Legal chaos blocks Trump’s fight against government waste



The U.S. Supreme Court recently let the world know that it has the power to force presidential administrations to pay billions of dollars to dubious organizations, regardless of the case’s merits. If a judge sides with a nongovernmental organization that demands automatic payment for its alleged “work,” the Trump administration simply must hand over the money pronto.

From one angle, this may seem like an unfortunate speed bump on the way to eliminating waste and fraud in the government. However, from another angle, this may serve as a needed wake-up call to the world about what’s really holding back reform efforts.

Compared to the debt crisis, concerns about disregarding a dubious Supreme Court ruling seem insignificant.

John Daniel Davidson provided a clear summary of an otherwise complex case filled with legal jargon, contradictory rulings, and vague claims.

The case began when the Trump administration attempted to halt payments to USAID after uncovering evidence of waste and fraud. In response, several NGOs that received USAID funds objected and demanded the payments continue. A district court judge in Washington, D.C., Amir Ali, issued a temporary restraining order to override the pause. He later issued a second order requiring the government to distribute about $2 billion in grant funds within 36 hours.

The Trump administration challenged these rulings, taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court then intervened, blocking the lower court’s decision and allowing the administration to argue that Judge Ali’s orders should be overturned. The administration maintained that the original pause should stand, especially since the NGOs had yet to justify their entitlement to the $2 billion. If they believe they have a valid claim, they can present their case in a federal claims court, the proper venue for such disputes.

Blistering dissent

Rather than affirm the constitutional authority of the executive to manage his own budget, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and the three liberal justices sided with Ali and the NGOs, demanding that the Trump administration quit stalling and pay up.

Justice Samuel Alito’s blistering dissent sums up the matter succinctly: "The Government must apparently pay the $2 billion posthaste — not because the law requires it, but simply because a District Judge so ordered.”

To clarify the situation, consider this analogy:

A man buys a restaurant and reviews the budget left by the previous owner. He notices questionable purchases and realizes the staff has been dishonest. Concerned about financial mismanagement, he halts payments and reassesses the budget. But the staff, afraid he’ll uncover deeper corruption, enlists a crooked cop to block his efforts. When the new owner challenges this interference in court, the judge sides with the corrupt staff and officer.

In both this scenario and the Trump administration’s case, two paths forward exist. One option, echoing the absurdity in Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” is to accept an irrational ruling and move on, assuming that legal chaos is inevitable. With over 100 injunctions still under appeal, the administration could hope for a more favorable decision in the future — but there’s no guarantee.

No other choice

The other way would be to ignore this ruling and get to work. And before corporate media pundits cry “constitutional crisis,” they should consider the bigger issue: The government wastes trillions of taxpayer dollars on programs no one asked for, while the country drowns in debt. Compared to that crisis, concerns about disregarding a dubious Supreme Court ruling seem insignificant.

Yet, most justices refuse to acknowledge this reality. Instead, they insist on upholding a system that cannot sustain itself. As economist Jeffrey Tucker recently noted, when unlimited money flows through a system without accountability, and no one is incentivized to ensure it is spent wisely, bankruptcy is practically inevitable.

A fitting analogy would be the scholars of Constantinople debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin while a horde of Ottoman Turks prepared to sack the city. Today, our judiciary engages in similar frivolities — deliberating over payments to ineffective NGOs while the federal government careens toward insolvency.

Will ignoring the ruling upset those who cling to the sanctity of the courts and the bureaucrats who exploit that deference? Of course. But when the alternative is national bankruptcy, Americans have no other choice.

Columbia University Expels Antisemitic Protesters Who Overtook Campus Building

'Multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions'

NYPD Arrests Dozens After Jewish Voice for Peace Storms Trump Tower To Demand Release of Pro-Hamas Columbia Activist

Police arrested dozens of Jewish Voice for Peace agitators after they stormed Trump Tower in New York to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Hamas Columbia University activist in ICE custody.

The post NYPD Arrests Dozens After Jewish Voice for Peace Storms Trump Tower To Demand Release of Pro-Hamas Columbia Activist appeared first on .

Children's hospital masks DEI to evade Trump's federal funding cuts: Report



The Seattle Children's Hospital renamed its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to circumvent President Donald Trump's ban, according to a whistleblower account.

A current employee with the hospital, who asked to remain anonymous over fear of retaliation, told the Daily Signal that the medical center has failed to comply with Trump's directive to eradicate woke programs.

'Focus on providing the best care to patients instead of wasting resources on radical political priorities.'

On Inauguration Day, Trump issued an executive order banning DEI, calling the initiatives "illegal and immoral discrimination programs." He demanded the termination of all related "mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear."

In addition to eradicating DEI offices within the federal government, the executive action ordered the termination of all "equity-related" grants. Grantees that ignored the directive risk losing federal funding.

