Tag Archives: Hot Air

Questioning The Timing

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One of the major news stories today is the announcement that former President Biden has prostate cancer. The fact that the cancer has spread to his bones has caused many in the medical profession to state that he has probably had prostate cancer for some time. Below is the 2022 video of President Biden stating that he has cancer. The comment is included in a Denver, Colorado, News 9 article of July 2022. My sympathies go out to the Biden family–everyone reading this probably has a friend or family member who has battled cancer. That said, the timing of this announcement is very odd.

The article reports:

During a speech on the effects of climate change Wednesday, President Joe Biden seemingly indicated that he has cancer, but the White House quickly clarified the president was referring to a previous diagnosis before his presidency.

The comment came during a speech in Somerset, Mass., when the president was discussing the health effects caused by emissions from oil refineries near his hometown in Delaware.

“That’s why I — and so damn many other people I grew up with — have cancer and why for the longest time Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation,” Biden said.

RNC Research, a Twitter account run by the Republican National Committee, quickly posted a video clip, tweeting, “Did Joe Biden just announce he has cancer?” The claim quickly gained traction among conservative figures on Twitter.

Andrew Bates, a White House deputy press secretary, responded by pointing to a tweet from Glenn Kessler, the editor and chief writer for the Washington Post’s Fact Checker. Kessler debunked the claim, pointing out Biden had minor skin cancers removed prior to his presidency, which was noted in a health report released last year. 

Oil refineries don’t cause skin cancer.

On May 19, Hot Air reported:

How do we know–and how does a doctor confidently assert–that this cancer diagnosis almost certainly can’t be recent? Simple: if you are a male and live long enough, the chances of getting prostate cancer are asymptotically close to 100%, so any competent doctor would test for this, and a White House doctor absolutely would test for this. Joe Biden was old when he entered the White House, and quite old when he left.

He was tested for cancer. And since prostate cancer–even “aggressive” prostate cancer–does not metastasize into the bones in months–it’s unlikely that the disease could be missed for so long.

Everybody is rightly focused on the cover-up because it is part of a pattern of lies. The White House certainly knew about Biden’s mental decline and lied. They knew about his spinal degeneration–it was so bad that they planned to put him in a wheelchair after the election, yet told everybody he was so fit he ran circles around his aides. And it is difficult to believe that they–at least Biden and the family–didn’t know and lie about his cancer.

Again, my sympathies to the Biden family. But not my respect.

The End Of Nationwide Injunctions?

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about a case the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing on Thursday.

The article notes how the political opponents of President Trump have repeatedly used the courts to try to prevent him from implementing his agenda:

Since President Trump took office, federal district courts have issued 37 nationwide injunctions against the Executive Branch.  That’s more than one a month.  By comparison, during President Obama’s first two years, district courts issued two nationwide injunctions against the Executive Branch, both of which were vacated by the Ninth Circuit.  And according to the Department’s best estimates, courts issued only 27 nationwide injunctions­ in all of the 20th century.

Some say this proves that the Trump Administration is lawless.  Not surprisingly, I disagree.  And I would point out that the only case litigated on the merits in the Supreme Court—the so-called “travel ban” challenge—ended with President’s policy being upheld…

The Constitution empowers Congress to create lower federal courts, and in designing a system of 93 judicial districts and 12 regional circuits, Congress set clear geographic limits on lower-court jurisdiction. In our system, district-court rulings do not bind other judges, even other judges in the same district…

Nationwide injunctions not only allow district courts to wield unprecedented power, they also allow district courts to wield it asymmetrically. When a court denies a nationwide injunction, the decision does not affect other cases. But when a court grants a nationwide injunction, it renders all other litigation on the issue largely irrelevant. Think about what that means for the Government. When Congress passes a statute or the President implements a policy that is challenged in multiple courts, the Government has to run the table—we must win every case. The challengers, however, must find only one district judge—out of an available 600—willing to enter a nationwide injunction. One judge can, in effect, cancel the policy with the stroke of the pen.

The article reports:

And the era of nationwide injunctions could come to an end later this week when the Supreme Court hears a case on birthright citizenship. The case probably won’t decide whether birthright citizenship is legal under the 14th Amendment. What the case is really about is the nationwide injunctions different courts have used to block Trump’s executive order on the topic.

I firmly believe that one of the things President Trump is trying to do is to bring America back to the country our Founding Fathers created. We have wandered so far from our Constitution that the road back is going to be bumpy and clogged by people who are making too much money the way things currently are. It would be wonderful if President Trump could bring us closer to the system of government our Constitution created.

I’m Skeptical, But I Would Love To See This Work

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On Tuesday, Hot Air reported:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is going to meet with the Syrian Foreign Minister on Thursday in Turkey.

President Trump will greet Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Riyadh tomorrow. 

My favorite quote from the article:

Trump will talk to anyone who sincerely wants to talk to him. It’s like his magic power.

Ahmed Al Sharaa has been serving as President of Syria since January of this year. He is from a Sunni Muslim family.

The article notes that he has not been an exemplary leader so far:

By the beginning of March, it was pretty clear a jihadi leader now using his given name – Ahmed Al Sharaa – in a $4000 suit was still a jihadi at heart. Al-Sharaa’s boys were having themselves the rampaging adventures of a lifetime, systematically exterminating Druze and Alawite communities all over northern Syria with impunity. Oh – and trying to find the five or six Jews left in the country.

We haven’t heard much out of the area since, except for reports that detail American and Israeli strikes on targets in the area. Most associated with the ongoing cat and mouse game the Houthis had been playing and the assorted Iranian militias supporting them, who operate freely all through the southern portion of Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, as President Trump noted during his speech in Saudi Arabia today.

