Tag Archive for: Second Trump Administration

Republicans Hit the Accelerator on the Next Wave of Trump’s To-Do List

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Passing the Big Beautiful Bill was tough, but not as tough as what faces Republicans now: selling it. Getting Americans on board with the idea when both barrels of the Democratic Party’s guns are pointed at the president’s law is becoming a full-time job for the GOP. “The test will be time,” Senator Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) agreed. “If at the end of the day, the time makes everything work — and everything works to the positive — everything’s great,” he told The Hill. In the meantime, conservatives say, one of the smartest things congressional leaders can do is to keep moving full speed ahead with the White House’s main agenda: shaking up Washington.

“These are good structural reforms,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) argued in defense of the law’s reforms to bloated programs like Medicaid. “We’ll be playing offense on that,” he declared. Of course, the irony of leadership’s current position is that there are plenty of conservatives who argue that the landmark legislation doesn’t go far enough. And yet, this is the Goldilocks universe of “too soft” or “too hard” that Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have been forced to navigate since the party won its narrow majorities. As the Louisianan quipped to Wall Street Journal reporter Olivia Beavers last week in the heat of the Big Beautiful debate, “Welcome to Congress. It’s a disappointing job sometimes.”

Sure, Democrats will try to make the vote a painful one for Trump’s party (with claims that are either completely fabricated or nakedly political), but Republicans need to keep hammering home the truth. And more than that, they need to keep their foot on the gas where the law left off: slashing spending, overhauling the government, and getting America’s deficits down.

Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) was only the first lap in what Thune and Johnson’s members expect to be a long race against the machine that is Big Government. To those conservatives who were less than thrilled with the scale of the changes in the law, here’s the good news: there’s a lot more Congress can do — and they intend to.

Some of the law’s more reluctant supporters hinted at this in conversations after the bill crossed Thune’s finish line. Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), who’d been initially critical of the Senate’s version of the BBB, was one of many who huddled and talked strategy about what could be done. “[T]here was no way that we were going to get anything back from the Senate that would have been an improvement. It just was not going to happen.” So what did conservatives and the House Freedom Caucus do? “We went outside the bill to make some requests for things that might offset the damage that the Senate did to the bill.”

As he’s done before, Johnson thought outside the box — or, in this case, the bill. “We got some things that I can’t yet talk about [in an] agreement, and we will see how they work going forward,” Self explained, before adding, “there [will be] more cost-cutting across the federal government. We simply tried to find those areas and get agreement that we will work on those going forward.”

The final language itself was much better, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins agreed, “because the Freedom Caucus began to negotiate on these issues.” Absolutely, Self nodded. “They started out with $300 billion … in savings. What we got was a trillion and a half well above that.” That’s just some of the progress that the Freedom Caucus made “[along] with other conservatives,” Self reiterated. As Perkins pointed out, fiscal priorities weren’t the only things hashed out beyond the BBB. “Some of the social issues that were of concern that were taken out in the Senate are also going to be addressed,” he previewed. “We look forward to that coming out in the public here in the very near future to see what the administration has agreed to.”

For now, it’s full speed ahead on the other tracks of Trump’s train that can deliver major DOGE-like savings. One thing that will certainly cushion the blow for BBB skeptics is being served up as we speak. Before next Friday, July 18, another $9.4 billion will be on the chopping block in the form of the White House’s rescissions package — the first, administration officials insist, of many. The targets include everything from the leftist Corporation for Public Broadcasting to excessive and wasteful foreign aid — millions of dollars of which included wildly inappropriate LGBT activism.

“A vote for rescissions is a vote to show that the United States Senate is serious about getting our fiscal house in order,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought told lawmakers in his testimony last month. Although some liberal Republicans are threatening to upset Trump’s apple cart — Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) personally tanked a similar request in his first term — Thune knows that finding the 51 votes is a must to prove his chamber is serious about cuts.

“After all the tough talk by Republicans in the Senate about the need to reduce spending, if we can’t agree to reduce $9 billion worth of spending porn, then we all ought to go buy paper bags and put them over our heads,” Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) argued in his folksy, made-for-TV soundbite way.

And that’s not the only way Trump is hoping to prove his sincerity on shrinking government. A new report on the White House payroll credits the president with the lowest salaries in 16 years. According to Open The Books, the total for 404 employees in 2025 adds up to $44.1 million in taxpayer dollars — “the lowest it’s been since at least 2009 when adjusted for inflation.” That’s a 29% drop from Biden’s $62.2 million staff, which had almost double the lawyers (45 to Trump’s 27).

Of course, the best bite out of the country’s ballooning debt would be through appropriations — the process Trump quietly seems intent on bypassing. Still, as recently as last month, Johnson was ready to pivot immediately from the BBB to the string of 12 spending bills for the next fiscal year. “The appropriators will be marking up some of the legislation in the subcommittees to try to line all that up,” he reiterated to Perkins on an earlier version of “This Week on Capitol Hill.” “And you’re going to see, again, a reflection of even more savings in appropriations for the next fiscal year. We’ve got a lot on our plate this summer.”

That’s an understatement. There are just 22 legislative days on the House’s calendar until the next batch of government funding runs out on September 30. Because of the August recess, Republicans will have four fewer weeks to negotiate some of the trickiest debates across the 12 agency budgets. As Politico points out, the speaker’s chamber has made “some progress” with its appropriations work, passing one bill and advancing four out of committee. Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) was hoping to complete the dozen markups by July 30. “We’re a little behind the eight ball on it,” Johnson acknowledged, “because [we spent] so much effort [on] the big, beautiful bill. But now we turn our attention immediately to that.”

It’s through the regular appropriations process where gigantic, across-the-board savings could actually be accomplished for every pocket of government. Unfortunately, that usually takes months of talks, combing through numbers, and ironing out possible landmines. Months that this party doesn’t have.

“It takes a long time to reach consensus and equilibrium on all the various competing ideas and priorities that people have,” the speaker told Perkins. “Which is why the regular order, regular process is so important. You have to let everybody have a say so they’ll be with you on the vote at the end. And that’s kind of the grueling process of every day in a deliberative body.” Still, he vowed, the House “is going to get it done and get it to the president’s desk as well. We’re going to spend less money. We’re in a series of scaling back government. This is a big part of it.”

But there are those who wonder if even Johnson, who’s managed to leap every impossible obstacle, can beat the clock. At this point, the Senate hasn’t passed a single funding bill of the 12. And if, as Punchbowl News wonders, the speaker can wrangle his side of the Capitol to approve a short-term continuing resolution to buy more time, his counterpart will need at least seven Democrats’ help to hit the Senate’s magic 60-vote threshold. Judging by the volcanic rhetoric on the other side, the odds of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) party bailing out the GOP at this point are probably zero — leaving Republicans in a serious jam.

As Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan remind everyone, “If Congress is good at anything, it’s taking things to the brink…” And yet, with Johnson at the helm, anything could happen. “You continue to defy the critics who say you can’t get it done,” Perkins pointed out. “You’re getting it done. And I think you can get the budget process back to where it needs to be and make government accountable to the American people.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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

Here’s How Schools Are Catering To Illegal Immigrants While Avoiding Federal Scrutiny

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Several schools are trying to fly under the radar with programs providing education to illegal immigrants despite the Trump administration cutting funding for such initiatives.

