WASHINGTON — Big Tech has gone topsy-turvy in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s November victory. Four years ago, Facebook and Instagram banned Trump’s posts, and the ban lasted two years. This year, Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg not only met with Trump but also announced Meta is getting rid of fact-checking and DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policies. Facilities managers have been instructed to remove tampon dispensers from the men’s rooms, the New York Times reported. A corporate giant that censored conservatives and other critics is about to open its steely doors — because Zuckerberg recognizes that America is at “a cultural tipping point.” President Joe Biden disapproved of Zuckerberg’s announcement, which he called “really shameful.” Americans are sick of being told what to think by tech workers who live and work in a walled-off world of Google buses and catered in-office meals. “It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram,” Zuckerberg noted in his video announcement. So Zuckerberg is moving Meta’s U.S.-based content review and “Trust and Safety” operations from California to Texas. Elon Musk announced plans to move X to the Lone Star State last year. Oh, and there’s a new guy on the Meta board who is not a coastal elite: mixed martial arts titan and UFC CEO Dana White. From Vegas, baby. Apparently, there is little love lost between the Biden White House and Big Tech leaders who complain that Team Biden leaned on them to squelch unwanted content by using COVID as a pretext for censorship. In July 2021, Biden charged that platforms like Facebook were “killing people.” Fact check: Bogus. “In 2021,” Zuckerberg later wrote in a letter to the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee, “senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree.” Literally, Team Biden couldn’t take a joke. On the podcast he co-hosts, tech billionaire Marc Andreessen spoke of the “repression” tech entrepreneurs experienced under Biden World’s scaredy-pants watch. When Trump won, Andreessen offered, “It felt like a boot off the throat. Every morning I wake up happier than the day before.” It’s no wonder then that Andreessen and Musk publicly backed Trump before his Nov. 5 victory. Many news reports have framed Silicon Valley’s campaign to befriend Trump as a self-serving exercise in kissing up to power. My profession had no such qualms in 2008 when then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., sailed into the White House with the “Facebook effect” at his back. Then the marriage of tech and politics was hailed as the dawning of the Age of Aquarius as peace ruled the planet, love steered the stars, and young people voted for Democrats. Facebook was started in 2004. Obama won the White House in 2008 and 2012. But then a funny thing happened. In 2016, Donald Trump won the White House after he pretty much owned Twitter. There was little celebration about social media helping a candidate for president win — because young “tech bros” weren’t interested in turning out the vote for the right. So when Biden won the White House four years later, it looked like all would be right inside the tech world. But it turns out, Trump always got social media, while Biden saw the free-wheeling platforms as the enemy — and the bros learned he was not their friend. Information, you see, is like toothpaste. Once it’s out of the tube, it’s nearly impossible to put it back. READ MORE from Debra J. Saunders: A Well-Deserved Takedown of the California Political Class — From Newsom to Bass Trump Takes the World Stage. Embrace the Chaos Biden Stumbles Again. Where Are the Handlers? Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM The post Facebook Ends Dubious Fact-Checking. Biden Objects. appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The U.S. federal government has a debt problem.  At $36.2 trillion (or about 125 percent of GDP), this burden is already so great that it cannot be paid back any time soon and would take decades of concerted efforts to do so. Further, it is abundantly clear that this is a spending problem, not a revenue problem. But what are we to do about this? One answer floated about is to trim waste from the federal government.  To accomplish this, Donald Trump proposed creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  This represents an opportunity to halt runaway (and potentially unconstitutional) federal spending and to finally take budget deficits seriously. However, DOGE does not yet have a specific plan. Several targets have been bruited: addressing wasteful spending, especially for DEI tasks that are not central to an agency’s mission; auditing federal departments and agencies to find wasteful or diverted spending; ending remote work for federal workers; simplifying the tax code; reducing red tape and regulatory compliance costs; and setting up a hotline, inviting citizen watchdogs to submit their favorite regulations for DOGE scrutiny, supported by the relevant chapter in the CFR (code of federal regulations) and a summary of negative effects. Beyond its vagueness, it’s not clear what DOGE can or will actually do.  