My Interview With California Governor Gavin Newsom

American Thinker (parody)

California Governor Gavin Newsom will talk to anyone to get his name in the news, including the free national weekly Patriot Neighbors. Editor Robin Itzler recently sat down with the soon-to-be-termed-out governor to discuss an array of issues, including his upcoming presidential campaign.

Robin: Thank you for meeting with me in between your rallies supporting illegal alien gang members. Even ICE agents showed up at your August 14 event in Los Angeles.

Gavin Newsom: Yes, we had a massive 100 people inside, and illegal aliens outside.

Robin: It’s been reported that many leftist rally goers are paid to attend.

Gavin Newsom: Hmm, I will ask George Soros today when he and I have lunch.

Robin: Is the rally what brought you to Southern California?

Gavin Newsom: That and looking for the $100 million raised in the FireAid concert for the January fire victims.

Robin: Did you find the $100 million? It’s reported that little to no money went to victims of the fire.

Gavin Newsom: The money might be in the same place as the billions of dollars for the high-speed rail. I am looking for that money, too.

Robin: Speaking of the January fires, more than structures were destroyed. By the six-month anniversary in early July, of the 800 rebuild permits requested from homeowners in the Palisades, Altadena, and surrounding areas, only 145 had been approved. Plus, you are talking about replacing single-family homes with low-income apartment buildings and dramatically changing the personalities of these communities that burned to the ground due to Democrat incompetence.

Gavin Newsom: Yes! Aren’t I doing a great job? By the way, if you want to take my photo, let me put more gel on my hair.

Robin: Governor, doesn’t it concern you that Californians are leaving the state due to your incompetence?

Gavin Newsom: Not really. Californians who are leaving are most likely pesky Republicans who believe in such ridiculous things as God and Judeo-Christian values, that parents should raise their own children, a child’s birth gender shouldn’t be changed, abortion is murder, illegal immigrants should be given citizenship, men can play in female sports, and homeless tents enhance parks. ¡Adiós, Republicanos!

Robin: But you can’t have a successful state economy without a strong middle class, and those are the folks leaving California! If you look at any communist country, they have the rich and poor but lack a middle class.

Gavin Newsom: Oh, please! Look how well Venezuela is doing!

Robin: Let’s focus on California. As you travel the country, what statistics can you cite to make people want to elect you president?

Gavin Newsom: Oh, there are a lot of great accomplishments I can tout. For instance, while the country’s unemployment rate is 4.2 percent, California leads the nation with 5.5 percent.

Also, I am pleased that California has the highest homeless population in the United States. In 2024, we had one-quarter of the nation’s homeless population.

And I am most proud that California has the highest income tax rate among our 50 states.

Robin: But...

Gavin Newsom: Please don’t interrupt me as I highlight how California leads the nation.

California also leads the nation with the most illegal aliens. And I am proud to add that within that number, there are many criminals and gang members that we are stopping ICE from apprehending.

Robin: Can you really gerrymander the state more than it’s been? Currently, Republicans only have nine of 52 congressional districts, although we are 40 percent of the vote. That’s a paltry 17 percent of California House Republicans!

Gavin Newsom: I want to make California’s representation in the House fairer. That’s why I would reduce the number of Republican representatives from nine to five. Who knows? It might get more Republicans to move out of the state!

Robin: Does it bother you that President Trump and many others say there’s empty space underneath your hair?

Gavin Newsom: What about my hair? Does it look okay? Should I brush it?

Robin: Your hair looks its usual gelly gook. Governor Newsom, do you really think you can win a national presidential election?

Gavin Newsom: Of course, I can! First off, Republicans foolishly put out maps of the United States showing that the nation is mostly red. That might be true if you are just counting congressional districts, but many of those are small districts. It’s a meaningless map because Democrats own the big cities.

Second, most blue states have election integrity in the same way that Joe Biden had mental acuity. California is the blueprint for holding elections and then counting questionable ballots until you get the results you want.

