The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.
Voters in Venezuela are choosing lawmakers, governors and other officials Sunday in polling being held against a backdrop of heightened government repression and opposition calls to boycott the election.
The election is the first to allow broad voter participation since last year’s presidential contest, which President Nicolás Maduro claimed to have won despite credible evidence to the contrary. It is taking place two days after the government detained dozens of people, including a prominent opposition leader, and linked them to an alleged plot to hinder the vote.
About an hour after polls opened, around a dozen voters were outside the country’s largest voting center, located in the capital — a stark contrast with the hundreds who were already in line around the same time for the July 28 presidential election. An increased police presence was noticeable across Caracas, where squad cars with lights on dotted quiet neighborhoods.
Voter participation, in the eyes of the opposition, legitimizes Maduro’s claim to power and his government’s repressive apparatus, which after the July presidential election detained more than 2,000 people including protesters, poll workers, political activists and minors, to quash dissent. Meanwhile, the ruling party is already touting overwhelming victory across the country, just as it has done in previous regional elections regardless of opposition participation.
A nationwide poll conducted between April 29 and May 4 by the Venezuela-based research firm Delphos showed that only 15.9% of voters expressed a high probability of voting Sunday. Of those, 74.2% said they would vote for the candidates of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela and its allies, while 13.8% said they would vote for contenders associated with two opposition leaders who are not boycotting the elections.
“I think it’s absolutely despicable,” opposition operative Humberto Villalobos said Saturday referring to the election participation of some opposition members. “We’re facing the most brutal repression in recent years in the country. (The vote) is a comedy, a parody.”
Villalobos was elections division chief for opposition leader Maria Corina Machado when he and five other government opponents sought refuge in March 2024 at a diplomatic compound in Venezuela’s capital to avoid arrest. He spent more than a year there and on Saturday, along with four of the others, spoke publicly for the first time since they left the compound and arrived in the United States earlier this month.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who met with the group Friday, has described their departure from the compound as an international rescue operation. That assertion has been challenged by Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who has said it was the result of a negotiation with the government.
The ruling party-loyal National Electoral Council is overseeing Sunday’s election for state legislators, 285 members of the unicameral National Assembly and all 24 governors, including the newly created governorship purportedly established to administer Essequibo, a region long under dispute between Venezuela and neighboring Guyana.
In Maduro’s Venezuela, Sunday’s results will have little impact on people’s lives because his highly centralized government controls practically everything from Caracas. The government also represses the opposition by, for instance, disqualifying a candidate after the election or appointing a ruling-party loyalist to oversee the elected offices held by opponents, rendering them powerless.
Further, after the opposition won control of the National Assembly in 2015, Maduro created an election for members of a Constituent Assembly in 2017. That body, controlled by the ruling party, decreed itself superior to all other branches of government until it ceased to exist in 2020.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation charged a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center with domestic terrorism for his involvement Sunday in a violent attack on police officers at the construction site for a police training facility near Atlanta.
Although the SPLC claimed the attorney was a legal observer, the agitators were dressed in Antifa-style black bloc for the attack on the facility they call Cop City, and the SPLC has a long history of carrying water for Antifa rioters.
The SPLC claimed that the lawyer’s arrest “is not evidence of any crime, but of heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protesters.”
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The Atlanta Police Department reported that agitators threw “rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police,” destroying multiple pieces of construction equipment and threatening bodily harm. But the SPLC’s statement didn’t condemn the violence, instead directing criticism at “a months-long escalation of policing tactics against protesters and observers.”
The National Lawyers Guild, which released a joint statement with the SPLC and identified the SPLC attorney and alleged terrorist as one of the guild’s legal observers, called all 23 arrests Sunday, out of 34 detained, “part of ongoing state repression and violence against environmental justice protesters.”
Police released video showing more than 100 rioters advancing on the future site of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
The National Lawyers Guild stated that it “remains in solidarity with the movement to Stop Cop City,” and the SPLC urged the “de-escalation of violence and police use of force against Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities,” without mentioning the violence against police officers at the construction site.
This move echoes a long pattern at the SPLC, which has become notorious for branding mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups,” putting them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan yet keeping Antifa off its list and map despite its extremist, violent methods.
Richard Cohen, who resigned as SPLC president amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal in 2019, did offer a rare, explicit condemnation of Antifa violence in 2017. Even then, he defended the SPLC’s decision to keep Antifa off its list of “hate groups.”
