Trump agencies actually made a government process more efficient — A LOT more



The federal government is known for many things, but efficiency isn't one of them. But now, thanks to the tireless efforts of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the DOGE, at least one process has been made easy: federal employee retirement.

In pursuit of "higher quality, faster resolution times, and enhanced efficiency," the OPM took on the herculean challenge in September of migrating its retirement application processing operations from a mine in Pennsylvania "to a fully electronic world."

'By hand, on paper, in a system that feels like a time capsule from the 1970s.'

OPM Director Scott Kupor revealed on Wednesday that the challenge was successfully met — meaning greater efficiency and fewer workers having to toil underground at the Iron Mountain mine.

Quick background

For decades, federal retirement paperwork — roughly 10,000 applications per month — has been processed 230 feet underground in a former limestone mine roughly an hour north of Pittsburgh.

Kupor shed a light late last year on the cavernous Boyers, Pennsylvania, facility, noting that "it’s a place where 600 dedicated federal employees process thousands of retirement claims every month — by hand, on paper, in a system that feels like a time capsule from the 1970s."

Kupor noted further that the mine "houses about 26,000 file cabinets filled with manilla envelopes, cardboard boxes, and about 400 million pieces of paper, a true testament to the scale and complexity of federal retirement processing."

While impressive, Kupor said that the mine "is a microcosm of a bigger, more endemic challenge within the federal government: outdated systems and processes that have not kept up with modern technology and that lag in terms of operational efficiency."

The process, until recently, entailed:

  • prospective retirees filling out their retirement paperwork on paper;
  • the routing of the paper applications by mail to the HR departments of the retirees' respective agencies;
  • the routing, again, of the paper applications to the respective payroll providers; and
  • the shipment of pallets loaded with the completed applications to the Boyers facility.

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Stephanie Strasburg/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Under the leadership of U.S. Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia — the Airbnb co-founder who joined the Department of Government Efficiency last year — the OPM attempted to tackle what Kupor characterized as a "50-year problem of epic proportions."

Deliverance

The OPM announced the "Last Day of Paper" on Wednesday and the official end of paper retirement processing for over 95% of federal retirement applications.

Moving forward, virtually all retirement applications will be submitted and processed electronically through the OPM's Online Retirement Application. ORA has already processed in excess of 155,000 retirement applications over the past year.

"Today we’re closing the book on one of the federal government’s oldest paper processes," Kupor said in a statement.

"For decades, retirement applications were literally mailed around the country before reaching OPM. That’s over," continued the OPM director. "By moving retirement online, we’re delivering faster decisions, better service, and greater transparency for federal employees while modernizing an essential government function."

Elon Musk, long a champion of greater efficiencies in the U.S. government, told Fox News Digital, "Now people can retire as soon as they want, instead of waiting six months for paper to be carried into a mine."

Kupor thanked Musk "for his vision on this project," Gebbia "for his technical leadership," and the OPM members who made it happen, quipping, "So long, Michael J Scott," in reference to the fictional paper salesman in "The Office."

The OPM is still in the process of digitizing hundreds of millions of historical retirement records.

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'Time to sue this liar': Elon Musk bristles at Democrat's accusations of DOGE child deaths



Tech trillionaire Elon Musk threatened to file a lawsuit against Rep. Ro Khanna of California after the Democrat accused him of "possibly" causing millions of child deaths: "Time to sue this liar."

Musk helmed the Department of Government Efficiency and presided over massive cuts in foreign aid that he said were mostly waste, fraud, and abuse. He has since left the DOGE and returned to his various tech ventures.

'The richest man in the world announced that he plans to sue me and called for my arrest. I will not be intimidated.'

Critics of the DOGE cuts have since accused Musk of being responsible for child deaths that were supposedly caused by the cessation of foreign aid. They cite a study claiming that the number of child deaths could reach into the millions by 2030.

While many have repeated the accusation, Musk finally fired back when Khanna used it as a part of his campaign to increase taxes on the wealthy to pay for liberal social programs.

"He’s such an evil liar," Musk said Sunday on X, the social media platform he owns.

Khanna said during a podcast interview released Saturday that Musk should be subpoenaed by Congress if the Democrats take over after the midterms and made to answer for the supposed damage done by the DOGE cuts.

Musk called for Khanna's arrest based on insider-trading accusations — which Khanna has denied — and added that Khanna should be imprisoned.

