Under every rock that's overturned

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It’s perfectly understandable why our politicians and the Democrats’ media branch are so intent on distracting the public’s attention from what’s being revealed; it’s infuriating that so many are falling prey to the manufactured panic and letting them get away with it.

DOGE reveals bizarre findings of unemployment insurance claims survey: 'This is so crazy'

'I had to read it several times before it sank in," Elon Musk noted

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) account on X shared eyebrow-raising findings from a survey of unemployment insurance claims.

The "initial survey of Unemployment Insurance claims since 2020" found that thousands of people with future birthdates claimed benefits.

The survey also indicated that thousands of supposedly very young and very old people had claimed benefits.

The DOGE post states that the survey found, "24.5k people over 115 years old claimed $59M in benefits," "28k people between 1 and 5 years old claimed $254M in benefits," and "9.7k people with birth dates over 15 years in the future claimed $69M in benefits."

"In one case, someone with a birthday in 2154 claimed $41k," the post also notes.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Labor for comment: "This is another incredible discovery by the DOGE team, finding nearly $400 million in fraudulent unemployment payments," Department of Labor Sec. Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement. "The Labor Department is committed to recovering Americans’ stolen tax dollars. We will catch these thieves and keep working to root out egregious fraud - accountability is here."

On the state Level too; this report from Maine is, I’m sure typical of what’s happenig in all fifty states:

In a scathing audit of Maine’s 2024 spending, Maine’s Office of the State Auditor [a Democrat] has revealed systemic financial mismanagement, cronyism-friendly contracting practices, and multiple material weaknesses across state agencies—leaving taxpayers exposed to legal risks, unnecessary costs, and outright corruption.

The audit, published Friday, reveals a shocking lack of practical and ethical guardrails for government spending after the Democrat-controlled legislature just passed an $11.3 billion budget and is prepared to spend another $300M-$600M — all funded by new taxes on tobacco, streaming entertainment, ambulances, and more. 

At the center of the audit’s most troubling findings is the state’s rampant abuse of the non-competitive bidding process. Maine’s centralized procurement agency, the Office of State Procurement Services (OSPS), was found to have routinely approved contracts without conducting required cost analyses, bypassing rules meant to safeguard public dollars. This raises serious red flags about favoritism, nepotism, and possible corruption within the process for handing out state and federal cash.

The competitive bidding process, which ensures that potentially large government contracts are awarded according to an open and transparent process, has been regularly circumvented in violation of state and federal law, according to State Auditor Matt Dunlap.

The result? 

More than $2.1 billion in FY2024 contract payments were made under a system the audit describes as lacking basic supervisory oversight and controls​.

The audit tested 45 contracts and found that 16 of 31 “sole-source” contracts—those exempted from competitive bidding—lacked any documentation of a required “reasonable investigation” by the Director of the Bureau of General Services. 

In one case, a sole-source contract was approved after the work was completed, a blatant violation of state procurement law. 

In another instance, the OSPS failed to prevent “stacking” of Low-Cost Service Contracts (LCSCs)—contracts under $5,000 designed to avoid bidding—allowing one department to award sevenconcurrent LCSCs to the same vendor in a year, a maneuver clearly intended to dodge oversight​.

…. The report also found that OSPS failed to ensure that the state was securing fair prices, a lack of effort that could have cost taxpayers untold millions.

“Documentation to support performance of a cost analysis as required by State policy could not be provided for any of the 45 procurement actions tested,” the auditors wrote. In other words, in 100 percent of cases, the state agency responsible for handing out government money failed to perform a cost analysis. 

Despite the legal requirement to obtain and verify cost reasonableness, the auditors noted: “While OSPS claims that there are often rigorous cost analyses in place, OSA requested documentation for cost analysis related to all 45 of the procurement documents selected in our test, and none were provided by OSPS.”

[RELATED: Maine Awards State House Landscaping Contract to Brother of Guy in Charge of Awarding State Contracts…]

In a potentially related development, the man who would have been in charge of conducting a “reasonable investigation” into non-competitive contracts resigned last year after the Maine Wire reported exclusively on an $812,776 taxpayer-funded contract he signed for his brother’s landscaping company.

