David Schlimme

Husband; Father, @USMC; PCA RE

[Sean Davis @seanmdav]

Is there some new H-1B scam involving driving schools? Out of nowhere, I now see the “student driver” stickers everywhere, except there’s never a student driving the car. It’s always a middle-aged Indian man.

[Mr. Star Spangled MAGA @4thOfJuly365]

Quite possibly the best video from social media that I have ever seen.

Please give this a watch.

[Dan Crenshaw @DanCrenshawTX]

How the VFW just screwed over combat wounded veterans and surviving spouses:

Republicans in Congress (except for 4 who caved to VFW threats) finally got together for the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (TCAVA), which contains multiple good pieces of legislation. For instance the Major Richard Star Act, something the VFW has demanded for years, and allows medically retired, combat-injured veterans to receive both military retired pay and VA disability compensation.

It would have also eliminated remarriage penalties for Survivor Benefit Plan beneficiaries under 55, and restored TRICARE access to those who lost it through remarriage.

And plenty more good things on top of that.

To pay for it, the bill simply reduced future disability benefits for sleep apnea and tinnitus, some of the most abused ratings that cost taxpayers billions and can’t be connected to service in a meaningful or scientific way.

Tinnitus, currently rated at 10%, was facing a reduction not because it doesn’t exist, but because we wanted to address it for what it is: secondary to something else we can help the veteran with like hearing loss or a TBI. Similarly, sleep apnea gets an automatic 50% rating if you’re diagnosed and prescribed a CPAP. That’s insane. When I got out, the loss of my eye was only 30%. This bill reduces sleep apnea to 10%. This reduction didn’t claim veterans don’t experience sleep apnea, but if your CPAP effectively manages your symptoms, we can categorize it different than other disabling conditions.

Oh, by the way, the VA has wanted to reduce these ratings since 2022 and doesn’t even need Congress to do it! If the VA does it now and we don’t get TCAVA, future veterans will lose those ratings anyway and have none of these positive reforms to fall back on. Thank you, VFW, for screwing over current and future veterans and their spouses!

[Blue Lives Matter @bluelivesmtr]

On behalf of the largest police news outlet in the world, we're officially calling for the resignation or termination of this officer IMMEDIATELY.

A female Fort Worth police officer was caught on camera threatening to ticket a retired federal law enforcement officer and Christian street preacher for “offensive speech.”

The officer told the man that if someone is offended by his preaching, then “we have a problem” and said she would issue him a ticket. When he asked if she was really going to ticket him for offensive speech, she replied, “Yes, I am.”

This is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Police officers do not have the authority to ticket people for speech that offends others. That is the exact opposite of how freedom of speech works in America.

The fact that this officer targeted a retired federal law enforcement officer who was simply preaching makes this even more unacceptable.

Departments that employ officers who openly disregard the Constitution need to clean house. This kind of behavior erodes public trust and makes every good officer’s job harder.

Pass this along so more people see what is happening on our streets.

#FortWorthPD #FirstAmendment

[Michael Foster @thisisfoster]

We are being destroyed by agreeable men.

It's easy to like an agreeable man, at least at first. He presents himself as polite, reasonable, and warm. He avoids friction. He avoids awkward or uncomfortable topics. He smiles and nods wherever he can. A conversation with him at a backyard BBQ or in the church foyer can make for a pleasant time.

And those pleasant times can keep on rolling, unless you disturb what the agreeable man mistakes for peace. That is something he will not tolerate. In many cases, he'll simply avoid anything disagreeable. He would truly rather be in the room with a repugnant man who plays along with his desire for agreeableness than with a virtuous man who won't. Tolerance and avoidance are the twin pillars of his modus operandi. False peace is his idol.

But when the agreeable man's idol is touched, and he is forced to confront friction he can no longer avoid, the façade quickly evaporates. He lashes out. What follows is usually an irrational, emotional warpath. And because violating the shallow rules of decorum is, in his mind, the greatest sin, he must lie. He must misrepresent. He must spin the story lest the bystanders see him for what he really is. His goal is to preserve the appearance of reasonableness while shutting down and driving away those with reasonable objections that inevitably create discomfort.

He is an enemy of the reformer, who must press the issue and do so forthrightly. He is a friend of the smiling subversive who quietly corrodes institutions under the camouflage of false peace.

He is a destroyer.

