🇺🇸 Doomscroll News

Author: David Gross

  • A Tale of Two Futures: Mamdani’s “New York Dollar” Doctrine vs. U.S. Dollar Prosperity

    A Tale of Two Futures: Mamdani’s “New York Dollar” Doctrine vs. U.S. Dollar Prosperity

    This is not a debate over minor policy tweaks; it is a battle for the soul of New York City. One path is built on the sound foundation of the U.S. Dollar and the prosperity that comes from private innovation and individual liberty. The other is the Mamdani Doctrine, a vision of state control so fiscally reckless it would effectively require abandoning the U.S. monetary system for its own “New York Dollar.” Below is a direct comparison.

    On Public Transportation & Mobility: The vision of U.S. Dollar Prosperity is to Abolish and Replace: The MTA is terminated. All public transit is replaced by a competitive, efficient, privately-operated network of autonomous “Robotaxis.” In stark contrast, the Mamdani Doctrine‘s vision is to Expand and Subsidize: The MTA is a public good to be massively funded. But this vision collides with a simple, brutal reality: it must be paid for in U.S. dollars. With the national debt exceeding $37 trillion, the Doctrine’s demand for perpetual billions is a demand that the rest of America pay through a crushing inflationary burden. This is the first clue that the plan is incompatible with the U.S. monetary union.

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  • Critique of “Portland residents beg Antifa not to destroy property during anti-ICE riots”

    The article by Hayden Cunningham, while capturing the correct sentiment of residents’ fear, is a deeply flawed piece of journalism that mischaracterizes the situation in Portland and fails in its basic reporting duties.

    1. Misleading Terminology Minimizes Violence

    The article consistently uses passive and misleading language that downplays the severity of the events.

    • It refers to “ongoing protests” and “anti-ICE activists” when the situation is more accurately described as a series of organized riots and attacks on federal property.
    • These are not peaceful “demonstrators” but masked agitators who have engaged in violence against more than just law enforcement. Reports from Portland have described rioters using commercial-grade fireworks as weapons, committing arson, and assaulting officers. There are also accounts of Antifa attacking civilians, Christian prayer groups, and destroying private businesses, none of which is detailed in the article.
    • Calling the events “clashes” and “confrontations” fails to capture the reality of the targeted violence.
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  • The “Big Beautiful” Bonus for Our Border Agents: A $5.25 Billion State Accountability Plan

    A new proposal outlines a plan to deliver a $50,000 bonus to every agent, soldier, and officer on the front lines of the border crisis, paid out over three years. By holding specific states financially accountable, the plan aims to create a powerful incentive for cooperation in federal immigration enforcement and ensure reimbursement for the costs incurred by the nation as a whole.

    The total cost, estimated at $5.25 billion, would be funded entirely by the ten states with the largest populations of unauthorized immigrants: California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Arizona. The other 40 states would be explicitly exempt from this financial obligation.

    This plan recognizes the immense contributions of approximately 105,000 individuals across the key agencies that have shouldered the burden of the crisis.

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  • Justice KBJ: Anti-DEI, Pro-Religious Freedom, Defender of Jan. 6 Rioters … or Not?

    As I’ve been telling people since she was confirmed—and I have witnesses—Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record is revealing a judicial philosophy with surprising MAGA elements. Here are a few of her rulings that prove it:

    • Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services (2025): Marlean Ames, a straight woman, alleged her supervisor, a lesbian, discriminated against her by favoring LGBTQ+ employees. The case centered on whether plaintiffs from majority groups had to meet a higher legal standard—showing “background circumstances” of discrimination—to bring a lawsuit. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Jackson ruled that Title VII forbids such a two-tiered system. The decision eliminated the “background circumstances” test, ensuring all individuals face the same evidentiary standard when alleging workplace discrimination.
    • Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission (2025): The Court unanimously sided with Catholic Charities against the state of Wisconsin, which had denied the organization a religious-employer exemption from unemployment taxes. Wisconsin argued the charity wasn’t “operated primarily for religious purposes” because it served all people, not just Catholics, and didn’t proselytize. The Court held that the state’s position violated the First Amendment by imposing a “denominational preference” and attempting to define what constitutes a valid religious activity, which the government is forbidden from doing.
    • Fischer v. United States (2024): This case questioned whether a felony obstruction charge, originally passed to prevent evidence tampering, could be broadly applied to defendants from the January 6 Capitol riot. Justice Jackson joined the conservative majority in a 6-3 decision that found prosecutors had interpreted the law too broadly. The Court ruled the law is limited to acts that impair the integrity of evidence, not any conduct that disrupts an official proceeding. This significantly narrowed the application of a key felony charge in Jan. 6 prosecutions.
    • CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association (2024): Her opinion, while far from perfect in my opinion, was a strong defense of judicial restraint, arguing that courts have no power to overrule Congress on funding matters unless the Constitution is explicitly and unambiguously violated. This reasoning champions a limited role for the judiciary, a core principle of legal conservatism.
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  • The Autopen Republic: An Exposé on Legislative Negligence

