ALL SMALL BUSINESSES ARE CRIMINALS ACCORDING TO THE GOVERNMENT!

Get this, our nasty Senators and Congressmen have now activated a LAW that considers all businesses with less than $5 million in revenue and 20 employees or less to be FIRST considered as financial criminals.

LUCKILY PRESIDENT TRUMP STOPPED THIS FARCE!

On March 21, 2025, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced that, consistent with the Department of the Treasury’s March 2, 2025, announcement it was issuing an interim final rule that removes the requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons to report beneficial ownership information (BOI) to FinCEN under the Corporate Transparency Act. FinCEN published this interim final rule on March 26, 2025.

In the interim final rule, FinCEN revises the regulatory definition of “reporting company” to mean only those entities that are formed under the law of a foreign country and that have registered to do business in any U.S. State or Tribal jurisdiction by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or similar office (formerly known as “foreign reporting companies”). FinCEN also exempts entities previously known as “domestic reporting companies” from BOI reporting requirements. Thus, through this interim final rule, all entities created in the United States — including those previously known as “domestic reporting companies” — and their beneficial owners will be exempt from the requirement to report BOI to FinCEN.

The law now mandates reporting of the BENEFICIAL OWNERS of ALL companies and businesses operating in the USA FINANCIAL CRIMES ENFORCEMENT NETWORK (FInCEN) or face fines and JAIL!

AS SMALL BUSINESS YOU ARE ALL SUSPECTED CRIMINALS1

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a final rule implementing the bipartisan Corporate Transparency Act’s (CTA) beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting provisions. The rule will enhance the ability of FinCEN and other agencies to protect U.S. national security and the U.S. financial system from illicit use and provide essential information to national security, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies; state, local, and Tribal officials; and financial institutions to help prevent drug traffickers, fraudsters, corrupt actors such as oligarchs, and proliferators from laundering or hiding money and other assets in the United States.

Illicit actors frequently use corporate structures such as shell and front companies to obfuscate their identities and launder their ill-gotten gains through the United States. Not only do such acts undermine U.S. national security, they also threaten U.S. economic prosperity: shell and front companies can shield beneficial owners’ identities and allow criminals to illegally access and transact in the U.S. economy, while disadvantaging small U.S. businesses who are playing by the rules. This rule will strengthen the integrity of the U.S. financial system by making it harder for illicit actors to use shell companies to launder their money or hide assets.

Recent geopolitical events have reinforced the point that abuse of corporate entities, including shell or front companies, by illicit actors and corrupt officials presents a direct threat to the U.S. national security and the U.S. and international financial systems. For example, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 further underscored that Russian elites, state-owned enterprises, and organized crime, as well as Russian government proxies have attempted to use U.S. and non-U.S. shell companies to evade sanctions imposed on Russia. This rule will enhance U.S national security by making it more difficult for criminals to exploit opaque legal structures to launder money, traffic humans and drugs, and commit serious tax fraud and other crimes that harm the American taxpayer.

At the same time, the rule aims to minimize burdens on small businesses and other reporting companies. Millions of businesses are formed in the United States each year. These businesses play an essential and important economic role. In particular, small businesses are a backbone of the U.S. economy, accounting for a large share of U.S. economic activity and driving U.S. innovation and competitiveness. U.S. small businesses also generate millions of jobs, and in 2021, created jobs at the highest rate on record. It is anticipated that it will cost reporting companies with simple management and ownership structures—which FinCEN expects to be the majority of reporting companies—approximately $85 apiece to prepare and submit an initial BOI report. In comparison, the state formation fee for creating a limited liability company (LLC) can cost between $40 and $500, depending on the state.

Beyond the direct benefits to law enforcement and other authorized users, the collection of BOI will help to shed light on criminals who evade taxes, hide their illicit wealth, and defraud employees and customers and hurt honest U.S. businesses through their misuse of shell companies.

The rule describes who must file a BOI report, what information must be reported, and when a report is due. Specifically, the rule requires reporting companies to file reports with FinCEN that identify two categories of individuals: (1) the beneficial owners of the entity; and (2) the company applicants of the entity.

The final rule reflects FinCEN’s careful consideration of detailed public comments received in response to its December 8, 2021 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the same topic, and extensive interagency consultations. FinCEN received comments from a broad array of individuals and organizations, including Members of Congress, government officials, groups representing small business interests, corporate transparency advocacy groups, the financial industry and trade associations representing its members, law enforcement representatives, and other interested groups and individuals.

Balancing both benefits and burden, the following are the key elements of the BOI reporting rule:

Reporting Companies

The rule identifies two types of reporting companies: domestic and foreign. A domestic reporting company is a corporation, limited liability company (LLC), or any entity created by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or any similar office under the law of a state or Indian tribe. A foreign reporting company is a corporation, LLC, or other entity formed under the law of a foreign country that is registered to do business in any state or tribal jurisdiction by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or any similar office. Under the rule, and in keeping with the CTA, twenty-three types of entities are exempt from the definition of “reporting company.”
FinCEN expects that these definitions mean that reporting companies will include (subject to the applicability of specific exemptions) limited liability partnerships, limited liability limited partnerships, business trusts, and most limited partnerships, in addition to corporations and LLCs, because such entities are generally created by a filing with a secretary of state or similar office.
Other types of legal entities, including certain trusts, are excluded from the definitions to the extent that they are not created by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or similar office. FinCEN recognizes that in many states the creation of most trusts typically does not involve the filing of such a formation document.

Beneficial Owners

Under the rule, a beneficial owner includes any individual who, directly or indirectly, either (1) exercises substantial control over a reporting company, or (2) owns or controls at least 25 percent of the ownership interests of a reporting company. The rule defines the terms “substantial control” and “ownership interest.” In keeping with the CTA, the rule exempts five types of individuals from the definition of “beneficial owner.”
In defining the contours of who has substantial control, the rule sets forth a range of activities that could constitute substantial control of a reporting company. This list captures anyone who is able to make important decisions on behalf of the entity. FinCEN’s approach is designed to close loopholes that allow corporate structuring that obscures owners or decision-makers. This is crucial to unmasking anonymous shell companies.
The rule provides standards and mechanisms for determining whether an individual owns or controls 25 percent of the ownership interests of a reporting company. Among other things, these standards and mechanisms address how a reporting company should handle a situation in which ownership interests are held in trust.
These definitions have been drafted to account for the various ownership or control structures reporting companies may adopt. However, for reporting companies that have simple organizational structures it should be a straightforward process to identify and report their beneficial owners. FinCEN expects the majority of reporting companies will have simple ownership structures.

Company Applicants

The rule defines a company applicant to be only two persons:
1. the individual who directly files the document that creates the entity, or in the case of a foreign reporting company, the document that first registers the entity to do business in the United States.
2. the individual who is primarily responsible for directing or controlling the filing of the relevant document by another.
The rule, however, does not require reporting companies existing or registered at the time of the effective date of the rule to identify and report on their company applicants. In addition, reporting companies formed or registered after the effective date of the rule also do not need to update company applicant information.

Beneficial Ownership Information Reports

When filing BOI reports with FinCEN, the rule requires a reporting company to identify itself and report four pieces of information about each of its beneficial owners: name, birthdate, address, and a unique identifying number and issuing jurisdiction from an acceptable identification document (and the image of such document). Additionally, the rule requires that reporting companies created after January 1, 2024, provide the four pieces of information and document image for company applicants.
If an individual provides their four pieces of information to FinCEN directly, the individual may obtain a “FinCEN identifier,” which can then be provided to FinCEN on a BOI report in lieu of the required information about the individual.