The Trump administration on June 30 announced it was revoking nearly $7 billion in federal grants that went towards teaching English as a second language — used in part for illegal immigrants — saying the funds are being used to push “a radical leftwing agenda.” Now, some schools are advising staff to use private messaging tactics and are wiping details from their websites to cover their tracks, The 74 reported.

“Because of the threats from the federal administration about revoking the 501(c)(3) status of nonprofits, we want to keep ourselves from being targeted,” an employee of an organization that works with undocumented youth, who chose to remain anonymous, told The 74. “Anything that could be perceived as obstructing or challenging federal immigration policies, we don’t put in writing. Anything that could be seen as a criticism of the administration — or anything that could be seen as partisan — we’re going to completely avoid.”

Some schools and leftwing activist organizations are advising members to use secure messaging apps like Signal rather than text or email, or conduct conversations over the phone, The 74 said. Staff are also directed not to participate in any protests or rallies in support of illegals to avoid the federal government’s radar.

“We’re not trying to draw attention,” an administrator for an Illinois school district told The 74 on condition of anonymity. “I don’t want any light shining on our district.”

The funding being withheld from schools went towards after-school and summer school programs mainly focused on adult education and English learning for non-speakers. The Office of Management and Budget is currently reviewing whether to release some or all of the funding after it discovered some schools used it for illegal immigrants, according to The Detroit News.

School administrators and consultants are even being advised to avoid certain words in emails, such as terms related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), to prevent communications from being discovered through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, The 74 reported.

The Trump administration has also taken aim at states that provide special benefits to illegal immigrants, including several that offer in-state tuition prices for illegals. Texas even joined on to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit against the state to overturn the law allowing the policy, with the state now asking colleges and universities within the state to identify the illegal students.

Reining in illegal immigration has been a main priority of the administration, especially after the Biden administration allowed hundreds of criminal illegal migrants to flood into the U.S. Roughly 11 million total border encounters occurred at the southern border throughout the Biden administration.

So far, the Trump administration has facilitated the arrests of over 30,000 illegal immigrants in the U.S., about half of whom it claims are convicted criminals. Border crossings have plummeted since President Donald Trump took office, with no illegal migrants released into the U.S. in May.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Education Reporter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PERKINS: For Israel, a Two-State Solution Is a Launchpad for Terror

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This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Washington to meet with President Trump to discuss a potential ceasefire agreement in Gaza. In advance of the prime minister’s visit, the leadership of Israel’s governing party made a significant, if not historic, statement.

Likud cabinet ministers, along with Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, have signed a petition urging the Israeli government to formally assert sovereignty over Judea and Samaria — what much of the world still refers to as the “West Bank.” This move sends a clear message: a two-state solution is no longer a viable basis for peace.

Israeli leaders are signaling what many have long believed — that the era of “land for peace” is over. The term “West Bank” originated with the 1947 U.N. partition plan and the Jordanian occupation that followed. Whether by design or default, the term downplays the land’s historical and strategic significance, evoking images of a barren strip of sand along the Jordan River. In reality, Judea and Samaria form the heart of Israel’s ancestral homeland — where nearly 80% of the Bible’s recorded events took place. The region also constitutes nearly one-quarter of Israel’s current land mass.

The October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre shattered any illusions that territorial concessions lead to peace. Gaza, the laboratory of the two-state solution, proved instead to be a launchpad for terror. Today, only 21% of Israelis support the creation of a Palestinian state — reflecting a dramatic erosion of trust in the two-state paradigm.

In conversations I’ve had with Israeli officials since that attack, formal sovereignty over Judea and Samaria was not an immediate priority. However, the geopolitical ground has shifted. Iran’s terror network has been significantly weakened. And with the potential to expand the Abraham Accords, there’s a real opportunity to reshape the region. But such normalization efforts with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others may hinge on Israeli concessions, particularly the creation of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu may be immune to the enchantment of such diplomacy, but U.S. officials often are not. The seductive call of “peace in our time” has repeatedly led American administrations — Republican and Democratic alike — onto the shoals of diplomatic delusion. History should remind us: the Gaza disengagement, endorsed by the George W. Bush administration, did not bring stability. Instead, it birthed a terrorist regime.

Judea and Samaria are not only 24 times larger than Gaza but are embedded in the geographic and spiritual core of Israel. Surrendering this strategic depth would not foster peace — it would invite prolonged conflict and existential risk.

The United States should support Israel’s rightful claim to sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. This is not only a matter of historical justice, but of national security — for Israel and for all who value stability in the Middle East. Failing to do so will perpetuate a failed status quo, embolden enemies of peace, and betray the very principles that have undergirded America’s strongest ally in the region.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of 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.

Supreme Court Hands Trump Admin Victory On Efforts To Deport ‘Worst’ Illegal Migrants

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The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to more quickly deport illegal migrants to countries not specified in their removal orders.

A majority temporarily blocked a lower court order that required the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to give migrants notice and allow them to raise concerns about potential threats of torture before deporting them to a “third country.”

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan dissented from the decision.

“Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled,” Sotomayor wrote. “That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.”

The Trump administration argued the order interfered with their ability to deport “some of the worst of the worst illegal aliens” in its emergency application.

“The United States is facing a crisis of illegal immigration, in no small part because many aliens most deserving of removal are often the hardest to remove,” Solicitor General John Saur wrote in May. “When illegal aliens commit crimes in this country, they are typically ordered removed. But when those crimes are especially heinous, their countries of origin are often unwilling to take them back. As a result, criminal aliens are often allowed to stay in the United States for years on end, victimizing law-abiding Americans in the meantime.”

District Court Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, wrote in his original order that plaintiffs “are simply asking to be told they are going to be deported to a new country before they are taken to such a country, and be given an opportunity to explain why such a deportation will likely result in their persecution, torture, and/or death.”

“This small modicum of process is mandated by the Constitution of the United States,” the judge wrote.

Attorneys for the migrants claimed in a brief that the administration “repeatedly sought to remove people as a punitive measure, to some of the most dangerous places on the planet, and with only hours’ notice.”

AUTHOR

Katelynn Richardson

Investigative Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permisison. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

EXCLUSIVE: Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers Still Awaiting Justice 3 Years After Firebombing, Vandalism Spree

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The FBI has yet to solve at least five cases it opened into arson attacks targeting pro-life pregnancy centers in 2022, according to an investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Biden FBI offered cash rewards in 2022 for information on suspects responsible for firebombings around the country, mainly directed at pro-life facilities, after the preemptive May 2 leak of a Supreme Court ruling that overturned the abortion precedent established by Roe v. Wade. Five local FBI field offices told the DCNF that the bureau is still offering the incentive for cases in Colorado, North Carolina, Washington state, Oregon and New York, indicating suspects were never found or convicted.

