Commentary: Enemies of the Administrative State

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Amid allegations from conservative lawmakers and activists that Washington, D.C.’s most powerful agencies have been weaponized against their critics, one organization has not only played a key role in helping marshal evidence of such malfeasance, but found itself at the center of an emerging government targeting scandal that would seem to only further substantiate the claims of administrative state critics.

That organization is Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research. It has represented whistleblowers at the heart of some of the most consequential and contentious congressional investigations in recent years, touching on matters ranging from the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, to alleged FBI inflation of the domestic terror threat.

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Think Tank Looks to Lasso ‘Deep State’ by Recruiting Conservatives to Work in Government

The prominent conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has launched a major initiative titled “Project 2025” to rein in the federal bureaucracy by recruiting patriotic Americans to staff the next conservative administration.

“You just don’t have enough time after the election to put together the government,” Heritage Foundation Executive Vice President Derrick Morgan said on “The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project Special Report” hosted by John Solomon and premiered on Real America’s Voice.

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Ramaswamy Rallies at ‘Vektoberfest’ in Suburban Des Moines Following Heated Exchange with Liberal Protesters in Grinnell

After last week’s disorderly, hostile debate, some fun and games on the presidential campaign trail may have been just what the doctor ordered.

Multi-millionaire businessman and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy rolled out Vektoberfest Thursday evening in suburban Des Moines, bringing Iowans “family-friendly fun” mixed with a serious campaign speech dredging the depths of America’s soul-sucking void.

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Haley Lays Out Economic ‘Freedom Plan,’ Packed with Promises of Tax Cuts, Entitlement Reform and Regulatory Relief

Declaring that it’s time for Washington to start working for Americans and not the other way around, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley laid out her economic “Freedom Plan in a speech Friday in New Hampshire.

The former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador is proposing a litany of middle-class tax cuts, regulatory relief and “third rail” entitlement reforms in a proposal she asserts will check communist China aggression through American prosperity.

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A Closer Look at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Bold Plan to Take Down the Administrative State

President Calvin Coolidge once said, “unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy.”

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants to pick up where old Silent Cal, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump left off, proposing a plan to halve the size of the federal administrative state in his first year in office — should he be elected.

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GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Says He’d Win a Legal Challenge to His Plan to Slash the Administrative State

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy knows there would be legal challenges to his sweeping plan to drastically reduce the size of the administrative state. The 38-year-old political outsider knows the big government left won’t give up the heart of the D.C swamp without a bruising fight.

Ramaswamy’s good with that.

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GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to Lay Out Blueprint for ‘Rolling Back the Powers’ of the Administrative State in Major Speech

Republican Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday will lay out his plan to break the grip of power held by the administrative state.

“There is an unconstitutional, fourth branch of government that is choking American democracy, and it is called the administrative state,” Ramaswamy asserts in an advance copy of a white paper speech provided to The Star News Network by the Ohio entrepreneur’s campaign.

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Republicans Blast National Archives’ Taxpayer-Funded Equity Policies, Trainings

The federal archive agency that helped spark former President Donald Trump’s first federal indictment has come under fire from Republicans after reporting showed the agency has embraced far-left diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Republicans blasted the National Archives and Records Administration after The Center Square reported that the agency’s latest 2022 DEI plan pledges to double down on equity training for employees.

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Ramaswamy Unveils Plan to ‘Shut Down the FBI’

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday unveiled a plan to “shut down the FBI,” an institution that has drawn considerable scrutiny from Republicans amid allegations of political bias at the bureau.

Posted to X, Ramaswamy’s plan outlines three “key problems” affecting the agency. The first, “redundancy & waste,” highlights the 20,000+ employees in either non-essential roles or investigating matters another agency already covers.

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Sens. Ron Johnson, Tommy Tuberville Join Colleagues in Defending Women’s Sports: ‘Leaving Women at a Complete Disadvantage in Activities Specifically Meant for Them’

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) joined Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and other GOP senators Tuesday in a public comment to Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that opposes the department’s proposed rule to expand Title IX to allow biological males to compete in women’s sports, and specifically points out how the rule will undermine the original intention of Title IX.

