Authored by Ana Kasparian via RealClearInvestigations,

Smiley Martin should have been behind bars. 

A career criminal with a long rap sheet involving firearms, he was given a 10 year sentence in 2018 for punching, dragging and severely beating his girlfriend with a belt. In prison, Martin was found guilty of beating another inmate and engaging in other criminal activity. Nevertheless, he was freed just four years later, thanks to a plea deal that categorized him as a “nonviolent offender” and a California ballot measure that sharply reduced sentences for “good behavior.”

Just two months after his release, Martin and several accomplices, including his brother, were arrested for carrying out the worst mass shooting in Sacramento’s history – leaving six dead and 12 others injured on April 3, 2022. Martin was charged with three counts of murder and illegal possession of a firearm, including a machine gun. He will not stand trial on those charges, since the 29-year-old died in jail of a drug overdose last September.

Martin’s life and death have brought attention to the criminal justice reform that helped put him back on the streets: Proposition 57. The ballot measure was sold to the public in 2016 as a way to relieve the state’s chronically overcrowded prisons by rewarding “nonviolent” offenders for good behavior by shortening their sentences. It was supposed to be a humanitarian answer to what social justice activists described as an epidemic of “mass incarceration.” It has instead put tens of thousands of violent offenders such as Martin back on the streets.

Many of them have been rearrested. The latest Recidivism Report from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows that nearly two thirds (64.2%) of the 34,215 inmates granted early release between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020 had been rearrested as of April 2, 2025.

Breaking down the recidivism rate for prisoners within three years of their release, it reported that “22.1% of the release cohort (7,567 individuals) were convicted of a felony offense, and 17.0% (5,828 individuals) were convicted of a misdemeanor offense.” The Department of Corrections also reports almost half the inmates granted early release had not earned any credits for good behavior.

Prop 57 critics are not surprised. In the run-up to the 2016 ballot measure – which was approved with the support of 65% of voters – the measure’s opponents warned that violent criminals like Martin would likely benefit from the initiative.

But they were denounced as scaremongers. When Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert warned that Prop 57 would free perpetrators of domestic violence, then-Gov. Jerry Brown, who was the top proponent for the ballot measure, shot back; “That’s a complete red herring, and it’s very disingenuous of these highly politicized prosecutors to make that claim.” Brown assured voters that each inmate’s crime and behavior in prison would be considered before release was granted. 

While supporters of Prop 57 described it as a humane response to a court order, critics say its proponents misrepresented the bill to secure its passage. At a time when President Trump is putting progressive criminal justice organizations in his crosshairs, the troubled history of Prop 57 highlights the challenges of rehabilitating inmates while also reducing prison overcrowding without building more prisons.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s Role 

The single most aggressive advocate for Prop 57 was former Democratic Gov. Brown, who had to contend with the consequences of a sentencing reform he had signed in 1976 during his first stretch as governor, when tough-on-crime measures were enacted. Now decades later, with Brown governor again, California’s prisons were housing nearly double the capacity of inmates they were built for. Facilities were so severely overcrowded that the U.S. Supreme Court found their conditions violated inmates’ Eighth Amendment Constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. In May 2011, months following Brown’s inauguration, the court ruled in a split decision that the state must remedy the issue.

In writing for the five-member majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that the state’s prison system was stretched so thin that it failed to provide basic medical care, which, as he wrote, was “incompatible with the concept of human dignity and has no place in a civilized society.” Citing how one prisoner was dying every week due to deficient medical care, Kennedy declared that the courts “must not shrink from their constitutional obligation to enforce the rights of all persons, including prisoners.”

At the prison population’s peak in 2006, more than 165,000 inmates were locked up in a system meant to handle 85,000. But budgetary pressures meant that the state legislature wasn’t willing to allocate the funding necessary to build more space to house inmates. So, the court ordered them to reduce the prison population by 30,000 inmates in order to limit overcrowding to 137% capacity. While there is no specific constitutional level for overcrowding, the majority opted to give California a little more wiggle room than the 130% capacity recommended by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Brown, eager to get federal oversight off his back, joined the state legislature and sprung into action with the passage of AB109, which transferred inmates from crowded state detention facilities into county jails. But some county jails were riddled with the same problems and lacked the capacity to house an influx of inmates. With resources stretched thin, counties began releasing criminals years before they served their sentences. 

By 2014, a Los Angeles Times investigation found more than 13,500 inmates were being released early from county jails each month across the state. Although the public was assured that only those who posed little danger were let go, data shows that some counties completely halted incarceration of those convicted of crimes like domestic violence and child abuse. 

The early release of convicted sex offender Sidney DeAvila was one particularly gruesome example of the unintended consequences of AB109. After DeAvila was let out early from San Joaquin County Jail in February 2013, he went on to rape, kill and dismember his 76-year-old grandmother.

