Tag Archives: Breitbart

A Short Note On The Kentucky Derby

Posted on by

On Sunday, Breitbart posted an article about this year’s Kentucky Derby. The article noted that all of the horses in the Derby were descendants of Secretariat.

The article reports:

Every horse that ran the 151st Kentucky Derby on Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky, is reportedly descended from one American champion.

Pedigrees apparently show those horses are descended from Secretariat, the horse that in 1973 ran the fastest mile-and-a-quarter in the derby’s history, the Louisville Courier Journal reported Saturday.

Looking back six generations of most horses will reportedly show they are descended from a champion such as Secretariat or Northern Dancer, the outlet said.

According to derby contending trainer Whit Beckman, “It’s one of those stats. It’s bound to happen at some point with how much he shows up in every single pedigree. It’s really cool. Very cool.”

Secretariat was a thoroughbred racehorse that became the first in 25 years to win the Triple Crown in 1973, per History.com. According to the site:

In 1974, Secretariat was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. In 1999, he was the only non-human included among ESPN’s 50 greatest athletes of the century and he became the first thoroughbred to be honored with his own U.S. Postal stamp. Outside the paddock at Belmont Park now stands a statue of Secretariat with both his front feet in the air.

An article in HorseyHooves in June 2023 listed a number of interesting facts about Secretariat.

This is the fact that I thought was the most interesting:

Not only was Secretariat was known for being kind-hearted, but he also had a big heart in the literal sense.

After Secretariat was euthanized on October 4, 1989, at the age of 19, veterinarian Thomas Swerczek performed a necropsy. Swerczek discovered that Secretariat’s heart weighed between 21-22 pounds, two and a half times bigger than an average horse heart.

“We just stood there in stunned silence. We couldn’t believe it. The heart was perfect. There were no problems with it. It was just this huge engine,” said Dr. Swerczek.

That might have had something to do with his incredible performance on the racetrack.

This Is Wonderful News

Posted on by

On Sunday, Breitbart reported:

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump’s director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced the closure of the agency’s last remaining beagle experiment lab over the weekend after former NIH physician Dr. Anthony Fauci’s horrific beagle-testing scandal was exposed.

“It’s very easy, for instance, to cure Alzheimer’s in mice. But those things don’t translate to humans,” Bhattacharya told Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy on Sunday:

…“So we put forward a policy to replace animals in research with technological advances, AI and other tools, that actually translate better to human health.”

When he made the announcement that “We got rid of all of the beagle experiments on NIH campus,” Campus-Duffy said, “Amen.”

NIH confirmed the move on social media, saying it has enacted an “initiative to expand innovative, human-based science while reducing animal use in research, including getting rid of all the beagle experiments on the NIH campus.”

A years-long investigation by medical watchdog group White Coat Waste revealed that the NIH killed over 2,100 beagles in “brutal septic shock experiments” since 1986.

The article concludes:

The Trump administration has been stepping away from animal testing within other agencies as well, with animal rights group PETA praising the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for “helping spare tens of thousands of animals each year.”

There are better ways of gathering information than torturing animals. The experiments carried out on beagles during the time Dr. Fauci was in charge were horrific. I am truly glad to see experiments on animals end. Scientists need to find better ways to collect the information they need.

The Numbers Tell The Story

Posted on by

A few days ago, the mainstream media was melting down because the GDP for the first quarter of 2025 had dropped .3%. In decimal, that’s .003. That’s hardly a significant number. Meanwhile, some of the other first-quarter statistics are coming in, and they tell a rather different story.

On May 2, Breitbart reported:

Employers in the United States added 177,000 workers to their payrolls in April, the Department of Labor said Friday, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.2 percent, defying predictions of labor market sluggishness following President Trump’s announcement of tariffs.

Economists had been expecting 130,000 jobs and an unemployment rate unchanged at 4.2 percent. The prior month’s jobs figure was revised down to 185,000 from 228,000

The strength in hiring came from the private sector, which added 167,000 jobs. Economists had expected private employers to add just 125,000 workers. This was nearly unchanged from the downwardly revised 170,000 jobs added in March.

The labor market drew in more workers, growing the supply of labor in April. The participation rate rose to 62.6 percent from 62.5 in the previous month. The number of people employed in the month rose by 436,000 to 163,944,000.

The average workweek expanded to 34.3 hours from 34.2 hours, a sign that employer demand for labor grew in the month. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3 percent. Compared with a year ago, average earnings are up 3.8 percent, significantly higher than the 2.4 percent gain in the consumer price index through March.

The rising wages combined with the falling inflation rate are good news for Americans. Most of us are seeing very nice changes at the gas pump. The job growth is in the private sector. Since President Trump took office, federal payrolls have contracted by 26,000. When the private sector grows, the economy grows.

According to the Government Executive Website:

President Biden has overseen a nearly 6% growth of the full-time, non-seasonal federal workforce during his four years in office, including a jump at nearly every major agency.

Most American consumers are very happy with the changes President Trump has made during his first 110 days.

