EXCLUSIVE: Mark Green Unveils Bill To Shield American Land From ‘Environmental Zealots,’ ‘Foreign Adversaries’
'Terrible deal for Americans'
Dan Crenshaw melts down over allegation he pushed for congressional pay raise: 'F***ing incels'
Trump allies and various other Republicans revolted after House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled his 1,547-page funding bill Tuesday evening. What was originally supposed to be a clean bill became an apparent Christmas wish-list for certain lawmakers and their friends.
Among the many additions weighing down the bill was an extension for the Global Engagement Center, a scandal-plagued multi-agency entity housed within the U.S. State Department that has been accused of working with organizations to censor conservative voices. In his critique that mentioned the GEC extension, President-elect Donald Trump suggested that the spending bill might also help hinder an investigation into the House Jan. 6 committee.
Other critics noted that the bill would give congressional lawmakers pay raises. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), who recently complained about stagnant salaries, lashed out when journalist Nick Sortor — citing unnamed sources — alleged that the Texas Republican had "spearheaded" the apparent push for higher pay.
Sortor shared a clip from Crenshaw's November video interview with the Free Press where Crenshaw suggested that populist-driven legislation prohibiting stock-trading by House members would amount to more self-flagellation making it all but impossible for anyone but the ultra-wealthy to serve in Congress.
"How about we don't make any money, either," said Crenshaw. "Just cut our paychecks. We haven't got a pay raise since 2008, even a [cost-of-living adjustment] increase."
Crenshaw is hardly the only representative critical of a lack of pay raises in recent years.
Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Austin Scott (R-Ga.), Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), and others have pushed for a congressional members' COLA increase. Donalds told The Hill in June, "If you don't address member salaries, what you're going to end up, frankly, is you're gonna have less diversity of various points on the economic ladder of members." Roll Call reported that Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) even suggested that blocking a pay raise might be unconstitutional.
'You're not very good at this are you?'
In terms of the controversial spending bill, the absence of language usually inserted in appropriations bills blocking a COLA increase meant that general representatives' pay could grow beyond $174,000. The Congressional Research Service recently indicated that the "maximum potential January 2025 adjustment is 3.8%, which would result in a salary of $180,600, an increase of $6,600."
Had congressional lawmakers routinely given themselves bumps since 2009 without statutory freezes, they would have been making $217,900 this year.
"Crenshaw ALMOST got his way, with a pay increase for members + benefits being included in today's massive spending boondoggle," tweeted Sortor. "THIS GUY is responsible for LOADS of the garbage we see being thrown into spending bills. All for his own benefit."
"Yeah or maybe you're a f***ing lying piece of s*** because I'm not even on the YES list for the whip team. Never have been," responded Crenshaw. "But hey, whatever gets you pathetic bottom feeders your click bait. F***ing incels."
Saagar Enjeti, co-host of "Breaking Points," joked, "Fellas: You're an incel if you think Dan Crenshaw shouldn't get a raise and have the freedom to trade defense contractor stocks."
While others similarly latched onto the involuntary celibate remark, Crenshaw got baited into a broader argument about money in politics by Phillip Buchanan, who goes by Catturd. Buchanan wrote, "Yeah get it right — Dan Crenshaw is the America-last, Ukraine-first war pig who doesn’t need a raise because of all the money he makes when he miraculously became a stock expert since joining Congress."
"Anonymous coward like 'catturd' talking s*** without any evidence," said Crenshaw. "I'm used to it. Sorry I was guy fighting the wars that little b****** like you would never dare to. One of us has actually served this country and continues to, while losers like you make money being trolls on social media. I live in Atascocita, just outside Houston. If you think I’m 'rich,' you're a f***ing idiot. The people getting rich off politics are the 'influencers' like Catturd selling their platforms to the highest bidder. Sorry to break to it yall, that's the truth."
The speculative tracker Quiver Quantitative estimated Crenshaw's trade volume at $313,000 and his net worth at around $1.45 million
Buchanan noted that he was an Army veteran who hasn't been anonymous for years and that the congressman's stock trades were public knowledge, adding, "You're not very good at this are you?"
Trump wrote in a Wednesday Truth Social post, "This is not a good time for Congress to be asking for pay increases. Hopefully, you'll be entitled to such an increase in the near future when we, 'MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!'"