Undeterred by the impact AB109 had on public safety, Brown later campaigned for Prop 47, a 2014 ballot measure that was advertised to Californians as simply lowering penalties for nonviolent crimes like petty theft and drug possession. But the public was left in the dark about how the measure would also lower penalties for car thieves, drug traffickers and open-air drug markets. 

Nevertheless, Brown began promoting additional reforms aimed at lowering California’s prison population.

Officially known as the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016, Prop 57 would, according to Brown, address the state’s prison overcrowding problem while keeping communities safe. Brown pitched the measure as an enlightened step that “orients the prison toward rehabilitation” while appreciating the human capacity for change. “All of us learn. I’ve learned in 40 years,” Brown said at the time. “I think prisoners can learn.” 

But Brown also assured voters there were limits to his progressive vision. He repeatedly noted the ballot measure’s language that only people “convicted of a nonviolent felony offense and sentenced to state prison shall be eligible for parole consideration after completing the full term for his or her primary offense.”  Brown told the Mercury News newspaper in 2016 that“we had planned to offer parole to violent offenders, but we took that out.”

Brown estimated that only about 1,100 prisoners per year would qualify for the program. Prosecutors who opposed the measure in the run-up to the vote also underestimated the number of beneficiaries when they pegged it at 16,000.   

Critics, including some law enforcement groups, district attorneys, and victims’ advocates, argue that Brown’s miscalculation was part of an effort to mislead voters about Prop 57’s reach. Despite repeated assurances that violent criminals would not qualify for early release under the measure, the legislature’s previous crime reclassification efforts meant that only 23 specific crimes – such as murder, rape, arson and carjacking – were considered offenses that would disqualify prisoners from the measure’s benefits. Many crimes the public would consider violent, including Smiley Martin severely beating his girlfriend, are not included on that list.

“Dozens of serious crimes would be considered non-violent for parole purposes,” warned CalMatters columnist Dan Walters, including “assault with a deadly weapon, soliciting murder, intimidating or harming a crime victim or witness, resisting arrest that injures a police officer, violent elder or child abuse, arson with injury, human trafficking and several forms of manslaughter.”

Plea bargains also make some violent criminals eligible for early release. Martin, for example, was originally charged with kidnapping, which is identified as a violent offense in the penal code. But that charge was withdrawn in his deal.

Brown also assured voters that felons who had been convicted of various sexual crimes would not be considered for early release. However, rape of an unconscious person, sex trafficking and even the trafficking of children for sex are not considered violent felonies according to California’s Penal Code. In confirming the deceptive criminal classifications in the state, Attorney General Rob Bonta told CalMatters that these crimes “should be discussed and potentially changed under whatever the appropriate means is for Prop 57.” 

The state legislature agreed with Bonta on the prosecution of child sex predators. Soliciting minors under the age of 16 for sex was considered a misdemeanor in California up until September 2024, when Gov. Gavin Newsom finally signed legislation reclassifying it as a felony with tougher penalties. Previously, soliciting a minor for sex, or paying for it, was simply a misdemeanor punishable by two days in jail and a $10,000 fine.

In 2021, California’s Supreme Court weighed in on Prop 57 and unanimously sided with those who had argued that Brown falsely portrayed the measure’s reach. In writing the unanimous decision, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye stated that “there are portions of [Prop 57’s] opponents’ argument that the [Corrections] Department must concede were correct, including the characterization that individuals convicted of and currently serving sentences for offenses … like assault with a deadly weapon would be eligible for nonviolent offender parole consideration, or that an individual with a prior violent felony conviction for murder would not be excluded from nonviolent offender parole consideration.”

The Chief Justice addressed how perpetrators of serious sex crimes were also qualifying for early release under the measure. She wrote that “the initiative’s language provides no indication that the voters intended to allow the [Corrections] Department to create a wholesale exclusion from parole consideration based on an inmate’s sex offense convictions when the inmate was convicted of a nonviolent felony.”

While the Court didn’t mention Gov. Brown by name, his promotion of the ballot measure was subtly cited by the Chief Justice. “Had the drafters of Proposition 57, and by extension the voters, intended to exclude inmates from nonviolent offender parole consideration based on prior or current sex offense convictions,” the Chief Justice wrote, “it would have been a simple matter to say so explicitly.”

The court’s ruling made little difference, because mere weeks before its decision, voters overwhelmingly rejected another poorly written ballot measure that was supposed to close the violent crime loophole in Prop 57. The measure, known as Proposition 20, sought to alter Prop 57 by denying early release to perpetrators of violent crimes that had not been listed in the California Penal Code. 

However, the measure was misleadingly described as limiting “access to parole programs established for nonviolent offenders.” In other words, there was a fundamental problem with using the word “nonviolent” to describe the gaps in Prop 57 that the measure sought to remedy. Most voters were unaware that the state penal code listed violent crimes like the rape of a unconscious person as nonviolent offenses. So, they were under the impression that Prop 20 sought to impose harsh punishments for petty crimes, which many in liberal California are against. 

