The two sides of government job cuts

 

Zero Hedge warns that massive job cuts in the federal government may lead to a recession in certain parts of the country.

The Trump administration's epic purge of federal workers is shaping into one of the most significant job cuts in a generation. Early indicators suggest Northern Virginia, Washington, DC, and Maryland may be in the beginning innings of an economic downturn, as jobless claims rise and a surge in active housing listings signals a very ominous outlook.

On Thursday morning, Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, joined Bloomberg TV, warning, "The consensus expects total DOGE-related job cuts to be 300,000 ... However, studies show that for every federal employee, there are two contractors. As a result, layoffs could potentially be closer to 1 million," Slok noted.

There's more at the link.

I suppose Mr. Slok has a point;  one side of the coin, if you will.  However, the other side of the coin is much more advantageous to all of us.  It's our tax dollars that created and paid for the jobs that are now being cut.  Effectively, they were an unnecessary tax on the entire nation, not just certain areas.  Now that they're being cut, all of us should feel the economic relief from that tax, one way or another.  Quite how that will work out remains to be seen, but I'd much rather remove that economic burden from our budget and use the savings to pay down the national deficit that we've incurred through unnecessary and wasteful spending.

Yes, the Washington D.C. area may slip into local recession with all the job losses that may be incurred.  However, those jobs are the reason why, until now, it was the highest-paid region in the country, with the most expensive houses and other amenities.  Perhaps that will now come back into balance with the rest of us plebs!

Peter

More fallout from the Catholic clergy sex abuse tragedy hits New Orleans

 

I'm not sure how far the news has spread, but the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans is involved in a fairly significant scandal concerning one of its associated ministries, Second Harvest Food Bank.  Here's a summary from Grok AI, X.com's artificial intelligence system, compiled from several news and commentary sites on the Web.  It seems accurate to me, according to the information at my disposal.

The dispute between New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond and Second Harvest Food Bank centers on a clash over money and control, escalating tensions between the two entities, which had been partners in fighting hunger for over 40 years. The conflict erupted when Aymond, leveraging his authority as the "sole member" under Second Harvest’s bylaws, fired longtime CEO Natalie Jayroe and several board members in late January 2025, replacing them with the archdiocese’s chief financial officer, Dirk Wild, as interim CEO. This dramatic move sparked widespread controversy and allegations about the archdiocese’s intentions.

The core issue stems from claims by the ousted leaders—backed by statements from former board chair Bert Wilson and others—that the archdiocese pressured Second Harvest to contribute up to $16 million to help fund its ongoing bankruptcy, initiated in 2020 to address over 500 clergy sexual abuse claims. These leaders argued that reallocating donor funds, intended solely for combating food insecurity across 23 Louisiana parishes, would violate legal agreements with major donors like Feeding America and the MacKenzie Scott Foundation, which prohibit non-secular expenditures. Second Harvest’s 2024 audit revealed $89 million in net assets, including $32 million in investments, but the former leadership insisted these resources were restricted for feeding the hungry, not settling church liabilities unrelated to the food bank’s mission.

Archbishop Aymond has denied that donor funds were ever used or intended for the bankruptcy, asserting in a February 3, 2025, video statement that “not a single dollar” from Second Harvest donations has gone to anything but its mission. He framed the $16 million figure as a theoretical discussion about Second Harvest buying its independence from the archdiocese, not a direct demand. Aymond also justified the firings by claiming the ousted leaders refused to sign a tolling agreement—meant to shield church affiliates from lawsuits during bankruptcy negotiations—potentially exposing Second Harvest to legal risk. However, former board member Nick Karl disputed this, noting the court-set deadline for the agreement was May 1, not January 31 as Aymond suggested, and that negotiations were ongoing.

The fallout has been intense. Community outrage, reflected in petitions and donor backlash, accuses Aymond of jeopardizing Second Harvest’s integrity and operations, with some, like major donor Morris Bart, threatening legal action to reclaim contributions if funds are diverted. Aymond’s quiet amendment to Second Harvest’s articles of incorporation on January 29, expanding his power to fire leadership “without cause,” further fueled perceptions of a power grab. Meanwhile, a committee is exploring a potential separation of Second Harvest from the archdiocese, though details—like whether it involves the $16 million—remain unclear as of February 27, 2025. The dispute highlights broader tensions between the church’s financial pressures and the food bank’s secular mission, leaving its future uncertain.

This is a tragedy for the food bank, and is likely to further damage the Catholic Church in New Orleans as well.  I don't know exactly why the Archbishop was exerting pressure on Second Harvest to make at least some of its reserves available to the Archdiocese, but I have little doubt that the latter's declaration of bankruptcy in the face of hundreds of claims from child sex abuse survivors is at the root of it.  I've spoken with a couple of clergy acquaintances in the Archdiocese, and they feel the same way about it.  In so many words, the Archdiocese appears desperate for money to pay the claims against it and get back to normal operations, and the reserves of the food bank were probably an irresistible target, given that it's nominally (legally) part of the Archdiocese, although its operations are secular and have (until now) been completely separate from religious affairs.  The Archbishop's most recent statement on the affair appears to sidestep such issues.  Dare one say it's just another case of "follow the money"?

This is yet another example of how the Catholic Church in America has inflicted long-term damage upon itself.  If only the bishops had, way back in the post-World-War-II era, insisted upon orthodoxy of faith, and imposed strict discipline upon the selection of candidates for the priesthood and their education in seminaries, the problem would have been far smaller and more manageable.  (It can never be eradicated completely, unfortunately, because human beings remain sinners, and one can't detect all of them in time to stop the damage from their sins.  Inevitably, some will slip through the screening - but in this case, the entire screening process appears to have become infected by the very sins - and sinners - it was supposed to detect and exclude.)  Since that was not done, the damage incurred was vastly greater, and it continues to have repercussions to this day.  Furthermore, a number of those who became clergy during the "evil years" are still in office, and continue to do damage (just look at the isolated, but well-publicized cases of priest abusers that continue to be unmasked to this day).  One might go so far as to say that the Catholic Church has abdicated its moral authority, to such an extent that it no longer possesses any in the eyes of much of the world.

I fear that, no matter how this issue is ultimately resolved, it will further damage the Catholic Church in the eyes of many of the faithful.  I know that a very large proportion of Catholics have stopped donating to the Church, because of unease about how their donations will be used, and I expect that problem will grow exponentially worse in southern Louisiana after this news.  I could wish with all my heart that the Archdiocese had left the food bank severely alone, and not tried to change anything . . . but the allure of millions of dollars in donations and reserves was probably irresistible, given the Archdiocese's bankruptcy declaration.  Sadly, the food bank is now likely to lose support from outside, non-Catholic sources who were happy to support secular food aid, but are not willing (or, in some cases, legally able) to support a religious enterprise.  That's going to directly impact up to about four hundred thousand people who depend on the food bank on a more or less regular basis.