“We oppose these groups and what they’re trying to do. We just don’t think anyone should be able to censor someone else’s speech,” Cohen told the Washington Examiner. He warned that Antifa’s violent tactics are “likely to lead to other forms of retaliation.”
“In Berkeley, Antifa showed up and shut down speeches. The next time the white supremacists brought the Oath Keepers with them, they brought their own army,” Cohen added. Yet he insisted that the SPLC would not brand Antifa a “hate group” because its adherents don’t discriminate against people on the basis of race, sexual orientation, or other characteristics protected by anti-discrimination laws.
There might be forms of hate out there that you may consider hateful, but it’s not the type of hate we follow,” Cohen said.
The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a “hate group” as “an organization or collection of individuals that—based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities—has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” However, the SPLC has incorporated many apparent exceptions to the concept of “immutable characteristics.”
Immigration status, for example, is not an “immutable characteristic,” yet the SPLC maintains a list of 18 “anti-immigrant hate groups,” including the Center for Immigration Studies.
The SPLC also maintains a “general hate” section in its list of “hate groups,” including the Christian tract publisher Chick Tracts and the Proud Boys, a right-leaning agitation group that often engages in violent scuffles with Antifa. Although the Proud Boys repeatedly has denied accusations of racism, the SPLC points to statements from current and former leaders in condemning the group.
Yet the SPLC has not merely refused to brand Antifa a “hate group” alongside the Proud Boys. In June 2020, the SPLC attacked then-President Donald Trump for announcing his intention to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization.
“Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is a broad, community-based movement composed of individuals organizing against racial and economic injustice,” the SPLC’s “Hatewatch” wrote. “Those who identify with the label represent a large spectrum of the political left. The Trump administration frequently uses the term to describe any group or individual that demonstrates in opposition to its policies. Far-right extremists use similar tactics.”
The SPLC condemned Trump’s move as “unprecedented and alarming” and a threat to “the civil liberties of U.S. citizens, particularly those of color, who are already disproportionately policed.”
The organization claimed that Trump’s announcement about Antifa was “rooted in politics, not the present realities of the terror threat in the U.S.”
“Individuals loosely affiliated with Antifa are typically involved in skirmishes and property crimes at demonstrations across the country, but the threat of lethal violence pales in comparison to that posed by far-right extremists—a problem that, until the last year, federal authorities virtually ignored,” the SPLC added.
The summer 2020 riots following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis led to more than $2 billion in damages, according to Property Claim Services, which tracks property insurance claims.
This total eclipses the $775 million paid out in 1992 ($1.4 billion in 2020 dollars) after the Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of police officers who brutalized Rodney King. More than two dozen Americans died in the 2020 riots, according to The Guardian. Victims included black Americans, including retired police Capt. David Dorn.
The SPLC’s “Year in Hate” report for 2020, released in 2021, condemned as an example of “far-right and racist narratives” the idea that the riots represented a bigger problem than police violence against blacks.
Reporting on an August 2020 poll condicted by the SPLC, the report noted:
Despite some high-profile support for Black Lives Matter protests this summer, the poll showed that 51% of Americans thought that the looting which occurred in several cities was a bigger problem than police violence against Black people, and 51% also thought that the protests were not justified because the problem with police violence was isolated to a few ‘bad apples.’
These racist narratives and beliefs have been reinvigorated thanks to one of the most enduring and pernicious legacies of the Trump era: the far right’s success constructing a false alternative reality, bolstered by a never-ending stream of baseless conspiracy theories and disinformation.
I documented other connections between the SPLC and Antifa in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” including activist researcher Megan Squire’s work feeding information to the SPLC. The magazine Wired profiled Squire as Antifa’s “secret weapon,” noting that although she doesn’t identify as Antifa, she refuses to condemn the group’s use of violence.
Since the book’s publication in 2020, Squire has joined the SPLC as deputy director for data analytics and open-source intelligence and she spoke at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit, held in September in Pittsburgh.
Extremism researcher Eoin Lenihan mapped the Twitter interactions of Antifa activists, finding strong connections to SPLC reporter Michael Hayden. Critics have attacked Lenihan’s credibility because of his previous internet activity. However, Cathy Young independently verified that Hayden’s stories for Newsweek in 2017 and 2018 “do, in fact, closely fit Lenihan’s description of the work of journalists he labels pro-Antifa: ‘downplaying Antifa violence while advancing Antifa talking points, and in some cases quoting Antifa extremists as if they were impartial experts.’”
