YOU’RE FIRED: SIGAR John Sopko, ‘The Donald Trump of inspectors general.’

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), John Sopko, was among those recently fired as part of the Trump administration’s purge of 17 inspectors general (IGs). That’s despite the fact that Sopko proved to be among the most transparent and effective IG in terms of identifying on behalf of taxpayers waste, fraud and abuse

For going up against powerful “establishment” forces inside the federal government and among contractors in the defense and humanitarian aid world, Sopko was once called “the Donald Trump of Inspectors General.”

He was frequently targeted by Congress and in the news media on behalf of interests connected to the Pentagon, the State Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) after he audited their projects that identified waste and fraud.

According to Sopko, Americans spent more than $143 billion in tax money to rebuild Afghanistan as the U.S. war against Islamic extremist terrorists was waged for 20 years. He says that a stunning 30% – or $43 billion of our money – was lost to waste, fraud, or abuse.

And the rest they can’t account for.

LOSINGLY: Why the Losing Losers in the Democratic Party Keep Losing.

HE’S FLAILING: Sen. Andy Kim: Cuts To USAID ‘Devastating To National Security,’ ‘Doing China’s Work For Them.’

Previously:

Somebody from a developing country said to me, ‘what we
get from China is an airport. What we get from the United States
is a lecture.' https://t.co/dT674x0Qc0

— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) April 14, 2023

Whatever foreign aid was supposed to accomplish in superpower politics, it hasn’t been doing that for a long time.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: NY Mag in Hot Water With Black MAGA After Fake News Piece “The Leftist rag New York Magazine not only earned ridicule for its story falsely framing a MAGA event as a sort of white supremacist Klan bake, it now faces legal consequences from one of the black conservatives who co-hosted the event.”

“DEMOCRATIC” LEFTISM SUMMED UP IN ONE BRILLIANT HEADLINE: Taxpayers Paying For The Systemic Preference Falsification Scam Being Run Against Them.

DEATH RATTLE: Now the Left Is Doxing Musk’s Chaos Monkeys.

SHOP WISELY: Diver$ity: Costco Gave Execs Sizable DEI Bonuses.

BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DID: Biden State Dept Privately Downplayed Use of ‘Jihad’ and ‘Occupation’ in UNRWA-Made Study Materials, Saying Only ‘Some Other Audiences’ View the Terms as ‘Inappropriate.’

CHRIS QUEEN: Progressive Christianity Watch: Trans Lord’s Prayer, DEI Babylon, and Who’s Afraid of Losing Federal Cash.

SCIENCE! How a ‘cow fart’ vaccine could help tackle climate change.

It’s from Britain but I would be shocked to learn that USAID dollars weren’t somehow involved.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: He Set the Fashion World Ablaze in His Dalmation Onesie. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news and I don’t know how to even start writing an intro for a week that begins with a guy in a Dalamtian-print onesie getting tased twice by police, so let’s jump right in.”

ALINSKY’S RULES FOR RADICALS CONSERVATIVES:

This is the doxxer at the WSJ who doxxed the DOGE team member and got him fired. She worked at Business Insider who have a history of doxxing people and she was funded by USAID. It looks like she was hired solely to go after the DOGE team. pic.twitter.com/GRcilyBC5E

— Aesthetica (@Anc_Aesthetics) February 7, 2025

But the Right has learned to play by Alinsky’s playbook, Ms. Long, so no crying just because you’ve been hit back by Rule 12.

SO NOW THE MEDIA IS ALL INTERESTED IN THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE?

Cover of latest Time Magazine. pic.twitter.com/vb5x1BCoh2

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) February 7, 2025

Trump ran with Musk at his side, promising to unleash him and the DOGE boys on government spending.

Biden was a senescent puppet who was never that bright or honest to begin with — and the media happily covered for Biden and the cabal.

You do not despise them enough.

NOBODY IS LISTENING, LIZ. NOBODY CARES: Former USAID Official Liz Cheney Rips Elon Musk for Being a… Foreigner.

DISPATCHES FROM AIRSTRIP ONE: UK secretly orders Apple to let it spy on iPhone users worldwide.

During Conservative Boris Johnson’s tenure as Prime Minister, the UK government claimed to be in discussions with Apple about creating a backdoor into iOS that would allow it access to all user data. If there really ever were such discussions, they will have been short because US company Apple has refused the FBI the same thing.

Now the new Labour government in the UK is demanding that Apple create this backdoor, according to The Washington Post. Under UK law, it is a criminal offense for Apple to even reveal that such a demand has been made, and so consequently the company has refused to comment.

Sources said to be familiar with the matter, however, say that the UK is demanding total access, a blanket capability to read encrypted material from any user, anywhere in the world. The demand has been served on Apple from the UK’s office of the Home Secretary, and is based on a 2016 law that authorizes the government to compel companies to assist in gathering evidence.

