Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Chinese health authorities have said this winter’s flu season is less severe than the year before, but medical experts cast doubts over the transparency of its respiratory illness situation.

Residents from four different cities have expressed concerns about an uptick in respiratory infections within their families and communities when speaking to The Epoch Times.

Some suspected their flu-like symptoms may actually be caused by COVID-19, fearing that doctors were instructed to avoid such diagnoses, given that the authorities declared a victory in its fight against the pandemic almost two years ago.

In Shenyang, northern China, a woman named Xu said she’s noticed more people sick with respiratory illnesses have seen local hospitals packed again during the Lunar New Year holiday.

“I’m feeling unwell myself and haven’t recovered. The hospital said I contracted influenza A, but I believe it’s just COVID-19,” Xu told The Epoch Times on Feb. 7. She expressed concerns about how quickly the virus circulated among humans this time, saying her son, daughter-in-law, and their school-aged daughter have all fallen ill. “The authorities are concealing the scale of the outbreak.”

Flu Toll Questioned

China’s top health body has acknowledged the country is grappling with a spike in respiratory infectious illness, but said the rate of influenza has shown signs of slowing down.

During the regime’s most recent briefing, National Health Commission (NHC) officials reiterated its previous assessment, saying the scale and intensity of the spread of respiratory infectious diseases this year is lower than it was during the previous winter season.

“No new infectious disease had been detected,” Mi Feng, NHC’s spokesperson, told reporters on Jan. 17, ahead of the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, attributing the current infections to a combination of known germs, most prominently influenza. No data was provided during the briefing.

It remains unclear how many people were infected with the influenza virus or COVID-19 this year. The latest figures showed 112 COVID-19 infections and seven deaths in December 2024, according to a monthly report from China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Since December 2022, after a leaked recording of an internal NHC meeting indicated the COVID outbreaks were far worse than the official tallies indicated, the top health regulator stopped publishing daily COVID figures and transitioned COVID-related updates to its sub-department, CDC.

In a separate report, the CDC reported 1.5 million influenza cases last December, leading to seven deaths.

Medical experts have questioned the accuracy of these flu statistics.

“It’s clear that the mortality rate is being underreported,” Sean Lin, a virologist and former lab director at the viral disease branch of the U.S. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, told The Epoch Times.

The official tally means for every 100,000 people who contracted the flu in China, only one has died, a contrast to the much graver rates observed in the United States, where between 5 to 10 out of every 10,000 individuals face fatal outcomes, according to Lin’s analysis.

“Given China’s [high] level of air pollution and the large number of smokers, the number of people with underlying respiratory diseases in China is supposed to be substantial, so the death toll from influenza is likely much higher than reported,” Lin said.

Dong Yuhong, a medical doctor specializing in infectious diseases, also raised concerns about the absence of detailed data, calling them essential for preventing potential pandemics.

Dong recalled during previous COVID-19 outbreaks, there was often a noticeable gap between official numbers and the accounts of frontline workers, crematorium staff, and residents on the ground.

The Chinese regime has drawn widespread criticism for covering up COVID-related information. The scrutiny goes back to almost the onset of the pandemic, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. At that time, the regime concealed the outbreak’s true scale and silenced whistleblowers, allowing regional outbreaks to develop into a global pandemic.

Without reliable health statistics, the international community would be in the dark about the true situation in China, according to Dong.

“Real statistics are crucial for epidemic prevention. They help us understand the scale of an outbreak and evaluate the effectiveness of our response measures,” Dong told The Epoch Times.

Concerns Among the Public

Chinese citizens don’t seem convinced by Beijing’s optimism about this winter illness season, with some appearing to be cautious about the current situation.

A man working in the industrial hub of Guangdong said he didn’t travel back home for the Chinese New Year, the country’s most important festival, which fell on Jan. 29 this year. He cited concerns about the outbreaks in his hometown of Xuchang, located over 800 miles away, where he heard the situation was “severe.”

“It’s still caused by COVID-19,” the man, surnamed Shao, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 5. “The hospitals are full … many passed away recently, and the crematorium is busy.” Shao lamented missing his uncle’s funeral that day. His uncle had been healthy and, according to Shao, after getting the domestic COVID-19 vaccine two years ago, he became weak and ultimately succumbed to “white lung” pneumonia.