Laird Wilcox, a longtime extremism researcher, attributed the August 2017 violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, to the presence of Antifa.
“Had there been no Antifa people in Charlottesville, nothing would have happened,” Wilcox said in remarks first published in “Making Hate Pay.” “But because Antifa was there, you wound up with violence and all kinds of really ugly situations.”
Wilcox said Antifa and the SPLC work together “in an informal basis,” with Antifa “using information provided by the SPLC.” Yet he warned that there likely will not be any “easily documented cases of cooperation,” in part because Antifa “is remarkably decentralized in order to avoid liability.”
Wilcox also noted that Antifa agitators are “virtually” all white, “in order to avoid associating their violence and terrorism with black or brown activists.”
Notably, the Southern Poverty Law Center also provided a grant to establish the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, which modeled itself on the SPLC. In November, a Canadian court dismissed a defamation lawsuit against a conservative journalist who had claimed that the Canadian Anti-Hate Network helped Antifa.
“The evidence disclosed that CAHN did in fact assist Antifa and that the movement has been violent,” Deputy Judge David Dwoskin wrote in his ruling.
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network has called for libraries to be “sites of anti-fascist resistance” and urged libraries to “combat disinformation and fearmongering about ‘antifa’ by carrying and promoting explicitly anti-fascist books.”
When confronted with the racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal that led the SPLC to fire its co-founder in 2019, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network told The Daily Signal that it “has no formal association or partnership with the SPLC.” However, the Canadian organization did not deny reports that the SPLC provided its initial grant or that it modeled itself on the SPLC.
The SPLC did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on this report by publication time.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has a long history of carrying water for Antifa. The arrest of an SPLC lawyer at a black bloc protest in Atlanta Sunday has drawn new attention to the issue. Pictured: Members of Antifa hold shields during a protest at Black Lives Matter Plaza on Dec. 12, 2020, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation charged a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center with domestic terrorism for his involvement Sunday in a violent attack on police officers at the construction site for a police training facility near Atlanta.
Although the SPLC claimed the attorney was a legal observer, the agitators were dressed in Antifa-style black bloc for the attack on the facility they call Cop City, and the SPLC has a long history of carrying water for Antifa rioters.
The SPLC claimed that the lawyer’s arrest “is not evidence of any crime, but of heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protesters.”
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now
The Atlanta Police Department reported that agitators threw “rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police,” destroying multiple pieces of construction equipment and threatening bodily harm. But the SPLC’s statement didn’t condemn the violence, instead directing criticism at “a months-long escalation of policing tactics against protesters and observers.”
The National Lawyers Guild, which released a joint statement with the SPLC and identified the SPLC attorney and alleged terrorist as one of the guild’s legal observers, called all 23 arrests Sunday, out of 34 detained, “part of ongoing state repression and violence against environmental justice protesters.”
null
Police released video showing more than 100 rioters advancing on the future site of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
The National Lawyers Guild stated that it “remains in solidarity with the movement to Stop Cop City,” and the SPLC urged the “de-escalation of violence and police use of force against Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities,” without mentioning the violence against police officers at the construction site.
This move echoes a long pattern at the SPLC, which has become notorious for branding mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups,” putting them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan yet keeping Antifa off its list and map despite its extremist, violent methods.
Richard Cohen, who resigned as SPLC president amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal in 2019, did offer a rare, explicit condemnation of Antifa violence in 2017. Even then, he defended the SPLC’s decision to keep Antifa off its list of “hate groups.”
“We oppose these groups and what they’re trying to do. We just don’t think anyone should be able to censor someone else’s speech,” Cohen told the Washington Examiner. He warned that Antifa’s violent tactics are “likely to lead to other forms of retaliation.”
“In Berkeley, Antifa showed up and shut down speeches. The next time the white supremacists brought the Oath Keepers with them, they brought their own army,” Cohen added. Yet he insisted that the SPLC would not brand Antifa a “hate group” because its adherents don’t discriminate against people on the basis of race, sexual orientation, or other characteristics protected by anti-discrimination laws.
null
“There might be forms of hate out there that you may consider hateful, but it’s not the type of hate we follow,” Cohen said.
