Feds Spent Roughly $1 Billion To Conduct Survey That Could’ve Been Done For $10,000, Musk Says

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The Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) Elon Musk said Thursday on Fox News that the group found the federal government spent almost $1 billion on a survey that could’ve only cost thousands.

Following President Donald Trump entering office in January, his administration pushed for Musk and DOGE to comb through the government’s spending and identify potential cuts to save taxpayer dollars. On “Special Report with Bret Baier,” the Fox News host sat with Musk and his DOGE team and asked the billionaire what has been the most “astonishing thing” he’s witnessed so far in this process.

“The sheer amount of waste and fraud in the government,” Musk said. “It is astonishing. It’s mind-blowing. We routinely encounter waste of a billion dollars or more, casually.”

“For example, like the simple survey that was literally [a] 10 questions survey. You could do it with SurveyMonkey, [which] would cost about $10,000. The government was being charged almost a billion dollars for that,” Musk added.

Baier could be seen interrupting Musk as he sounded astonished, later asking, “For just a survey?”

Musk responded and said the survey was essentially pointless as it had no “feedback loop.” (Read more from “Feds Spent Roughly $1 Billion To Conduct Survey That Could’ve Been Done For $10,000, Musk Says” HERE)

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DCA Crash Victims’ Families Slam FAA As Report Identifies 15,000 Near Misses At Airport

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Family members of the victims of the January plane and helicopter crash at Reagan National Airport (DCA) voiced frustrations with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after a preliminary report found that the airport had 1,500 near misses in the past three years.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)’s preliminary report was presented at Thursday’s Senate Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation hearing. Victims’ families and their lawyers argued that the NTSB’s findings suggested the deadly crash was preventable.

“I was surprised at the lapses of safety protocols that led to this crash,” Dailey Crafton, brother of Casey Crafton, who died on the American Airlines jet that was crashed into by an Army helicopter, said after the hearing.

Casey Crafton was one of 67 people who died in the collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Blackhawk on January 29.

“Specifically, even since the crash, certain safety measures that could have been simply implemented still have not been. Accountability is still not being taken by parties who should be held responsible,” Crafton said in a statement obtained by the Daily Caller. (Read more from “DCA Crash Victims’ Families Slam FAA As Report Identifies 15,000 Near Misses At Airport” HERE)

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Education Department Funded ‘Remixing Textbooks’ To Advance Pseudo-Science And Gender Theory

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It’s no secret that the Biden administration did everything it could to use the Department of Education to advance its left-wing worldview, but with the agency’s (hopefully) impending dissolution, it’s worth reviewing the exact flavor of evil it’s been involved with sowing.

Open the Books has released a snapshot of a forthcoming, more exhaustive report on waste, fraud, and abuse from the Department of Education. The millions spent on indoctrinating children show that the department has not just been a place where bureaucrats dictate education to states from an ivory tower or collude with teachers unions to the detriment of American students and families, but more malevolently, it’s been a money laundering scheme for Democrats to fund far-left social theories to fundamentally destroy American family and civil life.

“Everyone understands that essential protections for all students must be preserved somewhere in the federal purview,” Open the Books CEO John Hart told The Federalist. “Once we get past that conversation, it hardly takes five minutes to find examples of tax dollars spent to inject progressive dogma into the classroom. It’s not limited to universities; we find it at public secondary schools as well. It’s a misuse of public funds intended to have lasting impact on a generation of students.” . . .

From 2021 through 2024, the Department of Education awarded $1.3 million to fund a project at Framingham State University called “Remixing Textbooks Through an Equity-Focused Lens” (ROTEL).

The project covered a wide swathe of pseudo-science and indoctrination, and ultimately published the information in open-source textbooks. (Read more from “Education Department Funded ‘Remixing Textbooks’ To Advance Pseudo-Science And Gender Theory” HERE)

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Senate Committee Launches Investigation Into American Muslim Group For Alleged Terrorist Ties

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The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee launched an investigation into American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an allegedly Hamas-tied organization that allegedly funds many of the pro-Palestine protests on college campuses.

According to letters from Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., the committee chairman, to multiple universities as well as Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and AMP leadership, AMP has “extensive” terrorist ties and funds chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — one of the primary organizations behind the campus protests.

Cassidy asked the schools, which include Columbia University, Barnard College, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and George Washington University (GW), for information regarding AMP’s involvement in protests, many of which saw illegal encampments, violence, disruption, and even the occupation of buildings. The letters to Bondi and Patel seek information on any investigations the Department of Justice or FBI might have underway.

