Big Government

Newly obtained documents show that Dr. Anthony Fauci received $15 million in taxpayer-funded security after his retirement, according to a report by independent journalist Jordan Schachtel and Open The Books.

The arrangement, detailed in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), provided security for Fauci from January 4, 2023, to September 20, 2024.

The protection included a security detail and chauffeur.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which operates under the Department of Justice, confirmed to the Daily Caller that they provided protective services to Fauci from January 2023 to August 2024, one month less than indicated by Schachtel’s report.

The $15 million security arrangement did not include the costs of Fauci’s previous protection, which began in April 2020 and continued through December 2022.

According to the MOU, the $15 million covered transportation, law enforcement equipment, and the salaries and benefits of Fauci’s security team. The agreement also included the option to renew or extend the contract in the future if deemed necessary.

The report highlights the unique nature of this extended security arrangement, noting that it could not find other examples of a former federal employee receiving protection at this level.

Fauci, who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) until his retirement in December 2022, was among the highest-paid federal employees, with a salary surpassing that of then-President Donald Trump in 2019.

The allocation of taxpayer funds for post-retirement protection has drawn comparisons to similar arrangements for former public officials.

Former presidents receive Secret Service protection for life, per federal law, and some high-level officials have also received extended security due to potential threats.

For example, two former national security advisers in the Trump administration were provided with taxpayer-funded security after leaving office due to threats from Iran, at a cost exceeding $12 million, according to a 60 Minutes report from CBS News.

Separately, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign, reportedly lost his Secret Service detail.

The Daily Caller News Foundation confirmed that Kennedy was initially denied Secret Service protection multiple times and only received protection after an attempted assassination of President-elect Trump in July.

The report on Fauci’s security funding has reignited scrutiny of his time as head of NIAID.

Fauci’s agency previously faced criticism after the White Coat Waste Project revealed that it funded controversial animal testing, including experiments on beagles.

The Daily Caller reported in August that the Biden administration was aware of NIAID’s alleged attempts to cover up these experiments.

This latest revelation about Fauci’s security funding adds to the growing discourse on how taxpayer dollars are allocated for security measures post-retirement, particularly for high-profile figures in government service.

The full extent of Fauci’s security costs and whether the protection could be extended in the future remains to be clarified.

Read More at LifeZette

We modern Westerners have a famously short memory whose span has become even smaller since the internet became a part of most people’s daily lives about 30 years ago. That probably surprised a few people reading (there’s that short memory). Yes, indeed, the internet is blink-of-an-eye-recent. 

We forget news stories in about a day, irrespective of how momentous an event may be. Leftist media hatred for Donald Trump and for half the country’s citizenry accounts for most of this, but the shortened attention and memory span somehow managed to make an assassination attempt on live television seem like something that “maybe happened?” Did you notice that? How a former president was shot on live TV and by the next week it was like it never happened? 

Our cultural memory problem doesn’t just lead to us forgetting consequential events. We also very quickly adapt to new creations of government and policy with precious little pushback, then we promptly forget that these new government agencies have not existed since Moses ascended Mt. Sinai to receive the stone tablets. 

So it is with the U.S. Department of Education. Many of you reading this were alive before it was created; that means many of you were in school and getting an education long before anyone believed the federal government had to be involved in every classroom across the country. In only 100 years, we went from a 15-year-old Laura Ingalls teaching farm boys the three R’s (and doing it well) to a nation that requires teachers to have college degrees (more on that below). 

It was President Jimmy Carter who created the Department of Education in 1979, and we can all see the depths to which “education” has plummeted for U.S. students. The DOE seems unconcerned with the extraordinary rate of illiteracy and innumeracy among American students, but very concerned with “helping” confused and abused children realize that they were born into the wrong sex’s body. 

Why do we have this department? Does it do a better job than states and towns did before 1979? President-elect Donald Trump doesn’t think so, and he’s vowed to tear down the DOE on several occasions. Whether he will get this far remains to be seen, and the opposition from the credentialed class (liberals) will be histrionic and fierce. 