I hope something can be done to compensate those dismissed by the Archbishop because they would not conform to his views.  They've contributed decades of their lives to their work, and to be summarily fired for reasons totally unrelated to the food bank's primary operations must have been a terrible blow.  Do they have pensions?  If they have suffered financial loss or hardship, will the Church make good those costs?  So far, nobody is talking about any of that.

What a mess . . . and the only winner might be said to be the devil himself.

Peter

That's why half the country feels like our leaders have abandoned us - and why President Trump won the election

 

The Wall Street Journal pointed out earlier this week that "The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever on Rich People".

[Rich] consumers now account for 49.7% of all spending, a record in data going back to 1989, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. Three decades ago, they accounted for about 36%.

All this means that economic growth is unusually reliant on rich Americans continuing to shell out. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, estimated that spending by the top 10% alone accounted for almost one-third of gross domestic product.

Between September 2023 and September 2024, the high earners increased their spending by 12%. Spending by working-class and middle-class households, meanwhile, dropped over the same period.

. . .

Taken together, well-off people have increased their spending far beyond inflation, while everyone else hasn’t. The bottom 80% of earners spent 25% more than they did four years earlier, barely outpacing price increases of 21% over that period. The top 10% spent 58% more.

There's more at the link.

That sharp divide in the economy shows up in many ways, not least in our politics.  I daresay most conservative Americans are in the "bottom half" of the country, economically speaking - with shining exceptions like Elon Musk, of course.  If you look at most of the progressive left, they live in larger cities with larger incomes, and react to the nation and the world from within that "economic cocoon" that shelters them from the harsher reality many of us face.  I daresay the readers of this blog average rather less than six-figure incomes every year.

I've lived from hand to mouth, from paycheck to paycheck.  When you're worrying about where the baby's next meal will come from, or juggling rent and a car payment, or having to give up holiday plans because you simply can't afford them any more . . . it gives you a radically different perspective on the economy and on our nation than those who can blithely wave a credit card and do as they please.

The news that the Biden administration was paying illegal migrants far more per month than Social Security recipients added more fuel to the fire of resentment and outrage;  and that boiled over when we learn that disaster victims in North Carolina were being abandoned to their own resources by FEMA because all of the money allocated for that purpose had been redirected to assist illegal migrants.  To make matters even worse, most of that money came from borrowing rather than income, leaving us with the biggest national debt in the nation's history - one our children's children will probably still be struggling to repay.  You may be sure that outrage was a major contributing factor to President Trump's electoral victory last year.

The most worrying thing is that our political elites largely appear to ignore this reality.  Just look at the budget debates going on in the Republican Party right now.  So few of our politicians need to exercise care in managing their money that they ignore the perspective of those of us who do.  There's a breakdown in understanding, in perception.  The politicians seemingly can't resist spending money we don't have.  I'd like nothing more than a balanced budget law (or even better, a Constitutional amendment), specifying that our national budget must balance income and expenditure before it can be passed, and that any loans required to balance it may be no greater than a (very small) percentage or proportion of the total budget, and must be paid off in full before new loans can be authorized.  Obviously, national emergencies (disasters, wars, etc.) might be grounds to suspend the balanced budget requirement for a period, but this should be limited as far as possible.

What say you, friends?

Peter

Ouch!

 

J. K. Rowling is hated by the progressive left for her refusal to approve of genderism and the transgender cult.  Fortunately, she's not afraid to speak up for her beliefs, and can hit back with acid humor when needed.  Yesterday:

Love it!

Peter

Yes, laughter is the best medicine

 

Those of us old farts who remember the Pink Panther movies will recall with glee the constant battles between Chief Inspector Dreyfus and Inspector Clouseau.

Here's a compilation of most of their to-ings and fro-ings - not all, but some of the best.  It had me laughing out loud at several points.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.

Peter

Fifteen minutes of insight and exposition

 

Last Monday I mentioned Glenn Beck's analysis of the Deep State's "money trail".  He used analysis from Datarepublican to illustrate the incestuous links between various NGO's and each other, and between them and State organs such as USAID, whereby taxpayer dollars were distributed wholesale to causes and activities that were clearly way outside US priorities.

Yesterday, digging deeper, I learned that Mr. Beck has just interviewed the lady known as Datarepublican.  They spent 15 minutes discussing what's been going on, and how the links now being uncovered between departments of state and NGO's are redefining what we know about corruption and misuse of taxpayer funds.  It's very interesting, and well worth your time.

All this should have been known years ago, of course.  The only reason it hasn't is that the mainstream media have ignored their job of investigative reporting, and helped to conceal all this chicanery and deception.  Today, thanks to the Internet, President Trump, D.O.G.E. and millions of concerned citizens, the truth is coming out, and the mainstream media are powerless to stop it (although they're doing their best, I'm sure).  I daresay it'll take years to analyze it all, but please God we'll get it done in the end.

It's been claimed (albeit from a source I've generally considered unreliable and untrustworthy) that:

Algorithms created by the United States Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have finally achieved what they are calling "God Mode" access to every Executive Branch Agency spending system.

Algorithms are now inside all the Executive Branch systems actively tracing ALL transactions, cataloguing all the requisite information, and creating output files for Executive (Presidential) Review.

No expenditure of money can be hidden by vast networks of "pass-throughs" as was possible for the past fifty years.. No bank account destinations can be shielded anymore.

There's more at the link.

For once, I hope that source is accurate!

Peter

Yet another boondoggle

 

For the benefit of overseas readers who may not have heard of it:

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 61 national and international unions, together representing nearly 15 million active and retired workers. The AFL-CIO engages in substantial political spending and activism, typically in support of progressive and pro-labor policies.

"Progressive" is right . . . the AFL-CIO and its member unions have consistently advocated for pro-labor, anti-capital positions, and have actively sought to organize workers in many other countries.  Unfortunately, it looks like they were doing so by illicitly using US taxpayer dollars to fund their operations.

The American taxpayer should not be subsidizing an international NGO that serves as the global arm of a partisan U.S. labor union. Yet, through an intricate web of grants, bureaucratic allocations, and foreign assistance programs, millions of taxpayer dollars flow directly into the coffers of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center, an entity functionally indistinguishable from the union itself. This relationship is not only improper; it is a textbook example of a conflict of interest—one that permits an ideologically driven labor federation to extend its influence under the auspices of U.S. democracy promotion while working against the very interests of the American worker.