Timing

The effective date for the rule is January 1, 2024.
Reporting companies created or registered before January 1, 2024 will have one year (until January 1, 2025) to file their initial reports, while reporting companies created or registered after January 1, 2024, will have 30 days after receiving notice of their creation or registration to file their initial reports.
Reporting companies have 30 days to report changes to the information in their previously filed reports and must correct inaccurate information in previously filed reports within 30 days of when the reporting company becomes aware or has reason to know of the inaccuracy of information in earlier reports.

Next Steps

The BOI reporting rule is one of three rulemakings planned to implement the CTA. FinCEN will engage in additional rulemakings to (1) establish rules for who may access BOI, for what purposes, and what safeguards will be required to ensure that the information is secured and protected; and (2) revise FinCEN’s customer due diligence rule following the promulgation of the BOI reporting final rule.
In addition, FinCEN continues to develop the infrastructure to administer these requirements in accordance with the strict security and confidentiality requirements of the CTA, including the information technology system that will be used to store beneficial ownership information: the Beneficial Ownership Secure System (BOSS).
Consistent with its obligations under the Paperwork Reduction Act, FinCEN will publish in the Federal Register for public comment the reporting forms that persons will use to comply with their obligations under the BOI reporting rule. FinCEN will publish these forms well in advance of the effective date of the BOI reporting rule.
FinCEN will develop compliance and guidance documents to assist reporting companies in complying with this rule. Some of these materials will be aimed directly at, and made available to, reporting companies themselves. FinCEN will issue a Small Entity Compliance Guide, pursuant to section 212 of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, in order to inform small entities about their responsibilities under the rule. Other materials will be aimed at a wide range of stakeholders that are likely to receive questions about the rule, such as secretaries of state and similar offices. FinCEN also intends to conduct extensive outreach to all stakeholders, including industry associations as well as secretaries of state and similar offices to ensure the effective implementation of the rule.
THIS RULE HAS BEEN STAYED FOR NOW:

jansen@sterlingcooper.us sent you this article.

Comment:

Benficial owmersip rul

Monday, January 13, 2025

The law aims to curtail the use of anonymous shells and track illicit money.

Ownership-Reporting Law’s Return Sought

Supreme Court is asked to stay an injunction pausing its implementation

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on the national injunction issued by a lower court that paused the implementation of the Corporate Transparency Act, a law requiring companies to disclose their true ownership.

The Justice Department, on behalf of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, in an application filed on New Year’s Eve asked the Supreme Court to stay the injunction issued by a Texas district judge in early December.

The attorneys representing FinCEN said the government is likely to succeed in defending the constitutionality of the law and that the district court’s injunction was “vastly overbroad,” according to the filing.

The lawyers said the Supreme Court, at a minimum, should narrow the injunction to the plaintiffs in the case.

CHINA HAS REAL ROBOTS, AND OUR EXECUTIVES ARE INTIMIDATED BY THEIR PRESENCE EVERYWHERE!

Western executives who visit China are coming back terrified

Robotics has catapulted Beijing into a dominant position in many industries

Pictured: ZEEKR’s Intelligent Factory in Ningbo, China. The country is now viewed as a leader in advanced robotics

“It’s the most humbling thing I’ve ever seen,” said Ford’s chief executive about his recent trip to China.

After visiting a string of factories, Jim Farley was left astonished by the technical innovations being packed into Chinese cars – from self-driving software to facial recognition.

“Their cost and the quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West,” Farley warned in July.

“We are in a global competition with China, and it’s not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.”

The car industry boss is not the only Western executive to have returned shaken following a visit to the Far East.

Andrew Forrest, the Australian billionaire behind mining giant Fortescue – which is investing massively in green energy – says his trips to China convinced him to abandon his company’s attempts to manufacture electric vehicle powertrains in-house.

“I can take you to factories [in China] now, where you’ll basically be alongside a big conveyor and the machines come out of the floor and begin to assemble parts,” he says.

“And you’re walking alongside this conveyor, and after about 800, 900 metres, a truck drives out. There are no people – everything is robotic.”

Other executives describe vast, “dark factories” where robots do so much of the work alone that there is no need to even leave the lights on for humans.

“We visited a dark factory producing some astronomical number of mobile phones,” recalls Greg Jackson, the boss of British energy supplier Octopus.

“The process was so heavily automated that there were no workers on the manufacturing side, just a small number who were there to ensure the plant was working.

“You get this sense of a change, where China’s competitiveness has gone from being about government subsidies and low wages to a tremendous number of highly skilled, educated engineers who are innovating like mad.”

High-tech transformation

It’s also a far cry from the cheap “Made in China” goods that many Westerners have associated with the “workshop of the world” in the past, underscoring how much cash has been poured into upgrading China’s industrial processes.

Far from being focused on low-quality products, China is now viewed as a leader in rapidly-growing, high-value technologies such as electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, drones and advanced robotics.

A big part of that transformation is down to the country’s focus on automation – which has been encouraged by the ruling communist government and heavily supported with state subsidies, grants and local government policies.

Figures recently released by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) show this has led to a dramatic and high-tech transformation of China’s industrial base over the past 10 years.

Between 2014 and 2024, the number of industrial robots deployed in the country rocketed from 189,000 to more than two million.

These can typically include everything from robot arms used for welding, assembly and loading, spider robots used for high-speed “pick and place” movements and overhead gantry robots for precision tasks such as 3D printing.

The overall number of robots added in China last year was 295,000, compared to 27,000 in Germany, 34,000 in the US and just 2,500 in the UK.

And while it would be easy to put this disparity down to population size alone, China also blows its western rivals out of the water when it comes to robot density. It now boasts 567 robots for every 10,000 manufacturing workers, compared to 449 for Germany, 307 for the US and 104 in the UK.

More automation is seen by many as good for productivity, the all-important measure of how much an economy gets out of what it puts in.

Many analysts also note that China’s growing share of worldwide manufacturing gives it increasing leverage over global supply chains – and would make it a formidable opponent in a war.

But alongside Beijing’s stated desire to dominate industries of the future, Rian Whitton, an expert at Bismarck Analysis, says increased automation is also an attempt to mitigate the impact of the country’s ageing population.

“China has quite a notable demographic problem but its manufacturing is, generally, quite labour-intensive,” he says.

“So in a pre-emptive fashion, they want to automate it as much as possible, not because they expect they’ll be able to get higher margins – that is usually the idea in the West – but to compensate for this population decline and to get a competitive advantage.”

As part of its so-called Made in China programme, local authorities have offered large tax breaks that reimburse firms for a fifth of their spending on industrial robots. This is under a policy known as “jiqi huanren” – which translates to “replacing humans with machines”.

Western manufacturers in trouble

But this technology, coupled with the vast output of Chinese manufacturers, spells serious trouble for traditional Western brands.

The most visible sign of this upheaval is on our roads, where Chinese-made electric and hybrid cars are taking a growing share of sales.

In Britain, Shenzhen-based BYD multiplied its September sales by a factor of 10 this year – overtaking far more established brands such as Mini, Renault and Land Rover.

