Democrats continue to somehow subvert the lowest of expectations as they fight their woke crusades.

In a first ever virtue signal, New York City is set to open a transgender only homeless shelter.

The Gateway Pundit reported,

The city of New York is opening the nation’s first transgender-only homeless shelter.

The shelter, a partnership between a local LGBTQ nonprofit and the city government, will cost the city an extraordinary $65 million and will be the first transgender homeless shelter in the nation.

“ We’ve watched so many other corporations and foundations and businesses just like completely turn their back on the community and the city didn’t do it,” said Sean Ebony Coleman, founder and CEO of Destination Tomorrow, the nonprofit that will manage the shelter for the city.

“The city is keeping in line with what New York City has always been, a sanctuary city, a safe haven, but more importantly, a trendsetter when it comes to LGBTQ rights.”

The opening comes amid a broader homelessness crisis in New York City, where more than 100,000 people are estimated to be without stable housing on any given night.

The city’s shelter system is already stretched thin, with demand rising due to a combination of economic hardship, an influx of illegal aliens ,and a severe shortage of affordable housing.

Who cares about all the other homeless people in New York City each night, the transgender homeless come first.

Truth has become stranger than parody. With any luck, Democrats will continue down this path of self destruction that has been so thoroughly rejected by the American people.

The post Victor Reacts: This Is Almost Too Stupid to Be True – NYC Transgender Homeless Shelter (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Vicky

A weeklong manhunt has come to a close with the apprehension of Michael Paul Brown, a 45-year-old Army veteran, following a fatal mass shooting at The Owl Bar in Anaconda.

On August 1, 2025, at approximately 10:30 a.m., Brown entered The Owl Bar, where he lived next door, and opened fire with a rifle, killing four local residents: bartender Nancy Lauretta Kelley (64) and patrons Daniel Edwin Baillie (59), David Allen Leach (70), and Tony Wayne Palm (74).

A multi-agency effort, including state law enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service, and federal resources, scoured the mountainous terrain surrounding Anaconda. Helicopters, K9 units, and tactical teams were deployed across the region.

A reward of $7,500 to $10,000 was offered for information leading to Brown’s capture.

On Friday, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte confirmed Brown’s arrest via social media, acknowledging the rapid and resolute law enforcement response.

“The Anaconda shooter Michael Brown has been apprehended. Incredible response from law enforcement officers across Montana. Thank you to all partners for your commitment to the search. May God continue to be with the families of the four victims still grieving their loss,” Gianforte.

The Anaconda shooter Michael Brown has been apprehended.

Incredible response from law enforcement officers across Montana. Thank you to all partners for your commitment to the search.

May God continue to be with the families of the four victims still grieving their loss.

— Governor Greg Gianforte (@GovGianforte) August 8, 2025

CNN reported:

Brown had been on the run since the “biggest” shooting in the state of Montana in a decade. He was arrested around 2 p.m. local time Friday near the search area in Anaconda and is now in the custody of Anaconda-Deer Lodge County authorities, according to the Montana Department of Justice.

Brown, an Army veteran, was seen on security footage fleeing The Owl Bar, where the fatal shooting occurred, investigators said. Since then, he had been sought by authorities representing at least 38 local, state and federal agencies traversing challenging terrain in the western Montana wilderness.

“I am proud of the unrelenting law enforcement effort this week to find and arrest Michael Paul Brown. The support we’ve seen for the community of Anaconda from across the state and the nation has also been remarkable,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said in a statement following the arrest. “The families and friends of the victims remain in my prayers.”

[…]

Brown served as an armor crewman in the US Army from January 2001 to May 2005 and was deployed to Iraq from February 2004 to March 2005, Lt. Col. Ruth Castro, a spokesperson with the US Army, previously told CNN.

Brown’s niece, Clare Boyle, previously told CNN he struggled with his mental health during his time in the Army and was never the same after his service. Brown’s mental health got progressively worse with the passing of both of his parents, Boyle said.

The post Suspect in Deadly Montana Bar Shooting Captured After a Weeklong Manhunt appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Vicky

It’s easy to miss some juicy news tidbits these days. Between the rate of change federal employees and contractors are in the middle of and the assorted platforms to include everything from social media like X to federal websites like SAM.gov that you need to follow, news can easily slip through the cracks.

