WND

Topline: Local residents and environmental advocates have banded together to oppose California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed $20 billion water tunnel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, with various groups arguing the project will “make our town uninhabitable”   and have “terrible consequences” for wildlife.

Key facts: California officials have debated building a tunnel for decades. The current proposal will store rainwater to prepare for potential droughts caused by climate change, and is expected to provide $38 billion in benefits: an increased water supply that would be better protected from natural disasters. In April, the State Water Resources Control Board began holding hearings to decide on granting permits for the project.

Opposition has been fierce. The Associated Press said that the tunnel is “one of the most controversial projects in recent memory.”

Some are afraid of the impact on salmon and other fish in the river delta, which CalMatters says “has collapsed from a once-thriving ecosystem into an aquatic ICU of endangered species and harmful algal blooms.”

State Sen. Jerry McNerney is worried about the cost. He told CalMatters he believes the tunnel will actually cost $40 billion once they factor in the costs to mitigate the environmental impacts.

Construction will be based in the town of Hood, with a population of just 271. One resident told CalMatters, “This will make our town uninhabitable. There will be so much heavy equipment and traffic and people going through town that the locals will be driven out.”

California plans to address that problem by throwing even more money at it. The tunnel’s price tag includes $200 million in grants to help local communities recover from the impacts of the construction project.

The tunnel would still not entirely offset the expected effects of climate change. The state believes its water supply will decrease by 22% by 2070, while the tunnel will provide a 17% boost, according to the AP.

There also may be other, cheaper ways to boost the state’s water supply. A new report from the University of California, Los Angeles found that California recycles just 22% of its wastewater. Nearby Nevada recycles 85%, and Arizona recycles 52%.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.

Critical quote: Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of the group Restore the Delta, told Governing.com that “The tunnel is like dropping a bomb on the north delta … There is a body of science out there that shows that you can’t divert more than 25 percent of the fresh water from an estuary and have it survive. And we have been diverting 50 percent and 60 percent regularly now.”

Summary: A $20 billion price tag is shocking for any project, let alone one that not everyone agrees will actually benefit California.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

Pastor Greg Laurie posted a humorous video to his X on Thursday about how he was accidentally blocked from entering the White House grounds despite being slated to deliver remarks at an Easter service there.

While Laurie joked at the inconvenience of the procedural snafu that locked him out when he expected to go right in, he used his situation to illustrate what many will experience in eternity.

So, I went to the White House to lead a prayer at their very first worship service—and guess what? My name wasn’t on the list!
Yep. Pastor gets denied at the door.

It reminded me of something far more serious—what Jesus said will tragically happen to some people one day when… pic.twitter.com/8aaLhZLOTM

— Greg Laurie (@greglaurie) April 17, 2025

Just three months after stepping up the podium, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has already battled with members of the corporate media and the Democrats over their negative and sometimes false narratives about President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Leavitt, who made history as the youngest press secretary to serve in the role, has not let the media off the hook over their narratives of Trump’s agenda. Whether reporters pressed her on tariffs, deportations of criminals or the elimination of wasteful government spending, the new press secretary has not shied away from heated spats with corporate media reporters.

Leavitt Shuts Down AP Reporter Who Suggests She Doesn’t Know Anything About Tariffs

Associated Press White House reporter Josh Boak alleged that President Donald Trump planned to implement “tax hikes” by imposing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico during a March 11 briefing. When Leavitt denied that claim, Boak suggested that she was ignorant about how tariffs work.

“He’s actually not implementing tax hikes,” Leavitt said. “Tariffs are a tax hike on foreign countries that again have been ripping us off. Tariffs are a tax cut for the American people and the president is a staunch advocate of tax cuts, as you know. He campaigned on no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, no taxes on Social Security benefits. He is committed to all three of those things and he expects Congress to pass them later this year.”