But unlike the “tragic” cars once mocked by Jeremy Clarkson and his colleagues on Top Gear, BYD’s recent efforts have been praised for both their low prices and their well-appointed interiors.

“The most striking thing about their automotive industry is the pace and the speed with which it operates,” says Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

“They can develop and execute models in probably half of the time most European car makers can.”

Sander Tordoir, the chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, a think tank, says Europe and Britain must try to boost their own deployment of robotics if they want to keep up with the pace of innovation in China – while also keeping their manufacturing industries alive.

‘Robotics, if deployed well, can lift economic productivity greatly,’ says the chief economist at the Centre for European Reform

“Robotics, if deployed well, can lift the productivity of your economy greatly. And if China is extremely good at it, then we should try to catch up because, like China, a lot of Europe is ageing,” he says.

“The second reason to care is because the robotics sector is high value and has spillovers for the military industrial sector, so the fact that China may be ahead is also significant from a security standpoint.

“I think the debate is about how to use industrial policy to build competitive markets, and that will inevitably include some support to offset China’s distortions and advantages, which are not all market-driven.”

Britain is falling behind

The risk, however, is that “we don’t create the new, or we trap workers in the old instead of trying to leap forward,” Tordoir warns, pointing to the tendency of politicians to prevent ageing steel and car factories from closing instead of encouraging the creation of newer, high-tech jobs for workers to move to.

But Britain’s record on robots is poor and it has struggled to add more than a few thousand per year, despite already having less than half as many as France.

Last year, UK robot additions fell by 35pc.

Whitton, at Bismarck Analysis, argues that Britain, which has lagged other countries in productivity growth, should focus on trying to improve its competitiveness by incentivising the adoption of more robotics as well as machine tools.

He says this would have a bigger impact than past tax-breaks designed to boost research and development spending and plant machinery adoption.

“It doesn’t appear that dilly dallying around tax changes is doing a hell of a lot,” says Whitton.

“But I see the Government throwing billions of pounds each year at completely speculative rubbish like green hydrogen or to fulfil renewable [energy] obligations contracts and I just think, ‘Well, why not five billion a year in grants for capital equipment?

“That would arguably get a bigger bang for our buck than a lot of the energy-related industrial policies we pursue.”

Counter-intuitively, Whitton says countries which had more automation during the first “China shock” of the 2000s – which flooded the world with cheap goods – managed to hold on to a greater share of industrial jobs.

“People talk a lot about how automation will lead to job losses,” he adds. “But actually, the job losses are going to be disproportionately in the countries that don’t automate.”

In other words, failing to modernise will almost certainly lead to more dark factories in the West. But the kind where no work at all is happening.

MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, SENATE AND STAFFERS WERE EXEMPT FROM BEING REQUIRED TO GET THE COVID “VACCINE”, YET SENILE BIDEN FORCED IT ON EVERYONE ELSE, INCLUDING MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY WHO WERE THEN DISCHARGED IF REFUSED!

After Years of Disinterest, Legacy Media Now Wants to Know If Members of Congress Took the COVID Jab

In more news about the legacy media becoming obsessed about the wrong things, the Washington Post now has picked up the public inquiry about which members of Congress have been vaccinated with the COVID vaccine or received boosters.

It’s a good question, and one many Americans would like to know. However, the Washington Post, or any legacy media outlet for that matter, won’t be the one accurately covering it. As in all things involving the corporate media, they’re looking less for the truth and more for Republican scalps., the stench of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC, and Congress’ complicity in pushing the jab have not left the American consciousness. Some are even appalled that on Friday, President Donald Trump received a COVID booster at his routine visit to Walter Reed Medical Hospital, despite evidence that the so-called vaccine does little to mitigate contracting COVID or preventing its spread.

What has spearheaded this sudden interest by WaPo? It’s a good a distraction as any from the Schumer shutdown. In terms of messaging, Republicans and Trump appear to be winning. Especially after Saturday’s announcement by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth that the administration would be covering the paychecks for America’s military, despite the government being shut down.

So, legacy media is looking for a Republican scandal, and for some reason, they chose to approach Republican Alabama Sen. Katie Britt as a convenient target. Maybe it was her 2023 health scare where she suffered numbness in the face, which was reported to be a result of a viral infection. Whatever the reason, Britt’s office was approached by a WaPo cub reporter to find out whether she will be taking the COVID vaccine.

My team just received this request from the @WashingtonPost.

Senate Democrats and Chuck Schumer are responsible for shutting down the government. Our troops will miss a paycheck because of them and WIC funding is running out, but the legacy media is more worried about members of congress who have a COVID shot.

The larger question: where was legacy media’s curiosity about this four year ago? In 2021, when then-President Joe Biden issued his vaccine mandates for federal workers, the Senate, House of Representatives, and their staffers were exempted. Yet, the media never bothered to delve deeper into why Congress was not included in this mandate, nor did they cover the stories of the millions of people who lost their livelihoods because they refused to submit to the mandate.

President Joe Biden’s new vaccine mandates for federal employees don’t apply to members of Congress or those who work for Congress or the federal court system.

Biden issued two executive orders on Thursday requiring vaccination against COVID for federal workers and contractors who work for the federal government. He also asked the Department of Labor to issue an emergency order requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested on a weekly basis.

However, Biden’s order on federal workers applies to employees of the executive branch. The House of Representatives and the Senate belong to the separate legislative branch, and the courts to the judicial branch of the federal government.

We have a 24-7 news cycle with a wealth of information on things that could and should be covered. Why does there seem to be a problem with them covering all of the above and? With most outlets losing readers by the droves and independent journalists and new media actually covering stories of interest, one wonders why legacy media continues to adhere to the model of chasing slanted stories while ignoring actual news that would expose agendas while serving the public.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his most forceful pandemic actions and words, President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans — private-sector employees as well as health care workers and federal contractors — in an all-out effort to curb the surging COVID-19 delta variant.

Speaking at the White House, Biden sharply criticized the tens of millions of Americans who are not yet vaccinated, despite months of availability and incentives.

“We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” he said, all but biting off his words. The unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are.”

Republican leaders — and some union chiefs, too — said Biden was going too far in trying to muscle private companies and workers, a certain sign of legal challenges to come.

Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina said in a statement that “Biden and the radical Democrats (have) thumbed their noses at the Constitution,” while American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley insisted that “changes like this should be negotiated with our bargaining units where appropriate.”

On the other hand, there were strong words of praise for Biden’s efforts to get the nation vaccinated from the American Medical Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable — though no direct mention of his mandate for private companies.

The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. And the roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated.

Biden is also requiring vaccination for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government — with no option to test out. That covers several million more workers.

BIden Mandating hots for 100 Million Americans or lose jobs!

Biden announced the new requirements in a Thursday afternoon address from the White House as part of a new “action plan” to address the latest rise in coronavirus cases and the stagnating pace of COVID-19 shots.

Just two months ago Biden prematurely declared the nation’s “independence” from the virus. Now, despite more than 208 million Americans having at least one dose of the vaccines, the U.S. is seeing about 300% more new COVID-19 infections a day, about two-and-a-half times more hospitalizations, and nearly twice the number of deaths compared to the same time last year. Some 80 million people remain unvaccinated.

“We are in the tough stretch and it could last for a while,” Biden said.

