Monday, March 31, 2025

The Dangerous Notion of Shadow Governments


The veneer of civilization, as history has shown us time and again, can be very thin indeed. Civilizations come and go, from the Indus Valley civilization that vanished about 600 BC to the ancient Greeks whose civilization collapsed about 300 BC to the Aztecs who collapsed in the 1500s, and many more. Some fall to natural disasters, some to internal strife, and some to attacks from without.

The United States, we might note, is seeing some internal strife right now, what with lunatics attacking people driving Teslas and shouting about burning Tesla dealerships, just to name one issue. But there's always a possibility of things getting well and truly out of control - and when a recognizable elected official starts talking about setting up alternate governments, well, then things run the possibility of going off the rails very badly.

On Friday, my colleague Nick Arama brought us the story of the unhinged vice presidential loser and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and his comments on forming a "shadow government."

Nick wrote:

But it got worse. Walz then brought up the idea of having a "shadow government." Yikes. 


"I've been saying this. I think we need a shadow government so when all these things come up, every single day, we've got an alternate press conference telling the truth about what things are happening," Walz said to cheers.

Is it hard to see how this could go badly wrong? We already have academics - college professors, who have great influence on young skulls full of mush in the university system - calling for the violent overthrow of the United States.

How many more of these people have embedded themselves in academia, in the various levels of government, and the bureaucracy? How much of the Deep State consists of people like this? Tim Walz's statement here, his call for a shadow government, isn't just irresponsible. It's dangerous. What he is proposing is dangerous, and he should be called on the carpet for it by the media (hah!) and by the voters of Minnesota, although, candidly, both of those seem unlikely. 

Think about this for a moment. A shadow government -- the very notion of it infers a claim to legitimacy. What Tim Walz mentions would be a sort of stay-at-home government in exile, a government in opposition to the legitimate government chosen by the voters. In the nature of such things, it would be peopled by radicals, people willing to use civil unrest, people who are so convinced of their righteousness that any action is on the table - like the people attacking Tesla drivers, like the people who are rioting and seizing buildings on college campuses, like the people who burned buildings, attacked cops and destroyed small businesses in the 2020 "Summer of Love" riots.

It would be only a matter of time before these people, convinced of the rightness of their cause, convinced by a near-religious righteousness, would begin to see themselves not as a shadow government, but as the legitimate government, despite all evidence to the contrary - like an election. That's when they take to the streets, in an actual act of insurrection. What happens then? Will the civil authorities in the largely Democrat-controlled major cities stand back as they did in the summer of 2020?

Sooner or later, unless local officials and law enforcement do something to rein these troublemakers in, the citizenry will grow frustrated enough to start making other arrangements. What if some informal armed security groups start springing up along the lines of the Roman vigiles? You know, the informal watchmen in old Rome, from whom we derive the modern term “vigilante”? And where, I ask you, does that lead?

It's easy to point and laugh at Tim Walz, who is a fundamentally non-serious person. But he's making a statement here, and while we don't need to take him seriously, we need to take this notion of his seriously. What he's proposing, however thoughtlessly, is dangerous.

The end of this, should people like Tim Walz achieve their wildest fever dreams, would be a kakistocracy - rule by the very worst of us. This would be the Biden administration on steroids - the left, unhinged and unleashed. That's what Tim Walz, wittingly or unwittingly, is advocating.



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X22, And we Know, and more- March 31

 



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10 Actors Who Played The Hero And The Villain In The Same Movie

Only a few actors have what it takes to play the good guy and the bad guy in the SAME film! Subscribe to our channel: Over the years, there have been many actors who played multiple roles in movies -- and sometimes the actors end up playing both the hero and the villain. The dual roles are done for a number of different reasons -- the actors want to extend their skills on the screen, add a comedic elements, or tie something into the role they are playing. In some cases, the actor and villain may look identical to each other, making it essential for the performer to play both parts. In the recent film Logan, Hugh Jackman had to play both Old Man Logan and his younger clone counterpart X-24. Deadpool 2 features Ryan Reynolds under two different masks -- well one is more of a helmet in the form of the Juggernaut. Mike Myers showcased his comedic acting skills by playing both Austin Powers and his nemesis Dr. Evil. He increased the roles he played in the sequels as well. Goosebumps featured Jack Black as author R.L. Stein, but the actor also used his voice for the main villain Slappy. Eddie Murphy made a whole career around playing multiple roles and one time where he played both hero and villain was in the space comedy The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Bill and Ted’s bogus journey features evil versions of the title characters after they are killed off and sent to do battle against death. And who can forget Doctor Strange as Benedict Cumberbatch played both the hero and villain. Watch to see all of these actors and their counterparts wage war against each other as both hero and villain. Featuring: RYAN REYNOLDS - DEADPOOL 2 HUGH JACKMAN - LOGAN MIKE MYERS - AUSTIN POWERS MEL BROOKS - SPACEBALLS JACK BLACK - GOOSEBUMPS EDDIE MURPHY - THE ADVENTURES OF PLUTO NASH CHRISTOPHER REEVE - SUPERMAN III KEANU REEVES - BILL & TED’S BOGUS JOURNEY GEORGE LOPEZ - THE ADVENTURES OF SHARKBOY AND LAVAGIRL BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH -DOCTOR STRANGE