Actions Have Consequences

Posted on by

The idea of renewable energy sounds wonderful–sunlight should be endless, and wind should be endless. Unfortunately, the sun does not shine all of the time, and the wind does not blow all of the time. That could (and did) create a problem.

On Tuesday, Breitbart reported the following:

Spain’s power network has remained silent on the actual cause of Europe’s worst power blackout in a generation, but has acknowledged that it is “very possible” that a problem with solar power systems may have contributed to the failure.

A freak weather incident was blamed on Monday for a massive power cut that affected the entire Iberian Peninsula, depriving Spain and Portugal of electricity. However, this narrative was quickly questioned by energy industry insiders, and Spain’s national energy company now acknowledges that renewable power failure may have been a contributing factor.

Red Eléctrica (RE), the national energy grid firm, has stated that it has ruled out a cyberattack and insists, “We were able to conclude that there was indeed no intrusion into Red Eléctrica’s control system,” despite the national counter-terrorism prosecutor ordering an inquiry. Judge José Luis Calama has given RE and the national cyber-security centre ten days to compile initial reports into the sabotage hypothesis, reports El País.

While the Spanish media is today full of the effects of yesterday’s total blackout, with 150,000 having to be rescued from underground trains trapped in tunnels and whole areas, including hospitals, left without water as the electric-powered pumps fell silent, the public unable to buy food and drink unless they had ready cash to hand, and telephone and internet networks being rendered non-functional, less is being said about how the crisis began.

The article notes:

A report on the importance of inertia in a functioning power grid cited by Porter in turn quoted the United Kingdom’s National Grid Electricity System Operator, who explained in 2022: “Operating the system with low inertia will continue to represent a key operational challenge into the future and we will need to ensure we improve our understanding of the challenges this will bring”.

That report, published by a supplier of clutches for power stations, noted: “Renewable generation is increasingly displacing conventional generation in the generation mix, reducing the amount of heavy, rotating turbines on the grid and therefore the amount of inertia they provide.”

These fragilities are not unknown to the electricity industry, and much has been written on the challenges of transition to renewable power. Yet Bloomberg’s Blas wrote just last week that it has only been comparatively recently that the green energy lobby has even acknowledged such problems, having taken the position in the past that any criticism of green energy systems was motivated by cynicism and ideological opposition, rather than what he called “electricity realism” and real concern about grid resilience.

…Naturally, political attention throughout Europe has turned to the Iberian blackout, particularly as left-leaning governments strive to catch up with Spain in what they call decarbonising their own energy grids. In the United Kingdom, where the government says it wants to reach “Net Zero carbon emissions” by 2050 and wants to achieve this without importing slave-labour-linked solar panels from China, Green Great Reset sceptics have spoken out on the need for a pause and rethink in the light of this week’s events.

Brexit’s Nigel Farage, who is already styling himself as a Prime Minister in waiting and who is cruising towards what pollsters say may be a convincing election victory in nationwide local government contests this week, said on Tuesday morning that “the power outage in Spain is a warning”. The United Kingdom is dangerously reliant on foreign energy imports, he said, stating: “This net zero madness must end”.

Things that work in theory don’t always work in practice.

One Financial Impact Of Illegal Immigration

Posted on by

On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about the medical cost of illegal immigration in Texas.

The article reports:

Texas taxpayers paid nearly $122 million to provide Healthcare to illegal migrants in November alone, says the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC).

The Texas HSHC is reporting that the costs to the state for health care for illegal migrants has topped $121.8 million in unpaid care in just the month of November alone. And that estimate is probably low.

In its report, the HHSC reported that non-citizens utilized hospitals in the Lone Star State more than 31,000 time during November of last year.

The data was taken from the state’s new reporting requirements mandated by an executive order that went into effect last August.

“The executive order directs Texas hospitals to provide HHSC quarterly reports on patients who are not lawfully present in the U.S.,” the report noted, “including the number of inpatient discharges, emergency department visits, and the cost of care provided to these patients.”

However, the estimate of expenses is probably low because the data is predicated on the number of patients who answer questions about their immigration status on hospital intake forms and some migrants won’t answer the questions.

The article notes”

Still, this is the first report of its kind in Texas and if every month is similar going forward, the yearly total would approach $1.46 billion per year.

American (or Texas) taxpayers simply cannot afford that.

I am not opposed to people receiving medical care when they need it, but we all know that when something is free, it tends to be overused or abused. I wonder how much of the care received should have been in a hospital or could have been taken care of in a much less expensive setting. That being said, people who are here illegally need to be sent back to where they came from to receive medical care. Or, the countries they came from need to pay the bill.

What Do You Want Your Children Reading?

Posted on by

What do you want your children reading, and should you have a say in the books introduced in their classrooms?

On Tuesday, Breitbart reported:

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday over the religious rights of parents in Maryland to remove their children from elementary school classes using storybooks with LGBTQ characters.

The case is the latest dispute involving religion to come before the conservative-led court. The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years.

The Montgomery County public schools, in suburban Washington, D.C., introduced the storybooks as part of an effort to better reflect the district’s diverse population.