The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a “hate group” as “an organization or collection of individuals that—based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities—has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” However, the SPLC has incorporated many apparent exceptions to the concept of “immutable characteristics.”
Immigration status, for example, is not an “immutable characteristic,” yet the SPLC maintains a list of 18 “anti-immigrant hate groups,” including the Center for Immigration Studies.
The SPLC also maintains a “general hate” section in its list of “hate groups,” including the Christian tract publisher Chick Tracts and the Proud Boys, a right-leaning agitation group that often engages in violent scuffles with Antifa. Although the Proud Boys repeatedly has denied accusations of racism, the SPLC points to statements from current and former leaders in condemning the group.
Yet the SPLC has not merely refused to brand Antifa a “hate group” alongside the Proud Boys. In June 2020, the SPLC attacked then-President Donald Trump for announcing his intention to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization.
“Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is a broad, community-based movement composed of individuals organizing against racial and economic injustice,” the SPLC’s “Hatewatch” wrote. “Those who identify with the label represent a large spectrum of the political left. The Trump administration frequently uses the term to describe any group or individual that demonstrates in opposition to its policies. Far-right extremists use similar tactics.”
null
The SPLC condemned Trump’s move as “unprecedented and alarming” and a threat to “the civil liberties of U.S. citizens, particularly those of color, who are already disproportionately policed.”
The organization claimed that Trump’s announcement about Antifa was “rooted in politics, not the present realities of the terror threat in the U.S.”
“Individuals loosely affiliated with Antifa are typically involved in skirmishes and property crimes at demonstrations across the country, but the threat of lethal violence pales in comparison to that posed by far-right extremists—a problem that, until the last year, federal authorities virtually ignored,” the SPLC added.
The summer 2020 riots following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis led to more than $2 billion in damages, according to Property Claim Services, which tracks property insurance claims.
This total eclipses the $775 million paid out in 1992 ($1.4 billion in 2020 dollars) after the Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of police officers who brutalized Rodney King. More than two dozen Americans died in the 2020 riots, according to The Guardian. Victims included black Americans, including retired police Capt. David Dorn.
The SPLC’s “Year in Hate” report for 2020, released in 2021, condemned as an example of “far-right and racist narratives” the idea that the riots represented a bigger problem than police violence against blacks.
null
Reporting on an August 2020 poll condicted by the SPLC, the report noted:
Despite some high-profile support for Black Lives Matter protests this summer, the poll showed that 51% of Americans thought that the looting which occurred in several cities was a bigger problem than police violence against Black people, and 51% also thought that the protests were not justified because the problem with police violence was isolated to a few ‘bad apples.’
These racist narratives and beliefs have been reinvigorated thanks to one of the most enduring and pernicious legacies of the Trump era: the far right’s success constructing a false alternative reality, bolstered by a never-ending stream of baseless conspiracy theories and disinformation.
I documented other connections between the SPLC and Antifa in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” including activist researcher Megan Squire’s work feeding information to the SPLC. The magazine Wired profiled Squire as Antifa’s “secret weapon,” noting that although she doesn’t identify as Antifa, she refuses to condemn the group’s use of violence.
Since the book’s publication in 2020, Squire has joined the SPLC as deputy director for data analytics and open-source intelligence and she spoke at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit, held in September in Pittsburgh.
Extremism researcher Eoin Lenihan mapped the Twitter interactions of Antifa activists, finding strong connections to SPLC reporter Michael Hayden. Critics have attacked Lenihan’s credibility because of his previous internet activity. However, Cathy Young independently verified that Hayden’s stories for Newsweek in 2017 and 2018 “do, in fact, closely fit Lenihan’s description of the work of journalists he labels pro-Antifa: ‘downplaying Antifa violence while advancing Antifa talking points, and in some cases quoting Antifa extremists as if they were impartial experts.’”
Laird Wilcox, a longtime extremism researcher, attributed the August 2017 violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, to the presence of Antifa.
“Had there been no Antifa people in Charlottesville, nothing would have happened,” Wilcox said in remarks first published in “Making Hate Pay.” “But because Antifa was there, you wound up with violence and all kinds of really ugly situations.”
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg is drawing attention after publicly praising Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), calling her the “type of leader we’re looking to support.” Hogg, who the DNC is currently trying to oust, endorsement reflects the left’s establishment’s ongoing shift toward more progressive, outspoken figures, despite it backfiring on the Democratic Party.
