Tag Archive for: federal government

Whistleblower: Biden Turned the NSA into ‘a Cult Hellbent on Pushing Gender Ideology’

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The Trump administration promptly ordered the firing of roughly 100 federal employees whom whistleblowers exposed for turning the nation’s intelligence agencies into “a cult that was hellbent on pushing gender ideology,” creating “a counterintelligence risk” that is “going to get people killed in the field.” The employees produced messages from an online forum dedicated to government work items in which agents promoted transgender surgery, sexual fetishes and polyamory, while cheering the death of evangelical leader Pat Robertson.

“They hate capitalism. They hate Christians. They’re always espousing socialist and Marxist beliefs,” said one of the two insiders at the National Security Agency (NSA).

Two NSA employees, one still with the agency, turned over screenshots of numerous explicit online messages from the Interlink messaging program designed for the U.S. intelligence community’s professional activities. Some of the messages — written by employees of a wide range of federal intelligence services — discussed the sexual benefits of having one’s genitals removed, disowning family members who expressed opposition to gender ideology, and “ethical non-monogamy.”

The intelligence agencies, intended to investigate national security threats, became infested with hives of like-minded activists who used their perch in the sensitive government agencies to promote their views at taxpayers’ expense. “According to the current NSA employee, these groups ‘spent all day’ recruiting activists and holding meetings with titles such as ‘Privilege,’ ‘Ally Awareness,’ ‘Pride,’ and ‘Transgender Community Inclusion,’” revealed investigative journalists Christopher Rufo and Hannah Grossman, who published many of the messages that fell into their hands.

Promoting Transgender Surgery and Polyamory

Several employees discussed the physical euphoria they experienced after having transgender “bottom surgery,” which attempts to transform healthy male anatomy into faux female genitalia. “Mine is everything,” wrote one intelligence agent, who dubbed the surgery “100000000% worth it … [I] would not change anything if [I] had to do it again.”

An employee at the Defense Intelligence Agency recounted that “one of the weirdest things that gives me euophoria is when” he urinates.

“[I]’ve found that [I] like being penetrated (never liked it before GRS [so-called Gender Reconstructive Surgery, or genital mutilation]), but all the rest is just as important as well,” another message stated.

Some intelligence employees fetishized cross-sex hormone injections. One NSA employee said he wanted to develop large breasts; “I want proportions that would give me back pain,” he said. One message said, “Look, I just enjoy helping other people experience [breasts].”

Long discussions mulled the propriety of increasingly non-biological pronouns. An employee at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) insisted that, if someone asks you to use dehumanizing it/its pronouns, or foul language long used as slurs, “refusing to is a form of erasure.” One such individual made a self-introduction on the chat forum: “[I]t/its user here. While I understand we can make some people uncomfortable, keep in mind that the dehumanizing aspect either a) doesn’t apply or b) is a positive effect when we’re requesting it.” Other chat participants used “xe/they” and “they/them” pronouns in their bios.

The message boards often devolved into discussions of polyamory and “gangbangs,” the whistleblowers revealed. One NGA employee attempted to explain the ponderous relationships of members of a “polycule,” a group of people who engage in “polyamory,” or open relationships: “A is my [girlfriend], and B-G are her partners. . . . then B&C are dating but not C&D, nor E, F, or G with any of the others, though there are several MWB (metas-with-benefits) connections. LOL.” The casual sex habits of “polycule” members get so tangled that “in some cases not all members have even an idea who the others are.”

Employees were constantly trying to “one-up” one another with how pro-trans they were and how deviant their practices had become, said a whistleblower.

Rufo recoiled when The New York Times described the messages as containing “sexual themes” in its coverage of the story. “The chat messages contained more than ‘sexual themes.’ They weren’t discussing symbolism in Madame Bovary,” noted Rufo on Wednesday.

Hating Pat Robertson, Ben Shapiro, and ‘Anti-Queer’ Trump Nominees

Federal intelligence agencies spent numerous messages on the government message board expressing political opinions, particularly demonizing their perceived political enemies.

Several entries in 2022 celebrated the death of Pat Robertson, evangelist, 1988 Republican presidential hopeful, and decades-long host of “The 700 Club.”

“The gates of hell opened up to let him in,” said one.

“He’s dead. Good,” said another.

“This is a recurring theme in the NSA chatrooms: hatred against Christians, conservatives, Italians, and heterosexuals. One intelligence officer even casts aspersions on his own grandmother,” said Rufo, an investigative journalist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute known for his tireless opposition to critical race theory.

“MAJOR housecleaning is needed,” replied Elon Musk.

A separate message from September 2022 celebrated the “good news” that the social media platform then known as Twitter suspended Libs of TikTok (Chaya Raichik), whom one poster falsely accused of “inciting violence against hospitals.” One poster said the account’s founder “is such a f****** monster. I’m embarrassed that she is a Jew.”

Intelligence agency employees also targeted Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro, saying he “constantly spouts hate speech” and stating that “any Jew who says Judeo-Christian without any irony as much as Ben Shapiro does should be expelled from the tribe.” Another made a blanket statement that her fellow Americans of Irish and Italian descent are “terrible people.” Still another denounced his or her “homophobic” uncle.

Others attempted to rally opposition to President Donald Trump’s political appointees. A member of U.S. Space Command said of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., saying, “I hope the [Republican] senators will come to their senses on RFK and not confirm him.” Another poster derided RFK Jr. as an “em-brainwormed person.”

Some branded Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as “a Russian agent” who is “fervently anti-queer.” They also insulted Gabbard’s religious beliefs, saying, “She belongs to a cult. 2 if you count MAGA.” One claims “a lot” of Trump appointees “are troublesome to my prospects of continued existence along with the continued existence of a lot of people I care about.”

Trump Administration Moves to Fire More than 100 Radical Activists

Such uses of the intelligence agencies’ message boards violate their terms of employment, one agency stated. “All NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission related material on Interlink is a usage violation and will result in disciplinary action,” an NSA press official told Rufo.

Yet, Rufo wrote in City Journal that there are “at least hundreds of gender activists within the intelligence services who cannot distinguish between male and female, and who believe that discussing castration, polyamory, and ‘gangbangs’ is an appropriate use of public resources.”

“There are over 100 people across the intelligence community who participated in this. … I put out a directive today that they all will be terminated, and their security clearances will be revoked,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Fox News host Jesse Watters Tuesday night.

But the problem went much deeper, she said. “This is just barely scratching the surface. … They were brazen in using an NSA platform intended for professional use to conduct this kind of really, really horrific behavior. And they were brazen in doing this, because when was the last time anyone was really held accountable?” she asked.

“Today’s action in holding these individuals accountable is just the beginning of what we’re seeing across the Trump administration, which is carrying out the mandate the American people gave him: Clean house, root out that rot and corruption and weaponization and politicization so we can start to rebuild that trust in these institutions that are charged with an important mission of serving the American people, ensuring our safety, security, and freedom,” Gabbard concluded.

The Left’s Long March through Intelligence Agencies

The continual left-wing recruitment is the culmination of decades of Democratic presidents’ decisions to open the intelligence agencies to increasingly niche, radical activists. President Bill Clinton allowed members of the LGBTQ movement to have access to classified information when he signed Executive Order 12968 in 1995. The Obama administration began openly recruiting such activists no later than 2012. Michael Barber, program manager of the CIA’s LGBT Community Outreach and Liaison, co-hosted a recruiting event with the Miami-Dade Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. The Biden administration posted ads for intelligence agents who identified as LGBTQ.

An NSA whistleblower told Rufo the cultural arrangements began a decade ago, under then-President Barack Obama. Slowly, the niche events and discussions overtook the entire organization. An employee “could be hired as a mathematician, a staff officer, or system engineer, but you would spend your time going to these events and having meetings all day about it. They got themselves into position to help craft policy and started pushing the idea that if you want to get promoted, you have to participate in these events.”

“And then everything became Pride,” the whistleblower said. “It was like a cult that was hellbent on pushing gender ideology.”

There are only “a very small number of them, but they wield an enormous amount of power. And outside of the sick stuff, you also see a prevalent Marxist philosophy,” said the whistleblower. “They hate capitalism. They hate Christians. They’re always espousing socialist and Marxist beliefs.”

The intelligence agency employees abused those who objected to their radical activism by engaging in cancel culture. “They just got hammered. They would just start coming out with ‘transphobe’ and ‘homophobe’ right away or calling you a ‘racist.’ And that’s why a lot of folks are still hesitant to say anything, because you still have people at these agencies in those key spots. It infected everything,” said a whistleblower.

The activism impacted national security. Analysts sometimes refused to write complete and accurate reports on America’s adversaries, because they may have to use to use that person’s “dead name,” the name they used before identifying as transgender. “[T]he folks that are into this don’t put their effort into their work. I don’t care if you’re politically left or right; you can’t have an unbiased mind if you’re writing a report, and you’re constantly focused on ‘how does this apply to gender ideology,” the whistleblower said. “[W]hen you do that, it’s going to get people killed in the field.”

“The folks like that were quite unstable. I see it as a counterintelligence risk. But it’s being normalized and it’s being praised,” said the whistleblower. “I hope this is the start of getting our intel agencies back to what they should be doing, which is focused on intel and supporting the warfighter.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

House Republicans Pass Budget Resolution with $2.6T Projected Savings

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After two months of negotiation, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed a budget resolution (H.Con.Res.14) that House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) estimates will result in $2.6 trillion in savings over the next 10 years. The vote marks “the kickoff in what will be a four-quarter game,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said ahead of the vote, “and that very important, very consequential game begins as soon as we get this thing passed.”

Even after so much negotiation, House Republican leaders were holding discussions with reluctant members “all the way through the close of the vote,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). “This morning, I was counting about 4 or 5 no votes, so the vote would not have passed this morning,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said on “Washington Watch” before the Tuesday night vote.

“I know that the speaker has been working with the members that have concerns about their concerns and how to address them,” Perry added. “I think they are valid concerns. But … this is not the end of the process. It’s actually just kind of the beginning of the process. And so, to do anything, this is where we’ve got to get off the dime.”

The final vote tally was 217-215, with all Republicans voting for the bill except Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who joined the Democrats in opposing it. Republicans could afford to lose Massie’s vote because three Democratic representatives were absent.

The budget resolution declares Congress’s intention to cut spending by $2 trillion and extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts — set to expire this year. On paper, extending the tax cuts would cost the government $4.5 trillion in lost revenue over the next decade, thus increasing the deficit.

However, House Republicans hope the tax cuts will stimulate enough economic growth to save money in the long run. Using one set of economic assumptions, the Congressional Budget Office projected economic growth at an annual average of 1.8%, while House Republicans projected 2.6% economic growth, based upon different assumptions.

If the Trump tax cuts are made permanent, the House Ways and Means Committee predicted one million new jobs created by small businesses, $150 billion in economic growth from small businesses, $284 billion in economic growth from American manufacturers, and $50 billion in economic growth from Opportunity Zones in poor communities.

By contrast, if Congress allows the Trump tax cuts to expire, the Committee predicted six million jobs lost, along with a 22% tax hike for the average taxpayer, while the child tax credit, the guaranteed deduction, and the death tax exemption for family-owned farms would be cut in half.

The budget resolution is not the budget itself, but simply an agreement about how much spending to cut, and from which committees. Legislative committees will still have to decide where and how to cut spending over the coming months. For instance, the budget resolution requires the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find $880 billion in cost savings over the 10-year period.