“I’m sorry, but have you ever paid a tariff, because I have,” Boak continued. “They don’t get charged on foreign companies, they get charged on the importers.” (RELATED: ‘It’s Insulting’: Karoline Leavitt Gets Into Testy Exchange With AP Reporter)

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Leavitt, who grew visibly offended, told Boak that it was “insulting” that he tested her knowledge on economics. She promised that the then-upcoming tariffs were going to bring “fair and balanced trade” with foreign nations and ultimately raise wages by returning manufacturing jobs to the U.S.

“And ultimately, when we have fair and balanced trade, which the American people have not seen in decades, as I said at the beginning, revenues will stay here, wages will go up and our country will be made wealthy again,” Leavitt fired back. “And I think it’s insulting that you’re trying to test my knowledge of economics and the decisions that this president has made. I now regret giving a question to the Associated Press.”

The White House barred the AP from accessing the Oval Office or Air Force One over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden sided in the AP’s favor in an April 8 ruling, stating that the outlet’s exclusion “has been contrary to the First Amendment.”

Leavitt Unleashes On MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace For Invoking 13-Year-Old Cancer Patient To Lament Jan. 6

Trump awarded an honorary Secret Service badge to 13-year-old Devarjaye “D.J.” Daniel, a cancer patient who has dreamed of becoming a police officer, during his March 4 address to Congress. Following the award, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace invoked the cancer patient’s new gig to rant about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, stating that she hopes he never has to defend the Capitol against Trump.

“But I hope [Daniel] never has to defend the United States Capitol against Donald Trump’s supporters, and if he does, I hope he isn’t one of the six who loses his life to suicide, and I hope he isn’t one who has to testify against the people who carried out acts of seditious conspiracy and then lived to see Donald Trump pardon those people,” Wallace said after the speech.

The press secretary condemned Wallace’s remarks, along other “divisive” coverage from the corporate media, during a March 5 briefing.

“The mainstream media still doesn’t get it. Last night, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace disgustingly looped in a 13-year-old boy with brain cancer into an attack on the president over January 6,” Leavitt continued. “In CNN’s first chyron out of the speech called it ‘divisive.’ President Trump wasn’t divisive, the Democrats were. And CNN was proven wrong by their own viewers. 69% of whom in a post-speech poll said they had a positive reaction to the president’s speech. It’s sad and frankly pathetic that Democrats and liberals in the legacy media continue to allow their hatred for the president override their love for our country.”

Leavitt did not mince words as she addressed the behavior of House and Senate Democrats, as well as the corporate media, during the speech.

“The behavior of Democrats last night was completely disgraceful and demonstrated how severely how out of touch they are with the American public,” Leavitt said during a March 5 briefing. “It was the most shameful moment in the history of presidential addresses in that beautiful chamber. And what was supposed to be a unifying moment for our country, Democrat members of Congress instead screamed at the president of the United States, who was just overwhelmingly reelected by their constituents, walked out of the chamber and worst of all, they disrespected the American people.”

Democrats threatened to protest the address before it had even started, with some not even attending and others bringing props or former federal employees who had been laid off by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Just hours before the speech, 22 Democratic senators released identical videos on social media condemning the president’s economic policy, complaining how egg prices are rising and shaming DOGE leader Elon Musk for shutting down so-called “vital government programs.”

Many congressional members also held signs up during the speech that read, “[Elon] Musk Steals” and “Save Medicaid.”

Shouting Match Ensues Between Leavitt, Reporter Over Identifying Members Of Dangerous Gang

The corporate media repeatedly alleged that the Trump administration falsely accused some individuals of being members of Tren de Agua, a violent Venezuelan criminal gang, simply because their body art contained specific symbols. Leavitt duked it out with The Independent White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg as he asked if certain body art is enough for someone to be classified as an associated of Tren de Agua.

“You can get classified by simply having certain symbols in your tattoos and wearing certain streetwear brands. That alone is enough to get someone classified as TdA and get them sent to El Salvador,” Feinberg said.

“That’s not true, actually, Andrew,” Leavitt pushed back, prompting doubt from Feinberg.