When that happens, the Reporter’s Notebook is a place where those news cracks can be filled in.

A Federal CIO sighting

Greg Barbaccia is much different than previous federal chief information officers. His background is in security and intelligence, and probably more technical than any other CIO since Vivek Kundra.

And he has been much more cautious about getting into the federal community, including participating in media interviews. But like with many former federal CIOs, time in position seems to be changing his viewpoint.

Barbaccia recently appeared on CNBC to discuss President Donald Trump’s latest executive orders on artificial intelligence.

And today, Barbaccia posted some insights on LinkedIn about how he’d like to see agencies accelerate the digital transformation of federal processes.

“I notice a lot of the government considers itself to be ‘digital,’ but in reality, we’ve only digitized, not transformed. Sure we went [from] 0-1, but that should have just been the beginning,” Barbaccia wrote. “The signs are everywhere: Spreadsheets have replaced paper ledgers, but workflows remain unchanged. Email has replaced internal mail, yet decisions still bottleneck in inboxes. Forms are now PDFs, but they aren’t fillable, trackable or integrated. Approvals are scanned, not automated. Files are shared over email instead of through real-time collaboration tools.”

Greg Barbaccia is the new federal CIO.

Barbaccia said the goal now must be to modernize not just the technology and systems, but more importantly improve how the work is done.

He wrote that this means:

• Automating repetitive tasks
• Making data actionable, not just stored
• Enabling faster, more collaborative decision-making
• Adapting behaviors, not just adopting tools

“If we’ve only changed the medium and not the actual process then transformation hasn’t occurred. It’s not enough to change the platform. You have to change the practice. Stay tuned,” he wrote

The “stay tuned” is a most interesting tease for what initiatives and policies are on the horizon.

Earlier this year, Barbaccia initiated a website consolidation and modernization effort, and he teamed with the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and the General Services Administration to begin to address software license consolidation.

Barbaccia’s post generated plenty of positive feedback.

Mark Forman, the former administrator for IT and E-Government, the pre-cursor to the federal CIO during the Bush administration, said he agreed with what Barbaccia wrote.

“I would add using objectives and key results that reflect mission outcomes as opposed to current approaches that track activities completed or systems/apps deployed. This requires busting silos and I appreciate Greg moving that forward,” Forman wrote.

Don Bauer, the former chief technology officer at the State Department’s Bureau of Global Talent Management, said a big challenge he faced was operational necessities and budget constraints, which made the transformation process more incremental and slower.

“Working on the airplane while flying it has its challenges, and getting enough resources to build better while absorbing the tremendous overhead of operating the as-is, can be a no-win situation. Until the appropriators understand this, we have a LONG way to go…,” he wrote.

And Christopher Logan, a former advisor at OMB on technology modernization and a former member of the U.S. Digital Service, said he’d like to see OMB create the incentives and issue guidance to accelerate agency digital transformation.

Hopefully, with his LinkedIn post, Barbaccia is laying the groundwork to give industry and agencies a heads-up of where the administration is heading when it comes to its technology priorities.

Governmentwide performance tracking system

One new OMB technology priority that’s potentially under development is a new dashboard of sorts called the “Integrated Agency 360 Platform for Federal Performance and Resource Optimization.”

OMB released a request for information on July 8 seeking commercial technology to create this new platform. Feedback was due July 18.

OMB says the RFI is “to identify commercial solutions for an Integrated Agency 360 Platform. This platform is envisioned to provide a timely, comprehensive view of federal agency operations, investments and outcomes. The primary objective is to empower federal leadership with actionable insights, enabling them to connect strategic objectives, program performance and resource allocation. This will ensure that public funds are utilized effectively and aligned with the highest priorities, delivering measurable results.”

The initial focus of the 360 platform is for civilian agencies only, with the Department of the Treasury, GSA and the Office of Personnel Management among the first pilot participants.

OMB says each agency will implement a version of the software and the White House would have access to all agency data.

The system itself includes nine broad capabilities including organizational visibility, cross-functional integration and workflow-embedded decision tools.

