Government Unions Sue to Block Trump’s Executive Order

Government Unions Sue to Block Trump's Executive Order 1

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Government Unions Sue to Block Trump's Executive Order 2

Last Thursday night, President Trump signed an executive order putting an end to unionized collective bargaining at more than two dozen government agencies. This could potentially end union representation for more than half of all government workers. The unions and those who support them greeted Trump’s move as a declaration of war and promised a swift response. A statement released by the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) said lawsuits were on the way.

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“This administration’s bullying tactics represent a clear threat not just to federal employees and their unions, but to every American who values democracy and the freedoms of speech and association. Trump’s threat to unions and working people across America is clear: fall in line or else.

“These threats will not work. Americans will not be intimidated or silenced. AFGE isn’t going anywhere. Our members have bravely served this nation, often putting themselves in harm’s way, and they deserve far better than this blatant attempt at political punishment.

“AFGE is preparing immediate legal action and will fight relentlessly to protect our rights, our members, and all working Americans from these unprecedented attacks.”

The lawsuit from AFGE hasn’t materialized yet and is still probably a week or two away, but Immediately after Trump executive order was signed last week, some of the agencies involved sued the unions in federal court. One of the unions that was sued was the National Treasury Employees union. Here’s a bit of what that lawsuit says.

Since taking office,two ofPresident Trump’s top priorities for his Administration have beento improve the efficiency and efficacy of the federal workforce, and to promotethe national security of the United States.Unfortunately, many Executive Branch departments and agencies have beenhamstrung in advancing both of those important efforts by restrictive terms of collective bargaining agreements (CBAs).

These CBAs significantly constrain the Executive Branch, restricting how agencies hire and manage employees. They also effectivelydelegate important decision-making to unaccountable private arbitrators in the form of grievance arbitration. Virtually all limit the power of the President and his Executive Branch officials to promptly identify and address underperformance…

In light of the Executive Order and OPM guidance, Plaintiff now respectfully seeks a declaratory judgment from this Court that it has the power to rescind or repudiate the national CBA, as well as local supplemental agreements and MOUs(collectively, CBAs)with the National Treasury Employees Union(NTEU)and Defendant, one of the local chapters of NTEU that implements and executes the terms of the CBA in Kentucky.

Plaintiff wishes to rescind or repudiate those agreements, including so it can protect national security by developing personnel policies that otherwise would be precluded or hindered by the CBAs. But to ensure legal certainty and avoid unnecessary labor strife, it first seeks declaratory relief to confirm that it is legally entitled to proceed with doing so.

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Today, the NTEU filed a lawsuit in response. 

A union that represents 150,000 U.S. government employees filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to block President Donald Trump from stripping hundreds of thousands of federal workers of the ability to collectively bargain with government agencies through their unions.

The National Treasury Employees Union said in the lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C. federal court that Trump’s executive order last week exempting more than a dozen agencies from collective bargaining obligations violates federal workers’ labor rights and the U.S. Constitution and threatens the union’s very existence.

The NTEU said the order applies to more than 100,000 of its 158,000 members and would require agencies to stop deducting union dues from those workers’ paychecks, a major blow to the union’s revenue and bargaining power.

That last paragraph sums up what this is all about for the unionists. Trump is cutting off their dues money so they will fight to protect that. The Trump administration is not only reducing the size of government, it is reducing Democrats’ piggy bank for future elections. Given what a serious challenge this represents, I’m surprised this isn’t getting more attention. So far the union issue seems to be on the back burner to opposition to DOGE. But that could change. 

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As I mentioned before, the public sector unions can’t risk a strike because that would give Trump a perfect opportunity to fire them. However, they can continue to protest outside of work hours. There’s another big protest planned for this coming Saturday, April 5.

Another test of the strength of the protest movement against Trump will come on April 5, when a coalition of liberal groups is planning nationwide demonstrations, including one at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. They’re taking everything they can get their hands on, and daring the world to stop them,” Indivisible, the organization running the so-called Hands Off! protests, said in a social media post.”

A bunch of unions, including NTEU, are part of the coalition that is supposed to turn out Saturday so we’ll have to wait and see how that goes.

Posted in Republican News

Hungry Yet, UK? British Government Going After Fishes and Farms

Hungry Yet, UK? British Government Going After Fishes and Farms 3

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Hungry Yet, UK? British Government Going After Fishes and Farms 4

I should do a daily column on their lunacy, this is getting to be so ridiculous.

It must be delightful to realize that YOU are the burden to your government, and not the other way around.

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I mean, that has to be so, else why are they constantly on the march to reduce food and energy sources for the British people?

The criticism over energy bills and cutting allowances for pensioners has been particularly brutal, and it turned out to be an awful winter on top of it.

Too bad, so sad.

But it won’t make no nevermind, as we say down here.

The happy Malthusian enthusiasts in Keir Starmer’s Labour government are going out of their way to starve whoever they didn’t freeze to death this past winter.

Skinny, starving people freeze faster, you know.

It’s Settled Science™.

So the first thing they announced was, rather than killing off cows, they’re working out how just to take the land back from farmers. It’s a shame if they grew foodstuffs on it for people, too, but these are the sacrifices one must make to save the planet for…somebody.

None of you British peasant people, obviously.

Any time a progressive says they’re looking for ‘new ways to deliver’ anything, gird your loins particularly when they’re not busy chattering away about it. This means they’re up to no good, sneaky style.

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The Land Use Framework, which states that 9% of England’s farmland will need to be taken out of production for climate goals, is “flying under the radar” for many farmers.

This is according to Laura Greenman, partner at HCR Law, who is urging farming businesses to have their say on the plans as the industry is “once again under threat”.

The Land Use Framework, which was launched for consultation at the end of January, seeks a new strategic approach to managing land use in England.

As part of it, the government is looking at new ways to deliver housebuilding, nature goals, energy infrastructure and entire new towns.