SJP has chapters at multiple colleges and is the on-campus organizer of many of the protests, but is backed by AMP, which the letters say “has personnel with reported ties to the Foreign Terrorist Organization Hamas.”

“AMP’s alleged ties to Hamas, which the U.S. Department of State has designated as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization,’ are extensive,” the DOJ and FBI letter states. “AMP has also been actively involved in organizing college students. It has worked for more than a decade to support SJP campus groups which, according to reports, have been actively involved in campus demonstrations.” (Read more from “Senate Committee Launches Investigation Into American Muslim Group For Alleged Terrorist Ties” HERE)

West-Coast Judges Say Trump Admin Must Take in Refugees and Pay for Their Housing

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A trio of federal judges in California declared on Tuesday that President Donald Trump must welcome roughly 40,000 refugees approved by President Joe Biden’s deputies.

“We welcome this continued relief for tens of thousands of refugees who will now have the opportunity to restart their lives in the United States,” said Melissa Keaney, the progressive lawyer for the elite-funded, anti-borders International Refugee Assistance Project.

In a second courtroom in Seattle, another federal judge ordered the Trump administration to keep paying the quasi-government agencies that settle the refugees in Americans’ crowded housing, schools, and workplaces, such as in Springfield, Ohio.

The judges’ policy preferences are likely to be appealed by Trump’s deputies. The decisions contradict his legal claim that presidents have full authority over who gets to cross the U.S. borders. The judges’ views also contradict Trump’s election mandate to reduce the civic burden of migration.

But the progressives’ lawsuits are good news for their allies among the nation’s meatpacking companies. Many of the companies rely on the progressives to supply them with cheap, subsidized, and healthy workers to replace prior refugees worn by tough working conditions in the plants, where chains on the disassemply lines often deliver 300 carcasses per hour. (Read more from “West-Coast Judges Say Trump Admin Must Take in Refugees and Pay for Their Housing” HERE)

White House Blasts the Atlantic After Release of More ‘Attack Plans’ Messages: ‘Oversold’

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The White House on Wednesday accused The Atlantic of sensationalizing the content of additional “attack plans” messages that the outlet released after administration officials denied sharing classified information in a Signal group chat that its reporter was inadvertently added to.

The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was mistakenly added to a Signal group chat of top Trump military and intelligence officials to monitor airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. The Atlantic’s first article on the chat, published Monday, left out messages that Goldberg said contained sensitive “attack plans” that could damage U.S. national security if released.

The outlet published those redacted messages on Wednesday after Trump officials denied on Tuesday that any classified information was shared in the group chat. “There was no classified information as I understand it,” President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.

The messages released by Goldberg were sent by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at 11:44 a.m. ET on the morning of March 15, the day of the strike on the Houthis. The messages, sent to the group roughly two hours before the strike was delivered, said:

TEAM UPDATE:

TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.

1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)

1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”

1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)

1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)

1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.

MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)

We are currently clean on OPSEC.

Godspeed to our Warriors.

(Read more from “White House Blasts the Atlantic After Release of More ‘Attack Plans’ Messages: ‘Oversold’” HERE)

How Kamala Responded When Her Team Told Her There Was No Way She Could Beat Trump

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We know how Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly reacted when she was told that she wouldn’t be the next president of the United States. It’s part of a new book written by Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple in Uncharted, which details the former vice president’s ascendency to the top of the ticket via an internal coup to her brutal crash on Election Day, where voters told her and the Democrats, they weren’t interested in them continuing this insane agenda that had destroyed the country.

Excerpts were published, and it’s a little interesting how this campaign came together on the kitchen table at Naval One Observatory. Harris had top talent from the Obama operation. Still, not even they, with their exceptional political acumen, could save this woman who was flat-out unqualified and unprepared to be president. Everything seemed to be a struggle for her; Harris was ahead of her skis, but the deed was done. The open primary option that Barack Obama had hoped for quickly died, as Joe Biden endorsed Harris shortly after he stepped down from the 2024 ticket. Was it revenge for the ouster? Who knows, but every call Harris made to the top Democrats didn’t make opposition overtures; she wouldn’t face a primary challenge. The Democrats wanted to avoid a coronation but chose one anyway.