Congressional Democrats have turned this into a point of attack, accusing Republicans of planning to cut Medicaid and Medicare, since those programs belong to this committee’s portfolio. “Republicans are literally going to gut the insurance program that covers millions of children and seniors,” declared Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). “This will mean rural hospitals will close, nursing homes will shut down, addiction treatment centers will close their doors, and the most vulnerable will die because of the Republican budget.”

“People keep saying it’s $880 billion in Medicaid [cuts.] It’s not going to be $880 billion in Medicaid,” replied House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.). Instead, Speaker Johnson said Republicans plan to root out the “fraud, waste, and abuse” that occurs within Medicaid. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), improper payments from its programs totaled more than $50 billion in a single year, fiscal year 2024.

The budget resolution now heads to the U.S. Senate, which passed its own budget resolution last week as a “backup” to the House plan. “If they pass the bill that’s before the House, it will not pass the Senate without changes,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on “Washington Watch” before the House vote. “Send it to the Senate, and we will change it in a way to make it more compliant with President Trump’s vision of the tax cuts.”

Graham explained that the House resolution simply extended the Trump tax cuts for another eight years, while “President Trump wants the tax cuts of 2017 to be permanent. So do I. That’s good for the economy.” The Senate version would also address taxes on tips and Social Security payments, he said. “It will come to the Senate,” Graham described. “We’ll change it. Then we’ll have a conference.”

But, “I applaud Mike Johnson for getting the bill this far,” Graham added. “Mike Johnson is dealing with a one-vote majority.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

USAID Workers Fired as Elon Musk Looks for Progress Reports

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A federal judge’s ruling has allowed President Donald Trump to continue his purge of a major government agency, firing thousands and placing thousands more on leave. As of Monday morning, nearly all U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees have been placed on “administrative leave” and at least 1,600 have been informed that they are going to be fired.

A notice on the USAID website reads, “As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally.” The notice continues, “Concurrently, USAID is beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force that will affect approximately 1,600 USAID personnel with duty stations in the United States.”

The Trump administration has been attempting to gut USAID for weeks, initially placing employees on leave for trying to skirt presidential directives, and quickly moving to firing almost the entire agency workforce. In response to a lawsuit filed by federal workers’ unions, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) halting the mass firings. Nichols, who was appointed to the federal judiciary by Trump himself in 2019, explained at the time that issuing a TRO did not mean he would ultimately agree with the unions filing the lawsuit.

On Friday, Nichols removed the TRO, rather than extending it. He explained that the unions “have not demonstrated that further preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.” Nichols wrote, “Upon scrutiny, the employment-related injuries that plaintiffs assert here are not irreparable ones warranting the ‘extraordinary remedy’ of a preliminary injunction.” Although USAID employees — particularly those stationed abroad — claimed that they would be barred from accessing agency systems necessary to their safety, Nichols found upon reviewing the evidence that this claim was unsubstantiated. He said that evidence provided by the Trump administration had “convinced the Court that plaintiffs’ initial assertions of harm were overstated.” The judge concluded, upon detailed review of testimony and documents submitted to him, that USAID employees’ concerns would be best addressed by review boards established by Congress to resolve labor and personnel disputes within the federal government.

The mass firing of USAID employees comes as Trump advisor Elon Musk, who developed the idea for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has demanded that federal employees submit reports on their productivity or face termination. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk announced that “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.” He added, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” According to CBS News, federal employees have been given until Monday night to respond to the email, sent by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with five bullet points listing accomplished tasks, excluding classified information.

Democrats have responded to the required productivity reports with vitriol. Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) called on federal employees to ignore the email. “This is a good opportunity for mass civil disobedience. Musk has no authority to do this,” Casten wrote on X. He continued, “Encourage all federal employees to report to work, prepare GFY letters and continue to demonstrate the public service and patriotism he lacks.” The acronym “GFY” stands for “go f*** yourself.” Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.) also launched a vulgarity-laced tirade against Musk, replying to the productivity report directive by saying, “This is the ultimate d**k boss move from Musk — except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a d**k.” Musk noted that the “bar is very low here,” observing that an email with five bullet points “take less than 5 mins to write.”

However, even some Trump administration officials have directed federal employees to ignore the email from Musk and OPM. According to The New York Times, federal employees at the FBI and the U.S. Departments of State, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security have been instructed not to respond to the email. In most cases, the order to ignore or disregard the email was issued by a senior official in the corresponding agency, but both National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel ordered employees under their supervision not to respond. Spokespersons for numerous federal agencies publicly stated that the heads of those agencies are responsible for reviewing and evaluating the work of employees.

Gabbard told intelligence community officers not to reply to the email due to “the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work…” Patel likewise told FBI employees to “pause any responses” to the email, further explaining, “The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures.” Darin S. Selnick, who is performing the duties of the Defense Department’s Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, said in a public statement, “The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reported over the weekend, though, that he will see to it that even senior military commanders are fired if they refuse to follow orders or implement the president’s agenda. He said that former president Joe Biden “gave lawful orders. A lot of them are really bad. And it’s unfortunate how they eroded our military.” Hegseth continued, “President Trump has given another set of lawful orders. And they will be followed. If they’re not followed — and all these orders are in keeping with the Constitution and norms inside the military — if they’re not followed, then those officers will find the door.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: How Trump’s Actions Melted Biden’s ‘Winter of Our Discontent’

RELATED VIDEO: Rep. Byron Donalds: ‘Democrats are flailing over Musk & DOGE gaining access to IRS data.’

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Trump EO Lassoes Federal Regulatory Leviathan

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Last week, President Trump issued an executive order “Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s ‘Department Of Government Efficiency’ Deregulatory Initiative.” “This is one of those executive orders that we may not have ever thought of, but it’s the one we’ve all been waiting on,” gushed Family Research Council Action President Jody Hice while guest hosting on “Washington Watch.”

The order aims “to focus the executive branch’s limited enforcement resources on regulations squarely authorized by constitutional Federal statutes, and to commence the deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state.”

It assigns all executive agencies the task of cataloguing, within 60 days, all their regulations that:

  • “raise serious constitutional difficulties, such as exceeding the scope of the power vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution;”
  • “are based on unlawful delegations of legislative power;”
  • “are based on anything other than the best reading of the underlying statutory authority or prohibition;”
  • “implicate matters of social, political, or economic significance that are not authorized by clear statutory authority;”
  • “impose significant costs upon private parties that are not outweighed by public benefits;”
  • “harm the national interest by significantly and unjustifiably impeding technological innovation, infrastructure development, disaster response, inflation reduction, research and development, economic development, energy production, land use, and foreign policy objectives;” and
  • “impose undue burdens on small business and impede private enterprise and entrepreneurship.”

“Subject to their paramount obligation to discharge their legal obligations, protect public safety, and advance the national interest,” the order continues, “agencies shall preserve their limited enforcement resources by generally de-prioritizing actions to enforce regulations that are based on anything other than the best reading of a statute and … go beyond the powers vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution.”

The order also directs Trump-appointed agency heads, “on a case-by-case basis and as appropriate and consistent with applicable law,” to “direct the termination of all such enforcement proceedings that do not comply with the Constitution, laws, or Administration policy.”

“What it really means is that every agency is required to do a review of the constitutionality and the consistency with statutory authority of all of their regulations and basically check under the hood and figure out whether or not [they’ve] been driving a lawful agency or not, or whether or not there’s a lot of junk in there that needs to be removed,” said Donald Kochan, law professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law.

“I think we’re going to find a lot of regulations that simply do not comply with both their statutory and constitutional limits,” Kochan predicted. “Because we’ve been operating under a regime in the administrative state for a long time … which allowed for high deference to agency interpretations of their own authority.” This was called “Chevron deference” after the 1984 Supreme Court decision which established this permissive standard, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

However, the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron precedent in a June 2024 decision, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Kochan explained. “That decision … says that now judges have … a judicial duty to interpret what the statutes mean … rather than asking, ‘Hey, agency, are you authorized to act?’” he explained. “Because the incentives for the agency are to, of course, justify their own authority. So, for decades, we’ve been operating under this self-perpetuating set of precedents that allow agencies to justify their own interpretation of their underlying statutes.”

This long-needed court corrective was brought to you by President Trump’s previous term in office, during which he appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who participated in the 6-2 majority in Loper Bright.

The same goes for the 6-3 decision in Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, which also curtailed executive agency power in the 2024 term, Kochan continued. According to Corner Post, “if you’re aggrieved by an agency action, you get to sue the agency and make a facial challenge to the agency’s rules, even years after that rulemaking occurred,” he explained. “Why? Because you didn’t know that it was going to affect you until you’re actually aggrieved. So, the U.S. Supreme Court reinterpreted what it means to have a statute of limitations … which opens up a lot of agency regulations to … challenge.”

Another relevant ruling is the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), which “clarified what’s called the Major Questions Doctrine,” added Kochan. “This one says that, if agencies want to do things that touch on significant issues that impact the economy or society, then the courts are going to presume that Congress would have needed to legislate in a very clear manner to give the agency that authority. If there’s not clear authority, [they’re] not going to let the agency go and grab it.”

According to George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center, the number of economically significant or otherwise significant rules published by executive agencies each year has approximately tripled since the Reagan administration, with the Biden administration issuing nearly 75 such rules each year.

These major Supreme Court decisions, issued largely in response to the Biden administration’s executive overreach, had obvious implications for the discretion and power of federal agencies. But, rather than wait for states or private actors to explore those implications by challenging individual regulations here or there, President Trump’s executive order instructs federal agencies to pull their hulls into drydock and perform a thorough overhaul.

“Every agency has to determine whether or not their every existing regulation is within their statutory authority, according to how the statutory authority would be interpreted by courts,” Kochan summarized. “The executive order says ‘the best interpretation’ of your statutory authority, which requires that the agencies look at, ‘Well, what would the courts say?’” No longer may executive agencies play the role of their own judge and jury.

Naturally, tussling with D.C.’s largest swamp monster will only succeed after a loud, laborious struggle. Various species in Washington that — unlike the American taxpayer — enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the administrative state have already begun to cry bloody murder.

On Thursday, a Politico article complained that Trump’s “sweeping” and “broadly written” order “stands to dramatically curb” agency power. This, the article alleges, is part of the president’s “quest to expand his authority over the federal government, which he believes has grown too expansive.” How scary!

Demanding that unelected bureaucrats follow the law might raise Washington’s blood pressure, but executive orders like this one are a major reason why a record number of Americans believe the country is on the right track.

“Like with everything else that’s happening right now, we’re in in rapid action mode,” concluded Kochan. “This is an executive order which really is at the heart of what executive orders are intended to be, and that is … instructing agencies to get their house in order.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: How Trump’s Actions Melted Biden’s ‘Winter of Our Discontent’

RELATED VIDEOS:

Rep. Byron Donalds: ‘Democrats are flailing over Musk & DOGE gaining access to IRS data.’

Speaker Johnson: Elon Musk is “inside” federal agencies crawling through spending transactions

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

In a Country ‘Based on Merit,’ DEI Looks at Everything but Merit: Experts

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There have been rumors of President Donald Trump’s plans to abolish the Department of Education (DOE) — which is something he said he would do during his campaign in an effort to return education policy back to the states. This comes after years of parents and observers complaining of left-wing ideologies infiltrating the education system in the U.S. And while this proposal has yet to gain serious traction, Trump has taken action to remove as much LGBT and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) related programs as he can from both the DOE and the federal government at large.