The education department’s proposed rule, titled “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance: Sex-Related Eligibility Criteria for Male and Female Athletic Teams” was published in the Federal Register on April 6.

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Virginia Rep. Calls to Shrink Federal Bureaucracy and Administrative State in Midst of Financial Crisis

Virginia GOP Congressman Ben Cline says that in order for the country to get back on track in terms of finances, the federal bureaucracy needs to shrink and power must go back to the people. 

“We’re going to keep working to make sure that we shrink the bureaucracy and the administrative state by balancing the budget,” Cline said on the Tuesday edition of the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “The RSC is going to put forward a balanced budget here in the next few weeks that counters the Biden administration’s budget.”

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SCOTUS Considers Upending Legal Shield for Administrative State

Federal agencies can “trap” businesses and individuals for years in proceedings before administrative law judges (ALJs) who work for the agencies, rarely rule against them and can’t be removed by the president, constituting “here-and-now constitutional injuries,” according to lawyers for these targets.

Nonlethal weapons supplier Axon Enterprises and certified public accountant Michelle Cochran want the right to challenge the constitutionality of Federal Trade Commission and Securities & Exchange Commission ALJs in real courts, before the expense and emotional drag compels them to settle regardless of their guilt or the legitimacy of the proceedings.

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Gov. Doug Ducey Touts What Arizona Has Done Without the Federal Government’s Help

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) spoke at the Regan Foundation Tuesday about what he hopes to see for the Conservative movement as the county moves forward, giving state governments more power to enact policies that help the people.

“There is an exodus from the Golden State. Americans are voting with their feet. The conservative ideas applied outside of Washington, D.C. are winning and it’s not even close. Here is why I believe it’s happening: Conservative states have better policies, policies that are working for everyday Americans. There is far more freedom and opportunity in these states. And there is a sense of priority for personal safety in our states,” Ducey said.

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: In Today’s America, Some Really Are More Equal than Others

That once distinguished the United States from illiberal regimes following the Orwellian mantra “some are more equal than others” was the hallowed American idea of “equal justice under the law.”

The phrase is engraved above the entrance to the United States Supreme Court – an ideal that took centuries to achieve. Yet it is an ancient concept – what the Greeks called isonomia that distinguished classical democratic Athens from its anti-democratic rivals. Isonomia later became enshrined as the central criterion of all Western consensual governments.

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Tea Party Patriots Co-Founder and CEO Jenny Beth Martin on SCOTUS EPA Ruling, Tea Party Tenets, Importance of a Strong Attorney General

Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed to the newsmaker line Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots and columnist for The Washington Times, to the newsmaker line to discuss the recent EPA ruling, principles of the Tea Party movement, and the importance of a strong state attorney general.

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Commentary: Getting Back to Normal

People keep asking me how we get back to normal. How do we return to the days before vaccine mandates and closed schools to a fully functioning military, secure borders, and a time when inflation wasn’t through the roof? I’ll give you the short answer: pure, unadulterated political power.

You can only get back to normal when political power is in the hands of the right people making the right policies that actually advance the country in a positive, beneficial way. And then you beat the Left and others who have gotten us here into unconditional surrender. 

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Commentary: The Tyranny of Experts

The principles and policies of America’s original progressives have received renewed attention over the last decade, both in academia and in public discourse. Today’s progressive politicians and intellectuals have pointed to their roots in the original progressive movement; moreover, the connections between the original progressive calls for reform and the language and shape of our politics today have become increasingly obvious. In what follows, the relevance of original progressivism to government today will be more fully explored. There is no better place to begin than with our administrative state. This essay deals with the general principles of the administrative state and its roots in the original progressive movement.

The term “administrative state” has come to have a variety of meanings, but at its core it points to the situation in contemporary American government, created largely although not entirely by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, whereby a large, unelected bureaucracy is empowered with significant governing authority. The fundamental question for many of those making reference to an “administrative state” is how it can be squared with government by consent and with the constitutional separation-of-powers system.