Parents sued after the school system stopped allowing them to pull their kids from lessons that included the books. The parents argue that public schools cannot force kids to participate in instruction that violates their faith, and they pointed to the opt-out provisions in sex education classes.

The schools said allowing children to opt out of the lessons had become disruptive. Lower courts backed the schools, prompting the parents’ appeal to the Supreme Court.

Five books are at issue in the high court case, touching on the same themes found in classic stories that include Snow White, Cinderella and Peter Pan, the school system’s lawyers wrote.

In “Prince and Knight,” two men fall in love after they rescue the kingdom, and each other. In “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” a niece worries that her uncle will not have as much time for her after he gets married. His partner is a man.

“Love, Violet” deals with a girl’s anxiety about giving a valentine to another girl. “Born Ready” is the story of a transgender boy’s decision to share his gender identity with his family and the world. “Intersection Allies” describes nine characters of varying backgrounds, including one who is gender-fluid.

I might be a whole lot more sympathetic to the school’s case if I thought they were actually teaching the children things like arithmetic and classical literature instead of this garbage. In elementary school there are much better things for children to read.

This case is part of the ongoing battle over whether parents or the state are in charge of children. The case is also one of many reasons attendance in public schools in declining in favor of homeschooling and private schools. If schools do not want to lose the majority of their students, they will stop this nonsense.

The First 100 Days

Posted on by

On Monday, Breitbart posted an interview of Hugh Hewitt on the subject of President Trump’s first 100 days. Hugh Hewitt is a Salem Radio Network host. He is also a lawyer a former official in the Reagan administration, the former president and CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation, a law professor at Chapman University School of Law, a former columnist for The Washington Post, and a regular political commentator on Fox News.

The article reports:

As April 30 approaches — the date that marks President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office — establishment media conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt sat down with PragerU CEO Marissa Streit to examine the start of the president’s second term, noting that he is “amused by the people who say [Trump] is reckless,” given that in reality, the president is “determined” to reestablish basic concepts of the U.S. Constitution that have been “abandoned” by the left.

“I am amused by the people who say he’s reckless,” Hewitt said told Streit, adding, “He is determined to force through the courts challenges to the basic structure of the constitution that were abandoned in the progressive era and then left far behind during the New Deal.”

“The three great expansions of the government occurs with Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and LBJ,” Hewitt explained. “That’s 100 years of growth, and 100 years of abusing the original design of the constitution, which is small, limited, enumerated powers.”

“To get that back, [President Trump]’s launched a thousand ships,” he added. “Even if ten of them make it to the other side, we’ll be in a much better position.”

“Right now, we’re in the trifecta: a Republican president who’s aligned with the House and the Senate,” Hewitt noted. “And when you’re in the trifecta, you can get two — and some people argue, three — reconciliations through.”

Hewitt elaborated:

The first reconciliation, which is moving its way through, is the extension of the Trump tax cuts, and their refinement: no tax on tips and a couple other things. Energy production relief, defense buildup of $150 billion, and the fourth part is the border wall — border security. That, we’ll eventually get through.

Then there will be more opportunities. If they are smart, they will focus on empowering the executive to take control of the executive branch, meaning that independent agencies are no longer “independent.” They can move fast, they can break things, they can change regulations.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Hugh Hewitt’s assessment of the current situation and the things to come is very insightful.

Things Are Changing Very Quickly

Posted on by

On Sunday, Breitbart posted an article about one of the changes the Trump administration has made regarding the Panama Canal.

The article reports:

… Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had one mission on his trip to Panama — to secure a deal to get “first and free” passage for U.S. ships in the Panama Canal, a critical waterway for the United States’ economy and military that was at risk of falling under China’s control.

As the secretary and his team flew the down from Washington on Monday evening to meet with Panama’s leaders, such a deal with Panama was far from certain.

While the U.S. had built the canal in the early 1900s and maintained it for decades before handing it over to Panama, China had in recent years poured money into projects and infrastructure attached to it. As a passageway between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans that handles more than 40 percent of U.S. maritime trade, if China were able to close the canal, it would be a catastrophe for the U.S.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s mission was a success:

On Wednesday, Hegseth delivered opening remarks at the conference, which was co-hosted by the U.S. and Panama.

It was there that Hegseth announced that the U.S. and Panama would sign a declaration providing a framework for U.S. warships and auxiliary ships to travel “first and free” through the canal, in a huge win for the U.S.

Hegseth and Abrego also agreed to an expanded partnership to secure the canal and signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperative security activities between the U.S. and Panamanian militaries, which will see the increase of U.S. troops in Panama.

Asked by Breitbart News if he had accomplished everything he wanted to on the trip, a triumphant Hegseth responded, “This trip not only met but exceeded our expectations. A warm welcome from Panama. Great partnership. Spent a lot of time with their troops. I want to thank Panama for what they’ve done in the Darien Gap as well.”

This is a much needed move by the Trump administration.

The Numbers Keep Growing

Posted on by

On Saturday, Breitbart posted the latest numbers from the Department of Government Efficiency Audit (DOGE) of our federal government. It is very obvious that any oversight on government spending that was supposed to come from Congress or from various inspectors general has not happened.