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Nearing the Final Battle Against the Deep State


While numerous federal district court judges have issued ill-conceived restraining orders against the administration, I have long believed that it will prevail in its efforts to place control of the state in the hands of the elected executive, away from the deep state bureaucracy and its black-robed judicial allies. As the litigation of these matters proceeds, I think my belief will be justified. We will return to a constitutional republican form of government. For a day-to-day look at the progress of these multiple cases, I urge you to go to X and follow Professor Margot Cleveland, who is (bless her) keeping track of them and providing links to the pleadings and orders. 

Three of these cases were appealed to the federal circuit courts. In one, the Fourth Circuit ruled that the President acted within his powers in dismissing members of “independent” agencies -- the NLRB and the Merit Systems Protection Board. That same circuit stayed the district court injunction banning Musk and others from working with USAID. In D.C., the Circuit Court in a 2-1 decision (in which each member filed a separate statement) ignored the fact that the lower court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case and improperly certified the class of Tren de Aragua members residing anywhere in the U.S. (District Judge James Boasberg did this to justify issuance of a nationwide injunction challenging the legality of the Alien Enemies Act.) 

In a sign that the Administration was prepared for this eventuality, the next day, the Solicitor General filed a motion to vacate the order in the Supreme Court. I concur with Bill Shipley’s take:

This is the third case this week where DOJ has raised this issue before the Supreme Court. Earlier it asked SCOTUS to vacate the Injunction issued by the federal judge in San Francisco ordering the reinstatement of approximately 16,000 employees who were terminated while still in their probationary period. The Court has ordered the plaintiffs in that case to respond to the DOJ motion by today. 

Yesterday DOJ filed a motion seeking to vacate the order by a Judge in Massachusetts that the Administration restore $65 million in grants to states to address teacher shortages because the grants expressly required that DEI be used in the decision-making for hiring new teachers. The Administration demanded that the DEI conditions be removed, and the states refused. 

At first glance these three cases may not seem to have much in common beyond the fact that single district judges in three different locations -- Washington D.C., Boston, and San Francisco -- have used their positions to obstruct the efforts of the Administration [snip] The California case, where it was ordered by a federal judge to reinstate 16,000 terminated employees, goes to its power over the Executive branch in making efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce and make it operate in a more efficient manner. 

Taking up the case involving the grants for hiring teachers goes to its authority to reverse policies -- not laws -- of the Biden Administration requiring the consideration of DEI issues in hiring. The Trump Administration policy is the opposite -- if a state wants federal money, it must accept the strings that come attached. 

Now taking up the Venezuelan TdA removal case is an expression of Executive power under Article II to deal with national security threats within our borders, involving citizens of quasi-hostile foreign countries who have been identified based on their dangerousness, not their nationality. The district judge has rushed in to assert that their individual rights -- to the extent alien enemies sent to unlawfully enter the United States by a hostile foreign government have any rights -- are elevated above the power of the Executive Branch to deal with the threat they pose. 

The Executive’s default position is “We’ve identified them as alien enemies who pose a threat to the peace and safety of U.S. citizens and must be removed.” 

In sum, as Shipley writes, the Department of Justice is telling the Supreme Court that these rulings by district courts have “become so commonplace that the Executive Branch’s basic functions are in peril,” and the Supreme Court needs to act, the sooner, the better.

A key component of the Trump plan to restore the separation of powers away from the deep state has been the creation of DOGE. If you haven’t yet seen it, here’s the remarkable video of Bret Baier’s interview with Musk and members of his team, all of whom are sacrificing so much to reduce federal waste and fraud and update archaic computer and accounting schemes that have made it near impossible for cabinet members and the president to see where the money allocated has been going and why.

We have been living, it seems, in a make-believe world where the president we elect and the cabinet members he’s chosen are mere placeholders operating under a system where the bureaucracy controls relevant information and may or may not share it with those at the top. Jeff Childers says now that USAID has been transferred to Rubio’s Department of State and all but the statutory employees removed, the next target of DOGE is the CIA.

Was it purely coincidental that Rubio unexpectedly shuttered USAID on Friday and Ratcliffe unexpectedly invited DOGE into CIA the following Monday? Behold the timeline of just what we can see:

— On his first day in office, Trump created DOGE.

— DOGE’s first project was to wood-chip the CIA’s global laundromat, USAID.

— Weird legal fights erupted over the obscure “independent” agency.

