Has the US federal government been propping up left-wing media operations like Politico? Maybe it is.
According to Zero-Hedge:
“So 90% of “subscribers” to left-wing publications like Politico are fake and “taxpayer funded”. And then using fake subs to artificially pump up revenue, Politico gets to sell itself to German propaganda giant Axel Springer for $1 billion.”
It’s far from clear if this is exactly what’s going on. But at the very least the feds have been throwing resources at these sites through advertising money and very large “subscription” checks.
It looks like Trump has declared war on all facets of the Left.
So, I turn around for a minute and the next thing I know Trump is annexing the Gaza Strip. What’s next? Will he be fighting the Pygmies of Central Africa and laying claim to the long-lost ivory of the legendary elephant burial ground? I’m starting to get dizzy. Now I’m all for shutting down USAID and offering golden parachutes to the whole damn CIA. I doubt anyone in that agency ever produced intelligence that was worth the paper it was written on.
But this Gaza thing sounds crazy. What the hell do we want with Gaza? First of all, it’s full of Gazans who are crazy even by Palestinian standards. If this is some kind of a bluff, I’m damned if I can see how it helps anyone. Sending our troops there is tantamount to opening up another forever war when we’re finally rid of the ones we were stuck with.
Well, for the time being I’ll make believe that this isn’t actually happening. I’m not ready to abandon all hope for a better world and that’s what adopting Gaza would mean. Stay tuned.
Getting back to happier thoughts, I hear Trump is going after PBS and NPR. They’re being investigated because they allow sponsors to air little puff pieces that tout their sponsorship. These acknowledgements are being scrutinized to see if they come too close to being commercials which are banned under the PBS charter. Well, that seems like quibbling. I wouldn’t cut off their funding over that. I’d axe them for employing Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks. Two more pathetic “journalists” have never assaulted the airwaves with tripe less worthy of being called opinion. And after NPR drove out Uri Berliner for telling the truth about the left-wing echo chamber that exists at the organization, Trump should shut the place down once and for all because of discrimination against intelligence. He would be doing a favor to all of humanity. The smarmy, unctuous, hushed tones of the boobs employed there are an obvious symptom of a hothouse environment where products of Ivy League colleges exchange congratulations for “uncovering” examples of normal people ignoring whatever pathology NPR is trying to normalize and getting on with their lives without having to apologize for doing so.
As much as I applaud the acumen that has targeted USAID as among the first departments to be dissected by Trump’s cabinet, I really want to see funding ended for NPR and PBS. They always claim that they only receive a pittance from the federal government. Fine then, they won’t miss it when it’s gone. Just cut it off.
And finally, I’m very excited to see what happens to the Department of Education. I can think of a dozen changes that would reverse the influence of that agency from negative to positive. The first thing would be cutting off all funding to any public school that in any way advocated for abnormal sexuality. Banning the whole LGBTQ mess should be the first order of business. Afte that the government should stop funding for colleges that use affirmative action instead of merit-based criteria for admissions. And finally, the federal government should buy into school choice via vouchers for parents who want a legitimate choice to the public school system.
It looks like Gabbard, Kennedy and Patel will get through this week or next. That should allow Trump to solidify the actions he’s already taking in those departments. There really does seem to be action almost everywhere in the government. I hear DOGE is doing an in-depth review of the Ukraine War funding to find out exactly how many billions of dollars were stolen. That will be a sad but important report. Alright, that’s enough for now.
I’m upgrading my plan with my site host. Of course after I approved the plan I get a message saying it’ll take two day to implement and by the way, don’t modify the site in the interim or the changes may be lost. If in the next couple of days you notice any monkey business this is likely being caused by “progress.”
Well, what did I expect with AI is “helping” me. I’m starting to wonder if there really are any human beings on the other side of the wire.
Points of optimism for you:
You say the Left controls most of the institutions; the schools, the universities, the Media, Hollywood, the book publishers and most of Silicon Valley.
Our schools are failing and school choice is getting bigger every day. Trump may well end the Dept of Education.
The Universities are losing students and power – that means influence as well.
The old media is dying. The new media (Twitter, podcasts, etc) is ascendant.
Hollywood is burning and will probably disperse into other states as CA is too expensive.
The legacy book publishers are becoming more irrelevant every day and will probably go through a period of consolidation and reduction. New publishers are emerging every day and self publishing is a viable option for eBooks.
The Tech Bros of silicon valley are coming over to our side.
So, I was an hour late for work clearing the stupid snow this morning. Well, because of the snow and because I’m overly optimistic when it comes to estimating snow removal time. Or maybe I’m too lazy to get up that early. But it all got done and the world didn’t end and so I can move along with my day and week.
Yesterday Trump ordered sanctions against Canada, Mexico and China. Today Canada and Mexico came to terms by agreeing to Trump’s border security requirements and got a reprieve of a month on the tariffs to prove their good faith. And Panama has agreed not to extend China’s management of the canal.
And today I listened to Marco Rubio declaring USAID a rogue agency that will now be brought to heel for ignoring orders to account for who it has been giving money to.
Could this be “Little Marco” sounding more like Donald Trump, or at least an ally of Donald Trump and America? Has the world gone topsy-turvy? Or is it just that no one has ever stood his ground against the bureaucrats, influence peddlers and sycophants that infest Washington and waste our money by the imperial ton. Seeing the progress of Trump’s seemingly endless initiatives I can’t help but think that this is the first man to stand up to the bureaucracy. Ever! And it occurs to me that all those impossible things we heard about; defying the FBI and the CIA, and finding out what actually gets done with the defense budget, and reining in the EPA; all of these unattainable goals can be had for the cost of doing the hard work to find out what the bureaucrats actually do all day, and using presidential power to hold them accountable.
I was reading the ZMan’s post today comparing Trump to Isaac Asimov’s character the Mule in his classic science fiction series Foundation. The Mule was an outlier because his mutant psychic talent was not predicted by Hari Seldon’s “psychohistory.” And so, he blew up all of the best laid plans of the Foundation. ZMan thinks that Trump is the destructor laying waste to the managerial state (aka the Deep State). Well, I don’t disagree with that analogy. But maybe he’ll be more than that. Maybe he’ll be like the child who wasn’t afraid to say that the emperor has no clothes. And imagine if that lesson gets learned by not only JD Vance but even Marco Rubio. Now, of course, most of these Republican Senators and Congressmen are crooks and they want the payoffs from the defense and pharma lobbyists. But even if it’s only a handful of honest men, Trump has let the American people in on the secret and anyone who wants to inherit his mantle will have to call out the corruption, waste and inefficiency of the bureaucracy and get us our money back from the crooks that infest Washington.
I’m starting to get hopeful that Trump is going to take a chainsaw to the budget. And he has several incentives. Reducing government excesses will lower the debt, rein in inflation and lower taxes. But it will also starve his enemies of funds with which to attack him. They won’t be able to hand out millions of dollars to left-wing crazies. And the NGOs are where most of Trump’s enemies work when the Democrats are out of the White House. Losing their cozy perches and lucrative salaries will frighten them out of their wits. And that is exactly when they’ll be least likely to cause trouble. They’ll be forced to scramble to find a new source of income and they’ll lose the microphones they typically have to organize trouble for conservatives.
I don’t want to sound like a Pollyana. It’s not as if the Left no longer controls most of the institutions; the schools, the universities, the Media, Hollywood, the book publishers and most of Silicon Valley. But Trump has show us that controlling the White House can be incredibly helpful in throwing a monkey wrench into the gears of the Deep State. And since the Deep State at this point is the Left, it’s causing our enemies fear and pain.