The FBI’s Seattle field office told the DCNF that it’s typical for the bureau to update or delete the bulletins asking the public for information if suspects are caught, and if they’re on the website, the FBI is still looking for answers. The FBI’s national press office did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Enforce The Law Equally’

One targeted facility’s CEO, Jim Harden, told the DCNF he got a phone call from an employee around two in the morning on June 7, 2022, that changed his life. The Amherst, New York, building that was home to his organization CompassCare was set ablaze in what was eventually determined to be arson. The FBI released footage showing what it said were two suspects arriving in a car at night and throwing Molotov cocktails at the building.

Harden’s team had been on high alert that summer, having already contacted the FBI over concerns about a heightened risk of violence. Soon after the fire, he moved with his wife and children to flee an onslaught of threats against them as extremists lashed out at CompassCare, a Christian nonprofit providing free medical care to pregnant mothers to steer them away from abortion.

“Our lives are very different now,” he said in an interview with the DCNF. “We had to relocate our family … we had people riding past our house pointing guns at our kids.”

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said in April that there were more than 200 cases of pregnancy resource centers “violently attacked by activists with no action by law enforcement, federal or state” in the past several years. Family Research Council documented almost 50 instances of vandalism and other attacks on pregnancy centers and pro-life organization buildings from May through June 2022.

“I can say we are taking them seriously now and will be for the duration,” Dhillon told the DCNF about such cases. Dillon declined to comment about any specific prosecutions that may be ongoing or forthcoming.

“This Department of Justice is committed to protecting crisis pregnancy centers, pro-life organizations and places of worship from targeted acts of violence and will work to ensure justice is served to criminals who engage in this unlawful behavior,” a DOJ spokesperson said in response to questions about the unsolved cases.

The spree of violence even resulted in arson at a Portland pregnancy center run by a self-professed pro-choice woman in July 2022. As in the five cases involving pro-life groups, the FBI told the DCNF it is still offering a reward for information. The Dobbs opinion leak, which was investigated but never solved, also inspired an assassination attempt on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh near his home.

The Portland facility did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The other pregnancy centers with unsolved cases in Longmont, Colorado and Portland did not respond to multiple requests for comment, while one in Seattle declined to comment.

Harden, the CompassCare CEO, said the pro-abortion Biden administration seemed apathetic about solving the cases, despite the FBI interviewing him about the Amherst bombing. He recalled reaching out and asking urgently for updates, leading to a moment when he said an FBI agent “was screaming” over the phone that the bureau was not required to update him.

“Their job was to enforce the law equally,  and it did not appear as if they were doing so,” Harden said.

‘Mountain Of Evidence’

While announcements about pro-abortion vandalism cases were scarce, the Biden administration boasted in press releases about several prosecutions of pro-life activists under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for protesting at abortion clinics. On his first week in office, President Donald Trump pardoned nearly two dozen pro-lifers accused of federal crimes.

Former Attorney General Merrick Garland explained the discrepancy in March 2023 by telling Congress that “it is quite easy” to identify and charge pro-lifers protesting in daylight.

“Those who are attacking the pregnancy resources centers, which is a hard thing to do, are doing this at night in the dark,” Garland said.

Harden did not — and does not — buy Garland’s explanation whatsoever.

“There’s a mountain of evidence,” Harden said of the vandals, noting that the authorities can search for license plate numbers, body mechanic imagery and cell phone IP addresses. “It’s just not possible they don’t know who they are. The FBI [is] the most technically advanced law enforcement agency on the planet.”

Some attacks on pro-life centers in 2022 were linked to a leftist group called Jane’s Revenge, with activists posting online threats in response to news about the leaked Dobbs decision. The FBI said the CompassCare vandals left the spray-painted message, “Jane was here.”

Harden told the DCNF his Amherst building was repaired at “miraculous” speed in 52 days thanks in part to volunteer workers, but the damage cost millions of dollars.

The attack inspired Harden to become more outspoken about political issues via media interviews. He also launched a campaign on a pro-life platform to fill Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik’s House seat in a New York special election. Stefanik announced she would remain in her role in April after Trump pulled her nomination to represent the U.S. in the United Nations.

‘Heart Problem’

Paula McSwain, executive director of the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Lincolnton, North Carolina, told the DCNF she received a letter from the FBI in August 2024 saying its investigation into arson at her building in June 2022 was closed. Surveillance footage showed someone at nighttime throwing what the FBI said was a Molotov cocktail.

The Lincolnton case is one of several for which the FBI is still offering a reward for information on any suspects, according to the bureau’s Charlotte field office.

McSwain said she was fortunate enough to get the pregnancy center up and running fairly easily.

“If they wanted to destroy the building, they could have done a better job,” McSwain told the DCNF.

The pro-life leader decided to respond to her ordeal by limiting public outcry.

“That’s what they were seeking, was attention,” McSwain said of the vandals.

Harden and McSwain said that if they could give any message to their attackers, it would be one of forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

“If you throw fire at any building, you’ve got a heart problem and there’s something not right with your life … We don’t seek revenge, we just pray for them,” McSwain said.

“The only reason I can forgive you is because forgiveness has been made available to me, and so I would encourage you to come out of the darkness and into the light,” Harden said his words to the criminals would be.

“Nothing is going to go unpunished if it’s sin,” Harden said.

AUTHOR

Hudson Crozier

DCNF Crime and Extremism Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

EXCLUSIVE: FCC Commissioner Wants Regulatory ‘Cows’ Lined Up ‘For The Slaughterhouse’

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Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Nathan Simington outlined the regulatory “cows” his agency is “lining up for the slaughterhouse” as part of its “Delete, Delete, Delete” initiative, in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Trump-era deregulatory push, spearheaded by the commissioner and FCC Chair Brendan Carr, targets what Simington described as outdated broadcast media regulations — rules from the Truman administration that no longer reflect the media landscape in 2025.

“Let’s talk about profane cows, because these are the ones that we’re lining up for the slaughterhouse,” Simington told the DCNF. “I think one of the prime areas of interest for ‘Delete, Delete, Delete’ should be our broadcast media regulations. These broadcast media regulations, in many cases, come — you were talking about the Truman administration — some of them are just that old. Others are from the 1970s. They’re from an era when broadcast media was the only form of telecom media that most people had access to. Obviously, that has changed radically.”

WATCH:

The “Delete, Delete, Delete” initiative, launched in March, invites the public to flag FCC rules they believe should be scrapped. The aim, according to Simington, is to modernize the Commission’s rulebook by gutting what he called “path dependen[t]” relics from a pre-streaming era.

“In 2023, streaming subscriptions surpassed cable subscriptions in the United States, and broadcasters are not in the same kind of economic and cultural positions that they once were,” he said. “So, the idea that [broadcasters] should still be as intensely regulated as they were during that era — even if you are a believer in media regulation, which I’m not, particularly — but even if you were, the argument isn’t there anymore. There really is no argument other than path dependence and historical practice.”

The FCC is considering cuts to longstanding media ownership caps, operational restrictions and decades-old filing requirements — unless they’re explicitly mandated by Congress or the White House. Simington said that unless the president “wants it to stay,” it should be up for deletion.

“I think we should take a hard look at every media ownership rule, at every operational restriction,” the commissioner said. “And unless it’s something that’s been directly mandated by Congress, or where we have clear direction from the West Wing, that the president wants it to stay, we should consider deleting, deleting, deleting it.”

