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Cleavage In a Bored Country

Some countries have true, serious problems.

Then there are countries that have national discussions over a buxom young white woman in a jeans commercial.

Obviously, America is the latter.

This week, the internet—and the media more generally—exploded over a commercial starring actress Sydney Sweeney for American Eagle. The spot features Sweeney, lying seductively on the ground as she buttons her jeans, stating, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.” The ad concludes with the tagline: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”

According to those who apparently have far too much time on their hands, this ad is reminiscent of Nazism. Washington Post fashion critic Rachel Tashjian lamented that the ad felt “regressive.” A wide variety of colorfully haired and bewilderingly pierced TikTok users labeled the ad a “Nazi dog whistle,” presumably based on the idea that praising the genes of a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman with an hourglass figure is somehow an ode to the Third Reich.

Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic wrote, “(Sweeney’s) image has been co-opted by the Right, accurately or not, in part because of where she’s from (the Mountain West) and some of her hobbies (fixing cars). Even her figure has become a cultural stand-in for the idea, pushed by conservative commentators, that Americans should be free to love boobs.”

Yes, we have now reached the point in American life that it is controversial to suggest that men like breasts; it is now apparently “right-coded.”

This is patently insane.

But perhaps the insanity isn’t just a sign of a culture infected with terrible ideas, ranging from the mutability of gender to the evisceration of beauty standards to the willfully ridiculous attempt to treat the male sex drive as uniquely evil. Perhaps it’s a sign of a culture that has lost touch with actual, real problems in the world. A culture that is out of touch not just with reality, but with threat.

For a while, such cultures can survive. After all, America is uniquely placed in the world: thousands of miles from any direct foreign policy threat, blessed by natural resources beyond those of any other country, heir to a robust tradition of Anglo-American law and custom that have generated an unprecedented level of economic prosperity.

But reality has a funny way of clocking such cultures back into reality. It turns out that history never stops moving, that threats never stop militating. And what’s more, a self-obsessed and shallow culture that worries about whether boobs in jeans ads are a return to Hitler makes itself uniquely vulnerable to such threats. A people who imbibe the stupidity that trauma amounts to taking mild offense at a dumb pun in an advertisement is a people utterly unprepared for the return of reality.

The great German leader Otto von Bismarck once remarked, “There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America.” We can only pray that Providence continues to protect us from our own idiocy as we sink ever deeper into social media reveries of borderline psychopathy.

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Democrats Spark “Manufactured Power Crisis” In Maryland As Left Begins To Panic

Democrats Spark "Manufactured Power Crisis" In Maryland As Left Begins To Panic

Maryland’s deepening energy crisis and the resulting hyperinflation in power bill costs that have steamrolled working-class families are a stark reminder of why local elections matter. It’s also a case study in what happens when one-party rule goes unchecked. Under far-left Democratic leadership, the state has been so epically mismanaged that it now faces multiple cascading crises, whether fiscal, energy-related, or tied to illegal aliens or violent crime. 

Last week marked a significant inflection point for the panicking Maryland Democratic Party, which can no longer ignore the power bill crisis. 

Governor Wes Moore, speaking from a swanky vineyard in northern Baltimore County, was forced to address the crisis and now has blamed skyrocketing power bills on the regional grid operator, PJM.

Moore’s claim that PJM is somehow responsible for Maryland’s power crisis is a masterclass in political deflection.

What’s actually happened is that Moore and the Democratic Party have championed failed globalist "green" policies that led to the premature retirement of reliable fossil fuel power generation across the state for intermittent solar and wind, leaving the grid more fragile than ever. Meanwhile, baseload capacity has stagnated, forcing the state to import a significant portion of its electricity from neighboring states just to keep up with the soaring demand driven by data centers, EVs, and reshoring efforts. 

The power crisis is entirely self-inflicted and a result of failed green policies pushed by far-left state and local officials wearing climate-crisis blinders. These crazed leftists have no business managing the state’s energy infrastructure, let alone its future. 

Local TV station WBFF Fox Baltimore’s Gary Collins spoke with Maryland Del. Ryan Nawrocki, a Republican representing Baltimore County, who called the energy crisis in the state "manufactured" by failed green policies of the Democratic Party. 

Our reporting makes one thing clear: the power bill crisis is a political disaster for Moore and the Democrats. The optics are terrible, and worse, they have no real plan to fix the crisis. Instead, they’re deflecting blame onto PJM. But let’s be very honest with readers, anyone paying attention saw this trainwreck coming from a mile away: 

State Democrats had to call in their dark-money funded NGO network to flood the airwaves with propaganda in a desperate attempt to quell growing dissent over the power bill crisis and the broader turmoil unfolding… 

GOP (or America First) strategists in Maryland, and every state run by far-left Democrats, should take note: hammering the Democrats on their failed green policies is a winning angle. These policies are directly fueling economic pain for the working poor. It’s not a complicated strategy. 

Can’t make this up: Democrats in Maryland were too focused on condoms for kids rather than actually resolving their own power crisis. 