The framework states that 9% of England’s agricultural land will need to be taken out of production to meet environmental and climate targets.

What, ho?!

Nine percent of British farmland, gone? Just like that?

Ms Greenman, who seems to be abominably named considering she’s arguing for the practical side, points out very politely that none of these big plans talks about ‘FOOD‘ production. Doesn’t take it into account at all.

…Ms Greenman says that while it focuses on planning, energy and infrastructure, she warns that little consideration has been given to food security.

…“The framework claims to support Britain’s food security while suggesting that 760,000ha of agricultural land in England must be removed from production,” says Ms Greenman.

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What? 

No worries, says Labour. Who needs food?

We’ve plenty of it, and besides, bugs don’t take up much space.

Speaking of that, old chaps, LET’S TALK ABOUT THOSE FISH AND CHIPS…

You can wave goodbye to that distinctly succulent British treat if Labour has anything to do with it.

FOR THE CHILDREN

Labour is implementing stricter net zero measures on fishing boats, canal barges and pleasure craft, The Telegraph can reveal.

Under the maritime decarbonisation strategy, boat owners will be forced to swap out diesel engines, petrol generators and wood-fired stoves for electric motors, batteries and extra shore power hookups.

There will also be tax rises on marine fuel, with new boats required to be entirely electric.

Maritime bosses branded the Government’s plans “completely and utterly impractical”.

Richard Gregson, the owner of Worcester-based Classic Yacht Brokerage, said: “It’s complete nonsense to have net zero on yachts.

“The technology for electric engines on small boats isn’t really there. The amount of diesel a yacht burns in a year is negligible, and even if the diesel engines were replaced it would be offset by the making of electric batteries.”

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And listen to all the complainers. Good grief.

…Jerry Percy, the chief executive of the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association, representing operators of craft less than 10 metres in length, said that adding emissions taxes to fuel for Britain’s fishing boats would “destroy the industry overnight”.

“At the moment we get a subsidy on diesel for fishing vessels; we pay less than you pay for it at the pumps. If they even remove that subsidy… three quarters of the fleet would go bankrupt,” he said.

Speaking about proposals to force fishing boats to go electric, he added: “It’s going to take some persuasion for companies to build port infrastructure for what is a relatively small number of vessels … I think we need to transition, but it’s not going to be easy”.

Peter Braybrook, the secretary of the National Association of Boat Owners, cautioned that replacing diesel engines and generators on canal boats would be impractical.

“The major problem is charging them on most canal boats, which are about seven foot wide and 60 foot long,” he said.

He added that the available space was not enough to install solar panels capable of charging boats for more than six hours’ operation.

Mr Braybrook warned the net zero measures could trigger a wave of homelessness, as people who lived on canal boats because of the high cost of housing would be unable to afford an enforced switch to electric power.

“No way they could do it,” said Mr Braybrook. “They’d be forced off the water, off their off-grid lifestyle, and probably into homelessness.”

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Seriously now – this is a government on crack.

Pretty soon they’re going to run out of peasants to run over.

Posted in Republican News

Hochul’s Corrupt Medicaid ‘Reforms’ Send Billions to Her Donor

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I’m sure you have heard all about how mean, nasty, ugly and rapacious the Republicans are. They work assiduously, day, night, through rain, sleet, snow, and even hurricanes to steal candy out of baby’s mouths and needed care away from the weak and disabled. 

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Elon Musk, who is a very stupid man who has never accomplished a thing, is finally in a place where he can get rich by stealing Social Security and Medicare funds. After a lifetime with no accomplishments, he is filling his pockets with your money. 

Uh, yeah, right. Whatever. 

As Democrats scream to high heaven about how Elon Musk is cutting aid to the needy, Kathy Hochul is…cutting aid to the needy, dumping a program to allow family members to take care of their disabled relatives, and giving a contract to a political contributor–who is working with the communist Service Employees International Union–to sweep in and control the market for home health aids. 

This is in the name of efficiency. Efficiently ripping off the taxpayers, the disabled, and private businesses not part of the Democratic Party grift, that is. 

A lack of funds does not drive Hochul’s need to cut back on Medicaid expenditures–she has increased Medicaid funding more in four years than Andrew Cuomo did in 11. As she cuts funds for autism and other programs for the needy, the primary motivation seems to be consolidating the market and ensuring that her contributors get their palms greased. 

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New York is facing yet another lawsuit alleging it rigged the bidding process for Gov. Kathy Hochul’s move to overhaul a massive $9 billion homecare program.

The new filing alleges that powerful healthcare union 1199SEIU was in on the fix to help controversial firm Public Partnerships LLC secure the multi-million dollar contract to handle payment services for the rapidly expanding Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program.

At least five lawsuits have so far been filed to try and unravel Hochul’s overhaul of the CDPAP, two of which have specifically alleging bid-rigging on the part of the governor’s administration.

Hochul and the state legislature, as part of the gov’s revamp of the allegedly fraud-ridden program, agreed to get rid of nearly 700 middlemen firms that acted as payroll agents between CDPAP caregivers and Medicaid in favor of one hand-picked contractor.

Critics, including the existing middlemen firms like Mark’s Homecare LLC — which filed the latest suit in Albany Supreme Court — have been crying foul about the process leading up Public Partnerships LLC being awarded the bid.

I have a hard time finding time to cry for many of the other companies getting edged out of the market–the entire industry is rife with corruption and questionable business practices–but making it even more difficult for family members to take care of their loved ones is disgusting. But then again, this is New York, where the scheme to dump COVID patients into nursing homes was cooked up. Far be it from me to suggest that killing off the aged and infirm was the plan, but…maybe it was the plan. 

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NY Senate GOP is urging 

@SecKennedy

 to investigate Kathy Hochul’s overhaul of the CDPAP program.

In 8 days over 100,000 elderly and disabled New Yorkers will lose their Medicaid home healthcare, and 600+ businesses will be shut down.

“We request that 

@HHSGov

 open an investigation into its implementation and the motivation behind this deeply flawed process.”

