Every aspiring college-age cub reporter learns that you never bury the lead on a story. But sure enough, six New York Times investigative reporters never learned that Journalism 101 lesson.
In this latest front page NYT story ripping DOGE and Elon Musk, we learn in the 43rd(!) paragraph that the government identified $236 billion (that's with a B, folks) of fraudulent government payments in 2023.
The dollar amount of federal fraud in just one year is a bigger number than the entire budget of virtually every state in America. But apparently, Elon Musk is the villain for trying to ferret it out.
2) Trump Is Right: Federal Education Department a Trillion-Dollar Failure
The left and the media have come unglued over Trump's effort to shut down most or all of the US Department of Education.
It was Jimmy Carter who created the agency in 1979 as a wet kiss to the teacher unions. Since then, well over $1 trillion has been spent and the result has been flat or declining school performance.
To be fair, most of the huge increase in spending in recent years has been in the disastrous federal student loan program. But K-12 spending has also gone up dramatically with little to show for it:
Catholic schools spend a fraction of what public schools spend with much better results.
We like Trump's ideas of sending the money straight to the states. Or better yet, to low income parents. Get rid of the education middleman blob in Washington.
3) Texas Gov Abbott Declares "Education Emergency" To Push School Choice
Texas Governor Greg Abbott gave a rip roaring State of the State speech this week in which he took our UP advice and declared an "education emergency" in the state. He called on the Legislature to pass a $1 billion universal school choice bill. "Government-mandated schools cannot meet the unique needs of every student," the governor said.
Now to get most other states to similarly declare an "education emergency" to spur the passage of more private and charter options for all students. (Last week's math and reading scores show Trump should consider a national education emergency, too.)
Abbott's support doesn't mean school choice is a slam dunk. Gene Wu, the Democratic leader in the State House, complains: "How do we tell people we're going to take your money and give it to rich people, so they can send their kids to private school, so they don't have to have their kids with your kids." He even sneered that universal school choice is a "scam" that would benefit "billionaire mega-donors."
But Wu himself has acknowledged that he attended a private high school and sends his own kids to private school. But he now wants to deny students in failing schools the same opportunity.
When reporters called his office to explain the hypocrisy, they received no response.
4) Georgia Progressives Slapped With Biggest Ethics Fine In State's History
When progressives Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock ran for statewide office in Georgia they received glowing media coverage for what they claimed was a crusade against "voter suppression." Joe Biden even infamously came to Atlanta to denounce a voter integrity bill as a form of "Jim Crow 2.0."
Of course, lawsuits alleging suppression all failed and minority turnout in almost all of Georgia is higher than ever. Now we know it was Abrams and Warnock (now a U.S. Senator from Georgia) who were pulling a fast one on voters.
Last month, the Georgia State Ethics commission unanimously slapped a record $300,000 fine on a nonprofit founded by Abrams and managed by Warnock. The New Georgia Project failed to disclose millions of dollars the entity illegally used to back Abrams' failed 2018 gubernatorial campaign. It has now admitted to every one of the commission's 16 allegations, after practicing a form of "information suppression" by denying them for years.
Adams and Warnock say they had no role in the improper campaign expenditures they benefited from. Maybe they have plausible deniability. Maybe not.
What is for sure is that John Fund's excellent watchdog work at UP to ensure honest elections isn't done yet.
A new Quinnipiac poll shows 31% of voters have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, while 43% have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party.
That comes on the heels of a New York Times poll last month which found that while voters say the economy, inflation and immigration are their top issues, they believed Democrats were most concerned with abortion, LGBTQ rights and climate change.
Can they get back in the JFK prosperity game of lifting all boats?
Yes, if they start talking about growth. In 1990, after Democrats lost three straight presidential races, centrist like Robert Rubin started the Democratic Leadership Council to move the party away from the kind of crazy leftists who run the party today. The strategy worked. Bill Clinton won two straight presidential elections as a free trade, budget cutting, and welfare reform Democrat.
Oh how we wish that kind of organization existed today.
Alas, they still don't get it. On Saturday the DNC elected as new chair Ken Martin, a progressive warrior from Minnesota, who in 2020 called for higher taxes on the rich, and for putting Trump "on trial for treason."
The three vice-chairs elected along with Martin are equally extreme. Two of them - Vice Chairs David Hogg and Malcolm Kenyatta - support packing the U.S. Supreme Court with four new members. Kenyatta called this the only way to overturn "the illegitimate 6-3 supermajority on this Supreme Court."
Hogg, a 24-year-old climate leftist has called for defunding the police and abolishing federal immigration agencies.
