HOW TDS BLINDS DEMS TO REALITY: A Senate SBA hearing earlier this week gave a host of uniquely vivid illustrations of how Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) blinds its victims like Democratic senators Ed Markey and Mazie Hirono to the reality of chronic, deeply rooted, and horrendously costly waste, fraud and abuse in federal spending.

SENATE DEMS HEAR NO FRAUD, SEE NO FRAUD, SAY NO FRAUD: A combative Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee hearing Wednesday documented multi-billions of fraudulently awarded Section (8)a-set-side contracts, but Democrats insisted the crook in the White House is the real villain. Haven’t we heard this somewhere before?

NEW U.S. NUKES ARE COMING: Now, hot off the presses comes news the Department of Energy will kickstart funding for construction of 10 new nuclear power plants, according to Secretary of Energy Chris Wright in an exclusive interview with the Washington Free Beacon.

Wright told WFB’s Thomas Catenacci that “we want things built by and risk capital coming from the private marketplace, and most everything we’re doing is dominantly going to be funded by private capitalBut the government smothered the nuclear industry for 40-plus years. We’ve got to get it back up on its feet again.”

To do so, Wright said the Department of Energy would back well-funded equity investments with low-interest government loans:

“We are going to use our loan program office at the Department of Energy for credit-worthy hyperscalers that are putting equity capital in front of us. We’re going to back that up with low-interest loans. We’ll supply it to maybe the first 10 reactors that get built. That’ll incentivize people to move fast.”

(VIP Digital-Age FYI: “Hot off the presses” refers to the days long, long ago of what is now known, if it is known at all, as “Old-School Journalism” when a reporter would get a VIP news story before his competitors and his editors rushed it into print. Ok, by “print,” I mean in the old days before the Internet, people actually paid for what were called “newspapers” that were printed on giant rolling ink applicators known as “presses.” Since it was an important story, the presses would be run at high speed, meaning they heated up more quickly. Thus, a big story was called “hot off the presses.”)

SBA BUCKS TO ‘MOM-AND-POP’ STORES LIKE WALMART: The Senate’s Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee will get an earful today about waste, fraud and mismanagement at the Small Business Administration (SBA), including hundreds of millions meant for Main Street shops going instead to Fortune 500 Giants like Walmart.

HOLIDAY SEASON OF TERRORISM IN U.S.: American intelligence experts are overwhelmed with incoming evidence pointing to multiple holiday season terrorist attacks here in the U.S., according to Richard Pollock. He’s talking to level-headed, non-alarmists with long records of being right, one of whom says:

“Our detection and enforcement systems are overwhelmed. We’re not just talking about individual terrorists and jihadists, but organized terror networks and their legal support systems, and state-sponsored covert intelligence networks whose cadres are professionally trained and strategically deployed.”

This is a must-read.

BORDER IS CLOSED, NOW THE REAL WORK RESUMES: Saving America will be won or lost in the home. More hard truths from Virgil Walker.

FORGET IT, CHUCK: Fully 93 percent of congressional aides responding to the survey say the proposal to extend those Obamacare tax subsidies that send billions of tax dollars directly to healthcare insurers will not be approved by Congress and signed into law by the President. That’s virtually all of them not just those representing one party.

WOULD KING DAVID KILL THE DRUG BOAT SURVIVORS? Now there’s an interesting question because David was the King of Israel after God’s own heart. As The Washington Stand’s Joshua Arnold points out, David had his own “no survivors” controversy but the context in which occurred makes it doubtful as a precedent.

HOW MANY FAKE OBAMACARE RECIPIENTS ARE THERE? Government Accounting Office (GAO) investigators planted two dozen fake Obamacare beneficiaries two years ago and as of yesterday’s report, the feds running the program have only uncovered two.

But wait! There’s more. A lot more. Like 190,000 cases in which it appeared somebody — bureaucrats, brokers, agents? — made unauthorized changes to individuals’ healthcare insurance policies. And then there’s the 97,000 cases in which individual beneficiaries’ Social Security numbers (SSNs) and tax filings don’t lineup, suggesting fake SSNs.

YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION: Everywhere you look every day there seems to be a new political scandal and if only half of them are based on fact, then the country is in deep trouble.

Writing in the American Spectator, Republican strategist and former U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Donald Devine argues the scandal-ridden political scene reflects the more general relativization of ethics.

Along with the corruption has come the parallel explosion of the unaccountable super-regulatory federal bureaucracy and political uniparty that knows nothing about limited government, as the Founders understood the term:

“The real solution today is to go back to the Founders and limit what the national government does. Government today basically influences every major business and social act. As long as this is so, there will be deals and favoritism and power.

“The only solution is the Founders’ one, for the government to do less, which will result in better decentralized government decisions and their greater moral consistency. One might start with the Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8.”

