The Federal Government Has Wasted How Much?

Stephen Green at PJ Media tells us: "Instead of drawing out the big mystery over how much of your money Washington wastes on improper payments, I'll just tell you right up front: In the 20 years between 2003 and 2023, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates the total money blown on payments made in error, or in the wrong amount, or with no documentation (!!!) is $2.7 TRILLION." 

So This Was How USAID Wasted Our Tax Dollars?

The AP article, "Sex work or starve: Aid workers in Nepal left jobless by USAID cuts turn to sex work to survive," reports:

For nine years, Lama — who is transgender — had devoted her life to conducting HIV outreach in Nepal’s marginalized communities, including the LGBTQ+ sex workers who wait by this highway each night. But after the United States slashed its foreign aid funding last year, Lama and more than 280,000 aid workers worldwide found themselves out of a job. 

So Americans were working their butts off to pay taxes to be spent providing 280,000 jobs to do this type of work? 

    Of the more than 281,000 jobs lost due to Trump’s dismantling of USAID, just 23,000 were American, says Sadie Healy, who runs a global health consulting firm and has been tracking the job losses worldwide. The rest were overseas — many of them belonging to impoverished locals living in conflict zones or economically depressed regions where other employment options are scarce.

    In Nepal alone, an estimated 35,000 aid workers lost their jobs amid the USAID cuts, says NGO Federation of Nepal President Arjun Bhattarai. With the country already facing high unemployment, the fallout was devastating.

I don't think we have an obligation to provide make-work jobs oversees for pet leftist projects. 

Weekend Reading #69

Some longer or more involved reading:

•  Due to my delay in posting this week, I am able to include the latest Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter and compendium of links from Jon Low. A few highlights:
• Jon has collected quite a few videos and articles discussing the Twin Falls' In-N-Out Burger active shooter incident. And in that regard, he includes the following quote from Gabe Suarez:

      THE GOAL IS NOT TO SAVE LIVES, OR TO STOP THE KILLING,  OR GET ANYONE TO SAFETY.  THOSE THINGS MAY HAPPEN SUBSEQUENT TO YOUR MISSION SUCCESS, BUT THEY ARE NOT YOUR MISSION. 

      THERE IS ONLY ONE MISSION - LOCATE, IDENTIFY, AND TERMINATE THE SHOOTER.  

      EVERY PIECE OF GEAR YOU CARRY, EVERY TRAINING SESSION YOU EXECUTE, AND EVERY STEP AND ACTION YOU TAKE AT THAT EVENT MUST BE ORIENTED TO ACCOMPLISH THAT MISSION - LOCATE, IDENTIFY, AND TERMINATE THE SHOOTER.

But Suarez also is quite blunt that it is not something for the average concealed carrier. From another quote Jon includes:

     So rather than the underachiever’s “three rounds at three yards in three seconds”,  we train for an event like this.  Facing an active shooter or terrorist.  We carry fighting weapons, not convenient mini-pistols.  We train for accuracy, not to beat a timer’s beep.  And we train at extended distances as well as standard distances.  And time and again, these practices have been shown to be the deciding factor in events like this.   

On the other hand, you are more likely to be killed by lightening than be the victim of an active shooter; but, based on data from a 1987 report, you have an 83% chance of being the victim of a violent crime during your lifetime (it is slightly higher if you are a man, and slightly lower if a woman). So while Suarez may poo-poo those who don't carry combat pistols on a daily basis, the "convenient mini-pistols" are sufficient for the vast majority of self-defense situations most people will find themselves in; and, more importantly, the "convenient mini-pistols" will actually be carried while the heavy and/or bulky combat pistol will often be left at home. Unfortunately, it is difficult to collect information about civilians stopping active shooters which John Lott discusses in his paper, "Do Armed Civilians Stop Active Shooters More Effectively Than Uniformed Police?" let alone the weapons used. I agree that a combat pistol would be better than a pocket pistol or sub-compact pistol once you are using it, but the question for concealed carry is what is the largest will you be able and willing to carry on a regular basis. The better solution might be to learn how to use the "convenient mini-pistol" for longer shots. There is no reason why you shouldn't be practicing shots out to 25 yards with a handgun, or even longer if your range allows for it. Fortunately, unlike the situation even a decade ago, most of the small handguns produced today can be fitted with decent sights.  

• Speaking of accurate shooting, Jon has some guidance:

     A correct grip, surprise trigger break, and correct follow-through will allow you to achieve precision. 

      Once you are able to shoot a tight group, all bullets through the same hole at 3 yards or all bullet holes touching at 5 yards, you have demonstrated precision.  Now you are ready to move your sight to achieve accuracy, which means your point-of-impact matches your point-of-aim.   

     Move your sights to move your point of impact to match your point-of-aim.  Fixed iron rear sights in a beaver tail can be pushed left or right with a sight pusher.  Fixed iron front sights can be ground down if the point-of-impact is low or replaced with a taller front sight if the point-of-impact is high.   

     Correct zero is essential for confidence.  Confidence is the difference between taking the shot, and not to taking the shot because you're not sure you will hit your target, or because you fear that you will hit the hostage.   

     Cool calm confidence is achieved with training, practice, and a properly zeroed pistol.   

     If you are using an adjustable sight on your pistol, it's too fragile for combat.  Self-defense is combat.  Yes, I know it works in the pristine conditions of your training and practice.  But that is not combat.  All kinds of strange things happen in combat.  Murphy's Law is in full force in combat.       

    "The Marine Corps uses red dot optics."       

    Yes, I know.  But that doesn't mean it is best practice.  Remember, the Army used Blackhawk SERPA holsters, which was an act of criminal stupidity.  Institutions, no matter how reputable, do not necessarily follow best practices.  Rather, they suffer from institutional inertia, bureaucracy (not meritocracy), and lowest bidder contracting.   