The Solidarity Center is not a neutral NGO pursuing disinterested humanitarian labor reform. It is, in reality, an extension of the AFL-CIO, created and staffed by the very same individuals who dictate the federation’s domestic agenda. The leadership structure reveals this plainly: the chair of the Solidarity Center’s board is none other than the AFL-CIO president. The Center’s policies, hiring, and operations mirror those of the union itself. This is not a loosely affiliated advocacy group that happens to share an ideological affinity with the AFL-CIO—it is a fully integrated arm of the same organization, masquerading as an independent NGO to secure government funding.

Consider the implications of this arrangement. If a politically aligned, privately run trade union can establish a non-governmental organization that then siphons taxpayer money under the guise of promoting “labor democracy,” the result is a system in which the federal government is effectively underwriting the union’s political ambitions abroad. This dynamic is especially troubling given that the AFL-CIO, like all labor unions, exists to serve a narrow set of economic interests—those of its leadership, its dues-paying members, and its preferred political allies. When the AFL-CIO lobbies for policies that increase unionization rates or protect entrenched labor privileges, it does so in direct opposition to large segments of the American workforce—especially independent contractors, small business owners, and workers in right-to-work states who have chosen not to unionize. The Solidarity Center allows these domestic priorities to be exported under the banner of international development, reinforcing the power of organized labor with government assistance.

Moreover, the funding pipeline that sustains the Solidarity Center is largely opaque. The Center’s operations rely almost entirely on U.S. government grants—more than 96% of its funding comes from agencies like USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the U.S. Department of Labor. This is not an organization sustained by voluntary contributions from like-minded donors; rather, it is a taxpayer-funded project that continues to receive tens of millions of dollars in federal grants despite its direct alignment with a partisan domestic institution. There is no meaningful oversight mechanism that prevents these funds from being used to advance AFL-CIO interests rather than genuine labor reform abroad. Even more troubling, there is little transparency about how funds are spent in the dozens of countries where the Solidarity Center operates.

There's more at the link.

Isn't it nice to know (NOT!) that our taxes have been wasted on such activities, rather than spent on things that this country really needs?

I'm beginning to think that Elon Musk's early estimate that D.O.G.E. might be able to find up to $2 trillion in wasted and/or fraudulent and/or unnecessary expenditure might be conservative.  He and his team have been at work for only a few days longer than a month, yet already they're uncovering such problems left, right and center.  I understand that so far, they've clawed back wasteful expenditure amounting to well over $100 billion, with perhaps as much again on their radar for further investigation - and they haven't even started to get into the really big candidates for fraud and abuse, such as Defense, Medicare/aid and Social Security.  Here, just for interest, is what they announced yesterday among their latest "recoveries":

Meanwhile, one hopes that this little shenanigan by the AFL-CIO will be nipped in the bud, right smartly.  I'm also looking forward to learning just how much money was spent on progressive left-wing NGO's and their allies over the years.  To name just one example, the innocuously-named but Soros-affiliated East-West Management Institute is said to have received over $270 million in US taxpayer funds from USAID, with a further $90 million obligated through various contracts.  That's not small change!  How does funding to the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center compare over the same period?

Peter

I hadn't thought about this road hazard...

 

From American Truckers on X.com, we learn this.  Click the image for a larger, readable view.

I don't regularly drive on ice and snow (thank you, Texas weather!), but from my (very) limited exposure to it, I know I don't do well under those driving conditions.  I'd never considered the hazards of commercial vehicles, particularly 18-wheeler truck/trailer combinations, when their drivers have the same problem.  Now that drivers can come in from Mexico (where snow isn't exactly commonplace, to put it mildly) and drive all the way to the US/Canadian border or even further north, I can see that would make for . . . interesting times on the highway.

How about you, readers?  Have any of you run into this problem (hopefully not literally!)?  If so, please tell us about it in Comments.  It might help keep all of us safer on the road.

Peter

This is not only morally sickening, it's a criminal misuse of taxpayer dollars

 

British apologist G. K. Chesterton is renowned for the premise that "The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything".  He never used those exact words, but several times in his writings that principle is clearly stated.

We've just been shown another example of what happens when human beings decide there's nothing Divine in which to believe, and that therefore anything goes.  This time it's in our intelligence services.

The “intelligence community” is one of the most powerful parts of the American national security apparatus. In theory, it works tirelessly to keep the nation safe. But according to internal documents that we obtained, some intelligence agency employees have another on-the-job priority: sex chats.

We have cultivated sources within the National Security Agency—one current employee and one former employee—who have provided chat logs from the NSA’s Intelink messaging program. According to an NSA press official, “All NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission related material on Intelink is a usage violation and will result in disciplinary action.” Nonetheless, these logs, dating back two years, are lurid, featuring wide-ranging discussions of sex, kink, polyamory, and castration.

. . .

These revelations come at a moment of heightened scrutiny for the intelligence community. President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have each made the case that the intelligence agencies have gone “woke,” prioritizing left-wing activism over national security. These chat logs confirm their suspicions and raise fundamental questions about competence and professionalism.

According to our sources, the sex chats were legitimized as part of the NSA’s commitment to “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Activists within the agency used LGBTQ+ “employee resource groups” to turn their kinks and pathologies into official work duties. According to the current NSA employee, these groups “spent all day" recruiting activists and holding meetings with titles such as “Privilege,” “Ally Awareness,” “Pride,” and “Transgender Community Inclusion.” And they did so with the full support of NSA leadership, which declared that DEI was “not only mission critical, but mission imperative.”

In this case, “diversity” was not a byword for racialism, but rather a euphemism for sex talk.

There's more at the link, much of it a lot more explicit than the excerpts I published above.  Read at your own risk.

As the article points out, this is a violation of policy and a disciplinary offense;  but that didn't stop those involved from discarding every rule and regulation and indulging their, shall we say, baser natures.  I doubt very much whether any of them adhere to any major religious belief (except perhaps Satanism), because their attitude and conduct transgresses the moral teaching of every such religion of which I'm aware.  I think this is a very clear example of believing in themselves and what feels good, rather than a higher power and what is morally or philosophically good.

There are those who say that doesn't matter;  that such individuals can't be blackmailed or shamed into providing intelligence to foreign powers and enemies of our country, because nowadays society accepts their ways and nobody cares any more.  Allow me to assure you, that's not the case.  Firstly, society isn't nearly as open across the country as it is in a few selected areas where people with such tendencies have chosen to congregate.  Secondly, even those who cast discretion to the winds and throw themselves wholeheartedly into such a lifestyle still don't want to lose people in their lives who are important to them - parents, siblings, close friends - but who may not accept or tolerate their lifestyle.  They can be embarrassed or shamed into cooperating with such enemies.  I know it.  As chaplain in a high-security penitentiary, one comes across . . . I won't say "is exposed to" for fear of misunderstandings . . . one comes across such people from time to time, serving years, even decades behind bars because their misdeeds and "secret lives" finally caught up with them.  They're pretty miserable critters, let me assure you.  I doubt very much that they'd tell you it was all worth it.