During an appearance on The Breakfast Club radio show, Hogg said that the Democratic Party needs a “hell of a lot more people” like Crockett, gloating over her.
“I love her. She is amazing,” Hogg told host Charlamagne tha God. “I think that people want to see somebody who fights and calls out the bullsh*t, ultimately. I think that’s what Jasmine does, and we need a hell of a lot more people that are out there that are willing to do just that and call people out on their B.S.”
“I think Jasmine is frankly the type of leader that we’re looking to support, in some sense,” he continued. “Somebody who is out there that frankly doesn’t give a damn what the other side [says] … that say what they believe in.”
Hogg claimed that “People are really craving that right now.”
I recently reported how Crockett mocked Christian lawmakers over SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) reforms, claiming they are “set on taking food from the hungry.” She also recently claimed that Republicans were “inherently” violent.
She also spoke out in defense of Democrat Rep. LaMonica McIver (NJ), who is facing allegations of assaulting ICE agents during an arrest near a Newark detention center. Crockett criticized the Department of Justice’s decision to charge McIver, calling it an example of government overreach and accusing officials of using the justice system for political intimidation.
These celebrities make me ill. They have millions. So they need not worry about socialized medicine, public schools mutilating and indoctrinating their children, felony charges for misgendering, and all the rest. They can insulate themselves from the socialism and Communism they cherish. I do not begrudge them their millions. But they made their millions in a largely capitalist American system they now wish to eliminate. Capitalism was fine for themselves, but once they make their millions, they demand Communism for the rest of us. It’s depraved, sadistic and I am sick of these loathsome, moralistic, shamelessly ignorant and willfully intellectually illiterate famous creeps that millions of Americans continue to worship, like gods.
To explain why your communities are being ruined. Grok answers and eventually admits that it is exactly as first questioned a mandate to have racially mixed communities nationally
Q National mandate was through HUD in the Obama administration to have every zip code reflect national race proportions. what is the name of the mandate ? A There was no national mandate under the Obama administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) explicitly requiring every zip code to reflect national racial proportions. The policy often associated with efforts to address racial segregation and housing disparities is the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, finalized in 2015.
The AFFH rule, under the Fair Housing Act, required local governments and housing authorities receiving federal funds to assess and address patterns of segregation and discrimination in housing. It provided communities with data on racial demographics, poverty levels, and other factors to promote fair housing practices and reduce disparities. While it aimed to foster more integrated communities, it did not mandate that every zip code mirror national racial proportions. Claims suggesting such a specific requirement often stem from misinterpretations or exaggerations of the AFFH’s goals.
If you’re referring to a specific claim or source, feel free to provide more details, and I can dig deeper
Q How were the governments and housing authorities to address patterns of discrimination in housing under this rule? A. Under the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, finalized by HUD in 2015 during the Obama administration, local governments and public housing authorities receiving federal funds were required to take proactive steps to address patterns of housing discrimination and segregation. The rule aimed to promote fair housing and reduce disparities by ensuring communities actively worked toward equitable housing access. Here’s how they were expected to address these patterns:
Conduct an Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH): Jurisdictions had to complete a detailed analysis using HUD-provided data tools, which included demographic data on race, ethnicity, poverty, disability, and access to opportunities (e.g., schools, jobs, transportation). The AFH identified barriers to fair housing, such as zoning laws, discriminatory lending practices, or unequal access to housing resources, and pinpointed areas of segregation or racially concentrated poverty.
Develop Goals and Strategies: Based on the AFH findings, governments and housing authorities were required to set specific, measurable goals to address identified issues. Strategies could include revising zoning ordinances to allow more affordable housing, investing in underserved neighborhoods, improving access to quality schools or transit, or enforcing anti-discrimination laws more robustly. Integrate Findings into Planning: The AFH was to be incorporated into broader planning documents, like Consolidated Plans and Public Housing Agency Plans, which guide how federal housing funds are spent. This ensured fair housing considerations were part of decisions on housing development, community revitalization, and resource allocation.
Community Engagement: The rule mandated public participation, requiring jurisdictions to consult with residents, community organizations, and fair housing groups to ensure diverse perspectives shaped the AFH and proposed solutions. This aimed to address local needs and build accountability.
