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Musk's Boring Company To Build Free 1-Mile Tunnel In "Tunnel Vision Challenge!" In a new contest, Elon Musk's tunneling firm, The Boring Company, will build a 1-mile tunnel for free to the best idea submitted to the company. The Boring Company's Prufrock 5 tunneler (via X) "Announcing the Tunnel Vision Challenge!" the company wrote on X. "Pitch us your best 1-mile tunnel idea (Loop, freight, pedestrian, utility, etc.), we’ll pick a winner, and build it…for free!" Announcing the Tunnel Vision Challenge! Pitch us your best 1-mile tunnel idea (Loop, freight, pedestrian, utility, etc.), we'll pick a winner, and build it…for free! Details:https://t.co/xRTmClRjVt Criteria: -Usefulness (good bang for the bore) -Stakeholder Engagement (get… — The Boring Company (@boringcompany) January 19, 2026 In an announcement on their website, the company said (emphasis ours): Do you have Tunnel Vision? You might if you often look around and wonder, wouldn’t it be a lot easier if I could get from Point A to Point B without the hassle of crossing busy roads, intersections, or other obstacles. Tunnels may be your answer! The Boring Company (TBC) invites you to submit your proposal for a tunnel project up to 1 mile in length with a 12-foot inner diameter. TBC will select a winner from the proposals submitted and construct the tunnel free of charge. The tunnel can be a Loop tunnel, a freight tunnel, a pedestrian tunnel, a utility tunnel, a water tunnel, or any other use case where a tunnel would be useful. Prufrock is designed to construct mega-infrastructure projects in a matter of weeks instead of years - so let's build! The deadline for submissions will be February 23, 2026, and a winner will be picked on March 23, 2026. As Tesla Oracle notes further; Musk founded The Boring Company in an effort to reduce tunneling costs. To achieve this, the diameter of the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) was reduced to 12 feet. Following the same principle of constant improvement, The Boring Company continually upgrades its TBMs. The latest TBM is named Prufrock 5 (pictured above). With the previous version (Prufrock 4), The Boring Company achieved a phenomenal tunneling cost efficiency of $27 million per mile. Musk’s company is aiming to achieve a cost of $10 million per mile of tunneling with Prufrock 5 and its future TBMs. Compared to the US standard, boring a 1-mile tunnel costs a staggering $2.5 billion on average (see graph below). So, the Tunnel Vision Challenge is offering at least a $27 million value for free. Prufrock-4 is our smartest, fastest and safest Tunnel Boring Machine. And the next iterations (5, 6, and 7) are already being built at The Boring Factory in Texas. Goal is Continuous Mining and Zero-People-in-Tunnel (ZPIT). We are hiring exceptional ME, EE, and SWEs - join us! pic.twitter.com/oKntdUnOsf — The Boring Company (@boringcompany) September 14, 2025 * * * The outlet also notes that the Boring Company's Las Vegas Convention Center Loop (LVCC) is the best example of a finished tunnel, which carries Tesla vehicles around the strip as long as you have a Model S, 3, X, Y, or Cybertruck (so basically all of 'em). The company collaborated with the Las Vegas Airport and city officials to set up a service called Vegas Loop that helps visitors with airport dropoffs. Vegas Loop dropoff at the Airport! Still in the early phases of the program, providing a small number of rides each day. The ride includes both a tunnel portion and a long surface portion, with the latter shifting to subsurface when the 2.25 mile Airport Connector twin tunnels… https://t.co/uoqer0Jye5 pic.twitter.com/dMUAQUboAh — The Boring Company (@boringcompany) December 30, 2025 Tyler Durden Mon, 01/19/2026 - 21:00

'We Must Pass The SAVE Act': Republicans Engage In Serious Push For Voter ID House Republicans are going "full steam ahead" on a supercharged version of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a GOP-sponsored bill to prevent non-citizen voting in federal elections. It would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require documentary proof of US citizenship (passport, birth certificate, or REAL ID=compliant driver's license) when registering to vote. The bill (H.R. 8281) was originally introduced in 2024 and was passed by the House in a 220-198 vote, however it stalled in the Senate under Democratic control. In early 2025, it was revived in the House as H.R. 22, and S. 128 in the Senate. In April, the House passed H.R. 22 in a 220-208 vote, where it was sent to the Senate and has once again stalled due to threat of filibuster or lack of bipartisan support. Now, Republican leadership is pushing a "turbocharged" version called SAVE Act Plus, which would enhance the original bill by adding photo ID requirements for registration and voting, which both House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise have begun aggressively pushing. "What we're looking at doing is passing an even better bill over to the Senate to give them even more incentive to go protect the sanctity of every American's vote, and that is the Save Act plus a picture ID requirement," Scalise told Fox News on Sunday. "Look, you can't even get on an airplane. You can't go to a bar tonight without showing a picture ID. Yet, there are people in many states where the states actually have laws saying you can't show ID, which is a recipe for fraud, for stealing your vote if you're voting legally so that somebody can come behind you illegally in another country and actually vote and steal your vote..." We need massive momentum behind this Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise are pushing to pass the SAVE Act Plus Here’s why that’s a huge deal - This mandates IN PERSON presentation - Voters will must show documents directly to an election official or… pic.twitter.com/WkY4DdVKYi — Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) January 19, 2026 On Friday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) amplified a post on X showing that 84% of Americans want voter ID - with Lee posting "We must pass the SAVE Act," adding "There are no good arguments against it." We must pass the SAVE Act There are no good arguments against it Pass it on if you agree https://t.co/ZjYQLCNTJb — Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) January 16, 2026 In early December, Johnson said that the SAVE Act would be a "really important measure to eliminate fraud in elections." Elon Musk has been extremely vocal about this as well: No ID and mailing in ballots make fraud trivial. Both of those need to be fixed to restore democracy. https://t.co/edN9yTbDWG — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2026 GET IT DONE TO SAVE AMERICA https://t.co/hCIkDycXFe — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2026 In January, the House Freedom Caucus wrote to Johnson urging him to push the SAVE Act as the top item on his agenda. Tyler Durden Mon, 01/19/2026 - 19:15