After months of using promotions to drive the vaccination rate, Biden is taking a much firmer hand, as he blames people who have not yet received shots for the sharp rise in cases killing more than 1,000 people per day and imperiling a fragile economic rebound.

In addition to the vaccination requirements, Biden moved to double federal fines for airline passengers who refuse to wear masks on flights or to maintain face covering requirements on federal property in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

He announced that the government will work to increase the supply of virus tests, and that the White House has secured concessions from retailers including Walmart, Amazon and Kroger to sell at-home testing kits at cost beginning this week.

The administration is also sending additional federal support to assist schools in safely operating, including additional funding for testing. And Biden called for large entertainment venues and arenas to require vaccinations or proof of a negative test for entry.

The requirement for large companies to mandate vaccinations or weekly testing for employees will be enacted through a forthcoming rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that carries penalties of $14,000 per violation, an administration official said.

The rule will require that large companies provide paid time off for vaccination.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will extend a vaccination requirement issued earlier this summer — for nursing home staff — to other healthcare settings including hospitals, home-health agencies and dialysis centers.

Separately, the Department of Health and Human Services will require vaccinations in Head Start Programs, as well as schools run by the Department of Defense and Bureau of Indian Education, affecting about 300,000 employees.

Biden’s order for executive branch workers and contractors includes exceptions for workers seeking religious or medical exemptions from vaccination, according to press secretary Jen Psaki. Federal workers who don’t comply will be referred to their agencies’ human resources departments for counseling and discipline, to include potential termination.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in August found 55% of Americans in favor of requiring government workers to be fully vaccinated, compared with 21% opposed. Similar majorities also backed vaccine mandates for health care workers, teachers working at K-12 schools and workers who interact with the public, as at restaurants and stores.

Biden has encouraged COVID-19 vaccine requirements in settings like schools, workplaces and university campuses. On Thursday, the Los Angeles Board of Education v oted to require all students 12 and older to be fully vaccinated in the the nation’s second-largest school district.

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, said in late July it was requiring all workers at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as well as its managers who travel within the U.S., to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 4. But the company had stopped short of requiring shots for its frontline workers.

CVS Health said in late August it would require certain employees who interact with patients to be fully vaccinated by the end of October. That includes nurses, care managers and pharmacists.

In the government, several federal agencies have previously announced vaccine requirements for much of their staffs, particularly those in healthcare roles like the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Pentagon moved last month to require all servicemembers to get vaccinated. Combined, the White House estimates those requirements cover 2.5 million Americans. Thursday’s order is expected to affect nearly 2 million more federal workers and potentially millions of contractors.

Biden’s measures should help, but what’s really needed is a change in mindset for many people, said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

“There is an aspect to this now that has to do with our country being so divided,” said Sharfstein. “This has become so politicized that people can’t see the value of a vaccination that can save their lives. Our own divisions are preventing us from ending a pandemic.”

More than 177 million Americans are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but confirmed cases have shot up in recent weeks to an average of about 140,000 per day with on average about 1,000 deaths, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most of the spread — and the vast majority of severe illness and death — is occurring among those not yet fully vaccinated. So-called breakthrough infections in vaccinated people occur, but tend to be far less dangerous.

Federal officials are moving ahead with plans to begin administering booster shots of the mRNA vaccines to bolster protection against the more transmissible delta variant. Last month Biden announced plans to make them available beginning Sept. 20, but only the Pfizer vaccine will likely have received regulatory approval for a third dose by that time.

Officials are aiming to administer the booster shots about eight months after the second dose of the two-dose vaccines.

ENTIRE WORTHLESS FEDERAL AGENCY WITH $100 MILLION BUDGET KICKED OUT!

Trump Admin Fires Entire Agency In One Swift Move Amid Schumer Shutdown

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The White House began conducting mass layoffs on Friday amid a prolonged government shutdown, including slashing an entire department under the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

The entire staff at the Community Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI) received a layoff notice on Friday, an administration official confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The program’s elimination comes as White House officials repeatedly warned that the administration would pursue mass firings and budget cuts if Democrats did not reverse course and reopen the government.

The agency employs 102 full-time staff, according to its most recent annual report, published earlier this year. The CDFI fund claims to “expand economic opportunity for underserved people and communities by supporting the growth and capacity” of financial institutions, but critics have argued the agency has drifted from its mission and become politicized.

“The RIFs have begun,” President Donald Trump’s budget chief Russ Vought wrote on X on Friday, using an acronym for reductions in force. The reduction-in-force plans are expected to impact departments across the government. It is unclear how many federal workers will ultimately receive layoff notices.

Before the Oct. 1 shutdown deadline, OMB directed agencies to draft reduction-in-force plans for individuals employed in programs that have no current funding source nor align with the president’s agenda.

The CDFI fund was targeted because the program illegally doled out awards based on race and espoused left-wing gender ideology and radical climate policies, according to the administration official.

Trump signed an executive order in March restricting federal agencies, including the CDFI fund, to their legally mandated functions, as part of his broader efforts to reduce elements of the federal government determined to be “unnecessary.”

The fund awarded $4.9 million to the “Local Initiatives Support Corporation,” which publishes material condemning “whiteness” in community development. It has also supported LGBTQ clinics that provide so-called “gender-affirming hormone therapy” to clients “of any age,” and granted $6.7 million to the Clearinghouse CDFI, which hosted a fashion show promoting transgenderism.

It remains to be seen whether staff cuts made during the shutdown will withstand legal challenges. Several federal unions filed suit in late September to block the administration from carrying out mass layoffs during the shutdown.

“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) national president Everett Kelley said in a statement on Friday. The AFGE is the nation’s largest federal employee union and represents more than 800,000 workers.

Vought, the White House Office of Management and Budget director, has long sought to cut the size of government and has taken concrete steps to slash federal spending since the beginning of Trump’s second term.

(L/R) US Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican from South Dakota, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Republican from Louisiana, hold a news conference at the US Captiol on the tenth day of the federal government shutdown on October 10, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex WROBLEWSKI / AFP) (Photo by ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Government funding lapsed on Oct. 1 after a majority of Senate Democrats soundly rejected a clean bipartisan spending bill to avert a shutdown. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has put the same bill on the floor an additional six times as the shutdown drags on and Democrats have tanked the bill each time with the vote tally largely unchanged.

Democrats have demanded $1.5 trillion in new spending on a variety of left-wing priorities and language restricting the president’s authority to rescind funds in exchange for their votes to fund the government. Republicans have labeled Democrats’ counter-funding proposal dead-on-arrival.

Trump said on Thursday that his administration was zeroing in on government programs favored by Democrats.

“We’re only cutting Democrat programs, I hate to tell you, but we are cutting Democrat programs,” the president said during a Cabinet meeting. “We will be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly.”

The administration has already cut over $7 billion in funding for Biden-era energy projects, and frozen $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects and over $2 billion in Chicago.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told the DCNF in an interview on the second day of the shutdown that he welcomed the administration slashing the size of government during the funding lapse.

“The great irony is that it is [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer that is delivering that opportunity,” Johnson told the DCNF. “I have always believed, said, and acted accordingly that the federal government is too large, it has too many things, and it does almost nothing well.”

“It gives us a real opportunity, a very rare opportunity, to scale down the size and scope of government,” Johnson continued. “And I expect that’s what you will see in short order.”