Just this week, news broke that dozens of DOE employees have already been put on paid leave as a result of Trump’s executive orders effectively weeding out DEI from the federal government. According to the Associated Press, Sheria Smith, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, stated that it’s unclear how many workers were put on leave or for what reasons. These alleged cuts come as Trump’s administration is empowering the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk primarily meant to cut wasteful spending.

When it comes to DEI, Trump made promises long ago to tackle it head on. And it’s no wonder, as Family Research Council President Tony Perkins explained, because “the Left’s fixation on DEI” has been rejected by the vast majority of Americans.

On Monday’s “Washington Watch,” Perkins was joined by Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) to discuss DEI and its consequential impact on American society. “[A]fter all that’s happened,” Perkins stated, “even [with] the election [outcome] and the rejection of their agenda, they still don’t seem to get it.” Owens agreed. As he emphasized, “this is why they lost. They can continue to lose. Americans are tired of this” DEI agenda because America “is a country based on merit.”

Owens went on to explain how it’s those on the Left who “have started putting in place a policy [in which] they’re not looking at merit at all. They’re looking at everything else — [skin color], gender, things that make no difference.” And yet, for most, he argued, “the minute you get into a position where you’re getting on an airplane, getting in a car, [or] getting in a taxi … we want the very best to be in control of that process,” and that’s what “we’re getting back to” as Trump and his administration work to get rid of DEI.

In addition, Owens noted that, for similar reasons, “that’s why … we got rid of affirmative action, because that was also a very racist [and] very demeaning ideology … when it came down to black Americans and their ability to think.” Ultimately, he added, “we’re going to get to the bottom of” these agendas. But moving forward, “I’m so thankful for the fact that all this stuff is being pulled out from the roots from our government. And we’re going to be putting the same process into our school system, teaching merit and making sure we’re holding people to the highest standards.” Once we do this, Owens emphasized, “Americans will stand up.”

Perkins highlighted how the push for DEI has some notable inconsistencies. For instance, he explained how the push for DEI in the government is not pushed nearly the same in a field such as athletics. “[Y]ou were a professional football player,” Perkins said to Owens. “[W]ould DEI work on the football field?” According to Owens, not only does DEI not work on the football field, but “to that point, isn’t it interesting that DEI is not put into athletics and is not put into sports?” That’s because “in sports you expect to win, so you put the very best talent on the team. … [T]he point I’m making [is that] they don’t mind [pushing DEI] when it comes down to intellectual stuff.” But “when it comes down to athletics, where we have to show … strength, then they” seem to back off somewhat.

“I’m not a huge sports fan,” Perkins added, but when it comes to the impact of DEI, “I think it’s more important that an airplane lands safely than someone win a Super Bowl football game.” And “when Americans get on to a plane or they get onto a train or whatever it might be, they expect it to do its very best to arrive at its destination. And the individuals directing it, driving it, flying it ought to be best qualified. Period.”

According to Owens, DEI fundamentally undermines American principles. “[A]cross the board, our country is based on merit. That’s how we respect each other. That’s how we command respect.” And yet, at its core, DEI “is a true racist thing” that throws merit out the window. As Owens concluded, “I’m just glad we’re pulling away from this and getting back to what really matters.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand coloumn is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Top 4 Takeaways from RFK Jr.’s Confirmation Hearings

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced two U.S. Senate Finance Committee this week, in a pair of hearings whether or not he will be confirmed as President Donald Trump’s Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In order to proceed to a full Senate confirmation vote, Kennedy needs the support of a majority of both the 25-member Finance Committee, which grilled him on Wednesday, and the 21-member Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which had a turn on Thursday. Republicans make up a majority on each committee. In both hearings, the controversial Kennedy fielded questions on subjects ranging from abortion and vaccine injuries to fast food and spiritual warfare. Here are four highlights from Kennedy’s dual hearings.

‘Every Abortion Is a Tragedy’

Kennedy’s record on abortion is a varied one, which has given rise to concerns among some Republicans about placing the former Democrat in charge of the top health agency in the U.S. Although he identifies as a Catholic and has referred to himself as “pro-life,” his presidential campaign last year saw Kennedy tacitly endorse abortion “even if it’s full-term.” However, Kennedy adopted a firmer stance in defense of the unborn during Wednesday’s hearing.

“I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year,” Kennedy insisted, in response to questions from Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.). He continued, “President Trump has told me that he wants to end late-term abortions and he wants to protect conscience exemptions and that he wants to end federal funding for abortions here or abroad. … I serve at the pleasure of the president. I’m going to implement his policies.” However, Kennedy also took Trump’s position that “the states should control abortion,” a position which has caused some dismay among conservatives.

Kennedy also shared that he intends to investigate the use of the chemical abortion drug mifepristone. “We need to understand the safety of every drug, mifepristone and every other drug,” he said. He explained, “I mean, it’s against everything we believe in in this country, that patients or doctors should not be reporting adverse events. We need to know what adverse events are.” Kennedy reported that Trump has “made it clear to me that he wants me to look at the safety issues and I’ll ask NIH [National Institutes of Health] and FDA [Food and Drug Administration] to do that.”

Senator Ron Wyden (R-Ore.) challenged Kennedy’s allegation that mifepristone is harmful, arguing that studying the drug’s effects is a political ploy. “The science was clear then, it’s even clearer today. Mifepristone is safe,” he claimed. Wyden continued, “The only reason it’s under question in 2025 is because people with a political agenda have been out lying about it.”

During Thursday’s hearing, Kennedy further committed to ending federal funding for all research that uses the tissue or body parts of aborted babies. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) asked Kennedy if he would “commit to protecting stem cell research for scientific agencies if confirmed.” The HHS nominee responded that he would, observing that stem cell research does not need to be conducted using the tissue of unborn children. “Stem cell research today can be done on umbilical cords and you don’t need fetal tissue,” he observed.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) then asked Kennedy, “will you reinstate President Trump’s policy that ensures that no federal research and no federal tax dollars is conducted on fetal tissue taken from elective abortions?” Kennedy very simply replied, “Yes.”

Scientific Scrutiny or Conspiracy Theorizing?

Kennedy also rebuffed claims that he is an “anti-vaccine” conspiracy theorist. Since the mid 2000s, Kennedy has been an outspoken advocate of more thorough and rigorous testing for vaccines, claiming that vaccines are not currently being properly tested, resulting in numerous side effects and injuries, including autism, food allergies, and even cancer.

On Wednesday, Kennedy was questioned over his comments on vaccines. One such question focused on the 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa, particularly allegations that Kennedy’s vocal vaccine skepticism contributed to the spread of the disease. “Let me explain what happened in Samoa,” he remarked. “In Samoa, in 2017 or 2015, there were two kids who died following the MMR vaccine. And the vaccination rates in Samoa dropped precipitously from about 63% to the mid 30s, so they’ve never been very high.”

Two more children died in 2018, Kennedy said, with their deaths linked to the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. “I arrived a year later when vaccination rates were already below any previous level. I went there, nothing to do with vaccines,” he reported. He continued, “I never gave any public statement about vaccines, you cannot find a single Samoan who will say ‘I didn’t get vaccinated because of Bobby Kennedy.’ I went in June of 2019, the measles outbreak started in August.”

Wyden accused Kennedy, “The receipts show that Mr. Kennedy has embraced conspiracy theories, quacks, and charlatans, especially when it comes to the safety and efficacy of vaccines. He’s made it his life’s work to sow doubt and discourage parents from getting their kids life-saving vaccines.” He asked, “Are you lying to Congress today when you say you are pro-vaccine?” Kennedy responded, “I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking anything.”

He also faced accusations from Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) of “peddling half-truths, peddling false statements.” For example, Bennet accused Kennedy of spreading “conspiracy theories” surrounding the origins of various illnesses. “Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon?” the senator asked. Kennedy replied. “I probably did say that.”

In a separate exchange, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) asked Kennedy three times to commit to not suing vaccine manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has served as both the chairman of and legal counsel to Children’s Health Defense for years and has been responsible for bringing numerous lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies. In response to Warren’s demands, Kennedy said, “I’m not going to agree to not sue drug companies or anybody.”

The HHS nominee began Thursday’s hearing by heading off concerns over his views on vaccines. “I want to make sure this committee is clear about a few things,” he said in his opening statement, repeating a caveat he issued Wednesday. He explained, “News reports and many in [Wednesday’s] hearing have claimed that I’m anti-vaccine and anti-industry. Well, I’m neither. I’m pro-safety. I’m pro-good science.” He later said that if he were presented with data proving his claims regarding vaccines wrong, he would actually apologize for his statements. “I will never stick on a point if someone shows me data that I am wrong,” he said.

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), however, sided with Kennedy on vaccine skepticism. “I’ve had my first granddaughter — here in a couple weeks — and my son and his wife have done their research about vaccines and she’s not going to be a pin cushion. We’re not going to allow that to happen,” he stated. He added that scientists need to thoroughly examine the safety of vaccines, saying, “Let’s not just do something for the pharmaceutical companies.”

Kennedy also lambasted senators for accepting campaign funding from pharmaceutical companies during Thursday’s hearing. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pressed Kennedy to commit to a universal health care coverage system, pointing out the seeming corruption that exists in many health insurance companies and the federal agencies that oversee them. Kennedy responded, “The problem of corruption is not just in the federal agencies. It’s in Congress too. Almost all the members of this panel are accepting — including yourself — are accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and protecting their interests.”

Sanders claimed, “Not one nickel of PAC money from the pharmaceutical industry. They came from workers.” Nonetheless, Kennedy noted, “In 2020, you were the single largest receiver of pharmaceutical money.” He said that Sanders had accepted $1.5 million in campaign funding from drug manufacturers, to which Sanders responded, “Yeah, out of $200 million.”

Make America Healthy Again

While Trump campaigned on the promise to “make America great again,” Kennedy pledged, after endorsing Trump, to “make America healthy again.” He reiterated that pledge during Wednesday’s hearing. “President Trump has asked me: end [the] chronic disease epidemic and make America healthy again,” Kennedy declared. “Trump has asked me, because I’m in a unique position to end that, and that is what I’m doing,” he added. He continued, “And if we don’t solve that problem … all of the other disputes we have about who’s paying and whether it’s insurance companies, whether it’s providers, whether it’s HMOs, whether it’s patients or families, all of those are moving deck chairs around on the Titanic,” Kennedy quipped. “Our ship is sinking.”

Kennedy observed that COVID-19-related deaths in the U.S. accounted for 16% of COVID-19-related deaths globally, even though the U.S. accounts for less than 5% of the world’s population. “We had a higher death count than any country in the world. And when CDC was asked why, they said it’s because Americans are the sickest people on Earth. The average person who died from COVID, American, had 3.8 chronic diseases,” Kennedy stated. He continued, “And it is a priority for President Trump, and that’s why he asked me to run the agency, and if I’m privileged to be confirmed, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

According to Kennedy, chemical food additives are a chief factor in America’s chronic disease epidemic. “Kellogg’s makes Fruit Loops for the United States alone that is loaded with red dye, blue dye, yellow dye, and many, many other ingredients,” Kennedy said Thursday. He noted, “They make the same product for Canada — it’s all vegetable dyes.”

Loose Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations aren’t the only way that dangerous chemical additives get into American, food, though, Kennedy continued. He also observed that chemical pesticides and livestock hormone treatments mandated on American farms contribute to chronic disease. “We are losing farmers today. We can’t afford to lose a single farmer. On my watch, I do not want to lose a single farmer. We have to offer farmers an off-ramp from chemically intensive agriculture, which they don’t want to do,” Kennedy stated. He added, “There’s illness all over the farm community, and it’s undoubtedly related to the intensity of chemical pesticides.”