— DOGE -- solely under Trump’s control -- continued penetrating most of the government.

— The Senate confirmed John Ratcliffe as CIA Director.

— Ratcliffe immediately fired an unknown number of CIA staff. (Battlefield preparation?)

— The JFK disclosures were body blows against the CIA. (More battlefield preparation?)

— Trump declassified (not yet produced) Crossfire Hurricane. (Even more?)

— Yesterday, Rubio officially ended USAID by Congressional notice.

— Yesterday, Ratcliffe publicly invited Musk into the CIA.

So many questions! Why Musk, and not a regular DOGE team? Why announce it? Why is the media pretending this story is a nothing burger?

[snip]      

Imagine a new, AI-powered, top-secret, digital DOGE dashboard at Langley that can show Ratcliffe everything in real-time: every dollar, every operation, every contract, every overseas asset being paid -- and only Trump’s team will hold the keys. Once such a dashboard were installed, the Agency’s permanent staff couldn’t play their covert games anymore. No more secret drug ops. No more unauthorized coups. No more backchannel slush funds.

No more resist Trump operations.

If DOGE can pull this off, the Agency will properly become an extension of the White House, rather than the other way around.

 In other words, DOGE at CIA is the nuclear option. It is a breathtaking vision of a brand-new reality that could dismantle the entire postwar geopolitical model. Now, permanent, unelected bureaucrats and spies hold the real power, because they control the money, secrets, and the levers of influence, while manipulated elected officials come and go like figure skaters blissfully unaware of all the busy little crustaceans teeming right below the ice.

If CIA-DOGE integration is real, and it sticks, then the Deep State will evaporate into a shallow pond. The DOGE dashboard would collapse the financial hydra into a one-necked money chokepoint. It would move the levers of control back into the White House. No more shadow government. No more covert meetings between “resisters” discussing how to undermine the elected President and thwart his agenda.

To be perfectly clear: DOGE in intelligence suggests, not just draining the swamp, but the engineered desertification of the swamp.

Finally, scrolling through social media, I’m seeing clearly disturbed people attacking Teslas and Tesla owners, along with many young women and people of indiscernible sex filming loony threats from their cars or bedrooms. I can’t explain the widespread psychosis that motivates these people. (It’s different from the aged lefties attending Bernie rallies who remind me of the nutters on P.J. O’Rourke’s hilarious account of his Nation subscribers cruise through the former USSR in “Ship of Fools.”)

Many seem far more dangerous and will likely become even more so as we go through the process of righting the ship of state. Be prepared and stay vigilant. And if you live in Wisconsin, get off the couch and vote for Schimel and voter ID.



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I’ve recognized manipulation in the past, and I see it now on the Supreme Court

I’ve recognized manipulation in the past, and I see it now on the Supreme Court

Terry Paulding for americanthinker.com

Anyone with common sense can tell when there’s a setup for a big problem, and the Supreme Court keeps setting things up.

Watching the shock and awe start of the Trump administration, I must remind myself that he’s been president for less than three months. So much has happened, and so many dark curtains have been pulled back that it’s becoming impossible to keep the creepy crawlies contained behind the drapes—unless those drapes are judicial black robes.

This morning, I asked myself where we’re going with the Supreme Court. I’ve asked myself similar questions in the past (“where is this policy going?”) and my concerns about those policies were all correct.

Back in the 1980s, I recall laughing with my husband when the SF Chronicle magazine ran a huge article about how the West Coast was going to sink into the sea because of global warming. The essay included vivid graphs and descriptions of how the weather would change within the next 30 years. We both agreed that this article explaining the mechanism by which we’d lose part of our state was just plain stupid and delusional.

YouTube screen grab (cropped).

Forty-something years later, by some miracle, my state still has a coast and beaches. Even Route 1, which runs along the coast, is just its usual hapless, landslide-prone self. We’ve gone from global warming to climate change, and are anticipating the next mini-ice age. Whether that prediction is valid or not, the TV weather reader still can’t predict tomorrow’s rain with any accuracy. But fake prediction or not, the costs have been unprecedented.

In 2010, I was alarmed when I read in the erstwhile reliable WSJ (back in the days when one had it tossed on the front steps daily) that Obama had ended private student loans, instead having the government take them over. In an “aha” moment, we discussed at the breakfast table all the problems this would create, and we were correct.

We have watched the fruition of Obama’s diabolical change unfold for years. College tuitions have soared, causing these loans to become a yoke around the neck of young adults, delinquency has become commonplace, and the Biden cabal used “forgiveness” as a DEI tool. The value of a college education, now turned to political ends under the thumb of government funding, has diminished to the point where I plan to advise my grandchildren to proceed with focused caution when the time comes.