AUTHOR

Thomas English

DCNF Technology Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

EXCLUSIVE: Ed Martin Teases Potential Target For His DOJ Weaponization Group’s Microscope

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Newly-appointed head of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Weaponization Working Group Ed Martin revealed Thursday that he may spend time looking into bar associations for targeting conservative attorneys.

Martin, who says he is being targeted by the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, told the Daily Caller News Foundation he wants to expose the “weaponization of the bar associations against lawyers.”

“The bar associations exist with a sort of monopoly, but they also exist at the discretion of the courts,” he said, noting they mostly target conservatives. “I’ve seen the impact on the legal system, not only advocates like myself who are targeted, but rank and file prosecutors who are abused by the system because the left wants to have sort of lawlessness.”

James Phalen, executive attorney of the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, told the DCNF that “any matters involving allegations of disciplinary misconduct are confidential unless and until Disciplinary Council brings charges.” Disciplinary counsel Hamilton Fox also told the DCNF that investigations are confidential until formal charges are brought.

Martin revealed in a going-away email to staff that he was under an ethics investigation by the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, Reuters reported Wednesday.

Democratic lawmakers requested an investigation into Martin in March for allegedly abusing his position as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, accusing him of “dismissing charges against his own client and using the threat of prosecution to intimidate government employees and chill the speech of private citizens.” The office previously declined in February to address a prior complaint against Martin for dismissing charges against a Jan. 6 defendant he previously represented.

“Most bar associations, state and national, are 501(c)(3) organizations,” he told the DCNF, noting that status comes with certain benefits. “If they’re not living up to what they should be, they’ll have to face scrutiny. And also, part of it is just the name and shame.”

There are hundreds of bar associations in the United States.

Other conservative attorneys, like John Eastman in California, have faced disciplinary proceedings from the bar.

Martin said the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel is “completely hypocritical” about how it does its job.

“It’s one thing for liberals, another thing for conservatives, confidentiality for themselves, and yet, somebody like me, I had a complaint against me, they exposed my confidential, the confidentiality of the bar complaint, and exposed it to random people in my work environment.”

The DOJ implemented a policy in April placing restrictions on its attorneys participation in American Bar Association (ABA) events.

“The ABA is free to litigate in support of activist causes, including by inserting itself into pending litigation as an amicus curiae,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote in the memo. “The Department of Justice must, consistent with the Constitution, be careful stewards of the public fisc, represent all Americans regardless of ideology or political preferences, and defend the policies chosen by America’s democratically elected leadership-as reflected in Congressionally enacted statutes and Presidential policy choices.”

A judge blocked the DOJ’s effort to cancel $3.2 million in grants to the ABA on Wednesday.

“Part of it is the monopoly that bar associations maintain over the practice of law may have to change,” Martin said.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comment from another D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility official.

AUTHOR

Katelynn Richardson

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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American Public Backs Trump’s Crackdown on Crime

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Alcatraz Island, a rocky outcrop in the San Francisco Bay, has a storied history as one of America’s most infamous penitentiaries. However, it closed in 1963 and transformed into a tourist hotspot, attracting millions yearly. Now, as part of his crackdown on crime, President Donald Trump is pushing to revive its original purpose as a high-security prison, aligning with his aggressive vision to restore “law and order” to America.

“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!” he wrote on Truth Social. “For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering.” He emphasized that America was once “a more serious nation,” where “we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm.” That, he insisted, is “how it’s supposed to be,” vowing that his administration will no longer allow Americans to be “held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job.”

“The reopening of ALCATRAZ,” Trump concluded, “will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.” And as it turns out, this is exactly what the American people want from the Trump administration. CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten highlighted statistics to back it up.

“This speaks to one of Trump’s best issues, right? The idea of Alcatraz,” Enten said. “You think law and order — you think Donald Trump.” Citing an Ipsos poll, he highlighted Trump’s net approval rating on handling crime at +2 points, a stark contrast to Joe Biden’s -26 points. “You rarely ever see it,” Enten remarked.

He continued, “So Donald Trump ran, in part, on law and order. It was one of the reasons that he got elected. And at this particular point, Americans like what they’re hearing from him on the issue of crime.” It’s all in the numbers, he added, “And you see this right here, with a plus two net approval rating — far better than Joe Biden left office with back in 2024.” But the report didn’t end there.

CNN took into consideration a different poll, comparing how Americans viewed Trump’s handling of crime from his first term to his second. In doing so, Enten explained, “We see that Donald Trump’s net approval rating on handling crime is far better now at plus two points.” During his first term, Trump was “underwater at -13 points.” So, now, “he’s doing 15 points better in terms of how people are viewing his handling of crime now than he was doing” before.

Enten tied it all together: “[W]hen you hear Donald Trump talking about stuff like Alcatraz — yes, I know it’s late-night fodder for a lot of different folks — but what it actually speaks to is Donald Trump focusing the American people’s attention on an issue in which they actually do like what he’s doing.” The Ipsos poll cited by Enten reflects the growing public frustration with rising crime rates in general. For example, beyond Alcatraz, Trump’s crime agenda dovetails with his immigration policies, which were another cornerstone of his 2024 campaign.

The Washington Stand reported that Trump has already taken significant steps to secure the U.S. border, including reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, ending catch-and-release, designating criminal syndicates like Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as foreign terrorist organizations or criminal enterprises, and leveraging the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport illegal immigrants. Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security introduced a new incentive: a $1,000 stipend for illegal immigrants who voluntarily self-deport using the CBP Home app.

Notably, Trump’s immigration crackdown first prioritized those with criminal records, particularly violent offenders. In his first 100 days, his administration has focused on deporting individuals convicted of serious crimes, a policy that aligns with the Alcatraz proposal’s emphasis on isolating dangerous individuals.

Whether the reopening of Alcatraz comes to fruition or serves as a rhetorical lightning rod, the proposal has already succeeded in refocusing public attention on crime, an issue that continues to shape the political landscape in 2025.

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter 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.

Tulsi Gabbard Gives the Deep State the Boot

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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard referred two intelligence officials to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution over their alleged leaks of classified information Wednesday.

The two officials reportedly leaked top-secret military information to The Washington Post and The New York Times, purportedly to hamper President Donald Trump’s foreign policy and stir up public opinion for their own partisan political gain.

“Politicization of our intelligence and leaking classified information puts our nation’s security at risk and must end,” Gabbard told Fox News, noting that a third criminal referral is on its way. “Those who leak classified information will be found and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

This isn’t the first time Gabbard has cracked down on intelligence community leakers. In March, she announced her department’s intention to aggressively pursue such activity and gave examples of how leakers recently shared classified info ranging from American intel on Israel and Iran to the U.S.’s relationship with Russia with left-wing media allies such as The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, and NBC.

At the time, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton (R) praised Gabbard for working to end “the weaponization of the intelligence community.”