Robin: Sir, why are you admitting this?

Gavin Newsom: Why not? Nothing has drastically changed since the 2020 election. Republican politicians or organizations foolishly announce that they’ve removed “x” number of dead voters from the rolls, and you Republicans clap like seals. By the next election, we will find more dead people to vote. Or we will mail 20 ballots to a Democrat’s home with just two registered voters. Or we will give away free hamburgers on college campuses the day before Election Day and gather provisional ballots that we count weeks after the election. Or we let people vote as many times as they want. Best of all, we do not ask for proof of residency.

However, I do have one major worry.

Robin: What is it?

Gavin Newsom: That the Republican Congress will pass, and President Trump will sign, an election integrity law making things the way they used to be: One day voting in local precincts with exceptions for the military, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship. The last thing I want is for California to hold honest elections!

I can go on and on, but I must get to a meeting. A Chinese company wants me for their jeans commercial.

Robin: Well, thank you for your time. Just know that I will do everything in my power to keep you from destroying America the way you have destroyed California.

Gavin Newsom: You’re welcome. Are you going to take my photo? Does my hair look good? Where’s my comb? Do you have a mirror? Can someone get me a mirror?

X22, And we Know, and more- August 22

 

Hello!

Second Lady Usha Vance’s Advice to America’s Kids on Navigating Life Is Essential Reading for Everyone

 

By Mike Miller | August 22, 2025 | RedState

How many times have you seen a family — husband and wife, perhaps two or three kids — at a restaurant with every single one of them staring at their phone, be they reading texts, hanging out on social media, or reading and responding to text messages? 

If you're like me, it's been more times than you can remember.

This brings us to Second Lady Usha Vance, who was in Atlanta, GA, on Thursday to speak with young students at a charter school about her "Summer Reading Challenge." 

When Vance asked the kids to share how often they get distracted by cell phones or tablets, almost every child in the school gym eagerly raised their hand. 

After visiting the school and touring several classrooms, the Second Lady spoke with Daily Wire about how she tries to block technological distractions from her own kids, suggesting that her efforts would be good for all of America's children. 

For my children, and I think for all children, my goal is that we do things that try to counteract that. Whether that’s spending time outside, whether that is engaging in the kinds of activities where you just can’t be distracted, you really have to commit to build strength or skill or whatever it might be.

Exactly. Remember when summers were about being outside with our friends, often from early morning until evening when "the street lights came on"? Me, too, and those are some of the most cherished memories of life — regardless of what we were doing.

It's All About Reading, for Starters

Vance told Daily Wire it starts with reading, for her and her family:

Reading, I think, is maybe the most important of all these because when you can read and focus on something for hundreds of pages, then you can really do anything at that point. 

The Second Lady glowingly referred to her 8-year-old, the Vances' oldest of three kids, and how much he loves to read:

Our oldest child is a total bookworm. He’s eight, so he’s read dozens of books this summer. Right now, I think he has been reading, actually, copies of the "Mahabharata," which is an Indian epic, and he also just finished re-reading all the Percy Jackson books.

“I think he read 'The Hobbit,' recently,” Vance added, referring to J.R.R. Tolkien’s prequel to "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. 

Yep, how I not only loved the incredible world of Middle Earth and Hobbit Bilbo Baggins, but also how "The Hobbit" opened me up to the incredible "The Lord of the Rings" and its magnificent imagery, along with worldly lessons — some of them dark, most of them inspiring. 

While Usha Vance speaks less about politics than her vice-president husband, she told Daily News she has “high hopes” that people will come back to Washington. She also said the Vances share an appreciation for the important impact literature and reading can have on virtually anyone — not just children. 

In a statement on Thursday, Vance encouraged all of America's kids to embrace reading, enthusiastically saying that regular reading can help build strong foundations "that will serve them for a lifetime.”