Kathy Hochul overhauled this Medicaid program and gave the entire contract to her billionaire donor friend at the advice of a consulting firm which owns 25% of her friend’s company.

RIGGED AND CORRUPT

When Elon Musk moves to pare back fraud in Social Security and Medicare to ensure that services can be well-funded, the left screams “cuts in benefits.” When Kathy Hochul enables fraud and cuts benefits, the left screams “government efficiency.” Projection, thy name is Democrat. 

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Whatever the Democrats say, expect the opposite to be true. Republicans are not angels by any means, but the modern Democrat Party is nothing but a scam. 

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NY Times: Democrats Are Still in Denial

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NY Times: Democrats Are Still in Denial 7

I’ve covered this topic a lot lately but over the weekend the New York Times editorial board weighed in on the question of why Democrats lost the last election and how refusal to acknowledge that could hurt them moving forward.

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Frankly, if you read my post about this last week (or this earlier one), there’s nothing new here. Still, the fact that the NY Times is saying pretty much the same things is news in itself. There is clearly a right answer to this question about why Democrats lost the last election but many Democrats, including the new chair of the DNC, seem intent on getting this wrong.

In the aftermath of this comprehensive defeat, many party leaders have decided that they do not need to make significant changes to their policies or their message. They have instead settled on a convenient explanation for their plight.

That explanation starts with the notion that Democrats were merely the unlucky victims of postpandemic inflation and that their party is more popular than it seems: If Democrats could only communicate better, particularly on social media and podcasts, the party would be fine. “We’ve got the right message,” Ken Martin, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said while campaigning for the job. “What we need to do is connect it back with the voters.”

So if that’s the wrong answer, what is the correct answer? People don’t like what Democrats stand for.

Most voters did not like Mr. Trump. They did prefer him to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Polls make clear that inflation was not the only reason. Voters also trusted Republicans more than Democrats on immigration, crime, government spending, global trade and foreign policy. Among the few exceptions were abortion and health care. As the headline of a recent Times news article summarized, “Support for Trump’s Policies Exceeds Support for Trump.” Only 27 percent of Americans now have a favorable view of the Democratic Party. It is the party’s lowest approval rating in decades.

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The Times says Democrats need to do three things to come back from the wilderness. First, admit they lied to everyone about Joe Biden.

Already, many voters believe that Democrats refuse to admit uncomfortable truths on some subjects, including crime, illegal immigration, inflation and Covid lockdowns. Mr. Biden’s age became a glaring example.

Second, they need to admit they moved too far left for many voters. Listen as the NY Times sounds a lot like Bill Maher talking about woke extremism and cancel culture.

Even today, the party remains too focused on personal identity and on Americans’ differences — by race, gender, sexuality and religion — rather than our shared values. On these issues, progressives sometimes adopt a scolding, censorious posture. It is worth emphasizing that this posture has alienated growing numbers of Asian, Black and Latino voters.

Finally, the editorial board says Democrats need to offer some new ideas, i.e. something besides “orange man bad” to win voters back.

Almost as interesting as the editorial itself are some of the responses from readers. The top response is a post arguing that Bernie Sanders and AOC are the answer to the party’s problems. 

The Democrats are just as susceptible to the influence of money in politics. They’ve abandoned the working class in order to maintain the status quo, despite the fact the status quo became worse and worse for the average Joe.  Bernie Sanders and AOC realize this and Sander in particular has been warning us for over a decade. We need an economic New Deal and the only way that can happen is if the rich get taxed. The donor class is not a fan of this however, and, well, money talks.

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As I pointed out last week, moving toward Bernie is doubling down on stupid. People are already abandoning the party as too far left, so going even farther to the left is not smart. However, the Bernie posts seem to emphasize that while he’s a socialist he’s not a big proponent of wokeism. He remains focused on the traditional concerns of socialism, class warfare.

The #3 response from a frustrated Democrat is worth a read as it seems to confirm that wokeism is a turnoff, even for many “POC’s.”

I’ve been a registered democrat all my life. I am also a POC. I reluctantly agree with the sentiment that “Even today, the party remains too focused on personal identity and on Americans’ differences — by race, gender, sexuality and religion — rather than our shared values.” I feel that the Democratic Party has become a group of fringe issue votors who are losing sight of the main issues that plague Americans, of whatever gender, race, or ethnicity- access to health care, affordable housing, a decent wage, safe water and air, the right to choose, and access to affordable college education. We have to focus and get back to these fundamentals. I also read with regret University of Michigan’s decision to cancel the DEI program. At first I was outraged, then I saw that millions of dollars were wasted but diversity actually decreased! If instead of these cushy “diversity administrators and offices” we had simply provided scholarships to black youth, benefits would have been far higher. I think we democrats are wasting our time thinking about how to talk about things than actually doing anything useful to improve the lives of our citizens. We need a wake up call.

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Another one like that:

The Trump campaign saw a golden opportunity in the Democrat’s insane support of policies like puberty blockers and mastectomies for children and transgender competition in women’s sports.  Promoting officials like Rachel Levine and the baggage thief Sam Brinton looked like providing “representation” rather than hiring for merit.  That was a culture war on biology, the mainstream of normies, and the basis of society and family.

What I don’t see in the comments is anyone defending Joe Biden or the current leadership of the party. It suggests the Democrats in denial are mostly the elected ones at the top while the people who make up the party (at least most of the ones reading the NY Times) are already convinced something needs to change.

Posted in Republican News

What the DOGErs Keep Finding at Social Security Explains the Progressive Spasms

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What the DOGErs Keep Finding at Social Security Explains the Progressive Spasms 9

Honest to God, it makes you wonder if this is how the Left has been paying off their border-crossing shock troops.

If you’ll remember back to last week, when Elon and the DOGE team made their first official appearance together on Bret Baier’s show, I said the segment on Social Security should be required viewing for every little old recipient squawking about a billionaire 400 times over trying to steal their $1500 a month check.

