Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Elon Musk is right regarding some of the federal government’s wasteful spending. In particular, the Pentagon’s massive budget. “Elon Musk is right. The Pentagon, with a budget of $886 billion, just failed its 7th audit in a row. It’s lost track of billions,” Sanders said. “Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud. That must change,” he added. Elon Musk is right. The Pentagon, with a budget of $886 billion, just failed its 7th audit in a row. It’s lost track of billions. Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud. That must change. — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 1, 2024 “Glad you realized Elon Musk is not the problem. The problem is the federal government which has wasted and lost trillions of dollars of taxpayer money,” Collin Rugg commented. Glad you realized Elon Musk is not the problem. The problem is the federal government which has wasted and lost trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 1, 2024 “Welcome home, Bernie,” Matt Gaetz replied. Welcome home, Bernie — Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) December 1, 2024 “Instead of posting, VOTE to approve Republican nominees. Which you won’t do. You’re a feckless old man who posts something now-and-then, but when it’s time to use political power, you do what the military industrial complex orders you to,” Mike Cernovich replied. Instead of posting, VOTE to approve Republican nominees. Which you won't do. You're a feckless old man who posts something now-and-then, but when it's time to use political power, you do what the military industrial complex orders you to. — Cernovich (@Cernovich) December 1, 2024 Per Mediaite: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday that he agreed with Elon Musk about reining in some government spending, particularly regarding Defense Department spending. Musk and venture capitalist Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to find and eliminate spending deemed unnecessary. The pair will run the advisory committee the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) once Trump takes office next month. On his X page on Sunday, Sanders offered support for Musk – a billionaire who he has criticized in the past. JUST IN: US Senator Bernie Sanders says "Elon Musk is right" and agrees for the Department of Government Efficiency to investigate the Pentagon after it failed its 7th consecutive financial audit. pic.twitter.com/1k9aQymGEd — Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) December 1, 2024 As Sanders noted, the Pentagon failed its seventh consecutive audit. Pentagon fails 7th audit in a row, unable to fully account for $824B budget https://t.co/VKjIhCByZy — Fox News (@FoxNews) November 17, 2024 Fox News reports: The Pentagon failed its seventh consecutive audit on Friday as the agency was unable to fully account for its massive $824 billion budget, though officials were confident the Department of Defense “has turned a corner” in understanding its budgetary challenges going forward. The audits resulted in a disclaimer of opinion, which means auditors were provided with insufficient information to form an accurate opinion of the accounts. Of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) 28 reporting entities that had standalone audits, 9 received an unmodified audit opinion, 1 received a qualified opinion, 15 received disclaimers, and 3 opinions remain pending, the Pentagon said. But with the goal of achieving a clean audit by 2028, Michael McCord, Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer, said the agency “has turned a corner in its understanding of the depth and breadth of its challenges.” “Momentum is on our side, and throughout the Department there is strong commitment—and belief in our ability—to achieve an unmodified audit opinion,” he said in a statement.

Professor Jeffrey Sachs explained how Obama attempted regime change in Syria, leading to the Syrian Civil War and creating ISIS while he appeared on Morning Joe. “I think we have to step back and not put this in partisan terms,” Sachs began. “This is a US mistake that started seven years ago, and I remember […] The post Prof Sachs: Obama Attempted Regime Change & It Led to ISIS appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Former U.S. Senate candidate Tiffany Smiley (R-WA) said on Sunday that the American people were probably not bothered by the fact that Washington, D.C., insiders had concerns about President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). During a panel discussion on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Smiley argued that there was a fairly widespread lack of trust in the FBI — meaning that it was likely seen as a net positive when those who were seen as a part of the establishment appeared nervous. WATCH: .@SmileyForWA: "There's a lack of trust in the FBI with the American people… Donald Trump wants change agents. The fact that people here in DC — DC insiders and people within the FBI — don't want Kash is a really good sell to the American people." pic.twitter.com/9phpburoGv — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) December 1, 2024 “Well, there’s a lack of trust in the FBI with the American people, and that’s exactly what we saw with Donald Trump getting elected,” Smiley began. “And with Kash, he has worked national security roles — in fact, he was a prosecutor at the DOJ … under Obama. He’s worked with Democrats, he’s worked with Republicans.” “Donald Trump wants change agents,” she continued. “The fact that people here in DC — DC insiders and people within the FBI perhaps — don’t want Kash is a really good sell to the American people.” The Los Angeles Times senior legal analyst Harry Litman was among those criticizing the Patel nomination — calling it “an affront to professionals in the FBI, who won’t forget it even if Patel goes down.” He also argued that Trump had essentially thrown down the gauntlet, calling the move a “challenge to the Senate to see if it will just roll over.” Patel nomination is an affront to professionals at the FBI, who won’t forget it even if Patel goes down. It’s also a challenge to the Senate to see if it will just roll over. A total a-hole move by Trump. — Harry Litman (@harrylitman) December 1, 2024 The responses to Litman only served to bolster Smiley’s claim. “You can judge a nominee by his enemies. In this case, the top ‘Senior Legal Affairs’ guy for the L.A. Times. This tweet is like the Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval for Patel,” Kevin McKeever posted. You can judge a nominee by his enemies. In this case, the top "Senior Legal Affairs" guy for the L.A. Times. This tweet is like the Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval for Patel. https://t.co/ravzg8wK99 — Kevin McKeever (@bankofkev) December 1, 2024 “Congrats on explaining exactly why Patel was nominated. The ‘professionals’ at the FBI have been a law unto themselves for too long. They’ve abused their power. They’ve failed at their jobs repeatedly. Voter accountability is back. Deal with it,” RedState’s Bonchie said. Congrats on explaining exactly why Patel was nominated. The “professionals” at the FBI have been a law unto themselves for too long. They’ve abused their power. They’ve failed at their jobs repeatedly. Voter accountability is back. Deal with it. https://t.co/iC6oFgeSqz — Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) December 1, 2024 “‘These FBI agents are professionals who will hold a grudge and hurt you because they don’t like the person you pick to lead them.’ Sounds super professional,” Jesse Kelly added. “These FBI agents are professionals who will hold a grudge and hurt you because they don’t like the person you pick to lead them.” Sounds super professional. https://t.co/YWHzFAyCsl — Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) December 1, 2024 “‘Patel nomination is an affront to professionals at the FBI,'” Varad Mehta posted. “When you explain why the nomination happened and accidentally endorse it, but don’t realize it.” “Patel nomination is an affront to professionals at the FBI.” When you explain why the nomination happened and accidentally endorse it, but don’t realize it. https://t.co/EVDS8ofHCn — Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) December 1, 2024