. . . 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/02/2025 – 09:55

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DEEP STATE BLOCKED RECOUNT TO STEAL TEXAS SEAT

Attorney General Pamela Bondi (Office of Public Affairs, United States Department of Justice)

 

In South Texas, a grave scandal is unfolding—and almost no one in the national media is talking about it.

Voters in Texas’s 28th Congressional District—which includes Laredo, home to the nation’s busiest port for trade with Mexico—are being asked to trust the results of a race that involved an indicted congressman, hundreds of voter complaints, and a judge who blocked an election review before announcing his plan to run for the same seat.

Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX), who is currently serving his eleventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives, is under federal investigation.

Cuellar and his wife allegedly received over $600,000 from foreign entities between 2014 and 2021. These payments came from an Azerbaijani state-owned oil company and a major bank in Mexico.

Court documents confirm that at least three of Cuellar’s top aides are cooperating with federal prosecutors. Despite the seriousness of the case, Cuellar was allowed to remain on the ballot in 2024 without any significant media coverage or political pressure to step aside.

After the election, Cuellar’s Republican challenger, Jay Furman, formally contested the results.

He submitted more than 80 affidavits and hundreds of legal declarations from voters who claimed that his name was missing from their ballots. 

While the documents remain confidential, I was granted the opportunity to review them firsthand.

Each was a formal, signed statement made under penalty of perjury, alleging that Furman’s name was missing from the ballot. As a result, the Fourth Court of Appeals ordered a forensic review of the ballots.

The court ordered Judge Tano Tijerina, the county judge, to begin the ballot review process “immediately”. 

Judge Tano refused to comply.

There was no full review of the ballots. County officials never conducted a proper recount. Instead, the matter was quietly dropped, and Furman’s objections were pushed aside.

The same judge who blocked Furman’s ballot review—Jose Tano—announced his “consideration” candidacy for the same congressional seat. He now wants to run against Furman in the GOP primary. That means a sitting judge refused to allow a Republican candidate to inspect missing ballots in a race that the judge himself will likely enter.

It is a direct conflict of interest, and yet no national reporter has investigated the story. No major outlet has asked why a judge with a clear personal interest was allowed to decide the outcome of the race.

The numbers also do not add up. In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump won the Texas district by seven points. But on the duplicate ballots, Cuellar supposedly won his House race by five points. That would mean a 13-point swing in a single district—at the same time, in the same place, on the same machines. 

While this result isn’t totally out of the norm, it adds to a reasonable suspicion. Furman was the only Republican candidate running in that race. If he were missing from hundreds of ballots, the final result cannot be trusted.

Left-wing media spent years covering the Trump-Russia collusion hoax as if it were fact. When the investigation collapsed, there were no corrections and no accountability. The goal was never to tell the truth—it was to control the story.

But when voters in South Texas submit signed affidavits, they are dismissed. When government officials violate basic procedures, they are protected. And when a judge blocks a ballot review and then runs for the same seat, he is rewarded with silence.

The deep state is a network of government insiders, political operatives, and media figures who protect each other from consequences. This case shows how far that protection goes—from federal corruption in Washington to blocked recounts in Texas.

If Americans cannot trust elections, the rest of our system begins to fall apart. Every law, every vote, and every election depends on public confidence. Once that confidence is lost, nothing else works.

Furman is still waiting for the official certified recount canvass from the Texas Secretary of State, which is required for submission to the U.S. House. The Secretary of State mistakenly sent the original canvass report to the U.S. House Administration Committee—the ultimate venue for Congress election challenges.

Please call the Texas Secretary of State at 1-800-252-8683 (ext. 4), the Texas Attorney General at 1-800-621-0508, and the Texas Governor’s Office at 512-463-2000 to demand immediate action.

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American Eagle Refuses To Cave, Doubles Down In Response To Sydney Sweeney Ad

American Eagle Outfitters on Friday night responded to the controversy swirling around the apparel company’s fall jean campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney.

The viral ads, as covered by The Daily Wire, play on the concept of good genetics and blue jeans — using the tagline, “Sydney Sweeney has good jeans.” The tag line has sparked criticism from the Left, since Sweeney is white and has blonde hair and blue eyes.

Refusing to back down, the company said in an Instagram post, “‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story.”

“We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way,” AE continued. “Great jeans look good on everyone.”

The statement was celebrated online, with some people thanking AE for not “making up a bulls*** apology for the libs,” and others declaring that the “woke mind virus is slowly dying.”

Instagram: American Eagle

In one of the ads generating controversy, Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”

Leftists online claimed the ads were Nazi-coded and racist for the play on the word jeans, specifically since Sweeney is white. There was even media commentary published echoing the same extreme sentiment. For example, an MSNBC op-ed said the AE ads were evidence of the “unbridled cultural shift toward whiteness,” which the author suggested was “ugly and startling.”

In addition to AE’s response on Friday night, an AE executive recently defending the campaign and specifically detailed how Sweeney herself was completely on board to push the envelope.

AE executive Ashley Schapiro, in a LinkedIn post, recalled a meeting with Sweeney before they started filming, Parade reported.

“During a Zoom call with Sydney we asked the question ‘How far do you want to push it?’ Without hesitation, she smirked ???? and said, ‘Let’s push it, I’m game.’ Our response? ‘Challenge Accepted,’” Schapiro wrote.

