Flotsam and Jetsam - Trump Spikes Trans Sports, USAID Caught Funding Left-Wing Media

Stacy McCain is pretty happy Pam Bondi Confirmed as A.G., and wonders Why Did Democrats Vote Against Her? Fox provides the answer, Bondi's DOJ Day 1 directives: Fight weaponization of justice, eliminate cartels, lift death penalty ban, "Bondi ends moratorium on federal executions, warns prosecutors about working against DOJ mission." Sundance at CTH hosts Attorney General Pam Bondi Swearing-in Ceremony by Justice Clarence Thomas. Tom Knighton at Bearing Arms warns GOA Has Concerns About Bondi. She might be a little squishy on the 2nd Amendment. 

John Sexton at Hat Hair reports Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women's Sports. I'm not sure how this works, but good. From Da Signal, ‘The War on Women’s Sports is Over’: Trump Bans Males in Female Athletics. "Former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, who was forced to compete against biological male Lia Thomas, attended the signing of the order after speaking to Republican Study Committee members lunch." At Althouse, "Congratulations to every single person on the left....": J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling, "Congratulations to every single person on the left who’s been campaigning to destroy women’s and girls’ rights. Without you, there’d be no images like this." At the New Criterion, James Piereson wonders Is this the end of the DEI regime? It's wounded and hiding under a rock, but it will probably emerge with a new name.

Jeff Charles at TownHall, Democrats Are Already Trying to Impeach Donald Trump. Here's Why. Because it worked out so well for them the first two times? "The day after Trump announced his intention to take over the Gaza Strip amid the war between Israel and Hamas, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) announced on the House floor that he is introducing articles of impeachment against the president for participating in “ethnic cleansing” in the region." Shouldn't you wait until he actually does something? Twitchy, Dastardly Deeds Done Dirt Cheap! Congressman Al Green Files Articles of Impeachment Against Donald Trump. At PJM Matt Margolis wants you to WATCH: Deranged Democrat Announces Plans to File Articles of Impeachment Against Trump and Stephen Kruiser says Trump 47 — Come for the Freedom, Stay for the Democrats' Exploding Heads.  At NYPo, Michael Goodwin finds Dems wallow in denial and do the dumbest stuff – proving they haven’t learned a thing from Trump’s win.  Insty at substack, Donald Trump, the libertarian president? "Don't laugh, it's true." From Behind the Black, Trump has finally taught Republicans how to fight. At Hat Hair, Dave Strom sees Another Huge Trump Legal Victory: Judicial Watch @JudicialWatch, "BREAKING: A federal court ordered the DOJ to provide information on communications between Special Counsel Jack Smith and District Attorney Fani Willis regarding the prosecution of then-former President @realDonaldTrump (1/3)." Those should be interesting.

John Kass considers Tulsi Gabbard and the Masters of War. Beege Welborn at Hat Hair sees What a Difference a President Makes - Army 'Shatters' Recruiting Goals and Not Braggin' But I Am: Marine Corps Audit Checks Out. Leah Barkoukis, Army Recruiting Numbers Surge After Trump Win. Da Signal, Lee Zeldin Hits the Ground Running at EPA. Matt Vespa at TownHall, CNN Doesn't Say This Outright About Trump's Cabinet Picks, but It's Now a Fact "CNN didn’t say this outright, but it’s time for Democrats to face reality: they’ve lost the war against President Donald J. Trump’s nominees. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s confirmation vote, which was a squeaker, might have been where they met with Waterloo."

Da Signal, Speaker Johnson Backs Trump’s Gaza Plan, whatever it is. Lee Smith at Tablet calls it The End of ‘Palestine.’ "Donald Trump reminds the world that ideas have sell-by dates." John Lucas at Brave Blue, Plus ça change, plus c'est la ... différence, "Leadership makes a difference." Tom Knighton at TAW sees Two more nations blink. Sundance, BOOM, There it is – United States Postal Service Suspends all Package Deliveries from China and Hong Kong. "Approximately a billion packages are estimated to enter the USA under the cover of the de minimis exemption. This is where the enforcement mechanism of the “External Revenue Service” combines with the tariff approach and the “state of emergency.” President Trump imposed the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a nearly 50-year law that gives the president sweeping power to impose sanctions after declaring an emergency. Now the billion packages, mostly from China, Mexico and Canada are going to be subjected to review and interception."