Schumer blasted the news of mass layoffs on social media Friday.

“This is deliberate chaos,” Schumer said in part.

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TRUMPS PICK OF BEAUTY QUEENS FOR HIS APPOINTMENTS..IS MUCH IMPROVED OVER THE UGLIEST WOMEN IN THE WORLD PICKED BY BIDEN, CLINTON AND OBAMA! SOME WERE TOTALLY HIDEOUS

The Beauty Queens of MAGA World

From cabinet secretaries to state legislators, many women in today’s GOP have one thing in common: They got their start in public life by winning pageants.

In November, Denmark’s Victoria Kjaer Theilvig was crowned Miss Universe, and Amber Hulse was elated. For Hulse, a Miss South Dakota turned Republican state senator, it seemed not just a pageant victory but a cultural watershed.

“Trump is president and Miss Universe is blonde,” she posted on Instagram. “We are so back.”

It wasn’t the first time that the Technicolor worlds of MAGA and beauty pageants—both image-conscious, soaked in nostalgia and adroit with hair spray—have intersected.

In January, Abbie Stockard, the reigning Miss America, turned up at Donald Trump’s inauguration wearing a MAHA gown. When it came time to select a cabinet, Trump tapped South Dakota’s 1990 Snow Queen, Kristi Noem, as secretary of homeland security. Anna Kelly, a former Miss State Fair of Virginia, was appointed deputy press secretary.

Miss America Abbie Stockard in the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ dress she wore to an inaugural ball in January 2025. Andre Soriano Atelier

Last month, when the president needed someone to push through criminal charges against James Comey, the former FBI director, another beauty queen came to the fore: Lindsey Halligan. The one-time Miss Colorado semifinalist did the job after Trump pushed out the top federal prosecutor for eastern Virginia and elevated her.

Halligan’s turn in the spotlight has paled beside the glow of another pageant veteran. Erika Kirk, the widow of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, was Miss Arizona USA in 2012. At her husband’s funeral last month, she demonstrated preternatural poise addressing a stadium-sized crowd, extolling a traditional view of marriage in which he was the family’s spiritual leader while she maintained the home.

To Brittany Hugoboom, the editor of Evie Magazine—a kind of conservative Cosmopolitan that is a bible for “trad wives”—the MAGA-pageant axis was further evidence that America is turning the page on a progressive era in which such concepts as body positivity and gender fluidity entered the mainstream.

“We’re shifting from the era of Hillary Clinton pantsuits into one that celebrates femininity again,” Hugoboom declared, adding, “The current administration has always understood the influence of aesthetics.” (Said a recent Evie headline: “Make Miss America Great Again: Can Conservative Culture Save The Century-old Pageant?”)

Lindsey Halligan, a one-time Miss Colorado, was appointed by President Trump to prosecute former FBI director James Comey. Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

To their proponents, pageants are a training ground for young women to succeed in a world beyond the swimsuit competition. They learn discipline and poise and how to think on their feet. The life of a Miss America—crossing the country to appear at events, speaking in public, developing a platform and smiling for endless pictures—isn’t so different from that of a campaigning politician.

“You’re learning to present yourself. You’re learning to have a stump speech, for lack of a better word…You’re learning to be media-savvy,” said Hilary Levey Friedman, author of the book “Here She Is: The Complicated Reign of the Beauty Pageant in America.” Her mother, Pamela Eldred, was Miss America 1970.

But critics cannot quite get past the idea of women standing on a stage to be judged on their appearance. As in Trump World, they say, contestants may demonstrate strength, talent and ambition—but always on men’s terms.

“The pageant world rules for success are similar to the Trump World rules of success,” said Kimberly Hamlin, a professor of women’s history at Miami University of Ohio. “Always look your best, always be ready for the bikini contest. Be charming. And always do what the boss wants.”

Margot Mifflin, author of the 2020 book “Looking For Miss America,” believes pageants and MAGA are “consonant” in their inclination to maintain the status quo. “MAGA culture is rewarding a certain kind of woman that beauty pageants reward,” Mifflin said. Both “revere conventional, traditional representations of women.”

State Senator Amber Hulse in the South Dakota State House, December 2024. Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight

Hulse is crowned Miss South Dakota USA in 2023. Future Productions

Hulse, who at 27 is South Dakota’s youngest-ever state senator, is aware of the contradictions. While she credits pageants for her professional success, she also acknowledges that it’s not ideal to be “parading women around on a stage in their underwear, essentially, to win a scholarship.”

Ironically, modern pageants trace their roots to events staged by suffragists to showcase women’s talents and contributions to society. In 1921, hoteliers in Atlantic City subverted that idea by creating their own revue of “bathing beauties,” held the week after Labor Day as a way to extend the summer season. What had been a women’s production in the service of women’s rights turned into a way of promoting the interests of wealthy businessmen.

Seventy-five years later, Trump, another Atlantic City hotelier, would become the pageant world’s king when he bought the organization that owns the Miss USA, Miss Teen USA and Miss Universe competitions. If Miss America is prim and studious, competing for university scholarships, think of Miss USA as the racier sister. Or as Mifflin put it, “It’s a little more of a skin show.”

More than once, contestants complained about Trump going backstage when they were undressed—something he did not deny in a 2005 interview with Howard Stern. “I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed and ready, and everything else, and, you know, no men anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant, and therefore I’m inspecting it,” he told Stern. “You know they’re standing there with no clothes…And you see these incredible looking women.”

By the time Trump sold the pageants in 2015, such events were in decline. In the 1980s Miss America was one of the year’s biggest television events, drawing tens of millions of viewers. Last year its audience dropped to under a million loyalists, who had to stream it online.

As Hamlin observed, “It’s not really a thrill anymore to turn on your TV and see a woman in a bikini.” Even that may not be on offer: In 2018, Miss America ended its swimsuit competition under the direction of its then-chair, Gretchen Carlson. (Amid a backlash, it has since introduced a “sportswear” competition.)

Left to right: Melania and Donald Trump with Miss USA Rachel Smith and Miss Universe Riyo Mori in 2008. Bill Lyons/AdMedia via Zuma Press

Carlson is regarded, seemingly in all corners of the pageant universe, as a transcendent figure. After winning Miss America in 1989—three years after the competition stopped releasing contestants’ measurements—she used the scholarship money to pay for her Stanford education. In the first week of her reign, Carlson recalled, she was at a dinner in Atlanta when someone tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to give a 30-minute impromptu speech before 5,000 people. She ran to the bathroom to prepare.

“Being Miss America was the toughest job I’ll ever have, and that’s saying something,” said Carlson, who became a Fox News star and then a women’s empowerment advocate, after suing the network’s chairman, Roger Ailes, for sexual harassment.

A dirty secret about pageants is that behind the smiles and the ogling, a great part of their fuel is female ambition. Long before “American Idol” and its ilk, pageants were a means for a small-town striver to vault herself into a bigger world. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem and journalist Diane Sawyer both competed in pageants. So did Sarah Palin, the proto-MAGA governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate. Palin was crowned Miss Wasilla at age 20 and then finished second-runner-up for Miss Alaska.

In a 2016 interview with a South Dakota newspaper, Noem reflected on her eye-opening reign as Snow Queen. “It was the first time I had sat down and done an interview with multiple people,” she said. “It was very educational. To stand up and speak in front of individuals or a large amount of people at the Snow Queen contest was a first as well.”