Related: Leftists Crash Out Over ‘Whiteness’ Of Sexy Sydney Sweeney Jean Ads

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Brandon Straka and I Know: New Yorkers Are Ready to #WalkAway From Mamdani

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Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed socialist and vocal anti-Israel activist, has gained national attention following his victory in the Democratic primary for New York City’s mayoral race. Contrary to popular belief, his rise is not welcomed by all New Yorkers. Alongside #WalkAway founder Brandon Straka, I’m working to bring this city back to reality, decency, and strength—before it’s too late. Mamdani’s candidacy isn’t merely a political concern for Jewish New Yorkers; his platform poses a direct threat to the values, livelihoods, and future of every resident of this city.

“I came back to New York for one reason—to fight for the city I love,” said Brandon Straka. “Watching people like Zohran Mamdani try to turn NYC into a socialist experiment is unacceptable. This is my home, and I’m not going to stand by while radical ideologues try to destroy it.”

Nowhere is that threat more visible than in Mamdani’s education agenda. He has consistently opposed the expansion of charter schools—even though they deliver real results. According to the New York City Department of Education’s 2022–2023 performance data, charter schools outperformed traditional public schools in both English Language Arts and math, with proficiency rates around 60%, compared to just 49% in district schools. For low-income Black and Latino families, these schools often provide the only path to upward mobility.

Yet Mamdani continues to claim that charter schools “steal” resources from public education. In reality, the New York City Independent Budget Office found that charter schools receive 15–20% less funding per student than traditional public schools—while serving higher proportions of disadvantaged students. The same report showed that charter students in grades 3 through 8 achieved greater year-over-year growth in both reading and math than their district school peers.

Mamdani’s hostility to educational excellence doesn’t end there. He has endorsed legislation that would eliminate the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT)—the single merit-based standard used to admit students to Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech, three of the highest-performing public schools in the country. These institutions have graduation rates above 99% and college placement rates exceeding 90%. Mamdani and his allies claim they want to increase diversity, but replacing merit with subjectivity doesn’t solve inequality—it simply lowers the bar. The real issue isn’t admissions tests; it’s the failure to adequately prepare students in K–8 education.

Even more alarming is the budget bill Mamdani co-authored, which allocates $8 million in taxpayer money to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hiring programs for teachers. These funds prioritize demographic quotas over merit—even as 18% of the city’s classrooms still lack air conditioning. Meanwhile, New York’s teacher population is already significantly diverse: a 2023 report showed that 42% of teachers identify as Black and 29% as Hispanic—figures that exceed those communities’ representation in the city’s overall population.

On housing and the economy, Mamdani’s record reflects the same ideological extremism. He has backed rent freezes—measures that may sound tenant-friendly but, in reality, discourage investment, reduce maintenance, and worsen living conditions. A 2022 Manhattan Institute report found that such policies shrink the rental supply and fuel black-market subletting. Small landlords—often reliant on rental income—are hit hardest, leading to fewer, lower-quality housing options and a worsening affordability crisis.

Brandon Straka has long warned about where this ideology leads. “Democratic socialism is just the gateway drug to full-blown communism—and I will not allow it to take hold in New York,” he said. “If we lose this city, the rest of the country is next. We must fight it here, now, with everything we’ve got—not just for New York, but for the soul of America.”

That’s what makes this Sunday’s rally at Union Square Park so important. “This Sunday’s rally is more than just an event—it’s a turning point,” Straka said. “We’re drawing a line in the sand and saying: Not in our city. This is a call to every New Yorker who loves freedom, safety, and sanity.”

Straka created the #WalkAway movement in 2018 after witnessing how millions of Americans—especially in marginalized communities—were manipulated by a political machine built on fear and division.

“We grew into a national movement, but the fight hasn’t been easy,” he said. “We’ve been attacked, silenced, and targeted every step of the way. But I never stopped pushing forward. And now, we’re coming back bigger, better, and stronger than ever—because America needs us. New York City needs us. And we are not backing down.”

New York cannot survive under Mamdani’s vision of top-down control, failed socialism, and anti-merit extremism. That’s why I’m proud to join Brandon Straka—and thousands of New Yorkers from every background—to stand up before it’s too late. No matter your race, religion, or politics, this fight belongs to all of us. If you care about New York—if you care about America—then I urge you: join us this Sunday.

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Rep. Greene Introduces Clean Skies Act Banning Weather Modification, Geoengineering

Rep. Greene Introduces Clean Skies Act Banning Weather Modification, Geoengineering

Via American Greatness,

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has introduced the Clear Skies Act of 2025 calling for an end to what she calls the “dangerous and deadly practice of weather modification and geoengineering.”

The bill, designated H.R. 4403, would prohibit weather modification through the use of geoengineering, cloud seeding, and solar radiation management through the release of chemicals into the atmosphere to change the weather, temperature, climate or to block out sunlight.

If enacted, the law would punish weather modification violations as a felony with offenders facing up to $100,000 in fines and/or five years in prison for each violation.