Newsom Strains To Flip Script On California's Failures Authored by Susan Crabtree via American Greatness, It’s an odd predicament for a leading Democratic presidential contender. Gavin Newsom’s biggest strength—political spin and performance come almost second nature to him—could also be his biggest liability as he strains to remake the tarnished image of the state he has governed for the last seven years. Newsom, with his smooth-talking, rapid-fire responses and his attempt to out-Trump Trump on social media aggression, is everything Kamala Harris wasn’t in 2024. But neither Californian can easily shake the biggest millstone dragging down their White House ambitions. Their failed progressive policies have sullied the Golden State’s image, driving up prices, homelessness, and mismanagement. The failures have not only driven citizens away but are also likely to turn off voters in swing battleground districts as well. California’s failures weren’t Harris’ biggest weakness in 2024—her word salads were. But the Golden State’s downward spiral was a close second. As wildfire victims held vigils and prayer circles on the anniversary of the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, Newsom on Thursday attempted to flip the script on California’s role as a GOP punchline. In his final State of the State address after years of releasing videotaped remarks, Newsom cast Trump’s control of Washington as a “carnival of chaos” amid the Democratic furor over an ICE agent shooting and killing a woman in Minnesota. He then positioned California as a “beacon” of fairness and resistance to Trump’s heavy-handed rule. Addressing the California legislature, which had just observed a moment of silence for the slain Minnesota woman, Renee Nicole Good, Newsom repeatedly pointed to Trump as a power-hungry threat to democracy who abused his power to call in the National Guard to quell unrest over ICE arrests and raids. “The president believes that might makes right, that the courts are simply speed bumps, not stops. That democracy is a nuisance to be circumvented. Secret police, businesses being raided, windows smashed, citizens detained, citizens shot, masked men snatching people in broad daylight, people disappearing,” Newsom charged. “None of this is normal,” he added. After throwing out the red meat for the Democratic base, Newsom then set out to normalize California’s dizzying array of failures under his watch. “The state is providing a different narrative—an operational model, a policy blueprint for others to follow,” he told state lawmakers. Newsom’s defiant defense of his state as a shining example for others to emulate may come as a shock for those who haven’t been watching his reinvention as a social media agitator and leader of the national redistricting battle. But Newsom’s attempt to go on offense on his biggest weakness—his policy failures—was his most audacious and sweeping thus far. After mimicking Trump’s belligerent social media style, Newsom stole another Trump play, labeling the state’s critics as suffering from “California Derangement Syndrome,” a revision of the “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” which MAGA deploys to brush off condemnation. “The declinists,” the pundits and conservative critics, simply don’t know the updated facts, Newsom asserted, arguing that they are working to “tear down, to try to attack all of our progress.” Early data for 2025, he said, indicate a 9% decline in homelessness, the first drop after an explosion of unsheltered people in California. He failed to mention that from 2019 to 2024, under his watch, homelessness rose to 188,000, a net increase of 37,000, or 24%, even though the state spent roughly $24 billion trying to curb it. “So, our investments paid off,” he claimed without an explanation. Newsom acknowledged that the decline was “not good enough,” and more work needs to be done as long as big homeless encampments still exist in major cities around the state. He failed to mention the high number of…

NYC Mayor Mamdani Under Fire Not For Snubbing Black Appointees Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA, Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s newly sworn-in mayor, is already facing criticism less than a month into his tenure. Not for his democratic socialist agenda, but for failing to appoint black and Hispanic officials. In New York City, the mayor relies heavily on deputy mayors, a group that functions much like a cabinet. Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, filled his administration with black and Hispanic officials, a stark contrast to Mamdani’s approach. According to a New York Times report on Thursday, some black and Latino leaders “worry they are being denied access to power under Mayor Zohran Mamdani and that they may lose the ground they had gained under former Mayor Eric Adams.” So far, Mamdani has appointed five deputy mayors. None are black, and only one is Hispanic. The imbalance has drawn backlash. “He already doesn’t have the best relationship with the Black community,” said political consultant Tyquana Henderson-Rivers. “And it seems like he’s not interested in us because there’s no representation in his kitchen cabinet.” It must be so exhausting being a lib. https://t.co/xiZtutq8A5 — Tim Carney (@TPCarney) January 16, 2026 Arc of Justice President Kristen John Foy echoed that concern, warning that Mamdani’s staffing decisions undercut his pledge of diversity. “For someone who prides himself on being directly engaged with everyday New Yorkers, to be so tone deaf to the cries of Black and Latinos in the city for access to power is shocking,” Foy said. She added, “There are some very good people of color that have been appointed to some high-level positions, but those people are not at the center of the decision-making apparatus in this city.” In response, Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec dismissed the criticism, claiming that 18 of the administration’s 32 appointees are minorities. Mamdani was sworn into office on Jan. 1 after campaigning as a democratic socialist and vowing to enact some of the most radical left-wing policies in New York City history. Tyler Durden Mon, 01/19/2026 - 15:30