Rob Schneider Shows Off His ‘Anti-Tesla Arson Protection Device’

Maire Clayton
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Rob Schneider Shows Off His ‘Anti-Tesla Arson Protection Device’

(Maire Clayton, Headline USA) Comedian Rob Schneider shared an image on social media Monday showing he is ready if someone tries to destroy one of his Teslas.

“I got my anti- ⁦@Tesla Arson Protection Device,” Schneider posted, as he held an AR-15-style rifle.

 

The rifle had the words “You can do it” etched into it, as it is a running gag the actor often says while appearing in Adam Sandler films.

Schneider also gave a shout out to Nemo Arms and Scottsdale Tactical for the new device.

In a prior post, the comedian said he currently owns three Tesla cars and plans on getting another one.

The destruction of property with the Tesla logo has been on the uptick since billionaire Elon Musk joined President Donald Trump’s administration in overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency.

The attacks caused Attorney General Pam Bondi to speak out and called it “domestic terrorism.” She added the Justice Department will investigate the rising problem.

“We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes,” Bondi added.

The FBI launched a 10 person task force Monday in hopes of getting the violence to stop, according to the New York Post.

“[FBI] Director [Kash] Patel has been unequivocally clear: The FBI will be relentless in its mission to protect the American people,” an agency representative told the outlet.

Acts of violence, vandalism, and domestic terrorism — like the recent Tesla attacks — will be pursued with the full force of the law.”

Musk took to social media Saturday to thank individuals who continue to support his company.

“Just wanted to say thank you to everyone supporting Tesla in the face of relentless attacks,” the Tesla founder wrote.

Schneider responded to the messages with “WE LOVE YOU!!”

Ex-Federal Reserve Official Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison for Insider Trading

Ken Silva
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Ex-Federal Reserve Official Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison for Insider Trading

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A former official for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond was sentenced on Tuesday to 24 months imprisonment for misappropriating internal Fed information to engage in insider trading.

The defendant, Robert Brian Thompson, 43, of Mosley, worked as a bank examiner and senior manager with supervisory duties for the Federal Reserve—giving him access to confidential information about financial institutions under the Fed’s supervision, including confidential supervisory information.

According to the Justice Department, Thompson used confidential information from his workplace to execute 69 trades in seven different publicly traded financial institutions for a total of $771,678 from October 2020 through February 2024.

To conceal the scheme, Thompson lied on his “Form D”—which, among other things, requires employees to disclose if they have any assets, including any equity interest in any banks that are members of the Federal Reserve system.

“Thompson falsely represented on the FRBR’s Form D that he had no assets,” the DOJ said last November in a press release.

Thompson pled guilty to one count of insider trading and one count of making false statements. He faced a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the insider trading count—as well as five years in prison on the false statements count.

Leading up to Thompson’s Tuesday sentencing, the DOJ asked Judge M. Hannah Lauck to give him a sentence of 30-37 months.

The Federal Reserve also filed a “victim impact statement,” asking for an “appropriate” sentence.

“Mr. Thompson’s actions violated our well established and well communicated policies, as well as the public’s trust. This deception provided him personal financial gain at the high cost of our integrity,” said Richmond Federal Reserve President Thomas Barkin in a letter to Judge Lauck last Thursday.

“The Bank’s reputation was maligned due to his willful disregard of our policies, false attestations and misrepresentation of his actions. For these reasons, we hope that you will consider a sentence appropriate for Mr. Thompson’s betrayal of our mission and of the American public,” the central banker added.

For his part, Thompson successfully motioned for a downward variance. Judge Lauck accepted Thompson’s motion at his sentencing after arguments were made on Tuesday. A transcript of the arguments is not yet publicly available, so it’s not clear how the ex-Fed official was able to convince the judge to lessen his sentence.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

LA Seeks $1.9B Bailout Amid $1B Deficit, $38M in Lost Revenue from Fires

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LA Seeks $1.9B Bailout Amid $1B Deficit, $38M in Lost Revenue from Fires

(, The Center Square) Los Angeles is seeking a $1.9 billion state bailout after receiving $2.5 billion in state aid thus far.

Los Angeles faces a $1 billion deficit due to spending vastly outpacing revenues — issues that predated the fire and which City Controller Kenneth Mejia has long said are making the city go “broke.”