Monitor and Report Progress: Jurisdictions were required to track progress on their fair housing goals and submit regular reports to HUD. HUD could review these efforts and, if necessary, withhold funding from entities failing to comply with the rule. Key Focus Areas:
Reducing racial and ethnic segregation.
Addressing disparities in access to community assets (e.g., quality schools, healthcare, jobs). Combating discriminatory practices, such as redlining or exclusionary zoning.
Promoting inclusive housing options, like affordable units in high-opportunity areas.
The AFFH rule did not dictate specific outcomes (e.g., mandating racial proportions in zip codes) but emphasized local flexibility to tailor solutions to unique community challenges. It provided data and a framework to guide decision-making while holding recipients of federal funds accountable for advancing fair housing.
If you’d like details on specific tools, examples of AFH plans, or how the rule was implemented in certain areas, let me know!
Q What are the benchmark data set used to spot and assess disparities? A Under the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule finalized by HUD in 2015, local governments and public housing authorities were provided with specific benchmark data sets to identify and assess disparities in housing and access to opportunities. These data sets were part of HUD’s Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH) tool, designed to help jurisdictions analyze patterns of segregation, racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty (R/ECAPs), and inequities in access to community assets. Below are the key benchmark data sets used:
HUD-Provided Data (AFFH Data and Mapping Tool): Demographic Data: Racial and ethnic composition of populations at the census tract, jurisdiction, and regional levels. Data on national origin, limited English proficiency (LEP), disability status, and family status. Identification of R/ECAPs, defined as areas with significant poverty (over 40% poverty rate) and a majority non-white population. Housing Data: Distribution of housing types (e.g., single-family, multifamily, public housing). Locations of subsidized housing (e.g., Section 8, Low-Income Housing Tax Credit properties). Homeownership rates by race/ethnicity. Housing cost burden (percentage of income spent on housing) by demographic group. Opportunity Indices: School Proficiency Index: Measured access to high-performing schools based on test scores and proximity. Jobs Proximity Index: Evaluated access to employment centers based on distance and job density. Labor Market Engagement Index: Assessed employment rates, education levels, and labor force participation by area. Transit Access Index: Measured proximity to public transportation and frequency of service. Environmental Health Index: Evaluated exposure to environmental hazards (e.g., pollution, toxic sites). Poverty Index: Analyzed poverty concentration and economic segregation. Segregation and Integration Metrics: Dissimilarity Index: Quantified the degree of racial/ethnic segregation between groups within a jurisdiction or region. Isolation Index: Measured the extent to which a racial/ethnic group is isolated from others. Disparities in Access to Opportunity: Compared access to schools, jobs, transit, and other assets across racial/ethnic groups and income levels.
Local and Regional Data: Jurisdictions were encouraged to supplement HUD’s data with local sources, such as: Zoning and land-use policies. Local housing authority records (e.g., waitlists, voucher usage). Community surveys or resident feedback. Data from state or regional planning agencies (e.g., transportation or economic development plans). These local data sets helped contextualize HUD’s standardized metrics and address jurisdiction-specific issues. Publicly Available Federal Data: HUD drew from broader federal sources, including: U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey (ACS) data for demographics, income, housing, and poverty. Department of Education: School performance metrics. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Environmental hazard and air quality data. Department of Transportation: Transit access and infrastructure data. How Data Was Used to Spot and Assess Disparities: Mapping Tools: HUD’s AFFH Data and Mapping Tool (AFFH-T) provided interactive maps showing demographic patterns, R/ECAPs, and opportunity indices at the census tract level. This helped visualize disparities, such as concentrations of poverty or unequal access to high-performing schools.
Comparative Analysis: Jurisdictions compared demographic groups (e.g., by race, ethnicity, or income) to identify disparities in housing cost burden, homeownership, or access to jobs and transit.
Segregation Metrics: The Dissimilarity and Isolation Indices quantified how segregated or integrated a community was, highlighting areas needing intervention.
Opportunity Gaps: Opportunity indices revealed inequities, such as whether minority groups lived farther from quality schools or jobs compared to white residents. Community Input: The rule required jurisdictions to pair quantitative data with qualitative input from residents and stakeholders to identify barriers not captured in data sets, like discriminatory practices or community perceptions.
Access and Implementation:
HUD provided these data sets free to jurisdictions through the AFFH-T online platform, ensuring accessibility for communities of varying resources.
Jurisdictions used the data to complete their AFH, which informed goals and strategies to reduce disparities, such as revising zoning laws or targeting investments in underserved areas.