Mr. Musk has already explained that entitlements (about 70 percent of the federal budget) are beyond the DOGE purview.  Likewise, it’s unlikely that a Trump administration would touch defense spending (13 percent of the budget), beyond trimming some waste at the margin.  That’s already almost 85 percent of the $6.8 trillion (FY2024) budget that DOGE will not touch. The proposed spending cuts bring up an old debate about federal spending; since the days of Ronald Reagan, economists and deregulatory warriors have pondered the question of how best to address rampant federal spending. Starve the Beast of Resources: A Failed Approach One answer, popularized by the likes of Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, and Grover Norquist, is the so-called “starve the beast” approach. By enacting tax cuts, the thinking goes, Congress will be forced by budgetary pressures to reduce its overall spending, to be more frugal and wise with the money it spends, and to discipline itself from overreaching into areas best left to the private sector.  Friedman summarized this approach by comparing it to cutting the allowance of “spendthrift children.” This has intuitive appeal. Just as a household cannot spend money it does not have, neither can, the thinking goes, the federal government.  This sort of approach was tried by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.  The result, however, was not a reduction in federal spending.  It was an increase in annual deficit spending and a massive increase in the overall federal debt. This result is only surprising if one does not take into serious consideration issues in political economy. The problems with starving the beast of resources are twofold.  First, the federal government has the ability to issue debt to paper over any budgetary shortfalls. This gives rise to the now-too-familiar debates about government “shutdowns” versus raising the debt ceiling or otherwise getting a new budget resolution passed by some deadline. According to the U.S. Treasury, Congress has voted to raise the debt ceiling 78 times since 1960; on June 3, 2023, Congress voted to suspend the debt ceiling altogether until Jan. 2, 2025.  Thus, while we may think that we can simply stop spending by lowering the amount of money Congress has, the reality is that as long as policymakers can issue debt, this constraint is nullified. The second problem is more deeply rooted and pernicious: the breakdown in what James Buchanan and Richard Wagner referred to as “that old-time fiscal religion.” In many ways, Americans now see federal spending as a result of political jockeying for political largesse, and completely divorced from taxes.  It would appear that few Americans care about deficits and the national debt.  Some contend that this is because half of Americans don’t pay federal income tax and that, for these people, there is simply no reason to worry about federal spending, the annual deficit, or the debt, because federal services are, essentially, free. As Peter Calcagno and Edward López demonstrate in a forthcoming book, norms about deficits have changed over the past 30 to 40 years.  They conclude that the combination of informal norms and increasing federal “responsibilities” have created “increased demand for federal expenditures while creating budgetary commons, thus imparting strong motivations to spend through deficit finance in normal times.” Starving the Beast of Responsibility Starving the government of resources and hoping that the ensuing lack of funds will impel it to eschew runaway spending ignores reality and is tantamount to putting the cart before the horse.  Instead, we must first tackle the issue directly by starving the beast of responsibility. This will require serious and fundamental discussions about the nature and role of government in the first place. We must reckon with the questions of what the federal government should be responsible for and how it is allowed to go about fulfilling those responsibilities. Then, we must compare this to the list of responsibilities the federal government has assumed.  In doing so, we would likely find a plethora of examples of responsibilities that have been ceded to the federal government — which it has no business attempting to meet.  After identifying those, we must purge them from the federal budget and wind down the organizations tasked with meeting these superfluous responsibilities.  Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution would be a good place to start. If we can do so, the amount of resources (read: taxes) that are necessary to fund federal operations will fall precipitously.  The Founders clearly understood the importance of a limited government and deliberately set up a system of governance in which both the size and scale of government would be limited. Overall, making the federal government more efficient at the things that it does is not enough to actually limit government or to promote fiscal responsibility. Instead, we must reduce the scale of government activity by starving it of responsibilities.  In doing so, greater efficiency will necessarily follow, as the government sheds responsibilities it ought not to have in the first place, and retains responsibilities that it ought to have and that can be done more effectively (and efficiently) by the government. READ MORE from David Hebert and Nikolai Wenzel: Saving Us From Scheming Landlords? Biden DOJ Sues Real Estate Tech Company RealPage From GDP to Reality: Putting the $35 Trillion Debt Into Perspective David Hebert is a senior research fellow with the American Institute for Economic Research. Nikolai Wenzel is a professor of economics at Universidad de las Hespérides and an associate research faculty member at the American Institute for Economic Research. The post DOGE Must Rethink Federal Spending: Prioritize Reducing Responsibilities v. Starving the Beast Through Tax Cuts appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Why would 24 conservative Republican senators recently vote for a $200 billion Social Security bonus for the already rich retirement accounts of government employees — who, as civil servants, did not pay into Social Security during the time of their government employment? The 24 voted to repeal a 40-year-old legal provision that did not allow bureaucrats with rich government pensions earned while exempt from Social Security payroll taxes to collect Social Security benefits after they retired by paying taxes for only 10 years into a private sector job. Why did senators support a giveaway to government employees? Because rich pensions with this restriction existed for all federal employees until the 1980s, for employees of 25 states, and scores of local governments. And the recipients vote. Those getting this windfall give financial, union, or moral support to the senators who represent them. So, they expected their representatives to vote for their interests; and they did. How do I know? I was Ronald Reagan’s first director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management when he signed that restriction, and I still follow such bureaucratic happenings. One congressman back then actually admitted to me he feared government voters even in his very rural district with few government employees. Why is this important when the giveaway is already law? There is an idea gathering speed among conservatives that could make things even worse. That well-meaning proposal would send top bureaucrats and their agencies out of the Washington area with the hope that mixing with real Americans will make them think like the rest of the country. But what it will actually do is give top bureaucrats direct access to lobby their local congressmen as a local neighbor rather than a Washington bureaucrat. As the pension vote demonstrates, the congressmen will listen. While I welcome the new administration’s openness to civil service reform and cost controls, I am concerned about the unintended consequences of this proposal. The first Trump administration did send a few jobs from D.C. to the states. But results were very limited. In theory, spending would be reduced since federal government pay is partially based on the local private salaries which are high in Washington and lower in rural areas. But studies find that in fact few federal employees actually moved. They simply took other jobs in Washington. The Trump administration planned to move the Bureau of Land Management headquarters and its nearly 600 jobs to the small city of Grand Junction, Colorado in 2019. But apparently, only three job slots moved. The Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture were to move 700 jobs to Kansas City, but few job positions moved there. The Bureau of Land Management’s headquarters were to move to Colorado since 97 percent of its other 10,000 employees were already in the West.  The move was planned to involve about 300 top positions but was delayed, and President Biden’s Interior secretary reversed the plan. A second-term plan aims at moving 100,000 jobs and relocating entire agencies from D.C. to save $1.4 billion a year in payroll costs. The reality is that there are only 60,000 military civilians and 140,000 domestic federal workers concentrated in and around the nation’s capital, out of a total workforce of 2 million or so.  