I applaud President Trump providing an avenue for Al-Sharaa to reform, but I am skepticall. Any time you are dealing with an Islamist, you need to consider the Islamic concept of taqiyya. This is a concept in Islamic law that translates as “deceit or dissimulation,” particularly toward infidels. It is generally described as lying for the sake of Islam.

However, there may be some possible rewards for making nice to Syria.

To quote Shaun Maguire on X:

The article at Hot Air notes:

This also helps keep Turkey on the spot because, should Al-Sharaa start to see the fruits of cooperation with the US pay off and Syria begins to rise from the dead, he becomes a hero, and there’s nothing more these egotists love than being loved. He won’t let Erdogan interfere with that, whatever he owes him.

The other is the pressure from Saudi Arabia on Syria now. They facilitated this come to Trump moment. The crown prince would take it ill if the jihadi reappeared after making a public spectacle of the Saudis’ belief that he was worth cultivating and his country worth saving.

The Saudis do not take embarrassment lightly.

This is going to be interesting to watch. It would be wonderful to see the Middle East break out in peace.

Undermining Property Rights Leads To Poverty

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In 2010, I wrote an article about the relationship between private property rights and the wealth of a country. The conclusion of the article was that enforcing property rights and the rule of law breeds prosperity. We need to remember that as a country.

On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about a recent series of events in California.

The article reports:

A pair of vacant properties in Hollywood, CA started making news 10 days ago after residents complained a large group of squatters had taken over the homes and were creating a nuisance in the neighborhood.

…The drugs, noise, nudity and criminal behavior were a nuisance but when the police were called out, nothing seemed to change. The squatters would just disappear and then come back when the police were gone. The source of all this activity was another house next door which was receiving money from the city to house the homeless. Some of the homeless would hang out all day on the porch of their free housing and then jump the fence into the abandoned properties at night. But beyond all the nuisance this created, the real danger was the fires.

…Finally, there was enough media attention that L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto Martinez issued a statement saying he was working to have the site declared a nuisance.

…So sometime later this month, the city would have held a vote and then eventually taken action to tear the building down. But as it turned out, the homeless squatters beat them to it. Last Thursday the building caught fire again and this time was heavily damaged.

…I can’t prove it but my guess is the city was happy to plod along at its usual pace when this was just a big nuisance for neighbors, but once the building was a danger to the homeless, who might have gone back in after the fire, they acted immediately to tear it down.

The councilman who had promised to have the site declared a nuisance got an earful when he showed up at the site after the fire.

…Meanwhile in Sacramento, just a day after the fire in Hollywood, Democrats voted down a bill which would have made it easier to evict squatters.

Please follow the link above to read the rest of the story. California is going bankrupt. Unfortunately, I suspect the rest of the nation may be forced to bail her out. The inability or unwillingness to protect the property of homeowners who live there is one of many reasons people are leaving the state. As the people who have the money to leave move to other places, there won’t be enough people who are fiscally stable to pay off the taxes and massive state government expenses. The State of California will collapse financially.

Creating Efficiency By Tossing Out The Trash

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On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article that explains why a lot of the Washington deep state would really like to get rid of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. He has begun to drain the swamp. Of course when you drain the swamp, you expose some pretty unsavory animals.

The article reports:

Everyone who has been serving on Department of Defense advisory committees is to be thanked for their service and told that said service ‘is concluded‘ aka ‘out of a cushy post.’

The article includes a screenshot of the letter sent to the committee members.

The article continues:

Of course, there’s going to be all sorts of caterwauling about the move. But just like the programs that Biden initiated that now it seems Trump cannot undo, there is precedent for this as well.

While press releases call it a ‘tit-for-tat,’ they also acknowledge that lumpy Lloyd Austin removed every Trump appointee and then some serving on a committee from their chairs. 

We need to remember that last sentence when the media starts caterwauling.

The article notes:

…The Pentagon’s bloated advisory panels have ballooned to 41 groups—many duplicative or focused on political pet projects rather than warfighting readiness. Since 2021, these committees cost taxpayers over $220M annually while producing bureaucratic inertia. The Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services alone burned $8.7M last fiscal year debating gender initiatives instead of lethality. 

Realigning resources means cutting dead weight—like Susan Rice’s seat pushing DEI dogma—to prioritize missile defense modernization and countering China’s naval expansion. The Department of Government Efficiency’s $160B savings blueprint proves real reform starts with axing non-essential programs. 

Advisory boards shouldn’t be retirement perks for political allies—they should deliver battlefield advantage.

…The Defense Policy Board (DPB) has always been packed with long-term D.C. establishment insiders and power brokers and was targeted by recently fired adviser Dan Caldwell, who accused it of being the source of the leaks for which he took the blame. Caldwell claimed that the board is chock to the brim with anti-Trump members who are resistant to any changes the president, and by extension his SecDef, wants made.

Maybe when this is all over, we can go back to winning wars. We haven’t won a war since World War II (with the exception of the invasion of Grenada).

Sometimes Criminals Are The Best Detectives In A Fraud Case

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I spent my teenage years living in central New Jersey. I remember the “Crazy Eddie” commercials. Crazy Eddie was a consumer electronics chain in the metropolitan New York City area. The company was owned by Eddie and Sam M. Antar. Eventually the company went public. Eddie and Sam began cooking the company’s books in order to increase the value of the stock. Eventually they got caught. Eddie was charged with securities fraud and insider trading; he fled the country. Sam agreed to testify if he was granted immunity.

An article posted at Hot Air on Tuesday reports:

Since 2009, Sam Antar has been a forensic accountant, working with federal and local law enforcement agencies, teaching them what to look for in paperwork – and where to look for paperwork – as well as digging on his own time into waste, fraud, and abuse, always on the hunt for white collar crime.

He is a man on a mission.

And way back in February, while going through the records from Letitia James’ ‘luxury campaign spending,‘ as he calls it, Sam came across some wonky-looking personal finance filings. Things weren’t adding up to the eagle-eyed Antar.