Yet the weaponization of the intelligence community against the Trump administration is far from over. Gabbard’s recent criminal referrals for two intelligence leakers come as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faces a slew of coordinated media attacks meant to slander his reputation and give him the boot at the Pentagon — all thanks to partisan intel officials leaking to their allies in the press. For example, The New York Times recently tried to resurrect “Signal-gate” by alleging Hegseth sent classified info via Signal to his wife and other personal contacts. NPR joined the psyop, by reporting that an unnamed “U.S. official” told the outlet the Trump administration is now looking for a new Defense secretary (the White House immediately repudiated the claim). Notably, both “scoops” rely entirely on anonymous sources for their articles (NPR’s “story” relies on only one anonymous source).

These anonymous sources are the partisan operatives within the intelligence community Gabbard hopes to root out. Because they are diametrically opposed to Hegseth and the threat he poses to both the military industrial complex and pointless foreign conflicts, as well as the PC-ification of the military, they regularly leak to their ideologically-aligned allies in the press and jeopardize the integrity and cohesion of Trump’s intelligence agencies.

“Leaking is always designed to damage a specific target and promote a narrative,” Chris Gacek, senior fellow for Regulatory Affairs at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “The Deep State cannot be given free shots on goal. It appears Gabbard realizes this, and she is taking action.”

The Trump administration has learned its lesson from its first term, where leaks abounded and intelligence officials and federal employees — both overwhelmingly Democratic Party-affiliated — tried thwarting President Trump’s agenda at every turn, many times through coordinated media attacks made possible by anonymous leakers.

But this time around, it’s different. “We are aggressively investigating other leaks and will pursue further criminal referrals as warranted,” a Gabbard official told Fox News. “Any intelligence community bureaucrat who is considering leaking to the media should take this as a warning.”

AUTHOR

Victoria Marshall

Victoria Marshall is a news reporter for FRC’s Washington Watch and is a contributor to The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washignton 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.

A Christian Response to an Increasingly Violent ‘Assassination Culture’

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In a world where death threats flood phones and vandalism becomes a political statement, the words of Jesus in John 10:10 ring truer than ever: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” If we view the “thief” as the destructive forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil, it helps bring the chaos of our society into sharp focus.

We live in a paradoxical age — hyper-connected through technology yet profoundly isolated. Social media’s rise has confined us to digital echo chambers, where global communities and endless streams of information are just a tap away. You could stay holed up in your room and feel plugged into the world. But here’s the catch: this torrent of information is often warped, and far too many of us struggle to separate truth from deception in this digital storm. This isolation breeds a dangerous tribalism, replacing dialogue with division and turning disagreement into enmity.

Rather than bridging differences through open exchange, opposing groups retreat into cliques, shunning engagement. Worse, this herd mentality has fueled a chilling trend: the growing justification of violence to silence dissent, seemingly excusing murder as some kind of a “solution.” While this cuts across divides, the Left has notably embraced this path, as seen in the shocking reality of two assassination attempts on President Donald Trump during his 2024 campaign.

Another chilling example is Luigi Mangione, who murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December. A few weeks ago, I spontaneously found myself at a random music event in which one of the opening acts (whom I had never heard of) sang a song called “The Rest of Them,” allegedly “inspired” by Mangione’s crime. In a grotesque display, the lyrics brazenly advocated assassination to eliminate ideological foes. It was as shocking as it sounds. And yes, my cue to leave.

The alarming desire to assassinate persists, with a Pennsylvania man recently charged for repeatedly threatening to kill not only Trump but also Elon Musk and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. This follows weeks of escalating attacks by enraged liberals targeting Musk’s company, Tesla, through firebombing, scratching, and vandalizing vehicles on both commercial and private property.

The Washington Times reports that death threats have now extended to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and her family. Federal prosecutors revealed that 24-year-old Aliakbar Mohammed Amin sent her this text: “Prepare to die, you, Tulsi, and everyone you hold dear. America will burn.”

The outlet noted that the death threats started long before Trump’s administration even took office. “The death threats began as soon as Mr. Trump started making nominations,” they wrote. “They targeted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who was nominated as ambassador to the United Nations before withdrawing to help bolster the Republican House majority.”

Benjamin Ginsberg, a Johns Hopkins University professor studying political violence, underscored an undeniable truth: violence, though not new, is now erupting into plain view. “Hatred of Trump and the members of the administration is so severe, so intense, that normally sensible people are willing to countenance [violence], even if they themselves wouldn’t do it … directed against their opponents,” he stated. It is worth noting that conservatives are just as capable of using violence as well, it’s just not what we’re seeing.

For instance, a recent survey “found that about half of liberal-leaning Americans could ‘at least somewhat’ justify the assassinations of Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk,” and “more than half of liberals also said destroying Tesla dealerships is acceptable.” The survey was titled, “Assassination Culture: How Burning Teslas and Killing Billionaires Became a Meme Aesthetic for Political Violence.”

The evidence is overwhelming, and it strikes at the core of the issue. These violent acts — assassination attempts, death threats, cultural endorsements of murder — vividly embody what Jesus described in John 10:10. The “thief” — the enemy and the sin we confront — exists solely to steal, kill, and destroy.

As Christians, we have a duty to understand that this chaos — whether online or in our neighborhoods — reflects the depravity of a world lost in sin. This is not merely some societal crisis that will fade away if we just leave it alone. No, this is a spiritual battle that, in one form or another, will persist until the day Jesus returns. In fact, Scripture reminds us that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against… the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). The lies spread through digital platforms, the hatred fueling vandalism and threats, the grotesque celebration of murder in songs like “The Rest of Them” have the thief’s fingerprints plastered all over them.

What is the enemy doing through these acts? He is stealing, killing, and destroying. That’s all he knows how to do. And as a result, the world that he rules follows the same tactics. However, my aim here is not merely to draw attention to the brokenness we’re painfully aware of. Rather, it’s to call us, as followers of Jesus Christ — the true and sovereign Lord — to the response He commands.

Jesus’s words in John 10:10 don’t merely expose the problem; they proclaim the divine and only solution. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly,” He declared. This, dear reader, is our unshakable hope in a world fraying at the edges. The abundant life Christ offers is anchored in the truth of God’s word, the boundless love of Jesus, and the certain hope of His eternal kingdom. Through salvation in Christ, this life is ours — eternal in scope, overflowing with glory, and available to us even now as we await its fullness.

Living this out means rejecting the world’s ways. In an age of misinformation, we seek discernment through prayer and Scripture, testing every spirit against the truth (1 John 4:1). Where hatred justifies violence, we are called to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). In a world that denies God, we proclaim His truth boldly. As “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:20), we must immerse ourselves in God’s word to counter lies, engage our churches to break isolation, and stand firm in love, hating evil and clinging to good (Romans 12:9). Above all, beloved, pray fervently.

Pray against the wickedness around us and the people who seek to do harm. Prayer is our weapon, not just for personal strength but for the healing of a fractured nation. The thief may prowl, but our God has already overcome. The violence and division we see are real, but they do not have the final say. Jesus’s abundant life — overflowing with grace, truth, and eternal purpose — is ours to embrace, untouchable by any thief.

Let us cling to Jesus’s promise, shining as light in a darkened world, and boldly proclaim God’s truth to a society dead in sin, desperately needing the abundant life only Christ provides.

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter 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.