Shao’s sentiment was echoed by a dancing teacher in Beijing, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions. She painted a grim picture of the flu season this year, describing it as “very serious” as many of her students have fallen ill and showed flu-like symptoms. Diagnoses mainly pointed to Type A flu or HMPV, a type of flu that recently attracted global attention, though “privately everyone said it was COVID-19,” she said.

The teacher recalled her relative, a young man who passed away just days after contracting the flu. She said she couldn’t help but suspect that the domestic COVID-19 vaccine played a role, given his previously good health and lack of underlying conditions.

In the central province of Anhui, a middle-aged father said his child and his mother also got sick, and in his city, he heard many infected were seriously ill.

“They say it’s just flu,” the man, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, told The Epoch Times, “but after taking [flu] medications, their symptoms haven’t improved at all.”

He said he speculated there was a “new virus” circulating, but he heard others linked it to a mutated COVID variant. Nevertheless, “all these news [reports] were concealed,” he said.

Luo Ya and Xiong Bin contributed to this report. 

Attorneys general from 22 blue states along with Washington DC and San Francisco signed a secret agreement just 3 days after President Trump won the 2024 election for a coordinated response to resist Trump’s anticipated actions to end birthright citizenship.

According to an investigation by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, the 22 AGs agreed to legal collaboration and communication to defy Trump’s immigration enforcement initiatives, including any deemed confidential or privileged.

All shared information would be used to coordinate various legal schemes, as well as pre-lawsuit investigations, litigation strategies, complaints, dispositive motions, merits briefs, and amicus briefs. The agreement also bars third parties from accessing any of this shared information, which is defined as all documents, materials, information, and communications exchanged between the attorneys generals’ offices prior to the agreement. 

The agreement does allow for public records requests, but requires any AG to give five days’ notice to the other AGs about the request before it was due.

🚨SECRET BLUE STATE RESISTANCE AGREEMENT OBTAINED – BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP🚨

We have obtained a secret agreement between 22 blue states, DC, and San Francisco, signed beginning on November 8, 2024. This agreement, just 3 days after President Trump’s landslide election win,… pic.twitter.com/7AsqgCjlcX

— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) February 11, 2025

“The Parties have agreed that they have a common interest in developing potential litigation to challenge executive action related to ending or curtailing birthright citizenship,” according to the agreement.

As AZ Free News notes further, the other attorneys general to enter the secretive agreement oversaw California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, as well as Washington, D.C.

The city and county of San Francisco, California also joined the agreement last month. 

Trump issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship during his first day in office. The order extends to children born of illegal immigrant parents in the U.S. It prohibits the federal government from issuing or accepting citizenship documents from persons born under those circumstances after its effective date, which is scheduled to take place later this month. 

“[T]he Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” read the order. 

The order flies in the face of longstanding court precedent on the matter.

That precedent led three federal judges in separate cases to block Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The first two occurred in Washington and Maryland, with the third occurring on Monday in New Hampshire. 

Mayes joined Arizona to the case blocked in the Washington district court earlier this month. Based on the timeline of the secretive agreement and the filing of their lawsuit, it appears the case emerged directly from that agreement.

“The court’s decision to block this illegal executive order nationwide protects the basic right to birthright citizenship guaranteed by the 14th Amendment,” said Mayes. “I will keep fighting to protect the Constitutional rights of all Arizonans from the Trump administration’s illegal actions.”

Several of those states signed onto the secretive agreement — Washington, Oregon, and Illinois — were partnered on the lawsuit with Mayes. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

CNN’s resident data reporter Harry Enten highlighted Monday how President Trump has experienced a huge surge in popularity this time around compared to his first term, noting “Trump’s doing what he promised to do.”

Several polls have found Trump has a net positive approval rating, with a CBS News poll putting him at 53 percent approval, his highest across both terms.

“It’s not just CBS … I like to take an average of the polls. And holy smokes. I mean, look at what the difference is between now versus eight years ago during the first Trump term, right?” Enten stated, looking at the numbers.

