Our Government is Bad. Like Really, Really Bad

So I guess the FBI employs 13,000 agents – which seems like a heck of a lot – and 5,000 of them were employed going after J6 people. Little back of the envelope math and that means 38% of the FBI was concentrating on that.

In 2022 (the last year complete stats are available) 73,654 Americans died of fentanyl overdose.

You’d think the FBI would have concentrated on that problem.

Even if J6 had been an actual insurrection that caused the death of cops, you’d still think that 73,000 people dying from a drug overdose would draw a little more attention than J6. You know, given that if J6 was an insurrection then not only did it fail, it didn’t even appreciably slow things down.

Why did the FBI do this?

  1. It is easy. Fighting the drug cartels takes a lot of very hard work, often in very bad locations, at great personal risk. Going after J6ers involved finding a law-abiding patriot who was somewhere in proximity to the Capitol and then dragging his/her unresisting a** through the judicial wringer.
  2. It is what the political bosses wanted. The pay and promotions were going to be handed out based on who did the most to nail the J6ers.
  3. Regardless of how things came out long term, the FBI agents were sure that the GOP would never do anything to them and would keep referring to them as “our brave and dedicated FBI”.

Guessed wrong on that last one, guys! But more importantly, what this reveals is the utter rottenness of the FBI – and, indeed, all agencies of government. Even if one wants to put the worst possible reading on J6, hardly anyone involved committed an act of actual violence. Most of the people brought to court had just been in the area or had peacefully entered the Capitol for a few minutes (this also tells us that the actually violent were probably agents – even if free-lance – of the FBI). No decent, moral human being would do more than pass out fines to these people…maybe in one or two more egregious cases give them six months in jail. What the FBI did to the J6ers was simply horrific – they did this to Americans. To us. It was nightmare stuff out of some dystopian novel where the Nazis won WWII.

The other day I watched a documentary called American Nightmare. It is one of those true crime docuseries and when I turned it on, I had never even heard of the case – though as it went on, it was clear that it caused at least a bit of a media sensation when it was happening (I haven’t watched much TV news over the past many years – though, full disclosure, since Trump was elected I have watched more than usual to get my gloating in). The basics of the story is that a lunatic broke into a home in the middle of the night, tied up the guy after drugging him and then kidnapped the girl. When the guy woke up from the drugs – and sat in fear doing nothing for a while because the kidnapper had threatened him if he went to the police – he called the cops who then immediately suspected him of murdering his girlfriend. It got worse when the girl was let go (after being held for two days and raped twice); the cops then decided this was all some scam worked up by the girl based on a recent movie plot. The cops were getting ready to charge the couple with felonies over making a “false” police report when, lo and behold, a totally unrelated cop – just doing her job, no special intelligence or ability needed – found the clues that indicated the story was real…and then they got the guy.

Who had also done this sort of thing before. But nobody believed the accusers. Now, to be fair, the MO of the perp was absolutely bizarre. If someone came up to me and told me that story, I’d be doubting it heavily. But the cop’s job is to check things out. You know: investigate. Had the cops done some investigating they would have found sufficient in the earlier cases to nab the guy before the poor girl featured in the story had been kidnapped and raped. But, that’s hard, you see? Much easier to just aggressively interrogate the victim(s) and hope you can catch them in a lie that you can prosecute.

The bad guy was caught almost by accident. A good cop just doing her job put two and two together. But there were probably scores of cops involved over a period of years when the creep was operating who never did put two and two together. And I’m not saying they just missed something – they didn’t look. And in questioning the victims, the cops routinely lied to them. About what they were after as a police force. When the victims were given their police files after it was all over, it was clear that the cops never did anything but first try to nail the guy for murder, then tried to nail the girl for false report when she turned up alive. After I finished watching, I turned to the Mrs and said, “are criminals only caught because they’re dumber than cops?”

Guys, I think it is really bad: that we’re living entirely on luck right now. Or had been until 1/20, at least. I wouldn’t trust an employee of any government agency with a burned out match right now. When not overtly corrupt, they’re lazy and stupid. Maybe one in a hundred is actually trying to do a useful job in the day to day. Now we better understand why US Naval warships are rusted, why planes on routine flight paths crash, why a train wreck with chemical spills is just left to sort itself out, why fire hydrants in LA don’t have water…the people running the show haven’t a clue what to do. Right now the Left is filled with whines about the uncertain economic futures of the people on the DOGE chopping block and I’m like, “what would you say you do around here?”

In response to us playing The Bobs here, multiple FBI agents have filed suit against President Trump…claiming it is a violation of their rights if he gets a list of FBI agents who worked on J6. The Democrats will find some federal judge to issue an injunction. I hope Trump just ignores it – of course the President – who is the chief law enforcement officer of the USA – gets to know what the cops were working on. It is all so very stupid – but, hey, its what they’re going with.

I had estimated some years back that about 1 in 3 federal dollars was wasted – just uselessly spent when not outright stolen. I massively underestimated it. And now we get to find out just what its all been wasted on…and how many people have had their rights violated by the thieves.

I really hope the security people for Trump, Vance, Rubio..heck, all of them…is tip top. The Blob will not go down easy.

62 thoughts on “Our Government is Bad. Like Really, Really Bad

  1. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 4, 2025 / 10:30 pm

    Your post immediately brought this to mind.

    • Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 5, 2025 / 9:45 am

      I chuckled through the whole thing until he pulled out the skull ashtray, then I laughed out loud until the end.

    • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 5, 2025 / 11:33 am

      Yep

      • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 5, 2025 / 11:43 am

        Similar to the guys wondering if they are the baddies, Hannah Arendt points out that the baddies aren’t necessarily the ones plotting and scheming and sentencing people to death, etc., but just otherwise regular people.

        Historian Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil, from her book Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), shattered the comforting illusion that only fanatics commit great crimes. Watching Adolf Eichmann’s trial, she saw not a monster, but a dull bureaucrat—obedient, career-driven, and chillingly thoughtless. His evil wasn’t ideological rage but blind conformity, a cog in a system that made atrocities routine. Arendt’s horror was realizing that authoritarian regimes don’t just rely on radicals; they thrive on ordinary people mindlessly enforcing evil, making malevolence disturbingly mundane.

        My reaction to this is that we might not have to “take out” as many people as we thought, we just have to give them different machines in which to be cogs.

      • Jeremiah's avatar Jeremiah February 5, 2025 / 9:50 pm

        Kind of like in this video

  2. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 4, 2025 / 10:32 pm

    Bondi and Energy Sec (?) are confirmed and even Collins is a yes for Tulsi. Talking with a political novice today who brought up how much Trump has gotten done in under two weeks. People are noticing.

    • Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 5, 2025 / 9:46 am

      This list that JDGE1 posted yesterday was a pretty good compilation.

      Moving at the speed of Trump!

      Mexico caved

      Panama caved

      Colombia caved

      Venezuela caved

      Canada panicking caved

      Mass deportations

      Hostages are home

      DEI programs ended

      Bureaucracy slashed

      FBI purges are underway

      USAID funding cancelled

      Gender ideology eliminated

      DOGE already saved billions

      51 intel agents lost clearance

      Border crossings have drop by 93%

      Plus a few more

      Dept. of Education ending

      Clearing Military dead weight

      Legal action threatened against anyone who impedes DOGE

      J6’ers pardoned

      Right to Lifers pardoned

      Multiple government employees on leave or removed

      Multiple government employees security clearance removed

      • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 5, 2025 / 11:34 am

        Ending the money laundering plus killing the Department of Education would, alone, make Trump right behind Washington and Lincoln.

      • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 5, 2025 / 11:57 am

        The thing is, “ending the money laundering” will have the effect of establishing direct lines to crimes and various kinds of illegality.

        We might have to clone Pam Bondi.

        I’m thinking we should ask Elon if he has any other “baby” geniuses we can sic on the recipients of USAID graft.

  3. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 5, 2025 / 12:33 am

    The FBI on January 6

  4. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 5, 2025 / 11:36 am

    What she said. Actually, it’s pretty close to what I HAVE said, but with fewer F-bombs and no tongue stud.

    • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 5, 2025 / 11:40 am

      And now I’m hearing that Politico has been funded by USAID…I can’t believe it. Its gotta be a joke. Right?

      • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 5, 2025 / 11:54 am

        It would explain so much. And we need to remember, the road is not one-way. The graft flows one way, the paid-for response flows back.

        This is similar to my ongoing questions about the Biden administration providing legal cover for damages to the drug companies by continuing the experimental drug classification, while forcing people to take the drugs, while simultaneously funneling billions of dollars of taxpayer money to the companies making the drugs—-and we were supposed to believe that was a one-way street? I want to know how much, and how, some of that money flowed back to the Bidens.

  5. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 5, 2025 / 12:07 pm

    Kind of important, doncha think?

    President Donald Trump made a historic announcement alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, declaring that the United States will take control of the Gaza Strip. Trump laid out a sweeping vision for the war-torn region, aiming to transform it into a hub of stability and economic opportunity.

    Key takeaways from Trump’s announcement:

    • The U.S. will oversee Gaza’s reconstruction, clearing unexploded bombs, demolishing unstable buildings, and building a modern economic development zone.
    • The long-term plan includes job creation and housing, potentially turning Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
    • The population of Gaza will be relocated to ensure safety, with Trump insisting that regional countries will cooperate.
    • Iran remains on notice, with Trump reaffirming a contingency plan to “obliterate” the regime if it attempts another assassination attempt against him.

    Trump stated his commitment to seeing Gaza thrive under U.S. stewardship. “I think we will be a great keeper of something that is very, very strong, very powerful, and very, very good for the area, not just for Israel, but for the entire Middle East,” he said.

    Netanyahu backed the plan, calling Trump “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House.” The Israeli leader praised Trump’s swift actions in cutting terrorist funding, increasing pressure on Iran, and securing Israeli interests. “All of this in just two weeks,” Netanyahu remarked. “Can you imagine where we will be in four years?”

  6. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 5, 2025 / 12:12 pm

    One factor that truly sets the Trump administration apart from all other modern Republican Presidencies is the acknowledgment of the culture war. The leftists have been waging this war for almost a century and GOP leaders have mostly dismissed it as trivial compared to politics. It’s the reason why we came within a razor’s edge of total moral relativism and degeneracy under the Biden administration. The left has been normalizing hatred of basic American principles for generations.