The article reports:

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has saved U.S. taxpayers roughly $150 billion, according to the latest update.

DOGE updated its website again this week with the latest figures on massive savings for the American people. According to this update, U.S. taxpayer savings now reach $150 billion — up from $140 billion in the last update. That results in a savings of $931.68 per taxpayer.

…The latest wall of receipts displays 7,279 contract terminations totaling $25 billion in savings. For example, it shows a Department of the Interior contract listing Family Endeavors, Inc as the vendor. The description reads:

Office of Refugee Resettlement Influx Care Facility. Influx Care Facility (ICF) for up to 3,000 unaccompanied alien children (UAC). The contract provided facilities and full wraparound child care and case management services.

The cancellation of that contract resulted in $2,902,177,562 in savings, according to DOGE.

DOGE also showcases 9,283 grant terminations totaling $33 billion in savings, as well as 676 lease terminations totaling $400 million in savings.

At the time of this writing, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stood as the federal agency generating the most savings, followed by the Department of Education and General Services Administration. Those generating the least savings include the Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, and Department of Veterans Affairs.

How has this waste and fraud continued for so many years without someone becoming aware of it and doing something about it?

One Problem With America’s Financial Situation

Posted on by

On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about some of the abuses in Medicaid, food stamps and income tax returns.

The article reports:

A bombshell report from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) revealed that migrants on the federal government’s “Terrorist Watch List” were able to secure Medicaid after being released into the United States by former President Joe Biden’s administration.

According to DOGE officials, about 6,300 of Biden’s migrants — paroled into the U.S. interior with no immigration status — were either on the Terrorist Watch List or had criminal records and yet were still rewarded work permits and Social Security numbers.

The DOGE report found that 905 of the migrants, including four on the Terrorist Watch List, had been collecting Medicaid benefits totaling $276,000 in American taxpayer dollars. Another 41 were collecting unemployment benefits totaling $42,000.

Similarly, 22 of the migrants received tax refunds in 2024 totaling $751,000 and several more received food stamp benefits.

That’s more than a million dollars that taxpayers should not have had to spend. Americans cannot afford to continue giving money to people who are not American citizens.

As Milton Friedman once stated (article here):

A decade ago, Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman admonished the Wall Street Journal for its idée fixe on open-border immigration policy. “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,” he warned. This remark adds insight to the current debate over immigration in the U.S. Senate.

The article concludes:

This week, DOGE official Antonio Gracias said not only were Biden’s parole migrants taking taxpayer-funded benefits like Medicaid, but thousands were found on a handful of states’ voter rolls.

“We looked at voter rolls and we found that thousands are registered to vote in friendly states. And we looked even further in those friendly states and found that many of those people had actually voted,” Gracias said. “It was shocking to us. If I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it … it is shockingly bad.”

The people who voted illegally need to be deported. They have broken the law in coming here illegally, and they have broken the law by voting.

Didn’t These People See Jurassic Park?

Posted on by

On Wednesday, Breitbart reported that a group of scientists in Texas had successfully genetically engineered three dire wolf cubs. This is a breed of wolf that went extinct 10,000 years ago. The wolf breed is distantly related to the grey wolf, but considerably larger.

The article reports:

Podcast king Joe Rogan was blown away by the comeback of the dire wolf as he spoke to Ben Lamm, the co-founder of a company that has used genetic sequencing to give birth to three wolves with genetic relations to an animal that hasn’t been seen for 10,000 years.

The company Colossal Biosciences has wowed the world after using science to recreate the DNA of the dire wolf before bringing the legendary creature back to life in three animals named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi.

The article describes the wolves:

“They have this super thick fur, their tail is a little longer, they are taller. They’re 80 pounds right now, and a typical wolf is somewhere between 75 and 100 pounds, for a male, and that’s kind of on the high side. These will probably be 140 pounds, which is what we think. They are also significantly more muscular,” he said.

“Obviously, they’re Arctic white as well,” Lamm added. “You’ll see one of the things that we didn’t know is that we found in the genome that they are white. We did a lot of computational analysis and had a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 73,000-year-old skull. So, we had about 50,000 years of genetic divergence, so you could find things like coat colors and differences in their coat, which we engineered in. We didn’t know what those differences were going to look like, but when you see them, they almost have this mane to them.”

Colossal Biosciences insists that they next want to begin work on reviving long-lost species including the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the Tasmanian tiger.

I am not totally comfortable with this idea. I remember the ‘don’t mess with mother nature’ commercials!

This Is Necessary, But It Shouldn’t Be

Posted on by

In North Carolina, we still don’t have the results from the state’s Supreme Court election in 2024. At issue are 60,000 ballots that were not properly or completely filled out. I don’t like the idea of disenfranchising people, but ballots should be properly filled out in order to be counted.

On Friday, Breitbart reported:

A North Carolina appeals court has ruled that more than 60,000 voters who voted in the state’s Supreme Court election in November 2024 must verify that they are eligible to vote.

The ruling from the appeals court ordering “more than 65,000 voters” to prove their eligibility comes after Judge Jefferson Griffin, who ran against North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs in November, challenged the results of the election, according to NBC News.