In February, the White Collar Fraud website reported:

After our recent investigations exposed New York Attorney General Letitia James’ pattern of luxury campaign spending and creative accounting, a deeper examination of her personal financial disclosures reveals troubling new questions about her property holdings and financial reporting.

The same pattern of obscured luxury that characterized her campaign spending now emerges in her personal financial statements, starting with a Virginia investment property that seems to defy financial logic. Purchased in August 2020, James values the single-family home at “$100,000 to under $150,000” in her 2023 financial disclosure. Yet somehow, this same property carries mortgages totaling up to $400,000 – potentially more than twice its declared value.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

Now, Antar’s work has everyone swarming James’ life in the files, and what they’re uncovering is astonishing in its blatant gaming of the system.

And as Antar says, James didn’t do this by herself – she had to have help.

Who is going to squeal to save themselves?

The tenants who live in the Brooklyn building that isn’t supposed to have tenants are speaking up, and that is really looking awkward all around for James.

…When a guy’s already done time for legendary crazy, there’s not much he’s going to worry about when he’s on the right trail of wrongdoing.

This is gonna be sumpthin’ to see.

This is not the first time someone convicted of a white-collar crime has wound up doing investigative work for the government, and based on the many times that has been successful, I suspect it won’t be the last.

Pay Attention To The People Who Are Opposing The DOGE Cuts

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On Saturday, Stephen Moore posted an article at Hot Air about the opposition to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts.

The article reports:

If you haven’t watched the Bret Baier interviews on Fox News with Elon Musk and the other executives who have given their time and expertise to exposing the rampant fraud and inefficiency of our federal government, I urge you to do so.

It will infuriate you — and that’s what we need right now.

These Department of Government Efficiency volunteers are on a patriotic mission to repair our ship of state. They are hunting down the rats and scoundrels who have played us (we the taxpayers) for fools for so many years. It’s the greatest robbery — more than $1 trillion of fraud and corruption — in world history.

Yet too many Democrats are reacting as though Musk himself is the scoundrel.

The “Musk-ateers” have marked nearly 10 million Social Security recipients over the age of 120 as deceased. (How many monthly checks were sent out?) How about $10 billion in rent for empty office buildings? Hundreds of millions of dollars for foreign aid programs that went to “nongovernmental government organizations” and then disappeared down a rabbit hole? Billions of dollars in fraudulent Medicaid spending? A federal workforce that has been MIA for three years?

In the wake of this epic failure of governance, nearly every leading Democrat in Washington has protested: “Elon Musk is going too far.”

The article cites an example of why the Democrats oppose the budget cuts:

Or maybe the real answer is that THEY ARE IN ON THE SWINDLE. This could explain how so many politicians spent their careers in Congress and retired as multimillionaires.

In other words, what is most revealing about the Washington slime that we are waking up to in real time thanks to DOGE is that the waste and fraud is the currency of Washington. It pays the bills, and everyone in the swamp gets their cut. Remember: One third of $7 trillion is the stuff of fortunes.

How else does one explain the $2.7 million that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse allegedly directed/laundered to his wife via a nonprofit environmental group she worked for? This would clearly be graft, but it has gone unpunished.

We are living through the harrowing last scene in a Hollywood murder mystery in which you discover that the chief of police was in on it all along.

The article concludes:

In reality, perhaps the greatest public service of the Musk-ateers is that they have taught voters that Washington should never get another penny of our tax dollars until the sewer is completely drained and the tens of thousands of fraudsters inside and outside of government are put out of business and hopefully behind bars.

I agree.

A Very Logical Argument

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On Sunday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article about the Continuing Resolution (CR) now working its way through Congress.

The article reports:

What’s the argument for opposing the new CR being introduced by Speaker Mike Johnson this week? Other than being a continuing resolution, of course, which stink on ice. Congress has gotten into a bad habit over the past 20 years of failing to budget normally and properly. This year is no different, but in that same sense, this CR is both a necessity and better than all of the alternatives. This has been dysfunctional all along, but this isn’t a time to amplify it.

First off, we’re stuck with the CR process. That ship sailed last year, when Democrats controlled the Senate, Joe Biden was president (ostensibly), and House Republicans spent the year forming circular firing squads. Yes, we could write an entirely new budget instead of a CR for FY2024-25, but we’re nearly halfway through that fiscal year already. We’d have to start that process nearly from scratch too, which means we’d still need a CR to get enough time to work on it. That would take another couple of months at least under regular order — meaning the proper committee process, etc — by which time the rest of the fiscal year would be closer to a fiscal quarter. 

What would we gain from that process? We’d be unlikely to move the needle much at all on spending, and create even more time for splits to emerge in the House Republican caucus with less time to resolve them. That effort is better applied to the FY2025-26 budget, where real opportunities exist for capturing significant spending cuts through DOGE. 

He makes a very good point. Let’s get past the CR and get on with the work of finding fraud and waste in government spending. Let’s end the foreign campaign contributions funded through ActBlue, and let’s end the campaign donations and other donations made to Congressmen (and women) from companies who have legislation before Congress. Let’s look at how much the pharmaceutical industry has donated to Congress in recent years and see how that relates to legislation passed.

Let’s be done with the CR and move on to better things.

When Environmentalism Pollutes The Environment

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about the fire at Vistra Corp.’s Moss Landing battery storage facility in Moss Landing, California. The fire began on January 16th and is still burning.

The article reports:

Not only were residents affected, but the batteries that went up in flames inside were a critical component of CA’s ludicrous dependency on renewables. They had just been awarded a major 15-year contract with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) to store and deliver up to four hours’ worth of that stored excess capacity to the grid when shortages occur. 