Much of that funding is set to go toward existing city issues, such as ballooning liability payouts, with $38 million requested to cover revenue lost from the fires.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order granting extensions for mandatory ethics disclosures of behested payments or conflicts of interest for government officials in Los Angeles County means it could be easier for corruption to go undetected amid an influx of cash.

The area’s state legislators sent a joint letter to Assembly Budget Chair Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, outlining their funding request. Included items are $638 million for city services and lawsuit payouts, including $250 million for street, sidewalk and street light improvements, $200 million for the “extraordinary spike in liability payouts,” $150 million for replenishing the city’s budget reserves and $38 million to “make up for lost revenues from the Palisades fire.”

The legislators also are asking for $750 million for “mitigation and resilience for city residents,” which includes $700 million for “upgrades to the electric power grid in Pacific Palisades,” $40 million for incentives to switch to electric appliances “that increase reliability during outages” and $10 million for upgrades to the smart-city traffic control program.

Less controversially, the legislators are requesting $301 million to cover disaster recovery expenses expected to be reimbursed by FEMA.

The request includes $16.5 million for brush fire equipment, staff and vehicles, but also $40 million to address “issues” with the Palisades reservoir that was built to provide water to fight fires but has been left empty for years to make repairs to its plastic cover. It’s unclear why the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has neglected to keep the reservoir filled, as fire-fighting water does not need to be potable.

The legislators are looking for $15 million for emergency housing vouchers for displaced residents and $75.5 million for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to “expedite CalOES processing of FEMA Public Assistance from previous emergencies, particularly COVID-19.”

The last request suggests CalOES has significant unspent funding due to its inability to process paperwork and that the $75.5 million may be required to be spent on processing labor to unlock already allocated, but paperwork-protected funds.

“These amounts reflect the City’s ongoing need for support in the areas of site cleanup, housing assistance, public safety, infrastructure restoration and economic support for impacted communities,” concluded the legislators. “These investments are essential not only for immediate relief but also for fostering the City’s long-term stability and preparedness.”

With the state’s revenue highly reliant on capital gains from the stock market, ongoing market volatility could threaten the state’s proposed $322 billion budget, which includes a $7 billion reserve withdrawal. This revenue volatility could spell trouble for the state’s ability to bail out Los Angeles, as broad budget cuts may be necessary.

Report: Fees Going to EV and Public Transit, not Fixing the Roads

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Report: Fees Going to EV and Public Transit, not Fixing the Roads

(, The Center Square) Colorado’s roads are deteriorating, as more money moves away from maintaining the roads in favor of funding public transportation and electric vehicle programs.

This comes even as transportation fees continue to increase for Coloradans, raising over $200 million.

This is all according to a March report titled “The Ongoing Shift of Transportation Dollars,” which was authored by Ben Stein for the Common Sense Institute of Colorado.

In an exclusive interview with The Center Square, Stein said that one of the biggest problems currently facing Colorado’s transportation infrastructure is the misdirection of funds away from directly fixing the roads.

“I think that the average citizen, when paying these additional fees that have been created in the last four or five years, presumes that that money is going to improve the transportation infrastructure,” Stein said. “In fact, only a small proportion of it is.”

Instead, the report found that the “bulk” of the money collected through those fees has gone to environmental mitigation and mass transit efforts.

Many of those efforts are being pushed as part of Gov. Jared Polis’s Transportation Vision 2035 plan, which makes it a goal to lower emissions in the state by methodically reducing “the use of vehicles, particularly those powered by fossil fuels.”

Yet, Stein argued that Colorado’s geography will make it nearly impossible to effectively move toward mass transit.

“I don’t believe, if you look at the land-use patterns where people live in Colorado today, that mass transit is really going to be an effective solution,” he told The Center Square. “It’s very difficult to imagine that mass transit is a viable solution.”

The report added that the monies that are directed toward infrastructure just aren’t meeting the Department of Transportation’s needs, with inflation, the redirection of funds and the state’s geography all playing a role in that.

“Over the long term, the resources available simply are insufficient to operate, maintain and expand the state’s highway system to maintain appropriate service levels,” the report found.