Not only was Second Lady Usha Vance's encouragement of children to read essential; it was also a wise message for all of us. That is, if we can get off Facebook and/or X long enough to pick up a good book.

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Donald Trump is a Humble Man

American  Thinker 

In the book of James, Chapter 4, verse 6, it says, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

Donald Trump’s public image has always been portrayed as one that lacks humility and exhibits pride.

The way the president discusses his accomplishments and highlights his successes is widely recognized, even among his supporters, as evidence that his is a massive ego.

Couple that with a media that has been successful at force-feeding a false narrative concerning Trump that is widely accepted as accurate.

However, for those with keen discernment, Trump is a man who, upon careful observation, reveals a humble side that forms the foundation of who he truly is.

Trump is unlike his predecessor, Barack Obama, who was the quintessential narcissist, exuding an air of self-perceived greatness. Everything Obama has done and continues to do screams of unbridled conceit. Obama enters a room as if God Himself were making an appearance and about to impart eternal wisdom.

It’s not even what Obama says; it’s how he conducts himself. And what makes it worse are his devotees who genuflect accordingly. Trump, on the other hand, carries himself in a way that projects none of that and never has.

For Trump, gatherings are celebrations of America, her history, her people, and a camaraderie that demonstrates a oneness of heart, mind, and patriotic spirit. Obama gatherings, on the other hand, were more of a worship service where the nation and half its people were preached at and denigrated, and racial division was instigated. Idolatry was encouraged by the idol himself, who favored telling us what God wants, rather than asking God what He requires us to do.

One of the principal characteristics of humility is truth.

Sixteenth- to seventeenth-century Catholic French priest St. Vincent de Paul, who dedicated himself to serving the poor, once said, “Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying.”

De Paul believed that true humility is bound to truth because truth involves honesty, and even detractors would agree that no one is more truthful than Donald Trump.

Unfortunately, Trump’s brutal forthrightness is often misinterpreted as arrogance. If we are to grow into the fullness of who God created us to be, rather than viewing ourselves as demigods, as Obama did, an honest assessment of our true gifts, as well as our limitations, is necessary to develop as human beings and ultimately deepen our relationship with God.

Another thing that Donald J. Trump lacks is pretense; what you see is what you get. What’s often seen as self-promotion is, in fact, a reaffirmation of Trump's view of the truth. He is a billionaire and a great businessman and negotiator, having overwhelmingly won two elections, most likely three -- these are facts, not fabricated fantasies like the ones America was subjected to from both Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Again, Vincent de Paul describes pride as “nothing but lying.” Why? Because pride distorts the truth, thinks more highly of itself than it ought, and denies reality, all of which is the essence of narcissism. If you compare Barack Obama with Trump, Obama’s abilities were inflated and exaggerated. He convinced the masses that he was something he was not. To this day, Obama sees himself as the most intelligent and capable person to have ever walked God’s green earth.

Despite being surrounded by so-called experts, his entire presidency was a façade. Barack Obama exaggerated his abilities, hid his weaknesses, and pretty much dismissed the need for any god other than himself. Let’s not forget that it was Obama who had spent the last twenty or so years creating a “world not as it is, but as he thought it should be.”

Trump, on the other hand, values America and its Constitution. Based on the team around him, it’s clear that the President is also well aware of his limitations. That was evident in his first term, too, when, to his detriment, he trusted those he should never have trusted. Even still, Trump relies on the experts he surrounds himself with, taking counsel and guidance from them on all his decisions, which is a sign of humble leadership. If unpretentiousness is truth, then Trump’s verbalization of his successes is a sign of his diffidence.

Trump often acknowledges the nation’s need for God, calls for prayer, and allows himself to be prayed over, all examples of a person’s submissive attitude and reliance on God. Misconstrued by those who lack a smidgen of discernment, instead of Trump thinking he is God, after he was shot, the President verbalized his dependence on God when he said:

I’m supposed to be dead. I’m not supposed to be here. But something very special happened. Let’s face it. Something happened. It’s… an act of God. God spared my life for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again. It changed something in me. I feel even stronger.