Per the outlet, voters “now have 15 business days to provide state elections officials with the necessary proof of identity that would verify their votes,” and voters who do not respond “will not have their votes counted in the race.”

“The inclusion of even one unlawful ballot in a vote total dilutes the lawful votes and ‘effectively disenfranchises’ lawful voters,” the panel of three judges wrote. “Post-election protests protect against this risk of vote dilution by enabling candidates and voters to rigorously investigate the election process, identify and challenges unlawful ballots, and ensure those ballots are not counted.”

Including an unlawful ballot is just as bad as not including a valid ballot. We need to get our elections squared away.

The article notes:

Griffin’s “legal argument centers on a claim” thousands of people who voted in the election “were ineligible to vote, mostly because they did not provide proof of identity,” through either a Social Security number or a driver’s license, according to the New York Times.

North Carolina has voter ID laws. Those laws need to be followed.

More Good News From Argentina

Posted on by

Argentina is a beautiful example of what happens when a freedom loving President is elected and allowed to do what he promised to do.

On Tuesday, Breitbart reported:

Argentina’s poverty rate dropped from 52.9 percent to 38.1 percent during the second half of 2024, according to new data by the National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina (INDEC).

Local outlets reported that INDEC, a decentralized entity within the Argentine Economic Ministry, observed a nationwide decrease in poverty and indigence (extreme poverty) rates during the last six months of 2024. During that time period, poverty fell 14.8 percentage points and 8.2 percent of the population was documented living below the extreme poverty line.

Argentina’s Radio Mitre stated that the government of President Javier Milei managed to improve the country’s situation in comparison to 2023, the last year of the disastrous socialist administration of former president and suspected domestic abuser Alberto Fernández. According to INDEC’s report, there are roughly 18 million Argentines living in conditions of poverty.

The article concludes:

Upon taking office in December 2023 as Argentina’s first libertarian President, Milei began implementing a series of “shock therapy” economic measures to help avert a collapse of the nation’s economy after the administration of Alberto Fernández pushed Argentina to the brink of complete economic ruin.

Milei’s policies successfully lowered Argentina’s runaway inflation. In January, Argentina logged its lowest inflation rates in five years, going from 25.5 percent at the start of Milei’s administration to 2.2 percent that month. In February, the inflation rate in Argentina was measured at 2.4 percent. INDEC is expected to release March’s inflation rate report in mid-April.

America could be enjoying the same financial blessings if the courts would get out of the way.

Good Economic News

Posted on by

On Wednesday, Breitbart posted an article reporting some economic news that looks good for the direction of the American economy.

The article reports:

Orders for durable goods rose far above expectations in February, climbing 0.9 percent to $289.3 billion, according to the Commerce Department’s report released Wednesday.

Economists had forecast a 1.0 percent decline, but instead, businesses continued to invest heavily in big-ticket items, particularly automobiles, computers, and machinery.

Even excluding transportation, which can be volatile due to large aircraft orders, new orders increased by 0.7 percent, exceeding the forecast of a 0.3 percent gain. The strength of the overall durable goods orders report is further demonstrated by robust gains in key categories.

Auto orders were notably strong, with orders for motor vehicles and parts rising 4.0 percent. Shipments of motor vehicles and parts also surged by 3.9 percent, indicating strong demand from consumers and businesses alike.

The decline of 0.3 percent in core capital goods orders—non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft—appears to be a pullback following the strong 0.9 percent gain in January. This decline also undermines claims that businesses are rushing to buy equipment ahead of potential tariffs. Even with February’s decline, core capital goods orders are still up by 7.3 percent year-to-date, indicating that business investment remains robust.

The article concludes:

The durable goods report is the latest piece of so-called “hard data” that indicate actual economic activity continues to expand despite “soft data”—such as consumer and business surveys—indicating anxiety over policy uncertainty and tariffs. Earlier this week, the Commerce Department reported new home sales rose solidly and inventories of new houses for sale increased. Last week, the Federal Reserve said industrial output climbed 0.7 percent in February, including a 0.9 percent rise in manufacturing output.

We have a businessman in the White House–not a professional politician. It makes a difference.

 

When Government Gets In The Way Of Progress

Posted on by

In early January of this year, the Palisades Fire destroyed large areas of Pacific Palisades, Topanga, and Malibu. It is estimated that more than 1,200 commercial and residential structures were destroyed in the fire. So how is the rebuilding going?

On Wednesday, Breitbart reported:

Members of the Los Angeles City Council voiced their frustrations on Tuesday after learning that the city had only issued four building permits since the Palisades Fire — while paying $10 million to Hagerty Consulting for a “report.”

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass proudly announced in February that the city had set up a “one-stop” center for residents affected by the fire to obtain permits to rebuild their homes without enduring the usual city bureaucratic processes.

However, as local ABC News affiliate KABC-7 reported, only four permits have been issued in the past six weeks.

I don’t think the “one-stop” center is working.