The scandal of the day was when it was revealed that Politico, as well as a variety of other left-wing publications were getting massive subsidies, via USAID and other agencies, by very expensive subscriptions. After the spending freeze, Politico announce it wasn't able to pay staff salaries on time. At Hat Hair, Capt. Ed, White House to POLITICO: Cancel Our Subscriptions. Beege Welborn at Hat Hair, Too Funny to Check: USAID Checkbook Snaps Shut, Politico Paychecks Shut Down? UPDATE. Matt Van Swol @matt_vanswol, "Elon is basically cutting all of the subscription services the USA forgot about for 60 years." Liz Wheeler@Liz_Wheeler, "The Politico scandal is worse than you think. It’s not $8M that Politico received from USAID. It’s $34.3M that Politico has received from various swampy federal govt agencies. Politico is, without a doubt, a totally corrupt propaganda arm of the swamp." Sunny@sunnyright, "We do indeed appear to be funneling large sums of tax money to @politico so that some bureaucrats can read left-wing journalists complain about Republicans." Rasmussen Reports @Rasmussen_Poll, "Good Politico Morning ! Your Federal tax dollars used as revenue to underwrite hit pieces on OUR revenue. Your tax dollars IN ->https://usaspending.gov/search … Their hit pieces OUT -> https://politico.com/newsletters/we." Jack Poso@JackPosobiec, "Remember when Politico leaked the Dobbs decision and conservative Supreme Court justices were almost assassinated? Turns out that was govt-funded." Althouse, Is Politico a giant scandal? "I was seeing tweets connecting it to USAID, but I hesitated to blog it. Now, Meade sends me this link to ZeroHedge: "Politico, NY Times Propped Up By Millions Of Dollars From US Government."" Dave Strom at Hat Hair, POLITICO Pushes For Federal Employees to #Resist Trump. Kyle Becker@kylenabecker, "It's not just Politico. The Associated Press has been raking in millions of dollars in government money for years. The AP's bias also makes perfect sense." From Twitchy, The Associated Press Has Been Receiving Millions From the Government. Ian Miles Cheong@stillgray, "The US Government gave the New York Times tens of millions of dollars over just the past 5 years despite paying relatively little money to the NYT in the years preceding 2021. For instance, in August 2024, the US government awarded $4.1 million to the NYT. The bulk of the funds came from the US Department of Health and Human Services at $26.90m, followed by the National Science Foundation at $19.15m." Capt. Ed, Protection Racket Media Update: USAID Funded NY Times, BBC Too; UPDATE: AP Too. Driscoll at Insty responds, Hey, if I’m funding the BBC, I’m demanding that they reboot Top Gear with Clarkson, Hammond and May! Brian Stelter@brianstelter, "A symbolic stick-it-to-the-media gesture" Quote, Rapid Response 47@RapidResponse47, "@PressSec: "I can confirm that the more than $8 million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayers' dime will no longer be happening." Aesthetica @Anc_Aesthetics, "What we’re finding out in real time is the entire modern left is just smoke and mirrors. There is no left wing voter base, all the elections are rigged and fake, all the liberal media outlets have no audience and are kept alive by USAID funding. All their politicians and political pundits are paid by USAID to say what the government wants. The whole thing was a house of cards." Tom Knighton at TAW, Now things are getting interesting.

VodkaPundit at PJM sees The USAID Scandal Is Getting Worse by the Minute. Mike Lee @BasedMikeLee, "The U.S. government has become one corrupt, progressive shell game after another It’s time to break it all down and then put it back together—this time sticking to the original structure and blueprint supplied by the Constitution" Shawn Hendrix @TheShawnHendrix, "This USAID could be the single greatest government corruption story of all time." John Ringo SF Author @Jringo1508, "This USAID could be the single greatest government corruption story so far. Fixed it for you." Leslie Eastman at LI, US State Department Recalls All USAID Staffers from Foreign Assignments, "Even more USAID staffers have also been placed on administrative leave." Tyler O'Neal at Da Signal, Ted Cruz Rips Into USAID Partnership With George Soros and Here’s How Trump’s Move on USAID Will Impact George Soros’ Funding Empire. Insurrection Barbie @DefiyantlyFree, "In one week Donald Trump dismantled an agency that has 10,000 people in it and a 70 billion dollar budget. He shuttered the space and put the remaining 1,400 employees on administrative leave (statistics per WSJ). I would say he is pretty serious about taking down the deep state." Bo French, This USAID story is eliciting reactions that seem surprising to most people. Let me break down the real story for you. A short 🧵1/ USAID is a front for the CIA. They are an unaccountable agency, under the cover of humanitarian efforts overseas, who operate via various NGOs, to carry out domestic operations. 2/ . . ." Upstate Federalist@upstatefederlst, "Perfect response. I have no notes." JKT, For it to be a coup, it means they consider the unselected bureaucrats to be the real government. Quote The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln, "It's a coup. Mark Hemingway@Heminator, "What should concern Democrats isn't the immediate threat of defunding USAID. What's concerning is that extent of corruption and government waste is no longer abstract -- it's concretely evident to normie voters. Political debates will never be the same after DOGE."

DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican, "NEW TOOL: PRINCIPAL OFFICER SEARCH & USAID TRACKING FOLLOW THE LEADERS. TRACE THE MONEY.  I’ve built a powerful tool to help you track nonprofit leadership and follow USAID grant flows with ease. . ." John Ringo SF Author @Jringo1508, "Tides Foundation is the Soros 'charity' that funded much of the Antifa BLM protests in 2020. (Besides many other crappy things.) USAID was one of Tides' primary funders." VodkaPundit tells The Dirty Truth Behind Bill Kristol's 'Private' Funding. After all, it was you and me. Cathy Salgado at PJM, Comics, Drag, and Atheism: List of USAID’s Outrageous Grants. Jim Treacher notices Biden's State Dept. Gave $25K to Ecuadorian Drag Queens, "Well why not." Insty, WELL, YES: Bad Hombre @joma_gc, "Ilhan Omar: USAID is the reason I’m here and not in Mogadishu. Literally everyone: That’s why we want to get rid of it." Althouse,  "The fact that I'm wondering if the things said to be "a real program" are perhaps not actually real — that says enough. I found this because it's easy to find things tweeted by Elon Musk in the last 24 hours:"  Da Signal comments on How USAID Damages US Relations With Foreign Countries.

Bob Spencer at PJM sees the Last Gasp of a Cornered Elite: Schumer and Jeffries Stoke Hysteria Against DOGE. 'Becca Downs at TownHall, 'Rude, Aggressive, Unhinged': Democratic Congresswomen Force Their Way Into Meeting With Speaker Johnson. Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling "“I didn’t vote for Elon Musk and his autistic tech bros to get a line-item veto on federal spending!” Yeah well I didn’t vote for Joe Biden’s non-binary Deep State theater kids to get a blank check to give my tax dollars to fringe left-wing NGO slush funds for four years, but that’s exactly what happened." Insty says FUCK THESE FASCISTS: Andy Ngo @MrAndyNgo, "At an anti- @elonmusk protest in D.C., Democrat politicians and their supporters call for Musk to immediately be imprisoned to stop the President’s efforts to end waste and fraud of American taxpayer funds." Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_, "Donald Trump: "If elected, I promise to dope Elon Musk up with amphetamines and trenbolone and send him rampaging through the federal budget office with a blessed chainsaw forged from the souls of martyred accountants." Voters: "Yay! We want specifically this thing! At once!" {elects Donald Trump by a landslide} Marxists and Corrupt Politicians: "NObOdy vOTeD fOR ElOn MuSk!" Marc Andreessen @pmarca, Quote, Just Loki@LokiJulianus "With @DOGE, people are going to discover just how fast 5 or 6 “cracked” Zoomer devs using the latest-gen AI can operate on large, heterogenous data sets. Security thru obscurity as a principle of governance will be over." 

Matt Taibbi at Racket sees the Nation Shrug as Godzilla Eats Washington "Donald Trump's sequel return is already an epic monster movie, and the country seems to think the capital's trampling is a net plus." Insty responds Popcorn, please. Anxious has an anxious Scoop: 20,000 federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says. John Sexton at Hat Hair reports Buyout Offer Extended to the CIA. Erick Erickson, CIA Employees Get A Buyout Offer. Elon Musk @elonmusk, "Massive increase in spending after the Department of Education was created with no actual improvement in education!" The Rabbit Hole @TheRabbitHole84, "The Department of Education began operating in 1980." How appropriate! At his substack, the Margolis Manifesto, Matt Margolis says Prepare for Fireworks, Trump’s Education Executive Order Is Coming. At Campus Reform, Trump admin drafting executive order to abolish Department of Education. "‘One other thing I'll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington D.C.,’ Trump previously vowed. Trump’s effort already has some Congressional backers, with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) having introduced legislation in November to abolish the Department."