More recently, in his address to the nation, Trump said this:

I want to thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America.

If that doesn’t smack of reverence, nothing does. Trump’s statement was a public proclamation that, as a nation, we depend on God. Humility is not self-deprecation; it’s honest acknowledgement of our need for a power higher than ourselves. Trump’s attitude is not off-putting; it’s refreshing. This is especially true after years of undeserved self-exaltation and liberal religiosity, where Democrat politicians profess faith, publicly walk with their families to churchfor a photo op, prayerfully take communion, and then support legislation that contradicts everything clearly outlined in God’s Word as forbidden. That sharp combination of extremist beliefs and fake Christianity effectively led many people astray.

Yet, those who accept the hypocrisy of the Left’s idea of pseudo-Christian faith are often the first to criticize Trump’s relationship with faith-based advisors and mock his open acknowledgment of America’s need for the guidance and protection from the Creator. For those who recognize a spiritual awakening and journey, it’s clear that this is precisely what Donald Trump has set out on. Willingly surrounded by people of faith, welcoming prayer even when the press is absent from the Oval Office, and always modestly acknowledging the nation’s need for God are all signs of a character trait that Trump is often not given credit for.

Meanwhile, messianic Barack Obama walked around for eight years, receiving worship while disingenuously acknowledging his personal need for God, and never once was he accused of the smugness he exuded in place of perspiration; instead, Trump is.

Now, amid the peace discussions with Putin, Zelensky, and world leaders, Donald Trump makes the most surprising statement of all his remarks thus far. Calling into “Fox & Friends,” he revealed that he hopes to negotiate a deal to end the war in Ukraine, saying,

I want to get to heaven. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.

Unlike secularists Biden, Pelosi, and, of course, Barack Obama, who behaved as if his awesomeness was the key to heaven, Trump publicly acknowledged his inability to gain access to heaven. He also admitted his minuscule worth and demonstrated an unpretentious understanding that it is God alone who offers access to eternal life. All of which is “truth,” and therein is what sets Donald J. Trump apart as a genuinely humble man.

America’s Indispensable President

American  Thinker 

Of the 45 men who have been president of the United States, there are three who can be considered indispensable to either the nation’s establishment or survival. They are George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Donald Trump.

Other than radical leftists, most Americans would recognize why Washington and Lincoln were indispensable: Without Washington’s character and leadership, the nation as we know it would not have been established. And without Lincoln’s principled character, the Union would not have been maintained, and American society would not have been restored through slavery’s abolition.

How does Trump fit into this panoply? It is Trump who has rescued the country from an irretrievable headfirst dash into a permanent one-party socialist oligarchy that would have eventuated in an inevitable fracturing and potential demise of the United States.

Donald Trump’s inclusion on this list derives not only from his political, legislative, and unprecedented international accomplishments but also from his impact on the psyche of the vast majority of citizens and the way he transformed a feckless Republican Party into a viable and resolute opposition made up of patriotic Americans of all races, creeds, and ethnicities.

Trump showed a nation stuck in a 28-year morass of political mediocrity and collectivism that fearlessness, determination, and an implacable conviction in the principles of the nation’s founding would defeat the Beltway elitists and the Marxist-dominated Democrat party in their endgame of transforming the nation.

What would the landscape and future prospects for the United States be today if Donald Trump, in 2015, had decided not to run and Hillary Clinton had been elected the 45th president by the average margin predicted in the polls?

That outcome would have resulted in Democrats winning two closely contested Senate seats in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, giving them control of that chamber. During Clinton’s first term, Democrats in the Senate would have essentially eliminated the filibuster. In the House of Representatives, the Republicans might have remained in nominal control with a much smaller majority, but it would have been under the leadership of a spineless Speaker, Paul Ryan, backed by more than 50 so-called “moderate” Republicans.