Khanna responded by calling on Musk to testify before Congress.

"Elon Musk Wants Me in Prison," the Democrat said. "I Want Him Under Oath. The richest man in the world announced that he plans to sue me and called for my arrest. I will not be intimidated."

Musk also argued that the cuts were justified and none led to any deaths:

All DOGE required was contact information of the recipients to confirm that funding was not fraudulent. No validated medical funding was stopped.

Anything that appeared to be legitimate lifesaving funding continued and is now administered by the State Department.

If anyone had actually died as a result of DOGE, their names would be worldwide headline news!

Musk previously also called Khanna "great" in Dec. 2022 during a debate on free speech in social media.

The attacks on Musk's wealth escalated after he became the first trillionaire in human history when the SpaceX initial public offering spiked his net worth.

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The achievement led to a public debate about whether trillionaires should be allowed to exist and how progressive the tax system in the U.S. should be for the wealthiest individuals.

"We can tax billionaires a modest amount to make sure everyone has a fair chance while keeping our innovative engine," said Khanna in March.

The SpaceX market capitalization spiked to a high of $2.66 trillion before seeing a correction Tuesday and losing about $600 billion.

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Democrat Star Humiliated as Elon Musk Responds w/ Threat of His Own
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Democrat Star Humiliated as Elon Musk Responds w/ Threat of His Own

No Comment From Airbnb as Chief Legal Officer Ron Klain Defends Graham Platner’s Nazi Tattoo—After Company Distanced Itself From a Cofounder’s Work With Trump Administration

Home rental giant Airbnb is silent after its chief legal officer, former Biden White House chief of staff Ron Klain, described criticism of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo as a "partisan attack" and argued that the ink was simply an attempt to remember "fallen comrades."

The post No Comment From Airbnb as Chief Legal Officer Ron Klain Defends Graham Platner’s Nazi Tattoo—After Company Distanced Itself From a Cofounder’s Work With Trump Administration appeared first on .

Right-wing billionaires are barking up the wrong tree



Democrats are currently on track to take the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms. If this happens, they will empower resistance bureaucrats to slow down all Trump administration initiatives. Of course, they’ll not only impeach Trump, but will also pursue impeachment proceedings against many Trump officials. This will substantially drain momentum from the administration and increase it for Democrats heading into the crucial 2028 presidential election.

The Democrats are already putting together plans, formulating a narrative, and accumulating evidence, which they will use against Republicans should they retake power. We’ve seen this movie before.

Since the billionaires do not know how to wield their potential power, they have become targets.

The Marxist machine has had time to learn from its mistakes during 2020-2024. The Democrats will likely pursue criminal prosecution against key targets in the MAGA orbit, including big donors like Elon Musk, the DOGE bros, and even junior Trump staffers. We’ve already seen in Arctic Frost an effort to spy on sitting Republican United States senators — they’ll be on the target list, too.

This is power. Force is power. Politics is the management of force. For his tech-oriented publication Pirate Wires, Mike Solana recently published “Theory of Power,” which outlines how the left will replicate California’s wealth tax to target billionaires nationwide. He believes that the left is targeting billionaires because wealth is power. He’s half right.

Wealth itself is not power — it is the means to power. The left seeks to redistribute the wealth of the billionaire class to the people living in America in exchange for power. Leftists are not targeting the billionaires because their wealth poses a threat to the left’s power — they want to seize the power of that wealth for themselves. Since the billionaires do not know how to wield their potential power, they have become targets. If they did, the California wealth tax wouldn’t even be an issue.

Wealth cannot protect its holder from force. If politics is the management of force, then political influence is power. There are plenty of people with political influence and no wealth who have more power than billionaires. There are 20-something political staffers who have more political power than billionaires. There is a legion of bureaucrats with more political power than billionaires. Who has more power, a billionaire or the IRS lawyer investigating him? Of course, it’s the IRS lawyer, because the IRS lawyer is backed by regime power.

The billionaire class has largely abdicated regime power — the question of who is in charge — with a few notable exceptions, such as Elon Musk’s 2024 election engagement and purchase of Twitter. The wealthy are quite good at influencing politics for their discreet business interests, with one analysis finding that they receive a 220-times return on investment through their lobbying efforts (other analyses attribute the rise in corporate profits to lobbying).