I hope and trust that everyone involved in this perversion will be identified, tracked down, and disciplined to the fullest possible extent, and will also lose their security clearances and associated career prospects.  I don't say that out of a spirit of vengefulness, but because I want to minimize any further damage they might do to our country, and end any they may already have done.  For those of us who are people of faith - any faith - I also suggest that we pray for those involved, because if anyone needs repentance and conversion, they do!

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  Jeff Childers has some trenchant thoughts on the matter.

The response was swift, not to say coordinated. Within hours, Director Gabbard roundly condemned the spooks’ sexy chatting:

It used to be that harboring bizarre sexual kinks and revolting fetishes was an automatic disqualifier for top-secret clearance. Standards have obviously fallen faster than Senator McConnell navigating a steep marble stairway. I would go farther than most and suggest these concupiscient chatterers probably suffer from diagnosable mental illnesses, which apparently was a pathway to advancement in the Biden Administration’s intelligence agencies.

. . .

It was a devastating, carefully calculated takedown. Frankly, it explains a lot. But in the battlefield of public perception, this grotesque disclosure of what the NSA’s disobedient employees have been doing in secret will justify nearly any change that Tulsi Gabbard needs to make to reorganize the intelligence agencies.

This might be remembered as the moment when the public finally glimpsed the rot festering behind the glass and concrete walls of the intelligence fortress. A glimpse raising an even bigger, more uncomfortable question: If this is what we’re allowed to see—what’s still hidden?

There's more at the link.

That's a very good question, isn't it?

The money-laundering trail

 

I've never been a fan of Glenn Beck, but now and again he comes up with a very interesting insight or analysis of what's going on.  He's just taken a look at the flow of money from the "Deep State", quite legally through Congressional approval, to layer after layer of non-government organizations (NGO's).  He accurately calls it money laundering.

Take a look at this video.  It's only twelve minutes long, and very informative.

This is what's being revealed by D.O.G.E.'s "deep dive" into government expenditure.  We're finding tax dollars popping up in all sorts of unexpected (and inappropriate) areas.  Independent analysts like Datarepublican on X are taking that raw data, running it through spreadsheets and AI programs, and uncovering the trail of a tax dollar from place to place and organization to organization.  It's a long, complex process, and it's nowhere near complete yet.  It'll take months to uncover the money trail . . . but it must be done if we're to deep-six the Deep State.

Don't get impatient with the process if there are no new earth-shattering revelations, the way there were in the first couple of weeks of President Trump's term.  The process goes on, and digs deeper and deeper every day.  My worry is that the impatient American public will get bored with waiting, and demand something new and exciting every day.  That's unlikely to happen.  Instead, I suspect that after six months to a year, we're going to see a very, very large organization chart appear, tracing the links between all sorts of organizations.  There will also be flowcharts (or equivalents) showing how tax dollars made their way from government to private organizations, and why, and what they did with it.

I think we're also going to see just how much money certain congressional representatives and Senators have directed to their favored causes, and how much of that has come back to them in so-called "kickbacks" or "consulting fees" or "donations to re-election expenses".  I wonder how many of our legislators will face criminal charges as a result?  I won't be surprised to learn the number reaches into three figures.

That, of course, means that legislators (and their allies in the mainstream media) will be frantic to shut down the investigations, or mislead them, before they can be identified as guilty parties.  It's going to be like a cockroach-infested kitchen in the small hours of the morning when the light is suddenly switched on.  The panic and scurrying for cover of our political insects - on both sides of the aisle - should be epic . . .

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 250

 

A quarter of a millennium (numerically, not annually) of memes!

As always, gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Ever heard of "dwarf metal"?

The question almost isn’t “Did you know there was such a thing as Dwarf Metal” but rather “How did it take so long for this to come into being?”

Like mithril forming under the earth’s crust, Dwarf Metal (also referred to as Dwarven Metal) began in the mind of young Francesco Cavalieri, from Pontedera, Italy. Growing up on a steady diet of Tolkien, World of Warcraft, and MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball, Cavalieri and his mates found a way to combine all their loves into a completely unique metal sub-genre.

. . .

Looking for a way to “stand out from the crowd,” Cavalieri and his bandmates tapped into their other childhood obsessions. “I played World of Warcraft. And then the Lord of the Rings movies were released in 2001. These years changed my life,” says Cavalieri. “I realized that I wanted to be a warrior!”

The band—now called Wind Rose after the way of graphically presenting wind and weather conditions for use in navigation—started out as a progressive power metal band, keeping its true intentions hidden while they established their cred.

. . .

Cavalieri, along with bandmates Claudio Falconcini (guitar), Federico Meranda (keyboards), Cristiano Bertocchi (bass), and Federico Gatti (drums), then began honing their stage presentation, enlisting the help of LARP costume-makers to create their dwarven armor. However, they quickly realized they needed to find a middle ground between cosplay and actual battle-ready armaments. “You see these people at Blizzcon and Comic Con with just the most beautiful armor,” says Cavalieri. “But it’s too big and fragile for us to use onstage. It’s not made for our kind of work!”

Wind Rose then recorded a cover of a 2010 parody song called “Diggy Diggy Hole,” written by UK-based comedy podcast YOGSCAST. The original song reached 50 million people worldwide on YouTube, and Cavalieri saw it as a way to give the band more visibility and show that they have a sense of humor about what they’re doing. “It’s a song about dwarfs! And it’s a funny song we can have some fun playing onstage.”

There's more at the link.  Interesting reading.

We've played that original version of "Diggy Diggy Hole" here before, as well as Wind Rose's original version of it.  In case you've forgotten, here's how it started.

Knowing that background, I was nevertheless amazed to see Wind Rose perform the song live as their closing number at the Legends Of Rock 2024 concert in Villena, Spain, in front of thousands of cheering metal fans complete with a circular mosh pit.  The original composers of the song could surely never have dreamed of this!

Still recovering from that last one, I found that Wind Rose had gone so far as to record a combined metal/disco/techno remix of "Diggy Diggy Hole" during the COVID lockdown a few years ago.  I've never encountered that mixture before, and I'm not sure I want to again:  but, for posterity and completeness, here it is.

There you are - a uniquely "underground music" start to your Sunday!

Peter

Heh

 

Found on Gab:

A Coolidge anecdote is that at a state fair, Mrs. Coolidge and her party came across an exhibit of chickens. The man who owned the chickens informed Mrs. Coolidge, “That rooster can perform his services six or seven times a day,” to which Mrs. Coolidge replied, “See to it that the President is given that information!”