After the 2018 and 2020 elections, thanks to unconstrained voter fraud and manipulation, the Democrats would have controlled the House of Representatives and Senate in near perpetuity.

Regardless of any failures during her first term, Hillary Clinton would have won re-election in 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic would not have been so duplicitously hyped and overblown, although the legacy media-Democrat cabal would still have been exploited for political purposes. This same cabal would have made certain Hillary would continue to occupy the White House, as they did in the 2020 election with Joe Biden, by using the Covid-19 pandemic to promote and make permanent mass mail-in voting and the fraudulent manipulation of the vote-counting processes.

The chaos and seemingly endless misfeasance in the Biden presidency are a window into what would have happened in a Hillary Clinton presidency. She, too, would have acquiesced to and governed per the demands of the far-left Marxist cabal to whom Barack Obama granted a permanent and oversized place at the table. The Democrats in Congress would be, as they are now, in the thrall of the radical left.

Hillary would have appointed three left-leaning Supreme Court Justices as well as 234 other federal district and circuit court judges in her first term, and another Supreme Court Justice in her second term, together with 235 district and circuit court judges. Combined with the two Supreme Court Justices and 338 judges that Obama appointed, the Obama-Clinton presidencies would have appointed 91% of all federal district and circuit court judges, as well as six Supreme Court Justices (resulting in a 6-3 left-wing majority). The judiciary would be, on a near-permanent basis, sympathetic to transforming the country and de facto rewriting of the Constitution.

After two Hillary Clinton terms, the economy would be in far worse shape than it was at the end of Biden’s term because it would not have had the solid foundation—thanks to Trump’s first-term policies—to weather the Covid-19 pandemic and the radical left Democrats’ policy goals. Taxes would not have been lowered, but dramatically increased, especially given that uncontrolled spending would have been unleashed along with unending inflation beginning in 2017.

The “Green New Deal” would have been enacted primarily through executive orders and regulatory enforcement, costing untold trillions of dollars and causing a massive rise in energy costs and overwhelming job losses, as well as increasing reliance on Communist China. Thousands of pages of new regulations would have been enacted, thus destroying existing businesses as well as new business formation.

What Hillary and the Democrats could not pass in Congress, they would have done through an endless litany of executive orders and regulations. The states’ ability to overturn the Clinton executive orders would not have been addressed in a Democrat-controlled Congress and would have fallen on deaf ears with a Judiciary dominated by the far left.

The so-called “compromise” legislation that would have been passed would have included a dramatically expanded panoply of social and welfare spending, college debt forgiveness, and modified Medicare for all. Thus, massive inflation-inducing money creation and debt.

In the later years of the Hillary Clinton presidency, the Second Amendment would have been attacked vigorously using executive orders and “compromise” legislation, secure in the knowledge that the courts would no longer be an obstacle.

A Clinton administration would have accelerated the tactics begun during the Obama presidency of fomenting societal upheaval by using race to promote racial and ethnic animosity and enabling the Department of Justice to be a cudgel to permanently defeat and intimidate the political opposition. There also would have been legislative and regulatory changes aimed at federalizing elections to overwhelmingly favor the Democrat party.

As with Biden, the borders would have been swung wide open to unfettered illegal immigration, resulting in upwards of more than 16 million new illegals during Hillary’s first term and an equal number in her second. “Compromise” legislation would have been passed to legalize all illegal arrivals, with more than 30 million illegal aliens fast-tracked to voting rights.

Meanwhile, in solidarity with the Clinton administration’s ideological soulmates, Russia, China, and Iran would have been granted de facto acquiescence to continue their pursuit of regional and global hegemony as the Clinton and succeeding Democrat administrations reduced military spending and increased America’s susceptibility to foreign influence and extortion.

The fate of the United States would be sealed as this nation would have passed the point of no return.