Erika Kirk, a former Miss Arizona USA, with President Trump at the funeral service for her husband, slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Sept. 21. Gage Skidmore/Zuma Press

Erika Kirk in the Miss USA competition, May 2012. Alamy

To Hulse, who boasts degrees from the University of South Dakota and Georgetown Law School, there are two types of women who win a pageant crown: The one for whom it will be her life’s greatest achievement, and the one for whom it will be a launchpad. “I hope one day that the Miss South Dakota thing falls off the bottom of my résumé and that’s not what people know me for,” she said, placing herself in the latter category.

Hulse entered her first local pageant at 13 because a friend did. To her surprise, she won. Since she already had the dress, she entered a bigger pageant and won that one, too. Along the way she met a pageant executive named Sara Frankenstein who had won the 1998 Miss South Dakota pageant. (“Child of Frankenstein Vies for Miss America,” read the Orlando Sentinel headline).

Frankenstein is now one of South Dakota’s foremost election lawyers, and she became Hulse’s mentor. “I would not be a state senator today had it not been for that woman,” said Hulse, who grew up on a hunting ranch, far from the corridors of power. “And I would not have been exposed to [her] if not for pageants.”

Over the years, Hulse has encountered plenty of boundary-pushing contestants who were determined to use the crown to advance progressive causes, she noted. She has also met Trump, at the Iowa caucuses in January 2023, two months after she competed in Miss USA.

“He came up and he goes, ‘Now, you look familiar,’” she recalled.

She had been an intern in his first administration, Hulse replied. Trump went blank. Then she mentioned the Miss USA pageant.

“‘He goes: ‘That’s what it was!’” said Hulse. “It was a very him moment.”

NEW MOVIE STOKES HATRED OF GOVERNMENT AND ICE, AND DOES NOTHING TO UNITE PEOPLE

Conservatives Take Aim at ‘One Battle After Another’: “Year’s Most Irresponsible Movie”

While Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is being heralded as a masterpiece by many, some conservatives accuse it of potentially inspiring left-wing violence.

Leonardo DiCaprio in 'One Battle After Another.' — Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘One Battle After Another.’ Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s propulsive, nearly three-hour loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland starring Leonardo DiCaprio has been the rare grown-up drama that’s drawn enormous critical praise, high audience scores and solid box office — crossing the $100 million mark worldwide to score the biggest opening of Anderson’s career.

Given that the film is also intensely political — telling the tale of a burned out revolutionary (DiCaprio) who endeavors to save his daughter (Chase Infiniti) from a white nationalist military officer (Sean Penn) — it’s perhaps surprising there hasn’t been more noise so far from those on the right. The film opens with a celebratory raid on an ICE facility to free detainees, and shows government agents coldly executing unarmed suspects and sending an undercover agent into a peaceful protest to throw a Molotov cocktail to justify increased force.

One suspects a three-hour indie drama about left-wing rebels doesn’t draw the same level of interest from conservative moviegoers as, say, a remake of a family classic like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But there are some grumblings out there that contend the film, which Anderson had worked on for decades, is actually the wrong film at the wrong time rather than the opposite.

“You can make excuses for it, but basically the [film is] an apologia for radical left-wing terrorism, that’s what it is,” said Ben Shapiro, who predicted the film will win “all the Academy Awards” due to its politics. “It has the subtlety of a brick … The basic suggestion is a conspiracy theory in which the United States is run by white supremacist Christian nationalists and all people of color and a few nice incompetent fellow travelers like [DiCaprio’s character] are going to take on that entire system. And that system must be taken on at the cost of family, at the cost of friendship, at the cost of decency, at the cost of basic human capacity for success. It is better, in other words, to be a complete loser who wastes your life bombing things randomly in order to free illegal immigrants to run willy-nilly across the border than to be a productive citizen.”

“For this movie to make any sense at all, one has to believe the United States, today, right now, is a fascist dictatorship,” wrote David Marcus at Fox News, under a headline that dubbed the film an “ill-timed apologia for left-wing violence.” He continued, “That is not only a dangerous fallacy but, as we have found out recently, a deadly one … The whole movie made me a little angry, but then I remembered that the Trump administration is cracking down on Antifa — today’s very real domestic terrorists — and maybe this will be a fun movie for them to watch once they are all in jail.”

“It’s a macabre coincidence that One Battle After Another opens so soon after the assassination of peaceable conservative debater Charlie Kirk,” wrote The National Review under a headline predicting “there will be bloodlust” provoked by the movie. “The film undeniably romanticizes political assassination … Anderson intentionally provokes the bloodlust of his woke confreres (and Gen Z viewers who know nothing about the Sixties) by celebrating the insipid, heretical, and violent activities of the liberal past and present. Anderson’s title lacks Pynchon’s pith but daydreams a culture of never-ending political obstruction and pandemonium. It is the year’s most irresponsible movie.”

“Watching One Battle After Another may not be entertaining, but its celebration of vitriol and murder is clarifying,” opined The Blaze. “This is not the usual ‘anti-conservative’ Hollywood bias. When the perpetually sweaty DiCaprio shouts ‘¡Viva la revolución!’ while detonating bombs, you’re meant to cheer. And if you’re not cheering, well, those bombs are meant for you … Increasingly, Hollywood views half the country not as fellow citizens with outdated beliefs, but as enemies who deserve punishment. Owning firearms, favoring borders, voting differently — these aren’t policy differences; they’re treated as moral crimes, grounds for extermination.”

Some critics, however, have maintained the film’s politics play more like a satirical fantasy — from its conspiratorial white supremacist cabal to its ultra-organized French Resistance-style left-wing network to Col. Lockjaw’s cartoonish Dr. Strangelove-style demeanor. The opening flashback of rebels attacking a detention facility would have taken place during Obama’s first presidency, many years before President Trump’s first term sparked intense backlash to U.S. immigration policies.

The progressive staple The New Republic weighed in on this subject with an essay exploring the film’s political themes and concluded that One Battle is a dream of a left-wing movement that doesn’t exist.

“The least believable part is the corresponding existence of a left-wing revolutionary group that physically fights back,” wrote David Klion, noting “the rebels in Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie resemble the Weather Underground less than the right’s conspiratorial image of ‘antifa supersoldiers’ … The audience at my screening seemed to be having a total blast, laughing and cheering throughout — and while I experienced One Battle After Another the same way, in hindsight it was a somewhat discordant reaction given the all-too-relevant depictions of immigrant families being torn apart by armed federal agents.”

And in a column for The Hollywood Reporter, Richard Newby pushed back on the notion that the film is pro-violence in any way: “While some argue the film celebrates political violence, it doesn’t at all. It depicts it as a temporary solution, one that, when drawing battle lines, only results in casualties on both sides and creates victims out of those who suffer under the same realities of America.”

UK “FREE” HEALTH CARE CONSUMES 40% OF GOVERNMENT BUDGET AND PATIENTS ARE GETTING TREATED IN HOSPITAL CORRIDORS, JUST LIKE WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH THE “AFFORDABLE” OBAMA CARE!

UK Socialist Healthcare: “Broken” at 40% of Government Spending

Doctor in mask and uniform leaning against a glass window with a exhausted expression.

The UK’s socialist national health program is reportedly “broken” and suffering the “biggest crisis in its history,” the government says.