But Trump is already making a start on reforming education by taking aim at the obviously broken college accreditation system. In a new video, Trump laid out his plan to target the left’s influence in higher education.

Trump’s plan to dismantle the U.S. indoctrination system (college) by seizing funds from schools that refuse to comply with his accreditation system.

1. “Our secret weapon will be the college accreditation system.”
2. “Fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics.”
3. “We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again.” “These standards will include defending the American tradition and Western civilization, protecting free speech, and eliminating wasteful administrative positions that drive up costs.”
4. “Remove all Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucrats, offering options for accelerated at low-cost degrees, providing meaningful job placement and career services, and implementing college entrance and exit exams to prove that students are actually learning and getting their money’s worth.”
5. “Direct the Department of Justice to pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination.”
6. “Schools that persist in explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity will not only have their endowments taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.”
7. “The seized funds will then be used as restitution for victims of these illegal and unjust policies.”

Here’s a sampling of online reaction to Trump’s promise to rout “Marxist maniacs and lunatics” who prop up colleges that indoctrinate young people. 

But there’s always one, isn’t there? 

Pentagon officials are reportedly discussing how to respond to potential directives from President-elect Donald Trump, according to a report by CNN citing defense sources.

The conversations include planning for various possible actions by the incoming administration, such as deploying military forces to assist with mass deportations or reinstating Schedule F, an executive order from Trump’s previous term that would reclassify certain federal employees, making them easier to dismiss.

The reported discussions include “gaming out” scenarios in which Trump could use the military to support federal and local law enforcement in deportation operations.

According to CNN, some officials are preparing for “the worst-case scenario,” though a defense official acknowledged that the actual course of action remains uncertain.

One of the primary concerns among Pentagon officials, CNN reported, is the possibility that Trump could reintroduce Schedule F, a measure he first implemented via executive order in 2020.

Schedule F reclassified certain civil servants as “at-will” employees, allowing for their dismissal based on performance.

Joe Biden rescinded the order shortly after taking office in 2021, but Trump has publicly indicated his intention to bring it back, stating in a 2023 video that he would “wield that power very aggressively.”

The prospect of Schedule F’s return has reportedly generated significant concern within defense circles, with one official telling CNN that they have received a high volume of communications on the topic.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has previously warned against “inappropriate political encroachments” on career civil servants, while Trump has criticized some in the Pentagon as “rogue bureaucrats.”

Concerns over potential conflicts between Trump and the Department of Defense have also been amplified by Trump’s past statements, including his October comments to Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo about addressing “radical left lunatics” within government ranks.

Trump referenced the possible need for the National Guard or the military to deal with “the enemy within,” a term he used to describe political opponents, including Democratic Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff from California.

The possibility of a strained relationship between Trump’s administration and the Pentagon has reportedly led officials to prepare for a different dynamic in his second term.

CNN reported that the connection between the Trump White House and the Department of Defense (DoD) was notably tense during his first term, prompting a heightened focus on personnel choices for key DoD roles this time around.

Republican CNN contributor Scott Jennings addressed these reported discussions on Anderson Cooper 360⁰, suggesting that if officials are worried about upcoming changes, they should raise their concerns directly with Trump. “What’s Donald Trump supposed to think?” Jennings asked.

“He’s gotta read in the newspaper tonight that the unelected bureaucracy of the federal government is having meetings, at some level, about how to thwart or countermand the Commander in Chief.”

The report comes amid heightened interest in how Trump’s approach to the Pentagon may differ from his previous term.

Many of Trump’s most vocal critics from his first term came from within his own administration, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and former Chief of Staff John Kelly.

Both Milley and Kelly were prominent in their critiques, with Kelly comparing Trump to a fascist and alleging that Trump praised Adolf Hitler, a claim Trump has denied.

As Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, the focus on his potential actions and changes within the Pentagon reflects broader questions about how his administration will interact with the military and defense establishment.

