Good morning one and all to another stupendous day!
China suspends rare earth exports, kneecapping US industry reliant on Beijing’s ‘monopoly
Harvard University says it will not comply with Trump administration’s demands amid funding threats
CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis: CIA to Create a ‘Finely Tuned Machine’ to Destroy the Cartels
Trump Admin Says It Lacks Authority to Return Deported Man From El Salvador
Social Security Administration launches anti-fraud measures
Palin returns to court for retrial of her libel lawsuit against New York Times
May 7th Real ID Required to Fly
DOT saves taxpayers over $60M by terminating Texas high-speed rail contract
Celebrities Are Literally Launching Themselves Into Space And It’s Still Boring As Hell
Vice President JD Vance fumbles Ohio State football team’s national championship trophy
That’s all I got for today. I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.
Fuck the fact these people steal my money to use it to finance shit that huts me.
And then they act like it’s their money.
Kate Upton had the common courtesy to film herself in zero-g.
All told, I’m just as glad that crew didn’t.
“China suspends rare earth exports, kneecapping US industry reliant on Beijing’s ‘monopoly”
The only way to get off an addiction, is a hard break. Start sourcing this (and a whole bunch of other things) elsewhere, and at home.
It isn’t the materials themselves we lack. Just the capability and willingness to process them.
That was my point. There are several other entities that already have these capabilities and are friendly to us, but were being screwed by CCP monopoly we should not go work with for the short term, while we build out our own. And as USC points out below: fuck the econuts.
We export pollution so we can feel better.
The climate change green racket and the entire pollution industry is a massive racket. We ship recyclables to CCP China, but for some reason all that crap ends up in the Pacific instead of recycled. The people making money from this racket all claim they are saving Gaia, though.
China hasn’t been accepting US ‘recyclables’ for several years – they’re on to that scam. Most of it is going to Vietnam and the Philippines, these days, and from there into the Western Pacific garbage gyre.
That’s just it – the US has plenty of rare earths deposits, there are just too many regulations and other barriers to make it cost effective to mine here.
“Social Security Administration launches anti-fraud measures”
Are they really gonna find and stop fraud? Or is this all for show?
I think you answered your own question.
Was it always for show?
“Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy made the announcement, saying an agreement between the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Amtrak to terminate the $63.9 million grant had been reached.
The grant was awarded to Amtrak under the Corridor Identification and Development Program for the Amtrak Texas High-Speed Rail Corridor, previously known as the Texas Central Railway project.”
Yet somehow Vanderbilt managed to cross the country with Chinamen and mules.
Hill managed to donut while turning a profit. No government land grants, or anything if the sort.
*do it, not “donut”
*Homer Simpson drool*
Yes, give James J. Hill his due credit.
Chinamen, mules, a LOT of bribes, and liberal use of eminent domain.
Not Vandy.
Hey, I still am pissed that the FBI has not identified the Jan 5 2021 pipe bomber, Cause when that gets revealed we will all find out J6 was staged and run by our NGO funded leftist cabal in order to distract people from the cheating they did in the 2020 election. Biden never got 81 million votes. The left collected 81 million ballots because of the harvesting of mail-in ones, even though they had less than 70 million voters….
May 7th Real ID Required to Fly
The author of that Epoch Times article must have written for Pravda with all that slobbering over the government’s cock.
I just read it. It seemed like a detailed description of the policy, followed by opinions on both sides.
“government overreach” in scare quotes. Minimal difficulties.
The best part? Did you go to the link in this quote?
Many of the 9/11 terrorists used loopholes to obtain IDs before boarding the passenger planes they hijacked and crashed into buildings.
From the linked document:
While the 9/11 hijackers did not utilize fraudulent identification, they did obtain US identification cards in their true names.
So they had US ID cards but didn’t use them. I guess “obtains IDs before boarding the passenger planes” is technically correct. I like the implication of the juxtaposition that the article author wrote.
“DOT saves taxpayers over $60M by terminating Texas high-speed rail contract”
At this point it should be obvious any high speed rail government contracts anywhere in this country are nothing but tax payer money being stolen, right?
“And for fans hoping to catch a glimpse of the adventure, the experience inside the rocket wasn’t even broadcast, leaving many wondering what the point of this much-anticipated event really was.”
No cake in zero gravity? Lame.
The cake is a lie.
I was wondering what the point was regardless.
Jeff needed something for his fillered up girlfriend to do.
Harvard is no Hillsdale.
So, basically what I am reading is that Katy Perry has now passed Keith Richards as the highest rock star.
Bill Shatner already did that.
Well half the time she’d have been lower than Australia, right?
That’s always the issue with getting really high isn’t it? You come down hard after a trip.
“China has stopped shipping some heavy rare earth metals and magnets critical to US production of everything from cellphones to fighter jets as Beijing’s trade war with Washington simmers, leaving American industry in a bind.
Effective April 3, China is no longer exporting seven heavy rare earth metals processed exclusively in the Asian power, as well as heavy rare earth magnets — of which about 90% of the world’s supply are also synthesized on Beijing’s territory.