    Part of that effort has been the introduction of open-border ideology and mass illegal immigration. I consider this a kind of “final stage” of the leftist/globalist agenda. If you can demonize Western culture to the point of self-hatred, then people won’t care when you saturate the West with third-world migrants and put the final nail in the coffin.

    From Bob Livingston Alerts

  7. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 5, 2025 / 12:24 pm

    Musk explains the USAID shutdown:

    Musk, during that same appearance, said that the administration was closing the agency because “as we dug into USAID, it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms.”

    “There is no apple. And when there is no apple, you just got to basically get rid of the whole thing, that’s why it has to go, it’s beyond repair,” he said

    This whole article is well worth reading, but keep your blood pressure meds handy. That, or an adult beverage.

    • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 5, 2025 / 3:25 pm

      I’ve been saying that the Left exists because of government funding – but I had no idea how entirely encompassing it is. Turns out, those “Soros prosecutors” weren’t even paid for by Soros…he got government grants that allowed him to purchase the election of DAs who are committed to allowing criminals to prey upon the citizens. The greedy rat bastard didn’t even put his own money up! We still don’t have a full idea of it – one data nerd on X has been looking into it and it is enormously complex as the reporting system is apparently designed to not report anything…this, of course, to defeat both Congressional oversight and FOIA requests…everything is siloed into various subsets of data that don’t have markers on them which would respond to, say, you typing in “how much USAID money has gone to LGBTQ+ programs in Africa?”. To find it, you pretty much have to know exactly what you’re looking for. Musk is right: there’s no way to separate out the good from the bad as it is all intertwined. It has to be annulled and then start all over again.

  8. jdge's avatar jdge February 5, 2025 / 2:44 pm

    With the ongoing confirmation of Trump’s nominations along with his daily influx of new directives and open communications, it creates an inner smile knowing the direction we’re going will finally generate results we’ve been waiting for, for quite some time. The people being confirmed are hitting the ground running, ready to do some heavy lifting and deep cleaning. All kinds of new information coming forth shedding light on the extent of government waste. Additional information just waiting to be revealed about how imbedded the systemic corruption is. These 2 things combine will lead to a coming tsunami of events that will not only enlightens people on the extent of the evil being perpetrated by those in power, but will also destroy many of the structures the left has worked so hard putting in place. That is why they tried so hard at trying to bring Trump down during his first term and doubled their efforts to keep Trump from being reelected. The sun is rising and there few places to hide. Years of screeching have left the listening public numb and tired of the constant mindless crap.

    Remember how previously when the government did something it was almost always something stupid, destructive or a constriction of freedoms? The only good thing we could look forward to was a hope it would be a while before another round reared its ugly head. Now, we have good news on a daily basis on multiple fronts.

    God is great.

    • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 5, 2025 / 3:29 pm

      It appears that Bondi was sworn in and then sat down at her desk to sign an order terminating funding for sanctuary cities and setting afoot investigations into officials abetting illegal immigration. I assume the funding she’s cancelled is just law enforcement federal funds but its what has to happen on all levels: he who pays the piper calls the tune. Federal money now comes with a new string: cooperate with federal law enforcement on everything or get nothing. Keep in mind that these cities and States never stopped cooperating with the feds…when it was time to go after granny who was at the Capitol on J6, the local cops were right there with the feds…now they’ll have to be there when its time to deport an illegal.

      • Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 5, 2025 / 3:33 pm

        Sunlight IS the best disinfectant!

      • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 5, 2025 / 9:28 pm

        This is a two-pronged approach, as Homan has said he will prosecute people who violate US Code (which I have quoted and linked to here several times) making it a federal crime to harbor illegals and/or interfere with their apprehension. I predict it will only take one (preferably high-profile) loudmouth sanctuary supporter being perp-walked in shackles to start some serious rethinking among the wannabe radicals.

  9. Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 5, 2025 / 4:16 pm

    This is actually a pretty fair article about DOGE, especially considering the source is NPR, but this particular part is especially noteworthy.

    Trump didn’t create a new Cabinet-level department with DOGE, but rather renamed the previously existing United States Digital Service, which was created under former President Barack Obama.

    (emphasis – mine)

    That office launched in 2014 to improve the federal government’s digital capabilities following the rocky rollout of the HealthCare.gov website.

    Trump’s order also moves the entity from the Office of Management and Budget to the Executive Office of the President, and directs it to modernize technology and software across the federal government.

    • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 5, 2025 / 6:28 pm

      Wow – very clever! Totally authorized and under law. Perfect.

  10. jdge's avatar jdge February 5, 2025 / 5:53 pm

    How crazy this is even needed. Today Trump signed an EO to protect women, women’s sports & locker rooms. Standing behind him during a conference were a group of women and family members, many who are future voters, ecstatic about this direction. There are those who worry about what Trump is doing wondering if might turn off voters. Seems like the majority already know the score and are thrilled with out current direction. Though it may take time to realize the benefits of Trump’s directives and course, these bold actions are what we’ve been waiting for. Not just US citizens, but so many in the world have been waiting for a person strong enough to do what is right.

    God is great.

    • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 5, 2025 / 6:37 pm

      Of course for Trump, it doesn’t matter too much – he can’t run again.