Greene says her bill is similar to Florida’s S.B. 56 which repeals the state’s ability to issue permits for geoengineering and weather modification and prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity.

Under the Clear Skies Act, all existing federal authority and executive orders permitting weather modification would be repealed and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) would be directed to investigate and prosecute violations.

H.B. 4403 would also create a public reporting system that would allow Americans to report suspicious activity and which the EPA would be required to investigate.

In announcing the Clear Skies Act Greene spoke of the need to protect the nation’s skies, waters and people from weather modification, saying, “It’s time to end this dangerous and unregulated practice.”

Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/31/2025 – 12:00

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Keeping Up With Trump: Here’s Everything He’s Done The Past Two Weeks

Every week, The Daily Wire will summarize the latest from President Donald Trump and his team.

President Donald Trump continued his administration’s breakneck pace through his second and third weeks in office, tackling issues from trade to terrorism and gender ideology.

The president issued multiple executive orders nearly daily, fulfilling one campaign promise after another, while turning his attention to tariffs, meetings with foreign leaders, and disaster responses.

Here’s what Trump’s been up to.

Aircraft Crash

Trump’s second week was rocked by a deadly aircraft disaster that launched the administration into action.

On Tuesday last week, an American Airlines flight was hit by a Black Hawk military helicopter minutes before landing, causing both craft to fall into the icy Potomac River and killing all 67 crew and passengers.

Trump held a press conference the next day with Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who had been confirmed hours before the crash.

The president suggested that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies could be to blame for the crash.

“Because I have common sense,” he told a reporter who questioned his theory.

On Thursday last week, Trump ordered a review of all aviation hiring decisions and changes to safety protocols over the past four years.

“This shocking event follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence,” the memorandum read.

Education

Trump took several actions on education, including signing an executive order last week prohibiting federal funding for schools teaching “radical, anti-American ideologies” including Critical Race Theory and gender ideology.

Another executive order on school choice directs the Education Secretary to determine how states can use federal funds to support school choice. Trump also proclaimed last week National School Choice Week.

Yet another order is aimed at combating anti-Semitism, including pushing colleges to investigate and remove alien students who engage in anti-Semitism if appropriate.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education has taken several actions on its own.

At the end of the administration’s first week, the department tossed out a slew of complaints about “book bans,” or school districts removing sexually explicit materials.

It also scrapped President Joe Biden’s reinterpretation of Title IX to include trans-identifying men as women, calling it an “unlawful abuse of regulatory power and an egregious slight to women and girls.”

The department also said it will investigate the University of Pennsylvania and San Jose State University for allowing trans-identifying males in women’s sports.

Gender Ideology

Trump signed an executive order committing that the United States will not fund or support the “so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”

This prompted a slew of hospitals to pump the brakes on transgender medicalization for children, including hospitals in New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Colorado, and Virginia.

Trump also signed an order banning trans-identifying males in girls’ sports by threatening to rescind funds from schools that allow this, saying it “results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

In response, the NCAA changed its policy to read that a “student-athlete assigned male at birth may not compete on a women’s team.”

Trump also issued an order banning trans-identifying members from the military.

“A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member,” the order read.

Federal employees were also instructed to remove pronouns from their email signatures.

In a surprise move, Trump also fired several Kennedy Center board members, accusing the center of “Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth.”

Foreign Policy

Over the last two weeks, Trump secured the release of six more Israeli hostages and an American-Israeli citizen held by Hamas.

The president said he would like to see Egypt and Jordan accept more Palestinian refugees. He spoke recently with both Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egypt’s President El-Sisi about the Hamas hostage situation. Abdullah is set to visit the White House later this month.

Trump made waves internationally when he proposed the United States take over Gaza after resettling the Palestinian population, and turn the seaside area into a “Riviera of the Middle East.”

He announced the plan at a joint press conference on Tuesday after meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at White House.

Trump also issued an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court, which faced backlash from the United States in November when it issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, accusing him of war crimes.

The president also ordered his first major military operation — air strikes on ISIS operatives in Somalian caves who had “threatened” the U.S., saying “Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done.”

Trump also revived his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, announcing sanctions aimed at driving its oil exports to zero to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He accused Biden of failing to keep pressure on Tehran.

The United States had a victory related to China when Panama announced it would leave China’s “Belt and Road” infrastructure and influence program. Panama’s decision came after Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned the country to immediately reduce Chinese influence over the canal area or the United States could retaliate.

Trump also ended funding to several United Nation organizations including the Human Rights Council and another group focused on Palestinian refugees.

He ordered the development of a missile defense system similar to Israel’s Iron Dome, calling aerial “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”

On Ukraine, the president proposed a deal where the country trades rare earth for financial defense aid.

Trump also signed an order on Friday freezing assistance to South Africa, in part to address the wrongs of South Africa’s racist apartheid era.

Trump had a friendly meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru in Washington as well. He also spoke with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer about the two countries’ economic relationship and India’s prime minister about India buying more American-made security equipment.

Immigration

The president signed the Laken Riley Act, which mandates that federal immigration authorities detain illegal migrants who are accused of theft and other violent crimes. The law is named after the Georgia college student who was killed by an illegal migrant on her morning run last year.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Chicago and Illinois over “sanctuary” policies for migrants.