And then there was my perplexity in 2005 when I found myself wondering why G.W. Bush had appointed Roberts, the “new guy,” directly into being Chief Justice of our Supreme Court rather than elevating a more experienced judge to that position. At the time, he seemed like a lightweight compared to Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. I thought he should be learning from them rather than being the chief.

Now, we are facing the reality of that appointment, and I find myself wondering even more why we cannot fix the broken Supreme Court. We have a Chief Justice who belongs to the same secretive “club” as patently evil Judge Boasberg, chief judge of the DC district court. We have a supposedly “conservative” justice under whose robes, reliably, the dregs of our leftist society can sweep their evil manipulation of government. I now better understand how he could say that those questioning the 2020 election had no “standing.”

In an article I wrote on these pages just after that election, I was delusional enough to expect the Supremes to take a deep dive into the stolen nature of the election—only to be sorely disappointed. Absolutely astounded, in fact. How could the American people have no “standing” with our courts? How could states’ attorneys general have none? The decision not to take up the 2020 election was a disheartening one for any patriotic American who could simply watch videos showing the process by which it was stolen.

I’ve since watched with a broken heart as our Supreme Court allowed the persecution and depraved incarceration of J6 patriots. I struggled, I will admit, to understand how so much dank, dark, anti-American, anti-common-sense evil was allowed to fester behind this chief justice’s robes for four long years.

I will admit I’m no legal scholar, just a regular person with her eyes open. My hope (once again) is that the Court will do its job and end government by lower court fiat.

I just have the feeling that we need to take a long look at the way the Supremes are appointed and demand a revision in leadership. While Roberts has a sinecure on the Court, that shouldn’t mean he owns the Chief Justice’s seat. It seems to be within the realm of possibility, but maybe I’m naive.

While I suspect DOGE can’t peek behind the court curtain, the DOJ ought to be able to at least satisfy this humble citizen that there aren’t puppeteer strings manipulating Roberts. After all, he hasn’t said a peep about the “standing” of criminal alien gang members. Surely, they should have less than zero.


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🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

 


Welcome to 

The 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓 

Here’s a place to share cartoons, jokes, music, art, nature, 
man-made wonders, and whatever else you can think of. 

No politics or divisive posts on this thread. 

This feature will appear every day at 1pm mountain time. 


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The Happy Quokka Outlines the MAGAnomic “Golden Age”



Appearing on Fox New with Maria Bartiromo, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett walks through the intent of the upcoming April 2nd ‘liberation day’ tariffs.

Hassett notes the auto tariffs are likely to generationally change the dynamic of car manufacturing in the USA.  Additionally, the stock market disruption is entirely predictable against the dynamic of Wall Street -vs- Main Street. WATCH:



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Victor Davis Hanson - The Left Knew They Were Lying to Us All Along

 The most duplicitous, dishonest presidency in modern history.


For years, the left has advanced utter untruths for cheap partisan purposes that it knew at the time were all false. And now when caught, they just shrug and say they were lying all along.

Once it was known that the first COVID-19 case originated in or near a Chinese communist virology lab engineering gain-in-function deadly viruses—with help from Western agencies—the left went into full persecution mode.

They damned as incompetent, racist, and conspiratorial any who dared follow logic and evidence to point out that the Chinese government and its military were both culpable for the virus and lying.

A million Americans died of COVID. Millions more suffered long-term injuries. Still, the left-wing media and Biden administration demonized any who dared speak the truth about a lab origin of the deadly virus.

The lies were designed to protect the guilty who had helped fund the virus’s origins, such as Doctors Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins.

The Biden government also tried to use the lab theory to ridicule a supposedly pro-Trump “conspiracy.”

Western corporate interests deeply invested in China did not want their partner held responsible for veritably killing and maiming hundreds of millions worldwide.

Almost as soon as Joe Biden was inaugurated, the left knew that he was physically and mentally unable to serve as president.

Indeed, that was the point.

Biden’s role was designed as a waxen figurine for hard-left agendas that, without the “old Joe Biden from Scranton” pseudo-moderate veneer, could never have been advanced.

His handlers operated a nightmare administration: the destruction of deterrence abroad, two theater wars, 12 million illegal aliens, a weaponized justice system, hyperinflation, and $7 trillion more in debt.

By 2017, the public knew three truths about the so-called Christopher Steele dossier.

One, it was completely fallacious—fabricated by a has-been, ex-British spy Christopher Steele. He childishly had cobbled together lurid sex stories, James Bond spy fictions, and Russian-fed disinformation to destroy the Trump candidacy and later presidency.

Two, it was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. She hid her checks behind the Democratic National Committee, the Perkins Coie law firm, and Fusion GSP paywalls.

Three, the FBI under James Comey hired Steele as an informant. It helped disseminate his concocted files and was also instrumental in trying to subvert the Trump campaign and later administration.

No sane person ever believed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was the work of “Russian disinformation.” Its contents a year before the 2020 election were verified by the FBI, but it kept mum about its confirmation.

