Day: February 6, 2025

Senate Confirms Russell Vought as Trump’s OMB Chief

Admin

The Hill Senate Republicans on Thursday confirmed Russell Vought, President Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Budget and Management (OMB), in the face of mounting Democratic attacks over his ties to Project 2025 and the president’s efforts targeting funding already approved by Congress. The Senate voted 53-47 along party lines to confirm Vought on Thursday night. Republicans lining up behind Vought have cited his experience as OMB chief during Trump’s first term in office. Some have also lauded his past proposals to reduce federal spending, as the president and his allies have sought to undertake significant cost-cutting efforts in a bid to make the government more “efficient.” READ THE FULL STORY      

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Nashville Democrat Jeff Yarbro Wants Elon Musk in ‘Jail’ if DOGE ‘Hurts Tennesseans’ by Blocking Federal Grants

Tom Pappert
State Senator Jeff Yarbro

Tennessee State Senator Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) on Thursday filed legislation that he said could lead to the jailing of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leader Elon Musk, if the government reformer’s work “hurts Tennesseans” by denying them grant funding through DOGE’s efforts to cut wasteful spending.

Senate Bill (SB) 1128 by Jeff Yarbro, submitted Thursday as the “Shielding Tennesseans from Oligarchic Power and Eliminating Lawless Obstruction of Necessities” (STOP ELON) Act, would create a new felony offense that would be applied to anyone who, according to a description of the bill, interferes “with an individual’s or entity’s receipt of a loan, grant, or financial assistance,” to which the government previously said they were entitled.

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Rep. Andy Ogles Leads House Push to Repeal ‘Disastrous’ Home Rule for Washington, D.C.

Tom Pappert
Rep. Andy Ogles

U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) is the House sponsor of legislation that would repeal home rule in Washington, D.C., effectively returning governing powers over the nation’s capital to the U.S. Congress.

Ogles introduced the legislation alongside Senator Mike Lee (R-UT). First unveiled by The Daily Caller, the Republicans titled their bill the Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident (BOWSER) Act, named after the city’s controversial mayor, Muriel Bowser.

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Media Giants Politico, NYT, and AP Receive Millions in Taxpayer Funding, Records Show

Daily Caller News Foundation

A host of corporate media outlets and their parent companies took in taxpayer cash from government customers over the last decade, federal records reveal.

Outlets such as Politico, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal parent company Dow Jones & Co Inc., The Associated Press and others raked in taxpayer dollars from a myriad of federal agencies, according to public U.S. spending records. Trust in the corporate media has plummeted to its lowest levels since at least 1972, as numerous reporting blunders from major outlets continue to drive trust down.

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Judge Strips Immunity from Ohio State Officials for Firing Professor Who ‘Triggered’ Student

Just the News
Ohio State University campus

Major decisions on campus free speech from the Supreme Court and an influential federal appeals court in recent years have apparently not reached public universities under their jurisdiction, given their treatment of faculty and a Christian apologist.

U.S. District Judge Michael Watson slapped down Ohio State University for allegedly violating its own lofty ideals by terminating a lecturer for his pedagogy in a “Crucial Conversations” class that he taught 48 times with no complaints from students, until one complained in the 49th.

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New Scientific Journal by ‘RealClearPolitics’ Parent Foundation Aims to Revolutionize Public Health Publishing

Christina Botteri
RealClearFoundation launches Journal of the Academy of Public Health

The RealClearFoundation – parent of RealClearPolitics – announced on Wednesday the launch of the Journal of the Academy of Public Health (JAPH). The journal aims to start a new chapter in the world of scientific publishing and shake up the field of public health with a commitment to open access, transparency, and scholarly inclusivity.

Leading the charge are co-founders Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff. Dr. Kulldorff now co-leads the journal as Editor-in-Chief with Dr. Andrew Noymer of the University of California, Irvine. Their vision, articulated in Kulldorff’s inaugural paper “The Rise and Fall of Scientific Journals and a Way Forward,” is to reform how scientific research is shared and critiqued.

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New Bill Would Criminalize ‘Left-Wing Lunatics’ Holding U.S. Highways Hostage

Daily Caller News Foundation
Black Lives Matter protest on Minneapolis interstate

Republican Georgia Rep. Mike Collins reintroduced legislation Thursday to criminalize protests that block highways.

Collins’ Safe Passage on Interstates Act would make intentionally blocking interstate highways a crime, according to background information on the bill obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Though criminal penalties on intentionally obstructing highways exist at the state level, Congress has not yet passed a law making this conduct illegal nationwide, according to Collins’ office.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi Pulls Funding for Sanctuary Cities

Daily Caller News Foundation
Attorney General Pam Bondi, Downtown Boston

Newly-minted Attorney General Pam Bondi immediately ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to pull funding from sanctuary cities and called for an investigation into the funding of organizations that provide assistance to illegal migrants.

Just moments after being sworn in as the 87th Attorney General of the United States, Bondi on Wednesday issued a memo that pauses federal grants administered by the DOJ to localities that refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The move will likely foment a court battle between the Trump administration and major sanctuary cities like Chicago, Boston and New York City that prohibit assistance to deportation officers.

