NGOs and (what was) your money

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THE PROBLEM, AS OUTLINED BY DATA REPUBLICAN:

Stephen Green, April 14, 2025:

The Left is structured as a network of NGOs: ruthlessly efficient and ready to act the moment power changes hands.

The Right has no equivalent infrastructure. If I sit down and ask myself, “How would I start an NGO to implement a conservative agenda in D.C.?” … I draw a blank. Because the dominant instinct on the Right isn’t to build, it’s to dismantle. Most conservative goals center on shrinking or limiting the federal government.

That creates a fundamental asymmetry. NGOs on the Left are designed to expand state power through policy scaffolding, and once federal funding flows in, it’s nearly impossible to tear down. It would take an act of Congress to defund these mechanisms, and Congress rarely votes to shrink its own power.

So, we can’t fight fire with fire.

As I see it, there are only three paths forward (not mutually exclusive):

1. Keep scaling the existing DOGE efforts.
2. Replace the majority of Congress with people willing to shut the spigot.
3. Trigger a Convention of States and rewrite the rules from outside the system.

Each path demands broad public support, which, again, NGOs don’t need. That’s part of what makes them so dangerous. They just have to win the influence of a few.

UPDATE: Burning Madolf reminded me of this X post; I’d headline it, “How it Works”

Wellkommen! Alles läuft nach Plan!

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2026: WILD New Migrant Crime Stats Out of Germany Drop

Via Remix News (emphasis added):

The official crime statistics for Germany have now been released for 2025, and they show a continued “upward trend” in the proportion of non-German suspects, particularly in serious and violent crime categories like murder, rape, and robbery.

The data, from the PKS 2025, published by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), shows that among the most serious crimes, migrants are vastly overrepresented* despite making up 15 percent of the population.

*Continue reading to discover why even these jarring numbers likely undercount migrant crime.

While the TL;DR summary is that, in every category of crime, migrants vastly outstrip native Germans relative to their respective shares of the population, here are some of the specifics per the government crime report.

Violent crime:

Foreigners are responsible for 41 percent of all violent crimes and 38 percent of all murders. In certain cities like Berlin, a record number of shots were fired in 2025, and the murder rate has been steadily rising…

In addition, the statistics show that 29,000 knife-related crimes are committed every year in Germany, amounting to 80 per day.

Sex crime:

Foreigners are responsible for 36 percent of all such crimes, which includes rape but also less serious crimes such as the distribution of pornography. However, this figure rises to 39.1 percent when only serious sexual crimes are counted, including only rape and sexual assault.

Furthermore, the statistics show that rape has risen 72 percent since 2018…

Afghans are 14 times more likely than Germans to commit a sexual offense.

Robbery and theft:

Foreigners also commit 48 percent of all thefts and 48 percent of all robberies. In certain states, like North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s most populous state, the 2025 report specifically noted that foreigners committed 48 percent of robberies in the state despite making up 16 percent of the population.

As I’ve noted many times, while shocking, considering that the Germans did this to themselves — or more accurately, allowed their government to do it to them with minimal resistance — these migrant crime statistics, for numerous sociological and political reasons, are not surprising.

What is surprising is that the German authorities still collect this data, compile it, and release it to the public; I’m not sure how much longer they can keep doing so and avoid a full-on revolution.

Then again, maybe mass civil unrest is just the pretext they need to really stamp the boot on the German face.

…[T]hese stats, as wild and rightly eye-opening as the they should be for anyone who cares about Western civilization, likely vastly underestimate the migrant crime problem, in that these numbers categorize “naturalized” migrants who commit crimes as natives after they’ve been neoliberally alchemized into “Germans.”

Washington Post, July 27, 2014

The new land of opportunity for immigrants is Germany

In the United States, the immigration debate is toxic and paralyzed. Political parties raging against foreigners are surging at the polls in Britain and France. But in Germany, the government is rolling out a red carpet by simplifying immigration procedures, funding free language classes, even opening " welcome centers" for newcomers looking to carve out a piece of the German dream.

And from 2015 …

Germany expects 1.5 million asylum-seekers, report says

German paper quotes confidential document containing estimates that are far higher than publicly released figures.

Shocker: SDNY Judge (Clinton appointee, Harvard Law) rules that grants distributed on the basis of race and gender can't be cancelled on the basis of race and gender (Updated)

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Equally surprising, ABC “News”, which reported this development, doesn’t mention how and on what grounds the federal money doled out to the NGO projects were selected in the first place.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency “blatantly used” race, gender and other protected characteristics to execute the largest mass termination of federal grants in the history of the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal judge ruled on Thursday. 

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon declared the terminations unlawful, concluded that the DOGE staffers lacked the authority to make those decisions, and blocked the Trump administration from carrying out the grant terminations. 

“There can be no serious dispute that the review process implemented by DOGE did not conform to, or even resemble, NEH’s ordinary grant-review process,” Judge McMahon wrote. 

Citing the current resurgence of antisemitism, Judge McMahon called out the decision to cut funding for grants related to the Holocaust because it focused on women who survived Nazi persecution. 

“At a time when the specter of antisemitism has reemerged from the shadows, for our Government to deem a project about Jewish women disfavored because it centered on Jewish cultures and female voices is deeply troubling,” she said. 

