the Amish of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, have risen like cream to the top. This is not even their region of the country, but a group of them with “Cabins for Christ” came down in October, created campsites for themselves away from the wreckage so that they would not disrupt the cleanup and assessment, and set themselves to build homes for the people who had lost theirs.

Matt Van Swol @matt_vanswol
·
🚨#BREAKING: Boone NC officials have confirmed that 62 members of the Pennsylvania Amish community have completed the construction of 12 tiny homes in under 48 hours.

The total cost of the project for #WNC was over $300,000, all of which was donated by the Amish community.
8:48 AM · Dec 31, 2024 //

Matt Van Swol @matt_vanswol
·
🚨#BREAKING: FEMA has officially confirmed that out of the 26 families that were told they would receive a temporary home before Christmas...

...only 3 families received one

You read that right. THREE.
9:39 PM · Dec 30, 2024. //

Twelve homes in 48 hours versus three homes over three months. Really awful optics for FEMA. Maybe all that disaster money should be given to Amish communities.

Dawn Buckingham @DrBuckinghamTX
·
Washington bureaucrats have had their chance, and they’ve failed. It’s time to let states lead the way. Local control means better schools, less red tape, and more opportunities for our kids. Eliminating the Department of Education is a step toward empowering states and communities to decide what’s best for their students.

2:24 PM · Dec 29, 2024. //

Robert Bortins @TheRobertBshow
·
Jimmy Carter - R.I.P. 2024
Department of Education - R.I.P. 2025
7:54 PM · Dec 30, 2024

Joe Biden spent the first half of his presidency enacting plans to steer at least $1.6 trillion to transform the economy and spur a clean-energy revolution — only to watch those programs become afterthoughts in the 2024 election.

Now the core of his domestic legacy stands unfinished, with hundreds of billions of dollars left to deploy, and imperiled as Donald Trump prepares to take office.

Keep in mind, essentially all the money mentioned above was appropriated back in 2021, with the rest coming via the Inflation Reduction Act of mid-2022. This wasn't a case of Biden simply running out of time because he passed an infrastructure bill six months before the election. The administration had years to expand broadband and build the electric vehicle charging stations it promised, but the actual results were disastrous. //

A $42 billion expansion made in November of 2021 to expand broadband has connected zero homes to the internet. Meanwhile, and this garnered several mentions during the 2024 campaign, $7.5 billion appropriated for EV chargers has produced just 47 stations nationwide. For context, the program promised 500,000 chargers.

What's so comical about this, though, is that the primary reason Biden's agenda fell flat is because of the very bureaucratic state he and his party created and protected. Much of the money was allocated to various government agencies that are staffed by far-left, career bureaucrats who wouldn't know efficiency if it punched them in the face. On the contrary, being as inefficient as possible represents job security for the bureaucracy. If they don't solve problems, then the money just keeps flowing.

Hilariously, in the case of the EV chargers, government DEI requirements played a role in stifling the program. //

There is an obvious lesson here, which is that the bureaucratic state is terrible for America and needs deep reforms to stop the waste and inefficiency that infests it. Will Democrats who are crying about Biden's agenda being hampered support that? Of course, they won't. Instead, they'll keep making excuses and protecting the bureaucracy as if it were one of their own children because it is currently their sole source of power. Still, it is deeply ironic that their sacred cow played a role in Democrats face-planting in 2024. It was well-deserved.

An intriguing video from Feb. 2018 went viral over the weekend and had a lot of folks on the right talking because of something that actress Claire Danes said to talk show host Stephen Colbert and how he immediately interjected and changed the subject. When you hear it, you'll understand why.

Danes was sharing about how her "Homeland" show went to something of a weeklong "spy camp" because they knew someone in the CIA. There in Georgetown, they met actual "spooks," people in the State Department, and journalists. Colbert asked her, what was the most surprising thing that she learned from that experience? //

Danes said every year it was different, but that year it was "all about the distrust between the [Trump] administration and the intelligence world, and the intelligence community was suddenly kind of allying itself with journalists, which usually they're not..."

