Pentagon chief hails first $1 trillion defense budget
President Donald Trump announced the record boost in US military spending on Monday
Hegseth hailed the president’s militarization push in a post on his personal X account the following day.
“President @realDonaldTrump is rebuilding our military — and FAST,” he wrote, thanking Trump for the decision. “We intend to spend every taxpayer dollar wisely — on lethality and readiness.”
https://www.rt.com/news/615410-pentagon-chief-trillion-budget/
"Navarro Is Truly A Moron": Musk Slams Trump Trade Czar In Ongoing Tariff Feud
It all started on Saturday when Musk - who's not a fan of the Trump tariffs, responded to a video on X of Navarro defending how the Trump administration calculated its tariffs on various countries' goods (with crayons?), suggesting that Navarro's "PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing," adding in a now-deleted tweet that Navarro "ain't built shit."
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/navarro-truly-moron-musk-slams-trump-trade-czar-ongoing-tariff-feud
This Again: Fauci Touts "The Next Outbreak"
Footage has emerged of Anthony Fauci telling an audience at the New Orleans Book Festival, where he was hawking his COVID book, that there will be a new pandemic in the near future, and that it will be a new respiratory virus with a higher rate of morbidity than COVID.
“The next outbreak will be of a respiratory disease that’s easily transmissible, that has a significant degree of morbidity,” Fauci asserted.
The last one wasn’t an outbreak, it came out of a lab where people you funded were f*cking around with pathogens to make them more deadly to humans.
Does this guy ever stop?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1908523425699602667
Dem Senator Blocks Hundreds Of Trump Nominees Using Tactic He Once Called ‘Abuse Of Power’
Democratic Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz is blocking more than 300 of President Donald Trump’s nominees from swift confirmation votes despite previously criticizing efforts to stall nominations during the Biden administration.
Schatz’s blockade on hundreds of Trump nominees and at least nine bipartisan foreign relations bills comes as Senate Democrats are escalating opposition tactics against the Trump administration to appease their left-wing base. Schatz, a member of Senate Democratic leadership, previously criticized Republican Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s decision to place holds on military officials’ promotions as “obstruction” and “antithetical” to the Senate’s “advice and consent” responsibilities.
Schatz expanded his holds on Trump nominees to include individuals tapped to serve across 12 agencies, such as former New York Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito whom Trump appointed to a Department of Labor position, Axios reported.
“Their lawlessness is escalating and they are intentionally destroying the economy, and so I don’t think we should make anything easy going forward,” Schatz told Axios Monday. The Hawaii Democrat previously announced a blanket hold on State Department nominees following the Trump administration’s decision to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
However, Schatz fiercely opposed Tuberville’s use of a blanket hold on military promotions under the Biden administration, arguing in 2023 that the Alabama Republican’s decision to stall nominations was an “abuse of power” and a “stunt” that failed to achieve its desired effect.
https://dailycaller.com/2025/04/07/dem-senator-blocks-hundreds-of-trump-nominees-using-tactic-he-once-called-abuse-of-power/>>22884595
Federal Spending In 2025 Is On Track To Be The Highest Ever
The Republican leadership’s own numbers show that the Trump-approved budget under the Republicans will only increase each annual deficit further in coming years.
For the first five months of the 2025 fiscal year, federal spending is coming in at the highest level ever. This is true even when we adjust for CPI inflation.
This largely reflects Biden-era spending since the current fiscal year began during October 2024, during the Biden administration. In 2025 dollars, federal spending for the current fiscal year so far has totaled 3.039 trillion dollars. This makes 2025’s spending total the highest ever and it’s coming in above the covid-era total (3.012 trillion) reached during the first five months of fiscal year 2021.
In nominal terms, the growth is even larger with federal spending so far this year coming in at about half a trillion more than the previous all-time high reached during 2021.
This data only covers the period through the end of February so it’s still too early to guess as to the full impact of any spending-cut initiatives coming out of the Trump administration. We do know that, in spite of many claims coming out of the administration, no significant impact can yet be seen in the federal spending data.
Revenue, however, has not been keeping up, so the high levels of spending has also driven ongoing growth in total federal deficits. For the first five months of fiscal year 2025, the federal deficit totals 1.146 trillion in 2025 dollars. That’s the second-highest deficit total on record. Only FY 2021’s total of 1.259 trillion was higher.
This number is likely to only get higher. In spite of much talk about spending cuts and tax cuts during last month’s debate over new spending legislation, the Republican leadership’s own numbers show that the Trump-approved budget under the Republicans will only increase each annual deficit further in coming years.
For this reason, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie noted he would vote against the Republicans’ proposed budget, and he pointed out that even the best-case scenarios assumed by Republican leaders would still produce a growing deficit and total growing federal debt.
On February 25, Massie posted on X/Twitter that “The GOP budget extends the 5 yr. tax holiday we’ve been enjoying, but because it doesn’t cut spending much, it increases the deficit by over $300 billion/yr. compared to letting tax cuts expire. Over 10 years, this budget will add $20 trillion to US debt.”
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/money/federal-spending-in-2025-is-on-track-to-be-the-highest-ever
https://www.antiwar.com/
Activist Judges Rubber Stamped Billions In Suspect Social Security Disability Claims
Dozens of administrative law judges grant disability payments to almost everyone who appears before them, overriding Social Security staff who determined the people were not entitled to payments, a Daily Wire analysis found.