“Holy smokes… Whoa… We’re living in A Different World…”

Trump’s had a net positive approval rating for all 21 days of his 2nd term vs. just 11 days during his entire 1st term!

Big reason? 70% say he’s doing what he promised vs. just 46% who felt that way by April 2017. pic.twitter.com/Tj3jSAv0rL

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) February 10, 2025

“This is Trump’s net approval rating on February 10th,” Enten said, explaining “You go back to 2017, Trump was already underwater at minus five points in the net approval rating, that’s approval minus disapproval. What a difference eight years makes. He’s on the positive side of the ledger at plus four points.”

He continued, “And again it’s not just the CBS News poll. We’re talking about the Gallup poll. We’re talking about the Ipsos poll. We are talking about the Pew poll. All of these respective pollsters have Trump in a better position now than they did eight years ago.”

“The bottom line is, Americans are far more likely to say they like what they’re seeing now versus what they felt during Trump‘s first term,” the number cruncher emphasised.

Enten also specified how rare it was for Trump to hold a net positive rating throughout his first term.

“I want you to take a look at this plus sign, right? Compare that to the negative sign, being on the plus side of the ledger, right. In positive net approval territory. A positive net approval rating for Donald Trump. Again, whoa whoa whoa whoa,” the data reporter said. 

“Entire first term. Just 11 days. Just 11 days Donald Trump had a net positive approval rating. Compare that to the second term just so far. Just so far,” he urged.

“Every single day of Trump’s second term so far, he has been on the positive side of the ledger, 21 days, all three weeks. That’s already 10 more days than he was in his entire first term,” he stressed.

When asked to explain why Trump is so much more popular, Enten replied “I think one of the things that’s so important for politicians is for folks to believe what they‘re saying and that they’re keeping their campaign promises. So I think this gives you a pretty gosh darn good idea of what may be going on, Trump’s doing what he promised to do.”

 “You go back to April of 2017. It was just 46 percent of all Americans who said that Trump was doing what he promised to do. Compare that now to February of 2025,” he added.

“We’re living in a different world,” Enten reasoned, noting that “70 percent of Americans say Trump is doing what he promised to do.”

He added that “When Americans are 24 points more likely to say that you‘re doing what you promised to do, it’s no wonder that your net approval rating is much more likely to be on the positive side of the ledger than on the negative side.”

“And so far, what we’re seeing again is Americans 21 days so far versus just 11 days during his entire first term that Trump has a positive net approval rating. Quite a different world,” Enten concluded.

Popular ideas, beginning being implemented quickly. Well articulated on the campaign trail. Expectations of voters set. Center-Right country likes common sense policy. A model for all elections at all levels.

— Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (@SebastianMRT) February 10, 2025

Just imagine if 90% of his coverage wasn’t negative fear mongering.

All of america would be united if not for legacy media stoking division.

— Damaged (@LIQUID_DAMAGE) February 10, 2025

The question is: will legacy media ever wrap their heads around the truth, that he would have had these numbers in 2017 too, if not for all the lies and fiction from the Dems and the very same legacy media?

— Carl Bradley 🇺🇲🏒🍻🎸 (@CarlBradley737) February 10, 2025

Democrats being completely insane is helping.

— JWF (@JammieWF) February 10, 2025

Lefties are seething rn. pic.twitter.com/p4Y7421nXO

— Notionally Accurate | Hosted by Captain Kirk 🇺🇸 (@notionallyacc) February 10, 2025

Leftists can’t cope with it and are eager to point out that ‘Hitler was popular too’.

I believe Adolf Hitler also was true to his word in 1930s Germany. No wonder he experienced wild popularity in Nazi Germany.

Btw, I thought gasoline and egg prices were magically going to go down the minute Donnie was sworn in? What happened to him keeping his word on that?

— P G (@Habs_1) February 10, 2025

Hitler did what he said he’d do too. The real question is what does this say about the American people? How are they not horrified? How will they react when he refuses to obey court orders?

— Nicholas Carlin (@Nikromos) February 10, 2025

they got the fascism they voted for but you should Check up on things in 30 more days when the leopard face eating really gets going

— slav in cañon (@republikaaleks) February 10, 2025

*  *  *

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DOGE head Elon Musk said on Tuesday that DOGE is going to investigate federal employees whose net worths have exploded despite their comparatively low pay.