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Commentary: Trump Tax Cases Highlight the Court as Servant of the Administrative State

The president was not whining when he tweeted about the continuing “political prosecution” permitted by the two tax returns cases issued Wednesday by the Supreme Court. These two cases, although short-term wins for Trump, illustrate the role of the federal and state courts in the administrative state and reveal the burdens this conglomeration places on a reforming president. Let’s take the worst of the bad news first.

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Commentary: Immortalizing Bureaucracy

Just as the infamous Dred Scott case in 1857 would have extended slavery throughout America, so Thursday’s decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California threatens to make the machinations of bureaucratic government supreme and unrepealable.

Chief Justice John Roberts’ 5-4 court opinion strengthens the grip of the administrative state – the interlocking network of bureaucracy and political correctness – over the democratically elected branches that are supposed to make us a nation of self-governing citizens.

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Commentary: Confronting the Administrative State Is the Key to Shutting Down the Democrats’ Alternative Universe

By now, only a person living in Alternate Universe One could fail to understand that the past three years have precisely nothing to do with Russian collusion or Ukraine corruption and everything to do with who makes decisions about American policy: the duly elected president of the United States or the administrative state. That is the struggle right now. The crux is a struggle between advocates of our constitutional republic and those who prefer government by an administrative state composed of unelected elites.

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Drain The Swamp: EPA Shed 1,200 Jobs In Trump’s First Year And A Half

Tennessee Star

by Evie Fordham   The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shed approximately 1,200 jobs as roughly 1,600 employees departed and less than 400 new employees were hired during President Donald Trump’s first year and a half in office. Departing employees included “at least 260 scientists, 185 ‘environmental protection specialists’ and 106 engineers,” according to the Washington Post. The EPA’s workforce is now down 8 percent to a size it has not been since former president Ronald Reagan was in office, reported the WaPo. “With nearly half of our employees eligible to retire in the next five years, my priority is recruiting and maintaining the right staff, the right people for our mission, rather than total full-time employees,” EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement according to the WaPo. Nearly 25 percent of the EPA’s 13,758 employees are eligible for retirement, reported the WaPo. Many employees have accepted buyouts, especially in 2017. At its most bloated, the EPA had more than 18,000 employees, reported the WaPo. Some longtime EPA employees are leaving after working under both Republican and Democratic administrations. “I felt it was time to leave given the irresponsible, ongoing diminishment of agency resources, which has recklessly endangered our ability to…

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A Federal Judge Stopped President Trump’s Efforts To Get Control Of The Federal Workforce

Ketanji Brown Jackson

by Kevin Daley   A federal judge in Washington, D.C., struck down core provisions of three executive orders President Donald Trump issued to curb union power in the federal workforce late Friday. U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, an Obama appointee, found that the orders violate the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Act (FSLMRS) in a sprawling, 122-page decision. Trump issued the trio of orders on May 25. Among other provisions, the directives restrict the amount of time federal workers may spend on official union duties, reduce performance-improvement periods for ineffective employees and narrow the range of issues that agencies and unions negotiate over when setting contracts. “These executive orders make it easier for agencies to remove poor-performing employees and ensure that taxpayer dollars are more efficiently used,” White House Domestic Policy Council Director Andrew Bremberg said. A coalition of labor unions challenged 20 different provisions in the directives, arguing that they violated the Constitution and the FSLMRS, a 1978 law securing collective bargaining rights for federal employees. Jackson concluded that the president’s orders exceeded his authority as they effectively “eviscerate the right to bargain collectively as envisioned in the FSLMRS.” The judge…

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The Same Successful Reforms From the ‘VA Accountability Act’ Could Apply to Rest of Government if MERIT Act Passes

