Category: Update

“Ever since billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump won his second presidential election, tech barons like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and of course Elon Musk have made no bones about shedding their progressive skin and embracing the new administration,” explains Joe Wilkins at Futurism. “Gates, too, is cozying up to the returning president. In early January, the Microsoft founder spent three hours dining with his fellow billionaire, telling the Wall Street Journal he was ‘frankly impressed’ by Trump’s grasp on the issues dear to him.”

The Futurism article is entitled “Bill Gates Gives Up on Climate Change” and is blurbed “That’s enough of that.”

A major chapter in climate giving has ended,” is how Heatmap puts it. “Breakthrough Energy, the climate philanthropy organization founded by Bill Gates, is closing its policy and advocacy office and has laid off much of its staff in Washington, D.C.…”

Courtesy of GeekWire, we learn of the New York Times’s coverage:

The Seattle-​based organization has scrapped its U.S. climate policy team, its European team and employees working in partnership with other climate groups, said the Times, citing an internal memo issued Tuesday and unnamed sources.

“Bill Gates remains as committed as ever to advancing the clean energy innovations needed to address climate change,” according to a statement provided to GeekWire by a Breakthrough Energy spokesperson.

“His work in this area will continue and is focused on helping drive reliable, affordable, clean energy solutions that will enable people everywhere to thrive,” she added.

Lisa Stiffler, “Report: Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy cuts climate policy team and partnership support,” Geek Wire (March 12, 2025).

“Gates, who is worth $106.5 billion,” GeekWire further explains, “donated $50 million to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, according to earlier reports from the Times.” The article goes on to explain just how many billions Gates has invested in this cause, and how many more billions have been gathered up from other sources. Many, many billions: $2 billion raised in two rounds; an $839 million fund; and $4 billion from Gates himself.

Climate scientist Michael Mann has appeared in these pages before, the subject of some criticism for his less-​than-​honest science and public pronouncements. So a recent news story is worth sharing, even if we leave the commentary to you. Quoting from Roger Pielke, Jr.:

The DC Court that heard the defamation case brought by climate scientist Michael Mann against two bloggers has ruled today that Mann and his lawyers acted in “bad faith” during the case, by presenting false claims on multiple occasions related to Mann’s grant funding:

Here, the Court finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that Dr. Mann, through [his lawyers] Mr. Fontaine and Mr. Williams, acted in bad faith when they presented erroneous evidence and made false representations to the jury and the Court regarding damages stemming from loss of grant funding… The Court does not reach this decision lightly.

This ruling follows closely on the heels of the same court reducing the punitive damages awarded to Mann against one of the defedents from $1,000,000 to $5,000. That reduction follows the Court’s order that Mann pay $530,820.21 of legal expenses that his lawsuit resulted in for National Review — which Mann had also sued, but whose case was dismissed.

Roger Pielke, Jr., “In Bad Faith” (March 12, 2025).

The judge was none too pleased with Mann and his lawyers:

They each knowingly made a false statement of fact to the Court and Dr. Mann knowingly participated in the falsehood, endeavoring to make the strongest case possible even if it required using erroneous and misleading information.

As those who have followed Michael Mann’s sorry career pushing Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) may remember, Mann has been caught conspiring to keep hidden in his data and graphs the reality of the Medieval Warming Period. As a public figure and one of the main faces of the AGW “climate change” hysteria, he has helped diminish the public’s confidence in scientists in general.

So maybe we should thank him? After he pays off the damages and court costs, of course.

“The irony here is deep,” concludes Mr. Pielke. “The lawsuit Mann brought on the basis that he was intemperately accused of misconduct winds up revealing that Mann engaged in misconduct that was ‘extraordinary in its scope, extent, and intent.’ It’ll be interesting to see what the climate science community does now.”

Before Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., won the presidency in 2020, the signs of his senescence — indeed, his precipitous mental decline — were already in evidence; as his term in office chugged along, it became clear that he was running neither the country nor even his own bath.

Paul Jacob, in these pages, began referring to the administration as “The Biden,” to signal that he knew, like you knew, that the man himself, “Sleepy Joe,” was not in charge.

But who was?

Speculate was all we could do. Oh, sure, an investigative reporter could have done the job of investigative reporting, but that’s so yesteryear. This is the third decade of the 21st century!

But now, courtesy of a guest on Patrick Bet-David’s “Valuetainment” PBD Podcast, we have insider testimony. Former Mid-​Atlantic Regional Chair of the DNC, Lindy Li, was a rich, enthusiastic fundraiser for the Democratic Party, and she tells her full story in “‘I Was Inside The CULT!’ – Lindy Li EXPOSES DNC Cover-​Up, Billion-​Dollar SCAM & Obama’s 3rd Term.”

Who ran the country, as we say colloquially, from 2021 to 2025?

Jill Biden.

The First Lady pulled a four-​year Edith Wilson/​Weekend at Bernie’s routine. With help from Joe’s only surviving son, Hunter.