Prop 20’s timing may have also led to its demise. Voters decided on the measure in the aftermath of George Floyd’s 2020 murder while in the custody of Minneapolis police and the country was amid what many referred to as a “racial reckoning.” The country, and especially liberal states like California, were less interested in public safety and more open to criminal justice reforms due to concerns over mass incarceration and what they saw as racist policing.

Credit Where Credit Wasn’t Due

Even if voters had been aware that those found guilty of trafficking children or strangling their wives would still be eligible for early release under Prop 57, no one was under the impression that felons would have their sentences cut short without enrolling in rehabilitation programs or earning good behavior credits. However, the latest CDCR report discloses that of the 34,215 inmates who were released early in fiscal year 2019, 13,833 did not earn any enhanced behavior credits to justify a reduction in their prison sentence. Some 44% of those who didn’t earn any credits would be convicted of a new crime following their release.

Even more damning is that the CDCR’s report concedes that the state released “high risk” inmates who are more likely to reoffend. Based on the California Static Risk Assessment (CSRA), a tool used to calculate the risk of a parolee committing a new crime, “high, moderate, and low-risk individuals recidivate at about 60 percent, 40 percent, and 20 percent, respectively.” Yet in fiscal year 2019, “approximately 41.2 percent of individuals in the release cohort have a high-risk score according to the CSRA.”

Indeed, many of the inmates who were released under Prop 57 in 2019 went on to reoffend and get convicted of new crimes (44.0%). However, there were fewer convictions for those who did earn rehabilitative credits in prison (35.8%). 

Of the 39.1% of parolees in fiscal year 2019 who were convicted of other crimes within the first three years of their release, 22.1% were for felonies and 17% for misdemeanors. But only 17.4% of the convicted felons returned to prison. Even so, according to the report, “the percentage of individuals returned for crimes against persons increased by 2.9 percentage points, the largest increase of any return type.”

While overcrowding was the very issue that led to measures like Prop 57, state officials have shuttered several state prisons in recent years. Four were closed in 2021 alone, and it appears that state officials are intentionally avoiding prison time for convicts because their objective is to close more for fiscal and ideological reasons. 

A local Los Angeles publication reported last spring that “because of the declining inmate headcount, California can close up to five more of its 33 prisons and eight yards within operating prisons while still complying with a federal court order that caps the system’s capacity.”  According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the state could save up to $1 billion a year by doing so. The cost to the public’s safety when there’s nowhere to detain perpetrators of violent crimes was not factored into its analysis. 

By November 2024, many Californians were fed up. More than 65% of Alameda County voters approved the recall of Oakland’s progressive District Attorney Pamela Price. Similarly, Los Angeles denied a second term to D.A. George Gascon, another criminal justice reformer. Gascon was replaced with his tough-on-crime challenger Nathan Hochman. Finally, nearly 70% of voters approved Proposition 36, which would reverse an earlier ballot measure that weakened punishments for certain offenses like shoplifting and drug crimes, including trafficking. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom was, and still is, vehemently against Prop 36, citing the financial burden of holding criminals accountable in one of the highest taxed states in the country. Nonetheless, Prop 36 is “an unfunded mandate” that will “set this state back,” according to Newsom. After all, if drug traffickers and repeat smash-and-grab thieves are met with harsher punishments like prison time, the spotlight would be on Newsom for preemptively closing the very facilities necessary to serve their sentences.

In a recent interview, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell expressed frustration over serving the public safety demands of the community with less prison space available. “While the [District Attorney] will file cases that are now available to us through Prop 36, you still have a jail system that is decreasing in size continuously,” McDonnell stated. “When I was Sheriff, there were 18,000 beds available [in Los Angeles County]. It’s now down to 12,400,” he continued. Chief McDonnell argues that the lack of beds is the reason many offenders are back on the streets “without the resources or rehabilitation that we would have liked to have seen.”

While Gov. Newsom has claimed that he “absolutely will implement the will of the voters,” following the passage of Prop 36, the state legislature has refused to allocate the funding necessary to implement it. The truth is, even if the state’s lawmakers provided the money, Californians would still have a mountain to climb with all the various ways the state has chipped away at public safety, including Prop 57, crime reclassifications and prison closures.

Israel launched unprecedented airstrikes which targeted just outside the presidential palace in Damascus early on Friday, at a moment the Netanyahu government is using sectarian fighting as a pretext to intervene militarily in and further occupy Syrian land.

The complex served as the longtime center of the former Assad government, and Jolani (Sharaa) has since been using it as his base from which to rule the country, following Assad’s December ouster. Israel, which usually doesn’t confirm attacks on Syria, described that its military struck “adjacent” to Sharaa’s palace in Damascus.

While Israel had attacked Syria literally hundreds of times while Assad was still in power, it had never directly threatened Assad’s palace or presidential residence.

Syria’s ‘interim’ President al-Sharra also confirmed “bombardment on the presidential palace” and said it marked a “dangerous escalation.” Of course, Syria no longer has anti-air defenses or an air force to speak of.

