Sat:Yesterday I Asked Who ia Donating to George Santos

Of Course the QOP Wants Dumb Kids.  They Grouw up to Be Dumb Adults, and Guess Who Dumb People Vote For

House Democrats warned that hundreds of thousands of teachers could lose their jobs if legislation advanced Friday by a Republican-controlled appropriations subcommittee becomes law.

The panel's draft Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies funding bill for the coming fiscal year calls for nearly $64 billion in total cuts, a proposal that Democrats said "decimates support for children in K-12 elementary schools and early childhood education" and "abandons college students and low-income workers trying to improve their lives through higher education or job training."

The nonprofit Committee for Education Funding noted that the Republican proposal would impact "virtually all" education programs, hitting teacher funding, student aid, and more. The bill, one of a dozen appropriations measures that Congress is looking to pass by the end of September, would bring Department of Education funding to below the 2006 level, according to the group.

Yesterday I Asked, "Who Are the Idiots Donating Money to George Santos?" Fans of Crooks and Scam Artists

When George Santos, the indicted but still-in-office Republican congressman from Queens, New York, recently filed the campaign finance report for his reelection effort, there was something unusual about it: Of about 50 total contributors, the document listed about three dozen contributors spread across the country who mostly have Chinese names and who had each maxed out to Santos by donating $3,300, the legal maximum for the primary election. Together, this group pumped roughly $130,000 into Santos’ political bank account. This was hardly a coincidence. This band of financial backers appear to include supporters of Miles Guo, the exiled Chinese billionaire and Steve Bannon associate who was arrested in March for allegedly running a $1 billion fraud scheme.

This roster of donors represents almost all of the money Santos pulled in in the second quarter of this year.

One of these maxed-out contributors is Rona Starks (also known as Rong Liang Starks), who lives in Sugar Land, Texas. According to an associate of Starks, she has been a big fan of Guo and his crusade against the Chinese government, and that prompted her to write a check for $3,300 to Santos, who has stridently defended Guo. She declined to speak to Mother Jones. Xuehong Zhang, another Santos donor who sent him $3,300 and who is a masseuse in Plano, Texas, told the New York Times, “I see him want to take down CCP [the Chinese Communist Party]. I just want to take down CCP.”

Guo, who fled China in 2014 to avoid fraud charges there, has branded himself a foe of the Chinese Communist Party, and he has amassed a loyal following of supporters in the Chinese diaspora in the United States and abroad. In March, the Justice Department charged Guo with deploying a series of fraudulent business schemes to fleece his fans out of more than $1 billion. Federal prosecutors alleged Guo used investors’ funds to pay for mansions and fancy cars, $36,000 mattresses, and a $27 million yacht. He has been indicted for wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. Guo claims the feds are after him at the behest of the Chinese government to silence him.

George Santos Cashed In Big With Followers of Indicted Chinese Billionaire Miles Guo

Part 3

Five years ago, on July 16, 2018, President Donald Trump met in the capital of Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There he delivered what Sen. John McCain called “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” Standing next to Putin at a news conference, Trump refused to condemn Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election or even to admit that it had occurred. This came a little more than a year after Trump had attended a NATO summit in Brussels at which he refused to affirm the alliance’s Article 5 collective security guarantee. (He later reluctantly endorsed Article 5 but continued to criticize the alliance relentlessly.)

On Thursday, President Biden visited Helsinki for a very different purpose. He came not to kowtow before Putin but to stand up to him — and not to undermine NATO but to strengthen it.

Part 5

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration will cancel $39 billion in student debt for more than 804,000 borrowers, the Education Department said on Friday, describing the relief as the result of a "fix" to income-driven repayment (IDR) plans.

Borrowers will be eligible for forgiveness if they have made either 20 or 25 years of monthly IDR payments, the department said. The IDR program caps payment requirements for lower-income borrowers and forgives their remaining balance after a set number of years.

Gov DeathSentence Tries to Say Something About Ukraine

Four months after getting tripped up in a Tucker Carlson questionnaire about Ukraine that forced a quick backtrack, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday at the 2023 Family Leadership Summit dealt with the same topic by the same inquisitor with seven minutes of non-answer.

DeSantis talked about his time spent in Iraq as a Navy lawyer, about the Mexican border and how many migrants are crossing illegally, about how fentanyl traffickers would end up “stone cold dead” if he were in office, how it’s humiliating that the United States is running low on ammunition, how the real threat was China, and how in Florida they have banned the purchase of land by the Chinese communist party.

“I think the goal should be to have sustainable peace in Europe. OK, we don’t want there to be war breaking out. (He is against war and in favor of peace.) There have been a lot of people who have been killed, displaced. It’s a horrible thing. But you have to provide an articulation of where you’re going to go to get there. My fear right now is they’re basically doing an open-ended conflict. This is going to be a multi-year quagmire. There’s going to be a lot of people that are going to die, and there’s not going to be much facts changed on the ground,” he said in one stretch during a candidates’ forum for the 2024 GOP presidential candidates.

“It’s not all peaches and cream out there,” he added at another point. “I wish the D.C. elites cared as much about our border as they care about the Ukraine-Russia border,” he said and then pivoted to China. “We can have a situation where our kids or grandkids are memorizing 37 different pronouns in Mandarin.”

How Goofy Is Clueless Kevin?

Anyone worried that Disneyland might somehow take over the training of the military can relax: It won’t happen on Kevin McCarthy’s watch.

The House speaker made that very ― sorry, can’t help it ― goofy promise Friday after the chamber passed the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which raises pay for service members by 5.2% while also blocking abortion coverage, Pentagon diversity initiatives and transgender health care. After the Senate passes its own version of the bill, a compromise will have to be reached on the final legislation.

“We don’t want Disneyland to train our military,” the California Republican said, touting the bill’s passage in the House. He added on Twitter that the legislation “ENDS the wokism in the military.”