However, Trump’s pick to lead the HHS insisted that he doesn’t want to indiscriminately ban foods. In addition to removing harmful chemical additives from most foods, Kennedy said that simply being made aware of the health impacts of certain foods is also crucial. “I don’t want to take food away from anybody. If you like a McDonald’s cheeseburger or Diet Coke — which my boss loves — you should be able to get them,” he said, referring to Trump’s well-known love of McDonald’s. He continued, “If you want to eat Hostess Twinkies you should be able to do that, but you should know what the impacts are on your family and on your health.”

‘A Divine Purpose’

In his opening statement Wednesday, Kennedy declared, “The first thing I’ve done every morning for the past 20 years is to get on my knees and pray to God that He would put me in a position to end the chronic disease epidemic and help America’s children.” A self-professed Catholic and the nephew of the nation’s first Catholic president, Kennedy acknowledged that what is done with the body impacts the soul. “This is not just an economic issue, it’s not just a national security issue, it is a spiritual issue and it is a moral issue,” he said of ending chronic disease in the U.S. He continued, “We cannot live up to our role as an exemplary nation, as a moral authority around the world, when we’re writing off an entire generation of kids” and subjecting them to chronic diseases in a way that no previous generation has suffered.

Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told Kennedy Wednesday, “I believe for such a time as this, that you’re not just one of 300 million people, I think that you are the person to lead HHS to make America healthy again, that God has a divine purpose for you.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council,

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Transgender Surgeries for Kids Is ‘a Stain on Our Nation’: Trump Executive Order

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President Donald Trump has protected U.S. taxpayers from funding “the chemical and surgical mutilation of children” by declaring the federal government will “not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support” cross-sex hormone injections or transgender surgeries.

President Trump’s executive order “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” signed Tuesday, cuts off federal funding for the transgender industry, allows families harmed to sue, could institute new religious and conscience protections, and may open the door to criminal prosecution of any individual involved in certain transgender surgeries.

“Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our [n]ation’s history, and it must end,” states the order. “Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding.”

The executive order requires that all medical institutions, including medical schools and hospitals receiving federal “research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children” at once. The order also bars the funding of such procedures by the U.S. military’s health insurance policy, Tricare, as well as all other federal benefits providers. And it previews potential regulations, including placing conditions on Medicare and Medicaid funding.

The order foresees the prosecution of so-called “gender-affirming care” providers in civil or criminal courts. The order requires the attorney general to “prioritize enforcement of protections against female genital mutilation,” enacting criminal penalties for phalloplasty and vaginoplasty. The Biden-Harris administration decried the Islamic practice of FGM as “child abuse” at the same time it sued states for protecting residents from “bottom surgery.”

The Justice Department can also sue anyone “misleading the public about long-term side effects of chemical and surgical mutilation.” The DOJ will also “draft, propose, and promote legislation to enact a private right of action for children and the parents of children whose healthy body parts have been damaged” by transgender procedures, including “a lengthy statute of limitations.” Detransitioners including Chloe Cole, Camille Kiefel, Clementine Breen, Kayla Lovdahl, and others have held their doctors accountable for advising and carrying out transgender procedures that caused them lifelong, irreversible damage.

Significantly, Trump orders the government to consider prosecuting blue states that facilitate the “transition” of children without parental consent for kidnapping. The Trump-Vance administration will “take appropriate action to end child-abusive practices by so-called sanctuary [s]tates” such as Governor Tim Walz’s (D) Minnesota [and] Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) California “that facilitate stripping custody from parents who support the healthy development of their own children, including by considering the application of the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act and recognized constitutional rights.” The EO also repeals a 2022 guidance that states federal law “does not require covered entities and business associates to disclose” information about “an individual’s” health care to others without the patient’s consent. (Emphasis in original.)

The order defines “child or children” as “an individual or individuals under 19 years of age.” Although above the legal age of majority, the definition more closely comports with a recent paper from researchers at the Mayo Clinic showing that the human brain does not finish developing until nearly the age of 30.

The order could expand the religious liberty and conscience rights recognized by the U.S. government, by modifying section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, conventionally known as Obamacare. The Biden-Harris administration amended the provision last year to treat it as though it forbade medical providers of conscience from refusing to carry out transgender procedures.

It also orders the secretary of Health and Human Services “to end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children” and issue a report within 90 days on scientifically based best practices for minors suffering from gender dysphoria. President Trump’s HHS nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., began Senate nomination hearings on Wednesday.

The January 28 order notes the politicization and poor quality of existing, pro-transgender studies. It points out the world’s largest “expert” body on transgenderism propounds advocacy-masquerading-as-science and notes that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) “lacks scientific integrity.” All federal agencies will delete any policies based on WPATH’s Standards of Care Version 8. Biden’s HHS assistant secretary for health, who was born Richard Levine and now uses the name Rachel, lobbied WPATH to remove minimum age limits for transgender surgeries to serve political ends. President Trump’s new executive order requires the HHS secretary to “increase the quality of data” on these matters. Most studies supporting so-called “gender-affirming care” can be classified as “low quality/low certainty,” according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

All federal agency heads will submit a report detailing their progress within 60 days.

‘A Refreshing Return to Sanity’

The measures should prove popular with the broader public: A majority (59%) of Americans believe no one should be able to carry out chemical or surgical transgender procedures on minors — a position supported by every demographic except registered Democrats.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) called the order “hugely important.” “President Trump [is] sounding the death knell for the gender mutilation industry that has been targeting our children.” Hawley took action to enshrine the executive order’s provisions into law, re-introducing the Protecting Our Kids from Child Abuse Act, which would grant victims and their families a private right of action to sue the predatory transgender industry and defund facilities carrying out these procedures.

State Rep. Fred Deutsch (R-S.D.), who introduced one of the earliest bills to protect children from transgender procedures statewide, said it was “about time these crimes against humanity were banned.”

“We applaud President Trump for fulfilling his promise to America’s families and taking these critical steps to protect children from harmful, experimental, and often irreversible medical procedures,” Matt Sharp, director of the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Public Policy, told The Washington Stand. Sharp called the order “a refreshing return to sanity.” Now, “instead of being a global outlier, America will now ‘follow the science,’ like the U.K. and other European countries have done, to ensure that we are identifying safe and effective ways to help kids who experience distress over their biological sex.”

Dr. Jill Simons, the executive director of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) called the executive order a “bold defense of vulnerable children from mutilating procedures in the name of gender ideology,” while ACPeds President Dr. Michael Artigues deemed the order “a major step toward ending harmful medical interventions on minors.”

“It reaffirms a commitment to healthy, ethical, and evidence-based pediatric care,” said Artigues. “It is essential to emphasize the importance of protecting youth and providing comprehensive, quality psychological support to all children struggling with gender dysphoria.”

“Thank you President Trump for protecting children!” said Simons. “Children are beautiful just the way they are. No child is born in the wrong body.”

Katy Faust of Them Before Us described the executive action as “a win for children’s rights.”

Trump Transgender Executive Orders Already Taking Effect

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Acting Chair Andrea Lucas announced she had implemented President Trump’s Executive Order 14166, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” when she:

  • Announced that one of her priorities — for compliance, investigations, and litigation — is to defend the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work.
  • Removed the agency’s “pronoun app,” a feature in employees’ Microsoft 365 profiles, which allowed an employee to opt to identify pronouns, content which then appeared alongside the employee’s display name across all Microsoft 365 platforms, including Outlook and Teams. This content was displayed both to internal and external parties with whom EEOC employees communicated.
  • Ended the use of the “X” gender marker during the intake process for filing a charge of discrimination.
  • Directed the modification of the charge of discrimination and related forms to remove “Mx.” from the list of prefix options.
  • Commenced review of the content of EEOC’s “Know Your Rights” poster, which all covered employers are required by law to post in their workplaces.
  • Removed materials promoting gender ideology on the Commission’s internal and external websites and documents, including webpages, statements, social media platforms, forms, trainings, and others. The agency’s review and removal of such materials remains ongoing. Where a publicly accessible item cannot be immediately removed or revised, a banner has been added to explain why the item has not yet been brought into compliance.

“Biology is not bigotry. Biological sex is real, and it matters,” said Lucas. “It is neither harassment nor discrimination for a business to draw distinctions between the sexes in providing single-sex bathrooms or other similar facilities which implicate these significant privacy and safety interests. And the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County does not demand otherwise: the Court explicitly stated that it did ‘not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.’”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

All the Executive Orders Trump Signed on Day One

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In his second inaugural speech Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump promised that a series of forthcoming executive orders would implement the 2024 election’s “revolution of common sense.” He immediately proceeded to sign an avalanche of executive orders repealing the Biden-Harris administration’s promotion of transgender ideology, ending the weaponization of government against pro-life advocates, safeguarding freedom of speech, securing the southern border, emphasizing American energy independence, and ending imperious government decrees by the federal bureaucracy.

President Trump wasted no time signing executive orders on all these subjects, and many more, after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. Trump began signing the first several executive orders in front of cheering MAGA supporters inside the Capital One Arena, throwing the pens he used to sign the orders — a cherished and sought-after collectible — into the audience.

Trump noted on Sunday that he would not wait, as he did in his first administration, to begin implementing the policies the American people voted for — and erasing the legacy of outgoing President Joe Biden. “Somebody said, ‘Sir, don’t sign so many in one day. Let’s do it over a matter of weeks.’ I said, ‘Like hell we’re gonna do it over weeks,’” said then-President-elect Trump on Sunday.

Executive Orders President Trump Signed on Day One

Flags fly full-staff on inauguration day: The first order the president signed impacted his own inauguration: President Biden had signed an executive order that all flags be flown at half-mast for 30 days following the death of former President Jimmy Carter. That would make it appear that the nation greeted the changing of the presidency in a state of mourning. President Trump issued a proclamation that, “on this and all future Inauguration Days, the flag of the United States shall be flown at full-staff” on all public buildings and grounds.

Undoing the Biden legacy: The first executive order President Trump signed publicly repealed 78 Biden executive orders. Among other things, this order:

  • Eliminated the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the White House Gender Policy Council, the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families, the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, the Climate Change Support Office, and the United States Council on Transnational Organized Crime;
  • Ended policies forbidding oil drilling on the continental shelf;
  • Ended the electric vehicle mandate; and
  • Placed Cuba back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Repealing Gender Ideology, Wokeness, Censorship, and Weaponization of Government

President Trump’s executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” repeals Biden-Harris administration policies to place men in women’s intimate spaces, on the sports field, and even in women’s prisons. It begins by skewering the intellectual basis of gender ideology by officially defining a man and a woman in strictly biological terms:

“‘Female’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.

“‘Male’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.”

It defines “gender ideology” as a worldview that “replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true. Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex. Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.”

From a legal standpoint, it reverses the Biden administration’s citation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) that the 1964 Civil Rights Act applies to “gender identity,” eradicating sex-specific spaces in private accommodations, public facilities, and sports competitions.

It also specifies that all intimate spaces shall be designated “by sex and not identity” and that “no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” Title IX rules and federal publications promoting transgenderism will be repealed. The EO says the federal government “shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers,” where women have frequently been beaten, abused, raped, or impregnated by male prisoners who identify as women.

Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, told The Washington Stand she was “delighted that he kept his promise to the American people to put an end to this madness and look forward to the Department of Education putting in place policies and procedures that provide clarity to schools and families alike.”