When President Coolidge came to the same exhibit sometime later, the owner told him, “Mrs. Coolidge wanted me to tell you that that rooster can perform his services six or seven times a day.” Coolidge thought for a moment and then asked, “Same chicken every time?” to which the owner said, “No, Mr. President, different chickens.”

Coolidge then said, “See to it that Mrs. Coolidge is given that information!”

Peter

Larry Correia brings the smackdown to wannabe auditors

 

The inimitable Larry Correia, best-selling author and friend, has written another outstanding (and rather profane) rant against those who presume to know what's involved in an audit, such as those currently being conducted of the operations of government administration.  (Being a chartered accountant and a forensic auditor, he knows whereof he speaks.)  Here are some excerpts.

Watching everybody I know on the left pontificating about the proper way to conduct audits, after getting their accounting degrees from the University of Internet this week, is absolute cringe for me.

Guys, listen, I say this with love… You don’t know **** about **** and it’s fucking embarrassing. Just stop. You sound like idiots.

So now, as a guy who used to be an auditor, who has defended companies from dozens of audits from different government agencies, I’ll try to correct some of your incredibly stupid NPC talking points you keep endlessly barfing up.

. . .

But but but Elon is posting things on Twitter that aren’t 100% perfectly accurate according to liberal fact checkers from liberal news organizations which up until recently have been receiving large amounts of tax payer money for phony baloney reasons!

So what?

The stuff that’s been made public so far is what’s called findings. Findings aren’t the final report. That takes time. And you’ll probably never see those final reports because again, say it with me, INTERNAL. The only way you’ll ever see the complete detailed final report for any given agency is Donald Trump feels like it. Same as any CEO can drop whatever internal company info he feels like.

But DOGE is going TOO FAST! Well no ****. They are on a tight time frame. The republicans control everything right now (barely, and many of them are every bit as corrupt as the dems) only the government is ******* huge, Trump got elected on cutting it, and mid terms are in two years.

. . .

The time for a gentle, caring, measured (slow), careful pruning of government to only remove the bad tissue with a scalpel was generations ago. We are now at the axe and TQ time before the patient dies. Yeah, that sucks, but that’s what happens when you procrastinate going to the doctors while a cancerous tumor the size of a ******* watermelon grows out your back.

. . .

Will government programs you like get cut? Absolutely. Will this suck for a lot of people? Yes. Will good hard working employees get cut along with the legions of useless ******* dregs? Yup. Is this still necessary so our entire nation doesn’t collapse into utter dog **** under the weight of the all consuming federal leviathan, where to survive we huddle in the ruins eating rats cooked over piles of burning dollar bills? Also yes.

They’re called budget cuts because they hurt. If they were pleasant they would be called budget tickles.

. . .

If a company’s records were full of broken bullshit, the government would assume the worst, fine the ever living **** out of you, and possibly send you to jail. Because the government’s default assumption when a company’s books are all ****** up is that it is on purpose to hide fraud.

Except when our government’s books are filled with things like 30 million dollars to fund a Transsexual Peruvian Orchestra, and 99% of that money never made it out of northern Virginia, we’re supposed to assume that’s just nice fluffy goodness, and HOW DARE YOU assume there’s anything dishonest going on.

There's more at the link.

Refer to this morning's cartoon for the likely, devoutly-to-be-wished consequences of such audits . . .

Peter

And not before time...

 

Found on MeWe:

Peter

Defense cuts? You betcha!

 

I note that Defense Secretary Hegseth has asked the US military to prepare for budget cuts of about 8% a year over the next five years.  That sounds like a tall order, but I think it's entirely feasible if he takes an axe to the bureaucracy, waste and "gilding the lily" that's rampant in our armed forces at present.  Examples:

• The Constellation-class frigate program was supposed to use an existing design, with minimal modification.  After "tinkering" by the Navy, it now has less than 15% commonality with its source design.  It's also three years late and 40% over budget.  At this point, it might be better to "reset" the entire program, go back to its original design roots, and cancel everything over and above that.
• The F-35, which after years of tinkering and ten years in service is still not at its full, originally specified operational capability, and is costing so much that it's soaking up funds needed for other aircraft projects.
• The US Navy has less than 300 ships in active service, and about 230 admirals of various grades - approximately 1.3 ships per admiral.  If we adjust things so that we have just 2 ships per admiral, that would reduce the "deadwood" by about eighty admirals - and I'm sure that's just the beginning of what could be achieved.  The other services could do likewise.  For decades, Air Force wings were commanded by colonels.  Today, some are commanded by brigadier-generals.  Why?  Why not go back to the old way and save all those general officer salaries and benefits?

To be fair, some of the armed forces' problems are caused by the politicians to whom they answer.  The catastrophic withdrawal (should that be "undignified scramble for the exits"?) from Afghanistan left behind tens of billions of dollars of weapons and equipment, much of which is now allegedly being made available to terrorists elsewhere in the world.  It should never have happened, but the Biden administration rode roughshod over military and strategic considerations, causing the havoc that ensued.

I hope that as far as weapon design and procurement goes, the armed forces will seriously consider Elon Musk's approach to new technology.  Build a "first-pass" attempt and test it.  It'll probably fail.  Find out why, fix that, and see what else can be improved.  Build a "second-pass" attempt and test it.  Ditto.  After a few iterations, you're likely to see greatly improved results - and you'll get them fast, instead of having to wait years for theoretical designers to try to make sure everything's safe on paper before they allow anything to actually be made.

I'd also like to see something like Armscor's approach to weapons design in South Africa.  When a new weapon was required, a design was chosen and developed to pre-production standards:  then the engineers who'd built it, and who would oversee production, were expected to take it into a combat zone and test it under fire.  Most of them, of course, had seen military service as conscripts, so they weren't unused to the idea, but it was nonetheless amusing to hear their comments when something proved less than satisfactory while the enemy was shooting at them.  (I learned a few new words that way.)  It also made sure that the actual production models were as good as they could be, with very few surprises (unpleasant or otherwise) for the troops using them.

A good example was the first field test of South Africa's ZT3 anti-tank missile, today known as the Ingwe.  Based on the US TOW missile, which was then developed into a laser-guided version, MAPATS, by an Israeli company, the ZT3 was sent into combat in 1987, mounted on a Ratel IFV, as a final test before full production began.  A few Angolan T-55's duly turned up, and fire was exchanged.  Unfortunately, in some cases the missile's laser guidance system, designed to seek out a laser beam being projected onto the target and follow it, instead found the hot, bright African sun a much more interesting illumination - so some missiles took off skyward, pursued by the highly indignant epithets of the engineers and servicemen trying to defend themselves.  Others worked.  You can hear ten minutes of audio from that actual combat at this link.

