Category: Article Share

Elizabeth Warren’s Hubris Allowed Trump To Defund the CFPB

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Unlike every other department and agency within the federal government, the CFPB is not funded via congressional appropriations. Instead, its funding flows directly from the Federal Reserve. Each year, the White House submits a budget to the Federal Reserve, and the central bank hands over the necessary amount—$729.4 million last year, in case you were wondering.

For a long time after the CFPB was created in 2010, there were serious questions about the constitutionality of that structure. That finally got resolved last year, when the Supreme Court ruled that Congress was within its powers to hand off the purse strings. So, funding the CFPB via the Federal Reserve is not unconstitutional—it’s just unorthodox and foolish.

Here’s where the hubris enters the story. When Warren and Obama created the CFPB, they designed that unorthodox funding structure specifically to prevent a future Republican-led Congress from trying to defund the bureau. Remember, this was in the age when Republicans were running around the country telling voters they intended to repeal Obamacare too. By isolating the CFPB from Congress’ budgetary powers, Warren was trying to make it invulnerable to attack.

Instead, she simply gave it a fatal flaw.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration submitted its CFPB funding request to the Federal Reserve. It asked for…$0.

“Pursuant to the Consumer Financial Protection Act, I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties,” wrote Russ Vought, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), wrote on X on Saturday night. “The Bureau’s current balance of $711.6 million is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment. This spigot, long contributing to CFPB’s unaccountability, is now being turned off.”

That appears to be the end of the CFPB, at least until a Democrat returns to the White House. Trump will need an act of Congress if he seriously wants to abolish the Department of Education, for example, and even minor spending cuts being made across the executive branch will eventually need congressional or legal consent to be permanent. But there should be no serious questions about whether the president can unilaterally defund the CFBP. Congress has no role to play in that fight.”

https://reason.com/2025/02/13/elizabeth-warrens-hubris-allowed-trump-to-defund-the-cfpb/

Elon Musk’s ‘Proof’ of Government Waste Is in the Pudding

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that the federal government loses hundreds of billions of dollars each year due to fraud. Medicare-related fraud has permitted health care insurers to pocket $50 billion in reimbursements for diseases that doctors never treated. Fraudsters collected an estimated $135 billion in fraudulent COVID-19 unemployment payments, and unless Congress acts to extend the statute of limitations, this money will never be recouped by the government.

National security funds are routinely misspent or disappeared. The Pentagon has failed seven audits in a row and often can’t account for missing money; last year, the Defense Department admitted that it lost $8.2 billion in Ukraine. The federal government spent $61 billion rebuilding Iraq: 15 percent of the funds were misspent, and another 10 percent simply disappeared, according to government auditors. In Afghanistan, it’s much the same: The Taliban-controlled central bank is a recipient of U.S. funds.”

https://reason.com/2025/02/13/elon-musks-proof-of-government-waste-is-in-the-pudding/

Qatar’s WAR against Israel & The U.S. (Dominating the media and academia with oil money)

Posted on by Lone Candle

Qatar’s WAR against Israel & The U.S. (Dominating the media and academia with oil money)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obs_a5jW0Tk

Russian defense spending overtakes Europe, study finds

Posted on by Lone Candle

In purchasing power parity terms, Russia’s military spending is higher than Europe’s.

https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-defense-spending-overtakes-europe-study-finds/

House passes bill that could make it harder for married women to vote

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The U.S. House has passed a bill that voting rights groups have repeatedly warned would make it harder for millions of Americans, including married women, to vote.

The Republican-controlled House on Thursday voted for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. The legislation purportedly aims to block non-citizens from voting, which is already illegal and is very rare.

The bill would require an individual to present in person a passport, birth certificate or other citizenship document when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information.

Voting rights groups have said the bill will pose a barrier for millions of American women and others who have changed their legal name because of marriage, assimilation or to better align with their gender identity. An estimated 69 million American women and 4 million men do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name.

Republicans who support the bill claim that states will be able to create processes so people can prove their citizenship if their name doesn’t match their birth certificate.

Voting rights groups also worry the bill will disenfranchise others from marginalized communities who are less likely to have the necessary documentation on hand. More than 9 percent of citizens of voting age — or 21.3 million people — do not have documents that prove their citizenship readily available.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/house-passes-bill-could-harder-152721135.html

Study Finds Almost No Good Evidence on Gender Dysphoria Drugs for Young People

Posted on by Lone Candle

“In the first of the two new analyses, a team of researchers led by McMaster University’s Anna Miroshnychenko looked at evidence from 10 studies on the effects of puberty blockers. Three of these studies compared patients given puberty blockers to those who were not, while the others assessed patients before and after being treated with puberty blockers. In both sets of studies, there was “very low certainty evidence” on tested outcomes, including their effect on gender dysphoria, depression, and bone mineral density.
“Most studies provided very low certainty evidence about the outcomes of interest, thus, we cannot exclude the possibility of benefit or harm,” write the study authors.”

…

“The second analysis—also led by Miroshnychenko—looked at evidence related to hormone therapy, using data from 24 studies. Evidence about the effects of hormone therapy was mostly low certainty or very low certainty, they found. Many of the study designs were “limited in assessing intervention effects” and the studies were at risk of “bias and imprecision” resulting “from an insufficient sample size.”

“The best available evidence reporting on the effects of [hormone therapy] in individuals experiencing [gender dysphoria] ranged from moderate to high certainty for cardiovascular events, and low to very low certainty for the outcomes of [gender dysphoria], global function, depression, sexual dysfunction, [bone mineral density], and death by suicide,” they write.

On one level, these analyses don’t tell us much about the best course of action when it comes to young people with gender dysphoria and hormone treatments. They leave open the possibility that puberty blockers and hormone therapy may be beneficial, but also the possibility that they may be harmful or have little effect at all.”

https://reason.com/2025/01/24/study-finds-almost-no-good-evidence-on-gender-dysphoria-drugs-for-young-people/