According to NBC News, the suffering arises from: rising prices, stagnant wages and crumbling public services.

NBC News doesn’t mention the influx of unproductive foreigners who have to be tended to now. They do say 20% of their healthcare workers are foreigners.

Now the Labour Party, which created the then-radical [and still radical] NHS in 1948, is battling its own economic constraints and record-setting unpopularity. It has a colossal task if it is to fix the crumbling hospitals replete with overworked doctors and bed-lined corridors, says NBC.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer must turn around a behemoth whose budget of 200 billion English pounds ($269 billion) represents some 40% of all government spending, and whose 1.4 million employees are the world’s seventh-largest workforce. In the United States, only the Department of Defense, Walmart and Amazon outnumber it, NBC reports.

NBC News said everyone has a success story of the system, but then they admit the horror stories exist.

But just as common are the tales of maddening, hours-long waits in overstretched emergency rooms, or weeklong delays just to see a community general practitioner. Many critics blame the sprawling crisis on years of underfunding by the now-ousted Conservative government of 2010-2024, whose response to the 2008 financial crisis was to make drastic cuts to public services.

40% of government spending was austerity???

Though the concept remains revered, public satisfaction in the NHS in practice cratered om a high of 70% in 2010, according to the King’s Fund, a top think tank tracking British health care.

According to NBC News:

The crisis at the NHS coincides with an uptick in hostility toward immigrants — even though they are often people’s doctors, nurses and hospital cleaners. Almost 20% of NHS staff have a non-British nationality, with Indians, Filipinos, Nigerians, Irish and Poles making up most of their number. “It doesn’t work — it’s not working,” Farage told NBC News’ British partner Sky News in May. “We’re getting worse bang for the buck than any other country, particularly out of those European neighbours.”

It’s not the needy illegal immigrants getting free healthcare and not producing anything?

Nigel Farage of Reform UK said the system doesn’t work, but NBC News cut his statement off.

NBC admitted:

“Corridor care” is now a year-round crisis, and the number of people waiting 12 hours or more to be admitted into an emergency room rose from 47 in summer 2015 to 74,150 this summer. Targets have lagged for years in everything from ambulance attendance times to cancer diagnoses. Meanwhile, a 7 million-strong waiting list means many people feel abandoned for months, in pain, before getting hip or knee replacement and other types of surgery.

Then they blamed the conservatives again. They didn’t spend enough. 40% of the revenue they take in wasn’t enough.

Starmer will raise spending 3% and taxes.

This is the direction the ACA, aka Obamacare is taking the US. This report should be a cautionary tale.

ANOTHER BIDEN FAILURE, $7.5 BILLION FOR CHARGING PORTS

Fewer Than 400 EV Charging Ports Built Despite $7.5 Billion Biden Funding

Less than 400 additional electric vehicle (EV) public charging ports have been installed in the United States following billions of dollars of allocated funding under the Biden administration for building charging infrastructure, said a July 22 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021, signed into law by then-President Joe Biden, appropriated $7.5 billion in funding for two programs—the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program (NEVI) and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program (CFI). The funds were aimed at supporting the development of public EV charging infrastructure.

However, only 384 charging ports had been built nationwide under the NEVI and CFI programs as of April 2025, the report said.

The Trump administration suspended committing funds for NEVI in February.

GAO said the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which administers the two programs, has lagged in setting clear performance targets for NEVI and CFI.

The report noted that Congress had “expressed concern over the pace” at which charging ports had been built under the programs.

During a June 2024 Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) criticized the slow deployment of EV charging ports.

“That is pathetic. We’re now three years into this. That is a vast administrative failure,” he said. “Something is terribly wrong, and it needs to be fixed.”

The Biden administration had planned to set up 500,000 charging ports by 2030, according to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

As of May 2025, there were roughly 219,000 publicly available individual charging ports at 77,000 EV charging stations across the United States, the GAO report said.

Only 56,000 of these units are DC fast chargers that allow EV owners to quickly charge their vehicles. The majority, 162,000 units, are Level 2 ports that take much longer to charge, the report said.

For instance, one hour of charging with a Level 2 port only delivers 25 miles of driving range, far lower than the 100 to 200 or more miles delivered by a DC charger, GAO said.

Moreover, there are large cost differences between the two options.

“Level 2 chargers may cost about $900 to $3,000 per charging port to purchase, and between about $700 and $4,000 per charging port to install,” the report said.

In contrast, “the fastest DC fast charger can cost over $140,000 per charging port to purchase, and more than $39,000 per charging port to install, when between three and five charging ports are installed,” according to the report.

GAO highlighted that federal support for EV charging infrastructure may be affected due to the Trump administration’s policies.

On Jan. 20, the first day of his second term in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Unleashing American Energy.”

In the order, Trump instructed all agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds” appropriated via the IIJA or the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, including funding for EV charging stations made available through the NEVI and CFI programs.

In February, FHWA said in a letter sent to the directors of state departments of transportation that it was suspending commitment of funds under the NEVI program.

At the time, the agency said the decision was taken to align with current policies of the Department of Transportation (DOT), including a Jan. 29 DOT order that policymaking be based on “sound economic principles and analysis supported by rigorous cost-benefit requirements and data-driven decisions.”

According to the GAO report, FHWA officials told them in March that due to Trump’s executive order and related agency actions, “most of FHWA’s NEVI and CFI activities were under review while it, and other relevant agencies, determine whether these efforts align with the administration’s policies and priorities.”

“Officials did not provide a time frame of their review process. As of May 2025, these reviews were ongoing and their outcomes unknown,” the GAO report added.

CHINA AGAIN BEATS USA WITH THE TALLEST BRIDGE IN THE WORLD!

The world’s tallest bridge is the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge in Guizhou Province, China, standing approximately 2,050 feet (625 meters) above the Beipan River.

🏗️ Key Facts About the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge

Location: Guizhou Province, southwestern China
Height: 2,050 feet (625 meters) above the Beipan River
Length: Nearly 10,000 feet (3,048 meters), with a main span of about 5,000 feet
Opened: September 28, 2025
Previous Record Holder: Duge Bridge (also in Guizhou), which stands 1,854 feet above the river
Purpose: Cuts travel time across the canyon from 2 hours to just 2 minutes, boosting regional connectivity and tourism

🚀 Engineering & Tourism Highlights

Design: Suspension bridge with two lanes in each direction
Tourist Features:
- High-speed glass elevator to a café atop one of the towers
- Glass walkway 1,900 feet above the river
- Planned bungee jumping platform
Strategic Impact: Part of China’s infrastructure push to alleviate poverty and improve access in mountainous regions

GREATEST POVERTY IN AMERICA, WHY ARE WE SENDING AID TO OTHER COUNTRIES WHEN WE NEED IT HERE! WASHINGTON D.C. OUR CAPITAL IS THE POOREST AREA! SHAME ON CONGRESS!!!!

Extreme Poverty in America by State

WASHINGTON D.C

Key Takeaways

Millions of Americans are extremely impoverished, with Washington D.C. seeing 10.3% of its population earning $8,160 or less in 2024, the highest rate in the country.
Louisiana (9%), Mississippi (8.5%), and New Mexico (8.2%) fall next in line, compounded by low wages and comparatively limited economic opportunity compared to other states.

In 2024, 6% of the U.S. population lived in extreme poverty, equal to 20.4 million people.