However, regime politics is not fundamentally about lobbying for an appropriation or a carve-out in the tax code, which puts generating wealth above gaining political power. Machiavelli warned against this in “The Prince”:

And, on the contrary, it is seen that when princes have thought more of ease than of arms, they have lost their states. And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art.

Wielding political influence for higher corporate profits to buy another jet or a fifth vacation home is thinking of ease more than of arms.

If politics is the management of force, then political influence is the “arms.” The billionaires are on track to lose their “state,” because they’ve neglected the art of influencing regime politics.

RELATED: The case against ‘principled conservatism’

wenjin chen/Getty Images

For all its faults, the left understands regime politics. Billionaire wealth extraction is just one part of its plan to sustain and deepen its regime-level power. If its only opposition, the MAGA political class, is destroyed by regime politics, the left’s wealth extraction scheme is not only inevitable, but it will also be the least of the billionaires’ worries.

All of this means that right-aligned billionaires should move immediately to gain regime-level political influence. To be clear, wealth can be a strong amplifier of political influence. Still, political influence has a simple recipe: It requires access, credibility, leverage, and the ability to change behavior. In other words, donating to campaigns is not enough. Elected officials must be lobbied to act in the interest of those who support them, or someone else will lobby them for their own interests.

Before a politician is elected, the benefactor has the leverage. But once the politician has regime-level power, the benefactor is subject to the beneficiary’s power. If right-wing billionaires want to survive what’s coming, they must have a well-run machine to influence politicians after they are elected. Solana makes this point — with which I fully agree: They must “respond as if [their lives depend] on it, because my reading of what these people are saying, casually, cheerfully, and increasingly out loud, is…it does.”

But power is fickle. Any billionaires who wield political influence strictly for their own benefit rather than on behalf of the people will find themselves burdened with all the paranoia and stress of a tyrant. To that end, Xenophon’s “On Tyranny” provides relevant advice: “Consider the fatherland to be your estate, the citizens your comrades, friends your own children, your sons the same as your life, and try to surpass all these in benefactions. For if you prove superior to your friends in beneficence, your enemies will be utterly unable to resist you.”

Editor’s note: This article appeared originally at the American Mind.

The case against ‘principled conservatism’



Frank Meyer’s fusionism combined free-market libertarianism and religion-friendly traditionalism to create the modern conservative movement. As a political alliance against the threat of communism, the movement served its purpose. But the principles that undergirded Meyer’s synthesis were not an adequate basis for attaining and sustaining national power.

The difference between the defeated Barry Goldwater faction and the victorious Ronald Reagan coalition was the vote of white Catholic Democrats alienated from their former party by its anti-anti-Communism and embrace of the three A’s: amnesty (for draft evaders), acid, and abortion.

We need a clearer, more uncompromising articulation of a pure MAGA doctrine that distinguishes our agenda from the libertarians and so-called principled conservatives.

Those former Democrats did not want smaller government, so Reagan preserved, for them and the country, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with generating ever-larger deficits.

Meyer’s synthesis, however, was not as new as is often claimed: In important respects, it represented 19th-century Bourbon Democracy spruced up for the post-World War II era. What distinguished the Bourbons from the Republicans (and from the populist Democrats) was their commitment to smaller government, free trade, and cheap labor. That meant unfree labor in the 1850s and more-or-less free labor once the South was successfully “redeemed” from Republican rule and black civil rights enforcement after the Civil War.

What America needs today instead is fissionism. We need a clearer, more uncompromising articulation of a pure MAGA doctrine that distinguishes our agenda from the libertarians and so-called principled conservatives.

MAGA in foreign and security matters means using American power to secure American interests. Foreign policy is not the application of abstract principles, which are worse than useless in international relations. What were Franklin Roosevelt’s principles or Andrew Jackson’s or Teddy Roosevelt’s? Their guiding star in foreign policy was not principle but the ruthless pursuit of results.

As for draining the swamp, the trench warfare over DOGE and U.S. attorney appointments proves that deconstructing the administrative state requires a pro-Trump Senate. But the current Senate remains beholden to the uniparty. If you are happy with your “principled conservative” senator obstructing the president, then you are on the other side.

Against those screaming for lower taxes and less government at all costs, protective tariffs are core to MAGA — and for that matter, core to the Republican Party before it was taken over by Reagan, a former Democrat and fusionist. MAGA demands an economic policy geared toward national greatness. It means an end to regulations engineered to cripple the U.S. economy in the name of DEI, apocalyptic climate alarmism, or the latest elite neurosis.