• Speaking of holsters, Jon has a bit from Gabe Saurez about that recent video of the guy that shot himself in the testicle when drawing a Glock from an appendix holster. An excerpt:

     Striker fired pistols are the norm for much of the CCW and LE worlds now.  But I know that they also reduce your margin of error considerably.  They are great when you are at your best, but a liability when you are not.  Like the man said, “shit happens”.  I think it happens more easily with a striker fired pistol. 

      I had a very successful doctor student. This guy was not quite Elon Musk, but I would not be surprised if they had met at some point.  He always had a very nice tuned high end pistol in class.  But it was always a double action weapon.  It was initially a Sig P226 of some sort, and later an HK P30 series.  All with marvelous DA triggers and optics and everything you could ask for.  All the others, myself included, were using Glocks.  I asked him once why he chose that system.  He told me that he had been an ER Doctor for years and he had handled a plethora of self inflicted gunshot injuries.  And that these ranged from a neophyte that had little skill, to high level sport shooters, to legitimate police operators.  All of them without exception, involved striker fired pistols.   

I've argued for years that the double action trigger acts as an additional safety on a handgun, so I do feel somewhat vindicated reading this. 

• And an important safety tip:

     "Safety Tip:  If you are a concealed carry holder who engages an active threat inside a public business, your immediate post-shooting protocol is critical for your survival.  When police officers flood through the doors on an active shooter dispatch, they are looking for anyone holding a gun.  Keep your hands empty, raise them high with fingers spread, and clearly identify yourself as the reporting citizen who stopped the attacker."  

•  Next up is a Greg Ellifritz's Weekend Knowledge Dump. Some of the articles that warrant your attention:
• Tips to avoid looking like a soft target for criminals (I would note that Jon links to a different article on the same topic in his newsletter).
• Dry fire practice protocols. As Greg notes, "Dry practice is one of the more dangerous things we do with firearms." And the reason is because (a) people don't double-check that the handguns are unloaded throughout the dry-fire session (this is really a situation of "trust but verify" even if the person you are trusting is yourself); and (b) failing to follow the rules of gun safety.
• A history of the duty pistols issued by the New York Police Department starting with the first--a .32 caliber revolver in 1896--up to today's Glock 17 Gen 4. 
• A piece entitled "The Cold Test: What 100 Runs Taught Me" which goes over the value of shooting a particular drill cold at the beginning of a shooting session which will give you a better picture of your actual skills/ability if you need to use a firearm in self-defense.
• For hunters and rifle shooters, an article on using a ruck or bag as a shooting rest.
• An article discussing the 50 versus 100 yard zero for the AR.  Greg comments: "For me, my red dot sighted rifles have 50 yard zeros.  My rifles with magnified optics get 100 yards zeros." Sounds like a good rule of thumb. 
• An article on the importance of bullet construction that warns about using varmint bullets for self-defense. The issue with varmint bullets is that they are designed to expand rapidly in smaller animals (dog sized or less), even at low velocities, to avoid overpenetration and potentially ruining a pelt. But that also means that these bullets will often not penetrate deeply into something larger--like a deer or a person. If you want an expanding bullet, you should make sure to use something suitable for at least deer hunting. 

• "Humanity May Soon Have the Technology To Reach Other Star Systems"--SciTech Daily.  An article looking at using a light sail driven by a laser beam to get small probes to other star systems. 
• The banality of evil: "Fauci was not a mad scientist, but a mere bureaucrat granted unlimited power"--The Dossier.  An excerpt:

 On Monday, Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul released the first text chain from what we hope are a series of communications recovered from Fauci’s government-issued iPhone, which HHS finally handed over on August 5 in response to Johnson’s request. His phone is said to hold more than 34,000 texts and 522 voicemails. Quite suspiciously, it only contains three saved contacts, which probably means that it was tampered with. I do hope that government officials can secure the data that was possibly deleted.

The senators released something of a bombshell that discusses January 2021 communications between Fauci, then-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, and future Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. This was just days after former President Biden’s inauguration. The subject is pregnant women and the mRNA injections. In it, Fauci writes that the supposedly “safe and effective” shot “theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.”

One week later, Fauci went in front of cameras and said the vaccines had “no red flags” regarding pregnant women. He later said that there was “no indication whatsoever” of increased adverse events in pregnant women. By September, Walensky and her comrades in the Biden Government Health bureaucracy were strongly recommending vaccination before or during pregnancy.

Annals of Corruption: Doctors Transitioning Kids

For liberals, "helping" someone is just an excuse to make money. The New York Post reports: "Hospitals, doctors got rich through shady gender-care billing tactics — and taking advantage of kids: damning report." From the lede: "US hospitals and clinics have billed out nearly $120 million in gender-related medical treatments to minors since 2019, putting thousands of children on an expensive and irreversible treadmill requiring lifelong upkeep — with the blessing of doctors and lefty politicians."

    HHS points to “financial incentives” as one potential explanation for the explosion in gender-related care for minors — as hospitals sought a way to juice profits in pediatric departments, which typically bring in lower margins than other specialties.

    “Gender clinics changed that calculus by introducing a novel source of revenue: they promised a new stream of continuous revenue for pediatrics, endocrinology, and surgical specialties by taking physiologically healthy young people — who otherwise would not need to seek medical attention, and rendering them dependent for life on the medical system.”

    The report cited watchdog analyses that have found hospitals and clinics have billed almost $120 million in gender care treatments since 2019 — involving 5,500 surgical procedures and 8,500 courses of hormones or blockers.

    HHS accuses health care providers of willfully misusing diagnostic codes — diagnosing patients with endocrine disorder or precocious puberty — to get insurance to foot the bill or to protect a patient’s privacy. 