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Rep. Banks proposes bill to ban federal funds from going to NPR
Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana is pushing a measure that would prohibit federal funds from flowing to NPR.
"After the date of the enactment of this Act, no Federal funds may, directly or indirectly, be made available to or used to support" National Public Radio, "including through the payment of dues to or the purchase of programming from such organization by a public broadcast station using Federal funds received by such station," the proposal, dubbed the "Defund NPR Act," states. The same would apply to "any successor organization" to NPR.
Katherine Maher, who includes "She/her" prounouns on her X profile, recently became NPR's president and CEO.
"NPR's new CEO is a radical, left-wing activist who doesn't believe in free speech or objective journalism. Hoosiers shouldn't be writing her paychecks," Banks said, according to a press release. "Katherine Maher isn't qualified to teach an introductory journalism class, much less capable of responsibly spending millions of American tax dollars. NPR was a liberal looney bin under the last CEO John Lansing, and it's about to get even nuttier. It's time to pull the plug on this national embarrassment. Congress must stop spending other people's hard-earned money on low grade propaganda."
Maher's archive of tweets includes comments such as an October 2016 post that reads, "I do wish Hillary wouldn't use the language of 'boy and girl' - it's erasing language for non-binary people."
"I am a super big public transit nerd. I hate private cars in cities. I love bikes. And yes, I love buses. Transit justice," she wrote in 2020, "and climate love," she continued, adding, "in one humble hunk of rolling metal."
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Florida Sheriff Grady Judd blasts squatters as 'dopers and freeloaders,' warns they're in for a 'one-way ride to the county jail'
No-nonsense Florida Sheriff Grady Judd blasted home squatters as a "bunch of dopers and freeloaders" and warned the hated bunch that if they pull their antics down his way, they're in for a "one-way ride to the county jail."
Judd — who heads up the sheriff's office in Polk County — sent his message Monday morning during an interview with Fox News' Lawrence Jones in the wake of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last week signing a bill that squashes squatters:
— (@)
In fact, Judd told Jones that past police action in Polk County already had been making life difficult for squatters: "We never had that problem because we go to the house, we determine, 'Well, the real owner doesn’t know who these people are entered into no contract.' We load 'em up, give 'em a one-way ride to the county jail. It’s just that simple. You don’t have to bog it down in court. Just do what’s right.”
Judd added to Jones that "it's always been that way in this county; they pop smoke on us and leave whenever they get out of jail, and they’re gone. I mean, they’re gone fast because we don’t put up with it, and that’s the bottom line, Lawrence. Across this nation, if you get tired of it, do something about it." Judd also said crime is at a 50-year low in Polk.
When Jones asked Judd if he had advice for homeowners elsewhere in the U.S. to avert what's become a headline-grabbing "crisis" as of late, the sheriff didn't mince words.
“You don’t have to make it a civil deal. When somebody breaks into your home, whether you're in it at the time — it may be up for sale, you may have gone on a cruise around the world — for whatever reason, your property's empty. People don’t have the right to move in, turn the electricity on, change the locks, and claim it as theirs," Judd said. "It’s not difficult. It’s burglary. It’s theft of your property. It’s trespassing. Just use your current laws and go arrest them and lock 'em up."
For homeowners who want compensation for money they've spent removing squatters, Judd acknowledged that's much tougher: "You can sue them, but you can't get blood out of a turnip. They don't have anything. What little money they have they stick up their nose or in their veins. They're just a bunch of dopers and freeloaders. We call 'em squatters."
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Homeowners have had enough
As readers of Blaze News know by now, police recently arrested the owner of a $1 million home in New York City for changing the locks on a squatter and charged her with unlawful eviction.
Outrage over the incident apparently led a pair of men soon after to show up at the home "looking to get this guy out."
Amid all that, a Venezuelan immigrant created a viral video in which he encouraged illegal aliens to find vacant homes and become squatters: "I have thought about invading a house in the United States. I found out that there is a law that says that if a house is not inhabited, we can seize it."
Also, an Atlanta man had been fighting for years to move dozens of squatters off his property, spent thousands on cleanup, and actually was sued for $190,000.
In addition, a crew known as the "Squatter Squad" gained widespread attention after they were depicted in a recent video confronting a dozen squatters in one Los Angeles-area home, kicking in a door, and sending the lot of them packing.
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