At PJM, Bob Spencer says Uh-oh: Bondi Just Ordered an Investigation Into Biden’s Politicization of DOJ and Rick Moran reports Top Justice Department Official Accuses FBI Leadership of 'Insubordination'. "Bove wanted the names of the "core team" of agents who drove the January 6 investigations. Brian J. Driscoll and his deputy, Robert C. Kissane, tapped to run the FBI until  Trump’s nominee, Kash Patel, is confirmed, refused to turn over any names of the 5,000 agents or the "core team" of agents most intimately involved in the January 6 prosecutions." Dave Strom hears FBI Investigators Will Not Be Punished For Just Following Orders.

Beege Welborn is glad Bondi Spikes Sanctuary City Funding. ZeroHedge reports Big Deportation Raids Begin In Tren De Aragua-Infested Aurora, Colorado. Althouse is upset "Migrants deported from the US, and even 'dangerous' American citizens convicted of heinous crimes could be headed to a notorious hellhole prison in El Salvador..." ""After a meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in San Salvador on Monday, Rubio announced that the [Terrorism Confinement Center] could begin accepting inmates from the US.... The inmates are... crammed into their cells for 23.5 hours a day, with each cell holding 65 to 70 prisoners. Rival gang members are often kept in the same cells.... The mega-prison is capable of holding 40,000 people, with Bukele offering to fill some of the vacancies with criminal migrants and convicted US citizens, for a fee...." From "Inside El Salvador’s mega-prison where president has offered to hold ‘dangerous’ US citizens and criminal migrants" (NY Post)."

Spec World, with Biden gone, The American Brezhnev era is over "Washington’s Soviet-style subterfuge is coming to an end."

The Great Victor Davis Hanson at Da Signal, When the FAA and DEI Don’t Mix.

Althouse, "The train that's being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the worst managed project I think I've ever seen." "Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Trump slams California's over-budget, behind schedule high-speed rail project as 'worst managed project' he's ever seen" (Post Millennial)."

ThePersistence @ScottPresler, "We purchased the voter rolls for all of New Jersey’s 21 counties & are running the data through AI software to detect fraudulent voter registrations. Each of the counties & the
@NJStateDept will be receiving a letter from us. We demand clean & accurate voter rolls." Steve Milloy @JunkScience, "More Green New Scam vote-buying: Harris-Biden pour another $133 million of Inflation Reduction Act money into battleground states: - Pennsylvania get $87 million - Michigan gets $33.2 million This is on top of the $64 billion that previously went to five battleground states. https://x.com/JunkScience/status/1838732533036376321…" Nat Moore at the Liberal Patriot worries that the GOP Reaps Rewards of Party Switchers "Is ideology or opportunism driving the realignment?" "Southern party switching in the Obama years made sense: conservative legislators joined the conservative party. Recent party switchers have been more transparently opportunistic—akin to swapping jerseys in the 9th inning with your team down five runs. Democrats have every right to be upset."

NewsBusters, CONFIRMED: CBS LIED to Voters About No ‘Deceitful’ Editing for Kamala. 

At Althouse, "The real lesson of DeepSeek is that America’s approach to A.I. safety and regulations — the concerns espoused by both the Biden and Trump administrations..." ""... as well as by many A.I. companies — was largely nonsense. It was never going to be possible to contain the spread of this powerful emergent technology, and certainly not just by placing trade restrictions on components like graphic chips. That was a self-serving fiction, foisted on out-of-touch leaders by an industry that wanted the government to kneecap its competitors. Instead of a futile effort to keep this genie bottled up, the government and the industry should be preparing our society for the sweeping changes that are soon to come...." Writes Zeynep Tufekci, in "The Dangerous A.I. Nonsense That Trump and Biden Fell For" (NYT)(free-access link)."

Capt. Ed, BOOM: Google Spikes DEI Hiring 'Targets'. Fropm the Free Bacon, Obama's $800M Presidential Center Slapped With DEI Lawsuit, "If it ain't woke, don't build it: Hideous monument to 44th president plagued by delays, cost overruns, and racial quotas." Bummer, dude. Aaron Sibarium @aaronsibarium"SCOOP: Brown University Medical School now gives "diversity, equity, and inclusion" more weight than "excellent clinical skills" in its promotion criteria for faculty." The criteria say DEI is a "major criterion." Clinical skills, by contrast, are only a "minor criterion." John Sexton, Here's What Happens When You Question DEI Initiatives. 

The Wombat has FMJRA 2.0: Return to Mediocrity up and running at The Other McCain.

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