U.S. State Department Closes Censorship Office

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Big Brother is no longer watching Americans from Foggy Bottom. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday announced “the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC),” an office which “spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.”

The State Department censorship office had “cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year,” according to the agency. It placed all 30 full-time staff on leave, eliminated all 50 full-time positions, and notified Congress of R/FIMI’s dissolution, with total savings of $65 million annually.

“GEC was supposed to be dead already,” Rubio declared in an op-ed for The Federalist. As TWS previously reported, the legislative authority for GEC expired on December 23, 2024, after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives “declined to enact several proposals to extend the GEC’s mandate,” according to the Congressional Research Service obituary.

Instead, the Biden administration merely staged a funeral and put the censorship apparatus into hiding. “When Republicans in Congress sunset GEC’s funding at the end of last year, the Biden State Department simply slapped on a new name. The GEC became the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R-FIMI) office with the same roster of employees. With this new name, they hoped to survive the transition to the new administration,” Rubio related. “Today, we are putting that to an end. Whatever name it goes by, GEC is dead. It will not return.”

President Barack Obama first “directed the Secretary of State to establish the GEC by executive Order” in March 2016 “to carry out U.S.-government-sponsored counterterrorism communications to foreign publics.” Congress later expanded that mission to include “counter[ing] foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts,” as well as leading and coordinating inter-agency counter-propaganda efforts.

Progressive operatives lurking in the bureaucracy twisted this mission into a license to suppress any domestic political speech they disliked, even before the Biden administration made it official policy. Rather than censor Americans’ speech directly, which would raise obvious First Amendment concerns, GEC and other federal agencies “effectively outsourced to the newly emerging censorship-industrial complex” to private proxies, according to a report published by the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government — as if that made the First Amendment problems go away.

Through a so-called Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), the GEC collaborated with private institutions to “monitor and censor Americans’ online speech in advance of the 2020 presidential election,” the report continued.

“Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation requests from every corner of government, from the FBI, the DHS, the HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA,” testified journalist Matt Taibbi, after reporting on the Twitter files. “For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi-private entities doing the same thing, including Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership, NewsGuard, the Global Disinformation Index, and many others — many taxpayer-funded.”

In fact, the GEC was responsible for much of that taxpayer funding, a U.S. House Committee on Small Business (HCSB) report found, providing start-up capital through a murky sub-award to NewsGuard, an American tech company that rates the trustworthiness of news outlets with a manifestly leftward bias. The HCSB report concluded that the GEC had “circumvented its strict international mandate by funding, developing, then promoting tech start-ups and other small businesses in the disinformation detection space to private sector entities with domestic censorship capabilities.”

But the GEC had problems beyond its ravenous appetite to censor domestic speech. A 2022 inspection by the State Department Office of the Inspector General (OIG) faulted the GEC for a poor internal structure, conflict with other units within the State Department, and competition with “counter-disinformation efforts housed in other government agencies” that did a better job of executing what should have been its main mission: countering propaganda from hostile foreign actors.

The problems with the GEC weren’t going to disappear simply by changing the office’s name. “Over the last decade, Americans have been slandered, fired, charged, and even jailed for simply voicing their opinions,” wrote Rubio. “That ends today.” Thus, for the second time in four months, the State Department has declared an end to its office engaging in domestic censorship. This time, it seems that the GEC is dead for good.

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.

Legal Group Joining Anti-Tesla Movement Has Violent, Far-Left History

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A legal organization with ties to the far-left Antifa movement has joined forces with anti-Tesla activists angry about CEO Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration.

The Oregon-based Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC) has been giving virtual training to groups leading anti-Tesla protests. The CLDC is known to help alleged Antifa agitators fight charges in court, adheres to their anti-police ideology and lost one of its volunteer workers in a shootout with law enforcement in 2019.

“It’s time to be strategic and effective, but it’s not time to be afraid or silenced,” CLDC Executive Director Lauren Regan told a virtual audience in a March 19 “Tesla Takedown” video call. She warned that protesters should be aware of their “geography” to avoid getting arrested.

“There are going to be some areas of the country that are very conservative and are going to be hard on dissidents or activists no matter what the timing, and then there are other places that are going to be less so,” Regan said.

The CLDC did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A post shared by #TeslaTakedown (@tesla.takedown)

The CDLC came under scrutiny in 2019 after its volunteer worker Charlie Landeros was fatally shot by police at his daughter’s middle school.

Landeros had come to the school in a fit of rage over custody decisions related to his daughter and ex-wife and began firing a handgun at an officer who confronted him before another officer killed him, according to a district attorney’s investigation that found no wrongdoing by police. The district attorney also revealed the FBI had received a tip about Landeros allegedly “posting violent anti-government messages on social media” such as, “time to start killing pigs,” referring to police officers.

The CLDC earned criticism from pro-police advocates for claiming Landeros’s death was not investigated thoroughly. The group casted suspicion by emphasizing that “people of color are disproportionately the victims of police violence.”

Among other past clients, the CLDC defended Antifa supporter Alissa Azar after Oregon prosecutors accused her of inciting a protest that devolved into a brawl between leftists and right-wing Proud Boys in 2021. The CLDC lost the case when a jury convicted Azar of felony riot and second-degree disorderly conduct, while deadlocking on a charge of illegal use of mace.

The CLDC later complained about Azar’s “dystopian” sentencing to 14 days in prison, saying she was just a “journalist” who was “truthfully reporting on the growing rise of fascist political violence and hate.”

Regan previously told a local newspaper she got her start in criminal defense work on behalf of environmental protesters who were arrested in 1997 for climbing on trees to stop them from getting cut down. She founded the CLDC under the pretense of keeping government authority in check after 9/11, according to the group’s “about” page.

An Antifa-linked “Stop Cop City” movement behind arson and attacks on police in Georgia in 2023 also drew the sympathy of the CLDC. The group declared in 2024 that “Cop City resisters” had been “labeled as ‘terrorists,’ even though none of them engaged in acts that fall within the federal definition.”

Through virtual video talks, the CLDC recently helped anti-Musk activists prepare for a “Global Day of Action” on March 29 that resulted in protests at Tesla facilities across the country and a few reports of assaults and violent threats from Tesla haters. Online organizers of the event with the “Tesla Takedown” movement said they “oppose violence, vandalism and destruction of property.”

TODAY: Man confronts anti-Tesla protester:

“I’m not voting Democrat again … because of the stuff that I’ve seen and the vandalism and all that stuff … I’d rather not vote than vote Democrat at this point. And I’ve voted Democrat for 25 years! So what does that tell you?” pic.twitter.com/L9L8MEI5S2

— Hudson Crozier 🇺🇸 (@Hudson_Crozier) March 29, 2025

“Tesla Takedown” does not appear to be a formal organization. The DCNF used the website’s contact form and did not receive a response.

The CLDC also reportedly gave a “know your rights training for activists” on March 21 in Eugene, Oregon with Indivisible, a left-wing group that participated in the March “Day of Action.” Indivisible did not respond to a request for comment.

An online warning from CLDC on March 26 gave anti-Musk and anti-Trump protesters instructions on how to deal with getting arrested or questioned by authorities.