The article cites a few environmental problems with this continuing fire:

Residents in the Moss Landing area are furious. The anger they expressed in interviews just a few days after being trapped in their homes, sealed up as best they could for days after the fire due to the fumes and ash, was palpable.

They want the facility gone.

…”It is a charred, stinking mess. And it is just, and it’s poison now. Okay? We’ve been poisoned,” said Patricia Yeargin, who has a clear view of the Moss Landing towers from her front porch.

“They’re telling us to wear masks. They’re telling us to go inside our house and not come out. They’re telling us they have to, uproot us from our, neighborhoods,” Yeargin said. “And we need to be taken someplace till this thing gets less toxic, for people. So we know what it’s doing to our water down there. We know what it’s doing to our animals.”…

The article notes problems with the environment:

 …San José State University has been monitoring the local ecologically rich but environmentally sensitive Elkhorn Slough estuary by Moss Landing for years, and when they came back for routine testing after the fire, the team found alarming results.

Research scientists at San José State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories said they have detected “unusually high concentrations of heavy-metal nanoparticles in marsh soils at Elkhorn Slough Reserve” after the Moss Landing battery facility fire on Jan. 16.

We have a long way to go to create a safe, environmentally clean fossil fuel alternative.

This Makes My Blood Boil

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On Thursday, Hot Air posted an article about Hamas’ release of the bodies of four hostages. The fact that Israel is backed into a corner and is releasing live terrorists for dead hostages is bad enough, but Hamas used to occasion as propaganda. It was disgusting.

The article quotes The U.K. Daily Mail:

Hamas has been condemned for parading the coffins of hostages in Gaza, with the United Nations rights chief saying the ‘abhorrent’ treatment of the October 7 attack victims ‘flies in the face of international law.’

Israelis are mourning the youngest hostages – baby Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel – as well as their mother Shiri and elderly captive Oded Lifshitz, whose bodies are believed to have been inside the caskets.

The four coffins were displayed to crowds in front of disturbing propaganda posters before being handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) by armed Hamas fighters. 

I admire Israel’s restraint. If it were up to me, Gaza would be a radioactive parking lot by now.

The article at Hot Air includes multiple pictures of the transfer of the bodies of the hostages.

The article at Hot Air includes the following screenshot from X:

I agree.

UPDATE:

The woman’s body that was returned is not the mother of the two murdered children.

 

When The News Only Tells A Part Of The Story

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On February 13th, Hot Air posted an article illustrating the spin some of the media is using to try to sway public opinion about the cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Although one of the stories sounds plausible, it really doesn’t show the entire picture.

The article states:

Sarah Newey, the global health security correspondent for the Telegraph based in Bangkok, Thailand, filed this report about the first victim of Elon Musk and DOGE’s USAID cuts. 

Here’s the takeaway.

A 71-year-old woman has died after her oxygen supply was cut off when the United States announced a freeze on aid funding. 

Pe Kha Lau, a refugee from Myanmar living in a displacement camp in neighbouring Thailand, died four days after she was discharged from a USAID-funded healthcare facility operated by the International Rescue Committee (IRC). 

She is thought to be one of the first people to have died as a direct result of Washington’s decision to freeze all funding for aid projects for 90 days. 

Her family told Reuters that she had frequently been sent to hospital in the last three years as she was dependent on a supply of oxygen, but was sent home after the IRC received a “stop-work” order in late January.

So let’s take a closer look.

The article continues:

…The NGO that was providing the money for the oxygen tank is the International Rescue Committee. They run the clinic Ms. Lau visited to get her oxygen. Here’s what you need to know about IRC.

Its president and CEO is David Miliband, a former Labour Party member of British Parliament who was in leadership, serving as Defence minister for a time. Being an NGO, they have to file 990 disclosure forms, which include the salaries of all senior officers. Mr. Miliband is bringing down, depending on the year, between $1.1 and $1.2 million dollars annually. The rest of the 11 named officers? None make less than $283,000 and range up to $440,000. 

Also, from their 990 submission, for the tax year 2021, the most recent data posted online, this was their financial status – a little over $1.3 billion in revenue, including $728.3 million in government grants. In 2021, they had $527 million in assets, $210 million of it in cash, and $119 million in securities. And yet we’re led to believe by the Telegraph that this woman’s death is on Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s hands because she was literally starved of oxygen to save a buck or two. The cost of an oxygen tank for personal consumption? Between $75 and $150 dollars.

So what have we gotten for the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a former Labour MP’s charity? Antisemitism and a push for allowing more illegal immigration into the United States.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. I don’t think the problem here is Elon Musk freezing the USAID budget. I think the problem is misplaced priorities within the International Rescue Committee. I am not convinced that they are rescuing anyone except the people running the organization.

Pay Attention To Who Is Screaming The Loudest

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President Trump and Elon Musk have certainly shaken things up in Washington. You would think everyone would get on board with cleaning up fraud and waste in the government and cutting spending. It kind of makes you wonder why anyone would oppose those things. Well, we are starting to find out why.

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about one group who is opposed to all of the sunlight currently shining on government expenses. I know that this is an incredible coincidence, but one of the groups opposed to looking into and cutting the spending has received a lot of money from the government agency doing the spending.

The article reports:

It might be easier to keep a list of who in the Establishment DOESN’T get USAID funding than those who do. 

As everybody in the Elite screams from the top of their lungs about the injustice of it all, it turns out that cuts to USAID are so offensive to them because USAID is nothing but a piggy bank for every damn one of them. 

The article includes the following:

That might explain the following:

The article notes:
Senator Kennedy, who can always be counted on for interesting comments, is quoted on X:
The article concludes:

I want to see where every dollar goes. Every self-righteous organization, by complaining, is outing itself as yet another grifter that subsists off the hard work of the people they are working to suppress.

This is a war between the Establishment and the people. Nothing less.