This means 1.8 million are already living outside Washington, which may explain much of their success in lobbying Congress. Republican legislation would send nearly a third of Washington federal employees out of the D.C. metropolitan area. The bill is titled the “Decentralizing and Reorganizing Agency Infrastructure Nation-wide To Harness Efficient Services, Workforce Administration, and Management Practices Act” (or D.R.A.I.N. T.H.E. S.W.A.M.P.). It argues that “Federal employees don’t want to work in Washington, so why should taxpayers be footing the bill? By relocating at least 30 percent of the federal workforce, we will save billions and improve service for veterans, small businesses, and all Americans.” The legislation requires non-defense agencies to “promote geographic diversity, including consideration of rural markets” when relocating employees from the D.C. area and to “ensure adequate staffing throughout the regions of the Administration, to promote in-person customer service.” The bill correctly stressed that locality pay is higher in the D.C. area and that moving people would save taxpayer money. And there are already examples of federal employees fraudulently receiving higher locality pay for the Washington, D.C. area despite living full-time in Florida. It is not clear how many employees would be transferred to small-population states, but if a sizeable number moved, it could hinder the ability of Republicans to be elected in those states since most federal employees are Democrats. Moreover, cutting “employees” is a small part of the problem. There are two million employees but about 20 million contractors and grantees. That is where the big money is spent on employment in today’s administrative state. Your author lives in Maryland together with many federal employees and even more contractors. Many are nice people and are often critical of how government works — but they want more government and more spending. Over my lifetime, as national government spending increased dramatically, Maryland’s Republican House delegation declined from winning four of eight congressional district seats down to only one today. More government employees and contractors have produced more Democrats. Maryland is pretty much lost politically today for the GOP, but I am sure Democrats would be quietly pleased to have their excess Washington employees sent to small red states to reproduce the Maryland experience and have Republicans reap the consequences. READ MORE from Donald Devine: Trump’s ‘Unqualified’ Courageously Diverse Appointees — and a Conservative Hope Controversial Appointees, Clay Pigeons, and Successful Governmental Politics Donald Devine is a senior scholar at the Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C. He served as President Ronald Reagan’s civil service director during his first term in office. A former professor, he is the author of 11 books, including his most recent, The Enduring Tension: Capitalism and the Moral Order, and Ronald Reagan’s Enduring Principles. The post DRAIN THE SWAMP Act’s Government Relocation Edict Could Have Dire Consequences for Conservatives appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Seeking something light to read following the Christmas doldrums I decided to look into what I remembered as one of the funniest of Evelyn Waugh’s comic novels, Black Mischief. I discovered that my local library, a large well-stocked one, did not have a copy and there was just a single one to be found in Montgomery County, one of the most populous and richest in the state of Pennsylvania. I believe this isn’t an accident but another example of the ongoing censorship of literature that is a curse of our time. That’s too bad because Black Mischief for all its nastiness is worth a read as it reveals Waugh’s gift for satire at its savage best, an example of what his friend and confident, Nancy Mitford, called his “delicious cynicism.” It also introduces us to his greatest comic rogue, Basil Seal. The novel, Waugh’s third, appeared in 1932, following the remarkable success of his two earlier comic novels, Vile Bodies and Decline and Fall which established his reputation for savage wit, brilliant prose, and a talent for the sharp cutting of scenes he borrowed from silent films. But Black Mischief’s humor has an offensive quality not found in the earlier works; perhaps a result of the two most dramatic developments of his young life (he was just 26 years old when he won fame with Vile Bodies) — an ugly divorce and his embrace of Catholicism to provide meaning to his life. Seeking some kind of escape in 1930, Waugh undertook a tour of Africa with a commission to cover the coronation of Hailie Selassie as emperor of