KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dude, Where’s My Bureaucracy? “This is the agency that the swampiest Swamp people are giving a full-throated defense of. The people running it should probably be rounded up in a paddy wagon rather than merely getting pink slips. There is no justification for most of what USAID has been funding and the Democrats are acting as if Trump and Musk are smelting their Holy Grail to sell on eBay.”

IT’S BEEN A BATTLE FOR FINAL SURVIVAL SINCE PROBABLY 2008…

I dunno if people are talking enough about this, but Trump and Elon have thrown down such a huge gauntlet that it's literally a battle for final survival.

Either the gov corruption is rooted out 100% or it's over for them. The put everything on the line to make things right.…

— Grummz (@Grummz) February 3, 2025

…it’s just that some — hopefully enough — Republicans finally caught on to it.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Obama’s Fundamental Transformation Is Blowing Up.

ALL THE BEST PEOPLE ASSURED ME THIS NEVER HAPPENED: Automatic voter registration let non-citizens in South Dakota, Oregon onto voter rolls, report says.

A report released by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) last week shows that both South Dakota and Oregon, which have automatic voter registration, found non-citizens on their respective voter rolls last year. The report explains that this occurs easily and warns states about using automatic voter registration.

In October, South Dakota found that 273 non-citizens were incorrectly on state voter rolls due to automatic voter registration through the state’s department for issuing driver’s licenses.

After South Dakota used the U.S. Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) to check the citizenship status of the 273 registered voters, the non-citizens were informed that the state had corrected the errors and that they would be removed from the voter rolls, according to the PILF report. The non-citizens were also notified about how to re-register to vote after becoming U.S. citizens.

South Dakota implemented automatic voter registration after a lawsuit filed in 2020 on behalf of Native American tribes regarding the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) was settled two years later, per the report.

Oregon was the first state to implement automatic voter registration in 2016, but still has issues with non-citizens registering to vote.

“Still?” As in, Oregon has made an effort to fix the problem?

PAST TENSE: USAID Lavished U.S. Cash on Hamas-Run Gaza.

THE THREAT IS REAL:

Thank you, receipt via 𝕏 acknowledged. https://t.co/aYo0OsyFVE

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2025

DOGE wants to cut a trillion dollars — $4 billion a day — out of the federal budget. Those are numbers some might commit murder to protect.

WE AREN’T OUT OF THE WEIMAR WOODS YET: Idaho Army National Guard Is Under Fire for Declaring ‘No Christians in Command.’

NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS PROMISED:

The US Navy released a new photo of USS Preble (DDG-88) firing her HELIOS laser weapon. pic.twitter.com/oL4rMsA4Xu

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) February 3, 2025

From the replies: “Good luck, Canada.”

Soft power is great and is almost always preferred. But part of America’s soft power is our military’s reputation. When that declines, chaos increases.

CRYING COMMIES ARE THE SECOND-BEST COMMIES: Cry More, Commies: China Freaking Out Over Tariffs.

YOU CAN’T SPELL DEI WITHOUT DIE: Secret Service Agent: DEI Contributed to Near-Killing of Trump.

SCOTT PRESLER AIMS TO DO FOR NEW JERSEY WHAT HE DID FOR PENNSYLVANIA:

New Jersey

A month ago, democrats had an advantage of 896,350 voter registrations.

Today, that lead is narrowed to 883,437.

‼️-12,913‼️

🟦 LOST 2,433 voters, while
🟥 GAINED 10,480

Yes, New Jersey Republicans gained 10,480 voters in the month of January‼️

EARTHQUAKE

— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) February 3, 2025

Dismiss this poll or that poll about party affiliation but voter party registrations are an excellent indicator of how people will vote. Presler has New Jersey’s moving in the right direction and he’s just getting started.

WHOA: Border Crossings Down 93%.

White House Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News on Sunday that illegal border crossings are down 93% since Donald Trump won his belated reelection in November. Speaking with Maria Bartiromo, Homan also promised, “When we find that criminal, he’s most likely with others, and they’re gonna go too. So if you wanna be a sanctuary city, you’re gonna get exactly what you don’t want. More agents in the community and more non-criminals arrested.”

“We got more work to do,” Homan concluded — and what a welcome change that is from the last four years.

Read the whole thing.

AMERICA: “Do you think the Democrats learned anything from their historic loss?”

Democrats: The Right to Pee Is Everything.

ROBERT SPENCER: California’s ‘Gay As F**k’ Top Military Commander. “Many have professed to find ‘two Americas’ in the nation’s economic and racial divisions, but nowhere is there more of an estrangement between Americans than in the political and cultural realms. A fresh indication of that comes from the center of the loony left, the California S.S.R. itself, where a top National Guard commander proudly displayed a gay flag in his office and promptly got a promotion from Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Make Me President). Well, of course he did. The meteoric rise of Major Gen. Matt Beevers is an indication of how spectacularly insane the left has become.”

CHANGE: Hollywood’s Texadus. “Following the LA fires, it’s probably the perfect time to make this pitch. California’s insane tax and regulatory environment under one-party Democrat rule has already been pushing production out of Hollywood for a long time, but the fires have made collapse in basic governing competence when it comes to crime, homelessness, infrastructure, water, land management and about a dozen other basic government functions painfully clear to even the most blinkered Hollywood functionary.”

I’M EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM WHILE ENJOYING HEARING THE LAMENTATIONS OF THEIR WOMEN: Obama’s Fundamental Transformation Is Blowing Up.

On the political side, Obama’s transformations were less legislative (he never cared for the dirty work of politicking on Capitol Hill, even when Democrats were in charge) than they were procedural. Obama’s weaponization of the formerly nonpartisan bureaucracy against the Right might have begun at the IRS but it hardly ended there. He used the State Department and the UN to bypass the Senate’s authority to ratify treaties and Congress’s power to authorize the use of force. Then there are the multibillion-dollar slush funds at USAID and other agencies, whose corruption we’ve long suspected and are only now learning the true scale of.