Stay tuned and get out the popcorn!

The Money Went Where??!!

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On February 6th, Hot Air posted an article the Democrats’ battle to save the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Aside from the fact that most Americans would like to cut government spending somewhere, the spending cuts the Democrats are protesting would probably be spending cuts most Americans would approve. This is not a smart battle on the part of the Democrats.

The article lists some of the specifics of the spending:

Here are a few more of the ridiculous projects on which they spent YOUR money:

— $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language”

— $20 million for a new Sesame Street show in Iraq

— $4.5+ million to “combat disinformation” in Kazakhstan

— $1.5 million for “art for inclusion of people with disabilities”

— $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala

— $6 million to “transform digital spaces to reflect feminist democratic principles”

— $2.1 million to help the BBC “value the diversity of Libyan society”

— $10 million worth of USAID-funded meals, which went to an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group

— $25 million for Deloitte to promote “green transportation” in the country of Georgia

— $6 million for tourism in Egypt

— $2.5 million to promote “inclusion” in Vietnam

— $16.8 million for a SEPARATE “inclusion” group in Vietnam

— ~$5 million to EcoHealth Alliance, one of the key NGOs funding bat virus research at the Wuhan lab

— $20 million for a group related to a key player in the Russiagate impeachment hoax

— $1.1 million to an Armenian “LGBT group”

— $1.2 million to help the African Methodist Episcopal Church Service and Development Agency in Washington, D.C., build “a state-of-the-art 440 seat auditorium”

— $1.3 million to Arab and Jewish photographers

— $1.5 million to promote “LGBT advocacy” in Jamaica

— $1.5 million to “rebuild” the Cuban media ecosystem

— $2 million to promote “LGBT equality through entrepreneurship” in Latin America

— $500K to solve sectarian violence in Israel (just ten days before the Hamas October 7 attack)

— $2.3 million for “artisanal and small scale gold mining” in the Amazon

— $3.9 million for “LGBT causes” in the western Balkans

— $5.5 million for LGBT activism in Uganda

— $6 million for advancing LGBT issues in “priority countries around the world”

— $6.3 million for men who have sex with men in South Africa

— $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion”

— USAID’s “climate strategy” outlined a $150 billion “whole-of-agency” approach to building an “equitable world with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

The article notes:

For decades, USAID bureaucrats believed they were accountable to no one — but that era is over.

President Trump is STOPPING the waste, fraud, and abuse.

This is definitely a get-out-the-popcorn moment.

This Needed To Be Done

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There is some serious concern on the part of Democrats about the investigation and possible demise of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). On Tuesday, The Gateway Pundit posted pictures of Democrats demonstrating outside the Treasury Building to protest the investigation into USAID.

The article notes:

Democrat Reps. Ayanna Pressley and LaMonica McIver called for violence during the “Nobody Elected Elon” protest outside the Treasury Department.

“We will not take this!” Rep. LaMonica McIver shouted before attacking Elon Musk. “We will fight back! And goddammit shut down the Senate! We are at war!”

Sounds like insurrection to me.

But the story gets more interesting.

On Wednesday, Hot Air reported the following:

USAID has been funding terrorism–even our most dangerous enemies–and the USAID Inspector General in January warned that the agency was a danger to US national security.

…That’s not exactly a newsflash for anybody who has been following the revelations that have come out over the past few days, but it puts an exclamation mark on them. 

Just days before Elon Musk began a purge at the U.S. Agency for International Develop (USAID), the foreign aid agency was warned in a stinging memo from its own internal watchdog that it had created serious “vulnerabilities” by doling out billions of tax dollars to overseas countries and groups without fulling vetting for terrorists and fraudsters or demanding transparency from recipients of America’s largesse.

The memo, which was published by the Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for International Development in late January, details some long-standing concerns about how safeguards against misuse of funds and the proper authorities to hold violators accountable are missing from the Office of Inspector General’s toolbox. 

The article at hot Air includes the following post on X:

USAID needs to go away.

The Flak Is Always Thickest Over The Target

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The first two weeks of the Trump administration have been a whirlwind. That is probably because the President realizes that he needs to act quickly to prevent a major crash of the American economy. The best way to cut taxes is to cut government spending, and that is happening at breakneck speed. Not everyone is happy.

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about the hill the Democrats are prepared to die on.

The article reports:

Of all the things Donald Trump is doing to upend the old order in Washington, it turns out that closing USAID, even temporarily, is the one thing that all Democrats can agree is egregious enough to go to war over.

Here are a few X screenshots from the article:

The article concludes:

Democrats are making it clear that they will fight like cornered rats to keep control of USAID and its massive funding stream.

We all know why, which is why Trump needs to win this battle one way or another.

This is a major step toward cutting government spending and lowering taxes for the American people.

A New Level Of Insanity

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On Tuesday, The Federal News Network reported the following:

Federal employees have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management, after the agency created and began testing an email system meant to deliver mass communications directly to federal employees’ inboxes.

The lawsuit from two anonymous federal employees in the executive branch alleges OPM violated the 2002 E-Government Act by not releasing details of how the communication system will manage federal employees’ personal information stored in the system.

Kel McClanahan, executive director of the National Security Counselors law firm, filed the pro bono lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs, alleging that the email system poses security risks for federal employees’ personal information.

“A one-stop shop for information about every government employee in the federal executive branch is just a treasure trove for hackers, or even just curiosity seekers,” McClanahan said in an interview.

An article at Hot Air posted on Wednesday notes:

What personal information is at risk?

Their email address is hardly a state secret. It’s not like the president will be asking for their social security number and putting it in a database.

You can see the real reason that these people are suing–aided by a left-leaning group doing the work pro-bono–in the highlighted portion. They don’t want to get bad news and want to throw sand into the works.

The article at Hot Air includes the following chart:

No private company would put up with this. Why should the federal government?