The problem isn’t going to get any better either, as Colorado’s roads already rank some of the worst in the nation.

This is according to a March report from the Reason Foundation, which ranked Colorado 47th for the condition of its rural highway pavement and 45th for urban highway pavement.

Stein said it is important to raise awareness about the redirection of funds, so that Coloradans know what their transportation fees are actually funding.

“There really needs to be statewide conversation so that the people of Colorado can say, ‘Yes, removing emissions is so important to us that we are prepared to have these fees go toward this, regardless of what it means for the long term condition of the state highway infrastructure.’”

Trump Administration Threatens to Pull MTA Funding over Subway Crime

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Trump Administration Threatens to Pull MTA Funding over Subway Crime

(Chris Wade, The Center Square) The Trump administration is threatening to withhold federal funding for New York City’s cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority unless the city cracks down on crime, but state officials are pushing back on the criticism — and asking for more money.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote to Gov. Kathy Hochul last week requesting data on assaults against transit workers, fare evasion and subway-related criminal activity, including subway surfing. Duffy warned that he could take action, including withholding federal funding, unless the MTA takes steps to make the subway system “safe” for riders.

“In 36 hours, she (Hochul) could clean up the subways, could be a nonissue,” Duffy said Monday at an event in neighboring New Jersey. “Send law enforcement in, kick out the homeless, get rid of the drugs, cops on the beat making sure there is no violence, make sure people aren’t afraid of getting stabbed, pushed into a train. This isn’t hard.”

However, MTA officials pushed back on his claims, pointing to newly released NYPD data showing subway crime is down by 24% year-over-year, while felony assaults are down 4.4%. Meanwhile, officials say any negative public perceptions about crime in New York City’s transit system aren’t driving riders away, with a 9% increase in ridership on subway service over the past year.

“So what is our transportation secretary talking about?” MTA board member Haeda Mihaltses asked at a meeting on Monday. “If our numbers are saying one thing, they’re saying something else. I mean, where are they getting their numbers from?”

In a letter to Trump and Duffy, Hochul and the state’s Democratic legislative leaders asked the administration to re-authorize federal funding for the MTA for another five years and to “realign” New York’s funding formula to provide more revenue for the transit system.

“While the MTA carries 43 percent of the nation’s mass transit riders, its share of federal transit formula funding is only 17 percent,” they wrote. “Mass transit must be federally funded at a level commensurate to its importance to our nation and New York must receive its fair share of that funding to keep up with the needs of New Yorkers who rely on it to get to work, school, and medical appointments.”

The MTA receives billions of dollars in federal funding annually to maintain and operate the transit system. The dispute over funding is the latest volley in an escalating war between the federal government and the MTA, with the Trump administration pushing to end the transit agency’s controversial congestion pricing program.

On Tuesday, Duffy responded with a social media post that doubled down on his criticism of crime in the public transit system and blasted Gov. Hochul’s “outrageous” request for more federal funding.

“The MTA is running a deficit thanks to NY’s financial mismanagement, and they already receive billions in federal funding,” Duffy wrote on X. “Instead of addressing rampant crime that’s scaring riders away or actually fixing their financial mismanagement, the state is trying to fill the gap with highway funds and taxing the working class. Meanwhile, transit assaults are up.”

Duffy said the state needs to revise its transportation plans to clarify how it will reduce crime on the MTA system.

“Before we make any changes to funding decisions, we’d like to see their plan to make the subway reliable, secure, and clean,” Duffy wrote. “The federal government is not a blank check, and we will hold NYC leaders accountable for not keeping commuters safe.”

FBI Still Treating Jokes as Domestic Terrorism Threats

Ken Silva
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FBI Still Treating Jokes as Domestic Terrorism Threats

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) It looks like Kashyap Patel’s FBI is continuing the bureau’s tradition of treating racy social media posts as legitimate domestic terrorist threats.

The non-profit transparency group Property of the People recently obtained an internal FBI threat assessment, which warns of an uptick in violent threats against corporate CEOs.

The FBI’s assessment comes in the wake of a left-winger named Luigi Mangione allegedly assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December.

Some of the threats listed in the assessment might be legitimate—such as a post where someone said they’d be attending a February 2025 shareholders meeting to confront a CEO. Another user allegedly posted a “hit list” of CEOs online on Dec. 7.