Israel has suddenly presented itself as taking up the cause of Syria’s Druze minority, who are the latest to be persecuted at the hands of Jolani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Sunni militants. This also as Alawites and Christians come under attack.

Clashes in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana earlier this week saw HTS militants seek to root out Druze factions. After days of fighting, many reports indicate that over 100 have been killed in the anti-Druze clashes.

⚡️🚨 IOF spokesman: “Warplanes bombed the area adjacent to the Ahmed al-Sharaa Palace in #Damascus a short while ago.” pic.twitter.com/6dO7zUMAjm

— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) May 2, 2025

HTS forces are said to be heading south to Druze-dominant communities Suwayda Governorate. Many observers fear clashes could grow and spread to other regions. 

While there are also many Arab Druze citizens of Israel, Tel Aviv have never shown this level of concern for Syria’s Druze before. Clearly the ‘protect the Druze’ mantra is largely a pretext for Israeli expansion and further meddling in Syria.

Israel’s military has since last December already occupied significant portions of southern Syria well beyond the Golan Heights.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that Israeli military intervention has sent “a clear message to the Syrian regime: We will not allow (Syrian) forces to deploy south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community.”

Syria’s presidential palace, which is perched overlooking Damascus…

Interestingly, in another unprecedented first, Damascus is signaling it’s ready to make peace with Israel and enter into full normalization – something the Assad family never so much as hinted at, given the state of war that persisted over the Golan since the very beginning of the modern Syrian state.

As is the case anytime government is involved in a project funded with taxpayer cash, things are moving slowly and corruptly with Philadelphia’s renovation of its 30th St. Station. It’s a restoration that has been underway for the better part of a decade and is showing little to no signs of progress from the station’s exterior. 

In 2018, Amtrak proudly showcased progress on the $109 million restoration of Philadelphia’s historic station. “This is an iconic building in Philadelphia, and making it beautiful is going to increase the citizens’ pride,” project manager Ajith Bhaskaran told reporters. He called the work “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

What Bhaskaran didn’t say was that he had turned that opportunity into a personal payday — a bribery scheme involving luxury trips, gifts, and hundreds of thousands in illicit payments, according to a new article by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The project, originally budgeted at $58 million, ballooned after Bhaskaran signed off on expensive contract changes — including a $9 million amendment — while soliciting bribes from contractors. Just one day before the 2018 media tour, he emailed Mark 1 Restoration executives: “CEO approved.” That same day, a Mark 1 executive co-signed a New York apartment lease for Bhaskaran’s daughter. A month later, he bought Bhaskaran $2,000 Bruno Mars tickets.

Federal investigators say this was part of a three-year conspiracy in which Bhaskaran pocketed $323,686 in gifts from Mark 1, including meals at Del Frisco’s, trips to Atlantic City, a German shepherd puppy, vacations to India and Ecuador, and even a Tourneau watch — all paid for by inflated Amtrak invoices.

Where’s DOGE when you need them…

Meanwhile, Vega Solutions, a second contractor, paid Bhaskaran $150,000 in bribes, gave him credit cards for personal spending, hired his girlfriend and a relative, and provided two Ford Explorers. Vega, prosecutors say, defrauded Amtrak of over $786,000.

The Inquirer writes that Bhaskaran cultivated close ties with contractors early on. In one 2016 email, a Mark 1 executive wrote: “AJ shared this with me last night. Keep it tight… Steak dinner, cigars and whiskey…” Another Mark 1 VP reported Bhaskaran wanted “as much as possible” in a contract change order — and soon, Bhaskaran secured Amtrak’s approval for $13 million more.

Bhaskaran also helped Vega Solutions secure a $1.3 million oversight contract by slashing insurance requirements and then charging flights to the contractor’s credit card. The firm was led by siblings Sandeep Hardikar and Madhura Atitkar, with Atitkar listed as president so Vega could qualify as a woman-owned business.

In 2017, after receiving a luxury watch from Mark 1 executives, Bhaskaran approved millions more in project funds. That year, he vacationed in the Galápagos Islands — flights, lodging, and a cruise all covered by Mark 1. Later, they also bought him a $4,775 purebred German shepherd and covered its training.

All the while, he pressured contractors for more. “Deposited May payroll and extra 8000,” Atitkar texted her brother, who replied Bhaskaran had deposited the funds the next day.

In March 2018, an anonymous tipster alerted Amtrak’s inspector general: Bhaskaran was flouting ethics rules and had hired Vega — then started driving a new Ford Explorer. Investigators launched a sweeping inquiry, collecting emails, records, and even surveillance photos of Bhaskaran out with his dog or in a Hummer limo headed to Atlantic City, the Inquirer said. 

Emails revealed how openly the executives discussed the scheme. “He said we all know Mark 1 is significantly over billed,” one wrote. Yet publicly, they praised Bhaskaran. “I can completely trust them,” Bhaskaran said in a since-removed Amtrak video.