This is really about the email the employees received offering them a buyout. The lawsuit is just to delay the inevitable.

Standing Up For America

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about the recent dust-up with Columbia about the return of Colombian citizens who were here illegally. After the planes carrying the illegals were in the air, the Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that he would not let the planes land in Columbia. That really was not a very smart move.

The article notes:

As Ed wrote, it took 37 minutes for Columbia’s President Gustavo Petro to reverse himself on accepting Colombian deportees AND to offer his presidential plane to carry out the deportations. 

37 minutes, or three holes of golf for the president. Between the end of his third hole, when President Trump tweeted out his threats to President Petro and the sixth hole, the diplomatic dispute was resolved in our favor.

…The Pravda media and many in the transnational elite were horrified by what happened.

Donald Trump is so mean.

He bullied the poor, poor president of Columbia. Yankee imperialism in its worst form! Trump is a big mean bully who doesn’t respect our neighbors like Petro.

So let’s look at some of Petro’s history. The article notes:

At age 17, while studying economics at Externado University of Colombia in Bogotá, Petro was recruited by the 19th of April Movement (M-19), a Marxist guerrilla group that took its name from the date on which the group argued that the 1970 Colombian presidential election had been “stolen.” The group often resorted to audacious militant actions, including the kidnapping and murder of a labour leader in 1976, a raid on a Bogotá arsenal in 1979, and the kidnapping of cocktail-party guests at the Bogotá embassy of the Dominican Republic in 1980. …In October 1985, while disguised as a woman, Petro was arrested and incarcerated after he was found to be in possession of firearms, homemade explosives, and propaganda. Some three weeks later, while Petro was still behind bars, the M-19 undertook its most notorious operation: an invasion of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, where it took scores of hostages. In the subsequent military assault on the building, some 100 people were killed, including half of Colombia’s Supreme Court judges. In March 1987 Petro was released from confinement, and he helped promote peace talks between the M-19 and the Colombian government. In 1990 he demobilized along with the rest of the M-19 after negotiations with Colombian Pres. Virgilio Barco led to amnesty for members of the group, which then transformed into a legitimate political party, Alianza Democrática M-19.

If the people sent here from Columbia illegally were so bad that Colombian President Gustavo Petro didn’t want them in his country, we certainly don’t want them in our country.

Please follow the link to the article for further details.

Help That Is Neither Needed Or Appreciated

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On Friday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about the Senate Democrats’ offer of bipartisanship on the border. They wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune that they would be glad to provide input on any border security bill under consideration by the Republicans. Really?!!? I would love to know what the Democrats’ definition of border security is. The last bill the Democrats proposed for border security allowed for 2500 illegal entries per day in exchange for a gauzy promise to maybe build the wall at some point in the future. Somehow I don’t think they are serious about border security.

The article reports:

The push came in a Jan. 22 letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., which was led by Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and signed by 12 other Democrats, mostly from politically competitive states.

“We understand that Senate Republicans have discussed using the budget reconciliation process to advance border security budget measures without any Democratic input. While that’s your right, in working together on a bipartisan basis, we can achieve the best outcome for the American people,” the Democrats wrote. “We remain ready to work with you in good faith to craft legislation that can achieve bipartisan support and 60 votes in the Senate.”

…Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., laughed out loud when asked about the letter and whether Republicans might accept their overture.

“That’s a letter we will ignore,” Johnson said in an interview. “We’re not going to wait for them. If they want to secure the border, they could have done that,” he added. “That’s not what they want.”

…Republicans have gotten burned on this issue repeatedly. Democrats spent years playing them as racists for wanting the border secured and illegals deported, but Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office made it clear that Donald Trump and the GOP are the mainstream point of view on illegal immigration, and that voters consider Democrats incompetent or worse on the issue. That’s why several Democrats rejected their leadership to vote for the Laken Riley Act, after having attempted to hijack it last year to push for relaxing asylum rules and enshrining stampede-levels of illegal border crossings as thresholds for “emergency” treatment. 

NBC also notes why Democrats have suddenly found an interest in getting on the right side of immigration enforcement:

Democrats in battleground states and districts are breaking with the bulk of their party on immigration, as they believe that the positions of progressives and leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are out of touch with their voters. The rightward shift comes after Democrats got clobbered on the issue of immigration in the 2024 election, and lost Latino men to Trump.

Asking the Democrats for help with the border would be like asking a fox to help design the hen house.

Racing Toward Irrelevance

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I think most Americans are willing to let bygones be bygones in terms of the mainstream media. Americans are a forgiving bunch and have not yet totally tuned out the mainstream media yet. However, the mainstream media is not helping their cause.

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article titled, “And the New Hoaxes Begin….” Unfortunately, that is an accurate title. Some of the mainstream media is already shouting that the Trump administration is made up of Nazis. I really am tired of everything the liberals don’t like being labeled ‘Nazi.’

The article reports:

Did Elon Musk give a Nazi salute at an inaugural rally with Trump supporters? In a sane world the question would be absurd to even consider, but we live in the Truman Show.

…If you believe the Pravda Media and the left-wing hoaxers, you might think he did. I took a quick break from watching X and the festivities to lie down yesterday afternoon and was greeted by a torrent of tweets insisting that Elon Musk has liberated his inner Nazi and spoke at the Nuremberg rally or something.

Here are some screen shots of the posts at X about the matter:

Note that the first screenshot is from PBS. We paid for that. It’s really sad that the mainstream media not only finds this necessary, but begins it hours after the swearing in of a new President. The other thing to watch for is the use of ‘Mr. Trump’ in reporting rather than ‘President Trump.’ That is still going on.

I Guess They Have Different Priorities

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On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article about part of the confirmation hearings for Kristi Noem. Senator Blumenthal thought that he had laid the perfect trap for the nominee. Unfortunately for him, it totally backfired.