The export halt applies to all countries, but access to elements like dysprosium and yttrium is critical to US industry — especially in the tech, electric vehicle, aircraft and defense sectors, according to Drew Horn, who served as the top US official on strategic minerals and energy supply chain development in President Trump’s first administration.”
Which is why we need to establish other sources.
That would have been a good move before this happened. But American politicians think ahead???
The problem was not so much thinking as the loads of cash the CCP gave them to fuck us all over.
My understanding is China has bought up most of the other sources.
There are sources in the US, we just can’t mine and process them because of all the econut rules.
NIMBY
https://www.americanexperiment.org/minnesotas-massive-manganese-deposits-more-wealth-under-our-feet/
Tourist/retirement community
Better that it happen now than during some more active/kinetic strategic conflict.
May 7th Real ID Required to Fly
So, no more black people on planes?
I’m hearing no married women.
Ive brought that up and its different!
“No one has the right to fly.”
True, only negative rights are actually rights.
Trouble is afoot in New Zealand
I’d blame the one-armed man but he’s dead.
I bet he’s hopping mad!
Ha.
He deserved that. After all he answered that sketchy ad for a pegging session on Craig’s List.
Last I heard he now identifies as a woman and calls himself Eileen.
Local woman pol does feel noways tired and has decided that she has gone far enough. She’s no Hilary Clinton for sure.
Minneapolis Council Member Emily Koski announced Monday she’s dropping out of the mayor’s race, saying she couldn’t be her “authentic self” in the current toxic political climate.
In an email to her supporters, Koski wrote that she came to a hard truth: She couldn’t be a candidate “the way it demands” and balance being a mom, building a team, serving on the council, raising a million dollars and showing up for her kids and every campaign event — all while being a person driven by honesty and integrity.
“As a woman, that balance is even harder,” she wrote. “We carry the weight of families, jobs, others’ expectations — and then we’re told to do more. Throughout this campaign, I was told I wasn’t good enough. Not strong enough. I was told it was not my time or that I was not ready. If it wasn’t said outright, it was implied in a thousand different ways.”
Koski didn’t say what she plans for her political future. She said women are expected to change and shape themselves to fit “whatever version makes others more comfortable.”
“These are the unspoken burdens women face every day — in politics and far beyond it,” she wrote.
What is this bullshit where you have to act according to certain rules if you want to get a certain job?! Totes unfair!!!
And it turns out, they were right. Keep whining.
Like this hasn’t been said of any male candidates ever.
Relevant
Couldn’t be her authentic self. No shit.
The Dem leadership, probably most of the others as well, are pure performance artists. They have no beliefs, ideals, principles or morals. Everything about their schtick and the situations they portray are completely manufactured. To call them empty and vapid would be an insult to lobotomy victims. I am reminded of the AOC crying at the detainment camp fence upon seeing the poor, poor migrant children in cages that turned out to be an abandoned parking lot and no one was present except her and the camera crew. There are too many more moments like that to count. It is pure theater. At least Hillary Clinton had to dodge bullets.
These cockroaches in clown shoes are allowed to run the greatest nation in the history of the world? By whom? The elections are just as fake. “Was there cheating? How much?. Nooooo that cant be! Who would think…..” blah blah blah. People debate about it as if there is some question when it is completely obvious on its face that the elections are frauds. Those people couldn’t get elected to police the local park for dog shit.
Give me a fucking break.
I should have added this – Cudos to Emily Koski. Apparently she has at least a shred of dignity and honesty. She knows a viper pit when she sees one.
Go home lady. Every second you spend with your family is worth a thousand years as king.
“Couldn’t be her authentic self.”
Now they want me to be sober and on time . I’m outta here !
She’s a nepo baby.
“As a woman, that balance is even harder,” she wrote. “We carry the weight of families, jobs, others’ expectations — and then we’re told to do more.“
Whereas men just sail through life drinking beer on the couch.
“Samantha Dieras, registered dietitian and director of ambulatory nutrition services at Mount Sinai Hospital, suggests looking for expiration dates on pre-packaged foods to ensure you are within the window….
“After that timeframe, bacteria can grow,” she said. “For example, if you buy a yogurt, eat it within two hours. If you are planning to stock up for a six-hour flight and wait until hour 4, you are putting yourself at risk of developing a food-borne illness.”
Tabloid “expert” advice is the worst.
Hey it is vital when eating bacteria to eat those bacteria before bacteria can grow
You often wonder if the “expert” is an idiot or the press just picked the most banal quote of a longer interview. The lesson I’ve learned with my press dealings is simply not to speak to the press.
https://nypost.com/2025/04/15/health/5-foods-and-drinks-you-should-avoid-at-the-airport-revealed/
Or maybe you could just go 5 hours without eating?
I can’t fly unless I have had three cups of coffee and a plate of beans.
not eating risks edging you towards intermittent fasting, which is a well known gateway to the far right. We would not want people to be radicalized would we.
And even small amounts of alcohol can lead to dehydration and increased urination. – this is why I always get an aisle seat
RJ – you need to mix an egg salad sandwich into your routine.
…and always find a tall, skinny guy to sit next to, so you have more room…
They left off her best advice: on the way to the airport get a double armload of gas station sushi. You will be fine.