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The reason SS recipients now have to personally come to an office to change their banking info if they wanted a bank deposit address changed was because of the rampant phone fraud the DOGE team had uncovered almost immediately. Forty percent of ALL CALLS were fraudulent efforts to change direct deposit info. This was done to protect Granny, not rob her and make her life miserable.

HOLY SMOKES, RIGHT?

Honey, that ain’t the half of it.

There’s a guy by the name of Antonio Gracias, who, as founder and managing partner at Valor Equity Partners, has proven to be a pretty smart fellow in his own right. As a patriotic American, he was willing to work with Elon at DOGE.

And how lucky are we? 

Because what Gracias revealed he and the DOGE team found at Social Security ‘by accident’ after, as he said…

‘There are a lot of good people in the system who pointed us in this direction and I want to honor them right now. That work in the government today. Who took risks to show us these numbers and tell us this was going on.’

…is gobsmacking.

What is the ‘this’ he’s referring to that they found?

That the Biden administration in 2024 – one year – gave 2.1 MILLION NON-CITIZENS social security numbers.

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There’s only one reason to do that.

…GRACIAS: “In 2021, 270,000 non-citizens got social security numbers. In 2024, 2.1M non-citizens got social security numbers.  We went in to find fraud and found this by accident.  

….this is non-political…

… I have been from DC, to the social security offices, to the border to track this down. Very good people helped us along the way and I want to thank them.”

So that’s irritating, right?

What does it actually mean in terms of dollars, cents, and ‘illegal’?

It turns out the system took quite a hit – the worst part being? It was intended to hit the system hard. To create a class of Democratic loyalists, dependent on the state from the very second they stepped over the border. 

…“If I hadn’t seen this myself, I’m not sure I believed it. I went through it myself and mapped it. And Elon is right. This is true. The defaults in the system from social security to all of the benefit programs have been set to max inclusion, MAX PAY for these people and minimum collection. 

We found 1.3 million of them already on Medicaid as an example. We’ve gone through on every benefit program we went through, we found groups from this particular group of people, this 5.5 million people in those benefit programs. 

 And then what was really, really disturbing us was why we’re asking ourselves why. So we actually just took a sample and looked at voter registration records and we found people here registered to vote in this population. Yes.  

Who did vote? We found some by sampling that ACTUALLY DID VOTE.  

We have referred them to prosecution at the Homeland Security Investigation Service. Yeah. Already, already. That is already happening right now. The truly disturbing thing though, I just want you to know this, a truly disturbing thing to me, and the darkest thing about this, to me, the voter fraud is terrible.”

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Look at how many they’d already locked on at the beginning of 2025.

It doesn’t take long to erase honest-to-God Americans if you double the number of illegals every year who are allowed to masquerade as citizens by your own government.

And if you don’t think the Coconut Queen wasn’t going to keep this ball rolling, I have some burnt rubber in Minnesota to sell you.

This utterly explains the DOGE freakout and violent spazz attacks against Elon and the entire concept.

Democrats don’t want to ‘save’ Social Security or any of the benefits associated with it.

They want to save their slush fund.

…The whistleblower, who worked directly with migrants, revealed staffers were instructed to identify and document minor health issues like “recurring headaches” or “lower back problems” that would qualify migrants for long-term disability payments that would continue for life.  

This wasn’t just assistance—it was a deliberate plan to ensure they “never have to work a day in their lives in America.” 

This testimony aligns with the Trump administration’s recent executive order aimed at preventing taxpayer money from supporting illegal immigration, including measures to identify federally funded programs providing benefits to those unlawfully present in the country…

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The entire twelve-minute presentation is here when you have time. It is well worth the watch and absolutely chilling.

…MUSK: “People think that Biden was asleep at the switch. They weren’t asleep at the switch. It was a massive large scale program to import as many illegals as possible, ultimately to change the entire voting map of the United States and disenfranchise the American people and making it a deep blue one party state from which there would be no escape.”  

GRACIAS: “Human Traffickers made $13-15B off of this. This is a human tragedy. We created a system that created an incentive for people to come here and get taken advantage of by these traffickers.” 

MUSK: “This is not made up by the right. This is absolutely true…The real reason for these attacks and the burning of the cars, is that we’re going to turn off the payments to illegals…I think this is the biggest voter fraud in the history of America by far. If the machine behind the Kamala puppet had won then they would have legalized all the illegals and there would be no swing states.”

Thank YOU, Antonio Gracias, son of Spanish immigrants, for volunteering to expose the despicable perfidy, unspeakable evil, and contemptible thievery. 

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Especially for being willing to expose yourself to the virulent madness of the Left.

Because they are losing it over ‘turning off the payments’ big time.

Beege ADDS: As we’ve been chatting this up in the comments and on X, lemme just add it in here to clarify people questioning the legal v illegal immigrant and numbers:

I think the gist of the exponential rise in numbers is precisely that the rise in Social Security was the border or whatever scheme Biden was letting them in under, be it flying Haitians and Venezuelans in for ‘temporary status,’ whatever. 

The DOGErs still have to separate the wheat from the chaff, but no one in their right mind thinks that LEGAL immigration shot up to more than DOUBLE in a SINGLE YEAR to goose those Social Security numbers. 

At 2:25 in the last video in my post, @AntonioGracias goes into what he found out happened at the border and how these illegals got into the SS system.

What DOGE team members and those intrepid volunteers are uncovering is precisely the sort of stories we relish bringing you here at HotAir. Ed, David, John, and I only get to cover the world as we see it because of HotAir’s VIP membership and their tremendous support for what we do and how we do it. 

We would love to invite you to join our most awesome community, and there’s no time like the present. Use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership. The comment sections are always lively, and believe me, there’s so much more. Ed’s videos and the unique VIP pieces we all do (and now Mitch) are just a sampling.