While there are different definitions of extreme poverty, this is represented as those earning less than $8,160 in annual income, or half of the poverty line. As the federal budget makes cuts to food assistance and healthcare, levels of extreme poverty run the risk of worsening even further.

This graphic shows the share of each state living in extreme poverty in 2024, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Washington D.C. Has the Highest Level of Extreme Poverty

Last year, more than one in 10 residents of the nation’s capital lived in extreme poverty.

	Share of Population Living in Extreme Poverty in 2024
District of Columbia	10.3%
Louisiana	9.0%
Mississippi	8.5%
New Mexico	8.2%
Kentucky	7.6%
West Virginia	7.6%
Alabama	7.4%
Arkansas	7.4%
Oklahoma	7.2%
New York	7.0%

Extreme poverty threshold represents total income before taxes and tax credits, excluding housing assistance and other noncash benefits.

Going further, economic hardship disproportionately impacts people of color in Washington D.C., with one in three black children living in poverty between 2019 and 2023, on average.

As we can see, Southern states also rank among the most impoverished. In Louisiana, 9% of residents live in extreme poverty, and on average, 18.9% lived below the poverty line between 2021 and 2023.

Meanwhile, 7% of New York’s population are extremely impoverished, equal to an estimated 1.4 million people.

On the other end of the spectrum is New Hampshire with the lowest rate nationally, at 3.9%. The Granite State benefits from a stable job market, low unemployment, and a strong education system. Paired with relatively affordable healthcare, these factors contribute to higher living standards for its residents, reducing the risk of poverty.

GRETA THUNBERG’S AID FLOTILLA CARRIED NO AID, DOCTORS OR SUPPLIES LIKE IT CLAIMED

Hamas-Funded Flotilla Carrying Greta Thunberg Found Not Carrying Humanitarian Aid

Yesterday, Ward Clark offered timely, on‑point coverage of the IDF’s interception of the 42 ships of the Global Sumud Flotilla. After Israel searched the ships, it was discovered that the flotilla carried no aid on board any of the vessels. Furthermore, additional evidence revealed the flotilla was funded by Hamas. The evidence regarding no aid will be presented first, followed by evidence of the Hamas connection.

The Global Sumud Flotilla put out a press release on August 4, 2025, which stated, “The flotilla will carry not just aid, but doctors, lawyers, journalists, activists, and artists, all sailing to stand in solidarity with Gaza and declare: You are not alone.”

One of the flotilla’s passengers was Mandla Mandela, the grandson of former South African leader Nelson Mandela. According to the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), Mandela’s sister wrote a letter to South Africa’s International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola, which stated, “The flotilla’s sole purpose was to deliver humanitarian assistance, food, medical supplies, nappies [diapers], and other essential relief items to the people of Palestine.”

There was just one small problem. None of the ships in the flotilla had any aid on them. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a video on X showing Israel’s Police Spokesperson, Lieutenant Dean Elsdunne, giving a tour of one of the largest boats in the flotilla.

In the video, Elsdunne says, “I’m sure you guys can guess where I am, cause it’s pretty much an empty room. That’s right, I’m inside one of the vessels, one of the largest vessels to come in this Yom Kippur Flotilla, and while we’re processing this boat, there’s one thing missing, guys: all this aid that they were supposed to bring into Gaza, which explains one thing to me. I’m sure it explains to you that when we and multiple other countries offered them to take this aid and bring it to the Gazans, we could facilitate its safe arrival; they flat-out rejected it. And now we know why, cause it was never about bringing aid to Gazans, but it was all about the headlines and the social media followings.”

A video of Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was posted on X, with him saying, “You are all terrorists. You are supporting murderers, supporting Gaza, supporting terrorists. You are terror supporters. There is no humanitarian aid here.”

Before the ships were boarded by Israeli forces, the IDF provided the flotilla activists with ample warning in English. A video posted to the X account of the Israel Foreign Ministry shows a female IDF sailor making the following announcement in English: “This is the Israeli Navy. You are approaching a blockaded zone. If you wish to deliver aid to Gaza, you may do so through the established channels. Please change your course toward the port of Ashdod, where the aid will undergo a security inspection and then be transferred into the Gaza Strip.”

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted the following statement on X: “The sole purpose of the Hamas-Sumud flotilla is provocation. Israel, Italy, Greece, and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem have all offered and continue to offer the flotilla a way to peacefully deliver any aid they might have to Gaza. The flotilla refused because they are not interested in aid, but in provocation. The Israeli Navy has reached out to the Hamas-Sumud flotilla and asked them to change course. Israel has informed the flotilla that it is approaching an active combat zone and violating a lawful naval blockade. Israel reiterated the offer to transfer any aid peacefully through safe channels to Gaza.”

Now we know why the flotilla refused the offer to have the aid processed through official channels. There was no aid to be transferred. Instead, the entire flotilla was about making headlines as its passengers knew the leftist media would carry their lies and hypocrisy far and wide.

Shortly after Elsdunne posted his video on X, the Global Sumud Flotilla admitted there wasn’t any aid on board. According to the Israeli wire service TPS-IL, the Global Sumud Flotilla posted on its X account: “Breaking the siege on Gaza was not about aid. It was about breaking the siege on Gaza! So aid can flow to the 2 million people starving there!” According to TPS-IL, the post was edited a few minutes later to include the word ‘just’ so that it read “It was not just about aid.”

The post must have been taken down shortly after it was edited, as no evidence of the post could be found on X for this story. However, the Global Sumud Flotilla put out a hasty press release claiming Israel was lying about there not being any aid on any of the ships.

In 2018, the political organization Palestinian Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA) was established. During the Gaza War, the IDF uncovered two documents that link the PCPA to Hamas and the Global Sumud Flotilla.

The first document (English translation) is a letter to the PCPA, signed by Ismail Haniyeh, who was the Chairman of Hamas Political Bureau before he was assassinated by Mossad on July 31, 2024, while in Iran. In the letter, Haniyeh endorses the PCPA and calls for unity between the two organizations. According to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PCPA is subordinate to Hamas and is responsible for Hamas activity outside of Gaza. The PCPA operates de facto Hamas embassies in countries around the world. The PCPA operates under civilian cover and organizes activities against Israel, including violent demonstrations, marches, and flotillas to Gaza. Israel designated the PCPA as a terrorist organization in 2021.

The second document (English translation) contains a list of PCPA operatives. The nineteenth operative on the list is Zaher Birawi, who leads PCPA’s de facto embassy in the UK. For the past 15 years, Birawi has organized demonstration flotillas to the Gaza Strip. The twenty-fifth operative on the list is Saif Abu Kashk, who resides in Spain. Kashk is the CEO of Cyber Neptune, a front company that owns many of the ships that participated in the Global Sumud Flotilla. This proves that the ships from the flotilla are owned by Hamas.

This is the second flotilla that has tried to break the IDF blockade of Gaza and that was intercepted. The first attempt was by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and was intercepted by the IDF on June 9, 2025. However, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is trying again. According to the Freedom Flotilla website, the “media and medics boat,” Conscience, set sail from Italy on October 1, 2025, for the following reasons:

Provide the international press with an opportunity to report directly from Gaza.
Deliver urgently needed medical expertise and solidarity alongside Gaza’s decimated health workforce.

The Conscience will join up with eight other boats that left Italy the week before.LOL