The Real Commander-In-Chief: You simply must read this profile of Russell Vought, the man who is utterly destroying the Federal government:
What Vought has done in the nine months since Trump took office goes much further than slashing foreign aid. Relying on an expansive theory of presidential power and a willingness to test the rule of law, he has frozen vast sums of federal spending, terminated tens of thousands of federal workers and, in a few cases, brought entire agencies to a standstill. In early October, after Senate Democrats refused to vote for a budget resolution without additional health care protections, effectively shutting down the government, Vought became the face of the White House’s response. On the second day of the closure, Trump shared an AI-generated video that depicted his budget director — who, by then, had threatened mass firings across the federal workforce and paused or canceled $26 billion in funding for infrastructure and clean-energy projects in blue states — as the Grim Reaper of Washington, D.C. “We work for the president of the United States,” a senior agency official who regularly deals with the OMB told me. But right now “it feels like we work for Russ Vought. He has centralized decision-making power to an extent that he is the commander in chief.”
(A)ccording to court records, interviews and other accounts from people close to Vought, DOGE’s efforts were guided, more than was previously known, by the OMB director. Musk bragged about “feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” but the details of the agency’s downsizing were ironed out by Vought’s office. When DOGE took aim at obscure quasi-government nonprofits, such as the United States Institute of Peace, OMB veterans saw Vought’s influence at work. “I can’t imagine that the DOGE team knew to target all these little parts of the government without Russ pointing them there,” the former OMB branch chief told me. Vought also orchestrated DOGE’s hostile takeover of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, crippling a regulator that Republicans had hoped to shutter during Trump’s first term. “DOGE is underneath the OMB,” Michelle Martin, an official with Citizens for Renewing America, a grassroots group founded by Vought, said in May, according to a video of her remarks. “Honestly, a lot of what Elon began pinpointing … was at the direction of Russ.”
Vought, who declined to be interviewed for this story, voiced concerns about some of DOGE’s tactics — canceling budget items that the OMB had wanted to keep, for instance — but he mostly saw the department as a useful battering ram. An administration official who has worked with Vought and Musk told me that DOGE showed Vought it was possible to ignore legal challenges and take dramatic action. “He has the benefit of Elon softening everyone up,” the official told me. “Elon terrified the shit out of people. He broke the status quo.”
Vought is a stated opponent of the status quo. One of the few prominent conservatives to embrace the label of “Christian nationalist,” he once told an audience that “the phrasing is too accurate to run away from the term. … I’m a Christian. I am a nationalist. We were meant to be a Christian nation.” American democracy, he has said, has been hijacked by rogue judges who make law from the bench and by a permanent class of government bureaucrats who want to advance “woke” policies designed to divide Americans and silence political opponents. “The stark reality in America is that we are in the late stages of a complete Marxist takeover of the country, in which our adversaries already hold the weapons of the government apparatus,” Vought said in 2024, during a conference hosted by the Center for Renewing America, a nonprofit think tank that he also founded. “And they have aimed it at us.”
You didn’t think that it was Trump who, seemingly every day, found some new plague to inflict on America, did you? It was and is this guy.
I Love The Smell Of Fascism In The Morning. The latest purchases from ICE:
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been rapidly building out its surveillance capabilities in recent weeks, signing a string of contracts for technologies to identify individuals by their irises or facial features and to monitor their cellphone activity, social media posts and physical movements, according to a review of federal spending disclosures.
The blitz of surveillance purchases is motivated in large part by ICE’s intensive, nationwide campaign to find and deport undocumented immigrants. But documents show that some of the technology may also be used to target what the administration regards as anti-ICE extremist groups. Late last month, President Donald Trump declared “Antifa” a domestic terrorist organization in the wake of violent clashes and a Dallas shooting at an ICE facility, ordering all federal agencies to devote resources to investigating what he defined as “a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.”
Shortly after Trump’s executive order, ICE’s acting director, Todd M. Lyons, told Glenn Beck in an interview that the agency will deploy some of its elite investigative officers to probe anti-ICE protester networks. “We have some of the best special agents, criminal investigators,” Lyons said on Beck’s podcast. “We are going to track the money. We are going to track these ringleaders.”