The announcement – which came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to work with DOGE, follows a bombshell report that Samantha Power, former head of USAID, saw her net worth explode to $30 million despite an annual salary under $250,000.

President Trump and Elon Musk exposes the EX-USAID Chief Samantha Power who accumulate a $30 million of net worth over a matter of years with a $180k annual salary. pic.twitter.com/3auDYginRs

— DeVory Darkins (@devorydarkins) February 11, 2025

“We don’t know why. Where did it come from? I think the reality is that they’re getting wealthy at the taxpayer expense,” Musk said on Tuesday.

Power, a former ambassador to the United Nations under President Obama, and was sworn in as head of USAID in May of 2021, reported a net worth between $6.7 million-$16.5 million in January of 2021 on a disclosure form. Her net worth is now estimated as high as $30 million, according to the website Biden’s Basement.

🚨EX-USAID CHIEF SAMANTHA POWER’S NET WORTH SKYROCKETS—FROM $6.7M TO $30M ON A $180K SALARY

Samantha Power, Biden’s ex-USAID chief, saw her wealth explode while earning just $180K per year.

Where did the extra $23.3M come from? And all of this in just 3 years! USAID oversees… https://t.co/D5c30Jibzj pic.twitter.com/bAOfC2FDub

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) February 9, 2025

According to various reports, Power’s sources of income have varied over the years. After serving as UN Ambassador, she reportedly made $471,000 per year as a Harvard professor, and made $351,000 from speaking engagements with major firmst such as Nestle, Google and UBS, along with $1 million in book royalties.

Most notably, however, was an $11.73 million gain in her investment holdings.

If we had to venture a guess, DOGE’s access to information from the Treasury, USAID, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), run through Palantir’s intelligence apparatus (including AI), will quickly unravel graft hidden through multiple layers of organizational fog.

Meanwhile, there’s the issue of lawmakers who have become unbelievably ‘lucky’ when it comes to growing their net worth via insider trading.

In July, a bipartisan group of senators including Josh Hawley (R-MO) came to an agreement on a renewed effort to ban members of Congress from trading stock.

“Congress should not be here to make a buck,” Hawley said at the time. “There is no reason why members of Congress ought to be profiting off of the information that only they get.“

*  *  *

Meanwhile, with ad revenues dwindling thanks to the censorship industrial complex, ZeroHedge relies on your support to keep the lights on. If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing or buying something from our store. Our Multitool is particularly awesome – solid in the hand, and makes a great gift! Thank you for your support.

Authored by Stephen Baird via RealClearDefense,

In some ways the U.S. military is like an NFL team.  We have an owner, the American people, represented by the U.S. Congress.  We have General Managers, the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC), the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, and the Chief of Space Operations who man, train, and equip their Service for employment by a coach.  The military has several coaches, the geographic Combatant Commanders (U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Southern Command, U.S. European Command, U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Central Command, and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command).  The Combatant Commanders develop game plans (campaign, contingency, and crisis plans) to support the National Security Strategy in their respective geographical areas of responsibility.

The Combatant Commanders have planning staffs.  They invite their Service Components (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force, and National Guard) to planning meetings where each Service Component planner identifies their capabilities that can support the Combatant Commander’s plan.  Based on the mission requirements for the plan, the Combatant Commander selects the capabilities from each Service required for mission success.

Prior to 2020, the Marine Corps were on the first team.  The Marine Corps had three robust combined arms Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEFs).  Each MEF was comprised of a Marine Division, a Marine Air Wing, and a Marine Logistics Group.  The operational capabilities of the MEFs enabled Marine Service Component planners to offer operational support to the Combatant Commanders across the spectrum of conflict.