The article notes:

Likewise, City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez questioned the $10 million the city spent on Hagerty Consultants:

“We have city departments who know how to do this recovery, who have been involved in recovery efforts in the past,” Councilmember Monica Rodriguez told ABC7. “And yet they can’t be afforded the opportunity to hire the personnel that they need, but we can give a $10 million contract to an outside agency to help write a report for us.”

Rodriguez called the Hagerty contract “obscene.”

As Breitbart News reported in February: “the city hired the consulting firm in a secretive process. The amount and terms of the contract have yet to be revealed to the public. Hagerty was hired despite two former consultants for the firm recently pleading guilty to defrauding New York City of federal relief funds during the Hurricane Sandy disaster recovery.”

This is simply another example of government being the problem rather than solving the problem. California needs to hire someone who can actually cut through red tape rather than just spend taxpayer money.

Good Economic News

Posted on by

On Tuesday, Breitbart posted an article reporting that housing starts increased more than 10 percent in February.

The article reports:

New home construction surged in February, as housing starts jumped 11.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.5 million, far surpassing expectations. The increase was led by a strong rebound in single-family homebuilding, a sign that builders are responding to demand despite lingering concerns over mortgage rates and supply constraints.

Single-family starts rose 11.4 percent to an annualized 1.11 million, the fastest pace in a year. Multi-family construction also posted a 10.7 percent increase, though that segment has shown more volatility in recent months. The strength in February’s report follows a period of stagnation in housing construction, particularly in the final years of the previous administration when builders faced high interest rates, rising costs, and regulatory uncertainty.

The article concludes:

The increase in new home construction also stands in contrast to some of the more downbeat economic indicators in recent weeks. While reports on consumer sentiment and retail sales have pointed to some lingering uncertainty, the housing sector’s strength signals that parts of the economy are still expanding.

With single-family home construction picking up pace and builders pushing forward despite higher costs, the February report suggests that the long-stalled housing market may finally be regaining its momentum.

Democrat administrations have attempted to control local zoning since the Obama administration with the goal of eliminating single-family housing. Owning a home is not only part of the American dream, it helps stabilize neighborhoods and create generational wealth.

In 2015, Investor’s Business Daily reported:

Under a sweeping new federal housing mandate, the Obama administration threatens to withhold funding for cities and counties that fail to remove local zoning laws and other potentially “discriminatory barriers” that restrict low-income housing in wealthy neighborhoods.

More than 1,200 municipalities will be impacted by the highly contested rule, which the Housing and Urban Development Department put into effect Wednesday.

The agency seeks to combat discrimination in affluent suburban areas, while also desegregating poor urban areas where it says too many minorities lack access to good schools and jobs.

“A ZIP code should never determine a child’s future,” HUD Secretary Julian Castro said.

The massive 377-page regulation requires local authorities to take “meaningful actions” to diversify neighborhoods. Municipalities that don’t comply risk losing millions in federal grant money. Some could face federal housing-bias probes.

That idea is still part of the Democrat Party playbook, so it should not come as a surprise that the housing market does well under a Republican President. All Americans need to be aware of the fight to federalize zoning and be ready to fight it whenever it is introduced. When the Democrat Party regains power, federalizing zoning will be reintroduced.

 

This Is Beyond Ridiculous

Posted on by

The things that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is finding that we are spending taxpayer money on are totally ridiculous.

On Wednesday, Breitbart reported the following:

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cancelled several grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Tuesday, including over half a million dollars going to a “pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys.”

DOGE, led by tech mogul Elon Musk, revealed in a late night X post that NIH had just ended the following grants:

– $620K for “an LGB+ inclusive teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys”

 – $699K for studying “cannabis use” among “sexual minority gender diverse individuals”

 – $740K for examining “social networks” among “black and Latino sexual minority men in New Jersey”

 – $50K for assessing “sexual health” among “LGTBQ+ Latinx youth in an agricultural community”

 – $75K for researching “structural racism”

The article notes:

The latest NIH grant cancellations come just a week after DOGE announced the cancellation of grants from the agency that were geared toward transgender experiments on animals, Breitbart News reported.

Keep those cancellations coming!

This Might Be Part Of The Problem

Posted on by

On Tuesday, Breitbart posted an article about the recently passed Continuing Resolution (CR). The article might explain part of the reason we are having so much trouble bringing down the federal deficit.

The article reports:

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) revealed on The Alex Marlow Show that one Republican lawmaker bristled about how the stop-gap spending did not have any earmarks, including his own.

Perry spoked to Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Marlow as the House passed the stop-gap spending bill, otherwise known as a continuing resolution (CR), that freezes government spending for six months.

The Pennsylvania conservative argued that the advancement of the CR is a victory in itself, as it blocked congressional leadership from advancing an omnibus spending bill.

“What’s different and the context about this is that we didn’t get our appropriations done, but our leadership wanted to do an omnibus. They wanted that four corners deal. The CR is not the four corners deal. They don’t want the CR; they’ve been forced into it by people like me and quite honestly, the president,” Perry said.

The former Freedom Caucus chairman also cheered the CR’s lack of earmarks.