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Columbia’s Interim President Steps Down (Update: CUAD’s Instagram Account is Gone)

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Columbia has lost another president. Katrina Armstrong has been the interim president at Columbia since former president Minouche Shafik resigned last August. Armstrong has been attempting to negotiate with the Trump administration to get $400 million in funding restored and has taken a lot of criticism from the left for giving in to the administration’s demands. On Friday she announced she was stepping aside so a acting president could take over.

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The interim president of Columbia University abruptly left her post Friday evening as the school confronted the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding and the Trump administration’s mounting skepticism about its leadership.

The move came one week after Columbia bowed to a series of demands from the federal government, which had canceled approximately $400 million in essential federal funding, and it made way for Columbia’s third leader since August. Claire Shipman, who had been the co-chair of the university’s board of trustees, was named the acting president and replaced Dr. Katrina Armstrong…

Less than a week ago, the Trump administration had signaled that it was satisfied with Dr. Armstrong and the steps she was taking to restore the funding. But in a statement on Friday, its Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism said that Dr. Armstrong’s departure from the presidency was “an important step toward advancing negotiations” between the government and the university.

If you haven’t been following this closely, the Trump administration made a list of demands and last weekend it seemed Armstrong and the school were prepared to meet most of them. Secretary of Education McMahon released a statement saying Columbia was on its way to having the funding restored. But last Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Armstrong had been sending mixed messages. In a chat with Columbia administrators and professors she indicated the school wouldn’t really be following through on some of the demands.

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In the conversations with faculty, Armstrong also downplayed the changes agreed to with the Trump team. One issue Armstrong highlighted was the mask policy. While Columbia’s letter to the Trump team agreed to ban masks that conceal identity during unauthorized protests, Armstrong told faculty there was no mask ban.

Secretary McMahon responded to that report saying the school must comply if it wanted to restore funding.

“They have to abide and comply with the terms that we have set down and [we’ve] talked with them and they’ve agreed to,” McMahon told a small group of reporters over breakfast at the Education Department’s headquarters near Capitol Hill.

In short, Katrina Armstrong appeared to lie to the Trump administration and that was quickly noticed on Monday. By Friday she was gone and the Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism seemed to approve of her departure. It sounds like that became another Trump administration demand and this one was met pretty quickly.

Taking over as acting president is journalist Claire Shipman who was formerly a correspondent on ABC’s Good Morning America. Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg wished her luck but said his committee would be watching.

“Now is not the time for Columbia University to regress as it works to combat the rampant antisemitism plaguing the school. So far Columbia has largely failed to uphold its commitment to Jewish students and faculty – leaving them to face harassment, intimidation, and even assault. Thankfully, the Trump administration is ushering in an era of common sense, and this Committee is working diligently alongside it to continue the momentum we’ve created in addressing antisemitism. But the school and its administrators must put in the work to combat this evil. Ms. Shipman, while we wish you all good success, we will be watching closely.”

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It’s too early to say if Shipman will take a different approach to the job or if she’ll just try to continue the process of having the $400 million in funding restored. My guess is the latter as it’s a bit late for a show of protest. But who knows. There is still lots of pressure from the left who would rather see the school fight the demands, no matter what it costs.

Meanwhile, I notice today that Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) the coalition leading the protests at Columbia, no longer has an Instagram account. There are some articles from December saying they had been kicked off Instagram, but the account was still active as recently as a week ago. Now it’s gone. That’s going to make it harder for them to organize even as the pressure on them seems to be increasing.

Update: Apparently this just happened. Other people are noticing this morning.

Why is this happening now? Possibly because of this lawsuit.

More confirmation that this just happened. CUAD is now moving to Telegram.

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Posted in Republican News

Transnational Elite Determined to Kill Liberalism

Transnational Elite Determined to Kill Liberalism 12

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It’s really quite a coincidence, isn’t it, that prosecutors and courts deeply committed to the transnational elite are finding that all their opponents are criminals who must be arrested and banned from running for office. 

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And it only happens when it looks pretty likely that they are about to win office! 

Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, was found guilty of embezzlement by a criminal court in Paris on Monday and immediately barred from running for public office for five years, jeopardizing her plans to compete in France’s 2027 presidential election.

The verdict was a major blow to the perennial presidential ambitions of Ms. Le Pen, an anti-immigrant, nationalist politician who has already mounted three failed bids. Looking grim and murmuring “incredible,” she walked briskly out of the courtroom before the judges had completed reading her sentence.

She did not address the dozens of camera crews that awaited her outside the courtroom, but she was expected to speak on French television later on Monday evening. She had spoken of her “serenity” before the hearing but there was little evidence of that.

Ms. Le Pen is the clear front-runner in opinion polls for the 2027 election. Her ineligibility is certain to provoke strong protests from her own party, but also more broadly, there are likely to be claims that French democracy is being denied. The presiding judge, however, said that nobody was entitled “to an immunity in violation of the rules of the law.”

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Luckily, we in the West live in countries deeply devoted to democratic principles, and it is inconceivable that prosecutors and judges would invent BS charges, stretch the boundaries of legality past breaking, or threaten the stability of their political systems by exceeding their legitimate power.

Right? 

RIGHT?! 

And we have checks and balances–you know, things like appeals. Right?

The court also sentenced Ms. Le Pen, 56, to four years in prison, with two of those years suspended, and a fine of 100,000 euros, or about $108,000. She has long denied any wrongdoing in the case, which involved accusations that her party, the National Rally, illegally used several million euros in European Parliament funds for expenses between 2004 and 2016.

She is widely expected to appeal the verdict, which would put most of her sentence on hold, but not the ban on running for public office. The court ruled that her electoral ineligibility is effective immediately. As a result, only a successful appeal before the 2027 deadline to enter the race would allow her to run.

That is not impossible, but it will be difficult. The appeals process is slow in France, and even if a new trial took take place before the 2027 election, it is unclear whether the prosecution’s case would be overturned.

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Oops. I guess not. 