Of the 47 invoices Mark 1 submitted during Bhaskaran’s tenure, he approved every one. He rejected all extra funding requests from another architecture firm — the only one not accused of bribing him.

Bhaskaran was arrested in November 2019 for unrelated wire fraud but admitted to accepting bribes. He died of heart failure in 2020, leaving behind four luxury cars, fake IDs, and thousands in cash.

Prosecutors later added Social Security fraud charges, alleging Bhaskaran had illegally collected $252,000 in benefits meant for deceased in-laws.

Since then, five contractors — including three Mark 1 executives and both Vega siblings — have pleaded guilty. The sixth, Mark 1 owner Mark Snedden, is expected to do the same. Vega repaid the full $786,000.

Prosecutors say the scandal highlights how infrastructure projects can become “lucrative targets for fraud.” An Amtrak spokesperson said the company took “swift and definitive action” and has since overhauled its contract oversight.

Just when you thought you’ve seen it all…

A new musical comedy centered on accused killer Luigi Mangione is set to premiere in San Francisco next month, drawing backlash for what critics see as a tasteless glamorization of violence, according to the New York Post.

“Luigi the Musical” opens June 13 at the Taylor Street Theater, promising a “bold, campy and unafraid” portrayal of the 26-year-old alleged gunman charged in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson—a crime that left two young children without a father. Tickets for opening night are already sold out.

Promotional materials describe the show as “a wildly irreverent, razor-sharp comedy that imagines the true story of Luigi Mangione, the alleged corporate assassin turned accidental folk hero.” The tagline: “A story of love, murder and hash browns,” references Mangione’s arrest while eating at McDonald’s.

The Post writes that in the musical, Mangione shares a fictional jail cell with convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and embattled hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who together become part of his bizarre journey through infamy. “With real-life cellmates Sam Bankman-Fried and Diddy by his side, Luigi navigates friendship, justice, and the absurdity of viral fame,” the synopsis reads.

“If you like your comedy smart and your showtunes with a criminal record, Luigi is your new favorite felony,” the producers boast.

The production is the work of songwriter Arielle Johnson and director Nova Bradford, who cite the musical Chicago as inspiration. Behind-the-scenes clips feature lyrics such as, “…flash those pearly whites, there were cameras there that night, and that’s what let the po-lice take me in,” referencing Mangione’s alleged mistake of removing his mask at a New York hostel, allowing authorities to identify him.

Despite the show’s flippant tone, Bradford defended its creative direction in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle: “We’re not valorizing any of these characters, and we’re also not trivializing any of their actions or alleged actions.”

Mangione is currently on trial in Manhattan for the murder of Thompson. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, which could mark the first federal execution sentence handed down in Manhattan in 70 years.

Authored by J.Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com,

The Department of Government Efficiency noticed a snag: the sign-in button on the IRS homepage wasn’t where it ought to be. Instead of the upper right-hand corner where we, the people, have been trained to look for logins, it was stacked with other buttons in the middle of the page. It was not too hard to find, but its unusual placement disrupted the interface between taxpayers and tax collectors.

It was a simple fix.

Yet an IRS engineer reportedly estimated that it would take at least 103 days to move the button. 

Thankfully, Elon Musk’s team posted last month on X:

“This engineer worked with the DOGE team to delete the red tape and accomplished the task in 71 minutes.”

If DOGE has revealed anything in its first 100 days, it is the depth of government dysfunction. While Musk’s detractors are reveling in his most obvious shortcoming – to date, it has cut an estimated $160 billion in government spending instead of the promised $2 trillion – the urgent need for reform is clear. The difficulty smart and dedicated cost-cutters are encountering in paring the mounds of federal waste is the canary crying in the coal mine.

To take a favorite word of progressives, the issues we face with government inefficiency are systemic. Fraud and abuse are real problems, but, as the IRS button example shows, the deeper issues involve what passes for standard operating procedure. We have built a leviathan that is strangling us with process.

Fred Kaplan provides a telling example in his New York Review of Books piece on Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff’s new book, “Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War.”

As a U.S. Air Force captain, Shah was flying missions over Iraq in 2006, Kaplan writes, when he noticed that his F16’s display screen did not “indicate his location in relation to coordinates on the ground.” Back in his barracks, Shah loaded a pocket PC he had for playing video games “with digital maps and strapped it to his knee while he flew. The software in that $300 gadget let him see where he was – basic information that the gadgetry on his $30 million plane could not provide.”

A decade later, Shah was tapped to lead a small Pentagon start-up, the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), that sought to apply Silicon Valley innovations like the pocket PC to the military. An early challenge was coordinating the refueling of planes in midair.

Kaplan wrote that this is a “very complicated task … Yet to plan these operations, they were moving magnetic pucks around on a whiteboard, just as their forebears had done during World War II.”