I’m stunned at how sissified our food has become.
My Korean in-laws who live out on the farm can eat just about anything and not worry about food poisoning. They have a refrigerator, but are more likely to use it to keep beer and pop cold than to put food into it.
The nervous nellies who are sermonizing about the need to put butter into the fridge are going to be the death of us all. Our immune systems are becoming so coddled that minor bugs can wipe us out.
pop
What is that?
I now believe that His Holiness really came from Minnesota.
Pop? They keep dad on ice?
It’s Dad’s, it’s Old Fashioned.
Counterpoint: Korean food is heavily fermented to the point where rotten food doesn’t taste/smell worse.
Daily Ray of Sunshine
Sunshine is supposed to make us happy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0Af9Z1mR2Y
Sad to see a little kid have to go through that
Mia K.
@miakhalifa
‘punk’ isn’t a studded belt and an aesthetic buzzword, people have lost all sight of the fact that it’s punk to care, it’s punk to be informed; in fact, being political is NECESSARY to be punk. The root of punk ideology is anti-establishment, anti-war, anti-white supremacy
https://x.com/miakhalifa/status/1911596345669943379
So on a scale of 1 to Mia Khalifa, how punk are you glibs?
When did punk become the new buzzword that everyone wants to aspire to?
If you’re standing up for government agencies, you aren’t punk.
*looks around, puzzled*
It did?
Brat was already used up last year.
Nothing is more punk than supporting big government.
See also – “take the vaccine”
Green Day is the same band that required masks and jabs for their concerts. Pffffffffffffftttt.
*Sigh*
I am just gonna say it – punk is just another tiresome urban teen rebellion against what those people are fated to become themselves.
What Suthen said.
Agnostic Front and S.O.D. unavailable for comment.
Punk rocker in the UK
They won’t notice anyway
They’re all too busy fightin’
For a good place under the lightin’
The new groups are not concerned
With what there is to be learned
They got Burton suits, huh, ya’ think it’s funny
Turnin’ rebellion into money
The Clash had it right decades ago.
Young lady, it’s punk, not spunk. Stay in your lane.
Also, it became a aesthetic the moment it became fully skinsuited by the authleft.
(Saw TSOL and Suicidal Tendencies after covid…it was nice to hear antilockdown sentiment when so many friends and favorite bands in the scene went full throated in their support of tyranny.)
True Sounds Of Liberty! It’s in the name!
A lot of people have stayed in her lane.
“A third woman, who has not been publicly identified, will testify that Weinstein forced her into oral sex at a Manhattan hotel in 2006, prosecutors say.”
https://nypost.com/2025/04/15/us-news/harvey-weinsteins-sex-crimes-retrial-begins-in-ny-with-a-fresh-witness/
Did people have teeth then? That was 19 years ago, and I don’t remember.
meh rape happens without much fight back do to fear
Not as clear with him. He seems to have made full use of the casting couch opportunities, so it’s hard to say whether he forced himself on people or whether it was sour grapes for not becoming a major starlet.
I went to his hotel room to discuss a role. No agents, nobody else invited. I knew he had a reputation but he also could make people’s career with a phone call. The meeting was in the hotel room’s jacuzzi, naked. Then for some reason he thought we were going to fool around.
I am not saying about him but the general argument that was made
Square profile picture
The Independent
@Independent
Kneecap lead Coachella crowd in anti-Margaret Thatcher chant
https://x.com/Independent/status/1910908610537796062
so brave and anti establishment to do this at Coachella of all places
Response.
March on Downing demanding her resignation.
Find a new larp, it’s 40 years on.
Jeez. I thought it was some vintage thing. Why now? Are they on luuuuuuuuudes?
Jennifer 🟥🔴🧙♀️🦉🐈⬛ 🦖
@babybeginner
Timeline cleanser for your whole week!!!
Wait for it…..
😂😂😂😂😂
You are welcome.
https://x.com/babybeginner/status/1911303162851627134
I saw that the other day and thought it was pretty funny.
Here is the one that made me laugh
happy tax day
https://x.com/jeremykauffman/status/1912110056780292201
I helped my girlfriend finish her taxes last night. I’m so happy those transgender kids in Columbia can use her tax money to put on their musical now.
🙂
I waited until last weekend to fill out my docs, and until today to get it in the mail. Managed to pay enough over the year to not be bled dry, but not enough to change my “taxation is theft” stance.
I am thinking get rid of the income tax and that motherfucker can go learn to code.
I am thinking you do not want to pay you fair share comrade
My fair share is exactly what I want to pay. I bet you can guess what that number is.
Good for Harvard. it’s time to leave the nest.
It worked so well during the Bay of Pigs.
U.S. Strikes Spur Plans for Yemeni Ground War Against Houthis
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/yemen-houthis-operation-us-support-975febe6?st=JHv8cT&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Yikes. I guess it’s good I cancelled my trip to Texas in mid May since I don’t have a RealID yet or a passport and I highly doubt I’ll be able to get one in less than a month
Are they still letting the illegals fly without documentation? Just buy a sombrero.