Leader Thune, Speaker Johnson, are you listening?

‘SUE-AND-SETTLE’ HONEYPOT FOR LEFT LAWYERS EXPOSED: Such a deal! Sue EPA on behalf of the Sierra Club or one of its radical enviro competitors, EPA agrees to do whatever policy or regulatory change Sierra Club demands in return for settlement, Congress has nothing to say in the process, and, oh yes, taxpayers cover your legal fees.

ABOUT THAT ‘JUNK DNA’ ISSUE: Odds are good you have been told or taught that 98 percent of the DNA in your body is useless because it doesn’t appear to have any discernible function.

But, as the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture contends, the latest research points to a conclusion that at least 80 percent and maybe the whole bunch of it is anything but junk. Even if you don’t agree with it, the video’s graphics are entertaining and the evidence is anything but insubstantial.

THANK THE LORD: Virgil Walker delivers the welcome news that Rap/Hip-Hop is dying, if not already dead, at least among guys.

IG EXPOSED BIDEN AFGHAN REFUGEE ‘VETTING’ 3 YEARS AGO: With one National Guardsman dead and another in critical condition, the lethal damage inflicted by the Biden era continues to accumulate. We can’t say we weren’t warned.

CHRISTIAN COMPUTER PROF AT MIT? No, that can’t possibly be true … can it? I mean the founder of MIT Media Lab’s Affective Computing Research Group is a follower of Jesus Christ? Well, check it out for yourself as she explains the how and why and when on HillFaith. Something is up in America, folks.

WATCHDOG EXPOSED BIDEN’S AFGHAN IMMIGRANT FAILURE IN 2022: Richard Pollock devotes his latest Substack contribution to the 2022 report by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector-General (IG) that left no doubt the Biden administration’s “screening” of Afghan refugees following the U.S. withdrawal was a sick joke.

Among so much else, consider just this damning paragraph from the IG:

“CBP’s Concept of Operations for Operation Allies Refugees allowed its officers to admit or parole evacuees into the country without presenting proper identification documents at a POE (Point of Entry) if they had no derogatory information. However, during the audit, when we requested a list of individuals admitted or paroled without proper identification, CBP officials responded that they did not maintain such a list.”

As Glenn says, just keep scrolling.

REMEMBER APOLLO 8? That was the December 1968, mission that saw astronauts Frank Borman, William Anders and James Lovell become the first men in history to orbit the Moon. Something else memorable happened on Christmas Eve during that mission that may well say something about why to this day America is the only nation to succeed in such a mission.

HOW FEMINIST IDEOLOGY CREATES LONELINESS: Virgil Walker contends Western Civilization is shivering in the cold left by the destruction of the traditional home, thus depriving men and women of their most rewarding and satisfying roles as human beings.

SOMETHING ABOUT MADISON’S THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION: For one thing, President James Madison issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation in March, not November. But there’s something else unusual about it that is worth contemplating on this solemn and joyous day.

WHEN WILL ENOUGH BE ENOUGH FOR AMERICA? Today’s vicious terrorist attack in the nation’s capital should focus everybody’s mind on the reality that more such attacks are all but certain. I’ve been away from Substack for awhile, but this day cries out for courage, common sense and a willingness to face cold, hard, terrifying facts.

THANK YOU, ELON MUSK FOR THE X LOCATOR: Did you know the Times of Gaza, which has a huge following on the Internet, is actually based nowhere near the embattled sliver of land formerly controlled by Hamas. Richard Pollock has much more on the significance of the availability of a site locator feature on X.

EARMARKS HELPED REOPEN GOVERNMENT: Yes, Congress voted to reopen the federal government November 12, but did you know the same measure also contained more than 800 earmarks? Excuse me …. I meant to say Congressionally Directed Spending.

50-YEAR MORTGAGE DOA AMONG HILL AIDES: Their average age is 27, so many of the 12,000+ congressional aides working on Capitol Hill would in other years been among those buying their first home with a mortgage. But the proposal floated recently by President Donald Trump is going nowhere with Hill aides, according to the latest survey of opinion among this tremendously influential but almost invisible group.

WHY ARE YOUNG MEN DROPPING OUT OF THE JOB MARKET? New data analyzed by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) shows a sharp decline in the amount of time GenZers spending with friends, as well as a worrisome drop in the workforce participation rate among GenZ men. Oh, and the data further shows AI romance isn’t the thing among GenZers one might think from reading the MSM.

REICH SHOWS, AGAIN, WHY NOBODY LISTENS TO HIM ANYMORE: There was a time when Robert Reich was actually somebody who had something relevant to tell the nation. But it’s been all irrelevance since being Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary. That said, according to Issues & Insights, Reich’s latest Substack mutterings about the sh-tty Trump economy merit a response. And it’s a doozy!