The pornographic pictures, the evidence of prostitution and drug use, the electronic communications implicating Joe Biden in his family’s illicit shake-down operation of foreign governments—all were never challenged by anyone who was associated with the laptop’s contents.

Yet future Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, along with former interim CIA Director Mike Morrell, sought to fabricate a colossal lie to arm their candidate, Joe Biden, with plausible denial in the last presidential debate before the 2020 election.

They rounded up a rogue’s gallery of 51 now utterly discredited former intelligence authorities to lie to the nation that the laptop was likely fake.

All knew the FBI had verified the laptop. But they also knew that their titles would empower their lies that the Russians likely invented the laptop to aid the sinister Trump.

And the ruse worked like a charm.

In the debate, Biden cited their lies chapter and verse to claim the incriminating laptop was fake. A lying media damned Trump as a puppet of Vladimir Putin. Joe Biden, little more than a week later, won the 2020 election.

The Biden administration deliberately destroyed the southern border and welcomed 12 million illegal aliens. And then it lied that Biden had no power to stop the influx.

The media fabricated the excuse that “comprehensive immigration reform” was needed to enforce federal immigration laws already on the books.

Upon inauguration, Trump, in a matter of days, stopped what Biden had deliberately engineered for years.

Biden’s handlers wanted new millions of poor illegal aliens, dependent on social services, to swarm the borders.

They saw them as future voters and constituents to fuel their victim/victimizer Marxist binaries.

And they now quietly see their efforts as a huge success—knowing that it will be near impossible to find the millions of illegal aliens they welcomed in.

All these lies have divided the country and permanently damaged the U.S.

The perpetrators have neither apologized for their lies nor tried to either deny or substantiate them.

No one involved has ever been held legally accountable.

The legacy media permanently ruined its reputation and will likely never be seen as credible again.

The Biden administration, overseer of many of these lies, will be regarded as the most duplicitous and dishonest presidency in modern history.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-left-knew-they-were-lying-to-us-all-along/

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Democrats Continue Bashing Elon Musk Despite Investing in Tesla

Jeff Charles reporting for Townhall 

Well, it appears that not all Democrats despise Tesla owner Elon Musk as much as they would have us believe. In fact, it seems that at least some left-leaning lawmakers are quite fond of his company, even though they bash it every chance they get.

The left despised Musk with the fire of a thousand burning suns ever since he threw in with President Donald Trump. The heat grew even more intense after he was announced as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative.

Over the past three months since President Donald Trump took office, Democrats in the government and media have been spending their time wringing their hands when they are not busy clutching their pearls. Take Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), for example. During an appearance on MSNBC, she laid into Musk.

“He wakes up lying. He goes to sleep lying,” Omar said. “And frankly, I don't think he understands the laws of this country. I don't think he understands the Constitution. I don't think he understands the power that we have as members of Congress. And I don't think he understands or thinks that people are entitled to rights under the Constitution if he doesn't like them.”

Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) was one of many who went crazy on Musk over the decision to scuttle the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “This fight isn’t just about USAID or the Department of Education, it’s about whether the people and their elected representatives should govern, or whether the richest man in the world gets to call all the shots,” he whined.

Sen. Chuck Schumer slammed DOGE, saying it is “letting a small group of unelected people, secret, run rampant through the executive branch accessing the private data millions of Americans need, and God knows what they’re going to do with it.”

But some Democratic lawmakers secretly support Musk – at least through his company. In fact, several left-leaning members of Congress own Tesla stock – even while constantly bashing its owner, according to a Fox News report.

Despite their rhetoric, some Democrats are investors in the company currently bearing the brunt of the Musk hatred. Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., have all purchased Tesla shares since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

As of March 2025, several other House Democrats, including Reps. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Dwight Evans, D-Pa., also remain invested in Tesla.

One month into the new Trump administration, Cisneros went on Forbes Breaking News to slam Musk and President Donald Trump, calling the first month of the administration "atrocious" and saying that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is "causing destruction."

He also slammed Musk personally, saying, "He basically bought himself the presidency of the United States" and "I have no doubt he is the one calling the shots."

Just days later, however, Cisneros purchased between $1,001 and $15,000 worth of Tesla stock as the company faced a protracted decline in value, likely due to Musk’s sudden wane in popularity.

On Feb. 11, Gottheimer issued a statement in which he went full scorched earth on Musk, saying, "the risks to Americans’ privacy and financial security from Musk’s unchecked access are not only unacceptable, but also outright dangerous."

"My constituents are deeply concerned about Elon Musk having unrestricted access to their Social Security numbers, tax refunds, health, and bank account information," said Gottheimer, adding, "To be clear: No one elected Elon Musk or entrusted him with keeping sensitive data from falling into the hands of our adversaries."