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) signaled support over the weekend for President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs against a number of countries, saying that they can be used to fix the problem on the southern border. Rounds made the remarks during a Sunday ABC News interview on “This Week” with Jonathan Karl when asked about Trump’s threats to impose tariffs against Mexico, Canada, China, and countries in the BRICS alliance — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt, and Ethiopia. “Now he’s got everybody coming in and talking with him, talking about the concerns that he is expressing because he really does believe that tariffs can be a great tool for making sure that our economy grows and thrives,” Rounds said. “One more thing, the one thing that I have noticed time and again is, is he cares about kids,” he continued. “And what he has seen at the southern border, he’s frustrated with. He doesn’t like to see people suffering. He’s seen what’s happened as these migrants have come north. He wants it to stop. He thinks it’s wrong. And he thinks that by suggesting these tariffs right now, he’s going to get the attention of the leaders in the other countries.” He said that farmers and ranchers in his state support the tariffs as a tool to force countries like Mexico to stop the millions of illegal aliens pouring into the U.S. every year. “When I talk to my farmers and to my ranchers about that, they’re concerned about retaliation,” he said. “You know what they tell me time and again? The borders are important. We’re going to do our part as well.” “If we’ve got to have tariffs, so be it,” he continued. “We’re going to support the president. Let’s get this thing rolling again, and I mean, look. They believe in his America first approach. We want to give him an opportunity to be successful in that.” WATCH: President-elect Trump “thinks that by suggesting these tariffs right now, he’s going to get the attention of the leaders in the other countries,” Republican Sen. Mike Rounds tells @JonKarl. https://t.co/9UlAYBLvyW pic.twitter.com/kO3ssn4eNT — This Week (@ThisWeekABC) December 1, 2024

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said during an interview over the weekend that President Joe Biden and the Democrats in Washington, D.C., refused to use the levers of power at their disposal to stop millions of illegal aliens from entering the U.S. southern border because they “wanted this invasion to happen.” Cruz made the remarks during a Sunday CBS News interview on “Face The Nation” with guest host Major Garrett while talking about tariffs that Trump has threatened to enact against Mexico and Canada to stop the flow of illegal aliens into the U.S. Cruz said that the threat of tariffs against the two countries has “immediately has produced action.” “We’ve seen the president of Mexico stand up and promise that she is going to work hand in hand with the president of the United States, President Trump, to secure the border,” he said. “I will tell you, representing Texas, we’ve seen four years of an invasion at our southern border. Let me ask you, Major, why hasn’t Joe Biden done this? Why hasn’t Joe Biden actually stood up and used leverage to secure the border?” “And the reason is, Joe Biden and the Democrats wanted this invasion to happen,” he continued. “And I got to say, this is a promise that I believe President Trump is going to deliver on and deliver quickly. We are going to secure the border. This is about using leverage to get Mexico and Canada to cooperate.” Cruz noted that Trump’s threat of tariffs “was explicitly [about] leverage” and that leverage was how the U.S. got Mexico to agree to the remain-in-Mexico agreement, which helped secure the southern border. WATCH: .@SenTedCruz (R-TX) defends President-elect Trump’s vow to impose tariffs against Mexico and Canada, saying the threat itself “immediately has produced action.” “We’ve seen the president of Mexico stand up and promise that she is going to work hand-in-hand with the president of… pic.twitter.com/iuMdaSnM7x — Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) December 1, 2024