I’ve long considered having a passport just part of my contingency plan for fleeing the jurisdiction if need be. Ideally, I would have a couple in other names, of course.
https://ciu.gov.kn/
Is it hard to get a Real ID now? I got one years ago, just had to bring a bill and a copy of my birth certificate, took the same amount of time as any other drivers license. Indiana DMV FTW.
It depends on the state.
I posted the NH requirements for non-REAL ID and REAL ID a few days ago. They’re basically the same. The major difference is in the documents used to prove citizenship/being-in-the-US-legally and needing one more document to prove residency for REAL ID over non-REAL ID. So, if you can get a NH non-REAL ID driver’s license, you should be able to easily get a NH REAL ID driver’s license.
NH DMV is… slow for anything in person. Getting a REAL ID in NH requires going into the DMV in person.
I’m not getting a REAL ID unless I absolutely have to because it is government overreach.
Similar to the vax for me. The requirement for Real ID to fly was supposed to happen years ago but kept getting delayed. At the time I got mine, there was a possibility I wouldn’t be able to travel with my team. My license was expired, so I went for it.
I have been meaning to renew my passport for years now, so I figure to get both done this year. I will need to fly across the country for my son’s wedding next year, no sense in putting it off.
I hear you about the over-reach though.
doomer
@uncledoomer
anyone who thinks americans dont want to work in factories anymore- you need to watch this 90s childrens toy commercial. they had toys where kids learned to do plastic vacuum molding and metal casting. the american children yearn for the automotive assembly lines.
https://x.com/uncledoomer/status/1911769476279808200
My gramma had this at her house which was super fun to play with. Always ended up with a pretty good burnt finger.
At my grandmas there were no actual toys, we made out own mostly, involving various sticks and such
I’m sure, like lawn darts, somebody ruined it for all.
Two weeks ago I was at a county garage sale, and someone had the exact Thingmaker I had as a kid. That was my favorite toy at one point. I just looked at it for a while and smiled like an insane person.
doomer
@uncledoomer
while were at it with the dire wolves, theres another extinct animal that we should bring back:
https://x.com/uncledoomer/status/1911417040222532004
I have that vacuum forming toy! Estate sale.
60s kids had the coolest stuff.
Clackers, bitchezz!
…and glass or GTFO!
Lol, I guessed wrong on the toy (I couldn’t watch the video at that computer)! Apparently us 90’s kids still had cool stuff. The one I bought is most likely from the 60’s judging by the box art.
Confirming. It’s OK to hate everyone here, right?
UnitedHealth Group Sends Demands for Hack Loan Repayments
Insurer threatens to garnish medical reimbursements if doctors don’t repay quickly
https://www.wsj.com/articles/unitedhealth-group-sends-demands-for-hack-loan-repayments-9a26376c?st=aMdtwn&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Well, sure, but I don’t see UHG wanting its loans repaid as being unreasonable. And why not apply what you owe them against what they owe you, anyway?
Me neither. But getting yourself hacked to require the loans put the practices in a bind in the first place.
Yes, it is more than ok.
I remember years ago my mother complaining to me that she got insurance notices that they had paid for tens of thousands of dollars for tests she claims she never had done.
When you have that much money changing hands there are going to be all kinds of shenanigans going on. It’s not only ok to hate them all but should be required. They should probably all be in jail.
Let me add some fuel to your fire.
The $600 Billion Medicaid Maneuver on the Chopping Block
Republican budget cutters are targeting state taxes on hospitals and nursing homes that raise federal Medicaid spending
https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/hospital-state-taxes-medicaid-budget-cuts-59af2c62?st=vqv9X2&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Chicken fights
Europeans disparage U.S. poultry as “chlorinated chicken,” or “Chlorhünchen” in the German press, and see it as possibly unsafe.
The phrase refers to the use of chlorine in poultry processing plants after the birds have been slaughtered in order to cut down on harmful bacteria that are frequent sources of food-borne illness like Salmonella and Campylobacter.
Rinsing poultry in chlorine was common practice in the U.S. when the European Union first passed a ban in 1997 that prohibited chlorine and other so-called “pathogen reduction treatments.”
——-
Nowadays, the industry mostly uses organic acids to reduce cross contamination, primarily peracetic, or peroxyacetic acid, which is essentially a mixture of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide.
Bourassa says this is typically used as part of the chilling process. Poultry carcasses are immersed in cold water with a dilution of peroxyacetic acid.
“It extends shelf life and very significantly reduces the number of bacteria,” she says.
Moving away from chlorine has let the U.S. export poultry to other countries that prohibit chlorine, but the U.K. and European Union are still off limits because they don’t allow any chemical treatment of their poultry.
Bring back wet markets.
They don’t put chlorine in tap water?
Chlorine-washed chicken vs chlorine-washed salad leaves: what’s the difference?
Find out why salad leaves are washed in chlorine, and why we’re concerned about chicken treated in the same way
https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/chlorine-washed-chicken-vs-chlorine-washed-salad-leaves-whats-the-difference-aMipZ5W3EtGW
To minimise bacterial contamination and the risk of food poisoning, farmers in the UK and EU legally have to follow high welfare and production standards throughout the system, as opposed to relying on a single decontamination stage.