He continued: “Northrop Grumman had won a contract to overhaul this system; by the time Shah saw the whiteboard, the company had spent $745 million – twice the original estimate – over ten years with nothing to show for it, and the Air Force was now asking Congress for more. ”

Kaplan reports that Shah connected with “a small Silicon Valley firm” that developed “a working product … in four months, at a cost of $1.5 million.” Needless to say, “they faced intense resistance from the Air Force officer managing the Northrop Grumman program and from staffers on the House subcommittee overseeing the defense budget.” Happily, an advocate in the Pentagon brass helped them “break through the blockage.”

No one knows how many $745 million problems can be solved with a $1.5 million solution, but it seems safe to assume that the answer is plenty. As much as DOGE has drawn attention for firing federal workers and closing a few government programs, its most significant contribution has been exposing the jaw-dropping patterns of waste and inefficiency that bloat the size and cost of government.

One more example: On March 21, DOGE reported that “the IRS has the transaction volume of a mid-sized bank, running similar infrastructure. Those banks typically have an Operations and Maintenance (O&M) budget of ~$20M/yr. The IRS has a ~$3.5B O&M budget (which doesn’t include an additional $3.7B modernization budget).” Keep that in mind when you read the next scaremongering headline about job cuts at the IRS.

Error is inevitable in human action. DOGE has certainly made mistakes. But a bigger blunder is pretending that every government worker and government contract is essential. That is the implicit argument of Musk’s detractors. Even if that risible claim were correct, our current spending trajectory is unsustainable. Something has to give.

Still, there is reason for hope. Instead of just celebrating those who found a way to move a homepage button in 71 minutes, let’s identify and eliminate the layers of bureaucracy that would have turned it into a 103-day ordeal. If software engineers can solve Pentagon problems on the cheap, let’s compile and void a list of stupidly expensive contracts – before increasing its annual budget north of $1 trillion. It can be done.

This effort might even be bipartisan. As the Trump administration has proposed funding cuts to scientific research, his opponents have argued this will kneecap one of America’s greatest strengths: our unrivalled ingenuity and know-how. Why don’t we all agree to use that dynamism to create a government as smart and effective as our nation?

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) launched into a conspiracy-laden diatribe over the 2024 presidential election results, suggesting subpoena power would be necessary to discern whether foreign adversaries—with an assist from Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk—stole the race for President Donald Trump.

“Elon Musk has done nothing in the last five months to make me think that we shouldn’t ask questions about what the hell he was doing in 2024,” Swalwell said on a recent podcast, uncovered by Breitbart News, when asked about an alleged U.S. data leaked through Elon Musk’s Starlink services.  

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) stokes 2024 election denial on a far-left podcast (check the host’s shirt) and vows to use “subpoena power” on @elonmusk about whether Starlink gave election data to the Russians if Democrats win the midterms

“Elon Musk has done nothing in the last 5… pic.twitter.com/mt35ud4OKA

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 1, 2025

“Maybe we gave him too much of the benefit of the doubt after the election, but the way that he’s conducted himself with DOGE, and the way that he’s exposed us to so many hackers outside, and the way that he’s taken data, you know, from Americans, from our records — whether it’s Social Security or health care records, the only way that we can understand, you know, what the hell Elon Musk has been doing is to be in the majority,” the the lawmaker added, emphasizing that Democrats regaining a House majority to secure subpoena power would be a critical step in determining whether interference occurred in the 2024 election.

Swalwell’s rhetoric isn’t new. Back in 2016, he was a vocal proponent of the now-debunked narrative that Russia colluded with Trump to steal the election from Hillary Clinton. As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Swalwell pushed investigations into Trump’s campaign ties to Russia, citing contacts with Russian operatives and the DNC email hacks. “The Russians wanted Donald Trump to win, and they took steps to make that happen,” he told CNN in 2019, referencing the Mueller Report. Critics, however, note the report found no evidence of direct collusion.

Swalwell previously faced intense scrutiny due to his past ties to Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese spy who targeted up-and-coming U.S. politicians. According to a 2020 Axios investigation, Fang, also known as Fang Fang, operated in the Bay Area from 2011 to 2015, cultivating relationships with local leaders who had potential to rise on the national stage. She reportedly engaged in sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors to gain influence. Fang acted as a “bundler” for Swalwell’s 2014 congressional campaign, raising significant funds while he was a Dublin, California, city councilmember. She also attended events with Swalwell, including a 2013 Lunar New Year banquet and a 2012 student event at CSU East Bay, as documented in photos uncovered by Axios.

Fang’s activities raised red flags with the FBI, which had been monitoring her as part of a broader counterintelligence operation targeting Chinese espionage. She abruptly fled the U.S. in 2015 amid the FBI’s investigation, leaving unanswered questions about her influence. While Swalwell’s office claimed he cooperated with authorities and cut ties with Fang upon learning of the probe, critics argue his association with her casts doubt on his judgment—especially as he now accuses others of foreign collusion.

Projection much, Swalwell? 