[Pete Hegseth @PeteHegseth]

250. America. @USMC

[Pub @PubWanghaf]

“Do you guys remember Peanut? Peanut the squirrel. And they killed him. Killed him like a dog. That’s who these people are. We can’t ever forget that.”

[David Schlimme @DavidSchlimme]

@thisisfoster Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen anywhere in Houston

[Tony Hrvatska 🌴🕊 @tonybalogna]

The story of what happened to @USAA isn’t complicated, and it is a familiar one. They first offshored some operations to India. Then they hired Indian management. Then the Indian management fired American employees - including veterans - and replaced them with H1Bs from India.

[Kerry McQuisten’s Common Sense Sanctuary @KerryMcQ4Oregon]

Let’s talk reflecting pool. Warren G. Harding built it on swampland and the structure beneath it would have been fine - if it had been built on stable ground. The whole thing started sinking slowly.

Presidents all the way up through Carter kept trying to prop it up with little cement pours, and regularly draining and cleaning it. Algae was a problem even then because there was no real circulation system. No pumps. No filters.

Reagan added some more concrete, realizing the entire pool was now 12 or 13 inches lower than it should be. It had sunk over a foot and pulled loose from its structure.

Clinton publicly acknowledged that the entire pool needed demolished and rebuilt, and that it would take hundreds of millions of dollars to do it right.

The Bushes just kept trying to plug leaks and clean it. Every time they had to drain and scrub the thing, it cost around $100,000 to do so. George W. Bush actually had plans drawn up to rebuild it. 

Obama decided to revise and execute the Bush renovation, which was needed, but it was flawed, and he spent tens of millions of dollars on it. He raised the pool up with a timber under-structure so the water ended up being even shallower, which means that’s the point at which the water started getting warmer. He also turned off the chlorinated city water supply into the pool and began pumping water in from the tidal basin - that’s the somewhat stagnant water that comes in from the Potomac River and surrounds the Jefferson Memorial. There was algae before, but with those changes came even more algae. Obama‘s reasoning was that the basin water would be cheaper instead of using the city water supply. He had the pool tiles removed from the bottom and another layer gray cement put in place along with gray-tinted reflective paint, which gradually faded away.

By the time Trump’s first term came around, the cleaning had to be done every three or four months, some of the Obama structural repairs were failing, and the leaks were rampant again.

By the time Biden got into office, Obama’s reflecting pool fixes were cracked and the pool was leaking hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of gallons of water. Biden opted to clean the pool, but performed little maintenance, and did no substantial refurbishment.

Trump’s fix was to try something that the other presidents hadn’t. Whereas Obama had used a gray reflective paint and cement, Trump tried a combination sealant liner - it isn’t paint. Those sealants are similarly light-reflective to what Obama used. Trump switched up to blue from the dark gray. He added nanobubblers.

When we walked around it the other day, there was only a small patch on the middle of the left side that may have been coming up. It was too windy and stormy to see why. It was not as if the sealant was coming up all over the pool and floating to the top because it wasn’t. We did see the algae cleaning going on and the crews, you could tell, were tired of being harassed for doing their jobs. 

Vandals have damaged the grass, they’ve cut into the liner in other places and the knife lines are clear in the videos. We did see the National Guard soldiers coming in. We also saw them placed around the America 250 construction area and in between the museums. Five vandals have been arrested since we walked through. It’s unbelievable to me that they want to destroy something we could all enjoy out of hatred for a president whose policies they don’t even understand.  And the mainstream media is reprehensible. They aren’t reporting. They’re spinning propaganda as usual.

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 JUST IN: President Trump personally supports retired US Marine James Capers Jr., 88, and awards him the MEDAL OF HONOR

Incredible moment ❤️🇺🇸

[Ted Cruz @tedcruz]

I am deeply concerned about what we are hearing about an Iran “deal,” being pushed by some voices in the administration.

President Trump’s decision to strike Iran was the most consequential decision of his second term. He was right to do so, and we achieved extraordinary military results—including destroying all of their missiles & drones and sinking their entire navy.

If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime—still run by Islamists who chant “death to America”—now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium & develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake.

The details are still coming out—and I pray the early reports are wrong—but the fact that Biden’s Rob Malley is praising the deal is not encouraging.

President Trump believes in peace through strength, and his strong leadership has already made America much safer. He should continue to hold the line, defend America & enforce the red lines he has repeatedly drawn.

[Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ @christopherrufo]

This is supposed to be a smear piece, but "high school dropout races to build a nuclear reactor" is an update on a classic American archetype, like "the Wright Brothers, high school dropouts, race to build an airplane." Go, @isaiah_p_taylor.

[Timothy Parlatore @timparlatore]

Yesterday Rep. Jason Crow used his time in a House Armed Services Committee hearing to make multiple inaccurate claims about me on national television.
I sent him this letter today correcting the record, point by point.
@RepJasonCrow — the facts were all publicly available. A few minutes of preparation would have prevented this. Full letter in the thread below.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I have two stacks on my desk. The left stack is financial disclosure forms from members of Congress. The right stack is waivers for members who filed their financial disclosures late.

The right stack is always taller.

On Wednesday morning, I watched a soldier get arrested on CNN.

I am a Disclosure Analyst for the House Ethics Committee. I have held this position for eleven years. My job is to receive the forms, verify their completeness, and file them. I do not investigate. I do not flag. I do not refer. I file. I have a lanyard. The lanyard says ETHICS.

The soldier's name is Gannon Ken Van Dyke. He is thirty-eight years old. He was stationed at Fort Bragg. He was Special Forces. In December, he created an account on a prediction market called Polymarket. On January 2nd, he bet $32,500 that the president of Venezuela would be removed from power. On January 3rd, he helped remove the president of Venezuela from power. He collected $409,881.

He has been charged with five federal crimes. Commodities fraud. Wire fraud. Unlawful use of confidential government information. Theft of nonpublic government information. Unlawful monetary transaction. The Department of Justice called it "the first-ever insider trading prosecution on event contracts."

I watched this on the television in our break room. Then I walked back to my desk and processed a late financial disclosure from a member of the House Financial Services Committee who purchased $250,000 in bank stocks eleven days before his subcommittee held a closed-door hearing on proposed capital reserve changes.

The filing was forty-seven days late. The STOCK Act requires disclosure within forty-five days. The penalty for late filing is $200.

I waived it.

I waive most of them. In 2021, fifty-four members of Congress and senior staff violated the reporting rules. The fines were minimal. Most were waived. I have a form for the waiver. The form has a box that says "Reason." I write "administrative delay." In ethics, "administrative delay" means the member's office forgot and then remembered when a reporter called. My approval rate is one hundred percent. In any other field, that number would trigger an audit. In mine, it is called thoroughness.

Let me show you what I processed this year.

January. A senator on the Armed Services Committee sold defense contractor shares worth $1.2 million. Three days later, his committee received a classified briefing that the Iran campaign had exceeded its projected cost by 340%. The stock dropped 8%. He filed the disclosure sixty-one days late. I calculated the fine. $200. His chief of staff asked if it could be waived. He did not ask what the senator traded on. Nobody asks that. The form does not have a field for it. I waived the fine. The senator's portfolio returned 23.4% in 2025. The S&P 500 returned 16.8%.

February. A representative on the Energy and Commerce Committee bought pharmaceutical stocks worth $400,000. Two weeks later, her committee advanced a bill that would extend patent exclusivity for the exact drug class she purchased. The stocks rose 14%. She filed on time. There was no fine. There was no investigation. There was nothing to investigate because buying stocks in companies regulated by your own committee is not illegal. It is legal. The STOCK Act made it legal by making it disclosed. In Congress, disclosed means legal. In my office, legal means filed.

March. A member whose spouse manages a portfolio worth $9.2 million reported forty-three separate transactions in a single quarter. Twelve of them were in sectors directly affected by legislation the member co-sponsored. The timing on eight of those twelve was within a two-week window of committee action. I logged all forty-three. None were flagged. We do not flag. We file.

I asked my supervisor once what would happen if I flagged a filing. She said we do not have a form for that. I never asked again.

In 2020, I processed 847 disclosures. In 2023, 1,211. In 2025, 1,614. The number of enforcement actions in each of those years was zero. The numerator changes. The denominator does not.

I want to tell you about the soldier again.

He made $409,881. He tried to delete his Polymarket account by calling customer service and saying he lost access to his email. He moved his profits into a foreign cryptocurrency vault and then into a new brokerage account. He used his real identity. He placed thirteen bets. Every single one was connected to an operation he personally participated in.