Our concerns about chlorine-washed chicken are less around the actual use of chlorine, but more that these washes are used to clean up poor welfare and hygiene practices throughout the system.
we dont need none of your stinki chikin
A dilute sodium hypochlorite solution rinse is common for food decontamination, washing restaurant dishes, wiping food surfaces, moping floors etc.
Apply the bleach, wait a bit, then rinse with potable water. I use it extensively and I highly recommend it. It is harmless to you and has probably saved who knows how many lives.
The continued existence of food borne illness proves this method doesn’t work at all.
Same with handwashing.
“Celebrities Are Literally Launching Themselves Into Space And It’s Still Boring As Hell”
One of my favorite things about Space X is the production value on their launches. They have polished presenters talking you through everything, on-screen graphics, multiple camera angles, etc. Even launching a satellite is fun to watch. My 6 year old nephew and I like to watch live launches together. It’s fun, and you can see this is something that he’ll carry into his future.
Too bad those women couldn’t have been unexpectedly stuck in the space station for a few months. Zero gravity girl fights would have been the greatest video ever recorded.
This
They would have deorbited the ISS in less than a day when their makeup and expensive coffee enema requirements were not met…
How long before there’ zero gravity porn?
BREAKING: Singapore dissolves parliament, paving way for election.
The vote will be a key test for Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who became the city-state’s fourth leader in May last year.
https://x.com/NikkeiAsia/status/1912048363714838627
“An Obama-appointed judge will prevent the Trump administration from deporting hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status later this month.
The ruling is a significant, although perhaps temporary, setback for the administration as it dismantles Biden-era policies that created new and expanded pathways for people to live in the United States, generally for two years with work authorization.
The order applies to about 532,000 people from the four countries who came to the United States since October 2022 under a program called CHNV that the Biden administration was heavily criticized for.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14611469/Obama-judge-blocks-Donald-Trump-plan-deport-migrants.html
They were let in legally.
are there any hot single not to crazy women aged 20 to 30 you can deport our way?
We will send you Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, and dome other fuggly land colored hair whales, and you will LIKE IT!
Look at Pie trying to fix the hot women trade imbalance between the US and eastern Europe!
Yes, they were let in legally… by executive order. Which can be reversed by another executive order, unless you get an Obama judge who declares their guy’s executive orders can’t be reversed. I hate the assholes who got us into this situation.
It’s always been chaos, but that’s not the immigrants’ fault.
I wish the Supreme Court would stop pussyfooting and just declare that any law that is created through an Executive Order can be undone by an EO. And then tell Congress to do their jobs and actually draft the law or repeal it.
“Yes, they were let in legally… by executive order.”
I’d want to see some analysis of whether that executive order was legally effective, itself.
temporary legal status
It’s all temporary legal status until one is a permanent resident.
So, I don’t know how many of you own stocks and receive the requests to vote for boards and other proposals around this time every year. Anyhow I saw something this year that was absolutely startling to me and wanted to check with others that also have might have seen this. For the last 4 or so years, when you looked at the information of the board members, they went out of their way to peddle DEI nonsense and the person’s DEI creds. It was absolutely pedantic and blatant. And I absolutely voted against those douchebags. This year it was brutally the opposite, with massive attempts at using language to minimize those that were there for pure DEI and woke reasons, and to appear non woke and to avoid anything DEI related. The sad reality was that they still couldn’t hide people whose sole experience was community organizing and that sort of shit. Instant “Against” votes.
Anyone else see this?
Yes this is running across Wall St.
Masters of the universe mob mentality.
Defenseless
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget has proposed gutting the State Department’s budget by almost 50%, closing a number of overseas diplomatic missions, slashing the number of diplomatic staff, and eliminating funding for nearly all international organizations, including the United Nations, many of its agencies and for NATO headquarters, officials said.
The proposal, which was presented to the State Department last week and is still in a highly preliminary phase, is not expected to pass muster with either the department’s leadership or Congress, which will ultimately be asked to vote on the entire federal budget in the coming months.
——-
OMB’s efforts to severely reduce the State Department’s budget during Trump’s first term were met with fierce resistance on Capitol Hill and largely failed.
However, Trump’s second administration has moved swiftly to scale back the federal government, slashing jobs and funding across agencies. It’s already dismantled USAID and moved to defund so-called other “soft power” institutions of foreign policy importance like the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Radio Free Asia and Radio/TV Marti, which broadcasts to Cuba.
Thus, State Department officials and others have expressed increasing concern about the possibility that the proposed drastic cuts could actually be implemented.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she was “deeply troubled” by the proposed cuts.
Millions will die.
Seems like an excellent start.
Exactly.
And what will happen is the State Department’s budget will increase. We’ve seen this before.
I’m pretty sure that sending State Department employees to international negotiations increases the number of negotiators hostile to our interests. Fire them all; hell deport them all half way to El Salvador.
I really have a problem with the very existence of the State Department, as it seems to me a relic of the era of Kings and serves to give the stripey-pants crowd an excuse to go to parties and do faux “diplomacy” work among themselves.