Instead, in 2015, a brash and confident Donald Trump burst through the doors of the two-party political establishment. By renewing and recasting many of the economic policies of Ronald Reagan and initiating an America First domestic and foreign policy, he not only reversed the downward trend of the nation and stopped the radical left in their tracks, but his overwhelmingly effective policies also showed the American people that there were viable alternatives that worked.

From 1989 to 2016, the nation had been mired in a quagmire of inadequacy and failure in its political leadership, leaving the citizenry uncertain about the country's future, even as they perceived there to be no alternative in sight. That is, until Donald Trump heeded the call to lead in rescuing the nation from the clutches of the wannabe autocrats.

Nothing exemplifies the importance of the Trump presidencies than the chaos, mismanagement, ignorance, and failures of the Biden administration. It allowed the American people to see for themselves the stark differences between the two administrations. Thus, the triumphant return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2024.

Despite the implacable, duplicitous, and treasonous forces arrayed against him, Donald Trump’s patriotism, resolve, and success in rescuing the United States from the clutches of those determined to destroy it place him in the pantheon of America’s three indispensable presidents.

🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

 

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JD Vance Extensive Interview with Laura Ingraham

posted by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse 

The social media conversation was triggered by an article in the Wall Street Journal {SEE HERE} which claimed Elon Musk was reconsidering, actually setting aside the third-party option, and was likely to back JD Vance as his 2028 presidential nominee instead.

Factually, for those in the minority who are intellectually honest non-pretenders, the framework of the subsequent online discussion from that WSJ article was laughable.  Personally, I wanted to ridicule anyone who was buying into the nonsense that Musk and the Tech alliance (Ellison, Thiel, Sacks, Andreesen, et al) had another option in mind other than Vance.

Silicon Valley is a singular organism when it comes to their collective interests.  Palantir founder Peter Thiel has invested in JD Vance since 2013, and the PayPal mafia which includes Elon Musk have never diverged.  There is no way Thiel, Musk and the Tech alliance are going to support anyone other than Vance.  By the time we get to 2028 they will have a total investment of money and time that spans 15 years in Vance.  JD Vance will be the Silicon Valley candidate.

JD Vance knows this.  As the conversation about bringing Elon Musk back into the Trump camp is triggered, it is not coincidental that JD Vance becomes the conduit.  If JD Vance wants to be the presidential nominee in 2028, he will rely on Musk and crew; there is no other candidate for Silicon Valley.  WATCH:

If the Tech Bros want to reenter the epicenter of influence, they will rely on Vance to get them there.   Hence, with the rumors of the Tech group wanting to reengage, we see a much more visible JD Vance.

Border Security Is More Humane Than Giving Migrant Kids To Strangers Like Biden Did

The Biden administration’s policies ripened conditions for criminal trafficking and created a pedophile paradise.

The  Federalist 

During Joe “Autopen” Biden’s administration, it was often harder for a divorced parent to get custody of their own child than it was for a random stranger to get custody of an unaccompanied minor in the U.S. illegally. Parents battling for custody must often submit to criminal background checks for everyone in the household, psychological testing, a home study from a social worker, and be cross-examined in court testimony. In fact, some states requires Sunday school teachers undergo an FBI background check; many insurance companies require it.

Under Biden, custodians of unaccompanied minors only needed a pulse.

Federal law requires sponsors of unaccompanied minors to be fingerprinted, get a criminal background check and a home study before keeping a child under their roof. But according to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) data released this week by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), placed 11,488 children with unvetted sponsors who were not their parent or legal guardian, and who were not fingerprinted or did not receive a background check, between Jan. 2021- to Jan. 2025.

During that same time. the Biden-administration failed to conduct home studies for 79,143 children under age 12, including 1,961 children who were placed where a home study was recommended but not done.