      But I also know what he’s doing on some of these moves: forcing the Democrats to defend the indefensible. Trump knows the score: for 2026, the Senate map is very favorable to Republicans in that, outside absolute economic meltdown, there aren’t a lot of GOP seats the Democrats have a chance in. Maine is the only real theoretical prospect but Collins seems to know that State very well. The House, though, might very well be lost to the Democrats and everyone knows what they’ll do: impeach Trump and investigate everyone who works with him. It won’t actually go anywhere but it’ll absorb huge amounts of time and energy. Best to not have to do that…so, get the Democrats to defend trans issues and government bureaucrats and foreign aid spending…force them to take the most unpopular positions and thus give the GOPers a shot at holding on…and if things are going well, perhaps even increasing their House seats.

  11. jdge's avatar jdge February 5, 2025 / 7:40 pm

    What do you call a thousand bureaucrats about to be given their walking papers? 

    “A good start.”

    The Hill reported early Tuesday that EPA mission support official Kimberly Patrick emailed more than 1,000 employees to inform them that they are “likely on a probationary/trial period,” and that “as a probationary/trial period employee, the agency has the right to immediately terminate you.”

    EPA employs more than 16,000 people, so a headcount reduction of roughly one in 16 is only maybe large enough to be meaningful and certainly small enough not to disrupt the agency’s core functions. That’s almost a shame, really, since the EPA morphed from cleaning up the country’s air, soil, and waterways (awesome!) to trying to gain veto power over every action throughout the entire economy (boo!).

    The EPA is just one of many. Over 20,000 federal works have accepted buyouts which represents about 1% of the workforce. The WH goal is 5-10% and a spike is expected in the last 24-48 hours before the Feb. 6 deadline offer.

    Can’t wait for Pam Bondi to begin the work of her new job, specifically jailing criminals within the leftist powers. I wonder how many of those are among the federal workers anticipating to resign? No matter. I’m sure whe’ll have her hands full with numerous prosecutions.

    On the reverse side, the army has reached its highest enrolment numbers this December in over 15 years, and increase of 6,000 over the previous year.

    • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 5, 2025 / 8:37 pm

      I’ve read that the buyouts are now at 40,000 and expected to rise a lot higher.

      The real flood comes when people really understand what’s coming and there’s a rush to make a deal with the AG.

      Side note: Morning Consult, who’s polls have always been unfavorable to Trump, was getting USAID money.

  12. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 5, 2025 / 9:22 pm

    I’m very surprised that this hasn’t gotten a lot more attention from the Left–or anywhere, for that matter. (emphasis mine)

    Rubio said that Bukele has offered his “full cooperation” in U.S. illegal immigrant deportation efforts, including agreeing to take in “dangerous American criminals” with U.S. citizenship.

    Somehow I doubt that El Salvador’s jails are, shall we say, “nicer’ than ours, or that their prisoners are treated better. This might alarm some American criminals. I think it’s great.

    BTW, when I was in El Salvador a few years ago every vehicle I rode in, as a guest of various business associates, was armored and accompanied by armed guards. When we had to go through toll booths an escort car went ahead to pay the tolls and the gates were opened so we could just go on through without slowing. But under the new leadership El Salvador has become one of the safest nations, and now they are open to working with the United States to help us solve our violent criminal problems.

  13. Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 6, 2025 / 10:09 am

    Jeff Childer’s lede this morning is something I never thought I’d live to witness.

    Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a remarkable story headlined, “DOGE broadens sweep of federal agencies, gains access to health payment systems.” In other words, after exposing the Deep State’s regime-change operation, DOGE is sprinting into the Swampy engine room: the CDC and Medicare / Medicaid Services, the domestic versions of USAID, how the Blob effectuates its aims here at home.

    image.png

    It’s impossible to overestimate the revolutionary significance of the abolition of USAID and its poisonous children. Emerging from the fog of bureaucratic and political war, we see dimly the rough outlines of the Golden Era that Candidate Trump promised, a sketch of a promise connecting waste, fraud, and abuse to a terminally ill global culture, or at least a stagnant culture arrested in time, a culture frozen in amber, a culture that has bafflingly and terrifyingly been wasting away for decades.

    But at long last, our amber prison is cracking.

    The more we learn, the clearer it becomes: the scandalous, quasi-governmental USAID agency might be the most audacious and destructive fraud in human history. That is not hyperbole. It is fully justified, even at this point.

    We’ve always know there was waste, fraud and abuse, and that both parties were guilty of it. I think we’re about to find out that the level of it is orders of magnitude greater than we ever imagined. When all is said and done, the people at the heart of it are going to be lucky if all they lose is their job.

    • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 6, 2025 / 12:40 pm

      Isn’t it amazing how these “spontaneous” protests suddenly acquire expensive pre-printed signs and, evidently, coordinated scripts?

      There was recently an article about a company that basically rents out mobs on request. I always suspected this. We have known for years that there have been professional rioters, who somehow managed to move from city to city, with transportation and housing and food costs all paid, finding rental cars when they arrive and often pre-arranged delivery onsite of riot materials like pallets of bricks. In spite of federal laws against things like crossing state lines to riot, paying people to riot, etc. the last administration somehow simply could not address this. They could track down praying grannies, but not follow the money trail to whoever had been funding these destructive riots and then enforce the law.