Trump directed that Guantanamo Bay’s migrant operations be expanded to take in “high-priority” criminal illegal aliens. The first flight there included 10 members of the violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.

The Trump administration also evoked Biden’s deportation protections for Venezuelan migrants. Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy for special missions also secured the release of six Americans detained in Venezuelan prisons, and the country agreed to accept the return of illegal migrant Tren de Aragua gang members.

Economy And Trade

The United States had a brief but heated showdown with Colombia after the country refused to accept American military planes trying to return Colombian illegal migrants.

Trump immediately threatened a 25% emergency tariff on Colombia that would increase to 50% after a week, as well as visa sanctions, banking sanctions, and enhanced inspections by border authorities.

Colombia quickly caved to all of Trump’s demands, even offering the Colombian presidential plane for migrant flights.

Trump imposed tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China — 25% for the first two, 10% for China.

The president said the tariffs were to hold the countries accountable for stopping illegal immigration and fentanyl at the U.S. border, accusing the Biden administration of “letting problems fester.”

“Access to the American market is a privilege,” the White House said of the tariffs.

Trump subsequently paused the tariffs on Canada and Mexico for a month after both countries agreed to help stop illegal immigration and drugs. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum offered 10,000 Mexican soldiers at the southern border, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada will deploy a joint strike force with the United States and put $200 million towards combating organized crime and fentanyl.

China responded with retaliatory tariffs including 10% on U.S. crude oil and 15% on coal and natural gas.

Trump directed his administration to make a plan for a Sovereign Wealth Fund, which he said could held finance the purchase of TikTok.

Meanwhile, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has thrown federal employees and Democrats into a panic.

Democrat lawmakers claimed that Elon Musk’s DOGE team, which has been tasked with finding federal waste to cut, had unfettered access to the government’s massive payment system for things like Social Security and Medicare. In fact, DOGE has “read-only” access to the payment system.

DOGE targeted the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for elimination, with Musk calling the agency not just an “apple with a worm it in” but rather a “bowl of worms” and Trump saying it is run by “radical left lunatics.”

Now, the Trump administration is planning to slash the number of USAID workers from more than 10,000 to just 290 positions.

The Trump administration has also seen more than 60,000 federal employees accept a buyout offer to resign.

Trump also directed that administrations may not finalize new deals with federal worker unions 30 days before a new administration takes over, as the Biden administration did three days before the inauguration.

Religious Freedom

On Thursday, Trump signed an order aimed at eradicating the “anti-Christian weaponization of government.”

The order noted that the Biden administration targeted pro-life Americans, including federal agents arresting a father of 11 at his home after he prayed outside an abortion clinic, and two elderly women who were also prosecuted. It also cites Biden ignoring attacks on Catholic churches and pro-life centers, the FBI’s 2023 memo targeting traditional Catholics, and the Biden Department of Health and Human Service’s attempts to shut out Christians from the foster care system if they did not affirm gender ideology for children.

In another order, he established the White House Faith Office to help faith-based organizations serve communities.

Other Moves

The administration has removed thousands of government web pages, including vaccine guidelines for “pregnant people, a “Reproductive Rights” page, and an FAQ about the Monkeypox vaccine.

Trump met with Texas Governor Greg Abbott and discussed border security. He also met with California Governor Gavin Newsom and discussed wildfire disaster aid.

The president also revoked Biden’s security clearance and stopped his daily intelligence briefings, citing the former president’s “poor memory” and the fact that Biden stopped them for Trump. He also pulled the security details of retired General Mark Milley and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and revoked Milley’s security clearance.

This week, government agencies were found to be spending millions of dollars on subscriptions to the Politico Pro news service, and the administration canceled them along with other media subscriptions.

Trump also issued an order aimed at slashing regulation, which requires for every new regulation, 10 others must be repealed.

Trump issued an order aimed at protecting the Second Amendment that orders the Attorney General to review and address any ongoing infringements.

Trump also restored an executive order from his first term protecting American monuments, including prosecuting those who vandalize them and withholding certain federal funds from jurisdictions that fail to protect them.

Trump also proclaimed January 27 as the National Day of Remembrance of the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. He also proclaimed February as National Black History Month, American Heart Month, and Career and Technical Education Month.

He formed a White House task force to plan a “grand celebration” for the 250th anniversary of American Independence on July 4, 2026.

Meanwhile, more of Trump’s Cabinet nominations have been confirmed, including Pam Bondi as attorney general on Tuesday. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel all had heated confirmation hearings.

On Sunday, Trump set to attend the Super Bowl in New Orleans.

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The Musk-eteers Reveal You’ve Been Living in a Simulated Reality

Over the past two weeks Elon Musk and his cadre of young computer geniuses have cracked the code. Like Toto pulling the curtain on the Wizard of Oz, they’ve pulled back the cover on government secrecy. They’ve shown how oceans of tax revenue have flowed through Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), charitable-sounding foundations, the UN, and others to fund terrorists, disrupters like BLM, and reporters to promote Democrats and censor the opposition, most often to enrich Democrat politicians and their friends, families, and allies. The news you thought was news wasn’t independently and honestly generated. The charities you thought were genuine, weren’t. It’s one big gaslighting grift and you paid for it.