A series of disappointing earnings (with peak earnings season this week) from fast-food chains, beverage giants, and consumer companies underscores persistent financial strain on low- and middle-income consumers—pressured by lingering Biden-era inflation and increasing fears over tariffs and mounting economic uncertainty under the current administration. 

On Thursday, McDonald’s reported same-store sales that tumbled 3.6% in the US, the largest year-over-year decline since the second quarter of 2020. The decline was mainly because of sagging visits at stores nationwide. 

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski wrote in a statement that consumers “are grappling with uncertainty.” He noted that McDonald’s will be able to “navigate even the toughest of market conditions and gain market share.” 

Citi analyst Jon Tower told clients that McDonald’s soft sales should “come as little surprise” to investors, with the fast-food chain “speaking to a muted outlook/challenged global consumer back in mid-February and category high-frequency data/other company 1Q updates all suggesting lower-income guests were pulling back.” 

On Friday morning, Wendy’s slashed its sales outlook for the year, signaling consumers are dialing back their store visits and ticket spending. 

Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner stated that the US market faced a “challenging consumer environment.” The fast-food chain warned that the pullback in spending was more acute with customers making below $75,000. 

Last week, Chipotle missed first-quarter revenue estimates and reported that same-store sales had fallen for the first time since 2020. 

Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright warned investors that a “slowdown in consumer spending” materialized, forcing it to lower the top end of its full-year same-store sales growth outlook. 

At the beginning of the week, Starbucks reported disappointing global comparable sales and profit, with sliding US demand. 

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol’s turnaround strategy for the coffee chain appears to have stumbled after the company reported four straight quarters of declining sales.

“Our financial results don’t yet reflect our progress, but we have real momentum with our ‘Back to Starbucks’ plan,” Niccol told investors.

Yum Brands, the parent of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, also reported this week. Yum posted a mixed first quarter, with a sales slowdown that began to soften in January but improved through February and March. 

In the consumer goods space, Procter & Gamble reported mixed quarterly results as demand for its products fell. Executives of the company, which owns Tide and Charmin, slashed their full-year outlook for earnings per share and revenue based on consumer slowdown and tariff uncertainty.

The broader pessimism from QSRs and consumer-facing companies mirrors the sharp downturn in the Conference Board’s confidence index, which just sank to a 14-year low.

Labor market conditions also weakened.

In markets, Goldman analyst Nelson Armbrust said consumer discretionary stocks were “net sold for a fourth straight month, driven by short sales outpacing long buys ~5 to 1.” 

Goldman’s take: “Sentiment remains very soft in Consumer, due to both sourcing and tariff concerns, while investors are also focused on the consumer slowdown theme.” 

More broadly, with peak earnings season now behind us, Goldman Chief Equity Strategist David Kostin told clients Friday that results have held up relatively well:

1Q 2025 year/year earnings growth is tracking at 12%, 6 pp higher relative to the start of the reporting season. Better than expected margins have driven the positive surprise so far with the average earnings surprise tracking at 5% vs. an average sales surprise of 1%.

Kostin also noted: 

One lingering question heading into May is whether the slide in consumer spending and sentiment will worsen—or if it can be reversed by a series of positive trade headlines. 

By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice.com

The OPEC+ members currently participating in voluntary production cuts will meet this Saturday, May 3, instead of Monday, May 5, according to Kpler’s Amena Bakr on X. The call is set for noon Vienna time, with the agenda focused on “consensus building around maintaining the sped-up increment of 411K for June.”

Brent crude had slipped nearly 1% by late Friday morning, trading at $61.56. It’s a price level not seen since early 2021—and one that puts most OPEC+ budgets underwater. 

For producers already grappling with restricted output, prices below $65 are a growing fiscal headache.

The accelerated meeting follows mounting tensions within the group. 

Reports suggest Saudi Arabia is signaling it can live with lower prices—a not-so-subtle message to chronic overproducers like Iraq and Kazakhstan.

The 411,000 bpd production increase originally floated as a wake-up call may now be cemented into policy, signaling a strategic shift in Riyadh’s approach.

OPEC+ has pledged to offset 4.57 million bpd of overproduction by mid-2026. But enforcement remains patchy. 

Saturday’s call will test whether Riyadh and Moscow can still steer the ship—or whether quota politics are about to devolve into a full-blown battle for market share.

Meanwhile, a Bloomberg survey released Thursday showed that OPEC’s actual output fell by 200,000 bpd in April, down to 27.24 million – contradicting the group’s planned increase.

Goldman assigns a 70% subjective probability that the announced change in OPEC8+ supply for June will be 0.41mb/d, a 25% probability to a larger increase, and a 5% probability to a 0.14mb/d increase.

Market pessimism is already pricing in a production hike. 

But April’s figures are a reminder: announced increases don’t always materialize. Whether Saudi Arabia will keep absorbing the blow while others cheat—or start using price as a weapon to enforce discipline—won’t be decided in a Vienna video call. It’ll be decided at the wellhead.