Trump’s executive order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” demands “the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.”

President Trump’s executive order “Reforming the Federal Hiring Process and Restoring Merit to Government Service” seeks to repeal affirmative action programs that give preferential hiring treatment to less-qualified members of racial, sexual, or “gender identity” minorities. “Federal hiring should not be based on impermissible factors, such as one’s commitment to illegal racial discrimination under the guise of ‘equity,’ or one’s commitment to the invented concept of ‘gender identity’ over sex,” says the order. The federal government will instead prioritize merit and the “recruitment of individuals committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.”

Trump’s executive order on “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” notes, “Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve,” under “the guise of combatting ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation.’” The order states that the government will attempt to “identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct.”

“Under the Biden administration, federal officials established a censorship regime that aimed to shut down so-called ‘misinformation’ and any other speech that is unacceptable to the government. It also weaponized the law against American citizens, including colluding with Big Banks to surveil Americans’ private financial data and target them as ‘threats’ based solely on their speech. President Trump’s call to dismantle these tools of repression is something every American — and every other freedom-loving person — should celebrate,” Alliance Defending Freedom CEO, President, and General Counsel Kristen Waggoner told The Washington Stand.

Trump’s executive order “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government” states, “The prior administration and allies throughout the country engaged in an unprecedented, third-world weaponization of prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process,” including “investigations, prosecutions, civil enforcement actions, and other related actions.” Late last December, the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government produced a 17,019-page report stating that the Biden-Harris administration singled out “pro-life, pro-family” advocates for legal harassment, among other outrages. The attorney general will review the actions of federal agencies — specifically including the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission — over the last four years and take “appropriate remedial actions.” The director of national intelligence will review the actions of the intelligence community and prepare a report.

The executive order “Holding Former Government Officials Accountable for Election Interference and Improper Disclosure of Sensitive Governmental Information” removes the security clearance of dozens of former intelligence officials who issued an erroneous document branding the Hunter Biden laptop story Russian disinformation. Also stripped of security clearance, by name, is John Bolton, a former Bush-41 administration official who briefly served as national security adviser to Trump; Bolton, a neoconservative keen on intervening in foreign wars, soon clashed with Trump’s America First foreign policy and refused to endorse Trump in 2024.

Ending Crime and Securing the Southern Border

President Trump’s “Securing Our Borders” executive order reinstates the Migrant Protection Protocols, conventionally known as the Remain in Mexico policy, requiring alleged asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until their trial. The majority of asylum cases never reach a hearing (and the majority that reach a judge are denied). Meanwhile, the Biden administration released illegal immigrants into the American heartland.

His order “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” would end birthright citizenship, the notion that if illegal immigrants give birth to an anchor baby on U.S. soil, that child is an American citizen. Legal scholars wrangle over the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment clause “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. government — a term some of the amendment’s authors explicitly limited to U.S. citizens. A legal challenge to this EO is inevitable.

Trump’s executive order “Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States” takes steps to secure the border, noting the harm caused to Americans by “cartels, criminal gangs, known terrorists, human traffickers, smugglers, unvetted military-age males from foreign adversaries, and illicit narcotics.” The emergency declaration allows the president to deploy the National Guard and other military units to the border, build the border wall, and patrol the border with aerial drones.

A related executive order “Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists” notes that drug cartels “functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States” and threaten “the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.” The government may designate transnational criminal organizations such as Tren de Aragua (TdA) and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) as foreign terrorist organizations within 14 days. When a reporter asked if President Trump might consider sending Special Forces troops into Mexico to target these duly designated terrorist organizations, he answered in a coy fashion, “I might.”

Trump’s executive order “Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States” notes, “Unchecked unlawful mass migration and the unimpeded flow of opiates across our borders continue to endanger the safety and security of the American people and encourage further lawlessness.” The Secretary of Defense has 10 days to draw up a plan for the Unified Command Plan that assigns United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States.”

The executive order “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program” notes that Biden-Harris administration refugee policies streamed thousands upon thousands of “refugees” into cities such as Charleroi, Pennsylvania; Springfield, Ohio; and Whitewater, Wisconsin. The EO pauses all mass refugee programs beginning January 27, although the government may admit refugees on a case-by-case basis.

His executive order “Protecting the American People against Invasion” rescinds numerous Biden administration executive orders, ends catch-and-release, presses criminal charges against illegal immigrants, and makes it federal policy to “faithfully execute the immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens, particularly those aliens who threaten the safety or security of the American people.”

Trump’s executive order “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” requires “stringent” vetting of all would-be refugees, requires the government to identify nations whose public records are so deficient that vetting applicants is impossible, and (if necessary) removing aliens who have entered the U.S. from such nations. Federal leaders must also “protect the American people from the actions of foreign nationals who have undermined or seek to undermine the fundamental constitutional rights of the American people, including, but not limited to, our Citizens’ rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment, who preach or call for sectarian violence, the overthrow or replacement of the culture on which our constitutional Republic stands, or who provide aid, advocacy, or support for foreign terrorists.”

Trump’s executive order “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety” promotes capital punishment as a deterrent, especially since “on December 23, 2024, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 most vile and sadistic rapists, child molesters, and murderers on Federal death row: remorseless criminals who brutalized young children, strangled and drowned their victims, and hunted strangers for sport.” He encourages federal and state prosecutors to seek the death penalty “for all crimes of a severity demanding its use” (such as killing police officers or a capital crime committed by an illegal immigrant) and “to ensure that each state that allows capital punishment has a sufficient supply of drugs needed to carry out lethal injection.”

Restoring American Sovereignty and Withdrawing from Global Governance Bodies/Agreements

Trump’s executive order “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements” orders America’s U.N. Ambassador to notify the world body America will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. “We’re going to save over $1 trillion by withdrawing from that treaty,” said President Trump at the signing ceremony.

His executive order “Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization” indicates the United States will end its membership in the global health body and “pause the future transfer of any United States Government funds, support, or resources to the WHO” with “all practicable speed.”

Trump’s memo “The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Global Tax Deal (Global Tax Deal)” states that the Biden administration’s plan to adopt a “Global Minimum Tax” of approximately 15% “have no force or effect within the United States absent an act by the Congress.”

Trump’s executive order “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid” pauses foreign aid for 90 days. “The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values. They serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries,” says the order in an apparent nod to the Biden-Harris administration’s bountiful aid to Ukraine in its military struggle against Russia.

Trump’s executive order “America First Policy Directive to the Secretary of State” states curtly, “From this day forward, the foreign policy of the United States shall champion core American interests and always put America and American citizens first.”

The memo “Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California” orders the secretaries of the interior and commerce “to route more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state for use by the people there who desperately need a reliable water supply. … The recent deadly and historically destructive wildfires in Southern California underscore why the State of California needs a reliable water supply.”

Reigning in the Regulatory State

Trump’s executive order “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” orders government agencies to suspend issuing any further regulations until approved by the Trump administration and to withdraw any regulations that have been submitted but not yet published in the Federal Register. Trump also required federal workers to return to in-person work.

Trump also signed an executive order “Establishing and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency,’” or DOGE.

Trump’s executive order “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions within the Federal Workforce” reinstates the designation of “Schedule F” to exempted federal employees, making it easier to fire them. The order — which President Trump implemented in late 2020 but which the Biden-Harris administration reversed upon taking office — could apply to as many as 50,000 federal bureaucrats. A recent poll from the Napolitan Institute found 64% of federal workers who voted for Kamala Harris would “ignore” the lawful orders and policies of President Trump and “do what they thought was best” instead. The executive order aims to assure the federal bureaucracy responds to the policies supported by the American people. A related memo “Restoring Accountability for Career Senior Executives” empowers greater oversight and rigorous evaluations of career Senior Executive Service (SES) officials.

The president’s “Memorandum to Resolve the Backlog of Security Clearances for Executive Office of the President Personnel” immediately grants a six-month, temporary Top Secret clearance to officials caught in the Biden administration’s clearance backlog.

Lowering Prices and Supercharging U.S. Energy Independence

Trump’s outline on “Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis” orders a whole-of-government response to address the cost of living crisis. The Assistant to the President for Economic Policy will report to President Trump every 30 days on what the Cabinet has done to “lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply; eliminate unnecessary administrative expenses and rent-seeking practices that increase healthcare costs; eliminate counterproductive requirements that raise the costs of home appliances; create employment opportunities for American workers, including drawing discouraged workers into the labor force; and eliminate harmful, coercive ‘climate’ policies that increase the costs of food and fuel.”

The executive order “Declaring a National Energy Emergency” asks all department heads to “facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources” nationwide. It would expedite the completion of infrastructure, facilitate oil pipelines across the country, and allow the sale of E-15 gasoline year-round.

Trump’s executive order “Unleashing American Energy” states the Biden administration’s “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations” have “limited the generation of reliable and affordable electricity, reduced job creation, and inflicted high energy costs upon our citizens.” The order encourages the exploration of abundant energy sources, including drilling on the U.S. continental shelf; eliminates the Biden administration’s electric vehicle mandate that half of all new U.S. vehicles must be EV by 2030 and urges them to consider rescinding EV subsidies; and safeguard Americans’ ability to purchase such goods as gas stoves, incandescent lightbulbs, and gasoline vehicles. Within 30 days, federal agencies will begin to “suspend, revise, or rescind all agency actions identified as unduly burdensome” under the EO.

An executive order “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential” encourages energy exploration on Alaskan state and federal lands, allows the building of a pipeline to transport energy, and aims to “prioritize the development of Alaska’s liquified natural gas (LNG) potential, including the sale and transportation of Alaskan LNG to other regions of the United States and allied nations within the Pacific region.”

A related memo on the “Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects” bans additional windmills from the continental shelf.

Trump’s “Application of Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act to TikTok” paused the ban on TikTok for 75 days. Trump has floated the possibility of a “joint venture,” for an American company to own at least 50% of the company. “There’s no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’ of its effective date,” noted Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) in a joint statement.

President Trump’s memo on his vision for an “America First Trade Policy” asks the Secretary of the Treasury to consider establishing an External Revenue Service (ERS) “to collect tariffs, duties, and other foreign trade-related revenues.” Federal officials will also seek to identify unfair trade practices, currency manipulation, and the adverse impact foreign trade policies impose on American workers and farmers.

Additional Day One Executive Orders

President Trump’s executive order “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” would restore the name of Mount McKinley and change the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”

In a nod to President Trump’s background in construction, his EO “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture” seeks to restore beauty in place of brutalist architecture when designing federal buildings.

Trump’s order “Granting Pardons and Commutation of Sentences for Certain Offenses Relating to the Events at Or Near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021” pardoned some 1,500 January 6 protesters and commuted the sentences of 14.

As of this writing, he has not yet pardoned peaceful pro-life advocates prosecuted by a weaponized Justice Department during the Biden-Harris administration. Pro-life advocates expect the pardon to be forthcoming soon.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washigton Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

In Historic First, Nativity Scene Goes on Display at U.S. Capitol

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For the first time in history, a Nativity scene was displayed on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, marking what organizers say is a milestone for religious freedom and the First Amendment.

The display, accompanied by prayer, Christmas carols, and a reading of the Christmas story, was made possible by a landmark federal court decision that granted Rev. Patrick Mahoney and his supporters the right to peacefully celebrate the Christmas season on Capitol grounds.