A former OMB official said the idea of a governmentwide dashboard and agency specific platforms are great, but finding the right audiences and use cases for them may prove more difficult. And, of course, this effort would have been even more valuable if OMB hadn’t closed down its performance management team.

“Many agencies have versions of this tailored to their own needs, as laid out in the OMB memo from 2023 and through the continued implementation of the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act,” said the former official, who requested anonymity because they still do business with the government. “It’s logical that OMB would be interested in something that both sets a standard and helps them get a window. Collecting, organizing and displaying the data is hard, but not at all the hardest part. The much harder part is implementing feedback loops for the data. When you see it, what do you do? Do the customers actually use it? Do they respond? Do they take action? Can they? How often do they consider?”

The former official added that while they are skeptical about the ability to use predictive insights and triggering actions as part of the workflow embedded decision tools, the hope is that a new system like this would spur new thinking, prioritization and decision making.

“Whether you can embed that in the tool itself seems more magical given all the many compliance requirements layered on government actions,” the source said.

An email to OMB seeking any more details on its plans for the Integrated Agency 360 Platform was not immediately returned.

Should OMB find enough interest from vendors, it says it may issue a commercial solutions opening (CSO) to procure the platform. It gave no timeline for when this may happen.

Dusting off my soap box

Let me get my soap box out for a minute – I mean, it’s been a several years since I brought this one out, so it may be a little dusty. If the Trump administration is truly serious about fixing federal acquisition, one easy change would be to let anyone see the procurement actions agencies are posting on GSA Advantage and through the schedules program.

As has been the case for more than 30 years, unless you are a schedules holder, there is no way to see what agencies are buying. So for companies deciding whether to get into the federal market — which the White House says is one of its goals to expand the industrial base — they can review SAM.gov postings to understand what and how agencies are buying. But they have no insights into the schedules program or any other governmentwide or multiple award acquisition contract. That means out of the $755 billion spent on federal acquisition in fiscal 2024, these companies have little to no insight into more than $72 billion that went through the schedules run by the GSA and the Veterans Affairs Department.

Here’s the latest example of why GSA should open up the schedules and GWACs for anyone to view.

Back in late May, GSA released an RFI to modernize its overall marketplace, including the Advantage platform.

“GSAAdvantage.gov does not currently operate as a fully modernized e-commerce environment, and is often used as a market research tool, rather than an e-commerce site,” the agency wrote in the RFI, posted only on E-Buy. “Transactions are routed through legacy systems (e.g., Electronic Data Interchange), and buyers often encounter common issues such as website errors such as broken links and incorrect information, incomplete product descriptions and details (i.e. missing product photos), outdated catalogs listing unavailable or obsolete items, difficult and unintuitive website navigation and limited search functions and non-relevant item search results.”

The RFI, which Federal News Network obtained, detailed how “GSA aims to transform its marketplace, including GSAAdvantage.gov, into a modern, discovery-focused platform that matches commercial online shopping experiences.”

Key focus areas include:

• Contracting vehicle display and award support
• Buyer experience modernization
• Comprehensive marketplace search
• Vendor e-commerce enhancement
• Compliance and data integrity

GSA asked 29 questions and included an open-ended opportunity for vendors to provide insights or feedback. The issue here is GSA could only receive feedback from known vendors.

GSA Advantage is need of some serious improvements. GSA has focused on its commercial services platform for much of the last five years as a way to capture the e-commerce spending across government and hasn’t put the resources into bringing Advantage into the modern era.

You’d think agencies would want to cast a much wider net when they’re looking for new ideas, but the reason GSA hasn’t opened up E-Buy and other firewalled acquisition vehicles is because their agency customers are against it. They believe it would lead to all sorts of unsolicited proposals or emails or something.

Back in 2019, GSA launched an E-Buy Open pilot as way to test the waters of transparency, but that never really got a lot of traction.

It’s time to revisit that concept of opening up E-Buy, GSA Advantage and every other GWAC/MAC to a broader audience in the name of transparency, acquisition reform and industrial base expansion.

The post Federal CIO starting to come out of his shell? first appeared on Federal News Network.

Vicky