“HHS regulations require home studies before releasing a child 12 years or younger to a sponsor who is not their parent or legal guardian,” a summary of the data reads. “The Biden-Harris administration ignored this rule and failed to conduct home studies for approximately 10 percent of migrant children who were recommended to have one.”

It means HHS released thousands of children to people or places that were unvetted, and often, lost track of them. The Biden administration’s policies ripened conditions for criminal trafficking and created a pedophile paradise.

Grassley’s data release this week reflects back to the March 2025 DHS report by the Office of Inspector General that warned in its title, “ICE Cannot Effectively Monitor the Location and Status of All Unaccompanied Alien Children After Federal Custody.”

The report found that as of January 2025, ICE had not served Notices to Appear (in court) to more than 233,000 unaccompanied children. And in October 2024, ICE reported more than 43,000 unaccompanied children who were served Notices to Appear, failed to show up for court dates.

When a child is in foster care or with a sponsor, it is up to the adult to assure the child gets to the court dates. It is worth noting that many children were older teenage boys about to be of military age. As the report shows, the unaccompanied minor route provided an avenue for young criminals to enter the U.S. and disappear.

Ideally, ICE should have monitored the cases of unaccompanied children it placed, yet according to the March report, “HHS feared sharing sponsor information with ICE could lead to law enforcement actions against sponsors, especially those with criminal history or lacking legal immigration status.”

“Actively monitoring cases can help mitigate risks in a non-detained setting. In one example, following release from HHS’ custody, an [unaccompanied child] was caught smuggling other alien children across the border,” the March report reads. “In another example, an [unaccompanied child] was accused of stabbing someone to death after release to a sponsor.”

But ORR didn’t have a clue where they were sending these children. There is a Discharge Notification form to fill out when a child moves to a sponsor’s custody. It requires the child’s name, alien number, date of birth, country of birth, sponsor’s name, the relationship between child and sponsor, the sponsor’s address and phone number.

The information should be shared with ICE. But the report found the addresses ICE had for 31,322 unaccompanied children were either blank, undeliverable, or missing apartment numbers.

Enforcement and Removal Operations officers interviewed for the report estimated addresses were incorrect 80 percent of the time. Another found some addresses did not exist. ORR released 34 unaccompanied children to one of these nonexistent addresses. And around 600 children fled HHS custody, the report shows.

“One [unaccompanied child] fled five times in 1 year,” the March report said. “Another [unaccompanied child] runaway, who admitted to murdering someone in their home country, had an international arrest warrant and, as of August 2024, the [unaccompanied child] had not appeared in court and had not been located.” Another admitted being part of a Mexican cartel.

The media that has spent years lambasting President Donald Trump for how he cares for minors in the complicated immigration system had nothing to say about Biden’s careless treatment of children.

The propaganda press plucks at the heartstrings with reports that Trump put “kids in cages” and is separating families, mischaracterizing his willingness to address a difficult problem as cruelty. But consider the numbers in this crude math exercise based on figures provided in the summary, before deciding who is cruel. 

From October 2020 to September 2024, (47 months) HHS cared for 468,736 unaccompanied children. From October 2024 to June 2025 (nine months), HHS cared for 21,399 unaccompanied children.

For the sake of equal comparison, let’s break 47 months into five nine-month groups. Divide 468,736  unaccompanied children by five and we get a rough average of 90,000 children for each nine-month group. Subtract the most recent, Biden/Trump numbers from the Biden era (90,000 – 21,000 =) and we find roughly 69,000 fewer unaccompanied children in need of care or monitoring today from the federal government.

By shutting down illegal border crossings, Trump has eliminated this awful experience for thousands of young children and blunted the threat from older alien minors connected to crime. The media, convinced that Trump’s policies are cruel, should ask these children to rank the hardest part of their experience.

Was it when their parents abandoned them and sent them from home to the U.S. alone? When the children were forced to associate with criminal border coyotes, risking sexual assault or being pulled into trafficking? When they arrived under Biden, were briefly put into HHS custody, and soon released to an unvetted sponsor?   