At the same time, I acknowledge there needs to be a way for one government to communicate to another and it would be helpful for a government to have people who understand other countries and are able to give intelligent… intelligence about them. And a refuge for a citizen to flee to if the country they’re visiting is a good thing.
Speaking of Tax Day- the government should be funded by IRS employees on street corners with tin cups.
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-teachers-union-contract-bumps-average-teacher-from-86k-to-over-114k/
“The average Chicago Public Schools teacher will see their salary increase to more than $114,000 by the 2027-2028 school year. Just the raises will cost Chicagoans up to $1.25 billion.”
Here’s the kicker though: “Teacher salaries have historically been one of the largest cost drivers of spending in the CPS budget. The increase in spending has not translated into better outcomes for students. Since 2012, spending has increased by 97%, but student proficiency in reading has declined by 63% and by 78% in math for grades 3-8.”
Must be nice to suck at your job and still somehow be able to extort your employer for more money and benefits.
How is the average Chicago student doing?
I apparently can’t read either.
Ok, but how much worse would it be if they didn’t give the teachers this raise!
How much better would it be if they fired the teachers.
It’s not about the students. Think of the teachers.
Thank a teacher.
One of the biggest issues I have with teacher unions are that they’ll proclaim that without help from parents and a lack of a stable home, kids won’t perform well which I agree with to a certain point, but without any irony will also say that if you don’t give them what they want, you hate the kids. And on top of that, they are the biggest drivers when it comes to killing homeschooling and school choice which forces students to stay in their Citadels of Failure.
Teacher unions exist to look out for teachers, not students, schools, or the community.
Mrs. TOK’s cousin is a teacher here in Indiana. She bitches incessantly on FB about politics and how little she gets paid and how terrible our state government is. A teacher in Indiana on average gets $60k for working 2/3 of the year. Yet that recent report about student test scores puts Indiana in the top 5 both now and in the prior assessment. Interesting.
https://schoolcalendarguide.com/chicago-public-schools-calendar/
I make that at 180 working days for them.
So about the equivalent of 177k for a full-time gig.
If the trouble with China is solved, maybe the US will make the more inclusive word Chinx finally a thing…
Bravo!
Anyone have a credit card through Amazon? I’m thinking about getting a separate card just for monthly recurring services, so when my credit union card gets frauded I don’t have to scramble to change the card number on streaming services, etc. Amazon card gives percent back for stuff I do a lot of, and they pretty much already know everything about me.
I do. Metal card (which some places won’t take, but it’s not common), gets 5% back on Amazon purchases, so that’s what I predominantly use it for.
Yes, it’s through Chase.
I have the same one. It’s fine.
There’s also this: https://www.privacy.com/
I started looking into it, but haven’t made up my mind yet.
They were “just about” to start too…
DOGE cut a CDC team as it was about to start a project to help N.C. flood victims
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5364897/cdc-disaster-doge-trump-layoffs-hurricane-helene
It’s amazing to me how NPR (and other MSM) don’t understand how these sob stories don’t resonate with most of the US anymore.
Not to mention, it’s SIX MONTHS after the storm. The person they interviewed declared “That six-month mark is a really critical time,” but, of course, NPR offered no statement after that to explain why that is a critical time.
And how much help have private organizations and individuals provided in the meantime?
“mold and financial and mental health aftereffects”
And what does the CDC have to do with “financial aftereffects”? It’s honestly unreal.
If your disaster relief effort isn’t finished by the six month mark it failed. If it hasn’t started yet someone should be crucified. I mean that literally.
The state of peer reviewed research in world today.
https://theconversation.com/a-weird-phrase-is-plaguing-scientific-papers-and-we-traced-it-back-to-a-glitch-in-ai-training-data-254463
That’s both fascinating and depressing.
The Milei administration dropped the most anticipated news of the year: removing capital and exchange controls on the Peso. It will float in narrow band against the dollar. While maintaining a restriction on monetary financing from the Central bank.
https://x.com/rasheedguo/status/1910808345059221954
Eric Weinstein
@EricRWeinstein
I find myself in agreement with @realchrisrufo
on this point.
I’ll fill a bit in as well that doesn’t seem to be well known.
Our private research universities are not actually purely private. They are designed to be both a cryptic soft extension of the state (e.g. national security, priming the prosperity pipeline with blue sky research, truth adjudication, etc.), which is also oppositely intended as an independent check on the state and state power in times of abuse as well. This tacit and quiet knowledge, which used to be held at the AAU and the relevant professors, has been mostly lost.
So ‘overhead’ or ‘indirect costs’ is not actually overhead at all. It is supposed to be cryptic state support based on research merit to avoid political pressure to fund 3rd tier universities at the same level as Princeton. So the whole system was designed back in the Vannevar Bush era but without leaving the esoteric knowledge with modern academicians.
It’s a disaster. It was a quiet game which worked brilliantly to serve the nation and its population until lunatics started to get a foothold in the research universities.
This is why when you audit this stuff, you see waste. It wasn’t ever intended to be what it appears to be: this was the USG paying to have a totally ELITE and EXCLUSIVE quasi-private, quasi-public resource. Think Manhattan project. Think The Jasons. Think winning.
https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1911860857249906738
They are taking out their own trash and cleaning their own toilets.