I AM glad to see that the courts are so diligent that they dug up and found accusations of questionable spending–something unheard of in politics because the rules are so well-defined–that go back a decade or two. As with the charges in New York against President Trump, only the diligence of creative prosecutors can protect citizens from the rare politician who can be shown, with great effort, to have bent a rule. 

Transnational Elite Determined to Kill Liberalism 13Authoritarian countries like Russia and China have ruling regimes that jail political opponents, ban them from running for office, censor political opponents, silence opposition news sources, and use propaganda outlets as megaphones for their Narratives.

So, unlike what we have in the free-wheeling West, where everything goes, opposition parties thrive, and government officials restrain themselves from abusing their power. 

Anybody familiar with history can see the obvious pattern being repeated. Tired, failing regimes that have lost their legitimacy are striking out at their political opponents, sacrificing the very few remaining shreds of credibility to hang onto power. When regimes are young, then tend to rely on authoritarianism to establish power and, at least in many cases, loosen their grip on power to maintain and expand their sense of legitimacy. 

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Think South Korea or Taiwan, or for that matter the UK as parliamentary democracy developed. The classic case is Rome, which went from kings to a Senate with roughly divided powers in the Consuls and Tribunes. The freer systems prosper, with a good working balance between order and freedom. Innovation, expansion, and cultural supremacy develop. 

Then, the ruling elite becomes greedy, demanding more and more power and resources. 

In Rome, the system became tired and trended toward political suppression, eventually resulting in authoritarian rule. 

That path is being followed in the West. The ruling elite has turned on the people, and this is the result. To retain their grip on power, they return to authoritarianism. 

They are killing what made the West great. Look at how the elite is rushing to destroy Elon Musk, the Edison and Tesla of our time. As he struggles to make humanity interplanetary, they struggle to rein him in and destroy him. 

Europe is lost. The Germanic hoards of the 21st century are already inside the gates. The US is getting there. And the comfortable elite grasp at the few years of power still left to them. 

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Posted in Republican News

BREAKING: Marine Le Pen Found Guilty of Embezzlement, Barred From Running for President

BREAKING: Marine Le Pen Found Guilty of Embezzlement, Barred From Running for President 14

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BREAKING: Marine Le Pen Found Guilty of Embezzlement, Barred From Running for President 15

I’m just going to lay this out here before we get to the court case.

Le Pen beats all other presidential candidates with ease in final poll before expulsion court hearing

Marine Le Pen stands poised to win the 2027 presidential election in France unless the courts disqualify her from running, new polling published just hours before a court hearing to determine her future has shown.

On Sunday, a new Ifop survey for Le Journal du Dimanche showed Le Pen leading in every run-off scenario, making her the undeniable frontrunner and obvious candidate of the right-wing National Rally.

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The thing about the court case was not that a French politician was accused of something hinky to do with money – that’s hardly breaking news. No, what raised eyebrows was prosecutors insisting that a guilty verdict in this court case must be accompanied by an immediate FIVE-YEAR BAN from holding public office, meaning it takes effect during the appeal process.

EXCUSEZ-MOI?

Poof. There goes the front-runner if she’s found guilty, unlike, apparently, any French politician before her.

…Should the French court follow a similar path, Le Pen’s supporters — and perhaps many undecided voters — will likely view this as yet another case of overreach by an increasingly politicized judiciary.

Le Pen’s dominance isn’t marginal. Against an array of political opponents, she leads former Macron-appointed prime ministers Édouard Philippe (20–25 percent) and Gabriel Attal (around 20 percent), as well as far-left grandee Jean-Luc Mélenchon (12–13 percent), with ease.

She appears to be far more palatable to the wider electorate than others on the nationalist right, including Reconquête leader Éric Zemmour, who is polling at around 5-6 percent.

So, she’d wipe the floor with all of the establishment EU-blessed figures, which is what French polling is saying at the moment.

This morning?

Le Pen and her peeps are guilty.

National Rally (RN) party leader Marine Le Pen has been found guilty of embezzlement of public funds and was banned from running in elections with immediate execution.

On the morning of March 31, the judge at the Paris court also handed down guilty verdicts to eight other current or former members of Le Pen’s party who, like her, previously served as MEPs in the European Parliament.

According to the court, the politicians set up a system between 2004 and 2016 to funnel €2.9 million from the EP to the headquarters of the RN in Paris.

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The court must know how this looks because it issued a ‘This was about the crime, not the politics‘ statement and warned the sentencing part of the proceedings were going to take some time.

…The court stressed that “no one was judged for having done politics”, but that it was about a “system” of embezzlement of public funds.

The BBC had an update just a bit ago…

Breaking

We’ve just had it confirmed that Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for office for five years.

This means she will not be able to contest the French presidential election in 2027.

…with an addendum just a few minutes later.

More Details of LePen’s Sentence

As we’ve reported, a French court has given Marie Le Pen a five-year ban on running for office with immediate effect. This means she is barred from running in the 2027 French presidential election race.

She has also been given a four-year prison sentence, of which two will be suspended. The other two can be spent with an electronic tag rather than in custody.

Le Pen has also been given a €100,000 (£82,635) fine.

She will very likely appeal the jail sentence, so this sentence will not apply now.

The appeal process in France is apparently quite convoluted and time-consuming, which also explains why ‘prosecutors’ were so insistent on an immediate ban from running for any political office. That timeline works out great for legally keeping LePen out of everyone’s hair. Oddly enough, she’s allowed to keep her parliamentary seat.

…She is almost certain to appeal, and neither the prison sentence nor the fine would be applied until her appeals are exhausted. Appeals in France can take months or even years.

But her five-year ban from running for office kicks in immediately, via a so-called “provisional execution” measure requested by prosecutors, and will be lifted only if any appeal is upheld before the election. She retains her parliamentary seat until her term ends.

There was no immediate comment from Le Pen on the ruling. Her right-hand man, RN president Jordan Bardella, said: “Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: It was French democracy that was killed”.

