• DOGE finds $4.7 trillion in virtually untraceable Treasury payments: A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon the Department of Government Efficiency will be saving us real money. But what happens when we can’t even figure out where our taxpayer money is going? Such is apparently the case with the Treasury Department’s books, in which an identification code called the Treasury Access Symbol is supposed to link a specific Treasury payment to a budget line item. But as the DOGE bloodhounds now point out, “In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible.” That’s the bad news. The good news is that transparency is making a comeback. As DOGE reports, the TAS ID code is now a required field. Perhaps this slush-fund accounting system is why Big Government Democrats are so dead-set against DOGE.

• Social Security acting head quits: Elon Musk has noted a troubling discovery out of the Social Security Administration. The SSA database includes millions of individuals between the ages of 100 and 159 marked as still living. Musk pointed out that the SSA has over 20 million centenarians set as active “with the death field set to FALSE!” Meanwhile, over the weekend, SSA Acting Commissioner Michelle King resigned in protest to DOGE’s gaining access to SSA government records. If the SSA, which now pays out some $1.5 trillion annually, has been giving payments to millions of deceased individuals, then, as Musk stated, “This might be the biggest fraud in history.” Among 331 million Americans counted in the 2020 census, just over 80,000 were 100 years or older.

• Federal lobbying hits a record: If our elected representatives are concerned about the perception that they’re for sale, they aren’t tipping their hands. According to OpenSecrets, the nonpartisan watchdog of governmental palm-greasing, federal lobbying expenditures hit a record $4.4 billion last year, $150 million more than in 2023. Lobbying is, of course, constitutionally protected by the First Amendment. As unsavory as it seems, these folks have a right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The top spenders are the National Association of Realtors ($86 million) and the U.S Chamber of Commerce ($76 million). OpenSecrets’ David Meyers suggests one thing to watch this year will be federal appropriations lobbying. “That was the biggest issue for lobbyists last year,” he says, “and with Donald Trump, Elon Musk and congressional Republicans working to slash spending, we can expect interest groups to fight hard for their issue.”

• Hochul versus Adams: While the Department of Justice has dropped its corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York Governor Kathy Hochul is not convinced he’s innocent. Even though Adams is a fellow Democrat, Hochul is mulling exercising her power as governor “to remove a duly elected mayor.” It would be the first such case in state history. “Overturning the will of the voters is a serious step that should not be taken lightly,” Hochul explained. “That said, the alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored.” On Monday, four NYC senior deputies resigned after the DOJ dropped its charges against Adams. One of the deputies, Danielle Sassoon, alleged that Adams’s attorney sought a quid pro quo for immigration policy.

• Swalwell blames Trump for plane crashes, gets fact-checked: “No president has had more planes crash in their first month in office than Donald Trump.” So claimed Trump-hating California Democrat Eric Swalwell yesterday in the wake of a small plane crash in Georgia over the weekend that left two dead. The unhinged congressman then doubled down, adding, “Trump is President. President Trump is in charge of air safety. All crashes are Trump’s fault.” Unfortunately for Swalwell, the facts get in the way of his narrative — at least if you believe the National Transportation Safety Board’s CAROL database, which lists five fatal air incidents since Trump took office, but 10 such incidents during the same initial period for Joe Biden. Trump communications director Steven Cheung hit back hard, calling Swalwell “a complete disgrace not only as an elected official, but as a human being who has continued to beclown himself.”

• WaPo nixes running leftist anti-Musk ad: As improbable as it seems, Donald Trump is no longer the most hated man in Washington. That honor now goes to Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has turned the Beltway on its head. Normally, we’d expect The Washington Post to lead the opposition against Musk, but these aren’t normal times. A case in point is the Post’s decision to back out of running an ad calling for Musk to be fired. “Who’s running the country,” the ad shrieks, “Donald Trump or Elon Musk?” The ad then complains that Musk has “created chaos and confusion,” but that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? Trump is a disruptor. The two leftist groups that paid for the ad, Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Center, say they won’t stop “holding power accountable.”

• Amazon workers vote against unionization Another loudly touted union effort in the South failed in a big way over the weekend after Amazon workers in Garner, North Carolina, voted down unionizing. The vote wasn’t even close — unionization lost by a three-to-one margin. While the local ABC outlet in Raleigh reported that the Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment rally was showing “a lot of energy” and “this is really a big deal,” it was belied by the fact that the size of the rally crowd was little more than 40 people. The Amazon facility employs 5,000. This is yet another blatant example of Leftmedia favorably reporting a narrative it supports over and against reality.

• NAACP’s race-based boycott: The NAACP is the now-amusing acronym for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The term “colored people” is now offensive, of course, and the preferred term is “people of color,” which is completely different for … reasons; ergo, it should change its name to the NAAPC. In any case, the group is calling for a boycott of any company that cuts back on diversity, equity, and inclusion. There are many of them, too — Target, Walmart, and McDonald’s are some of the big names. Cutting DEI “threaten[s] economic opportunities, workplace diversity, and community investments, directly impacting Black communities nationwide,” says the NAACP, and it’s “part of a broader effort to reverse gains made in civil rights and social justice.” Nonsense. Meritocracy is colorblind, which used to be the goal. Alas, there’s money to be made in perpetuating the problem.

• Mexico looking to sue Google over Gulf of America: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is evidently highly offended by Donald Trump’s name change of the Gulf of America. Sheinbaum has threatened to file a lawsuit against Google if the tech giant fails to fully restore the prior name to the body of water on its Google Maps service. Google and Apple, in response to Trump’s executive order, label the body of water “Gulf of America” for U.S. users. At the same time, the name appears as “Gulf of Mexico” for users in Mexico, and for the rest of the world, it appears as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).” Google noted that international treaties don’t dictate how private companies represent geographic mapping. However, the company does seek to be accurate and up-to-date.

Headlines

• DOGE granted access to student loans by Obama-appointed judge (Newsweek)

• Education Department ends $600 million in grants for DEI, CRT trainings (National Review)

• Hegseth has tapped investigators for botched Afghanistan withdrawal (Breitbart)

• U.S., Russian officials propose Ukraine peace plan (Fox News)

• Hamas will release six Gaza hostages on Saturday (Jerusalem Post)

• Humor: RFK Jr.‘s new and improved food pyramid (Babylon Bee)

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