A BILLION HERE AND A BILLION THERE…: U.S. made $161.8 billion in improper payments in 2024, enough to buy almost 2,000 military choppers.

Improper payments have been a significant issue for the federal government, with executive branches reporting an estimated $2.8 trillion worth since 2003, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The report found a total of $161.8 billion in improper payments in 2024 alone. That figure is likely an undercount because not all federal agencies follow reporting guidelines.

Under the Payment Integrity Information Act, agencies are required to manage payments by identifying risks, taking corrective measures, and reporting on their efforts. However, the GAO found that some agencies are not fully following the required guidelines for reporting data annually.

Clearly.

The cost of last year’s improper payments alone would have gone a long way over a few years toward correcting our naval and air force deficiencies.

YES: Prosecute The Architects Of Trump Lawfare For Election Interference.

In his second inaugural address, President Donald Trump declared that the “weaponization of our Justice Department and our government will end” and that he would “re-balance” the scales of justice. He now faces an important decision: whether to investigate the founders of the lawfare campaigns against him — beginning with New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg. He would have at his disposal the same legal theory that the Biden Justice Department constructed just for him: interfering with the presidential election deprived Americans of their constitutional rights to run for office and vote.

Special Counsel Jack Smith announced this unprecedented theory by charging Trump with depriving all Americans of their voting rights by challenging the outcome of the 2020 election.

The demise of independent counsels, which had a very low threshold to trigger appointment, illustrates how Democrats respond when feeling the sting of onerous investigations. Democrats loved the 1978 Independent Counsel Act, which was used five times against the Reagan administration and twice against George H.W. Bush. It was “good government” until it wasn’t. When the Clinton administration got hit with seven independent counsels, enough was enough. Democrats cheered its expiration in 1999, having discovered it was too costly.

Turning lawfare on its creators is not about revenge. It will serve as a deterrent to prevent future abuse and will restore public confidence that justice is even-handed. Individuals who have carried out lawfare have not only destroyed faith in our legal system but also may have violated the law. A federal statute, 18 U.S.C. 241, prohibits conspiring to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate” a person exercising constitutional rights or privileges. Clearly President Donald J. Trump had constitutional rights and privileges to run for office and govern, not to be imprisoned for contrived crimes, and not to be deprived of property based on abuse of federal and state justice systems. According to the Biden administration’s own theory, preventing a candidate from running and assuming office also deprives supporters of their rights to vote.

Read the whole thing and, remember, this is the only way they’ll learn.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Professor: Gender studies made me realize X-Men’s Wolverine is ‘toxic’ masculinity.

SOMETIMES THE PILGRIMS AND PIONEERS WERE BRUTAL REPLACERS OF A NATIVE POPULATION; OTHER TIMES THEY’RE ROLE MODELS:

Margaret Brennan: “But this is a country founded by immigrants”

VP Vance: “Yes… but just because we were founded by immigrants doesn't mean that 240 years later we have to have the dumbest immigration policy in the world.”

Like he’s talking to a child.😂pic.twitter.com/j2V4P5IRsJ

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) January 26, 2025

Related: “Margaret Brennan seemed keyed up from the start. Her desire to get Vance was ludicrously obvious. Meanwhile, Vance was perfectly even-tempered and articulate, prepared for everything she had hoped to flummox him with. Brennan’s style of constant interruption failed to throw him off. It backfired, making him look steady and rational and her look afraid of what he might have to say.”

ROBERT SPENCER: ESPN Leftist Stephen A. Smith Sorry He Voted for Kamala, Explains Why Trump Won.

CHANGE: Students embrace conservative beliefs as Trump enacts anti-DEI agenda.

FAIL, BRITANNIA: Asylum seekers loitering outside school is ‘cultural’ issue, say police.

Migrants have been staying in a hotel outside the village for around three years and are among thousands living in temporary accommodation across the country.

However, in recent months there has been increasing concern over young men loitering near Deanshanger Primary School, including claims of filming.

Following concerns, Sgt Lorna Clarke from the neighbourhood policing team issued an update to residents in which she confirmed the force had received “several calls” from people “concerned about males hanging around the primary school at drop-off and pick-up”.