With the implementation of Force Design 2030 in March 2020 (now called Force Design), the Marine Corps’ General Manager (CMC), General Berger, divested (cut) 21% of the personnel in infantry battalions, 100% of the tanks, 67% of the cannon artillery batteries, 33% of the assault amphibious companies, more than 25% of Marine aviation (since the initial FD divestments, the Marines have/will bring back almost 100 of the 200 aircraft divested, the percentage loss in the active force is now only about 17 percent), and almost all assault breaching equipment in the active forces.  This action when coupled with the Marine Corps’ abdication of its amphibious ship lift requirement neutered the Service Component planners’ ability to offer operational support across the spectrum of conflict and has relegated the Marine Corps to second team status.  Simply put, the “United States Marines are no longer capable of responding to global crises and contingencies quickly and ­effectively, and in some cases, at all”.

These “divestments” were made to “invest” in reorganizing and restructuring the Marine Corps to focus primarily on one geographic theater (Indo-Pacific) and one enemy, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).  Today, one infantry and one artillery regiment, have been reorganized and redesignated as Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs).  The MLRs conduct Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and employ Stand-In-Force (SIF) missile units on pacific island chains to engage/deter the PLAN.  A second infantry regiment is scheduled to be redesignated in 2027.  One must assume that this new team capability supports the Indo-Pacific Commander’s warfighting requirements. 

But how about the support of the other geographic Combatant Commanders?  Did the Corps’ GM, General Berger, consult with the other coaches to assess the impact of his actions and how it affects their plans and warfighting requirements?  Was General Berger upfront with team’s owner, the American people, represented by the U.S Congress, on the impact of his actions to the Marine Corps Title X requirements (Title 10 USC 8063)?

We are now almost five years into the implementation of Force Design and the current General Manager (CMC), General Smith, has not changed course but instead doubled down.  In his statement on the posture of the Marine Corps before the Senate Appropriations Committee on 16 April 2024, he wrote: “I remain fully committed to Force Design and all its supporting efforts.”  Today, not one Stand-In-Force is operational and forward deployed on a pacific island.  Not one missile has been procured.  And, the Navy has postponed the procurement of the Landing Ship Medium (which will transport and resupply the SIFs).  

In the NFL, when the General Manager fails to effectively “man” his team with the right talent (capabilities) for the coach to employ, he is fired.  Once confirmed, the Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan, should consider bringing in a new General Manager (Marine Corps Commandant) who can begin the process of restoring the Marine Corps’ global response capability and restoring its ability to be the nation’s 911 force.  This will move the Marine Corps from the bench with the second team, to the bench with the first team.

Stephen Baird is a retired Marine Colonel. He served as the G-5 for 1 Marine Expeditionary Force, the Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Division followed by his last assignment as the Chief of Staff for U.S. Marine Corps Forces Central Command during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.  

Goldman Sachs analysts Elsie Peng, David Mericle, Alec Phillips, and others published a note on Sunday titled “The End of the Immigration Surge,” outlining how President Trump’s border policies are ending the migrant border invasion that spiraled out of control under globalist rule via the Biden-Harris regime. The note highlights significant shifts in immigration policy and includes a key chart illustrating this end. 

Net immigration surged above pre-pandemic levels between 2022 and 2024, peaking at an annualized rate of 3.5-4 million in late 2023 before sliding to about 1.7 million by December 2024, the analysts noted. This surge was largely due to open border policies and a complex network of taxpayer-funded NGOs that acted as conveyor belts, funneling migrants into the US, with industrial-size staffing companies domestically taking care of the logistics of bussing and flying the migrants around the country. 

Peng and the analysts noted that Trump administration officials are attempting to reverse migration trends in three ways: 

• First, it has aimed to reduce new immigrant inflows by increasing border security, reinstating “Remain in Mexico,” and ending several humanitarian parole programs.

• Second, it has sought to roll back legal protections for some immigrants already in the US, which could cause some to lose their work permits.

• Third, it has sought to increase deportations.

Here are the latest executive orders Trump has signed to secure the border – all in an effort to restore national security. 

On Truth Social, Trump already posted deportation success.

“We expect net immigration to slow further to 750k per year, well below the pace of the last three years but only moderately below the normal pre-pandemic pace,” the analysts noted, adding, “This would consist of 750k net authorized immigrants per year and zero net unauthorized immigrants, with roughly 500k deportations per year offsetting a similar number of asylum seekers and other entrants.” 