Note: The AFFH rule’s implementation was partially suspended in 2018 under the Trump administration, and a revised version was reinstated in 2021 under the Biden administration. Data sets and tools have evolved, but the core metrics remain focused on demographics, housing, and opportunity access. If you’d like specifics on a particular data set, examples of disparities identified, or how a specific jurisdiction used these tools, let me know!
Earlier this year, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered $4.7 trillion in untraceable Treasury Department payments.
Prior to the discovery, Treasury Account Symbol (TAS) identification codes were optional for $4.7 trillion in Treasury Department payments, so they were often left blank and were untraceable. The field is now required to increase “insight into where the money is actually going,” the Treasury Department and DOGE announced in February.
“Of the 1.5 billion payments that we send out every year, they are required to have a TAS, a Treasury Account Symbol. We discovered that more than one third of those payments did not have a TAS number,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government earlier this month.
Fox News Digital asked Republican senators on Capitol Hill to respond to the approximately 500,000 in untraceable payments made by the Treasury Department each year.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, called for an investigation into where those payments actually went.
“There’s so much waste. There’s so much fraud, There’s so much abuse in our government,” Schmitt told Fox News Digital. “I’m glad there was a laser-like focus on it. We ought to make many of those reforms permanent, but there probably ought to be some investigations here about where this money actually went. I mean this is taxpayer money. People work hard.”
After DOGE and the Treasury Department uncovered $4.7 trillion in untraceable funds, Marshall and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida introduced a bill in March requiring the Treasury Department to track all payments.
The Locating Every Disbursement in Government Expenditure Records (LEDGER) Act seeks to increase transparency in how the Treasury Department spends taxpayer money.
When you hear about this story that they didn’t know where the money was going, it makes you mad because this is somebody’s money, this is taxpayers’ money when we have almost $37 trillion in debt, so this makes no sense at all,” Scott said.
The Congressional Budget projects that interest payments on America’s national debt will total $952 billion in fiscal year 2025. That’s $102 billion more than the United States’ defense budget at $850 billion.
“We paid out more last year on our debt, $36 trillion in debt, with $950 billion in interest going to bondholders all over the world, including in China. That $950 billion didn’t go to build a bridge or an F-35. We paid more on the interest on debt than we did to fund our military,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska.
“That is an inflection point that when most countries hit, you look at history, that’s when great powers start to decline. So we have to get those savings.”
Deirdre Heavey is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
Boy, this burger is great, Roy! What’s your secret?”
“Tom, don’t you know Hillary Clinton says Trump’s new budget is going to increase food insecurity?”
“*&%$ it Roy! I just wanted to enjoy Memorial Day with friends. Shove your burger! C’mon Betty, we’re leaving!”
Rather than honoring the military men and women who gave their lives defending their fellow Americans’ right to live in freedom, two-time failed Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is calling on her supporters to bash President Donald Trump and his One Big Beautiful Bill that passed the House this week when they get together with friends and neighbors at Memorial Day gatherings this weekend:
I’m giving you a mission for this Memorial Day holiday weekend.
I want you to talk to two people—friends, neighbors, cookout attendees—about why Trump’s proposed budget would be a disaster for American kids.
We owe the next generation every chance, and this isn’t it.
How the Trump budget bill would impact kids. (It would be a disaster.)
* Drastically cut health care. 15 million Americans, including millions of children, could lose access through Medicaid cuts and ACA marketplace changes. * Increase food insecurity. Nearly 11 million people—including 4 million kids—could lose SNAP food assistance. * Make families poorer. The bill would kick 4.5 million American kids off the child tax credit. * Leave AI dangers unchecked. The bill would freeze state-level AI regulation for 10 years, stripping states of the ability to protect kids from deep fakes, exploitation, and more.
I’m giving you a mission for this Memorial Day holiday weekend.
I want you to talk to two people—friends, neighbors, cookout attendees—about why Trump’s proposed budget would be a disaster for American kids.
Clinton turned off replies to her post, however there are plenty of quote tweets commenting on her suggestion. Here are two from people who know her well.
Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson, USAF (Ret.) who carried the nuclear football in the Clinton White House in the 1990s, “Or, you could spend the Memorial Day weekend to honor our fallen heroes in the manner they deserve and not make the cookouts political. I choose that approach.”