Underappreciated in all this is the influence of former Obama hand Samantha Power — who was also Presidentish Joe Biden’s pick to head up USAID these last four years. Considered too radical to lead State, where Obama wanted her, Power has moved from one powerful — but often secretive — executive branch position to another.

With the election of Trump 2.0 the DGAF Edition, all that work is being undone.

Much more at the link.

REMINDER: The Deep State is bipartisan.

Senator Lindsey Graham, @LindseyGrahamSC , is a Director at the International Republican Institute, a nonprofit funded by USAID.

🔹 Government Funding: $130.7M reported on IRS Form 990
🔹 Active Grants: $9.2M
🔹 EIN: 521340267 | UEI: V2DWM1KMJNK5

Many Congresspeople are not… https://t.co/EZc3Mwopyn

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) February 2, 2025

There’s a lot of (your) money at stake.

WNC: Legendary Coach and Major Company Team Up to Offer Hope to Helene Victims.

WINNING: Donald Trump statement.

I just spoke with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican Soldiers on the Border separating Mexico and the United States. These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country. We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one month period during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and high-level Representatives of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a “deal” between our two Countries.

Tariffs are Trump’s way of wielding the power of the American consumer to protect America’s interests. The intent wasn’t to start a trade war but to curtail the cartels’ drug war on the US.

So far, so good. Now let’s see what Canada does.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Safety panel urges NASA to reassess Artemis mission objectives to reduce risk.

A safety panel is calling on NASA to reassess to plans for upcoming Artemis missions, arguing that the agency is packing too many objectives into each mission.

At a Jan. 30 public meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), members reiterated past concerns about the number of first-time objectives planned for Artemis 3, the first crewed lunar landing of the overall campaign, and later missions.

“Each first milestone carries its own individual risk and, as these risks are compounded and aggregated, it only increases the overall risk posture for any individual flight mission,” said Bill Bray, a member of the panel. “It really begs the question, is it time for the agency to reassess the current mission objectives and its approach for Artemis 3 and beyond, with the goal to better balance the risks across all those flight tests?”

ASAP has previously expressed its concerns about the number of firsts on Artemis 3, such as in its most recent annual report released in early 2024. That report listed 13 separate firsts for the mission, mostly tied to the Starship lunar lander and new spacesuits being developed by Axiom Space.

That list has only grown since then, he noted, with changes to the heat shield for Orion. NASA announced in December that it would reformulate the Avcoat material used in the heat shield for Artemis 3 and later missions to prevent the heat shield erosion seen on the Artemis 1 reentry.

Those concerns extend beyond Artemis 3, Bray said, with later missions incorporating the lunar Gateway, the Blue Moon crewed lunar lander and a lunar rover. “Each of these elements under development and delivery requires a near-perfect program execution across a complex set of tests and milestones and, frankly, there’s very little room for failure.”

Problems with a single key element, he concluded, “will result in continued launch delays and an irregular and erratic cadence of mission flights,” an issue ASAP has also previously raised. It also creates “an increased risk posture” for Artemis missions.

Getting rid of SLS and the Lunar Gateway would remove a lot of complexity and cost but would also increase reliance on Starship — which isn’t yet ready to go.

IT’S COMPLICATED: The Dirty Truth Behind Bill Kristol’s ‘Private’ Funding.

BADLY BEHAVED GUESTS SHOULD BE SHOWN THE DOOR, FORCIBLY IF NEEDED:

NOW: Anti-ICE protesters are blocking both sides of the 101 Freeway near the Alameda Street exit in DTLA. The CHP has since closed that portion of the freeway. Read more: https://t.co/K60ImdzmDi pic.twitter.com/iO5ARSTyTL

— KTLA (@KTLA) February 2, 2025

They don’t seem to understand that the rules have changed and, most importantly, the Trump administration is depriving their enabling NGOs of oxygen.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Good News — Dems Prove They Learned Nothing From 2024 Election. “It’s true that the Dems are commies now, but most of them like to be coy about it. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is one big communist freak flag-flying festival. Once the word ‘labor’ is added to a political party’s name, Karl Marx is allowed a play date in Hell.”

OK, CHIEF: The DNC’s outgoing chair says Democrats should have stuck with Joe Biden in 2024.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Jaime Harrison reflected on why his party lost to Donald Trump and what might have happened had then-Vice President Kamala Harris had more time to campaign after Biden ended his reelection bid following a disastrous debate performance.

He also offered advice to his eventual successor, who will be chosen Saturday. The next DNC chair, Harrison said, needs to insist that the party not be a “rubber stamp” to its presidential candidate.

Here are excerpts from that conversation:

Why did Harris and Democrats lose the White House?

HARRISON: “I don’t know that there’s one answer. A lot of people like to come up with things, and they say it’s the economy. Well, it could have been a part of it. I think every state had their own little nuance. In Michigan, the Palestinian issue played something there.”

“The gap in which she lost wasn’t huge, but when you add up little pockets where it’s, some people because of Gaza, some people because of the economy, some people because she was a woman. And I think in many of those states, those little nicks here and there added up to how she lost in some of those states.”

Message: A vacant-eyed, mouth-breathing Biden is still a better candidate than Harris.

I wonder how Harris and her people are responding to that message.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

Nobody elected the staff that operated Joe Biden like an animatronic puppet for the last 4 years while he wrecked the country so i'm not sure the "nobody elected Elon" criticism really has legs. https://t.co/xFDyJ6NTw1

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) February 3, 2025

IT’S ONLY FOOD: UK Climate Alarmists Plan to Seize Swathes of Farmland.