“Our communities often cannot rely on or trust police, so we need to think, plan, and practice how we can help each other be safer,” the CLDC declared.

“Political movement participants do not cooperate or snitch to the State – which is often your political adversary,” the group said.

AUTHOR

Hudson Crozier

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Trump’s Military Beefs Up Physical Standards to Build Back Elite Fighting Force

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Under Joe Biden, nothing was a greater threat to our military than the administration in charge of it. With a brief respite during Donald Trump’s first term, America’s fighting force has spent the better part of the last 15 years as a minefield of social experimentation — with little to show for it but low morale, retention and recruitment woes, and a global reputation of weakness and wokeness. In the name of “equity,” the Biden and Obama administrations made a mockery of the military’s high standards. According to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, that ends now.

Say what you will about Hegseth’s personal life, his choice of tattoos, or his inadvisable group chats, but when it comes to making our men and women in uniform respectable, this veteran is on a one-man mission to turn our troops back into an elite warrior class. After years of relaxing standards, the Pentagon announced it was returning the military to the high physical benchmarks that made our men and women the most lethal fighting force in the world.

“For far too long,” Hegseth insisted on X, “we have allowed standards to slip. We’ve had different standards for men/women serving in combat arms [military occupational specialty’s] and jobs. … That’s not acceptable, and it changes right now!” The time has come to ditch the Left’s DEI approach to national security. “We need to have the same standards — male or female — in our combat roles to ensure our men and women who are under our leaders and in those formations have the best possible leaders and the highest possible standards that are not based at all on your sex.”

As part of a memo released Monday, the DOD secretary directed the secretaries of America’s military departments to “develop comprehensive plans to distinguish combat arms occupations from non-combat arms occupations. This effort will ensure that our standards are clear, mission-focused, and reflective of the unique physical demands placed on our Service members in various roles.” For certain combat roles, Hegseth continued, “it is essential to identify which positions require heightened entry-level and sustained physical fitness. These roles, which are critical to our military’s mission success, demand exceptional physical capabilities, and the standards for them must reflect that rigor.”

From now on, the secretary declared, “All entry-level and sustained physical fitness requirements within combat arms positions must be sex-neutral, based solely on the operational demands of the occupation and the readiness needed to confront any adversary.” Those standards, he directed, must be implemented by October.

As Hegseth himself explained, this isn’t meant to denigrate or shame female recruits. But the reality is, men and women are physiologically different, and females should never be allowed in combat units if they aren’t physically up to the task. And according to a study by the left-leaning RAND in 2022, the Army’s women were not — failing even the easier fitness tests at significantly higher rates than men. That was the same year the Biden administration decided to loosen certain requirements for women against the advice of experts, who warned that it would only create a more dangerous environment for everyone.

Hegseth took a lot of flak in the days leading up to his confirmation hearing for suggesting that women shouldn’t be in combat roles at all — a position that he’s modified with this caveat: “If we have the right standard and women meet that standard, roger, let’s go.”

When the last two Democratic presidents decided to dilute fitness tests for females, Family Research Council’s Lt. General (Ret.) Jerry Boykin was adamantly opposed — not just to their DEI approach to our national defense but to mixing the genders to begin with. Boykin, who’s commanded Special Forces in battle, was clear about the consequences of this kind of social experimentation. “Some units, like infantry, Special Forces, SEALs, and others, are not suitable for combining men and women. It has nothing to do with the courage or even capabilities of women. It is all about two things: the burden on small unit leaders and the lack of privacy in these units,” he explained.

“Leaders of these units must be focused like a laser on keeping their soldiers alive and defeating the enemy,” Boykin knows. “It is unreasonable to encumber them with the additional burden of worrying about how they provide privacy for the few women under their command during stressful and very dangerous operations. It is not the same as being a combat pilot who returns to an operating base or an aircraft carrier after the fight, where separate facilities are available.” It’s the absolute wrong policy for America, Boykin went on, because it “ignores fundamental biological differences between the sexes and the natural implications of those differences.”

And it’s not just men who feel this way, but brave women in uniform too. The New York Times pointed to an op-ed written by Kristen Griest, one of the first two females to graduate from the Army’s elite Ranger School, objecting to this woke approach to war-fighting. “With equal opportunity comes equal responsibility,” Griest insisted. “Lowering fitness standards to accommodate women will hurt the Army — and women.”

She argued that separate scoring based on gender would “drastically reduce the performance and effectiveness of combat arms units. … [T]he requirements to join the nation’s combat forces could soon be as low as performing ten push-ups in two minutes, running two miles in twenty-one minutes, deadlifting 140 pounds three times, and performing only one repetition of a leg tuck or, failing that, two minutes of a plank exercise,” she pointed out.

“While these low standards may have seemed adequate in a controlled study,” Griest insisted, “I know from experience that they will not suffice in reality. Indeed, the presence of just a handful of individuals who cannot run two miles faster than twenty-one minutes has the potential to derail a training exercise,” she warned, “not to mention an actual combat patrol. … Missions will be delayed and other soldiers will be overburdened with the weight of their unfit teammates’ equipment. This scenario is inconvenient and bad for morale during a training exercise; in combat it could be deadly.”

Griest stressed that “while it may be difficult for a 120-pound woman to lift or drag 250 pounds, the Army cannot artificially absolve women of that responsibility; it may still exist on the battlefield.” And frankly, “The entire purpose of creating a gender-neutral test was to acknowledge the reality that each job has objective physical standards to which all soldiers should be held, regardless of gender. The intent was not to ensure that women and men will have an equal likelihood of meeting those standards. Rather,” she argued, “it is incumbent upon women who volunteer for the combat arms profession to ensure they are fully capable and qualified for it. To not require women to meet equal standards in combat arms will not only undermine their credibility, but also place those women, their teammates, and the mission at risk.”

What Hegseth has done is recognize that men and women are different, Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Bob Maginnis told The Washington Stand. “Yet, across recent and mostly Democrat administrations, those differences were blurred to the point of insanity. As a result, the military departments watered down their standards for many combat positions to access women. However, as most combatants understand, that reduction in standards negatively impacted readiness. That’s the target of Hegseth’s directive — improve readiness.”

Maginnis, who wrote an entire book called “Deadly Consequences: How Cowards Are Pushing Women into Combat,” blames Obama for starting this social experiment, which, he noted, coincided with that administration’s announcement to assign women to ground combat units. “That decision to violate a virtually universal principle of military practice represented our craven military leadership’s surrender to the political forces of radical feminism. The implications for U.S. national security were — and remain — sobering.”

Now, years later, Maginnis points out, “We know that a) very few military women are interested in combat duty; b) the Pentagon’s assurances that military readiness will not be compromised are seriously flawed; and 3) until Trump, our top uniformed leadership surrendered to feminist ideologues without a fight.”

As far as he’s concerned, this change “was a long time coming.” And it should be welcomed by every “common-sense American interested in maintaining a ready military.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and 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.

Conservatives Urge Trump to Bypass Blue States, Empower Local Schools and Parents with School Choice

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As education advocates from the national to local level praise President Donald Trump’s commitment to deliver the four-decade-old conservative policy goal of abolishing the Department of Education, they warn that Democrat-controlled states could implement worse curricula than the federal DOE and ask the president to consider directly funding local school districts or parents through school vouchers.