[RELATED: Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ Brother Helped Transfer Nine-Acre Black Market Cannabis Grow to Chinese National “Mother” Living in Guangdong Province…]

The failures flagged in the audit ultimately fall on DAFS Commissioner Kirsten Figueroa, a longtime friend of Gov. Janet Mills (D). But the failures related specifically to technology may also point toward Douglas Birgfeld III, Figueroa’s husband, whom she hired in a controversial display of nepotism shortly after taking her own job.

According to state payroll records, Figueroa and Birgfeld pulled down a combined $365,954 in taxpayer-funded compensation in 2024.

Who are they protecting at the expense of their own citizens? More accurately, why?

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Connecticut bill would (further) protect immigrants, target companies aiding deportations


HARTFORD — The Democrat-dominated Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved legislation aimed at protecting Connecticut [illegal] immigrants from deportation at the hands of federal immigration agents. And in a late redrafting of the Trust Act legislation Tuesday morning, companies that assist in deporting residents — such as Avelo Airlines — could see subsidies revoked.

Republicans warned that the proposal would attempt to usurp the role of the federal government's role in overseeing immigration.

… Building on a 2019 law, this year's proposal, which passed along party lines and next heads to the House of Representatives, would apply to all law enforcement as well as state prosecutors and the Board of Pardons and Paroles as well as local governments, prohibiting them from helping U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. [bolding added]Towns and cities not in compliance with the proposal, if it becomes law, could be forced into obeying it through orders by the state superior court.

"The bill also works to address a rising issue we've seen of unsafe encounters in front of our courthouses between individuals arriving either for their own court date or to accompany a loved one or to serve as a witness or even victims of crimes showing up for a court date and then being chased down the street by ICE officers," Stafstrom said. "This bill also works to ensure that those who are receiving state funds, those state contractors and those state recipients of grants and state funding are not engaging in or assisting in immigration activities with those funds." (I don’t think he means illegals on welfare “engaging in immigration activities” by living in this country.)

Sanity speaks, but will be ignored by this Democrat-ruled state:

"We agree, as being part of the United States of America, to come together under the federal Constitution," said Rep. Craig Fishbein of Wallingford, a ranking Republican on the panel. "The federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over immigration because our federal government has the whole border of the whole country. It's key and it's important that our federal law enforcement is able to cooperate with local law enforcement with regard to enforcing federal law. Any action by anybody — especially by the state — to impede that, to hold that back, slow it down, is in my mind unconstitutional and unAmerican. If you don't support the United States of American, you're unAmerican."

State Rep. Patrick Callahan, R-New Fairfield, a former state probation department worker, recalled helping the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service and later ICE remove criminal immigrants. "These were people that were becoming an impediment to the good people of the legal immigrant community living a good life," he said, stressing that at the time, before the first Trust Act in 2013, they were able to seize those offenders in a more "controlled" environment of a prison, probation office or court house. 

"I worked cases with the Secret Service, the FBI, local police, State Police, all in the name of community safety, public safety," Callahan said, adding that the original Trust Act prevented him from even communicating with ICE after 2013. That led to federal agents becoming more public, going into people homes or encountering undocumented immigrants outside a court house, including an incident in Danbury where a person fleeing ICE was hit by a vehicle and hospitalized in 2018.

"I don't understand why we want to keep people who are convicted of crimes and are subject to deportation off the radar, because those are people I'm sure that the good people that we live alongside in the immigrant community would prefer they aren't there either," Callahan said. "This is the wrong thing to be doing, ignoring federal law. If people are here illegally and don't want to be subject to deportation, don't commit crimes. Live peacefully and no one's going to bother you, for the most part."

