Opinion
By Jeff Childers
2/7/25
Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! As another week of winning draws to a close, we marvel at and enjoy a solid end to the work week. In today’s roundup: budget blaster confirmed as OMB Director unleashing the gremlins of trouble on the Swamp; Trump tackles weaponization and political persecution of Christians under Biden with new DOJ-led task force; welcome CDC search engine changes; New AG Bondi races out of the gate with a slew of DOJ orders; funding pause for sanctuary cities; the end of foreign election interference investigations; the death of DOJ weaponization; hunters become the hunted; civil rights department aimed at DEI dingbats; Trump ends men spiking volleyballs at girls and ogling them in the lockers rooms; and terrific news for the nation’s energy and economy.
🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍
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And just like that, another can of whoopy opened against the Swamp yesterday. Last night, the Washington Post ran an anguished story headlined, “Senate confirms Russell Vought to lead White House budget office.” After desperate Democrats pulled a Jolt cola-fueled all-nighter on the Senate floor Wednesday, crying about Vought’s pending confirmation vote, the Republican majority confirmed him yesterday anyway. Several career employees at OMB promptly resigned in protest. Rage quitters never win.
Article I gives Congress the sole constitutional power to approve federal spending. But it’s the Executive branch that actually signs the checks. So the Office of Management and Budget is America’s financial gatekeeper. Among other duties, OMB controls how and when agencies actually get the funds that Congress allocates, on a program-by-program basis.
You can see the potential. Under a controversial and long-debated theory called “impoundment,” the President can delay or even withhold Congressionally approved funds if he deems them wasteful, unconstitutional, or unnecessary. Mr. Vought could be said to be the Champion of the impoundment power.
It’s not Vought’s first rodeo. Late in his first term, President Trump finally confirmed Vought as OMB’s Director. He served for about six months, until Joe Biden infested the White House under a greasy black cloud of election irregularity. But now, like the budgetary Terminator, Russell Vought is back, fueling whole new nightmares for the Swamp causing it to toss and turn on its currency-stuffed pillow.
It’s way bigger than spreadsheets or wonky policy powers. Politico (ahem) ran the story under the affrighted headline, “Vought wants to dismantle the ‘deep state.’ As he takes office, it’s already happening.”
This week, intrepid online investigators exposed Politico, a British-owned media company that has slurped up millions of U.S. tax dollars by selling overpriced “subscriptions” to government agencies — at around $15K per year, per user. (A shocked and dismayed Politico defensively claimed, without evidence, that its special government newspaper is totally worth it, trust them.)
And so progressives are awakening from one nightmare to an even worse one featuring the terrifying power of the purse. The Trump Administration’s political velocity is off the charts. Not only that, but this demonstrates the new-media power of Twitter/X. Consider that after only two days of heated X discussions about Politico’s subscription grift, this Axios headline appeared yesterday:
Breaking news: layoffs coming soon to a Politico near you.
It wasn’t just Politico. Many other far-left corporate media, including Bloomberg and the New York Times, have been gorging themselves at the public trough. But it’s much bigger than just these media contracts.
Vought, Politico reported, is the architect of a “detailed plan for fundamentally reshaping the foundations of American government.” Faster, please. The new Director is also “one of Washington’s most strategic conservative minds capable of more effectively executing a vision to tear down the government this time around.”
Well, which is it? Is he reshaping the foundations or tearing down the government? Journalism like that clearly doesn’t deserve $15,000 subscriptions. But set that aside.
Progressives hissed angrily at Vought’s confirmation, like woke Nosferatu seeing a crucifix. They were horrified that Vought cheekily co-opted their slur and calls himself a “Christian Nationalist.” They blame him for breathing life into their ubiquitous nemesis, the left’s boogeyman “Project 2025,” which keeps popping up in the brains of Democrat politicians like moles in a cerebral whacking game.
An astonished Politico reported that Vought actually believes that America is “one nation under God.” Imagine.
It gets worse for them, much worse. Vought isn’t just aiming at government waste. Politico reported that the new Director sees “progressivism as a genuine, contemptible force that must be disempowered.” Democrats “view him as an existential threat to American democracy.” Well, their idea of democracy, anyway, like replacing their candidate in the middle of the night without asking voters. But again I digress.