Chart of the day…

Deportations are expected to run above average through 2028: 

The macroeconomic impact of the deportations is expected to be limited. Migrant-driven labor force growth is forecasted to normalize in the first half of 2026, resulting in only a modest effect on GDP growth and inflation.

Here’s more from the analyst about the macroeconomic impacts of deportations:

• Under our baseline, the macroeconomic consequences of the immigration slowdown should be limited. The boost from immigration to labor force growth was 100k above normal at the peak, is about 40k above normal at present, and should return to normal by early 2026. The slower 750k per year pace of immigration would contribute 30-40bp less to potential GDP growth than the 2023-2024 pace but just 5bp less than the pre-pandemic pace. And the impact on wage growth and inflation should be modest now that the US labor market is back in balance.

• In a more extreme risk scenario where the immigration crackdown creates a climate in which unauthorized immigrants are afraid to go to work or employers are afraid to employ them, the economic consequences would be more serious because unauthorized immigrants already in the US account for 4-5% of the total workforce and 15-20% in some industries. Abruptly losing these workers could be very disruptive for many of these industries and have a larger inflation impact.

• How will we know if the baseline or risk scenario is playing out? We can use both immigration and labor market data to monitor the latest developments. We construct real-time trackers of authorized immigration and of gross inflows and outflows of unauthorized immigrants using immigration court cases, data from government agencies, and daily arrest data. We have not yet seen dramatic changes since the election, though there is a roughly 1.5-month lag in these data.

• Labor market data might prove more useful than immigration data in real time for monitoring the risk of workers staying home and avoiding workplaces or of large-scale voluntary departures. Specifically, we use the household survey micro data to track recent immigrants’ participation, unemployment, job-finding, and survey response rates, and use the establishment survey to track employment and average wages in industries that employ many unauthorized immigrants. While the job-finding rate has dipped recently, the other indicators have been fairly stable so far.

The industries where illegals are primarily working. 

The migrant boost to the labor force is set to end by the end of this year. 

The importance of the net migration graph will demonstrate to the American people that Trump’s border policies are fulfilling the mandates voters gave him to boost border security and restore national security—bolstering public confidence in MAGA ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Recall the graph that saved Trump’s life in the assassination attempt in Butler… 

Trump: “As I was saying…” pointing to the graph on screen that he was speaking about nearly 3 months ago when a bullet ripped through his ear. pic.twitter.com/2nLVTejJQr

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) October 5, 2024

Democrats have already started their 2026 campaign this week by yelling on the streets of DC that DOGE is causing a “constitutional crisis.” Dems are doubling and tripling down on woke and illegals in an era where their ability to control narratives dwindles – this is very dangerous for the party as the Overton Window has shifted from Marxist left to center-right.

Update: Homan said on Fox News Monday night that that the Department of Justice has opened up a criminal investigation into LA leak and that Noem is correct about her assumptions.

“Some of the information we’re receiving tends to lead toward the FBI,” he told Fox host Sean Hannity, adding that whoever did it will lose their job, pension, and will go to jail.

Homan also said they’ve identified the leaker of the Aurora raid as well, but can’t reveal the name yet because the investigation is ongoing. 

He stressed that all leakers will be held criminally responsible for putting the lives of ICE agents at risk to protect criminal gangs.

*  *  *

As Debra Heine reported earlier via American Greatness, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem suggested on Sunday that the “corrupt” FBI is behind a leak to the media regarding upcoming immigration raids in the Los Angeles area.

According to an internal government document obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the operation will be spearheaded by ICE and “focus on people who do not have legal status in the country or who already have pending orders of removal.”

The Times didn’t cite the FBI as a source for its February 7 story, but Noem made clear on social media that she strongly suspected bad actors from the Bureau were behind the leak.

“The FBI is so corrupt,” she posted on X Sunday in response to the report.  “We will work with any and every agency to stop leaks and prosecute these crooked deep state agents to the fullest extent of the law,” Noem wrote.

The LA Times said the document was circulated among some government officials last week. A federal law enforcement source “who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal” told the paper that LA FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officers and agents have been called in to assist.

Last month, the Department of Justice tasked the FBI; DEA; U.S. Marshal’s Service; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF);  and Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to assist ICE with deportations.