      I’ve noticed a lack of the same kinds of coordinated violence that *somehow* (/sarc off) occurred so routinely in the last four years, but we still see these smaller and quieter allegedly spontaneous but clearly funded eruptions of people who just supposedly find themselves sharing deep feelings and, BTW, signs and scripts.

      • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 6, 2025 / 12:49 pm

        It took just a few seconds to find the rent-a-mob company. From their website: emphasis mine

        Crowds on Demand is your home for impactful advocacy campaigns, demonstrations, PR stunts, crowds for hire and corporate events. Services available nationwide.

        We create out-of-the-box campaigns, audiences and events to make an impact for our clients.
        Are you looking to create a buzz anywhere in the United States? At Crowds on Demand, we provide our clients with impactful advocacy campaigns and events. We are best known for organizing passionate demonstrations, rallies, flash-mobs, corporate PR events, and light-hearted events such as paparazzi, brand ambassadors, and PR stunts.

        We also have virtual capabilities including letter-writing, social proof, and phone-banking campaigns. We can create turn-key advocacy groups complete with qualified passionate leaders to staff them all on relatively short notice.

        Whether your organization is lobbying to gain approval of a project, move forward a legislative initiative, bring additional pressure within complex litigation or trying to see swift and effective action in another way, we can set-up protests, rallies, demonstrations, alternatives to litigation or business disputes, coordinate phone-banking initiatives and even create non-profit organizations to advance your agenda.

        This should be openly discussed every time any publicity is given to any “protest”, especially when it bears the evidence of professional and planned creation and execution, to ridicule the entire charade. Remember, this company promises “passionate leaders” and “passionate demonstrations” which ought to discredit a lot of the protestors.

      • Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 6, 2025 / 1:06 pm

        I’m wondering if RICO statutes could be used to go after organizations that fund violent protests.

      • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 6, 2025 / 1:28 pm

        It might be: I looked up 18 U.S. Code § 1961 and while it, naturally, mostly goes after Mafia-like activities, this bit in the Definitions section seems to make at least some Antifa/BLM activities chargeable under RICO:

        section 1510 (relating to obstruction of criminal investigations), section 1511 (relating to the obstruction of State or local law enforcement), section 1512 (relating to tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant), section 1513 (relating to retaliating against a witness, victim, or an informant)

        Seems to me that our Antifa/BLM guys do a lot of obstructing and tampering and retaliating. Its how they maintain internal discipline.

        But I also found this in relation to the immigration issue – same Code and Definitions:

        (F) any act which is indictable under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 274 (relating to bringing in and harboring certain aliens), section 277 (relating to aiding or assisting certain aliens to enter the United States), or section 278 (relating to importation of alien for immoral purpose) if the act indictable under such section of such Act was committed for the purpose of financial gain

        We can RICO the NGOs bringing in the migrants, as far as I can tell.

      • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 6, 2025 / 1:31 pm

        18 U.S.C. § 2101 – U.S. Code – Unannotated Title 18. Crimes and Criminal Procedure § 2101. Riots

        Current as of January 01, 2024 | Updated by FindLaw Staff

        (a) Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent–

        (1) to incite a riot; or

        (2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or

        (3) to commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or

        (4) to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot;

        and who either during the course of any such travel or use or thereafter performs or attempts to perform any other overt act for any purpose specified in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D) of this paragraph  1–

        Shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

        This says “Current as of January 01, 2024” but I think it is older than that. The thing is, we have federal laws about harboring illegals, impeding apprehension of illegals, funding riots, aiding or abetting riots, etc. We just need to enforce them.

      • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 6, 2025 / 9:54 pm

        I think a lot of us on the Right have, for the first time, really looked at the laws – and, man, does the law have some teeth. It has just been applied to the Protected Class.

        It will be.

      • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 7, 2025 / 12:28 am

        Every now and then I have thought “Gee, I thought that was against the law” and looked it up and by golly, it WAS. Really against a real law, not depending on resuscitating a dead past-the-statutes-of-limitation minor misdemeanor already dismissed by legitimate legal officials or distorting a vague concept into what might pass for a law to some partisan activists but a real, genuine, coherent law.

        So yeah, it’s really a crime to incite a riot, pay for a riot, or cross state lines to engage in a riot. And yeah, it’s really a crime to harbor, conceal or enable illegal aliens or to interfere in any way with their apprehension or efforts by law enforcement to detain them. And yeah, it’s really a crime to set buildings on fire and engage in destruction and damage to property. And yeah, it’s against the law to nail doors shut and then set fire to buildings with people trapped inside. And BTW it’s also against the law to threaten judges and Supreme Court justices. Not to mention suborning perjury to try to unseat an elected president, and to withhold exculpatory evidence and then destroy it when ordered to preserve it. It’s against the law to reveal confidential information assessed due to a security clearance–unless it is used to try to unseat a Republican president. Then the Espionage Act is merely an artifact of a time when national secrecy was considered important.

        The list is long, and I hope inspiring to law enforcement officials who really care about the rule of law and its even-handed application to all of us.

