[NY Post] The State Department is barring five "egregious" European figures in the "global censorship-industrial complex" from entering the US, it revealed Tuesday.
State Department officials contended that those five Europeans flouted a visa policy rolled out in May restricting those who work to censor protected speech in the US from entering the country.
"For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose," Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Tuesday.
"The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship. Today, [the State Department] will take steps to bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States."
"We stand ready and willing to expand this list if others do not reverse course."
The five Europeans blocked from entering the US are: former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton; Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate; Clare Melford, who is in charge of the Global Disinformation Index; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders at the Germany-based HateAid.
Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, revealed the five Europeans being blocked on Tuesday.
"Our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you’re unwelcome on American soil," she posted on X.
"Our targets are foreign, but you’ll notice that some collaborated with U.S. bureaucrats on Murthy-style speech suppression. Don’t worry: we’re pursuing transparency, truth, and reconciliation at the [State Department] too."
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/24/2025 02:44 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1774 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
[FoxNews] Kentucky senator's annual 'Festivus Report' details $40M for COVID vaccine influencers, $5M for cocaine experiments on dogs.
I hope he is keeping track of DOGE and other efforts cutting wasteful spending across the executive branch, just for the satisfaction of seeing others taking his philosophy to the next level. And hopefully the various teams will take his latest observation on board, too.
Congress’ top fiscal hawk is back with his yearly government waste report card, this time uncovering over $1.6 trillion in spending on cocaine experiments on dogs, COVID-19 vaccine influencer campaigns and staggering yearly debt payments.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., unveiled his 11th annual "Festivus Report" on Tuesday, detailing the wonky ways that the federal government dumps taxpayer dollars into pet projects.
Paul has long been against Congress’ spending habits, routinely voting against appropriations bills and spending packages for not trying to tackle the nation’s growing debt problem. His report highlights that even with several lawmakers pounding their chests on Washington’s spending problem, Congress can’t help but spend more.
"No matter how much taxpayer money Washington burns through, politicians can’t help but demand more," Paul said. "Fiscal responsibility may not be the most crowded road, but it’s one I’ve walked year after year — and this holiday season will be no different. So, before we get to the Feats of Strength, it’s time for my Airing of (Spending) Grievances."
He lauded moves taken by the Trump administration to slash government spending, like the nearly $9 billion rescissions package that slashed funding for public broadcasting and some foreign aid, Paul said that while the action was "a good start, it’s just a drop in the bucket."
Paul noted that in the last year, the federal debt has skyrocketed to nearly $40 trillion, up from roughly $36 trillion.
"The Congressional Budget Office predicts we will add an average of $23.9 trillion in debt annually for the next decade. The U.S. government will add over $6.53 billion of debt every single day for the next ten years," Paul said. "We borrow over $272 million every hour, we borrow $4.54 million every minute, and we borrow over $75,000 every second."
"This year, I’m spotlighting a jaw-dropping amount of government waste — the kind that makes you wonder if anyone in Washington has ever heard the word ‘priorities,’" he continued. "A grand total of $1,639,135,969,608, which includes $1.22 trillion in interest payments on the debt."
And several programs highlighted in the report that funneled taxpayer dollars to celebrities, drug experiments, diversity, equity and inclusion programs and several other obscure projects contributed to that staggering figure.
Among the highlights are over $40 million to social media influencers to promote getting the COVID-19 vaccine to racial and ethnic minority groups, over $5 million to dose dogs with cocaine, over $1 million to teach "teenage ferrets to binge-drink alcohol," over $14 million to teach monkeys to play a "Price is Right"-inspired game and roughly $13 million to continue experiments on beagles.
There’s also the over $7 billion previously allocated by Congress to build electric vehicle charging stations nationwide — only 68 have been built so far, he noted — and schools receiving nearly $200 billion in COVID-19 relief funds that has been spent on "rooms at Caesars Palace, renting out MLB stadiums, and ice cream trucks."
The report highlighted several other programs, including over $1 million to hire celebrity influencers for anti-drug campaigns targeting "Latinx" communities, nearly $5 million total for studies looking at the effect of screen time on toddlers and mobile-phone obesity intervention for toddlers, and over $2 million for researchers to take saliva swabs at electronic dance music festivals in New York City.
#4
The silly stuff is sort of a distraction based on what we are seeing in Minnesota. It looks like a large percentage of spending that I would not question is being stolen.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/24/2025 9:07 Comments ||
Top||
[RedState] There's no doubt that Minnesota governor and erstwhile Democrat vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz is, shall we say "different"? And if you're like me, you still shudder at the mere thought of what would have become of the country we love if the equally *brilliant* Kamala Harris had not been decisively mauled by President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Apparently, a group of nearly 100 Minnesota mayors has already learned.
So yeah, 98 mayors across Minnesota have sounded the alarm in a no-nonsense letter to Walz and state lawmakers, blistering the state’s fiscal mismanagement. The distraught mayors warned that what was once an $18 billion surplus has not only vanished under the far-left governor’s watch; the surplus has been replaced by a projected $3 billion deficit for the 2028–29 budget cycle.
The mayors went bottom-line, warning that Walz’s policies have strained their cities, harmed residents, and pushed Minnesota down in national economic rankings — evidence, they said, of the state government racing headlong toward "fiscal disaster."
Translation: Just like most Democrat-run cities and states — only worse.
The letter states, in part:
Fraud, unchecked spending, and inconsistent fiscal management in St. Paul have trickled down to our cities—reducing our capacity to plan responsibly, maintain infrastructure, hire and retain employees, and sustain core services without overburdening local taxpayers.
There is a growing disconnect between state-level fiscal decisions and the strain they place on the cities we lead. When the state expands programs or shifts responsibilities without stable funding, it is our residents—families, seniors, businesses, and workers—who ultimately bear the cost.
Bingo. The problem, of course, is that Democrat politicians gleefully embrace, as the old proverb says, robbing Peter to pay Paul, because — they believe — they will always have the support of Paul.
Minnesota Republican lawmakers put the blame — rightly so — on Walz and the state's Democrat lawmakers. State Republican Sen. Andrew Lang, who serves as the lead on the Senate State and Local Government Committee, said in a statement:
Governor Walz and Democrats passed unaffordable spending and tax increases along with unfunded mandates on the promise it would make life more affordable. In reality they just passed down the costs to local governments, schools, and small businesses, who in turn pass down costs to local taxpayers and consumers.
Minnesota counties sounded the alarm early last session about the proposals to shift costs onto their budgets, so I’m not surprised that nearly 100 mayors across the state are raising their own concerns. This letter is a warning that we must reduce state spending, stop the massive fraud plaguing our state, and remove unnecessary mandates to keep life affordable for everyone.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
12/24/2025 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1808 views]
Top|| File under: Nut Jobs
"One of the things he said in the last 48 hours was that the Oversight Committee didn't need to worry about this investigation, that he would take care of it. No one in America believes that…. We are going to investigate this."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[NY Post] The State Department is barring five "egregious" European figures in the "global censorship-industrial complex" from entering the US, it revealed Tuesday.