It was at that point that Colbert interjected and deflected to another point about when they had started shooting the season's episodes. //

Now, this may have slipped by in 2018. But after everything that has happened in the meantime, it certainly had people talking about how Colbert seemed to cut her off and what exactly she was talking about when she said they were "allying with journalists?" What were they doing? //

This was after New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer's comment in 2017, which even raised the hackles of the ACLU with what it intimated.

Western Lensman @WesternLensman
·
Replying to @WesternLensman
Shades of Chuck Schumer:

"You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you. Even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this."

9:31 PM · Dec 23, 2024 //

There's another point I think that's interesting about the Danes video. Danes is talking about how the "spy camp" gave them thoughts. Maybe the CIA folks realized they had the opportunity to feed what they wanted to the show, perhaps to get out information that they might have wanted to get out there? Not saying they did, but this could have given them the opportunity.

As Trump comes into office on Jan. 20, is this intel community that was unhappy before going to calm down this time around, especially now that they know Trump will be bringing big changes to their agencies?

I wouldn't bet on it. One can only wonder what might happen next, between now and then.

Despite receiving tens of billions of dollars for modernization under the Biden administration, the IRS claimed it didn’t have the resources to conduct necessary inspections. To be clear, The IRS, under the Inflation Reduction Act, received about $60 billion to rebuild its workforce and modernize its IT systems over the next decade.

"Officials cited a lack of resources as to why these on-site inspections are no longer conducted."

TIGTA’s findings are another major blow to an agency already struggling with data security. As this latest report reveals, the IRS is failing taxpayers in one of its most basic responsibilities: safeguarding private financial data.

The agency’s negligence goes beyond poor management—it mocks the very people it is meant to protect. Throwing documents into regular trash, failing to maintain secure bins, and ignoring security protocols sends a clear message: taxpayers are at risk, and the IRS doesn’t seem to care. The agency is not only putting your data in harm's way but also ripping you off with ineffective, wasteful practices.

President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian Chief of Government Omar Torrijos signed the Panama Canal Treaty and Neutrality Treaty on September 7, 1977. This agreement relinquishes American control over the canal by the year 2000 and guarantees its neutrality. On May 4, 1904, Panama granted the United States the right to build and operate the canal and control the five miles of land on either side of the water passage in exchange for annual payments. For the history of the Panama Canal, visit the Library of Congress American Memory section.

Appendix B: Texts of the Panama Canal Treaties with United States Senate Modifications -- Panama

Javier Milei has shown what can be done. He's turned a deficit into a surplus for the first time in more than 100 years in their country, and in such a short time in office.

It may take a little longer for us, but how do you do it? With commitment, will and afuera! //

Musk cited remarks from Ronald Reagan from 1975, before he was president. But it's all kinds of sense when it comes to tax policy as he explains that even then the government was taking about half of what Americans earn. Reagan spoke out against taxes on businesses that the left pushes but then end up landing on the people. //

"We oughta have tax reform, and we oughta start by making it so simple you don't have to hire a lawyer to figure out how much you owe every year," Reagan said.

"We live in the only country in the world where it takes more brains to figure out your income tax than it does to earn the income," he quipped.

"There's very little that government can do as efficiently and economically that people can't do themselves. And If government would shut the doors and sneak away for three weeks, we'd never miss 'em." //

How much of a tangle is everything in? The Office of Management and Budget can't even tell you how many "boards, commissions, agencies, bureaus, and departments there are in the federal government."

We've been talking about this for almost 50 years. We're at a point where the words are more true than ever and where we now have a golden opportunity.

You finally have Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy with the force and the will. Now, they need to harness that same common sense and make it happen, despite the people who will try to stand in their way.

Shorter Scaramucci: That's a nice life you've built there. It'd be a real shame if something were to happen to it.

Look, I don't know exactly what the motivation behind the above excerpt was. Perhaps Scaramucci is genuinely concerned for Musk's safety and success, though I tend to doubt it. Either way, so much that is wrong with Washington is revealed in what is said. An American citizen should not have to fear the "enemies" he's making by demanding the government function with some level of sanity and efficiency. Yet, that's exactly the situation Musk (and others) find themselves in by daring to push back on the status quo.