I'm afraid a "waste mindset" has permeated through much of the US military these days.  "We don't have to worry - the taxpayer will foot the bill!"  I don't think that's accurate any more . . . and I hope our armed forces can change their ways, and become leaner and meaner than before.

Peter

Heh

 

From X.com:

It's funny, of course, but the reality is that fraudulent Social Security payouts are the least of our worries.  With a "valid" (i.e. in-the-system, unquestioned) Social Security number, anyone can apply for bank accounts, loans, subsidies, food stamps, and a host of other benefits - even voting in US elections.  It's the key that opens many doors, and allows someone to defraud us through all of them.  That's why having sixty-plus-million Social Security Numbers more than the entire population of the USA is so dangerous.  It's not the numbers - it's the doors they open to fraud.

Peter

Cut funding for "Big Ag"? Sounds fair to me.

 

From The Hill:

Brooke Rollins, our new secretary of Agriculture, is promising to reform the department and create “effective and efficient nutrition programs.” On her first day she “pledged to bring greater efficiency to USDA” and “stop wasteful spending.”

If she’s serious about eliminating waste, she’ll take a hard look at the wasteful mandates and billions of U.S. tax dollars that go directly to agricultural corporations every year.

What do we get for this huge investment of public funds? Mostly an industry that benefits a few large corporations and perpetuates a cycle of overproduction and waste. Wasteful mandates and spending actually add additional costs to Americans on top of our tax dollars, including billions in increased food, fuel, and medical costs, and environmental harm.

Rollins has a big opportunity for change.    

Despite spending $20 billion a year of our tax dollars on farm subsidies, Americans never see most U.S. agriculture products. We only eat about 37 percent of major crops produced. The remainder are feeding the pockets of large agriculture corporations — diverted to industrial processes that overproduce fuel and feed or exported out of the country and entangled in tariff battles.  

Take the biofuel industry: Congress subsidizes biofuels through the Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires all fuel refiners to include billions of gallons of corn and soy-based biofuels in gasoline and diesel — far more than what the market demands ... What biofuel subsidies have done is increase consumer costs. In a recent report, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the Renewable Fuel Standard increases our food and fuel costs by over $8 billion per year.

. . .

Agricultural subsidies have ballooned out of control largely because of the myth of the bucolic family farm. No one wants to hurt the hard-working, multi-generational small farmer who is just trying to earn an honest living.  

But this isn’t the reality of American agriculture today. Our agriculture industry is dominated by a small number of industrial-scale corporations that benefit from the vast majority of subsidies.

There's more at the link.

I could get behind this in a big way.  Just for a start, how about abolishing the ethanol mandate for gasoline?  By eliminating it, we'd save literally billions of dollars a year buying a product that is not scientifically or economically necessary - in fact, using it and blending it with "raw" fuels costs us quite a bit more per gallon than we'd otherwise have to pay.  And guess what?  All that ethanol subsidy money goes to "Big Ag" - firms like Archer Daniels Midland and their ilk, corporate "farmers" that own thousands of square miles of American farmland and exploit it for their benefit, not ours.

I hope a way can be found to help small farmers, whether families or small corporations like LLC's, to stay on the land and get access to the latest technology.  That way, not only can they grow the food we need, but they can provide employment for themselves and many others.  That will also breathe new life into otherwise dying small towns and farm communities.

There's a place for "Big Ag", I'm sure . . . but not at taxpayers' expense.  Let them fund their own operations.

Peter

An interesting look at USAID operations in Cairo, Egypt. Sure sounds corrupt to me!

 

Journalist, author and social media commenter Larry Taunton has for years been following globalist ideas and activities, from the World Economic Forum at the top to their implementation in NGO's in various countries at the bottom.  He's uncovered all sorts of interesting bits and pieces.

In a recent thread on X.com (the original post that starts it is here), he describes what he found in Cairo, Egypt, when he went to see what USAID was up to there.  He embeds several videos and other links, which are worth watching or following for further information.  Here's how it starts.

By God’s grace, I am now out of Egypt.

Let me state at the outset of this report:

• An X🧵is insufficient to tell the full story.
• There are ongoing complications. So you must read between the lines.

Last week in a🧵that got 12 million views, I reported that I made a visit to USAID - Cairo.

To those unfamiliar with my work, I have been tracking globalist initiatives at both ends:

• At the idea level (e.g., the World Economic Forum in Davos).
• Then I go downstream to see how those idea play out in the lives of real people. You see, globalists have insulated themselves from the often awful consequences of their own ideas.

For the last 3 years I have attended the WEF where they have promoted open borders and then I went to cartel country & Darién in Central & South America where, as I reported in an interview which prompted an encouraging response from President Trump, USAID was running a massive *human trafficking* op straight to our borders and beyond them.

From there I went to Cairo. I had a variety of reasons to be in Cairo. USAID was among them.

You will see from Google Earth that USAID - Cairo is a massive military-style compound.

People often ask me how I get into things like the WEF. The answer is simple: through the front door.

I’m not doing ninja stuff in the dead of night… That gives them cause to arrest you. But if I go through your security and you let me in, that’s on you (unless you’re a Jan 6er).

Last week, security raised the barrier and let us drive in. I proceeded to walk around the entire massive complex to find the entrance…. 

There was no USAID signage of any kind. Finding the door, I spoke briefly with the security guard and entered the building.

Once inside, I asked them a simple question: Were they complying with President Trump’s (public) order to shut down?

This proved to be a dangerous question, and as I explained elsewhere, I promptly left the building, got in the car, and drove away.

There's much more at the link, including interrogations by site security personnel, police, even possible Egyptian intelligence agents.  It's worth your while to read it all.

From Mr. Taunton's account, it appears that at least one USAID overseas office was (and perhaps still is) going on with its work in spite of - in defiance of - President Trump's order to shut down that agency's operations.  One hopes the authorities in Washington D.C. have taken note, and are doing something about it . . .

Peter

Wheels within wheels...

 

Jeff Childers postulates that President Trump and his allies foresaw conflict with the courts years ago, following his loss to President Biden in 2020, and began planning for it even then.

In 2021, [Sean] Spicer was (obviously) no longer serving as Press Secretary, but Trump had appointed him to two positions, including as a member of the Naval Academy Visitor’s Board. In September 2021, with only three months left in his Congressionally-defined term, Biden sent Spicer an email notifying him that he’d been fired. He thought, well, that’s that.

It turned out that Joe Biden made history by firing all Trump’s appointees to nonpartisan service academy boards before their statutory three-year terms ended. It was unprecedented. It had never happened before.

Then Spicer got a call from America First Legal. They asked him to join a lawsuit intended to force Biden to argue he has the absolute authority to fire anyone in the Executive Branch, including appointees to boards with statutory terms.