The article records part of the exchange; the rest is on X:

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: “Will you help me reunite children with their parents who were separated by Trump’s family separation policy?”

KRISTI NOEM: “What I’m alarmed by is the over 300,000 children that went missing during the Biden administration.”

BLUMENTHAL: “Let’s put aside the labels and what happened in the past. There are still 1,000 children who were separated and waiting to be reunited. I’d like your commitment to continuing the effort to reunite them with their parents.”

NOEM: “Well, I can’t put aside 300,000 children. Keeping families together is critically important to me and to this country. I’m concerned about Laken Riley’s family and that they no longer have her… We will uphold our laws and make sure we are doing everything we can to keep children safe from the trafficking and drug epidemics.”

One of the ways that the Trump administration was fighting child trafficking was to take DNA samples at the border to make sure that the child in question was indeed traveling with his/her family. One of the first things the Biden administration did was to end that testing.

The article notes:

For years, the Democrats have moved heaven and earth to enable the world’s biggest human trafficking operation and have been shipping at taxpayer expense unaccompanied minors to fake “relatives” who spirit them away to God knows where. They haven’t just let it happen; they have been subsidizing and encouraging it, along with the importation of fentanyl. Their policies have enriched the drug cartels to the tune of billions of dollars, and they are proud of it.

It’s time to close the border. But we do need to realize that part of the fentanyl problem is the users as well as the dealers. We need to find better ways to help drug addicts to save their lives and to get drugs off of the streets.

Unintentionally Or Otherwise, America Is Leading The Way

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The progressive movement is slowing down worldwide, if not stopping. On Saturday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air quoted a Wall Street Journal article on the subject of the decline of the progressive movement.

The article reports:

This past year showed that the progressive politics that dominated most industrialized countries over the past two decades or more is shifting to the right, fueled by working-class anxieties over the economy and immigration, and growing fatigue with issues from climate change to identity politics. …

Part of the shift is the normal pendulum of politics swinging back and forth between established parties on the left and right. The difference this time is a strong strain of populism and a growing rejection of traditional parties. 

In country after country, many working-class voters—especially those outside the biggest cities—are signaling the same thing: They mistrust the establishment—from academics to bankers to traditional politicians—and feel these elites are out of touch and don’t care about people like them.

Years of increased migration and trade, coupled with low economic growth, have led to a backlash and a rise in nationalism, where people want more of a sense of control, political analysts say. The rise of social media has exacerbated divisions and led to an upsurge in antiestablishment parties.

The monopoly that the political left has had on the media ended on the radio when The Rush Limbaugh show went national and on the internet when Elon Musk bought Twitter. There is still some censorship on Twitter, but it is nothing compared to what it was before Elon Musk bought it.

The article at Hot Air reminds us:

Economics are part of this too, but are more of a symptom than a root cause. Western economics has suffered from climate-change hysteria pushed by the progressive Left as a means to seize control of energy production. Where that has succeeded, in Germany and the UK to some extent, it has produced economic hardship and promises more of the same for the future. Germany in particular has a crisis on its hands which will shrink its income and wealth unless it takes rapid steps to return to reliable and scalable energy production. The US went in this direction to a lesser extent in the Obama and Biden years too, but they didn’t have enough buy-in to do the kind of extensive damage that the radicals did in Germany.

Add in the lies about the pandemic, transgenderism, forced multiculturalism through open borders, and wokery in general. Those are the first causes of the rejection of the progressive “moment” and of the neo-Marxists who seized power through it. When it began to damage economies enough for voters to notice, not to mention all of the other quality-of-life indicators that matter to the electorate, then the rejection was not just predictable but long overdue.

People around the world welcome a change to work and become economically successful. The progressive movement historically has transferred wealth to a favored few.

Making America’s Economy Great Again

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On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article by Economist Stephen Moore with suggestions about helping the American economy recover from four years of the Biden administration.

This is the list:

1. Slash Job-Killing Regulations

2. Make the Trump Tax Cuts Permanent

3. Replace Welfare With Work

4. Use America’s Abundant Natural Resource

5. Cut Medical Costs by Demanding Health Care Price Transparency

6. Allow School Choice for All Families

7. Implement a Pro-America Immigration Policy

8. Revive America’s Great Cities

9. Pull the U.S. Out of the Paris Climate Change Treaty and Other Anti-America Agreements

10. Finally, Drain the Swamp

Please follow the link to the article for details. All of these are doable. All of these ideas benefit all Americans. It would be wonderful to see America’s cities return to being safe, clean places that are wonderful to visit.

About That Longshoreman’s Strike

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On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about the Longshoreman’s strike that is currently on hold. The hold will end, and the strike may resume on January 15th. One of the reasons the strike has not been settled is the debate over the automation of American ports. Oddly enough, President Trump has come out against automation.

Hot Air reports:

…The Biden administration was completely hands-off until the union physically shut the ports down. Even then, their participation only went as far as the Secretary of Labor finally flying in to meet with both parties to “urge” them to work through their differences and for the USMX to give a little to the union. That’s classic Scranton Joe for you there.

Public pressure and outrage, election upheaval, not to mention a looming economic disaster all probably served to cool some heated jets enough for a bit of progress to be made in a short period of time. The USMX agreed to something on the order of a 62% wage hike over 6 years. Then everybody agreed to get the docks reopened under the terms of the old contract while they hammered out other, thornier issues, but only until 15 January 2025.

The article notes:

This contract agreement is set to end five days before the inauguration – the 15th. Trump owes much of his support for winning to disaffected union workers who bucked their bosses and union tradition to vote for him. Trump IS the ‘workers’ president,’ and he knows it. Don’t forget, he even had a good meeting with curmudgeonly ILA head Harold Daggett before the election. He knows what their issues are, and he’s also an international businessman. Trump’s dealt with shipping companies, etc.