According to USASpending.gov, the Seattle Children's Hospital has received $1.3 billion in federal funds since fiscal year 2008. It was awarded about $47 million annually through 2018 but saw a sharp rise starting in 2019, averaging $130 million yearly through 2024.

The Seattle Children's Hospital also receives federal funding through Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.

The Daily Signal noted that the hospital removed some references to DEI from its website. However, according to an employee, some of the controversial initiatives were not eliminated — they were just rebranded under a different name.

For example, the hospital's "Inclusion Groups," which target minority staffers, are reportedly no longer listed on the website but continue to exist.

The worker told the news outlet that the hospital's leadership stated during a February 26 town hall that it would change its naming conventions to comply with Trump's order.

"The DEI culture at Seattle Children's Hospital is a culture of fear," the employee said. "Employees are terrified of being accused of racism and religious discrimination, so there's a toxic culture of fear, which really stifles free speech."

"For the last 10 years, we've been like laser-focused on proving that systemic racism exists," the worker added. "I am hoping that we can get back to the job of taking care of patients and families and children who are sick."

The hospital's website still lists an "Anti-Racism & EDI" section in the footer with pages describing its values and goals regarding "health equity and anti-racism."

The Daily Signal reported that new hires must complete "diversity and so-called microaggression training."

Dr. Kurt Miceli, medical director at Do No Harm, told the media outlet, "It's unfortunate to see Seattle Children's Hospital, an institution noted for holding racially segregated diversity trainings, decide to secretly push its DEI agenda."

"As with all hospitals, Seattle Children's should focus on providing the best care to patients instead of wasting resources on radical political priorities," Miceli added.

The hospital has reportedly stopped offering gender mutilating surgeries to children to comply with the Trump administration. However, it is still allegedly prescribing irreversible cross-sex hormones.

The Seattle Children's Hospital did not respond to the Daily Signal's request for comment.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Scientists can do better than test with tissue from aborted babies: Trump NIH nominee



Testing on the tissue of and cell lines from aborted babies might once again become a thing of the past, if Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump's nominee to head the National Institutes of Health, has his way.

During his testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee last week, Bhattacharya, a physician and professor of medicine at Stanford University, claimed to be "absolutely committed" to finding alternatives to fetal cell lines and tissue in research and development.

Father Tad Pacholczyk ... claimed no president in history has done as much 'to restrict the use of fetal cells derived from direct abortions in research.'

"In public health, we need to make sure the products of the science are ethically acceptable to everybody," Bhattacharya said in response to a question from Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. "And so having alternatives that are not ethically conflicted to a fetal stem cell lines is not just an ethical issue, but it's a public health issue."

Bhattacharya explained that the issue came to the forefront several years ago with the COVID shots. Many Americans, especially observant Catholics, refused to take the shots because they were developed from stem cell lines of aborted babies.

"During the pandemic, I would often be on Catholic radio and people had asked me whether the mRNA vaccines were made or developed with aborted — with fetal stem cells," Bhattacharya continued. "I had to say yes. ... A lot of the folks who were calling in had ethical objections."

Cell lines are cells that have replicated from cells taken from aborted babies. Though the Catholic Church considers abortion to be a grave mortal sin, U.S. bishops and the Vatican claimed at the time that taking the COVID shots could be morally justified if no other research and development means were available.

Trump has a history of severely restricting the use of aborted fetal tissue for scientific research. The Catholic News Agency said he "effectively banned" all federally funded research conducted on aborted fetal tissue during his first term, an act that President Joe Biden, a Catholic, quickly reversed. Trump also established the NIH Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board in 2020.

Father Tad Pacholczyk — a Catholic priest, neuroscientist, and senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center who was appointed to the board — claimed no president in history has done as much "to restrict the use of fetal cells derived from direct abortions in research."

"These important efforts to eliminate their use in research need to continue, and it is my hope that the returning administration will strengthen these efforts," Fr. Pacholczyk added.

Sen. Hawley appears to ready to hold the Trump administration accountable for restoring ethical research practices at the NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services once again. During the confirmation hearing of HHS Sec. Robert Kennedy Jr., Hawley demanded a similar pledge to end research on aborted fetal tissue, he recalled during Bhattacharya's hearing.

"I asked now-Secretary Kennedy directly if he would reinstate President Trump's policy that prohibits aborted fetal tissue research in NIH-funded grants," Hawley told Bhattacharya. "He said that he would."

Hawley claimed the issue is a matter of "moral principle" as well as public health and indicated that continuing unethical research practices will reinforce the concerns of many Americans who are already distrustful of federal scientific agencies, especially after the tyrannical response to COVID.

"We think about millions and millions of Americans who are understandably very concerned about the components, if you will, of many of these palliatives and vaccines, and we want them to be able to access this on the same basis as others," Hawley said.