Annals of Corruption: Fauci's Pay-to-Play Scheme

The College Fix states that "Fauci’s ‘pay-to-play scheme’ both ‘unlawful’ and ‘unethical,’ Rutgers expert says." 

    New documents released by Senator Rand Paul detail Fauci’s “side hustle,” which include winning millions of dollars in cash prizes. Fauci would solicit his allies who also received federal funding from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases to nominate him for prizes.

    Some of the solicitations occurred during the nationwide COVID lockdowns that were created at the prompting of Fauci.

    He also instructed federal staffers to work for him to find prizes and manage the application process, including one that netted him $900,000.

No wonder he needed a blanket pardon. 

The Truth Shall Set You Free--Unless You Are James Comey

From Matt Margolis at PJ Media: "Bombshell Declassified FBI Document Blows Up Everything We Ever Heard About Russiagate." From the lede:

    For years, Democrats and their media allies swore up and down that the FBI's investigation of Donald Trump was a serious national security investigation, launched only because of grave concerns about Russian collusion. Newly declassified FBI records tell a different story. It turns out that the bureau formally opened its full counterintelligence investigation into Trump back in 2017, and used his firing of FBI Director James Comey as the justification.

    The president exercised his constitutional authority to fire an FBI director, and the FBI responded by opening a counterintelligence investigation into him.    

The Diversity Report #34

 A selection of articles showcasing the benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion: 

• "Trump’s Science Report: Visa Migrants ‘Sideline’ Many American Scientists"--Breitbart. An excerpt:

    Nationwide, at least 1.5 million white-collar jobs are held by non-immigrant foreign contract workers, most of whom arrived via the H-1B program. The universities’ foreign scientists get their work permits via the controversial H-1B, J-1, and Optional Practical Training programs.

    The science sweatshops financially exclude roughly 50 percent of young American technology and science graduates. The Americans, unlike most foreign students from poor countries, need to get well-paid 9-to-5 jobs to pay off their college debt, live a normal life, get married, and have kids.

    One side result is large-scale discrimination against non-white Americans in favor of Asian migrants.

    Amid this replacement migration, foreigners on visas now comprise more than 40 percent of the PhD students in the hard sciences, and roughly 25 percent of students in “applied life sciences,” the Kratsios report says. This critical population includes many students from China and India who bring their own national loyalties and home-country economic ties with them. 

• "Sanctuary California: Biden-Released Illegal Alien Accused of Raping 6-Year-Old Girl at Daycare"--Breitbart. 

    An illegal alien released into the United States by the Biden administration is now accused of raping a 6-year-old girl at a daycare in Sacramento, California, a sanctuary jurisdiction.

    Last year, illegal alien Gokhan Bagci of Turkey was arrested by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and charged with lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged a detainer against Bagci that same day.

    According to police, in July 2025, Bagci was working at the Mather Childcare Center when he allegedly lured a 6-year-old girl into a closet pretending to play hide-and-seek with her. Once in the closet, police allege that Bagci sexually assaulted her.

    Following the sexual assault, police allege Bagci took the girl into a bathroom where he raped her. Police have said there may be more child victims. 

• "ICE, FBI Agents Arrest Illegal Alien Accused of Attempting to Rape Girl in Indiana"--Breitbart. 

Javier Cereque-Perez, an illegal alien from Mexico, was arrested by ICE and FBI agents before being turned over to the Fishers Police Department to face two counts of attempted rape, one count of sexual misconduct with a minor, and one count of sexual battery. 

• "A New, Fungal STI Is Quietly Emerging: Everything You Should Know About TMVII"--Yahoo.

    Vasilios Papapitsios noticed a scaly, itchy rash on their buttocks after a shower on March 13, which raised alarm bells for the long-time STI awareness advocate. Papapitsios, a South Carolina resident who uses they/he pronouns, usually stays up to date on the latest on sexual health news. He had been reading about an emerging sexually transmitted illness (STI) just a few weeks prior: a fungal infection, with the largest known cluster of cases reported in Minneapolis in July 2025, colloquially called TMVII.

    "I just showed up [at my local health clinic] and said, 'I think I have a fungal infection that's a new STI,'" Papapitsios tells Them. "They didn't even know what I was talking about. My doctor had to look it up."

[snip]

    According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Infection (CDC), TMVII is a fungal infection that can spread through sexual contact, but also by sharing towels and linens or any skin-to-skin touch. Patients and experts alike are concerned about the lack of response to TMVII, given that most of its cases have presented in men who have sex with men. The U.S. government has a track record of mishandling, ignoring, and actively cutting research funding of infectious diseases that disproportionately impact queer people. Coupled with the fact that it can take weeks to run a test for TMVII, some experts are concerned that the fungal infection has silently been spreading to epidemic proportions without intervention. 

• "FBI captures fugitive on ‘Most Wanted Fraudsters’ list who allegedly led $547M Medicare scheme"--New York Post. 

Khalid Satary, 54, was cuffed in the Middle East on Monday after more than three years on the lam for allegedly orchestrating a scheme to defraud Medicare of over $547 million, the US Department of Justice announced on Tuesday. 

• "Illegal Migrant Trucker from India Arrested for Allegedly Stealing $2.8M in Chemicals"--Breitbart. 

    Officials say Deepak Kumar, 31, illegally picked up the cargo in Pennsylvania on June 25, then drove off with the toxic compound.

    Tungsten oxide powder is used in armor-piercing bullets, ceramics, lasers, optical products, and high-tech windows, according to the New York Post.

    After the theft was reported to police, investigators used a Flock camera system to track Kumar’s semi and the vehicle was located in Indiana traveling on Interstate 70 near Greenfield.

• "Road rage driver who allegedly killed boxing star Hannah Rapp is career criminal with lengthy rap sheet"--New York Post.