NOAA scientists scrub toilets, rethink experiments after service contracts end
One federal lab has lost janitorial services, hazardous waste support, IT, and building maintenance.
TW: Ars
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/noaa-scientists-scrub-toilets-rethink-experiments-after-service-contracts-end/
I’m not sure DNA testing Salmon is worth spending Taxpayer dollars.
Do you want inbred salmon? Without DNA testing how will the salmon know who they should breed with?
They won’t be able to complete construction of the salmon criminal database.
Scrubbing toilets? Carbon reduction.
Shouldn’t they be using composting toilets? To save water of course.
Let’s just suppose for the sake of argument that there are some disruptions happening as a result of the DOGE cuts (self-interested government employees are certainly not above cherry-picking, exaggeration, or outright fabrication, but we’ll go with it).
So it would have been nice to cut spending in ways that don’t cause such disruptions. It would have been nice to have some congressional hearings about this item or that and debate whether or not we truly need it. Then if it’s determined that it can be cut, we would have a pre-planned phasing out of that spending so that the salmon DNA lab is not without janitorial services.
But that wasn’t on the ballot. Democrats insist that every single penny on the budget is a matter of life and death, and Republicans talk the big talk about cutting spending but ultimately settle for a slowdown of the increase in spending, if that. Trump was the only one who is taking actual action on this. Is it imperfect? Of course. But if people don’t like how it’s being done, they need to step up with a better way of doing it. That’ll never happen.
Bingo.
On April 1, Helene and about 55 other public health workers from the county and state government, as well as a local university, were set to go door to door, surveying 210 households about any enduring challenges facing residents of Asheville’s Buncombe County.
They’d prepared detailed questionnaires about food insecurity, unsafe drinking water and toxic chemical exposure. The mission of Helene’s CDC team was to collect and process that survey data and write up a report — all within 48 hours — so that local officials could solve residents’ most pressing problems.
We need an organization chart and a proposal to investigate the preliminary structure of a plan. Give us another eighteen months, and we’ll likely have a sense of the next step in the process.
Six months of planning to provide a report to local officials. After that it’s on them.
I’m sure that report will be incredibly useful.
TSA pre-check requires all the same documents as RealID…so really, its as DEG is pointing out, government overreach on a 20 year delayed program that proves it does nothing other than more tracking of its citizens.
So does this mean we’ll all get to use the Pre-Check lines now? And that the rapescanners are being dismantled and removed as we speak?
Pre-Check requires “the interview”.
That consists of walking into a room showing your documentation to the Feds and getting your picture taken. I think maybe 20 words were exchanged.
I know, I’ve had Pre-Check for a while now. That was sarcasm.
Pre-Check requires “the interview”.
And a payment. Don’t forget that. The Don needs to wet his beak.
Bonus NJ trivia from today.
According the first hit I saw on Google, NJ has 6.5m licensed drivers in 2021. So 22%. Exactly the efficiency I’d expect from Trenton.
https://www.foxnews.com/travel/no-real-id-appointments-open-new-jersey-residents-sounding-off-get-times-nj
About 8 years ago I did a NJ renewal and had to provide all of the data that would have been good enough for RealID… but then somehow it wasn’t quite right for the feds.. so they weren’t RealIDs.. I’ve always had a passport (latest one renewed in 2 weeks)
Saw this NJ article earlier and loved this narrowed gaze-worthy item in the comments: “My friend David had his ID stolen.
Now he’s just Dav.”
Dr Mossy Lawn – It’s the backend that didn’t meet FedGov’s requirements. NJ always asked for the proper documentation, but whatever process they had to validate it didn’t meet with FedGov’s approval.
Thanks to the COVID madness I hadn’t set foot in MVS in roughly two decades. I knew they were going to force me to come in person so I renewed last summer and did so as Real ID compliant.
My wife, OTH, has a passport and feels no need to have a Real ID driver’s license if it means she can renew by mail. I would feel the same.
But the benefits are infinite, according to the model
The Trump administration canceled a $3.1 billion grant program for climate-friendly crops, the Agriculture Department announced Monday.
In a press release, the department said that it was canceling Biden-era Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, which funded 141 projects that sought to advance climate-friendly farming practices.
Projects funded under the program supported things like planting cover crops, which prevent soil erosion, and managing soil nutrients to minimize farming’s environmental impacts.
The Biden administration estimated that the program would reach more than 60,000 farms and cut more than 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide — the equivalent of taking 12 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year.
However, the Trump administration said that most of the projects “had sky-high administration fees which in many instances provided less than half of the federal funding directly to farmers.”
——-
“The Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative was largely built to advance the green new scam at the benefit of NGOs, not American farmers,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in a written statement.
Government at its best.
“cut more than 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide”
Farming by reducing plant food.
Who says FedGov doesn’t have a sense of humor?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mohsen-mahdawi-palestinian-columbia-activist-arrested-trump-administration-mahmoud-khalil/
War on entrepreneurs
Spanish police said Monday that they had arrested two people suspected of selling online exotic cats including protected species such as white tigers and pumas, and had confiscated 19 felines in the operation.