  14. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 6, 2025 / 1:27 pm

    re: To the theme of your blog thread

    “When a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.” – Thomas Jefferson

    I think Trump, et al, understand this, and think that eventually USAID will simply be disbanded and if any of its efforts are deemed important an entirely new agency will be created, with very strong guard rails and oversight. That is, removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles

    • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 6, 2025 / 1:45 pm

      “If Trump/Elon want this to stick they need to completely shut down USAID or fire the entire staff, the party has instructed their allies to not make waves and blend in. USAID is 99% Democrats they will not be able to save it without risking internal sabotage.”

  15. Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 6, 2025 / 1:42 pm

    Got this from a mutual friend of mine and Amazona’s this morning. The original article by Jeffery Tucker in the Epoch Times is behind a paywall, so I’m just going to reprint the whole thing.

    Much worse than anyone knew.

    Donald Trump took the oath of office to become U.S. President on Jan. 20, 2025, following a sweeping and decisive victory that the entire establishment fought ferociously.

    I’m typing this 10 days later. It is clear to me and many others that nothing will ever be the same, not in the United States and not anywhere in the world that is watching the exciting events unfold. It’s nothing like we’ve ever seen, and far beyond anything we had expected or even been promised.

    Whereas Reed’s Ten Days were about the building of the Leviathan state, our own 10 days is about tearing it down and restoring freedom. Already what has been uncovered and stopped is for the ages, to the point that as I write the United States has plugged scandalous spending leakage at a rate of $4 billion per day, thanks to the work of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.

    That appears just to be the beginning. Agencies and funding sources are being shut down by the day and hour. The whole spending machine was shut down for a few days before a federal judge intervened. Even that did not stop the push to shut down the spigots: it took a second judge to intervene and finally restart it all. Even then, it was just the beginning.

    What is popularly known as the “deep state” has never faced such disruption.

    Hardly a minute goes by when we do not get news of various outrages operating at all agencies of government, spending that gives new meaning to the word decadence. It’s all been happening for many years, even decades, even as the American middle class has been hollowed out, real incomes have declined, and economic opportunities for average people have thinned out to create culture-wide despair and ill-health.

    The excitement began minutes after inauguration when the team of Elon Musk, tasked by Trump to figure out what is going on with this empire of lies, unfurled a plan that had long been in the works but never announced. They installed sofa beds on the 5th floor of the Office of Personnel Management and tossed out the chief of staff. The plan was to work 24/7 to get the job done, never leaving the offices. Yes, in Godfather parlance, they literally “went to the mattresses.”

    They gained access to the computer system and sent a memo to 2.3 million federal government employees. It invited all of them to resign immediately and get 8 months of severance. They only needed to hit reply and type “resign.” The expectation going into this was that 10 percent would flee but it could be more. We are still waiting for the numbers.

    All the while, the Trump administration was issuing executive orders, more than 300 in these magical 10 days. They froze regulations. They froze spending. They issued a universal fatwa against all DEI policies and abolished “affirmative action”—all while heralding the single principle of non-discrimination. They proclaimed that no government agency may ever again tell private media and social media accounts how to operate, either directly or indirectly through third-party cutouts. They banned the absurdities of the transgender movement and made adolescent mutilation illegal.

    The orders were so sensible that they generated almost no resistance other than predictable sputtering. There were of course muttering that Trump was behaving like an authoritarian. If so, it is an odd form of authoritarianism that uses power to take power away from government and give it back to the people. The driving motivation of all these efforts was to reboot the promise of 2016 to drain the swamp. This time they were serious.

    Following the takeover of the Office of Personnel Management, the truly great challenge was to get to the source of the largess, the spigot spilling so much money that it was creating $1 trillion in debt every 100 days. This has gotten worse decade after decade. It is the determination of DOGE to get to the bottom of it.

    The team—which converted itself quickly into an official government office to evade that obvious criticism—headed to the U.S. Treasury and announced an audit of the entire government. In order to conduct that, they would need the logins to the system. The auditors had already figured out that the whole government was operating on autopay, with billions flowing to enemy regimes and rackets of all sorts. Shutting that down had to be priority number one.

    What they found was an acting head of the U.S. Treasury named David A. Lebryk, who turns out to be the highest-ranking person in the civil service. Lebryk had been promoted to that position on January 20, but his former boss was the deputy head of Treasury, a Nigerian émigré named Wally Adeyemo, who had at one time been head of the Obama Foundation. His resignation put Lebryk in the driver’s seat of the world’s biggest outgoing payroll system.

    That’s right, you cannot make this stuff up!

    Lebryk absolutely refused to turn over the passwords. After what was said to be a shouting match, he resigned on the spot. Then Elon’s crew took control of the passwords to the system that was sending out $6 trillion on autopay.

    This action generated panicked headlines in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration has gotten hold of the control center of government spending, strongly suggesting that nothing like this has ever happened. For reasons that are unclear, regime media seemed shocked and alarmed that the Trump administration had broken into the sanctum sanctorum.

    When regular people think about this, they start asking serious questions. Why is it not a normal thing for the new administration to be in control of the spending systems? Why is this such a shocking thing to have happened? Isn’t auditing the books just what any new president would do?

    Most likely, it is shocking simply because it has never happened. For all the world, this looks to be a situation in which we are witnessing the very first actual transition of power in our lifetimes.