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The press secretary accused Feinberg, along with the “mainstream media,” of “covering” for violent gang members who had committed heinous atrocities against American women.

“No, according to the Department of Homeland Security and the agents, have you talked to the agents who have been putting their lives on the line to detain these foreign terrorists who have been terrorizing our communities? TdA is a vicious gang who have taken the lives of American women,” Leavitt said. “And our agents on the frontlines take deporting these people with the upmost seriousness and there is a litany of criteria that they use to make sure that these individuals qualify as foreign terrorists and to ensure that they qualify for deportation … Shame on you and shame on the mainstream media for trying to cover for these individuals. This is a vicious gang, Andrew. This is a vicious gang that has taken the lives of American women.”

Members of Tren de Agua have committed heinous rapes, murders, and other serious crimes against American citizens. Two illegal immigrants identified to be members of Tren de Agua strangled 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray to death and dumped her body in a river in Houston, Texas, in June.

Leavitt Calls Media Out To Their Faces For Branding Dan Bongino As ‘Right-Wing Podcaster’

Trump appointed Bongino, who has lengthy experience in law enforcement, to serve as deputy director of the FBI. The liberal media largely branded him as being a “right-wing podcaster” and “media personality,” along with accusing him of spreading so-called “misinformation” about the COVID pandemic and the 2020 election.

“This is a man who loves his country and who has honorably served our country in ways that many people have not. He understands the depth of the corruption at these institutions which the American people reelected Trump to shake up,” Leavitt said.

“And I think it’s quite despicable to see many networks in this room who have had chyrons on their television screens labeling Mr. Bongino as a far-right podcaster,” the press secretary continued. “He is not. He is a former law enforcement agent, he is a former Secret Service agent who put his life on the line to protect this country and that is why the president of the United States has entrusted him for this important role.”

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Several legacy media outlets focused in on Bongino’s podcasting career by conveniently leaving out his law enforcement experience in headlines. NPR published a headline titled, “What to know about Dan Bongino, the media personality tapped as FBI deputy director,” which focused heavily on his widely popular podcast, “The Dan Bongino Show,” and accused him of spreading so-called “misinformation” about the COVID-19 pandemic and the now-debunked allegations that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with the Russian government.

CNN’s Brian Stelter, Alejandra Jaramillo and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn referred to Bongino as a “right-wing podcaster” and the “latest outsider media personality” picked by Trump to serve in a significant government position. NBC News ran a piece covering the “shock and dismay” FBI officials felt over Trump picking a “right-wing podcaster and ardent FBI critic” to serve as the deputy director.

Leavitt Sniffs Out NBC Reporter’s Attempt To Stump Her Over Mass DOGE Layoffs

Leavitt accused the media of being out of touch with the American people on how their tax dollars are spent in response to NBC’s Peter Alexander’s suggestion that DOGE cuts put in place to eliminate wasteful government spending has been done “sloppily.” Leavitt further said the media was ignoring the overwhelming response of the American public and instead taking the word of a “few critics.”

“I love how the media takes a few critics when the overwhelming response from the American people is support for what this administration is doing. If you look at the polling, 70% of Americans, according to CBS, believe that President Trump is delivering on the promises he made,” Leavitt said. “And there should be no secret about the fact that this administration is committed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse. The president campaigned on that promise, Americans elected him on that promise and he actually delivered on it.”

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The press secretary further argued that the administration is “committed” to finding and eliminating more “waste, fraud and abuse” by the federal government, naming the funding of foreign mastectomies and Social Security as examples. The Social Security Administration’s inspector general reported in August of 2024 that the agency made at least $71 billion in improper payments between fiscal years 2015 and 2022.

“It’s a clever question. First of all, I think all Americans would agree that funding mastectomies in Mozambique is not something the American people should be finding,” the press secretary said. “Or [diversity, equity and inclusion] programs. I think it’s fraudulent that the American government has been ripping off taxpayers in this way and we also do know that there’s been extensive fraud, particularly if you look at Social Security … So that is a lot of fraud, Peter, that this government has admitted to. So this administration is committed to finding even more of that waste, fraud and abuse.”