Or was it under Trump, when they were placed in a climate-controlled detention center, given clean clothes, food, water, and recreation while responsible adults helped them figure out their next steps, or sent them home?

Unaccompanied children create a difficult problem. Some are criminals, some are vulnerable. Biden’s open-border, do-nothing approach ballooned the alien youth population, invited crime, and failed to protect vulnerable kids.

The solution to a bad situation is not going to look nice — the propaganda press will continue to capitalize on that. Minors involved in crime or gangs will be deported, if ICE can find them. The U.S. still has thousands of people who entered the U.S. as unaccompanied minors and blended into the population. Some may never be identified.

A closed border (with a door to enter legally) saves children from being swept into criminal enterprises.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard Eliminates $700 Million in IC Spending, Reducing Staff 40 Percent

Conservative Treehouse 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has announced a major shift in reducing the role of the Intelligence Community and eliminating the politization of intelligence information.

As we have discussed on these pages for several years, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created shortly before the Obama administration took power, and subsequently the fledgling organization was weaponized for domestic influence operations. DNI Tulsi Gabbard takes a major step in addressing this problem.

In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.

What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms so that only their ideological opposition became the target of the new national security system.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard announced a long-overdue transformation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to refocus on executing its core national security mission with integrity in the most agile, effective, and efficient way. This will reduce ODNI by over 40% by the end of fiscal year 2025 and save taxpayers over $700 million per year and better enable ODNI to focus on fulfilling its critical role of serving as the central hub for intelligence integration, strategic guidance, and oversight over the Intelligence Community.

ODNI was created after the horrific Islamist terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, exposed systemic failures across the Intelligence Community (IC). Its purpose was to integrate intelligence from and provide oversight over all IC elements (currently 18) in order to ensure the intelligence provided to the President and policymakers is timely, accurate, and apolitical.

Unfortunately, two decades later, ODNI has fallen short in fulfilling its mandate.

“Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence,” said DNI Tulsi Gabbard. “ODNI and the IC must make serious changes to fulfill its responsibility to the American people and the U.S. Constitution by focusing on our core mission: find the truth and provide objective, unbiased, timely intelligence to the President and policymakers. Ending the weaponization of intelligence and holding bad actors accountable are essential to begin to earn the American people’s trust which has long been eroded. Under President Trump’s leadership, ODNI 2.0 is the start of a new era focused on serving our country, fulfilling our core national security mission with excellence, always grounded in the U.S. Constitution, and ensuring the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.”

ODNI 2.0 eliminates redundant missions, functions and personnel, and makes critical investments in areas that support the President’s national intelligence priorities, and focuses on rebuilding trust, exposing politicization and weaponization of intelligence, holding bad actors accountable, saving American tax dollars, and focusing on our core mission: protecting the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.

You can find an ODNI 2.0 fact sheet here.

Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01.  DHS came along in 2002 and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the ODNI was formed.  When Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.

The preexisting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dept of Justice (DOJ) were then repurposed to become two of the four pillars of the domestic national security apparatus.  However, this new construct would have a targeting mechanism based on political ideology.  The DHS, ODNI, DOJ and FBI became the four pillars of this new institution.  Atop these pillars is where you will find the Fourth Branch of Government.

We were not sleeping when this happened, we were wide awake.  However, we were stunningly distracted by the economic collapse that was taking place in 2006 and 2007 when the engineers behind Obama started to assemble the design.  By the time Obama took office in 2009, we sensed something profound was shifting, but we can only see exactly what shifted in the aftermath.  The four pillars were put into place, and a new Fourth Branch of Government was quietly created.

As Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard has begun to take down the political surveillance system.

Yesterday, it was announced that Tulsi Gabbard fired twenty of the “according to those familiar with the matter” people. Another ten from the group “who spoke on the condition of anonymity.” And seven of the “officials close to the issue.”

Her work continues.