Steve Friend, former FBI agent-turned-whistleblower, told American Greatness on January 28 that agents had been calling in sick with the ”blue flu” to protest the directive.

Friend,  who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America and an “American Radicals” podcaster, said FBI field offices had been asking for volunteers to help with the deportation effort, but many agents were afraid of retaliation from their superiors.

“People know if they step forward, then leadership will identify them as MAGA,” he explained.

“The executive management at some field offices aren’t sending out any guidance for the ICE directive. Just ignoring,” he added.

Friend posted on X Sunday that now “senior executives and managers at the @FBI are telling agents not to assist ICE.”

FBI whistleblower Garret O’Boyle made the same claim Monday on the Kyle Seraphin Show podcast, claiming that supervisors at some field offices are “straight up telling” agents they don’t have to go on the raids if they have “some sort of internal conviction or whatever.”

“Sorry people, that’s not how this works,” O’Boyle said, explaining that there’s a difference between whistleblowing actual violations of law (as the suspended FBI whistleblowers did) and simple disagreeing with policy.

“This is about enforcing laws that we have,” he said. “So if you simply don’t like it, sorry that’s not how this works.”

The LA Times leak is just the latest leak to the media tipping off illegal alien criminals of impending raids.

A major ICE operation targeting violent Tren de Aragua gang members in Aurora, Colorado, was leaked ahead of time last week.

CBS News and NBC News published articles tipping off the gang members “citing numerous U.S. officials,” Fox News’ Bill Melugin reported on X, Sunday. The stories forced ICE to reschedule and the op ended up being a failure, Melugin added.

“And a large scale Chicago op was also leaked to the media during Trump’s first week in office, leading to a canceling and rescheduling of that op as well,” Melugin added.

Furious at the betrayals, White House border czar Tom Homan told Fox News that the leak put law enforcement officers at risk and warned that those guilty of impeding ICE would “find themselves in handcuffs.”

“When they get a heads up we’re coming, it’s only a matter of time before out officers are ambushed,” Homan explained. “We’ve already identified how this operation got leaked,” he said. “The job’s dangerous enough for we’re going to address this very seriously.”

Homan also said ICE might have to stop “media ride-alongs” because the few people who know about the operations, “the better it is for our agents.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi also issued a warning to the leakers: “If you leaked it we will find out who you are and we will come after you,” she told Fox News on Sunday.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks told Fox News last week that there’s been a 90 percent decrease in illegal entries since January 21 and criminal prosecutions are up almost 52 percent.

“We know how to secure the border. All we needed was a President that was gonna empower us,” Banks said.

During the “summer of love,” as BLM riots gripped cities and towns nationwide, Goldman Sachs went down the woke rabbit hole and informed companies and investors that it would no longer take a company public unless its board included two diverse board members, one of whom must be a woman—even if it meant forfeiting underwriting the deal. 

This insane IPO policy, pushed by Goldman executives, abandons key elements of meritocracy and is reminiscent of a South Park episode in which Eric Cartman portrays Disney film producer Kathleen Kennedy, instructing the Disney board on how to make movies: “Put a chick in it. Make her lame and gay.” 

As we all know, the result of ‘wokified’ Disney movies has been a series of box-office failures… 

Like Disney, the DEI-based IPO requirements for corporate America were merely a passing fad. President Trump shifted the tide back to meritocracy across the nation—whether in government, the military, or corporate America. 

According to Bloomberg, Goldman has received Trump’s memo and nuked its DEI IPO requirement. 

“As a result of legal developments related to board diversity requirements, we ended our formal board diversity policy,” Goldman spokesman Tony Fratto wrote in a statement, adding, “We continue to believe that successful boards benefit from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and we will encourage them to take this approach.”

Goldman’s DEI IPO requirement arrived at a time when the “woke mind virus” spread rapidly across corporate America. BlackRock and other globalist asset managers were at the heart of this corporate-led Marxist revolution, which pressured companies to prioritize DEI initiatives over profit maximization and adopt environmental, social, and governance responsibilities. 