And behind her were three key advisors who “ran the world,” in Ms. Li’s phrasing: Anita Dunn, Steve Ricchetti, and Mike Donilon.

So now we know. One could doubt Lindy Li’s testimony, but it seems more than merely plausible, it seems believable. “The Biden” was President Jill and a triumvirate of old Biden cronies.

In late January, Paul Jacob reminded readers that the biggest domestic issues, inflation and over-​spending, were being overshadowed in the first flush of the Trump Administration’s rush to Get Things Done.

And then went on, in the following weeks, to talk up DOGE and other Trump efforts to root out “waste, fraud and abuse.”

There is no contradiction here. It’s a question of balance. Paul quoted Veronique de Rugy in that January commentary. So why not quote her again in defense of praising DOGE, to the extent it does good?

In “Yes, Cutting Government Waste Is Important,” Ms. de Rugy argues that those who shrug “off the cost-​cutting work, arguing that finding waste in discretionary spending is like bailing water out of the Titanic with a teacup” are “missing part of the point.

After all, politicians do spend large sums without restraint, much of it borrowed, on boondoggles that most Americans wouldn’t support if they knew what was happening.

It’s also a matter of good sense. Imagine telling a family drowning in debt that they shouldn’t bother canceling unnecessary streaming subscriptions or eating out less because “the real problem is the mortgage.” It’s a bad argument when applied to household budgets or the federal budget.

The opposite thesis was made eloquently years ago by British comedian David Mitchell:

Of “eliminating waste” he sarcastically counters “if only we thought of that!” Mitchell’s message is the jaded one that waste is an inevitable part of bureaucracy and we must learn to live with it.

But that is not what DOGE is finding. The waste in Washington today is Volney’s veritable “intestine” condition, featuring, in this ruin of empire, a twisted mess of special projects cooked up by Democrats to employ their family members and college roommates to push DEI to the tune of over $100 million.

That is waste, sure. Abuse, of course. But it is also a parlaying of tax funds for partisan pet projects.

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Pictured at top: Volney, author of The Ruins, who provided the inspiration for today’ title.

Protesters, caught up in the cause of continuing government waste, fraud and abuse, protest outside the Space X facility in Hawthorne, California. Cuz Elon Musk. Musk denies that DOGE is in any way radical. It is, he says, “common sense.” 

“Trump has said the nation, facing $36 trillion in debt, must cut federal spending,” explains the Los Angeles Daily News today.

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DOGE protests are also taking place at Tesla dealerships across the country.

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“Cuts to the Department of Education are hitting the highly valued Nation’s Report Card,” writes Lexi Lonas Cochran, today, “even as sirens blare on student test scores.” 

The 12th grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was recently canceled, and the top official in charge of it was put on leave, leading advocates to doubt a promise from the Department of Education that NAEP would not be affected by the cuts from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

Educational experts like the testing system, but admit that in both reading and math, “the gaps between the lowest-​performing and highest-​performing students are still growing.”

Obviously government schooling is failing, bureaucrats are most concerned about testing, and DOGE’s cuts alarm them.

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Meanwhile, CNBC has probably found an effective way to spread unease, maybe even panic: “Social Security has never missed a payment. DOGE actions threaten ‘interruption of benefits,’ ex-​agency head says.” Or so says the headline.

Americans revel in quadrennial presidential debates and arguments made by talking heads on TV, but many, many people were made deeply uncomfortable by the public tiff broadcast from the White House between Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on one side, and the President and Vice President of the United States on the other:

We might wish to ask ourselves — why?

CNN’s characterization of it was interesting:

A remarkable shouting match broke out in the Oval Office on Friday between President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, who was hoping to appeal to the US for continued security assistance during his trip to Washington. Raising their voices, Trump and Zelensky — along with the Vice President JD Vance — engaged in a tense back-​and-​forth about the nature of US support, and whether Zelensky had demonstrated enough gratitude.

But the “shouting match” was figurative, not literal. No one shouted, exactly. But voices were raised as Zelensky and Trump talked over each other. Someone was being impolite in that.

People unused to conflict that is demonstrated politely, and then devolves into a debate about manners, tend to think that all public meetings should be “nice.”

Not when war is the subject matter, perhaps. 

In this case, Zelensky made his appeal in public, in a “nice” public setting, and the American leaders, Donald Trump and J. D. Vance, rose, ahem, to the occasion.

They have been called bullies for this, on TV and in social media. Perhaps it is the repeated you should be more thankful line that really galls.

But is Trump right? Is Zelinsky “gambling with World War III”?

Or is it Mr. Trump who gambles with WWIII? The U.S. siding with Russia after invading Ukraine might embolden further aggression by Russia or other authoritarian regimes (read: China).

Whether shouting or not, it was a tad tense. Tellingly, Trump defended the fracas. “But you see, I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on.”