Politico resentfully reported that Vought is “known to be mercurial, surgical and a provocateur — and above all a true believer of the conservative cause.” This alarms progressives because it is hard to co-opt a true believer. They much prefer fake believers of the conservative cause.
You can see why Vought is now the only Cabinet-level Trump 1.0 appointee to return to post. Though the controversial Director has obviously been working behind the scenes, he is now back in a role with real power, and he’s no quitter. Bad odds never flummoxed the wonky cost-cutter.
“When he’s not able to accomplish the president’s goals at first, he doesn’t surrender. He doubles down,” Politico quoted a Trump 1.0 official, who also told the reporter, “in the last administration various individuals would get stymied by their own bureaucracies and kind of just surrender to it. And that was extremely frustrating. Russ is not that way.”
Like Trump, Vought enjoyed a four-year holiday in which to calculate his current strategy. We can soon expect OMB fireworks, as the Democrats’ deranged response shows.
A new fear has been unlocked. It’s progressive’s Gremlins, Part 12. Russell Vought is about to pour water all over the cute little bureaucrats infesting the OMB offices.
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Yesterday, the Associated Press ran another unintentionally encouraging story headlined, “After prayer breakfast, Trump creates task force to root out ‘anti-Christian bias.’” The left’s howls of protest were so loud they could be heard as far as Greenland and all across the Gulf of America.
After attending the annual Prayer Breakfast yesterday, President Trump announced his new task force, which would “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI — terrible — and other agencies.”
It is remarkable enough that a U.S. President felt such an order was necessary.
The President explained that his new Attorney General, Pam Bondi, will work to “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.” Then he signed an executive order directing the newly formed task force to identify “unlawful policies, practices, or conduct by all executive departments and agencies, and recommend any additional presidential or legislative action.”
It was virtually an all-of-government action. The two-year task force will be headed by the Attorney General, but includes the heads of dozens of other agencies, including the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Labor, HHS, HUD, Homeland Security, and nearly every other agency you could think of. Hilariously, the EO began by reciting a long list of the Biden Administration’s weaponized misconduct:
The EO continues in that vein for several more paragraphs. The detailed and extensive description of Biden’s transgressions was politically savvy; it is hard evidence that blunts any potential criticism of the EO for focusing on one faith (although the order was broadly written to encompass all faiths).
In other words, the temporary Task Force was smartly framed as a necessary correction rather than a special privilege for Christians. The Trump Team continues exhibiting intelligence and political discipline.
As you could imagine, the AP found some people who don’t like it. Let Christians fend for themselves. Americans United for Separation of Church and State said, “blah blah blah destroying democracy.” According to its most recent Form 990, the atheist group paid its CEO —who provided the quote— a $320,000 salary in 2022. But I digress.
🔥 In related news, the CDC’s website now, for the first time, provides a link to “adoption services” when users search for “abortion:”
Setting aside that minor but encouraging victory, imagine what that small change says about what is happening inside the CDC right now. Remember, the white coats at the Centers from Disease Control are muted, squelched, ordered to not communicate with anyone outside the agency. This little change in the CDC’s search results hints at massive reorganization inside the bloated health agencies.
And how deliciously ironic is it that these overfunded “health” agencies were the ones that orchestrated deleting our free speech, and now they are the only agencies under a Trump gag order?
Simply marvelous, if you ask me.
🔥 As predicted, new Attorney General Pam Bondi hit the ground running yesterday, sprinting out of the gate by issuing a record fourteen first-day orders within the Justice Department. ABC-7 New York ran one of the stories under the headline, “New AG Pam Bondi pauses funding to sanctuary cities, including New York City.”
That’s got to hurt. The 60-day pause is already bearing fruit. New York Mayor Eric Adams raced to get in front of cameras yesterday, and pledged to ignore a city ordinance requiring local police to refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials. The Mayor said that he thinks the local law is wrong and should be changed, adding “I cannot have any city employee that would get in the way of them carrying out their job as a federal authority.”
Adams is right, of course, under the principle of federalism, national laws trump state or local laws. But the facts don’t bother some people.
Like some pro-criminal New Yorkers, who were furious. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, probably a fake name, complained, “now we have a mayor who is more of an assistant to Donald Trump than a mayor for New York City.” State Senator Zellnor Myrie, also probably fake, whined “Instead of having a mayor willing to stand up to and protect, we have a mayor issuing guidance saying we will do whatever you want President Trump.”