The District Court dismissed the case, interpreting the statute in a way that allowed Biden to fire Spicer despite this three-year term. They appealed. In the meantime, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled, in a parallel case (Severino v. Biden), that a presidential appointee in a similar position was removable at will by the President.

And it was done.

The law firm, America First Legal, is a conservative legal advocacy organization founded in April 2021 by former Trump administration officials. Until July of last year, America First Legal was a member of the advisory board for Project 2025, which is widely believed to provide the template for Trump’s plan to drain the Swamp.

In other words, drawing a few obvious inferences, Trump began working on this plan immediately after Biden took office in 2021.

While corporate media was busy calling Biden’s historic 2021 firings a routine housecleaning, President Trump’s legal teams were already laying a legal landscape for his second term. Spicer’s case wasn’t about getting his job back—it was about setting a legal precedent to let Trump clean house on day one of his second term.

Biden fired Spicer, AFL sued, and the far-left DC courts predictably ruled Biden could fire termed federal employees at will. Now Trump can fire them at will, too.

This wasn’t just a lawsuit; It was a strategic booby trap—forcing Biden’s own DOJ to argue on the record that the President has unlimited authority to remove Executive Branch appointees, even those with statutory terms. They fell right into the trap.

I suspect that, as things go on, we’ll find more examples of how Trump took the Democrats’ worst excesses during the painful Biden years and turned things around on them. They thought they were cleaning house. Instead, they were clearing the runway for Trump. That is why the Democrats are in disarray.

There's more at the link.

I believe the technical term is "hoist with his own petard".  Very canny . . .

Peter

Well said!

 

I said last Friday that "If President Trump had won re-election in 2020, he would never have had the same impact as he's had this year".  I know many have said something similar;  it's not an original insight.  However, I've never seen it better expressed than by William E. Wolfe on X:

That gets it said.  The Democratic Party, the Uniparty, the Swamp and the progressive left have effectively created their greatest enemy and propelled him into power by their excesses.  What's happening to them now is their own fault.

To put it in Biblical terms:  "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind".  Preach it, Mr. Wolfe!

Now, of course, we have to fear assassination attempts against President Trump, Elon Musk and their allies.  Their enemies won't cease to do all they can to block, frustrate and counter every move the administration makes.  There are enough radicals, enough fanatics, among them that killing the authors of their discontent will not be unthinkable.  Pray for protection, and for all those charged with the responsibility of keeping the President and his allies and advisors safe.  The odds are still pretty good that some enemies are among them, and have not (yet) been uncovered or rooted out.

Peter

Ho hum... a million here, a million there. Who cares? It's only taxpayer money...

 

Elon Musk and D.O.G.E. are investigating current expenditures and recovering them wherever possible, but what about past expenditures that don't pass the smell test?  Here's one report that should make any taxpayer see red.

If the Biden administration’s green energy agenda were a bus, it would have no wheels, a dead battery, and a $160 million price tag. Enter Lion Electric, a Canadian electric school bus company that was handed nearly $160 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies—only to collapse into bankruptcy, leaving school districts across America high and dry​.

Now, watchdogs like EPA administrator Lee Zeldin are demanding answers, exposing yet another mismanaged, wasteful, and completely avoidable green energy failure.

As part of Biden’s $5 billion Clean School Bus program, Lion Electric was awarded $159 million to produce 435 electric buses. The administration touted it as a hallmark of its climate agenda, with Kamala Harris herself front and center, gushing over the initiative​.

Fast forward to today:

• Lion Electric has stopped manufacturing.
• It has laid off its workforce.
• It hasn’t delivered $95 million worth of promised buses to 55 school districts​.

. . .

Here’s the kicker: Lion Electric was in deep financial trouble long before Biden started funneling money into it.

Since 2020, the company has lost $301.6 million.

Its stock price has collapsed from $33.48 per share to just $0.08—a staggering 99.7% wipeout​.

It was hit with a class-action lawsuit after allegedly misleading investors with “grossly unrealistic financial projections”​.

And yet, the Biden administration kept the money flowing, rewarding a failing company because it fit the “green energy” narrative.

There's more at the link.

So . . . where's that $159 million?  Since no products were delivered in exchange for it, can the money be recovered from either the company, or its (presumably long-departed) executives?  Can their property be escheated or seized, and sold to recover some of the money?  What about the new factory the company built, which is now deserted and abandoned?  Can it be sold?

And what about the bureaucrats who approved that investment despite knowing - as they must surely have known - about the company's existing financial difficulties?  Malfeasance, perhaps?  That should be investigated with a fine-tooth comb.

As a taxpayer, I'm infuriated.  As an American, I'm disgusted that those who were supposed to lead and build up and support the country turn out to have done anything but that.

Peter

An important warning about some canned foods

I note that certain brands of canned tuna are being withdrawn due to contamination.

A voluntary recall has been issued for some canned tuna products — sold across the country at Trader Joe's, Walmart, Costco and other stores — because of a pull tab defect that could lead to potentially fatal botulism food poisoning.

Tri-Union Seafoods issued a voluntary recall for selected lots of canned tuna products that are sold under brand names like Genova, Van Camp’s, Trader Joe’s and H-E-B, the company and the Food and Drug Administration announced in a news release Friday. 

The recall was issued “out of an abundance of caution” after, the supplier said, there was a manufacturing defect on the tuna can’s “easy open” pull lid on limited products that could compromise “the integrity of the product seal,” the release said.  

The defective lid could cause the product to leak or be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum — described as “a potentially fatal form of food poisoning.” 

There's more at the link.

The problem is, more and more cans of food are using the "pull-tab" method of removing the lids, shown below.

These lids do not seal as tightly (hermetically) to the can as the older-fashioned lids that require a can-opener to remove them.  Potentially, any can using a pull-tab lid may be more easily contaminated with bacteria, and/or the food inside may go bad quicker, than if it uses a conventional lid.

This is a very important consideration for those of us building up a stash of canned food as part of our emergency preparations.  The last thing we want is to give ourselves and our families food poisoning when the availability of medical treatment may be less than optimal!  I try to make sure that my stored food supplies use only "conventional" cans, not pull-tab lids, for precisely that reason.

Food (literally) for thought . . .

Peter

A unique submarine battery recharging system?

 

I was intrigued to read that China may have come up with a unique way to recharge submarine batteries while underwater.

China’s new nuclear-battery attack submarine – a unique hybrid boat running on batteries like a conventional sub but which recharges them using a tiny nuclear reactor – could be the ultimate near-shore defence sub, and a big problem for US and allied forces in the western Pacific.

. . .