Formally known as the UK Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, but informally called the Snoopers’ Charter, the law initially had its controversial elements removed. In 2016, following objections from Apple and others, the act was passed into UK law without this provision.

The elements were reinstated in 2024 following a Parliamentary debate. Apple said at the time that the elements being discussed could allow the UK to demand worldwide access.

“These provisions could be used,” said the company, “to force a company like Apple, that would never build a back door into its products, to publicly withdraw critical security features from the UK market, depriving UK users of these protections.”

This means that Apple would disable end-to-end encryption for UK users rather than allow a backdoor access that could be used to spy worldwide. However, despite Apple using the phrase “publicly withdraw,” UK law would actually forbid it from telling customers that it had weakened their security.

In Orwell’s 1984, at least Big Brother had the courtesy to remind you he was watching you.

THE BIDEN ERA ENDS WITH ONE LAST “UNEXPECTEDLY”:

Every single month in 2024 just got revised down in today’s jobs report—by an average of -626k. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the BLS business employment dynamics data and the Philly Fed’s early benchmark suggest even bigger downward revisions coming in the next annual update.… pic.twitter.com/WCcaSzq5xR

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) February 7, 2025

Wait’ll DOGE starts going through those books.

ROBERT SPENCER: A Critically Important Trial Has Just Begun, and No One Involved Will Speak About Motive.

HOME RULE HAS BEEN A DISASTER: Sen. Mike Lee, Rep. Andy Ogles Introduce Legislation To Repeal DC Home Rule.

What other neglected responsibilities might Congress pick back up?

WAIT, WHAT? Legos Aren’t Gay Enough, Apparently.

HERE’S MORE OF THAT USAID HUMANITARIANISM IN ACTION:

I cannot stress this enough: USAID made a formal program to promote foreign countries to pass foreign laws and regulations to influence content moderation policies of US tech platforms. https://t.co/RTkF5g1Xz1 pic.twitter.com/hhhpWNEyNb

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) February 6, 2025

From the birthplace of freedom of speech as a constitutionally protected right to outsourcing government censorship to foreigners.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: USAID Funds Ended up at BLM (and You Might Not Believe Where Else). “Meanwhile, the DOGE boys have Democrats spewing nonsense even more nonsensical than usual.”

CHANGE: Trump orders key government agency to cancel all media contracts.

What they’re saying: “GSA team, please do two things,” a Trump administration official wrote:

Pull all contracts for Politico, BBC, E&E (Politico sub) and Bloomberg
Pull all media contracts for just GSA – cancel every single media contract today for GSA only.

Why it matters: President Trump is targeting the federal government’s media contracts after Elon Musk and his allies discovered millions of dollars in agency subscriptions to Politico Pro, a policy tracking service widely used in Washington.

The discovery, made through a U.S. government spending database that has long been publicly available, triggered erroneous theories on X about the Biden administration “funding” anti-Trump media.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the executive branch would stop spending money on Politico subscriptions amid the right-wing outrage.

GSA manages real estate, procurement and technology services for the federal government. An X account for DOGE has also announced cuts to other individual deals, such as a Treasury contract with the New York Times.

Reality check: Politico’s executives addressed the false conspiracy theories about the company receiving “funding” from the government in a note to readers Thursday.

I wrote a little something about that yesterday:

When I wrote the column, it was an established fact that the U.S. government had paid $8 million in “fees” to Politico for their “Pro” service. NASA alone paid more than half a million dollars — and for what? For duplicative Pro subscriptions, estimated to cost between $7,000 and $15,000 apiece. If those aren’t backdoor subsidies to a lefty news outlet, then what are they?

Before the virtual ink had a chance to dry on my column, we learned that the actual total to Politico Pro was over $34 million. But even that number is hours old and perhaps subject to increase. That’s $34 million spent, as someone on X put it, for progressive bureaucrats to read what progressive reporters had spoken about with other progressive bureaucrats.

The gravy train is coming to a stop.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: President Trump Is an Existential Threat to the Uniparty. “It was easy to tell that the Trump transformation of the GOP was a good thing because the Dem lapdogs in the mainstream media kept complaining about it. They get upset when they lose one of their loyal useful idiots.”

NOPE, STILL NOT SICK OF ALL THE WINNING:

🚨 #BREAKING: President Trump has just signed an executive order requiring an audit of EVERY NGO which relies on federal funding, per Reuters

Biden gave BILLIONS to these NGOs to facilitate an invasion of our country.

Like the Red Cross, who was providing LITERAL MAPS to help… pic.twitter.com/azGgx7lqDE

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 6, 2025

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Sec. Duffy Destroys Hillary Over Airplane Crash Lies.

Plus:

Just a PSA: My dad would never commit suicide. https://t.co/nEczFuJcK7

— Evita Duffy-Alfonso (@evitaduffy_1) February 6, 2025