    There will be more court challenges, claims, and counterclaims, but mainly we can look forward to an information flood of finding out precisely how our tax dollars have been used these many years if not for decades. This is in many ways the ultimate nightmare of any entrenched bureaucracy that has been unburdened by accountability for a very long time.

    Change is now here, and it appears that the Trump administration is not letting up. All the while, Trump’s cabinet picks were facing a brutal grilling from Senators. This time, however, we have the means to discover the hand in the glove. We have tools like Open the Books, Open Secrets, and others, to reveal precisely what industrial interests are behind these politicians. It appears as of this writing that public pressure is going to push all of Trump’s picks through.

    No one can say for sure how this story ends but we are getting an intuition. The Trump administration, barring some unforeseen disaster, is well positioned to go down in history as the regime that saved the country from secret and systematic pillaging that has been going on without check for probably all living memory.

    Is that an exaggeration? Sadly, it does not appear to be so based on what we are learning by the hour. These are the new Ten Days that Shook the World. The first time around, history was set on a path toward the disaster of communism and totalitarianism. This time, the revolution is being reversed—the people are really taking charge from an elite class that has enjoyed unchecked rule in the Western world for all of living memory.

  16. Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 6, 2025 / 3:02 pm

    Man, the hits just keep on coming.

    • jdge's avatar jdge February 6, 2025 / 3:09 pm

      This pales in comparison to what Spook provided. But… more USAID funding revelations on top of payments made to Politico. DHS backed program to Reuters Special Services

      $9.15 million – Award Description: Active Social Engineering Defense (ASED) Large Scale Social Deception

      One wonders just how deep the rabbit hole is and how many hands are in the cookie jar. There’s little the left can do but scream in an attempt to stop the revelations. There will be judges who will try citing some perceived injustice or a skewed interpretation of an obscure law to aid the left, hoping to prevent Trump’s administration from plowing forward or at least slow him down. I hope the DOJ and higher-level judges hammers them.

      • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 6, 2025 / 3:50 pm

        There’s little the left can do but scream

        Remember that wonderful phrase “rage ritual”. It needs to be our go-to description of every Leftist temper tantrum and performative screeching at nominees in confirmation hearings and “protest”.

    • jdge's avatar jdge February 6, 2025 / 3:29 pm

      A significant reason the left is able to retain control in places like CA is by doing what they do best – lie and steal money to fund their enterprises. The high-speed rail in CA is just one example of staggering cost overruns and delays. The lies run daily and the expectations are changed like diapers. Is there any doubt that money is lining pockets and paying for whatever is necessary to keep the gravy flowing?

      • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 6, 2025 / 3:47 pm

        Is there any doubt that money is lining pockets and paying for whatever is necessary to keep the gravy flowing?

        None whatsoever. Just as I suspect the money was flowing in both directions when Biden was funneling billions to drug companies, supposedly to pay for the (dangerous/lethal/experimental) drugs that Biden was forcing people to inject.

      • jdge's avatar jdge February 6, 2025 / 4:11 pm

        I’ve read that a murder typically makes dozen or more mistakes in the first 24 hours in their effort to conceal their crime. What I see coming to light is years of criminal activity with the intent of stealing money & retaining power and schemes devised to get away with it. It may initially appear successful and the few loose ends are dealt with when they surface (clintoncide??) I anticipate the door opening exposé that is happening under Trump’s posse will be nothing short of one of the biggest stories in modern times.

      • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 6, 2025 / 4:19 pm

        I got such a kick out of Musk bringing in really young geniuses and putting them to work digging through the detritus of government spending, I hope he knows dozens more of these nerds who would be brilliant at uncovering the false identities and trails these crooks have set up to cover their tracks. I can guarantee none of them is nearly as smart as any of these budding geniuses and the fact that the digital age is not something new for them to learn but the world in which they have lived their entire lives. Think of hundreds of Sheldon Coopers set loose to unravel the tangled webs of malfeasance and crooked dealings.

    • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 6, 2025 / 3:45 pm

      Love the term “rage ritual”. We need to use often.

      • jdge's avatar jdge February 6, 2025 / 4:03 pm

        Should be used in lots of places like the congressional floors for starters. In reality, the left provides for so many situations to use it, it should catch fire like a match to a pile of dry leaves.

  17. Cluster's avatar Cluster February 6, 2025 / 6:17 pm

    I can’t believe I am saying this but I am more than a little curious as to what Casper, Forty, and Fielding are thinking about right now. Do you suppose they see the common sense in what is happening? Or are they still buying into the fascism, trans rights, big government narrative? After watching the display Maxine Waters, Schumer, and Ayanna Presley put on the other day, I tend to think the latter. I suspect they haven’t learned a thing.

    • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 6, 2025 / 6:36 pm

      The hardcore trolls like fielding and forty (under whatever names they might be using) have probably realized there isn’t anything left for them to obsess about other than their regular petty sniping about anything and everything their media masters tell them to fret about. As for Casper, I think he has been so deeply emotionally and intellectually (though it’s hard to use that word in relation to him) invested in every single aspect of Deep Left Fantasy that it has probably been a crushing blow to realize that his passion has put him well into the minority, and that his delusions have been thoroughly rejected by most of the country.