Charles Eric Medina, 31, was arrested on manslaughter charges for fatally striking Rapp, a 26-year-old up-and-coming featherweight fighter, with his car while she was cycling with her boyfriend, Will Pollalis, in Brazos County, Texas, on Saturday.

• "California’s Fourth of July plunges into hell as stores looted, police horses charge and fires break out"--New York Post.  

    Fourth of July descended into mayhem across parts of Southern California as unruly crowds overwhelmed packed-out fireworks displays, looted stores, ignited fires and saw cops charge on horseback.

    The worst unrest erupted in Newport Beach, where Independence Day revelers poured into Orange County, choking traffic and triggering a police response as disorder spread near the pier.

    Authorities ultimately shut down businesses from the Newport Pier to Pacific Coast Highway as officers moved in to restore order.

• "Hasan Piker Calls Mao ‘One of the Great Leaders’"--National Review. From the lede:

    Hasan Piker, the leftist influencer, has millions of followers across Twitch, YouTube, and other platforms. And so it is not without interest that he has described Mao as “one of the great leaders of this world” and that, when challenged about this, he conceded that “there was a lot of f***ing excesses, let’s be real, but. . . .”

    Ah yes, there is always a “but.”

    The “but” in this case was that “the People’s Republic of China would not exist without Mao Zedong.”

    True enough. Then again there were tens of millions of Chinese who would have existed for quite a bit longer were it not for Mao or his republic. And many of those did not meet their deaths because of yet another catastrophic communist “reform,” but because they were, in one way or another, murdered.

 Reminder: Hasan Doğan Piker is the son of Turkish immigrants. 

• "Mystery as Democrat nepo-baby lands $411k-a-year council job over 400 other applicants... including THREE who scored better than her during selection process"--Daily Mail. 

    Questions are being raised over how the daughter of a congresswoman landed a $411,000-a-year council job over three other candidates who reportedly scored better than her in interviews. 

    Erica Lee Carter, 46, the daughter of late Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, was appointed as the Harris County Administrator earlier this year in a hotly contested hiring process with over 400 applicants. 

    The role is one of the best paid government jobs in Harris County, which covers over five million people including the city of Houston, with applications coming from CEOs and politicians across the country.  

• "Woke activist group says State of New York must offer reparations to ALL black people living there"--Daily Mail. 

    Civil rights groups in New York have released a report demanding reparations for black residents, arguing that decades of deliberate racial inequality must be amended. 

    The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) released a report last week titled, The Other New York: The Legacy of Slavery and the Case for Reparations Now. 

•  "Dr. Oz claims NY Medicaid program is being ripped off by Chinese crime syndicate"--New York Post. 

    Federal Medicaid czar Dr. Mehmet Oz said New York’s overblown $110 billion spending on medical bills is sickening — as he claimed Chinese crime syndicates are ripping off the Empire State.

    The TV doctor-turned-Trump administration official, blasted New York’s Medicaid program as rife with fraud in an interview Sunday as he outlined an alleged scheme that included millions of dollars in fraudulent medical bills.

    “Social safety net programs are being defrauded. They’re being hurt oftentimes by foreign governments or foreign-run criminal syndicate organizations,” Oz, administrator of the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said Sunday on 77 WABC ‘s the “Cats Roundtable” program. 

Over 10% Of Medicaid Funding Goes To Fraud

John Hinderaker, writing at Power Line Blog, asks "Fraud: More Than We Can Imagine?" He notes that the federal government spends $900 billion on Medicare each year, but Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. asserts that $100 billion is lost to fraud each year. 

The theft is incredibly brazen. And I suspect Kennedy’s $100 billion estimate may be low. In Minnesota, the authorities have estimated that at least one-half of the total spending on 14 Medicaid programs went to fraud. While our state government is uniquely incompetent, it may well be that other states approach those numbers. The fraud is probably less with regard to bills from doctors, clinics and hospitals, but there too, it is substantial, usually in the form of upcoding.    

But this is the key point, I believe:

At some point, one begins to wonder whether a central purpose of our government is to fund crime. If the purpose of an institution is what it does, supporting and encouraging criminals would seem to be an important aim of our government, both federal and state.    

Related:

• "Alturas Indian Rancheria members accuse leaders of misusing millions in federal and state funds"--New York Post. This is a "tribe" of only 5 members, which "has received more than $8 million in federal funding since 2013, according to USAspending.gov, the federal government’s spending database"; plus the Revenue Sharing Trust Fund Distribution, "which takes money from the bigger tribes and distributes a percentage to the smaller ones, has given the Alturas Indian Rancheria more than $26 million since 2005." And that is not all: "Factor in a gas station, casino, concrete company, moving truck company and cigarette plant that all operate as tribal [i.e., tax free] entities, and Alturas Indian Rancheria allegedly brings in millions every month, according to two members who are sounding the alarm."

Trump's Address About Election Integrity And Implications

Being bedridden after my heart attack, I was pretty much stuck watching television, so I was able to catch most of Trump's speech yesterday evening. The speech started out like a mini-State of the Union, touting various accomplishments, before moving on to the substance and primary point: the 2020 election was hacked by foreign powers and he has the evidence to back it up. Town Hall sums up the salient points:

    The documents highlight major areas of concern. Starting in 2020, Beijing carried out the largest-ever compromise of election data. Some 220 million American voters' files were meddled with by Chinese intelligence services. China signed a data exploitation unit for this project. 

   Members of the Deep State within the IC worked to suppress and downplay the scope and impact of China’s election interference. U.S. spy agencies discovered that the voter data breach in 18 states was bought, stolen, or hacked by China. That breach was kept hidden; Trump, who was still president at the time, was not informed, nor was Congress. The line was that the 2020 election was the most secure in history. 