The discussions reported by CNN indicate that defense officials are actively considering the challenges and adjustments they might face under the incoming administration, with scenarios being evaluated to anticipate potential policy shifts under Trump’s leadership.

Read More at LifeZette

Though it took the media several suspicious days to notice, most Americans now know that huge portions of the southeast have been destroyed by Hurricane Helene. Television shows us dramatic images of the wind destruction, but it’s the water that can truly destroy towns and cities. 

This storm was one of the worst to hit the American south in decades. Even places far in-land, such as Western North Carolina, took the kind of direct hit that most of us associate with living right on the ocean. Whole towns in the foothills of mountains have been wiped off the map. The rain dump was so fast and furious that even mountainside dwellers—the lucky ones—are stuck behind impassable downed trees and roads that don’t exist anymore. 

The woman who wants to be our next President sprang into action. From her flying office, Kamala Harris let scared Americans know she was on the job by sharing a picture of her airliner suite. Here she is “taking notes” on what appears to be blank paper, while “listening to a phone call” while her earbuds are not plugged in to the phone. 

On October 2, Harris made a stop in hurricane-ravaged Augusta, Georgia, to announce the federal government’s generosity. Every person with an immediate need can get up to—wait for it—$750. That’s right, a whole $750. What can you get with that? Not much. It’s not enough to replace all four brakes on the average car. It’s less than one month’s rent in most areas for a studio-efficiency apartment. 

Funny how illegal border crossers—criminals by definition—get a whole lot more just for showing up. They don’t even have to lose their home, they don’t have to be sitting on a tree stump praying that a rescue truck can get up the mountain. All they have to do is break into the country, and New York City, for example, will give them a loaded debit card with twice the money that Americans in New York get for monthly food stamps. 

As you would expect, social media users were a bit put off. 

Remember the devastating Lahaina wildfire that killed hundreds in Hawaii? The internet does. 

Remember when a freight train derailed in Ohio and sent a plume of toxic gas into the air, and nobody from the White House bothered to show up or say anything for weeks? The internet does. 

User Markus puts the $750 “government money” (it’s your tax dollars) in perspective:

Well, quite. 

The Democrat party never stops shrieking that Republicans are misogynist (“sexist” has been retired in favor of the accusation of “hating” women because they’re women) pigs. Any conservative who does not want to allow elective abortion all the way through the ninth month is accused of wanting women to die. Democrat women enjoy dressing up in Handmaids Tale costumes with tape over their mouths to make it seem like America is careening toward a totalitarian state where women will be held down and forcibly impregnated. 

It’s so wild you could be forgiven for wondering if the ladies doth protest too much; it almost looks like projected fantasy. Maybe it’s just an excuse to wear a theatrical costume and a pretty bonnet. 

The concept of “narcissistic reversal” is at play here. That’s when someone who is in the wrong reverses the truth and accuses an opponent of the bad thoughts or behavior that the accuser is actually doing. We see it among leftist women who (rightly) protest against the incursion of men into their private spaces. For example, the Biden administration is in power, and it is Biden who rewrote Title IX through executive order. His changes make it impossible for colleges to prevent so-called “trans women” (that is, men) from playing on women’s sports teams. And yes, that includes allowing these fully penised men into locker rooms. 

And despite their repeated accusations that “trans is a men’s rights project,” it is overwhelmingly leftist women who have culturally and legally enforced transgender ideology in American classrooms, in law, and in corporate hiring. 

With all that in mind, it should come as no surprise that most Democrats in the House voted against a bill to deport illegal aliens who rape women, and to refuse any convicted sex offenders into the country. 

While the bill passed, that’s no thanks to Democrats. So much for the party of women, eh? 

It’s a real head-scratcher. It has been so clear for so many years that conservatives, not liberals, want to protect women from sexual predation, yet millions of women continue to vote religiously for the very party that refuses to put up a wall between them and perverted men. 

Let’s see what X users had to say.