      The first two trolls have always been dabblers, just splashing around in the shallow stagnant waters at the edge of Leftism but in it more for the cheap thrills they got from poking people like us in the eye (which is what they seemed to think they were doing) but Casper was a True Believer. Now he is seeing his idol, Kamala Harris, identified by even an old Dem stalwart like the old snapping turtle himself, James Carville, as nothing more than a “7th string quarterback” and the politician he was so thrilled to be compared to, Mazie Hirono, repeatedly labeled as the stupidest Senator as she beclowns herself every time she opens her mouth. To borrow a vampire movie catchphrase, “reality bites”.

      I think instead of Casper asking himself “are we the baddies?” he might be wondering “are we the dummies?” And the nation, and even the world, all seem to be shouting back a resounding “YES!!!”

      • Cluster's avatar Cluster February 7, 2025 / 11:49 am

        100% lol. I’m curious if Forty was being paid by the USAID

      • Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 7, 2025 / 12:47 pm

        I’ll bet, when all is said and done, that we’re going to find that people and organizations that you would never have imagined had their grubby little mitts in the cookie jar. It wouldn’t surprise me even the slightest that blog trolls are on the list.

      • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 7, 2025 / 3:30 pm

        It is a rare person who degrades themselves for free. The prostitute endures it for the money.

        Now, to be sure, there are weak-minded and cowardly individuals who simply believe the propaganda – there were Germans still convinced they could win when the Russians were pounding at the gates of Berlin, after all. But its a different species of action if you’re out front pushing the propaganda. To knowingly and directly lie to people in the service of a political goal takes a moral collapse…and people who have morally collapsed don’t do things for free.

    • Amazona's avatar Amazona February 7, 2025 / 10:05 am

      Remember when Casper was swooning over the big giant massive rallies of Harris and how she had soooo much spontaneous support?

      Hmmmm. Now we learn that even a lot of black folk were, shall we say, not impressed. Oh, they could be bought, but they weren’t going to offer support or endorsements without a paycheck.

      Lindy Li Says Beyoncé and Everyone Else Was Paid to Campaign for Kamala Harris

      Even Obama got $100,000 for “travel”.

      • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 7, 2025 / 10:57 am

        There’s also the rumor that the celebrities who went to Kiev were paid – by USAID. We’re really starting to see the scope of the overall psyop and there appears to be nothing that isn’t touched by fraud.

      • Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 7, 2025 / 12:44 pm

        Heh!

  18. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 7, 2025 / 10:21 am

    Thursday marked the final day for federal employees to accept the Trump administration’s offer of eight months of pay and benefits in exchange for voluntarily stepping down. According to the latest figures from Bloomberg, at least 40,000 government workers—about 2% of the federal civilian workforce—have opted into the resignation program. 

    An official from the Office of Personnel Management told Bloomberg that deferred retirement applications have been steadily increasing and are expected to surge by the end of Thursday, the deadline to apply. Employees can submit their resignations by sending the word “resign” to their government email accounts. 

    “While a few agencies and even branches of the military are likely to see increases in the size of their workforce, the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force,” OPM recently told federal workers in an email. 

    I have to admit, it never occurred to me that a minimum of a 2% reduction in the federal civilian workforce, and probably more, could be accomplished in a week just by paying them to go away. (I have to admit, this comment of mine brought to mind one by Charlie Sheen when he said he didn’t pay hookers to have sex, he paid them to go away afterward–not that I am saying a lot of federal civilian workers are prostitutes 😉 )

    Also, note the sly reference to the surge in military enlistments since Trump was elected, merely commenting that “even branches of the military are likely to see increases in the size of their workforce”. They sure choke on good news, don’t they?

    And hey, someone do the math here. If 40,000 people are only 2% of the federal civilian employees, just how many ARE there anyway? And isn’t that, like, really a lot?

  19. Amazona's avatar Amazona February 7, 2025 / 10:26 am

    I would have arrested them, but that’s just me. This works, too, and isn’t it fun to see lawfare used correctly?

    President Trump’s Justice Department sued the state of Illinois, the city of Chicago and local officials Thursday over laws creating a sanctuary city. 

    Accusing the officials of impeding federal immigration enforcement efforts, the Justice Department asked a judge to declare the state and local measures unconstitutional because of the federal government’s supremacy.

    • jdge's avatar jdge February 7, 2025 / 12:49 pm

      There’s also a resolution where the city of Chicago wants to ban J6’ers from applying for jobs. That to me appears to be flat out illegal discrimination. Amazing what hills the left want to stand & die on. As I watched the fake outrage from the leftist senators and congress critters yesterday it becomes more obvious every day their world is crumbling while trying to remain relevant without free government slush funds.

      • Retired Spook's avatar Retired Spook February 7, 2025 / 12:58 pm

        JDGE, it’s amazing to me how fast the meme creators came up with this so quickly after your comment. It’s like they’re psychic.

  20. jdge's avatar jdge February 7, 2025 / 4:22 pm

    Interesting discussion at a US House oversite committee with MTG talking about how the state of Iowa implemented DOGE in 2023. They reduced the number of agencies from 37 down to 16 and have exceeded their 4-year projected savings in just 18 months. Gee, whodda thunk?

    • Mark Noonan's avatar Mark Noonan February 7, 2025 / 5:04 pm

      It can be argued that our entire $34 trillion in national debt is the money that was stolen.

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