   CIA reported in mid-2018 that the Chinese Communist Party’s strategy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements opposed to Trump. In mid-2019, China’s approach was to undermine domestic confidence during the first Trump presidency. The Chinese government aimed to identify anti-Trump reporters and pay them large sums of money to produce stories that cast Trump in a negative light.

    The FBI obtained raw intelligence indicating that China’s activities included efforts to produce illegal ballots for Joe Biden. These were kept out of the presidential briefing. One analyst admitted to intentionally downplaying Chinese election activities. Another official stated she was running a shadow government to keep intelligence on China’s election interference away from the media and the White House. Numerous burn bags have been found. 

    Americans were lied to about the security of our election systems, including voting machines. They’re highly susceptible to attack. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and non-state actors have the ability to compromise our election infrastructure. 

    Michigan police raided a Democrat GOTV organization and were so concerned they contacted the FBI in Detroit. The documents state that canvassers signed voter registration forms in other people’s names, registered nonexistent individuals, and got paid based on the number of applications they produced. The FBI believed crimes were committed, but the Biden DOJ slow-walked and suppressed the case. 

    Trump also said they’re releasing a report from the Department of Homeland Security, where they found 270,000 noncitizens are enrolled to vote in our elections. The real number is likely higher since blue states refused to turn over their voter rolls. 

 You can view the documents here.

     Just looking at the bare bone facts and accusations above, there are two main conclusions that can be taken away from this:

1. Our foreign adversaries have hacked our elections and probably altered the outcome of the 2020 election; and,
2. The intelligence community knew of this and not only did nothing, but concealed the fact from the President and the public. 

But there is more to it than that. You probably remember the 50 intelligence officials that signed the letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop was fake. This shows that, in at least that one incident, the intelligence community actively intervened to influence the outcome of the election. We also know that they were trying to cover up what exactly went on based on the numerous burn bags that have been found which hadn't been destroyed. We can only assume that these represent only a small number of the total amount of documents and things earmarked for destruction. 

    But there is no reason to assume that it stopped with the intelligence community simply sitting back to let China do this. What comes up again and again, whether discussing the information released by Snowden about domestic spying, how the Russia dossier was arranged, and even the gain of function research carried out by Fauci, is that our government agencies often use cut-outs to do what they are not otherwise allowed to do. 

    For instance, the Five Eyes program is used to allow intelligence agencies to avoid laws prohibiting domestic spying by simply allowing a foreign intelligence agency to do the spying for them. Thus, if the NSA wants to spy on an American citizen, they simply have British or Canadian intelligence do the spying for them. 

    And we know that Fauci was doing gain of function research he was prohibited by law from doing by backdooring it through a Chinese biolab and award of contracts or grants to private companies. 

    My point with this is that we need to consider whether the intelligence community did not just bury foreign interference with U.S. elections, but actually solicited and/or directed that interference for their own ends. 

Lindsey Graham: I Know You Shouldn't Speak Ill Of The Dead, But...

I know that right now everyone is singing the praises of Lindsey Graham right after his sudden death, but I came across this interview with Benjamin Netanyahu praising Graham with a disturbing anecdote about Graham's commitment to Israel. In it, Netanyahu was apparently meeting with Graham about U.S. funding of Israel, and Graham insisted on giving Israel more aid than Netanyahu said Israel needed. But, ever careful to waste U.S. tax dollars, Graham told Netanyahu he was going to go over Netanyahu's head, and go to the Senate and ask for more aid for Israel. That is, seeking more aid for Israel than it needed or, supposedly, wanted. What a great American! (sarc.)

    It should also be remembered that Graham was one of the four Congressmen in the so-called "Gang of Eight" who sought, among other things, an amnesty program for illegals in 2013 and greatly increasing foreign work visas including H1B visas. 

    "I think 2013 is the year of immigration reform," said GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who, with the other senators, stood in front of representatives of a diverse coalition — from the AFL-CIO to the Chamber of Commerce — that has gotten behind overhaul efforts.

    "America is an idea; nobody owns it," Graham said. "We've got to create order out of chaos." 

Better Video Of UK Cops Attacking Crime Victim

This is a better video of that recent incident of Birmingham Police acting as accessories to the assault and battery of a young white man by a group of black men, and offering a bit more context. Now you can clearly see that the cops were already there and stood by while the blacks harassed and finally attacked the white teen; and then the female cop rushing past the attackers to slam the white teen to the wall, while the blacks just quickly walked away.

The female officers were clearly accessories to the assault and battery committed by the blacks. They weren't breaking up a fight--the white teen didn't even have time to do anything to defend himself--and completely ignored the blacks to go straight for the white teen who was still struggling to stand back up. It looks like they were waiting for an excuse to rough up and arrest the white teen. 

 VIDEO: "Everyone needs to see this.."
Asmongold Clips (4 min.)

Venezuela Earthquake: Socialism In Action

 PJ Media's recent piece entitled "The Venezuelan Earthquakes Exposed Something — and It Wasn't Just Shoddy Infrastructure," once again demonstrates that socialism is just another word for corruption. This part, in particular, stuck out:

... The Venezuelan people and independent journalists there were reporting that Team Delcy [i.e., the interim Venezuelan president] wasn't really doing anything at all, and, at times, even denying access to media and volunteers, stealing aid, looting, charging families fees for the bodies of their dead loved ones, and refusing to mobilize the few resources she has access to. ...   

And that is, in a microcosm, everything you will ever need to know about socialism and socialists. Beyond that, you might want to read the article because it argues that the window to try and stabilize the country is fast running out.  

UK Police Have Learned Nothing

You would think that the police in the UK would have learned something from the the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak by an Indian migrant with a strong assist from the responding police officers. But no. As Gateway Pundit reports in its article, "WATCH: Group of African Thugs in England Attacks Young White Man – UK Police Rush in to Arrest and Charge White Victim, Ask People Not to Share Footage of Incident!", the police--this time in Birmingham--once again jumped in to help the attackers by continuing their assault on the hapless victim:

    In the video referenced, the young White man is clearly seen being surrounded and screamed at by a group of African men before one tackles him unprovoked. As he attempts to get up, another man is seen punching him in the head from behind.