That people in the government can "hurt you," as Scaramucci says, for crossing them is exactly why Washington must be reformed. Dismiss attempts to do so as "Potomac fever," but things will certainly never change if no attempt is made to change them. Americans are dealing with a corrupt, deeply entrenched behemoth, and it's not going to give up power quietly. That's why Musk should not "lay off the gas on politics." If anything, it's time to go even harder.

Hammer, meet nail. For Democrats to now fear-monger about "unelected" people running the government is to ignore that's precisely what has happened throughout President Joe Biden's term. //

How does that compare to Musk making a post online? It doesn't. What he did was public and out in the open. People were able to decide whether to agree with him or not, and in the end, it was elected officials who chose to come up with another deal. That's democracy in action. What's not democracy in action is a bunch of nameless figures running the government behind the scenes while lying to everyone about the president's senility. //

Hang on just a second because, as Jennings will go on to note, that's a serious allegation. Did Musk oppose the 1,500-page CR because it didn't "directly benefit" him? That should be pretty easy to figure out. What is in the 105-page CR that passed that wasn't in the original deal? If Roginsky can't define that, then her claim is baseless.

I'll go ahead and spoil it for you. She didn't provide any evidence for her allegation. //

anon-eoij
2 hours ago edited
George Soros
Alex Soros
Bill Gates
Michael Bloomberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Jeff Bezos
….

Shall we go on about “rich folks influencing politics”?

The missing Congresswoman in question is Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX), who represents Texas' 12th Congressional District, which includes the Fort Worth area west of Dallas in Tarrant County. Granger's last known vote in the House appears to be in July when she voted "no" on HR8998, a bill that would reduce the salary of Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pesticides Program Ya-Wei (Jake) Lee to $1. Since then, she has no recorded votes. //

Fl family
@family_fl73222
·
Follow
Kay Granger has not been working for the past year why has she not been replaced?
2:22 PM · Dec 20, 2024. //

The newspaper discovered that Rep. Granger was now the resident of a local memory care and assisted living home and had been for some time after she was found confused and wandering around her neighborhood. Assistant Executive Director for the memory care/assisted living home, Taylor Manzeil, confirmed that Granger was a resident, saying, "This is her home."

Bo French is the Tarrant County Republican Chairman. He stated the obvious about this crucial time for Republicans in Congress, who need every vote.//

Granger's constituents are also concerned about Granger's absence in Washington. But the biggest question is, why has this situation gone on as long as it has, with no one appearing to notice or even care?

It appears that this is just another example of those in Washington on both sides of the aisle hanging onto power until they are literally incapable of doing so. It is exactly the kind of thing that the American people clearly said in November they are tired of.

Earlier on Friday afternoon, the House passed the third version (AKA Plan C) of a continuing resolution (CR) crafted by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, in an effort to avoid a partial government shutdown before many in Washington head home for winter recess. As RedState's Susie Moore wrote:

The House has now passed the "Plan C" CR, with a total vote of 366 to 34, with one voting "present." The 34 nay votes were Republicans. All Democrats voted in favor of it, save for the one who voted "present."

...The measure will now move onto the Senate, where, given the latest developments, it appears it will likely pass. //

Senators began voting on the stopgap government spending bill just before 12:30 a.m. EST. It will need 60 ayes to pass.

Now, the Senate has spoken:

The Senate has voted 85 to 11 to pass the stopgap spending bill approved in the House earlier today and keep the government open.

Here's some of what is (and isn't) in the bill:

The final bill did not include anything related to the debt limit, though House Republicans agreed to increase the borrowing limit by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $2.5 trillion in net cuts to mandatory spending. That would take place during next year’s budget reconciliation process. //

Senate Press Gallery @SenatePress
·
As promised here is the breakdown -

Senators voting against - Bruan, Crapo, Hawley, Johnson, Kennedy, Lee, Paul, Risch, Romney, Sanders, and Schmitt

Senators Manchin, Rubio, Schiff and Vance did not vote.
Senate Press Gallery
@SenatePress
By a vote of 85-11 the #Senate passed H.R. 10545 (The Continuing Resolution )

Breakdown to come

This was the last vote of the 118th Congress.
12:02 AM · Dec 21, 2024

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Only the AfD can save Germany
Naomi Seibt @SeibtNaomi
🚨🇩🇪CHANCELLOR FRONTRUNNER SLAMS MUSK & MILEI❗️

The presumptive next chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is horrified by the idea that Germany should follow Elon Musk’s and Javier Milei’s example.