“There are no earmarks in this thing,” he said.

I am not a fan of CR’s (although I believe this one is necessary), but I am a fan of no earmarks.

The article concludes:

“I had a Republican member complaining to me at a meeting this morning. He’s grumbling, well I guess I have to vote for this, but you know, my earmarks aren’t it. I’m thinking, you’re talking to the guy, brother,” Perry said.

“I’m not into that,” he said.

The Keystone State conservative also noted that America has not seen a normal congressional appropriations process. He said that the last time Congress went through the “normal” appropriations process was in 1996.

“We have to find a new way to do business,” he argued.

No, you have to go back to the old way of doing business–the “normal” appropriations process.

This Shouldn’t Happen In America

Posted on by

Over the weekend, Vice-President Vance and his family went skiing in Vermont. What should have been a welcome break from the pressure cooker that is Washington, D.C., turned into something very different. Vice-President Vance and his family were moved to an undisclosed location due to pro-Ukrainian protesters.

Breitbart reports:

Star Trek star George Takei cheered on leftists who crashed Vice President JD Vance’s family ski trip, which resulted in the Vice President and has family having to be moved to an “undisclosed location.”

“Protestors met JD Vance in Vermont when he went to vacation there today,” Takei wrote in a Saturday post on the leftist echo chamber social media platform Bluesky, adding, “This is a good one,” and sharing a photo of a protestor holding a sign that read, “VANCE IS A TRAITOR, GO SKI IN RUSSIA.”

…Notably, Democrat lawmakers, mainstream media journalists, celebrities, and other Ukrainian sycophants took to social media, where they parroted the same anti-Trump and anti-Vance talking points and spun the narrative as to how Fridays meeting with Zelensky unfolded.

The article notes:

As Breitbart News reported, the United States has already authorized around $175 billion in taxpayer dollars for support to Ukraine.

The Vice-President should be able to enjoy a peaceful weekend with his family. It is unfortunate that free speech has turned into a right to ruin someone’s vacation time. The media needs to tone down its rhetoric.

What Is Zelensky Fighting For?

Posted on by

Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House on Friday. It did not go well for him. First of all, in my opinion, showing up at the White House to meet the President in gym clothes is disrespectful. There are restaurants who wouldn’t let Zelensky in dressed like that! Second of all, evidently the agreement had been worked out beforehand, as is the custom with these events. Instead of simply signing the previously worked out agreement, President Zelensky decided he wanted some things changed. He made his request publicly instead of in private, as is the custom. The first rule of holes is to stop digging; President Zelensky chose to ignore that rule. The look on his Ambassador’s face tells the whole story. She at least understood what was happening.

On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about the meeting.

The article reports:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) praised President Donald Trump for giving “a masterclass on how to stand up for America” after kicking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky out of the White House after he made several “disrespectful” comments.

As Breitbart News’s Katherine Hamilton previously reported, Zelensky’s comments were made “in front of the media ahead of planned private talks and the expected signing of the much-discussed minerals deal.”

After Zelensky was kicked out of the White House, the “White House confirmed” that Zelensky had not signed the minerals deal and Trump issued a statement in a post on Truth Social stating that he had “determined that President Zelensky is not ready for Peace if America is involved.”

I have a feeling that the gravy trail with kickbacks that has been going to Ukraine for the past few years is about to end.

Accountability?

Posted on by

In September 2024, I posted an article about the fast-tracking of  George Soros’ bid to take over hundreds of Audacy radio stations. The stations air such shows as Sean Hannity, Dana Loesch, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck and Erick Erickson. Well, not so fast. George Soros may have every right to buy those radio stations, but there is a review process involved, and that process was skipped.

On Tuesday, Breitbart reported the following:

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr will brief the Republican Study Committee on Wednesday about George Soros’s “unprecedented” scheme to take over 200 Audacy radio stations.

Carr will detail how the FCC, under Democrat leadership, approved a license deal delivering leftist billionaire Soros over 200 Audacy radio stations.

Soros reportedly took foreign investment to make his bid for the 200 Audacy radio stations, which cover 40 media markets, and asked the commission to make an exception to the normal review process.

This is reportedly the first time such a deal was fast-tracked without a national security review process, which normally takes at least a year.

The article concludes:

Carr continued, “Did they obtain approval from the FCC for their excessive foreign ownership? No, they did not. Did the Applicants afford the Executive Branch agencies with national security and relevant policy expertise an opportunity to consider their application as well as the source and amount of foreign investment? No, they did not.”

“First, I just have to point out: a Commission eager to fast-track a billion dollar broadcast media reorganization, disregarding foreign ownership concerns,” FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington noted in a statement at the time, “is the same Commission that has gone back to the well several times to impose and re-impose foreign sponsorship identification rules on our smallest independent broadcast license holders every time they place local church content on the air.”

Simington added, “Just saying.”

The main issues in the approval are the fact that the approval was given without seeking public comment on altering established regulations, without actually changing the rules, and without enabling Executive Branch agencies with national security and specific policy expertise to weigh in (because of the foreign investment involved).