And leave it to Billy:

In recent public hearings on the proposal, Attorney General William Tong warned that immigrants are afraid to interact with public agencies that can help them contribute to the economy through such things as mundane as car insurance and drivers' licenses. They may get discouraged from reporting criminal incidents. Tong stressed that the proposed law would not shield violent felons from ICE; protect those on terrorist watch lists; nor restrict federal immigration authorities from enforcing the law within Connecticut. Yes it will; in fact, that’s the precise purpose of this law.

Understand, this latest is an expansion of what the Democrats have already done:

2019: CT Senate passes bill restricting cooperation with ICE

Connecticut jumped back into the contentious national debate over immigration enforcement as Senate Democrats voted early Wednesday to pass a bill that would further restrict how police and court personnel can work with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants.

The bill would expand the Trust Act, a measure that effectively rebuked President Barack Obama’s immigration enforcement policies when passed six years ago by prohibiting the detention of undocumented immigrants in the absence of a threat to public safety, an outstanding arrest warrant or a final order of deportation.

With one Democrat absent due to a family emergency, the Senate voted 20-15  at 1:50 a.m. after nearly an  eight-hour debate to pass and send the measure to the House of Representatives. Sen. Joan Hartley, D-Waterbury, voted with all 14 Republicans against the bill.

“It is a very scary time for a number of people in this country. We’re seeing an unprecedented attack on immigrants in this country. Our state is better than that.”

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk

Democrats are already rushing to his defense

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“Hang tight, we’re coming!”

Previous incident(s)

Sexual assault charged related to February 2024 incident

The assault charge against Garcia-Aquino, who had no reported criminal history until now, is in connection with an alleged sexual assault that occurred on Feb. 22, 2024, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna confirmed.

As a former youth travel soccer coach in the Sylmar neighborhood who worked with different age divisions, Garcia-Aquino befriended a family to allow their 16-year-old son to stay at his home in Palmdale, Luna said. The family later filed a criminal report alleging their child had been sexually abused.

Due to the nature of the offenses, Luna said the sheriff's office's Special Victims Bureau had reason to believe there may be other victims. He urged other victims to come forward, even if they are in the U.S. without legal permission.

What can you use AI for, besides recipes and designing atomic power plants? Well, just about anything, but here's a mundane example.

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it’ll even come up with a picture of the situation, although why it felt that two wrenches were called for is a puzzlement.

Self-explanatory question, and one I was pretty sure I knew the answer to, but it’s kinda neat that GROK not only confirmed my suspicions, but even provided suggestions on how to address the problem.

Question posed: “I've just begun hearing water gurgling in the pipes of my hot water baseboard heating system. This is a new phenomenon, occurring after air was discovered in the system and, supposedly, bled out Could there still be air in the system, and could that be causing the gurgling sound?”

Ans: “Yes, it’s quite likely that there’s still air in your hot water baseboard heating system, and that could definitely be causing the gurgling sound you’re hearing. When air gets trapped in the pipes or radiators, it can create noises like gurgling, bubbling, or even banging as the water tries to move past those pockets of air. Even if the system was bled recently, it’s possible that not all the air was removed, or new air has somehow entered the system.

Bleeding the system involves opening the bleed valves (usually located on the radiators or at high points in the piping) to release trapped air until water flows out steadily. If the gurgling started after an initial bleed, it might mean some air was left behind, or the system wasn’t bled thoroughly enough. Another possibility is that air is being reintroduced, perhaps due to a small leak, low pressure, or an issue with the expansion tank.

Here’s what you could check:

  1. Re-bleed the system: Go back to each radiator or bleed point, starting with the lowest floor and working your way up, and see if more air comes out. Hold a cup or rag under the valve and open it slowly with a bleed key or screwdriver until you hear a hiss of air, then wait until water flows out without sputtering.

  2. Listen for patterns: If the gurgling happens mostly when the system starts up or shuts down, it’s a classic sign of air moving around.

  3. Check system pressure: If you have a pressure gauge on your boiler, make sure it’s within the recommended range (usually 12-15 psi when cold for a typical home system). Low pressure can allow air to get in.