    But instead of going after the perpetrators, a female officer rushes in and slams the White victim up against a wall. Seemingly out of confusion, the young man swings at the officer, likely without knowing she’s a cop, but instead thinking she was one of his attackers.

    The officer then began screaming profanities at him and placed him under arrest.

[snip]

    In another snippet of the encounter, the female cop drags the handcuffed victim, saying, “You’re gonna walk to the f*cking car you d*ck,” as he pleads with the police, saying, “Please, I’m trying to go home.”

    Another clip shows the cops manhandling him and shoving him into the car the wrong way. “Get in the f*cking car,” a male officer says as he shoves the man’s head down into the car with his back facing the front. 

Just like the Nowak case, this is another instance of the UK police acting as accessories to the crime. And their guilt is underlined by the fact that they requested people to not share copies of the video.  

Postal Service Won't Deliver Mailed Ballots In Corrupt States

From Time Magazine: "Postal Service Plans Not to Deliver Mail Ballots to States Unless They Hand Over Voter Data." 

    ... the Postal Service’s proposed rule said that agency employees would verify the eligibility of mail-in ballots by checking them against lists of voters that states would share with the federal government. The proposal, though, said that Postal Service staffers “would not verify whether individuals should or should not be included on a State’s Mail-In and Absentee Participation List,” adding that “states will retain full control over the content of that list.”

    At a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday, Steiner confirmed that the proposal would mean that the Postal Service wouldn’t deliver mail-in ballots if a state didn’t provide this list of voters who have requested absentee or mail-in ballots. 

Democrats are upset even though it was their corrupt practices that necessitated this new rule.   

Fauci Was With Intelligence

 Legal Insurrection goes over the latest batch of declassified files from the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard: "Declassified Files Ignite New Scrutiny of Fauci, COVID Origins, and Alleged Intelligence Suppression." The high level summary:

    Gabbard’s release of information related to biological research funded by the U.S. government continued this Friday, after she declassified a cache of documents outlining Dr. Anthony Fauci’s involvement in the COVID-19 response, including records indicating that federal officials shielded him from a whistleblower complaint alleging he misled Congress about “gain-of-function” work after publicly advancing a natural-origin theory for a pandemic that ultimately claimed millions of lives.

    The documents and whistleblower testimony appear to show that Fauci influenced intelligence assessments on COVID-19 origins, denied such involvement under oath in 2024, and benefited from close ties to the intelligence community that limited scrutiny. They further claim a pattern of retaliation against dissenting intelligence officials and suppression of alternative viewpoints regarding the virus’s origins.

The Grooming Gang Scandal In The UK Is Worse Than Anyone Thought

Rupert Lowe, a member of parliament in the UK, conducted the investigation that the UK government refused to do. His report is here. I haven't had time to read it (it is 219 pages in total), but there is this from the executive summary:

    The Rape Gang Inquiry examined the systematic targeting of vulnerable girls, overwhelmingly White British, by predominantly Muslim Pakistani gangs across towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom. The evidence put to the Inquiry confirms that this scandal constitutes one of the most horrendous failures in the history of the country. Organised networks of perpetrators built coordinated operations that transported victims between locations, supplied them with drugs and alcohol, recorded abuse for distribution and blackmail, and passed girls between multiple adult men. These crimes have been committed for decades, since the 1950s by Pakistanis in particular, and have affected every region of our nation.

    The scale of the crimes committed is staggering. It has been previously established that, at the very least, 250,000 young white girls have been subjected to repeated rape, gang rape, trafficking, torture, pregnancy, forced Islamic conversion, and lifelong trauma.1 The true number is probably higher. The perpetrators bear primary responsibility, yet the institutional failures that enabled them for decades must also be confronted. In court records and official inquiries, around 87% of those convicted in these group-based child sexual exploitation (‘CSE’) cases bore distinctively Muslim names.2 The vast majority of men involved in these gangs were not convicted. Dr. Taj Hargey, an imam with the Oxford Islamic Congregation, believes the true proportion of gang members who are Muslims to be around 95%.3 This figure far exceeds the Muslim share of the overall United Kingdom population. The overwhelming majority of the rape gang networks consisted entirely of men from Muslim backgrounds – predominantly of Pakistani heritage, although smaller groups from Somali, Iranian, Syrian, Turkish, and other Muslim origins were also involved.   

It appears part of the reason that nothing was done was because the victims were from the working class and held in disdain by authorities because of it.  Daniel Heneghan, writing on X, sums this point up:

    We have class issues in this country, though we deny it, but nothing like the deep loathing that the UK middle classes (not the upper classes) have for the working class. We are talking about the university credentialed class (used to be a lot smaller). A whole class of educators, officers, medical, engineers, managers. One life example, I recall on Youtube, an interview with a working-class electrician. In the engineering firm that we worked at managment/engineering never addressed him by his name, not his first name nor his last name (Mr. Raines, for example) but simply as "Sparks". "Hey Sparks, take a look at this....". He's an electricians, so "Sparks", get it. The intent was to alienated, even dehumanize, and it's still there working today. 

    Deep, deep, deep loathing. A loathing that was as deep as American racism at it's worst.

Well, to be fair, it exists here in the U.S. among much of the educated class. Having come from a working-poor background, I witnessed much of it first hand.