The nonprofits that sued over DOGE’s cuts to their funding are celebrating the ruling, saying the court affirmed the importance of humanities research in a democratic society. 

“The humanities are not a luxury. They are how a democracy understands itself. Today’s decision is a step toward honoring the will of Congress and our mission as a nation — to seek the truth, know ourselves, and build a better future on that knowledge,” said the American Council of Learned Societies President Joy Connolly in a statement.

When President Donald Trump returned to office last January, he empowered Musk to slash federal spending as a lead adviser in the newly created DOGE. Within days, all agencies were directed to put DEI staff on leave and related programs were shuttered.

Here’s the nub of it: Job protection, for federal agencies and, even more, the thousands NGO organizations and employees that have been living on taxpayers’ money for decades.

In lengthy depositions released in March, two DOGE employees -- Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh -- defended the effort to cut "useless agencies" as part of DOGE's attempt to reduce the federal deficit.

"You don't regret that people might have lost important income ... to support their lives?" an attorney asked Cavanaugh about the grant cancellations.

"No. I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero," Cavanaugh said.

UPDATE: Why was this case in the SDNY? The Southern District of NY is notoriously liberal, but the usual site for appealing Trump’s executive orders affecting Executive branch administrative agencies has been D.C., where the judges hate Trump even more than NYC judges. But last summer …

DC Appeals Court Decision Against NGOs In Dispute Over USAID Funds Is A Big Win For Trump DOJ -- A Lawsplainer

It shuts down the D.C. District Court as an avenue for taxpayer funded left wing NGOs to maintain funding while Democrats are out of power in D.C.

Coming soon, another Dutchess Daphne listing; just waiting for our Secretary of State to finish a bit of lawn work

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74 Long Meadow Road, NoPo, but directly on the Mianus, so that’s different, $3.275 million.

Pictures of the house itself haven’t been posted yet, although I’m sure they’ll be up soon. There is a video floating around, with pictures and a weird sound track that seems to be a Siwanoy Indian chant set to a Hip-hop beat. I’ll see if I can’t figure out how to post it here.

In any event, Long Meadow’s a very nice road, in a good neighborhood (assuming the performers on the video were just brought in for the recording session and then sent home), and I imagine there’ll be a fight over this one.

Three pending sales: one from the deadwood pile, two from the fresh produce bin

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Interesting that it’s the laggard at 78 Khakum Wood that hold the most appeal to me. Built in 1906, 3 acres in Khakum Wood; what’s not to like? Obviously, it was the price, but the children of the were clearly in no hurry to reduce its price — their parents had lived there for 60 years, so what’s the rush? — and they stuck to their “make-me-move” price of $6.3 million from the date of its May 25 listing, April 26, 2025 through today.

You can’t fault the listing agent’s diligence; she even ordered up one of those paid content “ads-that-look-like real-articles” that are so popular with our local papers. This one appeared in Greenwich Time back in June ’25:

Sponsor Content

Poised to make new memories

The Rothe family has listed their beloved Khakum Wood home for sale—on the market for the first time in more than 60 years

By Gretchen A. Peck June 27, 2025

Located in the idyllic private association of Khakum Wood, 78 Khakum Wood Road has made its market debut for the first time in more than 60 years. The Tudor-Revival nine-bedroom home was the second home to be built in the historic Khakum Woods Association. It was completed in 1906, with landscaping by the Olmsted Brothers. 

Annemarie Rothe’s and Kirsten Rothe Meberg’s parents bought the home more than 61 years ago. Danish immigrants, they appreciated the Tudor Revival-style architecture. They were just the second family to own the home. They acquired it from the first owners, the Gilbert family, who had combined former stables and staff apartments to create the grand 6,841-square-foot luxury home that endures today. 

Over the decades, the Rothe family owned the home, they decidedly maintained the architectural character and some of the original artifacts. “We have a pulley that’s in one of the bedrooms that was used in the former hay loft,” Rothe Meberg said. 

[Etc]

But how cool is this? From the current owners’ mother’s 2023 obituary:

Annelise Balsloew Rothe was born May 7, 1931, to Poul and Edel Balsloew of Hilleroed, Denmark. She died in Greenwich Hospital on July 21, 2023.

Annelise's early years were spent in Nazi-occupied Denmark, where her father was part of the Danish resistance. As a young child, she helped the resistance movement by delivering concealed, fake papers, which were stitched into her boots, for families fleeing Nazi persecution.

She graduated from Frederiksborg Gymnasium and studied psychology at the University of Copenhagen. After her studies, Annelise became a kindergarten teacher in a marginalized section of Copenhagen, frequently bringing some of the more disadvantaged children home to her apartment to feed and clothe them.

In her late twenties, Annelise moved to The United States, where she met the love of her life, Tyge E. Rothe, who was also born and raised in Denmark. The two married and settled in Greenwich, CT, and remained married until he passed away in 2004.

Of less interest to me, because price/location don’t seem to match, 159 Lake Avenue, priced at $5.475 million and going for more, is pending after 21 days. Shockingly, some buyers don’t share my opinion on the merits of this property.

Neither do they care about my distaste for 14 Upland Drive, $3.195 million, 18 DOM. I’m hurt.