In my eleven years, I have processed disclosures from members of Congress who traded on:

Pending FDA approvals they learned about in committee.
Defense appropriations they voted on.
Trade policy they negotiated.
Pandemic response measures they drafted.
Interest rate decisions they were briefed on before the public.

None of them have been charged. None of them have been investigated by the Department of Justice. None of them have been referred to the SEC. The STOCK Act has produced zero prosecutions since it was signed on April 4th, 2012.

Fourteen years. Five hundred and thirty-five members. $635 million in trades last year alone. Zero cases.

My daughter asked me once what happens when someone breaks the rules. I told her we write it down. She asked what happens after that. I said it depends. She was nine. She is twenty now. It does not depend. Nothing happens after that.

The soldier made $409,881 and faces decades in prison. Nancy Pelosi entered Congress in 1987 with a portfolio worth approximately $785,000. It is now worth $133.7 million. That is a return of 16,930%. The Dow Jones returned 2,300% over the same period. Professional fund managers who beat the market for three consecutive years are considered exceptional. She has beaten it for thirty-seven. If a hedge fund produced those returns, the SEC would subpoena the records on a Thursday. She produced them from a building with a chapel and a gift shop.

She announced her retirement last year. No investigation was opened. No disclosure was flagged. Her filings were on time. In my office, on time means compliant. Compliant means closed.

I want to tell you about the fine.

$200. That is the maximum penalty for violating the STOCK Act's disclosure requirements. $200 for a member of Congress whose portfolio gained $4.7 million in a single quarter. I calculated what $200 represents as a percentage of $4.7 million. It is 0.004%. I could not find a comparison that made it meaningful. It is less than the price of the parking pass in the Rayburn garage. It is less than lunch at the members' dining room if you order the crab cakes, which I am told are excellent though I eat at my desk.

Since 2012, thirty-one bills have been introduced to restrict congressional trading. I keep a list. The list is longer than the STOCK Act itself.

On March 5th, 2026, a representative from Michigan introduced the thirty-second. He called it the "No Getting Rich in Congress Act." The bill would prohibit the President, Vice President, members of Congress, and their spouses from trading individual stocks, cryptocurrency, futures, and commodities while in office.

The bill was referred to committee. The committee has not scheduled a hearing. The committee is chaired by a member whose spouse executed $2.1 million in trades last year.

The bill will be reviewed. In my office, reviewed means read. Read means acknowledged. Acknowledged means a status has been assigned. A status is the absence of an action that has been given a name so it looks like one.

The soldier used classified information to make $409,881 on a prediction market. He has been charged with five federal crimes. The Department of Justice announced the case on the same day I processed three disclosures from members who traded on committee knowledge worth a combined $3.8 million.

The difference between the soldier and the members is not what they did. It is the building they did it in. He did it from Fort Bragg. They did it from the Capitol. He used a prediction market. They used the New York Stock Exchange. He bet on a military operation. They bet on the legislation they write.

He did not write the law. They did. They wrote the STOCK Act. Then they funded its enforcement at zero dollars. Then they set its maximum penalty at $200. Then they gave my office the authority to waive it. Then they traded $635 million.

The soldier flew to Caracas. He breached a compound. He put his body between a mission and a bullet. The people who ordered the operation were in a building with a credenza and sparkling water. They did not go to Caracas. They went to their brokerage accounts. The soldier made $409,881 and is now in federal custody. The people who knew what he was going to do before he did it made more and filed less. His prosecution is not a failure of the system. It is the system. One conviction per decade, at the lowest level, so the briefing slides can say enforcement exists. The $409,881 is not the crime. It is the cost of making $635 million look supervised.

In my field, we call this self-regulation.

The soldier's Polymarket account has been frozen. His military career is over. He will spend years in federal prison. My office will process every congressional disclosure filed this year. Every trade logged. Every $200 fine calculated and waived. The system is immaculate.

Fourteen years. Zero prosecutions. $635 million a year. A 16,930% return.

I have not leaked a document. I have not filed a complaint. I have not deviated from the process one single time. The process was written by the people whose forms I process.

As long as the disclosures go up and the cases don't, my performance review says I am meeting expectations.

My lanyard still says ETHICS. In eleven years, nobody has asked me to define the word.

[Oilfield Rando @Oilfield_Rando]

When the world shut down over a 99.9999% survivable virus, I had to tell a few dozen rig hands they were out of a job.

Then I had to tell even more frac hands. Then snubbing hands.