The mountain of discoveries is more than I can keep up with. Our own Andrea Widburg listed some of what was found in the first tranche of USAID records. This included (just to start) funding anti-Trumper Bill Kristol, along with “religious charities” run by highly remunerated people who can be counted on to advocate strongly for increased immigration and protection of illegal immigrants they brought here. And placed on the welfare rolls for you to support.

Townhall has more. Here’s a brief sample — there’s much much more:

$1 million went toward supporting French-speaking LGBTQ+ groups in West and Central Africa, $3.3 million was blown on normalizing "being LGBTQ in the Caribbean," and $425,600 helped Indonesian coffee companies become "more climate and gender friendly."

Mast said $1.5 million had gone toward promoting job opportunities for LGBTQ-identifying individuals in Serbia, $16,500 for fostering a "united and equal queer-feminist discourse in Albanian society," $47,000-plus on a "transgender opera" in Colombia, $32,000 for an LGBTQ-centered comic book in Peru, $70,880 on a musical promoting DEI in Ireland, $20,600 for a drag show in Ecuador, over $7,000 for a BIPOC speaker series in Canada, more than $39,650 to host seminars at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on "gender identity and racial equality," $80,000 on an LGBTQ community center in Slovakia, $10,000 on pressuring Lithuanian corporations to push DEI messaging, and $8,000 to promote DEI among LGBTQ+ groups in Cyprus.

USAID’s Office of Chief Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility notified Congress just before Christmas that they’ve earmarked money (about $1 million) for several programs that will support "marginalized" groups in Indonesia, Guatemala, and Kenya. The funding notice said USAID would "engage with Indigenous-led institutions to implement an Indigenous language technology program" in Guatemala.

In March 2023, USAID set aside up to $1 million to help disabled people in Tajikistan become "climate leaders." The grant notice solicited proposals for a "Disability-Inclusive Climate Action" project in the Central Asian country that would ensure that disabled Tajikistanis are included "in the development of climate change response and mitigation policies."

In May 2023, USAID unveiled a $1.5 million effort aimed at "empowering women to adapt to climate change in northern Kenya." Women in the area, USAID wrote, live in "traditionally patriarchal communities" and need training to join Kenya’s fight against climate change. The program would "improve their participation in decision making" and "enhance adaptive capabilities to climate change."

It’s not just waste on idiotic projects. Most of these disbursements are funneled through and into the pockets of NGOs located in the Washington D.C. area run by friends and family of Democrat politicians who get the lion’s share of the money.

The only way to keep track of the billions government agencies have blown through and DOGE is saving is to go on X (formerly Twitter) and follow the DOGE and Data Republican (small ‘r’) posts. (The latter devised a more workable search engine and regularly reports what was harder to find and unpublicized in the government databanks.)

The Musk-eteers are beginning a dive into other agencies. Musk Says His DOGE Team Uncovered $100 billion in Medicare and Medicaid waste after gaining access to the system. They’ve begun swimming through mountains of Social Security fraud.

They are about to audit the Department of Education and the Department of Defense, which has failed every audit for the last seven years and which cannot account for lost billions. 

You may wonder why USAID was selected first, and that is a story in itself.

Trump decided to pause Foreign Aid for 90 days — reasonable enough. A couple days later the White House said this USAID leadership was trying to circumvent this Executive Order. That alerted the DOGE team and Elon confirmed this on X. He said all DOGE did was check to see which Federal Agency was violating Trump’s orders the most and that turned out to be USAID, so that became our focus."

Naturally, the recipients and beneficiaries of this pork are fighting tooth and nail to stop the audits, doubtless by groups and lawyers that themselves are recipients. Just yesterday Letitia James persuaded a judge in New York to temporarily enjoin the audit of the Treasury Department. 

We’ll see how long this and other overreaching by extremist district court judges is allowed to continue. It has already been established how severely compromised these personal records in the Treasury files have been. The Chinese accessed Treasury workstations and unclassified documents as late as December of last year when it was headed by Wally Adeyamo, a Nigerian émigré who once headed the Obama Foundation. In that year (2024), according to the Congressional Budget Office, Treasury illegally disbursed $516 billion dollars for which there had been no congressional authorization. 

The team’s takeover of the Treasury records involved some high drama:

Following the takeover of the Office of Personnel Management, the truly great challenge was to get to the source of the largess, the spigot spilling so much money that it was creating $1 trillion in debt every 100 days. [snip] The team — which converted itself quickly into an official government office to evade that obvious criticism — headed to the U.S. Treasury and announced an audit of the entire government. In order to conduct that, they would need the logins to the system. The auditors had already figured out that the whole government was operating on autopay, with billions flowing to enemy regimes and rackets of all sorts. Shutting that down had to be priority number one.