Held on the southeastern steps of the Capitol, the display was the culmination of a legal battle that began over a decade ago when Mahoney, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Christian Defense Coalition, faced repeated threats of arrest for his attempts to read the Christmas story from the Bible and hold a Nativity display at the Capitol Christmas tree.

On Wednesday, Mahoney shared his gratitude for the chance to share the message of Christmas in such a politically significant location.

Sue Dorfman, a photographer for ZUMA Press, captured the moment with an image of the Nativity scene at the Capitol.

Mahoney wrote on X: “7 months ago, we would’ve been arrested for having this Nativity Display on the steps of the US Capitol. However, we won an historic federal lawsuit through the incredible work of the Center for American Liberty which allowed us on the steps!”

In his post, Mahoney tagged civil rights advocate Center for American Liberty Executive Director Mark Trammell and Harmeet Dhillon, a California civil rights attorney nominated by President-elect Donald Trump for a similar role at the U.S. Department of Justice.

In a statement, Mahoney offered his gratitude for making history. “We are so very thankful for the opportunity to share the joyful and powerful message of Christmas at the steps of the U.S. Capitol,” Mahoney said. “In a hurting and wounded world, there is no more redemptive and healing message than the Christmas story.”

The road to this historic moment was paved by Mahoney’s 2022 federal lawsuit, which challenged the Capitol’s restrictions on public demonstrations. Despite the federal government’s resistance, Mahoney argued that the U.S. Capitol — a place symbolic of democracy and freedom — should be a space where all Americans can exercise their First Amendment rights, including the freedom to express religious beliefs.

In his lawsuit, Mahoney stated, “The ‘People’s House,’ as the U.S. Capitol Building is so rightly called, must be a place where all Americans are afforded the right to come and peacefully celebrate and express their First Amendment rights. Tragically, those rights and freedoms are being denied and prohibited.”

He contended that while lawmakers, media, lobbyists, and tourists were free to enter and use the Capitol grounds, his own request for a peaceful demonstration was denied. Mahoney had sought permission to hold a Good Friday service, praying for peace, religious freedom, and the healing of nations.

In May 2024, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in Mahoney’s favor, declaring the Capitol steps to be a public forum where peaceful demonstrations could no longer be prohibited. This decision set a precedent that ensured the steps of the Capitol could be used for public expressions of religious faith, including the display of a Nativity scene.

“This is also a significant victory for religious freedom and the First Amendment,” Mahoney said in a statement. “This event has ended and won the war on Christmas in the public square. For if Christmas can be celebrated and displayed in the most powerful public square in America, it can be celebrated publicly everywhere.”

This article was originally published by The Christian Post.

AUTHOR

Christian Post Staff

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Congressional Report Finds (Nearly) Every COVID-19 ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Was True

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The most thorough report ever released on America’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic has concluded that virtually everything that would have gotten you banned from social media for spreading “misinformation” was true.

After a two-year investigation, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its 520-page report titled “After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward” this week. The report finds the COVID-19 virus likely originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where it may have been manufactured as a chimera. Lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing, and vaccine mandates were not based on sound science and did more harm than good. Natural immunity exists for COVID-19, as it does for other viruses. And President Donald Trump’s “racist” travel bans likely saved lives.

Expressing any of these would have been enough to get one banned from social media. Twitter infamously set up a portal for government agents to flag “misinformation” and target posts or whole accounts for shadow bans, censorship, or removal. Meta boasted that, since December 2020, “following consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO),” the company had “removed false claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts” from Facebook and Instagram. In February, it broadened its list of verboten ideas “to include additional debunked claims about the coronavirus and vaccines,” such as “COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured,” and “Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease.”

The new report debunks this “debunking.”

1. The COVID-19 virus was probably man-made and originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

From the outset, public health officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci presented the novel coronavirus outbreak as the result of a “zoonotic spillover” — that the virus transferred from an animal to humans, probably a bat purchased at a wet market and eaten. Yet the balance of the evidence shows that “SARS-CoV-2, the Virus that Causes COVID-19, Likely Emerged Because of a Laboratory or Research Related Accident,” says the new report.

“The U.S. National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” wrote Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) in his introduction.

In 2018, EcoHealth applied for a federal grant to fund a new project at the Wuhan Institute of Virology which “sought to do what nature had not been ever known to do — insert a furin cleavage site into a SARS2 virus,” states the report. “EcoHealth and its WIV partners stated their intent to create a SARS-like virus with a furin cleavage site, which is the exact same feature that made humans susceptible to COVID-19 infection.”

Rather than come clean about this federal funding, “Dr. Anthony Fauci Played Semantics with the Definition of Gain-of-Function Research,” the report concludes.

“The WIV has a published record of conducting ‘gain-of-function’ research to engineer chimeric viruses,” noted a State Department fact sheet released in January 2021. “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19.”

Further, “key evidence that would be expected if the virus had emerged from the wildlife trade is still missing,” such as infected animals. Dr. Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at MIT and Harvard, wrote in The New York Times that “the outbreak at the Wuhan market probably happened after the virus had already been circulating in humans.”

Dr. Robert Redfield, the Biden administration’s director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), testified before Congress last March 8, “COVID-19 infections more likely were the result of an accidental lab leak than the result of a natural spillover event.” Weeks earlier, the FBI and the Department of Energy expressed their support for the lab leak theory, with varying degrees of confidence. Even legacy media fact-checker Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post, who originally claimed that “it is virtually impossible for this virus [to] jump from the lab,” later acknowledged that the lab leak theory was “credible.”

2. Social distancing of six feet had no science to back it up.

The rule that Americans keep “social distancing” of six feet between one another to prevent COVID transmission became one of the most consequential events of the pandemic. Businesses deemed worthy of being open had to limit how many customers they could serve, and schools had to rearrange rooms or resort to virtual learning to comply with the new guidelines.

The report states bluntly, “There Was No Quantitative Scientific Support for Six Feet of Social Distancing.” Yet the report merely repeats what the guidelines’ authors have already admitted.

Last January 9, Dr. Anthony Fauci said “I don’t recall” where the six-feet guideline came from. “It sort of just appeared” from the ether. “I was not aware of studies” that justified the social distancing decision, said Fauci. The rule amounted to “just an empiric decision that wasn’t based on data or even data that could be accomplished.” Two days later, Dr. Francis Collins testified, “I did not see evidence” to support the six-foot rule. This June 3, Fauci admitted that “there wasn’t a controlled trial … there wasn’t that scientific evaluation of” the rule.

In short, says the report, “There were no scientific trials or studies conducted before this policy was implemented, there appeared to be no pushback or internal discussion amongst the highest level of leadership, and more importantly there appears to be no acceptance of responsibility. That is an unacceptable answer from public health leadership.”

3. Masks do not effectively stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus — and masking children did more harm than good.

The most ubiquitous symbol of the COVID era was the paper face mask. The masks, required by public venues and many businesses, supposedly protected their users against transmission of the novel coronavirus. YouTube actually suspended Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a doctor, for posting a video quoting studies saying that masks do not work.

The suspension seemed odd, as the government itself ultimately performed a triple Lutz on the efficacy of face masks. “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” tweeted then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams on leap day, February 29, 2020. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!” The CDC and WHO issued guidelines in March 2020 encouraging mask-wearing only for those who were ill or caring for someone who was. But a month later, in April 2020, the CDC issued a guidance recommending people wear masks around others and “went as far as posting a video teaching the public how to make masks with a T-shirt and rubber bands.”

During his first two days in office, President Joe Biden signed executive orders making the wearing of masks compulsory for federal workers and contractors, and then on airplanes and other public transportation. Biden administration officials offered contradictory statistics, telling the public wearing masks made them anywhere from 350% to 56% less likely to get COVID. As this author wrote at The Daily Wire, the Biden administration relied on flawed studies, one of which “found that cloth masks could reduce transmission — or make the wearer 17% more likely to test positive than someone wearing no mask.” Most studies showed no correlation between COVID-19 outbreaks in schools and masking.

The new report verifies what Paul and science have long known: “Masks and Mask Mandates Were Ineffective at Controlling the Spread of COVID-19,” and “Forcibly Masking Young Children, Ages Two and Older, Caused More Harm than Good.”

The report cites the U.K.-based Cochrane Collaboration, whose research “did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks” and that “[t]here were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection.” Numerous studies over many years had come to the same conclusion. In 2015, the BMJ publication discovered cloth masks offered “almost 0%” filtration of viruses. In fact, “Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.” One team of researchers found “significant levels of pollutants” in all face masks, questioning whether paper face masks are “safe to be used on a daily basis and what consequences are to be expected after their disposal into the environment.”

“Ignoring the science and facts of COVID-19 and the harms of masking young children was profoundly immoral on behalf of the leadership of the country’s public health officials,” states the House report.

The Biden administration began to walk back mask mandates and directives in 2021 and 2022. “The science has changed,” Dr. Leana Wen (formerly the president of Planned Parenthood), told CNN in February 2022. Yet the science had always shown masks do a poor job of preventing the transmission of viruses.

The results bear this out. “The trajectories of the rate of COVID-19 infections for states with mask mandates and states without is virtually identical,” the report notes.

4. Science did not support COVID-19 vaccine mandates, which needlessly hurt Americans and the U.S. military.

On August 24, 2021 — one day after FDA approval of the Pfizer COVID injection — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. armed forces. In November, the Biden administration extended the vaccine mandate to all federal workers, health care workers who worked in a facility accepting federal Medicare or Medicaid funds, and Head Start contractors or volunteers. OSHA issued a federal vaccine mandate for all employers with 100 employees or more.

“The COVID19 vaccine mandates caused people to lose their livelihoods, hollowed out our healthcare and education workforces, reduced our military readiness and recruitment, caused vaccine hesitancy, reduced trust in public health, trampled individual freedoms, deepened political divisions, and interfered in the patient-physician relationship,” says the report.

In all, more than 8,000 soldiers left — or were fired from — the military for refusing to take the then-experimental COVID-19 jab. “However, more than 17,500 troops’ religious exemptions were still being adjudicated just prior to the rescission of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate,” states the report.

Gil Cisneros, Biden’s undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, defended the great military vaccine purge as “appropriate disciplinary action” necessary “to maintain good order and discipline,” which affected only a “small fraction” of service members. “Congressman, I would say we are as strong as ever” as a result of the mass firing, Cisneros told then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

The report finds it no coincidence that, in 2022, the military missed its recruitment goals by 25%, or 15,000 soldiers. “Vaccine Mandates Were Not Supported by Science and Caused More Harm than Good,” the report concludes.

5. Natural immunity applies to COVID-19, like any other virus.

Yet the Biden-Harris administration attempted to coerce Americans into getting the COVID-19 shot, in part, by denying or dismissing a scientific fact that applies to every other virus in existence: natural immunity. Once someone has gotten a viral infection, that person develops antibodies that lower the risk of reinfection. “Public Health Officials Disregarded Natural Immunity, Despite Its Proven Effectiveness and Durability,” says the report.

As this author reported at The Washington Stand, Biden administration officials formally denied the efficacy of natural immunity, under oath. “There’s no good evidence, and the research is still going on as to how we need to progress with this,” Cisneros testified to Congress last February 28. “But as for right now, natural immunity is not something we believe in for this, and so we are still moving forward” with vaccine mandates.

6. COVID-era lockdowns had no scientific grounding and irreparably harmed Americans.

If face masks were the most prominent sight of the COVID era, its most infamous words were uttered on March 16, 2020: “15 days to slow the spread.” The government ordered Americans to “shelter in place” and not have unnecessary physical contact with anyone else. Church members were often ordered not to meet in person or saw their attendance severely limited. Schools closed down. Businesses not deemed “essential” closed, many permanently. Relatives died without their loved ones at their side.

