syria’s strategic weapons. It also sank Syria’s navy. And there was nothing that Ahmed al-Sharaa and the men of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham could do about it. Now Israel has not only made itself much safer, having removed Syria as a viable military threat to the Jewish state, but also has “demilitarized” the Jihadists in Damascus.
We have just seen that after al-Sharaa’s repeated promise that Syria’s minorities had nothing to worry about, decently, the jihadist “security services” — as they call themselves — entered Latakia to capture or kill Alawite members of Assad’s army. They were apparently ambushed by Alawite veterans of Assad’s army, and suffered a loss of 125 men. At that point, they decided to take revenge on the civilian population, killing more than 1,000 Alawite civilians — some reports claim up to 4,000 civilians have now been killed, and they also have been killing Christians — mostly Greek Orthodox but including some Melkites — because, of course, that’s what jihadists like to do. More than a thousand civilians, possibly as many as 4,000 according to some Alawite sources, have been killed in the space of two days.
The Texas Association of School Boards is a lobbying organization that is funded almost exclusively by Texas taxpayer dollars through school district dues.
According to TASB’s most recent 990 form, at least 16 of its employees make more than the governor of Texas, who earns just over $153,000 each year.
TASB paid a combined total of $927,644 to just two of its employees during fiscal year 2023.
Executive Director Dan Troxell was paid $412,101 in direct compensation by TASB. Another $64,154 is listed as “other compensation from the organization and related organizations.”
Similarly, TASB paid First Public Managing Director William Mastrodicasa $351,224 in direct reportable income. He was also paid an additional $100,165.
Nice work, if you can get it…
Mess with the bull, get the horns. “Trump admin cancels $400 million in grants to Columbia University.” How’s that pro-Hamas antisemitism working out for you?
“US House Members Push for Ban on Student Visas for Chinese Nationals.” “U.S. Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) is spearheading the push to secure higher education institutions against espionage and intellectual theft.” I’m sure universities will panic over having to give up all that sweet commie dough…
“X Takes Down Network Of Chinese Accounts Amplifying NYT Attacks On Dissident Arts Group. The accounts, which exhibited inauthentic activity, had been used to boost articles published by The New York Times that targeted a religious group persecuted in China. One of the articles, a Chinese-language version of an attack piece on Shen Yun Performing Arts, was boosted so much it became the most shared New York Times article on X in more than a year, according to data from BuzzSumo, a social media analytics tool.” The question is, why was the NYT so eager to carry the CCP’s water attacking Falun Gong?
“Texas Awards SpaceX Over $17 Million Grant for Semiconductor R&D.” My opposition to the CHIPS Act has been noted before, but this may be already allocated money that the state is contractually obligated to award. Why would SpaceX need semiconductor research? My guess would be for advances in space radiation hardened (“rad hard”) chips. This was traditionally property of Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) rather than silicon-based chips. GaAs chips are generally orders of magnitude more radiation resistant than consumer grade chips, but GaAs is extremely brittle and difficult to work with, so much so that 6″ (150mm) wafers are the largest size for GaAs, and there still a number of older 4″ (100m) fab lines running GaAs out there. GaAs is such a pain that a lot of different substrates have been explored over the years, but I’m not sure any match GaAs’ extreme rad hard properties.
During a tornado warning, a Florida news station broadcasting the warning is hit by a tornado.
Critical Drinker didn’t care for Micky 17. “We’ll just make it dumb as fuck and hammer home the messaging with as much subtlety as a dump truck full of retarded sledgehammers.”
Having utterly and spectacularly failed at preventing Donald Trump’s second term, the loony leftists in the Democratic Party are gradually shedding their Trump Derangement Syndrome for other targets upon which to demonstrably and irrationally vent their spleen. Vance Derangement Syndrome raged for a while, but it seems that the left has settled on Musk Derangement Syndrome as the best way to demonstrate their ludicrous, self-defeating behavior. So much so that Doug Ross compiled a list of Top 20 Violent Anti-Musk Protests: The Unhinged Left’s Greatest Hits.
This instance of Musk Derangement Syndrome (or MDS) isn’t on that list, and isn’t as violent as the incidents on that list, but is somehow even more sad and pathetic. Some supergenius has wired a projector to his car to project disparaging remarks on random cybertrucks. “When the creators find a Cybertruck, they tailgate it and project the messages on the back tailgate panel, using it as a makeshift canvas.”
Why yes, driving around looking for random Cybertrucks to tailgate sounds like a supersmart use of your time.
Here’s an example of the witty, sophisticated bon mots they’re projecting.
Why yes, that’s the problem, you simply didn’t call people who disagree with your politics Nazis hard enough. Doubling down on that will surely make your agenda of child mutilation, trannies in women’s sports, open borders and wasting taxpayer money to secretly fund the far left super popular.
Indeed, other than performative asshatery and perhaps rear-ending someone, it’s hard to figure out what this high tech but low thought japery is supposed to accomplish. Do they actually believe that the richest man in the world will be intimidated by their low-wattage light show? Indeed, what do any of the miscreants committing vandalism and arson against Tesla cars and infrastructure think they’ll accomplish? Make him worth only $300 billion rather than $301 billion? Is the performative seal-clapping applause of their fellow radicals worth the risk of time in jail? Do they think setting businesses on fire is the surefire way to win the hearts and minds of the American voters who so roundly rejected them in 2024?
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.