However, other posts identified by the FBI as threats were clear jokes. 

For instance, one Twitter user posted that he’d “shoot the ceo of con Edison before i pay that light bill.” The user’s post was in response to a video of an ostentatious Christmas lights display, with the person taking the video exclaiming, ““I know that light bill gonna be high!”

In another instance, the FBI’s threat assessment claimed that someone threatened CEOs by posting, ‘copycat killers identified,’ and naming the CEOs of multiple major U.S. healthcare companies. Rather than a threat, the post was accusing the insurance CEOs of being killers by unjustly denying people health insurance coverage.

“Again, it’s as if the FBI didn’t bother to think through what it was reading and just saw the words ‘copycat killers’ and jumped to conclusions. Brilliant detective work from our premiere law enforcement agency!” noted reporter Ken Klippenstein, who first reported on the assessment.

The FBI admitted that the so-called threats listed in its assessment did not meet the level of federal prosecution, but in at least one case a social media post was referred to local law enforcement for “further investigation” anyways.

If the FBI has an investigation open into someone, it’s allowed to monitor that person’s online activity, run informants at them, and track their every movement.

The FBI investigated numerous people for online social media posts under the Biden administration. At least one of those investigations turned deadly.

Last August, the FBI killed an ailing 75-year-old man who had been making social media threats against Joe Biden and other federal officials.

After firing a “barrage of bullets” that left Utah man Craig Robertson dead around 6 a.m. on Aug. 9, authorities immediately carried the man out of his house and placed him on the sidewalk. There, his lifeless and bloody body remained for about two hours, according to the man’s neighbor.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Noem Says ‘Gravy Train’ over for Illegal Immigrants at HUD

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Noem Says ‘Gravy Train’ over for Illegal Immigrants at HUD

(, The Center Square) The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is teaming up with the Department of Homeland Security to prevent illegal immigrants from using public housing.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem signed the “American Housing Programs for American Citizens” Memorandum of Understanding to end the use of taxpayer dollars to benefit noncitizens in the country illegally instead of American citizens.

As part of the agreement, HUD will provide a full-time staff member to assist in operations at the Incident Command Center, establishing an interagency partnership for data sharing to “ensure taxpayer-funded housing programs are not used to harbor or benefit illegal aliens.”

“American tax dollars should be used for the benefit of American citizens, especially when it comes to an issue as pressing as our nation’s housing crisis,” Turner said. “This new agreement will leverage resources including technology and personnel to ensure American people are the only priority when it comes to public housing.”

Noem accused the Biden administration of giving illegal aliens priority over Americans. She said that will stop.

“The entire government will work together to identify abuse and exploitation of public benefits and make sure those in this country illegally are not receiving federal benefits or other financial incentives to stay illegally,” she said. “If you are an illegal immigrant, you should leave now. The gravy train is over.”

In February, President Donald Trump signed an order mandating federal agencies to “identify all federally funded programs currently providing financial benefits to illegal aliens and take corrective action.”

CBO: Extending 2017 Tax Cuts Could Add $37 Trillion in Debt

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CBO: Extending 2017 Tax Cuts Could Add $37 Trillion in Debt

(The Center Square) If Republicans in Congress make good on President Donald Trump’s promise to extend the expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the move would add more than $37 trillion to the debt over the next 30 years, including $4.5 trillion in the next decade.

The Congressional Budget Office projections were included in a letter to U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., this week.

Schweikert had asked the CBO to game out an alternative budget scenario in which provisions of the 2017 tax act are extended indefinitely. That includes lower statutory tax rates, the changes to allowable deductions, the larger child tax credit, the 20% deduction for certain business income and the income levels at which the alternative minimum tax takes effect, according to the CBO’s analysis.

“As every dollar Congress votes on is borrowed, we must exercise the intellectual resolve to confront the looming fiscal crisis,” Schweikert said. “Stopping excessive spending is necessary to ensure future generations of Americans are not burdened by our current disregard.”

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit group, estimated the permanent extension, with interest, would raise deficits by $4.5 trillion through 2034, $15 trillion through 2044, and $37.2 trillion through 2054.

The group also noted that financing the tax cuts would eventually reduce the nation’s economic output, as measured by gross domestic product.