Most notably the type seems to have a unique propulsion system – one that sidesteps longstanding engineering challenges in order to deliver a quiet attack submarine for near-shore operations, one that can stay submerged for long periods of time in order to preserve its stealth. The Type 041 is reportedly the first submarine with a tiny nuclear reactor that, while too small to power the entire boat, is big enough to charge the batteries for submerged operations.

. . .

With its nuclear-charged battery, a Type 041 might be able to remain submerged for 20 days straight, according to Kirchberger and Carlson. That’s a 10-fold improvement in underwater endurance compared to traditional diesel-electric submarines.

There's more at the link.

This is particularly interesting news given new developments in battery technology, plus new modular small nuclear reactors.  The latter are particularly important, because current designs are intended to power a small town, or an industrial facility.  If all they have to do is recharge banks of batteries, they can be made even smaller - in effect, miniaturized.  It's not inconceivable that they could be reduced to the size of a small motor vehicle, which could easily be installed in a submarine hull in place of conventional diesel engines or air-independent propulsion (AIP) units.

There's another side to that, of course.  Some smaller countries such as Iran and North Korea build their own submarines, almost all of them using World War II-vintage diesel engines and lead-acid batteries.  They're relatively unsophisticated.  If such countries can buy or build small modular reactors, they could possibly build their own nuclear-recharged battery-powered submarines that would offer far greater range and speed than their old-fashioned units.  A few such submarines at "choke points" for maritime trade, such as off any one of dozens of major harbors, the entrances to the Suez Canal or Panama Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca or the Bab-el-Mandeb, and maritime trade worldwide could take a massive hit.  The relative inefficiency of their old-fashioned batteries, with their lower capacity and endurance, wouldn't matter nearly so much if they could be recharged silently, on demand, without surfacing, by an on-board miniature reactor.

The USA long ago decided that all its submarines should be nuclear-powered.  There were good reasons for that, but it's resulted in very, very expensive and complicated vessels, and arguably not enough of them to accomplish all the missions and tasks expected of them.  Could nuclear-recharged battery-powered submarines affect that decision, making a greatly increased submarine fleet both affordable and effective?  It is to hope . . .

Peter

"DOGE dishes biggest scandal in human history"

 

That's how Jeff Childers headlines this morning's article at Coffee & Covid.  Looking at the numbers he provides, I'd say he's not wrong!

A full decade ago in 2015, the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General reported that 6.5 million active Social Security numbers were assigned to people aged 112 or older, despite there being only 35 such individuals known to be living worldwide. (Robert Kennedy should be happy to hear about this.) That was alarming enough, but in 2023, an expanded audit looked at SSNs aged 100 and up. This time, 18.9 million active SSNs with birthdates of 1920 or earlier lacked a date of death, meaning they are still active.

But last year (2024), PEW Research reported there are only 80,000 living Americans aged 100+, leaving a shocking discrepancy of 18.8 million mysterious perennial people still receiving social security and possibly disability as well, not to mention generous credits from phantom tax returns, and of course, blue state and local benefits.

. . .

In the latest electrifying development that will also probably not shock you, DOGE —for the last week slogging through the SSA’s septic systems of archaic paper and antique Cobol software — is beginning to report that the OIG canaries in the SSA mineshaft were, if anything, woefully underreporting the problem.

🔥 Yesterday, apparent DOGE mouthpiece Elon Musk posted a simple database count of active Social Security Numbers by age range. The dumbfounding chart was a political hydrogen bomb, and it speaks for itself:

Apparently, we’ve been operating on the honor system this whole time. We normal, non-civil-service Americans were the only ones who didn’t know. It’s just the latest reason they sneer at us and think we’re stupid and gullible. Those neanderthal conservatives will believe anything. They’re right. We’re the biggest suckers in human history.

I added up the numbers for our cherished, specially abled readers in Portland. Based on Elon’s chart, the total count of active SSNs is 398 million. That means there are +64 million more active SSNs than the entire population of the United States (334 million).

Let me say it again: sixty-four million zombies. Needless to say, it’s totally impossible, at least under our current scientific understanding of human mortality. The diligent, hardworking, apolitical employees in the federal government appear to have diligently preserved a shadow army of dead or nonexistent “Americans” on the books — zombies — with tens of millions of them potentially still receiving benefits, filing tax returns, and “voting” Democrat.

This appears to be a scandal of unfathomable, indescribable, revolutionary proportions. Since I have a very strong feeling that we will not be receiving tax refunds for our cataclysmically misspent entitlements lavished on millions of career criminals, including those inside the government, I say burn it all down.

There is no fixing this. There is no audit big enough. There is no reform package meaningful enough. It is a soul-crushing abomination. It boils the blood. It is enraging beyond explanation. Just napalm the whole Kafkaesque apparatus and start over from scratch.

This scandal will be the Deep State's Waterloo.

There's more at the link.

For once, I'm at a loss for words, so I'll let Mr. Childers say it for me.  "This is a scandal of unfathomable, indescribable, revolutionary proportions."  How many of those 64 million "extra" Social Security Numbers were/are receiving benefits?  How many were/are registered to vote?  Perhaps most important, who signed them up for benefits and/or put them on voters' rolls?  Every single one of those responsible is guilty of fraud, and should be prosecuted and punished accordingly.

Even if most of those "extra" 64 million SSN's were not receiving benefits and/or were not registered to vote, their very existence is a blunder of massive proportions.  How can we trust the Social Security Administration in any way when they can't even properly maintain their core database, the one on which they base all their decisions and all their forecasts?  Our SSN's are the key identifier for almost every single government database - federal, state and local - on which our national administration depends.  How can that be sustainable when so many SSN's are fake and/or inaccurate?

Furthermore, as noted last Friday, this isn't a Democratic Party problem alone.  The Republican Party had access to those same earlier reports, and also did nothing about them.  The abdication of responsibility by both major political parties over many years is simply mind-boggling.  How can we trust them to govern us if they ignore problems of such staggering magnitude, despite those problems being repeatedly brought to their attention?

Heads need to roll for this, and not only those currently occupying positions responsible for this mess.  Their predecessors, who created the mess and allowed it to get worse and worse, should be held accountable too.

The next question, of course, is whether or not this problem can be fixed.  We can't just hack our way through the SSN database, deleting anything that doesn't "feel" right.  That's not difficult to do with ages over, say, 110 years;  but what about the undoubted millions of SSN's assigned to people who may well be alive, statistically speaking?  We can't just delete them.  We have to check on every single one - and trust those doing the checking to be both rigorous and honest in their work.  Rogue political partisans may be expected to try to include as many of "their" fake SSN's as possible in the updated database.  How will we be able to spot them, and deal with them?

The Augean stables begin to look like an easy vacation job for teens by comparison . . .

Peter