“To be clear, that $71 billion was from 2015 to 2022, so it wasn’t in just one year,” Alexander said, leading to immediate pushback from Leavitt.

“So are you defending $71 billion in fraud, Peter? That’s a lot of money, way too much,” Leavitt said. “Why is the media so against cutting waste, fraud and abuse from the government? I don’t get it. We will not be deterred from people like you and the press who are clearly, adamantly opposed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse. But we know the American taxpayers at home who have been struggling with an inflationary crisis don’t want their tax dollars going toward crazy DEI programs and countries overseas. They also don’t like the fact that there has been $71 billion worth of fraud in Social Security and improper payments. That’s a problem that needs to be fixed and President Trump is going to fix it.”

DOGE reported that their estimated savings add up to $150 billion, while they have saved an average of $931.68 for each taxpayer.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Former Acting Secret Service Director Ron Rowe, who helmed the agency in the tumultuous aftermath of two assassination attempts against President Trump last year, remains on the Secret Service payroll holding the title of senior adviser, according to three sources in the Secret Service community.

News that Rowe has not fully retired and left the agency nearly three months after Trump elevated Sean Curran, his protective detail leader during the campaign, to the director position is fueling concerns about the new leadership’s commitment to truly cleaning house and implementing much-needed agency reforms.

In the wake of the assassination attempts and a frenetic campaign in which the Secret Service was operating with a severe manpower shortage, the agency is hemorrhaging employees and desperately trying to hire and retain agents and officers with recruitment bonuses up to $60,000 paid over four years.

Despite these incentives, hundreds of fed-up agents have applied for lateral moves with the Drug Enforcement Agency, to escape the travel and long workday demands, according to two knowledgeable sources.

A week and a half ago, news of impending DOGE cuts rattled the Secret Service as all employees braced for an email from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem outlining how big the cuts would be and exactly who would be impacted.

Days later, when the Noem email went out, agents and officers were relieved that they wouldn’t be affected by 10% cuts to agency staff. But some worried that any efforts to slash administrative functions would hamper agency functions and further sink morale. Curran has yet to communicate how the DOGE cuts will be implemented, despite Noem’s email saying that news would come directly from individual agency heads.

On Monday, the Secret Service released a new recruiting video featuring several Secret Service agents and officers in action, narrated by Noem and featuring her appearance in its final scenes. In early February the agency spent $2 million on a different recruiting video produced by Hollywood blockbuster director Michael Bay on jumbotron screens at the Super Bowl and on X.com that evening.

Rowe may be staying on the payroll while burning through accrued vacation days and sick leave, but it’s the title of senior adviser that is irritating agents and Uniform Division officers in the Secret Service community. Secret Service agents are questioning whether Rowe is providing advice to Curran and other agency leaders, and whether the agency has established a departure date for Rowe and when that will take place.

Rowe, 51, has 25 years and 10 months of federal service and has been eligible to retire since November, two sources tell RCP. In the Secret Service, unused annual leave has a cash value and is typically taken as a lump sum upon departure or forfeited. Unused sick leave doesn’t have any cash value so people planning to leave usually burn it off before officially retiring, these sources say.

“There is no legitimate reason to keep him on the payroll, and every day he is kept on and allowed to telework as a ‘senior advisor,’ he is accruing more sick leave and annual leave and federal service time towards a bigger pension, which is costing the taxpayers more money,” one source complained.

The Secret Service responded to RealClearPolitics’ Monday inquiry but by Tuesday night had not provided answers to questions about Rowe’s title and continued employment. Efforts to reach Rowe were unsuccessful.

The agency in early February confirmed RCP’s reporting that Rowe would retire after Curran became the director. At the time, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi described Rowe as a “valued executive and leader” who is “currently enjoying a well-deserved break before retirement” after 26 years of service.