Bhattacharya's nomination has already cleared the HELP committee and is now headed for the Senate floor for a full vote. Since Republican senators enjoy a 53-seat majority, he is expected to be confirmed.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Vaccinating chickens will create 'mutation factories,' RFK Jr. warns



U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has raised the alarm against vaccinating poultry in order to bring down America's astronomical egg prices. Kennedy suggested in a recent interview that doing so might transform farms into incubators for mutant viruses, creating problems far more serious for the population than eggs that cost $1 a piece.

Egg prices have spiraled out of control in recent months and years.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicate that between 1994 and 2022, the price of a dozen grade A eggs remained south of $3, and with few exceptions, hovered around or below $2. Prices began to skyrocket in 2022 and have hit record highs in recent weeks.

Last month, egg prices hit an all-time average high of $4.95 per dozen. In the first week of March, egg prices were reportedly averaging about $6.85 nationally. In some places, the Associated Press reported that consumers have been shelling out as much as a dollar per egg. The USDA predicted that egg prices will increase by 41.1% this year.

While there are multiple factors at play, these unprecedented egg prices are largely the result of mass exterminations of commercial and backyard bird populations ordered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

'They're teaching the organism how to mutate.'

The stated purpose of these culls is to curb the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5) viruses. The agency has directed the extermination of over 166.41 million birds since the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspect Service first confirmed HPAI belonging to the clade 2.3.4.4b in a commercial flock in the U.S. on Feb. 8, 2022.Well over 30 million egg-laying birds have been culled since Jan. 1.

Absent these interventions, the virus would supposedly inflict devastating economic damage and possibly even pose health risks to humans — even though there has only been one recorded human death from HPAI in the U.S., and there are no documented cases of person-to-person spread.

Desperation over egg prices has prompted renewed interest in possibly vaccinating birds against the virus. The administration appears to be receptive.

While Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins noted that vaccines "aren't a stand-alone solution," she recently indicated that the USDA is committing $100 million for vaccine research and development.

There are multiple avian HPAI vaccines available, one of which received a conditional license from the USDA last month for use in chickens. However, the U.S. and the U.K. have resisted large-scale rollouts because vaccination could mask infections, delay detection, and ultimately lead to the need for larger culls. Another concern over vaccines that has been expressed on both sides of the Atlantic is the possibility that vaccination would prompt a false sense of security, thereby compromising biosecurity and again undermining efforts to protect supply.

Vaccination would also amount to an admission that the virus has become endemic rather than epidemic.

Kennedy, more than happy to acknowledge the wild endemicity of HPAI, raised an entirely different concern in a recent interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity.

"All of my agencies have recommended against the vaccination of birds," said Kennedy, "because if you vaccinate with a leaky vaccine — in other words, a vaccine that does not provide sterilizing immunity, that does not absolutely protect against the disease — you turn those flocks into mutation factories."

"They're teaching the organism how to mutate," continued Kennedy. "And it's much more likely to jump to animals if you do that."

Kennedy indicated that the agency heads at the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration have suggested that vaccinating chickens "is dangerous for human beings."

'Those should be the birds that we breed.'

Not only did the HHS secretary advocate against vaccinating birds, he cast doubt on the value of culling flocks, suggesting that "you should let the disease go through them."

The culling operations cost Americans both at the grocery store and in their taxes.

The federal government pays poultry producers market value of the birds they are directed to cull. Farmers do not alternatively receive compensation for animals that die of the virus. As of January, over 1,200 producers received these federal indemnity payments, costing taxpayers over $1.1 billion.

Governing.com reported that 67 companies that have received indemnity payment have had at least two infections. There have been 18 facilities with three or more outbreaks. Since 2023, half of these payments have reportedly gone to just a handful of giant corporations.

Rather than shell out more money to kill flocks, delay the acquisition of immunity, and possibly incentivize complacency where biosecurity is concerned, Kennedy suggested, "We should be testing therapeutics on those flocks; they should isolate them; you should let the disease go through them; and identify the birds that survive, which are the birds that probably have a genetic inclination for immunity — and those should be the birds that we breed."

Kennedy intimated that shoppers should not be concerned about consuming eggs or poultry products from a bird population where HPAI is endemic. After all, the CDC has indicated that "cooking poultry and eggs to an internal temperature of 165˚F kills bacteria and viruses, including avian influenza A viruses."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Trump Admin Slaps Fresh Sanctions on Iran's Oil Minister and 'Shadow Fleet' Ferrying Illicit Iranian Crude

The Trump administration slapped fresh sanctions on Iran’s oil minister and a host of maritime service providers that have helped Tehran ferry its illicit crude across the globe, the latest in a bevy of measures meant to cripple the hardline regime’s financial networks.

The post Trump Admin Slaps Fresh Sanctions on Iran's Oil Minister and 'Shadow Fleet' Ferrying Illicit Iranian Crude appeared first on .