Or, you could spend the Memorial Day weekend to honor our fallen heroes in the manner they deserve and not make the cookouts political. I choose that approach. https://t.co/MQuJgvluXo
Reminder to Hillary Clinton what Memorial Day is about: Honoring the fallen.
Kristinn Taylor has contributed to The Gateway Pundit for over ten years. Mr. Taylor previously wrote for Breitbart, worked for Judicial Watch and was co-leader of the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com. He studied journalism in high school, visited the Newseum and once met David Brinkley.
Prevost is a vocal critic of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and has consistently used his X account to promote material hostile to Trump’s immigration policies.
In one instance from February 3, Prevost reposted an article by NCROnline titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” The article criticizes the U.S. vice president for correctly arguing that we owe more immediate responsibility to our own family members and country than to those overseas – a position taught by St. Thomas Aquinas and reiterated in the “social encyclicals” of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century popes.
He shared a similar article by dissident America Magazine on the same topic days later.
Persecuted Bishop Strickland, appointed McElroy
As head of the Congregation for Bishops, Prevost was instrumental in the removal of Bishop Strickland from Tyler, Texas, and the leading French conservative bishop, Dominique Rey, from his diocese of Fréjus-Toulon.
Meanwhile, he has placed openly heterodox bishops in sees worldwide. The most notorious is Cardinal McElroy, who was installed as Archbishop of Washington despite being implicated in the cover up of sexual abuse by ex-Cardinal McCarrick
Banned Communion on tongue, promoted invalid confessions
During COVID, Prevost imposed receiving Communion on the hand, and Confession by telephone, which is both invalid and sacrilegious.
He also reposted a call for the abortion-tainted COVID-19 vaccines to be “available for all” and a USCCB post that called getting vaccinated “an act of love.”
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Support of synodality and the ‘synodal church’
A strong supporter Francis’s radical agenda, Prevost supports “synodality.” He has suggested that “synodality” is the solution to “the current polarization currently gripping the Church.” He dismissed those who “prefer the security of answers already experienced in the past.”
Prevost restated this goal during his speech from the loggia in his first public appearance following the conclave, in which he said, “we want to be a synodal Church.”
Leftists attacked anyone who questioned Biden’s cognitive capacity while President. At the time, they called you the usual names if you suggested Joe didn’t know what he was doing: racist, white supremacist, etc.
Now they act shocked and surprised at the “new” evidence which proves Biden didn’t have a clue about his dead son or the day of the week — and had cancer, to boot. When Breitbart and Newsmax reported on Biden’s incapacity in 2023 and 2024, it was racist. When MSNBC reports the same thing in 2025 — why, it’s suddenly true!
These chattering fools have no concept of how juvenile and unsophisticated they look. Many of them are wealthy (often unearned wealth through political connections, not business skill); and many of them hold Ivy League credentials (often unearned, such as the Obamas, who achieved credentials based on their race via DEI, not any real achievements). The elite chattering fools only talk to each other and never see themselves objectively. It’s absolutely incredible that the least morally qualified and least intellectually capable form the elite of American culture. It’s no wonder we are rotting away, like a termite-ridden foundation of a house. Look at the people we consider the experts and authorities on medicine, government, morality, and culture!
Trump is great, his second term is a monumental blessing, and MAGA is magnificent. But our problems are deeper than political. We have to eradicate the media and intellectual elites from our frame of reference. In short: ignore them. Start over, and think for ourselves.
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Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Newsmax on Thursday he wants to see a major investigation into whether people covered up former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.
“There should be an absolutely comprehensive investigation of who knew what and when,” Giuliani told “Finnerty.” “He was demented.”
Giuliani said his research has shown that people around Biden knew he had cognitive issues as far back as 2019, and he said he spoke to two doctors who observed the same. He said he believes people could go to jail for covering up Biden’s issues.
His doctor is a prime candidate,” Giuliani said. “His doctor went over the top … [and said] he had a few little problems. His doctor told us he was in fine health and he was perfectly sharp. Cognitive abilities not affected. I looked at that doctor and I said, ‘How come they don’t grab his license?’ My God, I wouldn’t want to go to him. What a disgrace he is.”
The former mayor also said Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, is “the prime villain.”
“She had to have known how bad her husband is and didn’t care how she embarrassed him, made him look like a fool, made him look like an idiot. Any loving wife would take her husband and take care of him.”
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 