  4. Inspect for leaks: Even a tiny leak could be pulling air into the system as it cools and contracts.

“If you’re not comfortable doing this yourself or the problem persists, it might be worth calling a technician to check for underlying issues like a clogged circulator pump or a malfunctioning air separator. But yes, air is the most likely culprit for that gurgling!”

His spelling needs work, but at least he's honest about what he does for a living

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From this gentleman’s LinkedIn profile:

Jeff's Scraping

Self-employedSelf-employedJan 2023 - Present · 2 yrs 4 mosJan 2023 to Present · 2 yrs 4 mos Greenwich, Connecticut, United States · On-siteGreenwich, Connecticut, United States · On-site

  • Acquiring Scrape metal at demolition sites, ECT.

It’s that “scraping” and “ECT” that seems to have landed him in trouble.

From today’s Greenwich Time:

Greenwich man accused of stealing copper pipes from local home, charged with burglary


GREENWICH — A Greenwich man is facing charges of burglary after he was allegedly seen inside a vacant home where significant damage was later observed and copper pipes were found missing.

Jeffrey Caviola, 42, of Greenway Drive, was charged with third-degree burglary and first-degree criminal mischief, felonies, and possession of burglary tools, a misdemeanor.

A real estate agent who was visiting the property on Riversville Road where the alleged burglary took place noted suspicious activity there, and took a photo of the truck that Caviola was driving, according to his arrest report. Police were able to track down the suspect from the photo of the license plate.

Officers made contact with the suspect a short time later.

"Officers found multiple burglary tools, including a Milwaukee Sawzall, a Milwaukee grinder, wire cutters, snips and a red bag containing a Milwaukee drill in Caviola’s vehicle," according to the police statement on his arrest on the afternoon of April 1. 

The pilgrims solved this: don’t work, don’t eat

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We’ll give the old man in the middle a break; he’s retired, thank god

Time for ‘shock therapy’ — how to get our 7 million dropout men back to work

President Trump wants to get America’s vast army of “dropout” men back into the workforce. Attention to this problem is long overdue.

Nearly 7 million men in the prime of life — over a tenth of the 25-to-54 age group — are neither working nor looking for work these days.

But Team Trump is trying to fix the problem with the wrong tools.

They argue that trade policy (tariffs) and industrial policy (special treatment for manufacturing) will reverse the long-term flight from work by men, by creating high-paying jobs to lure them back to work.

This approach may sound sensible to some. Unfortunately, it is likely to fail — even though the White House could succeed through other pro-work policies.

Once upon a time in America, working-age men without jobs were unemployed laborers.

Nearly 7 million men in the prime of life — over a tenth of the 25-to-54 age group — are neither working nor looking for work these days.Johnny Joo / Barcroft Media

But that’s ancient history: Today, for every “prime age” man who is actually unemployed — out of a job but looking — there are three who are neither working nor looking for work.

That means the overwhelming majority of jobless men nowadays are NILFs (for “not in labor force”). And unemployed men differ fundamentally in both mindset and behavior from NILF men.

The former consider themselves part of the labor force; the latter do not.

The former generally respond to labor market incentives; the latter generally do not.

Thus, while unemployed men tend to be out of work for just a few weeks, NILF men tend to be long-termers — often lifers.

Furthermore, only a tiny minority of NILF men say they are jobless because they could not find work. Even during recessions, most give other reasons.

Incentivizing helplessness

Millions of NILF men live work-free existences financed by an array of disability programs and their associated “poverty” benefits.

This disability archipelago incentivizes helplessness, and at a terrible cost in human potential.

America’s disability system is so dysfunctional that no one in DC can tell you just how many people are currently getting benefits from its crazy-quilt of subcomponents (SSDI, SSI, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, state-level disability programs, worker’s comp programs — and more).

Before the pandemic, however, I estimated that over half of America’s prime-age NILF men were getting benefits from one or more of these programs — and that over two-thirds lived in homes taking in at least one ­disability benefit.

‘Disability’ programs

That would have been over 3 million direct recipients and over 4 million indirect beneficiaries, of roughly 7 million NILF men ages 25 to 54.