Ronald Reagan once said, a government program “is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” The “15 day” program proved no exception. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, admitted, “No sooner had we convinced the Trump administration to implement our version of a two-week shutdown than I was trying to figure out how to extend it.” In some areas, restricted capacity endured for more than a year.

The report notes that “Unscientific COVID-19 Lockdowns Caused More Harm Than Good.” The lockdowns were unnecessary and extracted a demanding mental and physical toll on Americans. Lockdowns ignored the fact that the virus proved most deadly to the elderly and vulnerable populations with comorbidities. By August 2020, the CDC knew that 40% of Americans were struggling with mental health issues. A study in Nature released this March found mental health disorders surged by 22% from 2019 to 2020. Another study found an extra 212 young people committed suicide in 2020, and the CDC found adolescent overdoses more than doubled during the lockdown period.

Adults also died at higher rates from non-COVID diseases. “One analysis done using CDC data found that non-COVID-19 excess deaths totaled nearly 100,000 per year in 2020 and 2021,” the report states.

Further, “Long Term School Closures Were Not Supported by Available Science and Evidence,” notes the report. Instead, the Biden administration invited a teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers led by Randi Weingarten, to shape the federal school closure guidelines. The AFT’s “School Closures Significantly Contributed to Increased Instances of Mental and Behavioral Health Issues” and “Made an Already Alarming Trend in Declining Physical Health Worse,” states the report.

“The American people could have been better served by policies which focused on protecting the most vulnerable while prioritizing productivity and normalcy for the less vulnerable,” the report concludes.

COVID-19 had one additional casualty: American liberty. “The Constitution cannot be suspended in times of crisis and restrictions on freedoms sow distrust in public health,” wrote Wenstrup.

7. President Trump’s ‘racist’ China travel ban likely saved lives.

When President Donald Trump learned of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, he promptly paused all inbound flights to the United States from China. Although the legacy media regarded this as a “racist” undertaking, President Trump’s travel restrictions against China — and Europe — delayed the spread, the report finds.

“With four years of hindsight, it is clear the international travel restrictions early in the pandemic delayed spread of the virus but did not prevent COVID-19 from entering the U.S. By the time the European travel ban was enacted in March 2020, it is now known that the virus had already spread significantly within the U.S. due to earlier untracked travel from Europe,” the report notes. “One study estimated that the U.S. travel bans helped to prevent approximately 77,000 cases of COVID-19 in the first month of their implementation. This study concluded that, while the travel restrictions did not entirely stop the virus from entering the U.S., they were effective in slowing the rate of transmission, giving the U.S. healthcare system more time to prepare and respond to the pandemic.”

Critics Say the Report Is Incomplete

Critics welcomed the report’s openness but felt it did not go far enough to address the adverse impact of the COVID-19 shot and suppression of basic civil liberties. “Forgive my cynicism,” Dr. Robert Malone, chief medical and regulatory officer for The Unity Project, told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on Tuesday. “I don’t see the federal government at this point in time taking these suggestions in and acting appropriately to respond to them. This should be a very active [case of] ‘lessons learned’ on their openness and transparency. We’re not seeing that.”

Dr. Malone noted the report’s odd “juxtaposition of endorsement of Operation Warp Speed, followed by a resounding lack of endorsement of the efficacy and safety of the vaccines.” He found the disconnect “perplexing” or an example of “the usual D.C. process of speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins agreed transparency over public health measures is “something I think we need to stay on” in the second Trump administration.

Dr. Malone is “right to be cynical, because government rarely learns its lessons,” Perkins concluded.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Abolishing Dept. of Education Will Be ‘Tremendous for our States’: State Education Official

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Some officials wait in trepidation to find out if President-elect Donald Trump will follow through with his campaign promise to abolish the Department of Education. Some wait with glee.

In an online video posted last July, then-candidate Trump promised that, if elected, “very early in the administration” he would begin “closing up the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and sending all education and education work and needs back to the states. We want them to run the education of our children, because they’ll do a much better job of it. You can’t do worse.”

The promise echoes back to 1980, when Ronald Reagan promised to close the department, which President Jimmy Carter opened that May. Bob Dole made the same promise in 1996. But Trump’s allies believe the 47th president will be the man to follow through. “In his first term, President Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as so many Republican candidates had promised before him. I am hopeful that closing the Department of Education will be President Trump’s second term version of that long-term promise keeping,” Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council and a former Trump administration education official, told The Washington Stand. “Nearly every Republican candidate for president has campaigned on this. It’s time to make good on that promise.”

Officials at the state level are already planning ways they can improve the quality of education once the federal government no longer dictates the curriculum, standards, and conduct.

“When he eliminates the federal Department of Education, it is going to be tremendous for our states,” Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on Tuesday. “Literally every educational statistic has gotten worse since Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education.”

The most recent “Nation’s Report Card” — the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)’s long-term trends exam (LTT) — found that the average 13-year-old student’s math scores ranked the lowest in more than three decades. The number of high school seniors who did not read a single book for pleasure in the last year nearly quadrupled between 1976 and 2021-2022.

The United States is losing ground compared to other nations. “In 2022, there were 5 education systems with higher average reading literacy scores for 15-year-olds than the United States, 25 with higher mathematics literacy scores, and 9 with higher science literacy scores,” reported the National Center for Education Statistics, analyzing data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In the first year of PISA, 2000, only three nations had higher average reading literacy scores than the U.S., eight outperformed the U.S. in mathematics, and seven countries did better in science literacy.

The Department of Education “was formed to close the achievement gaps, and they have not budged one little bit,” former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told Newsmax on Tuesday. American taxpayers “spent over $1 trillion … trying to do it, and we’ve gotten nothing but worse results. It’s time to do something different.”

Education results declined as per-pupil government education spending rose from $11,221 in 1979 to $17,700 in 2023 in inflation-adjusted dollars. The Biden-Harris administration boasted of the “largest annual spike in public school spending in over 20 years,” when per pupil spending increased 8.9% between 2021 and 2022. President Joe Biden — a longtime labor union ally who boasts that his wife, Jill, belongs to a teacher’s union — requested $90 billion in discretionary spending in his most recent budget, an increase of $10.8 billion or 13.6%. Congress appropriated $79.1 billion in fiscal year 2024.

“Abolishing the Department of Education is an important and necessary step in reforming the American education system. Returning the focus of power to the states demonstrates an understanding that families are the main ‘stakeholders’ when it comes to educating children and the next generation of American citizens and leaders,” Kilgannon told TWS. “Closing the U.S. Department of Education also proves that there are consequences for poor results. It’s a rejection of the overly credentialed, expert-reliant model of policymaking and a return to the basics of local control.”

“President Trump laid out the greatest vision for education in our nation’s history. It was bold. It was conservative. These were the reforms we needed,” Walters told FRC President Tony Perkins.

Walters noted that the federal government promoted radical left-wing curricula from the top-down. “Remember, that’s also the federal Department of Education that brought you” critical race theory, diversity, equity, and inclusion; and “Common Core math. They also brought in this anti-American hatred through the curriculum and through the grants that they pushed,” said Walters. Under Biden-Harris, the U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) taught CRT and extreme transgender ideology to the children of enlisted soldiers in its 160 schools in 11 countries.

“Only about 9% of the funding comes from the federal government, but 90% of the regulation comes from the federal government,” noted DeVos. Teachers unions used DOE “as a beachhead” and “exercise tremendous power over one party.” As it stands, the Department of Education does not act “to benefit the kids. It is only to benefit the adults.”

“My goal is to see the department closed down, phased out, and depowered,” in favor of universal school choice programs, she said. “The money should follow the kids.”

Education experts say the incoming Trump administration could use a host of policies to transfer power from Washington to states and, ultimately, to parents. DeVos noted the federal government may continue providing education funds to states, for instance, through block grants. “Until the Department of Education is closed, however, we need capable leadership from folks who will ensure the department’s focus and footprint is restrained. There are many ways to reduce the size of the department, putting it on a trajectory for eventual closure,” Kilgannon argued.

Walters agrees that parents should have the greatest voice in their children’s education. If given a block grant, he would assure the money goes to parents, to choose the schooling they find best suited for their children. “[E]very child is unique. God created us that way. And the people who are going to know best for what that individual child needs are going to be the child’s mom and dad,” he said.

“The closer we can get resources and decisions to the parents, the better,” said Walters. “That’s what the elimination of the federal Department of Education does.”

Walters has tasked a state advisory panel to guide the transition of educational authority from the national to the state level when the Trump administration closes the Education Department. “They’re going to help us put together recommendations for the state moving forward. When the federal Department of Education is gone, how can we direct those dollars? How can we make sure that families know about the options available?”

“We’re also rewriting our history standards. We want to make sure that we are pro-patriotism, pro-America,” and highlight “the role faith played in our country’s history. So we’re rewriting those history standards to make sure that takes place. We’ve also eliminated CRT, any kind of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our schools,” Walters told Perkins. He added that the state has instituted “merit pay for teachers. … We’ve also created an ability for us to navigate how many illegal immigrants are in our schools.”

He also announced on Tuesday that the state “created the Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism that will continue to navigate any time a teacher is persecuted because of his or her Christian faith. We will investigate it, and we will not stand for it.”

When asked about likely impending lawsuits from the ACLU and other secularist pressure groups, Walters replied, “We’re not scared of the teachers union or a Woke mob. We’re going to continue advancing the ball.”

“We are going to take back our schools. We will not allow a Marxist teachers union to control the future for our young people,” he said. Walters also asked Christians nationwide to “continue to pray for the students of Oklahoma, for the families. … Pray for our parents; pray for our teachers; pray for our kids.”

“Don’t believe the left-wing lies that the sky is falling” when President Trump formally signs legislation abolishing the Department of Education, said Walters. “We can’t wait to implement it for the betterment of our state.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Truth Breeds Trust, Deceit Breeds Destruction

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Americans’ trust in mass media has stumbled to 31%, the lowest measurement since Gallup first asked the question in 1972, while those with absolutely no trust in the media has climbed to 36%. Trust in the media is higher among Democrats (54%) than Republicans (12%) and among senior citizens (43%) than those aged 18-29 (26%), but the media is now the least trusted of all civic and political institutions included in the survey.

How could this happen? If you’re reading The Washington Stand, you likely already know. Mass media, as an institution, lost Americans’ trust by behaving less like the neutral arbiters of objective information they claimed to be and more like partisan organs dedicated to getting candidates who shared their ideology elected.

In other words, they lied — or at least significantly misrepresented themselves. If the media were open about their biases and allowed consumers to reach they own conclusions, they might enjoy greater public trust than they do today.

In fact, the media’s problem with accurate reporting was “highlighted this week,” noted Family Research Council Action President Jody Hice on “Washington Watch,” in a “CBS news interview with [Vice President] Kamala Harris and … an interview with [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson.” On one hand, CBS News faced accusations of selectively editing Harris’ answers, as well as giving her multiple chances to respond to the same question when her first attempt was unsatisfactory. On the other hand, Johnson accused CBS News of selectively cutting out the most persuasive parts of his interview.

While the media may be the worst offender, Americans’ distrust of institutions is not confined to the evening paper. “Trust in our institutions is eroding” more broadly, warned David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, “whether it’s the courts, whether it’s our school system, even the military.”