What they found was an acting head of the U.S. Treasury named David A. Lebryk, who turns out to be the highest-ranking person in the civil service. Lebryk had been promoted to that position on January 20, but his former boss was the deputy head of Treasury, a Nigerian émigré named Wally Adeyemo, who had at one time been head of the Obama Foundation. His resignation put Lebryk in the driver’s seat of the world’s biggest outgoing payroll system.

That’s right, you cannot make this stuff up!

Lebryk absolutely refused to turn over the passwords. After what was said to be a shouting match, he resigned on the spot. Then Elon’s crew took control of the passwords to the system that was sending out $6 trillion on autopay.

This action generated panicked headlines in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration has gotten hold of the control center of government spending, strongly suggesting that nothing like this has ever happened. For reasons that are unclear, regime media seemed shocked and alarmed that the Trump administration had broken into the sanctum sanctorum.

When regular people think about this, they start asking serious questions. Why is it not a normal thing for the new administration to be in control of the spending systems? Why is this such a shocking thing to have happened? Isn’t auditing the books just what any new president would do?

Indeed, I am unconcerned about any bumps extremist judges may install in the road because I am in full agreement with the author of this article in the Federalist, and I’m certain that saner heads in a court of last resort will not fail to acknowledge this:

If the executive cannot control his own personnel, agencies, and funding lawfully given to him by a duly elected Congress, elections mean nothing. If the executive is not actually an executor, then the entire bureaucracy is an autocratic, self-licking ice cream cone. It runs the country, not any elected official. And Congress is complicit, because it allows the distribution of opium funds to Afghanistan and queer “safe spaces” in Kenya without ever having to take a public vote on any of this garbage, so long as these taxpayer-provided slush funds slather their retirements and relatives with “nonprofit” and “contractor” lard.

Whatever you want to call unelected bureaucrats and “nonprofit” grifters distributing funds obtained from American citizens against our consent as expressed in elections and line-item votes, it is not a republic, nor a democracy. If Trump can’t fire his own employees and redistribute public funds the executive branch has been given by law, he’s not really the president, and elections are fake. 

(While Trump could not shutter the agency, of the 1400 personnel he has removed all but about 294 mission-critical-function employees from the payroll. He could not without congressional authorization completely dissolve it. It’s been folded into the Department of State where it will be under the supervision of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.)

It’s hard for me to decide which visual of the last week was most appealing: A grandfatherly President signing an executive order banning males from women’s sports as he was watched by dozens of adorable little girls or maintenance workers removing the signage of the USAID.

via American Thinker

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White House Confirms: Politico Propped Up By Millions Of Dollars From US Government

White House Confirms: Politico Propped Up By Millions Of Dollars From US Government

Update: 1344ET): During Wednesday’s White House presser, spox Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Politico has been getting ‘more than $8 million taxpayer dollars,’ which has ‘gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions.’

Watch:

As journalist Sean Davis of The Federalist points out,

It was Politico that maneuvered to have the Hunter laptop story banned and everyone discussing it censored.

Politico peddled the illegal Supreme Court leak that led to the near-assassination of multiple Supreme Court justices.

And now we find out the regime was funneling tens of millions of dollars of our money to Politico?

Scroll down for the backstory – but as we mentioned below, ZeroHedge – as we assume The Federalist (our bedfellows in demonitization back in 2000), hasn’t received a dime from the US government (or any government, assholes), while coming under recurring attack from the deep state and their various tentacles. We subsist on dwindling ad revenues thanks to the media censorship complex, subscriptions, and revenue from our new store. So as we noted below (and thank you to all who have flooded us with orders today):

If you want to support us, please:

Subscribe

Or

Buy something from our store

Thank you for your support.

Meanwhile, you can support The Federalist here, and give Sean Davis a follow if you haven’t already.

*  *  *

On Tuesday, staffers at Politico were notified that a ‘technical error’ had prevented paychecks from going out. Many joked that this had something to do with the Trump administration putting a freeze on USAID funding.

And while there’s no evidence the two are linked, the suggestion prompted internet sleuths to look into Politico‘s sources of funding. What they found was absolutely shocking.

According to government spending tracker website USASPENDING.gov, Politico – which laundered the Hunter Biden ’51 intel officials’ propaganda during the 2020 election – received up to $27 million (and by some counts $32 million) from various US agencies during the Biden years.

In one instance, roughly $500,000 was spent on 37 Politico ‘pro’ subscriptions.

Of note, Politico was sold to German media giant Axel Springer (which also owns Business Insider) for $1 billion in 2021, meaning US taxpayer dollars have been flowing to the German media giant to prop up their US propaganda rags.

And look at this, the NY Times received $3.1 million in taxpayer funds, while the UK’s BBC received $3.2 million.

Meanwhile…

ZeroHedge hasn’t received a dime from the US government (or any government, assholes), while coming under recurring attack from the deep state and their various tentacles. We subsist on dwindling ad revenues thanks to the media censorship complex, subscriptions, and revenue from our new store.

If you want to support us, please:

Subscribe

Or

Buy something from our store

Thank you for your support.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/05/2025 – 13:44

via ZeroHedge News

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The Senate GOP’s Trump resistance is on life support

That’s a wrap. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) are on their way to confirmation by the U.S. Senate to direct the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, respectively. All that remains is Kash Patel for director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation — an essential White House nomination that Democrats are working hard to torpedo.