He staunchly rejects a pro-freedom approach and refuses any discussion with the AfD.
Embedded video
12:03 AM · Dec 20, 2024. //

TGDavis
40 minutes ago
Being for a secure border, sound money, and the preservation of Western civilization, does not make you a right winger, it makes you normal.

Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy
·
Shorter = better. This bill is only 116 pages, instead of 1,500+ pages. Took a LOT less time to read. Glad to see the following garbage from yesterday’s bill removed in the current version:

• Congressional pay raise/health benefits
• 17 miscellaneous commerce bills
• Random new… Show more

Elon Musk @elonmusk
Yesterday’s bill vs today’s bill 😂
4:52 PM · Dec 19, 2024

The Biden Admin paid Reuters over $300 million in government contracts. 11 different Biden government agencies targeted Elon's businesses. All 11 agencies paid millions to Reuters. Reuters then won the Pulitzer Prize for "their work on Elon Musk and misconduct at his businesses" pic.twitter.com/3IGGtuHv7L

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) December 17, 2024. //

To be clear, this is the weaponizations that Democrats said Trump would bring about if he were elected. The Biden Administration has made little to no effort to hide its willingness to attack people who disagree with the left's agenda, whether they be parents pushing back against CRT or the transgender agenda or January 6 protesters.

But here we see the government actually paying corporate media millions of dollars to attack its enemies as well. This isn't just ideological alignment resulting in friendly reporting. This is a President paying a media company that touts to be an unbiased source of news to go after one of his political enemies. This discovery is going to be another nail in the coffin for the already dying reputation of the corporate media.

Reuters should have no right to call itself a news outlet, but a propaganda wing of the Democrat Party. //

I have a feeling that in a matter of weeks, we'll start uncovering some shocking truths about how far the corruption went under the Biden Admin, and that more than just Reuters benefited from a fascist government willing to pay them to damage their political opponents. //

Mongoose
3 hours ago
I'd be careful about this story. There may be less here than the headline implies. It looks like most if not all of the contracts went to Thomson Reuters Special Services LLC. They're huge, providing lots of legal, tax, and accounting support services around the world. They do WestLaw and other legal research tools, among other things. I know the DOJ pays a massive amount for access to WestLaw - it's on every Assistant US Attorney's computer. They do anti-money laundering software for business and government, that stuff is probably in every bank in the world and the Treasury Department contracts for it. DOD spends a ton for the various Thomson Reuters services and IRS spends a bunch for their tax and accounting services. CBP uses Thomson Reuters trade and import/export stuff - and pays for it.
The Reuters news wire service - Reuters Agency - is a relatively small part of Thomson Reuters and I'm not sure that the connection between the parent company and any Reuters Agency "targeting" exists. It's certainly not clear in this report.
The Biden Admin paid Reuters over $300 million in government contracts. 11 different Biden government agencies targeted Elon's businesses. All 11 agencies paid millions to Reuters. Reuters then won the Pulitzer Prize for "their work on Elon Musk and misconduct at his businesses."
Yes, the government paid (Thomson) Reuters over $300 million in government contracts. And perhaps eleven different agencies did "target" Musk's businesses. I'm not seeing the connection, however. Just because the Justice Department spent $60 million with Thomson Reuters for WestLaw etc., doesn't mean the government was paying Reuters to target Musk.
Caution is warranted.

Bruce427
5 hours ago edited
** Jess Davis: "When I hear people talking about expanding school vouchers, my mind immediately goes to how hard it is for families in some parts of Tennessee [because of poor bridges] even to get their children to school safely.”

OK, let's just cut to the chase: The real (and Primary) reason Progressives viscerally despise School Choice is, it substantially takes the minds of our youngsters out of the reach of Leftist Progressive Ideology.

A close secondary reason is, it takes millions in Funding out of the hands of Teacher's Unions who then funnel it back to the Democrat Party.

