Sunday Thoughts

A pleasant surprise this week from the Trump administration is that they continue to plow ahead with eliminating government jobs and government programs. After the initial flurry of actions in the first month, they seemed to hit a wall for a few weeks, but this week we saw more action. The elimination of Voice of America is the big one. It is not so much for what it does but for what it presents, which is the policies and mindset of the last century.

They continue to deal with rogue district court judges, but that may be coming to a head. There was a case in Rhode Island where a judge demanded the administration not depart an Arab woman, but they went ahead and deported her anyway. This was most certainly done on purpose as a warning to the Supreme Court about what lies ahead. There is another case where a district judge ordered the admin to hire everyone back, which has been appealed to the Supreme Court.

They may have been handed a good opportunity to threaten the court yesterday. District Judge Boasberg preemptively forbid the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to swiftly deport Venezuelan drug gangs. Judge Boasberg colluded with the FBI to abuse the FISA warrant system in order to spy on Trump in the 2016 campaign. They should now open a criminal probe into him and his family as a warning to the court of what comes next if they persist.

It is far too soon to be celebrating anything, but at the two-month mark of Trump 2.0, we are in a place few imagined possible. Paul and I did a show on Reagan last week and way back then it was the dream of normal people to see things like the Department of Education eliminated. Forty years later, the Trump team just cut eighty percent of the jobs. Time will tell if they manage to get this project across the finish line, but we are nonetheless living in exciting times.

Topics

• Still Cutting
• Alien Enemies Act (Link)
• Crooked Judge (Link)
• Thrown The Bums Out (Link) (Link) (Link)
• Ukraine Machinations
• Salty Tears (Link)