Then I went home to wait for my layoff.

Then I spent 6 months applying for jobs with no interviews because corporate America had banned White men in honor of Saint George Floyd, Patron Saint of Fentanyl.

A great Twitter friend who I am indebted to forever got me a job with a 25% pay cut, and I had to work physically harder than I had in a decade.

Anyway. Nobody in news media ever reached out for my story. And it wasn’t a unique story, I was one of a couple hundred thousand guys going through this.

[Ron DeSantis @GovRonDeSantis]

To uphold the rule of law, our state must operate under one legal system, the Constitution must remain the law of the land, and we must defend our institutions from those who would harm us—especially terrorist organizations that seek to infiltrate and subvert our education system.

HB 1471 reinforces these principles in Florida, and I was proud to sign it into law today.

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

It turns out the over 100 women from Turkey who flew over to America to have their babies then signed up for Medicaid

So not only did their kids get birthright citizenship but then the American taxpayer had to pay for the procedure and follow up care

End Birthright Citizenship

[Reverend Jordan Wells @WellsJorda89710]

🚨 SHOCKING: Sharia Law is ALREADY Here in Plano, Texas

An American investigator confronts a man at the East Plano Islamic Center — openly standing with his very underage "wife."

When challenged: “She is his wife. Yes, his wife.”

The investigator doesn’t hold back:
“Please spare me your denials that Sharia law could never happen in America — because it’s already happening right here in Plano. And this is all over. He’s got three more little wives at home too, by the way.”

Child marriage and polygamy are illegal in Texas and America.

No religious exceptions. No more looking the other way.

American law must rule — not imported Sharia.

Protect our children. Enforce our Constitution.

What’s it going to take for leaders to act? 🇺🇸

[Jeff Wright @merelyjwright]

Tried to stay out of the Sabbatical stuff because Garris, Moody, and others have handled it well.

This is Kofi, talking about my wife, who has been a pastor's wife for 20+ years & student minister's wife for 25.

Here's why evangelicals are so broken on this topic. Would appreciate you reading to the end of this

1. There is an entire industry of counselors, retreats, and writers whose entire job market is maintenanced by telling pastors & their wives how uniquely difficult they have it. It is a grift. I met it for the first time in the early 2000s at Timothy/Barnabus at FBC Woodstock and it has only compounded exponentially from there.

2. There is a kind of pastor who wants to be told how uniquely difficult they have it. It tickles their ears. It feels good to have someone say you're essentially a victim & care for you. In this way, it is similar to how wokeness had such rapid uptake among certain identity groups.

3. Too few pastors have ever worked other jobs. My dad was a farmer, mailman, and did A. I. One of my grandfathers raised pigs and cattle. The other raised tobacco. Both survived the great depression. When I was bi-vocational I worked at a trucking company & taught school. I also farm.

Pastors & families have unique challenges. So do fire chiefs. So do High School Principals. So do guys working the line at an autoparts factory.

I've got a young man at church. Recently married. Taking a full college class load. He works in a giant metal box with no substantial climate control. Part of the year it is freezing. Part of the year it is an unimaginable sweat box. I would collapse into shame if I'm ever in front of him saying, in effect, "I'm so pitiful because I have it so hard."

4. This softness, and that is what it is, is a major component of the feminization of the church that makes evangelicalism so ridiculous in the eyes of men and particularly young men. They know, in general, life is hard. And it is hard to respect another man who wallows in self pity.

5. This is a product of and aggravated by seminary culture. Too many go from High School to Bible School to Seminary to Church with no contact with the outside world. It is a sheltered world & existence that makes the grift sound credible when the real problems of ministry life shows up. It is also why seminary profs offer classes on pastoral ministry when they've never done it. The emblem of this is Curtis Woods, darling of Southern Seminary at one time, who takes a church in KY and crashes out within a year.

Summary: The therapuetic grift and disconnect from real life is where this mess comes from. But it wouldn't work if there wasn't an appetite for being coddled.

Finally? Twice in our time at our current church we've went through crushing difficulty. The most recent was last spring and has only recent mostly resolved. Seriously, crushing. But we aren't on here whining or looking for a Therapeutic Spa self-identifying as a conference or some other form of coddling. We have a good church and a great Lord. And we know every one doing meaningful work has difficulty in a fallen world. We aren't victims, we're merely servants doing what was expected of us.