President Trump campaigned on shuttering the 45-year-old federal department in 2024, and shortly after taking office, he moved swiftly to keep his promise. “The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely,” stated President Trump’s executive order, issued last Thursday, March 20. He also cut the number of federal employees working in the DOE by approximately half.

President Trump has largely signaled he will allow states to set their own education policies — something that concerns parental rights advocates living in liberal states such as California.

“If it does come down to the states, I would be a big advocate,” Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley (California) Unified School District Board of Education, told “Washington Watch” last Friday. But “if you give back to local control, in states like California, that could be kind of nerve-wracking for a lot of us here fighting the good fight.” Democrat-controlled states determined to promote such controversial programs as anti-American history curricula, critical race theory, or the history of the LGBTQ movement “can make it very, very difficult for districts like ours that are actually trying to educate and not indoctrinate” students.

Shaw faced death threats and official investigations from California officials for adopting a parental notification policy that requires teachers to tell parents if children begin to identify as another gender at school.

Instead, she favors the federal government awarding education dollars “directly to the districts based on merit,” said Shaw. “Give it to the counties. Local control is the best, right? And if you give it to the counties, they know exactly what is needed and where it’s needed, and they can disperse the money.” The awarding of federal education grants “needs to be merit-based,” determined by test score improvements, “because a lot of states are like California. We have some great [states], but we also have some horrific ones that have weaponized the Department of Education towards districts like ours that are trying to actually educate kids.”

Two former secretaries of education hope the president will go one step further: Bypass educational bureaucrats at the state and local level and simply give federal education funds directly to parents through school vouchers.

“A better approach is to simply give Title I money to poor parents and let them pick their schools. That is exactly what Trump’s order intends to do. Putting funding in students’ backpacks would eliminate the bureaucracy that reduces its impact when administered federally,” wrote Reagan administration Secretary of Education William J. Bennett in a Newsweek op-ed this week. “According to Gloria Romero, cofounder of the charter school Explore Academy, local and state education agencies employ approximately 50,000 people mainly to comply with burdensome (and often woke) requirements imposed by the then-4,400 Education Department employees.”

Bennett echoed his own call to treat federal public school dollars akin to Pell Grants as he co-authored a second op-ed with President George H.W. Bush’s secretary of education and 1996 Republican presidential hopeful, Lamar Alexander. Unlike local school funding based on “creaky formulas that distribute funds to schools in ways that may never reach the youngsters meant to benefit from them,” in college “we give Pell Grants to needy college students that accompany them to the colleges they actually attend. If such vouchers — which is what Pell Grants are — helped to create the best colleges, why not use them to create the best schools?” asked the secretaries. “That would eliminate layers of bureaucracy, inject needed competition into the education system, and shove Uncle Sam out of the way of state decision-makers and, especially, of parents making the best school choices for their children.”

For instance, Bennett noted in an interview with Fox News, classical academies have higher academic standards and “teach character.”

“Federal control of education has become a jobs program for bureaucrats, and it puts students last,” wrote Bennett.

Their successor, Trump-47 Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, has promised her deep personnel cuts will shear off “bureaucratic bloat” that has attended public schools due to decades of top-down federal policies.

Bennett concluded that “history and common sense show the solution is boosting education freedom, not preserving the failed Washington status quo.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has starkly criticized the actions Trump has already taken to rein in the federal education bureaucracy. “This overreach needs to be rejected immediately by a co-equal branch of government. Or was Congress eliminated by this executive order, too?” he asked.

That left Shaw bemused. “Let’s just lay out the facts,” she said. “Newsom put his kids in private school when he shut down schools here in California for the majority of the children. He also sued our district and other districts for just wanting parental involvement. So, of course, he’s going to be opposed to something that’s going to benefit our children, because he’s never been successful at helping our educational system here in California,” she noted.

“They have mismanaged and funneled monies through to the lobbyists, the special interests through these departments, all while failing kids at reading, writing, and math,” Shaw told the program. “Every time he speaks, he just exposes himself.”

Yet Newsom has legal backup. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) filed suit against the Trump administration in Massachusetts, while the National Education Association (NEA) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sued the administration in Democratic Maryland.

Legal experts find the lawsuits ironic, because the Department of Education’s existence violates the Constitution. “The vast majority of functions carried out by the Department of Education are not authorized by the Constitution. That is because the Constitution grants the federal government only limited, enumerated powers, none of which encompass education policy,” wrote Thomas A. Berry at the Cato Institute. The enumerated powers, which states delegated to the federal government, may be found in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. All other powers are reserved to the states “or the people” under the Tenth Amendment. “The president and education secretary should make a clear case for why their oaths to defend the Constitution require this executive action. If they do so, this action could be an important step toward restoring the federal government to its proper role.”

Since the department was established by Congress, Congress must act to formally abolish it. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) reintroduced a bill to abolish the Department of Education for good (H.R. 899). The one-sentence bill reads in its entirety, “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2026.”

“When this department was put in place, it was pretty much a giveaway from [President Jimmy] Carter to the unions. And since then, the Department of Ed has not closed one achievement gap. Kids are still failing at reading, writing, and math,” noted Shaw. “Since this department was put in place, it just funnels money through to the special interest groups, which does not benefit our children.”

“We were doing fine educationally prior to the Department of Education being created on the federal level, and we’ll be okay afterwards,” said former Congressman Jody Hice, who hosts “Washington Watch” on Fridays.

“You have been really on the tip of the spear on this issue and so many other issues that the education in California is specifically dealing with, from LGBT indoctrination and [more],” Hice told Shaw. “I just want to say thank you. God bless you. Godspeed to you and others who are stepping up.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

RELATED ARTICLE: Court: NJ School Districts Can Scrap Secretive Trans Student Policy that Excluded Parents

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 Admin Asks SCOTUS To Stop Judges From Trying To Govern ‘Whole Nation From Their Courtrooms’

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“Universal injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current Administration,” the application states.

WATCH: Federal judge James Boasberg blocks President Trump from deporting Tren de Aragua gang members

Trump Admin Asks SCOTUS To Stop Judges From Trying To Govern ‘Whole Nation From Their Courtrooms’

By: Katelynn Richardson, Daily Caller, March 13, 2025:

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to rein in lower court rulings that have prevented a ban on birthright citizenship from taking effect nationwide.

Judges should not be able to govern “the whole Nation” from their courtrooms by issuing universal injunctions that block policies across the entire country while litigation is pending, the administration told the justices in its application.

“District courts have issued more universal injunctions and TROs [temporary restraining orders] during February 2025 alone than through the first three years of the Biden Administration,” the application states. “That sharp rise in universal injunctions stops the Executive Branch from performing its constitutional functions before any courts fully examine the merits of those actions, and threatens to swamp this Court’s emergency docket.”

The Trump administration is not yet asking the justices to weigh in directly on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning birthright citizenship. Instead, they ask the justices to limit the common practice of universal injunctions that “compromise the Executive Branch’s ability to carry out its functions, as administrations of both parties have explained.”

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.