Lyons said the investigations will focus on “ringleaders” and “professional agitators” who he said are out to turn protests into violent confrontations. (That would be ICE.) But Democratic lawmakers, civil rights watchdogs and former officials have expressed concern that ICE now has a green light not only to monitor immigrant communities, but also to carry out broad surveillance of Americans exercising their First Amendment right to oppose government action.
Repeat after me: Antifa doesn’t exist. Even the one person in Arden with an Antifa bumper sticker has taken it off her truck. The word is fascism, and it’s what we’re marching against tomorrow.
Nothing To See Here. Happens All The Time:
Sources tell MeidasTouch the White House will shut down portions of the I-5 for Vice President JD Vance’s Marine Corps spectacle during No Kings Protests, triggering chaos, gridlock, and outrage amid the government shutdown.
MeidasTouch has learned from several sources that the White House has plans to close major sections of Interstate 5 for this Friday and Saturday.
The Trump administration is apparently finalizing plans for two days of events under the pretext of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps. Sources close to MeidasTouch describe the closure as part of a “vanity parade” that may involve Navy warships shooting live missiles into Camp Pendleton as a “show of force.”
JD Vance is expected to be present and intends to lead the parade. This show of military force and I-5 closures if the plan is completed will also be taking place during the No Kings Protests, which are expected to be very large across California cities and the rest of the country.
The major road closures coincide with a federal government closure, leaving thousands of Marines and federal employees unpaid even as they are ordered to support the festivities.
Wait, what? They may shoot live missiles into Camp Pendleton as a show of force? Isn’t that, um, insane??
Interstate 5, Southern California’s economic backbone, carries more than 80,000 daily travelers and moves $94 million in freight every day between San Diego and Orange Counties.
Just north of Oceanside, over 65,000 vehicles cross the county line daily—half of them work-related. Experts warn the closure could spark gridlock stretching from Dana Point to Del Mar, with delays of up to eight hours in each direction.
The ripple effects could cripple emergency response times, business operations, and regional supply chains, costing an estimated $8.2 million in lost visitor spending per day.
Local officials say the event was announced with scant notice, no coordination, and zero transparency.
I’m sorry, gotta say it–I can’t even…
Hmm, Look Who Just Stepped Down. Going out on a limb here–he’s Black and probably doesn’t support an invasion of Venezuela:
The military commander overseeing the Pentagon’s escalating attacks against boats in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration says are smuggling drugs said on Thursday that he was stepping down.
The officer, Adm. Alvin Holsey, is leaving his job as head of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees all operations in Central and South America, even as the Pentagon has rapidly built up some 10,000 forces in the region in what it says is a major counterdrug and counterterrorism mission.
It was unclear why Admiral Holsey is suddenly departing, less than a year into what is typically a three-year job, and in the midst of the biggest operation in his 37-year career. But one current and one former U.S. official, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said that Admiral Holsey had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats.
Christina School Board members voted to oust District F representative Naveed Baqir at Wednesday’s Board meeting.
Board members voted 4-2 to vacate Baqir’s seat, with Baqir abstaining.
The move comes in response to questions about Baqir’s residency. He has held his seat since 2021 but only attended meetings virtually since early 2024 while living in Pakistan.
Gov. Matt Meyer signed House Bill 82 in June, requiring all school board members and candidates to inhabit their district for more than 75% of the year.
Baqir spoke to the Board at Wednesday’s meeting, saying his commitment to the district has never wavered.
“I have continued to serve, continued to lead, continued to advocate for all of my constituents…” Baqir said. “However, the personal attacks that I have faced are rooted in something deeper than our policy disagreements on the Board.”
“I believe these factors have been at the heart of the efforts to undermine my service, especially from those who fear that as a Muslim person, a person of color, I represent a real challenge to their political power,” Baqir said. “It is not a coincidence that the major sponsor of HB 82 – a bill that targets me – knows full well that I am perhaps the only person in that district who can legitimately challenge her in the re-election.”
Um, have I gotten something wrong here? Isn’t the prime sponsor of the bill both Black and a Muslim? Does this guy really think he could defeat her? While campaigning from Pakistan? This would almost be as ridiculous as running for a Wilmington area Senate seat while residing in Rehoboth. What’s that you say? Oh.
Hope to see everybody tomorrow!
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