Barry Loudermilk, David Perdue

By Natalia Castro   Labor Day – coming up on September 3rd – presents a pivotal opportunity for Members of Congress. As members of the House return from recess and just eight weeks before midterms, representatives can show their support for American workers by passing bipartisan civil service reform. In the first year of this Congress, passing bipartisan Veterans Affairs legislation did not just rally public support; it improved the agency significantly. Passing the MERIT Act can do the same for the rest of the federal workforce, setting Congress on a strong trajectory for the second half of Trump’s first term. The VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act passed with such overwhelming support it only required a voice vote in the Senate. In the House, it passed 368-55. Following the passage of this legislation, which provides management with expedited removal processes for poor performing employees, firings within the agency rose by 26 percent. This VA reform represented a bipartisan achievement that was praised across the aisle. Montana Democratic Senator Jon Tester helped push the bill alongside Florida Republican Marco Rubio. At the time, Tester explained, “This bill will crack down on bad employees who jeopardize veterans’ health care while also protecting the hardworking folks…

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Senator Chuck Grassley Commentary: How We Can Hold Bureaucrats Accountable

Barack Omaba

by Senator Chuck Grassley   These are the remarks as prepared for delivery Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, delivered in a speech at The Heritage Foundation on June 25. Watch Senator Grassley’s speech in the video embedded below. In 1980, I was elected to the U.S. Senate. During my early days in the Senate, I met a man who had a significant impact on my career. His name is Arthur Ernest Fitzgerald, but everybody calls him Ernie. You’ve probably heard of him—Ernie’s reputation preceded him even way back then. In 1968, Ernie testified before Sen. William Proxmire’s Joint Economic Committee about the Air Force’s C-5 transport aircraft program. That testimony changed his life. The C-5 aircraft was an important military priority. But it took longer and cost more than planned, and the government did not want anyone to know. Although he knew it might damage his career, Ernie told Congress that this prized program cost the taxpayers $2 billion more than the Pentagon would admit. $2 billion. That was in 1968. In today’s dollars that’s more than $14.5 billion. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out…

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Trump Expands Ability to Fire Federal Workers

Wasteful Bureaucrats

Reuters   President Donald Trump on Friday signed three executive orders designed to make it easier to fire federal government workers and to crack down on the unions that represent them, drawing immediate criticism from a group representing federal employees. Administration officials said the orders would give government agencies greater ability to remove employees with “poor” performance, get “better deals” in union contracts and require federal employees with union responsibilities to spend less time on union work. “Today the president is fulfilling his promise to promote more efficient government by reforming our civil service rules,” said Andrew Bremberg, director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, in a conference call with reporters. “These executive orders will make it easier for agencies to remove poor-performing employees and ensure that taxpayer dollars are more efficiently used.” The American Federation of Government Employees said in a statement that the moves intended to “strip federal employees of their decades-old right to representation at the worksite” and would hurt veterans, law enforcement officers and others. “This administration seems hell-bent on replacing a civil service that works for all taxpayers with a political service that serves at its whim,” the group’s president, J. David Cox, said…

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Two EPA Officials Stepping Down Amid Ethics Investigation

Tennessee Star

by Jason Hopkins   In what is seen as another major blow to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, two officials have resigned from the agency. Albert “Kell” Kelly and Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta — two Pruitt allies engulfed in their own separate scandals — tendered their resignations on Monday. Kelly served as head of the Superfund, a program that is tasked with cleaning up contaminated sites. Perrotta was in charge of leading Pruitt’s 24/7 security detail. Kelly, a former banking executive, is leaving following public revelation that he was barred from working in the finance industry for violating regulations. A report in December 2017 by The Intercept revealed Kelly and Pruitt to be close friends in their home state of Oklahoma, with Pruitt appointing him to the EPA not long after he was banned for life from the finance industry by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. “Kell Kelly’s service at EPA will be sorely missed. In just over a year he has made a tremendous impact on EPA’s Superfund program, serving as chair of the Superfund Task Force and presiding over the development of the steps necessary to implement the recommendations in the report,” Pruitt said in a Tuesday statement. Perrotta, on the other hand, is…

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