Around the same time, however, Gottheimer disclosed he purchased up to $45,000 in Tesla stock.

As I’m fond of saying, hypocrisy and politics go together like chicken and waffles. This story part of a miles-long list of examples exemplifying how Democrats adhere to this principle.

Whenever we hear these Democrats shriek and howl about Elon Musk and DOGE, we should remember that very few of these people actually mean what they say. It appears their supposed hatred of the man is a Hollywood-worthy performance.



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Anti-Tesla RET@RDs Getting More Unhinged Over Weekend! And Some Important Serious News too ...

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How to End the Fed

How to End the Fed

AlexYounger for mises.org


So much has been written about why we should end the Federal Reserve, and with the recent public demand for an audit, the message has finally reached the masses. Hopefully, if such an audit manifests, it will be the first step toward ultimately dismantling the Federal Reserve. (We should start with the extremely shady Bank Term Funding Program). But very little has been written about how to end the Federal Reserve, and that is what I wish to address here.

The How

You may read through my proposed plan and disagree with me on the details. But we must agree on this point: The key objective is to minimize any fluctuations in the current money supply as best we can. This can be done in a delicate manner that might even go unnoticed by the market, outlined in 5 steps:

  • Revoke All Federal Reserve Monetary Policy Privileges

The Federal Reserve should no longer have the ability to directly manipulate the money supply. Repeal the Federal Reserve Act.

  • Lock Down All Debt Assets on the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet

This refers to all assets on the balance sheet with a contractual expiration, such as US Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities, and other loan types. These assets make up roughly 99 percent of the Fed’s balance sheet. Rather than selling them, they should be allowed to expire naturally over the next 30 years—the longest duration of USTs and MBSs. During this period, the Fed may still collect interest payments on these assets and reinvest them to prevent removing those funds from the monetary base.

  • Gradually Sell Off Non-Expiring Assets

Any assets on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet that lack a contractual expiration should be sold off gradually over a period of 1 to 5 years. At present, I have been unable to find a reliable estimate of how much of this asset type exists, but I suspect it is relatively small—possibly less than a billion dollars.

  • The Federal Reserve Becomes a True Private Institution with No Special Legal Privileges

The Federal Reserve should operate as a fully private institution, stripped of any special legal banking privileges. Its only remaining advantages would be its established market position, its role in facilitating bank-to-bank lending, the interest payments from existing assets on its books, and its historical significance. This is far more than it deserves, but the primary objective must be to dismantle its power without triggering economic catastrophe.

  • If the Federal Reserve Cannot Function as a Private Bank

If the Federal Reserve fails to maintain its market position—which is likely, given that it has never truly faced competition—then major banks will need to determine among themselves how to facilitate interbank lending. They may assign central banking functions to other private institutions, operating within the limits of private banking law. Alternatively, the market may simply deem the Federal Reserve obsolete, allowing it to wither away naturally. Either outcome would be entirely acceptable.

The Balance Sheet Details

As of this writing, the Federal Reserve holds $6.8 trillion on its balance sheet. This follows a sharp 25 percent reduction from its previous $8.9 trillion over the past two years—a decrease of $2.1 trillion. In other words, the Fed initially printed $8.9 trillion and used this newly-created money to purchase assets in the market.

What has the Federal Reserve been buying? Primarily US debt. Our financial system functions like an ouroboros, with the Federal Reserve acting as a perpetual buyer of new government debt—funded by printed money. As of this writing, the Fed holds approximately $5 trillion of the national debt and artificially inflates domestic demand for it. Ending the Federal Reserve would severely restrict the government’s ability to create new debt, forcing a fundamental shift in government spending policy:

Fed Balance Sheet Composition

Currently, $4.2 trillion of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet consists of US Treasury bonds (USTs), while another $2.2 trillion is made up of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Together, these two asset classes account for $6.4 trillion, or about 94 percent of the total balance sheet. The remaining 6 percent is a mix of various other debt securities, including corporate debt, federal agency debt, and other loan types, all of which also have contractual expiration dates.

Natural Expiration of Debt Assets

Let’s consider the potential consequences of abandoning current monetary policy and requiring the Federal Reserve to let its debt assets naturally roll off the balance sheet. Debt contracts have expiration dates, meaning that once they reach maturity, they expire worthless and can simply be removed from the balance sheet without active intervention. This approach would gradually shrink the Fed’s holdings over time, reducing its influence on the financial system without the immediate shock of mass asset sales.

Here is a projection of the balance sheet over the next 30 years under this plan:

Projection of Assets Naturally Expiring on Fed Balance Sheet. The code for this chart can be found here.

The debt expirations are front-loaded, meaning the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet would experience a sharp initial decline before tapering off over time. In the first year, we would see a significant 10 percent reduction, which would gradually level out to a 1.7 percent decrease per year. On average, the decline would be around 3.1 percent annually.