    But back to the UK grooming gang scandal, one of the questions that needs to be addressed is the government's policy of covering up what was going on. Instapundit linked to this article at the Pimlico Journal that delves into this issue: "Manchester Labour's Grooming Gang Complicity." But one item you should pay attention to are the comments about ethnic voting blocs:

Much has been said of the biraderi (or baraderi), clan dimension to South Asian local politics recently, and it is impossible to understand the political dynamics that led to the rise of figures like Ahmed and Akhtar without understanding biraderi. While this has become a more salient factor in political discourse by virtue of the breakaway of certain heavily Muslim constituencies to the so-called ‘Gaza Independents’ since 2024, in reality, it has been a known and relevant fact of local party politics for many decades. Academic interest in the phenomenon began to pick up in the 2010s as the surprise victory of George Galloway in the Bradford West by-election revealed that minority votes were not exclusively determined by individual loyalties to the Labour Party. In fact, it turned out that ‘elders’ and ‘community leaders’ were incentivised by established local politicians to make ethnicity-based and religion-based claims for their communities, and these ‘elders’ and ‘community leaders’ could return them with bloc votes — from which the victory of Galloway’s Respect and the more recent Muslim First parties are an aberration. This patronage system made such constituencies effectively unpollable, each a black box with dynamics comprehensible only to those with local knowledge.  

In short, though, as the article explains, it is is this political power and influence that enabled the gangs to continue without any real interference. The fear of upsetting "community relations" both acted as a damper on any criminal investigation and enforcement, while also serving as the excuse to promote key players into positions of authority over the police and other agencies that would have been charged with investigating the abuse of the girls. The author points out:

    One of the starkest failures appears to be in the fact that men like Akhtar were able to accumulate vast amounts of formal and informal power with few, if any checks. The web of relationships between the state, third sector, and ‘communities’ drastically increased the number of areas vulnerable to abuse. This is perhaps best illustrated by the data-loss saga which occurred in 2011. The council suspiciously failed to inform the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about the theft of twenty-one laptops holding important data on victims of Child Sexual Exploitation. A meeting of the council’s Corporate Governance Board and IT Governance Board, itself chaired by Akhtar, failed to record any minutes and was told that a report was being prepared to recommend that the Senior Leadership team should not file the loss with the ICO. In fact, it turned out the ICO only discovered the incident due to press reporting.

    Akhtar appears at every juncture in the Rotherham story and at every institutional pressure point: community brokerage, police liaison, youth and neighbourhood activity, licensing and regulatory functions, publicly funded community organisations, a major official inspection’s account of local fear and power, a CSE handover allegation, and the council data-loss scandal involving sensitive information. In fact, his own daughter’s employment came to light in 2019 when the charity she worked for, Rotherham Rise, was criticised for employing her in a senior role supporting victims of Child Sexual Exploitation. This is a remarkable mark on the town for a single individual and his family.

    He is representative of the wider problem: a total failure by the authorities, and sometimes outright collusion, in one of the worst atrocities ever perpetrated on British soil. It would be no surprise to discover hundreds of Jahangir Akhtars up and down the country, and no one, least of all in the Labour Party, has done enough to uncover the full story. Given the importance of baradiri networks as powerbrokers in (particularly) Labour local politics, it does not take much thinking to explain the reluctance of its senior politicians to upset the apple cart.  

We have seen a similar dynamic with the rampant fraud among the Somali community in Minnesota. 

    For my LDS readers, this should remind them of the various secret combinations (including the Gadianton Robbers) that arose in Nephite society in order to protect its members from prosecution and to gain political power and wealth. When I was a kid, there was few clear examples of this to point to outside of organized crime syndicates, but now it seems that nearly every month we are shown evidence of such groups permeating our society and government.   

Government and Media Misinformation

 VIDEO: "They Weren't Expecting This"
Paul Joseph Watson (11 min.)

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is a famous line from Macbeth and commonly used to suggest that someone who denies something very strongly must be hiding the truth. It is apparently a formal policy of the UK government and news media, with the added threat from the government that if you question their "truth" you will face criminal charges.

One recent example where the truth has finally come out has to do with a little girl who was forced to display a knife and hatchet in order to protect her sister from a couple immigrants who propositioned the two girls and, subsequently, attacked them. Hot Air reports on the latest developments:

    In August of last year, Lola and Ruby Moire were walking home in a suburb of Dundee, Scotland, and being harassed by the ubiquitous 'migrants' who form so integral a part of these United Kingdom stories anymore. The abuse from their pursuers was so intense that one of the girls can be heard warning them off, shouting, 'Don’t f**king touch her, she’s f**king 12!' 

    Weapons the youngster had in her waistband came out, and she brandished them bravely as their tormentors taunted the little girls.

    Tormented, recorded, and then reported them to the police, who arrested the 12-year-old sister for 'brandishing a bladed weapon.'

    Several of the Xweets condemning both the arrest and the Labour government's two-tier indulgence of crimes against native British by its foreign imports, over those same citizens defending themselves from becoming victims or, even worse, criticizing the sorry state of things, have vaporised into the ether. No doubt after a campaign against 'misinformation' or maybe even a visit to the front door from Starmtrooping social media enforcement officers.

    As the world rallied around the young girl forced to swing a hatchet in self-defence, Keir Starmer's propaganda machine was already swinging the heavy battle axe of government propaganda against her. There are plenty of those Xweet and articles left from the rush to crush the nascent symbol of everything wrong with the Starmer regime.

    To turn the story back on the little psychopath and away from the innocently threatened immigrants.

    The BBC and the Dundee police were nearly beside themselves exonerating the completely innocent 'strolling Bulgarian couple' who'd been terrorized by the rampaging, blade-wielding pre-teen, and Scotland Yard was warning the public NOT TO SPREAD MISINFORMATION about the violent little urchin. She was no one's heroine.

Other British elites in government and media piled on, condemning the working class girls, defending the perverts that had accosted the girls, and warning against spreading "disinformation" about the incident.