The Secret Service has a history of allowing senior agents under a public relations cloud or facing disciplinary action to remain on the payroll. In 2015, Alvin Smith, a veteran agent who served as chief of staff to then-Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy, resigned in the wake of several highly publicized security lapses but remained on the payroll for months afterward.

At the time, then-House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz chastised Clancy for misleading Congress about Smith’s departure.

“You have done a very good job of building trust and confidence, and it’s flushed down the toilet when I read and hear about these things,” Chaffetz said.

“Don’t ever come back here to Congress and tell me that you have a financial problem when you’ve got A.T. Smith on your payroll, and you say you don’t have enough money. You shouldn’t have to pay for that out of your budget.”

Meanwhile, Kerry O’Grady, a senior agent who suggested she wouldn’t take a bullet for Trump in 2016, was allowed to remain on the payroll while facing disciplinary action and working from home for more than two years so she could hit retirement and pension goals.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tapped Rowe to head the Secret Service after Kimberly Cheatle resigned following the July attempted assassination against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, leaving rallygoer Corey Comperatore dead and two other attendees wounded. Rowe’s brief tenure was marked by several testy exchanges with members of Congress who questioned the agency failures before and during the assassination attempts.

In December, Rowe notably got into a shouting match with Rep. Pat Fallon, a Texas Republican, during a hearing of the House Task Force investigating the Secret Service failures.

In late January, when Trump elevated Sean Curran, his protective detail leader during the campaign, to the director position, Curran initiated a house-cleaning, telling 10 senior officials, including Rowe, to resign, retire, or face being reassigned, several Secret Service sources told RCP at the time.

A few days later, Rowe sent out a three-paragraph goodbye email, a tradition for outgoing directors. Rowe notably used the opportunity to sing Curran’s praises without a hint of bitterness over Trump’s decision to replace him. The letter also made no reference to the turbulent and toxic period the agency had just experienced in the months after the assassination attempts.

“Throughout his career, Director Curran has led and played critical roles in both protective operations and the investigative mission,” Rowe wrote. “He has consistently demonstrated outstanding leadership, integrity, and courage. … His vision, dedication, and ability to drive results have earned him respect inside the agency and from law enforcement partners,” he continued.

“I am confident that under his leadership the Secret Service will continue to grow, innovate, and remain steadfast in our unwavering commitment to succeed in our missions.” Rowe’s conclusion that he’s “proud of all that we have accomplished together” without any mention of the monumental failures in Butler and during the second assassination attempt on Trump’s life at a Florida golf course spurred instant ridicule among rank-and-file agents.

But it was the way he signed the letter that gave fellow agents and USSS officers the most pause. Rowe listed his title as deputy director, the post he held before Mayorkas elevated him to the acting director role after Cheatle resigned.

Soon thereafter, Curran named a new deputy director, Darryl Volpicelli, a 24-year Secret Service veteran who has led the presidential protective division and served as the agency’s top liaison to Congress. On the agency website, however, Volpicelli’s position is curiously listed as “acting deputy director” without an explanation for the more temporary-sounding title.

When Rowe listed his title as deputy director in his goodbye email in late January, agents told RCP that any attempt to retain Rowe in a leadership or advisory post would demonstrate a lack of commitment to reforms and lead to continued protection failures, retention problems, and low morale.

“When are we going to seriously fix the problems instead of putting lipstick on a pig?” one source remarked.

Agents and officers hope the recruitment videos and bonuses bring some manpower relief but are also eager for more serious reforms to the agency.

Nine months have passed since the first attempt on Trump’s life and no one has been publicly disciplined for Secret Service failures that led to the assassination attempts. Multiple agency sources allege that agents in the Pittsburgh Field Office, which was partially in charge of devising and executing the security plan for the Butler rally, are set to take the fall for the assassination attempt while two members of the Trump detail, who were under Curran’s leadership at the time, are either not facing the same disciplinary measures or will walk away without being disciplined.