Trump also knows all about these guys – this is the foreign face of the USMX, the “alliance” that controls the ports. 

The article points out that the jobs that would be automated would not help with the bottlenecks that occur at our ports.

The bottleneck is caused by the rail capacity going in and out of the ports.

The article concludes:

So it makes you wonder if the foreign operators of these ports are simply looking to dump the dozen or so biggest salaries under the guise of efficiency when, in reality, nothing is going out of the gate any faster than it already is. It physically can’t.

One more angle Bingley thought of, and I thought it was brilliant.

The optics of a strike or a lockout.

These longshoremen want to work. Ostensibly, they are fighting not to be out of work.

If the ports shut down and Trump invokes Taft-Hartley, as Bingley said to me, 1) sending the National Guard in to force people to work (an ILA strike) versus 2) sending them in to unlock the gates to ALLOW people to work (a USMX lockout)?

The first is greedy union and zero sympathy.

In the second scenario, Trump becomes the America First president, acting on his promise of protecting American workers against powerful foreign interests. The same ones who, for too long, have taken advantage of liberal business policies and conditions here, destroying American jobs.

It’s BOX OFFICE GOLD.

So that’s our wild-eyed take on it. We could be way wrong, but then again…

I mean, crazier things have happened. 

Like…Trump’s gonna be president again, isn’t he?

Stay tuned.

Short-term Gains At The Expense Of Long-term Gains

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On Sunday, John Stossel posted an article at Hot Air about America’s ports. In the fall, the International Longshoremen’s Association went on strike asking for higher wages and a ban on automation. A strike was avoided when the current contract was extended until January 15th. President Trump takes office on January 20th. The Longshoremen’s strike will be one of the first things he has to deal with. I am hoping he follows the example of Ronald Reagan’s handling of the air traffic controllers’ strike.

The article at Hot Air reports:

America’s ports have fallen behind. Not a single one ranks in the top 50 worldwide.

A big reason is that dock unions stop innovation.

This fall, the International Longshoremen’s Association shut down East and Gulf coast ports, striking for a raise and a ban on automation. They got the raise.

 Now union president Harold Daggett says longshoremen will strike again in January if they don’t get that ban on automation.

His statement in my new video makes it clear that he knows how badly his strike would damage other Americans.

“Guys who sell cars can’t sell cars, because the cars ain’t coming in off the ships. They get laid off,” says Daggett. “Construction workers get laid off because materials aren’t coming in. The steel’s not coming in. The lumber’s not coming in. They lose their job.”

Obviously, labor leaders aren’t necessarily “pro worker,” says Mercatus Center economist Liya Palagashvili.

“They’re saying, ‘We don’t care if these other jobs are destroyed as long as we get what we want.'”

Daggett is unusually clueless. He doesn’t understand that a ban on automation will also hurt his members.

As Palagashvili puts it, “They’ll save some jobs today, but they’ll destroy a lot more jobs in the future.”

The article also notes:

That’s because today’s shippers have options. Daggett’s union only controls East and Gulf coast ports. Shippers can deliver their products to ports that accept automation. 

“We’re going to see less activity in ‘Stone Age’ ports,” says Palagashvili.

“Stone Age?” 

“They want to ban automated opening and closing of port doors,” she points out, requiring workers to pull heavy doors themselves.

Weirdly, the union boss makes his demands while also pointing out that dockworker jobs are dangerous.

“Very dangerous … We’ve had 17 people killed in the last three years!”

That’s terrible, but it’s an argument for automation! Using machines instead of vulnerable humans protects human workers. Daggett’s arguing against himself!

I see why he wouldn’t agree to an interview.

“It’s backwards,” notes Palagashvili. “(If) you care about the safety of these workers, you should enhance their jobs and make them safer and better. And the only way you can do that is with technological advancements in automation.”

Other countries have used automated cranes for years. They’re 80% faster than the human-operated cranes in many American ports.

It will be very interesting to watch the outcome of this strike. If the union gets its wage hikes and ban on automation, business may go to other ports and the ports involved may lose traffic. If the unions go on strike, business will go to other ports. I think that if I were a union member, I would want a new leader.

Notre Dame Is Reopening On December 8

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On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. In 2019, the historic cathedral was seriously damaged in a fire. The article at Hot Air points out the significance of the invitation to President Trump to attend the ceremonies.

The article reports:

It will be a grand affair, attended by 50 heads of state, and Donald Trump is being treated as one of them even before he returns to power on January 20th, 2025.

That’s a big deal, because it is a symbolic acknowledgment that in the eyes of the world, including Europe, Donald Trump is already the president who matters. Joe Biden is PINO (President in Name Only).

It’s no secret that European leaders viewed Donald Trump as an interloper, an uninvited member who barged into their cozy little club in 2017. They disdained him, ridiculed him as oh-so-gauche, and breathed a sigh of relief when he left the world stage in 2021. 

And, it remains true that they would prefer a different president than the one they have coming, but not only are they reconciled to a Trump return, they may even be glad that it was he rather than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris who will be sitting in the Oval Office. After all, four years of Joe Biden have not exactly been great for Europe, with a hot war on their Eastern flank and turmoil on their Southern one. 

It is interesting that the current crop of European leaders do not appreciate the person of President Trump. When you look at the history of America vs. the history of Europe, you immediately notice that there is a streak of practical independence in America that does not always put pomp and circumstance first. President Trump is not going to bow down to European leaders. He will be polite, but will put the interests of America first (as President of America, he is supposed to do that). President Trump has already indicated that he is not interested in playing games–he wants to get America back on track as quickly as possible. Anyone who sincerely wants to help is welcome to climb aboard the train. Anyone who wants to stand in his way will probably get run over by the train. We need leaders like that.