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Bardella is the heir presumptive with LePen removed.

As you might imagine, with everything happening between Germany, Romania, etc., the headlines are pretty volatile, and opinions are wildly split.

BREAKING: Judge rules Marine Le Pen ineligible to run for president in 2027 in latest blow to democracy in Europe

Shock verdict shows “power is shifting to the judges” in the latest attack on democracy in the EU

A judge has ruled Marine Le Pen is ineligible to run for office, along with eight MEPs from her National Rally party, after they were found guilty of misappropriation of EU funds. The move is the latest attack on democracy in the EU, with judges increasingly deciding elections in Europe. Le Pen has also been sentenced to four years in prison, with two years suspended.

Notably, the news comes right as Le Pen leads the polling for French presidential elections in 2027, as Remix News reported earlier today.

The court estimated that the total losses amounted to €2.9 million, as a result of “paying by the European Parliament people who actually worked for the far-right party.” Le Pen was found to be responsible for €1.8 million in damages herself. The judgment also concerns 12 assistants. The prosecutor’s office initially alleged that €7 million had been used in this way.

Investigators accused Le Pen of managing the illegal use of European subsidies between 2004 and 2016, when she served as an MEP. They stated that instead of working in Strasbourg, assistants were to work for Le Pen’s National Rally party in a domestic capacity.

…Other commentators have expressed surprise at not only the verdict but also the decision to exclude her from elections.

Pierre Lellouche, a lawyer and former Deputy of the French National Assembly, appeared on CNEWS to point out that the current prime minister, François Bayrou, faced the same charge and suffered no consequences.

“Then, last but not least, there is the case of (François) Bayrou, the current prime minister, who has been prosecuted for exactly the same thing, i.e., for abuses of party funding declared as parliamentary assistants in Europe, at the EU parliament. Bayrou emerged from this affair without being in the least concerned. In fact, the public prosecutor’s office has once again referred the matter to the courts, but even so, we’re dealing with a double standard here. It’s a bit surprising.”

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So, considering France’s sitting prime minister was ‘prosecuted’ for this exact thing with zero consequences, it sounds on the surface like a matter of ‘the system,’ as the court calls it, only being acceptable for approved crooks who belong to the right club. Not all crooks in the system qualify.

WE’RE DEALING WITH A DOUBLE STANDARD HERE

The presiding judge has just released a statement regarding their decision to impose the immediate ban on any candidacy by Le Pen:

Here’s how the presiding judge Bénédicte de Perthuis explained her decision, via AFP:

“The court took into consideration, in addition to the risk of reoffending, the major disturbance of public order if a person already convicted… was a candidate in the presidential election.”

Fairly reeks of their favorite phrase, ‘saving democracy.’

Am I reading that right?

‘Is France still a democracy?’ 

…The dramatic judicial intervention into the French presidential campaign is threatening to deny to voters the choice of the candidate who is ahead in all opinion polls. On the news channels this lunchtime, the question was being posed: is France still a democracy?

According to what I have learned of the European Union’s definition by watching the political lurching and machinations on the continent these past couple of years, it most assuredly is.

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Granted, I am looking at this through American eyes, but, man, do I have a cynical squint on right now.

Next up, wondering what the average French citizen in the street thinks of it.

They’re normally not too shy about letting anyone know how they feel.

But, boy – I hope they’ve got those fire trucks filled.

Posted in Republican News

Scott Jennings Signing Up for Another 3 Years at CNN

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Scott Jennings Signing Up for Another 3 Years at CNN 17

Scott Jennings is sticking with CNN. 

Thank God. 

Like you, most of my exposure to cable news from any station comes through clips on X, and my favorite ones are almost invariable clips of Scott Jennings in the midst of a political debate on CNN. 

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I have long feared that Fox or another network would try to poach him from CNN because he is a standout talent. He and Harry Enten are the best things going on the failing network, and it’s hard to see how CNN can retain a single viewer outside the friends, families, and employees (maybe) of the company and its “talent.” 

A while back I wrote one of my occasional “things I like” columns about Scott, and he and I correspond a bit. He’s a smart and funny guy and has infinitely more patience than I. Where I would have to restrain myself from throwing a coffee cup at some lefty for lying through his teeth, Scott calmly slices and dices their hypocritical arguments with that disarming southern twang and logic bombs. 

Fox would have been the natural (and wrong) place for him to wind up if he were poached, and the last thing Fox needs is yet another conservative talking head. 

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Scott’s no troll, and his goal isn’t to “own” the libs but to reach the audience, many of whom watch CNN by habit and rarely hear anything but the same pablum that gets pushed out by all the Pravda Media. It speaks well of CNN that he is a regular on their panels, and I would love to see a Crossfire show with him and Van Jones, who is Scott’s liberal alter-ego. They get alone, are both smart, and have dramatically different points of view. 

CNN, what do you say? I would watch it. 

Scott bridges the gap between the MAGA folks and the older establishment Republicans–he has put his time in Washington and retains credibility with them–but he has drifted Trumpward as Trump has proven himself to be a far better and more canny leader than those of us who were skeptics expected. 

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Scott does have an advantage that his interlocutors on the channel do not: he uses his brain and doesn’t stick to the talking points that are always distributed to talking heads before they go on the air. I used to do a “crossfire”-type debate segment on a Minnesota TV show and I was always struck that my debate partner came in with pages of talking points emailed to her. 

Scott isn’t hobbled by the need to regurgitate. He sticks to reality, not spin.

CNN viewers need a bit of reality to penetrate their bubble. 

Posted in Republican News

Yes, The Left Supports Domestic Terrorism; Liberals Remain Silent About It

Yes, The Left Supports Domestic Terrorism; Liberals Remain Silent About It 18

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Yes, The Left Supports Domestic Terrorism; Liberals Remain Silent About It 19

Somebody is going to get killed. And, let’s face it, that is exactly what the people funding and promoting these Tesla terrorist campaigns want. 