Officers arrested the couple on the island of Majorca, where they are suspected of raising desert lynxes and servals, a wild cat native to Africa, as well as hybrid species created by crossing these breeds with domestic cats, police said in a statement. According to the Majorca Daily Bulletin, the two suspects arrested are Russian.
Further investigations found that their activities were just “the tip of the iceberg” of an international trafficking operation of protected species such as white tigers and black panthers “involving breeders, transporters and veterinarians,” the Spanish Civil Guard and Interior Ministry said in a news release.
They should have said they were a de-extinction operation.
Relevant, and for KK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmVN6mNX3Hw
Pre-extinction, needs taxpayer funding
The scourge of populism
Driving the news: While El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, the self-described “world’s coolest dictator,” was in the White House giving his full support to President Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was down in Buenos Aires, greeting Argentine President Javier Milei with a big hug.
For the record: “Secretary Bessent affirmed the United States’ full support for President Milei’s bold economic reforms,” the official readout of the meeting says. It describes how he “emphasized the United States’ trust in President Milei to continue advancing Argentina’s positive economic momentum.”
Between the lines: Bukele and Milei are the avatars of a populist right in Latin America, taking every opportunity to make deals with Trump.
——-
What they’re saying: A White House official tells Axios, “President Trump welcomes the IMF’s loan to Argentina, which will support President Milei’s groundbreaking and urgently needed economic reforms that will drive growth for Argentina and the region at large.”
“This moment also creates new opportunities to deepen the U.S.-Argentina partnership and shared prosperity.”
The bottom line: If you want to be on good terms with Trump, it helps to be an iconoclastic populist right-winger.
Pandering to the will of the people? That’s no way to run
WTF?
Pandering to the will of the people? That’s no way to run a democracy.
At the US taxpayers’ expense.
J.D. Vance’s disdain for Europe has never been clearer
https://archive.vn/TLffL
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/j-d-vances-disdain-for-europe-has-never-been-clearer/
“the collective security commitment of Nato is designed to offset that.”
As you note, a ridiculous non-sequitur; it only “offsets” in the sense that the US is part of NATO. Remove that and we’re right back to “can’t defend themselves”.
Bitch life
In America, while a rising number of women are dying because doctors refuse to treat their miscarriages or are arrested for having them, where millions of women may lose hard-won voting rights while others are eradicated from public life and historical record because of their gender, six rich women did what rich people do best in perilous times: blissfully abscond to the safety of their own private estates or islands or yachts — or, in this case, spaceship — and flaunt their wealth to the masses.
On Monday morning, six mostly rich and/or famous women boarded a rocket and traveled on billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepard Rocket to the Kármán line — the boundary separating Earth’s atmosphere and space — and remained in this space briefly, for a journey that lasted a total of approximately 11 minutes.
For this cunning act of marketing Blue Origin’s space tourism, the company declared these women “trailblazers” and history makers for being its first “all-female flight crew.” On the same webpage, the company includes information about how you, too, can “fly on a future New Shepard mission” and “purchase commemorative merchandise.” Interested space tourists must put down a $150,000 deposit; the company does not share information about the total cost of a ticket, although it did auction a seat on its first flight for $28 million.
Just think how many NGO abortion doctors we could have fed with that money. How many climatologists?
… while a rising number of women are dying because doctors refuse to treat their miscarriages or are arrested for having them, where millions of women may lose hard-won voting rights while others are eradicated from public life and historical record because of their gender,
“Citation needed” for _all_ of that nonsense.
*pulls EJECT handle*
I’m all for women’s progress and liberation. But calling this a win for women feels outright delusional.
Yet some on the crew (which included Bezos’ girlfriend, Lauren Sánchez) championed their effort as just that, an important marker of progress for their fellow women: “This representation really matters,” said crew member and aerospace scientist Aisha Bowe. “It’s people seeing themselves and being able to show up authentically in their careers in the future.” Pop star Katy Perry interpreted their flight as “making space for future women and taking up space and belonging.”
But space tourism is not feminism. It is consumer capitalism, at its most inaccessible. Businesses have for decades tried to sell us this form of what feminist writer Andi Zeisler has called superficial “marketplace feminism.” Monday’s “historic” mission is nothing less than a show of identity politics thinly cloaking the American capitalist impulse of the “more is better” mentality. The glamour shots of the six women in their suits — looking serious but sexy, their partly unzipped suits flashing just a bit of skin — are proof of how this faux feminism mutilates real feminist politics and turns it into an aesthetic posture.
*circus clown music*
I feel myself both half agreeing with and hating that at the same time.
I can admit I am not a Great Explorer or pioneer when I visit City of Rocks while not feeling the slightest bit guilty about spending my own money and time to visit purely for my own enjoyment. The chicks took an expensive amusement ride. They said some stupid things about it; that’s kind of what they do.
Sure.
I do also feel it’s fine to mock them though. Cause it is kind of hilarious.
“the collective security commitment of Nato is designed to offset that.”
“NATO hereby agrees to allow The United States to provide defense of the Organization at its own expense.”
Problem solved! Promotions all around!