Those disciplinary actions also do not adequately reflect findings from two congressional investigative reports and the bipartisan Independent Review Board that reviewed the failures at Butler and made recommendations to the Secret Service.

The Secret Service’s severe manpower struggles have continued after the campaign and Trump’s inauguration.

In January, Brian Northcutt, head of the Secret Service’s Office of Investigations, sent an email titled, “Field Operations Manpower Update” which thanked the agents for their continued commitment to the heavy lifts over the campaign and for the inauguration but also said there was likely no relief until the late spring or early summer once protective assignments for the outgoing Biden family ease.

“Unfortunately, there will be continued needs for significant numbers of Field Operations personnel to support protective assignments as the transition continues in the coming months,” Northcutt wrote.

Many agents say they are working harder than ever at an unsustainable pace after Rowe promised “a paradigm shift” – that they would not have to continue “doing more with less,” a constant refrain from agency managers in the years leading up to the assassination attempts against Trump.

Even though Trump ended Secret Service protection for President Biden’s children, Hunter and Ashley Biden, and several other members of Biden’s extended family no longer receive agency protection, the demands of the job have only increased in recent weeks. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance are far more active with more weekend events than Biden and Kamala Harris were for the entire four years of the Biden administration, while Trump’s large family and their travel have posed ongoing manpower challenges.

Steve Bannon, radio host, commentator and aide to President Trump in his first term, appeared on Stephen A. Smith’s podcast to explain why it’s imperative our current chief executive serve a third term in the White House.

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?Steve Bannon tells Stephen A. Smith why he wants Trump for a third term over any other Republican in 2028?

“Most countries don’t have something like Trump in their entire history. We’ve been very fortunate to have General Washington at the founding of the nation, President… pic.twitter.com/Fvl39i0t5p

— Jason Cohen ?￰ﾟﾇﾸ (@JasonJournoDC) April 18, 2025

Social media has been flooded with theories that alleged gangbanger Kilmar Abrego Garcia is covered in MS-13 tattoos — but the reality might not be what it seems.

Speculation regarding his supposed gang-related ink went into overdrive after photos emerged online of Abrego Garcia — who was shipped off to El Salvador’s notorious megaprison with other reputed gang members last month — sitting down with Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen in El Salvador on Thursday.

Online sleuths quickly zeroed in on several tattoos visible on the 29-year-old’s fingers, alleging the images proved the Trump administration’s claims that Abrego Garcia was once an active MS-13 member.

A school board meeting in California Thursday night included protesters chanting “Hail Satan!” in support of transgender athletes in girls sports.

The Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) board meeting in San Bernardino County featured opposing protesters delivering impassioned speeches on the issue, and many speeches cited biblical scripture. At one point, police escorted a woman who was there to oppose trans inclusion, citing the Bible.

Footage from the meeting shows several protesters there to support trans inclusion, chanting “Hail Satan!”

A new polling shows that even in leftist California, the ideology that promotes allowing boys who say they are girls to compete on girls’ athletic teams is a losing cause.

“Most Californians support requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams matching the sex they were assigned at birth,” according to the polling.

“Solid majorities of adults (65%) and likely voters (64%) support requiring that transgender athletes compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with. An overwhelming majority of public school parents (71%) support such a requirement.”

That result is part of an assessment by Public Policy Institute of California.

According to a report from Fox News, “California Gov. Gavin Newsom admitted trans athletes competing in girls sports is ‘deeply unfair’ during an episode of his podcast last month but defended allowing it out of empathy for the transgender population.”

Officials in the state are trying to defy President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”

The California Interscholastic Federation confirmed it will follow “state law” letting boys in girls’ competitions if they say they are girls.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has warned Newsom to comply, after his state claimed to be a “sanctuary” for transgender minors.

“Allowing participation in sex-separated activities based on ‘gender identity’ places schools at risk of Title IX violations and loss of federal funding. As Governor, you have a duty to inform California school districts of this risk,” McMahon has warned.