The Money Machine Is Drying Up For The Cartels

Posted on by

On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about the migrant smuggling machine that has made so much money during the past four years.

The article reports:

What was once a “well-oiled migrant smuggling machine” into the United States has collapsed thanks to President Trump’s border enforcement and promise to deport every illegal alien in the country. So, to make money now, many of these same smugglers are taking self-deportees back to Venezuela.

Naturally, the far-left Associated Press reports on this as though it’s a bad thing…

“They once braved the jungles of the Darien Gap, trekking days along the perilous migrant passage dividing Colombia and Panama with a simple goal: seek asylum in the U.S.,” reports the AP. “Now, boat-by-boat, those migrants … have given up after President Donald Trump’s crackdown on asylum, and are returning to the countries they once sought to escape.”

Hey, all Trump did was enforce the law. If people want asylum, there is a legal way to ask for asylum at a point of entry. These folks didn’t do that. Former President Joe Biden tried to aid and abet their lawlessness with an app that would grant them an asylum hearing, but that’s now how it works, that is not the law, and Trump killed the app.

So now, tee hee…

After explaining that the boats had until recently been “part of a well oiled migrant smuggling machine” that was extremely lucrative for the smugglers, who took advantage of a seemingly unending influx of “hundreds of thousands” heading in the United States, AP came to my favorite part:

“But now that much of the Darien’s migrant smuggling industry has collapsed, some smugglers are taking advantage of the reverse migration to charge steep costs to migrants – between $200 and $250 per person, including minors – for the boat rides.”

I admit that our immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed. However, as long as we elect politicians rather than patriots, that system is not going to be fixed. Meanwhile, we need to enforce the laws as they are written. When illegal aliens self-deport, it saves the government money. That is not a bad thing.

Misspent Money

Posted on by

On Sunday, Breitbart reported that a church in New Jersey has had to lay off 195 workers as a result of the cuts to USAID. The church was receiving millions from USAID to help migrants. My question is if they had to lay off 195 workers, how much of the money they were receiving actually went to the migrants?

The article reports:

Leaders with the Reformed Church of Highland Park told Shore News Network they laid off 195 workers after President Donald Trump’s administration stopped federal money from going to migrant resettlement programs, the website reported Sunday.

…The outlet said it “confirmed layoffs through a WARN notice filed with the New Jersey Department of Labor.”

It continued:

The church, which had received $18 million in aid from USAID to place migrants in jobs across New Jersey, is now struggling to keep its programs running. Reverend Seth Kaper-Dale said his organization is owed more than $1.3 million for services rendered in January alone and warned that without immediate support, key programs could collapse.

“For the past 3.5 years, we have experienced that refugees and immigrants are a blessing,” Kaper-Dale said. “Since January 20th, everything has collapsed.”

According to the church’s website, it has had an “active immigration committee since 2002, when our members first started sharing their experiences of trouble with the U.S. Immigration System.”

I have no objection to a church resettling migrants that are legally here with their own money. I just see no reason for the American taxpayers to have to pay for the church’s charitable activities.

This Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone

Posted on by

On Wednesday, Breitbart posted an article about how the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been spending its money.

The article reports:

Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Doug Collins confirmed that the Biden administration’s VA diverted “manpower” away from Veteran Care (VC) to help illegal migrants obtain health care.

In an interview with Andrew Wilkow of the Wilkow Majority on SiriusXM Patriot, the new VA secretary revealed that after stepping into the role earlier this month he found instances of time being used to “process health applications and stuff” for illegals:

The article explains:

“Did the VA, under the previous administration, move resources away from Veteran Care into benefits for illegals… Did it happen, or are we going to look into it?” Wilkow asked Collins, who served as a Republican U.S. congressman from Georgia from 2013 to 2021. 

“I think what we’ve found…not maybe much invested, but — We actually took time away from what I’ll call Veteran Care to process health applications and stuff, is what we’ve seemed to find, and we’re still looking into this,” Collins replied. “That’s going to stop.”

“I mean, I know they weren’t putting illegals in Walter Reed —,” Wilkow added.

Collins responded, “No, no, no, but there was a use of resources that were going to help process this mass claim. It could be better directed.”

Again clarifying that illegal migrants were not receiving medical procedures from VA hospitals, Wilkow asked if VA “manpower may have been used” to help illegal aliens.

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve seen so far,” Collins confirmed.

All Veterans Affairs resources should be used for veterans. We have no obligation to people who are here illegally and have broken our laws to be here. How many veterans have waited long periods of time to get the services that they needed and were entitled to because the administrative arm of the Veterans Administration was directed elsewhere?

Quote Of The Week

Posted on by

Posted at Breitbart on Saturday:

Maher (HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher) said, “I do know this, because this comes from the Government Accountability Office, that’s not the Trump administration, the federal government loses an estimated 233 to 521 billion annually to fraud.”

He continued, “So, when Trump fired, — the first thing he did [is fire] all the inspectors general. And I thought, well, that’s not good, that’s their job to watchdog stuff. But if you’re losing $521 billion a year, how good are you watchdogging? You’ve got to — I’m not saying we should have fired them.”