    But even as the police were urging everyone to ignore the filthy little lying girls, they actually knew that the girl was completely justified in hauling out her arsenal. The Bulgarian couple were charged and the trial recently wrapped up and turns out that everything the girls had said was true as even the BBC reluctantly has reported:

    A man has been found guilty of making sexual remarks to a group of girls aged between 12 and 14 in Dundee before grabbing and pushing one of them to the ground.

    Ilia Belov, 22, claimed he confronted the girls after receiving abusive remarks and said he saw one of the girls with a knife in her waistband before the assault. [The article later indicates that the evidence showed he didn't see the knife until after he had pushed her to the ground].

    His sister Nadjedzha Belova, 20, previously admitted assaulting a 13-year-old girl by seizing and pulling her hair, dragging her to the ground, and striking her on the head to her injury during the incident.

    The pair will be sentenced at Dundee Sheriff Court on 5 August.

    The court heard that Belov had said "hello sexy, I'll show you a good time" to the girls while walking past them in the Lochee area of the city.

    After one of the girls called him a creep, he had returned to confront the group and called his sister, who arrived shortly afterwards and assaulted one of the girls. 

 The confrontation, or parts of it, were apparently caught on surveillance cameras. 

    Paul Joseph Watson has some more thoughts about this incident, particularly emphasizing that the police had evidence supporting the girls' account, yet nevertheless lied about the incident taking the side of the Bulgarian couple.

    Of course this is neither the first or last time. For instance, turning to classic propaganda in the U.S., the Emmett Till story has been carefully edited to make Till seem completely innocent in order to maximize white guilt. Matt Walsh has a video about that cover up:

 VIDEO: "The Emmett Till Story You've Heard Your Whole Life Is A Lie."
Matt Walsh (19 min.)

How Democrats Win Elections

 The New York Post reports: "Skid Row homeless claim they’ve been paid to vote for Karen Bass and Nithya Raman." From the article:

    A series of shocking videos show homeless residents on Los Angeles’ Skid Row claiming they were paid to vote for Mayor Karen Bass and councilwoman Nithya Raman.

    The California Post obtained copies of the videos after they were published Tuesday on the TikTok account LaneNeedsSpencerPratt.

    The footage, recorded near 7th Street and Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday morning, has since been provided to the Department of Justice. It also follows The Post’s revelations that thousands of homeless voters were registered to shelters where they didn’t live.

    One shelter in Venice, where 185 Raman voters were registered, received $600,000 from taxpayers care of the socialist Raman.

    In one of the clips, a man who calls himself Kevin Shepherd, claimed he received $4 to vote for Bass.   

The Post also produced a video showing some of the interviews (below).

VIDEO: "Homeless on Skid Row Claim They Were Paid to Vote for Karen Bass and Nithya Raman"
 New York Post (2 min.)

Traitors

Breitbart reports: "Corporate Special Interest Launches ‘Quiet’ Lobbying Effort to Stop Trump’s Crackdown on Visa Overstays." 

    Corporate special interests, including the tech industry and the United States Chamber of Commerce, have launched a “quiet” lobbying effort against President Donald Trump’s crackdown on visa overstays, the Washington Post reports.

    Last month, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a policy memo reiterating that, under “long-standing immigration law and immigration court decisions,” visa holders must apply to adjust status to a green card at consular offices outside the U.S.

[snip]

    In particular, USCIS is hoping to reduce the nation’s visa overstays by having temporary visa holders return to their native countries in order to apply for green cards. Prior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates have suggested that about half of the nation’s illegal alien population initially arrived on temporary visas and overstayed.

    “Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process,” Kahler said.

    Since the announcement, the Washington Post reports that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Immigration Forum, and other corporate special interest groups, including tech industry insiders, have launched a lobbying campaign to shield their foreign workforces from the rules set out in the policy memo.

It is all about replacing American workers either for cheaper foreign labor and/or to advance their own tribes over Americans. In either event, the behavior should be punished. 

How Convenient

From the New York Post on Saturday: "Spencer Pratt’s lead over Nithya Raman nearly vanishes in bombshell ballot drop."

    Spencer Pratt’s once-comfortable lead in the Los Angeles mayoral primary has been slashed yet again — as a fresh batch of ballots delivered another major boost to progressive City Councilmember Nithya Raman in their race to the November runoff.

    New results released Saturday show Pratt’s advantage over Raman shrinking to just 7,494 votes, down from more than 20,000 a day earlier. Roughly 78% of the ballots had been counted as of Saturday. 

"Progressive"? More like a communist as she is a member of the Democratic Socialist of America. 

MORE: 

• "Die-hard Spencer Pratt supporters devastated by late vote surge as faith in election falters"--New York Post. 

    A flood of late-counted ballots has turned the race on its head, shrinking Pratt’s lead day after day and suddenly putting a Bass-Raman runoff on the table after Pratt appeared destined for November just days ago.

    The latest ballot update on Saturday delivered another major boost for Raman.

•  "Late Ballot Dumps May Just Put Socialist Over Republican Days After Election"--Daily Caller.

    The likelihood of Socialist Democrat Nithya Raman being elected Los Angeles’s next mayor is surging following multiple late-breaking ballot dumps nearly a week after polls closed and despite having trailed Republican Spencer Pratt by ten points on Election Day.

    The Indian-born Los Angeles city councilwoman who entered the race in February sits in third place at the time of writing Saturday night. She is just one percentage point behind Pratt, a former reality star with whom she is competing for the second spot in November’s runoff election, according to The Associated Press (AP). With 78% of ballots counted, incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass has 34.6% of the vote, Pratt has 27.3%, and Raman has 26.2%.   

• "Fury erupts over California elections after woke socialist candidate squeaks by Spencer Pratt in airtight race for mayor of Los Angeles"--Daily Mail. Key bit: "For the second consecutive day, Raman added more votes to her tally than both Bass and Pratt."