Everything else is just noise. //

EDMUND
4 hours ago
It's real easy....school money should follow the student, not the system... //

Indylawyer
7 hours ago
Its an especially strange argument because school choice should bring an enormous cost savings. That $7,000 voucher is probably less than half of what they are spending for those kids to attend public schools - and it's still providing $140,000 for a classroom of 20 kids. //

sb2
7 hours ago
I hear some of these arguments against big government relinquishing control and I'm left thinking that it isn't that they really think these things. They just try to find arguments they hope enough people will buy into. There is only one reason to be against school choice - and that's if you want to indoctrinate instead of teach.

OrneryCoot
3 hours ago
If Patel and Trump bring all of this information to light, I believe that the public will respond in kind; trusting the public with such information will bring about trust BY the people for this administration, which will bode well for midterms and 2028. It will by no means be the most important thing, but it will carry significance for many. That alone is a reason to declassify and release material like that described above. //

Chelan Jim
2 hours ago
And why was the balloon, the size of a school bus, allowed to float across the continent taking pictures/images without interception. Are we that confident that no military, commercial or strategic utility targets need not worry of such an invasion of our airspace?

U.S. citizens would be arrested for flying a drone near many of the areas this balloon got near enough to take hi-res video and pictures. //

charlie
2 hours ago
Releasing all of the info may help further harm the reputations of the agencies involved - making it easier for Elon/Vivek and President Trump to clean house

The federal government shouldn’t be involved, directly or indirectly, in the fact-checking industry. Nor should it engage in efforts designed to limit the speech of citizens, particularly when taxpayers are the ones footing the bill.

But the cost and creation of these misinformation programs is just the tip of the iceberg. Open the Books conducted a detailed review of many of the programs, contracts and grants as part of its report, and I subsequently verified and expanded upon some of their findings.

What we found is clear evidence that the Biden-Harris White House used funds to support or develop Orwellian surveillance and propaganda strategies, create methods and tools to restrict speech online, and even to finance highly politicized reports critical of Trump.

This is the point where I usually suggest that if the above story were flipped; if the first Trump administration had spent more than a quarter billion dollars trying to restrict speech on the left and to finance highly politicized critical of, say, Kamala Harris, the histrionics on the left would have set off alarms on seismic detectors across America. //

Random US Citizen
41 minutes ago
Everything those who are no longer our countrymen do boils down to one of two things: a power grab or money laundering. Those hundreds of millions of dollars Obama gave out in green energy “loans” that were never repaid? Money that was laundered through those companies, a high percentage of which ended up back in the coffers of the DNC as corporate or personal donations. Most of the billion dollars Harris spent on “consultants” is a similar thing, and this “disinformation” spending is just another scheme to get money from the public purse into the pockets of people who really aren’t Americans in any meaningful sense.

There’s an important update on the lawsuit that Missouri and Louisiana filed back in May against members of the Biden Administration, including Joe Biden, to expose the collusion between them and social media companies to censor speech on a variety of subjects–including things like the Hunter Biden laptop and COVID.

After a series of “Twitter Files” detailed Twitter’s extensive collusion with the FBI and federal agencies to control public discourse before Elon Musk took over the tech giant, the FBI on Wednesday tried to salvage its reputation by spinning the revelations as normal procedure.

Twitter head Elon Musk had some more to say on Tuesday about the reach to which the censorship by the government went.

We saw with the release of the last Twitter files the pressure that the Biden administration was putting on Twitter to de-platform people over things like COVID. https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/12/26/the-one-weve-been-waiting-for-twitter-files-on-covid-19-drops-n679095. //

Elon Musk

@elonmusk
·
Follow
Replying to @ggreenwald and @mtaibbi
Most people don’t appreciate the significance of the point Matt was making:

Every social media company is engaged in heavy censorship, with significant involvement of and, at times, explicit direction of the government.

Google frequently makes links disappear, for example.
9:19 AM · Dec 27, 2022 //

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald
·
Dec 27, 2022
·
Replying to @elonmusk and @mtaibbi
When Dems controlled both houses of Congress and the WH (and Exec Branch), they repeatedly summoned Big Tech CEOs and openly and explicitly threatened them: if you don't censor more, you will be punished. And DHS/FBI/CIA applied immense pressure:
greenwald.substack.com
Congress Escalates Pressure on Tech Giants to Censor More, Threatening the First Amendment

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Exactly!
9:33 AM · Dec 27, 2022