They also revealed the reality that not a penny of spending is wasted in their eyes, no cuts are possible, and any cut will be deemed a catastrophe.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily pausing federal grants to third parties including non-governmental organizations, as part of what I have been referring to as going Full Trump in an epic onslaught of everything he promised during the campaign and planned for over the last four years. The two-page memo, issued by the acting head of the White House budget office, instructed agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance,” “including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.” White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt explained that the motivation for this freeze was to be “good stewards for tax dollars” in her first press conference. “I think this is a very reasonable measure,” she explained, adding that the pause would allow the government to better implement other executive orders, allowing the government to identify spending for “woke” gender issues and diversity programs in particular. Proof of this position was provided by additional guidance from the administration, which noted in no uncertain terms that the freeze didn’t apply to any direct payments to individuals. In a Frequently Asked Questions supplement, for example, they noted in response to the hypothetical query, “Is this a freeze on benefits to Americans like SNAP or student loans? No, any program that provides direct benefits to Americans is excluded from the pause and exempted from the review process. In addition to Social Security and Medicare, already explicitly excluded in the guidance, mandatory programs like Medicaid and SNAP will continue without pause. Funds for small businesses, farmers, Pell grants, Head Start, rental assistance, and other similar programs, will not be paused. If agencies are concerned that these programs may implicate the President’s Executive Orders, they should consult OMB to begin with to unwind these objectionable policies without pause in the payments.”
Based on the order itself and other comments, it seems clear that the targets of the pause were programs like this helpfully compiled by Patrick Casey, who posted a steady stream on X. In 2021, the Biden Administration gave $540,000 to Transgender Equity Consulting, Inc, a firm made up of “six black and Latinx transgender and non-binary individuals” including the “first BBW trans porn star.” There was another $850,000 grant to the LGBTQ+ Family Support Program to provide training for military families to affirm the gender identity of their children. Over half a million was allocated to support the behavioral health of the trangender community of Hawaii. Outside of the transgender community, $1.2 million was provided to the New Orleans Community Support Foundation to “adopt a holistic, adaptive water management vision that centers the leadership of black, indigenous, and people of color communities.” Almost $700,000 was given to University of California Irvine for the “Influence of social media, social networks, and misinformation on vaccine acceptance among black and LatinX individuals.” Over $700,000 was given to Florida International University to further understand “the experience of black students in active learning mathematics course in a hispanic-serving institution context,” whatever that may be. Close to $600,000 was provided to Honduras, to help with “natural resources management” outside the United States. Undoubtedly, there are many others across a government that doles out well over $6 trillion per year, but perhaps needless to say, rather than defend these programs on rational grounds, Democrats and their allies in the media immediately went into overdrive outrage mode, simultaneously accusing President Trump of a lawless usurpation of authority and sowing unchecked, fear, confusion, and chaos throughout the entire country – while completely ignoring the list of programs that would not be affected. “In the blink of an eye. New York was plunged into complete pandemonium,” explained a near apoplectic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “So much. So many people from one end of the state to the other were panicked. When President Trump pulled the plug on federal funding. For our families, our schools, our charities, our local governments…Nobody knew what was happening or what would happen next when the payments are just shut off without warning. Everyone gets into a panic mode. My phone didn’t stop ringing. It was non stop calls and people panicked that the services they relied on day to day could be ripped away. And let me just say this. This funding freeze can best be described with three C’s: Chaotic, careless, cruel.” “The president can’t unilaterally decide just to take it away. That is unconstitutional. That’s against the law. Plain and simple,” he continued. “And while, thankfully a judge last night delayed it for a few days, we cannot rest. The extremists who just want to cut, cut, cut all of these programs so that they can give tax breaks to their billionaire friends, are working overtime to get it done.” “Even if we win in this court case, and who knows what the outcome will be, they’re going to try another way and another way and another way. But we are not going to rest. We will be vigilant until this entire idea to just cut the federal government’s funding from one end of America to the other, from one end of New York to the other, is dead,” Senator concluded.