Ethiopia. The trip produced the first of his travel books, Remote People, but more importantly inspired Black Mischief. The book’s setting is the isle of Azania off the coast of Africa — really Ethiopia. Basil Seal, fleeing from creditors and a series of boring romances decides to visit his fellow Oxford student, Seth, the newly crowned emperor of Azania. Waugh makes Seth a parody of every ideal of modernization and progressive ideas, always wanting to discuss such things as birth control, surrealism, eugenics, Esperanto, and other exemplars of modern thought. Regarding Basil as the glimmering personification of sophisticated culture, Seth asks for his help in transforming Azania into a modern state. This gives Waugh the opening to mock and make fun of every vestige of the progressive outlook in English artistic circles that he despised. With Basil’s help, Seth modernizes his army by equipping them with European uniforms and the latest military hardware. He defeats his father in a civil war marked with barbarity, including his troops cooking and eating his father. They also sell their weapons, and when food runs low, eat their modern leather boots. A grand parade honoring the transformation of Seth’s capital into a modern European-style city renamed after him features the city’s prostitutes carrying a banner “From Savagery to Culture” leading the way for Seth’s military commander, a one-eyed English adventurer named Connolly, who has an Azanian wife, called “Black Bitch.” Waugh made a point of introducing a disreputable character named Connolly in his novels, a jibe at his close friend, the writer and editor, Cyril Connolly. His wife at the time was described as “dark complected” which gave Waugh’s barb even more bite. Connolly pretended not to be embarrassed by this but dreaded how he would be represented in Waugh’s works. In the name of modernism, Seth orders the city’s ancient and native buildings torn down and turned into poor versions of European ones. The Anglican Cathedral is gutted and the site renamed, Place Marie Stopes, in honor of the leading spokesman of the birth control movement. For his commitment to modernization, Seth is eventually overthrown and murdered. The racism and stereotyping are carried over to Waugh’s portraits of the other inhabitants of Azania. The leading shopkeeper is an Armenian who cheats everyone — white or African. Waugh doesn’t let off the English characters. The head of the British legation is portrayed as a boob who spends his time playing cards, taking long baths, while ignoring his diplomatic dispatches. His daughter, Prudence is a classic brainless example of Waugh’s Beautiful Young Things. She is writing a long incoherent novel about the modern world and having affairs with various young men. In the course of the novel Seal becomes engaged to her. Waugh also introduces two English women who are animal rights activists and represent the snobbish do-gooders that he despised. They come to Azania to save the animals, describing their first view of the country: “Quaint and smelly. Condition of dogs and horse appalling, also the children … Fed doggies in marketplace. Children tried to take food from the doggies. Greedy little bastards.” The novel ends when a revolution breaks out and Seth is overthrown and murdered, Basil flees but the plane crashes and he is saved by natives. At a dinner in his honor, he discovers that they have captured Prudence and cooked her in a cannibal stew of herbs and spices. Black Mischief was a best seller in England when it appeared in October 1932. Its first printing sold out and a second one did well also. It was not a great success in America. Books about strange British types in Africa didn’t appeal to Americans. The fact that the Great Depression had hit bottom might have something to do with Black Mischief’s sluggish sales here. For years Black Mischief remained one of Waugh’s most popular comic novels, but its portraits of Africans will ensure that it suffers the fate of Huckleberry Finn, Othello, and The Nigger of the Narcissus. When I taught a course in British history, I always made sure I included a Waugh novel — usually Scoop, Decline and Fall, Put Out More Flags, and occasionally Black Mischief. I don’t believe it would be wise to include Black Mischief today. I am sure the literary safety clan would denounce me to the proper authorities. Too bad. For all its modern indecencies, it remains a book impossible to read without laughing aloud. READ MORE from John P. Rossi: When Ike Said No The Soldier Poets Who Knew About War A Little-Known Film Is a John Wayne Gem John P. Rossi is a professor emeritus of history at La Salle University in Philadelphia. The post Farewell Mr. Waugh: Political Correctness and Censorship Continue to Wreak Havoc appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Take