“As Secretary of Education, I am officially asking you to inform this Department whether you will remind schools in California to comply with federal law by protecting sex-separated spaces and activities. I am also officially asking you to publicly assure parents that California teachers will not facilitate the fantasy of ‘gender transitions’ for their children.”

Another result found that only 45% of respondents think the state’s K-12 system is “generally going in the right direction today,” and half of Californians say the system is in need of “major changes.”

“Forty-five percent of Californians think that the state’s K–12 public education system is headed in the right direction,” said Mark Baldassare, of PPIC. “Half of adults believe that major changes are needed in the state’s K–12 system and that the quality of education in the state’s K–12 public schools has gotten worse in the past few years.”

The new statewide survey also found, “Around half of adults (49%) and likely voters (52%) say that the quality of education in the state’s K–12 public schools has gotten worse over the past few years, while 41% of public school parents say this. Ten percent of adults, 9 percent of likely voters, and 18 percent of public school parents say public schools have improved in the past few years.”

Only half of adults and 51% of likely voters approve of the way Gov. Gavin Newsom, a far-left activist who has promoted illegal aliens and other radical agendas, has managed the public education system.

“Similar shares approve of how the California Legislature (48% adults, 48% likely voters) and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Thurmond (47% adults, 47% likely voters) are handling K–12 education. More than half of public school parents approve of the way Newsom (58%), the state legislature (56%), and Thurmond (59%) are handling K–12 education.”

It also revealed 71% of adults oppose President Donald Trump’s plan to end the U.S. Department of Education and turn its responsibilities mostly over to state and local officials.

“This includes strong majorities across regions (80% San Francisco Bay Area, 72% Los Angeles, 70% Orange/San Diego, 66% Central Valley, 66% Inland Empire). Partisans are sharply divided, with Democrats (91%) and independents (72%) far more likely than Republicans (31%) to oppose closing the department,” the survey said.

Parents also have significant concerns about enforcing the nation’s laws against illegal immigration at schools.

“Asked how concerned they are about the impact of increased federal immigration enforcement efforts on undocumented students in local public schools and their families, solid majorities of adults (66%), likely voters (64%), and public school parents (74%) are very or somewhat concerned,” the survey said.

The findings are based on responses from 1,591 California adult residents. The sampling error is ±3.1 percent at the 95 percent confidence level for the total unweighted sample and ±3.6 percent for the 1,094 likely voters.

A Democrat member of the Michigan House of Representatives admitted that she pulled a childish “prank” on one of her Republican colleagues after he took up two spaces in their designated parking lot.

Shortly after noon on Thursday, state Rep. Julie Brixie (D-Meridian Township) and a staffer walked into the area of the House parking garage where Rep. Matt Maddock (R-Milford) was parked. According to security footage sent to Blaze News, Brixie can be seen making several passes around Maddock’s vehicle with what Brixie later identified as Saran Wrap.

Not satisfied to wait until Maddock was done for the day to discover her little joke, Brixie then took to the state House floor and announced: “Colleagues, colleagues, can I have your attention? Colleagues, I just came in from the parking ramp, and there’s a black BMW with a license plate number, [redacted], your hood is open, your lights are on, and your engine is running. Thank you.”

Fauci received several six-figure deposits through 2023 totaling $1.15 million according to a 141-page financial disclosure obtained by Open The Books, a government watchdog group.

The documents do not describe the source of the deposits.

Fauci leveraged his celebrity status as the top trusted messenger on COVID-19 to pad his earnings in 2023, just as newly empowered Congressional investigators sharpened their focus on the ways Fauci betrayed the public’s trust at the pandemic’s height.

Fauci sold his memoir to a subsidiary of Penguin Random House for a reported $5 million in March 2023. That news coincided with a March 2023 congressional memo showing Fauci had privately “prompted” an influential paper dismissing the theory that COVID could have resulted from a lab accident. On July 1, 2023, Fauci began an appointment at Georgetown University as distinguished university professor in both the School of Medicine and School of Public Policy. Roughly two weeks later, two of the coauthors of that paper testified to Congress about the extent of their collaboration with Fauci.