One of the Social Security Administration’s “regional chief administrative law judges,” Jennifer M. Horne, who leads the San Francisco hearing office, ruled in every case she heard last year that the claimant should be granted disability payments, even though in each case, two previous examinations had found the claimant should be denied. Ronald Herman, hearing cases outside of Detroit, green lit payments in 95% of the 1,268 cases he heard. Jan Leventer, hearing cases in Queens and Detroit, approved 94% of 2,159 cases, potentially amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Such rulings have steered billions of dollars in payments to people who may not deserve them, adding to the impression that disability is sometimes abused as a shadow welfare program. Targeting abuse in Social Security’s disability program, which has a history of fraud, provides an opportunity for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut waste from the “non-discretionary” funding that comprises the bulk of the federal budget.
“It’s all a political bent,” a lawyer who represents disability-seekers at the hearings, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Daily Wire. “If [the judge is] a person that says ‘this is a social contract that we make with people,’ if [the claimant says] they’re disabled, then they are. If they’re a person who believes everyone’s a liar and a cheat, then it’s single digits.”
“I don’t think there’s any real lawyering to it. The game is to get as many hearings as I can because 50% are getting approved no matter what if I just show up,” he added. “I’ve had people with cancer not get approved, and people with skin rashes get approved. I can’t predict it anymore.”
One Washington, D.C.-area administrative law judge, who is a white Bernie Sanders supporter, was overheard complaining that many of his peers viewed their job as a way to steer government checks to minorities, regardless of the facts.
Social Security staff determine whether someone is entitled to disability payments, and claimants can appeal to staff for a “redetermination” if they are rejected. If that panel also concludes that they are not disabled, they can appeal again to an administrative law judge.
Outcomes in those proceedings largely depend on which judge the applicant gets. Even though one might assume that they would defer to the judgement of Social Security experts, 85 judges overturned Social Security rulings that a person was not disabled more than 80% of the time.
Far fewer judges erred on the side of stinginess. Only 16 judges upheld the staff’s determination more than 80% of the time, according to 2024 data. In all, administrative law judges heard 2.2 million disability cases in 2024, and overturned the non-disabled ruling in 58% of them. In October, 26 administrative law judges, hearing 197 cases between them, ruled favorably to the disability-seeker in every single case.
https://www.womensystems.com/2025/04/activist-judges-rubber-stamped-billions.html
Pro-Israel evangelical leader calls on Trump to tariff Tucker Carlson for pro-Iran post
"It’s time for the White House to impose a Tariff on Tucker Carlson for illegally importing anti-Semitic Iranian talking points and putting America last,” Cardoza-Moore said.
Pro-Israel activist and evangelical leader Laurie Cardoza-Moore called on US President Donald Trump on Tuesday to place a tariff on conservative media personality Tucker Carlson's show after he tweeted in support of Iran.
“Tucker Carlson is acting like a foreign agent, doing the bidding of Iran and Qatar instead of America. It’s time for the White House to impose a Tariff on Tucker Carlson for illegally importing anti-Semitic Iranian talking points and putting America last,” Cardoza-Moore said.
Cardoza-Moore, who hosts Focus On Israel on NRB TV, claimed that Carlson has used the term ‘neocons’ as a dogwhistle meaning ‘blame the Jews.’
“Right-wing anti-Semites have long described Jews as neocon bogeymen in the same way that leftists use the word Zionist instead of Jew. These dog whistles don’t fool anyone.”
She also condemned Carlson after images surfaced over the weekend showing him posing with President Donald Trump and Elon Musk at the White House
“Tucker Carlson’s antisemitism does not reflect the values of the Trump administration,” said Cardoza-Moore, calling him “the slightly savvier mentor of Candace Owens, peddling a new woke-right, fake-Christian form of Jew-hatred.”
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-849373
October 7 victims sue mogul for using USAID-funded site to aid Hamas tunnels
The lawsuit alleged that it also hosted a terrorist tunnel network, including a passage under the border to allow Hamas to attack Israelis.
Palestinian-American billionaire Bashar Masri has been accused of using United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and international-funded Gazan infrastructure projects to facilitate Hamas tunnel systems, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday on behalf of American October 7 massacre victims.
The lawsuit – filed by law firms Osen LLC, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner LLP, and Motley Rice LLC – alleged that following the 2021 conflict, Masri had rebuilt the Gaza Industrial Estate (GIE), which had been established in 1997 with support from USAID, turning it into a hub of Hamas operation.
While GIE housed legitimate businesses, the lawsuit alleged that it also hosted a terrorist tunnel network, including a passage under the border to allow Hamas to attack Israelis.
The lawsuit noted that PADICO Board of Directors chair Masri presided over the 2022 signing of the GIE rebuilding project alongside alleged Hamas manufacturing division commander and economy minister Abd al-Fattah al-Zari’i.
Zari’i was killed in an IDF airstrike in August for his logistical role in facilitating terrorist operations and seizing control of humanitarian aid.
Osen LLC managing partner Gary Osen said in the press release, “Any assessment of the factors that enabled Hamas to carry out these unprecedented attacks is woefully incomplete without considering the terror tunnel network’s central role.”
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-849243
Netanyahu sets terms for US-Iran nuclear deal
Netanyahu: Iran can agree to US nuclear deal, but under one condition
Netanyahu said a Iran's denuclearization could be achieved by two routes: either through an agreement or militarily.
Following his meeting with US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Iran "must not have nuclear weapons."
Netanyahu added that this could be achieved by two routes: either through an agreement or militarily.
He added that the deal would only be acceptable if it were similar to the one with Libya: "We go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision and execution. That’s the ideal scenario."
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-849375
Get the Flu shot and you are 27% more likely to get the Flu.
In a preprint study from the Cleveland Clinic, employees that got the flu shot had a 27% HIGHER chance of contracting the flu.
https://citizenwatchreport.com/get-the-flu-shot-and-you-are-27-more-likely-to-get-the-flu/