“While CBO finds the TCJA extensions would boost output over the next decade, they find that the higher debt load from deficit-financed extension would negatively impact the economy over the long run while also pushing up interest costs,” the report noted.

By fiscal year 2054, CBO estimates that GDP would be 1.8% smaller and the average interest rate on federal debt would be 29 basis points higher relative to its baseline scenario.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation projected debt would skyrocket as a result. The foundation noted a permanent extension of the TCJA, absent any other changes, would push the debt held by the public to 214% of gross domestic product in 2054 – “47 percentage points higher than under the baseline scenario in which the provisions expire as scheduled and above the level in 2024 of 98% of GDP.”

Trump wants to extend provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The 2017 law lowered taxes for many Americans and businesses, but it is set to sunset this year without action from Congress.

Congress has run a deficit every year since 2001. In the past 50 years, the federal government has ended with a fiscal year-end budget surplus four times, most recently in 2001.

DOGE Claims a 9-Month Old Baby Received $100k Small Business Loan

Maire Clayton
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DOGE Claims a 9-Month Old Baby Received $100k Small Business Loan

(Maire Clayton, Headline USA) President Donald Trump and his administration revealed more ways the government was wasting money in a Monday meeting.

The Department of Government Efficiency found that millions of dollars in loans were being given to children.

“One case of fraud was with the Small Business Administration, where they were handing out loans—$330 million worth of loans—to people under the age of 11,” billionaire Elon Musk claimed. “I think the youngest, Kelly, was a 9-month-old who got a $100,000 loan.”

“That’s a very precocious baby we’re talking about here,” Musk jokingly said to reporters.

No charges have been filed over the alleged baby loan. Musk has made false statements about DOGE findings in the past, including that millions of dollars of condoms were sent to Gaza.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler spoke after Musk and noted the crackdown on fraud will not stop.

“We’ve seen, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud go unprosecuted, so we’re taking that on,” she added. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for fraud, and we continue to crackdown on it and make sure people are held accountable.”

In addition to child loans, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin revealed there was a $2 billion grant that former President Joe Biden’s administration approved. The money was given to a climate group that was linked to former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, according to Fox News.

The Washington Times reported there was an additional $600,000 to study the menstrual cycle of transgender men and a different contract focusing on diversity equity and inclusion within the pest-management industry.

Even more waste was found with a $300,000 contract being used for LGBT farmers in leftist states to have “food justice” education.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins blasted the misuse of funds during the meeting.

“Again, these are nonsensical. It makes zero sense to use taxpayer dollars to fund these,” she said. “I know these are just a few examples of the hundreds we’ve found.”

House Lawmakers Bill Expanding Concealed Carry Nationwide

Jose Nino
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House Lawmakers Bill Expanding Concealed Carry Nationwide

(José Niño, Headline USA) Americans with a valid permit to carry a concealed firearm are one step closer to being able to carry their firearms in other states that allow concealed carry. 

On Tuesday, H.R. 38, the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act was passed out of the House Judiciary Committee. 

The committee voted along party lines, with 18 Republicans in favor and 9 Democrats opposed, during a markup session held on Tuesday. The bill now advances to the full U.S. House of Representatives for consideration.

In a post on X, the House Judiciary Committee announced after passing the bill that it would “provide much-needed clarity for law-abiding gun owners nationwide.”

H.R. 38  is sponsored by Rep, Richard Hudson, R-North Carolina, and currently has 178 cosponsors. 

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, proclaimed after the bill was passed: “Our First Amendment rights do not change from one state to another and our Second Amendment rights should not either.”

Second Amendment advocacy organizations like the National Rifle Association have praised the passage of this bill. 

“The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed an individual’s fundamental right to keep and bear arms,” declared John Commerford, Executive Director of NRA-ILA. “Congress should now ensure that the right to self-defense does not end at a state line. NRA applauds and thanks Representative Hudson for his longstanding and unwavering leadership in the fight for right-to-carry reciprocity.”

On paper, with 218 Republicans, 213 Democrats, and 4 vacancies in the House, this bill can be passed—but moderate Republicans could prove to be spoilers due to the narrow majority the party holds in this chamber. 

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino 

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