I am getting very, very tired of the Democrats and liberals who keep saying, “I don’t approve of violence, but…” If you don’t approve of violence, start pressuring your legislators, leaders, and allies in the Pravda Media to denounce it and go after the violent and destructive protesters. Otherwise, you are part of the problem. 

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No, no, no. It really IS the liberal establishment who are promoting and enabling this violence. For all the talk about “stochastic terrorism” when a conservative says “men are men, and women are women”–we are accused of GENOCIDE for repeating what every biology textbook in work history has said until 5 minutes ago–nobody says a peep when Democrats call for Elon Musk to be murdered, Tesla owners to be harassed, property to be destroyed, or Tesla owners beaten up. 

That was idealism. Just as the murderous and destructive riots of 2020 were “social justice.”

The Brownshirts thought they were making Germany safe for Germans. They didn’t pat themselves on the back for being evil–they were idealists. So was Stalin, and Mao’s cultural revolution brigades. And the Baader-Meinhof gang. And so on. If idealism can justify this sort of political violence, then every totalitarian government is justified. 

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The people keying Teslas and stopping people on the streets to attack them are not the paid shills of the Democrat establishment–these are the mentally deranged people they are appealing to–but ActBlue is funding the Tesla Protests, and an organization called Indivisible is backed by leftist billionaires and funding most of these protests. 

The whole point is to kill Tesla and to hope that Tesla’s founder is killed as well. They are trolling for their Luigi Mangione, whom you will recall was cheered for his assassination and is a cult hero of the left now. 

Liberals’ reaction to the Trump assassination attempts was to tut-tutt, say “What did you expect?” and go back immediately to calling him Hitler and calling him an existential threat. 

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On X and especially BlueSky, the liberals all complained about how bad a shot Crooks was. The center-left conveniently forgot all about the events, and you may have noticed that Biden put the man who was in charge of protective details–the man who failed twice to do his job adequately–in charge of the entire Secret Service. 

He didn’t fail upward. He was rewarded. And we still know almost nothing about Thomas Crooks. 

Every Democrat using ActBlue to contribute to Democrats is also helping fund the masterminds of this campaign, because ActBlue raises money for them as well and takes a cut of your donations. 

As for claiming ignorance or believing all this is organic, sorry, but you either know or are trying very hard not to know that this is the workings of Democrat strategists. All the evidence is out there. We keep telling you. But you don’t want to believe, so you don’t. 

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Between approximately 3-12 to 3-17 the names depicted in the Fox News story board below were illegally and dangerously swatted (along with members of their immediate families, including their children). 

I thought by now we’d have arrests at local levels or at least statements from the DOJ and 

@AGPamBondi

 regarding on-going investigations into these very dangerous terrorist acts that place lives needlessly at risk. 

I guarantee, it is very easy to track down these type phone numbers and get after whoever initiated these calls (and maybe who’s behind them). I simply ask for these acts of terror to be taken as extremely serious and that our law enforcement professionals led by 

@FBIDirectorKash

 & 

@FBIDDBongino

 let those who are perpetrating them know, their days are numbered. Thanks

I am so, so tired of the BS, the hypocrisy, all the fake outrage. The very people who defended Lloyd Austin when he got servicemembers killed in Afghanistan, left tens of thousands of allies behind, and $80 billion in military equipment for the Taliban and then went AWOL are now outraged at Pete Hegseth. 

Scott Jennings lays out the plain facts to Dems calling for firings over Signalgate —

JENNINGS: “The bar for firing people like this is really high from the last administration when after the Afghanistan withdrawal, which was a disaster, people died.”

“No accountability was made  after the drone strike that vaporized those poor kids and that family.”

“No accountability after the secretary of defense went AWOL. No accountability.”

MEAGHER: “But Austin did a press conference and called for a review.”

JENNINGS: “Did a single Democrat ask for his resignation?”

**Change the subject**

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Liberals, do you really need to wait for a New York Times editorial or an article in The Atlantic to give you permission to actually deplore deranged leftists who attack women and families in their cars? Destroy private property? 

Where is your outrage? Where was your outrage when Biden welcomed in foreign gang members to murder, rape, and terrorize ordinary citizens? You know, the kind of outrage you show when Trump tries to deport Tren de Aragua, who commit much of this mayhem?

NEW: Joe Rogan calls out Democrats for paying people to show up to rallies and protest Tesla

“For a lot of losers, a lot of people who don’t have things going well in their life, and I’ve been a loser at many points in my life, if someone offered me $400 bucks to show up somewhere of course I’d go. I’d call people Hitler, I’d hold up that stupid sign, if you found me when I was 21, 100% I’d take that money.

They were giving up $1000 bucks for people to protest Tesla. They had rules of engagement, are you organizing gangs? Are you paying money to people and telling them how to engage in violence? I thought this was peaceful protesting. I don’t see many violent pro-Tesla people. So who is this violence for? The police?”

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I don’t get it. Seriously, I don’t. Is it just that these issues aren’t presented in the news sources? True enough, but these are the people who told you Biden was sharp as a tack, that Biden could amend the Constitution by tweet, that the border was secure while 10-12 million illegals streamed across the border, that inflation was transitory, that Trump colluded with Russia, that COVID had nothing to do with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, that the vaccine would prevent infection and transmission. 

At some point, one has a responsibility to quit trusting the liars. 

The attacks on Tesla owners are an intended result of this campaign, just as the George Floyd riots were an intended result of all those politicians who egged them on. 

Only liberals can stand in the way of these attacks. Conservatives can oppose them, can demand arrests, can jail the people who are caught. But liberals are funding the protests, pushing the violent rhetoric, egging them on, and sending donations to the groups and politicians who are their authors. 

If you want moral authority to criticize conservative policies, at the very least, quit supporting the worst people on your side. 

No conservative will take you seriously if you simultaneously proclaim the importance of “norms” while supporting Brownshirts. It sounds like BS to us. 

Posted in Republican News