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Former USAID Director Mark Moyar Spills Agency’s Abuse and Waste That He Says Runs Deep

Daily Caller News Foundation
Mark Moyar

A former U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) director appeared Wednesday on Fox News to reveal details on what he said were the agency’s misused resources and deeply rooted corruption.

Dating back to the early days of the Trump administration, former director Mark Moyar, who took office in February 2018, recounted, on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” what he said was an agency culture steeped in inefficiency and malpractice, starting with an unconventional orientation exercise that labeled him as a Scandinavian woman in a “privilege walk.” This exercise, meant to highlight systemic privileges and disadvantages, instead served as a prelude to the deeper issues plaguing USAID.

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Commentary: Trump, Musk Are Sticking It to the Administrative State Right Out of the Gate

Daily Caller News Foundation
Elon Musk and Donald Trump

It was President Ronald Reagan who famously said, “as government expands, liberty contracts.”

Like with so many other things, Reagan was ahead of his time with this commonsense observation. A vast unchecked bureaucracy is indeed a direct assault on individual liberty — and tens of millions of Americans are adversely affected by it each and every day.

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Commentary: Government Censorship of Americans Online Is Still a Bad Idea

Star News Contributor
Young girl using an iPad to work on school assignments at kitchen table

The last thing we need is more political censorship, and with Trump in the Oval Office, our future on this front looks bright. However, states across the country are introducing bills that aim to censor kids online and take parents out of the equation when it comes to deciding what is best for their children and technology. No matter how well-intentioned these ‘kids’ online safety’ bills may be, they present an unconscionable threat to our most fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of speech and parents’ rights. To protect these freedoms, we must categorically reject these bills and other efforts to empower the government to censor our speech.

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Over 20,000 Federal Workers Accept Trump’s Offer of Eight-Month Buyout

American Greatness
Empty Office

After President Donald Trump offered all federal workers the option to resign from their posts in exchange for eight months of paid vacation, at least 20,000 federal employees have accepted the unprecedented offer.

As reported by TownHall, the offer from President Trump applies to any and all federal employees who decide to resign by February 6, which will make them eligible for 7 to 9 months of severance. The 20,000 who have accepted thus far comprise about 1% of the federal workforce, with the Trump Administration aiming for as many as 5% to 10% to accept the offer. The total could increase significantly on Wednesday, with 24 hours left before the offer expires.

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State Audit Reveals Why Voter Citizenship Was Not Tracked in Arizona, Discovers U.S. Non-Citizen Residents Illegally Registered to Vote

Rachel Alexander
Lorie Shaull

After concerns arose last year over the numbers of noncitizens on Arizona’s voter rolls, Governor Katie Hobbs ordered an audit to figure out why there were so many. The audit, which was released last week, examined the problems that arose at the Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) within the Arizona Department of Transportation, which offers “motor voter” automatic voter registration to Arizonans conducting driving related transactions. The audit investigated a “glitch” allowing over 200,000 voters who did not show documented proof of citizenship (DPOC) prior to 1996, and found another glitch allowing U.S. nationals to register to vote. 

Merissa Hamilton, co-founder of the conservative grassroots EZAZ which performs election integrity work, spoke to The Arizona Sun Times about the audit. “I have little to no confidence that neither MVD or the Governor’s task force have identified and resolved all of the issues with the voter registration and management process,” she said. “A voter we identified last year that stated they are not a citizen and do not know how they got registered wasn’t identified as being part of this problem investigated by the Secretary’s office. Clearly, there are still unidentified non-citizens on the voter rolls. The voters deserve a comprehensive audit of the rolls with a thorough review by DHS. The clown show that our election administration has come to be known as nationally must end. Our taxpayers deserve best in class elections.”

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Pat Herrity Says Lieutenant Governor Bid ‘About Getting Winsome over the Finish Line’ in Virginia Gubernatorial Race

Tom Pappert
Pat Herrity

Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity, the only elected Republican in the county, today said that his campaign to become the next Lieutenant Governor of Virginia was motivated by an effort to help the Republican ticket on Election Day, and particularly to help Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears win her election to succeed Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Asked on Wednesday by The Virginia Star publisher John Fredericks how he expected to win in November if Earle-Sears should perform poorly, as a January poll showed former Representative Abigail Spanberger winning against Earle-Sears by 10 percent, Herrity pointed to his years of electoral success in Fairfax County.

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Reagan-Appointed Judge Temporarily Stops Trump Admin from Pulling Men Out of Women’s Prisons

Daily Caller News Foundation
Female inmate

A Reagan-appointed federal judge temporarily stopped the Trump administration from moving three male inmates out of women’s prison facilities on Tuesday in part because they don’t “present any threat” to female inmates.

District Judge Royce Lamberth, who took the bench in 1987, ruled on Tuesday to temporarily block President Donald Trump’s executive order to keep men in men’s prisons even if they identify as women. The ruling was in favor of “three male-to-female transgender women” who sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the Washington, D.C., district court to stop their transfer, alleging that Trump’s directive violates federal law and their constitutional rights.

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