The White House on Friday updated the official covid.gov page to highlight this paper, “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” and Fauci’s behind-the-scenes role in downplaying the “lab leak theory.”

Fauci also accepted speaking gigs with several special interest groups in 2023. Some of these organizations and trade associations — including the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — have policy agendas that intersect with the federal government’s COVID-19 response or the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the NIH division that Fauci led for nearly four decades.

Fauci’s esteem in the scientific community was lucrative in 2023, despite nagging questions from Congress about his endorsement of gain-of-function research like the coronavirus experiments funded by NIAID in Wuhan, China.

Fauci accepted medals with monetary prizes from the highest echelons of academia including Columbia University’s Calderone Prize, worth $50,000, and the National Academy of Medicine’s Lienhard Prize, worth $40,000.

Fauci’s final government salary totaled an unprecedented $480,654, the highest salary earned by any of the roughly 2.4 million employees who work for the federal government, including the president, according to Open The Books. Fauci continues to accept a six-figure pension.

Fauci’s net worth roughly doubled from $7.6 million the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2019 to $15 million in 2023. Fauci also received taxpayer-funded transportation and security detail via the U.S. Marshals Service as a private citizen in 2023.

“Dr. Fauci’s assets soared during the worst of the draconian Covid lockdowns while families and small businesses struggled through school closures and lost income. Now it’s clear the cash kept coming during his first year of ‘retirement,’” said Open The Books CEO John Hart. “He was rubbing elbows with groups like AHIP flanked by taxpayer-funded security — even as his wife remained the top bioethicist at NIH.”

Amid concerns Fauci misled Congress under oath about the research in Wuhan, former President Joe Biden granted Fauci a pardon on Jan. 20.

Fauci did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Delayed Retirement

Fauci announced in August 2022 that he would retire in December 2022. At the time, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer of Kentucky warned that “retirement can’t shield Dr. Fauci from congressional oversight.”

In November 2022, Congressional Republicans — who had been investigating connections between Fauci’s NIAID and the Wuhan Institute of Virology — won control of the House of Representatives and thus key committees.

Now, Open The Books has uncovered evidence through Fauci’s Application for Immediate Retirement that he delayed his retirement until Jan. 6, 2023 — three days after the new Congress started — but misinformed Congress about the change.

Fauci sent a request to NIH Acting Director Larry Tabak to delay his retirement in order to retain personal protection, emails suggest.

An email from Tabak to Fauci indicates a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Marshals Service was still tied up in the Office of General Counsel.

“OGC is working to clear the MOU from the USMS,” Tabak said in a Dec. 27, 2022, email to Fauci confirming his delayed retirement date.

In both a transcribed interview with congressional investigators in January 2024 and in public congressional testimony under oath in June 2024, Fauci described his retirement from federal service as having occurred in December 2022.

Bioethics?

Some of the growth in the Fauci household’s net worth stems from the taxpayer-funded salary of Dr. Christine Grady, a bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health, who earned $263,005 in 2024.

An NIH official told the DCNF earlier this month that although Grady had a good reputation within the bioethics discipline, she had a conflict of interest that posed ethical questions of its own.

“One of the problems when the coverup was going on of the Wuhan lab leak, that whole fiasco, was that they were not listening to anyone giving ethics advice,” the official said. “If they had had someone at the table with knowledge of this, they would have said: ‘Hey do you want to play it this way, or be more transparent?’ Someone could have raised the question.”

“That’s something Christine Grady could have, or should have, done,” the official continued. “She wasn’t able to do it because she was Fauci’s wife.”

“Maybe they had discussions in private about what was going on,” the official said. “She was placed in a conflicted role because of that.”

Grady was among the employees at the Department of Health and Human Services affected by the department-wide restructuring and reduction in force prompted by the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this month. Grady was reportedly given a choice between relocating away from the couple’s tony Beltway neighborhood to an Indian Health Service post or leaving HHS.

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