There was plenty of hand-wringing over Kennedy and Gabbard, two of the three more controversial nominees to President Donald Trump’s Cabinet remaining. Would Senate Republicans tank their nominations in committee? Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) was well primed to vote “nay” on Kennedy. The hearing he chaired considering RFK’s nomination was contentious; his questioning of the nominee even led to a back-and-forth on the importance of long-lacking scientific humility between Cassidy and his fellow Republican, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.).

Combined, the White House’s victories represent a near-total rout of Senate uniparty opposition to the president’s “Make America Great Again” agenda.

In the end, momentous outside pressure combined with a series of commitments from RFK to secure Cassidy’s final decision. In a tweet sent as he voted, the chairman credited his change of heart to "very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even [Tuesday] morning," led by Vice President JD Vance.

It definitely didn’t hurt that Cassidy, who voted to impeach Trump on the second Democrat-led go-around, is up for re-election next year in Trump-loving Louisiana. He’s already drawn a primary challenger. It’s important to play nice when you now claim to represent the interests of the most popular Republican president in decades.

Gabbard’s confirmation — arguably more imperiled than even RFK’s was, given her direct threat to deep-state intelligence community interests — was all but secured over the weekend, when Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) confirmed her support. Collins’ decision put the last remaining holdout, Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), in the hot seat.

If Collins had stayed the course as a “nay” vote, Young, a hawk who doesn’t face re-election for three years, could have counted on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s inexplicable decision to hold its vote in secret to shield him from backlash from the president and his supporters. By Monday, he looked less sure. “He doesn’t have the balls,” one veteran D.C. conservative predicted Monday evening.

There’s good reason for that. In the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote, Young took incoming fire from Republicans as diverse as Meghan McCain and Elon Musk. McCain, a personal friend of Gabbard’s, called him “the new Liz Cheney,” and in a since-deleted tweet, Musk called him “a deep-state puppet.” In a tweet before Tuesday afternoon’s vote, Young announced his support for Gabbard’s nomination.

Cassidy, Collins, and Young’s shifts follow Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis’ literally last-minute decision to break with Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Collins to confirm Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth last week. His commitment was secured after a full-court press that included late-night/early-morning White House meetings. It figures that Tillis, a close McConnell ally, also faces re-election in red North Carolina next year. It pays to have friends in high places — and it hurts to have enemies. “They bent the knee,” one Trump team adviser told the Beltway Brief. “The MAHA/MAGA/anti-deep-state agenda rolls on.”

Combined, the White House’s victories represent a near-total rout of Senate uniparty opposition to the president’s “Make America Great Again” agenda. The next test — confirming Patel to the FBI — will come later this month. A Trump victory here would signify the end of Senate GOP opposition to his chosen Cabinet and the beginning a new Republican Party.

Patel’s confirmation has the most Republican momentum of the three remaining contested nominations. A dyed-in-the-wool MAGA Republican and proven enemy of partisan, deep-state, Department of Justice lawfare, Patel has secured the public support of key senators, but his confirmation isn’t for two weeks — giving Democrats plenty of time to undermine that support.

The delay is based on a committee rule that allows senators to request more questioning time — a rule Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) should have nixed at the beginning of the Congress but didn’t. Now Democrats are using the time to dig up anything they can on a nominee who has exposed partisanship in the FBI in the past and pledges to root it out from the top office if confirmed.

Republicans need to understand that a vote against Patel is a vote against the core of the president’s agenda. All signs say he’s set to pass, but for all the turmoil in this city, the uniparty is just a little too quiet. It’s enough to make a man nervous.

Blaze News: Swamp starts draining itself as 20,000 deep-staters accept Trump buyout: Report

Blaze News: Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation advances to the Senate floor

Blaze News: RFK Jr. clears key confirmation hurdle in the Senate

Politico: Bill Cassidy’s decision on RFK Jr. could jeopardize his Senate career

The Wall Street Journal: The 24-hour blitz that flipped one senator’s vote from no to yes on Hegseth

NBC News: Report: White House preparing executive order to abolish the Department of Education

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THE FIRE RISES

City Journal: It’s time to end DEI in immigration. We all know American immigration is broken. We can see the results in the streets of small towns and big cities from El Paso to Albany, from Miami to Portland. But it’s not just illegal, but also legal immigration that is in need of serious reform. As with much of our decline, the problems are by human design. Daniel Di Martino reports:

… Today’s immigration system prioritizes diversity and inclusion over merit and skill. About 1 million new permanent residents arrive annually, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That number includes roughly 140,000 older parents of previous migrants coming through chain migration. The current system also randomly selects 55,000 people from “underrepresented” countries and gives them green cards.

These relatively unskilled and older immigrants are admitted immediately, while highly skilled immigrants can wait decades for green cards, even after paying more than $100,000 in taxes as temporary workers. Even a Nobel prizewinner from India, who would qualify for the so-called Einstein visa reserved for the highest-skilled workers (EB-1), cannot obtain a green card without waiting for more than a decade …

via Conservative Review

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