it from a sociologist and journalist: sociology is a science that is not really a science, and journalism is a professional activity that does not have a specific professional activity. Sociologists and journalists share some vices, if we leave aside the brothels and the whiskey: they wrap any bad information in shiny wrapping paper, they try to keep their sources anonymous, and they plan their investigations by writing the conclusion before starting them, so as to be able to arrive in time for the game with friends. One of the most prestigious sociological research companies, Gallup, periodically conducts a survey to find out which professions are the most trusted. This week they released the latest results and there are two immediate conclusions: in general, the trust of some professionals in others continues to fall, and amongst the 23 occupations mentioned in the list, coincidentally, neither sociologists nor pollsters appear. The first conclusion is only to confirm that the survey was conducted among humans. The first thing that any professional learns when starting a job is, in this order, to despise all the other professions involved in said job, and then to despise each of his or her own colleagues. This is not a diabolical plan, it is just a process of natural human evolution, the same one that leads us to believe that we drive better than anyone we meet on the road (in my case it is true). According to Gallup, the most trusted professionals are nurses. Not much of a surprise there. As a regular (much to my regret) visitor to hospitals in recent years, I’ve had the chance to deal with all kinds of people there, and even some animals. The cleaning ladies are lovely, but almost all of them are grandmothers now and talk too much; the guys who carry you around the hospital on stretchers are frustrated Formula 1 drivers and, more seriously, no one breathalyzes them. The doctors who deal with things that are waist down are actually missionaries because they get you to refind your faith and pray like crazy that they don’t cut in the wrong place during your prostate operation. While the waist-up doctors don’t usually bring good news, they do love to cut you open and rummage around, usually near the heart or liver, and sometimes forget a cell phone or ashtray inside after closing. Finally, the hospital reception girls, in a mood similar to that of Wile E. Coyote in the Roadrunner, make you thank God that they’re behind the glass, in a place from which they can’t easily jump down your throat. So, in healthcare, the reasonable thing to do is to love nurses. They come by your room, smile a little, are usually young and pretty, and all they do are little forays that don’t hurt too much. They change a drip, put in a thermometer, or make you swallow some pills. They don’t bring bad diagnoses either. It’s reasonable for Americans to trust nurses. In fact, most would like to marry one. I have proposed to several, almost always under the effects of some sort of anesthesia. They all accepted until I was discharged. Unfortunately, part of their job is to make you feel good, but they don’t usually make out with patients like in Céline’s sad posthumous novel. Something similar happens with grade-school teachers, who are next on the list of highly ethical. All you will remember from that part of life is nice, there is more play than class, they are usually young, patient, and beautiful, and they have in general the most delicate task: taking care of the children, which is what parents want most. A few years later it will be the children who take care of the teachers, and that’s when their professional qualification goes down, but that’s another story. Pharmacists and doctors are also among the most trusted institutions, although far behind nurses and teachers. The explanation is simple: Your life often depends on pharmacists and doctors liking you. It’s not a good idea to insult them anonymously in Gallup. Nowadays anything can be leaked. At the bottom of the list, who would have guessed it, the least trusted professions are television reporters, congressmen, and lobbyists. So the three groups that have the most influence when it comes to managing the destinies and opinions of the nation — journalists, congressmen, and lobbyists — receive a total distrust score of 68 percent, an indifference score of 21 percent, and approval from only 4 percent, which obviously corresponds to the percentage of respondents who are journalists, congressmen or lobbyists. Perhaps most relevant to this amusing survey is that, on average, trust ratings in the major professions have fallen from 43 percent to 30 percent in just over 20 years. The professions that have contributed the most to this plunge are doctors (thanks to pandemic nonsense), judges (thanks to you-know-who), cops (thanks to the Democrats’ efforts), and daycare providers (perhaps because storks in Paris are the only endangered species that environmentalists give a shit about). On the contrary, the only profession that raises its average confidence rating, even if only by 2 percent, are state officeholders, and that’s because… there are too many of them. Make government small again and you’ll avoid statistical mirages! READ MORE from Itxu Díaz: Everyone and Anyone Can Be Wise I Am Giving This Script to Disney So They Can Get Rich Again. The Year the (Woke) Stupidity Bubble Burst The post Pitfalls of the Good Sociologist: Examining Gallup’s New US Professions Survey appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from TheSaltyCracker: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture: Like a smashed antique clock – with its elaborate cogs, ratchet wheels and innards splayed out from the casing – so the mechanics of the Middle East lie similarly exposed and broken. All the region is in play – Syria, Lebanon, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt and Iran. The original Obama strategic blueprint for […]

Poor Disney. That just can’t seem to catch a break. After a string of flops at the box office, costing them hundreds of millions of dollars, Disney is now getting hit with a massive lawsuit. They’re being sued for a whopping $10 billion by Buck Woodhall. He claims the hit movie Moana was lifted from his 2003 pitch, Bucky and the Wave Warrior. The alleged parallels between his story of Polynesian teens and Disney’s box office smash are striking. So if any of you plan to pitch an idea to Disney, be sure to protect it and have them sign an NDA. Is there anything Disney can do right these days? Disney has been sued for allegedly copying the idea for ‘MOANA’ and its sequel. Buck Woodall is suing the company for allegedly stealing his idea and is seeking damages equivalent to 2.5% of Moana‘s gross revenue or $10B. His film ‘Bucky’ and ‘Moana’ are both set against the… pic.twitter.com/2hFdAWIabf — Cosmic Marvel (@cosmic_marvel) January 13, 2025 Also, Moana live action is set to be released in 2026. Wonder how this will affect that production? Breitbart reports: The Walt Disney Company has been sued by an animator who claims the studio’s hit Moana and Moana 2 animated movies ripped off his original screenplay. He is seeking $10 billion — yes, “billion” with a “b” — in damages. In the suit filed Friday in a California federal court, animator Buck Woodall alleges that Disney plagiarized elements of a screenplay he wrote for an animated movie titled Bucky, which like the Moana movies is set in an ancient Polynesian village and follows teenagers who rebel against their parents, set off on dangerous voyages, and encounter spirits that manifest themselves as animals. As for the eye-popping sum being sought, the plaintiff is seeking 2.5 percent of Moana‘s gross revenue, or alternatively at least $10 billion. But if they did steal it, will they get away with it? Disney Sued for $10 Billion Over Moana: Here’s How They Got Away With It Disney is being sued for $10 billion for allegedly stealing the idea behind Moana—but here’s how they might’ve done it legally. Buck Woodhall claims that Jenny Marchick, now at DreamWorks, took his 2003… pic.twitter.com/3GIPhcjtKV — Zachary Owings (@zacharyowings2) January 14, 2025 Someone pro-Trump needs to take over Disney.

Tuesday was the confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. And so, a large gathering of Navy SEALs supporters headed out to Washington, D.C. to show support. This was organized by SEAL veteran Bill Brown and Robert Sweetman of 62romeo. Meanwhile, Hegseth faced Senate scrutiny. It seemed they were determined to ensure he didn’t get confirmed. I wonder why? Warriors united for @PeteHegseth. https://t.co/zYO5bhvGyd — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) December 8, 2024 WATCH – A group of Navy Seal Veterans sit outside the Senate awaiting Pete Hegseth’s hearing confirmation this morning. pic.twitter.com/kMVR4HBuLJ — Dusty (@thatdudedusty) January 14, 2025 Breitbart reports: Five hundred Navy SEALs, veterans, and other supporters are planning to march in support of Defense Secretary Nominee Pete Hegseth as he appears before senators for his confirmation hearing on Tuesday. That morning, his supporters will meet at the Vietnam Memorial Wall at 9 a.m. EST and march to different war memorials, including the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the D.C. War Memorial, and the World War II Memorial, and conclude near Capitol Hill with remarks from military leaders and prominent supporters. Participants will carry American flags as they march. The march is being organized by Navy SEAL veteran Bill Brown, who also organizes the