Targeted regulations and tariffs to onshore our supply chains and rebuild the American industrial base? Absolutely. That has been Donald Trump’s consistent agenda since he first started commenting on public affairs in the 1980s. If the “principled conservatives” fail to recognize this, that exposes their own ideological blindness, not a flaw in the MAGA platform.

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Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP via Getty Images

Fundamentally, “principled conservatives” don’t want America to be stronger and freer if it means traditional Republican governance. They prefer Bourbon Democracy: small government, cheap goods, cheap labor (citizens and noncitizens alike), and dependence on others — once Britain or the North, now China — for industry, including vital defense-related manufacturing. As for the world, China can do what it wants. Anything else would require the old guard conservatives to compromise their precious “principles.”

People who don’t want the United States to be reliant on China, as Mississippi was on Manchester in 1850, or Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1890, should see “principled conservatives” as political opponents — allies of the Democrats. They are helping to destroy Trump and everything the president stands for.

Does drawing clearer partisan lines mean shedding potential support required for electoral victory? That is a very real risk. The compensating benefit is that once we know what we want, we can accurately identify our allies and band together to address the crises of our time.

A “principled conservative” administration would have preferred Big Pharma to RFK Jr. and MAHA. A “principled conservative” administration would make no room for a Tulsi Gabbard, an Elon Musk, or any other heterodox defector who wants to restore American foreign and security policy and advance American power, national honor, and national freedom.

Fissionism means drawing clear battle lines, dividing what was once the “conservative movement.” The “principled conservatives” can keep their pristine — and currently useless — “principles.” I am on the side of America, which means the side of Trump.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.

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Unhinged Minnesota DHS employee gets off easy after vandalizing Teslas



Last year, Minnesota state employee Dylan Adams was arrested for vandalizing six Tesla vehicles, reportedly causing $20,000 in damage.

Despite the damage, Adams was punished by the state with only a single-day, unpaid suspension, according to a letter from the state Department of Human Services.

'THAT’S IT. He’s not even being PROSECUTED.'

Dylan, an employee of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, was just one of several people arrested last year in connection with the destruction of Tesla vehicles in Minnesota.

The damage was in protest against Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his then-leadership role at the Department of Government Efficiency.

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Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

According to the investigative report, Adams claimed he was disturbed by Musk's hand gestures to a Trump crowd in 2025, perceiving it as a Nazi salute. He said he vandalized the Teslas "in hopes that the owners of the vehicles would disassociate themselves from Elon Musk and Tesla," the report said.

The suspension letter revealed Adams' official punishment and the details of the damage.

“This letter is to inform you of our intent to suspend you for one (1) working day," the letter read, for "the following facts": “Your behavior of vandalizing ('keying') multiple (six) Tesla vehicles in March of 2025 which made local and national headlines.”

Adams was told that he had the right to appeal the suspension, but it does not appear he has done so.

The letter was signed by Heidi Hamilton, Disability Services director.

Adams has never been charged with a crime in connect with the vandalism.

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Photo by Lab Ky Mo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty's office announced last year that prosecutors would opt for "diversion" instead, which officials said was typical in similar cases.

Daniel Borgertpoepping, spokesperson for Moriarty's office, said, "We offered diversion, as we often do with property damage cases when the person has no record. Mr. Adams will have to complete the requirements of the program. He will also have to pay every penny in restitution to the victims. If he does not meet those requirements, we will proceed through the criminal legal system process."

Critics noted the minimal consequences Adams is facing for his actions.

Nick Sortor wrote on X, “THAT’S IT. He’s not even being PROSECUTED. Minnesota is a FAILED STATE!”

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Foreign Billionaire Hansjörg Wyss Funneled Millions to Activist Groups Behind ‘No Kings’ Protests and Anti-Trump Lawsuits, Tax Filings Show

Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss funneled millions of dollars to the left-wing organizations that are organizing the anti-Donald Trump "No Kings" protests and spearheading lawsuits targeting President Trump's immigration and energy policies, according to new tax filings obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. They reveal the extent to which Wyss, a foreign national, is central to anti-Trump resistance efforts.

The post Foreign Billionaire Hansjörg Wyss Funneled Millions to Activist Groups Behind ‘No Kings’ Protests and Anti-Trump Lawsuits, Tax Filings Show appeared first on .