The media quickly adopted many of these same talking points with NPR declaring that “confusion and chaos” were spreading. PBS echoed the same, claiming the temporary pause, which was almost entirely self-explanatory, “lead to confusion and clarifications.” NBC News described it as creating “widespread confusion.” “An abrupt halt on federal grants and loans announced Monday night by the Trump administration has created widespread confusion across the government, Congress, state programs and nonprofit organizations that rely on that funding,” they explained. “The following morning, nonprofit organizations said they were unable to get into a system used to access federal funds to pay for expenses, like salaries and rent,” they reported without identifying the non-profits, what their purpose is, or why they would be solely reliant on government funding. They continued to quote Yasmina Vinci, Executive Director of the National Head Start association although they were specifically excluded from the funding pause. “While we understand that this is an evolving story, this disruption, at best, will slow down Head Start agencies’ ability to pay hundreds of thousands of staff, contractors, and small businesses who support Head Start operations in every corner of the country,” she said. “At worst, this means that hundreds of thousands of families will not be able to depend on the critical services and likely will not be able to work.” They also cited Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance of Homelessness, who claimed that thousands of low-income households would be threatened, though those programs were also excluded. “What we are hearing this morning is, honestly, a pretty good amount of panic by grantees,” Oliva said. “These programs exist in red states and blue states alike, and there are vulnerable people that are going to be impacted in many, many communities and in every state across the country.” Medicaid, which was excluded as well, was also said to be under threat after a brief shutdown of a portal and despite the Press Secretary informing reporters that no payments had been effected or would be effected. “If federal money for Medicaid doesn’t show up, states are left holding the bag, and then ultimately hospitals, nursing homes and doctors,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president of health policy at KFF claimed, despite that there was never any indication the money wouldn’t “show up.” Perhaps the only one NBC News didn’t cite was someone that was actually impacted by the funding pause.
Ignoring this reality, non-profit groups, whether they were impacted or not, sued to prevent the order from taking effect and US District Judge Loren L. AliKhan, who had been nominated by President Joe Biden, issued an administrative stay, essentially pausing the pause before the end of the day. After repeating the talking point, describing the day itself as the “most chaotic…for the U.S. government since Trump returned to office, with uncertainty over a crucial financial lifeline causing panic and confusion among states, schools and organizations that rely on trillions of dollars from Washington,” once again despite that none of these organizations would be effected and any real chaos was fomented by Democrats and the media, the Associated Press described the situation this way, “U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan blocked the funding freeze only minutes before it was scheduled to take effect. The administrative stay, prompted by a lawsuit brought by nonprofit groups that receive federal money, lasts until Monday afternoon. Another court hearing is scheduled that morning to consider the issue. The White House did not immediately comment on the order, which leaves unresolved a potential constitutional clash over control of taxpayer money. Democrats who have struggled to gain a foothold during Trump’s second term unleashed on the Republican president, describing his actions as capricious and illegal.” Simultaneously, the fact checking “industry” sprung into action over a claim made by President Trump and his press secretary that $50 million worth of “condoms” was going to be sent to the Gaza Strip until they froze the funds. Not surprisingly, the media claimed there was no evidence whatsoever of that, even though the USAID runs a program, funded at close to $120 million for reproductive services in Gaza. After the Associated Press insisted, “there’s no credible evidence to support these claims,” they provided these details, “Officials said the Trump administration stopped two $50 million buckets of ‘aid’ for Gaza via the International Medical Corps, which included: family planning programming including emergency contraception; sexual healthcare including prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs); and adolescent sexual and reproductive health.” The International Medical Corps disputed this claim, insisting the money has been spent only on field hospitals. At the same time, Andrew Miller, an ex-Biden administration State Department official who served as deputy assistant secretary for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, told The Times of Israel, “It’s possible that $50 million is put aside for sexual health or something of that nature, which would include gynecology and many other services, but definitely not condoms alone,” leading even the Independent to admit it’s murky. My bet: They’re lying and a good percentage of this money was wasted on family planning rather than saving lives.
Regardless, the Trump Administration rescinded the memo shortly afterward, prompting the media to falsely claim they’d rescinded the order and Senator Schumer to declare some kind of victory. After a Democrat lunch, he told reporters, “It’s a small victory, but it’s a long war, and we’ve got to continue to fight.” Others were equally enthused. “I think there were some people that were afraid to cry wolf who now realize the wolf has been in our living room all along,” Senator Chris Murphy said. “We have to make some decisions about how we’re going to conduct ourselves. Nobody’s going to believe us on the outside that this is a five-alarm fire if we’re helping them pass legislation and confirm nominees on the inside.” “Yesterday was the first day I actually felt good about Dem messaging in, like, six months,” a Democratic strategist told NBC News. “Because it was an economic message and we were so unified.” Of course, they stopped nothing, did nothing except express false outrage, and if anything only called further attention to the ridiculous government spending they are addicted to, highlighting the very thing President Trump wanted highlighted in the first place. They also revealed the reality that not a penny of spending is wasted in their eyes, no cuts are possible, and any cut will be deemed a catastrophe. If this is a victory, what does losing look like?
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 