It ended up being a $2 billion-plus boondoggle. What kills me is this feeling of elation on election night. Was drug use rampant, or was this crew so deep in the bubble that reason got squeezed out of this atmosphere? I think it’s the latter. There also appears to be a defined split between the on-air talent and the pollsters, the latter of which thought the former was insane for saying they were winning the race. Reality slammed into Harris when campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told her that she was going to lose the blue wall states (via Vanity Fair):

Though Harris was behind in the battleground states, her spokespeople were oddly upbeat. Appearing on MSNBC back on October 27, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon had declared, “We are very confident we’re going to win this thing.” On Friday, November 1, senior adviser David Plouffe posted on X that late-breaking undecided voters were going for Harris by more than 10 points.

A campaign has a gravitational pull, and chief of staff [Lorraine] Voles was feeling it. “You get sucked into the momentum,” she said. “Like you believe it. I’ve been on winning ones and losing ones, and this felt more like [Bill] Clinton’s [in 1992] than [Michael] Dukakis’s [in 1988].” Voles wasn’t talking poll numbers or analytics, but intangibles. “The rallies were so big and so enthusiastic. People were lining the streets.” But Harris’s pollsters didn’t share the kumbaya cohesion. One ex-Biden campaign official couldn’t understand all the heady talk. “They still had consistent polling results that showed her down by two in every state,” she said, “and Trump always overperforms. How the hell were they going to make that up?”

(Read more from “How Kamala Responded When Her Team Told Her There Was No Way She Could Beat Trump” HERE)

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Atlantic Publishes Signal Chat ‘War Plans’ After Trump Administration Denied Their Existence

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The Atlantic published the “war plans” it originally withheld in its Monday article revealing that its editor-in-chief had been accidentally added to a Signal group chat with a coalition of cabinet leaders having sensitive foreign policy discussions.

Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published a piece on Monday explaining that he had been accidentally added to a group chat on Signal, a secure messaging platform used by many politicians and journalists, by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. The group chat, named “Houthi PC small group,” included a number of high-ranking cabinet officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Vice President JD Vance.

The cabinet members discussed the military’s plans to bomb the Houthi rebels and had debates over whether the American people would understand why the US was getting involved. Goldberg noted that he was excluding a message from Hegseth in his report because it contained what Goldberg described as “war plans” — he wrote that the message “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”

After administration officials denied that “war plans” were discussed and that no classified information was shared, The Atlantic published the texts Hegseth sent detailing when the U.S. would depart for the attack, the weapons packages used and the order of operations. (Read more from “Atlantic Publishes Signal Chat ‘War Plans’ After Trump Administration Denied Their Existence” HERE)

Justice Thomas Slams SCOTUS Majority For Backing Biden’s Ghost Gun ‘Overreach’

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Justice Clarence Thomas slammed the majority for backing a Biden administration rule regulating “ghost guns” on Wednesday.

In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court held that a rule enabling gun parts kits to be regulated as traditional firearms is not inconsistent with the Gun Control Act (GCA).

“The GCA embraces, and thus permits ATF to regulate, some weapon parts kits and unfinished frames or receivers, including those we have discussed,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the ruling. “Because the court of appeals held otherwise, its judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the ruling.

“The statutory terms ‘frame’ and ‘receiver’ do not cover the unfinished frames and receivers contained in weapon-parts kits, and weapon-parts kits themselves do not meet the statutory definition of ‘firearm,’” Thomas wrote. “That should end the case. The majority instead blesses the Government’s overreach based on a series of errors regarding both the standard of review and the interpretation of the statute.” (Read more from “Justice Thomas Slams SCOTUS Majority For Backing Biden’s Ghost Gun ‘Overreach'” HERE)

Maxine Waters Questions Melania Trump’s Legal Status in Bizarre Attack

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California Rep. Maxine Waters (D) suggested Saturday during an anti-Trump administration rally in Los Angeles that first lady Melania Trump is in the country illegally.

It appears that the 86-year-old Democrat’s failed attempt at a mic-drop moment was the product not only of decrepitude and hypocrisy but of a gross misapprehension of key facts.

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. Trump noted in the order that “the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States” if those individuals’ parents were illegally in the country or not lawful permanent residents at the time of their birth.

Multiple federal judges blocked the order, and multiple appeals courts have refused to overturn those injunctions. The matter will soon be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the meantime, leftists, both foreign and domestic, have complained about the distinct possibility that illegal aliens’ anchor babies won’t always be conferred citizenship. (Read more from “Maxine Waters Questions Melania Trump’s Legal Status in Bizarre Attack” HERE)

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