Bloomberg stated the good news at Goldman: “Goldman has already advised on initial public offerings that don’t appear to meet its diversity criteria. It helped on a listing that priced last week for Titan America SA, a cement company whose website lists no women on its board.” 

From Meta to Google to Walmart to Amazon to many other companies, the era of toxic DEI dominating corporate culture and installing far-left activists in managerial positions to spread wokeism is over. The nation is returning to meritocracy, yet the folks screaming and yelling and calling for a revolution the loudest are Democrats who are watching their artificial power grabs under woke evaporate under Trump’s executive order. 

Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatmess,

It’s only 16 days into President Donald Trump’s second term, and a Democrat is already threatening to impeach him for his “dastardly deeds.”

“The movement to impeach the president has begun,” Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) declared on the House floor, Wednesday.

“I rise to announce that I will bring Articles of Impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done,” he added.

The Democrat accused Trump of backing of ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians in Gaza, where Hamas terrorists are waging war against Israel.

In a surprise announcement last Tuesday, Trump said that the United States wants to “take over” the war-torn Gaza Strip.

The shocking news came during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday evening. Netanyahu was there to discuss the ongoing war, which began after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, slaughtering about 1200 people—most of them civilians— and taking over 250 hostages. Since then, a reported 45,936 Palestinians and 1,706 Israelis have been killed in the Gaza War.

Trump said the U.S. may move troops to the region and take over the Gaza Strip “if necessary,” and that the Palestinians would be moved to neighboring countries.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” he said at the White House event.

“We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site … level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.”

The president declared that it was time for a new way of thinking about the decades-long Palestinian conflict and promised to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East” and make it a vacation destination.

Trump said the massive project would create thousands of jobs and spare Palestinians the pain and expense of rebuilding after the territory was demolished in the war.

When asked if the effort might involve military force, Trump answered: “If it’s necessary.”

Green interpreted Trump’s desire to transform the perpetually war-torn region into a peaceful paradise as a threat to commit genocide against the Palestinian people.

“Ethnic cleansing in Gaza is not a joke, especially when it emanates from the President of the United States,” the Democrat said in response to Trump’s bombshell announcement. “The Prime Minister of Israel should be ashamed.”

Green added: “Injustice in Gaza is a threat to justice in the United States of America.”

The Texas Democrat filed three unsuccessful Articles of Impeachment against Trump during the president’s first term, the first in October 2017.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives managed to impeach Trump twice on spurious charges, but he was acquitted both times in the Senate.

“I did it before, I laid the foundation for impeachment, and it was done,” Green said. “Nobody knows more about it than I.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday that Elon Musk is ‘insecure,’ and ‘not a happy person’ – after the two engaged in a social media spat following a Musk-led group’s offer to purchase the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Altman reiterated that OpenAI is “not for sale” amid an attempted restructuring into a for-profit entity which is currently being challenged as part of a broad federal antitrust lawsuit against OpenAI, key investor Microsoft, and Altman himself, NY Post reports.

“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity,” Altman said of Musk, adding “I feel for the guy. I don’t think he’s a happy person.”

Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but eventually had a falling out over the company’s eventual direction. Musk has since founded competitor xAI.

Altman suggested that Musk’s offer is “probably just trying to slow us down” using a tactic.

“He obviously is a competitor,” Altman continued. “I wish he would just compete by building a better product, but I think there’s been a lot of tactics, many, many lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy stuff, now this.”

“I wish he would just compete by building a better product,” Sam Altman says of @elonmusk in an interview with @TomMackenzieTV.

“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity, I feel for the guy… I don’t think he’s, like, a happy person.” pic.twitter.com/YhUmmW5iNe

— annmarie hordern (@annmarie) February 11, 2025

Musk responded to the interview by saying “Scam Altman has cray eyes…”

Scam Altman has crazy eyes

— Harry Bōlz (@elonmusk) February 11, 2025

On Monday, Musk’s attorney Marc Toberoff said he submitted the bid to OpenAI’s board of directors in an unsolicited offer that could upend OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s plans to convert it into a for-profit company, as well as plans to spend up to $500 billion on AI infrastructure through the so-called ‘Stargate’ joint venture, WSJ reported.

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk said in a statement provided by Toberoff. “We will make sure that happens.”