This projection assumes the Fed has purchased debt with an evenly distributed range of expiration dates across different maturity groups, which is likely accurate. In reality, the actual decline would be somewhat more volatile due to variations in the composition of the Fed’s holdings.

Not Quantitative Tightening

The key advantage of this approach is that it differs from traditional quantitative tightening. No funds would be actively removed from banks’ reserves—those reserves would remain at their current levels. Instead, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet would shrink passively as debt assets naturally expire, avoiding the disruptive liquidity drain that comes with aggressive asset sales.

To fully understand this, a brief crash course in quantitative tightening (QT) is necessary. Admittedly, there is a certain genius to the way Federal Reserve monetary policy operates. When the Fed tightens, it sells assets from its balance sheet to primary dealers (large banks) on the open market. The Federal Reserve essentially functions as a “bank for big banks,” where major US banks store their reserves much like a savings account. These reserves not only remain at the Fed but also earn interest, just like a traditional savings account. This structure allows the Fed to influence liquidity in the financial system without directly impacting the day-to-day operations of commercial banks, making its monetary policy more indirect but highly effective.

When the Fed sells assets to primary dealers, it sells to banks that already have reserve accounts at the Fed. This means the money used to purchase these assets is already parked at the Federal Reserve. When the Fed either sells securities or allows them to mature without reinvesting, two things happen simultaneously: 1) the Fed’s assets decrease as the securities leave its balance sheet; 2) the bank’s reserve account at the Fed decreases by the same amount. These two changes cancel each other out, effectively removing that portion of the monetary base from circulation. This is how quantitative tightening (QT) functions—it contracts the money supply by destroying reserves, rather than directly pulling cash from the economy.

The key difference in my proposed approach is that the Fed would continue receiving interest payments on its remaining assets for the duration of their terms. The most realistic scenario is that these funds will be used to pay interest on reserves held by banks at the Fed, allowing normal banking operations to continue without disruption. However, unless the Fed finds an alternative revenue source, the interest on reserves rate can be expected to gradually decline over the next 30 years as assets roll off the balance sheet. This slow adjustment provides banks with ample time to determine how to manage their reserves in a post-Fed environment.

Inflationary vs. Deflationary Pressures

One likely outcome of this transition would be an increase in business investment by big banks. The interest on reserves paid by the Fed has historically discouraged banks from investing in the open market. From the bank’s perspective, why would I go make a risky investment into some startup, or some business which could hit rough waters and default, when I could just park my assets at the Fed and make a risk-free 4.4 percent? Basically, the Fed has been paying banks to not loan you money.

As the Fed’s ability to pay interest on reserves diminishes over time, banks would have a stronger incentive to deploy their capital elsewhere, likely fueling greater investment in businesses, loans, and other market-driven opportunities. This new pressure on banks to seek better investment opportunities within the first five years of this transition will create an inflationary counterbalance to the deflationary pressure that naturally comes with ending the Fed.

As banks shift their reserves into the market, increased lending and investment could stimulate economic activity, offsetting the contractionary effects of removing the Fed’s artificial demand for debt. This dynamic could help stabilize prices during the transition, preventing a sudden economic shock while still moving toward a more market-driven monetary system.

Conclusion

The ideal outcomes from this arrangement would be the following:

  • The Fed loses its extra-legal authority, operating solely as a private institution;
  • Direct central planning of interest rates ends, eliminating monetary supply manipulation;
  • Minimal fluctuation in the money supply, as bank reserves remain unaffected and the Fed continues receiving interest payments on its debt assets, preventing a liquidity drain;
  • Market stability, with little disruption to economic equilibrium;
  • Slight dollar appreciation, as the deflationary effects of ending the Fed are counterbalanced by banks investing their reserves;
  • No rush for banks to find alternative bank-to-bank lending solutions, ensuring a smooth transition;
  • No need to rewrite ACH payment systems, which currently rely on the Federal Reserve;
  • Greater urgency in reducing federal debt, as an appreciating currency increases the real debt burden;
  • A shift toward more prudent and productive financial behavior, as stronger purchasing power encourages saving and discourages reckless debt accumulation.

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Liberal Angst Alert: White House to Take Over Briefing Room Seating Chart


Bob Hoge reporting for RedState 

For years, much of the nation’s biased major media have done battle for the Democrats and the progressive cause. We’ve watched them censor the Hunter laptop story, win Pulitzer prizes for covering the Russia-Russia scandal (which turned out to be bogus), print misinformation piece after misinformation piece about COVID and the effectiveness of the vaccines, and countless other examples.  

One of the ways they’ve done this is through the White House Correspondents’ Association, which has worked to keep the legacy media atop the DC journalism food chain. Donald Trump is looking to change that, and just as he's created shockwaves throughout the Swamp in his second term, he’s also making a big move to better reflect the nation’s new media landscape.