A top House Democrat asserted on Sunday he was not privy to any evidence that the FBI has been “weaponized” against any political party, which would include the GOP. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, dismissed the idea that Republicans believe they have been unfairly targeted by the bureau during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” with host Kasie Hunt. .@RepRaskin when asked by @kasie if he's considering challenging Congressman Jerry Nadler as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee: "I'm not ruling anything out at this point."@CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/foV9NQTYjH — CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) December 1, 2024 “I haven’t seen what the proof is that the FBI has been weaponized against a political party, or the Department of Justice. Of course, this Department of Justice has brought charges against a Democratic U.S. senator in New Jersey, a Democratic congressman in Texas,” Raskin said, alluding to former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX). “And so some people just seem to think that it should go only in one direction, and, if it doesn’t, then somehow it’s politicized,” Raskin added. “And I think that’s what they mean when they talk about politicization and the deep state. I mean, the deep state, nobody’s ever defined it. Apparently, it just means anybody who doesn’t do the will of Donald Trump.” President-elect Donald Trump announced on Saturday evening that he would be nominating Kash Patel to lead the FBI, saying that his pick would strive toward restoring “integrity” to the bureau. Republicans allies hailed the selection as one that will lead to rooting out partisanship. “Listen, I don’t want a Republican Department of Justice. I don’t want a Democrat Department of Justice. I want a Department of Justice and an FBI that enforces the law regardless of party. And sadly, we haven’t seen that these last four years, ” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said during a “Face the Nation” interview on CBS. Raskin, who led the January 6-focused impeachment inquiry against Trump and member of the now-defunct January 6 Committee, is reportedly being talked about as potentially taking over as the lead Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for overseeing the Department of Justice — and the FBI. When pressed by Hunt whether he wants to challenge Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) for the ranking member position in the judiciary panel, Raskin said, “I’m not ruling anything out at this point. And we’re engaged in conversations, all with the purpose of creating a strategic focus and capacity within the Democratic members of the House, so that we’re going to be a really effective and muscular opposition.”

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Democratic attorneys waged legal war on former President Donald Trump on every level of government: federal, state, county and city. Now that he’s been reelected, all that legal wrangling is going to be curtailed. Biden-appointed special counsel Jack Smith had to fold his tent, and on Nov. 25, the networks offered live “breaking news” that just sounded like they were the broken ones. Start with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, whose third anti-Trump book was aggressively titled “Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party.” That’s a little embarrassing for Karl and his publishers now that the GOP controls the White House, Congress and 55% of state legislative seats. Karl decried the death of accountability for Trump: “He ultimately will not be held to account in the criminal court system for his actions to overturn the presidential election of 2020.” Karl is upset that the Orange Man isn’t in an orange jumpsuit. No jail, no justice! CBS reporter Scott MacFarlane, whose primary beat for almost four years now has been treating Jan. 6 as worse than 9/11, was also upset: “The historic case against Donald Trump for allegations he tried to conspire to overturn an election and the ties to that horrific attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, that case is dying with a whimper today.” This pro-prosecutor tone was not the MacFarlane spin when the Bidens were the ones being investigated. He overused the adverb allegedly” to describe pictures of Hunter Biden’s rampant drug use when he was on trial. He lamented special counsel Robert Hur “controversially” stated President Joe Biden would appear too doddering to be convicted in his classified-documents case. Who was whimpering instead of holding politicians accountable then? NBC’s Ken Dilanian, notorious for pushing the fake-news Steele dossier and associated Russian collusion conspiracies against Trump, lamented, “If the lesson of Watergate was that no one was above the law, the lesson of the Trump era is that a majority of Americans have decided that this principle no longer applies.” One “lesson of Watergate” that TV “news” people teach is that Republicans will eternally be slammed as the corrupt sleazeballs who need to resign, while the Clintons and the Kennedys can rape women or leave them to drown, and they’re still hailed by the Old Media as America’s royal families and the conscience of the country. Then there was the wailing on “The View” on ABC. Joy Behar tried to joke about Jack Smith closing up shop: “It shows you there’s no such thing as karma, doesn’t it? It’s like the Easter Bunny and affordable housing. It doesn’t exist!” It’s all very sad after they treated Smith like he was Eliot Ness (and Trump was Al Capone). In July 2023, CNN made a big deal out of Smith walking into Subway for lunch. Anchorman John King found deep meaning: “Donald Trump tries to intimidate people, he tries to bully people, he tries to scare you away. That was Jack Smith with no words and a simple $5 sub in his hand saying, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’” Now Smith is taking his lunch bag home, and all CNN anchor Paula Reid could do is express grave concern that Trump Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi “will try to weaponize the Justice Department.” After all this lawfare, that’s a sick joke. Ever since Watergate, the media’s coverage of scandals has underlined the most egregious double standards in political coverage. One side is presumed guilty until proven innocent, and the other side is eternally not guilty. There are no consistent media ethics when the topic is ethics. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Journalists Mourn That Jack Smith’s Probes Are Dead appeared first on The Daily Signal.