A key Trump demand of the Zelensky government was quietly dropped as a condition of peace talks as well as the Ukraine minerals deal, which was finally signed this week.

Washington is no longer seeking to pressure or force President Volodymyr Zelensky to hold elections that could result in his being ousted office for the sake of peace, according to information in The Telegraph. 

“The demand has been quietly dropped from the latest set of American proposals for a ceasefire,” The Telegraph writes. “The American decision to stop demanding elections is designed to placate the Ukrainian officials who have argued against swathes of a seven-point peace plan tabled by Mr Trump.”

The minerals deal still has to be formally approved by Ukraine’s parliament, according to the nation’s constitution. Below is said to be the current seven-point plan offered by Trump, aspects of which were previously rejected by Ukrainian officials…

As for dropping the demand for Zelensky and parliament to hold elections, the Kremlin itself seems to have somewhat quieted down on this in recent weeks.

Without doubt, Moscow still wants to see Zelensky go, but appears willing to not press the issue if he were willing to give up territory for the sake of ceasefire (which so far isn’t happening – not even regarding Crimea).

Zelensky’s term in office expired in May 2024, and Ukrainian parliament has recently reaffirmed the ‘constitutionality’ of Zelensky’s mandate as leader of the country during wartime. Trump soon after taking the Oval called him a ‘dictator’ who canceled elections, and even long before that called him the “world’s greatest salesman” as he received hundreds of billions from the US and Western allies.

Meanwhile, fresh statements from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio express continued optimism on the potential for peace. He says “they’re closer” to peace – in reference to Moscow and Kiev.

“For a hundred days he has done efforts to bring about peace… Look, we’ve gotten closer. We – for the first time – we haven’t known this for three years – we kind of can see what it would take for Ukraine to stop. We can see what it would take for the Russians to stop,” Rubio said.

He then noted, “They’re closer, but they’re still far apart. And it’s going to take a real breakthrough here very soon to make this possible… or I think the president is going to have to make a decision about how much more time we’re going to dedicate to this,” he added.

It’s been widely reported that during Zelensky’s impromptu 15-meeting with President Trump on the sidelines of the pope’s funeral last weekend he was able to ease the pressure on Kiev coming from Trump.

“Zelensky’s advisers were divided about whether he should even risk the tête-à-tête after the disaster in the Oval Office,” Axios reported days after the meeting. “But after it, Zelensky felt he’d managed to shift Trump’s thinking about Putin for the first time, the sources say.”

Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday that HHS is no longer facilitating child trafficking in the United States and is instead “very aggressively” searching for the hundreds of thousands of migrant children lost by the Biden administration.

“We have ended HHS’s role as the principal vector in this country for child trafficking,” Kennedy said during a White House Cabinet meeting with President Trump and other top administration officials to mark the first 100 days of the president’s second term.

“During the Biden administration, HHS became a collaborator in child trafficking for sex and for slavery, and we have ended that,” RFK Jr. declared.

In November 0f 2022, an HHS volunteer came forward to accuse the Biden regime of knowingly participating in the sex-trafficking of minor children after observing how it processed unaccompanied migrant children at an HHS Emergency Intake Site in Pomona, California.

The whistleblower, Tara Lee Rodas, went to Project Veritas with her first hand account of how the Biden regime’s corrupt child sponsorship program exploited and endangered vulnerable unaccompanied minors by placing them with criminal, noncitizen sponsors.

In some cases, dozens of unaccompanied alien children (UAC) were sent to the same residence of an unvetted sponsor.

Thousands of these minors “ended up in punishing jobs across the country—working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories—all in violation of child labor laws,” the New York Times reported in February of 2023.

In August of 2024, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General released a blistering report showing that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had lost track of up to 320,000 unaccompanied minors over the previous five years.

Approximately 291,000 of those were released into the U.S. and never given a date to appear in immigration court.

Another 32,000 children were released with hearing dates but failed to show up to their immigration hearings.

“We’re very aggressively going out and trying to find these 300,000 children that were lost by the Biden administration,” RFK Jr. said Wednesday.

Homeland Security agents in California recently rescued two teenage migrant sisters from Honduras who were being held in captivity at a hotel in West Covina, California, the New York Post reported.

Christopher Ramirez was allegedly “pimping” the  sisters, ages 16 and 18, sources told the Post.

The youngest victim was placed in the custody of Biden’s HHS, which placed her with her sponsor.  The older teen was released after declining “services or placement.”

Cops with the West Covina Police Department initially found the girls and arrested Ramirez on local charges.

The feds are still looking for co-conspirators who helped move the migrant girls, who are from Honduras, from Texas to California and forced them into prostitution, sources said.

Ramirez is also facing federal charges.

The Trump administration has reunited approximately 5,000 unaccompanied migrant children with family members or “safe guardians” in its first 70 days, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Trici McLaughlin said in an X post.

“Unlike the previous administration, President Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem take the responsibility to protect children seriously and will continue to work with federal law enforcement to reunite children with their families,” said McLaughlin.