She said that there had been several posts on social media and WhatsApp and that she had personally spoken to those concerned and the school.

Sgt Clarke said that after speaking to people directly and having her officers “attend the hotel”, they had not identified a risk to anyone and “there is no evidence to support that any offences had taken place”.

She added: “While I fully appreciate the community’s concerns, I ask that people don’t take this matter into their own hands, but continue to speak to the police about any incidents they witness or any concerns they have. We are well linked in with the hotel and can deliver some work there around appropriate behaviours and different cultural expectations.”

In a letter to parents last month, the school said it had been made aware of “some men hanging around outside the school during drop-off and pick-up times” and it was “taking this matter seriously”.

Asking migrants nicely to follow “cultural expectations” about children that they clearly have no intention of following does not amount to “taking this matter seriously.”

LIMITED TIME DEAL: Nextmug – Temperature-Controlled, Self-Heating Coffee Mug. #CommissionEarned

WELL, FOR ONE THING BIDEN’S FEMA OPENLY DISCRIMINATED AGAINST REPUBLICANS:

ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE CLEANUP EFFORT IS UNDERWAY IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA TODAY!!!

THE ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS ARE EVERYWHERE!!!!!

WHY DIDN’T JOE BIDEN DO THIS 4 MONTHS AGO?!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/clBcwPQsWl

— Matt Van Swol (@matt_vanswol) January 27, 2025

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Trump 47, Week One — The Democrats Don’t Know What Hit Them. “The Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media have so wrapped themselves in delusion that they have not at all grasped that things have changed and are still changing rapidly in this country. They’re clinging to their old ‘Everybody Hates Trump’ playbook, which only worked for them when they coupled it with a global pandemic and questionable ballot-counting practices in swing states.”

DON SURBER: A Very Trumpy Weekend.

OBVIOUSLY THEY KNEW WHERE THESE PEOPLE WERE. IT’S DISGUSTING THAT IT TOOK A NEW ADMINISTRATION TO MAKE IT HAPPEN: First images of ICE mass deportation efforts show arrests of MS-13 gang members, murder suspects.

METAPHOR ALERT:

Olympic Medals are rusting because the varnish used to prevent oxidation was defective.

The coating was weakened after the mint changed it to conform to recent EU regulations banning the use of chromium trioxide, a toxic chemical used to prevent metal from rusting. pic.twitter.com/aNAttP7FCS

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 26, 2025

This one’s so on point that if anyone used it in a book or a movie, critics would complain that it was just too obvious.

CDR SALAMANDER: Condition of the Navy’s Amphibious Fleet And Its Impacts on Marines: the View from GAO. “Amphibious warfare ships are critical for Marine Corps missions, but the Navy has struggled to ensure they are available for operations and training. In some cases, ships in the amphibious fleet have not been available for years at a time. The Navy and Marine Corps are working to agree on a ship availability goal but have yet to complete a metrics-based analysis to support such a goal. Until the Navy completes this analysis, it risks jeopardizing its ability to align amphibious ship schedules with the Marine Corps units that deploy on them.”

WELL, IF “EDUCATED” PEOPLE THINK IT’S OKAY, CAN IT REALLY BE ILLEGAL?

Everyone understood that this was going on, in private business as well as universities. Acquaintances would just outright say "We're looking to hire a woman of color/queer person/etc for this position". I never figured out how to politely ask why they were confessing a crime to… https://t.co/ayEKvPRwmY

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) January 27, 2025

Related:

Drummond Woodsum, a leftist law firm in Portland, Maine with lucrative public contracts, has told public school officials to destroy immigration-related evidence and records to obstruct possible federal law enforcement investigations by @ICEgov or @CBP. https://t.co/MPy8gfabc8

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 27, 2025

EXCLUSIVE: J6er Speaks Out on Pardoned Prisoners Still in Jail.

KEEP ‘EM SCARED AND RUNNING: EXCLUSIVE: Read the Frantic Memo Eric Holder Sent Clients After Trump Declared War on DEI: The companies who hired him for ‘diversity audits’ could face legal jeopardy.