“Why is that?” Closson asked. “It’s because of decisions that our leaders have made.”

“Thinking of the military,” he continued, “why are recruitment levels so low? Well, think of the woke ideology that’s been introduced into our service branches.” The military is not supposed to be a partisan or ideological entity. Yet servicemembers were subjected to critical race theory trainings, celebration of transgenderism, and DEI performance objectives. Not only was the military drifting away from its critical mission, it was also becoming unmoored from objective reality and truth.

Or, “think about the thousands of service members that were discharged because they didn’t want to get the COVID-19 shot,” Closson added. In fact, public officials in many arenas squandered trust profligately during the COVID pandemic. “Think of all of us that were told to wear masks, and how none of that was actually based on science,” recalled Closson.

Indeed, the brazen lies and arbitrary orders issuing from public institutions during COVID created a “run” on public trust that went beyond just the issues at hand. Backed by the media and powerful government agencies, public health officials demanded that citizens comply with draconian mandates, including stay-at-home orders, mask mandates, vaccine passports, and social distancing farces. These officials traded on their scientific reputation as public health experts, when in fact few to none of the recommendations they issued were based on science.

As a result, Americans jaded by their COVID-era interactions with government are more willing to question the government on unrelated points. If public health officials were willing to lie about the efficacy of the COVID jabs, for example, then why should they be trusted on the rest of the recommended vaccine regimen? This, combined with a wide-open southern border — another example of gaslighting — has led to the resurgence of diseases once on the verge of eradication. Drug companies are now paying for advertisements that aren’t selling new products, but which are simply begging Americans not to turn their backs on longstanding vaccine recommendations. Building trust takes much longer than destroying it.

The collapse of public trust in America holds lessons for Christians to take to heart. “As Christians, we believe in an objective order, right and wrong,” concluded Closson. “And we believe in speaking the truth in love. And, too often, people in positions of power are abusing their authority, and that is eroding trust we have. And that’s not sustainable for any society in the long term.”

Three thousand years ago, David lamented that “Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak” (Psalms 12:2). But, rather than giving in to despair, David placed his trust in the Lord. “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6).

Because God speaks the truth, his children should also be known for their truthfulness. Paul describes how God has given the church pastors and teachers to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,” so that we may not be misled “by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:12, 14-15).

The goal is unity and mutual edification (Ephesians 4:16), but the means are truth and love. Truth fosters trust, but deceit leads to destruction. This holds as true for the church as it does for the society at large. So, rather than be discouraged and disillusioned by the maelstrom of brazen lies swirling through our public discourse, Christians should consider in what ways they are walking in the truth, and how that can contribute to building up the body of Christ.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Dems Support FEMA Funds Being Diverted to Migrants

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While Americans are still struggling to recover from a devastating hurricane season, Democrats are signaling that they approve of federal agencies giving relief money — not to their fellow Americans — but to migrants.

According to a Rasmussen Reports survey published Monday, the majority of likely voters (59%) want the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to focus its resources on American citizens, but 29% approve of FEMA spending money on migrants. A majority (59%) of Democrat voters approve of FEMA diverting resources from Americans to migrants, while only 8% of Republican voters and less than 20% of Independent voters do the same.

While a majority (61%) of voters have a favorable view of FEMA and its Hurricane Helene disaster response, Democrats are the most likely (at 82%) to rate government agencies favorably, as opposed to only 45% of Republicans and 42% of Independent voters. Rasmussen Reports noted, “Among all voters who have a very favorable opinion of FEMA, 68% think spending FEMA money to help immigrants is a good idea.”

The survey follows reports of widespread mismanagement, misallocation of funds, and inaction on FEMA’s part in response to Hurricane Helene, which destroyed a 500-mile swath of homes, towns, and cities in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and parts of Tennessee and Virginia.

Following Hurricane Helene’s landfall, FEMA and other government officials reportedly blocked private American citizens from providing help to impacted areas, especially in the western region of North Carolina. Private citizens conducting search and rescue missions, carrying supplies, or attempting to provide transportation were halted by FEMA and, in some cases, threatened with arrest. Reports have also suggested that FEMA employees are working regular nine-to-five hours, staying in hotels that are then denied to victims of the hurricane, and confiscating supplies and donations, diverting them to immigrant communities instead of to American citizens.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been criticized for announcing that FEMA is almost out of funding and does not have the money to last through the remainder of the hurricane season. However, the agency has spent $1.4 billion since 2022 on illegal immigrants. On Monday night’s episode of “Washington Watch,” former Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, who helped oversee FEMA during the Trump administration, said, “As the Secretary of Homeland Security, part of your job … is to show those impacted that for the most part, the federal government hears you and we’re there to help you as best we can using the authorities that we have.”

He continued, “One of the first things [Mayorkas] says on the way down to North Carolina is ‘We’re out of money, FEMA doesn’t have enough money,’ which I would say is the exact wrong message to send to the people that are hurting in North Carolina.” Wolf added, “They want to know that the government is on their side and is doing everything possible to make sure that they get the assistance they need in such devastating, devastating times.”

Wolf also explained that Mayorkas’s claims of FEMA being out of money may not be “accurate,” noting that the agency has “access to over $20 billion to draw from. And so, the amount of money that they have obligated versus what they have actually spent — they’ve obligated a good amount. What they’ve actually spent is very low.”

He continued, “Now is not the time to talk about ‘We need to replenish what we call the Disaster Relief Fund.’ Now is the time to help individuals on the ground.” He explained that after resources have actually been depleted in hurricane relief efforts, FEMA can ask Congress to supplement the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF). “And Congress is there to do that. They’ve done that historically. There’s little debate. The only debate is how much? They’re always making sure that we take care of those impacted most,” he said. Wolf added, “Frankly, I think there’s more than enough funding to get them through that period of time, and then they can certainly come back after that.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Trump Blasts Left-Wing Ideology in Schools, Promises to Shutter Dept. of Education

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Former President Donald Trump is vowing to gut the U.S. Department of Education if he retakes the White House in November. During a speech on Saturday at Temple University’s Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Trump pledged to shift education policy from the federal government “to the states.” Noting that America ranks “at the bottom of every list” in education, Trump said, “We’ll be able to cut education [spending] in half and get much better education in some of the states. We’ll have the best education anywhere in the world.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Family Research Council’s Senior Fellow for Education Studies Meg Kilgannon said, “Almost every Republican nominated to run for President of the United States has suggested or promised to close the U.S. Department of Education. But it is still here.” She continued, “We can take a promise from President Trump more seriously in this regard, because he has kept similar promises, like moving the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”

Kilgannon warned that dismantling the Department of Education is “not quite as simple as the president just signing an executive order to close it down. There are nearly 250 statutes that require the Department of Education to perform this or that function, oversee programs, etc.” However, she did suggest that portions of the Department could be shifted to other agencies. “For example, sending the Federal Student Loan program to the Department of Treasury, or letting the Department of Justice handle civil rights issues instead of the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Education Department.”

“If the federal budget for education were given to states in block grants, it would be much more efficient than the system we have now,” Kilgannon concluded. “These kinds of steps would help begin the process of shutting down the Department and they would improve outcomes for students and families.” Trump himself acknowledged that some states “won’t do as well” if left to manage education themselves. “There are a couple of states like, I would say, Gavin Newsom [and California] will not do well,” the former president posited.

Schools in California have increasingly become dominated by left-wing ideology, supported and even advanced by state executives and legislators. A bill put forth in the California Assembly last year would require middle schoolers and high schoolers to undergo lessons on “pregnancy prevention and care, including, but not limited to, guidance regarding contraceptive methods and abortion,” which would further include providing children as young as 12 with lists of abortion businesses and facilities and promote “inclusivity and support in conversations surrounding abortion.”

Another piece of Golden State legislation imposes fines on school boards and teachers for rejecting either critical race theory (CRT) or LGBT classroom content. Governor Gavin Newsom (D) last year slapped a school district with a $1.5 million fine for rejecting an LGBT-themed textbook. According to Parents Defending Education, nearly 1,100 school districts in the U.S. maintain policies requiring teachers to hide students’ gender transition attempts and efforts from parents. Well over half of those school districts are in California. California teachers have been penalized for opposing such policies and the state legislature is currently advancing legislation to make hiding children’s gender transitions the law of the land.

During his speech Saturday, Trump lambasted a number of left-wing policies that have found their home in such states as California, promising to combat them at every turn. “On day one, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and any other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children,” the former president declared. “And I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.”

“And I will keep men out of women’s sports on day one,” he pledged. Shortly afterwards, referring to biological males who identify as transgender and compete in girls’ or women’s sports, Trump asked, “How embarrassing is it for me to say that we will keep men out of women’s sports? Who would want men to play women’s sports?” Under incumbent President Joe Biden, Title IX of the Education Amendments has been “radically rewritten” to promote and favor biological males playing in women’s sports. Numerous Republicans have opposed the measure and it has been blocked in at least six states so far.

This is not the first time that Trump has promised to dismantle the Department of Education. At a rally in March, he pledged to “close it up.” He said, “It’s time. Close it up. When you look at the list of countries, we’re always at the bottom [on education]. We spend more money per pupil and we’re always at the bottom of a list of 40 countries.” Trump explained that the federal government “should close it up and let local areas, and frankly, states, handle education.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Save our Republic—Shut Down the Government on March 8th, 2024

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The weak do nothing Congressional Republican and Democrat socialists and Communists are still unable to script a balanced budget that eliminates the massive fraud waste and abuse of U.S. taxpayers hard earned money.

Currently the congress have not been able to agree on legislation to fund the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Transportation and Housing and Urban Affairs. Only the Veterans Affairs and military construction, all of which have legitimate constitutional standing.

But with that said.

The Communists and Socialists in Congress have no problem printing more money in the Treasury Department and borrowing more money from Communist China to fund the traitorous impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s salary.

The do nothing weak Republican led Congress have no problem funding the woke led Pentagon which allows woke indoctrinated military members to slaughter their pre-born children.

The Pentagon uses our tax dollars to reimburse the travel costs allowing these woke military members to kill these pre-born future Americans who are denied their constitutional protections of life and liberty.

The Marxist Biden administration’s climate agenda designed to dismantle our free markets and capitalist entrepreneurial enterprises is still funded driving inflation to its highest levels in 50 years.

The minority group of conservative congressional patriots like Matt Gaetz (R-FL) continue to fight for the fiscal economic sanity of our Republic which could result in a much needed partial government shutdown after March 1 2024 to stop this Marxist agenda.

Globalist Socialist Republican In Name Only (RINO) and non functioning geriatric GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) has no problem funding billions of unaccounted for tax payer money to the corrupt Ukraine.

But then he screams to his House GOP colleagues on February 26th 2024 that shutting down the government due to fiscal restraints put in place by conservatives is not an option.
“Shutting down the government is harmful to the country. And it never produces positive outcomes — on policy or politics,” he warned on the Senate floor.

I’m thinking the massive national debt created in part by loser Mitch McConnell and his out of control spending with his Socialist / Marxist Republican and Democrat pals is far more damaging to our Republic.

The useless UniParty have a deadline to fund the rest of the government by March 8th 2024.

I’ve got no problem shutting the government down until these worthless members of congress initiate a balanced budget that reduces significantly our 34 trillion national debt and eliminates totally this unconstitutional fraudulent spending.

If a government shutdown hurts the reelection of these Republican and Democrat traitors to our Republic then so be it. Good riddance to them come Election Day. But the end result will be the survival of our Republic.

©2024. Geoff Ross. All rights reserved.

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