You can almost hear the liberal journalists’ crying already:

The White House plans to impose its own seating chart for reporters in the briefing room in coming weeks, taking over a function long managed by the reporters themselves through the White House Correspondents' Association.

Why it matters: It's the latest — but likely not the last — effort by the White House to take a heavier hand in shaping who covers President Trump. In public and private, White House officials make it clear they are determined to upend decades-old press corps traditions.

Sean Spicer, press secretary during Trump’s first term, wrote on X Sunday: “Fantastic way to kick off the week.” Ari Fleischer, who held the same job under former President George W. Bush, chimed in:

The decision re who gets to sit in taxpayer provided seats in a government building should not be made by journalists. It should be made by the press sec, as was standard until 2006.

Why is the seating arrangement so important? Because it gives you a huge advantage:

The backstory: Prominent seats in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room are coveted because it's easier to catch the press secretary's eye to ask tough and probing questions. Those correspondents' interactions are also more likely to be showcased on TV.

  • In February, the White House began designating the pool of reporters who accompany Trump in tight spaces like the Oval Office and Air Force One — another function the WHCA had controlled for generations. WHCA said in response: "In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps."

In February, the White House had already freaked out members of the legacy media by deciding they would choose which reporters get the coveted “press pool” slots, which go to journalists who travel with the president or cover him in situations where there are space limitations. The move took away that power from the WHCA, as we reported.

Trump is rewriting the norms in so many ways, and his shaking up of the DC journalistic cesspool is good for Americans. We don’t need the corporate press deciding who gets the best access to the president—they’ve proven themselves over and over again to be hopelessly biased and unreliable.

Expect much shrieking forthcoming from outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN.



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Trump Trolls the Media Again With New Comments on Running for Reelection in 2028


Ward Clark reporting for RedState 

President Trump engaged in a little presidential trolling on Sunday when he was on a phone interview with NBC News. When asked about a possible 2028 re-election run - forbidden by the Constitution in the 22nd Amendment - he responded with a typical Trump tease.

President Donald Trump did not rule out the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House, which is prohibited by the Constitution under the 22nd Amendment, saying in an exclusive interview with NBC News that there were methods for doing so and clarifying that he was “not joking.”

“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said in a Sunday-morning phone call with NBC News, referring to his allies. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”

“I’m focused on the current,” Trump added, in some of his most extensive comments to date about serving a third term.

That's a pretty clear non-answer, but the president had more to say on the topic - and he claims he's not joking. He even proposes one avenue where he may - pending a legal ruling - be able to pull it off:

When asked whether he wanted another term, the president responded, “I like working.”

“I’m not joking,” Trump said, when asked to clarify. “But I’m not — it is far too early to think about it.”

When asked whether he has been presented with plans to allow him to seek a third term, Trump said, “There are methods which you could do it.”

NBC News asked about a possible scenario in which Vice President JD Vance would run for office and then pass the role to Trump. Trump responded that “that’s one” method.

“But there are others too,” Trump added.

Asked to share another method, Trump simply responded “no.”

The 22nd Amendment is, of course, the roadblock to any such plan. And the workaround President Trump mentions likely won't work; here's why. The notion of Vice President Vance, on winning the election with Donald Trump as his running mate, then resigning and handing the presidency off - it's unclear as to whether the 22nd Amendment prohibits such an action. The 22nd Amendment reads in part:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

President Trump would, in this scenario, not have been "elected to the office of the President," but to the office of Vice President. And Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, says about the qualifications of the President:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Here's the catch: The 12th Amendment lays out the qualifications for the Vice President of the United States, and that's where this scheme hits a brick wall:

But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

That, bluntly, prohibits any previous two-term president from running for vice president. There are no other ways around the 22nd Amendment that I'm aware of.

Even so, this is, at least in the opinion of this writer, unlikely. President Trump will be 82 when his current term ends, and JD Vance is more than capable, should he choose, of taking the reins. President Trump has expressed this notion before, and it's very likely he's, as my British friend would say, "Having them on."

The President has a strangely familiar knack for distraction.



And it's also likely that he was flashing a little annoyance at being asked this, when, as my colleague Mike Miller informs us, he has much more serious matters on his plate; in fact, he described one such issue in this same interview. Trump also spoke about Iran in another part of the Welker interview.

Prediction: President Trump won't seek a third term by the means described above or any other means. He's likely doing a bit of leg-pulling here with this suggestion, as he is wont to do. But in 2028, he will be, as noted, 82 years old, and no matter how robust he is for a man his age - and he's pretty robust - time is that inexorable villain that catches up with all of us, eventually, as I'm reminded every time I look in the mirror. And by 2028, even the most die-hard MAGA fan will likely agree with the notion that President Trump has done enough.

But we can still enjoy him, now and then, when talking with the media, pointing away and shouting "Squirrel!"


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