🔥 In another order, AG Bondi rerouted DOJ resources from fighting “foreign election interference” to upholding immigration enforcement. Thank heavens. The Washington Post reported the story headlined, “New attorney general’s orders include dissolving teams focused on foreign influence.”
“Attorney General Pam Bondi,” the WaPo reported, “is moving swiftly to redirect the nation’s law enforcement resources toward enacting President Donald Trump’s agenda of pressing dramatic change from the Biden administration.”
Good. Dramatic change is, after all, what we voted for.
Even more encouragingly, the new Attorney General instructed the DOJ to use “all available criminal statutes” to target undocumented migrants, drug and human smuggling cartels, and local officials who interfere with criminal enforcement efforts.
It might be about to get real up in here.
🔥 Another first-day Bondi order established a “Weaponization Working Group,” tasked with reviewing the work of specially abled counsel, sorry, I mean special counsel Jack Smith, and all the investigators who worked on the January 6th riot, and the New York prosecutors who brought the criminal and civil cases against President Trump, his family and his businesses during the past four years.
They were right to think they were going to need lawyers. The hunters have become the cockroaches on pest control day.
The Working Group’s members were told to “identify instances where a department’s or agency’s conduct appears to have been designed to achieve political objectives or other improper aims rather than pursuing justice or legitimate governmental objectives.” The group was also ordered to investigate other complaints by Republicans, such as the DOJ’s unfairly targeting of conservatives, such as through prosecutions of pro-life protestors, raids of parents who scolded local school boards, and charges against people who were “legitimate whistleblowers.”
🔥 In this morning’s final example (of many others), AG Bondi directed the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to focus on ways to eliminate and penalize “illegal DEI” policies in the private and education sectors. She also wants DEI rooted out of the DOJ. “All department guidance that encouraged or permitted race- or sex-based preferences as a method of compliance with federal civil rights are rescinded and will be replaced with new guidance affirming that equal treatment under the law,” Bondi wrote.
Bondi demanded “zealous advocacy” of the president’s agenda from the Justice Department’s 10,000 lawyers. She also warned them that putting their personal political beliefs above the department’s priorities “will be subject to discipline and potentially termination.” So.
Jane Bondi.
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The New York Times reported what was perhaps the week’s most encouraging news in a story headlined, “NCAA Bars Transgender Athletes From Women’s Sports After Trump Order.” What will boys who want to spike girls in volleyball do now? On Wednesday, surrounded by girls who play sports and by pro-woman activists, President Trump signed an executive order “barring transgender girls and women from playing in women’s sports at federally funded educational institutions,” effective immediately.
Long hoped-for changes also began immediately. Yesterday, the NCAA announced that “transgender women” (biological men) must be excluded from all collegiate women’s sports, also effective immediately. It may have had something to do with Trump’s requiring that all federal funding be cut off from any educational institution that lets biological boys play with real girls.
They folded like a cheap Shein overcoat. In other words, the NCAA never cared about transsexuals. They only cared about the money.
So much virtue-signaling, so little courage of conviction.
In a distantly related story yesterday, the AP ran an article headlined, “Argentina’s president Javier Milei bans gender-affirming care for people under age 18.” Sanity is spreading. The pace of progress is picking up.
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Finally, yesterday the Washington Free Beacon ran a great and very welcome story headlined, “Trump Admin Reopens Millions of Acres for Oil Drilling in Rollback of Biden Climate Agenda.” Fulfilling these Trump promises can be traced to the excellent work of newly confirmed Interior Secretary Doug Burghum.
In a series of orders Monday night, Secretary Burgum revoked scores of Biden-era actions that blocked drilling across 625 million acres of federal waters nationwide —an area roughly equivalent in size to a third of the continental United States— and across the 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, and in the state’s 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve.
Burgum also unveiled a six-pillar plan to implement President Trump’s energy agenda: address the national energy emergency, unleash American energy, deliver emergency price relief for American families, revoke Biden’s offshore drilling bans, roll back regulations, and unleash Alaska’s resource potential.
Remember, the energy agenda is also an economic agenda. Maybe even better, the nation’s long, confused, climate science experiment is also almost over. The experiment didn’t win any awards at the woke science fair, either. It just cost a lot.
Have a fantastic Friday! Get back here tomorrow morning for an action-packed Weekend Edition of deliciously snarky and fully caffeinated essential news and commentary.
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The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