MAKE THEM PAY:

They had a choice between following the law and bowing to their most ridiculous cultural revolutionaries. They chose the latter, they broke the law, and now there’s a sheriff in town that’s going to make them pay the price for it. https://t.co/jyD1dqfKSM

— Inez Stepman ⚪️🔴⚪️ (@InezFeltscher) January 27, 2025

TRUTH:

The difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 this time around is like the difference between Michael Jordan as a freshman at North Carolina and Michael Jordan as NBA MVP.

— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) January 26, 2025

Related:

it’s pretty funny that democrats couldve just not fought trump in 2020 and gotten four years of squishy mike pence neocon policies and instead they got a lucius cornelius sulla warlord version of trump

— Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) January 25, 2025

YOU DON’T SAY: CIA now says Covid-19 is more likely to have originated from a lab leak.

The Central Intelligence Agency said Saturday that it’s more likely a lab leak caused the Covid-19 pandemic than an infected animal that spread the virus to people, changing the agency’s yearslong stance that it couldn’t conclude with certainty where the pandemic started.

The agency made its new assessment public two days after former Republican lawmaker John Ratcliffe was sworn in as its new leader.

“We have low confidence in this judgement and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA’s assessment,” an unnamed CIA spokesperson wrote in an email sent to reporters Saturday.
The statement didn’t include any additional details about what led the agency to change its assessment and whether it had intelligence that would add weight to the theory that the virus had leaked from a research lab in Wuhan, China.

What Politico’s Carmen Paun and John Sakellariadis left out of their report is that while Washington remains divided on COVID’s origins, Washington and crap outfits like Politico once mocked and silenced anyone with questions.

BYE, BYE GAVIN: Joel Kotkin: LA fires have extinguished Gavin Newsom’s presidential dream.

Two years ago Gavin Newsom was widely seen as a rising Democratic star and likely future presidential candidate. Meanwhile Donald Trump, facing massive legal troubles and the results of his own intemperance, seemed to many, like those at CNN, a fading figure.

How quickly things change. Over the weekend, Trump met with the California Governor as they toured parts of California devastated by the wildfires. As Newsom was forced to greet the President with his cap in hand, Trump wasted no time in attacking the state’s progressive policies. On his arrival, Trump called on Newsom to change the state’s water policies, blaming the spread of the fires on deficient supplies. This is partially accurate: although water policy has been poorly implemented, the immediate issue lay in the city’s failure to maintain fire spending and key infrastructure like water pressure for hydrants and keeping the local water reservoir filled and operable.

Trump’s demands have drawn attention to the state’s self-inflicted wounds, and its pattern of astounding incompetence. In 1971, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith described the state government as run by “a proud, competent civil service,” and enjoying among “the best school systems in the country”. This year Wallet Hub ranked the state last in terms of return on investment for taxpayers.

50 years of Democratic political dominance will do that to you.

Related:

it’s pretty funny that democrats couldve just not fought trump in 2020 and gotten four years of squishy mike pence neocon policies and instead they got a lucius cornelius sulla warlord version of trump

— Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) January 25, 2025

Of evil will shall evil mar.

IT’S A SOLID ARGUMENT: Will Trump Make An Article II Override Argument To Justify Firing IGs Without Providing 30 Days Notice? Does Trump think the 30 day notice requirement infringes his Article II powers? Will he cite President Obama’s refusal to provide notice of the Bowe Bergdahl transfers?

AND ANOTHER ONE: Florida Democrat Official Arrested for the Most Disgusting Reasons.

ON SUNDAYS I DO A PROMO POST FOR (MOSTLY) INDY AUTHORS:  Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

There is also a fun vignette challenge.

OUT: LUXURY GOODS. IN: LUXURY BELIEFS. This makes sense.

Hypothesis: The woke crack up of culture and institutions that started in ~2013 was driven in significant part by the democratization of good taste that happened in the 2010s. Bonus: This also explains why hipsters disappeared.

Prior to around 2010, those who considered…

— Ozmodiar (@cmonjussthetip) December 17, 2024

(Via Marc Andreesen).

Related:

Leftist Jews in NYC are going to keep staying quiet as Jewish owned businesses keep getting targeted hoping their windows will get broken last. It’s so pathetic to watch. This is the “activist” class. They always have something to say, except now.

— Karol Markowicz (@karol) January 26, 2025