The Social Security Administration’s disability programs, SSDI and SSI, are the one part of the greater disability archipelago we know the most about. According to their numbers, working-age beneficiaries on the disability rolls grew sevenfold from 1965 to 2023.

….. It is a critical error to treat the NILF problem as an unemployment question. It will not be solved by more jobs or better workplace opportunities, the way unemployment would.

Six decades of rising dropout rates for prime-age American men attests to this.

Unlike the unemployment rate, which follows the business cycle, the prime male NILF rate has risen with eerie regularity through boom and bust alike for decades — almost wholly unaffected by national economic conditions.

Remember 2022? After the COVID pandemic, America was in the midst of an unprecedented peacetime labor shortage.

Yet with nearly 12 million positions open, and employers almost begging for applicants, NILF rates for prime-age men barely budged.

Millions of those unfilled jobs during the “Great Resignation” did not require high school diplomas, only the “skills” of showing up at work, on time and sober.

But the NILF men did not come — even though close to half had at least some college.

Consider, too: Back in 2022, about 800,000 of those unfilled slots were in manufacturing.

If idle dropout men did not flock to available factory jobs then, why should we expect them to be lured to future factories built under tariff threats?

The miracle of the market does not cure social pathologies. All too many male workforce dropouts are detached (from society), dependent (on government benefits and pain meds), and ­defeated.

These men will not be tempted to rejoin the workforce by good paychecks alone.

We need other approaches.

Try ‘shock therapy’

Instead of continuing to pin hopes on obviously ineffective labor market “pull,” how about instead trying “shock therapy push”?

Back in the 1990s, a “welfare ­reform” worthy of the name brought millions of single mothers back into the workforce, a win-win for their families and for society.

Why not try the same now for our NILF men?

A disability system overhaul that protects the truly needy while promoting a work-first principle might do wonders for America — not least for a great many dispirited men on the couch.

Washington manifestly lacks the will to reform a long-broken disability system.

So why not let Elon Musk try to DOGE it?

Reclaiming our dropout men will require other measures, too. But fixing disability will be a big step in the right direction.

Very much related:

Democrats Deploy Disability Dodge. “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.”

I've been posting this same statistic for years, every time to plastic straw/shopping bag loonies screech for more controls, but it never hurts to remind ourselves

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Now do the same thinking about CO2 emissions and the deindustrialization of the west

Insubordination

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DEI Admiral fired, as she should have been

As we reported late Tuesday, Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield was allegedly fired for refusing to hang pictures of President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at NATO headquarters. Of course, Democrat Jasmine Crockett saw this firing as a perfect opportunity to blind us with her blazing ignorance. She responded to a post on X by Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell. Don’t worry he sets her straight.

Here’s Crockett.

It’s a fine thing to take a principled stand, but you have to be willing to pay the price; now she has, and presumably has no complaints.

(Not to take anything away from her service, but the medals she’s wearing, and she’s certainly entitled to do so, are pretty much participation trophies — she’s replaceable.)

  • Distinguished Service Medal

  • Defense Superior Service Medal

  • Bronze Star Medal *

  • Legion of Merit (two awards)

  • Meritorious Service Medal

  • Joint Service Commendation Medal

  • Navy Commendation Medal (three awards)

  • Army Commendation Medal

  • Air Force Commendation Medal

  • Joint Service Achievement Medal

  • Navy Achievement Medal

*Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for her service as the commander of a joint provincial reconstruction team in Farah Province, Afghanistan, in 2008. During this assignment, she led efforts to support reconstruction and development initiatives in a challenging and volatile environment. The Bronze Star is awarded for heroic or meritorious achievement or service in a combat zone, and her leadership in this role, which involved coordinating military and civilian efforts to stabilize and rebuild the region, likely contributed to her receiving this honor. While specific details of the citation are not publicly detailed in available sources, her command of the reconstruction team during a period of active conflict aligns with the criteria for the award, reflecting her exceptional performance under demanding circumstances.