yearly NYC Seal Swim — which Hegseth, a combat veteran, has taken part of in support of Navy SEALs. Robert Sweetman’s 62romeo organization is co-organizing. “The SEAL March for Pete Hegseth and attendance at hearing demonstrates strong and unwavering support from the warrior class for Pete Hegseth as he moves forward with his confirmation to become Secretary of Defense,” a press release for the event said. Here’s a clip of them giving their support for Hegseth: WATCH: Over 100 Navy SEALs and Veterans Rally in Washington to Support Pete Hegseth | Wow. This is epic. More than 100 Navy SEALs and veterans, along with several U.S. Congressmen and Senators, gathered in Washington, D.C., today to show their support for @PeteHegseth.… pic.twitter.com/TXokSjmqAt — Overton (@overton_news) January 13, 2025 BREAKING: Navy SEALs and veterans began arriving at 4am to support Pete Hegseth today! pic.twitter.com/9nO8yKiNzN — Jack Poso (@JackPosobiec) January 14, 2025 He makes a great point! Navy SEAL March on Washington for Pete Hegseth organizer Bill Brown sends message to GOP Senators “Any Republican that doesn’t get on board should get primaried and get the hell out of there” – @FreedomSpirit77 pic.twitter.com/OAEV7c6SUj — Alec Lace (@AlecLace) January 14, 2025 His support continues to grow! More warriors step up for @PeteHegseth. pic.twitter.com/KJJz9fw83K — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) December 17, 2024

A song comes to mind from D.C. Talk’s 1992 album, Free at Last, called The Hard Way. The lyrics simply state, “Some people gotta learn the hard way” And that’s precisely what we’re seeing from liberals. Especially in Paris, France. You see, a liberal theatre opened their doors to 250 illegal immigrants to a free conference. What could go wrong? Bankruptcy. How? Well, they didn’t want to leave. They just decided to stay. It’s been 5 weeks. And they’re still there. Not just that, they invited more of their illegal homeboys to come to their campout, bringing their number to around 300. I can only imagine what’s running through the minds of the liberals that are in charge of that whole situation. Are they tripping over piles of cognitive dissonance to finally face reality, that these people aren’t in their land to assimilate, but to take over? Gaîté Lyrique theatre in Paris, which is known for its radical, leftist shows offered a free show for illegal immigrants. More than 250 African migrants showed up and now they won’t leave. Lmao FAFO. pic.twitter.com/EhRoeYHiOZ — SHAUN (@speakerofjungle) January 14, 2025 Daily Mail reports: A theatre in Paris which is known for its radical shows and exhibitions has been occupied by more than 250 African migrants after they were let in for a free event five weeks ago. The Gaîté Lyrique theatre in Paris staged the conference, entitled Reinventing the welcome for refugees in France, on December 10. It involved talks hosted by academics from top universities and Red Cross officials, and saw activists welcome in the migrants. But when the conference was finished, the migrants, who mainly come from France’s former west African colonies, refused to leave the venue. Still occupied, the leftist theatre now faces going out of business after weeks without revenue from ticket sales, and has had to cancel all performances until at least January 24. Its management said in a statement last week that the number of people taking shelter in the theatre is ‘continuing to increase’ and has swelled to around 300 people. ‘The sanitary conditions are deteriorating day after day and the teams are facing this situation alone,’ it said as it called for the local authorities to find a housing solution for the occupiers. ‘Although this occupation is forced, it is unthinkable for the Gaîté Lyrique to throw these people out onto the street in the middle of winter,’ the statement added. Let them in to the theater, they said. They’ll follow social norms, they said. They’ll leave when the show is over, they said. ADMIN POST. French leftist theatre faces bankruptcy after opening its doors to 250 African migrants for a free show… and they refused to leave and remain in the building five weeks later. Go woke, go broke strikes again. pic.twitter.com/ymxiCghS9N — Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) January 14, 2025 “Refugees” are the modern day trojan horse. “Racism” accusations is the go-to attack against anyone against this trojan horse. HAHAHAHAHAHA. French liberal theatre called Gaîté Lyrique is facing bankruptcy after letting 250+ African migrants last month…. They still REFUSE to leave. pic.twitter.com/t7wWQwS5Bo — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 14, 2025 Ah, Paris. It is the most romantic city in the world, non? This is Paris…pic.twitter.com/5WY1k0B46S — Booker9e (@booker9e) January 14, 2025