    The Autopen Republic: An Exposé on Legislative Negligence

    The assertion that “no one has ever read an entire bill before voting on it” rings with a cynical truth that many Americans feel deep in their bones. It’s a damning indictment of a broken system. This isn’t about lofty ideals or the complexities of modern governance; it’s about a fundamental failure of duty. We demand proof of review, a guarantee that our laws are not passed by autopilot. The era of excuses is over.

    By the Numbers: A Crisis of Volume and Verbiage

    The sheer scale of legislation has become a convenient shield for lawmakers. But a look at the data reveals a problem that has spiraled out of control.

    • The Longest Bill: The record for the longest bill ever passed goes to the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. At an obscene 5,593 pages, it was a behemoth spending bill combining COVID-19 relief with a $1.4 trillion omnibus package. To expect any single human to read, comprehend, and critically analyze this mountain of text before voting is a physical and cognitive impossibility. It was signed into law by President Trump on December 27, 2020, after passing both houses of Congress with large bipartisan majorities just days earlier.
    • The Shortest Bill: In stark contrast, some legislation can be very brief. In 2017, a bill was introduced in the House with a single sentence: “The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018.” While this bill did not pass, it demonstrates that brevity can be a tool for radical change.
    • The “Average” Bill – A Rising Tide of Text: The very concept of an “average” bill is misleading, but the trend is undeniable. In the 1947-48 session, the average law was just 2.5 pages. Today, that average has ballooned to nearly 18 pages. More complex legislation often exceeds 1,000 pages. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, for example, clocked in at over 2,500 pages.
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  • Don’t Ground ‘Quiet Skies’: A Proposal for Smarter, Safer Aviation Security

    Don’t Ground ‘Quiet Skies’: A Proposal for Smarter, Safer Aviation Security

    The recent announcement that the TSA is ending its “Quiet Skies” program has been framed as a victory against wasteful spending and political misuse. While any program that costs taxpayers millions and is used to target political opponents deserves scrutiny, scrapping Quiet Skies entirely is a dangerously simplistic solution. I have a nuanced critique: the core concept of the program is not only sound but essential. The problem wasn’t the mission; it was the flawed execution and political weaponization. Instead of ending the program, we should be reforming it into a smarter, more effective tool that truly secures our nation.

    First, the idea of using dedicated analysts and undercover air marshals is a good one. However, their mission should be dovetailed with other tangible needs in our struggling aviation sector. Imagine if their observational data could be used for quality control or to assist our overburdened Air Traffic Control system. This would add immense value beyond pure counter-terrorism and justify the program’s existence on multiple fronts.

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  • The Architect of Your Anxiety

    The Architect of Your Anxiety

    Before you can build a political army or start a populist brushfire, you have to know what makes the masses tick. You need the cheat codes to the human soul. In the age of digital warfare, that cheat sheet looks something like this:

    1. Your Facebook “Likes”
    2. Your personality quiz answers
    3. Your politics (declared or assumed)
    4. Your age and gender
    5. Your location
    6. Your relationship status
    7. Your late-night status rants
    8. Your private messages
    9. Your friends (and their data, too)
    10. The events you pretend you’ll attend

    With this map to the public’s id, a new kind of political machine could be built. All it needed was a director with a vision and patrons willing to foot the bill for a bit of chaos.

    The Angel Investors of Anarchy

    Every chaotic startup needs its angel investors. For Steve Bannon’s particular brand of political disruption, the Mercer family was the venture capital firm willing to write the first big check. Billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, were the quiet benefactors of the new populist right. With a cool $10 million seed round, they handed Bannon the keys to Breitbart News after its founder’s death, letting him mod it from a conservative blog into the premier server for his populist worldview.

    Rebekah, in particular, was the hands-on operator, the one making sure her investment paid off by installing Bannon and Kellyanne Conway into the Trump campaign’s C-suite. The founder-funder relationship was a perfect match, until it spectacularly wasn’t. Like a messy public breakup you’d see unfold on …, the alliance imploded in 2018 when Bannon broke the cardinal rule—don’t talk smack about the CEO’s family. Rebekah hit the eject button, publicly declaring he’d taken her pet project “in the wrong direction” and effectively cutting off his VIP access.

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